The Sound of Broken Absolutes by Peter Orullian (fun to read .txt) 📗

Divad drank down half his glass and nodded his amusement. Just then, the first musician of the night began. Divad swiveled in his seat to find a young woman slouching at the rear of the stage. Her first notes were hesitant, like a child stuttering. The melody—a mum’s lullaby known as “Be Safe and Home Again”—hardly carried past the first table.

The first musicians of the night were those Ollie thought had talent, but who had little reputation yet. They played mostly to empty seats.

Beneath her timid first notes, though, Divad heard what Ollie surely had. He got the young girl’s attention with a simple hand wave. When she looked over, he straightened up tall on his barstool, threw out his chest, tilted back his chin, and took an exaggerated breath to fill his lungs. He then narrowed his eyes, and screwed onto his face a look of confidence. The young girl nodded subtly, mid-phrase, and at her next natural pause, drew a deep breath, stepped forward on the stage, and threw back her head and shoulders. The diffidence of her tone vanished. A clear, bright sound transformed what had been a plaintively beautiful lullaby into a clarion anthem of hope.

Now that’s teachable.

The rest of the night only got better. As music flowed from one to the next, Rafter’s filled to standing room only. Between acts, conversation buzzed with anticipation for the next performer. Divad would turn back toward the bar to try and avoid too many inquiries about Descant admission. Mostly that failed. But he did it anyway.

During one of the brief intermissions, an overeager percussionist sidled up close to him. To announce himself, he began to beat on the surface of the bar. With one hand he set a beat in four-four, while with the other he tapped increasingly faster polyrhythms: three-four, five-four, six-four, seven-four. He then repeated the entire cycle at double the tempo. It was rather impressive, actually. But when the young man reached out a hand in greeting, he knocked over Divad’s third glass of wheat bitter. The amber liquid washed over the bar, giving the worn lacquer new shine.

Ollie appeared out of nowhere with his rag, and began mopping up the spill. Some of the bitter remained in shallow grooves scored into the bar.

The indentations looked familiar somehow, and Divad sat staring, thoughts coalescing in his mind. All kinds of songs had passed across this bar, ribald tunes, laments, fight and love songs (which he thought shared more in common than most other types), dirges. And those melodies had risen from strings and woodwinds and horns and countless voices.

And all that just since it had become Rafters. What about its years before that? Divad found himself grinning at the idea of countless songs for the dead sung here when it had been a chantry.

It got him thinking about sonorant residue—the idea that exposure to music could create subtle changes in the fabric of physical reality. The notion found its roots in the Alkai philosophies of music. To Divad’s ear, the evidence was something you could hear in old, well-used instruments, and in the music of musicians who’d spent their lives listening, teaching, performing. It got in you, as was said. Not an elegant way to express it, but it got the point across.

Ollie had nearly finished drying the bar, when Divad caught his rag-hand. He tapped the bar. “What’s this made of, my friend?”

Ollie’s brow furrowed. He then produced a paring knife from his apron, bent down behind the bar, and a moment later stood up. In his fingers he held a thick curl of wood, presumably carved from the underside of the bar. He handed it to Divad, while continuing to stare at it with newfound interest.

Divad turned the shaving over in his fingers twice, inspecting the grain. He gave Ollie a quick glance, then put the curl of wood to his nose and breathed in deeply. He knew that scent like he knew the sound of his own voice. He turned his attention back to Ollie, grinning widely in spite of himself.

“I have a proposition for you, my friend.”

FOUR

I SHIVERED, AND sweat dripped from my nose. I sat alone in a tent, huddled under three layers of rough wool blankets. The fire in the middle of the space leapt higher than was probably safe, but I kept adding more wood. I couldn’t seem to get warm. The cold emanated from somewhere inside me. It felt as if I’d drunk a pitcher of iced water too fast, and was now experiencing the chill of it in the pit of my stomach. I’d downed several mugs of hot tea that hadn’t helped a jot.

There wasn’t really any mystery in it, either. I’d tried to repurpose Suffering. It had been an arrogant thing to do. And I was feeling the effects. The worst of it might be that I hadn’t done much good. A few moments of song, a few dead Sellari, and then they’d carried me back from the line. It was embarrassing, really. They’d sent for me at Descant, like some bright hope. And I’d managed only a few passages of song for them.

I was able to let the failure go, though. Selfish to worry about my failing. I needed to figure out what I’d done wrong.

Suffering had nine passages:

Quietus

The Bourne

The Placing

Inveterae

War

Self-Destruction

Vengeance

Quiet Song

Reclamation

My first thought was that I’d chosen the wrong passage to sing. Aligning the right song to the right singer for the right encounter had been a Tilatian art of war since they’d escaped the Bourne. Perhaps I should have asked Baylet to assign me one of the songs I’d reviewed last evening.

But I quickly let go of that argument. I’d sensed that War had been the right air. In truth, there might be many right songs for any one moment on the line. Much of the choice of song had to do with the confidence a Lieholan had in