The Raging Fires Read Online Free PDF Page A

so much in the mood for music now.”
    I studied her. “You don’t think I can do it, do you?”
    “No,” she replied calmly. “I’m just not sure.”
    I winced. “Well, the truth is . . . I’m not sure myself. But I do know this. If I wait any longer, I may lose the courage to try.” I faced Cairpré. “Now?”
    The poet nodded. “Good luck, my boy. And remember: The texts say that if high magic does come, so, too, may come other things—surprising things.”
    “And song,” added my mother gently. “I will sing for you, Merlin, whatever happens. Whether or not there is any music in those strings.”
    I lifted the psaltery, even as I lifted my gaze to the boughs of the ancient rowan. Hesitantly, I placed the instrument’s narrow end against the middle of my chest. As I cupped my hand around the outer rim, I could feel my heart thumping through the wood. The breeze slackened; the rustling rowan leaves quieted. Even the gray-backed beetle on the toe of my boot ceased crawling.
    My voice a whisper, I spoke the ancient incantation:
    May the instrument I hold
Usher forth
    A magic bold.
    May the music that I bring
Blossom like
    The soul of spring.
    May the melody I play
Deepen through
    The passing day.
    May the power that I wield
Plant anew
    The wounded field.
    Expectantly, I turned to Cairpré. He stood motionless but for his roving eyes. Behind him, the lush hills of Druma Wood seemed frozen—as fixed in place as one of the carvings on my staff. No light swept across the branches. No birds fluttered or whistled.
    “Please,” I said aloud, to the psaltery, to the rowan, to the very air. “That’s the only thing I want. To rise as high as I possibly can. To take whatever gifts, whatever powers, you can give me, and use them not for myself, but for others. With wisdom. And, I hope, with love. To plant anew the wounded field.”
    Feeling nothing, my heart began to sink. I waited, hoping. Still nothing. Reluctantly, I started to lower the psaltery.
    Then, ever so slightly, I felt something stir. It was not the leaves above me. Nor the grasses at my feet. Nor even the breeze.
    It was the smallest string.
    As I watched, my heart drumming against the wooden rim, the remotest tip of one end of the string began to twirl. Slowly, slowly, it lifted, like the head of a worm edging out of an apple. Higher it rose, pulling more of the string with it. The other end also awoke, curling about its knob. Soon the other strings started to move as well, their ends coiling and their lengths tightening.
    Tuning itself! The psaltery was tuning itself.
    In time the strings fell still. I looked up to see Cairpré’s growing smile. At his nod, I prepared to pluck the root chord. Wrapping my left hand more firmly around the rim, I curled the fingers of my right. Delicately, I placed them on the strings.
    Instantly, a wave of warmth flowed into my fingertips, up my arm, and through my whole body. A new strength, part magical and part musical, surged through me. The hairs on the back of my hands lifted and swayed in unison, dancing to a rhythm I could not yet hear.
    A wind arose, growing stronger by the second, waving the branches of the Cobblers’ Rowan. From the forested hills surrounding us, leaves started drifting upward—first by the dozens, then by the hundreds, then by the thousands. Oak and elm, hawthorn and beech, shimmering with the brilliance of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. Spinning slowly, they floated toward us, like a vast flock of butterflies returning home.
    Then came other shapes, swirling around the rowan, dancing along with the leaves. Splinters of light. Fragments of rainbow. Tufts of shadow. Out of the air itself, shreds of mist wove themselves into more shapes—wispy spirals, serpents, knots, and stars. Still more shapes appeared, from where I could not fathom, made not from light or shadow or even clouds, but from something else, something in between.
    All these things encircled the tree, drawn by the music,