But for the Tearfall and the temple bells, the city has gone completely silent, Viyeki noted. But that is our nature. He felt both despair and a kind of helpless love for his people. When we are threatened, we turn inward. We close ourselves in, we sink into the dark. We survive. But when survival is the only goal, what do the survivors become?
This city of Nakkiga, he reflected, was like one of the cave-borers—blind, cattle-sized crustaceans that made their home in the deepest, dark parts of the mountain, seldom seeing any light. As with all their kind, the cave-borers carried their skeletons on the outsides of their bodies, and even when they were dying they gave no outward sign: the many-legged things would stagger onward, still acting out the patterns of life, until they simply stopped in place, like a wagon with a broken axle, and never moved again—apparently whole on the outside, but utterly dead within.
Is that to be the fate of our city, the lights going out one by one, never to be lit again? The fate of our entire people? To stumble blindly forward, dying with every step, until at last we simply cease to move?
Viyeki made his way across Nakkiga’s third tier, toward the arching entrance of the Maze and the dark facade of the Council Hall behind it, as lost in his grim thoughts as a man wandering in heavy mist.
The last guard finished examining Viyeki’s summoning-stone, then bowed and ushered him into the great chamber of the Council Hall. Once inside, he was surprised to discover several newcomers around the witchwood table, including several nobles from the Order of Echoes and their partners from the Maze Palace, the Queen’s Whisperers.
The new face beside Lord Jikkyo of the Singers was a female member of his order too young to wear the mask of one of the Eldest, those born in the first years after the escape from the Garden. Her face was marked all over with strange runes, so that from a distance her skin looked almost black.
As Viyeki entered the vast, high-ceilinged room and seated himself, Magister Yaarike gave him a brief glance and nod but otherwise showed him no particular attention. As if to underscore this new distance between them, two other high foremen were seated on the magister’s far side. One of them was Viyeki’s rival, Naji. Viyeki put on a face as expressionless as a bowl of still water, but it was painful to have his diminished importance displayed to all in the War Council, even if it was, as Yaarike had suggested, only for show.
I am dying but still walking like a thing alive, he thought, then chided himself for such self-indulgent brooding. He was the scion of Clan Enduya, his family old in the service to the queen, even if not as exalted as some of the other clans represented around the table. Viyeki too was Hikeda’ya nobility: he would be true to his blood.
“So,” said High Celebrant Zuniyabe after the Invocation of the Garden and other preliminaries had been finished, “for today’s gathering, we welcome Magister Kuju-Vayo of the Echoes and Lord Mimiti of the Queen’s Whisperers to our number. And, unless I miss my guess, you have brought someone new to our deliberations as well, Lord Jikkyo.”
The blind Singer nodded. “Our great master Akhenabi, like our revered queen, has exhausted himself in defense of the Hikeda’ya. Like her, he is also deep in the slumber of renewal. As acting leader of the Order of Singers, I have brought Host Singer Nijika to be my second.”
The younger Singer looked around the council table, her wide, dark eyes almost indistinguishable from the black runes tattooed on her face, but she gave no other sign of greeting or even acknowledgement. The others at the table exchanged grim looks at the loss of Akhenabi, the most powerful of their number.
“I am sorry to hear Lord Akhenabi is unable to join us,” Yaarike said. “There are many questions he might have answered. As it is, we must examine the failure of our efforts outside the gates without his wisdom to guide us.”
General Suno’ku spoke up, and Viyeki thought he heard a tremble of anger in her voice. “My Sacrifices and I did what we could, High Magister. We were informed of what was happening only a bell-hour before Akhenabi’s resurrection song began, and also the distraction of the dead rising did not serve as well as we had hoped—the mortals regrouped quickly.” Her relative the High Marshal now made a sign and Suno’ku fell silent, but it was clear she would have said more.
“I hope I am not hearing people blaming my master, who nearly gave his life to sing that song.” Jikkyo spoke with deceptive mildness. “Such great shapings are not conjured from nowhere. They take time and they take strength—nearly all the strength the Lord of Song possessed, as it happened. He only narrowly escaped death. Also, the hour of the song’s effect cannot always be accurately anticipated. Tell me, please, does the Order of Sacrifice truly blame Lord Akhenabi for the failure of the sortie?”
Before the disagreement worsened, High Celebrant Zuniyabe raised his hand, demanding the council’s attention. His ivory mask did not hide the narrowing of his eyes. “I pray that at such a moment we will remember that dissension among us only serves our enemies. We have more important matters to talk about than affixing blame. The mortal commander has asked to parley.”
For those who had not heard this request—a number that most definitely included Viyeki—the revelation was like a lightning strike. Faces turned as members of the council tried to ascertain who was surprised and who was not. The first to ask the question that was on most tongues was Kuju-Vayo, the immensely tall and slender master of the Order of Echoes.
“How did this come about?” he demanded. “And why would the mortals want such a thing in the first place? They have overwhelming numbers on their side. It is a trap or a trick.”
It would be strange indeed, Viyeki thought, if Kuju-Vayo and his officers had in truth been unaware of the request for parley, since their task was to pass the thoughts and demands of Nakkiga’s ruling elite to the other royal orders by use of the sacred objects called “Witnesses,” mirrors said to have been fashioned from dragon’s scales. It was axiomatic that the Echoes knew their people’s great secrets before anyone else, yet the Lord of Echoes seemed to have been caught by surprise.
“Perhaps my master’s Song of the Dancing Dead has shocked the mortals more than all of you suspected,” said Jikkyo. “Perhaps they are frightened and this King Isgrimnur wants only a face-saving excuse to retreat.”
“He is not a king,” said Yaarike. “He is the leader of his own nation, Rimmersgard, but he is not the king of all the mortal lands. Those are his masters in Erkynland, and this Northman duke can only speak with them by sending written messages.” He nodded slowly. “But it could still be a trick, of course.”
“One of the Zida’ya accompanies them,” said Suno’ku. “We have seen her. She carries a Witness.”
“But that one is gone,” Jikkyo countered. “She left their camp days ago and has departed our lands entirely. We know this beyond doubt.”
“Perhaps a falling-out between allies,” said Marshal Muyare, all heavy satisfaction. “They could never understand each other, the Year-Dancers and the mortals. It is another proof that the Zida’ya have chosen the wrong side, and another reason our weakling kin must go the same way as the mortals.”
“I will slit the throats of every member of Year-Dancing House myself,” said Suno’ku in perfect seriousness. “They have been traitors to the Keida’ya race since before the Parting.”
Zuniyabe held up his hand for attention. The great hall did not become quiet as swiftly as it had the first time he had done it. “The Song has become muddled between many voices, as the old saying goes,” he said when the gathering had finally gone silent. “No, we must speak now about what is, not what we believe or guess. The facts are that a message from the mortals stamped with this Duke Isgrimnur’s seal was left in our last spy-tunnel on the mountainside—a tunnel we thought was still undiscovered.” His gaze darted briefly to Muyare and Suno’ku. “Clearly, we were wrong.”
“If it was found by one of my Sacrifices, I should have seen it first,” pro
tested Muyare. “This is a breach of our oldest traditions—!”
“Nevertheless, it came to me.” Zuniyabe lowered his voice, which for a moment had become loud. “Let us worry about protocol and tradition another day, High Marshal. This secret was too great to risk until it could be revealed to you all, in this room.” He looked around. “The message asked for one of our number to come out of the gate unarmed to speak with their commander, who swears he will also come open-handed. His troops will be withdrawn far enough from the gate that we can see there is no treachery intended.”
“This is nonsense,” declared Kuju-Vayo of the Echoes. “Who could we send to speak for all? Only the queen, and she sleeps!”
“This is not meant to be a negotiation, I suspect, but only the presentation of demands,” said Zuniyabe. “And there is another thing. The mortals have asked particularly that we send General Suno’ku—or, as they put it, ‘the great she-warrior with the war-braided hair.’”
Now several spoke at once, in tones that ranged from questioning to open fury.
“No,” said Viyeki’s colleague Naji, and seemed surprised to discover he had spoken. “That is, surely it is a trick. They wish to take our beloved general from us. The people will not stand for it.”
“Ha! Let the people do what they please—I will go, yes!” said Suno’ku, and slammed her fist against the tabletop. “By the sacred walls of Tzo, I will go to the gates, then before the mortal chieftain speaks a word I will pull out his heart with my bare hand and show it to him. Let his liegemen kill me then. It will not matter. We will have given the only answer we can give!”
Competing voices rose louder and louder, until Zuniyabe reached out his hand in the gesture demanding immediate silence.
Even the Chief Celebrant cannot make us behave well, thought Viyeki in something like despair. With the queen gone and Akhenabi now sleeping too, we are a hair’s breadth from chaos. It would take only a mistake, a single hot word, to have the orders at swords-point with one another.
“You will not harm the mortal leader, Suno’ku,” said Zuniyabe, making a sign of displeasure. “At parley, it would be beneath us. We will hear their demands.” The High Celebrant turned to Muyare. “Marshal? Will you make certain your cousin-descendant understands?”
For long moments Muyare stared back at him, his handsome face unreadable. “I will vouch for the general’s understanding,” he said at last. “And, if need be, her willingness to do what the council decides.”
“Good. We want to know what the mortals think and plan. There must be no attack from us during the parley, unless they show treachery.” Zuniyabe now turned to Jikkyo the Singer. “I do not think even so illustrious a hero as General Suno’ku should go by herself, however. What do you think, Host Singer?”
Jikkyo also waited long moments before replying. “I agree. Some of the other orders should also be represented, that we may all feel comfortable we have heard the mortals’ demands correctly.”
“Do you doubt my honesty?” Suno’ku asked him. “Or my loyalty to our queen?”
“Neither, but I do admit to doubting your restraint, General.” Jikkyo folded his long hands, which—like his subordinate Nijika’s face—were covered with intricate black designs. “I think one of each of the orders who make up this war council should accompany General Suno’ku. Since there is to be no negotiating during this parley, Host Singer Nijika is capable of representing our order on my behalf.”
The masters of the other orders agreed and also chose subordinates to attend the parley, promising that nothing would be decided until the news of the Northman’s words had been brought back to Nakkiga.
Viyeki’s master Yaarike was the last to speak. “I agree that my order should be represented as well,” he said. “But I have an urge to see these mortal creatures face to face. Sadly, I was only able to show them my back as we returned from the South. I myself will go to the parley on behalf of the Order of Builders.”
This seemed to cause only a little surprise among the other orders—Yaarike was known for his unconventional ideas and general stubbornness—but it startled Viyeki, and the words were out of his mouth before he realized. “Master, you cannot go! Please forgive my forwardness, but short of only the leaders of the Sacrifices, you are crucial to the defense of the city. What if it is a trick by the mortals, as some fear? Bad enough we lose important leaders from the other orders, but at least their magisters remain behind. We cannot afford to risk you on such a dangerous task, my lord.”
Yaarike turned toward Viyeki, an uncharacteristic anger pulling at the magister’s lean face, but General Suno’ku spoke up from the far side of the table. “I think the Host Foreman is right. At best, the mortal vermin will honor their promise, and we will hear their terms for our surrender—a demand that the Order of Sacrifice will never accept. At worst, it is a trap, and the city will still need to protect itself and prepare to deal with the mortals should they breach the gate. Send your second-in-command, High Magister Yaarike.”
Viyeki’s master tried to argue, but it was clear that with Akhenabi still recovering, the possibility of losing the lord of the Builders as well, worried everyone present. Viyeki could sense the fear behind the array of careful faces. At last Yaarike appealed to Zuniyabe, but the High Celebrant only shook his head. “Your whims cannot win out this time, caste-brother. You have heard the will of the entire Council of War. Host-Singer Viyeki will go in your stead.”
There was still much to discuss, both about the parley and the larger matters of the siege and the city, and so the meeting went on and on until the evening bells finally began ringing in the Temple of the Martyrs.
From the moment Viyeki had gainsaid him before the council, Yaarike would not even look at him. Viyeki did his best to remain outwardly unmoved, but inside he was hollow. I have ended my career, it seems. But I did it because I knew it was right for our people. Still, he could not escape the idea that it might have been his own jealousy and hurt as much as fear for his master’s safety that had driven him to speak up.
He would have to tell his wife Khimabu that he was going out unarmed to face the enemy. Why did he fear that more than the blades of the Northmen?
I wonder if all of history was as muddled as this? Viyeki was filled with the weary hopelessness of one who had lived for a long time under siege. The chroniclers of future years, if there are any, will only be able to guess at what a mass of contradictions we were, who lived in such times. He had a moment of sour amusement. If the lives and deaths of such small creatures as myself ever reach their notice at all.
News had spread through Duke Isgrimnur’s army that there was to be a parley with the White Foxes. The troops were to withdraw back down the line of the valley before twilight came, but first the duke wanted to make sure no nests of Norn bowmen remained in undiscovered holes on the heights above the gate, and a task like that was work for the Mountain Goats. They had already labored long to find and seal all the Norns’ escape routes, but the immortals were as crafty and determined as they were hateful.
As the cold afternoon faded, Aerling Surefoot led Porto and four others on a patrol across the lower slopes. For the first hours of the gray day they found nothing but traces of earlier skirmishes, broken Norn arrows, and remnants of their own camps. The Norns never left the bodies of their fallen behind, so even places where the Mountain Goats had killed some of the mountain’s defenders only days before now seemed to have been deserted for years, and the brooding sky seemed to hang low over their heads.
“Make no mistake,” said Aerling as they rested on an outcrop and scanned the dark slopes above, “the whiteskins won’t give up. As well expect a nest of snakes to surrender. We’ll have to kill every cursed one of them.”
Porto had already had his fill of tunnel-fighting in the Norn passages which they had found and cleared during the weeks of siege. Even when the Mountain Goats outnumbered the pale things by
a dozen to one, the silent, swift Norns were horribly difficult to kill. The idea of trying to clear an entire underground city made him feel sick at his stomach.
When they had all caught their breath Aerling led them farther up the mountain. They followed the faint tracks they had made in earlier forays, and if Porto did not quite have the confidence of some of the veterans, his long legs had become strong, and he could move uphill and leap from one perilous spot to another as well as any of his comrades. Thus it was that he was near the front of their small line, just behind Aerling, when he saw something flash in a thick copse of trees above and a little toward the southern side of the mountain. Porto tugged at the leg of Aerling’s breeks to get his attention. The Goats following behind took note and wordlessly crouched to wait.
When Porto whispered to Aerling about what he’d seen, the leader nodded, then motioned to the group to split into two parts. Aerling chose Porto to accompany him, along with a whippet-fast young fellow from Vestvennby named Kolbjorn, who despite his name—he had proudly informed Porto it meant “black bear”—was so pale and slender that he looked more Norn than Rimmersman. Aerling sent the other two with the old campaigner Dragi, to make their way up behind the trees while Porto and the other two approached from the front.
They climbed toward the copse as slowly and as silently as they could manage, crawling on their bellies through snow and over rocks until they had reached the trees. Unlike his fellows, Porto did not carry a bow—several attempts to teach him to shoot had failed to convinced him it was worth tripping over it—so he unsheathed his sword and stayed as low as he could behind Aerling and Kolbjorn. They paused frequently to listen and look for any sign of movement where Porto had seen something gleaming, but when the wind slowed, the mountainside seemed utterly silent.
At last they reached an overhang of stone just below their target where they sheltered for long moments, waiting for the wind to rise again. When it did, Aerling motioned to them both, then scrambled up over the top and charged into the clearing with Porto and Kolbjorn just behind him.