Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [14]
THAT NIGHT, AFTER DINNER, the Pipers played again, as they did each year. But this time everyone agreed that they’d outdone themselves. Their music touched on things that were impossible to describe and seemed entirely outside the province of what mankind should ever hope to grasp, much less attempt.
When the concert ended and the last dregs of wine and beer had been swallowed, or mopped up, or poured out, and everyone had been properly wished a good night with pleasant dreams, Johannes asked Peter to tarry behind. The others were already heading up to their rooms, with candles in one hand and bed warmers in the other, the covered pans newly filled with fresh hot embers from the dying fire.
“Walk outside with me for a minute,” he said, “and let’s look at the stars before turning in.”
They did.
“No stars tonight, Father,” Peter said. “Just clouds covering the entire sky.”
“That’s all right,” Johannes said. “I didn’t really want to gaze at stars. I wanted to talk to you alone about something important.” Johannes had carried his flute out there with him, as he always did. While all of their instruments were valuable enough, Mother’s precious xylophone being a good example, Father’s flute was a pearl beyond price. It was the single most important treasure the family owned. They never left it packed away in the caravan with the other things, where someone could come along and steal it. Father kept it with him always. Usually, when he wasn’t actually playing it, he’d immediately put it away in its protective sheath of hard-boiled leather, lined with soft satin, which he wore on his belt, like a knight’s great broadsword, or slung over his shoulder, like a royal courier’s dispatch pouch. Tonight Father hadn’t put it away, but carried it openly, and a little bit reverently. It wasn’t very big — barely thirteen inches long, which was almost piccolo sized — though it played a full octave lower than a piccolo. It had a slightly flared cone at one end, eight holes in between, and a whistle-style mouthpiece at the other, which was carved so flat and thin that it looked like the blade of a knife. The small flute was pearly white, having been carved from a single piece of ivory, and then polished to a lustrous sheen that could reflect even the dimmest starlight, had there been any stars out to provide it. And like all truly important things, it had a name, which was Frost.
Johannes held Frost out where Peter could see it. He said, “How many times have I told you Frost’s story?”
“I don’t know,” Peter said. “Lots.”
“Well, I’m going to tell it again, one last time. And this time pay very special attention, because there’s more to the tale that I never included before. You’ll want to remember every detail, so that some night many years from now you can say the same things to your own son.”
Peter felt a sudden thrill of excitement, as if he was kneeling at a lost treasure chest that he’d just unburied and was about to open. He knew instinctively that he was on the cusp of something life-altering. But it was a disturbing sensation too, and even a bit frightening, like that moment just before a dreadful lie is about to be revealed.
“Long ago,” Father said, “when the world was still young, terrible frost giants ruled the far north. The worst of the lot was named Bryn the Thunderer, who’d kill and eat anyone who wandered into his domain, and would also plunder and raid down into the kingdoms of man, stealing cattle and gold, reaving and slaughtering wheresoever he went. No one could stand against Bryn, until Jorg the legendary warrior bard swore powerful oaths that he’d go north and write an end to Bryn’s depredations for all time.
“Now there was magic back then in the early songs and therefore in