The Stone Knife Read online

  Lutek snatched up her spear and hurried out to intercept them. The civilians who’d hauled them apart had started shouting now, too, and Xessa strained to see. Since the incident at the Swift Water, Ilandeh had been cloyingly friendly, but she had also made a determined effort to learn more sign language, and not just from Xessa. The former merchant had little aptitude for it, but the eja allowed herself to be mollified anyway. She liked the woman well enough, despite everything, and felt sorry for her, too. She and Dakto had fled the conquest of their land with family, but they’d been the only two to reach the Sky City alive and if it made them a little strange, quick to anger and overly friendly, well, they didn’t have anyone else, did they?

  Xessa wondered what Ilandeh had argued about this time, but then the queue was melting away from the trough and Otek shambled towards her. Xessa smiled at her father and paused the water screw just long enough to move around to the front of the trough and take Otek’s face in her hands. She kissed the old man on the cheek, but when she pulled back there was no recognition in his face. She smiled again, through the spike of hurt. A string of gourds hung forgotten from his hand and she took them from him gently.

  ‘Let me fill these, Father,’ she signed. Still nothing. Otek had been eja for most of his adult life, until the spirit-magic had broken him. The shamans said he was spirit-haunted and unlikely to ever return, but he never seemed that way to Xessa. He was just … empty. Somewhere else.

  The Tokob at the front of the queue spoke to him with voice and sign, their hands coming to rest on his arms and shoulders again and again, gentle as butterflies. Honouring his sacrifice, though he paid them no heed. None of them begrudged his place in the line, or Xessa stopping the handle to tend to him. Otek’s eyes were empty, as blank and dead as the spaces between the stars. Eyes that had seen too much, a mind that had been invaded by the spirits over and over until it was devoured by them, or until it resided permanently in the spirit world. Until Otek was as hollow as the gourds he had carried.

  ‘If you wait, I will be finished here soon and we can talk,’ she signed after she’d passed back the string of gourds. There wasn’t enough in them to last, but people dropped by old ejab houses every day to top up their rations and see they had food. ‘We could eat together.’

  Otek’s eyes watched her hands and face and then he shuffled around and wandered back out into the sunlight. Xessa watched him go with fierce pride and aching sadness. I’ll make you proud. I’ll catch a Drowned for you and we’ll learn how to beat them, how to prevent them singing or breeding, or which poisons will kill them. I’ll make you so proud.

  When she turned back to her duty, Toxte had arrived. He was reaching for the handle but she resumed possession of it; his fingers trailed over the backs of hers and up to her elbow before he looked away to signal the next person forward to the trough. Xessa was confronted with a sudden image of him, spirit-haunted and empty, and shoved it roughly away. Otek had chosen duty over his future and his family and remained eja until the spirits stole him. Tika was doing the same. Many ejab did, and it was their right to do so, as it was their right to give up the duty before they became too damaged. If Toxte chose to give his life to the spirits, she would respect that decision. It was his to make, not hers.

  But by my hope of rebirth, I pray he does not.

  She was distracted from her gloom by Lutek and Ilandeh’s return. The Xenti had a bruised cheek and was tight-jawed with anger, but Lutek’s warning glare stopped her from speaking. ‘Trouble in Xentibec,’ she signed briskly. ‘Water rations going missing in the night. The Xentib blame Yaloh, who deny it.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be Tokob,’ Toxte signed as if he could read Xessa’s thoughts. ‘No one would dishonour our work with such pettiness. Xentib, Yaloh – you’re more alike than you’ll admit. We risk our lives every day so that you can steal from your neighbours?’

  Lutek was translating and Ilandeh was getting angrier by the word. ‘We? We are the ones stolen from!’ she said, clearly enough the ejab could read her lips. ‘We are the ones wronged, and again you side with your neighbours over us.’

  Lutek took one look at the ejab faces and dragged Ilandeh out of the water temple. Xessa closed her eyes, shutting out the world, and concentrated on the strain in her muscles as she turned the handle and drew water up the pipe. She timed her breathing to the turns and focused on it to the exclusion of all else for a hundred heartbeats. It was that or chase Ilandeh out of the temple and break her nose again.

  Xessa wrapped a thin skin of calm over the heat of her anger and opened her eyes. Toxte was watching her with concern and she gave him a swift smile to say she was all right. He went back to his post at the other side of the temple, watching downhill in case the pipe came under attack from Drowned. As he went, he trailed his fingers down her spine. A shiver went through her, taking her bad mood with it.

  Tika hadn’t just agreed; she’d spoken to as many ejab as she could find and then she’d requested a special meeting of the council – just the Tokob council this time.

  Every excited thought Xessa had ever had, every evening of outlandish speculation she’d spent with Tayan, had come back to haunt her.

  We’re going to die. We’re going to die badly.

  ‘You’ve poked a stick into a wasps’ nest this time and no mistake,’ signed Kime, her second father. She flashed him a look full of guilt and regret and his lined face lit up with his habitual sly humour. ‘You pissed your kilt yet?’ he asked and flicked a finger at the material. Xessa punched his shoulder and then swooped in for a hug, wrapping his chest in her arms and squeezing hard.

  He slapped her back until she loosened her grip and then kissed the top of her head. ‘The plan’s good,’ he signed when they stepped apart. ‘And it’s the right time to do it. Well done.’

  Xessa flushed with pleasure and they entered the council chamber behind Tika and Toxte. The elders watched them with hooded eyes. Like a flock of vultures waiting to pick our bones.

  She took a deep breath and pushed away the image, bitterly resenting Tayan’s absence. She’d spent two days blaming Lilla for bringing up the subject and Toxte for his enthusiasm, but she knew the problem was her own fear. The fear they all thought she didn’t feel. Licking dry lips, she sat between Toxte and Kime. Sweat glistened in the creases of her palms and trickled down the hollow of her spine. How had this all happened so fast?

  Vaqix didn’t waste time. He waved a feathered fan in the air to attract attention and then rapped the council stone on the floor. ‘The threats against the Tokob way of life, and against Malel herself both as goddess and as our land, are many and grievous. Some here have already argued that this is not the time for us to consider Eja Elder Tika’s proposal, but the truth is that the Drowned are growing in number, faster than we have ever seen before. It used to be that if they were in the river they weren’t in the ponds; now they are in both, in all. Ejab patrols have confirmed the Drowned are in every clean water source on every slope of Malel.’

  Xessa shuddered and Kime gave her hand a brief squeeze.

  ‘Last night, Eja Elder Tika counted fourteen Drowned in the river between water temples one and four. Fourteen. This is more than unprecedented; it is an infestation. A plague. And despite the ejab best efforts, people are dying. Instead of the fifty or so in a season we have historically lost, it is almost that many from one new moon to the next. Children and greyhairs, shamans and potters, elders and warriors. The very life of the Sky City, bleeding out one drop at a time, weakening us death by death when we should be preparing for war.

  ‘The ejab are water-bringers, life-givers and life-takers. This Wet, the lives being taken belong to Tokob and Yaloh. Innocents are dying and the ejab cannot stop it. They are failing.’

  The statement was a blow to Xessa’s chest. Shame and rage filled her in equal measure. How dare the old shaman say such things about them? They were doing all they could, making sacrifices he could never even begin to understand—

 
; Tika waved and turned slightly to face the ejab flanking her. ‘It’s true.’ Another punch to Xessa’s chest and ego, bruising her heart. ‘We are losing. It doesn’t matter that only the Greater Drowned can breed, or that they breed slowly. Whatever the reasons, whether they are fleeing the Empire of Songs or something else, the salt pans between Ixachipan and Barazal are a barrier not even they can breach. And so it seems that they migrate this far but then can go no further. And here they stay, their numbers increasing.

  ‘We must act now,’ Tika continued. ‘We must capture a Drowned and we must study it. We must not just rely on our histories and books but make our own extensive examinations. We must not let the failure of the past stop us in the present. What we face now is different, is so much worse, than what our ancestors have lived through.’ Tika stopped abruptly and twitched, a violent spasm of the face that made her eyelid and lip writhe. She shook her head furiously.

  Kime squeezed Tika’s hand; then he began to sign. ‘We must learn whether the voice strings can be cut and if they can be poisoned. We need to know what happens to people who hear the song but cannot respond to it – yes, even that. We propose that ejab who have not taken the spirit-magic be restrained and then exposed to the song. Xessa and I, and the other deaf ejab, well, we can of course be with the creature without fear of its song; we can do … whatever the council deems needful. And we must do it now, before the rains end and the war returns.’ He cast an apologetic glance at Xessa; he had never believed in the peace-weaving.

  ‘What we must do is train more warriors and more ejab,’ Elder Apok signed angrily. ‘Eja Tika, you have recruited a hundred Yaloh to the snake path. Why then—’

  ‘Of those hundred, elder, only forty-six have mastered the spirit-magic and agreed to become eja. None of them will be ready to take on the duty for a sun-year; most are warriors and need to unlearn many of their ingrained skills. I have ejab paired with them, fighting the way Drowned fight, and they are brought down within moments every single time. We cannot rely on them and suggesting otherwise is irresponsible.’

  Xessa winced.

  ‘Sixty-three people were torn apart by one escaped Drowned,’ Apok signed.

  ‘That plan was poorly thought out,’ Kime interrupted. ‘Ours is not. If it was, the high elder would not even have let us get as far as this meeting.’ He leant forward. ‘Think of what we can accomplish. What if they truly are a product of the Empire of Songs? What if we learn how to destroy them? Think how this could affect the war, elders. Think how it would be to no longer fear the water, to be able to move and outflank our enemies, to travel concealed by riverbanks or attack out of the cover of swamps. To be able to move hundreds of warriors at a time without worrying about depleting the water vine or bamboo along the trail.’

  ‘This isn’t just for the ejab,’ Tika added when Kime fell still. ‘This isn’t about glory. It’s about living through the war and then, perhaps, living without fear.’

  Xessa’s heart was a wild bird fluttering against the cage of her ribs when the pair finally stopped signing. She’d never thought Tika could be so eloquent, though she knew her father’s spirit was that of a poet. All her own doubts had been burnt away, despite the fact he’d volunteered the pair of them as the captive Drowned’s keepers. She looked at each elder in turn, trying to gauge which way they’d go. She found Toxte’s hand and squeezed it tight.

  There were fifteen elders. Nine voted aye, including Vaqix. And as simple as that, it was done, and nothing would ever be the same again.

  PILOS

  High Feather’s estate, Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  158th day of the Great Star at morning

  Pilos loved being at the estate, among his eagles and their families as they reminisced over campaigns past and watched the youngsters practise their weapons, but he could not deny that after only ten days he was ready to leave and head back to the simpler ways of the Melody’s great fortress in the south. To be out of the jaguar’s den. To be free from prying eyes.

  Councillor Yana, of course, would back his proposal when the Singer deigned to hear it, and he’d been gratified that most of the others he’d met so far had also seen both the sense and the opportunity of it. Enet would oppose him as a general principle, but that was to be expected. She might be Great Octave, but the decision rested with the Singer, not her. Still, from what he could gather, the council was split and more than half of them would wipe their arses with poisonwood leaves if she asked them to. And then there were the Singer’s favourites.

  Much had changed in the half-year he’d been gone, and most of it he didn’t like. The Singer’s vices were well known, his distractions too. Many of the protocols governing behaviour in the source had been allowed to slip, endangering the Singer’s harmony and so, in turn, the song. The Singer’s wellbeing, his happiness, was of the highest importance: negative emotions bled into the song and darkened it, and all who lived within its magic would be affected. It was why the council meetings were little more than rituals conducted to obtain the holy lord’s approval or rejection of a scheme, while the real debates were held out of his earshot beforehand. It was why he was surrounded only with beauty in all its forms.

  Pilos had spent an afternoon with Chorus Leader Nara as the man told him about the usual courtesans’ fights and the over-indulgences of the Singer’s favourites. What they did in private was up to them; what they did in the Singer’s presence could have far-reaching effects.

  There wasn’t a Pecha alive who didn’t know the histories of those Singers who had lost control of themselves or the song and the consequences for those who lived within its sacred bounds. What he’d seen and learnt had been enough to convince him that discipline was lax among the members of the council, among the courtesans, and definitely among the Singer’s favourites, those nobles who held no official position in the governing of the Empire but instead danced and diced and drank and fucked in the Singer’s company. Pilos had spent the last week finding those favourites and pointing out their errors in soft, respectful, and compelling tones. The Singer’s health and wellbeing were paramount.

  Pilos thought over the plan again. It was born out of duty and loyalty, without room for any to insist it was a path to glory for himself. There should be no sidelong glances of the sort the other councillors exchanged when a member brought up some new scheme. His proposal benefited the Empire, and it benefited the Singing City. All he had to do was pray the holy lord in his wisdom agreed.

  It’s the right plan. More than that, it’s the only plan. The only option if we’re to bring the last tribes under the song with swiftness and mercy.

  The Xentib slave warriors were still too unreliable to risk in open battle so close to their homeland, and the Melody had been depleted by the intensity of that people’s resistance. They needed more warriors.

  Pilos’s thoughts were interrupted by a messenger from the Great Octave. He read Enet’s note with increasing disbelief – ‘peace-weavers’ from Yalotlan and Tokoban were in the city, staying at the Great Octave’s own estate. Would Pilos join them for duskmeal? Not for the first time, he wished there was a way to insert a Whisper into her household to relay such news to him in a timely fashion. The peace-weavers might have been here for months for all he knew; she was probably only inviting him because it suited her purposes, not because she wanted him to be there.

  ‘Elaq!’ he bellowed, scaring the children playing in the garden so they squealed.

  His estate manager and oldest friend came at a run, alarm creasing his features and a knife clutched in his fist. ‘Spear?’ Pilos handed him the message and Elaq read it. He blew out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘No way. Not a fucking chance. She’ll kill you and say these peace-weavers did it. If there even are such people here. What sort of title is peace-weaver, anyway?’ He waved away his own question as irrelevant. ‘It’s a bad idea, Spear.’

  ‘I know,’ Pilos agreed and relief flickered over Elaq’s rugged, scarred features. ‘But w
hat does Enet know of negotiation? What does she know of the types of concessions warriors make or the sorts of agreements they reach to end further bloodshed? Of course I’m going.’

  ‘Then I’m coming with you and we’ll both be armed. And more than that, you’ll be carrying three antidotes with you. Don’t eat anything Enet doesn’t eat from first.’

  Pilos held up his palms, laughing. ‘We’ve got until dusk, my friend. Plenty of time to lecture me on the finer points of not being killed by our resident viper.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s long enough,’ Elaq complained, but there was a glint of amusement in his deep-set eyes.

  ‘Peace-weavers,’ Pilos mused. Whatever his reputation might be among the council and the city, Pilos would happily take a peace agreed over duskmeal than one won on the battlefield. Though, he admitted ruefully, sharing a meal with the Great Octave was surprisingly similar to fighting for his life. ‘Their information could be of use in council tomorrow.’

  ‘If you live long enough to get there,’ Elaq muttered darkly, but Pilos chopped his hand through the air – the song-laden, magic-rich air, through which the Great Octave herself could be listening. The old eagle nodded and held his tongue, but his words had planted the seed and Pilos let it sprout. In truth, he would need to be very, very careful this night.

  As the Singer’s chief courtesan, Enet’s estate had always been a lavish affair, but there were two new wings to her palace, and the gardens were deeper, lusher than before, the trees filled with tame birds. She’d even had a private offering pool dug and a small streamlet diverted from a larger tributary to feed it, as if she were a member of the Singer’s own family. Pilos caught the flash of a fish as he paced towards the house.