Chapter 1: Hunting the Song

Tarek held his breath and took one perfect step, his bare toes nestling into the soil, disturbing neither leaf nor root. The mist-hart on the other side of the clearing gave not so much as a twitch, and Tarek nearly laughed out loud. He’d been sure he’d ruin the hunt as soon as he saw the beast, and he hadn’t. Now you only have to do it dozens more times and make the shot. The laugh gave way to a despairing sigh, and he clamped his lips down over all of it. Any sound would make the delicate deer dissolve into the morning mists that gave the beast its name. Ones Beneath, couldn’t you have sent me a capybara? Do you truly hate me so much? It could have only been the angry ancestors in the soil that had sent him the most elusive creature of the jungle, today of all days.

Another step, this one less perfect than the last. A gentle crunch of fallen leaves escaped from between Tarek’s toes, and he grimaced in panic. The mistake made less noise than the chirp of a yaya bug, but the mist-hart’s head swiveled on her slender neck, instantly alert. He forced himself to relax, remembering a heartbeat too late that locked muscles would set him apart from the ever-breathing jungle. He stood exposed less than fifteen body-lengths from his prey, his head filled with cursing, certain he’d ruined everything.

His bare brown torso and legs were draped with leathervine and a loose crown of the stuff sat atop his sleek black hair. The other hunters always joked about his odd hunting outfit, but the green and gray foliage broke up the lines of his shape, and leathervine made less noise than the ratskin loincloth hanging from his hips. Incredibly, the mist-hart saw nothing to alarm it and went back to its grazing. Ones Beneath, if it had to be a mist-hart, thank you at least for sending me a stupid one.

His disguise was a poor replacement for the Song, but Tarek wasn’t spoiled for choice. At this critical moment, he’d happily cut off his own finger to hear the Song wafting from the great trees and small grasses, to wrap himself in the one true melody of the world and hunt in perfect harmony like all the other men did. Then the dead leaves would have crumbled to dust before his soles touched them, and the snagging roots would have crept aside to let him pass. It was a useless wish; he was broken on the inside. Though his ears worked perfectly, he was forever deaf to the Song.

Tarek wished to the ancestors he were in his usual place at the back of the group of hunters, organizing the day’s activities, finding the best spots to send the others into the brush, keeping the men who disliked each other on opposite sides, drawing everyone together with a joke and a smile. That was where he belonged, not out here by himself with his fumbling feet, clumsy fingers, and Song-deaf ears. Ones Beneath, what pack of fools decreed that a man can’t marry unless he brings home the ceremonial hunt himself? I’m no good at this! His feet were frozen after his last misstep, and in his fear, he dared not move.

He bit down on the inside of his cheek, jerking himself out of self-pity. So it’s unfair. You want to be a full member of the tribe? You want to finally have Yaretzi for your own with no more sneaking? Get the thing done! Tears fill no bellies. He’d let his blood spoil in the sun before he let that smiling viper Kanga see him dither and fail.

Using every ounce of his flagging skill, Tarek took one more step, and another, and then one more. None of them was quite right. The youngest child of the Catori tribe could have done better than Tarek. Somehow, though, this mist-hart was either half-starved or its ears were bad, because although it danced and trembled as it nibbled at the tender choke vines, it did not flee.

He crept forward for an eternity, though he knew the sun hadn’t moved more than a finger’s width. The mist-hart’s flanks twitched. It was on the verge of disappearing. This is as good as it will get. He was no great archer like Shad, but he’d made harder shots than this. Ten body-lengths was not such an awful distance.

Now that the moment was upon him, his heart thundered. His fingers shook on the haft of his ipe-wood bow, and he gripped it tight to still the shakes. Fingering the fletching of the sole arrow allowed for the manhood ritual, he cast his thoughts desperately into the earth. Ones Beneath, you who hold up the trees, unplug my ears! Pull the stopper from my heart and fill me with the Song. I want to hear it, O Mothers in the Roots. Let it cleanse my evil, Fathers in Between. Leave me not alone in the world! He closed his eyes and imagined spitting in the soil to seal his prayer.

Nothing happened. There was no Song for Tarek; he would never hear it. He died a little more in his center, just like every time he’d prayed this way. He knew the Ones Beneath hated him, and he knew why: they knew his secret, and there could never be any forgiveness. The Catori ancestors buried in the earth would give him no miracle.

With the grim resolution of one long used to disappointment, he cast impossibilities aside and raised his bow. The mist-hart was there, and he knew how to steady his trembling hands. He imagined his arrow plunging deep into her breast. He would not miss. He wouldn’t allow it.

Tarek pulled the bowstring taut, the quivering cord of gut dancing against his cheek. Keep the shoulders and back in line. Is that right? Maybe. Yes. Unclench your stomach. He lined up his right eye along the straight shaft of the ceremonial arrow and willed the shot to fly true. His mind jumped between confidence and gibbering fear, but he forced it to stillness. He gently expelled all his air to smooth out the trembles in his arms. In just a moment, his fingertips would slip off the bowstring of their own accord and the mist-hart would find out it was dead.

With a sharp, echoing crack like a breaking branch, his bow sagged backwards against his face and the string went slack with the arrow still between his fingers. Before Tarek could even blink, the hart looked up and vanished, her form shredding into streamers of mist as only her kind could. He sucked in a gasp of total shock, and the bow fell to pieces in his hands. The wood had cracked and splintered right above his fist, and the break went clean through. A moan slipped out of him. This bow had been his best weapon for two years; he’d shaped it himself. Now two separate lengths of jagged ipe wood dangled from the cord caught in his fingers.

The hart was gone, and he still held the ceremonial arrow. He’d failed. He stood like a man speared through and unwilling to look at the wound. His mind refused to make sense of the moment.

Sighs and mutters filled the green silence as the other hunters came down from their observation perches. The older men looked sorrowful and grave, and the younger ones, his friends, had faces slack with disbelief and horror. Tarek was well-liked in the tribe, but no one would meet his eye now.

Except for one. Kanga strode right up to him, his strong-jawed face painted in false concern. He took Tarek by both shoulders, standing close to emphasize the four fingers of height he had over his rival. “I’ve never seen such a terrible thing,” he said, his voice throbbing with sincerity. “How could a bow break like that? Didn’t you check it? You must have checked it.”

“I did,” Tarek mumbled, feeling numb. “Less than a span before we left.”

Kanga paused, looking from one hunter to the next, a doubtful grimace showing his too-white teeth. Kanga chewed charcoal twice a day to make them shine. He said the women found it irresistible. “Are you sure? We all know you struggle at the hunt.”

Shad approached, gray-haired and looking sad. “He said he checked it.”

“Such a shame,” Kanga said. “Turns out he’s not just deaf, he’s blind too.”

“Enough,” Shad said, a note of warning in his gravelly voice. “Not now, boy.”

Shad had been chosen as Eye of the Ancestors for today’s manhood ritual. Kanga had just enough wisdom in him to step back, but he couldn’t hide the smirk that was sneaking around the edges of his mouth as he turned away. Tarek had a way with people, but Kanga was immune to him and always had been. Tarek knew the tall young hunter was enjoying this immensely.

Shad looked at the shattered weapon at Tarek’s feet. “No bow breaks like that when it’s been cared for. Even a child should have seen the cracks.”

“There were no cracks,” Tarek said, desperate. “You know I treat my weapons well.”

Shad sucked at his teeth and shook his head. “Before today I’d have thought so.”

“We’ve seen what we need to,” one of the older hunters said. “Time to be done. Softness serves no one.”

Shad nodded slowly. “I take no joy in this,” he murmured.

Tarek firmed his jaw and let his eyes unfocus, looking at no one. They’d have no tears from him, and to acknowledge the words of pity from the old man would only weaken him.

“Where is the hunt?” Shad asked loudly, stepping into the forms of the ritual.

“It is gone,” the other men said together. Tarek heard Kanga snigger, but the sound cut off as a hard slap echoed through the clearing. Boys mocking each other was one thing, but interrupting a solemn ceremony was another. Kanga’s pain was cold comfort to Tarek.

“A man of the Catori does not let the hunt escape,” Shad said, taking the ceremonial arrow from Tarek’s slack fingers. In a swift movement he broke the shaft over his knee and let the pieces fall to the soil. “This one is not a man of the Catori.”

Not a man of the Catori. The words stabbed through the numbness straight into his heart. Tarek’s new future stretched in front of him. His betrothal to Yaretzi would be broken. No more stolen kisses in the glade, the promise of her gentle touch shattered. Those who had overlooked his Song-deafness would shun him now. He’d have to learn the women’s work in the village, but none would ever take him to husband. He’d be like pathetic old three-fingered Kotlan, scraping out a lonely existence on the fringes of the tribe. Not cast out – the Catori was not such a large tribe that they could afford to lose working hands – but despised. When he died, his body would rot in a sling strung high in the trees to hold his blood away from the soil. He would never be buried between the buttress roots of the Catori’s great ficus tree. He’d never be one of the Ones Beneath. Above all the rest, one thought stabbed deepest: the mischance of a moment had stolen Yaretzi from him.

He wanted to die. He wanted to kill. He wanted the world to cease.

One by one the men filed past him, ritually turning their backs and saying, “Not a man of the Catori,” before walking away. Kanga gave him a wink when it was his turn. Tarek imagined gouging his eyes from his head, but he’d not shame himself by attacking one of the tribe. Kanga’s own actions would bring him low one day.

And what brought you low, then? he asked himself. Was he over-proud? Angry and thoughtless, like Kanga? Lazy? Jealous? He didn’t think so. Was he evil? That was harder to answer. He’d carefully shunned the curse within himself for years, but his heart was still stained with it. That had to be why he couldn’t hear the Song. The Ones Beneath were not forgiving. What else could it be? Never in all the epic stories and long histories that old Ryki chanted for them on feast days had there ever been one of the Lost that lacked the Song.

If only he’d been like all the others, he’d have completed his hunt years ago instead of standing here, still a youth despite the nineteen winters behind him, having not even attempted his manhood hunt until the last season possible, training, waiting, striving. All for naught. The only thing that made sense was that the Ones Beneath hated him. They knew, and they held a grudge.

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Shad lingered after the others were gone. The pity in the old hunter’s eyes was unmasked. “I’ll tell the chief, and your parents,” he said, letting his hand rest on Tarek’s shoulder. “They will understand if you don’t return.”

Tarek’s eyes jerked back into focus and he stared at the man. Did they want him to abandon the tribe? Or was Shad telling him to go lay down in the jungle and die? With the life he now faced, it seemed a reasonable suggestion. Would his mother understand? Would his father expect it? He nodded jerkily at the man. With one last mournful sigh, the tough old hunter left him alone in the jungle.

The morning mists were starting to retreat. Very soon now the mist-harts would disappear until the ground fog rose again in the small hours of the night. He still couldn’t understand how it had all gone wrong. I checked my bow.

Tarek scrubbed away his tears. No point in staring at the fog like one of the sun-struck. “Wormshit,” he muttered. The curse was nowhere near harsh enough to satisfy the knapped-edge bitterness in his heart. “Blood in a cup,” he said loudly into the empty clearing, shocking himself with his own vulgarity. That’s more like it. He gathered up the pieces of his bow. He’d spent weeks making the thing. He matched the jagged shards of one piece to the gaping sockets of the other and pretended for a bare second that it was still whole and functional. Even then he could see the cracks. I’d have seen the cracks.

He let the broken staves fall away from each other, one in each hand. The thumb of his right hand rubbed at the rough splinters of the break, probing its edge like one might tongue at the socket of a missing tooth. Beyond the lip of uneven peaks, the pad of his thumb touched smooth-grained wood.

Frowning, Tarek looked at the broken bow. He’d been too heartsick to notice before, but the core of the bow showed a smooth surface where it was exposed. The only part of the weapon that had broken was its outer edges.

The center had been neatly severed.

He knew it was Kanga instantly. The older boy had tormented Tarek since they were children, even before the tribe knew he couldn’t hear the Song. For some reason that likely not even Kanga himself understood, he’d simply hated Tarek at first sight. Things had only gotten worse since his betrothal to Yaretzi. Unless he was out on a long hunt, Kanga never let a day pass without making some jab with either words or fists.

Could the Song ruin my bow? Tarek though maybe so. Dead wood might respond to the Song, but he couldn’t know for sure. It made the others uncomfortable to talk to him about it, and he’d long since stopped asking. If not the Song, then how had the inside of his bow been cut while the outside remained whole? The acid of a tree adder might do it, but he was sure he’d have noticed even a small hole in the wood. No, the bow had been sound when he tested it this morning. Most likely Kanga waited until they were marching out to the deep jungle and masked his muttered Singing with the crunching steps of a dozen hunters. None one would have noticed.

Tarek threw the ruined bow aside and picked up the arrowhead-half of the broken ceremonial arrow, holding it like a dagger. He’d given in to that grinning viper for the last time. He would not slink through the rest of his life in shame, nor would he go die out in the jungle so as to not embarrass the tribe. I belong to Yaretzi, the healer’s apprentice with the beautiful hands, and her children will ride on my back. The rules of the trial were clear: he hadn’t failed his hunt until he walked back into the village.

He had a gift, one that was dark as night, and if the Ones Beneath were determined to damn him regardless, why should he hold back from it? The other men were long gone, and no one would see. He’d embrace his curse if it meant he got to keep his life with Yaretzi. He could see the wetness of the mist-hart’s saliva on the half-eaten leaves of the choke vine, her hoofprints in the soft dirt, and the pellets of spoor she’d dropped in her startlement. It wasn’t much… but he could use it.

He had less than half a handspan of the sun before the mists disappeared completely, so he had to move fast. Muttering an apology to the ancestors, or his parents, or somebody, he took a deep breath and reached for his doom. The leaf he snatched was slick with the saliva of the mist-hart. Forcing himself not to hesitate, he licked the leaf, closed his eyes, and waited for the power to speak to him.

He felt a glimmer of presence, but nothing more. It barely lasted a heartbeat. There simply wasn’t enough of the mist-hart in her saliva. He needed something more potent. Grimacing, he considered the tiny droppings in the dirt. You’ve already traded away your soul – are you going to balk at a little shit in your mouth? With a huff of disgust, he scooped up one of the pellets. It was soft and warm. Before he could stop himself, he tucked the fetid droplet inside his lower lip. It squished against his teeth, and he couldn’t suppress a small shudder. He gagged and his eyes watered, but he forced himself not to spit it out.

It worked. As soon as the feces touched the wet skin of his mouth, he could feel the presence of the mist-hart, could sense her scattered, simple emotions. More importantly, he knew where she was. The essence she’d left behind betrayed her to Tarek’s forbidden gift. It isn’t blood. I haven’t touched the blood. It’s not the same thing. He didn’t believe it even as he had the thought, and he knew no one else would either.

He snatched up two more of the pellets just in case and walked with the rising sun dappling the left side of his face through the canopy. He went quickly, unconcerned about the noise he was making. The essence of the hart drew him like a fish hooked on a line. A clan of dewdrop monkeys chittered angrily from a high branch, puffing up their long red fur and blue faces to appear larger than they really were. He ignored them; the largest of them was half the size of a human infant. They were only dangerous if they decided to bite, and he wasn’t close enough to their nest for that.

The feeling of connection grew stronger, and he hurried. It couldn’t be far now. He could feel the mist-hart’s pulse beat fast and steady in the fading foulness of his mouth. He put a second pellet of dung underneath his tongue, determined not to miss anything his curse could tell him.

He felt scared, strange, and powerful all at once. He hadn’t used this power in many years, not since his father Tenoch had caught him putting infant rats in his mouth to communicate with them. Once his tata realized Tarek wasn’t telling little boy tales and that he truly could commune with the creatures, he’d beaten him savagely. Do it again and I’ll kill you, his father said, and he’d never touched his older son in tenderness again. His mother had moaned with fear about blood magic, the curse of the ancients, but she held him close despite Tenoch’s shunning. None of them said a word to his younger brother Tavi, fearing a child’s loose tongue. Little Tarek had enacted one or two more secret defiances after the beating, using their hair or saliva to speak to the jungle animals, but soon enough the attempts just made him feel guilty. Nearly all of loremaster Ryki’s ancient stories spoke of the evil of the blood magic. Tarek had finally shunned the ability, trying to forget it existed.

And now he was willfully using his filthy curse with barely a twinge of remorse, knowing full well that his tribe would kill him if they discovered it. It’s not like father was going to welcome me with open arms one way or the other, he told himself, and this way Yaretzi still will. He was happy to blacken his soul if it meant that he could marry the woman with the secret smile. He’d drown himself in blood for her.

Tarek slowed to a creeping walk. This close to the mist-hart, he could feel not only her heartbeat but the gentle whispering of her lungs as well. She was content and placid; her fear was long forgotten. She was feeding. He could almost taste the tang of the fern fronds through the bitterness of the dung in his mouth. Tarek stood stock-still, letting his eyes wander between the trees. The jungle here was choked with underbrush, ferns and grasses and low flowering plants. She’s right here… come out, little one.

As if she’d heard him, the mist-hart wandered artlessly into view, licking at the dewy moss along the base of a canopy tree. She was no more than ten steps from him. Looking at the threadbare wisps of fog trailing away, burning to nothing in the growing heat of the day, Tarek knew he had less than fifty heartbeats before she vanished into the in-between spaces of the world where the mists waited for night. He took an imperfect step, and the hart heard nothing.

The world narrowed to just him and her. Nothing else existed. Her simple mind lay open to him like the innards of a gutted pike. It wasn’t thought, not exactly, but emotion and intent. He felt nothing but satisfaction from her. She’d eaten well and her feather-light limbs were growing heavy with weariness. Two more steps. The arrow-dagger was slick with sweat in his fist.

A breath of wind skittered past him, wafting his scent toward her, and the mist-hart froze, fear flooding her mind. Calm, calm! he thought at her desperately. He had no idea if it would work. As a child, he’d only ever been able to communicate with an animal if he touched it. Nothing here, no danger. Sleep, calm. No fear.

The hart quivered with fright, but she did not vanish into mist. Her simple mind was caught between the instinctual response of her limbs and the lies he spread over her like a blanket. His empty hand hovered a handsbreadth from her flank.

Then he grabbed her, his strong fingers pulling at the long coarse hair of her hindquarters. DANGER DANGER DEATH, she shrieked silently, and he felt her flesh dissipate and flow away into moisture under his hand.

“No!” he cried aloud, dropping to his knees. “Please!” They were simple words, but without meaning to, he infused them with all the need and desperation in his soul. Images of his parents, Yaretzi, and the broken bow all poured out of him, laden with a welter of pain, shame, and desire. He had to have this kill. He needed it.

The fur returned to firmness between his fingers. He nearly let go in shock. From the hart he felt… acceptance. Agreement. Resignation. He had need, and she could fill it. She was prey; it was her place. She gave up. The fragile creature folded her legs to the ground and pressed her face against the tree, waiting for the end.

He was so confused by it all that he hesitated. Why didn’t she escape?

Sensing his wavering intent, the hart looked at him. Her black liquid eyes bored into his, unblinking. He could feel a quivering impatience bordering on frustration. Do it. It was the clearest thought he’d ever heard from an animal.

He almost lost his nerve. To commune so closely with an animal only to kill it felt unkind. No, more than that. Unholy. But he thought of his betrothed, her cool fever cloths and hidden smile, and steeled himself.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and plunged his arrowhead into the hollow of the mist-hart’s neck. She twisted and whined in a high-pitched voice and then fell still.

It was done. He’d made his kill. He’d felt it die inside his mind. His stomach gave a sickened twist.

He carefully extracted his weapon from the dead hart’s neck, holding his hands clear of the blood, and slit the neck to let the vile fluid drain out. He could hear a stream nearby and lurched toward it. He let the tumbling brook wash the arrowhead clean and then spit the rancid taste of deer shit from his mouth. Mouthful after mouthful of clear water he swished and spit, and still he couldn’t clear the bitter tang from his tongue.

On his sixth attempt he coughed out the water in a hurry, and his breakfast came up after it. When he was done vomiting, he sat on the bank and cried into his hands. The mist-hart had given him back the life he so wished for, and now her blood was soaking into the soil.

At length he gathered himself back together, retied the heavy braid of hair that hung between his shoulder blades, and went back to the kill. It was sufficiently drained that he could carry it without making himself unclean with its blood. First kill of a man or no, the Lost never let themselves be stained by blood except in war.

He slung the treasured hart over his shoulder and turned his face toward home. He had his kill. He would present it to Zuma, gut it, roast its meat, and feed it to the others to claim his place. He hoped no one would notice when he didn’t take any for himself.

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