"Much the same," Magnus answered. "I had seen her swallow the flames of Mother's anger, so I sought to fill her with peace and goodwill. I enwrapped it in those strains of Bach that Fess hath taught us, and projected it into her mind."
"Yet surely she struck back at thee!"
"Aye, most horribly," Gregory said, and shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut.
"And thou wast my shield." Magnus turned to hug his little brother against his hip. "I am sorry, Gregory—but I could not unravel her hideousness and think Bach at her, both at once."
"I was glad to aid," Gregory said, pale-faced, "and I sought to loosen the knot of anger and bitterness as quickly as she sought to tie it within thee—but oh, brother! May I never have to again!"
"Amen to that," said Cordelia, "but that must needs be why she could not repel my hand."
"And what didst thou?" Gwen looked up, worried.
"I thought of May mornings, and my delight in the dawn and the songs of the birds. Naught more—but blended toward music, as Papa did say of the rocks without this house."
"So." Ari was filled with wonder. "She succumbed to my music, only because thine had prepared her for it!" He turned to Gwen, uncertain. "Cannot my music, then, heal ripped souls?"
Gwen pulled herself together and managed a smile, rising to her feet. "It can, oh! Assuredly, it can! Yet as thou hast seen, good crafter, it will take not one melody, but many—and not one hearing, but an hundred."
Ari stared at her.
Then he turned away, with decision. "I must set to crafting them! An hundred, a thousand! I will make them and spread them throughout the length and breadth of this land, though I have to walk it myself!"
"In that, at least, I think thou wilt have aid." Gwen turned to her children. As one, they nodded.
A few minutes later, as they walked away from Ari's house into the gathering dusk, they could hear, rising from the cottage behind them, strains of melody that told of sheer delight in the beauty of the world—but all underscored by a beat, a repetitive rhythm that, no matter how light, could only be termed characteristic of rock music.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They hadn't gone very far the next morning before the music began to be physically painful. It wasn't just the volume of the sound—it was the total cacophony of a dozen different tunes and beats all going at once. They were all oddly similar, but contrasted just enough to set Rod's teeth on edge. He remembered what the young folk near the rocks' meadow had said, that the sounds had to be so loud that they could feel them in their bodies, and wondered once again how impoverished their souls must be, if the only way they could have any feeling was through the impact of sound waves.
Gregory walked with his hands over his ears, looking miserable. Gwen and Geoffrey stumbled along, determined to be brave and stoic about it, but even Magnus was beginning to look a little dazzled, and Cordelia was glassy-eyed and twitching three ways at once. As for Rod, he had a humdinger of a headache building, which he could swear was working its way up to a migraine.
Finally, Gwen had had enough. Rod saw her halt, standing firm with resolution; he saw her hands clap together, he saw her mouth move; but he didn't hear the clap, or a single word. He frowned, shaking his head, and pointed toward his ear. Gwen sighed, and her words echoed inside all their heads: We cannot abide this. We must halt and find some way to block out these sounds.
The children stopped and gathered round her. Mayhap as the peasants did, Gregory suggested.
Well thought, Gwen approved. Find wax.
It didn't take long to find, or much doing to get—the bees were limp on the floor of the hive, stunned by the sonic booms. The boys did think it odd that the markings grew in the shape of a G on their abdomens, but dismissed the oddity and brought the wax to their mother—and found their sister busy stitching together strips of bark into a little pot. They knew better than to ask why.
Gwen took the wax and molded it in her hands, staring at it intently the while. For his part, Rod was astonished at her fortitude, as always—softening the wax by telekinesis took concentration, and being able to concentrate in the midst of this racket took incredible strength of mind.
As Gwen finished each pair of covers, she handed them to the child whom they fit. Rod took a spare blanket from his saddlebag, tore it into strips, and helped tie the makeshift bandages over the earcovers. Each relaxed visibly as he or she tied the knot. Then Rod set his own into place, and the worst of the racket dimmed amazingly—except for the thumping and growling of the bass notes. He turned to explain this to Gwen, but she was wearing her own earcovers now, and was busily at work, stirring herbs into the bark pot Cordelia had made. Steam rose from it; she had heated the water without fire, by speeding up molecular motion. She finished, lifted the pot to her lips, swallowed, then handed it to Cordelia, who sipped and passed it on. When it came round to Rod, he drained what was left—and found that the thumping rhythms dwindled to a bearable level. He turned to Gwen, amazed. How'd you do that?
I brewed a potion, she thought simply. Our minds can shut out aught we do not wish to heed; I have only aided and directed them.
A perceptual screen, Rod realized—and more a matter of persuasion than of medicine. The potion had done what they wanted it to do; he suspected sugar pills would have done just as well, provided it had been Gwen who had made them.
Whatever the method, the goal was accomplished— Gwen had brewed an excellent rumble phyltre.
He faced her and moved his mouth slowly as he said, "Of course, now we can't talk to each other without mind-reading."
But surprisingly, he could hear her answer. Her voice sounded muffled, but it was there. "It would seem we can, my lord. What magic is this, that the music is muted but our voices are not?"
"Your speaking voices are in the middle of the range of pitches human ears can hear," Fess explained. "The waxen covers seem to block out the higher frequencies, while the potion dampens the lower ones."
"So they're filters, more than silencers?"
"Yes, Rod. They screen out the noise and preserve the information."
"I guess we can manage with that. Thank you, wonderful woman." Rod offered his arm. "Shall we promenade?"
They strode off into the worst that music could do. The good part was that Rod's headache began to fade. The bad part was that Cordelia and Magnus were tapping their toes again.
Then they followed the road around a curve and saw the priest sitting by the roadside.
Instantly, Rod distrusted him—he wasn't wearing ear-muffs. He also wasn't wearing the habit of the Order of St. Vidicon, and they were the only legitimate Order in Gramarye. No, this man was wearing a robe of plain black broadcloth, and his tonsure was definitely the work of an amateur. Needed a shave, too. The man was obviously self-ordained—one of the new crop of hedge-priests he and Tuan had been worrying about lately.
But the priest was, at least on the surface, all affability.
He looked up with a smile of welcome. "Godspeed, goodfolk! Whither art thou bound?"
"North," Rod said, forcing a smile. "We're trying to find out where this plague of noise is coming from."
"So small a thing as that?" The priest said, surprised. "Why, I myself have been to its center and back again!"
Rod was astonished—and while he was trying to figure it out, his daughter, with the full friendliness of innocence, was pleading, "Lead us to it, then! For we shall be forever on the road, without thy guidance!"