Kevin's Watch

Atiaran's voice enthralled him. No instruments aided her singing, but before she had finished her first line, he knew she did not need them. The clean thread of her melody was tapestried with unexpected resonances, implied harmonies, echoes of silent voices, so that on every rising motif she seemed about to expand into three or four singers, throats separate and unanimous in the song.

But before she could stab out his life, consummate his unclean pain in death, a host of glaucous, alien gleams leaped like music into the air around her. They fell on her like dew, clung to her like moist melody, stayed her hand; they confined her power and her anguish, held all things within her until her taut, soundless cry imploded. They contained her until she broke under the strain of things that could not be contained. Then they let her fall.

Gleaming like the grief of trees, they sang themselves away.

Then Pitchwife began to sing. He stood some distance away, but his voice carried like light across the dromond, rising strongly from his deformed chest over the slapping of the waves and the snap of the canvas. His tune was a plain-song spiced with accents and suggestions of harmony; and the other Giants joined him:

"Come sea and wave --
broad footpath of those who roam
and gateway to the world!
All ways lead the way to Home.

"Come wind and speed-
sky-breath and the life of sail!
Lines and sheets unfurled,
our hearts covet every gale.

"Come travel and quest!
Discovery of the Earth:
mysteries unknurled:
roaming without stint or dearth:

"Risk and journey save
the heart of life from loss and need.
We are the ocean's guest,
and we love the vasty world!"

The Giants were joyful singers, and their voices formed a counterpoint to the rocking of the masts, a song punctuated by a rising staccato as the breeze knocked the canvas. Star-fare's Gem appeared to ride music as well as wind

Around her, Linden thought she heard the sound of bells. They rang delicately in the distance, enhancing the woods with music. But none of her companions appeared to notice the chiming; and she could not stop to question it. It felt like the language of the trees, tanging and changing until it formed words she almost understood, though the meaning slipped away into music whenever she tried to grasp it. The bells were as lovely as the leaves; and yet in a vague way they disquieted her. She was troubled by an intuitive sense that she needed to comprehend them.

Thus the Wraiths brought him to a tall knoll, bare of trees but opulently grassed. There the chiming faded into a stronger music. The very air became the song to which the stars measured out then- gavotte, and every blade of grass was a note in the harmony. It was a stern song behind its quietude, and it held a long sorrow which he understood. The Wraiths remained at the base of the knoll, forming a long ring around it; but the music carried him upward, toward the crest.

And then the song took on words, so distinct that they could never be forgotten. They were sad and resolute, and he might have wept at them if he had been less entranced.

"Andelain I hold and mold within my fragile spell,
While world's ruin ruins wood and wold.
Sap and bough are grief and grim to me, engrievement fell,
And petals fall without relief.
Astricken by my power's dearth,
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.

"Andelain I cherish dear within my mortal breast;
And faithful I withhold Despiser's wish.
But faithless is my ache for dreams and slumbering and rest,
And burdens make my courage break.
The Sunbane mocks my best reply,
And all about and in me beauties die.

"Andelain! I strive with need and loss, and ascertain
That the Despiser's might can rend and rive.
Each falter of my ancient heart is all the evil's gain;
And it appalls without relent.
I cannot spread my power more,
Though teary visions come of wail and gore.

"Oh, Andelain! forgive! for I am doomed to fail this war.
I cannot bear to see you die-and live,
Foredoomed to bitterness and all the gray Despiser's lore.
But while I can I heed the call
Of green and tree; and for their worth,
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth."

Slowly through the music, Covenant beheld the singer.

When she reached the stage, she did not speak, said nothing to introduce or explain or identify her song. Instead, she took her stance in the center of the stage, composed herself for a moment as the song came over her, then lifted her face to the sun and opened her throat.

At first, her melody was restrained, arid and angular -only hinting at burned pangs and poignancies.
I stood on the pinnacle of the Earth:
Mount Thunder,
its Lions in full flaming mane,
raised its crest no higher
than the horizons that my gaze commanded;
the Ranyhyn,
hooves unfettered since the Age began,
galloped gladly to my will;
iron-thewed Giants
from beyond the sun's birth in the sea
came to me in ships as mighty as castles,
and cleft my castle from the
raw Earth rock
and gave it to me out of pure friendship
a handmark of allegiance and fealty
in the eternal stone of Time;
the Lords under my Watch labored
to find and make manifest
the true purpose of the Earth's Creator,
barred from His creation by the very
power of that purpose-
power graven into the flesh and bone of the Land
by the immutable Law of its creation:
how could I stand so,
so much glory and dominion comprehended
by the outstretch of my arms
stand thus,
eye to eye with the Despiser,
and not be dismayed?

But then the song changed, as if the singer opened inner chambers to give her voice more resonance. In high, arching spans of song, she gave out her threnody -highlighted it and underscored it with so many implied harmonies, so many suggestions of other accompanying voices, that she seemed to have a whole choir within her, using her one throat for utterance.

Where is the Power that protects
beauty from the decay of life?
preserves truth pure of falsehood?
secures fealty from that slow stain of chaos
which corrupts?
How are we so rendered small by Despite?
Why will the very rocks not erupt
for their own cleansing,
or crumble into dust for shame?
Creator!
When You desecrated this temple,
rid Yourself of this contempt by
inflicting it upon the Land,
did You intend
that beauty and truth should pass utterly from the Earth?
Have You shaped my fate into the Law of life?
Am I effectless?
Must I preside over,
sanction,
acknowledge with the bitter face of treachery,
approve
the falling of the world?

Her music ached in the air like a wound of song. And as she finished, the people came to their feet with a rush. Together they sang into the fathomless heavens:

Ah, Creator!
Timelord and Landsire!
Did You intend
that beauty and truth should pass utterly from the Earth?

As his singing faded into the distance, he heard the reply. Its music far surpassed his own. It seemed to fall from the branches like leaves bedewed with rare melody-to fall and flutter around him, so that he stared as if he were dazzled. The voice had a light, high, clear sound, like a splashing brook, but the power it implied filled him with awe.

But ax and fire leave me dead.
I know the hate of hands grown bold.
Depart to save your heart-sap's red:
My hate knows neither rest nor weal.

A shimmer of music rippled his sight. When it cleared, he saw Caerroil Wildwood walking toward him across the greensward.

Durris wrote:Have you read McCaffrey's Killashandra and/or Crystal Singer and Crystal Line? What you described sounded in my mind's ear somewhat similar to the vibrations of Ballybran crystal--if much more varied in "orchestration".