The Last Rose
Page 3
breath. Essonine pushed the door open; as it swung back, Sabanus’s heart beat a panicked rhythm, as though he crept to the front of a stage.
Their breath stirred the dusts of forgotten finery. Sabanus knew that beneath age and cobwebs, these rooms must have been lovely once.
“I don’t see any ghosts; do you?” Sabanus finally dared to whisper.
“Not a trace,” Essonine answered. “But be on your guard.”
The ballroom overlooked an overgrown garden set into a hill. Sunset filled the westward-facing windows. Sabanus followed Essonine into the deeper darkness below. The many stairways led to a vast bowl-shaped room. Sabanus stopped to let his eyes adjust. Light bloomed in Essonine’s hands: a candle. “You don’t think—“ Sabanus faltered.
“They are dead,” Essonine said, her eyes as cold as the silent house.
Sabanus shivered and kept close to Essonine as they wandered the ballroom. It had seemed a simple matter the night before to retrieve the flower bard’s last rose. However, many things had been left behind in the last Athillor ball: relics, dishes, food that time had turned to dust joined with the film of filth that had settled on the silent room. Paintings and tapestries covered the walls. Despite their faded colors, the eyes of their subjects seemed almost alive.
“Here.” Essonine lit another candle. “Now you need not hover so close.”
Sabanus reluctantly crossed to the other side of the room. Perhaps he would find the lute before she did. That would surely impress her. Sabanus shook his head. He was fooling himself. If he found it, Essonine would only become grimmer, believing herself beholden to him. Better to let her find it alone.
To keep his mind off his fear, Sabanus examined the rich trinkets cluttering one of the long tables. Perhaps Athillor’s last gathering had been a Yuletide party. A gilded music box, its lid heavy with gems, drew his eye. He turned its slender golden key gently so it wouldn’t break, wondering what melody it would play, if the ancient gears could still produce their music.
As Sabanus did so, sepia and silver light flickered near Essonine. Despite the leagues they had traveled, Sabanus had never seen her show fear, though now, she screamed. Figures in ghoulish, old-fashioned finery surrounded her. Essonine fell to her knees gasping. The ghost mist was drowning her!
The music box fell from Sabanus’s hands back to the tabletop. Dust rose in a gray cloud as the lid flew open. A faint tinkling rose; disuse made it scratchy for certain clusters of notes.
”That song…” The indistinct words were a sigh from the end of a long corridor. “How long since I have heard it.”
The ghosts surrounding Essonine parted, drifted toward the music box. Sabanus marveled at the sight. He had read many stories in preparation for Asudar Isior’s tests, but not one had mentioned that music could enthrall a ghost.
“Look for the rose,” Sabanus mouthed to Essonine. She gave the ghosts an alarmed look before continuing her hunt. More ghosts emerged from columns and paintings as she passed them. Sabanus took up the music box and followed her. The murmuring ghostly assembly trailed him, coming closer as the music box’s medley wound down. Sabanus tensed as the notes drew themselves out, gasping to live on. As he turned the key, the bittersweet melody again tinkled through the hall.
Essonine found Auoril Yumas’s last rose beside skeletal remains shrunken into their mortal garb. The woven flowers ever-blooming atop the rich cloth made Sabanus think of flowers strewn atop a grave. As Essonine touched the lute, another ghost emerged. Sabanus gasped in dismay and started to run toward her. Essonine backed away, but the specter held out its hand.
“Child,” he addressed her. His eyes, the hue of sunlight upon steel, moved to Sabanus. “Why are you here?”
As Essonine explained, Sabanus stared at the ghost’s distinct clothes. Death had drained all color from his flesh and robes. Nonetheless, the irises woven into the cloth were of such exquisite detail the gray petals still seemed waxy.
“Well!” the ghost said when Essonine finished. “I have no doubt that you tell the truth, Essonine of Irangiln province. It is high time someone challenged that outdated tradition. In life, I sought to, but neither songs on the sweetness of a woman’s voice nor directly writing of the matter could convince those whose minds were made up to the contrary. And I rather doubt any stories about me mention that fact. Far more fitting it is for you, a strong woman, to be the harbinger of this new way. Of course, you may have my last rose.”
“So…you are…the flower bard.” Despite his awe, Sabanus remembered to wind the music box again. More ghosts drifted down the stairwells.
“Indeed.” The deceased bard bowed. “Long have I been imprisoned in the great hall of Athillor, like a rose trapped under glass. For the house of Athillor and their guests, a lifetime of luxury cannot redeem the injustice of their poisoning.”
“You can’t be serious,” Sabanus said. “They’re bitter enough to haunt the manor because their party–“
“Was interrupted by an inconvenience like death? Yes.” Auoril shook his head with facetious pity. Sabanus’s eyes were drawn to the ghost’s famous hands which had composed and performed melodies that had flown to the far corners of the continent. Even death could not rob Auoril’s hands of their graceful beauty. As the deceased bard gestured, his long, tapered fingers made Sabanus think of the slender stems of jonquils swaying in the breeze. “That is the nature of nobles here and everywhere. I doubt there is a land where wealth and power does not spoil. But I digress. The house of Athillor’s sense of ‘right and privilege’ has trapped their spirits in the mortal realm, even ensnaring a perfectly reasonable ghost like myself. Until the spirits in the manor find their collective peace, I will remain bound here.”
“How do you know this?” Sabanus asked breathlessly.
“I have spoken to them and drawn my conclusions,” the flower bard said. “Do you know they are unaware of you as human beings? They are so consumed with themselves that you and the girl are as ghosts to them.”
“In that case, why would they want to harm us?” Sabanus turned the music box key again just to be safe.
“Their amassed resentment compels them to harm anything free. You notice that I have no such anger, and therefore, no desire to harm you. But if you try to leave the house of Athillor, even the music box and the last rose played together might not pierce the furious din of their minds before they attacked you.”
“How might one placate them in order to make a peaceful exit?” Essonine said.
The spectral bard’s mouth twisted. “This is my belief. The house of Athillor and their guests’ greatest regret in life is that night’s incomplete revelries. Should you play for them until sunrise, the hour the ball was to cease, they might release their grudge.”
“I shall accept this challenge with honor.” Essonine gazed on the flower bard’s last rose. A hint of awe colored her voice. “Master Yumas, I have no strings with which to entertain this gathering; I only anticipated retrieving your lute for Asudar Isior. Might I borrow…your last rose?”
“Certainly!” Auoril gestured toward the lute with a flourish. “But beware! Should you cease playing for too long, the spirits’ anger will destroy you…as it did those other poor souls who ventured here.”
Essonine nodded. “Keep the music box playing while I tune the lute,” she instructed Sabanus.
He did so. Auoril, meanwhile, floated to the head of the ballroom. Although Sabanus heard his voice as one hears the edge of an echo, it must have been a grand call to the other spirits. They ceased their muttering murmurs and turned to Essonine with expectant eyes.
Essonine wasted no time launching into a lively tune. The ghosts stared at one another, dumbfounded. Phantom toes began to tap, and heads to bob. “Finally,” some grumbled. Many traded their sulky countenances for impatient relief as they partnered off. Skirts whooshed around the room; Sabanus was reminded of the wind whip
ping sheer curtains.
To rest her fingers, Essonine told the favorite legends of the bardic province: of Larair solving the riddle to open the book of pearl; how Assiru took on the entire army of Harquine with his hundred companions for the love of Lady Nevavai; Anghannil’s dances with the legendary dead; Elbanil’s transformation from mere man to enlightened sage.
“She is incredible,” Auoril whispered to Sabanus during one of the legends. “Her skill surpasses that of a bard already in training. Asudar Isior has no need of this test to admit her. But then, unquestioned tradition blinds the wisest and makes stubborn fools of them.”
“Essonine has her share of stubbornness, too,” Sabanus said with what he had come to think of as affectionate exasperation. Several times now, he had met Essonine’s eye and attempted to help with entertaining the ghost assembly. Essonine ignored him or gave a fierce shake of her head.
“She does,” the flower bard agreed. “We must be her voices of reason.”
When night’s skein was half-unraveled, Essonine began to rasp. The Athillor ghosts had no concern for her; death had made them no more sensitive to another’s welfare than they had been in life. So long as she played her music, they would be content to ignore her and continue their overdue façade of a party. Noticing how drawn Essonine had become, Sabanus