The Sound of Broken Absolutes by Peter Orullian (fun to read .txt) 📗

around me, to a symbol-centered system that referred to a mandola neck, to the more elegant Petruc signifier, where slight serifs and swoops on a handful of characters gave the singer all the information he needed to render the pitch. I liked the Petruc system best. Those delicate strokes could be added to written language, allowing the lyrics to become the central part of the piece, while subtle Petruc ornamentation on its letters carried the melodic direction. Originally, it had been created as a code, back during the War of the First Promise.

Probably the most interesting music, though, was a pair of songs written in an augmented Phrygian mode. They were unattributed, but the parchment was old and the Sotol music notation fading some. This music would require vocal gymnastics to carry off, and two voices besides. Though separately composed, they were clearly a call-and-response orchestration. In my mind I could hear where notes sounded together and where vocal runs built tension on top of beautifully dark counterpoint. I wanted to sing this song, whose first bridge was the only portion I had ever heard, and then only the caller side of the arrangement.

All of them I’d heard or sung, if only in part. But the familiarity was precisely the problem and the thing that alarmed me.

When I’d made sure there was nothing unfamiliar, I looked up and locked eyes with Baylet. “You haven’t brought the Mor Refrains with you?”

Holis laughed, the squint of his eyes as he did so pinching the lid of his eyeless socket into a pouch of skin. “I see now. You think that’s why we called you back. To sing the Refrains. Ah, sapling, we’ve had it more bitter than this, and not fallen to such foolish desperation.” His one remaining eye widened, the way it might if he’d happened on some realization. “But your asking tells us something about you, I think.”

The captain knocked on the tabletop once to silence them. “The field men have already marched. Are you rested enough? And is there one of these you know by rote?”

My heart ran cold. They meant to send me to the field . . . today. I stood there, struck dumb for a long moment before nodding.

Baylet seemed satisfied and stood. He motioned for me to follow, and I’d just started after him when a hand caught me tightly by the wrist. I looked down to find Palandas holding me. His grip seemed unusually strong for a man his age.

“The best song, when singing the end of someone, is the one you can make while watching him die.” He moistened his lips with his tongue. “That’ll be one you must know awfully well, my young friend. Since your voice will have to carry on when the rest of you would rather not.”

Palandas held me until I nodded my understanding, which I did without any idea what he really meant. He let me go, and I followed Baylet through the tent flap and south across the frozen field. The promise of sun had grown in the east as a faint line of light blue.

We gathered our mounts at the tree line, and the field leader led me south and east through an elm and broad-pine wood. For the better part of a league we rode. As the trees began to thin, he pulled up and dismounted. I slid from the saddle and stood beside him. The shanks of our mounts steamed in the morning chill.

Finally, I couldn’t hold it back any longer. “Why haven’t you brought the Mor Refrains? The letter I received made it sound dire.”

“War is always dire,” he said flatly.

“I came through Talonas, Cyr, and Weilend. All burned. All empty. My history isn’t strong, but I don’t remember us ever losing three cities to those from across the Soren.” My breath plumed before my face as I spoke. “Asking me to leave Descant. I assumed you needed someone—”

“Your training is complete then?” Baylet asked, one eyebrow arching.

“No,” I admitted. “But the Refrains haven’t been sung in so long. I assumed you’d want someone—”

“The Refrains have never been sung.” His voice held a pinch of reproach. “The first Mors brought them out of the Bourne to keep them from being sung. Which the Quiet would surely have done, if they’d ever gotten their hands on them.”

“It’s why the Sellari come,” I said, stating the obvious. “It’s why they’ve always come. If we fail, they won’t hesitate to sing them.”

Baylet turned to face me. His stare chilled me deeper than the frigid air. “Then don’t fail.” He pointed ahead. “Twenty Shoarden men wait for you at the tree line.”

Shoarden men. As a child, I’d thought Shoarden simply meant “deaf.” Later, when I began to study the Borren root tongues, I learned that it meant “to sacrifice sound.”

“Shoarden,” I muttered to myself.

“Most Lieholan aren’t skilled enough to have their song resonate with a specific individual or . . .” he looked away to the south, where the Sellari camped, “group or army or . . . race.” He looked back at me. “It’s a technique of absolute sound. A technique you’ll possess once your training at Descant is complete. Until then, your song affects any who hear it. So, some of the men sacrifice their hearing in order to guard Lieholan in the field. They take the name Shoarden. Today, I’ve assigned twenty such men to you. Beyond the tree line, a thousand strides or so, the Sellari eastern flank is camped. They’ll come hard. Don’t let them through.”

He’d apparently said all he meant to say, and quickly mounted.

I struggled to remember the thing I’d wanted to ask him. A hundred questions about the Refrains clouded my mind, but I mentally grasped it before he rode away. “My da.”

Baylet held his reins steady, staring ahead. “His sword sang, Belamae. Any man who stood beside him in battle would say the same.” He then turned to look at me. “Karll was a friend. Proud as hell of you. He’d be angry with me