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“What is?” I asked, looking up at him.
“That is the instrument I specialize in, which I doubt Mirabel knows, but she matched you with it, along with me, in spite of her lack of experience. Perhaps there is some capability to her other than as an excellent blackmailer. First lesson: please play a scale beginning on the string with the lowest tone, which is the highest on the neck.”
The lesson was more enjoyable than I expected, because Tiago was an excellent musician, and when he had me do a basic scale, he filled in the notes with his own instrument, connecting us in camaraderie and purpose as well as pushing back my fear and stress. He was an excellent musician and magician, and Mirabel had chosen him to teach me. I was flattered, because she could have assigned me to any number of less competent or pleasant people.
“Any longer and your fingers will bleed,” he finally said, rotating his guitar so it was strapped to his back instead of hanging down where he could play it. “You’ll go to the screening room, where you’ll watch five hours of the basics before Mirabel will have her interview with you and let you know whether or not you’ve been accepted into the musician’s guild.”
I frowned at him. “Wait, I might not be accepted? I can’t lose my apartment. She said…”
“Calm down, my dear. In more ordinary circumstances, not all who apply make it into the musician’s guild, but in these days, I would be very surprised if she turned anyone away. Also, your tone wasn’t bad. Try to take note of the videos. Ordinarily, you’d watch one a week for five weeks, but Master Mirabel is determined to catapult everyone into active duty as soon as possible.” He shook his head, frowning. “She is rash, but I can’t deny that she makes things happen, and something needed to happen to the guild before it fell down around our ears. Maybe she’ll manage to do something about the snacks before we all perish from them.” He gave me a twinkling smile and then wandered down the hall back towards the snacks, like he still had hope that they had become transformed into something edible.
The screening room was filled with mostly young people, but with a few much older folks as well. The metal chairs were paint-speckled and wobbly, but that would help keep me awake.
Magic is complicated, divided into three main groups: heavenly, infernal, and neutral. Each of those forces had subsets of magic, like the light assault magic Cross wielded so effectively, neutral healer magic that Anna used at a more mediocre level, and musical magic, which was unique in that it crossed from order to chaos without any distinction between them. I’d learned many different kinds of light magics, dealing with attack and damage, as well as book preservation and warding, but this was different, and fascinating. The videos themselves were old, bad quality, and sleep-inducing, as indicated by the old woman two chairs down from me who started snoring five minutes in, but the content was as fascinating as ancient Persian. If I could study with an actual linguist, would that make me happy? I was supposed to be working on my happiness; I’d promised.
I pursed my lips and refocused on the maintenance spell that was the first I was supposed to learn. The entire first video was on that one maintenance spell, approaching it in every imaginable way, and then repeating it over again in case you were that teen over there staring into space and chewing gum, focused on the empty air between him and the screen. He hadn’t heard a word the narrator had said.
The second video reviewed the first song spell, until the tune and the gestures, as well as the shape of the words were embedded in my brain, before they introduced another maintenance spell, and covered it almost as exhaustively as the first. The third video was another maintenance spell, like the fourth and fifth, which even I was having trouble following, however fascinating it was. It was too much for too long. The only break from the repetitive videos was during the last fifteen minutes where they did an actual demonstration of a circle of five musicians, each playing their part, which when put together created a majestic harmony that I watched patch a hole in the floor in the center of the group. Lines of glowing gold light flowed from each musician and pooled in the hole until it was once more the pale marble floor it was supposed to be.
It was too much, but at the same time, it was good to see how all the pieces fit together.
The lights came on, and the teen was sleeping on the floor, his feet up on his chair, his flute cradled in his arms while he snored.
The old woman had stayed in her chair to sleep, and the room was much emptier than it had been in the beginning.
“All right,” a nervous-looking man said from the doorway. “For those of you who have made it past the first, um, barricade to joining the musician’s guild, you can take a break in the dining hall, until you’re called to our new Music Master’s office. That’s all.” He abruptly turned and hurried off, like he didn’t want to be asked any questions about the snacks.
“This is bull crap,” the teen said, his feet hitting the ground with a thud. “She said that someone from my family had to join the musician’s guild, and since I wasn’t as busy as everyone else, I was chosen to come here, but now she’s saying that we might not get picked? I wasted my whole day for this? That’s sus, bro.”
The old woman scowled at him. “Do you see the city falling down around your ears? It’s your responsibility, like all of its citizens. Don’t make me come back there with my walker, because I will, and then you’ll be sorry.” She continued muttering in a low voice, clearly past the point of grumpy from too many bad snacks and not enough comfortable chairs.
The idea of going back to the snack hall was incredibly depressing, but at least the architecture was good if crumbling. I took a red hard candy piece shaped like a fish and picked off the lint before I sucked on it. It tasted like cough syrup at first, then the aftertaste was cinnamon so hot that it made my eyes water. I took it out and tucked it into my pocket along with the cracker crumbs.
I was the last person standing there beneath the lovely arches, looking out the window on the small courtyard with a dry fountain with a statue impossible to discern beneath the pile of leaves and branches. Someone needed to learn how to clean things without magic. Maybe I should volunteer. After all, I wasn’t doing anything, and my clothes already needed cleaning.
I moved before I could rethink it, slipping my file beneath the window frame and levering it up so I could slip through, guitar on my back barely grazing the sill before I dropped out into the courtyard below. I hooked my instrument over a branch and started cleaning out the fountain, climbing up the statue to get the big branch draped over the top, then clinging to some kind of wing as I pulled leaves off between the cracks and crannies.
I should probably practice the spell, the first maintenance spell, so the statue didn’t crumble beneath me. I hummed it in a loop, but this wasn’t my magic and nothing happened. It would take time to learn how to key into something so different, but apparently I had time, because Mirabel was swamped.
By the time I had the statue cleared off and the lower basin emptied, my hands were covered in fine goop that would be great for composting.
“Wow. I appreciate the demonstration of fine custodial service, librarian, but we need musicians more, sorry.”
I turned to look at Mirabel, where she crossed her arms under an archway with a door that I should probably have gone out instead of the window. I brushed off my hands and grabbed the guitar. “It’s fine. I just hate waiting around doing nothing. So, how does this process conclude?”
She pulled out her harp and sat down on the overgrown bricks. “Give me a second. Today was more stressful than I anticipated. For some reason, I didn’t think that every single person who came here would resent me, but I should have. I’ll just fix this statue and then give you the paperwork.” She started playing the harp, and I sat down and stared at her in spite of myself. I knew what she was doing, at least part of it, because the tune she wove with her voice and strings had pieces of the first five maintenance spells, but this was more, much, much more, because she played so well that I wanted to weep in grief for the abandoned stones until they found her song and echoed it back. Then I wanted to weep in joy. It was a very emotional thing, and I wasn’t used to emotions. If I had to actually dig into my own feelings to do this magic, I might not be able to accomplish anything at all.
I was sniffing when she wrapped it up, but I hadn’t stood when a bundle of slobbering fur bounced out of the music hall and came towards me, jowls wagging along with his tail. A crackling explosion came before a stream of flames that trailed behind him like a flickering train. Fire. The monster was farting fire.
He took my low position as an invitation that I’d never given to any dog to climb on my lap, put his muddy paws on my shoulders and lick me with a wet tongue that smelled like sulphur and brimstone.
I held very still while Mirabel yelled at the dog, but she didn’t actually get him off me.
“Sorry, but he’s the late music master’s faithful hound, a bit deaf, mostly blind, and very dangerous. You see, he has this gas issue, and when he gets indigestion, he has fiery flatulence.” She snorted a laugh before smoothing her face into its usual no-nonsense expression. “So, you see, it’s best if he gets off you on his own, or he might accidentally light you on fire. I was going to ask if you’d like to watch him for me until I can find the fees to fund his place in the retired magical animal’s home, but he’s asking for me. What a good boy. His name is Pansy, and he needs special dog food, absolutely no human food, or the gas gets…” She waved a hand around demonstrating massive destruction while I stayed there, on the ground, covered in dog, a dog that had a burning glow about the eye that made me think he was going to sneeze fire at me.
“I don’t want a dog,” I said clearly, trying to look past the beast on my lap, the large, drooly, dangerous beast. “Besides that, my apartment doesn’t allow animals.”
“He’s no common animal. I mean, he’s old and past his prime, but if you can’t take him, I’ll have no choice but to put him to sleep. He’s served our city well, and that would be a tragedy, but I already have an animal friend, and it’s avian, so she’s hiding in the toilet and won’t come out as long as Pansy’s running around. I’ve got a lot going on right now, trying to win everyone’s trust while demanding more than they’ve had to give for years, and as great as Pansy is, he does tend to terrorize everyone. It’ll only be as long as it takes to raise the funds for the animal home, okay? Come on, Pansy. Get your fat butt off the librarian before she strangles you with her guitar. How did you like Tiago? He’s beautiful at playing, but thinks he’s some kind of fancy opera singer, you know what I mean? Musicians can be such divas, but not you.” She gave me a friendly grin as she delicately tugged on Pansy’s collar.
