Breaking Bard (Guardians of Terath Book 3)

by Zen DiPietro

  She turned to ask Sim a question but his head lolled against the headrest. His eyes were closed in peaceful repose. That man could sleep absolutely anywhere, anytime. Her heart softened with fondness. She and Sim had met when they were barely teenagers and had been accepted to the bard school at the same time. They’d even become full members of the guild in the same month. She was glad to have him along for this adventure. Whatever she was in for, he’d be her anchor. She really didn’t need much more than that.

  As soon as the monorail stopped, she nudged Sim awake and leaped out of the car. Her feet carried her unerringly to the place her heart craved. Blind Bob’s Tavern.

  Like most of her intended stops on this trip, this was a bards-only venue, though close friends and family of bards could be guested in. Bob’s had become her home as soon as she’d been inducted into the guild. She’d slept, eaten, danced, and made too many friends to count between those walls. She’d had many all-nighters of fun, music, and mayhem, too.

  She hadn’t been there in several months, and there was no telling who else would be in town at any given time. She’d certainly find at least a few familiar faces, and she’d begin her investigation there. If nothing turned up, she’d move on to the next city on her circuit.

  Twenty minutes of walking later, she and Sim stepped through the main entrance to Bob’s. They crossed the vestibule, pausing for the identity scanner to brush over them. Such scanners graced the entrance of every bard-only locale.

  Part of the initiation of becoming a guild member had been a medical scan that was uploaded into all the security scanners connected to the comm system. Any non-bard who tried to pass through a bards-only entryway would find the door sealed. Of course, an identified bard could go to the comm panel in the entryway and admit a guest, but that guest would still have to submit to a scan and be properly identified before they could enter. No visitor could be anonymous.

  Such security was a legacy of the old days. Bards had often been robbed or even murdered for the possessions and pay they carried with them as part of their nomadic lifestyle. Of course now currency was transferred electronically, and bards were required to master defensive and combat skills before membership was offered. Over the years, bards had shifted from prey to honored, and now the security simply served to give bards a break from fans or people wishing to be entertained.

  The door slid open for her with a soft hiss and Sim followed a moment later. Immediately she was assailed with the smells, sounds, and sights that were ingrained into her soul. Grinning, she moved toward the nearest group of people. She’d taken three steps into the room when shouts of “Élan!” and “Sim!” rang out. Élan found herself at the receiving end of a dozen hugs, various squeezes, and a couple kisses. She felt an arm snag her waist and a familiar lift and flip had her perched on the shoulder of the biggest bard she’d ever met. Dray Powell was a huge guy, and a very good friend.

  “Hey, Dray,” she laughed down at him from her now-lofty position. She nestled her heels against his ribs for balance. It was a joke between them for him to walk around with her on his shoulder. This way, she could actually see what was happening within a group of people.

  “How’s the view?”

  “Spectacular as always.” She spotted only two faces that were not familiar to her. New members, from the look of them. That meant two new friends to meet and thirty-odd friends to catch up with. Excellent odds of finding mischief for one evening.

  She saw Sim getting enthusiastic hugs from two of the younger bards in the group. He was reasonably handsome, and his dimples were a finishing touch that made him a natural favorite with women and men alike. He was also a dedicated teacher to younger bards, which only compounded his popularity. The fact that he was one of the most accomplished drummers on the planet didn’t hurt, either.

  Dray tickled her ankle. “How’s your gig at the observatory?”

  “Good. Taking some time off to do a circuit. Want to find a place to sit and talk?”

  “Sure.” He carried her to the far end of Bob’s, where some couches were pushed up against the corner walls, forming an alcove. “This good?”

  “Perfect.”

  He effortlessly swung her down from his shoulder and placed her on a squishy couch. He lost no time in settling his big frame onto the seat next to her.

  “So you’ve been well?” His fingers absently rapped a rhythm on his thigh.

  “Yup. Same old story. Hanging out with magistrates and manahi, justices, the general of the Terath Guard. You know.” She shrugged, as if it were all commonplace.

  Dray laughed. “Sure, perfectly standard stuff. How did you get mixed up in all that, anyway?”

  “Would you believe a chance encounter in the hinterlands with a guy who had a broken ankle? The universe turns in strange ways sometimes.”

  “Bet it’ll make a hell of a story.”

  “When I find time to turn it into one. Or maybe an epic song. That probably won’t be soon though. My calendar is pretty booked up.” She couldn’t tell him how much so.

  “Well, if you’re looking for someone to fill in on your next wedding, don’t forget you and I sing a nice duet.”

  That was an understatement. Dray was one of her favorite male singers to duet with. His voice and hers complemented one another beautifully. But Dray was a modest guy, which was a rarity in this guild. He had an endearing gentleness and a thoughtfulness that made him wonderfully easy company.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” she reassured him. “If something comes up, I’ll make sure to include you.”

  “Nice.” He bobbed his head in satisfaction.

  “What about you? What’s keeping you busy these days?”

  He leaned further back into his seat, getting comfortable. “Moving around a lot. I was so overscheduled last year with concerts that I got a little burned out. I’ve been busking impromptu events, keeping it spontaneous. Lower-profile stuff. Just made my regular circuit and now I’m about to start on some places I visit less often.”

  “Sounds great.” If he’d been through a lot of cities, he’d be a good one to ask about sparkle. “Anything new in the bardic pipeline?”

  “The regular. Hookups, breakups, performances, and get-togethers. You’ve been the hottest topic lately, with the elbows you’ve been rubbing.”

  Élan grimaced. “High profile is not my favorite. I don’t mind when it’s just within the guild but I have to admit that I’ve been concerned that my connection to recent events might come out.”

  “Haven’t heard anything from the outside. I think you’re safe.”

  “We can hope.”

  “Did you have a long trip? Can I get you something to eat or drink?” He gestured toward the bar, which served drinks that could make a bard forget a couple days of her life, along with some darn good food.

  “Actually, yeah. I could use some soup, chips, and a water.” A conversational lead-in idea occurred to her and she added, “And a white wine.” She used her index fingers to measure the size of a large glass in the air. “Like that.”

  “That’s my girl.” He gave her knee a light slap and crossed over to the bar to place the order.

  He hadn’t even made it to his destination when another friend named Jeannie fell into the spot he had just vacated. “Élan!” she squealed, folding her into a hug. “It’s great to see you.”

  “You too. What’s new?”

  “Writing a new play. There’s a part that you’d be perfect for.”

  “Nope, you’re not roping me into another play. The last one took eight months of my life and then three more just recovering from it.” They both laughed. “Besides, I won’t have any available time for a while.”

  Jeannie nodded thoughtfully. “Right. Okay. Any idea if Sim would be interested?”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  “I will.”

  Élan was pretty sure Sim would prefer to individually rip out every hair on his body, but hey, he needed to fend for himself somet
imes.

  Dray returned and set a tray on the low table in front of the couches.

  “Looks like I’ve been replaced,” he teased. He sat down on her other side.

  “Never,” Élan assured him and dove into her soup. She was hungrier than she’d realized. “No one else feeds me as well as you do.”

  “How else will you ever grow?”

  It was a long-standing joke between them, and they grinned at each other. Dray had gotten some food and a beer for himself, so Jeannie dominated the conversation while they ate, outlining the plans of her new play. It involved a sea captain, a widow, and a down-on-his-luck clown. It did not sound good. Élan called upon her acting abilities to maintain an expression of polite interest.

  Glad now that she’d requested the wine, Élan sipped it and kept right on drinking until Jeannie was finally done talking. As much as Élan loved her guildmate, that girl really needed to forget plays and focus on her cello, which she played beautifully. But Jeannie needed to figure that out for herself.

  Élan realized she was frowning into her glass when Dray asked, “Is the wine bad?”

  “No,” she answered quickly. “In fact, it’s mostly gone.” She decided that was the ideal opportunity to launch into her segue. “I was just thinking about the difference between excessive alcohol and eating gigglemint.”

  “Well, there’s the noise level. Things can get loud when everyone’s eating mint,” Jeannie said.

  “Good point. I think alcohol tends to make people more mellow and contemplative, while gigglemint is just a lot of laughing and silliness,” Dray added. “I don’t care for gigglemint, myself.”

  “No, it’s not my favorite either,” agreed Élan. She did have a fondness for wine, though. “Have you ever heard of anything besides alcohol or gigglemint for, you know, recreational fun?”

  Jeannie and Dray wore scrunchy faces that spoke of rooting around in their memories. Finally, Jeannie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Dray chewed the pad of his thumb as he thought. “You know, now that you mention it, I do think someone told me something about . . . something. What was it?” he asked himself. He frowned in thought but after a long moment shook his head. “It’ll come to me.”

  “Well, let me know when it does.” Élan said it laughingly, but she had a flash of hope that Dray might have some information that could put her on the trail of sparkle. She wished she could push him to remember, but she needed to maintain the illusion that it was just an idle curiosity. She had to be patient. “Anyway. How long are you two in town?”

  “Have a party tomorrow, so I’m headed east in the morning.” Dray finished off his beer, set the glass on the table, and relaxed back into the couch cushions. He draped an arm casually across the seatback behind Élan.

  “Attending or playing?” she asked.

  “Same thing, most of the time.”

  “Right.” Élan well knew that “morning” had its own meaning among bards. “So you’ll leave around noon?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m headed south tomorrow. Meeting up with a friend to do some wandering.” Jeannie opened her mouth to say more, but Sim interrupted by dropping onto the couch next to her and pulling her into his lap for a hug.

  “Jeannie, my delicate flower, I was hoping you’d be here.”

  The “flower” laughed and shook her head. “I’m sure you were.”

  “I was,” Sim insisted.

  “Uh-huh.” She ruffled his hair, clearly unconvinced by his professed devotion. Still, she seemed comfortable enough remaining in his lap.

  Élan liked that about the guild. Bards were so much like family that teasing, snuggling, and helping one another out came with the membership card. Not that there was an actual membership card. Though most bards did get a tattoo on the underside of one or both forearms.

  The one downside of the familial aspect of the guild was the inbreeding, as they affectionately called it. Bards tended to hook up romantically with other bards, and where you have hookups, you have breakups. When everyone is friends with everyone else, that sometimes leads to some big drama. It always sorted itself out, but sometimes Élan wondered if drama avoidance was one reason that bards tended to have itchy feet.

  “What about you?” Dray asked. “Where are you headed next?”

  “I’m on my usual circuit. No particular timetable.” Élan pushed her tray away from the table’s edge and leaned in against Dray. Her belly now felt comfortably full. “Sim’s coming along, too.”

  “Nice,” Dray approved. “Should be fun.”

  “Have you seen Nightfall lately?” Élan glanced at Dray and Jeannie to include them both in the question.

  “Not for a couple weeks, but I’ve been to the south,” Jeannie answered. “He tends to stick around Sanctuary.”

  Fondness forced Élan’s mouth into a smile. Aside from Sim, Night was her oldest friend. They’d met soon after becoming bards, and shared a lot of close history.

  “You could send him a message on the comm,” Jeannie suggested.

  “I could, but he’d ignore it. Night goes where Night goes, and he doesn’t concern himself with wherever he isn’t.”

  “Hm. True.” Jeannie wore a thoughtful pout.

  Night was whimsical, enigmatic, and eccentric. He tended to speak in riddles and even Élan, his closest friend, often had a hard time understanding his motives. Somehow it didn’t matter. Whatever the wispy tendrils of near madness meant, she knew his heart, and there was no one in the world she trusted more.

  “I’m sure we’ll bump into him sooner or later,” Sim predicted. “He doesn’t usually wander far or stay away long.”

  They fell silent and listened to the music that wended its way through the air like a fog. Dreamy with just a touch of blues, the melody seemed to promise warmth and welcome, if only for a while.

  “Hm, that’s nice.” Élan closed her eyes and tilted her head to adjust the angle of her hearing. Her fingers itched to add some low, plunking bass to the melody. She stood. “I’m going to go find a bass.”

  “I was thinking a little tambourine would be good,” Dray admitted. He joined her in the side room where instruments were stored for general use. Once they’d made their selections, they joined the song circle.

  As she contributed some bass to underscore the melody, Élan felt months’ worth of concerns and life evaporate off of her skin. Here, among her guildmates, she could just live in the music. It was good to be home.

  Sunlight stabbed through Élan’s closed eyelids and impaled her brain.

  “Rrmph,” she complained, turning over and mashing her face into the pillow to blot out the light.

  Something tickled the back of her neck. “Rise and shine, Chief.”

  She muttered into her pillow, “Don’t want to.”

  The tickling increased. “Things to do. People to see.”

  She heaved a sigh, rolled onto her back, and jackknifed into a sitting position. “Fine.” She scowled at Sim. Glancing to the other side of the bed, she found only blankets and a rumpled pillow. She took stock of the room. “Jeannie and Dray left already?”

  “Yep. Some people aren’t horribly lazy like you.”

  “We were up until dawn.” She gave him another scowl but he was annoyingly unperturbed. If anything, he liked it when she was cranky.

  “Just like old times.”

  Élan slid off the bed and staggered to the corner where her backpack lay. “Thanks for letting Jeannie and me have the bed.”

  “It was your turn. Next time, you get the rollaway. Or couch, or floor, or whatever there happens to be.”

  “Right.” He might mean it. More likely, he’d give her the bed next time, too. Sim could sleep anywhere, anytime, and usually gave her the better spot.

  After a hot shower, Élan felt much better. With fresh clothes, clean skin, and her hair pulled back in intricate braids, she felt herself again. She put her pajamas into the clothes cycler. Another reason t
o love Blind Bob’s was that it had all the amenities a bard needed. Food and drink, nearly any instrument imaginable, plenty of sleeping space upstairs, and each room had an ultra-rapid clothes cycler. She usually carried only one pair of pajamas and two outfits. Of course, she stashed clothing and personal amenities in storage places along her circuit, so that helped too. Her locker at Blind Bob’s was particularly well stocked with possessions.

  When she got back to the room, she found Sim at the desk tapping at a comm panel.

  “Checking messages?” She dropped her backpack by the door.

  “Sending a breakfast order downstairs. I’m starved.”

  “What did you order for me?” She tried to peek over his shoulder.

  His eyes widened in feigned surprise. “What am I, a reader? How should I know what you want?”

  “Fine, move over and I’ll order it myself.” She leaned into him and pushed, trying to scoot him off the chair.

  He caught her around the waist and pulled her into his lap. “Two plain muffins, blackberry jam and makka nut butter, and way-too-hot coffee. Of course.” He gave her a noisy smooch on the cheek.

  “Perfect.” She patted him on the head and slid out of his grasp.

  “What’s the plan for today?”

  She boosted herself up and sat on the edge of the bed, letting her feet dangle. She studied her hands for a moment. “I’m not sure. I was hoping Night would be here.”

  “He usually is. Maybe he’ll show up today.”

  “Or he might be gone for a month. Just when you expect something of him, he disabuses you of your expectation. Like some sort of psychic spitefulness.”

  “Yeah.” Sim pushed away from the small desk. “That’s Night.”

  “What if we hang out here today? Maybe he shows up and maybe he doesn’t. Even if he doesn’t, someone else might come along and tell us where to find him.”

  “What one bard knows, all bards know,” Sim intoned, reciting a popular mantra.