The Music Room
Jul. 18th, 2006 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosipheleeAnd more ^_^ Look what happens when I'm bored at work. I'm just beginning to get my feel for these characters back. Expect more, especially as this is Arcadian weather. For information, the little conversation between them in the middle is based on their knowledge that you can't kill a ringed Lord - they just get up again after a few minutes (unringed, it's more complicated).
Title: The Music Room
Words: 2173 (*blinks* Wow. Didn't feel that much when I was writing)
Prompt: Music box
Summary: The Lords of Fire, before the Lords fall. About as sweet and fluffy as Arcady pieces get.
“Ian!” Annawn protested, running to keep up as he pulled her down the corridor. “Where are we going?”
“Seven Silver!” he called back, grinning at her. She was still only half-awake, freckled and flustered, her hair wild around her face. “A new door’s opened in the third gallery.”
“North or south?”
“North!”
She grinned widely, ochre-eyed and excited, and he squeezed her hand. They’d never been able to get to the rooms north of the galleries before. Like so much of the palace, they were sealed by the shifting of the corridors and the constant elaboration of generations gone by.
“What’s in there?” she demanded.
“Wait and see.”
“Ian!”
He laughed. He didn’t often get the chance to exasperate her. She was too bright and busy for him, his fair Lady. He wasn’t going to waste the moment.
They hurried along marble halls and up the Stair of Darien where gossamer veils swayed and shimmered and stairways parted and diverged, some leading into new wings of the palace, others only to blank stone or sealed corridors. Through the first two galleries, each one gleaming with etched portraits. Little Sarah, Housekeep’s heir, had told them there was a girl of the second echeloi who was paid simply to keep these rooms polished. Ian, who had a taste for figures, had winced at that. Each year more of the taxes from the realms were late, and more and more did not come at all.
“Is this it?” Annawn demanded, reaching out for the door.
“Yes,” Ian said, grinning, and stepped back. “After you.”
She sent him a suspicious glance but pressed her hand to it anyway. Like every door in the palace, it swung open beneath the touch of a Lord, and she peered in. The lights had dimmed since he left, so he tugged her over the threshold. As they stepped forward, the lanterns on the wall began to glow, blue and gold.
The ceiling and all the walls were panelled, in blocks of enamelled metal, red, gold, green, blue. Cogs and pistons linked the blocks, their brass tarnished, and there was a faint hum beyond the walls. Ian thought one of the chimneys from the main kitchens came up that way, which would explain the wisps of steam from the grates around the edges of the floor. The centre of the floor was a polished circle of brass, surrounded on all sides by ornate levers.
“Oh, Ian,” Annawn said, her smile fading and her eyes darkening to blue. “Not more mechanicals.”
“I like mechanicals,” Ian said stiffly. “And these have a purpose.”
“Oh?” She was looking increasingly annoyed. “Purpose enough to be worth dragging me from my bed?”
He pointed down silently. On the brass below their feet were etched swirling letters. Annawn screwed her eyes up and read aloud, “Hiallen, Lord of Death by Fire, and Polani, Lady of Life by Air, ordered me to be made, to ease the cares and lighten the spirits of those yet to be born.”
“Pull a lever,” Ian said.
“Do you know what it does?”
“I can make a good guess. I wanted to wait for you.”
She smiled at him quickly for that, but then said suspiciously, “Am I going to get wet?”
“No,” he said, biting back a grin.
“Covered in stinky stuff?”
“No.”
“Is the floor going to open beneath my feet?”
“Annawn,” he cried, pressing a hand to his heart. “Would I?”
She raised her eyebrows, and he added, “No. Not if it works as I think it should.”
“That’s reassuring,” she murmured and pulled the nearest lever.
The floor began to move first. The brass disc started to turn, at first jerkily, dislodging clouds of dust, but then more and more smoothly. As it settled into a swift motion, the walls too began to move, pistons thumping and cogs turning as the panels rose outwards and rolled up and across, colours shifting around each other. From behind the panels music sounded, strings thrumming, pipes swirling and bells ringing out in a fast jig. The lanterns dipped and then swung out across the room, weaving patterns across the ceiling, light falling in shifting blue and gold lines as they moved.
Annawn clapped her hands over her mouth and whirled in circles, faster than the floor, watching the room dance.
The floor stopped moving first. Slowly the music died and the panels sank back against the walls, in new patterns. Annawn threw her arms around Ian’s neck and cried, “Wonderful. Worth waking up for.”
He hugged her close, gratified, but she was already darting away to try another lever.
This time it was a waltz, and the walls and lamps moved more slowly. They had been taught the waltz, amongst the mass of arcane knowledge their tutors deemed essential, so he opened his arms. She came back, catching at his shoulder with a smile. He curved his hand around her hip and swung her round, dream-slow.
Around them blue panels circled, glittering under the lamplight. Annawn put her head on his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his neck, a slow feathering, and realised she was still not quite awake. There were too many night-ceremonies at this time of year and they were both tired.
Ritual after ritual, he thought, as the floor turned below them. Ceremony after ceremony, and slowly the realms slid away from them. Here, in the heart of Arcady, the patterns remained the same. When would the slow crumble become a rush into anarchy, and, what, if anything would he do when that hour came?
Robert thought he could answer that question. Ian still wasn’t sure that his answers were the right ones, but they had a duty to the realms. Chaos would benefit nobody.
“Ian,” Annawn said sternly. “Don’t.”
“I’m not,” he said, and pressed his face into her hair. There were still ashes in it, and he could smell the soot of the beacons.
Below them the floor began to slow, and the music faltered to an end. Ian stopped dancing, but did not let go.
“Worrying won’t help,” Annawn said, a note of frustration in her voice, and pulled away. Then she paused. Ian could see the tension in her shoulders and the sudden set of her lips and didn’t try to stop the flames from roaring up from his palm.
“Ian,” she said. “Where’s the door?”
He looked around, startled. He could no longer tell which way they had came in. After a few moments, he saw the door, in the far right corner. “There.”
“It’s not,” she said. “It was in the middle of the wall when we came in.”
If the door had moved, they could be in trouble. There had only been one doorway on the gallery, and if they no longer aligned…
Annawn strode over and pulled it open.
A wind gusted out, making the lanterns swing, and Annawn stagger for balance, clinging to the door as it jerked in her hands. Ian lunged for her and between them they slammed it shut.
“Really, really big hole,” Annawn said breathlessly. “We could try jumping.”
“Was the bottom visible?”
“No lights down there. Doesn’t matter – we’d mend.”
“And if there’s no way out? I’d rather not repeatedly starve to death.”
“Fair enough.” She grabbed for the nearest lever.
This time it was the red blocks that moved sideways, as the yellow ones lifted, and trumpets sang out a hallejulah. Ian and Annawn waited tensely, watching as the sliding panels revealed another door. This one was twice as tall as the last, and had a large red cross painted on it.
Annawn opened it anyway.
Nothing came charging out at them, so they both peered through.
Some feathery brushed their faces, and Ian let the flames wrap his arm. The chamber beyond was full of cobwebs, hanging in raggedy veils. Something had blown a hole through them, and Ian’s fire was widening it. He called the flames back, and Annawn leant forward.
She let out a scream of horror and threw herself backwards. “Spiders!”
Ian blinked at the vast silhouette moving through the webs towards them and slammed the door shut with a yell. Fire roaring around him, he lunged for a lever.
“Don’t melt them!” Annawn shrieked and pulled it herself.
Somewhere beyond the walls an organ began to wheeze, and the panels rearranged themselves, covering the door. Annawn leant against his shoulder, cackling with laughter.
Panels folded down from the walls, brass pistons lengthening into supports, and a new door was revealed above them, at the height of the steps. They both ventured up, fire flickering across their skin.
Annawn reached out, swallowing, and pulled the door open.
Beyond, there was water, still and silver. The hall it filled was vast and empty, covered over with glass. There were no doors, though archways showed where they might once have been.
“That,” Annawn said philosophically, “probably was an escape route once.”
Ian climbed down the steps on the other side and waded out, steam drifting up as he walked. The water came past his ankles, warmed by the sun through the glass. The door he had just left were ornate, the gilding still showing.
“I think it was the main entrance,” he said. “I’m going to look for the way the water comes in.”
“Wise,” Annawn said and splashed after him, holding up her skirts.
The investigation, however, only exposed a low, square pipe, no higher than the width of his wrist. Disheartened, they returned to the music room.
The next rearrangement seemed to expose nothing, until Annawn realised the lanterns had all returned to the walls. They looked up to see a trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Next tune?” Ian asked.
But the trapdoor was moving.
Mindful of giant spiders, Ian dragged them back against the wall, as far from the trapdoor as he could get.
As he watched, tensed, two hands gripped the edge of the trapdoor, and Julius appeared, head-first.
He blinked at them, wide eyes puzzled, and then said, “Well met.”
“Is it the spiders?” a breathless voice asked behind him.
“Nay,” he said, hair swirling around his head in a sudden breeze. “Tis Annawn and Ian.”
Ayanah appeared beside him, also upside-down, white hair floating around her. She waved with one hand and called, “Did you find the corridor with the fish tanks yet?”
“No,” Ian said, intrigued. How many exits were there from this place?
“We did find the giant spiders, though,” Annawn said.
Ayanah shuddered. “Aren’t they horrible? Do you want help or are you still playing?”
“Out!” Annawn said, but Ian hesitated, trying to work out how many possible combinations of doors and passages there could be.
“You’ve been here before?” he asked.
“Ian,” muttered Annawn.
“Last night,” Ayanah said. “We came in this way and finally got out into Seven Silver. We were here all night.”
“I’ve got a frost-clearing ceremony with Fiolla all afternoon,” Annawn said, lifting her arms. “Up, please.”
“Methinks that is a reason to stay,” Julius remarked but held out a hand to her. The breeze swept down, lifting her in a swirl of silver skirts. Julius and Ayanah scrambled out of the way and she slid through the trapdoor.
Ian sighed and walked over to the middle of the room to look up at them. They all grinned down at him, black and silver hair dancing in Julius’ wind.
“Methinks, sister,” Julius said, “that your Ian does not wish to be rescued.”
“He has a great passion for mechanicals,” said Annawn, grinning at him.
Ayanah giggled. “We could throw him some food and some cushions and let him find his own way out.”
Ian crossed his arms. “Very well, but Robert spent much of yesterday building a bonfire merely so I could burn it prettily for the Byzantine ambassador. If you wish to disappoint him, then leave me, please.”
Ayanah snorted. “He’d probably just knock a hole in the walls to get you out.”
“And let the spiders out,” Julius added sourly.
If you would all hate him a little less and hear him a little more, Ian thought. He might be more willing to listen to you.
However, Air’s Lady had reached out for him and the winds were lifting him, so he left the quarrel for another time to reach out and grasp her hands. Annawn and Julius reached out too, freckled fingers clasping around his wrists.
He scrambled out onto the foot of a narrow staircase, and climbed up enough to let Ayanah close the trapdoor.
“Seal it?” she asked. “I’m not sure the bratlings are ready for giant spiders.”
“Stefan could manage,” Annawn said impatiently.
“Leave it,” Ian said. “We’ll warn the others about the spiders. It was built to be a distraction.”
They all understood what he did not say: that there might come a time, when Stefan was crowned if not before, when they would all have great need of whatever distractions they could discover, even those that verged on danger.
Happy Tuesday ^_^
Title: The Music Room
Words: 2173 (*blinks* Wow. Didn't feel that much when I was writing)
Prompt: Music box
Summary: The Lords of Fire, before the Lords fall. About as sweet and fluffy as Arcady pieces get.
“Ian!” Annawn protested, running to keep up as he pulled her down the corridor. “Where are we going?”
“Seven Silver!” he called back, grinning at her. She was still only half-awake, freckled and flustered, her hair wild around her face. “A new door’s opened in the third gallery.”
“North or south?”
“North!”
She grinned widely, ochre-eyed and excited, and he squeezed her hand. They’d never been able to get to the rooms north of the galleries before. Like so much of the palace, they were sealed by the shifting of the corridors and the constant elaboration of generations gone by.
“What’s in there?” she demanded.
“Wait and see.”
“Ian!”
He laughed. He didn’t often get the chance to exasperate her. She was too bright and busy for him, his fair Lady. He wasn’t going to waste the moment.
They hurried along marble halls and up the Stair of Darien where gossamer veils swayed and shimmered and stairways parted and diverged, some leading into new wings of the palace, others only to blank stone or sealed corridors. Through the first two galleries, each one gleaming with etched portraits. Little Sarah, Housekeep’s heir, had told them there was a girl of the second echeloi who was paid simply to keep these rooms polished. Ian, who had a taste for figures, had winced at that. Each year more of the taxes from the realms were late, and more and more did not come at all.
“Is this it?” Annawn demanded, reaching out for the door.
“Yes,” Ian said, grinning, and stepped back. “After you.”
She sent him a suspicious glance but pressed her hand to it anyway. Like every door in the palace, it swung open beneath the touch of a Lord, and she peered in. The lights had dimmed since he left, so he tugged her over the threshold. As they stepped forward, the lanterns on the wall began to glow, blue and gold.
The ceiling and all the walls were panelled, in blocks of enamelled metal, red, gold, green, blue. Cogs and pistons linked the blocks, their brass tarnished, and there was a faint hum beyond the walls. Ian thought one of the chimneys from the main kitchens came up that way, which would explain the wisps of steam from the grates around the edges of the floor. The centre of the floor was a polished circle of brass, surrounded on all sides by ornate levers.
“Oh, Ian,” Annawn said, her smile fading and her eyes darkening to blue. “Not more mechanicals.”
“I like mechanicals,” Ian said stiffly. “And these have a purpose.”
“Oh?” She was looking increasingly annoyed. “Purpose enough to be worth dragging me from my bed?”
He pointed down silently. On the brass below their feet were etched swirling letters. Annawn screwed her eyes up and read aloud, “Hiallen, Lord of Death by Fire, and Polani, Lady of Life by Air, ordered me to be made, to ease the cares and lighten the spirits of those yet to be born.”
“Pull a lever,” Ian said.
“Do you know what it does?”
“I can make a good guess. I wanted to wait for you.”
She smiled at him quickly for that, but then said suspiciously, “Am I going to get wet?”
“No,” he said, biting back a grin.
“Covered in stinky stuff?”
“No.”
“Is the floor going to open beneath my feet?”
“Annawn,” he cried, pressing a hand to his heart. “Would I?”
She raised her eyebrows, and he added, “No. Not if it works as I think it should.”
“That’s reassuring,” she murmured and pulled the nearest lever.
The floor began to move first. The brass disc started to turn, at first jerkily, dislodging clouds of dust, but then more and more smoothly. As it settled into a swift motion, the walls too began to move, pistons thumping and cogs turning as the panels rose outwards and rolled up and across, colours shifting around each other. From behind the panels music sounded, strings thrumming, pipes swirling and bells ringing out in a fast jig. The lanterns dipped and then swung out across the room, weaving patterns across the ceiling, light falling in shifting blue and gold lines as they moved.
Annawn clapped her hands over her mouth and whirled in circles, faster than the floor, watching the room dance.
The floor stopped moving first. Slowly the music died and the panels sank back against the walls, in new patterns. Annawn threw her arms around Ian’s neck and cried, “Wonderful. Worth waking up for.”
He hugged her close, gratified, but she was already darting away to try another lever.
This time it was a waltz, and the walls and lamps moved more slowly. They had been taught the waltz, amongst the mass of arcane knowledge their tutors deemed essential, so he opened his arms. She came back, catching at his shoulder with a smile. He curved his hand around her hip and swung her round, dream-slow.
Around them blue panels circled, glittering under the lamplight. Annawn put her head on his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his neck, a slow feathering, and realised she was still not quite awake. There were too many night-ceremonies at this time of year and they were both tired.
Ritual after ritual, he thought, as the floor turned below them. Ceremony after ceremony, and slowly the realms slid away from them. Here, in the heart of Arcady, the patterns remained the same. When would the slow crumble become a rush into anarchy, and, what, if anything would he do when that hour came?
Robert thought he could answer that question. Ian still wasn’t sure that his answers were the right ones, but they had a duty to the realms. Chaos would benefit nobody.
“Ian,” Annawn said sternly. “Don’t.”
“I’m not,” he said, and pressed his face into her hair. There were still ashes in it, and he could smell the soot of the beacons.
Below them the floor began to slow, and the music faltered to an end. Ian stopped dancing, but did not let go.
“Worrying won’t help,” Annawn said, a note of frustration in her voice, and pulled away. Then she paused. Ian could see the tension in her shoulders and the sudden set of her lips and didn’t try to stop the flames from roaring up from his palm.
“Ian,” she said. “Where’s the door?”
He looked around, startled. He could no longer tell which way they had came in. After a few moments, he saw the door, in the far right corner. “There.”
“It’s not,” she said. “It was in the middle of the wall when we came in.”
If the door had moved, they could be in trouble. There had only been one doorway on the gallery, and if they no longer aligned…
Annawn strode over and pulled it open.
A wind gusted out, making the lanterns swing, and Annawn stagger for balance, clinging to the door as it jerked in her hands. Ian lunged for her and between them they slammed it shut.
“Really, really big hole,” Annawn said breathlessly. “We could try jumping.”
“Was the bottom visible?”
“No lights down there. Doesn’t matter – we’d mend.”
“And if there’s no way out? I’d rather not repeatedly starve to death.”
“Fair enough.” She grabbed for the nearest lever.
This time it was the red blocks that moved sideways, as the yellow ones lifted, and trumpets sang out a hallejulah. Ian and Annawn waited tensely, watching as the sliding panels revealed another door. This one was twice as tall as the last, and had a large red cross painted on it.
Annawn opened it anyway.
Nothing came charging out at them, so they both peered through.
Some feathery brushed their faces, and Ian let the flames wrap his arm. The chamber beyond was full of cobwebs, hanging in raggedy veils. Something had blown a hole through them, and Ian’s fire was widening it. He called the flames back, and Annawn leant forward.
She let out a scream of horror and threw herself backwards. “Spiders!”
Ian blinked at the vast silhouette moving through the webs towards them and slammed the door shut with a yell. Fire roaring around him, he lunged for a lever.
“Don’t melt them!” Annawn shrieked and pulled it herself.
Somewhere beyond the walls an organ began to wheeze, and the panels rearranged themselves, covering the door. Annawn leant against his shoulder, cackling with laughter.
Panels folded down from the walls, brass pistons lengthening into supports, and a new door was revealed above them, at the height of the steps. They both ventured up, fire flickering across their skin.
Annawn reached out, swallowing, and pulled the door open.
Beyond, there was water, still and silver. The hall it filled was vast and empty, covered over with glass. There were no doors, though archways showed where they might once have been.
“That,” Annawn said philosophically, “probably was an escape route once.”
Ian climbed down the steps on the other side and waded out, steam drifting up as he walked. The water came past his ankles, warmed by the sun through the glass. The door he had just left were ornate, the gilding still showing.
“I think it was the main entrance,” he said. “I’m going to look for the way the water comes in.”
“Wise,” Annawn said and splashed after him, holding up her skirts.
The investigation, however, only exposed a low, square pipe, no higher than the width of his wrist. Disheartened, they returned to the music room.
The next rearrangement seemed to expose nothing, until Annawn realised the lanterns had all returned to the walls. They looked up to see a trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Next tune?” Ian asked.
But the trapdoor was moving.
Mindful of giant spiders, Ian dragged them back against the wall, as far from the trapdoor as he could get.
As he watched, tensed, two hands gripped the edge of the trapdoor, and Julius appeared, head-first.
He blinked at them, wide eyes puzzled, and then said, “Well met.”
“Is it the spiders?” a breathless voice asked behind him.
“Nay,” he said, hair swirling around his head in a sudden breeze. “Tis Annawn and Ian.”
Ayanah appeared beside him, also upside-down, white hair floating around her. She waved with one hand and called, “Did you find the corridor with the fish tanks yet?”
“No,” Ian said, intrigued. How many exits were there from this place?
“We did find the giant spiders, though,” Annawn said.
Ayanah shuddered. “Aren’t they horrible? Do you want help or are you still playing?”
“Out!” Annawn said, but Ian hesitated, trying to work out how many possible combinations of doors and passages there could be.
“You’ve been here before?” he asked.
“Ian,” muttered Annawn.
“Last night,” Ayanah said. “We came in this way and finally got out into Seven Silver. We were here all night.”
“I’ve got a frost-clearing ceremony with Fiolla all afternoon,” Annawn said, lifting her arms. “Up, please.”
“Methinks that is a reason to stay,” Julius remarked but held out a hand to her. The breeze swept down, lifting her in a swirl of silver skirts. Julius and Ayanah scrambled out of the way and she slid through the trapdoor.
Ian sighed and walked over to the middle of the room to look up at them. They all grinned down at him, black and silver hair dancing in Julius’ wind.
“Methinks, sister,” Julius said, “that your Ian does not wish to be rescued.”
“He has a great passion for mechanicals,” said Annawn, grinning at him.
Ayanah giggled. “We could throw him some food and some cushions and let him find his own way out.”
Ian crossed his arms. “Very well, but Robert spent much of yesterday building a bonfire merely so I could burn it prettily for the Byzantine ambassador. If you wish to disappoint him, then leave me, please.”
Ayanah snorted. “He’d probably just knock a hole in the walls to get you out.”
“And let the spiders out,” Julius added sourly.
If you would all hate him a little less and hear him a little more, Ian thought. He might be more willing to listen to you.
However, Air’s Lady had reached out for him and the winds were lifting him, so he left the quarrel for another time to reach out and grasp her hands. Annawn and Julius reached out too, freckled fingers clasping around his wrists.
He scrambled out onto the foot of a narrow staircase, and climbed up enough to let Ayanah close the trapdoor.
“Seal it?” she asked. “I’m not sure the bratlings are ready for giant spiders.”
“Stefan could manage,” Annawn said impatiently.
“Leave it,” Ian said. “We’ll warn the others about the spiders. It was built to be a distraction.”
They all understood what he did not say: that there might come a time, when Stefan was crowned if not before, when they would all have great need of whatever distractions they could discover, even those that verged on danger.
Happy Tuesday ^_^
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 04:47 am (UTC)The lights had dimmed since he [had] left
Some feathery <- "something" or "some feathers"?
And that's it. Again, it's a beautifully written piece and sounds absolutely intruiging. Part of it is the fact that these are all little snippets and they're revealing an interesting and gorgeous-sounding world and its (recent) history very slowly.
This has a marvellous foretelling bit, though. ^-^ Lovely little piece.
(And that's as good as it gets this early in the morning. ^-^; )
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 08:50 am (UTC)I'm slowly trying to get my sense of this world back - it's vast and I need to read through what I've got at a time when my laptop isn't overheating.
Glad you liked it, m'dear (and, eek, you are up early)
Happy Wednesday ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 01:23 pm (UTC)Anyway, thank you for sharing. They're a lovely bunch they are. ^-^ (And sometime I will get back on that darned reading list and get caught up with your work, if it's the last thing I do!)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 09:25 am (UTC)Ah, I remember Annawn and Julius in a little snippet you had up when you first joined Elfy. Oh, and Stefan too ^_^ Of course I'm now hugely intrigued by Ian's take on Robert, because as far as I remember you've not shown anything but a nasty side of him. Also, I vaguely recall various nefarious schemes I made up in how to get hold of Robert's ring so that I could kill him...
Clearly you write too much too ;)
Anyway, enough about me, more about this. Gorgeous, me dear, truly wonderful. I love the idea of that music room and all the shifting doors. I can see why you don't want to abandon Arcady or the palace.
Certainly won't complain to have more of this lot.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 10:07 am (UTC)Ian is in an interesting position - he gets caught in the middle when everything goes crazy. Robert, for all his earthquake creating tendencies, is acting out of the best of intentions. He's trying to save the Empire.
Glad you liked it. The palace is always fun to write. Thanks for reading :)
Happy Wednesday ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 05:58 pm (UTC)*chuckles*
Very nice indeed.