This story begins in a tavern, a rather old run-down tavern not known for its class or style, but rather more famed for the rats and roaches in its walls. It is the sort of tavern where men lurk in corners slowly fading into the background as dark stains on the walls. Where large brutes armed better than they have any right to be skulk in the middle of the tavern in huddles and whisper and mutter amongst themselves. Where the owner is constantly wiping the counter and glasses with an old rag that has grown so dirty and ragged it leaves a trail of grime wherever it goes. It is not a very popular tavern.

But on the night this story begins there is something different in the tavern. Amongst all the drunks and vagabonds and beggars and bandits, is a minstrel. A happy singing playing minstrel dressed in a bright red jacket playing a patterned lute. He sits by an old dead fireplace and sings and plays, his eyes glistening and his mouth smiling around his happy song.

The rest of the tavern watch him with beady eyes. Glaring at him over empty grimy cups. Suspicion emanating from them. This is not a type of man they have seen in their tavern before, and as with all new things these men encounter, they treat him with suspicion.

The minstrel plays for a while but eventually he runs out of songs and stops to have a drink and read a book in the corner of the room. The others ignore him now and go back to their business. Quietly reading and drinking are things they understand well. Things that can be safely ignored.

A soldier crashes into the tavern. He is laughing and staggering and slams into the bar laughing at the tavern owner who looks at him with beady eyes. The soldier is drunk, drunker than he should be. But he is a soldier and soldiers must be treated well or more soldiers will come.

“What can I get you?” the owner says through his moustache, still mechanically wiping a glass.

The soldier watches the rag wipe the glass for a while then jerks upright and stares at the owner. “A pint of your finest ale! On the house!” He bursts into laughter again.

The owner’s beady eyes narrow. “You’ll have to pay for it.”

“That’s not what on the house means,” the soldier laughs.

“You can’t-”

The soldier draws his sword and points it right under the owner’s chin. He is fast even while drunk. Too fast for the owner.

“I can,” the soldier says, smirking.

“But-”

The soldier cuts him. Not deep, and not much, but fast and skillfully. He opens up a small scar across the owner’s chest and then bursts into cruel laughter. The owner staggers back and crashes into the back of the bar. The soldier continues his cruel laughter and leaps over the counter. Driving his sword toward the stumbling tavern owner. Then there is a thwack and his laughter is cut short. The soldier stops and trips forward, choking on his tongue. Sticking out of his back is a knife thrown by the minstrel who is now standing not far from the bar. He draws another knife.

The soldier chokes and falls to the ground. The tavern owner stands up and looks at the minstrel leaning over the bar watching the soldier.

“He bothering you?” the minstrel smiles.

More soldiers come and arrest the minstrel. They drag him off to the dungeons of the local warlord, a man called Wyrous who lives in a castle with his wife, the Witch Queen Nath. A woman rarely seen by the commonfolk who is said to practise dark magics and commit terrible atrocities to those imprisoned by her husband. The dungeons of their castle are feared throughout the land and few who enter them ever leave.

The minstrel laughs and smiles and sings as he is dragged away. He makes only one request, that he retain his lute to play for the warlord and the queen. The soldiers laugh at him but they let him keep his lute. Both the warlord and the queen enjoy music. What harm could having this minstrel play for them cause? They think none. They are terribly wrong.

In the castle Wyrous and Nath go about their day. There are plans to be planned, events to be organised, and people to meet and talk to. There are many people to meet and talk to. The two of them are looking over a map of the region with several of their soldiers and leaders around them when Wyrous stops in his explanation. He is a tall man with black hair that once grew wild all over his head and face but now is cut cleanly by the queen’s own barbers. He is pointing at a hill on the map explaining why their forces cannot hold there much longer when he stops abruptly. Everyone looks at him strangely so he turns to his queen who stands beside him.

“Do you hear that?” he asks.

“What?”

“That music?”

The queen shakes her head. “I hear no music.”

Wyrous nods to himself and turns back to the map. The music is quiet anyway.

Down in the dungeon the newest prisoner is practising on his lute, playing happily away to himself. No one hears him. No one save for those he wants to hear.

Eventually Wyrous and Nath find time to see the new prisoner. He comes to them with a plain lute and a red jacket and many smiles and waves. The two of them sit on thrones and watch him, unamused.

“What is your name?” the queen asks.

“I am called Sirdan my lady,” the minstrel replies, bowing lower and with more flourishes than anyone has ever bowed to her before.

“And what is your crime?”

“I attacked a soldier with a knife,” he said, standing back up, still smiling.

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?” Wyrous asked threateningly, he was rather fond of his soldiers. With the way his wars had been going he was starting to run out of them.

“Only this my lord,” Sirdan replied and launched into a song. It wasn’t a particularly good song, nor a particularly bad song. It was simply a song about love and loss and beauty and had any of those present been listening to the minstrel the night before in the tavern they might have wondered why he had gotten so much worse.

Eventually the queen called an end to the song. She was far too busy to waste time on such a meaningless minstrel.

“Take him to the dungeons, we’ll deal with him later.”

So he was taken away with his lute and his jacket and smiles, he still had his smiles.

That night Wyrous climbed into bed next to his queen and the two of them fell asleep worrying about the wars and conflicts without their castle. Except Wyrous did not sleep. He couldn’t. He could only lie awake listening to a soft haunting melody that seemed to play on and on and on. It was a good song this one, masterfully played and masterfully written, but not very happy. It was a desolate song full of darkness and horror and as he floated between sleep and wakefulness his mind was filled with an empty grey plain, stretching out forever beneath dark dark clouds. He walked through the plain to the sound of the melody, floating on howling winds but trapped in the desolation of eternity. There was nothing in the plain, nothing and nothing and nothing and then a tree. A dead jagged tree jutting out of the dead jagged ground. And it stretched toward him.

He woke up and sat on the edge of the bed, gasping for air and trying to get the image out of his head. But even if he forgot the image the song remained, echoing up through the castle.

His queen woke up beside him and took his hand in hers.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Can you hear it now?” he asked but she shook her head.

“The music?” she asked.

He nodded.

The Witch Queen was not much of a witch. She knew a little of magic, she had been taught by her old nurse Willow but Willow was gone now, she’d left when the queen’s old sickness had begun to fade. She was still sick much of the time and rarely had the strength to leave the castle, but she could look after herself now and Willow had said that it was her time to leave. Her title of Witch Queen was given to her by the commonfolk and had more to do with her mystery than with any actual magic she possessed. She knew nothing of music that could only be heard by one person and for all she knew her husband could be mad, but she didn’t believe that. She believed he was sane and this was some type of magic, she just didn’t know what yet. So she sat with him and held him until the music stopped. He was glad of that.

The next morning the minstrel was rudely awakened by guards slamming open the door to his cell to let Wyrous stroll through. The warlord towered over the minstrel who still lay on his small bed wrapped in his red jacket. Wyrous looked down at him imperiously, Sirdan only smiled.

“Was he playing last night?” the warlord asked the guards.

“Don’t think so,” one of them replied. “I saw him doing something with that lute but I couldn’t hear anything.”

Wyrous nodded. “Break his lute.”

Sirdan’s smile faltered. “You wouldn’t deprive a minstrel of his instrument would you? It-”

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The guard grabbed the lute and smashed it against the wall. Then against the floor. Then he did it again. By the time he was done the pieces of lute all fell to the ground and the strings twanged in the guard’s hand.

Wyrous turned and grabbed what was left from the guard then strolled back out of the cell. The guards followed, locking the cell door. Behind them Sirdan was grinning again.

That night Wyrous slept peacefully with his wife. He knew that the horrible smiling minstrel had to be playing the music. It had been coming from below and it had only started after the minstrel had been taken into their dungeons. He knew now he could rest without having to hear that haunting melody again. He was wrong.

He awoke in the middle of the night to the terrible song and the desolate plain. This time he was in the tree, wrapped in its branches and being squeezed tighter and tighter the more he tried to escape. When he escaped from his nightmare and awoke fully he leapt from his bed and donned his clothes, the music still echoing in his ears. It was louder now, much much louder.

Nath awoke as well and watched him get dressed.

“It’s still going,” he said. “I’m going to find the minstrel and catch him playing.”

The music built to a crescendo as he buckled his belt and walked across the room trying not to listen to the desolate, haunting tune. Then he put his hand on the doorknob and it stopped. It faded away into silence.

He stopped, standing by the door.

“What happened?” the queen asked.

“It stopped,” he said. “He must know I’m coming.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “Tell me about this music, what is it, what does it sound like?”

So he told her. He told her about the melody, about the desolate plain and about the tree. As he said it he knew what it sounded like, like the delusions of a madman, like he was insane. But he said it anyway because he trusted her and she listened because she trusted him.

The next morning Nath went to her library and researched all that she could on trees and music. Wyrous went to his torturer.

Sirdan was once again awoken by the cell door slamming open. He smiled as Wyrous entered and towered over him once more.

“My lord what have you come to take from me this time? I have no more lutes I’m afraid.”

Wyrous looked down at him for a while. Sirdan only smiled. “Dagra,” he said to his torturer. “You play the lute yourself don’t you?”

“Why yes my lord. I fancy myself rather good at it too.”

“What would you say is the prime quality that any half decent lute player needs.”

“Well there’s a few things my lord, skill definitely, and persistence, that’s very important.”

Wyrous interrupted him. “I was thinking of something else, something more physical.”

“How do you mean?”

“Fingers.”

Dagra paused for a moment. “Well yes my lord, I suppose those would be important as well.”

“Take his,” he said, pointing at Sirdan.

“Well certainly my lord,” Dagra said casually and pulled out a wicked looking knife.

Sirdan began to laugh. He rolled about on his bed and laughed. He laughed as Dagra took ahold of his hand in an iron grip. He laughed as the knife bit into his finger and blood began to spray. He laughed as his finger fell from his bloody hand. And then he laughed through the other nine as well. He was still laughing a choked, awkward, spluttering laugh as Wyrous, Dagra and all the guards walked out of the cell and left him to hold his mutilated hands to his chest to stem the blood loss. All he could do was laugh.

During the day Nath met up with her husband and showed him a picture of a tree in a book. It was a dead jagged tree growing in a dead jagged land.

“That’s it,” he said. “What is it?”

“It’s a Tree of the Wastes. It doesn’t grow in this world.”

“What can it do?”

“It can do a lot of things. It’s wood has magical properties and depending on how you harvest it it can do a lot of different things. One of the types of wood that can be harvested is called syncordant wastewood. And it can create magical music.”

“So this song is coming from this type of wood.”

“It seems so, probably an instrument.”

“But I smashed the minstrel’s lute, how can he play his magic song if I smashed his magic lute?”

“I don’t know.”

“He must have had another lute. He won’t be able to play another lute without fingers,” Wyrous muttered to himself.

That night the song came again. Louder and more desolate than ever before. Wyrous didn’t let himself sleep, he feared to. He feared to find himself once more in the grip of that tree. Instead he dressed himself and marched down, rousing his guards and his torturer to burst in on the minstrel long after the music had stopped.

Sirdan lay curled up on his bed cradling his bloody hands. He looked up and Wyrous and smiled.

Dagra moved forward, he already had his instructions and this time he had brought a bigger knife. Moving quickly and efficiently with all the skill of a surgeon he chopped through one of Sirdan’s arms and then the other.

The minstrel’s laugh started weak and faded to silence until all he had left was a bloody smile. They took away his arms and slammed the cell door, leaving him in darkness with only the starlight for company. There was no more music that night.

The next day the queen fell terribly sick and had to remain in bed while she recovered her strength. This wasn’t unusual and happened every few days. She took one of the many potions she’d brewed and rested in order to recover. She didn’t want to take it, she felt her husband needed her and hated her sickness for taking her from him and she still had many important parts of her kingdom to attend to, but her sickness was bad, very bad, and she knew she had to sleep or else lose more than just a day to recover.

So the warlord ran the castle alone.

At first things were fine. There was no music and despite all the pressures of the past few months at war and not sleeping the last few nights Wyrous was a strong man and could push through it. He organised his men and pulled back from places he couldn’t hold and pressed places he could. He met with all his captains and spoke to them words of encouragement, words of fire and words of rage. The sort of words that had made him the greatest warlord of his tribes in the first place. He was free of his musical torment and he was going to ensure he won the battles he needed to win.

But he wasn’t.

It started low at first. So low he couldn’t hear it at all. So low it faded quietly into the background and mixed with all the other noises. But then it grew louder. Very slowly, extremely slowly, slowly enough he still didn’t notice it because it simply fitted in with the background noise he was hearing anyway. So slowly that the first thing he noticed was a wave of melancholy and fear. A wave of desolation. Because while he didn’t consciously hear it some part of him did and that part reacted the way he had always reacted. With fear.

At first he attributed the melancholy to the stress of the day. To all the battles that had to be organised and all the people who had to be spoken to. He was losing his war. He knew that. He’d pushed too far too fast and now he was simply fighting to be left alone. That was why he was worried, no other reason.

But he did hear it eventually. There is only so subtle a sound can be before it must eventually be heard. And when he heard it he felt a wave of dread and a wave of fear. He had taken the minstrel’s lute, he had taken his fingers, he had taken his arms. And through it all he still played. Through it all the music came and continued to play its desolate melody.

It was getting deafeningly loud now. Louder than he had ever heard it before. And even though he was awake. Even though he’d be looking at a window, or a wall, or a person, he would still see the tree. The dead jagged tree and beyond it the dead jagged landscape. And the tree would reach for him.

He ran this time. He was usually so composed, so powerful and confident but now he was afraid. Now he was facing something he couldn’t fight. Something he’d tried to fight and something that kept coming back. Now he ran.

He ran down to the dungeons and as he ran the music grew and the tree reached and sometimes he felt as though he was running into it. It began to tighten around him, to catch his leg, to catch his hand, to trip him, to make him stumble. But he stumbled on as the music played in his ears. As the music hammered in his head.

He burst into the dungeon and tore a key off a guard as a dead jagged branch began to tighten around his throat. He tried to breathe and the blood pounded in his ears, the music pounded in his head. He could barely squeeze out a few ragged gasps.

He reached the cell and opened it. The music was howling now, every note seemed to echo through his whole body, playing his skeleton like a xylophone, wrenching and tearing at his body. And the tree kept tightening, around his arms, his legs, his face.

Sirdan was huddled up on the bed, blood everywhere, facing away from the door into the wall. Wyrous grabbed what was left of his mangled shoulder and rolled him over. He was still smiling.

He pulled out the huge dagger he carried and plunged it into the minstrel’s chest. This time he didn’t laugh, this time he screamed. But his screams seemed to echo in tune with the music. The terrible music. He jerked the knife around, he pulled and stabbed and twisted and carved out a jagged hole that he reached into and pulled out his heart. The screams stopped, the heartbeat stopped, the music stopped. And the tree stopped tightening.

Wyrous panted in exhaustion. It was over.

He left the dead minstrel in the cell and staggered back up to his room, covered in blood. It was over.

He collapsed on the floor next to the bed and breathed, just breathed. It was over.

It wasn’t.

Dagra walked into the room holding a lute. It wasn’t a plain lute like Sirdan had had. It was a patterned lute. A pale base interwoven with dark dark spirals. Jagged spirals, made of jagged wood.

Wyrous choked in fear.

“Now now my lord,” Dagra said as he began to play the song. “No need to be too worried.”

The branches returned. They were tighter now, tighter than ever before. Wyrous couldn’t move.

“It’ll all be over quickly.” Dagra stopped playing and stabbed Wyrous in the head. “You’ve got some parts my master needs.”

That night the minstrel took his lute and walked out the castle gates. Playing the guards to sleep and smiling his old smile. It was a little strange playing with Wyrous’s fingers and with Wyrous’s arms but he quickly got used to it. And the heart was interesting. It was so big, so full of life and energy. He felt he could run for miles with this heart. His smile grew ever the wider.

“What have you done?” the witch queen asked from behind him. She stood in the doorway, leaning on a stick, looking weak and sickly as ever.

The minstrel turned to look at her. Still playing his lute and still smiling. “I’ve won,” he said. “I’ve killed your husband.”

“How did you play without fingers? How did you play without arms?”

The minstrel smiled even wider. “When I got here I played my little song and I took control of your little torturer. I swapped my lute for his and with him under my control I got him to play the song every night. The song also kept me alive.” He looked very happy with himself. Then he spoke directly to her. “They call you Witch Queen Nath. Such a scary name but you aren’t very scary after all are you?”

“I know more of magic than you minstrel.”

“Oh you do do you?”

“I know of all the herbs that can heal and all the herbs that can kill, I know of diseases and poisons and bugs and beetles and fish and snakes, I know of birds and beasts and trees and flowers, and I know of man.”

The minstrel laughed. “You know nothing.”

“I know of the wood of the wastes and I know it is not of this world.”

The minstrel laughed some more and did a little dance. “It’s not, it’s not! And nothing in this world can defend against it!”

“And I know you must have got it from something not of this world.”

The minstrel stopped dancing.

“And I know that someday that something may want it back.” The witch shut the door and hobbled off back into her castle.

The minstrel turned and walked away. He wasn’t smiling.