Melody and Antiquity
I tell you my story, so you may carry the tale with clarity.
I share such a story, that it may cultivate serenity.
I tell this story in True Song, so you can name its verity.
The story I tell, not for my good, but to preserve the world from its destiny.
“Anala, you can’t be serious.”
A cough of gun fire erupted not 10 feet from my face and sunlight found fresh entry through the walls of the crumbling brothel of Quavery Road. Needless to say, I was in a bit of a spot.
Ana cocked her head to one side with a casual violence. “I assure you, Callum, that I am. I think it will bring us halfway to square, as well. If you spent a moment’s thought, you’d see this far from equals the debt I am owed.” Her eyes remained on mine as she drew the hammer back again.
So I spent that moment, and begging on another, in thought. She may have been right. I was in her debt to a great degree, but not nearly in a position to serve her in the nature she required.
I sighed and looked into her soft green eyes. “Ana, look at us. I’ve only a fresh couple of dots and the gun you hold in your hands. What is to gain here?”
Ana’s warm, red-painted lips curved into a devilish grin. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps all I can get from you is right here in my hand. This should be worth 50 times the coin in your purse.” She turned toward the ragged old door, her robe parting far too high above her knee for me to maintain my focus.
I admit, I drifted a bit.
I was naked, with my backside pressed against the warm wooden walls of a whorehouse, with both hands and a coin purse held over… my… well… nature’s purse. I was being held at gunpoint by a beautiful woman, not to mention an old… friend. This woman constantly seems to steal my claim to any true measure of control. She would likely win. She usually did. With skin as supple and soft… with eyes as lively, lips as red, body as shapely... and talented… I… I…
It was when the sunlight caught the dull metal of the nine-gun, I wrenched control back from the more primitive parts of me.
I dashed for her. I saw her smile perk up again as she swung herself with a lithe, nimble motion under my outstretched arms and I careened into the door post. It cracked a bit against my weight. She placed the revolver against my ribs and chuckled lightly in my ear.
“I will be generous one final time.” She whispered seductively into my right ear. “The purse for your clothes and pistol.”
Ana dragged the barrel of my own pistol around my torso and circled round me. She stayed close enough that the heat of her body never left my skin. My eyes admired the curve of her jawline. The soft shape of her neck sloping ever so gently into collar bone. My eyes sank further and further, questing into the shadows beneath, catching on the hidden tattoos beneath her satin robe.
She leaned into me, pressed herself against me. Her knees wrapped themselves around one of my own, breath spilled across my bare chest. The sheen of her jet black hair only inches from my face. I loved her hair. So dark, It was strands of shining obsidian. Nearly falling past her magnificent cheekbones, and barely long enough in the back to get a good fist full. Her scent was entrancing. She was FAR too good at this game. She was confident in her ability to puppet me around.
Her eyes rose to meet mine. Ana let her gaze dig deep into my own. Those emerald eyes shimmered with a playful tone.
“Please?” She whispered. I could sense the intense desire radiating from me. She could practically taste it, fanning its flames, to singe my good sense. The tools of a patient and savvy prostitute.
I smiled. My mind sped up as time slowed. Her breathing seemed to nearly cease. She’d hate me for this, but I was nearly out of time, and I needed these coins. I looked her over one last time. She was incredible. This woman was a force of nature.
It was time I surprised her.
I dropped the coin purse to my feet and grabbed her gun-toting hand, burying the barrel against me while sliding my right index finger behind the trigger, before the guard, keeping her from giving it the proper squeeze. I leaned my weight into her leg and dipped her, as if in dance. Using my other arm I braced her in the crook. I felt her finger squeeze wildly at the trigger and I smiled triumphantly. Her entire weight rested on my left arm, dipping her as low as I could. With fledgling fingers I fetched the purse from the splintering floor. My other hand expertly twisted and rotated the nine-gun over her trigger finger, spinning the handle to land against my palm. It felt like an old friend. Her grip gave way and I stepped back, returning her to standing.
We both stared endlessly at each other. We were both grinning. This was bad. She should be angry. I walked slowly backwards towards the pile of my clothes on her side of the bed. I stumbled over them a bit and gathered them in my arms without turning away. It was then, I noticed my coin purse had bounced. It had even been dropped to the floor. Never once did it give a tell-tale jingle of coins upon coins. My smile dulled a bit.
“Ah, ya see, this was for fun. I do love our sporting moments.” She was practically shimmering with glee. She slipped her soft, slender hands within the belt of her robe to produce several coins from where, I had no idea. “I took the coins while you slept.” Her smile found yet more room on her face to spread.
I hung my head a bit. I could hear her feline laughter from across the small room. I sighed deeply.
I wanted to sell this for all I could.
I raised my head with a wicked grin on my face. Doubt crept into the corners of her confident smirk. I took two steps and placed my back against the fogged window behind me. I reach back and opened it.
“I thought you might do that.” I said. My jovial tone seemed to shake her somewhat. “Which is why…” I reached behind the nearby bedpost to remove a green satin purse, pinned between the bed and the wall. “I returned the favor.”
The corners of her smiled cracked only slightly. She adored our games but she always seemed a little lost when she didn’t come out on top.
I pulled my warm, grey knit cap over my stark white hair and leaned out the open window, looking back. “It was lovely seeing you again, Anala.” Her hands rose to her hips in defiance as an incredulous smirk consumed her face. She looked breathtaking. “I also love our sporting moments.”
I lept from the window to the street below and immediately heard gasps, guffaws, and hollers from street goers nearby. Looking down and my naked body, pressing my clothes over my more sensitive areas. I smiled, gave a polite wave, and darted into the alley nearby after the calls of a constable, my bare ass shining in the sunlight. I could hear heavy footfall in pursuit, and I sneered with childlike amusement.
I did love being chased by the bobbies.
It’s something I had years of study in. I had sticky fingers, developed by the unavoidable necessities of survival. I learned most of my lessons on the filthy streets of the capital city of Ayur. It was another one of your tragic childhood tales. My father left my mother during pregnancy. My mother never spoke ill of him. In fact, on rare occasions she did speak of him, she seemed to regard him with great respect, even reverence. Of him, I knew little so we will carry on. My mother was a keeper. She lived her life in preservation of the “True Song”. Keepers are historians, preserving the accounts of this world, through song. You may think this insufficient. You may say, ‘Are there not texts to preserve man’s history?’ Of course there are at this point, but texts are sterile. Can a book sing you a song of the death of Everly in her husband, Alistair’s fading grasp to make you weep with its recounting ? Can mere paper bring you the mystery of Kiano, and his disappearance from the world in its true glory? Books are bound (excuse the pun) within their delivery. They cannot romance you into feeling the story within your spirit the way song can. A lute makes a better foundation for a story than a quill on any day, and the proper voice can let you live history. In combination, they can make history far greater than it was to live it. May hearts be tamed or made wild but the power of song. May it make flesh of those long given to dust. May it bring Csaba to us once more.
My mother was one of the greatest Keepers of her era. She carried with her a cittern, an instrument much like a lute, befitting of the style of woman Keepers at the time. As far as my recollection can account for, my mother seemed to know all songs, all stories, all tales there seem to be told. She could answer the call or request of any patron, and it was my impression that she felt it was her duty to serve the world with this vast knowledge. My early childhood involved traveling through all of the lands of the Paultine Empire, may it rot from within.
Oh, but here comes the constable. We’ll return to that later…
As Shariah rounded the corner in pursuit of a fleshy pink streak, he found the alleyway littered with refuse. I had been knocking over anything and everything I could manage. His chase was nearly pointless. I could feel his angry eyes upon my back as I serpentined through fallen rubbish bins, street workers, and vagrants as if on a path I had memorized. The city’s pulse was my own, and I ran through her veins like strong drink, holding my threadbare cap upon my head.
Not 10 steps before me an elderly man in an elderly suit stepped into my path, his attention stolen by lighting his long pipe. I barked out a laugh and slid, crouched, below his arms, with my hand upraised, knocking his pipe and match away, into a pool of glistening oil. It erupted behind me and the man cried out and hobbled away. I spun, laughing to see the constable draw short before the wall of flames. His familiar face resembled an old, starved, fighting dog, lined with the scars. The kind of scars that changed a man both inside and out. He appeared rabid with anger, wild with the need to raze the world of whatever might stand in his path.
His brow set hard, his bottom lip curled, his teeth gritted in cold rage. I could see the signs of extreme strain within his bloodshot eyes. Within his head he was swimming through some kind of substance. It didn’t look like shade herb or vein-tar, or any drug I’d come across. I felt myself grow guarded. I knew I could not predict the actions of this man any more than those of a wild animal. Then a smile tugged back the corners of his mouth as he drew his hip shooter. It was an archaic weapon, likely an old family heirloom.
My smile withered into a stern, stoic gaze. I adjusted my knit cap, squared my sight on him and locked eyes. I took a step forward.
“For what crime would you shoot me down, Constable Shariah?” I called to him from barely more than arm’s length .
“I’ll have time to figure that out after you’ve gone cold,” He growled. “You’re a lowly parasite. One that bites, bleeds, and infects. Something to be exterminated. This city has enough rats, and you find yourself in a trap, boy.” His body seemed to pulse with energy. Something was amiss.
“Fire and you face the courts.” I returned.
“And if I don’t, you may NEVER face them. Perhaps you should raise your pistol, and we can attend to this as gentlemen.” Shariah smiled wickedly.
I stepped even closer. “But why would I do that,” I gestured towards him with my open palm. “When I can just take yours.” I quickly reached through the flames and yanked the hip shooter from his grasp. He managed a shot, but it had gone wild. I heard the bolts and clasps of the neighboring businesses swing shut.
He tried to grab me but stopped just short of the flame breadth. He was livid. I could see the fire reflected in his eyes. If I had not known better I would have believe it came from within. His eyes darted to my hand… the ones I sent through the flame. There we no burns. There were no marks. Even the hair on my arms remained unmarred. He looked puzzled, but the wild ire overtook him once again.
“Return it, rat, or I will hunt you and feed you in living bits to my hounds.” He barely let the words reach me, whispered in a hushed fury. “I swear to it.”
“I think this gun would not keep you from it, Shariah. I have done little to wrong you. You search for an excuse to pile the bodies high.”
I tugged on my trousers as he watched and paced the line of fire. I could tell he was goading himself into bearing the blaze. I tucked his old weapon into the waistband and turned. He mumbled furiously at this and never let me leave his sight. I ran down the alley without another word.
Behind me he called, “I will have my gun back, boy… AND YOU DEAD BEFORE IT!!!”
I raced away, changing courses a few times, so as not to be followed and ducked into a shop with warmly lit windows and opaque drapes before them. All the more difficult to look in. Luck had treated me once again. As I turned from the door, I saw many relics, artifacts of past times, peoples, and cultures. Things of great interest, perhaps even great value. There were things of all size, shape, and material, some perhaps even mysterious. There were vials, and tabards, banners, and blades, urns, dried herbs, tomes, and finally my eyes set above an empty birdcage to a site I could not tear my eyes from. It was an old, worn guitar. Probably one of the first by my measure, and it spoke to my spirit in a way I could not grasp. I had found myself in a curiositie shoppe, seemingly alone, and staring for an unreasonable amount of time, at a beat up old low-lute. It was a worn but beautiful guitar of solid build. After what seemed like a week, I peeled away my sight and took stock of the shop once again.
Now, I knew these streets as if they were my siblings. I was practically raised with them.
However, I did not know this place. Stranger still, this place somehow felt familiar… like an old family portrait or a beloved childhood toy. Not that I had much experience with childhood toys. I would begin to look over the other items in the shop and turn after turn I would find myself staring upon the old guitar. I could hear chords within my mind, seeing ghostly fingers sweeping the fretboard. I wondered if I could play as well as my mind could imagine.
“A dusty remnant of a forgotten time, I am afraid.” The words seemed to waft across the room like the scent of faraway smoke on the breeze, like wind through gravel. They sounded… worn, seeming to come from something older than time itself.
My eyes finally gave up the compulsion towards the six-stringed vestige, in pursuit of this primordial voice. I spun slowly, absorbing every detail. It was a habit, one proven necessary for survival, time and time again. If I needed a way out, best to keep from tripping over things. I catalogued every color, every scent, every texture, movement, and even the absence of things that should be present. No money box, no ledger, not a quill in sight. This was certainly a strange shop.
I found the source of the ghostly voice tucked tightly into a corner in a place I could have sworn I’d seen before, but in every place I looked, I would see something new. Who would have presumed I would find a man. Or at least what I thought was still a man, as he seemed to be older than I believed men could grow to be.
Under a blanket, in a rocking chair, sat a pair of clear, ice blue eyes, sunken deeply into a chapped, leathery face. A face nearly entirely covered in pearl white eyebrows and the fluffiest of beards. It was as if he had tamed clouds to rest upon his forehead, and seek repose below his bulbous nose. This man was prehistoric. His eyes were both wild and kind. His gaze tilted to one side and sank to my hip, and the smile seemed to fade a bit.
I followed his stare to find my fingers, resting upon Shariah’s gun at my hip. I met his eyes once more, and felt embarrassment take root within me. The thought of having to defend myself against this ancient stranger was laughable. I set my hand at ease and his pleasant temperament blossomed once more.
“Better.” He croaked cheerfully. “I doubt I impose such fear as to shoot me down in my own shop. A man of your strength could likely overwhelm me with a sneeze!”
The corners of my mouth curled up into an approving smirk as I gestured to our surroundings. “It certainly is a good thing your shop remains so well dusted then. “
“Indeed. Though, perhaps you’d remain careful, so should a sneeze take you, I would only need to pledge a hearty, ‘God rest you’.” He smiled broadly. I found his nature contagious. I couldn’t help but grin. Turning his weathered face back to the guitar, he spoke. “Son, you do not look like any constable, but I am left hoping you would not report me for selling such a relic.”
I chuckled at the very thought. “Sir, I would sooner report myself. I run from even the shadow of a constable. I have no love for those in the habit of turning the hand of law into a hammering fist.” I could hear the guitar strum in my mind. “And for a prize of this measure, I might knock a constable on his softer end.”
The man laughed with a shameless joy. “I see you have chosen your treasure from the trove.” His crooked, bony finger rose from his chair. His hands looked like the gnarled branches of a bristlecone pine, twisted and knobby where they had no business being. The warped fingers drew my eyes ever back to the old, worn guitar. “It was shaped by skilled hands, and played by better-skilled yet! A master, if you ask me, or anyone who had seen it played. Such a lovely lady has known love in great abundance from its previous owner. I can attest to this myself.”
“And how is that?” I asked, with a sly grin.
“Because she was mine.” The old man said, his voice grew low, nostalgic. Like a man speaking of a lost lover. “If my fingers had not grown so twisted by the tinker’s grind, I’d still take her down from time to time. I’ve tried to force the issue, now and again... it’s never been rewarding for either of us. I suppose it’s about time to let her go. How’s 11 silver wheels?”
I resumed my stare at the old box harp. The tinker’s grind, was a common name for the bone-curling disease, occasionally racking a person with gnarled hands, and pains wherever his bones met. Some believe it to come from anemia, and some the wrath of Gods. If that is what took this man from his love, it was a drawn-out, excruciating end to their companionship. One I could hardly imagine.
The guitar was worn-in, yet it displayed age like a form-fitting gown, in a way that only brought character to its most beautiful traits. Its crafter had dressed it like a woman on her wedding day. Tastefully, to inspire love and awe from those who would have it. It was inlaid with Malachite, in the pattern of the wind itself crawling up the neck. The lamplight of the room seemed to give it motion as it let light dance through the veneer like sunlight upon water. The body was shaped from a single piece of rosewood. Its curves promised warmth of tone and timbre, while durable, and forgiving. This old scrap of a man had to feel like he was pawning off his most loyal friend. It hurt to think someone might carry off a lifetime’s investment of love and devotion for a couple imperial wheels.
“It is a beautiful guitar. Truly. And if I had the money I would gladly pay double your offer, as I know it is worth more still. However, I am penniless. I’ve nothing to trade.”
A long silence dwelled between us. “I find I can’t look away from it,” I confessed.
“She has an allure. It surely cannot be denied.” He paused, letting the moment crowd around us. “It’s like seeing a beautiful, graceful woman doing next to nothing… and commanding an entire room doing it.”
I nodded a gentle agreement. The more this man talked of the instrument, the more it seemed to fill my thoughts. The more I felt I needed to hear its stories.
“Wait until you hear her sing for you.” The old man extended his hand for me to play.
I shivered with the fear of a young boy under the weight of seduction.
“You hear my thoughts, old merchant.”I wanted to lay my hands on her. I wanted to hold her. Yet I knew I had nothing to offer. It felt so strange to be weighted by lust for this old man’s companion. It felt like the shopkeeper was asking me to bed his wife. I felt within the shadowy bits of my mind, the knowing parts, the parts which sleep, and read things for what they are without any evidence to support them… within these parts I knew, if I set my fingers upon those strings, there would be a lust… perhaps even a love I could not tame. It made me ache. Anala crossed my mind in the background of these thoughts.
I felt an immense amount of sympathy for this man. In my youth I had known the love of music. I had felt its weight, its power, the sway of its wind through my spirit. It had carved out the person I had been. I had my music taken from me in a swift manner. Even its absence has shaped me. I was immediately forced to cope. It was like being dropped into a new world and told to adapt. You do what you must. It was hard, nearly unbearable at times. However terrible it may have been, I did not have to watch my music erode as this man had. I did not watch my body turn against me and slowly wither within my failing fingertips as they curled intro monstrous claws. This man saw his song fade with his own body. I imagine I would not have had the strength to endure it. I felt a well of emptiness within me when I thought upon what this man had gone through.
“I can feel your pity from here.” The old man spoke through the shell of a smile. I laid eyes upon his leathery face again. His eyes seemed slick as glass, somehow shimmering with the threat of tears, yet hard with pride and passion. “I do not need you to commiserate. My life has been lived as brightly and gloriously as the sun. I have spread light throughout the world. I played kings into humility, and beggars into grandeur. I sang for priests and harlots, and showed them shame and honor in turn. I roused soldiers on the frontlines and calmed babes in their cribs. Why should my life not have a dusk where I sit quietly in this chair, sipping tea and meeting young men, sending them off into the world, to attempt even a piece of my triumphs? Don’t be a fool. Life is a relay of legends from generation to generation. I’m trying to pass you a hell of a torch, boy. Run with it.”
I was stunned. I stared apologetically, unable to find words. I hung my head in shame.
The man chuckled, “Son, if I let it gall me everyone saw me as a withered remnant of what I was, I’d be long dead or a wrinkled bag of bones in prison.”
The old man drew the blanket back from his lap, revealing two rather large, cast iron wheels attached to what seemed to be a strong but hollow, steel frame. The wheels were rather large with spokes of solid hickory, and a hub of cast iron, nearly every bit of the chair painted black. The hub had a circular painting of black hand, with a crimson outline. As I inspected further, I saw it was not a hand… that it seemed to have crimson stitching. It was a black glove. Above the wheels of the chair sat a smaller wheel with several symmetrical holes and a nub of a handle. A little cast iron wheel with the glove marking sat between his feet as well.
The main laid his crooked hands upon the hulking wheels on either side and slowly pushed his chair towards the guitar. I could see now the strength this man still wielded. Pushing this chair had to be similar to using a plow. The cast iron alone promised to way hundreds of pounds. It seemed he kept good care of it. It sounded well-oiled and I could not comprehend the secrets it likely withheld. I was curious as to the purpose of the little holey wheel with the nub.
It did not take long to discover. As the man approached the guitar, I wondered to myself how he would get it down. The bottom of the instrument sat at least five and a half feet from the ground. I began to move towards it to help the shopkeep when he raised his hand towards me to signal to stay where I was. I stopped dead, not wanting to insult this man again. He laid his hands upon the nub at the edge of the small wheel and began to turn it. It seemed to spin without effort and a scissor-lift, also painted black, came from below to lift him into the air. It seemed large enough to send him twelve feet into the air easily, but he was satisfied after only a few. He plucked a string or two, gently, and set the guitar across his lap. He looked at it longingly for a few moments, as if pondering one last song and decided against it, reaching for the nub again. The scissor lift descended and he let out a sigh of effort as his chair sat as it was moments before. He turned slightly and used his hands to beckon me to follow him. He led me through a cramped and merchandise-crowded hallway that curved gently several times. I cringed around every bend and turn, terrified he might bang the neck or body, but he navigated every nook expertly. Finally we approached a heavy wooden door. He reached into a small cubby amidst some shelves, several feet from the door and drew out a small smoking pipe, a few small matches, and some beautifully fragrant tobacco. I could sense him watching me with a childlike merriment. As we approached the door there was an awkward moment where I tried to circle around and open the door for him, but the passage was too narrow. He laughed and shooed me away, pulling himself directly against the door. He pulled a small lever on his left, locking his wheels in place. The old man pushed down on the small, nub-topped wheel. I heard a gentle click and watched his kinked and boney fingers work the wheel again. To my surprise a black, leather-wrapped, metal post jutted forward until it thumped against the door. The man grunted, and powered through. The door creaked and opened slowly, and the man let out a panting, victorious hoot and gestured for me to push the chair through the open door.
I wrapped my hands around the cold, contoured handles of the old man’s chariot and pushed us out into a bright courtyard, painted colorfully with ivy, flowers, trinkets, and baubles. The chair was shockingly easy to push. I cannot completely communicate how unreasonably easy this chair moved over ground. I hesitated after the initial momentum because I had found myself so initially surprised. I looked over to see the corners gather around the shopkeep’s eyes and mouth. He wore a mischievous and youthful smile. “Something amiss, boy?”
“Is it enchanted?” I asked in wonder.
He snorted as he reached to pack his pipe. “No son, though engineering is the closest to enchantment I’ve seen. Now take this 6-string, and play me a song, while I smoke this pipe. And It’d better be a good one. After, I shall show you what magic this chair can really do.”