Modern Magick

Music and Misadventure: 18

'It's about the lyre,' I said to Ayllin.

'I could have guessed that much,' she replied. Her eyes strayed to my father, still seated upon his throne, with the moonsilver lyre in his lap. I tried to read her expression, but failed; she was impassive, after an icy fashion.

'Can you fix it?'

Her gaze returned to me. 'Fix it?'

'Yes.'

'Is it broken?'

'Um. My father's presence on that throne says it is.'

To my surprise (and discomfort), she smiled at that with genuine amusement. 'Perhaps he is not the only one who has drawn such a conclusion,' she said. 'But he's no less wrong for it.'

'I... don't understand.'

'How did you get it back?'

'The lyre?'

'Yes, the lyre. What is it doing here?'

'We retrieved it from the water, obviously.'

'We?'

'Yes. You knew that was the goal — you helped us. So why do you ask?'

Her lips pursed. 'I have helped many on that particular quest. I had no reason to imagine you would be successful, but it is always worth another try.'

'So you wanted the lyre back? My father said—'

'Your father appears to be spectacularly misinformed,' she said, betraying a trace of irritation. 'Which ought not to surprise us, considering he has spent a mere matter of hours among his people.'

'His people threw him out. Is that not the case?

'His people required a period of adjustment, to adapt to so much change. If he had stayed—'

'If? Did the Yllanfalen throw him out, or did they not?'

'Yes, but—'

'And the lyre with him.'

'There was anger. It was my fault. I mishandled the matter.'

'So I heard.' I folded my arms, and did my best to stare the lady out of countenance. I do not much enjoy being so thoroughly confused. 'The lyre was meant to choose you, no? But strayed into my father's hands by accident. Mishandled indeed.'

'Accident? It would be impossible to control the course of that lyre on festival night. It takes its own course, and chooses who it will. I had hoped it would choose me, but it did not.'

'Hoped! So you did not manipulate its song? You didn't fix it up to pick whoever got hold of it next?'

'Is that what our precious king thinks?'

'He is quite convinced of it.'

'Well. He's modest enough, I will give him that.' A faint smile ghosted over her face. 'He is still wrong. Supposing it were possible to impose such a course upon that lyre, and I highly doubt it: no Yllanfalen could be so crude. Don't you see? It is not enough simply to have a monarch, any monarch. It must be the right one for the era. One who can be... what we need.'

'And what did you need, thirty years ago?'

'Change.' She was not laughing now. 'We had grown set in our ways. Too hidden from the outside world, too closed to everything that is not tradition. It is a poor course for any culture, is it not? Look at the wider world now. So many kingdoms, so many cultures, have faded away forever — and it's my belief they exacerbated their down troubles by their very efforts to mitigate them. Closing one's doors to progress achieves nothing but stagnation and decay. We did not want that for the Yllanfalen.'