The Stone Knife Read online

  So they unpinned the door curtain and took off their sandals and slipped inside and Tayan headed straight for the long, low wooden-framed bed at the far end, stripping off his kilt and tunic as he went. It was lazy, but he didn’t even have the energy to wash the paint from his face or kneel to take a stoppered jar of water from the storage chamber beneath the floorboards.

  Instead, he folded himself onto the bed with a long, heartfelt groan that had Lilla chuckling. The warrior padded around for a while without bothering to light a candle, swearing mildly as he tripped over Tayan’s discarded clothes. Floor mats rustled as they were dragged aside. The shaman smelt cool earth and heard the thump of the jar being lifted out and set down. He needed food and lots of water, but his eyelids were already heavy.

  ‘Come here, love,’ he breathed, holding out a hand to the darkness, and Lilla took it. Lilla would always take it. His husband forced Tayan to drink, more than he wanted but likely not as much as he needed, and then wrapped him in his arms and pressed kisses lighter than butterfly wings against his temple and hairline.

  Tayan slept, smiling.

  Dawn had broken before they woke, and mid-morning threatened to be upon them before they extricated themselves from each other’s hands and mouths and bodies, sticky with sweat and sweetly exhausted all over again. The council would be waiting for the results of Tayan’s journey, but he stubbornly refused to contemplate dragging himself out of bed. What he’d learnt was important, but in the golden light of morning it didn’t seem as urgent as it had last night. On balance, he was glad he’d got the journey out of the way and could spend a few more hours in bed. Or so he thought.

  ‘Ossa! Ossa, here, boy. Come on, dog.’ Lilla whistled, but the sound broke off as Tayan thumped him on the chest. ‘Ow!’

  ‘I want to sleep.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You want all the latest Xessa gossip, including whether she and Toxte have fucked yet. I don’t know which of them I want to hit harder for stringing it out this long.’

  ‘They won’t have.’

  ‘Bet?’

  ‘You buy me snake on a skewer when you lose.’

  Lilla shrugged: ‘Fair enough,’ and Tayan knew that although it would be expensive, his husband wouldn’t begrudge him such a meal on their first day back.

  Lilla stood and found their kilts, threw Tayan’s at his head and slipped into his own.

  Tayan huffed and dressed, but his expectant grin faded as no prancing dog and smiling eja burst into their small, neat home. He padded to the door and pulled back the curtain. ‘Firepit’s not lit,’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Really? Maybe she spent the night at Toxte’s.’

  Tayan chewed his lip. ‘And didn’t hear that we’d both returned home on the same day? No. I don’t like this.’

  Lilla’s hand was gentle on his arm, and when he turned, he passed him the half-empty jar and then his tunic. ‘Then let’s go and find her,’ Lilla said and drank the last of the water Tayan had left for him. Together, they stepped out into a morning patched with cloud, the humidity already stifling, and strapped on their sandals. ‘Water temple?’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  They were halfway down through the city, hurrying through the plazas and markets and sidestepping shrieking children and squabbling dogs when they heard a piercing whistle behind them and stopped to look. A grin was already breaking across Tayan’s face, but it faded when he saw the woman behind them wasn’t Xessa.

  Eja Elder Tika strode towards them, her dog Yalla prancing at her side. ‘What wisdom from the ancestors, shaman?’ she demanded, without even any pleasantries. Tayan wasn’t surprised; Tika was elder because she was tough and well respected and an exceptional eja, though the spirit-magic did not ride her senses today. And at least this way, he could tell an elder what needed to happen and then go and find Xessa without feeling guilty.

  ‘The ancestors left me with little, elder. They say that only a Pecha can defeat the Pechaqueh. As such, it is clear to me that I must go to Pechacan, to the Singing City itself. There, I must convince a high-ranking Pecha that the war must end, that Yalotlan and Tokoban remain free.’

  Tika was silent, tapping a fingertip against her pursed lips as she thought. ‘It is not what I had hoped, but then again neither was the outcome with the Zellih. Perhaps it is the only way, and I admire your courage. That is a long journey and a dangerous one. And I suspect the Singing City itself will be even more lethal. When will you set out?’

  Tayan swallowed against the nerves fluttering in his belly. ‘That will be for the council to decide, elder. I would hope for at least some days here, to rest and prepare. And … now that you are here, elder, can you tell me where Eja Xessa is? Her house is empty and—’

  ‘The little fool tried to take on a pair of Drowned at the Swift Water three days ago. Toxte and the dogs had to drag her to safety and Ossa is hurt too. They’re both in the upper healing caves, under Shaman Beztil’s care. Your friend’s good, but she’s reckless. It will get her killed young.’

  Worry filled Tayan’s belly, along with anger at Tika’s casual dismissal of Xessa’s abilities. She was one of the best of the thousand or so ejab in the Sky City, despite having seen fewer than twenty-five sun-years, though he had to admit that this wasn’t the first time she’d been injured.

  ‘How bad?’ he demanded as Lilla’s hand came to rest on the back of his neck in wordless comfort.

  ‘Poisoned, lost some leg skin. She’ll have a pretty new scar to remind her.’ Tika stroked the four pale lines that extended from her cheek down the side of her neck, reminder of her own tangle with a Drowned two decades before. ‘But she’ll make a full recovery. The dog too.’

  ‘Thank Malel,’ Tayan breathed. ‘Please, will you take the ancestors’ answer to the council? I need to see her.’

  Tika nodded and then twitched, her eyelid flickering rapidly. She rubbed at it. The elder had been consuming spirit-magic for years to deaden her to the songs of the Drowned, and the prolonged exposure was beginning to take its toll.

  The pair hurried back uphill towards the upper healing cave dug into Malel’s bones, inwards to the heart of creation, where the goddess’s power was most potent and the shamans’ treatments and spells most effective.

  They skipped over the deep, narrow drainage channels carved in the centre of the limestone road that would carry rain downhill to the terraced fields during the Wet. They’d been designed to prevent a Drowned getting so much as one gill beneath water to aid its survival so far from the Swift Water and its many tributaries.

  ‘Lilla! You’re back!’ a voice called and Tayan would have ignored it if not for his husband’s answering shout.

  ‘Ilandeh, hello.’ The woman waved and hurried over, Dakto at her side.

  ‘Blessings on you,’ Ilandeh said, as she always did. ‘And welcome back to the city.’

  ‘I am glad to see you unhurt, Fang Lilla,’ Dakto added. ‘And you, shaman. I pray your journey to the Zellih was a success.’

  Tayan was already hurrying on, leaving Lilla to make their excuses. It didn’t matter that Tika had said she’d live; he had first-hand experience of Drowned venom and knew exactly how awful it was. He had no time to spare for Xentib refugees, no matter how likeable the pair was.

  They had arrived before the last Wet, fleeing the Pechaqueh advance that had swallowed their lands and their people in the conquest four sun-years before. They joined the few hundred other Xentib who already lived here, the lucky escapees from slavery. Together, they’d taken over the duskside lower quadrant of the city, now known as Xentibec.

  Ilandeh and Dakto were the last to make it so far north; they’d kept to themselves in the jungles, living hand-to-mouth, until the Empire’s push towards Yalotlan forced them to beg for refuge in the Sky City and there discover the last free remnants of their people.

  But in the months since the Yaloh refugees had begun arriving, tensions had risen in the city. The two tribes had shared a border and there were gene
rations of bad blood between them, and despite the fact they were all refugees together, and guests in Tokoban, insults and brawls had been becoming more common before Tayan had left to try to weave an alliance with the Zellih.

  Tayan cared for none of it as he pushed his way around the edges of the busy market and up the wide avenue leading to the healing cave before darting in through the wide mouth gaping from the hillside. ‘Eja Xessa,’ he barked and an apprentice pointed the way.

  Three days ago. Three days without me. Beztil was a talented shaman, but when it came to healing and medicine for his loved ones, Tayan wouldn’t let anyone else touch them. ‘I heard what happened. Are you all right?’ Tayan demanded as he burst through the curtain into Xessa’s room, and then signed the question after he’d touched her arm. Sometimes she would feel the change in the air when someone entered her presence. The scent of rain, or just the awareness of another person nearby would alert her, even if Ossa didn’t. This time she hadn’t noticed him pushing into the tiny underground cell.

  The curtain moved again and Lilla and then the two Xentib crowded around her low cot. Tayan spared an instant to glare at Lilla before fixing his gaze back on the eja and sitting carefully next to her. He stared into her face, sickly grey with venom even now. The smile she managed was alarming rather than reassuring, and by her side Ossa lay in twitching, whimpering misery. Her gaze roamed over the three behind Tayan and she managed a grin and a raise of the eyebrows towards Lilla. The warrior nodded that he was healthy, which Tayan had at least managed to ascertain for himself that morning, and then flickered over the Xentib. She smiled again, but looked quickly away. Neither had learnt more than a few signs for the most basic communication, and Tayan knew their incomprehension made Xessa uncomfortable. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

  A ripple of twitches ran from her scalp to her toes and he peeled back the edge of the cotton bandage swathing her from ankle to knee and sucked his bottom lip as he examined the wounds. While Drowned venom was rarely fatal in an adult, the medicine was slow-acting and it’d be a week before the burning in her bones faded and she stopped praying for death. Xessa’s fingers clenched at a spasm of pain and then she laid her hand on the dog’s head; he flopped onto his side against her flank, curled so his triangular skull was on her hip bone, tail thumping weakly into her armpit. Another shudder racked her and Ossa whined.

  Tayan squinted down his nose at them both. ‘You look like shit,’ he said. ‘Want to tell me about it? Tika says you nearly died.’

  ‘Didn’t though,’ Xessa signed.

  Tayan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Only because your duty partner has more common sense than you do. Two Drowned? You tried to draw water when there were two of the fuckers circling you?’ He sat back and resisted the urge to shake her. She hadn’t followed everything he’d said, but she understood enough.

  ‘What other choice was there? We share the city with two thousand Yaloh now, plus our old Xentib friends. We need the water.’ She signed it simply, with the fatalistic calm common to ejab, and one that made him clench his teeth every time he witnessed it.

  ‘We’ve had early rain, in case you hadn’t noticed. People are already hanging gourds from the eaves. We’ll manage. And you’re too important to lose.’

  Xessa rolled her head on the mattress. ‘Not enough rain yet. You know that. And it’s not like it was in our ancestors’ time. There are too many Drowned now; we have to cull their numbers where we can. That’s just how it is.’ She paused to cough. Ossa whined again, his pink tongue licking her belly beneath her tunic.

  ‘Have any more Yaloh agreed to be tested for the snake path while I was gone?’ Lilla asked, signing as he spoke. ‘It would be so useful, even if they just did it for a year or two. Once the Wet is here, all the ejab will have to work harder to keep so many of us safe and the spirit-magic … well, we cannot ask them to use it more often than they do. The toll is already too great.’

  ‘A hundred have,’ Xessa signed and Lilla repeated it in a low voice for the Xentib. ‘Tika’s taking charge of their training and is giving them the magic one at a time. Sixteen failures so far. Two successes. And another eight who are deaf or partially deaf have joined. They only need a weaker type of spirit-magic or none at all, like me. It might eventually make up for the four we lost this last sun-year when the magic faded during their duty.’

  She didn’t need to elaborate. Those ejab, knowing all they did of the Drowned, knowing everything, would have walked into the river with open arms to embrace the teeth and claws of their enemy. Tayan shivered and the rock walls seemed to grow colder and tighter around them.

  Ten thousand Tokob kept safe by the efforts of one thousand ejab. And now two thousand Yaloh to add to the burden.

  Every problem seemed bigger than the last. We’re losing two wars, not just one. We’re losing everything.

  Still, a hundred Yaloh volunteers showed a huge shift in their guests’ thinking. Before fleeing to Tokoban, the Yaloh had lived in small, independent villages of no more than a hundred or so. They had gathered water exclusively from bamboo and water vines, which they cultivated in dense stands around their homes. They dug fire breaks and burnt back the forest half a stick from the edge of any water source, a warning not to approach within hearing distance. It was rare for a Yalotl to come to the Sky City and ask to take the snake path. If a drought came, they had always preferred to trade with the Tokob for the services of an eja – and to pay a stiff price in meat and jewellery – rather than take the risk themselves. Until now, anyway.

  ‘What did Eja Elder Tika have to say about what happened to you?’ Tayan asked.

  Xessa grimaced. ‘That I’m going to get myself killed sooner rather than later if I’m not more careful. Not that there’s anything more I can do. Too many people, too many Drowned, not enough ejab. And it’s getting worse. Tika wants us doubling up whenever we can, but …’ Her hands fell still.

  ‘But there simply aren’t enough of you, and it takes time to recover from the spirit-magic.’

  Xessa shrugged and nodded as a grimace twisted her lips. Sweat popped out on her brow; she’d need to rest soon. And she doesn’t need me making her more worried, Tayan reminded himself. He started to stand up.

  ‘Why don’t more of your people become ejab?’ Ilandeh asked. ‘Your warriors, at least, who already know how to fight? Why not ask them?’

  ‘Our people choose their own paths and there’s no shame in that,’ Lilla said, his voice sharp. ‘We won’t start forcing them to take on one of the most dangerous tasks in our society. If we were like that, we’d have asked you to try the spirit-magic by now and sent you off to the river with a spear and a net.’

  The Xentib looked away hastily and Tayan tried to feel some sympathy for them, but it was hard. They were good people and good friends, but they’d arrived with nothing and while Dakto was a decent fighter and Ilandeh could weave, neither had made a huge contribution to the city that had fed, housed and clothed them for most of a year.

  ‘That said, a lot of our people take the test, myself included. I spent my childhood convinced Malel had put me in the world to walk the snake path. When I was old enough, a shaman gave me and the other candidates the spirit-magic. I was so excited at the prospect of the spirits deadening me to the Drowned’s call. And it worked – at first.’

  Lilla fell silent and Tayan realised Xessa was watching the warrior. ‘Can you see his lips?’ he signed and she nodded.

  ‘What happened then?’ she asked, even though she knew the story. It was important the Xentib understood why the snake path was not stepped upon lightly. Tayan shifted on the bed so he could see the rest of the room’s occupants. Lilla gave him a wan smile. Ilandeh and Dakto were silent, rapt.

  Lilla signed as he spoke. ‘I heard the spirits. A sort of high, ululating whine. It was all I could hear, just that, and I was so happy, because it was working. I was going to be eja.’ He paused and bitterness chased regret across a face too gentle to be a
warrior’s. ‘But then it changed. I could see the spirits too, not just hear them, and they weren’t friendly. They were angry.’

  ‘What did they look like?’ Ilandeh asked and Tayan translated for Xessa.

  Lilla shuddered and met the shaman’s eyes. ‘Awful,’ he whispered and Tayan nodded. While his journeys were mostly spent with ancestors and familiar guides, he’d encountered enough wild spirits in his time to have a healthy respect for both their abilities and the terror and awe they inspired.

  ‘What happened then?’ Dakto demanded, an ugly sort of fascination in his face.

  ‘The spirit-magic lasts most of a day, and I spent those hours screaming and fighting things that existed only in the spirit world instead of being able to think and fight and draw water or kill Drowned in this world. And that was the end of my dream.’

  ‘It takes some like that, love, and there is no shame in it,’ Tayan said and signed at the same time. ‘And now look at you, one of the finest Tokob warriors, your feet firm upon the jaguar path instead. Now the monsters you fight come from Pechacan and its dominions, and that is a fight of just as much importance.’

  Lilla mustered a smile for them all, but Tayan knew him and knew it was an old pain and an old shame that he wouldn’t let go.

  Xessa snapped her fingers, drawing their attention. ‘Besides, how would I have won any glory if you’d been eja?’ she signed and the Tokob laughed, the Xentib looking on in polite incomprehension.

  ‘So no,’ Lilla finished, ‘our warriors can’t also become ejab, even if just for the duration of a Wet. It’s too much to ask, even if not for the different fighting styles each employs. Stabbing a Pecha and defeating a Drowned … they’re completely different. We can’t – we won’t – ask our people to face a threat they’re not trained for, or to risk the spirit-magic failing or killing them or making them … different for the rest of their lives. And so we manage, as we have always done.’