People came to see them then, oh yes: scores and then hundreds and then thousands cramming into the buildings and along the narrow paths, climbing onto roofs and leaning out of windows on upper floors. Pilos felt a vague unease that the chant might be seen as a challenge to the Singer’s authority, and it sharpened into panic when there was movement in the mouth of the entrance halfway up the pyramid’s side, as the council and Chorus made their way out in response to the driving noise.

Not the council he was familiar with. Not the councillors he knew and had sparred with over points of law and order for the last three sun-years. Strangers, all. Enet’s toys.

Pilos nearly swallowed his tongue when the Chorus began marching down the pyramid’s steps to either side of the councillors: one of them was Ilandeh! Or was it? The woman had a cut across her face that made it hard to identify her, but there was something familiar about that loping gait.

‘High Feather?’ Calan asked under cover of the chant and he knew she’d seen her, too. So it was Ilandeh.

‘I see her,’ he muttered. ‘A bold move, but a good one.’ Detta scowled at that but held his tongue. Calan just shook her head. He put Ilandeh out of his mind, glad that a Whisper’s identity was rarely even revealed within the Melody.

Pilos rose and raised both arms; the chant came to a halt and the plaza seemed to ring bright and clean with echoes. The song was cleaner too, as though it had responded to their voices and stabilised a little. Adjusting the cloak of feathers around his shoulders, Pilos stepped forward and inclined his head, touching belly and throat. ‘Honoured council to the great Singer, devout children of the holy Setatmeh, you give the Melody great status in receiving us here. We return in victory, councillors, and with great spoils. Farmland. Slaves. Songstone. All Ixachipan is now part of the Empire of Songs and rich in its glory.’

He snapped his fingers and eight eagles advanced, a long line of captives bound between them. ‘And, as the great Singer himself ordered, I bring him ejab – the warriors dedicated to the slaughter of the holy Setatmeh themselves. There are more; these are but a sample. And I have brought this man, in addition, for the Great Octave’s amusement.’

There was a murmur among the council and one stepped forward. ‘Ejab, you say? The Great Octave and the Singer would like to meet these creatures. You are not needed.’