The Fire and the Fog Read Free Page B

said, openly grinning now, ‘Then I
wrote this for Mr. Oak, the tree’ and he began to play, and the
afternoon drifted slowly away.
     

II
     
    If life were all girls and music, Gel would
have been more than happy.  But as the warm, heavy sun of the
afternoon faded slowly into the pale evening; as reminders that
humans unfortunately require more sustenance than cakes and tea; as
rumblings of hunger sounded, too deeply to ignore, the trio headed
for home.  They walked together back to the town, but split
ways when they reached the change between dirt and cobblestone
road.  Sheane and Mae lived at the Eastern edge of town, just
off the main road, while Gel had to make the long trek to the top
of the low hill the town was built upon.
    As Gel walked home through the narrow
cobblestone streets towards the Mayor’s house at the edge of town,
he found himself thinking of the song he had written for Sheane and
Mae, and had played for the old Oak tree.  He had thought of
it at the time as blue; slower and more mellow than the jumpy,
excited yellow of Don Vole’s song from earlier, yet with enough
movement, enough transition and change to remain interesting. 
It was a nice song, and had been perfect for his audience. 
Calm and smooth enough for Sheane, with enough trills for
Mae.  Balancing anything between the two of them could be
interesting, though with music Gel thought he could always give
them both what they wanted.
    He did wonder though.  He always played
for people, and he was always, or nearly always, able to understand
what his audience wanted to feel from the music, was always able to
pull that feeling out of the notes and make it come alive for his
listeners. 
    Sheane and Mae wanted to feel warm and loved,
and Gel had no problem letting that feeling out through his
music.  He had trouble expressing feelings with words, with
actions, but with music? With music his feelings just flowed. Gel
often wondered why he should speak, when he could play instead.
    Many of the nobles that Gel had played for
wanted perfect renditions of ancient songs, note for note as they
had been written and, while boring, he was always able to provide
that too.  The feeling he got from those songs was stuffy,
uptight, and not more than a little wrong.  He always wondered
if this was how those ancient composers had wanted their legacies
to be played.  But if stuffy was what the nobles wanted,
stuffy was what he would play.
    His tutors, as well, wanted him to play
exactly what they told him to and, while he could generally manage
that too, it became much more difficult if he got distracted, which
happened much more often than he’d like to admit.  Part of the
problem was the difficulty of obtaining proper tutelage in the
small, remote town of Feyen.  His fourth tutor in two years,
Gel’s parents had already told him that if he ran lady Vaen away
that would be it.  Not that he was worried.  He figured
that he could do better on his own anyway.  He was the best
after all, even if no-one had yet realized it.
    Gel’s parents just wanted to hear him
play.  As with all parents, they loved anything he did; it was
their job.  It made them at the same time the hardest and the
easiest audience to play for.  On the one hand, he could do no
wrong.  On the other, he always felt he had to do better for
them, in order to truly deserve their love and praise.
    This all brought Gel back to the song he had
played that afternoon.  The song he had claimed to be playing
for the old Oak tree on the hill.  That pretty blue song had
not been written or played for the tree, not truly, but what if it
had?  What if he had written it for the old Oak, and played it
for the tree to grow, to sway and dance in the wind?  What
would that sound like, feel like; what colour would it be?
    Gel walked alone through the empty streets,
the sun setting slowly at his back.  The sounds of his
footsteps on the worn cobblestones and the occasional twit of a
robin