An Afternoon Concert

By: Kenner Posted on: April 09, 2008

Aktar stood, blinking, at the Ring of Portals.

It was late afternoon in one of the quieter months, where Romeo and Juliet never ventured. Sunlight glinted off the Portals' vast sign.

He was, for the most part, alone. There was another novice on the couch, her black-and-orange legs stretched out, paws curled. The loose red robe clashed rather badly with her fur. But she was asleep, could give him no response or advice.

Aktar looked at her and assessed her name. Menerith. A Mhaldorian girl, much stronger than he was.

Newbie, he said to himself, and shut his eyes intently. Hello?

The words echoed back at him: his own thought, flooding through the channel, a small string of words in his mind.

(Newbie) Aktar says, "Hello?"

(Newbie) Temna says, "Do you need help with something, Aktar?"

He swallowed. The voice that broke through had an accent. Clear, unmistakable: the high, swingy lilt of a Cyrenian.

It could have been his father, almost.

He shut his eyes again and the list of her honours came to him like an instinct. She was called Temna; nearly sixty years old (he blanched at that); yes, a Cyrenian, and her title was Lady. A Siren.

--Get to Zanzibaar Street and I'll show you around, Temna told him. Go south. Read the sign.

This time it did not seep through his head: it was a tell, clear and direct and close to his ear, although she was nowhere near the Portals.

He trotted southward and examined the sign.

--But you're not from Shallam, my lady. That's where the street stands.

--Doesn't matter, she said crisply. I'm in the Church. I know the city well.

--As you say.

Aktar took a step in the proper direction ...

... and there was no jolt, no vertigo. His foot landed firm on the warm cobblestones of the road. The smell of fish lingered somewhere southward; golden spires and domes towered far past him, cooled by the palm trees' shade.

"That's the Basilica," said Temna, and she caught him by the shoulder.

She was a small woman, dressed in silky amber trousers and a black linen tunic. Two long earrings bordered her round face, and a shimmering orb hung from her belt by a ribbon.

She smiled upward at Aktar, who (being a Troll) was half a head taller than she was. "You needed help with something?"

"Just I'm not used to having other people's voices in my head ... first day of being an adventurer ... didn't choose a class ..."

So many questions, and in front of Temna he couldn't express one coherent thought. He felt quite small, no matter that he had to crane his head down to look at her.

"Choose a class first," she said. "You can't go around newbie-kicking things indefinitely."

"I was headslamming. Headslammed a red admiral butterfly. I just passed the Trial of Rebirth early this morning."

"Oh? Did you kill the butterfly?"

"No. It was so beautiful, like art ... it felt ... disrespectful somehow."

"You were raised in Cyrene, weren't you?" she said, amused. "Disrespectful!"

Aktar didn't really understand her; his memories were still faint. He recalled the snow, and the thin air, and the dragon Blu's great wings pumping the air in strokes.

But that was all, really. What did she mean?

"Yeah, I was born there."

"I hope you like it here in Shallam. I couldn't stand the weather myself. Or the politics." Temna's eyebrows rose a little, and she sighed. "Every city's got its problems, though."

"Well I liked the descrip--"

Aktar broke off, bit his lip, turned his gaze for a moment. "Listen!"

Temna looked past him and listened too. "It's a chorale. Sweet. Follow me."

Obediently he followed, and she swept past so quickly that he could only take the briefest look at anything. There was the bait-seller, a dwarf who came up to Aktar's hip, chewing on a straw. There was the Zaphar, hemmed in by low stone walls. A shrine to Phoebus Mithraea: an eight-pointed star, crafted in reddish sandstone, with a mithril sunburst inlaid in its very centre.

"Sahart's, on the lawn. I farsee 'em there," Temna said, in between breaths. "Sponsored by bards who're friends of the city, probably. Nice to have it outdoors. They're in Silverdrop usually. Haven't been to a Shallamese one in a while."

They pelted down Zaphar Promenade, Aktar running out of endurance. He could smell the sea from here, and there was a crowd gathered farther down.

"Bards?" he said, when Temna stopped at last. He sank to his knees on the lawn in front of Sahart's, heedless of the crowd: his heart had never beat so fast.

And that crowd ... ! A fat smooth-skinned Grook, hands stuck meditatively in his pockets; a white Rajamala, very old, seated cross-legged on a cushion. Three Mhun women crossed over the terrace, each clad in a strange mixture of fashions: light summer dresses and thick, sturdy pocketbelts.

Many of them resembled Temna, wearing a mixture of rings and gems (enchantments?). Two guardian angels floated by the shoulders of bystanders, and someone's alabaster pegasus snorted in anticipation.

The first Grook man took a vial from his belt, unscrewed the lid, and smeared some greenish goo between his green palms. The Rajamala, after furrowing her brow, seemed to have produced a kola nut from nowhere. She chewed on it.

This should have been familiar.

He was eighteen and his memory was only half-awake, and the sight was something he could marvel at all over again.

--You should train more Fitness, Temna told Aktar. You're breathing too hard. It wasn't such a far distance, from Zanzibaar to here.

He laughed aloud. Several Horkvals turned their heads to stare at him.

"Bards, though, ma'am?" he asked. "What're those?"

--You'll see. Hush. Use tells. It's not really polite to speak aloud during a large gathering, unless you're invited to.

There was the sound of swelling music, stronger now, he could hear it. The first strains, and five or six people (Cyrenians all, dressed in heavy clothing) plucked at lyres ... or blew sweetly on flutes ... or shook tambourines glinting with ribbons.

--And do you suppose they could teach me?

--I imagine so, said Temna. She tugged at one long earring.

(Her lilting accent, strong even through telepathy: like a tune of the snow and the mountains.)

The bold Shallamese sun shone across the river, and the river flowed into the Jaruvian port, and Aktar shut his eyes to listen to the chorale.

When the last few notes had filtered away, he opened his eyes again and smiled.

--That's my class, then, he told Temna. Decided.

And without prompting, without hearing a word of that silent conversation, several of the Bards instinctively smiled back.