Shavard picked at the embroidered trim of his right coat sleeve, eyeing the other poets in the hall. Imeda Tiskheneli would be the stiffest competition. She’d apprenticed with famed Seated Poet Skileia Geveli and most gamblers favored her to win. Seated Poet Skileia’s sharp tongue had ruined more than one noble; Imeda’s reputation was more tempered, but she’d still be a tough adversary.

His mother placed her hand over his. “Be the poem,” she reminded him.

He exhaled slowly, willing himself to settle.

Most Honored Arbiter Brydzeni stood from her seat on the dais at the front of the auditorium and announced the competition for the Poet’s Seat. Torches along the plastered walls cast flickering shadows on Brydzeni’s thick features and shaded the whisper-beard along her heavy jawline. Shavard resisted the urge to check his own clean-shaven cheeks. He’d never been inspired to live as a woman or middle-gendered shua, but if he had, he imagined he’d make a more regal woman than stout-shouldered Brydzeni.

Poet Leksi Mogeli, eldest among the clan poets, emerged from the gray-and-black-clad elderkin of Clan Mogeli and shuffled over to the speaker’s circle. On the raised platform directly behind her, two of the seven chairs stood empty: the Poet’s Seat and the Sovereign’s Throne. Both would be filled today. 

Nalkhaz Artsiveli lounged in the Champion’s Chair next to the empty throne, dressed in guardian black, his white-blond hair twisted into a single long braid. Blue lipwax and gold paint highlighted the sharp planes of his beautiful face. Shavard’s stomach wriggled in the attraction-repulsion that always plagued him around Nalkhaz. He had every right to hate the man, yet Shavard’s traitorous imagination evoked his spicy scent, the texture of his hard-muscled chest, the caress of his calloused hands.

In the speaker’s circle, Leksi Mogeli showed her weathered right palm to the audience, her shock of white hair a stark contrast to her dark long-robe. She began a mid-pitched drone with a simple, repetitive tune. Clan Mogeli immediately joined her; a beat later the rest of the auditorium sang along. Once the large chamber vibrated with humming voices, the poet launched into a quavering rendition of the Reaper and the Weaver. If Leksi hadn’t stood in the speaker’s circle, where even a whisper could be heard in the farthest corners of the room, her reedy voice would’ve been swallowed by the droning choir. 

When their poet finished, Clan Mogeli stomped their feet and cheered; the others offered polite applause.

Shavard clenched his fist. Go early and get it over with or wait and challenge? Gods and ancestors, what was he thinking? He was in no way qualified to serve Kolkha as Seated Poet.

In a far row of the tiered seats, someone stood. The room filled with excited murmurs as Imeda Tiskheneli joined Leksi Mogeli in the circle. Imeda wore a richly embroidered red and blue long-coat; gilded combs secured her hair in a crown of dark curls, accentuating the warm brown tint of her oval face. She played the part of Seated Poet handsomely.

The two women showed palms. Leksi Mogeli raised her wrinkled chin to Imeda. “I am one of seven.”

Shavard tensed. Such an easy test, with several well-known poems Imeda could select from to answer.

Imeda faced the audience and showed her palm. “Poet Imeda Tiskheneli for Seated Poet.” Her rich voice echoed through the hall. She raised her arms and started a low-pitched drone melody. The room hummed along. Imeda’s hands wove through the air as she sang in a bright soprano; her lilting melody wove through and around the deeper drone:

“I am one of seven.
Howling wolf both fierce and strong,
Leads us in our tribal song.”

Imeda’s words and gestures conjured a giant black-gray wolf, totem animal of Clan Mogeli. As the wolf paced the hall, she continued: 

“I am an eagle from on high,
Soaring through the bright blue sky.”

The illusion of a golden eagle floated above her momentarily, silhouetted against puffy white clouds—Clan Artsiveli’s totem. The eagle morphed into a dark hawk plummeting through the air.

“I am a hawk of sharpest beak,
Swooping in a taloned streak.”
Shavard smiled at his clan’s sacred symbol.
I am the hare who leaps away,” Imeda continued,

“And lives to love another day.”

A phantom hare bounded across the room.

“I am a serpent scaled in splendor,
Kolkha’s most ardent defender.” 

A huge silver-scaled dragon replaced the hare, filling the beamed dome over the auditorium and shimmering in the torchlight.

“I am a horse running free,
From snow-capped mountains to restless sea,
This my greatest mystery,
How graciously I grant my fealty.”

A horse, representing her clan, Tiskheneli, galloped across a grass-green field. Imeda’s palms floated down, silencing the drone choir. The illusory horse disappeared.

The hall rumbled with applause; Clan Tiskheneli led the cheering, stomping their feet and waving flags in their clan colors, red and blue. 

Shavard leaned back. That was . . . powerful. Not even Seated Poet Skileia could’ve sung The Seven Royal Clans better. 

Poet Leksi Mogeli showed her palm to Imeda and tottered back to her place with her clan. Imeda surveyed the room, a triumphant smile on her brown face. None of the other poets stood to challenge her. Wise. Imeda would be near impossible to beat.

Shavard’s mother nudged him. He wanted to protest his inadequacy, beg her not to force his failure in front of everyone — but he couldn’t disobey her. 

He rose and ambled over to join Imeda in the speaker’s circle. She showed her right palm. He raised the metal hook replacing his right hand and was gratified by the crowd’s gasps and anxious mutters. This was his first appearance in public since the Lower City riot when he’d lost his hand. The agony of that moment tormented him still.

Someone snickered behind him. Nalkhaz on the dais. He was the reason Shavard had to win this contest. He took a deep breath and focused on Imeda.

She smiled. “I am a mountain stream.”

The most common version of the song was an insipid children’s ditty, but Shavard had crafted his own verses of the poet’s canon. Nothing else to do whilst waiting for his amputated wrist to heal. Imeda’s challenge wouldn’t give him the powerful visuals of her song, but he only had to answer adequately enough to counterchallenge — and if he could make his challenge impactful, he might have a chance at the Seat. A slim chance.

He turned to the auditorium and swallowed. A tide of faces in brown and pink hues stared at him from the tiered seats. “Shavard Shavardeli for Seated Poet,” he said in a wobbly voice. 

He exhaled slowly. Be the poem. Be the poem. He raised his arms, hook shimmering in the torchlight. He gestured to the left half of the room and began a low-pitched drone. When that melody gelled, he sang a higher-pitched tune for the right side. He’d learned dual drones from the itinerant singers in Lower City. He reinforced each countermelody until they reverberated against the chamber’s walls, then threaded his tenor voice through the drones.

“I am a mountain stream,
In spring my rapids flow,
Swelling song of melting snow, 
Making silvery waters gleam.”

He undulated his hands in quick waves as he sang, his silver hook glittering in the bright stream of phantom water dancing across the room.

“When Tiamar turns Summer’s key,
Gently in the warming sun, 
My sparkling waters run,
Winding slowly to the sea.”

His gestures slowed and softened, his hook reflecting dappled sunlight as the mirage of a lazy river wrapped around the room.

“Stiff in my coat of rime,
And sharp-edged in winter’s cold,
No longer young and bold,
I dream of spring sublime.”

Shavard’s arms stilled and the water apparition congealed into white ice. He lowered his arms and the drone harmony faded, and with it the frozen river.

Stomping feet rumbled around the room. He made an elaborate courtesy in acknowledgement of the applause, flourishing his hook.

Imeda’s smile was gone, but she squared her shoulders and stood her ground. 

Shavard beamed. “I am a bridge across the sea.” An obscure opening line in the poet’s canon. With any luck, he’d stump her.

Imeda turned and raised her palms to start the drone melody. 

“I am a bridge across the sea,
a river of stars.
When the barley is reaped,
the bees yield their honey.
Bright the trees in the fading forest,
and sweet the ruby berries.
The poet’s song, more powerful than any blade,
pleases the ears of the Assembly.”

She conjured haunting images: a white bridge of sparkling stars, golden fields, a swarm of black bees, trees cloaked in orange and yellow, blood-red berries. As she lowered her arms the drone died. Clan Tiskheneli’s applause was spirited, but the other audience members were less enthusiastic. Yet she’d earned the right to test him again.

Imeda pivoted and glared at Shavard. “I am the tomb of hope.”

An even more obscure line. His challenge had thrown Imeda off her rhythm; he wouldn’t get lucky twice. If he wanted the Seat, he needed to end the contest definitively with this song. 

Imeda had opened the possibilities by failing to confine her song to rhyming refrains; it’d be tricky though. He raised his arms and again directed the crowd in two harmonizing drones. 

Shavard had no prepared verses for this opening line. His confidence faltered. He lacked the inspiration to become Seated Poet. The hall echoing with the intertwined melodies, he whispered a quick prayer, “Gods and ancestors, let me win the Poet’s Seat and you may use me as you will.” He shuddered as the prayer grabbed him with a jolt of heat. He didn’t have time to regret his impulsive plea: his mind filled with images of Grainman’s annual cycle.

“I am the tomb of hope, 
bearing shoots kissed by spring rain,
sprouting between Grainman’s toes,
tender green dreaming of endless sunlight, endless sunlight.”

Shavard wove a vision of the green-skinned Grainman towering overhead, with a cloak of glossy spring-green leaves and a lush carpet of grain growing beneath His feet. He reinforced the drone countermelodies before looping his song, using the closing lines to start the next verse:

“Endless sunlight crests, 
hungry mouths pierce Grainman’s summer mantle, 
patched with brittle beige grasses,
browned fringe faintly fading, faintly fading.”

The Grainman thrummed with vitality though His cloak curled around the edges, the grass beneath His feet crackling into a dull beige.

“Faintly fading, the sun weakens,
Grainman wears a golden crown and a cape of russet and orange;
Autumn flowers swell into seed;
The ground littered with leaves fresh-fallen, fresh-fallen.”

Grainman matched Shavard’s words, morphing into autumn colors, His visage ragged and worn, the floor below Him littered with leaves.  

“Fresh-fallen, the declining sun.
Grainman, dressed in tattered rags of yellow and brown, 
yearns for His dark earth bed;
The forest pauses; the meadows wait in silence, in silence.”

Shavard let the drone accompaniment fill the room, his Grainman illusion hunched and weary in the hall’s center. Shavard dipped his arms and the humming softened.

“In silence, the sun withdraws,
Grainman lies naked in the dark earth, dreaming Grainman dreams.
The bare-limbed trees turn inward; 
Abandoned grasses shrivel in the cold; 
The world turned brown and gray.
Grainman awaits rebirth, in the tomb of hope, the tomb of hope.”

The Grainman laid across the room beneath stark trees and a standing stone, green eyelids closed. Shavard let the image linger then slowly lowered his arms. The dreaming Grainman faded as the drone choir dwindled into silence.

For a moment an entranced hush filled the hall. Then the room erupted into applause, the cheering and thunderous stomping shaking bits of plaster from the beamed ceiling. 

A scowling Imeda flashed her palm and returned to her place with Clan Tiskheneli. 

Shavard spread his arms wide and surveyed the room. No one rose to challenge him. When the applause quieted, he turned to the dais. 

Most Honored Arbiter Brydzeni rose from her gilded chair. “The Assembly of the Seven Tribes recognizes Poet Shavard Shavardeli as Seated Poet.”

The room rocked with renewed cheering. Shavard stepped onto the platform and took his seat beside the head priest. The applause dwindled.

“Seated Poet Shavard Shavardeli, will you lead us in the Lay of the Great Battle?” Most Honored Arbiter Brydzeni’s deep voice brought Shavard to his feet. 

He started the traditional melodic drone. After every verse of the epic poem, the other clan poets joined in the chorus honoring the ancestral poet-warriors who forged Kolkha generations ago: 

“Sun-browned and strong,
Black heads bronze-helmed, 
The gods their shields,
Poet-blades their song.”

When the poem ended, Shavard sat. He glanced right. On the other side of the empty throne, Nalkhaz gripped his sword hilt and sneered. 

Shavard swallowed the bitter bile in the back of his throat. As young men they’d been lovers—how happy he’d been in their brief blooming—until Nalkhaz used their bond to ridicule him in front of the entire Assembly. And amidst the chaos of the riot, Nalkhaz severed Shavard’s right wrist. He’d never admit to it. But Shavard knew. His friends knew.

Glowering at Nalkhaz, he bared his hook and thunked it into the soft wood of his armrest. 

Nalkhaz’s face blanched ice-white. A coward lurked beneath his bluster. Shavard wondered why he’d ever let himself be intimidated by him. No more. He was Seated Poet. His words were weapons more powerful than any blade. He’d twist them into Nalkhaz, use sarcasm to publicly destroy him.

The thought brought no comfort — and no poem. 

Surprised, Shavard tried to rekindle his resentment. Nothing. This wasn’t the plan. The whole point of winning was to take revenge on Nalkhaz. He slumped in his chair. 

The prayer. This was the sacrifice the gods and ancestors imposed for their aid. He was Seated Poet, the voice of tribal memory, compelled to serve the tribal federation of Kolkha—not his own selfish ends. His tired rivalry with Nalkhaz was beyond him now. 

Nalkhaz looked away, shoulders tense, pointedly ignoring him.  

Shavard grinned. It might be beneath a Seated Poet, but he’d keep the constraints imposed by the gods and ancestors secret. Letting Nalkhaz live in fear of his poetic sarcasm was, perhaps, a more fitting and satisfying punishment than attacking him. And relinquishing his desire for revenge freed Shavard to fulfill his exalted role unencumbered. He saluted his former rival with his hook and faced forward, ready to serve his people.

[Lyri Ahnam crafts poems and stories from the ancestral home of the Illiniwek in southern Illinois. “Battle for the Poet’s Seat” is drawn from a fantasy novel-in-progress set in the ancient Near East. The poem-songs were inspired by ancient Celtic and Mesopotamian poetry, and poems gifted from the forest. Learn more about Lyri and the poems that inspired this story at LyriAhnam.com.]