Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  When a wood demon tried the porch, the wardnet had weakened enough for it to power through. Magic danced over the demon’s skin and it screamed in agony, but made it to the front door and kicked it in. A gout of fire, like a giant flame demon’s spit, coughed out of the doorway, immolating the demon. It fell back, shrieking and smoldering, but a pack of flame demons had made it through the gap by then and disappeared into the house. Their gleeful shrieks filled the night, partially drowning out his family’s dwindling screams.

  Hardey stumbled out the side door, screaming. His face was dark with soot and splattered with gore, and one arm hung limply, the sleeve wet with blood. He looked about frantically.

  Briar stood up. “Hardey!” he jumped up and down, waving his arms.

  “Briar!” Hardey saw him and ran for the garden wards, his usual long stride marred by a worsening limp. A pair of howling flame demons followed him out of the house, but Hardey had a wide lead, and it seemed he would make it to Briar in the hogroot patch.

  But Hardey hadn’t cleared half the distance when a wind demon swooped down, digging its clawed feet deep into his back. Its wing talons flashed, and Hardey’s head thumped to the ground. Before the body even began to fall, the wind demon snapped its wings and took to the air again, taking the rest of Hardey with it. Briar screamed as the demon vanished into the smoky darkness.

  The flame demons shrieked at the departing wind demon for stealing their prey, but then leapt onto Hardey’s head in a frenzy. Briar fell back into the hogroot patch, barely turning over in time to retch up his supper. He screamed and cried, thrashing about and trying to wake himself up from the nightmare, but on it went.

  It grew hotter and hotter where Briar lay, and the smoke soon became unbearable. Burning ash drifted through the air like snowflakes, setting fires in the garden and yard. One struck Briar on the cheek and he shrieked in pain, slapping himself repeatedly in the face to knock the ash away.

  Briar bit his lip to try and stem the wracking coughs, looking around frantically. “Mother! Father! Anybody!” He wiped at the tears streaking the ash on his face. How could his mother leave him? He was only six!

  Six is old enough to be caught by alagai for running when it is best to keep still, Relan said, or for keeping still when it is best to run.

  He would burn up if he stayed any longer, but as his father said, the fire was drawing demons like dung did flies. He thought of the goldwood tree. It had hidden him from his brothers. Perhaps it could save him again.

  Briar put his head close to the ground and breathed three times as his mother had told him, then sprang from hiding, running hard. The swirling smoke was everywhere, and he could only see a few feet in any direction, but he could sense demons lurking in the gloom. He raced quickly over the familiar ground, but then somehow ran into a tree where he was sure none should be. He scraped his face on the bark, bouncing and landing on his back.

  But then the tree looked at him and growled.

  Briar slowly got to his feet, not making any sudden moves. The wood demon watched him curiously.

  Briar began to sway back and forth like a pendulum, and the demon began rocking in unison, moving like a tree swaying in a great wind, to keep eye contact. It began to step with him, and Briar held his breath as he moved two steps, then back, then three steps, then back, then, on the fourth step, he kept on walking. A moment later, the demon shook its head, and Briar broke into a run.

  The demon shrieked and gave chase. At first Briar had a fair lead, but the wood demon closed the gap in just a few great strides.

  Briar dodged left and right, but the demon kept pace, its growls drawing ever nearer. He scrambled over the woodpile, which was already beginning to smolder, but the demon scattered the logs with a single swipe of its powerful talons. He skidded to a stop by his father’s refuse cart, still loaded with some of the items Relan and his brothers had salvaged from the dump.

  Briar dropped to his hands and knees, crawling under the cart. He held his breath as the demon’s clawed feet landed with a thump right in front of him.

  The wood demon lowered its toothy snout to the ground, snuffling about. It moved to the hollow, sniffing the roots and dirt. Briar knew the demon could reach under and fish him out, or toss the cart aside easily, but perhaps that would give him enough time to run out the other side and get to the tree. He waited as the snout drew closer, coming just a few inches from him.

  Just then, the demon gave a tremendous sneeze, its rows of sharp amber teeth mere inches from Briar as the mouth opened and snapped shut.

  Briar bolted from hiding, but the demon, gagging and coughing, did not immediately give chase.

  The hogroot, Briar realized.

  A small flame demon, no bigger than a coon, challenged him as he drew close to the tree, but this time Briar didn’t try to run. He waited for the demon to draw close, then flapped his arms and clothes, creating a cloud of hogroot stink even in the acrid night. The demon heaved as if sick, and Briar kicked it, sending it sprawling as he ran on. He leapt to catch the first branch and swung himself up into the tree, hiding in the boughs, before the demon could recover.

  Briar looked back and saw the windows of his house blazing like the hearth, flames licking out to climb their way up the walls.

  The hearth.

  Even from this distance, the heat could be felt, smoke and ash thick in the air, making every breath burn his lungs. But even so, Briar’s face went cold. His leg twitched, and he felt it warm as his bladder let go what little it had left. In his mind, he could hear his mother singing.

  When laying morning fire, what do you do?

  Open the flue, open the flue!

  How many times had he laid that fire? His father always closed off the chimney flue after the evening fire burned down. In the morning, you had to open it…

  “Or the house will fill with smoke,” he whispered.

  A minute ago, Briar had been feeling quite brave, but that was over. Brave is when you’re scared, his mother said, but keep your wits about you.

  Whatever Briar was, he wasn’t that.

  He dug in the hollow where the branches met, finding his hidden trove of sugar candies, and let them fall to the ground as he began to weep.

  I should have just shared.

  I hate watching someone suffer. I hate the feeling of helplessness it evokes in me when there’s little I can do to help. Perhaps that’s why my story here got longish, when it was supposed to be shortish.

  On many of Shawn’s chemotherapy days, I went and sat with him. Just to chat. Keep him company. Maybe take him a taco, if he thought he could stomach it. I know he appreciated it. But at the end of the day, my offering felt small. Because, I’d eventually head home after surreal conversation in which he spoke about his chances of beating cancer. Or not.

  It reminds me of a dark novel I wrote once (a hard one to write, and one I’ve never tried to publish) that grew out of this idea: The pain and helplessness of watching someone you love die. I wrote a whole concept album around it, too—also unreleased. Maybe that’s why when Shawn shared the idea of Unfettered, and invited me to write for it, I went at it with reckless abandon. I needed to do something more. Needed to say something this time. (That whole this time reference is a long story for another day.)

  So I poured myself into it. For weeks. Things that matter to me converged on the page: family, loyalty, friendship, authenticity…music. I began telling a story set in the universe of my series, The Vault of Heaven. It’s the story of two men, one old, one young, each putting his music-craft to use in very different ways.

  I imagine you’ve heard the adage, “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.” Well, the phrase was coined by William Congreve in his play The Mourning Bride:

  Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,

  To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.

  I’ve read, that things inanimate have mov’d,

  And, as with living Souls, have been inform’d,

 
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.

  What then am I? Am I more senseless grown

  Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!

  ’Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs.

  Anselmo sleeps, and is at Peace; last Night

  The Silent Tomb receiv’d the good old King;

  He and his Sorrows now are safely lodg’d

  Within its cold, but hospitable Bosom.

  Why am not I at Peace?

  I can’t even begin to unpack those lines in this short intro. But I’ll tell you this: It’s no accident that the central song of power in my music magic system is known as The Song of Suffering. And I’ll tell you that music in this story sometimes soothes, sometimes moves inanimate things. It has to do with numbers (more of that in Book Two of my series). And it has to do with the notion of absolute sound. And harmony. And resonance. To calm grief. One way or another.

  So, thank you, Shawn, for the opportunity to write this story. It’s helped me strike an inner chord. One I still hear.

  — Peter Orullian

  THE SOUND OF BROKEN ABSOLUTES

  Peter Orullian

  Maesteri Divad Jonason gently removed the viola d’amore from its weathered sheepskin case. In the silence, he smiled wanly over the old instrument, considering. Sometimes the most important music lessons feature no music at all. Such was the case with this viola, an old friend to be sure. It served a different kind of instruction. One that came late in the training of a Lieholan, whose song had the power of intention. This instrument could only be understood when the act of making notes work together had long since been any kind of challenge. This viola made fine music, too, of course—a soft, retiring sound most pleasant in the shades of evening. But this heirloom of the Maesteri, generations old now, taught the kind of resonance often only heard inwardly while standing over a freshly dug barrow.

  Behind him, the door opened, and he turned to greet his finest Lieholan student, Belamae Sento. The young man stepped into the room, his face pale, an open letter in his hand. Divad didn’t need to ask the contents of the note. In fact, it was the letter’s arrival that had hastened his invitation to have Belamae join him in this music chamber.

  “Close the door, please.” Softly spoken, his words took on a hum-like quality, resounding in the near-perfect acoustics of the room.

  Belamae absently did as he was asked. The wide-eyed look on his face was not, Divad knew, amazement at finally coming to the Chamber of Absolutes. Although such would have been normal enough for one of the Lyren—a student of the Descant—it wasn’t so for Belamae. Not today. Worry and conflict had taken the young man’s thoughts far from Descant Cathedral, far from his focus on learning the Song of Suffering.

  “You seem distracted. Does finally coming here leave you at a loss for words?” He raised an open palm to indicate the room, but was really just easing them into conversation.

  Belamae looked around and shook his head. “It’s less…impressive than I’d imagined.”

  Divad chuckled low in his throat, the sound musical in the resonant chamber. “Quite so. I tend not to correct assumptions about this place. Could be that I like the surprise of it when Lieholan see it with their own eyes. But the last lessons in Suffering are plain ones. The room is rightly spare.”

  The walls and floor and vaulted ceiling were bare granite. In fact, the only objects in the room were four instruments: a boxharp, a dual-tubed horn, a mandola, and the viola Divad held in his hands. Each had a place in an arched cutaway at equal distances around the circular chamber.

  He held up the viola. “What about the instruments? What do they suggest you might learn here?”

  Belamae looked around again, more slowly this time, coming last to the viola. He concluded with a shrug.

  “Aliquot stringing,” Divad said, supplying the answer. “It’s resonance, my boy. And leads us to absolute sound.”

  Belamae nodded, seeming unimpressed or maybe just overly distracted. “Do we have to do this today?”

  “Because of the letter you’ve received,” he replied, knowing it was precisely so.

  The young Lieholan stared down at the missive in his hands, and spoke without raising his eyes. “I’ve looked forward to the things you’d teach me here. We all do.” He paused, heaving a deep sigh. “But war has come to my people. We’re losing the fight. And my da…I have to go.”

  “Aliquots are intentionally unplayed strings that resonate harmonically when you strike the others.” He held up the viola and pointed to a second set of seven gut strings strung below those the bow would caress.

  Belamae looked up, an incredulous expression on his face.

  Divad paid the look no mind. “A string vibrates when struck. There’s a mathematical relationship between a vibrating string and an aliquot that resonates with it. This is usually in unison or octaves, but can also come in fifths. We’ve spoken of resonance before, but always as a way of understanding music that must be heard to have a resonant effect.”

  “Did you hear me?” Belamae asked, irritation edging his voice. “I’m leaving.”

  “Absolute sound,” Divad went on, “is resonance you feel even when it’s not heard.”

  “My da—”

  “Which is what makes this instrument doubly instructive. You see, we play it in requiem.” He caressed the neck of the viola, oiled smooth for easy finger positioning. “Voices sometimes falter, tremulous with emotion. That’s understandable. So just as often, we play the dirge with this. And the melody helps to bring the life of a departed loved one into resonance with those they’ve left behind. Like the sweet grief of memory.”

  Belamae’s anger sharpened. “In requiem…You knew my da was dead? And you didn’t tell me?”

  Divad shook his head. “You’re missing the point. There is a music that can connect you with others in a…fundamental way. As fundamental as the sound their life makes. And once you find that resonant sound, it surpasses distance. It no longer needs to be heard to have effect.”

  The young Lieholan glared back at the older man. Then his brow relaxed, disappointment replacing everything else. “You’re telling me not to go.”

  “I’m telling you you’re more important to them here, learning to sing Suffering, than you would be in the field as one more man with a sword.” He offered a conciliatory smile. “And you’re close, my boy. Ready to understand absolute sound. Nearly ready to sing Suffering on your own.”

  Belamae shook his head. “I won’t ignore their call for help. People are dying.” He glanced at the viola in Divad’s hands. “They wouldn’t have sent for me if it was my sword they wanted. But you don’t have to worry; I know how to use my song.”

  “And what song do you think you have, Belamae? The song you came here with?” His tone became suddenly cross. “Or do you pretend you can make Suffering a weapon? That is not its intention. You would bring greater harm to your own people if that’s why you go. I won’t allow it.”

  “You’re a coward,” Belamae replied with the indignation only the young seem capable of. “I will go and do what I—”

  “You should let your loss teach you more about Suffering, not take you away from it.” Divad strummed the viola’s strings, then immediately silenced them. The aliquots hummed in the stillness, resonating from the initial vibration of the viola’s top seven strings.

  The two men stood staring at one another as the aliquots rang on, which was no brief time. Divad knew trying to force Belamae to stay would prove pointless. Crucial to a Descant education was a Lieholan’s willingness. Especially with regard to absolute sound. But if he could get Belamae to grasp the concept, then perhaps the boy would be convinced to remain.

  Divad reached into his robe and removed a funeral score penned specifically for this viola. It was a challenging, complex piece of music, made more difficult by the seven strings and their aliquot pairs. Even reading it would stretch his young protégé’s skill. Divad had written it himself in anticipation of this very me
eting, knowing sooner or later Belamae would learn of the trouble back home. Its theme was separation, constructed in a Maerdian mode that hadn’t been used for centuries. It made use of minor seconds and grace notes as central parts of the melody. A listener had to wait patiently for a passage or phrase to resolve, otherwise the note selection might be interpreted as the performer misplaying the piece.

  Learning to play it would be its own kind of instruction for the musician, precisely because of the instrument’s aliquots.

  Divad handed the piece of music to Belamae. “Read this when you think you’re ready to hear it.” He gently tapped his young friend at the temple, suggesting he be in the right frame of mind when he did so.

  Then, more gently still, he handed Belamae the viola d’amore. He wanted this Lieholan to know the heft of it, to run his hands over the flaws in the soundboard, to ask about the intricately carved earless head above the pegbox, to pluck the top-strung gut and listen for the resonating strings beneath…

  Belamae received the instrument as he had the sheet music, giving it a moment of thoughtful regard. But almost immediately a sneer filled his face, and he slammed the viola down hard on the stone floor, shattering it into pieces.

  The crush and clatter of old wood and the twang of snapped strings rose around them in a cacophonous din, echoing in the Chamber of Absolutes. Divad’s stomach twisted into knots at the sudden loss of the fine old instrument. The d’amore wasn’t crafted anymore. It was as much a historical artifact as it was a unique and beautiful instrument for producing music. And of all the aliquot instruments, it had been his favorite. At Divad’s mother’s wake, his own former Maesteri had played accompaniment on this viola while Divad sang Johen’s “Funerary Triad.”

  He sank to his knees, instinctively gathering the pieces. Above him he heard the viola bow being snapped in half. The instrument’s destruction was complete. Divad’s ire flashed bright and hot, and escalated fast. His hands, filled with bits of spruce and bone points still tied with gut, began to tremble with an urge he hadn’t felt in a very long time.