Peace can't last forever when war is the law of man.
For years, Eli's village was content to ignore the signs.
...the silence, the whispers, the cold...
Then in one faithless hour, they were gone.
With blood in his ears and Aldyth's hand tuc...
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For the first time in a while, Aldyth spoke up. "How come we've never heard of any of this? If not from the North that is barred by the mountains, then by the South and West and East. There are no physical borders that separate the Confederacy from them, yet we've never suspected any malformities among them."
Taurus sighed and ran a silent hand through his hair as he walked. "Like I said, it wasn't always like this..."
"And a hundred years isn't so long that an entire empire of people will forget it," she shot back. I sneaked a glance at her face from under my lashes, and found that she looked frustrated -- if that was the word I was looking for. It was true, something of the elf's story didn't quite click into place. There were enough loud mouthed imbeciles in the Confederacy to speak rumors, even if the high King and Queen forbade it at the cost of one's head.
Taurus looked back at us slowly like we were a couple of meaningless demons who wouldn't leave him alone. "They are a world of a thousand stories, that they are. Theirs is a tale meant to be told from beginning to end. No interruptions. No questions. A single break in the story will cause the rhythm to be lost, and force the teller to begin again from the start." He drifted into silence, waiting for our reply.
I nodded at Aldyth. "We'll be quiet."
Taurus took a deep breath and shut his eyes as if he were reading the words off the backs of his eyelids.
"Many and many a year ago, in a time farther away than most minds can reach, there was a group of young musicians, who, together as one, could charm the earth into dancing for them. Their musics ranked above all in everything from the quiet and beautiful, to the raging and loud. They say, their sounds were so wonderful, that the very wind that chills us today, would take the notes and rush them out to every corner of the world, then hold its breath so the sounds could be heard.
But understand, they weren't just musicians of the extrordinary type. Those happen all the time; they're hardly special. These people...they were different. Silence ceased to be a word for them, and even when there was silence, it wasn't true silence, so much as an anticipation of sound. They heard music in everything, from the laugher of small children to the opening of a large book. In their elden language, they were called Listeners, brajés, because they could hear things that normal people did not.
As it went, the musicians could be separated into three groups. The first was a league of players of the deep forests -- woodwinds they were called, a pure capture of the essence of the air, that had never been done before...or since. They derived their skill from the natural speed and intelligence of the tree'ed highlands. It is said, that the spirits of the heavens, and stars of the night, came down from above to create the intrique keys on their flutes and harold the skill it took to play them.
The next of these three groups, was louder and bolder than the woodwinds. Their instruments were shiny and vibrant and gold, with much fewer keys than those of their windland counterparts. Generally they came from large cities, where there were forges prosperous enough to smelt the metal needed for their pride. Before time was over, they earned the calling of brass, the players to the sun.
