The Witch's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

all the way up here to view an organ?
    You can play, of course
, Thalasi countered, a rhetorical thought, for Thalasi knew Reinheiser’s every memory and knew that his counterpart was an accomplished musician.
    I created this instrument in my first days here
, he explained to Reinheiser.
My only companion for centuries other than the wretched talons, and I care not for their company
.
    Reinheiser began to understand.
You want us to join in the song
, he realized.
Every movement so precise and so practiced
.
    Here we might find our harmony
, Thalasi replied.
It only occurred to me after the encounter with the usurping talon, after I had felt the ecstasy of our joining
.
    It will not work
, Reinheiser reasoned, and Thalasi felt the sincere disappointment in his thoughts.
There remain too many subtle variations
.
    Perhaps
, argued Thalasi.
But with the instrument as an audible guide, the futility of our battles will become evident at every misstep. Only when the song flows in harmony will our minds be flowing in harmony
.
    Reinheiser remained unconvinced, but Thalasi did not have to remind him of their other options. He followed Thalasi’s lead in bringing the body to sit down.
    And then they played.
    *   *   *
    For an unbroken stretch of many days, notes rang out from the central tower of Talas-dun. Rhythmless and offkey, the sound grated in the marrow of the talons of the fortress, and they slumped down and tried to hide their ears whenever they had to cross too close to the place. Whispers spread among the ranks—but only whispers, for none had yet found the courage even to go in and mop up the remains of Grok—that the Black Warlock had gone mad.
    But the helpless talons could only sit and wait, and endure the torture of the monstrous music.
    Quite the opposite of the talons’ suspicions, the spirits of Thalasi and Reinheiser were preserving their sanity up in that tower room. Ever so gradually, the notes of their playing began to take on the semblance of music. For the first time, the two separate identities found a way to truly anticipate the actions of each other.
    In merely a week Reinheiser admitted the value of Thalasi’s plan. In two they found their way through an entire melody without a single error. And still they played, following the music, falling within the music.
    It consumed them wholly and broke down the defenses that had kept them apart for so long, as each laid bare his desires to the other. The music was the cause, the harmony their only goal.
    And they reached for it and clutched at it. Together.
    Talons gathered outside the central tower, basking in the powerful notes of the Black Warlock’s song. The dim-witted beasts could not understand the depth of what their dark master had accomplished, but they knew from the confident roar of the massive pipes that the man who finally emerged from the central tower of Talas-dun would bear little resemblance to the wretched being that had crawled and scratched his way up there.
    Fingers glided across the keys in complete confidence,never a bar was missed, and the sheer power that flowed through those once battered digits sent the huge instrument spiraling to new heights of musical majesty.
    “Are you there?” the being called out in a strange dual-toned voice.
    “Of course I am!” he answered himself.
    It was time to go.
    The Black Warlock stretched his legs and strode confidently out of the room to the tower balcony. He knew that his talons would be nearby, listening, waiting for some word, any word, of the fate of their master. And here he was, returned to them, whole again and powerful. More powerful.
    “And I am Thalasi, not Reinheiser,” the Black Warlock muttered, testing out the depth of his newfound tranquillity with a proclamation that before would surely have brought resistance from the spirit of Martin Reinheiser.
    “Of course,” the being agreed with himself. The logic was inescapable. “Morgan Thalasi. A name that strikes dread