Fractured Melody, Page 3

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  At first the Birdmaster did not notice the silent figure watching him from the other side of the fountain. Leaned back against the strangely luminous curves of a bench, eyes half closed, he was willfully oblivious to his surroundings. The strangeness of the garden and its glowing dome had riled the riding griffins, and he’d spent the greater part of the last hour trying to return their raucous behavior to its usual boisterousness. On any other day this would not have been a problem, as there were only five and the Birdmaster was capable of controlling up to twelve. However, today had not been like any other day, and he was paying the price for over-extending himself.

  The Birdmaster had a headache. After drawing heavily on his powers to direct the hawks for hours, the effort it took to control the excited griffins made his temples throb. He wished fervently that the elders would finish their search quickly and return to the meeting place. He wanted a chance to rest before the Midsummer Eve festivities.

  An unexpected tremor of energy rippled through his connection to the griffins, and their voices fell silent. The Birdmaster frowned, suddenly wary. He’d been probed by a Songmaster once, many years ago, and the tingle that was now running through his limbs reminded him of that incident. It was not the same, though. That spell had been harsh and obvious, rifling through his soul with a painful, debilitating relentlessness that’d left him unable to move for several hours while its after-effects slowly faded from his body. Supposedly, it had been performed skillfully.

  The subtlety and finesse of whatever he’d just experienced was on an entirely different level.

  Headache forgotten, the Birdmaster opened his eyes, searching for the source of the spell as the last of its energy withdrew from his mind. He didn’t have far to look. Standing barely twenty feet away, on the other side of the ornamental pool that the Birdmaster had chosen to rest beside, was a human male clad in an unfamiliar style of dress. This was not entirely a surprise. It was a well-known and hard-learned truth among the Elden that the most talented Songmasters were human.

  He stood up, unsettled by the intensity of the scrutiny he was under. As the seconds ticked by, stretching into minutes and bringing no sign that the human realized he’d been noticed, the Birdmaster began to feel that something was very wrong. His mind jumped back to the strange plants and creatures he’d recently encountered. Birds that were not birds and fish that were not fish, all seemingly similar to, yet behaving differently from the animals he was familiar with. Humans, in his experience, did not possess the discipline or attention span to stay completely still and focused for so long. Perhaps this person, obviously an inhabitant of the garden, was a human that wasn’t human.

  The Birdmaster didn’t like that thought. Philosophizing was neither his business nor his strong suit. He had little enough experience with humans as it was without trying to predict how best to approach one that wasn’t really one. Even the idea of it made his brain hurt. Best to call the elders back and let them deal with it.

  He stepped away from the bench, eyes lingering for a moment longer on the not-human’s piercing blue gaze, then turned away and started walking back to the path that would take him to the griffins and the hunting horn stored in their saddlepacks.

  A strangled cry erupted behind him, followed by a thump and frantic splashing, and the Birdmaster whirled back to see what’d happened. The not-human had tripped on the edge of the pool and was stumbling towards him, a look of desperation on its face, seemingly oblivious to the water soaking its sleeve and dripping down one of the folds of fabric hanging from its back. It was saying something too. Or at least trying to. Its voice was halting and broken sounding, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time.

  The Birdmaster attempted to beat a hasty retreat from the disturbing figure, then immediately cursed his carelessness as he backed into one of the ornate pillars framing the bench he’d vacated. The not-human, arms reaching towards him, stopped a few feet away. Suddenly the Birdmaster was not quite sure that he’d been correct when he identified it as a male. It was strikingly beautiful and, though at first glance it seemed young, its face possessed a strangely appealing, ageless quality that he couldn’t quite place.

  It cleared its throat and spoke again, successfully this time, and the Birdmaster’s doubts as to its gender were dispelled. Its voice was male. He’d been right.

  Now it was looking at him expectantly, and its eyes were searching his face, hungry and pleading as they awaited some sort of response. The Birdmaster didn’t know what to do. He had studied the ancient languages, but he’d never been particularly good at conversing in them. Whatever it had just said was in the oldest, and most complicated, tongue the Elden currently had record of, and it had been spoken with the strangest accent he’d ever heard. For all he knew, it could’ve even been a different dialect.

  The words were repeated over and over again, and the Birdmaster cringed away from the frantic urgency in the not-human’s penetrating eyes. It looked like it might panic at any moment, and he still had no idea what it wanted. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing. He went out of his way to avoid confrontations like this.

  He was a Birdmaster, damn it! Not a Peoplemaster!

  A distressed chirping caught his attention, and he was startled to discover a young sunhopper hiding in the not-human’s hair. He stared. The bird didn’t seem frightened at all, and, to the Birdmaster’s surprise, it was acting as if it had an upset chick to protect.

  Watching the tiny sunhopper ruffle its feathers against the not-human’s throat, the Birdmaster got an idea. He was no good with people, that was true, but he was an expert at communicating with birds. The tiny yellow creature, which was now getting its breast scratched, obviously had some sort of bond with the not-human. Maybe the sunhopper could tell him what it wanted.

  The Birdmaster closed his eyes and emptied his mind, missing the startled expression that crossed the not-human’s face as he reached out and brushed the songbird’s thoughts with his query. A jumble of feelings and images and half-formed impressions answered him. He opened his eyes again. The sunhopper was not used to communicating in this manner, but its general message was clear. An affirmation of truth was needed.

  He looked the suddenly silent not-human in the eye and, slowly and deliberately, he nodded.

  The effect was instantaneous. Its eyes lit up as it broke into an incredulous smile and rapidly closed the distance between them. Trembling hands reached up towards his face and the Birdmaster braced himself… for a touch that didn’t come. The fingers hesitated less than an inch away, and a shadow fell over the not-human’s eyes. Its smile flickered. A myriad of contrasting emotions passed over its face, as if it were struggling with some internal conflict.

  The sunhopper chirped and ruffled its feathers once more.

  A hesitant finger brushed his cheek, and blue eyes filled slowly with tears.

  The Birdmaster, resigned to his fate, nodded again and covered the shaking hand with one of his own. A strangled sob tore from the not-human’s throat as its other hand touched him as well, and suddenly it was embracing him, weeping and laughing by turns and running its fingers through his hair and across his shoulders. Then it released him and its hands were on his face again, tracing his features and exploring the points of his ears before running over the contours of his throat and moving back into his hair again.

  Shocked by this unexpected familiarity, and not quite sure that he was comfortable with it considering their racial differences and gender similarities, the Birdmaster was opening his mouth to protest when warm breath hit his neck and the music washed over him.

  The ripple of energy that he’d felt earlier was moving through his mind again, only it was magnified. Others followed as the tingling sensation once more swept through his body.

  The Birdmaster stared helplessly at the gently swaying mass of black hair pressed against his cheek. He couldn’t move, and a second later he couldn
’t see either. All of his senses faded away until the only things he was aware of were the music and energy swirling through him. The chords and harmonies ebbed and flowed as the ripples spread, shifting and strengthening as they found resonances within him. One by one specific notes swelled up, and then he couldn’t hear the music anymore, he could only feel it. Its energy intensified, augmented by one last ripple, and suddenly the Birdmaster was possessed of the strongest sense of Self that he’d ever experienced.

  He knew exactly who he was. His strengths and faults, weaknesses and desires. Hopes, dreams, and insecurities. Mental, physical, and spiritual limits. Denied or undenied, everything was bared before him, and some of it was good and some of it was not, but the strangest part of the experience was that he was completely confident and satisfied with what he saw. It was all himself, and he was comfortable with it precisely because of that. He was who he was, and that would never change, so there was no reason to be insecure about it. This was him and he simply was.

  The music stopped and the energy started to dissipate as the world slowly faded into being once more. The not-human was holding his face, staring and laughing as it pressed its forehead against his own, tears running down its cheeks. Overwhelmed by the experience, the Birdmaster found himself laughing as well and stared right back. He didn’t know what to say to it, but suddenly that didn’t seem important anymore. As surely as he had just known himself, this person had known him too, and he no longer needed to say anything because it, no, he (he couldn’t think of the not-human as an it anymore), he understood him.

  They stood there like that while the tingle of the spell faded from his body, and for a long while after, too. They stood that way until the not-human suddenly looked up at the sky and started babbling again. The anxious, painfully hopeful look was on his face and he abruptly let go of the Birdmaster and started running down the path that led to the edge of the gardens and the clearing where they’d left the griffins.

  The Birdmaster stared after the retreating figure in shocked silence for several seconds before he could gather his wits enough to give chase. The not-human had spoken in his ancient tongue, and the Birdmaster had remembered something about the stories surrounding that language that he’d forgotten. The not-human was not a not-human at all, nor was he a true Songmaster. He was something else entirely.

  The not-human had spoken in his ancient tongue once more, and this time the Birdmaster had understood him perfectly.

  He shivered as he finally managed to spur his petrified limbs into pursuit.

  The Birdmaster was in the presence of a Choirsinger.

  If you’re here, you’re here. You’re HERE. If you’re here, and you’re here, if you’re here, and you Are here… You’re here and if you’re here, you’re here, you’re here, you’re here, YOU’RE HERE, YOU’RE HERE, YOU’RE HERE, YOU’RE HERE,

  IF YOU’RE HERE THEN…!!!!