The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [110]
"Or what?" laughed Hanibaz. "What are you going to do to us, bard? " He lifted his wand.
The roaring, musical shout that blasted them was so loud that the force of it swept debris along the ground and set Mosi's robes flapping, so loud that it was an almost-visible rippling in the air. Even on the edge of that power, Tycho howled and covered his ears. Within it, Mosi and Hanibaz were sent staggering. When the shout ended a heartbeat later, their ragged screams filled the seeming silence. He stared at them. What…?
"Tycho!"
A voice filled with music and maybe just a hint of the power that had blasted the wizards called his name. A voice he hadn't heard speak with that strength in two years or more. He whirled around.
Veseene stood on the table as if it were a stage. She stood strong and proud, a hand on Laera's shoulder for balance only. Her body trembled, not with palsy, but with a charged and vibrant energy, like a tuning fork that had just been struck. "Tycho!" she called again.
Her mouth was stained red. A pouch, likewise stained red, lay at her feet. The tea pouch. Empty. Laera's eyes were stunned and frightened.
No wonder Veseene's voice had seemed muffled when he had ordered her to run. No wonder she had fought Laera to stay.
She'd eaten the raw, wet tea herbs at full strength.
A moan forced itself out of Tycho's throat. He staggered to his feet. "Veseene, what have you done?"
"Tycho!" she said a third time, a note of command creeping into her voice. "Come here! Do you have your strilling?" Numbly, he nodded and slid the instrument around from his back. It had acquired a few fresh scratches and one of the tuning pegs was cracked, but a strilling was a sturdy instrument. Veseene smiled and power gleamed in her eyes. "Then come here! I need you!"
She straightened herself, held her head high and began to sing with a force that seemed impossible for her frail bo'dy. Tycho froze, caught up in the beauty and strength of her song. It pulled on him like the moon on the tide, a wild and liquid music. Magic swirled among the notes. Even when he'd first met her, before the palsy had set in, he'd never heard Veseene sing like this! For a moment, he could picture her as she must have been at the very height of her power. Veseene the Lark, magic flowing like a second voice in her song.
Then she hit-very briefly-a false note. Her voice, her song, faltered for just a heartbeat.
The clash of metal on metal broke into the music. Tycho whirled. Up on the rooftop of the Eel, Li fought with Yu Mao. Butterfly swords fell in unison against dao. Li staggered.
"Tycho!" called Laera. "Tycho!"
Veseene needed him. But so did Li.
Tycho tugged the Yellow Silk out of the sleeve of his coat. Golden light flashed in the sty as he unfolded it a little bit, just enough that he could snatch up a rock and wrap it in the brilliant fabric. He darted forward. "Li!" he shouted-and hurled the rock-weighted Silk up onto the roof. It shone in its arc like a shooting star. With a whispered prayer that Li got to it first, he turned his back, set his strilling against his shoulder, and pulled his bow from the strap.
Bow on string brought music echoing out of simple wood. He found the note that Veseene had missed and threw it back to her, pure and sweet. Her voice caught it and sent it ringing into the gathering night, her song restored. Tycho picked up the melody as she sang, improvising a harmony to accompany it. He walked back toward her, taking up a position beside her makeshift stage. Magic-Veseene's magic-wrapped around him. It tingled across