The womb, above Sky City, Malel, Tokoban
168th day of the Great Star at morning
High Elder Vaqix knelt on a woven mat before a beaten copper bowl from which incense rose and curled and twisted and was pulled away through fissures in the ceiling. He prayed in an ancient language that Ilandeh understood only imperfectly – a word here or there that was almost known to her, a phrase that hinted at meaning but then concealed it, taunting her with almost-understanding where she stood in the mouth to the cave the Tokob called the womb.
The rhythms and cadences of his prayer were familiar, tantalising, tickling at her memory. But most importantly, the chant echoed and built and reverberated, introducing harmonics that hadn’t been in his voice, as if the cave itself sang the other half of the prayer back at him.
The womb, sacred to the Tokob, was alive with magic. The torchlight glittered from a multitude of tiny crystals embedded in the rock walls, and from the hundreds of jade and obsidian and wood and bone ornaments placed on shelves carved into the rock. Lumps of gold, polished stones, and gleaming wood decorated every surface, reflecting the light even further. Bunches of feathers hung twisting on thin cords from the roof, stirred by tiny zephyrs too faint for Ilandeh to feel. Malel’s breath. Beyond the kneeling high elder, at the opposite end of the small cave, the floor dropped away, and there glittered the still surface of the pool the ejab had made. This was where they’d bring it, if they caught it.
‘High Elder?’
Vaqix’s chant ended in a yelp of surprise and the old man spun on his knees to the entrance where Ilandeh stood. He gaped. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded after an incredulous pause. ‘The womb is not for foreigners, unbelievers. This place is forbidden to you! None but Tokob may set foot in here.’ His outrage made the words and his thin cheeks alike quiver, though his eyes were black as jet above the wicked hook of his nose. ‘Get. Out. Now.’
‘It is made of songstone, isn’t it?’ Ilandeh asked, stepping up into the cave and staring around. Small deposits of it were everywhere, but she pointed to a particularly thick seam in the far wall, as wide as the span of both her arms outstretched. ‘There. Songstone. Do you know how valuable it is?’
‘Songstone?’ he repeated dumbly, scrambling to his feet so quickly the incense plume sputtered and billowed with his movement. ‘This is our holiest place. It is Malel who gives strength to our prayers, the ancestors who—’
Ilandeh bit her lip. ‘Oh, High Elder, you are so wrong. Songstone is holy, yes, but it does not speak in the tongue of your goddess or ancestors. It is its own thing, carrying its own sanctity and that of the world spirit. I fear you have been misled. I fear your whole society is built on a lie.’
Vaqix drew himself up even taller, his shadow long and twisted by the candles that made the cave overly warm. ‘Get. Out.’
Ilandeh cocked her head to listen to the echoes of his voice, smiling. Raw songstone, unrefined and yet as full of hidden, coiled power as a constrictor lazing on a branch.
‘I can’t do that, High Elder,’ she said with genuine regret. She’d come to like the old man, in her way. He looked past her to the entrance. ‘Your guard won’t be joining us, I’m afraid.’
‘What have you done?’ Vaqix demanded, his voice a whisper now, cracked and beginning to fear. ‘Who are you?’
Ilandeh took another step into the cave, confident now that she understood where the sense of sanctity came from. I’d actually begun to think a god lived here. She snorted at her own foolishness; she’d spent far too long among these people. ‘I want you to know I’m sorry.’
Vaqix’s fists clenched. ‘I said, who are you?’ he shouted and the songstone took the violence of his words and amplified it, not just the echoes or the volume but the emotion, casting the Tokob anger and violence back at himself, rebounding against him.
Ilandeh didn’t flinch – the songstone’s emotions weren’t hers, weren’t meant for her. ‘I am Ilandeh, High Elder. Who else would I be?’ She pulled the knife out of her belt. ‘I’m afraid this heretical plan to capture a holy Setat and your childish idea to sabotage our pyramid-building in Yalotlan has forced my hand earlier than I would have liked. I still had so much to accomplish here, but …’ She trailed off and spread the fingers of her free hand. ‘Even the most meticulous plans can go awry. So, you are going to cancel the ejab attempt to capture a holy Setat tomorrow, and then you’re going to recall the warriors you have sent to commit sacrilege in Yalotlan. Yes?’
‘How did you get out of the city? There are guards at the walls,’ the old man tried, clutching at anything that might make sense. He kept glancing behind her, as if hoping someone would come and explain to him what was happening.
‘High Elder, please focus. You cannot allow the attempt tomorrow to take place. You must not allow any more slaughter of the holy Setatmeh.’
‘Holy Setatmeh? You’re a Pecha?’ Vaqix demanded, using the question to try and distract her so she didn’t notice the dart he pulled from its wooden holder on his belt.
He was a shaman as well as high elder and Ilandeh treated that knowledge with the respect it deserved. That dart could be smeared with anything: sedative for treating those in pain, even a poison. Despite a year spent observing the city and council, she didn’t know Vaqix as well as she’d like.
‘I am Ilandeh,’ Ilandeh said again and saw how it angered him, ‘and that is all you need to know. For the last time: your answer, High Elder. Cease the slaughter of the gods and recall the warriors from Yalotlan. Your choice will impact all your people. Your children. Think carefully.’
His answer was violence. He took her by surprise, throwing the dart underarm so Ilandeh almost missed the cast. She spun away and heard the faint clatter as it hit the wall behind her and then leapt forward, stabbing the old man up under the ribs, pivoting past him – a flailing arm catching her across the cheek and making her eyes water – and a second strike, down behind his collarbone into his chest.
He was dead on his feet, the songstone reverberating with the spilling of blood in wild echoes unformed and uncontrolled by the will of a Singer, when Ilandeh stepped up close behind him. ‘You disappoint me, High Elder, but know this: for every holy Setat your fucking ejab have murdered, I will take vengeance in blood from your people. Under the song.’
She wiped the knife on his tunic and sheathed it, touched her belly and throat and inclined her head towards the songstone, then walked back out of the womb and along the low passage leading out onto the hillside. She didn’t look back at the sound of Vaqix collapsing. The night’s storm had broken by the time she exited the womb and the darkness was heavy with rain, slicking back her hair and washing away the sweat of confrontation. She stepped over the corpse of Vaqix’s guard – shouldn’t have left him to stand outside alone in the dark, blinded by torchlight – and hurried downhill.
She still had much to do.
‘May I ask how the day went?’
Eja Elder Tika blinked as Ilandeh sat next to her on the waist-high wall marking safe distance from the Swift Water. ‘We are ready for the attempt,’ she said, her voice loud – the spirit-magic was within her, muffling her ears.
‘And was it wise for you to take the spirit-magic today if you must take it again tomorrow?’ Ilandeh asked, watching Tika’s dog sniff around among the shrubs and rows of medicinal plants below.
Tika ran her fingers down the four pale lines of scar on her throat. Ilandeh knew they’d been dealt by a holy Setat – one that Tika had gone on to slaughter, even injured as she was. She kept her shoulders relaxed and breathed through the horror and the rage and visceral, aching need to spit this woman on her own fucking spear.
‘Why are you so interested?’
‘What do you think they are?’
‘Animals,’ Tika said, shrugging. ‘Vicious beasts.’
‘The Pechaqueh say they are gods,’ Ilandeh said softly.
‘The Pechaqueh are children who break things they cannot have – including tribes. They understand nothing of the balance and the world or the poison of their song and that these monsters are bound up in it. Break the song, kill the Drowned, I say.’
Ilandeh’s face was neutral. ‘They call them holy Setatmeh. Do you know why?’
Tika squinted at her. ‘I’ve just said—’
‘It’s because they are, both holy and gods. Back when the world was new, it sang to itself and each note created life – trees, plants, fish, birds, animals. That song remains, for those who know how to listen. It’s trapped in the stone, the very bones of the world. The Singer knows how to free it, and the holy Setatmeh sing with the world spirit’s own voice to claim their offerings and show us a hint of glory. The Singers birth the song of the world, bringing plenty and wealth, bringing the rains that swell the crops. The holy Setatmeh take away, maintaining the balance you say you are so fond of and that we do not understand. And yet you kill them and call them Drowned. I think it is you who doesn’t understand.’
Tika was silent, assessing, and Ilandeh smiled. ‘Now do you see the Singer’s purpose? When he restores the song to all Ixachipan, he will wake the world spirit and it will sing with him. And all will be bountiful. No more hunger or disease. The lords of the Underworld will hold no fears for us and all will be music. And the longer you resist, the longer you prevent that glorious world from coming into being. How selfish you are, to deny us all such eternal beauty.’
‘Who are you?’ Tika asked, and now her voice was soft and her dog, Yalla, was standing looking up at them, alert, tail unmoving.
Ilandeh chuckled. ‘You people, you’re all so obsessed with identity. Why does it mean so much to you?’
Tika licked her teeth and eyed the distance between them. She seemed unreasonably relaxed, and Ilandeh matched it – the calm looseness, the even breathing, the utter focus of the warrior. She hadn’t killed an eja before – not in combat, anyway, though she had employed many of her quieter skills in the last year in this city that stank of heresy.
‘We’ve learnt that in the Empire, identity means little, and status means everything,’ Tika said eventually. ‘If you’re a Pecha, you’re at the top, whether you gather shit or sell the finest obsidian. And if you’re anything else, you’re below, whether you gather shit or sell the finest obsidian. Any rational person can see how ridiculous that is, but another thing we’ve learnt is that the Pechaqueh aren’t rational. No matter how skilled or dedicated, it seems that a person’s blood places them in a hierarchy that ensures the Pechaqueh are on top. Which seems very convenient, doesn’t it?
‘You, though’ – Tika jabbed a finger in Ilandeh’s direction – ‘you’ve pretended to be a Xenti this whole time. Lived in Xentibec, undertaken the rituals of the Xentib at festival time. I can’t imagine a real Pecha doing that. But I also know – all Ixachipan knows – that Xentiban was only conquered four sun-years ago. So my question for you, Merchant Ilandeh, is this: did it only take you four sun-years to betray your people and your beliefs and all you hold dear; or did you actually lower yourself to pretend to be Xentib? Have you sullied your blood in order to spy on us? And will it ever be clean again?’
The ejab words were like rotten fruit in Ilandeh’s mouth, bitter and vile and rank with poison, and she spat a low snarl against their invasion.
Who she was, what she was, had nothing to do with this woman or this place or these uncivilised, god-killing, frog-licking heathens. She was moving, but so was Tika, and Ilandeh had a bare instant to regret not just stabbing the woman in the back of the neck when she had had the chance. But no, this would be better. Staring into the eyes of a god-killer as she killed her, as she made amends for all the deaths she’d been unable to prevent.
‘You have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of,’ Ilandeh growled as she bounced to her feet on the wall.
‘Then show me,’ Tika snarled in response, her short stabbing spear in her hands as she jumped off the wall and landed on the side closest to the city. ‘Fucking come on and show me.’
A knife against a spear was only ever going to go one way, so Ilandeh used the height of the wall to her advantage, drawing a viper-quick strike from Tika, even though the spirit-magic must have almost left her, making her tired and shaky.
Ilandeh leapt high over the sweeping horizontal blow intended to cut her legs from beneath her, throwing herself at the eja even before the swing was finished, her knife reversed in her grip. One knee caught Tika in the chest and her hands came down on the backs of her shoulders. But Tika stumbled under the impact, somehow twisting as she went down, and the knife only ripped off a few bamboo scales sewn into the salt-cotton before they were both on the ground.
Ilandeh rammed her left elbow into Tika’s throat as the spear cracked across her shoulder blades and then the dog was there, coming in low and fast and silent, only the thud of its big paws alerting her. Ilandeh grabbed the back of Tika’s armour and jerked her into the dog’s path as it pounced, spoiling its leap so it twisted in mid-air, and her knife ripped open its flank as it landed. The dog screamed and so did Tika and the woman punched her in the eye and crushed her onto her back, wrestling for the knife.
Setatmeh, she was strong. Ilandeh thrashed and managed to slide half from under her, though the moment of inattention nearly cost her her life as Tika prised at her fingers wrapped around the knife hilt and tried to twist it so the blade pointed down at her own chest. Roaring, the bones of her wrist grinding, she fought Tika’s strength, fury, and body weight until she managed to plant her foot and drive up, twisting her hips and throwing the older woman back towards her dog again – not to fend it off, this time, just to roll her, keeping hold of Tika’s wrist as she did.
Ilandeh knew the ejab trained in some ground-defence techniques, but not as many as the Melody, and once she’d got one leg free she kicked it up. The eja reared up just slightly to avoid her flailing sandal, but it was enough. Ilandeh’s calf caught her across her throat and chest and she bent her knee to lock it around her neck and slammed her down with all the strength of her thigh and arse and back, twisting up as she did. Tika hit the ground back first, hard enough that her hands jolted on Ilandeh’s knife hand. Ilandeh wrenched free and pushed the blade into the woman’s side, ripped it out and drove it in again.
The urge to stab her for every heresy and every insult and every disparaging comment burnt at the back of her throat like bile, so strongly that her muscles trembled with it, but Ilandeh kicked free of the woman and rolled to her feet, putting space between them. The eja wasn’t dead yet, and that was important. Sucking in air, Ilandeh put the dog out of its misery and then clubbed Tika in the temple with the butt of her knife, before eyeing the dark expanse of hill between them and the city. The terraced fields and orchards and water temples appeared deserted, and no voices were raised in alarm despite the noise of their fight.
‘Thank you, Setatmeh,’ Ilandeh whispered fervently. Swearing at the weight, she dragged Tika up and pushed her over the wall onto the other side – the river side, and then followed. Panting, she hoisted Tika onto her shoulders. The woman’s blood began seeping down her back, but it was the least of her worries. Staggering but moving as fast as she could, Ilandeh made for the Swift Water, beginning to pray as soon as she could hear the rushing of water.
‘Holy Setatmeh, gods of the rivers and the streams, you who bring the rain that makes the crops grow, you who speak with voice of song and world, accept this your offering. Accept this eja, this enemy of your blood and mine, as your just reward.’ She could barely see where she was going, let alone if her prayer would be answered, but the thin rind of the moon brightened just a little behind its veil of cloud. Just enough to see three Setatmeh rise from the shallows. Ilandeh waded in to her knees, fear fluttering through her – I stood by and let them be killed; though I did everything I could, it still feels as if I did nothing – and lowered Tika with a grunt.
The eja roused at the chill of the water. She sucked in a breath and then her eyes widened so much the whites were visible all the way around. She flailed out with one hand, begging perhaps, before the gods dragged her below.
Ilandeh waded back to shore. ‘Accept your offering, sacred spirits,’ she said again. ‘Forgive me for what I have allowed to be done to your kin while I have been here. But soon the song will echo from these hills. Soon you will be free – and all the world will be music.’