THE SILVER FAERIE TOOK aim with a log. For the longest time, his shadow lingered over his favourite and most-hated instrument, the fabled Astral Harp crafted by none other than Honari the Harpist, the most celebrated Faerie musician of all time. The harp was fabled because of its legendary enchanted properties; nothing to do with the aspiring musician and his frustrating failure to master the unique instrument.
Incompetent fool! Enough was enough. His knuckles whitened. Time to end this. His arms quivered as he hesitated, and hesitated … no. He could not initiate the strike.
With a prolonged groan of disgust, the Faerie hurled the log aside. How could he even think of desecrating or destroying this instrument? His ancestors rose from his very sap to rail at this injustice – when in fact, the truth as what he was so hopeless, he could not even bring himself to swear in the harp’s presence, which he would dearly have loved to do. This theft was supposed to bring proof to his powerful father and even more powerful family that music was his true calling, as he had believed since he was a Faeling taking his first hazardous flights. More than a calling. It was his muse, the Middlesun of his existence, the melody of his soul.
Virtuosity was destined to fizz in every drop of Hansanori’s sap. It was meant to ooze out of his every pore, or something to that effect – yet he never could quite capture the music that moved him most deeply, despite countless attempts and exactly as many failures. His sap was drier than any desert and his fingers might as well have been swapped at birth for ten logs, for all the good they did him.
This was unconscionable!
Where, o where would his inspiration come from? Certainly not from himself. That well had long since run dry, spawning this obsession which had led directly to his current disgrace.
It had led to him despising his birthright, fleeing despite his father’s ailing. For a time. He repeated the phrase to himself. A mantra. A time that surely must come to an end, for there – he glanced up as Middlesun quivered once more. Visibly. Something was terribly wrong in Spheris and all the Scholars, Sages and Philosophers of the mighty Faerie nation had about as much clue as a nest full of twittering canary hatchlings. Somehow, he sensed at a level deeper than simple head-knowledge, his abortive musical endeavours were connected to this failing – cue an epic family fight … sigh.
“One more time. This time …”
He dared not say it. He had no right.
Instead, Hansanori the Harpist bent over his priceless instrument and wished – aye, he practically wished his wing-clusters off his back that somehow, this time, something would change. Let a miracle arise!
He played and sang for Middlesun, for the travails of his world as seen through the lens of his own grieving. His fingers plucked melodies as if born to borrow the very songs of rainbows, and his versatile, surprisingly powerful voice that rang through the mountainous glades of the deepest Deepwoods, a secret location sacred to his people, was said to be the finest of its generation. By his sap, at least the birds thought so!
For perfection was nothing without heart.
He longed to marry flawless technical skills with an undeniable rising of passion, yet once more, he had failed to move anything, not so much as the grass blades beneath his feet as he danced, played the Astral Harp and sang at the edge of a sparkling sunbeam which dappled through into this clearing as if the space had been set aside for a natural stage. The limpid azure waters of a small brook chuckled nearby. Magic hung thick in the air, thicker even than the sunbeams, and could he draw upon a smidgen of it? One scintilla? Sunlight spangled off his matchless, silvery limbs, yet the instrument remained quiescent. Docile. Dormant. Might as well be dead.
“Impossible!” he snorted mid-refrain.
After a short pause, his supremely skilled fingers turned to that new melody he had composed upon a whim several weeks before. Lilting and playful, the notes swirled among the trees. Seven pretty forest Sprites danced in a circle around a broken tree trunk below him, giggling at his music and whispering amongst themselves with a sound like a breeze whispering through leaves. Anger snarled up his fingers, causing a violent musical stumble. The Deepwoods were under attack as never before and all his Dadfae did was sit back and sip his bitter bark tea? Why could he not see what was happening? Sipping herbal tea and quoting obscure proverbs to frustrated councillors while the world burned!
Sigh. Pause, breathe, apologise to the Sprites – oh no, to the empty glade because his crass ill humour had just chased them off. Did Middlesun flicker or was that light dappling through the leaves?
No, no, no … he had it all wrong again.
Stupid, ridiculous, hopeless manfae! What a colossal waste of talent. Alleged talent.
Perching upon a leafy bough, Hansanori cradled the fabled instrument upon his lap and longed to succumb to an overwhelming upwelling of despair. All this would be torn from him. All his Dadfae demanded was for his obsessed son to give up the object of his obsession. Hansanori knew he had not done well. He had driven the tutors and teachers to distraction and his Dadfae, at last, to make this wrenching demand that had brought tears even to his stern visage. Tears! Had he truly driven him to such lengths?
Indeed. Miserable, worthless hack that he was.
For the first time in his life, as he bent over the antique harp, Hansanori dared a novel wish. He croaked, “Teach me. For all my learning, I’m a complete, woeful failure and unworthy of playing an instrument of your lineage. Teach me, please.”
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Even pride was no longer his to claim. He was a broken vessel.
With a sigh that leaked through gritted teeth, Hansanori began to pluck that simple melody one more time. The melody he had dreamed of during a stormy night and found lived in his soul ever after. As his fingers caressed the harp strings, he allowed his imagination free reign. One must not impose upon the music. Rather, it should grow from within or enter from without, like the sunlight’s play through the leaves, or the brook’s endless laughter and the chirruping birdsong of this enchanted place. He squeezed his eyes shut, yet light played behind the lids. Even though he sensed a swelling of potential in his mind, Hansanori refused to let his defective talents rule what must be. He hummed softly in his throat, the quietest, simplest rendition of this melody which had so captivated his soul.
An awareness of faint, tinkling laughter made his eyes flick open. Wide open; nay, never wider! Could he be hallucinating? For, illuminated in a sunbeam about five feet distant, directly in front of his nose, a fluid cluster of sapphire and azure motes danced in flawless harmony along with his melody. Mesmerising! The effervescent, ephemeral suggestions of mirth the motes created as they jostled, shimmered and rippled in the brilliant beam of light was like nothing he had ever heard before, haunting of sorrow yet filled with chiming, joyous descants that climbed out of the range of his hearing.
His pulse thumped inside his throat in swift, bemused jolts.
What under Centresky was that?
The spectral motes frolicked in the sunbeam as if born to it, causing reflected shimmering glints of light to play across the nearby boughs which responded – shock piled upon shock – with stately arboreal bows, dipping inward from every direction at once as if to welcome sylvan royalty. The specks changed patterns and postures with the fluidity of water, moving like a flock of birds in tight formation, yet clearly responded to the urging of his creativity as his numb fingers continued to improvise upon that basic melodic line. New notes and embellishments intervened, giggling along with his runs and trills in cascades of intricate harmonies, skipping impishly in amidst the rests he had designed as if he merely provided a solid framework for a creation more nuanced by far.
Never had he played musical accompaniment to such a marvel. If only he could play with a tenth of its eloquence!
Struck breathless.
Smitten.
Offering a bow of his own to honour the enchanting entity without breaking the flow of his music for a moment, Hansanori bade himself play as never before.
Surely, surely this was the moment for which he had waited all his life?
No more than a dozen quick breaths later, light so thick and pure it was like brilliant sap began to pour from the harp strings, gathering about his hands. Hansanori dropped his eyes with a muffled gasp. The strings – he was not even playing the physical strings any longer! The harp had extended itself in multiple directions, issuing spangling beams of radiance that his fingers touched to play notes not meant for the ear, but for the heart; notes that evoked this enchantment that shimmered about his being, that made his toes tingle and dare to extemporise novel elaborations upon the strings available there, and now his wingtips buzzed in realisation, for they were meant to play too … his entire body tingled at this manifestation of magic!
Incredible! The Astral Harp could do this?
For a second, the motes drew together in what he took for the outline of a tiny girlfae dancing in the sunlight, so ethereal of beauty and grace, his heart plain forgot how to beat.
With a yelp, Hansanori overbalanced and fell off the branch.
She vanished.
Thump. Groan. At least he had picked a spongy spot for his landing. Not too much damage done.
“No … no, no … you suggid-slurping idiot!” he groaned, picking himself up gingerly, torn by loss and frustration as deep as the Deepwoods. Unreasonably so? Even his wings had forgotten how to function. “Aye? Maybe a positive development, aye? Except for landing on my stupid duff. What was that? Who was she? I … I did … but can I do it again?”
At least he had caught the priceless harp – phew – with his sternum, which ached as he rubbed it. By this pain alone, he concluded this was no daydream.
From zero, his heart now contrived to zip off across the horizons at the speed of a hunting falcon. What had just happened? Aye, these Deepwoods were renowned for their fey, inexplicable magic, but even he had no clue as to what that phenomenon had been.
Might she be persuaded to return?
Chuckle. Quite suddenly, this would be the new number one priority in his life. Purpose. Actual, pulsating, undeniable purpose! How he adored that word! Hansanori licked his lips as if he had tasted the finest of nectars and longed for more. Aye. This might be odd, yet the oddest of all was that he sensed his motives were clear and genuine.
Not a frequent occurrence in his life.
Flicking out his handsome silver-chased wings which, according to the scheming matchmakers of Ahm-Shira, did his eligibility no harm whatsoever, Hansanori scrutinised his surrounds carefully. No lurking pranksters, check. No Sprites or Wisps. Could that have been a Wisp? He had seen drawings of the Elemental Fae in the archives, far more like delicate wisps of cloud drifting upon a breeze than this … nay, this had been a different phenomenon altogether. Unprecedented. Enchanting!
A Dryad? Surely not.
Yet – pickle his silver antennae in suggid juice – the branches of this sacred glade had genuflected toward the diminutive being. Obviously. Even he was not enough of a creative fluff-head to make that up. Nor did the Suylas Deepwoods bow to anyone he knew, not even an Argent Faerie. This was deep, unfathomable magic. Something as far beyond his experience as it was compelling. He felt as if the entire forest had just started swaying about his head – or was it him swaying?
What was even real anymore?
“Faerie magic is the funniest thing,” he muttered, and smacked himself between the antennae. “Come on, Hansanori! For once in your misbegotten life, flow with the sap here.”
Ha. Something indescribably magical had whammed him over the earhole with a log much larger and firmer than that with which he had just threatened one of the greatest treasures of Faedom; benighted, shrivelling fool that he was! Slime-sucking waste of good Deepwoods nectar!
Therefore, he must play.
His musicianship must be exquisite, delicate, profound and inveigling.
The Harpist twizzled his neck, stretched his back and cracked his knuckles one by one in a way that would have earned reprimands from any music tutor he had ever known. Time to play as if his life depended upon it.
Picking a bough above another spot covered in plush emerald-green moss – safety first – he set the base of the Astral Harp, crafted from a silvery metal said to have wept from the eye of Middlesun itself, upon his right knee. Shutting his eyes, he brushed the strings with his fingertips and sent a quick prayer winging upward just in case. Could not hurt.
He had the oddest inkling that he was about to become a true believer.