[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

our destination.
"All you have to do now is sing it," Ha said, pointing out of a carved cave mouth into fog,
"and then we can get on our way to wherever we choose to go. Anywhere, my beloved."
I nodded. I stared out. Clouds swirled across a flat-floored bowl, alternately obscuring and
revealing a single crystal pillar that soared upward higher than, ten tall men standing one atop the
other. Six-sided and colorless, the pillar's sides were unblemished by any touch of decoration. I
wondered if someone had found a way to drag it all the way up the mountain, or if someone,
digging into the summit in search of gold or precious stones, had discovered it and dug the bowl
out around it.
Ha answered the question before I could ask. "As far as any of us can tell, it goes all the way
from here to the center of the earth. No one has been able to find a place where it isn't, though
after a while my people gave up trying."
"Why?"
"It protects itself. It just sits there doing nothing, but if you try to tap out a chunk of it with a
chisel, you die. At least that's the story, and I don't know of anyone in my lifetime who's tried to
challenge it."
I looked at the crystal pillar. I would like to say that I felt something magical about it, or that
it stirred in recognition as I approached, or that I could somehow sense its importance or
recognize its purpose. The fact, though, is that it looked like a big, plain piece of clear rock, and
it felt like one, and it had about as much to say to me as any other chunk of rock I've ever found.
I tried to cheer myself. I said, "At least it isn't raining anymore," but that was too small a
comfort for the situation I faced. I was scared. Scared to walk out there by myself, scared to sing
the song alone, scared of what would happen. Everything would have been easier had I not
accidentally cast a spell over Giraud and Ha that lingered even then; if I'd never known I could
cast songspells, I wouldn't have been afraid of doing it. Those who say ignorance is bliss are
right more often than most of us are willing to admit.
Scared, scared. So I handed Giraud my wooden flute and said, "Play along with me."
"I don't know the tune you'll sing," he said, not unreasonably, but I didn't care at all about
reason.
"Match pitch with me and follow along. What you sound like doesn't matter I just want
you to be out there with me. I'm scared to do this alone."
And I dragged Maydellan Ha into the dreary, drizzling, shifting mist, too, and shoved the
bard's commonplace book into his hands, and told him, "Here, drum on the cover of this book to
keep time."
And the spell that made them both love me to the point of ridiculous infatuation still held,
for neither of them argued. I prepared myself to sing. I thought perhaps I ought to touch the pillar
while I did it, but the stone, cold and wet and unwelcoming, changed my mind quickly enough. I
stood at the base of it, though, facing east, which is the direction of new beginnings. Giraud
stood a third of the way around the pillar, to my right, Maydellan Ha a third of the way around to
my left. As I looked at them I could see parts of each of them refracted in the crystal, warped and
partly hazed by imperfections and occlusions within the heart of the stone.
The fog that skirled and writhed around us muffled echoes, but the steep walls of the basin
amplified sound. The result was eerie. When I spoke to Giraud, telling him to start with a few
notes from "Merry Make" to give me my pitch, my voice sounded flat but very loud. I hummed
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
the opening bars of the old song and felt the vibrations of that soft humming clear to the soles of
my feet.
I closed my eyes. With them closed, I could see the words that Giraud had written out for
me. I knew the song knew all of it, and knew how I would sing: it. And I knew, as well, that I
shouldn't. That gut feeling again.
The omens that had brought me to the hold of Hearthold Mountain, the coincidences and the
bits of old magic, all felt like the hand of my goddess telling me that she wanted me to be where
I was. Neithas had to have a hand in what I was doing, or else I would never have survived to be
there doing it. My fathers note told me that I was to sing the song if ever the world were to
become as it should be. I knew that I was special, or else the dead bard's spell would not have
allowed me to take the book from the nantatstu; I had to do what I was doing, too, because if I
didn't the nantatsu would find me and kill me. So many signs, so many omens that said, "Sing,
girl."
And counter to every argument my mind could muster, my gut said, "This is wrong. You'll
live to regret this."
And my unruly brain, the part of me that has caused me so much trouble in my life, said, "I
certainly am, because living to regret it is better than dying today."
Giraud did the introduction to "Merry Make" again, looking impatiently at me as he did, and
Maydellan Ha drummed on the book with his fingertips. The reedy, thin wail of the recorder
joined the whispery, leathery sound of the drumming. The music fit the gray, cold
midafternoon thin and ephemeral, it was the sort of music to which ghosts would dance; it was
somehow both joyful and ominous.
I closed my eyes and began to sing.
"Sing the wind down, Sing the sun gold. Sing the sky blue, The day hot, the air cold, Sing
the people to joy, Sing abundance and life, Banish toil, banish pain, Banish care, banish strife
Whirl wind and clear want, Banish sorrow and need. Silver fountains of laughter Where
once there flowed tears. Change wind and change day Change sea and change sky World sings
now with laughter And never with fears."
The refrain ended on an open note, so I went back to the first verse and sang it again. My
voice rang, and the wooden recorder played a bright, quick-tempoed counterpoint, and the
makeshift drum pattered merrily.
As I sang, I realized that the fog was lifting, and then the sun suddenly burst through and I
discovered why the Pillar of the Sun bore its name. It seemed to catch fire; it glowed and
sparkled and scattered its captured light back out in rainbows that lit the bowl in which we stood
and made all of us look like spirits who had just stepped through from a better world.
I kept singing because the spellsong called to me, and as I sang, I thought of a world without
work, without pain, without any sorrow, without any need, and I thought of how wonderful that
world would be. Then I thought of Birdie, and Marda, and Aymar and Tassien, and the empress
who'd had Girauds family killed, and the nantatsu who had killed so many people, and the
villagers of Blackwarren who had hunted Giraud and me.
I could not wish them joy. I wished them the opposite, and heard the tone of my voice
change as I sang. But I kept singing. No matter, no matter, I thought, because my heart filled
with the joy of the song, with the glory of the sunlight, with the magic I made while I stood
there. I wished all the world happiness except for the people who were evil, and to them I wished
that the evil that they'd sown would race back to them threefold and devour them.
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
No matter what I wished. The song I sang spelled out only goodness. Only joy. No sorrow,
no fears, no pain, no regrets. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]