"Kingspeaker"
I have not spoken with my own voice in nearly seven years. I knew this would be my fate long before it happened -- but only now do I understand what it means.
Another Nine Lands story, this one set in the same country as my Asimov Award story "The Legend of Anahata." I've sadly misplaced the article that gave birth to it, but I recall that it had to do with some African culture -- the Ashanti? -- whose kings had an attendant whose entire job was to repeat what the king said. The point made in that article was that this gave prestige to the king's words, but my imagination took it in a different direction, one where the king's voice was too ritually pure, and therefore too dangerous, to be heard by ordinary people.
Thus developed one of my favorite features of Sahasraran culture: the tradition of women known as kingspeakers, who give up their own voices to take on the king's.
The story appeared in the third issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and can be read for free online. (That page also includes a download link for BCS's audio podcast of the story.)
Reviews
Michael, BCS forum -- This is my favorite of the BCS stories so far (didn't read Crystal Stair yet). The world feels 100% real, the plot is elegant, the conflicts come to a head beautifully.... The Goddess Triumphant/Blood Goddess is an interesting counterpoint to what we see in modern fantasy, where the gods are often at best incompetent and at worst bloodthirsty and incompetent. I think Brennan played a strong hand balancing that sort of divine intervention with a sense of "fantastic" mystery, (e.g., the second pair of Nidhiri: where did they come from and where did they go?...so simple and so cool).
jsbangs, BCS forum -- This is probably my favorite story yet here at BCS (although I also really liked YHL's story). I especially liked the way that it confounded my expectations about the treatment of the ritual speechlessness, and the way that motif was involved in the story. I wrote about this in more depth here: http://jsbangs.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/subverted-subversion/
Ordinarily I wouldn't respond to someone else's reading of a story, but in this case I have to say that the commentary "jsbangs" links to touches directly on one of the things I consciously wanted to achieve with "Kingspeaker." I don't recommend reading that commentary before you've read the story, but since it's free online, there's no obstacle to checking it out first.