The Dark Symphony Read Online Free PDF Page B

sweetness of the orchestra. And Guil wondered, looking at the hole in the Bench, just what could be so damned big! Seconds later, he got his answer. From the portal came a yellow dragon with white-white teeth, scales as large as shovel blades and eyes as red as blood with tiny clotted black pupils. Drool collected on the dragon's lips and slipped down its chin in rivulets.
    The tension in the orchestra's music increased.
    Guil felt the rising urge to flee, but gripped himself with his fear and used it to hold him there. He tried to tell himself that it was only sound, that it was not real. Not real at all. Not in the sense of flesh and blood. It was a man-structured sound configuration, a weaving of molecular vibrations to form a false entity—just like the ten towers and the piano Rosie had played yesterday and, yes, even the cape and leotard suit he wore. Then his father's words of the night before fled through his mind: "They will only be creatures of sound directed by men, brainless on their own. But remember, they can kill you just as surely as if they were real.
    He was very much afraid.
    The dragon snorted, blew piercing sound waves from its nostrils instead of the conventional fire of fairy tales and legends. It looked over the galleries, roaring its defiance. And incidentally putting on a show for those who expected horror and pain. It waved its mighty head on the top of its thick, scaled neck, and gnashed its teeth, seemingly pleased with the response of the audience. Then it saw Guil, and though only a sound configuration directed by technicians behind the Bench, it licked its thick, black lips in hunger…
    Guil refrained from getting it over with in one quick blast of the sound rifle. It was tempting to level the big weapon and pulverize the dragon, shatter its arrangement of sound patterns and dissipate it But if he chose the easy way out and did not prove to the judges' satisfaction that he was the master of sound and a competent user of the Eight Rules, then they would most certainly not let him out of the arena alive. Or if they did, it would be only to let the proper attendants take him to the disposal furnaces and ash him. He slipped the sound-sedative whistle between his teeth, bit down on it until his teeth ached, waiting for the dragon to make its move.
    But the dragon fancied itself a cat and decided he was a mouse to be played with. It prowled around the end of the arena, watching the galleries as if it did not see him, as if its confrontation would be with the spectators. However, he could tell when its eyes flicked for short moments in his direction, gauging the distance and the chances so the engineers guiding it could know when to leap. It roared at the walls, and the roar echoed briefly before the walls negated it Guil waited, weary with waiting and wishing the action would start. He shifted from one foot to the other, the gun still clenched in his hand, his free arm across the other, forming a cradle to hold the gun. Seconds passed in an agonizing crawl. Then minutes.
    And suddenly the dragon leaped…
    Guil jumped in surprise despite himself. Sweat popped out on his face, and his nose watered slightly. At first, it appeared as if the beast were going to cross the distance between them in that single leap. It hung impossibly in the air, huge, covering dozens of feet with its fall back to the floor. But it did not make the entire distance and crashed ponderously to the stone twenty feet away. Guil backed hurriedly, for he could see that the long neck could just about make up for the remaining distance. As he backed, he blew the whistle until his face reddened and his ears grew hot with rushing blood.
    The dragon snorted again, shaking its massive head in wild fury.
    Guil continued to blow the whistle.
    The sound was almost inaudible.
    The dragon's eyes widened for a moment, then grew heavy. Its floppy ears raised like great tents as if straining to pick up each shrill note of the sound-sedative,