The Hush

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  ‘Get us some supper, Bel!’ one bellowed.

  ‘All right, all right – keep your hair on,’ said Annabel. ‘You ain’t about to starve if your stew’s a minute late. Besides, I got a treat for you folks tonight.’ She stood on tiptoes behind the bar, and gestured at Chester to begin. ‘Go on, boy.’

  Chester pressed his bow to the strings. Few people had noticed him yet, hidden away in the corner, but now the farmers swivelled to face him. A few elbowed each other and pointed.

  ‘Fiddler! Look at that, Jim.’

  ‘By the Song, how long’s it been? Months and months, I reckon, since –’

  ‘Well, good for Bel, I say –’

  Chester tuned out the voices. He tuned out the stink of the room, and the heat of the air. He gave the bow an experimental slide across the E string and let the note reverberate. The closest tables were silent now in a sceptical sort of hush, as they waited to judge how well he could play.

  And Chester let the music take him.

  He began with a folk ditty, common enough in this region. He’d learnt it a few weeks back, in a saloon called the Gabbling Goose, and clearly the locals in Hamelin knew it. Soon they were clapping, cheering along, and a couple of women linked arms in a dance. They threw back glasses of cactus wine, as the smell and sizzle of frying sausages wafted from the kitchen.

  When Chester pushed the song up a notch, into an even faster tune, foot stamping reverberated through the floor and sent Annabel’s liquor bottles into a quiver. People scrabbled at cards, shoving piles of coins back and forth across the tables. Barmaids bustled around, sliding trays of drinks across the bar, and men called, ‘Another whiskey, darlin’!’ or ‘How’s about some fried potatoes?’

  Chester couldn’t help noticing, however, that the good cheer was not universal. One boy – perhaps two or three years older than himself – sat alone at a table to his left. He was a large boy, thick with muscles, and as tall as any of the full-grown men in the room. He picked at his plate of stew, and didn’t order any drinks. A cowboy hat perched atop his head, angled slightly downwards. He peered out beneath the rim, his eyes fixed on Chester.

  Of course, that was fair enough. Chester was a performer; the whole point was for people to watch him. But for some reason, this felt different. Worrying. The boy didn’t smile, or tap his toes, or nod along to the music. His eyes were an eerie pale blue, focused like bullets. He just stared. Silent. No blinking. No movement.

  That was the difference between this boy and the others. Everyone else was watching Chester’s performance, his music. But this boy was watching Chester.

  Still, at least the rest of the bar seemed in high spirits. Annabel brought out plates of stew, and barmaids passed around mugs of warm beer. People chewed cornbread, slurped their drinks and sloshed their supper onto the tables. Chester sped up into another verse, faster and faster, and copper coins skittered into the fiddle case by his feet.

  He slowed on the final verse, letting one note linger well past its right. People around him held their breath, hands poised in mid-air ready to clap. Chester grinned, dragging his bow to extend the note, teasing them. He stretched it and stretched it, letting the moment drip.

  A man tossed a coin into the fiddle case.

  ‘Ha!’ Chester shouted, and he launched into the final chorus with a frenzy. People laughed and clapped him out to the end of the song. When he finished, the room broke into applause and Chester took to his feet, bowing.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he said. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, any requests?’

  A woman nearby shouted ‘“The Captain’s Cat”!’ to general cheers of agreement. Then a man requested a bawdy song about a cowgirl and her whip, and his wife responded with a tirade of irritable whispers. A few people laughed, shouting support for his request.

  Chester waved his bow, encouraging more suggestions. Song titles flew around the room, and he nodded and laughed at the ruder choices. But he found his gaze drawn inexorably back to his left, to the hulking boy with the cowboy hat. The boy had finished his stew, but he was still watching him. In the dark of the corner, his pale blue eyes looked like the globes of sorcery lamps.

  ‘“The Nightfall Duet.”’

  The boy’s voice was deep. Quiet. But somehow, even over the rustle and cheers of the crowd, Chester heard it. His throat tightened. His eyes met the boy’s, and there was a long moment of silence between them.

  ‘The Nightfall Duet’.

  The song had once been called ‘The Thieves’ Duet’, but it had been renamed in honour of the notorious Nightfall Gang. Over the past year or so, the gang had become legendary for their daring robberies, fleecing the wealthy and giving to the poor. And as their reputation had grown, the tales had grown ever more elaborate.

  Some stories told of the Nightfall Gang stealing forty pegasi from a rancher’s stable, or robbing the grandest bank in Weser City. Some people said they were ghosts in the night, waging a war on behalf of the poor. Others claimed they were evil sorcerers, who twisted the Song to gain their unnatural powers of thievery.

  And for a gang who pulled off the most difficult of burglaries … well, only the most difficult song could be named in their honour. ‘The Nightfall Duet’ was a punishing piece of music, designed to be played by two instruments. It was filled with tricky little runs of notes and even – unusually for a fiddle – a sequence of three- and four-note chords. When Chester’s old boss had taught it to him, the man had barely been able to play it himself, and he’d had decades of practice in his instrument shop. It was a song to test a musician’s mettle.

  It was no accident that the boy had picked this song. This was a challenge. If Chester was good enough, this song could bring the audience to tears. But if he wasn’t up to scratch …

  Well, knowing the horrific squawks that a fiddle could produce, there’d be tears of a different type entirely.

  Chester stared at the boy a moment longer. He forgot the cheering men, the laughing women. He forgot the sloshing beer and the pockets full of coins. There was just this moment. This stranger. This challenge.

  He closed his eyes. He pressed his bow to the strings.

  And he played.

  The music flowed soft, then louder. Chester kept his eyes closed and his mind focused. He was vaguely aware that the room was quieting down, settling into confusion at his choice of tune. This was not a bawdy folk song. It was raw and rich and melting, like butter on the strings, and it dripped down Chester’s fingers into the fiddle. He felt his skin tingle oddly, as it sometimes did when he played music. A tightness grew in his stomach now, a sting pricked in the back of his eyes. The rhythm called to him. He could feel it in the room around him. He could sense it in the fiddle strings, taste it in the air, feel it prickle and blister, heating his skin.

  No, not just the rhythm.

  The Song.

  Chester played his music and, for a moment, the Song played back to him. It played quiet and refined through the floorboards: a gentle waltz. It played wild and raucous through the farmers’ bodies: a folk song made of foam and waves. It played through Chester’s own body: a stuttering tune in his fingers, a beat of drums in his pulse. He was barely aware of what was happening. All he knew was that he felt alive. His fingers were flying. Music poured from his fiddle to mesh with the Song, to bend into its ebb and flow and run like syrup …

  ‘Get him!’

  The shout blasted through Chester’s mind. His eyes snapped open. The Music faded. It was like waking from a dream. He realised that the bar was silent. Everyone was still. The air puckered, shifting, as though an invisible hand had flicked a ripple through reality. The air rolled full of smoke, which smelt faintly of warm honey – and through the smoke, they all stared. Pale faces. Slack jaws. Horror dawning in their eyes. Gradually, the air stilled.

  Then he heard the shout again. ‘Get him! Someone get the sheriff!’

  It was Annabel.

  A rush, a shove, a flurry of cries. And before Chester knew what
was happening, arms grabbed and pulled and shoved him down, crashing him into the floor.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The echoship was quiet.

  Susannah sat in the cabin, one hand on the steering wheel. Huge glass windows rose around her, swirling with unnatural rain, mist and shadow. The Hush.

  This was how the Nightfall Gang travelled, invisible to the real world, roaming like ghosts across the country. It had taken weeks of planning to acquire this ship – they’d nicked it from the Songshapers’ fleet in Weser City – but now that they had it, travel was infinitely easier. Echoships existed only in the Hush and were powered by the residue of magic that leaked through from the real world. The Cavatina hovered just above the earth, the size and shape of a sailing ship. Huge masts rose above its deck. Its sails were massive: high and flapping, a trap for the sorcerous air of the Hush.

  Susannah had grown up in Delos, in the middle of Meloral’s wide southern coast. As a child, she’d dreamed of being the captain of a ship, just like those she watched sail into port. She’d dreamed of the wind in her hair, the salt on her tongue, the sun on her skin. But now she captained an echoship, and the Hush rolled around her like a sea of darkness. It swirled across the windows, black and cold.

  Susannah stayed alert for any sounds of creatures in the distance.

  ‘Hello, Captain.’

  Susannah turned to see Dot enter the cabin. The girl was sixteen, only a year younger than Susannah herself. But Dot still carried a child’s look in her eyes sometimes. A distant stare, a wisp of a daydream. Susannah envied her that. The Songshapers had taken her own dreams away, a long time ago.

  ‘Hi, Dot. Everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, Captain,’ Dot said. ‘There was a minor fluctuation in the engine, and I had a theory that the melody was running a semitone off, but I readjusted the Musical calibration coil and –’

  ‘Whoa, whoa,’ Susannah said. ‘In normal words?’

  ‘The engine was a little off-key,’ Dot said. ‘I fixed it. For now, at least.’

  Susannah raised an eyebrow. ‘For now?’

  ‘Well, ideally you’d have a couple of trained Songshapers to replay the Music into the engine from scratch, but …’

  Susannah sighed. ‘But you’re the only Songshaper in the gang. I know.’ She offered the most reassuring look she could muster. ‘You’re doing well on your own, Dot. I know the ship’s maintenance is designed for two people.’

  ‘Maybe this Songshaper from Hamelin can help,’ Dot said. ‘If Sam manages to nab him, I mean.’

  They stared out the windows into the dark. Susannah kept her hands on the wheel, steering slightly to the right. Normally, two emergency echoboats would be strapped on top of the vessel. However, since Sam had taken one of those boats to Hamelin, the Cavatina was a little off balance. Susannah was careful to oversteer, compensating for the loss of weight on one side of the ship.

  ‘No sign of Echoes?’ Dot said.

  Susannah shook her head. ‘It’s quiet.’

  ‘Too quiet, if you ask me. Normally we would’ve had a couple of close scrapes by now, so close to a town like Bremen …’

  Susannah nodded. The Hush was at its most dangerous near towns and cities, where plenty of Musical residue leaked through from the real world. At its worst, this Music could turn the ground to molten silver, or blow eddies of deadly gas into its victims’ lungs. Other times, it mutated into deadly creatures, driven by the strength of broken melodies.

  Once, Susannah had slipped into a nest of scuttling spiders, whose legs were built of glass and shadow. In Weser City, a sprawling vine with metallic thorns had tried to smother her in the dark. Another time, she had fled in agony from an unnatural bird, which had screeched an explosion of Musical pain into her lungs. It had melted into darkness as it flew, its feathers dripping oil and starlight.

  And the Echoes – the most terrifying creatures that stalked the Hush – were the most likely of all to congregate near townships. They were more likely to find prey there: humans, mostly, slipping into the Hush. The fact that the Nightfall Gang had escaped Bremen with nary a murmur from the darkness was unusual. And in the Hush, ‘unusual’ was enough to set Susannah’s teeth on edge.

  She gripped the wheel tighter. Perhaps she was being paranoid. After all, she still felt twitchy from the afternoon’s mishap. It had been too close. Bremen was supposed to be a routine burglary. Just a local mayor’s house: nothing special, no hard security. They should never have been in any danger. Yet Susannah had put all their lives in jeopardy …

  But they’d escaped, hadn’t they? They had knocked the Songshaper unconscious, tied her up and left her in the courtyard. Sam, their getaway driver, had been waiting nearby with the Cavatina, ready to sail through the Hush. It had all gone too easily, considering.

  Like clockwork.

  Like a trap.

  A prickle ran up Susannah’s spine. They shouldn’t have been able to overcome a high-level Songshaper, not without more of a fight. A proper struggle. And now, the Hush was suspiciously clear of Echoes. Too easy. It was all too easy.

  ‘Dot,’ she said. ‘You don’t think …’

  Above her head, a bell tinged.

  Susannah froze. She raised her eyes with a sense of dread, not sure she wanted to know which bell had rung. A row of tiny bells hung along the ceiling, connected via pipes to the various sensors in the Cavatina’s hull. Only one thing could set a proximity bell ringing.

  Another echoship.

  The bell rang again. This time, Susannah’s gaze locked onto it. Her breath suddenly felt as cold as ice. There was a moment of silence.

  The bell chimed again.

  ‘The third bell,’ Dot whispered. ‘Isn’t that …?’

  Susannah nodded. The third bell denoted a Songshaper’s licensed echoship. Just a small one, by the softness of the tone. Probably a single-person boat, designed to dart like an arrow through the Hush …

  ‘The Songshaper from Bremen,’ she said, her throat tight. ‘She wanted us to get away so we would lead her back to our ship. She’s following us.’

  Dot paled. ‘I’ll tell Travis. He’s in the –’

  ‘Go, go!’

  Susannah wrenched the wheel, adjusting their course through the rain. The Cavatina was powerful, with an engine dome large enough to fit a person inside. Because of the echoship’s sheer power, they should be able to outrun the Songshaper’s echoboat. But the smaller craft would be nimble and quicker to turn.

  Susannah glanced up at the illuminated map on the ceiling. They were still within the sorcery range of Hamelin. She yanked a communication globe from her pocket with her left hand, guiding the wheel with her right. She raised a leg to kick one of the levers down, and the ship clanked into a higher gear. The globe tingled against her skin.

  ‘Sam!’

  No response. Had Sam taken his own communication globe into Hamelin? Or had he left it on his echoboat when he ventured out of the Hush? If it was in his pocket, it should be tingling against his skin right now: hot and buzzing, an indication that its paired globe was trying to make contact.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Susannah muttered. ‘Pick up, damn you.’

  And finally, he did. The glass began to shine pale blue. A face appeared faintly in the depths of the globe then slowly solidified into Sam’s familiar features. Pale blue eyes. Cowboy hat. A surly expression, and a hard-clenched jaw.

  ‘Captain?’ Sam said.

  Susannah hesitated. She could never predict what kind of mood Sam would be in. His personality fluctuated with more buoyancy than an echoship. It wasn’t his fault, of course. It was the fault of the Songshapers – the ones who’d twisted Music through his brain. But still, it made him difficult to deal with. Which Sam was she speaking to at the moment? Angry Sam, friendly Sam, judgemental Sam?

  ‘We’re on the move,’ Susannah said. ‘We’ve got trouble. Change the rendezvous point to Linus, all right?’

  Sam’s eyes widened. ‘Hang on, I’m coming
to help you –’

  ‘No!’ Susannah said. ‘Stick to the plan. We need that Songshaper in our gang, Sam, if we’re going to pull off the Weser City job.’

  ‘He’s gone and got himself arrested,’ Sam said. ‘He’s good as dead, Captain, and I ain’t risking my life for no filthy Songshaper. I’m coming to –’

  ‘I want him,’ Susannah said sharply. ‘That’s an order, Sam. I don’t care how you do it; you save him, and you bring him to me. Linus. Understood?’

  ‘Captain, I –’

  The globe fizzled, and the signal cut out. Sam’s face vanished and the blue shine faded. Susannah cursed and dropped the globe back into her pocket. She had sailed too far from Hamelin, beyond the range of Sam’s com munication globe. There would be no more talking to Sam now – not until they met in Linus.

  Assuming, of course, they survived that long.

  Susannah leant forwards to crank another pair of levers. The ship gave a groan, vibrating as a hundred cogs and pulleys jingled within its hull. She peered through the dark windows. There was no way to navigate the Hush using her eyes. Not when all was darkness, and she couldn’t see an obstacle until she was a yard from ploughing into it. The windows were used to spot immediate attacks, not to navigate the swirling black ahead.

  No, she had to use a map. That was the only way.

  Even so, Susannah hated steering by maps. She liked to see where she was going, to plan every step with her own eyes. Teeth gritted, she watched the glowing lights of the sorcery map overhead. A tiny shining dot marked the Cavatina, illuminated like a speck of flame. She knew the map was playing Music – a rolling waltz, to conjure up the sorcery of motion and momentum – but Susannah would never be able to hear it. Not even if she devoted a lifetime to studying Music.

  Not after what the Songshapers had done to her.

  The door flew open and Travis sauntered into the cabin. Susannah glanced back at him then returned her gaze to the map. She couldn’t afford more distractions. ‘What?’

  Travis didn’t answer for a moment. He glimpsed his reflection in the echoship’s front window and paused to adjust a crooked button on his waistcoat.