Cricket's Song

by Michael A. Hooten

  Cricket tried to shrug, but the magic kept him completely still except for his head. “I choose to live by the bardic code.”

  “The bardic code is an archaic set of guidelines that have lost their meaning,” Ewan said. “The only reason we remember them at all is because of tradition.”

  “It’s so touching to see loved ones reunited,” Fairlin sighed. “But we’re here for a different purpose, are we not?”

  “We are,” the queen answered. “Ewan?”

  The Pen Bardd stepped forward. “By the authority I hold as chief bard of Glencairck, I hereby disband you from our brotherhood, Amyrian macRhodri.” He stripped the cloak off the young man’s back and threw it on the fire.

  Cricket watched the smoke roiling towards the stars and felt something click inside himself. “By the authority I hold as a true bard of Glencairck,” he said calmly, “I declare you to be false and dishonorable, a disgrace to your colors. I declare your marriage to the queen to be an abomination, and I condemn both of you as traitors to your country and your people.”

  The Pen Bardd stood in shocked silence for just a moment, then lashed out with a backhanded blow that split Cricket’s cheek, but did not knock him down. “You have no power anymore.”

  Fairlin turned to Elhonna and said, “Well, I can certainly see what you like about them.”

  The queen smiled tightly. “Yes, they are a lot of fun.” Raising her voice, she said, “Cricket, I don’t think you fully appreciate your position. You are here by my choice, completely controlled by me. If I decide to still your tongue, you won’t even be able to grunt, and if I still your heart, well... Let’s just say that I am the one in charge here. Your threats are worse than meaningless; they make you appear simple. Which I know you’re not.”

  “Whatever you may do to me, you have already sealed your fate. The country will rise up against you for your crimes.”

  “The country loves me.” She raised her arms and spoke a single word, and Cricket fell to his knees, pressing his cheek into the dirt. “My power is the power of Glencairck itself, and my reign is absolute.”

  “Enough talk,” Fairlin said. “I want to see him beg for mercy on his own.”

  Elhonna looked briefly annoyed, but she raised her hands and began to intone a spell in a guttural voice. Cricket stood up, and his arms began moving of their own accord, taking Linnaia out of her case and lifting her high. He knew what was coming; they wanted him to suffer, and his harp was the next step. He still couldn’t stop the tears as he threw Linnaia to the ground.

  Her strings jangled, and her pillar splintered; the sound tore at Cricket’s heart. Not satisfied, Elhonna made him pick it up and slam it to the ground several more times, and then toss it into the fire.

  “No cloak, and no harp,” the Pen Bardd said. “You’re not even a man.”

  Cricket looked at him coldly, a great anger building inside of him. “You take my ability to move, my ability to fight, and you think that I am not a man? You must have been emasculated by your lover, Ewan.”

  The Pen Bardd lifted his hand again, but Elhonna said, “He’s just goading you, love. It’s the only power he has left.”

  Through his rage, Cricket said, “I am still a bard. I still have the magic. And I curse you—”

  Elhonna made a gesture, and his tongue froze. “I don’t think so,” she said. “And as for the magic... Ewan, get the axe.”

  Cricket stumbled towards the altar at Elhonna’s gesture, and fell to his knees before it. He stretched his arms out in a parody of a supplicant’s posture. Elhonna backed away, but Fairlin leaned close and said, “Your father killed my father with cold steel, the worst injury we can receive. Now I get to wound you, and not just physically: know that I killed your first teacher, the man you called Harper, and I took my time about it, enjoying every scream.”

  Cricket fought then, trying with all of his might to find a way to break the magic that held him, but he had nothing; no harp, no friend, no song, and no ravens. He thrashed his head, but nothing else moved. Then even his head was stilled, his eyes opened wide, and he watched as Ewan lifted the axe high.

  Two strokes, and his hands lay on the ground beyond his sight. He screamed, a sound of pure anguish that echoed into the forest, unable to look away from his life blood spilling onto the ground on bright red spurts. Through the pain, Cricket prayed that he would bleed to death, but Ewan quickly cauterized the stumps with a red hot iron from the fire. Elhonna released him enough that he could slump, and just before he passed out, he heard Fairlin say, “That takes care of his skill with the harp.”

  He woke sometime later, tied face first to a tree. His arms ached dully where his hands used to be, and although he seemed to have been released from the controlling magic momentarily, he had no energy and less hope. Thirst plagued him as much as pain, and he could not work up enough spit to swallow. Somewhere behind him he could hear the queen and the Pen Bardd, with the occasional comment from Fairlin. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, though, and after a few minutes they stopped. The forest was still and dark around him; the only sound he heard was his own ragged breathing.

  It was the still hour before the dawn. The silence taunted him, and he kept seeing the events of the night played before his eyes, without any sound. The ropes that bound him cut into his arms and back, and the bark of the tree scraped his face. He wondered how long they intended to keep him alive.

  He thought of his family, and a desperate hope arose: Essa was free, and said she would send help. Then he sagged again, remembering that anyone searching for him would look in Taris, and Elhonna would just deny everything.

  A bird began to sing somewhere ahead of him, heralding the coming of day. The song reverberated in his skull, and he began to hum, looking for a melody in the seemingly random notes. He had to bite the inside of his cheek for blood to lubricate his throat, but his voice grew in strength as the forest lightened around him.

  The song became a hymn unconsciously, a song of praise to the Creator. Cricket started to check himself when he realized what it was, but then he thought, Why not? I have been blessed in my life, and if I die now, my only regret will be not seeing my wife and children one last time.

  The song brought him some comfort, and he relaxed into it. The air grew brighter around him, and he suddenly realized that the sun was not yet up. Cracking his eye, he saw a glow off to the side, but he could not turn his head enough to look at it directly. He thought he heard a woman’s voice say faintly, “Keep singing.”

  He let the song bubble out of him, afraid to hope, afraid to think what might be coming. He had to shut his eyes against the increasing glare, and he almost cried out when hands touched him.

  “Quiet,” warned the woman’s voice.

  “Etain?”

  “Yes, it’s me. My father is here, too.”

  The ropes fell away, and Cricket would have fallen with them except that strong arms caught him and lifted him like a child. The dull aches became sharp pain as blood began to flow again, but Cricket managed to say, “Are you saving me?”

  Oengus, King of Faerie, said, “Of course.”

  Cricket moaned when Etain took the ends of his arms and examined them. Oengus said, “He needs to see Dianecht, and soon.”

  “Why not Midach?” Etain asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the king replied. “We will find one or the other. But right now we need to get back through the pale before those three wake up.”

  Cricket felt the disorientation of crossing between the worlds, and warm air and sunlight hit his face. Stirring against the faerie king’s chest, he said, “Thank you. Both of you.”

  They might have replied, but Cricket had passed out again.

  Chapter 27: Reunions

  Cricket came to in a room of sunlit marble with enough windows to be a grianan, although the light that came in was not quite the same as sunlight. In his dreams he had still had his hands, and it took him a moment to remember why his fingers woul
dn’t respond. Someone had covered the end of his arms with snug blue sleeves, and he couldn’t feel any pain except for what had curled inside his heart. He wanted to cry, but forced himself to turn it into a heaving sigh instead.

  Etain came in, carrying a tray. “It’s good to see you awake,” she said, setting it down on a side table. “How do you feel?”

  “It depends on which part of me you’re talking about,” Cricket replied. “My body—what’s left of it—seems to be doing pretty good, but my spirit? I think we’ll have to wait on that.”

  “It will heal if you let it. May I feed you?”

  He lifted his arms in a hopeless gesture. “Yes. And thank you.”

  She fed him a nut filled bread, a tender white meat that he did not recognize, and exotic fruits that tickled his palette. During the meal, they didn’t speak, but after Etain cleaned up, she said, “It’s not as bad as you think.”

  Cricket snorted. “I don’t see how it can be much worse.”

  “You still have your wife, and family.”

  “You know of them? Are they safe?”

  “Yes to both. And they miss you very much.”

  Cricket turned towards the wall. “I miss them too. But I don’t know if I can go home again.”

  “Why not?”

  He held up his stumps.

  She gave him a hard look. “If you’re going to let that so much as slow you down, then you are not the man that I thought you were.”

  “And what am I supposed to do? I can’t play, and without the harp, I am nothing.”

  “You are still a bard, and a father. Both of these have meaning.”

  “It’s not the same without the music.”

  “You are too proud,” Etain said sharply. “Why don’t you ask for help? I know enough about bardic magic to know that you can play with any music.”

  “No, it has to be harp music.”

  “Oh really? Why?”

  “That’s just the way it is.”

  She looked at him skeptically. “Even so, why does it have to be your harp music? Why can’t you have someone else play, and then make your magic with their melody?”

  “It won’t work.”

  “So sure of who you are, and what you know. And yet you have done things that every other bard thought impossible.”

  Cricket smiled faintly. “I just play for sheep.”

  “And remove curses, and discover lost magic like the Chords.”

  “Any bard could do those things.”

  “But no one has. Think of that.” Etain gathered up the empty dishes and headed for the door. “My father promised you anything,” she said before she left. “You should ask for what you want.”

  Cricket thought about what she had said as he looked out the window at the strange sky. He hummed a little, trying to feel something, anything, but he kept reaching for Linnaia, and the pain would return fourfold. He couldn’t even play his flute.

  Oengus found him staring at the blank wall. “My daughter said you weren’t feeling well,” the faerie king said.

  “I must still be in shock. I can’t seem to think.”

  “Would you like to see your family?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Cricket said. “I don’t know what I want right now, except for my hands. I love my wife and children, but I can’t seem to think of anything else except what the queen did to me.”

  Oengus pulled on his moustache. “I have great power,” he said. “My people are very skilled.”

  “But can you give me my hands back?”

  “Maybe.”

  Cricket’s stomach turned over with a lurch. “What?”

  “That’s what I came to talk to you about. My physician, Dianecht, thinks he can help. He can’t give you your own hands back, but... Well, he can explain it himself. If you’re interested.”

  “I am.” A stray thought went through his brain, and Cricket asked, “Then who is Midach?”

  “Dianecht’s son, and also a skilled physician. They will both be here shortly.”

  Dianecht had gray hair and lines around his gaunt eyes, but his son had a bright and cheerful countenance. They stood on either side of Cricket, each holding one of his forearms, studying them silently while Oengus watched from the corner.

  “I think we can put your original hands back on,” Midach said suddenly.

  “You have them?” Cricket asked.

  “We have them,” the young man said. “Etain was wise enough to bring them back with you.”

  “But I think it would be better to give you fashioned hands,” Dianecht said, glaring at his son. “We will use the original as a mold, nothing more.”

  “What do you mean fashioned?” Cricket asked.

  “He wants to give you hands made out of silver,” Midach said with a shrug. “They would be fully functional, but, well... I would think that you would want real flesh instead of metal.”

  “I would prefer anything to what I have.”

  “You must pardon my son,” Dianecht said. “He is very proud, thinking to heal you himself. I, on the other hand, am humble, and I have already enlisted the help of the other craftsman we will need to make this happen.”

  If Midach was offended by his father’s words, he gave no sign. “I understand that there is some hurry,” he said. “I would need more time than you might have. But if you would let me have your hands after the new ones have been cast...”

  Cricket could feel the older doctor’s disapproval, but he said, “Of course. I will have no use for them if this works.”

  “It will work,” Dianecht said fiercely. “I will perform the operation myself.”

  Midach nodded and said, “You will play again before two days pass.”

  When they had left, Cricket turned to the king. “Are they always like that?”

  “It’s getting worse,” Oengus said. “They are both very good, but Dianecht seems unable to totally approve of his son’s growing abilities. And my people are starting to take sides, which is a bad thing. But the person I am most concerned about is Dianecht’s daughter, Airmeda. Both of them love her, and she loves both of them, and it’s tearing her apart.”

  “Is it okay? To have them both working on me?”

  Oengus sighed. “They won’t work together, I’m afraid. The only reason both examined you was because I’m trying to avoid widening the rift. They might have agreed on a course, but only Dianecht will operate.”

  “In my world, Faerie is seen as a beautiful, magical place where nothing bad ever happens.”

  “I wish that were true.” He grinned suddenly. “But if it were, they wouldn’t need a king, and then what would I do?”

  Etain came by that evening. “I have talked to your wife,” she said. “She wants to see you.”

  “Does she know about...?”

  “Yes. I even used a little magic to show her.”

  Cricket closed his eyes. “What did she say?”

  “She said she wanted to see you. And that she loves you for more than just your hands.”

  Cricket let out his breath in a rush. “I do want to see her. And my children, too, if possible.”

  “It’s a good thing,” Etain said, and then the door opened and Cricket found himself inundated by family and a great shaggy dog.

  Essa held him tight, saying, “You dolt, you great, stupid clod,” over and over while Emmeline gurgled on her hip, the twins tumbled about the bed, and CuChulainn gave wet dog kisses to all of them.

  Gerralt saw his father’s stumps first, covered by sleeves of green silk. “What are these?” he demanded. “Where are your fingers?”

  “A bad person took them away from me,” Cricket said. He couldn’t help the tears that began streaming down his cheeks.

  Catrin brushed them away, saying, “It’s okay, daddy. Mommy will kiss them and make them all better, if you ask her.”

  “It’s going to take more than a kiss, sweetheart,” Essa said gently. “But there are some good people here that will help.”

>   A faerie servant came in and Essa sent the children off to look at all the strange sights. After the door closed and CuChulainn laid down in front of it, she got into bed with her husband, hugging him with her whole body. “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I know. I thought the same thing. But it’s okay, we’re together now, and everything’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not. Mannath is planning to go to war.”

  “What? But how? He doesn’t have enough people to march against the queen.”

  “A certain song is being played all over Glencairck,” she replied. “It seems that Mannath is getting more volunteers everyday.”

  Cricket shook his head. “I wanted to avoid this very thing. What happened to me is not worth a civil war.”

  Essa shushed him with a finger on his lips. “When the queen kidnapped me, she confirmed the traitorous choice she made five years ago when she laid a geis on you for being a true bard.”

  “But war... I just don’t want anyone to die for this.”

  “Except yourself?”

  Cricket looked into her eyes, dark with fear. “No. I don’t want anyone to die.”

  Essa let out her breath in a rush of relief, but then turned away. “You know as well as I do that we may not have a choice.”

  “I know.”

  The next morning, Essa stood by him when Dianecht came in with three men and a woman. “This is my daughter, Airmeda, who will be assisting me, Govniu, the smith who made your hands, Caitil, the wizard who will help us with the magic, and since we don’t have bards, I asked our leading harpist, Fergus, to attend.”

  Cricket nodded and said, “You’ll pardon me if I don’t shake hands.”

  Fergus grinned. “You’ll be shaking them after, I don’t doubt.”

  “I just hope this works,” Govniu added. “The metal is pure and well made, but it’s so solid...”

  Dianecht silenced them all with a glare. “I won’t have a lot of noise,” he said. “I need to concentrate. Daughter?”

  “Here, father.”

  “Prepare the bard’s arms while I finish with the new hands.”