The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [226]
Leoff wondered what the exchange was about, but he couldn’t spend any time on it. Instead his mind was racing furiously through the darkling chords.
“Mery,” he whispered. “You must play this with expression. You won’t like it, but you must. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Leoff,” she replied primly.
“Areana, you’ll sing this top line. Use the words from Sa Luth af Erpoel.” He dropped his voice even lower. “Here—this is very important.”
He penciled in new notes on the last three measures. “You must both hum these beneath your breath. Ontro Vobo, yes?”
Areana’s eyes widened, and he saw her swallow hard, but she nodded.
“All right, then,” he said. “Shall we? Mery, if you would begin.”
“Yes, go on,” Robert said. He didn’t turn from the window.
Mery placed her fingers on the keyboard, stretching to complete the awkward chord, and pressed. The notes throbbed in the air, a little menacing but mostly intriguing, illicit, the thrill of doing something a bit wicked made sound.
Mery’s hands grew more sure, and Areana joined, singing words that had absolutely nothing to do with the music but that rang out with a stark sensuality that stirred sudden shameful desire in Leoff, so that as he added his own voice, he found himself helplessly imagining the things he would do to her, the ways he could bring pleasure and pain to her lithe body.
The song was a death spell, but it had to be built. Playing the last chord wouldn’t do anything unless the listener had been drawn to the edge of the precipice.
Until now, the mode had been a modified form of the sixth mode, but now Mery took them with a frantic run of notes into the seventh, and lust subtly became madness. He heard Robert laugh out loud, and a look around the room at open mouths or tight grins told Leoff that they were all insane with him.
Even Areana’s eyes sparkled feverishly, and Mery was gasping for breath as it all quickened into a lumbering whervel and then softened, shifting into the mode for which Leoff had no name, spreading out into broad chords.
The world seemed to sag underfoot, but Areana’s voice was black joy. Fear was gone, and all that remained was the longing for night’s infinite embrace, for the touch of decay, that most patient, inevitable, and thorough lover. He felt his bones straining to slough free of his flesh and then rot like tissue.
The end was coming, but he no longer wanted to sing the extra notes. Why should he? What could be better than this? An end to pain and striving…rest forever…
Distantly, he felt a hand grip his, and Areana leaned close, no longer singing. But she hummed in his ear.
He drew a painful, horrible breath and realized he hadn’t been breathing. Shaking his head, he took up the hastily written counterpoint, though it seemed to cut through his brain like an ax. He doubled over, still humming, trying to cover his ears, but his hands were like stones, falling to the floor, and black spots filled his vision. His heart beat weirdly, stopped for a long moment, then thumped as if it would explode.
He found his face was pressed against the stone. Areana had collapsed beside him, and in a fevered panic he reached for her, fearing her dead. But no, she was breathing.
“Mery.”
The girl was slumped at the hammarharp, eyes open and blank, spittle on her chin. Her fingers were still on the keys, jerking madly but not pressing to produce sound.
Everyone else in the room lay on the floor, unmoving.
Except for Robert, who still stood gazing out the window, stroking his beard.
Forcing his legs to work, Leoff crawled to Mery and pulled her down into his arms. Areana was trying to sit up, and Leoff drew the three of them together, where they huddled, trembling.
Mery had started a sort of hiccupping, and Leoff tried to stroke her hair with the club of his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Mery.”
“Well,” Robert said, turning at last. “Very pretty, just as you promised.” He strode over to the man he’d called Noose, who lay facedown in a pool of his own vomit. He kicked him in the ribs, hard.