The Stone Knife Read online

  ‘Enet, that is enough,’ Pilos barked, reaching for her. She wrenched away, nearly overbalancing as Betsu’s hand spasmed at her belt for knife or hatchet. ‘You goad your guests; you seek to disrupt these proceedings for your own pleasure. The peace-weavers have visited us with honest intentions and you deliberately antagonise them.’

  ‘How dare you speak to me so in my own house,’ Enet hissed, and now she was even more snake-like than before, her eyes glittering in the glow of torches. The hairs stood up on Pilos’s neck and he had to bite back the urge to call for Elaq. ‘And how dare they? I am Great Octave. I outrank all of you. I act on the Singer’s orders and his alone. You would be wise to step aside, Spear.’

  Pilos adjusted his kilt to hide the instinctive grab he’d made for a weapon that wasn’t there. ‘Then it is the Singer’s direct order that you delay the peace-weavers here on your estate? Singer Xac wishes you to treat them with contempt, does he, to threaten and provoke them in order to justify a vicious campaign instead of a peaceful one? He told you he craves their blood, did he? Those were his orders?’

  It was a gamble, because from what he’d seen in the council over the last days, Pilos wouldn’t put it past the Singer to order just that if one of his favourites proposed it – and Enet was the favourite of favourites. And yet her face betrayed her. She snapped her fingers and house guards stepped from the along the walls, clubs in hand. Betsu raised her fists and Tayan patted frantically at the air, trying to calm them all, his words lost in the rumbles of threat and the clanging tones of the song singing in the blood, the ears, the balls. Elaq shoved through the door, club in hand. He palmed a knife to Pilos and took his place at his shoulder.

  ‘We are done here,’ Enet snarled. ‘See they are returned to their room – and put a guard on their door. I trust them less than a snake curled around a child.’

  ‘Child? If you had children, your sour milk would send them to the Underworld before they knew so much as your voice,’ Betsu growled and Enet’s face suffused with blood.

  ‘Betsu, fucking peace!’ Tayan shouted, his voice so unexpectedly loud that everyone stilled. ‘We beg your forgiveness, Great Octave, and yours, Spear Pilos; our world stands on a cliff edge and the balance teeters with us. Malel and the ancestors have not prepared us for such, such reckless indifference to harmony. Perhaps in the morning, when we are all calm, we could try again.’ Tayan didn’t wait for their reactions, just dragged Betsu towards a doorway in the far wall, armed slaves striding after them.

  ‘Tomorrow is new moon,’ Enet called after them, her voice thick with spite. ‘You’ll be begging to surrender then.’

  Pilos didn’t relax until the door shut behind them. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘that was—’

  ‘And you,’ Enet said, her voice the dry rustle of scale on scale, portending death. ‘Get out.’

  Pilos hid his smile, touching belly and throat in mockery of obedience. ‘Under the song,’ he said and turned away before she could reply. He and Elaq slid through the door just before a platter of fruit smashed against it.

  TAYAN

  Great Octave’s estate, Singing City,

  Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  159th day of the Great Star at morning

  The guard had remained outside their door all night, while a second stood watch by their window. The same young girl slave brought them fruit and steamed buns at dawn, and then they were left alone as the morning brightened and the rains came and then the afternoon began to fade.

  It was new moon, the day of offerings, and Tayan thought – hoped, prayed – that Enet might have forgotten them. The estate had been busy all day, slaves rushing through the gardens with their heads down even further than usual, moving with a speed born of terror. Would Enet choose one of them as her so-called offering to the Drowned?

  The song was exultant, seeming to build in a crescendo to a climax that never arrived – or perhaps was constant. Tayan found himself tapping his fingers or feet to it as the day wore on. The garden visible through the window was an immaculate profusion of flowers and plants that attracted butterflies, tiny frogs, and many-hued hummingbirds. Not a petal, not a leaf was out of place. So perfect it was a parody of nature, as their tiny, strangled strips of jungle between expanses of farmland were a parody. The balance demanded each creature lived in harmony, not taking more than it needed, not exhausting the soil or the game. The Pechaqueh either didn’t understand that most basic of necessities, or they thought themselves immune to its consequences. Slaves and cleared jungle, monkeys in cages and sacrifices to the Drowned – the Pechaqueh were so far out of balance that only catastrophe could set them right.

  When Enet finally came to fetch them, Tayan wondered for one arse-clenching second whether catastrophe had found him. It wasn’t just her own slaves the Great Octave could choose from, after all. ‘Honoured guests,’ she said, smooth as honey as if the previous night’s confrontation had never happened, ‘it is time. Please come with me.’

  A child, a boy of perhaps nine, scampered ahead of her. He had the monkey from the cage in the gardens on a thin, supple leash and was pulling it along. It opened its mouth to screech and Tayan saw its canines had been pulled out. He shuddered.

  Betsu was silent and obedient, again draping the gifted shawl around her, and Tayan was immediately suspicious, though of course he wore his own as well. They followed Enet and the boy and his monkey out of the house towards the litter. ‘Can I walk, Mother?’ the child asked and Enet smiled.

  ‘Of course, Pikte. But keep the monkey under control, will you? I won’t have you running off after it again. If it gets free this time, that will be the last you see of it, understand?’

  The boy pursed his lips in consideration. ‘That’s all right. I saw the other one you got. I’m going to teach them both to dance!’

  ‘The other monkey is for your father, that’s why I haven’t put it in your pet’s cage,’ Enet said as she climbed into the litter. The peace-weavers followed her in, ducking so their new crowns of turkey feathers, more lavish than the previous ones, didn’t scuff the roof. Tayan was mortified; of course Enet would show off her son after what Betsu had claimed the previous night. Shame twisted in him and he wished, for what felt like the hundredth time, that the Yaloh had sent anyone else but her.

  ‘Is the Singer allowed a monkey?’ Pikte asked and Tayan’s neck cracked, he twisted so fast to look at Enet. Pikte was the Singer’s son?

  ‘I am Great Octave now, Pikte. And I would never do anything against the will of the holy lord or to hurt him. You know that. Now keep hold of that monkey, remember.’

  The gates swung open and slave warriors hurried out first, clearing a path through the crowd. The litter followed, Pikte and what had to be the boy’s personal bodyguard to its left, and then more guards around and behind them. Last came a tight knot of slaves with their eyes down and their shoulders hunched. They stank of fear.

  The limestone road was heavy with traffic, all heading in the same direction. Dozens and then scores and then hundreds of people, and several litters with groups of slaves behind them. The rain had stopped and the sun was slanting through breaks in the cloud, great bands of light that lay across fields and city like veins of gold in rock.

  The rain had washed away the smell of so much humanity and there was a hint of night-blooming flowers from some of the gardens. Egrets flew above them, seeming to follow the slow-moving procession – towards what Enet had called the Blessed Water. If not for their destination, Tayan would have delighted in the festival atmosphere.

  They reached that wide expanse of dirt, now churning to mud, and the river at its end. More people now, and on the other side too, pressing close to the water. Pechaqueh and free were relaxed, happy, even excited. Anyone wearing undyed maguey, though, stood in mute and cowering dread.

  And we are here to bear witness. The shaman gave Betsu a warning look; the Yalotl licked her lips and fidgeted. The brightness of her skin had dulled, flesh pulled taut over the bone
s of her face. She was afraid.

  Pikte ran ahead to a small group of Pechaqueh children, squealing happily, the monkey clinging to his shoulder. Enet smiled. ‘Youngsters,’ she said with affection. ‘Every new moon the same, treating this sacred event as a game.’

  ‘Yes, I like to play with my friends when we’ve sacrificed innocents to monsters,’ Betsu said, but the words were toothless. Enet didn’t even acknowledge her.

  ‘Come, friends. As we are blessed with wealth and status, we repay the holy Setatmeh who have so granted us this rich life. We have an offering to make, and so we will take our places at the water’s edge.’

  She exited the litter and beckoned; six slave guards surrounded the three of them, and four more herded along Enet’s own slaves. Tayan recognised some of their faces and wondered whether any of them would be the offering.

  ‘Will the Singer be here?’ he asked, trotting to catch up with Enet.

  ‘No. The song-magic is tied to place; the Singer must remain within the source. He has a private offering pool, of course, and will honour the gods if any visit him.’ The Great Octave glanced at Tayan almost fondly. ‘Have you decided what you will do, then?’

  He and Betsu had done little other than talk about Enet’s ultimatum and the potential ways they might combat it, or at least soften it into a form their people could live with. He tried to focus on that now, as the scent of the river grew in his nostrils and the ground, already soft from the Wet, grew muddier. ‘We … have not. Perhaps we might talk after this, this ritual’ – Tayan almost choked on the word – ‘is completed?’

  But Enet was no longer listening. They had reached the front of the crowd and the river was only a dozen strides away. The shaman stopped abruptly when he saw it, and had to fight down a scream and the urge to run when he saw the Drowned. Five, eight, nine, eleven and then more, Lesser and Greater, their heads breaking the river’s skin one after the other. The crowd fell into rapturous silence.

  Tayan, peace-weaver and shaman, called the stargazer, felt his spine turn to liquid and he realised with a bitter incredulity that he’d never believed it. Somehow, despite everything, every indication to the contrary, he hadn’t actually thought they would do it. That they could do it. He hadn’t thought them capable. Cruel and indifferent, yes. Manipulative, definitely. But not actually, really capable of it.

  And then Enet stepped forward in all her glory as Great Octave, enormous headdress of feather and jade and precious stones perched atop her head, so large that she had not been able to wear it in the litter. There were blue stripes on her kilt, as if she were a shaman who could commune with the gods. But then, perhaps she could. She believed the monsters in the water were gods, after all. She raised her arms and faced the river and the Drowned glided closer.

  One’s head broke the water completely and Tayan saw the bulge of its throat sac inflating. He tensed to run, knowing he wouldn’t make it out of earshot in time but unable to do anything else, but instead of a song, it uttered a trill, almost birdlike, almost inquisitive. Tayan’s breath stopped in his chest. The sound had no power over him; it commanded nothing. Instead, it … asked. It was an enquiry. And he could almost understand it. Fascination warred with revulsion, curiosity confined to this one thing to the exclusion of all else.

  The Pechaqueh can talk to them? Is this a skill to be learnt? Is this … Enet’s ultimatum included the prohibition on killing Drowned. That was the condition that no Toko would agree to. But what if I could speak to them? If I could learn their language …

  The Drowned trilled again and beckoned, blinking heavy, clear lids over liquid-black eyes. It cocked its head.

  Tayan had never seen such behaviour. No eja had ever reported such things. In Tokoban they were monsters who killed without thought or mercy. Predators, pure and simple. But so are dogs if left to roam wild.

  His breath stuttered.

  They can be tamed.

  ‘Holy Setatmeh, you wise gods of rivers and lakes, you who command the rain to fall and the crops to grow, we honour you.’ Enet’s voice was loud and carrying and all around her Pechaqueh were advancing, their arms raised in supplication. It dragged Tayan’s mind back to the ritual, breaking his feverish, fascinated reverie. All along the banks of the river, elite members of the city repeated her words.

  ‘Sacred spirits who guard the world spirit, who have been blessed with the long life of your kind, who have known this world and now the world of song, who hold the world spirit in your hearts and who trace back in unbroken lineage to the first Singer, Tenaca herself, we worship you. We honour you. If you call, we will come. If you yearn, we will respond. If you ask, we will answer.’

  Enet paused and a thrum of ecstatic fear lanced through the crowd and drove the air from Tayan’s lungs. She was asking them to sing! She wanted them to. Curiosity was replaced by primal fear once again, the switch in emotions so rapid Tayan nearly staggered. Betsu appeared at his side and gripped his hand in hers, her warrior’s callouses so like Lilla’s that it stole him from the horror of the moment and into a memory – the first time Lilla had taken his hand, gentle and nervous, and the kiss he’d pressed to Tayan’s knuckles. The shaman drew in a shuddering breath, so deep his lungs ached. In, out. Just his breath and the picture of Lilla in his mind. Carved upon his heart.

  Get a fucking grip, Tayan. Watch and learn. Think.

  Three slaves brushed past him, dragging a fourth who walked with vacant eyes and mind, stumbling as if drunk.

  ‘You gods of waters and of fields, you children of the world spirit and ancestors of our great Singer, our holy lord, we do you honour and reverence. Accept this offering, and go in peace.’ Enet took the slave by the arm – the clean, unblemished, exquisitely dressed slave who cried silently but made no move to free herself – and walked forward into the river.

  ‘Fuck,’ Betsu breathed and Tayan’s hand spasmed on hers, clenching hard. What was this? Was the Great Octave sacrificing herself as well? The song seemed to swell in his veins, to caress his heart, whispering its greatness and its glory to his body, not his mind.

  The Drowned who had … spoken, glided closer to the pair and made another noise, almost a chirp this time. But Tayan felt this one, in balls and bones. An imperative. Give. It was then and only then that the slave began to struggle. She let out a single high-pitched scream and turned for the shore.

  It was too late. The Drowned rose up, as tall as Enet, who flinched despite herself. It wrapped a long-taloned hand around the slave’s screaming face and pulled her against its chest. It did this without looking; it was looking at Enet. It chirped again, the same imperative, and Tayan could have sworn it was amused.

  The Great Octave’s chest heaved and she stumbled in the water, half a step towards it, and then stopped. Cords stood out in her neck. ‘Holy god,’ she croaked. ‘Ask and we shall answer.’

  The Drowned paused, considering her as the slave continued to struggle, pushing against its slick grey-green skin. Blood was sheeting down her face from the claws in her cheek. Considering whether to take Enet instead. Then it wrenched the slave’s head back and tore out her throat with its teeth, blood spraying high into the evening and splattering into the Great Octave’s face. It arced backwards into the water, taking the dying woman with it, throwing up a great splash of blood and river-water that drenched Enet.

  The Great Octave put her hands on her knees, her belly undulating as she sucked in air. Three great breaths, and she straightened again. ‘Holy Setatmeh, gods of rivers and of rain, of crops and of life, we honour you. Go in peace under the song. Until we meet again.’ Her voice was high and girlish, thick with the aftermath of terror.

  ‘Go in peace under the song. Until we meet again.’ The people surrounding the peace-weavers chanted the words, and Enet walked out of the river slowly. Her face was speckled with blood, her tunic and kilt plastered to her skin with water. Up and down the Blessed Water, Drowned took slaves, one after the other, their screams ringing thin and piteous with dis
tance, with hopelessness. With the betrayal of those who had been promised peace and wealth and stability within the Empire of Songs.

  The same peace and wealth and stability Enet had offered Tokob and Yaloh.

  Betsu’s grip on Tayan’s hand tightened and he jerked convulsively and faced her, almost dizzy with adrenaline and conflicting emotions. ‘We run,’ she breathed. ‘There is no reasoning with such madness. Tonight, Tayan, when they sleep. We fucking run.’

  It was dark and it was still. After the ritual there had been a celebration. As the Drowned feasted, so did their worshippers, though the meat in this case had been turkey, dog, and lizard. Baskets of food, firewood, mats had been brought to the bank of the river, and there, in sight and sound and song of the Drowned, the people of the Singing City had celebrated.

  Now, hours later, the house was quiet with the aftermath of death and feast and Tayan and Betsu crouched in each other’s shadow and whispered.

  ‘What do you mean you’re not coming? Are you moon-mad? Didn’t you see what they did?’

  Tayan allowed that it was quite possible he was moon-mad. But as the feast had progressed and they had been completely ignored by their host and everyone else – as they had, in fact, been left more in the company of slaves than free – he hadn’t been able to tear his mind away from what he’d seen.

  Tayan had only seen a Drowned up close once before, one of the lesser, smaller variety. Child-sized. As a walker upon the spiral path, he had thought the journey-magic might give him the same immunity as the spirit-magic and that, with its power wrapped around him and a spirit guide at his side, he could observe the Drowned up close. Try and find a weakness. He had drummed for his guide, Old Woman Frog, and then he had walked towards the Swift Water, Eja Billa reluctant at his side. She had been there to protect him, and she had. With her life.