The Barrow Lands Bards

by Mel. White

  "Did you walk past any stacked stones?" Audin asked.

  "Yes. Three of them."

  "Guardians. Something new has moved into the woods." Both my companions were staring at him sharply. The border between the Barrow Land and the Myst Lands was in a constant state of change. Local rulers hired magi to travel along the roads and fields and dowse for breaks in the fabric of reality and place warning signs such as stacks of stone or a pyramid of sticks to alert the locals to avoid certain places. They preferred to leave things that would decay within a year or so to prevent them from having to constantly travel out and shift the stones every time a boundary disappeared. If Brabanoc was telling the truth, something new had happened along that path very recently.

  "So the Red Cat offered you a fortune..."

  He nodded. "I was sure that it would come with a price that I wouldn't like. So I smiled at the Red Cat and said, "That's a goodly fortune, Sir Redcoat. I need to be in Delverton by tonight, but I have time to teach you how to play a tune."

  The creature purred at him and said, "Lovely. Do let us begin."

  Once again he walked the forests along paths that opened magically for them as he played to the Red Catbeast. Soon they came to a clearing with small saplings in it and Brabanoc had an idea. "Here," he said, and handed the fiddle to the Red Catbeast. "Try the first chords," knowing that the creature's arms were too short to actually hold the instrument correctly.

  It growled and lashed its tail as it fumbled at the fiddle, twisting its arms and hands to get into position. It even extended its sharp claws, but all that accomplished was to leave a row of tiny pockmarks on the neck of the instrument.

  Brabanoc shook his head sadly. "I feared that would happen, Sir Redcoat. When I was a lad, I had the same problem. My arms were too short and I could never hold the fiddle right."

  It bared its teeth as it tried again to reach the strings. "Oh really?" it snarled. "And you just 'magicked' your arms long or something?"

  "That's not far from the truth. My master the Druid of the Ocean, tied my feet to a sapling root and my arms to the sapling top and had me stand there and then fetched water from the river and poured it over me... and when he was finished I was rather wet but I was a few inches taller and my arms were longer."

  "Oh really?" said the creature skeptically.

  "Yes. The Druid of the Ocean taught water magic, which is about transformations. And the magic needs hazel saplings, which these are." He waved his hand at the young trees. "Of course, they'd make you taller than you are and I don't know if you'd really want to be taller."

  The creature's tail twitched in short jerks as he sniffed at the trees. "Well, I can't play with short arms."

  "True. But, you could get a smaller fiddle. They make a tiny one for the smallest children. If I could get to Durlange, we could find one there. There's the old fiddle-maker --"

  The thing growled and its eyes glowed. "Don't have time for the Barrow Lands. Don't want toys. You know that Druid magic?."

  "I do. Used it on another apprentice."

  "Do it, then," the Catbeast growled

  "Willingly."

  The creature stood next to one of the trees and Brabanoc tied its feet to the roots. Then he tossed a rope over the top of the sapling and they both hauled on the branch until it bent as far as it could. Brabanoc tied its wrists to the topmost branch and then let it go, leaving the catbeast suspended between heaven and earth, limbs pulled so tight that the only parts of its body it could move were its head and its tail.

  "Now I'm going to fetch water," Brabanoc said as he waved his drinking cup and slung his fiddle across his back.

  The water source was just a small creek, and perhaps not enough to stop the Eldritch Beast if it got loose. He waded downstream until a small rivulet joined the little brook and climbed up onto the bank and into a small gorge. The forest ahead was mostly pines; a bad place to meet anything from the Myst Lands, but there was little choice. It was rocks or creek or waiting, and the catbeast might have worked its way loose. He began trotting through the woods. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees.

  He stopped to fish in the bottom of his pack and found a few crumbs of stale bread but nothing else. There were no berries that he'd seen and he wasn't sure it would be wise to eat anything until he knew for certain that he was back in the Realms again. At a loss for a better idea, he leaned against a tree and then took his fiddle out and played as loudly as he could, waiting for something to show up that would guide him out of this lost place.

  Out of the dimness of a bramble thicket came the lean and long shape of a black hunting hound. He glanced at the forest and listened for the sound of a hunting horn or a hunting party, but the place was as silent as a grave. It looked like a normal dog for the most part, but the lack of any other sounds and the way it gazed at him made him uneasy. The dog watched him for a bit and when the tune ended, the hound sat on his hind legs and applauded politely.

  "Astonishing! I heard Catraugh the Golden Voice sing at my master's hall, and I think you're even better than he is. My master and I have a bet on who is the best bard in all the land, and I would be glad to pay you two hundred pieces of gold to come play and prove my point." It smiled with its mouth closed and its eyes gleamed like the gold of a king's hoard.

  "Fairy gold, surely," Brabanoc said.

  "No, good honest gold. You can play for him in the grove. No tricks and no entering the boundary stones to be trapped forever," the hound replied. The gold eyes seemed to change color slightly at that, as though a cloud shaded them briefly.

  There was no choice possible. If Brabanoc refused, he would surely be killed, but if he went, he would be snared. He thought hard about the situation, running over the oldest tunes he knew to see if one of them held any hope. "Let me rest a bit and I'll be ready to go," he told the Black Hound.

  "Walk? That's no way to treat a prized musician. You might arrive out of breath and then my master would laugh at me. Get on my back and you can ride there in style," the hound said. "I'll hold you fast so you can't fall."

  A scrap of tune waltzed across his memory -- Fox and Leviathan. Eldritch and Fey beasts and other magical things could walk around in daylight in wild places, but they couldn't enter human habitations without an invitation. If he could get inside a house -- any house or any building -- he would be safe.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled a long sigh. "Well, this isn't my best instrument so your master won't hear me at my finest, Sir Blackcoat. I was afraid that I'd be robbed in the woods, so I left the Harp of the Far Shore with my sister at the inn at Whiteglen. She's the wife of the innkeeper."

  "Harp of the Far Shore?" The creature looked suspicious.

  "You've never heard it? Oh, that IS a pity. It was one of the seven great instruments of my teacher, the Bard of the Ocean, along with the Flute of the Eldest Oak and the Fiddle of the Icelandic Rocks. He gave his instruments to those of us he thought most promising. The Harp has such a tone that it makes humans and beasts alike weep if you play a somber tune. But if you play a jig on it, you can make butterflies come and dance."

  The hound looked thoughtful. "We've heard the Flute of the Eldest Oak," he said without explaining just who was playing it and what happened to it. "We have also heard the Fiddle of the Icelandic Rocks. But never the Harp... no, never that,"

  "Well, it's in Whiteglen," Brabanoc said. "I'm not sure how long it will take me to get there. If you can show me to the right path, however, I will go there and then be back on my way to Durlange."

  The hound crouched in front of him. "Climb onto my back, and we'll be there in ten strides." Brabanoc swung his legs over the lean shape and the hound's body swelled in size. There was a strange rushing noise in his ears and the sky turned dark and then they were standing outside the tiny hamlet of Whiteglen.

  "Now fetch the harp," the hound said.

  Brabanoc looked around. "Are you s
ure it's the right place? Whiteglen is a busy hamlet. This one -- it's as quiet as the grave!" he protested.

  "That's because they're all asleep," said the hound, "and asleep they will stay until you bring out the Harp of the Western Ocean. So leave your fiddle and your pack with me and get the harp. My friends will see that you do not sneak off." It nodded towards two shapes at the edge of town and Brabanoc felt his heart sink as he recognized the Gray Dog and the Red Cat. "They're rather angry with you at the moment," the hound added.

  "And they'll be angrier still once they discover I don't have the harp," Brabanoc thought, but he smiled boldly and walked into the inn. He saw his sister sitting there with her eyes wide open and he shook her, but couldn't break the spell. He tried breaking the spell by putting cold iron - a pot lid -- on the heads of everyone in the room, but no one woke to help him.

  Red eyes peered in on him. "Cold iron, is it? A fool’s game. Nothing will help you, bardlet," said the Gray Dog. "The Black One's master is interested in hearing you play the Harp, and his master is the master of us all. So that means we do not eat you right now. However, his hand won't protect you if there's no harp or if you play worse than the last two through here."

  "...or if he decides he likes the harp." Amber eyes joined the red ones. "I should tell you that my friend really wants a taste of your finger