LAUREL WINTER BLOOD HARP * About the story. she writes, "I attended a Rochester Symphony concert with a friend and the wordless sensory stimulation inspired a flood of word ideas, including one for a 'blood harp.'" She turned that idea into the haunting story which follows. KEMMELIN CROUCHED NEXT to a mirror-smooth bench on the upper tier and rubbed viciously with her polishing cloth. Maria was practicing again --if you could call it that, her long fingers so far from the blood harp's strings that Kemmelin could easily have fit her own fingers in the space between them. When she had practiced in her home village -- on a lesser blood harp, not one of the great harps like that rising from the stage below -- her fingers had almost grazed the sharp and hungry strings. Kemmelin played a simple tune in the air, her eyes mere slits. How would such a song sound on the great blood harp? She imagined the strings slicing her fingertips, the harmonics as the blood dripped down to feed the heart of the harp, the -- The old woman's hard leather shoe nudged her leg. "Clean the benches. And the relief rooms." Then she limped down the wide steps to the stage. Kemmelin looked at the polishing cloth, abandoned on the smooth wood of the bench. The old woman was instructing Maria on her practicing techniques; the sound of their words reflected upwards in the great bowl of the room. Kemmelin could hear them clearly from where she knelt, as clearly, she knew, as from any other position in the blood hall. Marja was showing the old woman her scar, which hadn't healed well yet. The old woman offered no sympathies. "Try the baths-- after you finish practicing. And you must be nearer." She grabbed one of Maria's hands and moved it close to the strings. "Like so. You cannot fear the harp or the music will be flawed. Yet you must respect it." This last she said more firmly. "I do respect it." Kemmelin's cry was swallowed by the design of the room. All the same, she had the strange feeling that the old woman knew what she had said -- and didn't believe her. She breathed in the musty-sweet smell of the hall, more scented by fungus than blood, and clenched her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the old woman was just approaching the entrance to the bath caves, below the stage. Maria had begun practicing again, tears glittering on the dramatic planes of her face, her fingers held at a more respectable distance from the strings. "But not as close as I would hold them," Kemmelin whispered. She left the cloth on the bench for later and went to clean the relief rooms. Later, when Maria had gone to the baths to soak her skin tender, and the blood harp was alone on the stage, she could finish the benches. The old woman had Kemmelin stand at the entrance past the time Maria was supposed to start playing. No use. Only a third of the gleaming benches were occupied. Kemmelin let the coin she had taken from the last concert-goer fall into the slot of the box that was chained to the wall. Only the old woman had the key, but the girl knew that the coins nestled at the bottom were hardly worth stealing. A grizzled head peeked into the entry, took in the situation. "You might as well come in," she said. Kemmelin didn't hurry. When she entered, Maria was well into the first piece, a sweet melody that didn't demand much blood. Even then, she seemed to be holding back from the harp, her fingers darting in to the strings and away again, too quickly. It was hard to tell, since Maria was wearing the traditional red robe of the blood harpist, but the lack of deeper harmonics that would have made the piece strong as well as sweet convinced Kemmelin that Maria had shed even less blood than the minimal amount the song required. The concert didn't get better. Marja shied away from the biting touch of the strings -- even on her finale, a piece that cried out for a lingering stroke to feed the wood and bones of the heart. Without that, the harp didn't release the wild burst of sound at the end. There was an abrupt, thin crescendo, and the concert was over. Half the audience began to leave before the last note had even died. The other half drummed polite heels on the wooden floor while Marja held her arms up to them, her fingers barely stained. Kemmelin could tell she was forcing herself to complete the turn, to acknowledge everyone. Her sleeves had fallen back. A little blood trickled down one arm. Kemmelin had been to one great concert in her life, four years earlier, shortly after her own blood had made her a woman. At the end of that one, the woman's arms gleamed red, and she staggered from loss of blood before she could even finish the circle. Kemmelin had drummed her heels numb -and she wasn't the only one. The whole hall seemed to reverberate as the audience drummed and drummed. There was no comparison with this performance. The last drumming stopped the instant Marja finished her circle. Before she could even make her way to the baths, people were clambering up and out of the hall. Some were outwardly critical, but most seemed embarrassed for Marja. They avoided Kemmelin's eye as they passed her seat on the highest tier. Soon she was alone in the dimly glowing blood hall. Alone except for the harp. She walked down the wide, shallow steps, which she had swept clean earlier that day. Grit from the peoples' shoes grated under her feet, mingled with the dust and spores from the luminescent fungus on the ceding that reflected the sound from the stage, as well as providing soft light. She knew the harp could not have been satisfied -- she was not. Down, down, past all seven tiers, until she was one step away from the smooth, stained wood of the stage itself. She had never let herself come down before, always skirting around the stage at the lowest tier on her way to the baths. The old woman had warned her that she was not to play the harp; "You are too young, too ready to shed your life for music, with too much heat and not enough fear." She had argued at the time, but the woman was adamant. Now was not the time; if she persisted, she would leave the blood hall and some other aspiring harpist would polish the benches and sweep the steps anti clean the relief rooms until the old woman granted permission to play. Kemmelin knew the old woman, knew her from her eyes and the set of her jaw. She meant it. She also knew herself: if she went near enough to the blood harp to touch it, she would play. Until now, she had kept a barrier of benches between herself and the instrument. Until now. The stage floor was as smooth as the benches, but the wood had never been oiled. Ancient blood stains, barely faded, mingled with the recent and the merely old. Stage floors were never cleaned. Not the modest wooden platforms like the one that held the lesser harp in Kemmelin's village. Not the imposing spaces that held the great harps. In the only other blood hall Kemmelin had seen, the stage was almost black. Here, the ancient record far exceeded the displays of the near past. A few splatters of blood -- too few -from Marja's performance had yet to be absorbed. Kemmelin avoided the wet streaks and spots. It wasn't difficult. She approached the harp. I will just practice, she mid herself knowing that she was lying. She seated herself at the great harp and held her fingers just a feather's breadth from the strings. Her breathing came fast and ragged, audible --she knew -to the entire blood hall Carefully, still keeping the tiny distance, she began to practice the song she had played m the air earlier that day. There was no sound but her breathing as she did not make contact. Yet somehow the blood harp seemed to be throbbing, to beg for soft skin against its strings, for the flavor of her blood. Without deciding to -- and without deciding not to -- she began to play. The harp led her in depth of touch by the depth of the harmonic response. The simple tune she had chosen was a good one, a song that resonated and gave itself to the harp and took back the harp's gift and rejoiced. It was not a long melody, and she only played it once. The blood harp gave a last throb of music and then there was silence. Kemmelin shook all over. She had played the blood harp. She looked at her fingertips, which were dripping blood from a score of tiny lacerations. No one would know, she realized. The blood she had added to the stage could have easily come from Marja's concert. She, Kemmelin, had bled almost as much -- and she had only played one song. She wiped her hands on the polishing rag, which was fortunately still in the pocket of her dress, and headed for the baths. Maria and the old woman were down there, she knew, but she could keep her hands balled up until she was in the water. The bath caves were almost directly under the stage, but one had to spiral in to them. She soaked in the languid waters every day, to keep her skin soft and supple and ready for the bite of the blood harp. Today was the first day that the healing salts and minerals would be a factor. She took great breaths of the strangely scented air as she rounded the last comer. Just the smell of the water helped calm her a little. Marja and the old woman were in the first bath, a dimly lit chamber with different height benches chipped out of the stone in the pool's sides Marja sat on one end of the lowest bench, her hair, the color of dry grass at the end of a long summer, trailing into the water. The old woman sat on the higher bench that butted up against Maria's bench. She had twisted her gray hair up into a drying cloth. The water lapped at the top of her sagging breasts. Marja looked bleak, the old woman a curious mixture of proud and angry. Kemmelin would have hurried past, into the second bath, a smaller, dingier chamber where she often soaked alone, but the old woman's voice cut through the dim air. "Join us." Kemmelin turned away from them to straggle out of her dress, careful to keep her body between them and her hands. As quickly as possible, she slipped into the gently steaming water, gasping out loud as the suspended salts touched the open wounds on her fingers. The old woman held her gaze with fierce, dark eyes. How could she know? the girl wondered. The sharp pain became a tingling numbness. The old woman seemed to make a point of bringing her own mutilated hands up into the air. One hand was missing two fingers, the other three. Both were horribly scarred. Other, lesser scars traveled up her arms. Those, Kemmelin knew, were from feeding the harp if there was too long between performances. But the fingers -- the old woman had obviously been a blood harpist herself, years ago. A great harpist on a great harp, losing herself to the music to such an extent that she lost fingers. Not once, but five times. Kemmelin had always known these facts, but she hadn't let herself examine them before. She wondered how much blood one would lose if a harp string bit deep enough to cut off a finger. She wondered what sound the harp would make in response. And what music could so involve a harpist that such would be possible. Without thinking, she raised her own hands above the surface of the water, stretching out her ten limber fingers. A drop of blood fell from one cut onto the surface of the bath. Kemmelin hastily submerged her hands. Maria would not look at her. The old woman would not look away. If she hadn't needed the healing waters, Kemmelin would have grabbed her dress and run. How did they know? She looked up at the low ceiling of the chamber, anywhere to escape the old woman's eyes. And then she knew. The sound would not have been the clear perfection that it was in the blood hall above them, but it would have traveled, nonetheless, through stone and water, into the bodies and minds of the two below her. She could not avoid a guilty glance at them now. The old woman nodded. "In the old days, when there were many harpists serving this harp, some would listen from here as they bathed. You can feel the music through your skin." Her gaze grew sharp as a harp string. "Tomorrow, or day after, when your fingers have healed enough, I will watch you play. Do not again play without my permission." Kemmelin almost drowned on the smell of the air and the sound of the old woman's words. She was not going to be sent away. Marja still would not look at her. The three sat in silence for a long time, and then the two of them pulled themselves from the water and went away. Kemmelin was alone again, with the water and the stone above her head and the blood harp on top of that. THE OLD woman did more than just watch her play. She made Kemmelin practice the same bit over and over again, fingers just a heartbeat away from touching the wires. "You will play that measure and nothing more," she finally instructed the girl, just as Kemmelin was deciding her fingers could not possibly move through the series of notes again, nor her throat hum them as she did. But the thought of playing gave her new strength and mobility. The tender, half-healed wounds on her fingers broke when she had just begun. She pulled back. The old woman laughed and laughed. "So," she said, wiping tears from her eyes with stubs of missing fingers, "next time you will not be so contemptuous of poor Maria. It is one thing to imagine oneself as a great blood harpist. It is another to feel the pain of harp strings on sore fingers." "But -- in my village," Kemmelin said, "I --" The old woman cut her off with a gesture. "In your village you had a lesser blood harp and every girl from a day's walk around wanted a turn at it. How often did you get to play?" Before Kemmelin could even begin to answer, the old woman continued. "I'll tell you how often -- not very. Your fingers had plenty of time to heal. You know nothing of the life and pain of a harpist." Kemmelin said nothing. She moved her hands toward the harp again, but the old woman stopped her. "Go to the baths, girl. When your fingers are sufficiently healed you will play again. Today was not a lesson in music. Show me your hands in two days and I will judge." Kemmelin went to the baths sucking on the worst finger. That was what she had done in her village after a harp session, for her area had no healing baths. When she got home, she made up her own remedy in a bowl -- or her mother did -- and soaked her hands. But the warm mineral baths, to immerse one's whole body in, were much more satisfying than chipped pottery on a table. Coming out of the baths was like emerging from a dream. The salty taste of her own blood was not unpleasant though, and the finger-sucking was strangely comforting, as if she were again a young child. This time, Kemmelin was alone in the caves. She lit a small, long-burning torch in the first cave and went on. The mineral springs had played a strong role in the creation of the caverns, and almost every chamber held at least a small pool. The walls and ceilings glowed with occasional patches of fungus. Strange formations rippled from the rock, pillars and cones and thin, translucent lace. The mineral smell from the pools comforted her. Back, she went, and back, still sucking her fingers, the other hand holding the torch. Periodically, she would switch hands. As when she was a child, she felt the need for a place of her own, a secret place that no other knew of, a dark and quiet place. After rejecting several sites, she found it. Ages ago, the waters had carved a twisted tunnel in the side of one chamber. If one didn't examine it carefully, it appeared to be a dead end. But Kemmelin's fingers were aching for the springs; she had determined that she was going to turn back and take one of the other places if she didn't find the perfect spot soon. The idea of failure rubbed against the back of her eyes, so she was extra diligent in her search. Through the tunnel -- tall Maria would have had to hunch way over-the cave opened into a small chamber. almost like a bubble in the rock. Frills of lacy stone edged the opening. There was a small ledge, just inside the entrance, that would be a good surface for dry clothes and perhaps a sealed jar of food, but the rest of the floor was filled with a pool. Her torch cast wavering shadows over the smooth surface of the water. She set the torch handle into a hole in the curved wall that almost seemed made for it, stripped off her dress, and tested the pool for depth. The floor of the cave curved naturally beneath the surface of the water until it reached a short drop-off. Kemmelin laughed out loud and slipped down into the water. Leaning back, she could rest the back of her bead just outside the water, keeping her face dry. Her knees bent at the drop-off point, as if it were the edge of a bench. The water stung her fingertips for a long moment. She held her breath until the relief of tingling began. With the curve of walls and ceiling, she could imagine herself inside an egg. Like a mottle chick, she thought -- no, a scarlet fantail. Much more satisfying to see oneself as a splendid, exotic bird rather than the dull fowl that pecked around in every yard. She had only seen fantail plumage once, in the hair of a fat wealthy woman who stopped at their village to have a carriage wheel fixed. The spread of scarlet feathers, tipped with deeper red and flecks of brilliant yellow, had made the woman's hair look drab. Kemmelin sat up straight and waited for the waves from her movement to subside. In the torchlight she examined her reflection in the surface of the pool. Would a fantail drab her down? No, she decided. Her hair was darker than the wealthy woman's had been, with reddish highlights that the scarlet would enhance. Her eyes were odd, with a darker rim of blue around pale, bluish-gray, but at least her lashes and brows were dark. Her skin was somewhere between Maria's paleness and the old woman's deeper bronze. And if there was nothing special about the shape of her face or the prominence of her cheekbones, there was nothing ill about them either. "Someday," she told her reflection, which shimmered slightly as she spoke, "you will wear a fantail in your hair." And someday, she dared not say aloud, you will be a great blood harpist. She looked at the linear sores on the ends of her fingers and did not allow herself to think of the old woman's hands at all. It was three days before the old woman pronounced her hands healed enough to play again. In that time, she was not even allowed to practice, because Marja claimed the harp and the old woman's attentions and spent most of her time -- that not spent lying in a stupor in the second bath chamber -- practicing her songs. Her humming voice was extraordinary, and of course she had a repertoire of music much greater than Kemmelin's. Her fingering was better now than it had been before the intensive practice, just barely skimming over the surface of t he strings, but the girl still sensed a tension in the woman's posture whenever she was near the harp. Kemmelin minded the wait less than she thought she would, because she was busy appropriating items for her chamber. Only things that wouldn't be missed, she thought: a green rug with a frayed edge, a pillow with a wine-stained cover, several half-burned torch inserts. The torches were the easiest part, as it was her job to change them when they burned out. It was a simple matter to change them early. The food was the most difficult. Kemmelin felt guilty taking a large clay jar of dried meat and fruits from the back of the storage room. With the lack of concert money lately, supplies were dwindling. So I will eat less of the food at the table, she consoled herself. She sneaked the jar -- wrapped in drying cloths -- into the baths when the old woman was overseeing one of Marja's long practice sessions. The drying cloths she folded neatly in the first chamber, then hurried through the caves with the jar. It was hard to stay away from her solitary place, hard to bathe in the chambers where Maria and the old woman bathed, and yet she did so, because she did not want them to become curious. If her hands healed well and she hadn't been seen in the baths, they would know she had been somewhere else. No one had ever told her not to explore the caves, or said that she had to bathe in the regular places. The other two did so because it was easier. All the same, though, she wanted her place to be secret, so she maintained at least a portion of her former schedule of bathing and only slipped off to her hideaway when she thought she wouldn't be missed. With extra exposure to the baths though, her fingers healed more rapidly than Marja's. "This will be good," the old woman said, holding one of Kemmelin's hands between a finger and an amputated stub. "I was going to feed the harp today anyway. You will have a lesson and then the harp will be ready for Maria's next concert when her hands are fully healed." Kemmelin had been planning to go and eat a few handfuls of meat and fruit from the jar she had stashed -- she had eaten very little of the stew that noon -- but she forgot about that immediately. The old woman was strict, teaching her a new song and making her hum it over and over, correcting the tempo frequently, before she even let Kemmelin practice in the air surrounding the harp. She had Kemmelin go over the fingering until her arms ached and there was a knot of tension at the base of her skull. But she was learning the song. Her fingers knew -- without her thought -- when to dart and when to quiver and when to hold still and then plunge. "Yes," said the old woman. "Play now." And Kemmelin played. She didn't even flinch when the harp strings cut her, releasing the first blood that made the harp's heart sing. The song was in her hands and in her own heart and in her blood. She barely noticed the redness flowing from her fingers. The pain she felt was echoed by the strangeness and joy that the blood harp added to the music. When she was done, exhausted, she let her hands drop to her knees, heedless of the blood dripping onto her dress. The old woman had no smile for her, only a gaze that seemed n{)t to quite see the girl -- or perhaps to see a future self, a harpist. "To the baths," she said. "That will do for now." Kemmelin didn't even think of dragging her body to her secret place It was beyond her to get past the first chamber. She stepped into the water without even taking off her dress and -- after the stinging stopped -examined her hands. Most of the lacerations were superficial, but there were two deep cuts that ran diagonally down her center fingers, where the music had called for her hand to slide down a string. Those were beginning to throb. She made sure she was in a position where she wouldn't tend to slip farther in, then leaned her head back and fell asleep. Maria woke her with a low voice and a long-fingered hand on her shoulder. "Kemmelin? You've been in the water long enough. Zaffrie says that you should eat." Eat sounded good, but something else caught her attention. "Zaffrie? Is that her name?" Maria's left eyebrow rose. "You've been here a month and you don't even know your mentor's name? Shame." "How was I to learn it," she snapped. "When I came, all I heard was, 'Can you polish? Can you sweep? Just maybe you will be allowed to play someday.'" Her voice trailed off. "There was no mention of names. I wouldn't have known yours if it wasn't for the poster." Maria laughed, her shoulders shaking with the force of it. "Oh, I remember, I remember. Not 'can you carry a song?' but 'can you carry wood and water?'" They laughed together and then Maria touched her shoulder. "Come out now. I'm sure your dress has faded and your skin turned to pucker fruits." After the woman left, Kemmelin dragged herself from the water. As Maria had predicted, her dress was a muddy version of its former self. Kemmelin felt a bit muddy, too. Who could have known that the great harps were so demanding? And Maria had laughed with her! She must have known Kemmelin's attitude toward her playing. This life was going to be different than she had decided in her first month here. She had no other clothes in the baths, so she just twisted as much water as she could out of her skirts and blotted her skin and hair with a drying cloth. Then, dripping, she plodded up through the blood hall and into the small area at the back where the three of them ate and slept. Evenmeal was more of the stew she had barely touched at midday. She was so hungry her hand shook in guiding the spoon to her mouth. She ate and ate, continually adjusting the grip on her spoon handle to lessen the pain from the harp cuts. Nothing helped. Finally, she just gave up and ignored the throbbing. She felt a sense of community with the others that she had not felt before. "Let me see," the old woman -- Zaffrie -- said, when Kemmelin had satisfied her appetite and let the spoon fall to the smoothly sanded table. The girl held out her hands. Zaffrie's fingers and stubs prodded the wounds gently. "Nothing the baths can't handle," she said. "Take another before you sleep tonight. In two days --" she looked at them both in turn. "In two days, Maria will play again. I sent children to the villages with word. The blood hall must be well cleaned." Kemmelin's good feeling evaporated. When Maria's fingers healed, she played before an audience. Kemmelin had to heal in order to polish benches and sweep up fungus droppings. She stood and displayed her hands. "I cannot clean the dishes tonight." Her damp dress slapped her legs as she turned and left the kitchen. Even though she bathed again, in her chamber this time, Kemmelin had a hard time trying to fall asleep. Her center fingers ached. Her thoughts fought in her mind. Had Maria once been unafraid? Would she, Kemmelin, begin to pull back from the feel of the strings on real and remembered wounds? How long would she have to polish and clean and haul wood before she played before an audience? There is never a night that doesn't end, even though some feel endless. At some point, worrying over her thoughts like knots in weaving, Kemmelin slept. She expected dreams of things left undone, but, if she did, morning hid them from her. It did not hide the pain, though. Before she spared time to eat, she half-ran to the baths. She plunged her hands in and waited for the tingling before she briefly exposed them and stripped off her sleep shift. Then she was in all the way to her chin. She would have stayed half the day, too, but she didn't want Maria to come looking for her again, or perhaps Zaffrie. After a time, she stepped out and dried off. It would be wise to begin the polishing and sweeping, she decided, since it was likely that her hands would not allow long sessions with cloth or broom. In fact, Maria and the old woman -- Kemmelin could not get used to thinking of her by name -- had to help with the upper tier of benches or the blood hall would not have been ready in time. Not that every bench was used. The gossip about Maria's last performance -- and all three had heard it -- was that she was worth listening to if one didn't have another plan, but not more than that. One might expect pleasant music, but no great shedding of blood. Kemmelin guessed, without keeping careful count, that there were about the same number in the audience as last time. Perhaps a few less. When Maria had been helping polish benches though, already dressed in her red robe, she had been humming deep in her throat, as if the music were caught inside her. From time to time, she would drop the polishing cloth and practice a bit in the air, her fingers quivering with intensity. This time, Kemmelin didn't linger when Zaffrie told her she could enter the blood hall. The audience was whispering as Maria approached the harp, which was poor manners, but not necessarily distracting to the harpist, since sound reflected up from the stage and not the other way around. All the same, it angered Kemmelin, who could hear her neighbors clearly. "I saw her last time," said a man with a gray tunic, and hair that would soon match it. "Only a few spatters of blood. And the music -- at least she's pretty." "She's better to look at than hear, that's for sure." The men's comments ceased, though, as soon as Maria began Music and blood poured from her bands. Some people drummed their heels in the midst of her songs, not able to wait. Their mouths hung open and many clenched their hands so tightly that their fingernails cut their palms. Blood trickled from fists. The music cut into their souls. Yes, Kemmelin thought, yes. The musty air was overlaid with the tang of blood and sharp, hungry sweat. And still Maria played, wild songs and sweet ones, songs that made toes tap and others that made a hundred eyes glitter. Yes. Finally, she stood to acknowledge the audience. Kemmelin saw that her cheeks were white and as wet with tears as her arms were with blood. The heel drumming demanded a second circle, but Maria stumbled off toward the baths. After the people quit drumming their heels and left, in quite a different mood than the last audience, Kemmelin practically flew down the steps, which were decorated by the blood of the people. This time she didn't stop at the stage, but rather followed the droplets that Maria had left behind on her way to the baths. "Maria, that was wonderful! Beautiful!" she cried, as she burst into the first chamber. The red robe lay on the floor like a puddle of blood. Zaffrie knelt on the edge of the bath, holding Maria's hand under water. The younger woman was still crying silently, her mouth open and shaking. Her green-gray eyes were glazed with shock and pain. Kemmelin went to the edge of the pool. The water looked pink. "What happened?" she whispered. Maria started to lift her hand, and, after a second, Zaffrie let her. The tip of Maria's left smallfinger hung off to the side, almost severed at an angle. Kemmelin's stomach clenched. "Oh, Maria," she said. "But it was so beautiful." Zaffrie pushed the hand back down into the water and Maria's crying became vocal. It was hard to read the expression on the old woman's face. Pain, yes, and a hardness that nevertheless didn't seem cruel. "It will pass," she said to Maria. "Did you hear your own music? Keep that in your heart --what is a finger, next to that music in your heart?" Maria pulled away. Zaffrie stood up and pushed Kemmelin ahead of her, out of the chamber. "She needs time." Kemmelin would rather have gone the other direction, to her private chamber, but she let the old woman guide her. She kept rubbing her own fingers together, wincing at the soreness, but unable to stop. Zaffrie took her past the stage, through the blood hall, into the mundane warmth of the kitchen. The old woman shoved the girl toward a chair and let her sit, lacing and unlacing her fingers, while she pumped water into a kettle. "After a while, Marja will need some hot, sweet miro," she muttered. "Wouldn't do us any ill either." She put the kettle on and put another stick of resinwood in the belly of the stove. Kemmelin was vaguely aware that she should help, but the sound of Maria's music and the picture of Maria's white face above the mutilated hand would not release her mind. "She has never played so well," she said. "And never paid for it either," answered Zaffrie. "The two are linked." She looked for an instant at her own hands, which were awkwardly setting cups on a tray. "There are many blood harpers," she said, "with only scars. There are many more with a single finger missing." Kemmelin asked the question. "How many lose more than one finger?" Her voice was no louder than the kettle, which was beginning to hiss. "How many take the music into their blood, no matter how much blood they shed? Not many," Zaffrie said. "Not many at all." Kemmelin played twice in next span of days, just to feed the harp, a single song and no more. Zaffrie had her practice though, when she was done with her other duties, since Maria still could not spend much time at the harp. Maria had wanted the fingertip stitched back on, but Zaffrie dissuaded her with talk of infection and fever. "I have seen harpists lose a hand or a life because they would keep a finger," she told Maria. Kemmelin wasn't there when they took it the rest of the way off, so she wasn't sure how they did it. She didn't ask. When Marja wasn't in the baths, she was soaking her finger in a deep, narrow cup that she carried with her. It came to be one of Kemmelin's jobs to empty the cup on a regular basis and refill it with fresh, healing water. Her own hands, dipped in the baths at such frequent intervals during the days, healed that much faster. So did Marja's other, lesser wounds. At length, it was only the finger that prevented her from playing. And finally, that too was healed enough. Then it was only a matter of feeling the music rather than the fear. "Think of the music," Zaffrie would demand, when Marja was practicing and seemed to hesitate. "The music." At first, when Zaffrie said this, Marja just stiffened, but after a time, she apparently began to hear the music in her heart. Kemmelin, watching from the upper tier, could almost hear Marja's heart music --it was there in the movement of her fingers and the throbbing hum in her throat. At last, it seemed that Zaffrie too could hear. "I will send the children," she said. "A concert in three days. Will that be long enough for you to clean the blood hall, girl?" Kemmelin stuck her lips out in a teasing fashion. "Perhaps," she said. "Perhaps." In three days, the blood hall shone. After Marja's last performance--and especially since it had been so long between -- Kemmelin was sure that people would come like followdogs. And so they did. A few even had to sit on the steps, on pillows hastily snatched from a back storage room and pounded free of dust. It was time, but Marja had not appeared. "I will look in the baths." Zaffrie's voice hissed in Kemmelin's ear as they handed pillows to the last comers. "You see if she is in the kitchen or the sleeping. quarters." Kemmelin ran. The kitchen was empty. She turned to check the sleeping quarters, but before she could go, there was a small sound from the storeroom. "Marja?" she called. Marja stepped into the doorway, her eyes glittering. She was not wearing the red robe, but rather an old tunic and brown leggings, her autumn-grass hair concealed in a faded blue scarf. No one who met her would see a red-robed blood harpist. She held up her healed hands to stop Kemmelin's words. "I can't," she whispered. "Yes, you can," Kemmelin said fiercely. "I've heard you and seen you. You can." Marja let her hands fall. She picked up a sack from a shelf and started past the girl. Kemmelin grabbed her arm. "I've heard the music in your heart." Marja pulled loose. "And have you felt the pain there -- the fear." She stuck her smallfinger into Kemmelin's face, so close the girl had to step back to focus on it. "How long could I keep playing? How many fingers can a blood harpist lose before --" She dropped her hand. "There must be another life I can live. If I can do without the baths. . . ." The baths? Not the harp and the music? How could the calming water mean more than the bloody clamor of song escaping from one's fingers and soul? Kemmelin made to speak, but Marja wouldn't let her. "I cannot play with this fear inside. I will not play poorly again." Her voice was fierce with passion, but she did not allow any expression to twist her pale, dramatic features. This time Kemmelin let her go, slipping through the back door into the small, dusty garden. Before the door swung shut again, Marja had stepped over the garden fence and into the world. The audience moved restlessly on their benches; Kemmelin could hear them clearly through the wall that separated the living area from the hall. Just as clearly, she seemed to hear the silent hunger of the harp. Through the door of Marja's sleeping chamber, she saw the comer of the red robe, which lay abandoned on the floor. She went in and picked it up. Marja was a good head taller than she was. When she put on the robe it dragged at the floor and swallowed her hands in the wide sleeves. Kemmelin let it fall again. In her own sleeping chamber, she slipped a clean, white dress over her head and tied the belt. Zaffrie was not in sight when Kemmelin entered the blood hall. Probably still searching the bath caves, she thought mechanically. Several people, recognizing her as the one who had taken their coins, called out to her, asking when Marja would start. Kemmelin didn't answer. She went down the steps and onto the stage, passing carefully between two of the low torches which blazed around the perimeter. When she seated herself at the harp, the blood hall took on an air of anticipation. None of the people there had ever seen a blood harpist wear white. All of them were expecting Marja, not this young girl. Kemmelin held her fingers above the strings, waiting until she could hear her own music past the blood pounding in her ears. She began to play. Her performance was not long, as she had so few songs ready. Blood st reamed from the myriad cuts on her fingers and stained the skirt and sleeves of the white dress. Even the bodice was flecked with red. Kemmelin took no notice. The music erupted from her fingers and the blood harp wailed and sang. When she stopped, there was stillness. Perhaps because the people expected more music. Kemmelin stood, blood dripping from her fingers, for a long moment before she remembered to raise her arms and turn in a slow circle. She was a quarter of the way through her turn when the drumming began, a deep, low, vibration that she felt more than heard. She finished the circle and let her arms drop. The pain intensified as more blood reached the wounds. She held herself as straight as possible and exited the stage. In the first chamber, she stopped only long enough to grab a torch. This time -- no matter how difficult it was to get there--she had to reach her special place. If there was a forever, Kemmelin was sure she visited it on that journey. She was gasping by the time she entered the twisted tunnel. Once again, she didn't bother to disrobe before entering the water. She was afraid to look at her hands, but after the sharp pain had subsided, she forced herself to. Only then, when she could see that the damage was only superficial, with a cut or two deeper than the rest, but all the fingers whole, did she let herself cry. She had done it. Played a great harp in a hall full of people and made a circle with her arms covered with blood Without thinking, she raised her hands above the water and above her head. "It's the music in your heart," said the old woman's voice nearby. "Not the drumming of the heels." Kemmelin turned quickly, lowering her arms. The water in the pool splashed. Zaffrie stood just inside the door. "The warm water will set that blood," she said. "You'll never wear that dress again." "Did you hear?" asked Kemmelin. "Did you hear?" The old woman nodded. "Yes," she said. She knelt down beside the edge of the pool. "It was good. Let me see your hands." "Marja left," Kemmelin said, raising her hands for inspection. "She --" it was beyond her right now to detail the conversation. "She just left," she finished simply. Zaffrie nodded over the girl's hands. "Some leave," she said. Her face looked troubled. "If they can." She gave Kemmelin her hands back. "These will do. Don't be in any hurry to get out though." "How did you find me?" Zaffrie laughed. "How do you think?" "Oh," Kemmelin said, after an instant, "the blood." "I didn't need the blood," the old woman said. "Do you think you are the first young harpist to bathe in this chamber?" "I, uh --" "Never mind. We all do. I did, when I 'discovered' it. It never occurred to me to wonder about the hole to set the torch in." Kemmelin had to laugh too, laughter that was at least a quarter wild, unshed tears. "Me either," she admitted. "I thought it was natural." "Convenient but natural," said the old woman. The talk of the baths had brought back the memory of Marja's puzzling comment. "When Marja was leaving, she said she hoped she could do without the baths." Kemmelin made it into a question. Zaffrie looked at her oddly. "Didn't they tell you about the baths in that village of yours?" Kemmelin shook her head. "Harp teeth," the old woman swore quietly. "And I've been letting you soak into bliss every day. Did you never wonder," she asked, "why you wanted to spend so much time in the water?" "It's warm," said Kemmelin, "and it heals my fingers and --" "Yes, yes," said Zaffrie. "But didn't you bathe every day before you started playing? Before the harp tasted your fingers?" Kemmelin nodded, still puzzled. "It feels good." "You need the water," said the woman. "I thought you knew. There is something in the water that heals the fingers as it draws in the soul. Something we covet and crave." She touched the water with the toe of her shoe. "I thought you knew." The water lapped at Kemmelin's shoulders as the truth about it filled her mind. Even if she ran from the pool now, denying the attraction, she would be back, submerging herself. "You should have told me," she said. "I thought you knew," said Zaffrie again. Kemmelin had no answer. It made no difference, she realized. Inside, where the waters could not reach, the great bloody music surged. If she never left this place, it would not be the waters that held her. The silence stretched out. "I hope Marja is happy," whispered Kemmelin. "I hope she isn't drowning herself in a lake because it isn't the baths." They said nothing after these grim words. Then Zaffrie stood. "I will leave you for a while," she said. "Don't you drown." "I won't," said Kemmelin. "I couldn't." "No;" said Zaffrie: "Nothing could hold you down right now." She started into the tunnel. "I need to find a girl," she said. "Someone who would be a harpist, to sweep and polish." "And haul wood and water," Kemmelin finished, too quietly for Zaffrie to hear.