Songs for the Sacred and the Soulless Read online

  Kameron Williams

  This is a work of fiction. All names, places, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination.

  Copyright © Kameron Williams 2017

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN-13: 978-1548475338

  For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,

  Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,

  Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans

  Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

  —William Shakespeare, The Two Gentleman of Verona

  Contents

  Part 1. The Fate of Us All

  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

  Part 2. Fire of Men

  10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

  Part 3. Fire from the Dragon

  18, 19, 20, 21, 22

  I

  1

  “You want to have some fun, girl?”

  Lyla flashed the man a grin, set a hand on her harp, leaned on it, and pushed her hips out to the side. “Doesn’t everyone?” She pulled her other hand from her hip and began fiddling with the strap on her tiny leather top.

  Another man approached, looking as rough as his companion, sporting a wild head of hair and a dirty beard. “We won’t pay you,” he said, eyeing her from top to bottom.

  “You will,” replied Lyla, dropping to her knees and positioning herself behind the instrument. “Nothing in this world comes free.”

  The harp, with rose colored wood that was beautifully polished and intricately engraved, stood a bit over the woman’s head as she knelt. Her fingers crawled over the strings.

  The two glanced at one another looking puzzled.

  “A song,” Lyla explained, her smile draped in mischief. “To set the mood.”

  She had been waiting for them, hearing their mounts’ hooves from afar, and had unstrapped her harp from her back and posed along the roadside. She had asked them for directions to the nearest town, but with her posterior poked out, the grin on her lips, and the amount of skin she had showing, they weren’t in a hurry to be on their way.

  So she played for them.

  The cords on the harp chimed deep and low, calling out crisp and serene, like the sound of a shallow brook on a quiet night, its water trickling over the stones. Her voice joined the tune not long after, singing along in an accent that was the closest she could imitate from what she’d heard from others in the region. The melody, more calming by the moment, with Lyla’s voice to complement it, had called both men from off their feet to the ground, lying on their sides, looking to Lyla while listening intently to every sound that emitted around her.

  It wasn’t long before one of them closed his eyes, and Lyla smiled, knowing that the other was soon to follow. It was too easy, being only two of them, and in the middle of the night where lying down to rest was a normal thing. Her mind drifted to a time when she had attempted this trick unsuccessfully and the fault had been her own. She had played for an entire travelling party of at least half a dozen people—and in the middle of the day. The group was also far smarter and less taken by lust than the two she entertained now. And she had almost been killed for it. One of the travelers had called out that she was a witch as he watched two of his comrades fall asleep at the sound of her song. She had kept playing nervously until the man drew a bow, and thankfully, by that time he was one of the few who were left awake. She was able to flee on foot, an arrow missing her by a few inches—thanks to being shot by a half-asleep hunter. She now only played songs according to the occasion, which she also found to be more effective, and they roused less suspicion as the effects seemed more natural.

  Lyla could tell the two men were fast asleep by their breathing. She could always tell by their breathing, and even though they had been out cold about midway through the ballad, she didn’t stop playing until the song was finished. She always finished the song, even when it was clear the effects had long since overcome the audience. It provided a feeling of completion for Lyla, and security, as if as long as she finished the song the desired affect was guaranteed to be sustained.

  Lyla searched the sleeping men and relieved them first of their gold before searching for any other trinkets that might be of worth. She found a dagger that one wore around his neck that looked valuable. It was quite small but nonetheless fancy and well made. The handle looked to be pure silver and was very shiny, its pommel in the semblance of an eagle’s beak with a red jewel for its eye.

  “I told you you’d pay.”

  Lyla slipped her findings into her pack, stole a section of dried meat to munch on and was on her way. She needed to put as much distance between herself and these men as she could, for she didn’t know who they were, and they could very well be up for tracking her when they awoke. She had overstayed her welcome in Cyana in similar fashion, and she had made up her mind to leave the day she walked into an inn for nothing more than a good night’s rest and saw a wanted poster with her face on it nailed to the wall.

  She had always traveled, even before the songs, before the musical charms that bent men and women to her will, she had been on the road. She could sing like a siren and play a dozen different instruments. Since she had left home, her skill had only increased, for she had used the road as a part of her education, implementing sounds from different regions and making them her own. She had learned other things as well, like folk from a particular region were more susceptible to sounds from their own or a neighboring region. Familiar sounds were the most convincing.

  She’d had the time to experiment and test her theories, one land at a time, until now when she’d come to Lolia and felt there wasn’t a soul alive that wouldn’t be affected by her music.

  She found the horse trader exactly where she was directed by a fellow traveler, in a grassy, southwest pocket of the town of Bruuda. She had decided against a camel, for it was common for Cyanans to ride camels and she didn’t want to draw any extra attention. Her hair would already give her away. Besides, she wasn’t in the desert anymore and a horse would do just fine.

  “For war or travel?” The old man grinned and motioned for Lyla to follow him inside the stable.

  Lyla was only quiet until she realized the man was joking. “Perhaps both. Let’s see what you have.”

  The man flashed her another grin and called, “A travelling warrior!”

  “I’ll be the only rider,” said Lyla. “No wagons to pull, just me. It doesn’t need to be big.”

  “A personal escort for the lady, eh?” The man shuffled past two stalls and hovered in front of one where a black and white speckled snout rested its head on the gate. “I have just the one— small, strong, and mighty pretty, I might add.”

  The man opened the gate and led the animal out into the light.

  Lyla looked at the horse with wonder. She hadn’t meant to, nor did she usually admire the mounts she purchased the way she was admiring the animal that stood before her now. Aside from being taken by its beauty—its entire body a black and white speckled painting, like snow flurries falling in the night—there was an unexplainable feeling that the horse was meant to be hers.

  “What will it cost me?” she finally asked.

  “Forty.”

  It was a fair price, Lyla knew, but that didn’t mean she was inclined to pay it. She had noticed two strong looking lads when she first arrived at the property, probably the man’s sons. While they had headed into the cottage that wasn’t far off from the stable, she didn’t need them coming after her when their father woke up and told them he’d been robbed. All they’d have to do is find the horse, which would be easy since it was their horse. Not to mention, from this distance they would likely hea
r the music and come out to see what it was. It wasn’t a good time for a sleeping song.

  “Forty pieces of gold,” said Lyla, holding the sound of the last word with an intonation that was almost musical, “is a deal if the truth may be told, by the gods you’re as kind as you are old.”

  Lyla smirked and waited for the outcome of her little experiment.

  The man paused for a moment, then at once looked charmed and replied, “Aye, the best deal.”

  “Is it the best?” Lyla continued, now leaning a bit closer to the man and almost whispering. “Is this the finest horse on the road, the greatest mount ever sold? Are you that bold that you won’t let it go for a little less gold?”

  The man looked to be thinking. His eyebrows that once looked furrowed in curiosity were now bent deeply. He appeared to be making a difficult decision.

  Was she affecting him?

  Lyla kept on. “A kind deed, nothing more. Do this and you’ll be nothing short of the kind of man Daan opens up the heavens for.”

  “Yes,” the man replied, a soft smile on his face, looking into Lyla’s eyes without blinking. “But, do what?”

  I’ve done it, Lyla thought. He’s agreed, but I need to be more specific about what I want.

  “Of course, I’m asking you to sell me the horse, but for five gold pieces if it pleases, for you have so many horses and I have few gold pieces.”

  Lyla’s voice, a melody of chanting with a haunting inflection on the rhyming words, sounded as good to her own ears as she imagined it was enchanting to the horse trader’s.

  “Aye,” the man agreed. “Five gold pieces.”

  Lyla paid the man and he handed her the reigns. He then looked confused, looking down at the gold in his hand, at Lyla, and at the horse.

  “No,” he raised his voice. “Forty gold pieces.”

  Lyla sucked her teeth. It didn’t hold.

  “Aye,” she said, getting out the rest of the payment.

  She paid the man, mounted her new horse and rode off to the north. Laughter, wild and unbridled, swept her as she rode out of the town. She hadn’t succeeded, but the whole thing was quite fun and exciting. She couldn’t stop smiling.

  When she was a few miles north of Bruuda, she stopped in a prairie, dismounted, and took time to admire her new horse.

  “You’re a girl,” said Lyla, admiring the mare. “A beautiful girl. Your coat looks like a storm. The loveliest storm at that.”

  The mare lifted her head from the grass and brushed it against Lyla’s shoulder.

  “Do you like that? Aye, I’m quite the poet, if you hadn’t noticed. As you wish. That will be your name. Storm.”

  It was an army of five hundred riders on camelback, linen clad, armored in boiled leather or chainmail shirts covered in silk, hooded cloaks. They marched behind their king, and one odd fellow watched them pass on the plain, staring off into the cavalry with an ear-to-ear grin—and shiny eyes that suggested he saw a good deal more than the rest of them.

  “The fate of us all is fire!” he yelled, looking past them without blinking, as if he could see looming in the distance said fate he was presently warning them of. His clothes were a shredded mess of old rags, and he smelled like he hadn’t bathed for weeks. That, taken with his demeanor—far too happy to the point of being either crazed or drunk—the fellow was either a madman or some sort of religious zealot. The brass beads around his neck told the Cyanans he was the latter.

  “The fate of us all!” he cried again, turning a quick glance at King Dandil before staring off into the army that rode behind him. “It’s—it’s fire!”

  Tuskin shook his head slowly and shared a grin with Dandil, and Prince Hinrik who rode beside his father chuckled heartily. “They call themselves the Eyes of the Heavens. And here I thought they were only in Cyana. Do you also have them in the mainreach?” The prince was slender, brown-skinned like his father, and wore his red hair braided and adorned with pearls.

  “Don’t believe I seen ’em,” said Tuskin, glancing back at the fellow.

  “You’d know if you did,” said the prince. “They claim to be prophets of the gods, and for some reason their gift of prophecy comes at the price of bathing and being civilized. They all wear those necklaces of tarnished brass beads. Lunatics, if you ask me.”

  “And yet they have prophesied correctly on a number of things,” King Dandil pointed out, looking to his son with a soft grin and raised brows.

  Undeniably curious, Tuskin asked, “What things?”

  Prince Hinrik laughed and threw his arms in the air shouting, “Golden rays of sun shall be dug from the earth and bring riches to Cyana!”

  “One like him said it?” Tuskin inquired.

  “Aye,” King Dandil answered.

  “And—what came of it?”

  “And not long after we discovered a new gold mine.”

  “You see?” called Hinrik, looking past his father and making eyes with Tuskin. “You see what my father considers fulfilled prophecy?”

  “And what do you call it?” questioned Dandil, running his wrinkled hand below his camel’s saddle and curling his fingers through its fur.

  “Coincidence, perhaps,” the prince returned. “And you, Tuskin? What do you call it? Divine prophecy or happenstance?”

  Tuskin shifted in his saddle, trading glances between king and prince, examining the differences between the two men while considering his answer. King Dandil, with graying Cyanan red hair, was shorter in stature than his son and looked to be calm and wise, with a quiet confidence that seemed both sincere and honorable. Hinrik, a bit taller, hair long, vibrant and amply adorned, seemed equally confident and honorable as his father, but with an added air of arrogance that was likely a feature of his youth.

  “Can’t say,” Tuskin answered. “For I know nothin’ but what you’ve told me. Did they foretell of the goldmine? Could be so, could be no. What did they say of it?”

  “The Eyes?” asked Hinrik.

  “Aye,” said Tuskin. “Do they claim to have predicted it?”

  “The Eyes of the Heavens say nothing but riddles,” the prince explained. “They stand on our roadsides repeating the same words and nothing else.”

  “Very well, son,” said Dandil, “you deny this, but what of the other?”

  Again, Prince Hinrik lifted his arms in the air, and he shined a smile at Tuskin before calling, “A stranger comes to the south with war in his mouth!”

  Tuskin noticed both men looking at him, the prince grinning and the king looking solemn and expectant. “Me?” he asked as he considered the words.

  “You did come to us with talk of war,” said Dandil.

  “Aye,” Tuskin marveled, directing his gaze at Hinrik. “Do ye also say this is coincidence?”

  “Aye, son,” the king added. “Is it mere happenstance that Tuskin came when he did, and with the news he brought with him?”

  The prince grinned, turned his head from his father and Tuskin, and looked straight ahead over the plain. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I only keep an open mind.”

  “Best not keep it open too long,” called Dandil, “or just about anything will find its way in!”

  It had been a five week journey from Cyana, and they had long since left the hot air of the south behind as they made their way into Lolia. Behind Tuskin, Dandil, and Hinrik, who led the way, were two commanders mounted, one of whom gave commands to the following cavalry. Tuskin had assured King Dandil it was more than enough men, and after hearing the specifics of the plan, the king had agreed. Still, Tuskin had found it interesting when the king considered sending another five hundred men, just in case. He was left to wonder just how many men Dandil had at his disposable, for he was also sure that old King Dandil wouldn’t leave Cyana undefended by dispatching all the fighting men for the conquest of Snowstone—all on a stranger’s word. Well, not a stranger, exactly.

  Tuskin had begun visiting Cyana the first time he got word of the Condor’s plots, anticipating there would soon be a fight
for Snowstone and planning a resolution that would spare the people of the mainreach from the war that would result from it. He had always thought that if there was to be a war it should be for a better land. It shouldn’t be to have Tiomot back on the throne, who was cruel and uncaring, nor to have the land ruled by Anza, who was just as ruthless as King Tiomot but a bit smarter, which made her more dangerous.

  He had been surprised the first time he requested an audience with King Dandil how fast he received it. He immediately found the old king to be open, seemingly honest and even good-hearted, and he felt confident in his tentative plan to save Krii from the tyranny of Tiomot and the ruthless ambition of Anza by seating Dandil on the throne instead. The old king had laughed when he first voiced it to the man, his skin crinkling under his eyes and his eyelids squinting so far shut they looked to be closed. “My throne is here,” the king had said. “How will I sit on the throne of Snowstone when I’m sitting here in my Cyana?”

  He had been surprised and relieved at the king’s response, for the fact that the man’s eyes hadn’t widened in excitement at the thought of ruling an empire immediately told Tuskin he was likely the only one fit to do so. The man didn’t lust for power, so much that when presented with an opportunity to have more than he already did, he declined, nor did he seem to even fully appreciate what was being offered. That, or the old king was making a jest, but either way his position was the same. He did not care to have more than he already had.

  It wasn’t until Tuskin had convinced Dandil that if Anza was able to take Snowstone, it would only be a matter of time before she moved to rule the south as well. Tuskin knew firsthand the extent of Anza’s ambition, and he explained to Dandil that whether she ruled or Tiomot retained the throne, the corruption from the remainder would undoubtedly find its way south into Cyana. And that’s when the Cyanan king began to pay attention, and he agreed that if things began to transpire the way Tuskin had imagined he would be interested in hearing more.