Music to My Sorrow

by Mercedes Lackey

  The lead werewolf clawed at him, growling, and Eric ran sideways along the roof, opening up room to move. The other two followed; he could see the three of them barking—or whatever they did—but he couldn't hear a thing over the music. He danced out of the way, muscles reacting before his brain finished going Oh shit! He jabbed at the monster with his sword, making it keep its distance. One good swipe from those talons and his head would come right off.

  He ducked under a clumsy swipe and slashed at the arm, and was relieved to see that the blade bit deep into the shaggy flesh, and that it seemed to hurt—at least enough to make the monster backpedal a bit. Dharniel had been insistent that he learn more about swordplay than Terenil had had the time to teach him, saying a Bard must be a master of all the arts. While Eric would never be the equal of someone who'd had centuries to spend practicing with a blade, he wasn't exactly incompetent. And his body was trained now, the way a gymnast's body was trained. He didn't have to think anymore to fight; just react.

  The other two stayed behind the leader, trying to decide what to do. In a moment they'd spread out and try to surround him, and then things would get—Eric grimaced at himself, but was unable to resist the pun—hairy. Behind them, he saw Hosea running toward the camera equipment. They hadn't noticed that Eric had brought a friend yet.

  Dharniel had always told him that the outcome of a fight was decided in the first moments of engagement. He didn't have time right now to wonder if that was true, and in fact he'd never really figured out what the Elven War-Chief meant by it.

  What he did know was that suddenly for just a moment he had an opening, and a werewolf right in front of him that he'd made just too mad with his constant sword-pricks to realize that running straight into a sword probably wasn't a good idea.

  It was a perfect stop-thrust, even though his sword wasn't really designed for fencing moves, and he'd had to bring it up two-handed. Nausea rose up in his throat as the length of elven blade slid through hair and skin and meat, but it did what it was designed to do. It killed. The werewolf made an odd gargling sound, and dropped, sliding off his blade even as Eric withdrew it.

  That left two.

  Eric danced back, moving automatically, trying not to think too hard about what he'd just done. It wasn't the first time he'd been responsible for things and people dying, sure, but it was the first time he'd done it so up close and hands on. And this was not the time to have a melt-down over it. He might have killed one, but there were two left.

  And whichever one he went for, the other one would go for him.

  "Hey-yah—doggie!"

  Hosea's words echoed loud in the few seconds of silence between the end of the music across the way and the start of the crowd's cheering. He came running across the roof, one of the tripod legs from one of the cameras in his hand. As a makeshift spear, it was probably as good as they were going to be able to come up with on short notice.

  One of the two monsters turned its attention to Hosea. Eric shifted his attention to the other one. The music started again.

  How many numbers is this? Are they near the end of their set? Is Pure Blood the next band to go on, or do they have another warm-up band? Dammit, we've got to finish this!

  Either the new werewolf was smarter than the one Eric had just killed, or it had learned from the leader's fatal mistake. It circled around, forcing him to keep turning to face it, growling meaningfully deep in its throat—Eric couldn't hear it, but it looked as if it were growling—and slashing at him with those long-taloned hands.

  And he kept slashing back. But he inflicted only superficial cuts; not enough to disable, not enough to kill. Perhaps not even enough for it to feel.

  It was waiting for him to get tired, he realized. Or careless. If it could get inside his defense, it could tear him to pieces. And he was distracted, wanting to know what was happening with Hosea and knowing he didn't dare look.

  He'd wounded it a dozen times—small cuts on its forearms—but they weren't even slowing it down. And he was getting tired. He was going to have to think of something new. And fast.

  He dropped his sword, turned, and ran.

  He'd had his back to the camera equipment when he'd done it, and the sheer apparent stupidity of the maneuver got him a good five-second lead. He reached the cameras first and turned.

  The werewolf was in midair, springing for the kill, fangs bared, talons spread.

  Eric called his sword.

  It snapped into his palm with a stinging impact. He barely had time to bring the point up before the monster landed on it.

  And him.

  Ah CRAP!

  All the breath was driven out of him, as the mass of fetid fur threw him to the surface of the roof.

  His armor saved him from broken bones, but there was no way that having a couple of hundred pounds of werewolf land on you from six feet up could be called fun by any stretch of the imagination. He did his best to roll with the impact, but it still knocked the air out of him completely, and it was several seconds before he could shove the smelly mass off him and get to his feet.

  Star Wars had always been his favorite movie. He'd driven Dharniel crazy practicing moves from the dueling sequences. Now he was glad that —

  Hosea!

  He looked wildly around.

  Hosea was standing over the last of the werewolves. Its throat gaped open as if it had been sliced. The improvised spear stuck up out of its abdomen at an angle as well, but that obviously hadn't been enough to kill it.

  Hosea saw him and smiled, but not happily. He held out his gloved hands, and now Eric could see that there was a thin red cord looped between them.

  "Banjo string," Hosea explained. "Ah keep extras in mah pockets 'cause they do break at the darndest times, an', well, Ah figured that a lot of uncanny things don't like silver much."

  And, silver or not, a metal banjo string makes a pretty good garrote, Eric thought.

  "Come on," Eric said wearily. "I don't think we have much time."

  Dead, the creatures were vulnerable to magick. Eric used a spell to burn the bodies to ash. He really didn't think the others needed to come up here and see a roof full of dead werewolves.

  * * *

  Getting the equipment upstairs took two trips, and when they were done, Eric locked both elevators open and took a moment to summon a spell to lock all the downstairs doors: the doors to the outside as well as the doors to the fire stairs. It wouldn't stop anybody who was really determined to get in for very long, but it would buy them time.

  Without Lady Day, getting the drumset up the last half-flight of stairs would have been a major undertaking, but the elvensteed simply rolled up the stairs as if she were one of the Mars Rovers. Molly followed her, scampering around the roof, and sniffing curiously at the scorch-marks that were all that remained of the werewolves.

  "Um . . . trouble?" Kayla asked, watching the pug.

  "Some," Eric admitted. Not that Kayla couldn't take a pretty good guess. He knew those things had needed to die, and had probably deserved to die besides, but he wasn't sure how he felt about being the one to kill two of them, and he didn't really have time to sort out his feelings right now.

  Eric had played with Beth's band, Spiral Dance, enough times to know how to set up a band's equipment, and he knew Kayla had some experience herself. They got to work, clearing the space they'd need.

  "These amps aren't going to be anything like big enough," Magnus said, as he uncovered the drum-kit and began setting it out. As soon as he removed the last piece of equipment from Lady Day, the elvensteed shuddered and resumed her "natural" form—looking rather relieved to do so, Eric thought. "They'll never hear us."

  Magnus pulled out a set of sticks and twirled them experimentally, frowning.

  "Magick will take care of that," Eric said, setting up the keyboard. The gods bless Dharniel and Juilliard for their mutual agreement that a Bard should be a master of many instruments. The keyboard certainly wasn't his favorite instrument, and he was
n't wild about the elven harp either, but he could play both of them. He started transferring the power cables from the recording devices to their equipment.

  Kayla had already slung a metallic-purple Stratocaster over her shoulder and was fingering it experimentally, her face neutral.

  Eric kept his mouth buttoned—but he hadn't known until this moment she could play guitar. Maybe it was something she'd learned while Underhill—just as Dharniel had insisted that he learn swordcraft, the Healers had seen to it that Kayla learn to play and sing. It would make sense. The elves had a notion that a person should be well-rounded that dated back to the training of a medieval knight.

  Ace picked up a microphone and was checking it. "Just like old times," she said. She flipped switches on its accompanying amp and nodded.

  Hosea would be playing Jeanette, of course. He'd set up a microphone close to her soundbox, and another one on a stand so he could sing and play at the same time.

  Eric found the microphone that belonged in the stand attached to the keyboard and clipped it into place.

  No time. No rehearsal. And the stakes just about as high as they could be.

  And Magnus the key to all of it, because a band without a drummer wasn't a band.

  He looked at Magnus. Magnus raised his sticks in salute and smiled ferally.

  "Okay," Kayla said. "Let's rock the house. With what?"

  "Doesn't matter," Ace said absently. Her eyes were far away. "The music's just a vessel. I'll make it do what you want."

  "Something as different from that as possible," Eric said firmly, indicating the band on the stage across the way. He brought his hands down on the keys with a theatrical crash.

  He was alone for the first few bars until Magnus realized what he was playing. His brother shot him a look of agonized disbelief, then laid down the rhythm, clear and strong.

  Kayla and Hosea came in right on cue, and then Ace.

  "'I thought love was only true in fairy tales—'"

  A silly trippy hippity-hoppy song, first made a hit by the Monkees when Eric had been younger than Magnus was now, and recently covered by Smashbox in a movie about a big green guy who marries a princess and lives happily ever after.

  A happy song. A hopeful song. A song about finding out things weren't so bad after all. About believing.

  Ace poured everything she had into the song. Eric could feel exactly what she was doing: everyone who heard her—and thanks to Bardic Magick, that was everyone here—felt happiness. Felt love. Felt a desire to be kind, and most of all, to help.

  It was the best thing she could have done. If she'd focused on making them all want to leave, she would have triggered the same kind of riots they'd come here to avoid. But calm happy helpful people would cooperate with the Bomb Squad, and would certainly leave in an orderly fashion if they were told to.

  He concentrated everything he had on feeding her more power, and he knew Hosea was doing the same.

  And out of nowhere, he felt that power increase, as if somehow, the whole was more—far more—than the sum of two Bards and two Talents.

  No.

  Three Talents.

  Magnus?

  Eric glanced over at his brother. To all appearances, Magnus was lost in a world of his own, his hands blurring over the drums as he laid down a complex underpinning for the song. His head was down, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He'd even taken off his blazer.

  And he—glowed—with power. Eric could see its threads, reaching out to all of them.

  No Gift of his own that anyone can see—but the power to make the Gifts of others stronger . . .

  "I'm A Believer" came to an end. Without a pause, Eric called for "Istanbul" by They Might Be Giants.

  * * *

  Judah Galilee paced back and forth in his dressing room irritably. His master had truly not been pleased when he had been forced to return empty-handed this dawn, and only the fact that his presence was vital at this entertainment—and for others of his master's plans in the days to come—had kept him and his men from going to feed the Shadows. But it had been made clear to him that he stood in disgrace: the hunt for Misthold's mortal Bard—and the rewards for its successful conclusion—were to be given to others. Mere underlings! Worse. Mortals. Weak, mayfly mortals!

  Oh, let the Prince attempt to build his Domain upon the prowess of mortals! Judah thought rebelliously. Others have gone that road, and the Chaos Lands have taken them! He will see in the end that only his own blood may be trusted.

  Judah smiled. But Prince Gabrevys's own blood couldn't be trusted, could it? His own blood had betrayed him, fled to the Bright Court, hiding there behind the skirts of the spineless milk-toothed Seleighe. Oh, the song he could make of that would cast his master down so low that not even the Morrigan herself—should she wish it—could raise him up again.

  Perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . it was time to remind Prince Gabrevys of that fact, and seek a greater share in his master's power.

  Or seek another Court.

  But not just yet. Not until he was sure there was no greater prize to be won here.

  Suddenly Judah felt a ripple of magic spread over the lovely, murky, anguished currents of the Festival. A small thing at first, but it grew, spreading like oil on a turbulent sea, leaching away the anger, the power, that he and the others had so carefully nurtured here.

  He flung open the door of his dressing room and rushed outside.

  The others were standing in the hallway. They'd felt it too. They weren't Bards, of course—he wasn't foolish enough to keep such competition close, but even minstrels, Court singers and entertainers with minor magicks, were neither blind nor deaf to magick.

  He thrust open the door to the outside and glared around wildly.

  There!

  Atop the building across the way. Judah's lips pulled back in a feral snarl. His master's quarry and all his friends, here in the heart of Prince Gabrevys's power, working such magick as was an affront to his master and all his careful plans. Already the audience was turning away from the stage as if the band had fallen silent and was moving toward the other building, to stand grouped around it, drinking from the tainted fountain of Bright magicks.

  Judah felt their pull as well. They burned across his senses like acid as their pull strengthened. Give in—submit—grovel—

  "No!" he shouted.

  He grabbed Jakan—who was nearest—by the shoulder and flung him out the door. "Get to the stage!" he shouted. "By the Morrigan, we will whip these dogs to their kennels and leave their bones to rot in the Chaos Lands!"

  * * *

  About the time Eric and the band were halfway through their second number, they had no competition. The band on the stage below had simply stopped to listen—not that TMBG's lyrics made sense at the best of times, really, which was part of the point. As for Lost Angels' erstwhile audience, they'd turned away, toward Ace and the spell she was weaving, and were moving toward the building. They'd simply dropped their banners and signs, as if they were no longer of any real importance. And that, more than anything else, was a good sign the music was working.

  Suddenly Eric saw four figures rush out toward the other stage. He saw a flash of blood-red hair. Gabrevys's Bard.

  They mounted the stage, dragging the musicians away from their instruments and throwing them bodily from the stage. As they moved within range of the cameras, their images appeared on the two big screens flanking the stage. In the unforgiving close-up Eric could see Jormin's face distorted with hate and pain at the effects of the spell that Ace was weaving.

  The Unseleighe Bard wasn't even bothering with the glamourie that would give him human seeming. None of them were. Anyone in the audience who noticed would probably just take it for another special effect, though, or some elaborate form of makeup.

  Eric saw Jormin's lips move as he shouted something to the band.

  And suddenly the opening chords of something oddly familiar to a classically trained musician blasted from the g
igantic amplifiers that towered over the Main Stage.

  Verdi's Dies Irae.

  It sounded as if Jormin had opened the gates of Hell. He wasn't even trying to disguise the fact that the sounds the four of them were producing couldn't possibly come from those instruments. A pure wall of hate, carried on the rising tide of the music, swept over the unsuspecting audience, destroying what Ace had done and drawing them back toward Pure Blood.

  But its true target was Eric and the others.

  * * *

  Inside the casino and cathedral, for once the slot machines were quiet, there was no sound from the tables, and instead of recordings of upbeat praise music, the speakers were emitting a muted feed from the concert stage. A lavish buffet and open bar was laid on for the members of the press who were more interested in either watching the concert in comfort—all the screens in the casino were showing the live feed from the stage—or in interviewing Billy Fairchild and his associates. Billy was pleased to see they'd had a good turn-out, all more than willing to listen to what he had to say so long as he was feeding them and supplying free booze. Well, you had to use the devil's weapons, sometimes. Not that he was entirely averse to the notion of a drop or two, now and then. For purely medicinal purposes, of course. And as soon as those long-hair boys of Gabe's had finished their caterwauling, he'd go out and lead God's righteous army of the Faithful gathered here today in a prayer for the deliverance into their hands of certain knowledge of their enemies and the strength to cleanse the Lord's house of sinners. And then Brother Wheatley would say a word or two about the demons, which would certainly be good for business. Free-will offerings had been up a solid two percent since Wheatley had been on the show, and Billy was thinking of having him on again. Now there was someone he understood! Someone with a goal, and a straight idea of just who the enemy was, someone who had old-fashioned ideas about what worked and how to confront your enemies. Reveal the devil's handiwork, wherever you found it! Go straight for the jugular, that was the way to do it! None of this pussyfooting around. Why, if he'd done it all the way he'd wanted, he'd have had his rights as a father, and had one of the boys just go and get Heavenly Grace and haul her home like the disobedient and contrary Serpent's Tooth she was, and deprogram her like Gabriel was supposed to be doing and none of this business with lawyers and courts. . . .