Tenor was sitting with his back to the gates of the Testing Ground when it creaked open. He turned, mug in hand, to see if anyone would emerge. Nothing moved except the guards who were waiting with him.
“Sir, should we -”
He cut them off with a wave of his hand. It looked like there was someone walking out to them.
“Prince Song?” he called.
The figure seemed to waver with uncertainty.
“Prince Song? It’s Tenor. You remember me, don’t you?” Tenor approached the gates slowly. He didn’t particularly want to pass the gates if he could help it.
“Tenor? Prince Tenor?” a crackly voice said. “What are you doing here… sir?”
“Waiting for you. The King has been worried.”
The young man stumbled past the gates, almost tripping over his own feet.
“Why?” he asked.
“You’ve been gone for almost three days.”
“Three days?” a look of astonishment passed over Song’s face. He shivered.
Tenor gestured, and the men ran up, wrapping Song in a warm cloak. Someone else passed him a mug of something warm, which he took awkwardly. The baton still grasped in his right hand was broken, no longer broken but a dull brown. He looked at it for a long while before sighing and letting it drop.
Song sipped at the steaming liquid slowly, allowing himself to relax.
“What happened?” Tenor asked.
Song started to speak, then closed his mouth, looking up at the silhouette of the Palace.
“You’re right - we should meet the King directly,” Tenor said, following his gaze. He sent runners ahead to the Palace whilst the rest of them moved at a slower pace. Song moved like a creaky old man. There was something different about him, Tenor thought, but put it down to the ordeal he had just come through. Now all that remained to be proven was whether he had prevailed, whether the Song of the World had approved of him. Tenor didn’t doubt She had. There was a hint of a cocky smirk hidden behind the tired visage.
Lights flared in the Palace as they approached, as if it were coming to life. They could hear a rising clamour the nearer they came. The King ran out to them as they crossed the Moat.
“Oh my son, my son, my Song,” he said over and over again as he flung his arms around the young man. “You came back alive - I was so afraid…” His voice trailed away as he searched Song’s face.
~
The crowd parted to let the King approach the gates.
“Muse!” he called as he half-jogged. “Have you succeeded?”
The boy at the gates lifted his head at the sound and cocked it to one side. It began to loll unnaturally. The King slowed his pace as he neared him.
“Why don’t you say anything?” he asked.
Prince Bass tugged at his sleeve. “Sire, the people -”
The King shrugged him away.
“Muse.”
A deathly silence seemed to blanket the waiting citizens.
Muse stared blankly.
“Muse? Are you alright, Muse?” King Music asked, taking hold of the boy by the shoulder.
Beside him, a haggard looking Bass hovered, spouting a lot of distracting words.
“Hush, Bass,” the King admonished him. The man shut up. “Son, do you hear me?”
“Who are you?” Muse said, as if in a daze.
“Don’t you know me?”
Muse shook his head. “I… I don’t know… I…” he screwed up his face in concentration. “Who am I?”
A ripple spread through the crowd. Why are there so many people here? Music had thought distractedly.
“Your name is Muse,” he said, looking into his glazed eyes. “You’re my son.”
“Muse. I muse, amused, how amusing,” he said with a giggle. Music and his wife exchanged glances.
“Darling, do you want to lie down? Maybe you’ve had a touch of the sun,” Soprano said in her lilting voice.
“Can anyone touch the sun? It’s so far away,” Muse mused as he was led away.
Bass shooed everyone away, leaving the King and Queen standing forlornly in the empty audience hall.
“What do we do, Music?” the Queen had asked, tears staining her face.
“The best we can, as we always do, my dear,” the King had replied tenderly. “Maybe he will be better tomorrow.
But Muse had not recovered - not after ten years, not after fifteen. Every week, Music sat with him gazing into those glazed eyes, praying for the day when they would clear up again, and Muse would come to his senses.
~
“I am here, O King,” Song said with a smile. “Don’t worry.”
“You are - you are all right?”
“Yes. I feel better than ever.”
“That’s good. That’s good. You - did She speak to you?”
“She Sings through me, Music. She Sings!” There was an expectant hush. “But I am tired. More tired than I’ve ever been,” Song said.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
A great bustle rose in the Palace again as Song was ushered to his rooms and attended to. If he seemed sharper than usual, no one mentioned it, because who would call out the future king? Only Cherry – and she didn’t work in the Palace anymore.
“It worries me,” the King said to Tenor.
A servant had reported that Prince Song had retired to bed. The King had thanked him and then leaned back in his chair. Tenor hovered by his elbow until King Music waved him into the chair opposite.
“It worries me,” the King repeated.
“What does?”
“That he did not Sing.”
“He was tired, Sire.”
“When did that ever stop our young Song?”
“Three days could change anyone. It has been the longest Test yet.”
The King sighed. “Any news of Bass?”
Tenor shook his head. “No sir. We’ve scoured the Palace and the grounds. Tomorrow we will extend our search to the city.”
“Where can he be?” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “We’ll see.”
“Sire?”
“Tomorrow - we’ll see. Our young prince will sing. And maybe we’ll find Bass. I wish I knew what was happening.
“The Rights of Kingship,” he said with a disdainful sniff. “More like the Trials of it. You know, Tenor, I still feel as if something is not right. There’s a strange feel in the air.”
“You’re exhausted, Sire. You’ve been up worrying for the past three days.”
“True.”
“When you get up tomorrow, everything will feel better.”
“Better, maybe, but… will it feel right?” The King rose to his feet. “You’re right, Tenor. I’m tired. See you in the morning.”
Tenor made his way to his rooms in the Palace, mulling over the events of the day. The strange words of panic still echoed in him. He steals him. What did it mean? Who stole who? Or who stole what? But it seemed that it had been made right - Song was back, wasn’t he? And seemingly whole.
But he did not Sing.
He pushed the thought away. What did it matter? There was time enough for it tomorrow. It had been a long day - it had been a long three days.
What of the fog?
What of it? It had gone when Song emerged victorious. As he lay down on his bed, he wondered why he felt so disturbed. Closing eyes exacerbated the feeling. He opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling.
Why are you so dense?
Who are you?
I speak to you all the time but you do not listen.
But - Tenor sat up, suddenly wide awake. You rejected me years ago.
Yes, I did.
Why?
Because you have not the capacity to carry my Song.
Then why - why are you speaking to me now? Why not speak to Song or the King?
Because I have lost him. And you’re the only one who can hear me.
What do you mean? Doesn’t the King speak to you?
He is shrouded from me. Something comes between us. Something I do not understand.
No one understands anything anymore.
Save me, Tenor.
How?
Find him.
Who?
Song.
But he’s right here. He’s here.
There was no reply. The Song of the World had slipped away again, back to the shadows where she lived.
Tenor sat up in bed staring at the wall for a long time that night.
The morning did not bring much relief to the sleep-deprived Tenor. Servants brought messages, saying that the King would have a private audience with Prince Song at mid-morning and Tenor was requested to be present. The guards reported that they had started searching the city but had yet to find any trace of Prince Bass. Some rumour monger was saying that Song had been sighted in the city early the day before, but had not been seen since.
“Of course he hasn’t,” Tenor had replied indignantly. “He’s right here in the Palace. Why would he be in the city?”
No one knew, and no one could discover who had started the rumour.
“Don’t go about saying silly things,” Tenor had scolded his news collectors. “They probably mistook some other minor noble gallivanting into town for Song.”
They grumbled but finally agreed, though they protested that their people, so trustworthy, could make such a big blunder. But after all, as Tenor pointed out, they’d seen Song emerging from the Testing Grounds gates with their own eyes. How could he have been in the city at all?
Tenor shooed everyone out of his room. He shut the door behind him and closed his eyes.
“And what do I do now?” he mumbled to himself. Now in the light of day, he wasn’t sure if he had been hallucinating in the light. If it were real, the Song of the World would talk to him again, wouldn’t She? But try as he might, no matter what he did, there was silence.
“Random voice speaks to me in the night and I believe it. What’s happened to your brains, my boy?” he berated himself. Shaking his head, he decided that breakfast was the best remedy for stupidity.
The great dining hall was abuzz with news of Song’s victory and Bass’ disappearance – the two things Tenor wanted to not think about for a while. Everyone was asking everyone else for their opinions or speculating on the great song that the young Prince would sing.
“Why so quiet?” Alto asked, breaking Tenor’s reverie. He hadn’t noticed her approach. “Why are you secluding yourself in this little corner instead of trying to curry favour with the King and his little pet?”
“Pet?”
Alto shrugged. “You know me. I’m always skeptical of his favourites. Do you think he did it? After all this time?”
“Did you finally manage to magic Bass into oblivion?”
Alto laughed; a low, hearty laugh. “I wish I did! But no – I was not involved in his disappearance, no matter how much I despise him.”
“Why do you despise him? If you could re-enlighten me.”
“He’s a snake.”
“Personal remarks aside.”
“That wasn’t personal. It’s the truth. Don’t you feel it? He looks all jolly and acts the jest, but behind it, he’s watching you with his cold, cold eyes, as if he’d rather eat you.”
“Come on. What has the man ever done to you?”
Alto drummed her fingers on the table, creating a syncopated ticking. The click of her nails reminded Tenor of rain tapping on his window.
“When we were younger, Muse and I used to create songs together. We were a tight team – two of us, and occasionally, Bass would join us. Muse used to talk about his dreams. Someone, he said, would come and restore us. What do you mean restore us? I asked. He will make it so that everyone will hear the Song in their hearts. Bass laughed at him and asked if he had a savior complex. ‘Do you think you’ll be the next king?’ he pushed once too many times and Muse answered him frankly, No. Someone comes after. He will be stronger than I.” Alto fell silent, her fingers still on the table.
“Then why did Muse test?”
“Bass made him. He deluded him to thinking that his dreams were false, that the Song would come from him. He claimed that the only way Muse would prove his dreams were true was to submit to the Rights of Kingship.”
“Only the qualified –“
“That’s what I told him. He thought Bass, being older, wiser, advisor to his own father, knew better. He went in to prove his dreams false. But he proved them right instead.”
“So you think Bass did it on purpose? What if it was an honest mistake? What if he really believed that Muse would survive the test?”
Alto looked at him scornfully. “Think about it, Tenor. I know you’re not much of a brain, but think about it. How many young hopefuls, who were obviously weaker than you or Muse, were seduced into undergoing the rigors of training and subsequently the test itself? Who was their sponsor and close friend? Who keeps pressing the King himself to make these… these children into something they cannot possibly be?”
Tenor sat mutely watching the fawning people before him. Finally, he said, “But he’s succeeded this time. Song has passed the test. He is the rightful heir to the throne. So why can’t you give him this victory?”
“He has one victory, no doubt about it. But at the expense of dozens of young men. At any rate, I’ll only believe it when I actually hear Song Sing.”
Finally, King Music called Prince Song and the council to his chambers and dismissed all the gathered nobles with a wave of his hand. As Tenor stood to go, Alto grabbed his arm.
“Judge well, Tenor,” she said.
“What do you mean? You think he’s an impostor?”
“I’m just saying that you should be wary.”
“I am,” Tenor said, shrugging her off and hurrying after the King.