Another minor run of notes.
“Dragons?” Dax tried, as Ree shouted, “Sailing!” Then Dax: “How to weather the fundamental loneliness of existence.”
Marin stared at him, while Perri let out a concerned query.
“It’s just something I think about sometimes,” Dax said. “Don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Is that what they teach you to sing about in the conservatory?”
“We do have classes to train our minds to contemplate…” He narrowed his eyes and studied her. “You’re laughing at me.”
She was pressing her lips together and trying not to laugh. “Never.”
“‘It’s the function of art to examine the pain of life,’” Dax said in an affected accent. “That’s a direct quote from Grandmaster Olenco. He teaches Philosophy of Music.”
Ree rattled his branches. “I don’t get it. Music isn’t pain.”
“Olenco believes that the highest purpose of art is to remind us of our shared pain. He considers that the only important music—the rest he calls mere entertainment.”
“And what do you say?” Marin asked. “Do you agree? Do you think the only important music is about pain?” It bothered her in ways she couldn’t explain to think that he could consider Ree’s song about the sea, or that long tavern ballad, unimportant.
He looked at her, and his smile turned serious. “No, I don’t. All art—serious, frivolous, and everything in between—exists to say, ‘You are not alone.’ I think it’s equally, if not more important to share joy as it is to share pain.” Dax was still looking straight into her eyes, and she felt as if something had shifted—and it wasn’t just the wind. He then added, “But of course, Olenco’s class was the only one in the conservatory that I nearly failed.”
“Olenco was an idiot,” Ree declared.
Dax smiled. “I won’t tell him you said that.”
Marin focused her attention on the sails, which had begun to luff. She guided the bow so they were back on a broad reach. She checked their course once more against the Night Queen and then said, “Perri was saying that we should sing about the stars.”
There was an affirmative trill from off the port side of the sailboat.
“How did you know that?” Ree asked, awed.
She shrugged.
“Before we sing about them,” Dax said, “would you teach me how to navigate by them?” He glanced at Ree and corrected, “Teachus?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Ree cheered.
Looking up, she explained which star was which. The Night Queen was the only one with a fixed position, but in different seasons, other constellations could be depended on to be in particular regions of the sky. You could measure their position against the horizon and calculate a near-exact latitude and longitude. Using the map, she explained how to navigate, pointed out a few particularly treacherous regions of the sea—an area known for whirlpools, another region rife with kraken, the kelp forest with its kelp creatures—and she pointed out the few islands that roved, including the floating islands of the cloud bears, which were unreliable for navigation. You wanted to use islands that didn’t move around, if you were navigating by earthly landmarks. The stars were a more reliable option.
They traded stories of the constellations back and forth. Ree had heard a few from the gardeners of Belde, and Dax knew a different set from the lyrics of collected songs. All of Marin’s were gleaned from her travels. As the moon shone down on them and the sea, they drifted from talking about the stars to singing about them.
Dax chose a simple melody to start with: derived from Ree’s tune about how much he loved the blue-blue sea. He refined it and taught it to Ree. “You’ll be the lead voice on this one. I’ll want you up on the mast, belting as loud as you can.”
Excited, Ree quivered. “I can do that!”
“Marin, after he sings the first verse, I want you to come in on the chorus and all subsequent verses. You’ll sing a third higher, and I’ll sing a third lower.”
“Sure,” Marin said.
“Great!”
“What’s a third?”
He taught her the notes, and she added them to Ree’s melody. He wove in his own voice, lower than Ree’s, and she heard the chords they made. “We can vary it a little too…” He saw Marin’s expression and changed to: “But let’s start with this.”
After they’d sung it through a few times, he instructed Perri to add his own vocals, rounding out the sound. It was still the simple song, led by Ree’s sweet tenor, but with all the harmonies and layers it was transformed into something more—something that felt as glorious and pure and profound as the stars above.
