Voices in the Wind
by Mary Soon Lee

   _First published in November 1994 in _Star Tiger 9.

On a gray day in a gray season, Gerod, least favored of Lady Tiron's husbands, was buried with a minimum of ceremony. The funeral party hurried up the long slope to the tomb, straining to match both the lady's pace and her mood. With growing confidence, they exchanged ribald jokes about Gerod's physical prowess, his inability to father more than the one child, and his ludicrous attachment to the Dims.

"Given the opportunity," said the blacksmith, slapping the boy beside him in his enthusiasm, "Gerod would have slept with the creatures. Your father," he gripped the boy's shoulder, but was too amused by his own wit to continue.

Held in place by the man's sweaty hand, Cern clenched his fists into tight knots and forced himself to smile. "My father was a fool."

"And he did sleep with them, in a manner of speaking," offered Darok, the youngest and slyest of Lady Tiron's husbands. "When Gerod didn't appear this morning, I took the hounds to find him. He was lying in a clearing in the old forest, surrounded by Dims, but he was cold as ice and well past waking. A pity," he added, glancing up at Tiron, "that he escaped punishment."

"Perhaps he should have been killed when he first started sympathizing with them," said a sharp-faced woman.

"Perhaps, but he had his advantages like any husband." Tiron bent down to kiss Darok, her leather tunic hugging her body as she leaned forward. "If I'd known he was associating with the Dims, naturally I would have dealt with him."

Cern stared fixedly at Tiron's back, wanting her to beckon him over, to smooth down his hair, dark as her own. Instead she twisted free of Darok, and strode straight up the hill. Cern swallowed. He would make her proud of him. At twelve years old, he did not appreciate her curving figure, but he knew she was magnificent. He could see the others constantly maneuvering to gain her attention, the way the group molded itself around her.

The pair of Dims had reached the stone archway leading into the tomb.  They stopped awkwardly, thick smoke-colored fingers clutching onto the edge of the dead man's litter. In the shadow of the entrance, they looked like stones themselves, their thick-set limbs ugly and inhuman.

"Let's get this finished," Tiron pointed a finger at Darok and the blacksmith. Quickly, they took the litter from the Dims, and carried it inside.

Cern saw the adults disappearing into the tomb, and the other children hurrying after them. He delayed for a minute, glaring up at the stolid bulk of the two Dims. If it hadn't been for them, his father might never have become an embarrassment. Angrily, he kicked the shin of the nearest one. It flinched, dropping something onto the ground. It bent to pick it up, but Cern was much faster than the lumbering old Dim. He examined the tiny brown bundle: a lock of hair. His father's hair.

"Lady mother! I've caught a thieving Dim." Cern kicked the creature again. A trick of the light caught the thing's face and made it look almost sad. For a moment, Cern remembered the same sad expression in his father's eyes, the deep quietness of his smile. But then Lady Tiron walked out of the tomb and laid her hand on Cern's head, and he forgot all about his father.





That night, the great hall of Lady Tiron's manor was a blaze of color and warmth. Folk from twenty households crowded the tables, helping themselves to roast meats, fruits and a seemingly endless supply of ale. Perfumed candles burned brightly, reflecting from silverware and the lady's finest crystal. Tiron had wasted neither grace nor expense on Gerod's burial, but she had turned his funeral feast into a banquet fit for a prince.

Cern sat by his mother's side, an inexplicable hollowness aching inside him. His brothers were enviously watching his exalted position from two tables away, but he wished he could join them. On the other side of his mother, Darok's mouth flashed into a white-toothed smile as the man edged his hand up Tiron's arm. Immediately, she turned round to Cern, dislodging Darok's hand and startling the man into a sour expression.

"You did well today," Tiron stroked her son's hair. "Are you satisfied with the Dim's punishment?"

"Yes, Lady mother," Cern dutifully smiled. He glanced at the corner where the old Dim stood, its eyes tight shut. A metal bar forced its jaws apart, exposing the raw stump of its tongue. The creature was paler than ever, almost white but for the dark gray fluid dripping from its mouth. Cern had tormented the Dims like any other child, but tonight the stillness of the creature disturbed him, reminding him of the wistfulness in its milky eyes after he'd kicked it. Cern kept his smile in place as he looked back at his mother.

Tiron patted his shoulder, "If you continue to please me, I may make you my heir."

Cern's spoon clattered onto his plate. Numbly, he sat there like an idiot while his mother and her six husbands all scrutinized him.

"Have you gone mad?" Darok seized Tiron's wrist, his face flushed a darker brown than Cern had ever seen.

"What did you think I would do? Leave it all to you? Cern is my eldest son, and so far I've had no daughters."

No one within earshot was even pretending to eat. Cern stared from one adult to another, frantically searching for something to say, but his mind had frozen.

Darok's face smoothed into an urbane smile. "Lady, you never hinted at this, you never trained the boy, and his father was --"

"_No one_ makes decisions for me. And I'm not such a fool that I would marry a man who had no redeeming qualities." Tiron picked up a velvet-wrapped object from beside her chair, and passed it to Cern.  "Play for us."

Gently, Cern lifted the harp free of the fabric, and held it up. The candlelight glowed softly against the honey-colored wood, and he ran one hand across the strings. His throat tightened uncontrollably as he thought of his father's hands touching those strings as though they were an extension of his body.

He pushed his chair back and began to play. The notes flowed from the harp in liquid tones that seduced the air. Tiron's eyes closed, and Cern felt the music spreading in widening circles until the whole hall was listening. The sounds pulled at him strangely. He heard the waiting darkness outside the hall, the bleak and tuneless countryside stretching without measure.

The melody twisted out of his control, the chords echoing with sadness.  He glanced over to the old Dim, saw tears coursing down its face. The Dim's eyes opened and it stared at him, mutely begging him to continue.  And so Cern played.

The music lingered with Cern long after he put down the harp. He was only vaguely aware of the crowd starting to stir again, of the clink of cutlery, the rising swell of conversation. The harmony haunted him, urging him to complete it, but he was too weary to move.

Someone gripped his shoulder painfully, and shook him. Unresisting, he watched the room bouncing across his vision.

"Let him be!"

The sharpness of the voice penetrated his daze. Slowly, he focused on the bearded face of the healer.

"The boy's just tired." The healer grinned down at Cern, "I didn't know you were so gifted."

"It, it wasn't me," Cern mumbled. He let the healer lift the harp from his lap. Another face swam into view, green eyes wide with concern. His mother hugged him, her dark hair falling like a curtain around them. He breathed in deeply, comforted by the rich musky scent. In a moment, he would ask her about the music, but his eyelids were so heavy. . . .

He blinked. The hall had darkened. Only his mother was left, walking down the room, extinguishing the candles. Her footsteps echoed, an eerie counterpoint to the wind howling outside.

There were voices in the wind.

He got up, dry-mouthed. He stepped down from the dais, heading for the huge oak doors. The wind rose, ringing against the windows, calling him.

"Cern? What are you doing?"

"I'm going outside."

"Cern --" Tiron hesitated, and then nodded once.

The doors swung open easily, damp air chilling Cern as he strode out.  Two crescent moons, one waxing and one waning, lit an empty expanse of rain and shrub and stone. The voices led him north, their words fading at the borders of his thoughts.

Ahead, the edge of a wood loomed darkly. He heard the grass singing under his feet, the leaves answering above. He passed the outer trees.  Before him hung a tracery of smoke, shining palely in the moonlight.  His hair blew wildly across his face, but the smoke was perfectly still.

Reaching out, Cern touched one delicate white wisp. Ice burned through his fingers, freezing him where he stood. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the branches bending toward him, fine-leaved hands surrounding him. A wet blackness blinded him.

Screaming, he tore at his eyes, pulling away a soggy clump of leaves.  He was in a small clearing, tall white rocks leaning against the trees.  A fierce wind gusted, but the music and the smoke had gone.

One of the rocks moved. Cern started: they weren't rocks at all -- they were Dims. And his father had been found lying ice-cold in a clearing like this. He grabbed at a stone and centered it in his palm, wishing he had a more substantial weapon. "Did you kill him? Did you call my father here and then kill him?"

The Dims' eyes narrowed, and a low rumbling resonated uncomfortably in the chill air. "Your father died helping us. Bring us his harp."

The wind stung at Cern's eyes, and he blinked hard. The moonlight reflected strangely from the creatures, hollowing their features to an underlying sorrow. He could almost understand why a man might want to help them.

"The harp. Play us away."

"Why do you want --- no." Cern shook himself angrily. What they wanted didn't matter. And it was stupid to be scared of them; Dims never hurt anyone. He looked around, wondering if he could find his way home.

"Hello, Cern." Darok stepped out of the shadows. "You really should have been more careful."

After Darok had roused the household, Tiron bade her son speak. He stood in the middle of the circle of adults, head down, refusing to answer. If he said the wind had talked to him, they would take him for a liar or a Dim-addled half-wit.

"Answer the Lady!" Darok struck Cern hard, sending him off balance.

He stumbled to his feet, and saw his mother. Spine rigidly straight, she gazed at him with a mixture of disappointment and disdain that undid him. "There were voices in the wind," he looked directly at Tiron as he explained, watching her expression harden into disbelief.

"Why did you lie?" Tiron asked quietly, drawing her arms in as though something pained her.

"I didn't. I wouldn't --"

"Enough! You went to the clearing to meet the Dims, just as your father did. If you act like a Dim, then you will be treated like a Dim." She gestured to one of her guards, "Chain him."

The guard roughly dragged Cern across the hall, and shackled him beside the old Dim. Tiron waited until the guard had finished, and then swept out of the hall, followed by her retinue.

When the last of them had left, Cern subsided onto the floor, the chains already paining his ankles. He closed his eyes, half prepared to accept that he must be mad. The wind was the wind, no more mysterious than a stone or a twig or a Dim. Unbidden, he remembered his father coming to his bedroom last night, drawing the curtains closed, tucking in the coverlet around him. Nothing out of the ordinary. He balled his hands into fists: his father had been a fool.  But a kind fool. He opened his eyes.

The Dim had positioned its pale, mutilated face a hand's breadth from his own, its milky eyes studying him. Instinctively, Cern recoiled, sickened by the remains of its tongue. Too late, it occurred to him that the Dim had every reason to bear him a grudge, but there was no menace in its tired eyes. Slowly, it reached over, brushed his hair, rubbed his shoulders. It smelled faintly of rain-soaked earth, of roots and leaves.

"I'm sorry," Cern whispered, barely able to hear himself.

The Dim nodded seriously. It bent over, pulled out something from between its toes, offered it to Cern.

Cern stared at the single brown strand of his father's hair. "Why? Why would you do that?" Incredulously, he looked at the Dim, wondering if it understood what it had risked.

Milky eyes brimmed over, but the creature was mute.

"Keep it," he muttered. He saw the Dim gently fold the hair over and over on itself, and then hide it away again. He held still when the Dim sat down beside him, its cool skin pressing against his side. Resting his forehead on his knees, he tried to sleep.





"Get up."

Cern staggered upright. Darok gripped his arm tightly, and marched him across the hall. Not daring to glance back at the Dim, he limped out.  Darok dragged him along the corridor to his bedroom, opened the door and pushed him inside. Cern heard the rasp of a key in the lock, and sank down against the wall, not knowing what was going to happen to him.

A shaft of sunlight streamed through the window, warming the patch of floor beneath his feet. Gradually, he took in the rich colors of the tapestries, the clean shirt draped over a chair. Apparently, the worst of his punishment was over.

There were splinters of wood on the floor. Puzzled, Cern looked around.  On the bed, broken in two, lay his father's harp.

Silently, he crossed the room, touched the graceful curve of the instrument. Very carefully, he lifted the two halves, and carried them over to the window. He sat down in the alcove, cradling the fragile wood, and gazed out wordlessly.

The air was stuffy, trapped in the room as he was, and he couldn't think clearly. Throwing the window open, he gulped in lungfuls of cold air. It smelled sweet and earthy, like the old Dim whom he had betrayed. His left hand tightened around the harp.

Broken.

He imagined his mother smiling in approval as someone hurled it onto the ground. A cruelly appropriate punishment for Gerod's lying son. But Cern hadn't lied, and she hadn't believed him.

He pressed his forehead against the edge of the window. Everyone said that the Dims were stupid, good for working the fields, but little else. Gerod had disagreed, and within hours of his death people were mocking him for that. Only the Dims themselves had grieved.

His hand slipped, catching on the one string still held taut. A tiny, mournful note escaped. He plucked the string over and over again, remembering Gerod, remembering taunting him, remembering his mother encouraging him.

The last bitter note decayed into silence. He would take the harp to the forest clearing. He couldn't play it for the Dims, but at least he could give them the one object his father had valued.

No one came to check on Cern. He waited while the afternoon wore into evening, and the evening wore into night. When the second moon rose, he washed, dressed, and drank his fill of water. Wrapping the harp in his softest jacket, he dropped it from the window. He lowered himself over the edge, and hung there for a moment before he could make himself let go.

He hit the ground hard, grabbed the harp, and sprinted away from the manor. When the building was lost in a dip of the hills, he stopped, listening for any sound of pursuit. All he could hear was his own breathing. Not even a breeze stirred through the long grass, black under the moonlight. Unnerved, he half-ran, half-walked back to the forest.

"Hello?" Cern stood in the center of the clearing, unable to find any trace of the Dims. "I brought the harp. . . ."

A shadow shifted oddly, and then another. From behind the trees came seven Dims, their pale bodies conspicuous as soon as they stepped into the open. They moved right up to Cern, nudging him as he unwrapped the bundle.

"I'm sorry. They broke it."

The Dims blinked in unison. "It's time," sighed one, its deep voice sounding glad. "Here," said another, stretching out its hands, taking the harp from Cern.

"Please," the voice came from his side, "play us away."

He turned round to stare directly at the speaker, the words heavy in his throat. "I can't. It's broken."

"Here."

Cern turned again, and a Dim handed him the harp, its face wet with tears. Disbelievingly, he ran his fingers over the wood. Where it had been broken, the surface was damp, but there was no scratch or flaw of any kind. Trembling, he plucked a string. One perfect round note echoed in the night.

A Dim pushed a boulder toward him. Cern sat, balanced the harp, shook his head once, and began to play. The music rose in bittersweet melody, the tones dripping with a beauty no instrument could make. His hands moved out of his control, searching instinctively for chords he'd never learned.

Around him, the Dims swayed, their thick features smoothing under the moonlight as the harmony patterned the air. The circles of their eyes paled like the moons, deepening, widening.

Cern blinked, his hands faltering. An icy wind tore at him, frosting his hair, and then his hands found the strings again, moved surely along them. There were sixteen moons circling around him, eight figures thinning into smoke. He could not think. Only the music was real, spilling from the harp across the whole land. There were thirty moons, a hundred, a thousand, spinning around him, and still he played.

His hands fell from the strings, and he fell after them, tumbling onto the damp soil. A man loomed over him, Darok's face splitting into a cruel smile, and Cern fainted.





"Who is he?" whispered the small girl, sticky cake smeared round her mouth. She stared at the gray haired old man. His face was creased in as many wrinkles as a walnut, but his eyes were beautiful, green as a deep pool under trees.

"He's the Harper," said her father, wiping the child's face. "Be quiet now."

The old man bent down, and unwrapped a honey-colored harp. Positioning it on the floor in front of him, he closed his eyes, and began to play.

Magic flowed from the strings, conjuring pictures of strange wild creatures that raced in the wind, danced in water, spread through a tree from its roots to the tips of its leaves. The music stretched out from the hall, wandering over the midnight hills and down, down to the distant sea.

The child blinked, confused. People were thanking the old man, pressing gifts into his hands. "Why doesn't he say anything?"

"They stole his tongue," her father said gravely, "after they realized what he had done." He shook his head. "All the Dims in the world, vanished in a single night. Had he been older, they would have killed him for that."

She didn't understand, but she went up to the man, and tugged at his sleeve. "I liked the magic."

"Music," corrected her father.

Cern smiled, only half aware of the child, her face one shadow amongst many shadows. He could hear his friends calling him in the deep notes of rock and hill, in the passion of an autumn storm, in the quiet tremble of a leaf. Their voices were growing clearer, and one day soon he would play his soul into the wind and join them.

-----

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