essica Hoshi heard the strumming of an instrument. The sound was coming from the lit area she approached. Nothing else seemed to be visible in the darkness. It was as if she were walking down a narrow tunnel. She was still wearing her armor and carrying Aria in its scabbard at her side.

I must have been in a fight. But who was I fighting?

She emerged from the tunnel into a small cavern. In the center of an open area a fire burned peacefully in a shallow pit surrounded by half-buried logs arranged like benches. Sitting by the fire was a man wearing a dusky reddish shirt and brown leggings. He was plucking notes on a spindly wooden string instrument that looked like a combination of a banjo and a guitar. There was no other sound.

“Teko!”

The short white bird looked up in surprise at the same time the man did. Teko immediately sidestepped down the man’s arm to his elbow, then flapped across the room to Jessica. She put out a gauntleted hand caught the bird’s weight as Teko landed skillfully.

“How did you find him?” Jessica asked. “I thought he was gone.”

“I don’t believe that little bird will never fly far from you,” the man answered. Jessica stood politely, intrigued by the instrument. It was one she was sure she had never seen before, but the sound was familiar. The man looked up. His blue eyes were bright and comforting.

“Won’t you join me for a time?”

Jessica smiled and accepted his invitation. She removed her scabbard and set her heavy sword against one of the logs, then sat across from him. Jessica watched with interest as Teko climbed up to her shoulder. She quickly inspected him for injuries, but it seemed Teko was healthy. The man adjusted one of the strings and tested it by strumming the instrument a few times, each with a different chord. Suddenly she recognized what she was hearing.

“That’s a lute, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Very good,” the man replied. “Are you also a musician?”

Jessica nodded enthusiastically.

“I play saxophone and flute and some other instruments but not as much as those.”

“What kind of instrument is a saxophone?”

“Well,” Jessica began. “It’s kinda like a cross between a brass instrument like a trumpet and a woodwind instrument like a clarinet.”

“How is it played?”

“It has keys for different notes and a reed mouthpiece.”

“A reed!” the man exhaled the words with a tone of obvious interest. His brown eyes sparkled with curiosity. “Superb!” he exclaimed. “I must hear it performed someday!”

Jessica smiled cheerfully and nodded. The man returned to plucking notes from his instrument. It was a pleasant sound next to the crackling of the embers.

“I once heard a melody so beautiful that I was reluctant to play it,” he said. “So important it was to me that it be performed with grace that I thought myself unworthy.”

“You play super well!” Jessica said.

The man chuckled. “Oh, this was never my finest instrument. I preferred to sing or draw notes from a string with the bow. But there is a sound that only a plucked string can produce.”

“I love the sound of strings. They always make me want to hear my favorite symphonies again. Then they make me want to play them too.”

“Do you ever hear color in your music?” the man asked as he played.

“Oh yeah! All the time! I think saxophones–or reeds–sound like the color yellow! And trumpets sound like red! I’ve always thought that!”

“How delightful to see and hear music at the same time!”

“Yeah!” Jessica laughed.

“There is magic in color, don’t you think?” he asked. “The eye can see so many shades of a single color, yet there are so few names. How many colors do you suppose you can see in a meadow filled with spring wildflowers?”

The man watched the strings as he played. “My gardener friend could tell you what varieties. The grass in my meadow has thousands of colors. Greens, yellows, browns, tans, oranges even. Think of the spectrums of nature! How closely you can look at a color and see all that it becomes, just like a song.”

Jessica listened carefully, imagining the colors as he spoke.

“And a beautiful sky,” she said.

The man nodded, then closed his green eyes and listened. He adjusted two of the pegs to tune the strings. Then he continued strumming.

“A blue sky with only scarce clouds of pearl. The melody I heard lives in that meadow. Each note was a different color, and together they formed a sonorous glow that filled the sky like rays of first dawn. It was not music that was simply played as one might tap out a jig. It was a melody called Aria, and it was music so lovely that you could reach your hand into it and pour it like water from a font.”

Jessica watched the fire.

“The more I heard of it the more I could see its shape. The notes slowly circled my ears as the fire of victory burned within them. A golden blade danced in the air before me, and the very sunlight itself had given it weight and edge and the nobility of courage. Yet still inside, in its invincible heart, ever so quietly, the melody lived on. I could hear it there. Like the sound of life itself.”

“My sword’s name is Aria,” Jessica said. Teko looked at the man expectantly.

“And a fine sword it is,” the man replied. “You must follow your treasure to its home. There you will find new power, and face new dangers.”

The man began to hum quietly.

“Who.. who are you?” Jessica asked, her voice trailing off.

The plucked strings of the lute rang in her mind, and the sound of a singing voice could be heard in the distance, each note filling the rainbow-bathed cavern with contentment.

Jessica picked Aria up off the log-bench and stared at it as if holding it for the first time.

She sat by the fire alone.

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uch tableware is expensive. I’m sure you understand. My glasses are my business, you see. Perhaps we can come to an agreement? Business is hit or miss these days. I have just the thing here. You’ll be right as rain.”

Reina waited for the multitude of words to subside, much as she might wait for the last glops of sludge to fall from an empty well bucket. Enken’s nose wrinkled as he wondered how anyone could hear the man over the sound of his moustache.

The proprietor held up a short, wide glass as if for auction. “My price for my finest glassware is one copper monarch.”

Unfortunately for the proprietor, naming a price in the presence of Reina of Kulnas was like dangling a canary before a starving alley cat. She approached negotiations like a mongoose. The outcome was never in question. Only the speed and direction of the decisive strike.

The end of the Vicereine’s staff punched the wooden floor of the tavern, making a hollow sound. The very moment those between the door and the proprietor realized she was coming their way, spilled drinks and at least one overturned chair marked their escape.

As Reina slowly walked from the door to the bar, the patrons gave her considerable deference. Her robes scathed the floor. The sound was both unpleasant and ominous. She used her staff as a mountain climber might use a pick.

As hard as he tried, the proprietor still couldn’t see more than Reina’s chin until she reached the bar and raised her head slightly.

“I am not in the habit of paying for simple reagents. Perhaps I can conjure what I need.”

The proprietor’s skin began to crawl.

“Now to the best of my recollection, conjuring a fine drinking glass is a rather complex spell. It requires a living component.”

Reina’s voice lingered over her words, as if she were savoring her advantage. Her eyes met his.

“To complete my work I will require five human teeth.”

The proprietor slammed the base of the glass down on the bar and held on to it as if he were trying to recover from a wave of nausea. A nervous tick was causing his right eye to flutter, and his upper lip curled involuntarily. He pulled his hand away as Reina reached for the glass.

Enken looked over the Vicereine’s shoulder, then moved a chair to make room next to her.

“I will be quick about my business,” she said, taking the glass in her pale hand. His eyes rose, and a fresh wave of sickness overcame him as looked into the face of the jawless skull atop Reina’s staff.

The Vicereine examined the glass carefully, then turned slowly to one side and tossed it lightly into the air. Several people in the room jumped at the shattering sound. The proprietor closed his eyes and muttered to himself.

Reina’s eyes focused on the shards scattered around her feet. She identified the largest piece of glass on the floor, then brought the full measure of her powers to bear, gathering the flickering light from the room and altering it. She reached beyond the physical realm with her mind and one by one, she adjusted each dim beam of light to pass through the broken shards of glass and reveal what was beyond her sight.

The glass shards darkened, and clouds passed through them. Reina was looking down on an ocean at night, with each shard showing a different region of the water. Enken frowned, and then his eyes widened in recognition. A three-masted wooden ship.

“They are underway,” Enken said.

Reina’s mind reached deeper into the darkness, and the ocean faded. When her vision re-focused, she could see six people standing on the deck of the ship. One held a colorful jeweled Lantern. It’s light glowed through the broken glass and brightened the wooden floor of the tavern.

“If we do not reach the Gray Coral Strand in time to greet them, they will not survive,” Reina said quietly.

The Vicereine reached into her coin purse and drew an object from it carefully. She placed a crown-emblazoned silver coin on the bar. A month’s wages for a tavern keeper.

“My apologies for the mess.”

The patrons watched with a combination of dread and curiosity as the dusty-robed woman made her way back to the door and waited for Enken to hold it open. The proprietor finally exhaled as the last of her robes passed the edge of the doorjamb. Enken followed her outside.

Nobody spoke.

Continue to Chapter Seven