The church doors closed behind the last of the Harvest Festival's attendees with a thunderous boom. Though William could not see them from behind the dark curtain shielding him and the Piper from their audience, he knew the people of Aerzen outnumbered Hamelin's citizens, to say nothing of the countless rats the Piper had at his command.
This was William's only chance to save everyone from the Whole.
The two of them took up their instruments and strode to opposite sides of the church. Whatever happened next, they would not come to blows. Instead, they would allow their music to fight for them, with whoever possessed the greatest command of the Hymn of the Whole emerging victorious. Burdock paced between them with his fangs bared and his tail lashing as the waiting crowd murmured in anticipation of their performance.
At last, William and the Piper began playing.
Tentative notes rose from William's guitar. The strings sang his determination to banish the rats from their prisoners' bodies and keep his family safe once and for all. With each strum, his song grew more confident until it soared through the air like a hawk.
The Piper required no such buildup. Within seconds, his flute's frantic rhythm rose to a fever pitch. A chorus emerged from deep within the Piper's quivering abdomen as the Whole lent their voices to the song. They sang of safety. Of contentment. Of power.
Answering squeaks pierced the air. A storm of scrambling feet clawed the floor as rats flooded the church. The people of Hamelin screamed, only for their cries to be muffled and finally cut short.
William trembled with the urge to flee. To run from the church, from Hamelin, and from the terrible, awful screaming and never look back.
His fingers slipped.
Rats swarmed past the curtain with a triumphant chorus of squeaking. Black, brown, and gray fur seethed and surged with all the ferocity of the Tantalus as yellowed fangs snapped and snarled, the church so thick with rats that their bodies reached up to William's knees.
"Stop!" William yelled, punctuating the word with a strong strum. Could they not see they were harming each other in their haste to reach him? Teeth snapped through tails, claws tore through flesh, and shrieks ripped free of those who were crushed beneath the sheer weight of their brethren.
The swarm doubled in on itself. This was not the way of the Many. What good were their struggles if their brothers and sisters did not survive to see their pups flourish?
Though the rats halted their attack on William, Hamelin's children showed no such hesitation. Little Peter Farnsworth clambered up his father with his mouth twisted into a savage snarl, his fingers clawing at the farmer's eyes. Jennifer Baker seized a fistful of her mother's hair, cackling with delight as she yanked with all her might. The people of Aerzen aided the children in their fight, pinning Hamelin's citizens to the ground so rats could force their way down screaming throats.
William couldn't watch.
His fingers flew over the strings in a sharp staccato. Pulled the curtain closed. None should bear witness to their battle.
The rats obeyed. Though nothing could silence the screams on the other side, the dark curtain once again closed William and the Piper off from their audience
Only when the last tail disappeared behind the curtain did William release the breath he had been holding. That had been far too close for comfort.
"They will continue to suffer until you give in." The Piper spoke not with his mouth, which never left his flute. Instead, the Whole's voice emerged from within his abdomen as fist-sized lumps rose and fell beneath his skin. "I will outplay you. The sooner you surrender, the sooner their pain will end."
"I will never give up!" With each vibration of the guitar strings, countless souls flickered in response to William's song. These specks of warmth did not approach him as Burdock's soul had, but neither did they shy away from him or rush to bind themselves to the Whole's blazing soul. Though they were obeying the Whole's commands, they were still acting of their own free will.
One rat refused to join in the assault. Burdock stood between William and the Piper with his fur bristling and his tail lashing. "You swore you would not force him if he did not wish to join us," he said. "There are many others who have submitted themselves to us willingly. Could we not use one of them instead?"
"Have you trained any of the others to play the Hymn?" After Burdock confirmed he had not, the Piper's whole body quivered with the force of the rats writhing inside him, doubling over even as he continued playing the flute flawlessly. "Then you know full well how difficult it would be to suit our needs."
"But given time—"
"We have no time!" The Whole's voice lowered to a snarl so fearsome that Burdock shrank back with his ears pressed tightly against his head. "We must firmly secure our control over the Many before winter comes, or else all our efforts to save them from starvation will be for nothing. As for this human you have grown so fond of, you are to blame for giving us no other choice. His command of the Hymn has grown far too great to be anything other than a threat should we let him go free."
"Perhaps we could let him have control every now and again?" Burdock said. "He has worked so hard for what he believes would be best for his loved ones. If we allotted time for him to be free to enjoy his sister's company, perhaps he would be willing to surrender."
"Never!" The thought of only being able to see Emma when the rats allowed him to filled William's playing with that much more determination to win her freedom, pulling the rats' flickering souls closer to him.
"I am trying to help you," Burdock hissed. "The Whole has had countless lifetimes to hone the Hymn. They are far too powerful for you to defeat alone."
"I don't have to be alone," William said firmly. "A wise rat once told me that an individual who poisons the group ought to be cast out. Is the Whole not poisoning the Many by ruling through fear and binding rats and humans together regardless of what they want?"
The Whole laughed. "We are merely acting in their best interests. The Many would not survive without us, for we provide for them in ways they could never do for themselves."
"You sound like my father," William said. His grip on the guitar tightened. No wonder Burdock was so desperate to please the Whole.
The Whole ignored him, their words aimed solely at Burdock. "You have thoroughly disappointed me, pup. Your foolishness nearly doomed the Many. Despite your folly, we may yet allow you to join us if you aid us in defeating this human."
Burdock cast his gaze to his paws. "I will not."
Hissing ripped through the Piper's seething abdomen. "Then get out of the way!"
The Piper's foot lashed out. Burdock squeaked in pain as he slammed into the wall.
"Leave him alone!" The same burning anger that had filled his veins with molten metal when Father struck Emma sent his fingers surging across the strings in a sharp staccato. Muffled screams penetrated the curtain as his song tore through the bonds that bound humans and rats together.
"Meddlesome human." The Piper played a long, shrill note before filling the air with a noise that was more shriek than song.
Sickening thuds filled the church as bodies fell to the floor. Thrashing limbs pushed the curtain aside just long enough for William to behold what the Piper had wrought.
What he saw made him cry out in horror.
Humans and rats alike spasmed in crumpled heaps on the floor, their lips parted in breathless cries for help. Their souls flared as they fought to free themselves from the Piper's control, only for those flames to fade to sputtering flickers like dying candles.
"You're hurting them!" Burdock screamed, his own body wracked with tremors.
"The Hymn is but a fraction of the power I possess," the Whole snarled. "A few notes are all I need to erase their memories of this excruciating pain, and I can prolong it just as easily. How much agony can a mind take before it breaks? Before it leaves the body an empty husk?"
A wet tearing sound reached William's ears. The Piper's skin could no longer bear the force of the writhing mass inside, parting in a jagged rip above his stomach. With each word the Whole uttered, blood seeped from the wound until crimson covered the Piper's feet.
"Whether I will be a kind teacher or a cruel master depends on your actions, human," the Whole said. "Choose wisely."
"There is no kindness in what you've been doing," William said. "I will fight you until I die if I have to."
"So be it." Countless voices chorused alongside the Piper's flute. Though William could not understand the words they sang, their message sank deep into the pit of his stomach. Stop. Give in.
Perish.
Burdock collapsed to his side with an earsplitting scream. His eyes rolled back into his head as saliva frothed from his mouth, his fangs snapping at nothing. A symphony of screaming answered his cries as the sea of souls dimmed to a dull glow.
"No!" William had to save Emma. Hamelin. Burdock. All the rats the Whole had cast aside in the name of trying to secure a new host.
William silenced the screams with one strong strum. Another pressed air past gasping lips, filling burning lungs until their audience was quiet and still.
Burdock's whiskers quivered as he sucked in a breath. Then another. And another. Slowly, he rolled onto his paws and looked up at William with his jaws parted in a silent question.
"I'm not like them. I won't force you." William wasn't sure if he could even if he wanted to. His eyes burned with tears as his voice broke. "Do what you must. I only ask that you do everything you can to keep Mother and Emma safe no matter what happens."
Burdock blinked. Nodded.
William fought the impulse to scream as Burdock ran up his leg. Tiny claws dug into his skin as on their journey up his body.
The Piper rushed toward William, his lips still firmly pressed to the flute. A rat with fur as black as night pushed way out of the gaping wound in his abdomen, blood dripping from its whiskers.
Another rat joined the first. Yellowed teeth snapped through sinews as the creature widened its exit. Crimson dyed much of its white coat until its fur matched its beady eyes.
That was far from the end of the whole. More and more rodents gnawed their way out of the Piper's abdomen until a quivering, distended mass William could only assume was the man's stomach tore open to reveal the rest of the creatures within.
With their tails tied together in a thick knot of matted fur, the Whole reeked of rot. What had once been members of the immensely powerful entity now remained only as corpses forever baring their fangs as their still-living brethren dragged their bodies behind them. On and on the creatures came, pouring out of their dying host in a ceaseless stream, leaving enough inside him to continue playing the Hymn.
As the Hymn rose to a roaring crescendo, the Whole screeched in triumph and lunged toward William.
And yet William still kept playing. Even in the face of the Whole itself, William's fingers never left his guitar as he poured all of his love for Emma into his song, praying that despite everything she could hear his music one last time.
Just as the Piper drew close enough for William to see the Whole's beady black eyes, Burdock leaped off of William's chest, sinking his teeth into the Piper's hand. The Whole screeched and thrashed as the Piper played a foul note.
A blaze of souls rushed to William, offering their aid. Their teeth and claws. Their anger.
He filled his song with the fear thundering in his heart. With the anger burning in his veins. With his love for Emma.
Countless rats surged past the curtain, knocking the Piper to the floor. The Whole and its former host disappeared beneath the Many, screaming as fangs tore through flesh and gnawed on bones.
Eventually, the screaming stopped.
But William wasn't finished. Blood dripped onto the guitar strings as he separated the rats from their human hosts. His song sweetened into something like Mother's lullaby as he delicately snipped away any last threads of connection between them. The soft, gentle notes washed over the humans' souls with a wave of peace. They would not remember the horrors they had witnessed once they awoke, but they needed to rest a little longer.
He couldn't let anyone see what he was about to do.
"I have no desire to control the Many," William said as his fingers flew across the guitar strings once again, their cuts singing with soreness. "I only ask that you leave Hamelin in peace and keep my loved ones safe from all who may wish to harm us. Go, and be free!"
The rats swarmed past the curtain. Their sheer weight pushed the church's doors open, allowing them to depart with one final thud of the wood slamming shut.
It was over.