Holsley stumbled into the overwhelming darkness, and his foot immediately knocked against something.

Bending down, he grasped what felt like a recorder on the floor — an elongated piece of wood with holes punctured at intervals along its side. Even in the dark, he could feel how dusty it was, how brittle. Holsley pursed his lips and whistled a tune, one to summon his ball of light, and he placed it on the end of this instrument.

The area around him became instantly illuminated. Light shed its insight on the floor and revealed the hundreds of grimy instruments lying at his feet. On the wall to his right, Holsley spied more instruments, though these were in much better condition, hanging up on old iron nails split into the rock.

Although he couldn’t see it, Holsley knew he was standing at the base of a square tower. Somewhere, there were stairs leading to balconies that themselves would have stairs leading to higher balconies. He couldn’t remember how many floors there were, maybe five, but he was already beginning to regret placing the lute as high as he could. It had seemed like the right decision at the time.

‘Hello?’ he called into the anticipating dark.

‘Hello,’ came the echoey reply.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here!’ Holsley shouted a little louder.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘You look so handsome!’

‘You look so handsome.’

‘Oh, you.’

‘Oh, you.’

Holsley giggled. The young bard had done the same thing when Dan had brought him here, except Dan had managed to chase away every shadow. As it stood, Holsley could barely see twenty feet ahead of himself. It meant he had to tread carefully into the dark with the well-lit flute and hope he bumped into the stairs sooner rather than later.

The young bard gingerly stepped over the instruments as he continued further into the unknown. From recollection, he knew there were two sets of stairs on either side of the ground floor, and they each led up to different areas and balconies, but only one would lead him to the lute.

TWANG!

Holsley’s clumsy toe met with a broken lute, and he cringed at the sound. He continued on. The last time he had been here, Holsley had asked after the difference between the instruments on the floor and those hanging up on pegs.

Some bards are better left forgotten, Dan had said.

From what Holsley could tell with his makeshift light, most of the instruments hanging up were magical. Those were easier to tell in a place like this. Magical instruments were always pristine — they couldn’t gather dust, scratches, or cracks. They didn’t age and couldn’t be broken by ordinary means either. It made them special, and Holsley knew it meant those hanging up had belonged to real legends like Marlin Mandrovi.

He was tempted to grab a few of the lutes, seeing as that was his instrument of choice. The young bard fought against the urge, however. Playing another bard’s instrument was terribly unlucky, and that was especially true of a magic one. There was a superstition in it. Apparently, the former owners could hear you playing their instrument in the afterlife.

Holsley wasn’t sure he really believed that. So many stories revolved around the passing down of magical instruments to new minstrels that this superstition didn’t make much sense. Dan believed it, though, but he also believed that the instrument could be passed on as long as its former owner approved.

That’s how he hoped it’d work with Dan’s magical lute.

The eerie silence of the Bard’s Drop was getting to him by the time he found the first stone step. Holsley ascended it slowly, using the dusty railing as a guide and batted at the thin cobwebs that suddenly obscured his path. He again cursed himself for leaving Dan’s lute so high in the drop. Right at the top, if he recalled right.

More instruments awaited him on the first floor. First of five-ish floors, he thought. Like the others, this floor was filled with aisles stacked with old books full of forgotten songs alongside more neatly stacked instruments. Holsley reached out for one of the books, but the tome disintegrated before he could turn a page.

The elves would have never allowed their books to reach this level of decomposition. They were keen readers with a genuine love of history. Something they’d infected the young bard with, and in fact, much of Holsley’s spare time had been spent studying the written word within their libraries.

Holsley smiled at the memory of them. The air was always fresh, no matter where you chose to sit, and the sunlight was never invading but always present. And, as a nice touch, the elves always left out pitchers of water with wedges of lemons and ice alongside bowls of fruit and nuts to snack on while you explore the written word.

The Bard’s Drop had very little in common with the libraries of Donathal, but it still reminded Holsley of them. Here, history was written with music rather than ink. Each instrument represented a person who had done something to earn recognition. They each had a story, and he only wished he could discover what some of those stories were.

***

It had taken another half an hour of careful ascension to reach the highest floor. After he’d managed to catch his breath, he quickly noticed something catching the light above him that hadn’t been present on the lower floors. It was a magnificent chandelier hanging in the centre of the ceiling, overlooking the quick way down over the balcony’s iron railing. He knew he wouldn’t be able to see the floor from so high, but he shined his light down anyway.

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Darkness swallowed the glimmer whole.

That’s how Dan had done it before, Holsley suddenly remembered. The old bard had cast a powerful light spell right into the chandelier and it had bounced from it into every nook and cranny. That’s how every bard must have been able to bring light to this dark, unused space.

He wondered, and not for the first time, who had designed this place.

Dan had told him that a great bard, which he supposed made sense, had founded the Bard’s Drop centuries ago. A great lover of music. Rumour had it that they had died in the drop and still fiercely guarded the instruments from thieves and opportunists. Hopefully, if the rumour were true, they wouldn’t call Holsley a thief for taking back something he had left here.

The young bard crossed the upper balcony while flicking the recorder’s light this way and that. He knew that he had placed the lute on a wall, laid across two pegs, but he couldn’t remember where that spot had been. So, he just had to check everywhere.

Holsley walked down each of the dead-end aisles, shining his light on the wall, which brought them to an abrupt stop. He then doubled back on himself.

The musky air was getting to him. Somehow, it was colder up here than downstairs — so much so that he could see his breath as he breathed out. Holsley wrapped his arms about himself for warmth, as he had only a flimsy shirt to protect himself from the chill.

At the end of the fourth or fifth aisle, Holsley finally spotted his prize with a great sigh of relief. The pristine lute hung on two pegs, exactly as he had remembered, right in the centre of the wall between the shelves. Beaming, he marched towards it, but his footsteps grew heavier the closer he got.

Dan had called it the redrose lute, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Even in the dim light, Holsley could tell that it was made of a fine, crimson wood that had been given a beautiful, lacquered finish. It was just about the finest lute here. The strings were all silver in colour, except for one, and they reflected the light comfortably back at him. Flowery decals adorned the pickguard, and delicate etchings of intricate swirls had been etched into the ivory pegs.

This was nothing less than a lute of legend.

From experience, he knew it was indestructible, but beyond that, it made casting spells easier — something an out-of-practice bard like Holsley sorely needed. Magical instruments knew what song you were trying to play and could compensate for lacking talent. However, it did come with a catch, as these things often did.

A bard playing a magical instrument too often could stunt their potential. Only bards with a great deal of experience handled instruments like this because if you relied on a magical instrument to play, you’d never get better at playing. Not to mention, they were very addictive. However, if you were already at your peak, there was no growth to impede, and these instruments could only improve your skills.

Holsley’s hand trembled as he reached for it.

He stopped himself a moment before his fingertips could brush the strings. This was all wrong. He already knew it had been immoral to come here, to take such an item left behind in this way, but he had done so anyway. Holsley needed a way to protect himself in the city — to protect Roland. He couldn’t do that with a broken lute.

Still, being here, about to take it, the whole thing felt really wrong, and he hesitated.

‘What do I do?’ he whispered into the dark.

THUD.

The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end.

Something rolled towards him, rotating down the middle of the aisle until it rested about ten feet away. Holsley turned to it with wide eyes as it came into his light. Goosebumps prickled his flesh.

It was a drum?

He watched hesitantly as a small drum spun itself flat on the floor, wondering if it had fallen from one of the shelves.

Holsley approached it with trepidation, but another instrument rolled out of the darkness just as he reached out for it. A trumpet. Then another — a flute. And another — a tambourine. The young bard backed up against the wall, nudging the redrose lute as more instruments slid across the floor. They moved of their own accord and came to rest in a neat pile before him.

Holsley pulled the redrose lute off its perch.

It was quite weighty, much heavier than he remembered it being. He grasped the neck. There wasn’t any time to think about right or wrong anymore; he might very well need it to defend himself. The young bard watched nervously as the instruments came together, slotting into one another like a backwards puzzle box, until a shape slowly emerged and raised itself.

The makeshift construct stood on four legs made primarily of flutes, trumpets, and other elongated instruments. Its curved body was made of drums and cymbals, which surrounded and protected an accordion that inflated and deflated like a set of lungs. The thing’s dog-like face was a mismatch of everything else, but Holsley couldn’t miss the sharp drumsticks attached tautly to both its upper and lower jaws, ready to shred an intruder apart.

It was a wolf made out of instruments — like an art installation gone mad.

‘Oh,’ Holsley whimpered through a heart now firmly in his throat. He had never seen anything like this before.

The construct unleashed a sound from its jaw that was a collaboration between the instruments on its misinformed body. A slice of wind rushed out with the sound, barrelling towards Holsley, who, on instinct, ducked. That was his smart move of the day, as where his head had just been a second before, there was now a deep slash in the stone wall.

The attack could’ve literally sliced him in two.

It was time to let adrenaline take the wheel.

Holsley dove through the shelf, careless of the neatly stacked instruments, and into the next aisle, narrowly avoiding another bark from the construct. The young bard rushed back up the aisle on the other side, hit the balcony railing, and desperately looked for some means of safety. There wasn’t anything. He was trapped up here with the creature.

The wolf construct slowly stalked out of its aisle, eyeing Holsley through eyes made of castanets. With every step, its body erupted with a chorus of music. The sound reminded Holsley of a one-man band if a one-man band were a hundred times more threatening and two hundred times more unnerving.

‘What do I do?’ Holsley backed up towards one of the aisles, hoping the obscurity of the shelves could save him. ‘What do I do?’

He had the redrose lute. He had songs. What song could he possibly play to keep this thing from tearing him apart? Was it an animal? Did it count as one? Maybe he could try and talk to it instead of fighting it.

The bard was taking too long. The construct let out another bellow, one Holsley narrowly had time to dive out of the way of. This time, the blast struck a set of shelves, slicing them cleanly apart and leaving nothing but paper and dust to fall around the bard like snow.

From beneath the broken pieces of wood and scattered books, Holsley caught a glimmer just behind the construct. The flute was still glowing a fierce white, illuminating the area, but there was something sparkling overhead, high up on the ceiling. It was perhaps the only thing that might just save his life.

The construct moved in closer, each step rattling with cymbals, strings, and conflicting notes. Holsley looked this thing dead in the eyes. Despite them being simple, rounded pieces of wood, they were starkly terrifying. He’d never looked into eyes so intimidating.

‘Don’t suppose we can talk this out?’ he asked mawkishly.

The construct leapt at him, which was something he had been expecting. Holsley rolled out of the way, avoiding the hoof-like bottoms of trombones as it landed on top of where he had been. Then he leapt into action. His legs did the work as he barrelled away from the creature and towards his next bad idea.

Without hesitation, he hopped onto an overturned shelf and dove as hard as he could towards the chandelier dangling from the ceiling.