But Berak was a true showman, after all. No matter how tense the situation, he wasn’t going to leave an audience unsatisfied. By the time he finally sang the opening notes of the ballad he and Kevin had agreed upon, the ancient, tragic “Song of Ellian and Tens “ that tale of doomed young love, the bardling was almost too numb from tension to recognize it.
Berak and his troupe sang with exquisite simplicity, barely ornamenting each line, tracing the words delicately with harp and flute, their every word filled with quiet grief and tenderness. And the noisy, restless crowd, bit by bit, fell still. The ballad came to its bittersweet ending—The lovers sank into each others’ arms, their lives slowly, peacefully ebbing away ....
It was done. The stunned audience paid Berak’s troupe that rarest, greatest of tributes: absolute silence.
They’ll start cheering in a moment, Kevin knew. It’s got to be now!
Oh gods, the bardling thought in a surge of panic, he wasn’t ready, he couldn’t remember the words, his voice wasn’t going to cooperate—
But then Kevin realized he was doing it, he was singing out his spell, the sound chamber amplifying his voice so it rang out over the courtyard.
Yet even in that moment he knew, from the heart of his musician’s being, that what he was doing wasn’t enough. Oh, Powers, why hadn’t he realized this before? The spell needed more than bare recitation to work! It needed heart, it needed belief, it needed a Power he simply didn’t possess. The very soul of the music was missing, and without it Carlotta would still triumph—
No, ah no! All those poor people will die!
And all at once something seemed to tear loose within Kevin’s heart. All at once he couldn’t be afraid, not for himself. Wild with this sudden flame of hope, of pity, he sang for Eliathanis, he sang for Charina, he sang for all the good, kind, ordinary people whose lives Carlotta would destroy. And magic, true, strong Bardic Magic fully grown at last roused within him. Feeling nothing but the fire surging through him, hearing nothing but the sound of the spell- song, Kevin was hardly aware of Carlotta’s shriek of disbelieving rage or the count’s shouts to his archers. A few arrows cut the air about him, but then Lydia and Naitachal were retaliating, fending off attack.
Suddenly the spell-song was done. Kevin sagged, drained and gasping for breath, only Naitachal’s firm grip on his arm keeping him from falling as he stared, as they all stared ....
The silence that followed was the worse thing Kevin had ever heard—because nothing at all happened to Carlotta.
It failed after all. The spell failed.
All at once Kevin was too weary to care. He stood passively waiting to die, either from sorcery or the spell’s own backlash. Dimly, he heard Carlotta’s scornful laugh ....
But then that laugh went wrong, too shrill, too high in pitch! Kevin came back to himself with a jolt, shouting, “Look! Dear Powers, look!”
Despite all her frantically shrieked-out spells, Carlotta was shrinking. Within moments, though she still struggled to ding to Charina’s form, she had shrunk to the size and shape of a fairy.
Stunned silence fell, through which Count Volmar’s voice cut like a whip. “Guards’” Pointing up at the bell tower, he shouted, “Those foul sorcerers have attacked my niece! Stop them!”
“Have to admire his presence of mind,” Naitachal muttered.
But Berak and his troupe were ready. As the guards rushed forward, the White Elves swung tent poles like quarterstaffs across unprotected shins. The first rush of men went hurtling to the ground, and the next wave fell over them.
“Come on!” Lydia yelled. “Let’s get out of here while we can!”
The three of them scrambled down the rope, Kevin not even stopping to worry about his hands, and set off across the crowded courtyard at a dead run, people squealing and scrabbling away from the “foul sorcerers.”
We’re going to make it, we’re really going to—
“Oh hell,” Lydia murmured. “Well, we gave it our best”
A long line of the count’s men had broken through the crowd, standing between the three and safety, eyes cold, pikes at the ready. Count Volmar strode forward, pushing his men aside, face so florid with rage a comer of Kevin’s mind wondered if he meant to kill his foes himself.
—Logic would have insisted there was no way out. Kevin, still caught in the power of his own music, wasn’t ready to listen to logic. Instead, he did the only thing he could do:
