The Harp of Imach Thyssel: A Lyra Novel (31 page)

Cautiously, Emereck plucked a chord, then another. Power vibrated through the harp, but he dared not add it to Welram’s efforts. The balance of harmony in Ryl’s defenses was too delicate; one wrong note, or one played a fraction too loudly or too late, and the protective melody would be drowned out by the twisted horror around it. Emereck paused, listening to the inaudible echoes of the spells. Then he began to play once more, improvising an accompaniment to the distorted music of Tammis’s twisted spell.

It took all his skill to follow the changing dissonances, but he made no mistakes. His fingers danced over the strings, resolving phrases the spell left hanging, modulating from one key to another, shaping the disordered cacophony into something like music.

Power poured from the harp as he played, reshaping the spell as he reshaped the music. As the harshness of the noise softened into melody, Emereck added a run of high, sweet notes, sending healing toward Ryl and Welram as he had done for the Duke and Liana. The sounds of their magic grew stronger, surer. And slowly they began to win.

Finally it was finished. Ryl sat up, blinking; beside her, Welram relaxed in relief. Emereck smiled and let go of the magic that flowed into him from the harp. But the music did not stop. Emereck’s smile faded, and he tried to stop playing, to pull his fingers from the strings, to throw the harp aside. He could not do it.

His hands continued to play without his willing it. He looked up, and the garden was changed. More clearly than ever, he could hear the web of magic woven through it, molding the wind and the music of the statues. Liana and the Duke were part of it, focal points that fit seamlessly into the overall harmony that was the castle. Welram was a warm, deep sound, like a set of bass pipes. And Ryl… if there was anything Ryl resembled, it was the music of the harp itself, clear and pure and powerful.

Again Emereck tried to stop playing, without success. He could not halt the magic that flooded him. He could feel himself drowning in the music, as Tammis had drowned, and he was afraid. He thought of the price the harp exacted, and of the Prince of the Kulseth who had been crippled by the power of the harp. Perhaps this was what had happened to him: the harp out of control and the power of its music building and building, until at last it burned him up from the inside. Emereck swallowed hard, wondering how long it would take.

He could hear nothing now except the music of the harp, and the ringing power in his ears, and, very faintly, the song of the wind on the sculptures. The song of the wind… Emereck’s eyes widened in sudden hope. He could not set the harp down, but perhaps he could control what he played. And if he played simply to make music, instead of to use the harp for revenge or healing, perhaps the power would stop.

Emereck looked down at the harp, and shut out everything except the movement of his fingers and the music of Castle Windsong. He began to improvise more consciously, choosing notes himself rather than allowing the harp to direct his fingers. He ignored the power that filled him, then forgot it. His whole being was concentrated on the music.

The harpnotes wove in and out of the melody the castle played. After a few moments, Emereck realized that the music of the castle was changing, adapting with the skill of a Master Minstrel to what he played on the harp. Emereck grinned. This was a game he knew well; at the Guildhall students had often displayed their skills by improvising a duet, each trying to outdo the other. His fingers flew over the strings, and music swirled through the garden.

A small part of his mind was aware that his gamble had succeeded; the power of the harp was draining away. Emereck no longer cared. He was a minstrel, and the harp was meant to make music. Nothing else mattered. He called on all the skill he possessed, for no reason but the sheer joy of creation.

At last he stopped, exhausted. His fingers hurt from plucking the harpstrings; his arms were sore from holding the instrument for so long. He sighed in satisfaction and set the harp on the ground, then lowered himself to sit beside it. Only then did he realize that Ryl, Liana, Welram and the Duke were standing beside the castle gate, watching him.

R
YL BROKE THE SILENCE
. “Well done, minstrel, and very well done. I did not think it possible for anyone to do what you have just done.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Emereck said, still feeling somewhat bemused. “It was the harp.”

“The Harp of Imach Thyssel has great power, but your mind and will directed it.”

Emereck looked at the bodies sprawled behind her and shuddered. Shalarn lay face down where she had fallen; slightly ahead of her, the three crumpled heaps of the captain and his guards formed a half-circle around Kensal. Just beyond was a body so twisted that it was only by eliminating everyone else that Emereck could identify it as the Cilhar sorceress, Tammis. Emereck thought of the music and the madness, and the glee with which he had hurled nightmares at her. He looked away, feeling sick.

Liana’s eyes followed his. “You can’t blame yourself for all this, Emereck,” she said.

“Can’t I? None of it would have happened if I hadn’t been fool enough to take the harp.”

“Then remember that there has been healing here as well as death,” Ryl said sternly, “and do not seek to carry more blame than is your share.”

“There has been healing,” Emereck said in a low voice, “but not enough.” His eyes sought Kensal’s body once more.

“Kensal told me once that few Cilhar die peacefully,” Liana said half to herself. “I don’t think he really wanted to be one of them.”

“He chose his death,” Welram put in unexpectedly. “I saw it in his face.”

“Yes.” Ryl’s voice held a distant sorrow. “He knew better than to expect a sword to be of use against such magic as Tammis wielded.”

“Then why did he attack her?” Emereck said.

Ryl looked at him. “Why did you?”

Emereck glanced at Liana and felt his face grow hot. “I had to,” he said shortly.

“As did Kensal. I think he hoped to distract Tammis enough to allow one of us to defeat her.” Ryl sighed. She looked back at Kensal’s body, and her expression became remote. “I will remember him.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then the Duke of Minathlan said, “My sympathy is yours, lady. But do you have any objection to disposing of the bodies now?”

Ryl did not respond. The Duke seemed about to repeat his question, when there was a brilliant flash of light from where Kensal’s body lay. A wave of heat struck Emereck. When the brief dazzle cleared from his eyes, Kensal’s body was gone. A dusting of ash hung in the air, to be dispersed almost at once by the singing winds.

“The Cilhar burn their dead,” Ryl said. “So much, at least, I owed him. Do as you will with the others.”

The Duke nodded. Emereck climbed to his feet, foreseeing an unpleasant interval of hauling bodies. Then he stopped. The Duke had not moved, but there was a line of concentration between his eyebrows. Behind him, the bodies of Shalarn and her men were sinking into the ground, slowly but steadily. Emereck stared until the surface of the grassy courtyard closed over them and smoothed out into firm, hard ground once more. Only Tammis’s twisted corpse remained to show that anything had happened.

“Very good, for a beginner,” Welram said. “But what about the last one?”

Duke Dindran frowned. “I have no desire to allow such as she to remain in my lands, even in death. Yet, I confess I am not certain of the best way to remove her.”

Welram gave the Duke one of his pointed-tooth grins. “Perhaps Ryl and I can help you. I think it’s safe enough now?” He added the last with a questioning look at Ryl.

“It is safe, for a little time,” Ryl said. “Come, then.”

She held out her left hand, and Welram took it in one of his own. With her right, she sketched a figure in the air. “
Avoc arat
!” she said. Emereck felt the words pull at him, and Tammis’s body vanished.

“My thanks,” the Duke said, bowing.

“It is a small enough thing to do for the prince of Castle Windsong,” Ryl replied.

“I don’t understand,” Liana said. “What did you do?”

“We sent the body away, to an empty part of the plains on the other side of Minathlan,” Welram said.

“Yes, but why?”

“Tammis was a servant of the Shadow-born,” Ryl replied. “All her magic, she learned from them, and much of her power came through the link she carried.”

“The black crystal!” Emereck said.

“Yes. She bore the taint of shadow willingly, and even in death it would not leave her. To bury such a one in a place of power would be… unwise, at best.”

“It could have given the Dark Men a way into Windsong,” Welram said.

“Or a way to destroy it,” Ryl added. “Windsong has long been a stronghold for the enemies of the Shadow-born.”

“Then why was it ever abandoned?” Emereck asked.

Ryl smiled a little sadly. “It was not abandoned, exactly. The princes of Windsong became one with their domains; they
are
the castle and the lands around it. The last of them merged with the land centuries ago.”

“I thought they had gone to Minathlan.”

“Minathlan was settled by a younger son at a time when the family was numerous. There were other such colonies, but they have all died out over the centuries. The Dukes of Minathlan are the last.”

Liana looked at the Duke. “And you mean to live here, my lord?”

“To claim it, at least. There appears to be no one else who can do so with any justification.”

“But Minathlan—”

“I believe I am sufficiently aware of my responsibilities that you need not remind me of them.”

“Then what
will
you do with Windsong?” Liana persisted.

“As I understand it, the only requirement is that one who is ‘of the blood’ of the Dukes of Minathlan rule here,” the Duke said and paused, looking pointedly at Liana.

“It would be a good job for Oraven,” Liana said hastily. “He’s needed something to distract him for a long time.”

The Duke raised an eyebrow. “An excellent suggestion. I do not think he will refuse the offer.”

Ryl smiled. “Then one good thing, at least, has come of this confusion. It will be good to have Windsong occupied again.”

“That reminds me.” The Duke turned and looked at Emereck.

Emereck stiffened. “My lord?”

“I believe you are in some measure responsible for ‘this confusion.’ Now that things have, er, quieted, perhaps you would be good enough to explain how you happen to be here with my daughter and the Harp of Imach Thyssel.”

“Of course, my lord. But the story is a long one. Will you be seated first?”

“When did a minstrel ever tell a story briefly?” But the Duke moved toward the paved terrace at the front of the castle, and the others followed.

Emereck brought the harp with him, and set it close beside himself. When everyone had found a place, he began his tale. For Welram’s benefit, he started with a summary of the fight at Ryl’s inn, the finding of the harp, and the events leading up to Flindaran’s death. He covered his escape from Minathlan and the journey across the plains in greater detail. He was interrupted only once. When he tried to gloss over Liana’s presence, she broke in and pointed out with great firmness that coming with him had been her own idea.

At last he finished. The Duke looked at him. “Well, minstrel—”

“My lord,” Liana interrupted. “May I speak?”

The Duke raised an eyebrow. “I seem unable to prevent you.”

Liana smiled, completely unabashed. “Thank you, my lord. Emereck does not do himself justice in his account.”

“I see.” Duke Dindran looked at her. “And what interest do you have in the matter?”

“I wish to marry him, Father, with your blessing.”

Emereck’s head jerked toward her, the Duke forgotten. “Liana!”

Liana raised her chin. “You must have heard me, or you wouldn’t look so shocked.”

“Liana, this isn’t the time for—”

“It is, too. If my father agrees.” She looked at the Duke.

“And if I don’t, you will be sweet and reasonable until I change my mind,” the Duke said. He sighed. “In some ways, you are very like your mother, Liana.”

Liana rose and curtsied. “Thank you, my lord.”

“My lord, you can’t let her marry me!” Emereck said.

“Why not?” Liana demanded. “Do stop making objections, Emereck.”

“Why not, indeed?” murmured the Duke. “It seems… fitting.” He smiled blandly at Emereck’s shocked expression. “After all, I owe you both my life and my daughter’s.”

“Thank you, Father,” Liana said demurely.

Emereck looked at Liana, and a crescendo of joy began building within him. “I—I thank you as well, my lord. With all my heart.” He leaned forward, and his hand brushed the harp beside him.

The joy froze within him. He had played the Harp of Imach Thyssel; now he would have to pay the price. And if Liana’s life became part of that price, he could not bear it.

“Emereck, what is it?” Liana said.

“The harp,” Emereck said dully. “There is a price for playing it, and until I have paid it I cannot—”

“No.” Ryl was shaking her head.

“What?” Emereck turned to look at her.

“There is no price. The harp is a tool, no more.”

“How can you say that?” Emereck demanded. “Everyone who has ever played it has paid! King Loren, and the Prince of the Kulseth…” And Flindaran, he added silently.

“And Karth of Rathane, and Veleday of Tyrillian before that. But it is not the nature of the harp that extracts a price for its use.”

“Then what?”

“It is the nature of men.”

“How do you know?” Emereck demanded, torn between his desire to believe her and his fear of the consequences if she were wrong.

“I know the harp.” Ryl smiled. “I played it once, long ago, before the first ancestors of those who built Imach Thyssel walked the ways of Lyra. Before the Shadow-born brought the Change down upon us all.”

Emereck stared. “Kensal’s tale was true, then. You are one of the Eleann.”

“Did you doubt it, after what you have seen and done?”

“I don’t understand,” Emereck said, bewildered.

“It was the Change itself that you beat back with the music of the harp. Tammis called it down upon me when she realized what I am.” Ryl shook her head. “It was a foolish and dangerous thing to do. Once awakened, the spell is impossible to control; it could easily have struck her as well.”