Terry Brooks - The Darkling Child

He finished his sandwich and drained his glass of ale. Moving over to the coatrack, he took down the elleryn, removed it carefully from its case, and slung the strap over his shoulder. Standing in the kitchen amid the smells of the cooking and the rise of the heat from the stove and griddle, he tuned it carefully, turning the pegs that tightened the eight strings one after another while plucking experimentally to bring them all into sync. Then he fastened the metal slide in place at the apex of the instrument’s narrowing neck and fretted multiple chords to check for tuning.

When he was satisfied with the results, he took a deep breath, exhaled, gave a cheery call to the grease–dog, and headed for the tavern door.

It was pandemonium beyond. Shouts and jokes and raucous laughter, voices seeking to be heard over the roar of other voices, empty tankards of this and that libation slammed on the bar in search of a refill, feet stamping and backs being slapped, the room jammed with patrons locked elbow–to–elbow and shoulder–to–shoulder, heads bent close, bodies radiating heat and sweat. There was barely room for him to get to the small platform where he performed, set back against the wall at the far end of the room. The tables and chairs closest were pushed right up against the edge of his four–by–four space. As he neared, shouts and whistles rose from listeners familiar with his playing, sounds of encouragement and approval that caused him to flush with pleasure. He knew he was good. He knew he could make them feel things they didn’t even know they were capable of feeling. He had the gift.

He stepped onto the platform and settled himself on the stool placed there for his use. The room began to quiet immediately. He tested the strings of the elleryn once more, strumming chords, ear held close so he could hear accurately. By the time he was finished, voices had quieted almost to silence, and all eyes were on him.

Without preamble, he began to play. He chose a crowd favorite, a tale about a highwayman and the woman he loved–who betrayed him to the authorities so that he was trapped and died calling out her name. It was sweet and poignant, its refrain instantly memorable after one hearing:

Call, he did for Ellen Jean

She who was his sweetest dream

Call for her in spite of cost

For Ellen Jean, his life was lost.

When he was finished and the highwayman was dispatched and Ellen Jean was revealed for the faithless woman they all knew she was, you could have heard a pin drop. Then the clapping and pounding began, and the room was on its feet, calling for more. He went back to it immediately, another crowd favorite, a drinking song featuring an old woodsman and his dog.

He played with almost no pause for the better part of an hour, his music and his voice ensnaring them like wondering children, mesmerizing them as they listened. He wove their emotions into each song, making it live and breathe for them in ways a mere tune never could. All felt the emotional ache his music aroused within, rejoicing in the happy songs, mourning with the sad. All were caught up in a transformative experience that for a few minutes at least changed everything about them.

It was his gift that captured them, that wove through their hearts and minds and made them smile or cry. It was not the playing, which was only an accompaniment. It was in his voice where the real magic could be found, in the way he worked a song through changes in modulation, pauses, slides up and down the scale, emphasis added and withdrawn. With his voice, he could make them believe. No one was immune. Wherever he went, whomever he played for, they were his for as long as he sang.

The problem was that it didn’t end there and the result wasn’t always pleasant. His voice could provide a healing balm, but it could be a weapon, too. And in the heat of a moment’s careless lapse or an ill–considered emotional surge, it could shift from the former to the latter.

And even that wasn’t the worst of it. What it did to him was even more terrifying. When he used the magic in the wrong way, in an ill–advised response to anger or fear, it whisked him away and dropped him into a deep, dark nothingness, into a place where everything disappeared and time stopped. It happened all at once and without warning. It was as if he had been yanked outside himself. This has happened only a scattering of times–but they were times that were among the blackest of his life. To lose all sense of what was happening, to be stripped of control and become a helpless prisoner in a timeless nothingness was something he could barely stand to think about.

He did not want it to happen to him ever again. He would do anything to prevent it.

He sang his last song for the hour and stood up to receive the resultant applause before departing the tiny stage and moving back behind the bar to gain some space. Calls for drinks for the player, the singer, the music man rang through the great room, but he declined them all. Drink fogged his mind, and a fogged mind was dangerous for someone with his condition. As marvelous as his gift could be, it could also be unpredictable. No matter the urges he felt, he couldn’t let his guard down. With a moment’s carelessness, the darker emotions could take control and his singing could turn lethal.

It had happened only that handful of times, but he remembered the consequences of each one vividly. He didn’t want any more memories to add to that bin.

He stood behind the bar and drank from a glass of water, smiling and waving at his listeners. Off to one side, the Fortren brothers stood talking, heads bent close. Scheming, he corrected himself, not talking. Like weasels. The music never seemed to affect them in the way it affected others. They weren’t immune to the magic; they couldn’t be. They seemed mostly enraged by it, as if it awakened something in them that they would have preferred to leave sleeping. They had threatened him on more than one occasion because of it, never saying exactly why they were so troubled.

At the back of the room, the stranger in the black cloak was staring at him, his narrow features revealed, bladed and flat. His eyes glittered, but there was no malice or ill intent reflected.

Odd, Reyn thought. Then the head lowered, and the face disappeared back into shadow.

The boy studied him a moment longer, then he turned and went back into the kitchen for something more to eat. The singing, the turning of his audience from doubters into believers, the giving what they didn’t even know they wanted–it was all hard work and it made him hungry. Standing at the griddle, he made himself another sandwich, casting occasional glances at the old grease–dog as he cooked food, prepared plates, and called off the orders to Sorsi and Phenel, the two serving girls.

His gaze shifted to a tiny window and the darkness outside. He wished he knew more about the source of his power. He didn’t question that it was a form of magic; he had accepted that a long time back. If you could use your voice to do the things that he had done–good and bad–you commanded magic. But where had it come from? Why did he have it? His parents hadn’t told him, assuming they had even known. They were dead before he was even old enough to ask the questions that plagued him now. He could still see them in his mind, dragged from their home by the townspeople to be stoned until they were dead.

Because of him. Because of his voice. Because of what he was suspected of being by frightened, superstitious fools.

He shut his eyes against the thoughts and memories. He hadn’t seen them die, though he knew they had. He had been gone by then. He had done what they had told him to do and hidden in the old man’s cart so he could be spirited away from what was coming. He hated himself for having allowed it. He could have helped them. He could have stopped what had happened.