A SONG OF LEGENDS LOST
Summary
Prologue
A shipwreck washes up on the shores of the Nine Lands. It contains a carriage housing two shrouded bodies and some techwork – artefacts from an extinct species called the Scathed, who lived in the Nine Lands many millennia before humans arrived. Now, techwork is said to be cursed and only monks may safely touch it. Monks serve the king and dedicate their lives to finding and destroying techwork, although they are also seen to occasionally use it. The wreckage is identified as belonging to Jethar Mizito, a member of one of the Invoker Clans – noble families who protect the Nine Lands from attacks by inhuman monsters known as greybloods. Jethar’s mission five rains before aimed to find “Vunaji”, a land where spirits are said to gather, but all members of that mission were lost at sea. Two monks report seeing a man fleeing from the wreckage.
Temi Baker
Temi, a “lowblood” from the capital city of Nine Lords, works in her family’s bakery, which doubles as an illegal business selling techwork votives that remove a disease known as the river sickness from water. Temi heads to meet her smuggler cousins to receive supplies, only to discover they have all been killed. A woman appears and curses Temi after Temi rejects her offer to help send the spirits of her cousins to the ancestral realm. Unbeknownst to Temi, the woman reveals herself to be a nun – a servant of the king, who has dedicated her life to learning about the ancestral realm – who was following orders to prepare the person who will assassinate the king. Temi returns home, followed by the nun’s cat, to learn that her brother Tunji has been selling their techwork in an area of their district that is controlled by a local crime syndicate known as the Chedu Family. Harvell Chedu threatens to harm Temi’s family unless they financially compensate her. Tunji intends to sell more votives across the city to raise funds, but a corpse matching his appearance later appears outside Temi’s home. Temi gives Harvell the money, but Harvell says she now wants the Baker family to continue making Tunji’s votives for her. Temi has been hearing a voice in her head since the day the nun cursed her, and she agrees to let this voice help her make the votives using Tunji’s technique. Temi enters the ancestral realm and discovers that the voice belongs to someone she calls the Chained Man, who appears to consume the spirits that reside there in order to gain strength. The Chained Man helps Temi make votives. Meanwhile, the king has announced a war draft, requiring every household in the Nine Lands to send two people to join an army that plans to attack the Feverlands, the greybloods’ home. As Temi’s family suffers under the control of the Chedus, the Chained Man reveals that Tunji’s votives are able to summon the spirit of the River Ae, and that wealthy “highbloods” are using them for entertainment. Knowing that her family will not survive under Chedu control, Temi agrees to the Chained Man’s plan to sabotage the votives, damaging the Chedus relationship with their customers and partners.
Temi later hears that people across the city have been attacked by an entity resembling the Chained Man, and realises that this was his sabotage plan. After hearing a voice calling upon the “spirit of Vunaji”, Temi collapses. The Chained Man takes her to the ancestral realm, explaining that he is Vunaji and someone is trying to invoke him. In order to stop this happening, they lure a spirit of similar power and send it out into the mortal realm in the Vunaji’s place.
Harvell Chedu arrives outside Temi’s house and reveals herself to be an invoker. Vunaji absorbs the spirit of Harvell’s ancestor and then, against Temi’s wishes, kills Harvell. A large greyblood attack begins, and Temi’s family hide in their underground room. Temi leaves them to find her mother, and along the way is caught up in a crowd that has been trapped by the kings guard, known as bluehawks. As the crowd is set upon by greybloods, Temi invokes Vunaji, who in turn invokes all the spirits he had absorbed. Meanwhile, the nun’s cat reveals itself to be a doorway to the ancestral realm. Temi’s dead cousins emerge through this doorway and help defend her as she invokes. During the fighting, the cat is injured, and Temi sees that some greybloods care for each other. The greybloods then fall still, allowing the survivors to escape. Temi’s aunt Yeshe and mother Kerlyn join the draft on behalf of their household. A monk tells Temi he is keeping a close eye on her family.
Lord Jinao Mizito
Jinao Mizito, son of legendary warrior Sulin Mizito, is a member of one of the nine invoker clans who protect the realm from greyblood attacks. He has never been accepted for the Bond with his ancestor, and in an attempt to prove himself worthy, he heads to battle disguised as a common soldier. During the battle, he witnesses a powerful, sentient greyblood known as the Bairneater kill Sulin. As it escapes, Jinao manages to chop off its arm. The creature later returns, takes Sulin’s staff from her funeral pyre, and tells Jinao that they must duel or innocents will be killed. Jinao overhears a Clan Adatali monk named Father Boleo asking his sister Jemusi, now ruler of their province, to accompany him to Adataliland. Jinao heads to the family shrine meaning to ask the ancestors to protect his siblings, but instead passes out and awakens to find he has now made the Bond. Jinao meets the Bairneater, who threatens to destroy Jinao’s home city if anyone interferes with their duel. Jinao manages to invoke for the first time but a royal emissary, who has arrived in the city to announce the draft, orders his warriors to attack the Bairneater. The Bairneater sets off explosive devices that destroy half the city and instructs Jinao to face him again in Navretland. Jinao is troubled that the Bairneater seemed to know things about him that only his mother knew.
Jinao and his brother Julon journey to Navretland where they are aided by Darsana, a Clan Navret invoker. Their plan to overwhelm the Bairneater fails, and the Bairneater kills Julon in retaliation. It then instructs Jinao to meet him again. Jinao sets off alone but is captured by a local crime syndicate Family called the Bhutens, who reveal that all Families are groups of invokers who have agreed not to summon their ancestors. A girl claiming to be from Clan Kzani, who were thought to have been wiped out, helps Jinao escape and leads him to her clan’s hideout in the mountains. There, a techdoctor – someone who illegally uses techwork – tampers with Jinao’s Bond, releasing two spirits back into the ancestral realm and leaving Jinao’s incarnation of Mizito as an ordinary warrior with whom Jinao can now communicate. Clan Kzani trap Jinao in a cave, where he learns that humans were once the Scathed and that Clan Ahiki did something to destroy their civilisation. Jinao escapes the cave with the help of a group of his own ancestors, after Mizito reveals they are not related by blood, and faces the Bairneater. He manages to decapitate it, with the help of Sumalong, an ancestral warrior from his bloodline. However, the Bairneater’s severed head projects a message from Jinao’s mother Sulin, revealing that she arranged for the Bairneater to train Jinao and prepare him for a special Bond. The Bairneater, revived, then takes Jinao into a region known as the Busharn Wastes, revealing along the way that he was promised Sulin’s sword, and that Jinao was destined to lead his mother’s rebellion. In Busharn, they meet up with Father Boleo, who has been waiting for someone destined to Bond a powerful spirit called Vunaji. However, during the ritual, the spirit chooses Father Boleo instead of Jinao. The Bairneater escapes, but not before placing a curse on Jinao that prevents him from invoking, and warning him that it now possesses all Sulin’s memories and is going to use them to attack the Nine Lands.
Jinao disguises himself as a common soldier and joins the war draft on the Feverlands border, meaning to hunt down the Bairneater.
Father Boleo
Monk Father Boleo returns home to Adataliland with Jemusi Mizito and a group of Clan Itahua warriors. He explains that he needs someone from both clans to open Jethar’s techwork carriage, which he has been keeping hidden, ostensibly out of respect to their families so they can give the bodies within proper funerals. However, he arrives to find royal monk Father Emata investigating his work. She suspects that Boleo has been hiding techwork and killing off anyone who can expose him. She unearths and then destroys a hidden shrine containing statues of unknown warlords. Boleo successfully opens Jethar Mizito’s carriage, but the bodies within revive and attack each other. They are revealed to be Jethar himself and his good friend Cantec Itahua. Jethar kills Cantec in front of his spouse, Elari, and then falls into a coma whilst surrounded by an invisible barrier. Father Emata discovers the carriage, but when she takes Boleo there to gloat, all the contents have disappeared. Boleo flees the palace on a secret mission from his ailing warlord, Daloya: Boleo is to locate the shrine where the map Jethar followed was discovered, to look for clues about the failure of Jethar’s mission. The map was said to lead to Vunaji, believed to be a place where spirits gather, and the land Jethar was trying to reach. Their guide is the Butcher of Busharn, a soldier believed to have killed all members of the original mission to find the shrine.
Boleo and his party, including Daloya’s son Morayo, who has always shown an interest in Boleo’s work, search several shrines in a region known as the Busharn Wastes, homeland of the extinct Clan Kzani. They encounter ruins that feature techwork that does not respond to the Forbidden Tongue, the language of the Scathed, which was believed to be the only language capable of communicating with techwork. Boleo’s group is set upon by the Woodsmaiden, another named greyblood, who attacks them with greybloods who resemble members of the original mission to find the shrine. Boleo realises that many greybloods were once human. The Butcher reveals that Vunaji is not a place, but a person, and Boleo realises that the map Jethar followed was a diagram of a shrine to Vunaji. Boleo builds the shrine but finds that nobody can invoke Vunaji. He then receives a message saying the one fated to Bond Vunaji will arrive soon. The Bairneater then arrives with Jinao Mizito.
Captain Elari
Elari is spouse to Invoker Cantec Itahua and the captain of his quartet, the group of four warriors who defend an invoker while they summon their ancestor. She had believed her husband dead during the five rains he was missing, but has just witnessed his murder at the hands of his good friend Jethar when they both emerge from Jethar’s techwork carriage. It is revealed that as he lay bleeding in Elari’s arms he said ‘It’s in the carriage. Find it.’ Father Emata arrives and manipulates Cantec’s brother Atoc into revealing the location of the carriage. As Elari tells her lieutenants about Cantec’s dying words, they discover a woman spying on them. This woman, Lyela, offers to retrieve all the items in Jethar’s carriage before Father Emata can confiscate them, in exchange for passage with them to Itahualand. Lyela joins their party travelling home to Intiqq, with the entire contents of the techwork carriage. Along the way they are attacked by an unusually well-coordinated group of greybloods, and Lyela proves herself to be an accomplished fighter. Elari defends Cantec’s younger sister, while also battling her own struggles to manage a traumatic event from her past involving the Bairneater.
The party arrives home to find Manax Itahua, First General and leader of Intiqq Province, mysteriously healed from a terminal illness by two outland traders. They also discover that Manax has executed the Ahiki Princen who came to Itahualand to instruct them to join the war draft. Elari, Lyela, and the lieutenants discover some members of the clan household have been taken over by mysterious blue spirits that the traders are able to summon. They then learn that Lyela has been searching Cantec’s treasures, against Elari’s wishes, but Lyela reveals that she found a note from Cantec among the treasures. The note is addressed to Elari and asks her to kill Jethar Mizito, because he has been taken over by an unknown, powerful entity. Lyela finds the treasure she seeks, but can’t open the box it is contained in. Elari offers to open the box in exchange for Jethar’s head. Meanwhile, more members of the household have been taken over by the blue spirits, and the royal clan arrives in Intiqq in response to the killing of their princen.
Lyela returns and helps Elari and her lieutenants escape the palace, which is now under siege, and leads them to a clearing where she is holding Jethar captive. Jethar explains that he only killed Cantec because he was under orders from the powerful entity within him, which is hunting down some dangerous creatures that match the description of the blue spirits taking over Intiqq. Elari agrees to let him go so that he can find the person who is controlling the creatures, believed to be in Nine Lords. Before Elari can flee, she is struck by an arrow. As her lieutenants escape, Manax arrives, along with an army that includes Clan Ahiki warriors who have also been taken over by the blue spirits. The traders reveal they are really from Nine Lords, and Elari is taken over, her spirit pushed from her body and into a black abyss.
Runt
Runt, a young lowblood woman, ekes out a living scrubbing pots in an inn owned by the Chedu Family. She lives alone with her brother Zee, who is currently dying of the river sickness. Her father, who has been absent for the past five rains, recently returned to Nine Lords and gave her a pendant that he said she has been chosen to safeguard. After selling the pendant to one of Harvell’s associates to pay for medicine for her brother, Runt is summoned before Casten, Harvell’s superior. His techdoctor has discovered that the pendant can heal, but that only Runt is able to use it. Runt is given a job as healer and uses the pendant to heal her brother.
Runt’s life seems to be improving, and she and Zee move into the Casten Chedu’s compound. However, when Runt tries to impress a lover by showing him the river spirit that emerges from Harvell’s votives, the votive releases an entity that resembles the Chained Man, which goes on to kill her lover. Harvell, surmising Temi has sabotaged the votives, is forced to admit their origin to Casten. Casten’s business begins to fall apart as his employees anticipate reprisal from their business partners, the Sengs, who have lost family members and customers to the Chained Man’s attack. The Sengs arrive, explaining that they have been given leave by the Council of Elders – a ruling alliance of Families – to exact revenge on Casten’s group. Runt hides as Casten and his remaining companions are executed, then emerges and heals them before the Sengs return to claim the building. While awaiting rescue from Casten’s superior, Gamani Chedu, Jethar Mizito arrives. He identifies Runt as the source of all the blue spirits, and the entity residing within him, named Aan, attacks. Casten and his companions, including Zee, defend themselves by releasing the blue spirits their bodies now host. Aan raises an army of greybloods in attempt to overpower them, but the battle ends when the greybloods all fall still as an Ahiki princen arrives. The princen takes Aan and Jethar prisoner. Casten, Runt and their companions are rescued by Gamani Chedu, who is revealed to be Runt’s father, and head to join the wider Chedu Family. Gamani explains that the blue spirits are part of his plan for destroying their true enemy.
A monk from the prologue, who has been tracking Gamani, reveals that he was the man seen running from Jethar’s wreckage.
Epilogues
Lucy, a greyblood child living in a community of greybloods in the Feverlands, is healed by her father, the Bairneater, using metal from Sulin Mizito’s sword. The Bairneater tells his companions that he plans to attack the Nine Lands using knowledge from Sulin Mizito’s spirit.
Sister Poju visits Sister Takali, her superior, to report on their mission to use Temi and the Chained Man to bring down the king. Sister Takali chides Poju for failing to reveal that Temi’s grandfather was a master programmer from the Bronze Lands and that her brother Tunji is still alive.
Lyela, revealed to be the king’s daughter, tricks her way into her father’s bedroom and uses the treasure Elari gave her to steal his spirit from his body. She then sets off to destroy everything he has built.