Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [95]
“Very well then.” Peter slipped Frost’s case from around his neck and shoulder. Then he opened the case and slid Frost out of it, white and gleaming, like an icicle. But instead of handing it over to Max, who reached out for it with one hand, Peter brought it to his lips and began to play. Danger pass me by, he silently implored, as he played.
“Are you serious?” Max smiled. “It’s a battle of flutes you want? Very well. Let’s see what we shall see.” He raised Fire once again and began to play. This time it wasn’t just a single note he played, but a mad and intricate melody that seemed to speak of monstrous things coursing through the night on their wild hunt. It was the sound of ancient bindings snapping, letting great and terrible old powers loose again in the world, to enact their vengeances of untold ages. Max played the anthems of every dark thing that lurked and growled in the back of pitch-black caves.
In response, Peter played a song of bright hope and escape. Danger pass me by, he chanted over and over in his mind. Go away from here, Max. Go far away!
But Fire was truly more powerful than Frost. Almost as soon as Max had begun playing, a burning sensation began in Peter’s feet and started working its slow but steady way up his legs. Peter could feel his flesh begin to pucker and boil. The pain was incredible, but still Peter played on.
Danger pass me by. Go far away, Max. Run back up the hill, through the tower gate, and never stop until you’re a thousand leagues away.
The burning in his legs continued, growing higher up his limbs and ever more painful. Through an impossible force of will, Peter managed to keep playing, but he began missing notes. Then he faltered for full measures. It was no use. His song couldn’t be heard and understood against the more commanding tune his brother played. Peter’s effort was a gentle prayer of deliverance, which was lost in the maelstrom of Max’s thundering tale of gods and monsters in desperate battle.
Then, just as he was about to surrender, unable to stand for much longer on legs that had twisted out of true, and had begun to smell of burnt and rotting flesh, a final, desperate idea occurred to him.
He began playing again. But this time he didn’t try to counter Max’s tune. Instead he joined it. At first he merely played along — the same wild song Max did, trying to anticipate his composition and match him, note for note. Then, slowly and tentatively at first, but with more confidence every second, Peter began to strike out on his own, still following Max’s central melody, but weaving a manic counterpoint to it, creating diabolic harmonies on the spot, dancing his notes between each one of Max’s.
Danger pass me by! Peter no longer implored or pleaded his request, he demanded it. Danger pass me by! Go far away, Max! Run up the hill, through the tower gate, and never stop until you’re a thousand leagues away!
He saw Max, just a few feet removed from him. As Max played, a worried look crept into his eyes. What was Peter doing to his song? Peter was guiding it, taking it over, and leading it off in directions Max didn’t want it to go.
Peter continued to play, feeling a dozen trickles of blood coursing down his chin and neck, pooling and soaking into the rough weave of his shirt. Frost was exacting its accustomed price for its magic. Peter played Max’s song, and note by note took it away from him. In his mind Peter felt turbulent sensations he’d never known before. Lunatic angers he’d never believed he could possess flared within him, with a frenzied and malign passion.
But at the same time, little by little, he felt the pain recede from his deformed hips, traversing its way back down his groin and upper legs. He felt flesh knit back into place.
Now it was Max who began to miss notes.
I’m a thief, Max, and you always knew the truth of that. And now I’m stealing your song away from you, turning it down my own pathways, taking it to places you dare not follow. And all the while