Trial of Intentions (105 page)

An image of it working in a camp filled with humans. Of one man grown tired, falling in a dredging field, and this Quiet reaching to stop his fall.

Later, a saw-blade had removed its arm for doing so. To make an example.

She saw the lost limb.
It
saw the lost limb. It was not stirred. It came on, carrying an impossibly long sword. It brought it around to cleave her in two. She shout-sang, finding the resonant note inside what was left of it.

Its eyes fluttered and it crashed down hard before her.

She shifted fast to a Quiet flier descending on her now in a rush. This creature had the features of one of the sculpted stone beasts that stood watch over burial grounds and churches.

Images rose of family, parents that were too old to be useful. Their old wings were clipped, and their scrabbling bodies tossed into open-air gardens on the side of a great mountain where younger of their kind ate them.

This child-creature had starved, because it would not eat.

The flier dove at her, remembering, and struck loud notes inside Wendra. But she embraced them and lifted Suffering to it, stilling its wings. She had to jump out of the way as it nearly fell on top of her.

Next came a creature with a heavily corded neck and the scars of brands over its entire body. Hollow cheeks set in a narrow face. Sinewy muscles in a tall frame. And a placid expression. Wendra sang to it alone.

Images of forced copulation. The get of those unions being deemed inadequate and silenced. If they came at all.

The creature's eyes widened slightly, and it began to rush her. Still no anger, but some urgency. It raised a long hammer.

Wendra shifted her song to a stabbing shout and gave his resonant notes all their awful sound. His body went limp, his face fell to peace, and he crashed down at her feet.

One by one, she faced them, modulating Suffering to strike the notes of their hearts. And the things she saw, witnessed … lived, they remade her. A little, anyways. Her own sound and song changed. The vibrations of her life were altered. Wendra's own anguish deepened.

And as she sang these moments of Suffering, this movement of the song known simply as “War,” she noted something more: a measure of control. It
was
her song. It was filled with her shotal sound. But it wasn't random or blind. She'd taken Suffering and sung it the way it needed today to be sung.

And over the next several passages, the attack ended. The army that she could see and hear and feel—those that remained—simply stood, looking at her. In the connection she shared with them she sensed no anger. No shame.

The rain subsided. The movement of music that followed was a different kind of singing. Mournful. Resigned. Like endings. It was called “Self-slaughter.” Wendra sang it at the dark shapes as they retreated back into the far mountains and night skies. And even that song changed in the singing. Somewhere along its sad passages, she stopped singing it
at
them. And started singing it
for
them.

She didn't know how long she'd been at it when she realized she stood alone on the darkened plain, singing about one taking her own life. Or the life of someone who wants to die but cannot do it for herself. That song wasn't rough and loud. It was low tones. It was a barrow weeper's broken cant.

And she wept as she sang it. Wept because she understood the song's meaning. Understood that many of those sent into the Bourne chose to end their life rather than be bound there. Failing to win their war meant more than failing to earn the right to live with men in the east. For many it would have a final meaning.

Then a sound interrupted her song. Or rather joined it. Much as the young man had joined the first Leiholan's song, another voice now picked up Wendra's melody in perfect unison. She turned to see another man, this one considerably older, step gently toward her. He put a hand on her shoulder as together they offered a lament over those who would take their own lives. Or who
had
taken their own lives, since Suffering described events from the Craven Season.

Except this was real. This happened today. Just now.

Then, this Leiholan man nudged her in the direction where she'd find the door, though she seemed still in a different, real place. Wendra nodded and began to move away, continuing to sing. She finally let Suffering go as her outstretched hands found a wall she couldn't see, and she pushed out into the corridor.

As she went, the Song tugged at her to return.
Not today.

Across the hall, Wendra saw the young Leiholan woman who'd fallen. She sat wrapped in a large blanket on a cushioned bench. She shivered there as one long in the cold. The Leiholan who'd helped her leave the chamber knelt before her, briskly rubbing her hands and arms.

The woman said nothing, her lips trembling. Her wet hair hung down in front of her face, and quivered with the shudders of her body. Something wasn't right. The girl then raised her eyes, aware of herself, it seemed, for the first time in several minutes. “Thank you,” she managed.

Wendra studied her face. “The Song is changing, isn't it?”

The young woman stared back, unspeaking. Her silence, Wendra thought, wasn't because she was reluctant to tell the truth, but because she couldn't put it into words. Finally, she just nodded.

“The words, the melodies, they're the same.” The young Leiholan slumped further forward. “But the way they must be sung is different. To combat the visions, to make them real. And the images that are returned from Suffering are more … insistent. Even the historical sections. It's as if the events of the past want to be rewritten …
are
being rewritten.”

Wendra listened intently, phrases of Suffering still playing in her mind. Heavier now. They tugged at her again to return and sing. “How do you know how to adapt the song?”

The girl rubbed warmth into herself, and slowly stopped shivering. “You're the new Leiholan.”

Wendra nodded.

The girl offered a weak smile. “There's a lesson. Comes much, much later. Inola, it's called. Closest way to explain it is
intuition
. Has to do with attunement. And it's something…”

“Yes?” Wendra gently urged.

“… you don't always get it right.” She offered Wendra an apologetic smile. “I heard what you did. I've never heard Suffering sung that way. Today, you got it right. Though I have no idea how you managed it. Unless it was inola.”

Today, you got it right.
It felt like the kind of thing that once you'd learned it, you were somehow accountable for it, too. Like when a child finally has the courage to talk about what happens when a father comes into the room late at night with bitter on his breath.

In the hall outside the Chamber of Anthems, the young woman offered a terrible insight.

“This kind of singing”—she nodded as though to affirm her own words—“it's more than just resonance.” Her voice became distant-sounding. “Some songs can't be unsung.”

A chill raced across Wendra's skin. What about the songs she'd sung since learning of her gift? What resonances had she taken into herself, what echoes had she begun? A new burden settled over her as she thought about the next time she'd have to sing.

The sound of Suffering grew inside her. The weight of the Song got into her flesh. She now burned with fever.

Moments later, footfalls came in a running rhythm. Soon Belamae and two attendants rushed into view, bearing handlamps.

Belamae's two companions helped the two Leiholan up, and escorted them away, gently supporting the young woman on each side. The glow of their lamps receded, leaving him staring at Wendra over the top of his own lamp. His face took a warm cast from the small flame. She had the sense that he knew her education had just been enlarged in a way he could never have taught.

“What you did tonight, Wendra…” His eyes were distant, as though seeing possibilities he'd rather not consider. “Thank you. We might have lost another Leiholan, as we lost Soluna…”

He cleared his throat, emotionally resetting himself.

She told him then about the bloodred moon she'd seen on the Soliel. And she told him she thought Soluna's death had corresponded to that moon, and to the Quiet breaching the Veil and attacking Naltus. His eyes showed understanding.

“We have an eclipse tonight,” she finished. “But with Ardua.”

“Telaya has been researching these things for us.” He pulled at his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “We're starting to see patterns for when and why Leiholan fall ill.” He paused. Shook his head. “A lunar eclipse of both moons. Our good fortune. Damn.”

With her fingers, Wendra brushed back her wet hair. She couldn't stop thinking about the Chamber of Anthems, and how it had
changed
. “Tell me again how the Song affects the Veil from so far away?”

He offered a gentle smile. “It's absolute sound, Wendra.”

She nodded, struggling to concentrate. Her body felt like cast iron slowly being heated on forge coals, but it was the heat in her mind that worried her. She had the sensation that at any moment, her mind would tear free of her flesh and she'd be nothing more than an echo of song.

It changed me. I changed when I sang it.

“Sound carries on indefinitely?” This idea worried her deeply.

“Vibrations carry on indefinitely,” he clarified. “Or touch things infinitely. I'm no scientist, but somehow the vibrations of our song touch the Veil.”

Or reach backward to the Placing itself.

“And there,” Belamae continued, “they are enough to strengthen the Veil, modifying its composition in the smallest of ways. But that's not so hard to understand, is it? In small ways, many things are made strong.”

She suddenly recalled something Telaya had said:
There was a time, Wendra, when thought and sound were taught as the same thing.

“And when we begin to view song this way, we see the power of absolute sound, don't we? Some songs needn't be heard to have effect.” He smiled as though delighted at the opportunity to begin tying their discussions together. “You also learned that every song has a place. A time. And that every song is different with every rendering. That's important knowledge to have.”

“Suffering is changing,” she said, looking at the door, beyond which the Song was still being sung.

“Of course it's changing,” Belamae agreed.

“No, not as each rendering of a song is different.” She struggled with the right words to make it clear, her head now filled with a pounding rhythm and melody—a Suffering kind. “This isn't the color of a vowel or the brightness of a pitch. Or even inola.”

His brows went up in surprise that she'd heard of this concept.
Yes, a mere minute ago.

She shook her head. “The way it needs to be sung is changing, Belamae.” She looked back at him, expecting to see disbelief, needing him to understand.

The elder Maesteri was nodding. “I know, my girl. And we're learning how to do so. You taught us quite a lot about that tonight. But,” he raised a finger, “despite your success, I won't send you back into Anthems to sing Suffering again until your training is complete. I'm grateful. But what you did was damn risky. Much as I wish you were, you're just not ready to sustain it.”

Wendra thought about the Quiet races that had descended on her, and knew she'd come very close to dying.

“Damn risky for
you,
” Belamae added, “… and for the Song, too.”

She collapsed to her knees, feeling sick inside. The pain of her bones striking Descant stone was a faraway sensation. It seemed everything lay muted beneath the Song filling her mind. And in the cacophony of echoes and choruses that only she seemed to hear, she began to forget who she was. She felt a moment of gratitude for the forgetting, until she could no longer remember why she was grateful.

The weight of Song grew inside her. Sweat flowed freely from her skin. Her vision swam as she fell over, her head bouncing once on the stone.

There was blackness. But no end to the Song.

It was that way a long time.

Then a new sound came to her. A low, droning note. It silenced all other notes. It demanded complete attention. She listened. Followed. And light returned to her eyes. Color. She could hear again with her ears, not just her mind.

She had a sudden errant thought about absolute sound.
It's the signature of a thing that can be touched at any distance … with a song.

A few moments later, the low, droning voice became soft words. “Each of us is a song. A changing song. But one worth singing, no matter how old or broken.”

Wendra lay a long time, staring up at Belamae. She heard only her breathing as it slowed. She sighed deeply. “Thank you.”

Belamae put a hand on her forehead, smiled, and nodded. “You'll be fine. But you won't be singing Suffering again anytime soon.”

She heard more in his words than their simple meaning. “What are you saying?”

“You and I are ill-fated to never finish anything we begin, aren't we?” he answered.

Wendra looked back at Belamae, more confused.

The Maesteri let out a breath. “As much as I wish we had time to talk about what just happened, or even just continue your training, an envoy is leaving tonight, headed for Y'Tilat Mor. It's an old land. One which mostly keeps to itself. Has for centuries.”

“Then why is someone going there now?” A dull dread began to spread inside her.

“The Mor nations have a distinctive culture, one you'll appreciate more than most: They create with song. And much of it is dysphonic song.”

She remembered then Belamae's refashioning of Suffering, which he took into his homeland, the Mor nations, as a younger man, for war.

His expression turned serious. “You already know the Quiet are pushing at their bonds. You felt it this very hour.” Belamae pointed at the door to the Chamber of Anthems. “We'll need help against them if the Veil falls. And the Mor nations have a set of refrains—songs imbued with a kind of power. They create an aural storm—” The Maesteri cut himself short.