The Songs of the Sage series consists of six books that are equal parts apocalyptic sci-fi, arcane mystery and mainstream thriller. The events are set in a dystopian future where language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants ("language chips"), where they who control language control everything.
Lilith King holding a void prism
At the outset of book #1, The Babel Apocalypse, in the Songs of the Sage books, the reader is introduced to one of the two main protagonists of the series, the spiky Professor Ebba Black, and the automated world's last native speaker of language. Ebba meets the other main protagonist, High Commissioner Lilith King, initially introduced as a time-travelling stranger.
Ebba Black is a professor of linguistics, hacker extraordinaire, and may lead a cyberterrorist organization aiming at bringing down language streaming technology which she believes is ensnaring humans, by rendering language the proprietary property of evil big tech corporations. In The Babel Apocalypse, Ebba discusses the biblical origin story of language, the tower of Babel.
The second installment in the series, The Dark Court, continues to develop the themes surrounding the nature and origin of language, exploring similar religious mythology motifs.
Language is, on some accounts, the hallmark of what it means to be human. And human cognition is underpinned by sophisticated symbolic abilities that, enables language, as well as other advanced human behaviours, including religion and art.
The Dark Court explores these themes by examining the mythological significance of the Watchers, the fallen angels of Genesis in the Old Testament. The novel also introduces the protagonist, Lilith King, who was first met, in passing, in book 1, The Babel Apocalypse.
The second book begins to set up Lilith's galaxy-wide search for the origin of language, which holds the power to restore balance to the Elyonim, the universe. In so doing, The Dark Court introduces the ancient language engineers, beings who are travelling backwards through time, and who come to prominence in later books in the series.
The Dark Court, introduces Lilith King, the world’s most celebrated cybercrime detective. Lilith had always known she was different. Attitude to burn for one thing. The strange chanting in her head since she was seven, for another, coinciding with the day her father died. And then the Aura, the sensory disturbance that makes her sick to the pit of her stomach, seemingly coinciding with the new, strange apparition that’s haunting her. She also possesses the ability to solve crime through touch alone. Her father’s parting gift to Lilith was a SwissSecure bracelet—a device that grows with her, spinning numbers in translucent green, that contain messages that will reveal themselves “when she is ready” whatever that means.
And years later, after she inadvertently kills a man, the spinning numbers on Lilith’s SwissSecure bracelet stop, giving rise to a pre-recorded projection of her long-dead father. He comes to her as an apparition, warning her of the music in her head, the Mind Chant of the Sage, who seeks to control her—the Mind Chant is an addiction, which if rejected will be turned off, leading to her death within twelve hours. After all, Lilith may be the she-demon whose coming has been foretold by the Sage’s Council of Elders, the Quessoch, who whose mind chant goes as follows:
"All hail the Sempiternal Ruler, our Sage, the oldest being in the Elyonim, Head of the Council of the Quessoch. We proclaim Your glorious splendor which protects, and banishes all the spirits of the destroying angels, gaseous spirits of Satanael, Watchers imprisoned in the Chaos. You are the revered keeper of their somas, and protector of the Nunciature Evangelion. Oh mighty Sage, our Majesty-on-High in the Tower of Songs, save us from the dark power of the Mashiach, the she-demon, Lilith."
The Mind Chant of the Quessoch Apostles Translated into Unilanguage English (North American Standard) from High Enochian
