The Song of the Sirin (Raven Son, #1)

by Nicholas Kotar

In the old times things were made with beauty in mind, not merely usefulness. How unlike these times.

“Sometimes the Heights are moved by our fervent supplication, sometimes they are silent for our hidden good. I wish that Voran will find the strength to choose the right way among all ways, though it be the most painful.”

“Have you considered that you may not understand the answers yet, even if I told you everything?

Was he even still in Vasyllia? Nothing in the third reach compared to this simple joy in life. He had thought that the scholars and warriors of the seminary had preserved the mores and traditions of old Vasyllia. But there, everything was formalistic, strict, conventional to a fault. Repeated movements without inner content. Everything in the potter’s world was replete with significance.

“Creating something truly beautiful requires labor pains. Vivid as childbearing. Not many willingly choose such a path, especially if every craftsman is encouraged to churn out cheap trinkets by the dozen.”

“Without the time of labor, there will be no pleasure from the fulfillment.”

“We are a trivial people if we only come to Temple services because Dar’s law closes trade on holy days. A people with dead hearts.” “And so we must do everything we can to reawaken that flame in the heart,”

“You have so much that your hearts have become small. You can live very well with very little. Sometimes, it is better this way.”

“Voran, do you know why the Nebesti urn cracked so spectacularly, while the potter’s vessel did not?” Voran shook his head, not daring to raise it yet. “It was baked in too hot a fire.” Voran looked up. “I thought the heat strengthened the clay, Pilgrim.” “The right amount of heat does, just as the right amount of adversity strengthens any relationship between two people. But there is one fire that is always too hot. Do you know what that is?” Voran did not answer. “Envy.”

“You forgot the Darkness, Voran. It has been so subtle, these centuries. So wise. And now, no one even remembers it. But it lives.

“Swanling, it’s a terrible thing, our human nature. We spend all our energies on getting things we never expect to receive, but if by some miracle we receive them, they start to lose their luster very quickly.”

I still longed for something with no name, or someone whose name I had not yet found.

I just didn’t know there could be a feeling more powerful than the love of a man for a woman.”

It is a glorious thing, but it is heavy, as any true love must be.”

No love can exist where there is no forward movement.

“When love grows cold, my falcon, eternal truths darken.”

“Tell me, Voran. What is the most beautiful thing a man can mold and form, though it is not of his own creation?” How many times had he pondered the same question while sitting half-frozen on the banks of their river of a morning? “His own life,” he said. “To make his own life beautiful, what must he do?” It came to him like floodwaters, overwhelming. “A human being can only become truly human if he lives for others. That way, the way of love, is by necessity the way of pain. Shared pain. Co-suffering.”

The world is not as it seems. You think there is only the visible world for the living, and the invisible for the dead and the immortal? You are wrong. There are many realms interweaving with each other like the threads in a tapestry. Most are invisible most of the time. But sometimes, some people fall into other realms or encounter the denizens of those places. Some of these Powers are good. Many are not…

Even if we have failed in some sacred duty, what sort of a god punishes his own people only for forgetfulness? Is that our gentle, loving Adonais?” On some level, Voran agreed with her. But he had already considered the implications of that line of reasoning. If faith in a gentle god had led the Vasylli to neglect the good of others, then perhaps they imagined Adonais to be different than he really was. Perhaps Adonais was a jealous god.

Do you think you can buy the Heights’ favor by forcing the hand of the Most High?”

“The stories have got it all wrong. There is nothing glorious about questing. The only glory I want is a bath-house, a roaring hearth, and a piglet dripping on a spit.”

“Why do so few of the priests ever talk about Adonais in the right way, Mirnían?” Mirnían seemed to forget his days-long silence. “What do you mean?” “Do you not see? The curve of that mountain. The thunder of that waterfall.” “Yes, I do.” Mirnían smiled for the first time in weeks. “It’s almost as if Adonais is here, present in these natural beauties.” “If the chief priest knew him as he claimed to,” said Voran, thinking of Kalún’s mumbling of the prayers, “he would spend his days singing the wonders of his craft with the best poetry. Not try to call down fire from heaven by his will alone. You know, it’s all written down in the Old Tales. The priests in those stories were poets who sang from the tops of hills as the snow pelted their faces.”

Beware the man who thinks himself righteous, for he is a liar or a madman. Seek out the man who knows himself sinful, for in him the light resides.

“The heart is what matters. That’s what Adonais wants. Your heart. If you spend your entire life cleansing yourself of impurity, and yet your heart does not expand in love for those around you… It’s like scouring all the rust off a pot. If you don’t stop, you’ll rub a hole in the iron.”

evil is more than a state of mind. There are dark powers out there willing to use people against their will. Sometimes, all it takes is one compromise.”

“The art of story is sacred and old, So, teller, beware, lest your heart be revealed, For the power of words can turn iron to gold Or bind fetters as fast as the roots of the elm.”

“The wheat has a great secret, giant. The secret of all power. In order to flower, it must die. True strength is found in that most humble of acts—the death of one’s self for the sake of another.”

“It’s a strange thing about words, Raven Son,” said Tarin. “We talk and talk and talk and never seem to get anywhere. While if you really meant the word, you could make a tree flower.”

“Raven Son, hark now to me. Twixt faith and mind, what shall it be? A choice I leave to you to make— To crawl to doom (a fool, a snake), Or walk with me. Which shall it be?”

“Sing unto him, let your voices exclaim! Bring unto him all your praises and glory, Honor his name, by its power exult, For the voice of the Lord thunders over the waters, For the voice of the King fills with life all the forests, For the voice of the Father lifts up the high mountains. Rejoice in his name, all you fighters of darkness, For his mercy and glory illumine your passes, For his love and his power destroy all your weakness We run with all speed to the Lord of the Realms!”

“Why do the innocent suffer?” asked Dar Cassían. “Why do the guilty prosper?” A voice thundered from the heavens. “When you have given your life to the suffering innocents, then you may ask. Not before.”

Don’t look for evil in the dark shadows. Don’t look for evil in the night. Look for it in the middle of the day. Beware the demon that wears the skin of those you love.

It may have been a pebble. But sometimes, sometimes pebbles start avalanches.”

Despite the poverty of the village, Tarin didn’t refuse their gifts of food. It was enough to feed an army. Voran understood: refusing such gifts, given freely, would have been worse than stealing from starving children. Such was the hospitality of Vasyllia as it used to be.

“Yes, it does take some time to come to terms with the legendary, I’ll grant you that.

Voran felt disappointed, for he had hoped that his deliverance from the hag had been immediate and complete. Now it seemed it would take a deal of labor to wean himself from her continued influence. He should have known.

The power to which we submit is an old power, a wild power, one that makes and harmonizes out of nothing in perpetuity. Not the soft, gentle divinity you Vasylli are used to worshipping in the Temple.”

They also thrive in a similar power, one equally destructive and loving. Do we even know Adonais, whom we claim to worship? Have we become so comfortable with a loving, endearing father figure that we stopped considering his unbridled power?”

“Oh, Raven Son. How close you come to wisdom, without even realizing what you are saying. If only you could see the whole truth!” “Why not tell me?” “Because you wouldn’t believe me. You may even want to do something drastic. You may even want to kill me.”

“Lord Tarin, it has no words, what I experienced,” said Voran, breathless with wonder. “It was as if the most thunderous harmony and piercing silence mingled into one. Time raced and stopped altogether, all at a still point. It was as if I actually experienced truth personally, and yet I know nothing at all. How can I explain it? If the power of the sea could be contained in a drop of water, if the limitless potential of words could be expressed in a single thought. An infinite multiplicity in a single entity. Is it I who even speak? I don’t recognize my own voice.” “What you experienced is but a splinter in the Great Tree, so to speak.”

“The world, as intended by the Lord of the Realms, is like music. Every voice—that is, every reasoning creature—must sing its assigned part for the song to sound well. That may sound limiting, as though the notes that determine the fate of the world have already been written, but that is not quite the truth. There is a great deal of room for improvisation, as long as harmony is maintained throughout. Thus, the low voices must not break the flow of the high, so that each moment is a beautiful chord.

“Voran, my son,” he said, and his voice broke. “Do you not know that when I took you from the hag, I took upon myself your suffering, your pain? I feel everything you do. Every doubt that pains you, every wound that ails you pierces me as though it were my own. I call you Raven Son because that is what you must never become. Raven, the color deeper than black, is a color for the fallen sons, not the sons of light.”

Trust in the Heights with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding. The wisdom of men is madness with the Heights; the wisdom of the divine is inscrutable to mortals. Above all things, guard the ways to your heart and sow its pathways with divine seeds, so that the thoughts of your heart sprout the wisdom of faith. In the vale of the dark shadows, seek the guiding star of trust in the Most High.

Sleep not the sleep of the unprepared. Any day the call to battle will sound, and though it be in the dead of night, may your sword-hands be not found empty.”

Tarin had said it: “You must so guard your thoughts and inner movements of the heart that not even a stray intention will escape that can aid the enemy.” Apparently, even considering the drowned girl’s offer was enough to open a chink in the ancient protection.

Voran was in pure, clear water, but somehow it was also fire, though nothing like the usual red-orange flame. Each little eddy was also a translucent tongue of fire, and he was covered in them. At first, the flames were dew-like—soft and cooling and thicker than water. Then the pain seeped in as the flames reached through his clothes into his skin. He threw off the new cassock—it somehow remained untouched by the fire—and hurled it to the shore. It landed next to his sword. He fought down the rush of panic, held his breath, and forced himself to submerge completely. It was excruciating, as Tarin had said. As he washed, he burned. As he took off the thick layers of mud and sweat, layers of skin sloughed off as well. Soon the pain was a scream in his ears, but he forced himself not to come up. He continued washing himself, continued mouthing the word—Saddaí, Saddaí—until even the scars from the serpent-hag came off in purplish clumps.

I arise today Through the love of the Heights. Light of sun, radiance of moon, Splendor of fire, speed of lightning, Swiftness of wind, depth of sea, Strength of earth, firmness of rock. I arise today Through his strength to protect me From snares of the darkness, From tempting of pleasures, From everyone who wishes me ill, Both far and near, alone, among many. I summon today All these Powers to keep me Against every cruel and malevolent power, Against every thought that kills body and soul, Against poison and burning, Against drowning and wounding. I arise today Through a mighty strength— The power of the unspeakable word. May the grace of the Heights Sustain us forever.

O Adonais, hear us, Defend us as we cry: “Annihilate this Darkness, And give us strength to die.” Lord! Give us strength to die!

“Careful, boy, it will take steel, not words, to survive today.” “I am not interested in surviving. I am interested in the annihilation of this Darkness.” He smiled, but it was a warm smile, a smile of farewell.

I have seen evil. I have felt it in my blood and in my bones. I have been it. And I survived. But after it all ended, after I paid the ultimate price, the question still remains. Did the Raven control my actions without my will? Or did I willingly let him into my body?