The Bard

Of Bards

Elloest wanted to be a bard. Ahd had always wanted to be one, for as long as ahd could remember, ever since sitting down to watch a movie for the first time as little more than a baby. Ahd didn't recall what it was about, just the flickering lights playing across the screen, drawing ahn in and holding ahn captive. Ahd had seen many more since then. There weren't any bards living in this part of Mion's World but they passed through regularly enough. Ahn grandparents said there had been two living in Misril Town close by when Elloest's parents were children, but they'd moved on eventually. As it was the arrival of a movie bard, with only recorded things to show, was a big enough event. Even ahn cousins who usually got their entertainment at the bare knuckle ring and the yara baiting would show up at the hall or the house of whoever was hosting the traveler. The pits might give them bloody entertainment but a bard, even with the smells of a fight lacking, could give them wars and explosions, transport them to a different world, an alternate reality far from the mines and farms of Mion's World, weaving shadow and light into a story that held them transfixed to the very end.

More than the movies though Elloest loved the music. A movie bard would naturally have music they could play too, but even better was when bards would come through with instruments of their own to play. Usually stringed instruments, but sometimes there were keyboards or ones they would blow into. Ahn grandparents said the Creator put music into the souls of bards. All souls were made of music, but the bards had more in theirs than most, it shone out of them and touched the chords of others. Elloest believed it. The music they played, the songs they sang, songs of love, songs of pain, songs of life and death and of travel, and many songs about their god, too. Allah, they called him, when they called her anything. From the questions ahd had asked bards' beliefs about Allah seemed as varied as their faces. Or their clothes. Some told ahn Allah was the force that created the universe, others that she had created every creature and loved them all, every life was precious to him. Or that he had become a person to walk among them and teach people how to live. On their planet, of course. At any rate, the songs they sang to their god were beautiful, the clothes they wore seemed to ahn exotic, and these creatures of Earth featured heavily in ahn daydreams.

Elloest recalled one harvest season when ahd was ten and a group of bards had come through. They had lit an enormous bonfire for everyone to sit around while the bards told stories, played music and danced and drew everyone to their feet, often by the hand, so that Elloest found ahn feet moving gleefully to the music even though ahd didn't know how. And later, much later, the music had become softer, subdued, people huddling together as the fire died down, and ahd had fallen asleep, lulled by the soft chords.

Then there were the stories ahn grandparents told ahn. Grandparents Alil and Hesra had once seen a larger bard performance in Aris, a big stage and an enormous crowd, the bards singing and playing and everyone dancing into the night. And though they hadn't seen it themselves, they told Elloest stories they had heard of when bards came together and played for each other. No movies or recorded music of course. They'd heard they played and sang and danced together, trying to outdo each other till the sun came up, then kept going till it rose six times more. Surely no revelry in the universe could rival such an event.

The music that poured from their fingertips, the magic they used to weave sound and silence, shadow and light, voice and strings, the power to draw the audience in, to hold them captive, that was what made Elloest want to be a bard.