The shaman strove for calm as dozens and then scores pressed in around the bright, life-filled shape of his spirit with its golden thread leading back to his body. The ancestors lusted to live again, even though only spirit could animate flesh and the ancestors were what remained when a spirit ascended to rebirth.
Still, if one of them could rip the thread from Tayan and follow it back to his flesh, it would possess the shaman’s body, leaving him formless on the spiral path, neither living nor dead and unable to ascend to Malel for rebirth or return to his form. Eventually, his wanderings would lead him to the Underworld and eternal torment. He would not be the first shaman lost in the spirit world.
And while he was lost, the ancestor would do its best to live again, even though it was but a memory. A half-life in a hollow shell, Tayan’s body stumbling around unable to communicate, food sickening in his belly until he fell down in the dirt and the ancestor was expelled with his flesh’s final breath.
Malel, guide my steps and my words. Malel, watch over me.
‘Ancestors, I honour you. I am Tayan, shaman of the Tokob, called the stargazer,’ he called, drumming faster now, louder, to better tie his spirit to his flesh. Young Jaguar had been one potential danger; the confusion of trails another; but this was the greatest. ‘I come for wisdom about the war, about the Empire of Songs. I come to ask what we must do for peace. Will any advise me?’
Anit, Tayan’s two-times distant father, drifted closer, the shape and feel of him familiar to the shaman. While Anit’s spirit had been reborn more than once since his death, the memory of him, the shape made of light and shadow, remained as an ancestor able to impart wisdom to his people.
Yet Tayan hesitated. Anit was one of the Tokob elders who had rejected the Chitenecah call for aid fifty sun-years before. He had been there when the Pechaqueh began their insatiable expansion and he had let Chitenec fall and its people be taken into slavery.
A low, disturbing chuckle rose from Anit’s form and Tayan realised he’d been lost in thought for too long – and that the ancestors could read strong emotion. ‘You wonder what help I can be, yes? And yet, how are we unalike, stargazer? You let Xentiban fall four sun-years past. You let Quitoban be overrun eleven years before that. Time’s circle turns and old mistakes are made anew. How Malel must grieve for us.’
Tayan let himself hear the beat of the drum in the flesh world. His way home. ‘Then your advice remains the same as it did when you lived: to abandon all others until the might of all Ixachipan is arrayed against us?’
The ancestor chuckled again. ‘Perhaps it is time for the first children to end,’ it said. ‘What have the Tokob ever done with such a gift anyway? Shouldn’t the first children have educated those who came after? Shouldn’t we have shown them the balance so that they might live within it? No, perhaps falling to the Pechaqueh is best.’
Tayan’s spirit shuddered at the words. ‘Malel has a plan for us,’ he began, more harshly than anyone should ever address an ancestor.
‘And who is to say that that plan is not for us to end? For the Tokob to return to her womb and be reborn as a new tribe? Quitoban and Xentiban have both fallen during your lifetime – what have the Tokob done about that?’
The words sawed at the golden thread connecting Tayan’s spirit to his flesh, filling him with shame and regret. He had argued they help the Xentib, had begged the council of elders to listen, but his had been one of few voices. Now their selfishness was returning to haunt them. The Tokob had thought themselves so noble, so secure as the goddess’s firstborn, that they had ignored the plight of others. Anit was right; they should have been teachers and shamans and advisers. Perhaps the people of Pechacan would never have started down this bloodstained road if they’d taught them Malel’s wisdom from the beginning.
‘What of the Zellih, honoured ancestor?’ Tayan persisted, vaguely aware of the sting in his palm as he drummed, hard and relentless, its cadence showing none of the alarm he felt.
‘It is Ixachipan the Pechaqueh want, not mountainous Barazal and its scattered tribes. The Zellih know this and they have already refused you. Do not tempt them to anger by begging them again.’
‘They offered aid during the days you walked Malel’s skin,’ Tayan tried and Anit’s form swirled and blew apart, then coalesced a little darker, the motes within agitated.
‘They did. They do not now. Not even Malel can turn back the sun and make it those days again.’
‘And yet without Zellih aid, we will fall.’
Anit’s shade dissipated again, and this time re-formed directly in front of Tayan, close enough to touch. Its hands rose, clawlike, towards the golden thread of the shaman’s life. Tayan stepped hurriedly backwards. ‘Revered ancestor, how may we survive the storm to come?’ he tried for what he knew was the last time.
Anit was growing in size and density, preparing to fight for possession of Tayan’s flesh. Even more were gathering, drawn by the golden light of life until he was surrounded by swirling blackness. ‘How do we defeat the Empire of Songs?’ he shouted even as he backed further towards the gate. Ancestors blocked his advance up the spiral path – the way to Malel was closed to him.
‘Only a Pecha can defeat the Pechaqueh.’
Anit made a final lunge through the closing gate and Tayan turned and fled, racing back along the golden thread of his own being. In the flesh world, he raised the ancestor idol to his lips and licked it, not having enough saliva for more. ‘Honoured ancestor, I thank you for your guidance. Rest in your realm in peace and seek not to return to life.’ His voice was a croak but it held none of the bitter disappointment – or curdling fear – in his heart.
The thread of connection grew thicker as Tayan drummed the recall beat and his flesh urged him home. He fell into his body and was lost inside it for a time, overwhelmed with sensation, with everything pressing in on him, the weight of his flesh and the rush of blood in his ears. He panicked as he felt his chest move, ragged and too fast, before remembering what breathing was. He concentrated on his hands, one drumming, the other still clutching the idol, observing the sensations from a distance before making cautious contact with them.
Gradually, reluctantly, the spirit world sank back beneath the surface. Sound and sight and smell returned, the weight and presence and solidity of his flesh cocooning him, holding him safe. Smothering the great expanse of his spirit and crushing it down small and tight inside until it flowed into every line and curve and corner of his body. His spirit; not Anit’s. The drumbeat stuttered to a stop and Tayan placed the idol back on the blanket with a shaking hand, focusing in order to make his fingers unclench.
A figure appeared in the corner of his vision and although their movements were slow, Tayan flinched hard and then recognised Lilla. Familiar. Beloved. Husband. Lilla didn’t touch him, instead waiting for him to settle and reconnect with his body.
Thirst was a predator chewing at Tayan’s throat and he fumbled for the gourd; Lilla snatched it up and handed it to him. The shock of their fingers touching rocked Tayan, a contact he struggled to understand and one that wrenched a gasp and then a whimper from his throat. Still, he brought the gourd to his lips. The water was warm and washed the residue of the journey-magic from his mouth and throat, and by the time it was empty, he was almost himself again.
Lilla watched him with forced calm so as not to startle the spirit back out of him. The magic was weakening, but he could still feel his husband’s emotions as if they were his own. He rode them, focused on his breathing.
‘Only a Pecha can defeat the Pechaqueh,’ he said when he had remembered how to speak.
‘What does that mean?’
Tayan shrugged, his spirit sloshing within him, and then packed away his ritual tools with shaking hands. ‘It means I take the peace-weaving to Pechacan and try to convince them to end the war.’
Lilla argued hard once Tayan was able to think and move again, but even he couldn’t deny the logic and the truth of it. There were simply no other options. Someone had to go, and Tayan and Betsu had been appointed by their respective councils.
Tayan was stumbling by the time they got back downhill and into the city, twitches from the aftermath of the journey-magic in his eyelids and fingertips. Lilla wrapped an arm around his waist and supported him through the streets and home. Tayan glanced once at Xessa’s house, which was next to theirs, but there was no candlelight this late and as much as he wanted to see the friend of his heart, he was too exhausted to even think about waking her.
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 generations 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.
