Yethyr entered the circular chamber warily, ignoring the incessant hum of the brainless servants around, and kept his eyes fixed on the burnt man who sat up from his divan at his approach.
“You are…” he cocked his disfigured head, hesitated, and then said hoarsely “...alive.”
“I am.” Yethyr was careful to speak Datrean in kind. “I came to Hell to speak to you.”
“Of course you did.” The man leaned back, suddenly confident. “Now that my library is ash, all who hunger to learn shall always seek me.”
“Your library?” Yethyr grew slack-jawed in reverence. “You are Stonesinger Jezad, First Archivist of Datrea.”
“Was, my boy. Was. I am dead and so is the library I served. Damn Infred.” The burnt face muttered into his now-refilled goblet. “When he gets down here, he will find our rematch—ah, I mean…reunion not to his liking.”
Yethyr threw caution to the wind and approached the librarian in earnest. “You fought the First Firesinger?”
“Of course,” he snarled. “The council demanded that the library be destroyed!” Just saying the words made him leap to his feet and throw the goblet at the wall. It hit the stone with a satisfying bang and several brainless servants scurried to pick it up.
“I swore an oath to preserve those tablets until my dying day, well…” Jezad deflated and sat back down with a wry chuckle. “Today. But before today, my first duty was to that knowledge, not the whims of some council, especially a fractured one. When the gates were broken open and Infred came, I told him as such, and so we fought.” His smile was uglier than his snarl. “A duet to the death of flame and stone the likes of which will never be heard again.”
Yethyr sat in the plush chair across from the librarian. “You do realize that if he wasn’t busy fighting you, he could have been fighting the Brinn invading the city.”
Jezad laughed. “Infred and his choir were never going to defend the city. They lost most of their number months earlier trying to break the Brinn line enough to reach and disrupt the Death Circle. Once the Circle was complete, they stopped bothering. The city was a lost cause. We all knew it. We just disagreed that such inevitability required a fireball to smash our legacy!”
“Ah. I was wondering how a stone library burned down.”
“Concussive force can shatter stone, my boy. Same as flesh.” He rubbed his temple with a grimace, but he shrugged. “Flesh is temporary. It was worth it.”
Yethyr furrowed his brow. “...but you lost.”
“Obviously. Even in my own domain, there could only ever be one conclusion.”
“Then why are you proud?”
“Because I did better than I expected! Certainly better than Infred expected. He dared to send some underlings first to destroy the library,” he huffed, “like the eradication of the greatest collection of arcane knowledge in history was something I would allow him to delegate.” He gestured dismissively. “After I flattened them and displayed my work in the receiving hall of the library, Infred came himself.”
I envisioned it—Infred, straight-backed, and grim—the city’s walls falling behind him—his red robes striking against the white marble steps he climbed to reach the library—Jezad standing in his way.
I found that I could picture those steps clearly. My makers had climbed those very steps a thousand times.
Ten thousand times.
Frida, Mona’s sister, had been pushed from those steps once and chipped her tooth. Zunad had killed the perpetrator on that same step.
Violent memories.
Their memories, trapped within me.
They were all that remained of that place now. Infred had destroyed it all.
“I was never going to win,” Jezad murmured. “Infred is the best firesinger in the world, potentially the best of the century. I am the…eighth best stonesinger in Datrea? That’s opinion of course. An unpublishable opinion. There are too many biases involved to be actually accurate in such a ranking…” He trailed off and grew sad. “It hardly matters now. We’re all dead anyway, all but Garda. I hope she does something worthwhile with the time she bought with the sacrifice of the entire order.”
“Do you know where she went?” Yethyr sat forward and I became a coiled spring of excitement. This was precisely what we were looking for, directions for where the council could have fled to.
Directions to lead me directly to Deathsinger Zasha and vengeance.
Jezad considered Yethyr a moment and said carefully, “Hard to say. I sided with the First Steelsinger in the vote, so I was not kept informed of their escape plans. My guess is they went to a secluded place to rebuild, one abundant in granite, volcanic activity and starlings.”
“Starlings?” Yethyr repeated, baffled. “As in…the birds?”
“Of course,” Jezad nodded like the reasoning was obvious. “Garda is skilled; the most skilled, but all her imagination is in stone. Planning…” he giggled. “Planning isn’t her strong suit. When predicting her, you must imagine what Zasha or Infred would tell her to do. What a waste of her potential. If only I had such talent.”
“You are the eighth best stonesinger in the city of the best stonesingers,” Yethyr whispered. “You must be talented.”
“Was the eighth best in the city that was the best,” he reminded sharply. “Do us the courtesy of not forgetting that at least.” Jezad shook his head. “Talent is relative, my boy, and in relation to my peers, I was never talented; I just had the opportunity and the inclination to study stranger, more obscure compositions.”
“What sort of compositions?” Yethyr was desperate for even a taste of that destroyed library.
Jezad hummed thoughtfully. “Translating the 14th volume of Dresedavail, which few would think to do, was likely the cornerstone of my career. Did you know that you can sing to enamel the way you sing to marble or limestone?” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Consider this carefully: I memorized the exact musical phrase to make teeth skewer its own tongue.” Jezad grinned. “At that point, do you think how much stronger your voice is to mine matters?”
Yethyr grew queasy.
“Infred wasn’t going to let me close enough to attempt that, of course, but such things do get you far in life.”
It was at that moment that Yethyr realized just how close he was to someone who could apparently stoneshape his teeth with enough proximity.
He leaned back as surreptitiously as he could.
Jezad saw the motion and laughed. “Don’t frighten yourself. There would be no point in doing that to someone who never sings their own songs. An advantage of the Brinn technique. You have the dead sing for you. No tongue required, yes? It’s a good thing too. Just speaking to you it’s clear you’ve gotten no proper vocal training. My mentor is probably seething somewhere in this Hell, at the reality that her entire order was eradicated by someone with no breath control!”
A chill ran down Yethyr as Jezed cackled, a pit settling deep into his stomach.
“You know who I am. You knew from the beginning.”
“The First Prince of Brinn. Slaughterer of my city. You are easy to recognize, my boy. I have seen you before.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Yethyr frowned. “You have?”
“At the Cozzat Healer Conference.”
Yethyr’s confusion evaporated and was replaced by discomfort. Whatever Jezad saw in the Prince’s eyes made him smile cruelly. “The only Brinn delegate to ever participate. How we whispered and watched. You were quite the head-turner: hair like flame, eyes like ice, voice like wind, body like paper. More than a wretch, you were a dying thing, if the minerals in your diminishing bones sang true. Every stonesinger there knew what it was you were seeking at that conference.”
The Prince looked away. “Most of the healers said I had 10 months.”
“And now it’s been 10 years,” Jezad tilted his head. “It seems you found your own way. I confess it has been taking much of my will to resist humming the little ditty that appears to be keeping you upright.”
You and me both, I held back from saying.
Yethyr suddenly felt embarrassed. “I apologize. I don’t mean to—”
“Don’t apologize!” Jezad cried. “Never apologize. Had you been raised in Datrea, you would have joined the highest of choirs on that work alone. You could have been the youngest man to become a full deathsinger in history. Alas, you were born a Brinn.”
The disdain in Jezad’s voice rankled Yethyr. “Being born to the Host of Heaven is not a hardship.”
“Is that so? Does your father even know what he has sired? I suspect not. Your people are deaf to the genius you have wrought.”
Yethyr narrowed his eyes. “You would have been deaf to it too, in life.”
“True.” Jezad hummed.“My living ears were attuned to stone. Now that I am among the dead, I have the privilege of hearing such beautiful composition. Magnificent. It will be the first song I record in the new library I shall build for myself here. I am still unused to the timbre of deathsong and the required notation is not my specialty, but I think I’ll have it right. I have all the time in the world to get it right. And who knows, perhaps in a thousand years time, another crippled deathsinger will have need of your song and sacrifice much in my name to know it.”
Yethyr scoffed. “And claim it was your own composition no doubt.”
“Never!” Jezad spat. “I always cite my sources. Z’krel has grown fat off the scholars I killed for academic dishonesty.”
“What about academic thievery? I have hardly given you permission to steal my work.”
“I think you will grant it,” Jezad said smugly. “You want my library.”
“The First Firesinger smashed your library to pieces and I know of no song that could restore it.”
“Yes, but the joke is on him. I hid my most precious tablets away where he would never find them.”
Yethyr’s breath caught. “Where?”
“I have permission to record and sell your song?”
“If you tell me where your collection is and give me the right to its contents…” Yethyr nodded. “Yes.”
“In Daened’s forge. I am not sure where. The steelsingers were sympathetic to my cause, and I appreciate their discretion in hiding them for me.”
I buried a hysterical laugh. I almost blew up his secret stash of precious knowledge when Wes and I threatened the Heart of the Forge and I had no idea.
“Thank you,” Yethyr said hoarsely. “Their efforts will not be in vain.”
“I suspect you are right.” Jezad’s eyes fell to me. “Daened poured his every dwindling hour into his final labor. I am happy that he was able to complete it.”
Yethyr glanced down at me. “You know of this sword?”
“I have never seen it.” Jezad still couldn’t. Yethyr’s bandages covering me prevented my curse from touching him. “My only involvement was giving Daened access to some highly restricted material during its construction. ”
“What sort of material?”
“Things I would have permitted no one to read unless it was the end of our civilization, which conveniently for Daened, it was.”
“Like what?” Yethyr pressed.
“You know not what you ask,” Jezad breathed. “The lowest level of the archive had old songs. From when demons and angels were one.”
Yethyr shuddered. “Mortal beings were never made to know such things.”
“You’re telling me! Even I am not mad enough to read what Daened read, let alone sing it into being. There is a price for covering God.”
“What did Daened sacrifice?”
“Who could say? He left my library with a smile on his face and no madder than he was before.” Jezad looked back at me with eyes that had faced down flame without flinching.
I saw fear.
“You hold Daened’s final song. I hope you will use it to exact vengeance upon Infred.”
“We don’t need the sword for that,” Yethyr insisted. “I can offer you vengeance and salvation with a song of my own. Z’krel has given me leave to free whoever answers. I’ll find your body among the wreckage of your library eventually. Let me raise you, and you can hunt down Infred personally.”
Jezad cackled. “You are smart for a Brinn, but you still are Brinn through and through. I need no rescuing, my boy. Can you not see I am in the lap of luxury?”
He gestured at the lavish room, scores of brainless servants attending to his every need. As if to prove the point, one offered him a new goblet.
Yethyr was unimpressed. “Z’krel’s going to eat you, and you will be just like them.”
“Unlikely.” He took up his new goblet and raised it high. “I always fed you best, did I not?
“It’s true,” Z’krel’s voice rumbled from the walls. “No single man this century has provided me with more intellectual minds than you. It would be most discourteous to do anything but feed my most devoted acolyte only the best now.”
“So you see? Why should I leave to exact revenge on Infred? You will do it for me or someone else will, sending him right to me. And I’ll eat him myself. Garda too. She’s a traitor to the order as far as I’m concerned.”
“You may devour whomever you think you can subdue,” Z’krel said indulgently.
“I have more power than either of them here politically and by the time they come, perhaps literally as well. I may be halfway to demonhood when I duel Infred again.”
“If you survive hellish torture.”
“Torture is for the rabble, my boy, not me. Sacrifice enough to Hell and you will be rewarded once you find yourself there. The Council of Songs has done such for centuries. It has always been this way. I’d advise you to start now. Rumor is you’re headed here regardless.”
Yethyr wrinkled his nose. “The day I feed Spryne anything willingly is a day that will never come.”
“Suit yourself.” Jezad drank deep. “Hell is as sweet as Heaven if you coat the way down with honey.”
“More like the blood of those you sacrifice,” Yethyr sneered. “It’s monstrous.”
“You have fed your angels more sacrifices than I ever could.”
“We do not sacrifice our own.”
“How you define ‘your own’ and what you constitute as ‘sacrifice’ is conveniently narrow. When you face your angels, what will they say, I wonder?” Jezad stood and cleared his throat as if about to sing.
Yethyr leaped to his feet. “Fight me at your peril.” His hand went to my hilt.
Jezad scoffed. “I wouldn’t dare. I doubt I could subdue you before you dominated me. Especially here, where you are at your strongest.” He raised his hands high. “Let’s just make this quest of yours go by quicker. It would serve you well not to interrupt me.”
He tilted his head back and belted out words of calling. His voice echoed through the halls, blending with Yethyr’s symphony, never attempting to overpower, merely complement: a commanding melody to dance over Yethyr’s infectious rhythm.
It was deathsong; it was stonesong; it was a song that could only be sung in Hell.
The walls above shifted and changed, revealing endless rows of balconies going up to a ceiling too far away to even see.
And upon each balcony stood robed spellsingers, their gleaming eyes peering down, watching and waiting.
I wondered if my father was watching me, somewhere up there.
“You want to say your offer to the singers of Datrea? Go on, ” Jezad said smugly. “None of us will answer you.”
Yethyr was undeterred. “I am certain not all of the people who died last night had enough sacrifices to protect them from the torment of Hell.”
“Most of the common folk of our fair city already sit prettily at your throat.” Jezad eyes Yethyr’s bone necklace knowingly. “The rest likely have not been dragged to these halls yet. Z’krel tends to prioritize his favorites. And even if there was some shopkeeper among us, would you really want them?”
“If they call to me I will answer,” he said stubbornly. “If anyone asks to be freed from this place I will not abandon them.”
Yethyr looked up at the endless scores of eyes watching.
“That goes for any of you. Some of you must have some sense to see the end result of all this. Not all of you are going to be demons. You will fight each other and you will likely be eaten,” He gestured to Jezad. “Maybe by this one here or perhaps Daened. He is betrothed to Z’krel, I hear. He apparently has God’s very own songs on his lips. Do you really think you are going to outlast him?”
The crowd above said nothing.
“See reason. Someone among you must.”
“Go on,” Jezad laughed. “Beg for one of us to abandon power and prestige to be reduced to your corpse thrall. Beg!”
Yethyr knelt, not to beg, but to press his ear to the stone floor.
“Cry out,” he said, as his voice was echoed by the mindless. “Cry out and I will take you.”
Yethyr tuned out the laughter of the spellsingers above; he tuned out his own words being repeated by the throes of the mindless. He waded through it all, listening for the one wrong note in a choir of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.
No ordinary man could hear something so quiet, and yet, Yethyr listened on with a zealous conviction. I listened with him, straining my senses or perhaps his senses to the breaking point.
“Cry out,” he whispered, “and I will come.”
And amidst the laughter and the toneless chant of the dead, I heard it. It was a voice of melted metal and delirious death: weak, frail, and desperate, and still so very clear.
“Save me.”
Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate all the support I have gotten during the transition to move this story to Royal Road. Do tell me what you think! I love comments and often respond to them
I will be posting a chapter every day until July 30, 2025. Make sure to follow the story and come back to read more!
Being a Datrean Librarian sounds...
