The Street of Fighters was crowded with cheering Pechaqueh in their brightly coloured kilts, as well as clumps and spatters of house slaves in the dun of undyed maguey, holding palm-leaf rain shields and bowls of fruit and meat for their owners. Pilos was impressed that so many had turned out despite the weather – citizens of the Singing City weren’t known for their enthusiasm for inconveniencing themselves. He acknowledged faces in the crowd with the occasional wave, indulging Atu’s more enthusiastic responses and those of his subordinates behind them.
They reached the first loop of the Blessed River and Pilos and his Feathers came to a halt. The offering was fine – a young, healthy Yalotl with clear skin and wide, dazed eyes. Pilos had ordered her bathed and her clothes washed and now she stood dumb, not understanding why she wasn’t bound with the rest of her people. The long walk had dampened her fire to embers and the holy Setatmeh would be pleased with her quality.
Feather Atu gave her the traditional cup of liquor and she choked it down, and then they approached the edge of the river with the girl gripped between them. She began to squirm and then to yell, digging in her heels as those embers sparked into the raging fire of terror. Behind them, the Melody processed over the wide wooden bridge, the captives in their midst panicking and screeching like monkeys and even some of the slave warriors still skittish. It was the same with every new batch until they understood the way of the world and the Singer’s divine will.
‘Holy Setatmeh, gods of rivers and lakes, you who bring life and plenty to our world, accept this offering as your just due,’ Pilos said, tugging the girl forward. She struggled harder, bound hands clubbing at him. He transferred his grip to the back of her neck, his long fingers compressing the big veins on either side. He squeezed until her face filled with blood and her screams became wheezed whimpers.
‘Wise Setatmeh, gods of streams and waterfalls, you who control the crops and the rain and bring the barren to ripeness, accept this offering as your holy reward,’ he prayed, and scooped her into his arms. Pilos walked forward until he was thigh-deep in the river, a thrill of religious fear raising the hairs on his arms. She was fighting hard as he lowered her into the water and held her head down while she thrashed.
The offering was accepted.
A form glided through the water to Pilos’s side and he suffered the exquisite terror of looking it in the eye. ‘I honour you, god,’ he said. It wrapped webbed hands around the girl’s waist and Pilos let go and stepped back. ‘Take your prize, sacred spirit,’ he added and the offering shrieked again as the black claws bit into her back. The holy Setat dragged her away from shore, and then it tore open her belly and vanished with her beneath the water, trailing bubbles and thick streams of blood.
‘Blessed are the Setatmeh, and glory to the Singer,’ Atu murmured from the bank.
Pilos echoed his words and saw the shadow of awe in Atu’s face as he exited the river. He managed a grimace, making no effort to hide the trembling of his hands. To be so close to one of the gods was to know fear and rapture in their purest forms – there was no shame in shaking afterwards. Besides, there was another loop of river to cross before they reached the heart of the city and the great pyramid, and an offering would be required there too, in thanks for a victorious return to the Empire.
‘To finally meet the Singer himself,’ Atu muttered as they resumed their march. ‘The thought of it frightens me more than facing the enemy ever has,’ he admitted as the next offering was passed forward. This one began struggling straight away, knowing what awaited him.
‘We come to report victory,’ Pilos assured him. ‘The Singer will be pleased with us.’ Despite his words, he felt a flicker of unease. The council was a nest of vipers. The High Feather needed to be on his guard.
As always, the palace never failed to exact its toll in awe. A great tiered pyramid of seven pale stone levels and a grand central staircase that led all the way to the summit, with its precious songstone cap. There was one entrance off the main staircase, halfway up, that led into the pyramid’s interior and then to the very source. Brightly coloured images were carved and painted on its sides, and each level was green with cultivated gardens.
The pyramid crouched at the end of the Way of Prayer, surrounded by the smaller, lesser palaces of the council and of the Singer’s family and confidants. The wide plaza before the pyramid was thronged with more citizens, and it was soon full to capacity as the Melody marched in to accept their cheers. The slave and dog warriors gaped up at the pyramid and their wonder was a tonic to Pilos’s nerves. This is why we do what we do. This is glory. This is Empire.
In a rare show of support, the Singer himself appeared on the flat platform at the pinnacle of the pyramid, surrounded by four tall columns carved with images of the first Singers and Setatmeh. Above the Singer reared the songstone cap, through which his magic and his song poured, spreading across the Empire in a slow, rich tide, like golden honey.
Pilos knelt, the Melody and crowd following suit. Silence, but for the tap of rain on the limestone road and the song, brassy with triumph and loud with power, ringing through them all. Pilos breathed in stone and rain and home and song and triumph. He could have longed for bright sun to show his warriors in their finery, the glint of obsidian and the rich flashes of their feathers and the paint on their arms, but this was somehow more suitable. Within the dull greyness of rain, under a moody, malevolent sky, the Melody was a dark force, ripe with power, rich with violence. No one seeing them could doubt their strength.
The High Feather waited until the song’s pitch changed before looking up; the Singer was gone but in the pyramid’s entrance waited members of the council. Another honour he hadn’t expected. But not just councillors, he noted as he and Atu began the long climb towards them. Singer Xac was surrounding himself with his faithful, men and women who supported him in all things, sycophants who would hang from his every utterance and who would deny him nothing in the hopes of securing his blessing when the time of his ascension was upon him.
Pilos was three years into the eight-year cycle of his other role as Spear of the Singer, the second of the holy lord’s closest advisers, and these days he was increasingly tasked with working for the glory of the Empire and holding together the fractious council, while the Singer’s favourites worked only for the glory of their future selves. As for Enet, the Spear of the City, she was cunning enough to not only appear diligent in her administration while in reality shifting many of her duties to others, but had risen to be the Singer’s primary courtesan. The combination had secured her place in the very heart of the Empire of Songs, and, according to Pilos’s latest information, her power was said to be second only to the Singer’s.
It all fell to Pilos; whether or not he was fighting the Singer’s wars, the reports and messages and pleas found their way to him, and though it was an honour to be so trusted by the holy lord, it was a burden he sometimes longed to put down. Carefully, he turned his thoughts away from criticism.
The Singer was wise and powerful beyond human understanding, a living god, but he had once been a man. And even Pechaqueh were fallible. Singer Het, his predecessor, had been only twelve when she was chosen and had relied so heavily on the counsel of her family that when it was her time to ascend – a mere three years after the magic entered her – it had surprised no one that she chose Xac, her older brother, as her heir. She’d taken thirty members of her family with her when she ascended, but had left behind her council to aid him. They had missed their chance at glory and immortality as a result. It was clear they weren’t prepared to do so again.
And yet Xac still waxes, a full eleven sun-years into his reign. He is strong where Singer Het was not, not in the way the people needed. The holy burden was too much for her. But Xac’s song rings across every stick of Empire. With honest guidance, he will be a Singer remembered through the ages.
With honest guidance.
Pilos cleared his mind as he and Atu bowed to the councillors at the entrance, thighs warm from the climb. They removed their sandals, cloaks, and weapons and entered, all of them bent at the waist and scuttling along the corridors like wading birds looking for food.
The cheering of the Melody and the Pechaqueh faded away, replaced by the sounds and scents of the Singer’s palace: citrus and incense, the trickle of water and soft hush of leaves in a breeze, a child laughing, the crackle of fire. Sounds and scents of life and strength, which the Singer in his power and his magic wove into the song that kept them all safe and united. Pilos had no idea how he did it. In his darker moments, on the front line, when battle was joined and his warriors were dying all around him, he wondered if the Singer knew how he did it.
Pilos shut away the thought and filled his mind with awe and wonder. It wasn’t difficult, even when staring at the floor in front of him, the bright murals painted on the walls only visible from his peripheral vision. He’d be at leisure to examine them on the way out: the stories of war and glory and expansion, the legends of the earliest Singers, and everywhere, repeated, depictions of the holy Setatmeh and the world spirit itself. All of them painted by the best and most famous artists of Pechacan throughout the years and Star cycles since the discovery of the song-magic.
The song hummed and grew in volume and strength as they wove their way through the palace corridors. Choosers and courtesans, body slaves and the elite eagle warriors of the Singer’s Chorus all watching them pass with curiosity and not a little suspicion.
Eventually – and yet too soon – the smooth cool stone beneath their feet changed to thickly woven mats in azure blue and they paused until the council had entered and sat, then stepped into the Singer’s inner sanctum, the very source of the song itself. Atu’s breathing roughened just a little as he took in the huge oval room, the colonnaded wall opening onto vibrant gardens alive with finches and parrots and hummingbirds flitting among the palms and bamboo and small trees. Green life and incense mingled on the gentle breeze. The other walls were covered in murals even more exquisite than those of the corridors, including one that depicted the whole of the Ixachipan peninsula. There was space left to paint in Yalotlan and Tokoban when those lands and tribes were brought under the song. Pilos vowed to be the one to achieve that for the Singer’s glory. Atu had halted, overcome, and Pilos flicked his arm lightly with his fingers.
‘Spear of the Singer and High Feather Pilos, and Feather Atu, second in command of the Melody, request entrance to this council,’ Pilos said. The other councillors had already taken the cushions closest to the holy lord, leaving them on the outside of the circle. It didn’t matter; Pilos was Spear and his voice would still be heard. Should the Singer so wish it.
The song was a living thing here in the source, with weight and substance that sat not just on their skin but in their bones. The Singer’s will, inviolable anywhere in the Empire, was in this room as immovable as the pyramid itself. Everyone inside these walls could do nothing but obey the Singer and the dictates of his song.
As always, the holy lord sat behind a rippling curtain of pale pink cotton, the weave so fine that his bulk was visible through the translucent material, enhanced by the tall headdress of feathers and jade that crowned him. Here, in the innermost of his chambers, the music from which he made his song was constant – the liquid trilling of captive birds, the happy chatter of a small streamlet over carefully placed pebbles, the thumping of a dog’s tail on the rugs. In the distance, children shrieked with laughter as they played.
A woman sang in a sweet, high voice, a hymn of praise for the Empire that listed all 174 Singers from the founder, Tenaca, all the way to Xac. Pilos remembered the hours he’d spent as a boy learning those names, the slaps when he got the order wrong. He rubbed his neck and brought his mind into harmony.
‘High Feather, you are welcome back in the Singing City,’ the holy lord rumbled, the strange harmonics of his voice sending flutters of anxiety and reverence through Pilos’s gut. The councillors fell silent. ‘You have had some recent successes in the war against the Yaloh, and you have had some failures. The first I applaud, but not the second. You will explain.’
The council turned flat, blank gazes on him, calculating, weighing, assessing.
‘Great Singer, the Yaloh are a wily and courageous people and as you know they have convinced the Tokob to join them, swelling their numbers. They fought long and hard, and pushed us back several times, it is true. Their lack of civilisation means they have no great cities we can take and so win a decisive victory, and there are no limestone roads to speed our movement. They conducted small, fast raids on our camps or as we marched and then faded into the jungle again. We have not yet brought sufficient numbers of them to bay to force a decisive reckoning.’
He paused, but there was only attentive silence from behind the curtain.
‘So determined were they to withstand us that when they knew they had lost the southern half of Yalotlan, they burnt their stands of bamboo and water vine, to make it useless to us. Our shamans advised against fighting through the Wet, since the rains have come heavy and early. I brought back the bulk of the Melody to rest, though I have left a Talon of three thousand warriors in Yalotlan. They will protect the builders I have sent there, who will construct pyramids to carry your song through the land. We have taken three and a half thousand prisoners. It is perhaps a fifth of the Yaloh population, and consists mostly of warriors or other adults. So far.’
Pilos took a breath. ‘The war has had one other outcome. The holy Setatmeh of Yalotlan have begun taking offerings again in the old manner. Some of my warriors have been lost.’
There was a rising babble of noise at the revelation; usually the only Pechaqueh taken by the gods were those who’d been cast onto the streets for their crimes, and among whom the Choosers walked like lords of the Underworld when selecting the new moon offerings.
‘This is Yaloh magic, and yet you bring them to the Singing City?’ a councillor squeaked. ‘Who knows what havoc they will wreak in our sacred waters here? You should have offered them all to the holy Setatmeh in their own land.’
‘The Yaloh slaves do not belong to the High Feather,’ Councillor Yana said mildly, though his voice carried over the murmuring. ‘It was not his place to decide what should be done with them.’
Pilos breathed a silent sigh of relief. Yana was as honest and unbending as his back, despite his years. He had been an eagle warrior and Feather and still trained daily with the spear, and Pilos knew he had a warrior’s integrity, a warrior’s commitment to duty and to Empire. He also showed little ambition to supplant the other councillors or any of the Singer’s favourites, which sat well with the others.
‘The holy Setatmeh are righteously angry,’ a woman cut in. ‘Perhaps this is their response to your cowardly retreat from the fight! Why is the Melody here if there is work still to be done? We must do all we can to honour the gods.’
‘You are correct, Councillor Chel,’ Yana said smoothly and with a smile as cold as a snake’s, ‘we must all play our part. A gift of jade or slaves from each councillor will help speed the construction of new pyramids. The Melody is made up of warriors, when what they need are engineers and builders, and the slaves to both carry out the work and present to the holy Setatmeh to prevent … unnecessary offerings from among Pechaqueh. Do not forget the Melody are also there to protect the holy Setatmeh and the workers from Yaloh and Tokob. They cannot do everything.’
‘Then the rest of the Melody should go back and finish what it started,’ Chel snapped. ‘Not come here in triumph and demand reward when the conquest remains unfinished.’
‘Or, as I said, we can assist them in their work. High Feather, I will buy a hundred slaves and send them to Yalotlan to work and be offered as necessary. And I will purchase enough stone for one full pyramid.’
Even Pilos blinked at the size of Yana’s promise. The man must have risen far to afford such a generous gift. And he is planting himself firmly on my side in the struggle to come. Pilos didn’t know whether to be worried or delighted, but Yana was an old friend and an old comrade; his offer was one of support for Pilos personally as well as for the Melody, and the warrior would honour his generosity. He inclined his head to Yana with gratitude.
‘Who expects us to pay for the High Feather’s failure?’ queried a voice and Spear Enet’s head snaked from behind the hanging to stare at him. Pilos’s heart clenched at her sudden appearance. Years before, during the reign of Singer Het, their families had negotiated an alliance the pair had been expected to fulfil through marriage. Yet when it came to it, Enet had refused. Pilos had been a boy and desperately in love with her – or so he’d thought. He’d believed himself shamed in front of the court and council and for years he’d been bitter at the rejection. These days he knew better, and thanked whichever holy Setat had spared him the fate of marrying her.
Now she was the Singer’s chief courtesan as well as his Spear and, despite sharing the status with Pilos, he knew that what she whispered in the pillows carried more weight than the council’s words or the Melody’s needs.
‘Councillor Yana merely proposes a course of action and offers a gift of aid, Enet,’ he said evenly, his voice and face serene, refusing to be goaded. ‘The decision rests with the Singer.’
Her beautiful black eyes narrowed. ‘You will address me correctly.’
Pilos pursed his lips. ‘I have been at war for some time, Enet,’ he said, deliberately using her name again as his gut roiled with unease. ‘I am unaware of any change in your status. Please, how should you be addressed?’
Enet glanced back at the Singer behind the curtain and her face softened, lips curving in a smile that set Pilos’s balls to aching. She’d smiled at him like that, once. ‘I have the honour of being known as Great Octave now,’ she said sweetly, her head on one side to better study his reaction.
Pilos’s balls stopped aching and tried to crawl into his belly. Great Octave? Chief adviser to the Singer, above even the Spears, head of his household, master of wealth, and senior Chooser? The title had not been granted in a hundred sun-years, it was so dangerous to the harmony of the Empire. Between them, Xac and Enet ruled the world – and no one could gainsay them.
Enet was beautiful and powerful and rich, and the Singer, their living god, was in thrall to her, and he either didn’t realise it or, worse, he knew and didn’t care. She would ascend with him, of that there was no doubt. Pilos didn’t care about that – he cared about the amount of damage she would do to the Empire beforehand. And now she had the reach and power to accomplish it.
He stared around the advisers and noted the discomfort in some faces, the pleasure gleaming from others’. The Singer’s cronies had split the council neatly down the middle and as the Singer began to wane, bloodshed would increase as all vied for a position close to his heart and the chance to ascend with him. What damage they did the Empire of Songs during that mad scramble would mean nothing to them. Only those who were left behind would face it. Whatever danger I have been in before, whether in the council or in battle, is as nothing compared with this.
‘We are awaiting your answer, Spear,’ Enet snapped and Pilos dragged his scattered thoughts back together.
‘Singer,’ Pilos said, addressing his lord instead of the Great Octave, ‘you are right: the war is not yet won. We have taken half their territory and expect to complete the conquest after the rains have stopped and the land has firmed enough for battle. If it is your will,’ he placed the tiniest emphasis on the pronoun, ‘I will of course turn the Melody around and march them straight back to war. As Spear and High Feather, by your grace, my advice would be to wait until after the Wet. We have fought through it before, in Quitoban. We lost more than half our warriors and the Empire’s expansion was delayed as a result.’
‘The Singer does not need reminding of your past failures,’ Enet hissed, her face appearing again.
Pilos raised both hands, not even bothering to remind her that he had been been promoted to High Feather only a few days before Quitoban finally fell and that the length of the campaign had been neither his fault nor unexpected. ‘The Quitob were brought under the song, Great Octave. Where is the failure? I mention it only because once we have brought the Yaloh into the Empire, we will still have to face the Tokob – unless we take both tribes at once.’ Atu huffed at that. ‘We cannot afford to wait for our full-blood youngsters to mature and replace any needless losses. And the Yaloh slave warriors will not be fully integrated under the song for years. We won’t be able to trust them.’
There was a rumble from the Singer, as of thunder, that stole Enet’s reply. The council paused, waiting for the lightning to accompany that threat. It didn’t come, or at least it wasn’t aimed at them. ‘High Feather, the shamans were right; the war is over for this season. Rest your warriors, break in the new slaves, and be ready to march after the Wet. I will give you the exact date when I have consulted the stars.’
Pilos bowed his forehead to the floor, hearing the rustle as the council did likewise at the Singer’s rising. Their lord padded from the council room without another word, his favourites scurrying behind. The High Feather stood and beckoned; Atu jumped up and together they strode out of the source without a backward glance, though Pilos could feel eyes on him all the way. Slaves waited at the exit with their sandals, weapons, and cloaks, and they dressed and stepped back out into impending dusk and a city shining with moisture.
They descended the pyramid in silence – the Melody had long since dispersed to barracks and the homes of families, brothels, and drinking huts. The slaves would be penned in the flesh markets for onward transportation.
‘That was … not what I expected,’ Atu said eventually.
Pilos grunted and clapped him on the back. ‘The council meetings rarely are. Go and fuck your wife and get drunk, Feather. There will be many people who seek my favour now they know I’m back. I’ll send the new slaves on to the Melody compound, but depending on how things play here, we might be leaving soon. Make the most of the time you have.’
Atu grinned and touched belly and throat in salute. ‘Under the song, High Feather.’
‘Under the song.’ The young warrior practically sprinted through the plaza towards the litter-bearers for hire at the far end. Pilos smiled again. ‘All right, Elaq, out you come,’ he said and his bodyguard, a retired eagle warrior and the head of his estate here in the Singing City, emerged from the shadows at the edge of the pyramid.
‘Spear,’ he said, touching belly and throat and using the title Pilos preferred when in the Singing City. ‘Under the song.’
‘Under the song, my friend. How are you?’ He clasped Elaq’s wrist and clapped the big man on the arm. Retired a decade and still with shoulders wider than the bole of a mahogany tree.
‘I am well, Spear, thank you, and your estate and the fighting pit too. Your wealth increases.’
‘And much of it is down to you and the others,’ Pilos said as they began to walk. ‘I know it and I will not forget it.’ The look on Elaq’s face reminded him why he preferred paid Pechaqueh to slaves, no matter the cost. All his guards had partners and children who lived on the estate with them and who Pilos educated and cared for at his own expense. It wasn’t entirely altruistic, of course – most of the children entered the Melody when they were old enough and all were fiercely loyal to him. Still, he could afford it and it meant that his estate was secure and his employees virtually incorruptible.
