I passed him in the market place this morning. We didn't speak; in fact, we haven't spoken in years. At first it was because of being watched so closely by so many people. Later, as time passed, it became too awkward. But today of all days, when our paths crossed in the narrow passage between the merchants' booths, our eyes met, and I wanted so much to tell him what I've done, to bridge the years of silence.

Then the flow of the crowd blocked our view of each other, and when I pushed through, he was gone.

I left the village, and set out once more for the woods.

********

"Skies, it's tall!"

A half-day's walk outside the village, two boys stood at the edge of the woods and stared in awe at a ruined tower. It had been there longer than any human had ever walked the land, a solitary relic of the vanished elven rulers from an age before.

"Dare you to go inside, Eryl!" Beran, the taller of the two, nudged his companion with an elbow to the ribs. "I'll race you to the top, slowpoke!" And before Eryl could reason as he always did when his friend posed some wild adventure, Beran dashed across the meadow and into the open entrance to the building, leaving the huntsman's son to follow.

Inside was not as dark as they might have thought, the stairwell being lined every few yards by small windows looking out on the woods and field. It wound all about the inner wall of the tower, and, thought Eryl, must have given archers an advantage in defense. But another shout from Beran brought his attention back to the race. His friend had stopped short, the stairs having ended in a circular room that took up the entire top of the tower.

"Look at all this, Eryl! Have you ever seen the like?" The two boys spun around, eyes wide at the shelves of books that surrounded them. The books were bound in sturdy leather, a strange, elegant script on the spines of each, no doubt titles written in the forgotten elven tongue. But what most intrigued Beran was the harpcase hanging from a peg on the wall opposite the stairs. His fingers nearly itched to run over the strings of an elven harp, and he started across the room.

As he took his second step, there was a sound of chimes, and a vision of a beautiful woman appeared before the boys, and a voice spoke to them in a fluid language neither had ever heard before, but that both nevertheless somehow understood.

"Greetings and be welcome to hearth and home. The books you see around you are a record of all my people achieved under this sun. Feel free to learn what you can from them. Perhaps when and if our peoples meet again, the knowledge you gain here will help it be at last in peace and not war. Just open any book. You will be able to read it."

The boys stared at each other as the woman faded from view. Then Eryl walked over to the nearest shelf, took out a volume, and opened it to a random page. He looked at Beran, then down at the page, and he began to read. "'The Folk of the Sithryn are ruled by the Great Houses, and these are their names and devices...'. He laughed and shut the book. "Beran, do you know what this means?"

But Beran was already opening the harp case, his eyes alight at what he found within it.

********

"We have to be careful! If it ever gets out what we've been about these past months, everything will be ruined!"

Eryl pounded the table and then turned away, throwing his arms up frustration. "It is like talking to a stone wall, I swear it is with you, Beran! We can't risk it!"

His friend nodded in his maddening way. He gave the elven harp a final wipe with the soft cloth he used to polish its frame and then set it away before resuming what was now almost a daily argument. "There are others who I think can be trusted: Joffry, for one, and his sister for another. It isn't right to keep this all to ourselves. We can get others who think like us! We could change everything, make things better, not ruin! You spend too much time reading everything you can, Eryl! You have to dream too!" He slapped his friend's shoulder, then started down the steps. "Come on, we better hurry! It will be dark soon."

For a minute Eryl simply stood there, looking about as he had on that first day they'd discovered this place. Then he squared his shoulders, and followed.

********

They came for me in the night, a murmur of harsh voices and a bright lantern held in my face jolting me awake. My father stood there grim-faced as the priest and his acolyte hauled me out of the house before a crowd of townsmen. The priest thrust his face close to mine; I remember his breath reeked.

"Your friend confessed all. You've been seeking the elven magic, the two of you, haven't you?"

And before I could gather my sleep-dulled wits, they pushed him on the ground before me, tears shining on his face from the torchlight. He said nothing, merely looked at me and then turned away.

There was no use in denial. "Yes," I said, and readied myself for what was to follow.

We were thrashed, soundly, and made to fast and keep night vigil in the temple for over a year, cleansing our souls with prayer under the watchful eyes of the priest. As for the tower, our parents led the townsfolk in its destruction after burning whatever they could find within its graceful walls. When they were done, the meadow was strewn with stones, for none were willing to haul them away to use in building, fearful of the elven taint.

The two of us, we never spoke again.

********

And so I left the village this morning for the last time, once more bound for that meadow and what remained. Two hundred yards from the tower's remnants, I stopped at the edge of the woods, moved a small rock, and pulled at a ring set into the ground. The door swung up and open as smoothly as it had the first time I used it, and I drew out the last pack of books I'd stored here. My eyes wandered over to the battered harp case.

Beran had been right about dreaming. But one can be practical and still dream. I began spiriting books out of the tower and hiding them here when he spoke of letting others know what we had found, against the chance it turned out badly. Well, it had. But I am a grown man now, and these past few years I'd made my plans carefully.

There are lands to the west of here, places where the elves are recalled with kinder words, and that is where I shall take the books I hid here. But the harp, the harp I shall leave here in safety.

It is Beran's.

Gods willing, someday I will be able to place it back into his hands, and tell him his dreams live on.

11/2001


The Tower: Part II

"Your friend's dead. Pass me the stew, would you?"

He said it so matter of factly; it was several seconds before my mind registered what Joffry had said. I sat, hand on the bowl of stew, staring across the table at him.

"Are you going to sit looking at me like some lackwit or pass me that stew, Beran?"

I handed the bowl to my cousin. He spooned some out into his smaller bowl, then handed it to his sister. Saleen took it silently and set it down after serving herself.

"Which friend?" But I knew whom Joffry had to be speaking about.

"Your elflover friend, Eryl. He hadn't been in town for a moon, and when they went to the steading, they found it empty. They think he went out hunting and some beast got him. The judgment of the gods, the priest said. Pass that bread, will you?"

"Maybe he's just on a long hunt!" Saleen said quietly. "Eryl always loved the forest. He might have set up another camp deep inside it." She smiled at me.

"He's dead. There's nothing much missing from his place, nothing to show he'd gone on a long trip. No, Eryl most like ran into a pack of wolves or a bear."

"Joffry! He was Beran's friend!"

I busied myself eating. I knew Joffry much better now than a few years ago when I'd foolishly trusted him. He would like nothing better than to see how much this was hurting me. So I went on eating my stew, as if there were not a large lump in my throat. Poor Saleen tried awkwardly to bridge the silence between us, then poked listlessly at her stew. But apparently there was more, for after taking a few swallows of his ale, Joffry cleared his throat.

"Well, whatever happened to him, he willed the steading to Beran." He nodded as we looked at him. "Aye, strange, isn't it? You and he haven't talked since the temple let you go, and now he up and leaves his steading to you!"

"Are you sure?" My voice sounded hollow to me, a stranger's voice.

"He had the temple draw up the papers last year after the blood fever took his father. The acolyte told me he said it was because he had no wife or son yet to pass it on to. Heh! There's an irony in that, isn't there, sister?" Then he took a bite of bread and let his words do as they will. Saleen paled a bit. They'd lost both their parents to the same outbreak of the fever and ended up here, taken in by my father when they'd asked as distant kinsman for aid. It'd galled Joffry to seek charity from a man whose son he'd betrayed.

I took my time eating the stew, determined not to give the bastard the chance to gloat on how his words had upset me. When I finished, I pushed the bowl to the side for the servants to take away, and then rose. "I'll check the door on the shop. Good eve, cousins." Then I made my way to the stairs leading down to the business and made good my escape. When I reached the front door, instead of locking it, I opened it and leaned against the doorframe, staring down the street to the marketplace where I'd last seen my best friend. In my mind, I could hear the music from that harp I'd played in the tower when we were boys.

"I'm sorry, Beran. Joffry is an ass." Saleen had followed me downstairs. I wanted to roar with frustration. Was there no place I could have solitude? Ever since Father had taken them in, it seemed I was constantly tripping over one or the other of them. No doubt Joffry was hoping they'd catch me doing something else he could report to the priests, and Saleen was his helper. I didn't turn to look at her.

"He must have left right after we ran into each other down there." I waved a hand towards the market.

"You saw Eryl? Did he say anything?"

"Ah, no, we passed on no secret words of forbidden elves. Is that what you want to know? In fact, when his view of me was blocked, I turned away."

She pushed past me, then turned so she faced me. "I'm not Joffry. I asked because it is so sad that after all that time, you saw him. I asked because I'd hoped for your sake you'd made your peace."

"I didn't. All I could think about was all the people around us, and who might be watching us, ready to run to the temple and tell them the elflovers were plotting in the marketplace. Sounds stupid, doesn't it?"

"No, no it doesn't. You and Eryl spent a year in penance, but when it was over, he at least had his woods and the steading. You were stuck here in town, where everyone could gossip and stare. And I know how much it hurt you when your father refused to let you become the bard's apprentice. I hate Joffry for what he did to you, Beran. You didn't deserve this." She reached out to hold my arm, then rose on tiptoe to kiss me quickly. I stared, stunned as I realized why Saleen had always been near me. "Take the steading. We can live there away from all of them."

Then I reached down, and this time the kiss was longer. But still, that harp within my mind played on.

********

We went out to Eryl's steading the next day, she and I. It was a good piece of land, well kept up despite the fact Eryl preferred a huntsman's life to farming. Saleen dashed about the house, excitedly pointing at this or that item as I walked along behind her looking at the things he'd left behind him. A thin coat of dust lay on many, and that finally brought home to me the reality that Eryl was truly gone. My best friend, the one person who had shared the same dreams as I was dead, and I'd never have the chance to put things right between us. I walked outside and waited for Saleen to finish her tour.

She came out and held out her hand. "Come. Let's look at the fields." She led me through the gate, and once we reached the tall grass, pulled me down beside her. It was something else beside fields she had in mind, and I obliged her.

Afterwards, we lay there in the warm sun. "Take the steading, Beran. You aren't happy in town. At least here you can play your music, and none will be spying on you all the time. Take the steading; let Joffry stay and work for your father. We'll all be happier." She cuddled against me and dozed off.

Happier? Joffry would, no doubt, end up with the business. And Saleen would have me and the home she dreamt of. And I, I would live here, try to love her as much as she loved me, and go through the motions of being a happy man as I farmed.

And all the while the dreams Eryl and I had once shared would haunt me, as would the music.

I lay with my face to the sun, and as the music only I could hear played on, let the sun dry my tears.

11/2001


The Tower: Part III

It felt good to just sit in the sun and run my fingers over the strings of my lute. I'd returned home the eve before from my circuit and while I always enjoy tramping about the countryside, playing my music for one and all, there's nothing like coming home for grounding oneself. So, after shamelessly sleeping late and glorying in a breakfast of all the hot wheatcakes I could force myself to eat, I'd grabbed my lute and went out to sit in the morning sun.

It's a tidy little cottage the townsfolk give their bard here, with a workroom attached for the making and repair of instruments, and close enough by the main road that I can see folk coming and going, yet far enough away from it to give me my peace. And there, right in front of the cottage, within the wall that rings it, sits a large rock that the townfolk regard as an affront to the perfection they'd tried to achieve when they'd built the Bard's Residence. Several attempts to remove it later, they apparently decided to ignore it, as they have so much else.

I sit on it as often as possible. It tickles my fancy, imagining the comments:

"Aye, there's th' damn bard again, sittin' atop her rock. Can't she sit on a chair like normal folk?"

And there's the rub. I'm not normal folk; I'm a Bard, for Chords' sake, and maybe when I'm an old woman I'll sit on a chair, but I'm still young for a bard and I'll sit where I damn well please, thank you! And this rock, which is such a fine warm place, is where I choose to sit, so they have had to get used to it, haven't they?

So, here I sat, aimlessly playing bits of this and that, mulling over what might please the new baron to hear when I'd play before him next week, when a child's voice coming up the road broke my train of thought. I shifted on my rock to look at the path from the road, shading my eyes as I looked into the sunlight. A man and a boy, I saw; no doubt a father bringing his son for his first lessons in music. Something about the fair-haired man struck a note of recognition.

"Beran, is that you?"

"Aye, Master Herys. I'm sorry if we've interrupted you, but I saw you and thought perhaps you could see Gythin here." He rustled the dark hair of his son, who twisted away in embarrassment "He can't play any strings yet, but he knows a few tunes on his pipes, and he sings well."

I looked at the boy. "So, young Gyth, does your Da have it aright? Sing me a song, heh?"

After a bit more coaxing, Beran's son launched into "Silly Sheep", and held his own as I added some harmony. Then I had him sing harmony to "The Farmer's Lost His Shovel", and finally play a bit on his pipes. By this time he was getting fidgety, as any six-year-old would, so I told him about the turtle sunning himself over by the wall and he ran off to look. Beran looked at me hopefully.

"Well? Is he as good as I think, or is it a father's pride?"

"Aye, he's good. He'll be very good with teaching and practice."

"Good enough to be a Bard's apprentice?"

There it was, that longing that I'd seen in Beran's eyes whenever he'd been about wherever I might be performing, given voice. I doubted he even realized it was there, but it was something I'd seen and heard in others as well. I patted a spot beside me on my rock. "Come sit, Beran. I'm sorry I wasn't here to play for Saleen's passing. How have you and the boy been?"

He sat, still as awkward about me when I was a new made Master and the first woman Bard he'd ever seen. Of course, I was barely ten years older than him at the time, so there was more than music on his mind back then as well, I think. But now, even a man grown, it was there. I set my lute aside and watched him as he spoke.

"Well enough. We both miss her. The steading seems empty." He started to rub at his eyes, then caught himself and set his hand back down. "What about Gythin? Is he good enough to apprentice?"

"Beran, the boy is only six. We don't take apprentices until twelve. Besides, he might not want to be a bard! Let him grow, Beran!"

"I only want him to make the right choices, to have a good life."

I had to smile at the irony. "Your father said much the same about you when he refused to let me claim you back then. Are you any happier for his choosing your path for you?"

"It wasn't the same, Master Herys! You know why!"

"Ah yes, the tower. You and Eryl, the elflover heretics! Chords, these people are such blind fools, at times. You've never said much about that tower to me. I want to know what it was like. Tell me, Beran."

********

"The music, do you still hear it in your head?"

Beran looked down, then nodded We'd talked for nearly an hour, sitting on the rock, no doubt scandalizing proper folk as they passed by the cottage. I didn't care what they thought. This was too important, and besides, everyone knows Bards do strange things, don't they?

"Is it always the same music? The same song, Beran?"

"No. It changes, and sometimes I go days without hearing it."

My eyes narrowed. I handed him my lute. "Play some of it for me." He started to refuse, but I was determined. "Play, damn it, Beran. Or don't you want my help?"

So he took my lute, and slowly, hesitant at first, he began playing. He wasn't perfect, he stumbled here and there, playing a sour note, but he improved as he concentrated on the strings. Gythin wandered back from the wall to look up wide-eyed at his father, then sat to listen. Then Beran played a final chord, the last notes drifting out across the yard to fade away. He set the lute down silently. "You see? It was the tower. I hear music like that all the time, because I went into that tower and played that harp."

I wanted to scream with rage. I wanted so badly to hit one of them, his father, the priest, that little worm Joffry. I was angry at myself for not sticking to my Choice back then. I think it must have shown on my face, because young Gythin flinched and Beran started to get up. But I grabbed his wrist. "You poor idiot! Do you have ...I can't believe... dammit, Beran, sit still while I gather my wits!" I think the spectacle of a speechless bard did it.

When I'd finally mastered my anger, I spoke. "That's not magic, it's talent, Beran! How did you think we write music? It doesn't flow out of a quill by magic onto parchment! It comes from up here!" I reached over to tap him on the forehead. "And from in here, from your heart, and yes, your soul!" I tapped him, and I confess not gently, on the chest. "It's the magic you already had within you that causes you to hear music. If your father and the priest hadn't convinced you otherwise, you'd have made Bard yourself by now! What a waste! what a damnable waste!"

He sat, looking like I'd hit him over the head with the damn lute. Then he looked away. "It's too late for me, but not for Gythin. Will you take him as your student?"

I growled with frustration. This time, I think, I really did want to hit him. "A student, yes, an apprentice, no. But I'm tempted to claim you now as I should back then."

"You can't! I'm too old! The priests won't allow it! They'll say my music is tainted by elf magic."

"You're an adult now! And I'm a Bard! They try to gainsay a Bard's Choice and they'll have the whole Guild down on their ears at the Baron's court! And another thing, Beran! Magic is like this rock! They can try to make it go away, they can pretend it doesn't exist, but it doesn't matter what they want. Magic is in all of us. Some more than others!"

I jumped down off my rock, and grabbed my lute. "And you're a fool, Beran, if you let the stupidity of others keep you any longer from doing what you obviously were born to do!"

With that, before he could answer, I strode angrily into the cottage and slammed the door shut after me.

********

I woke barely past dawn the next day as pounding on my door forced me awake. I cursed, wrapped the comforter around me and stumbled across to look out the window, then grinned and unlatched the door. Beran stood there with his son.

"Alright, I was a fool. Maybe I still am, doing this." His mouth twisted a bit. "Well?"

I reached out, took his hands between the palms of my own. "The Gods witness Beran son of Murl as my Choice for my apprentice." Then I let his hands fall, reached out to take Gythin's hand and stepped away from the door to let Beran enter. "We'll work out the details after breakfast. Don't just stand there, Beran, come and close the door, before I freeze to death!"

No doubt all this would be another scandal.

But I didn't give a damn.

I'm a Bard.

And Beran will be one, too.

11/2001