Magnus frowned. "There are ever human folk who cannot resist the lure of such deep places."
"Even so," the elf agreed, "so we have taken him by dark and secret ways too small for mortal folk, or for any but an elf—or bat."
" Tis well." But Magnus still wasn't smiling. "Yet there are folk, good elf, who have much more of enthusiasm than of good sense."
"And ever will be," the elf rejoined. "There is no guarding 'gainst them, young wizard, whatsoe'er we may do."
Magnus lifted his head, then gazed off into space. He had never heard someone call him "young wizard" before, and the thought gave him pause.
"And Nan will be well?" Cordelia asked anxiously.
"She will," the elf assured her, "though she will never again be so filled with the joy of living as she once was."
"Ah." Gregory smiled sadly. "Yet is that not the fate that doth await all folk, soon or late?"
"Not always," the elf said.
"Nay," Cordelia said, "it need not."
That brought Magnus out of his daze. He glanced at her, worried—but all he said was, "Come. Away!" And he turned to lead them on down the trail again.
Chapter Eleven
They had gone some ways, Magnus on Fess's back, when he suddenly stopped and frowned down at Geoffrey. "What didst thou say?"
Geoffrey gave him a look of exasperation and spoke again, but Magnus could still barely make out the words. "Nay, say!" he demanded, more loudly.
"Why, thou loon, canst thou not hear what's clearly spoke to thee?" Goeffrey yelled.
"Aye, now—and mind whom thou dost call loon! An thou dost speak so softly, how am I to hear thee?"
"I did not speak softly!" Geoffrey bellowed. "I did speak as ever I do!"
"Which is to say, in impatience," Cordelia called. "If aught, Magnus, he doth ever speak too loudly. Wherefore canst thou not hear him today?"
"Wherefore dost thou call out?" Magnus returned.
Cordelia halted, surprised, and stared up at her brothers. "Why, I did call, did I not?"
"Thou didst," Geoffrey assured her loudly. "Wherefore?"
"I know not…"
"Why, for that we'd not have understood her words an she had not," Gregory said reasonably, though at much greater volume than was his custom. "Yet wherefore must she? Doth the air swallow our words?"
They all looked at one another, confounded, trying to puzzle it out.
Then, suddenly, each of them was struck with a subtle sense of wrongness. Geoffrey looked up. "Summat hath changed."
"Aye." Cordelia glanced about her, brows knit. "What is it?"
Magnus eyed the trees around them with suspicion.
Then Geoffrey said, "The music hath stopped."
They turned to him, eyes wide. "Why, so it hath!" Cordelia exclaimed.
With a sudden, jangling chord, all the rocks around them began emitting music again.
Gregory winced and clasped his hands over his ears. "That is why we shouted so! The music had grown so loud, it had drowned out our voices!"
"So it would seem." Cordelia smiled, head tilted to the side as she nodded with the beat. "Yet 'tis pleasant withal."
"As thou wilt have it, sister…"
"As she will or will not!" Magnus called. " 'Tis all about us; we can go to no place where it is not. Yet wherefore hath it grown so much louder?"
"Belike because there are so many more rocks here," Geoffrey suggested.
"Mayhap." But Magnus seemed unconvinced.
"Yet why did I not perceive that it had grown louder, till it ceased?" Cordelia wondered.
"And why did it cease?" Geoffrey demanded.
"For that all the rocks do give off the same sound," Gregory explained, "and the tune paused for a brief time."
"Aye, then would it yield silence." Magnus nodded slowly. "And as we have come west, the number of rocks making music hath increased, thus yielding louder sound."
"Yet so slowly that we did not notice!" Geoffrey agreed. "Thou hast it!"
But Gregory still looked doubtful. "There would be some such increase, aye—yet not so much as this."
"Gregory is right," Fess declared. "The proportion of rocks to decibels is not by itself enough to account for so great an increase in emitted sound."
"Then what else?" Cordelia demanded.
"Why, the music itself hath grown louder, sister," Gregory said, spreading his hands. " 'Tis the only other source of gain."
They looked at one another, astonished.
"Assuredly," Magnus said. "What else, indeed?"
"And now I bethink me, there's some other difference in the music." Geoffrey tapped his foot impatiently. "What is it?"
"Thou dost tap thy toe in time with the music, brother," Gregory pointed out.
Geoffrey stared at his toe, astonished. "Surely not! What dost thou take me for, manikin!"
"My brother," Gregory answered, "who hath ever hearkened to the soldier's drum."
"Aye…" Geoffrey was absorbed in the music, actually listening to it, for once. "Thou hast it aright—there are drums, though of divers kinds."
"More than there were," Cordelia agreed.
"Aye, and a scratching, raucous note to the melody that was not there aforetime," Magnus added.
"If you must call it melody," Fess said, with mechanical dry ness.
"Aye, assuredly 'tis melody!" Cordelia blazed on the instant. "The strain doth rise and fall, doth it not?"
"A strain indeed. It varies by no more than six notes, and uses only four of them. Yet I must admit, it is technically a melody."
"Oh, what matter is it, when the drums, and the deep notes, have so much life in them?" Cordelia's eyes lit, and she began to move her feet in the patterns of a dance. What dance is that?" Geoffrey said, perplexed.
"I'll tell thee when I've finished the crafting of it."
"The rhythmic patterns have grown more complex," Fess agree, "and some are syncopated."
"Sink and pay?" Geoffrey asked. "What meaning hath that?"
"Nay, sink thy pate!" Magnus aimed a slap at his head. "Dost not know the words speak of offbeats?"
Geoffrey stepped nimbly back from the blow, leaped, and tagged Magnus, calling, "None so off the beat as thou! What matters it, when the beat is only for marching?"
"Why, when it is for dancing!" Cordelia moved lightly on her feet, her steps becoming more certain.
Magnus eyed her askance. "Wilt thou dance, when thou wert so lately compelled to?"
"Aye, for now I'm not."
"Art thou not indeed?"
"The term syncopated refers to unexpected accents in the rhythm pattern, Geoffrey," Fess put in. "Such accents usually come on downbeats; in syncopation, they come on upbeats, or in between beats."
"What beat is this thou dost speak of?" Magnus demanded.
"The intervals of time between notes," Fess explained. "When a note sounds during what we expect to be a silence, we say it is syncopated."
"Why, that is the source of its excitement!" Cordelia cried. " 'Tis the surprise of it, that it comes when we do not expect!"
Her dance had grown considerably, in scope if not in complexity.
"Is't a jig or a reel?" Geoffrey wondered, his eyes on her feet.
" 'Tis neither, brother."
"Yet to watch it, doth make me to reel." Magnus turned away, with determination. "Come, my sibs! Let us seek further!"
"Why must the music change so, and so quickly?" Gregory's brow was furrowed in thought. "Was not the first form of it good enough?"
"A pertinent question," Fess argued, "but one which we lack data to resolve. Let us keep it open, Gregory."
Magnus halted, looking down. "Mayhap we have found thy data, Fess."
"Of what do you speak?" The horse halted, and the children gathered round.