Wanderlost Prologue

The sound started so resonant, so low, that she felt the music before she knew she was listening to it. Gradually, over the stillness of an hour, the tune rose. Founded down the hill through the deep forest, the song was unlike any in the glittering cities. A weight burned in her chest, a portent of choice that she tried to ignore, heeding rather the gathering of the tale-telling notes. Now she could tell they were beating, like a heart, like a march of an army through the night, anticipating blood or fire. Was that what caught a warrior’s breath? Or did he feel the expectation of victory, of being carried on passion and duty into the ecstasy of fulfillment? A thick note sounded, perhaps a horn, then a slow staccato series of horn-calls casting an alternate rhythm that she knew was seeking to be joined with the elder drum-beat. She found her body almost rising and falling with the waves of rhythm. She wanted to spin but didn’t know where, and the impulse built in her. Desire was all pent up in her, and she longed to burst with it.  

Three hours of listening, then she stood. The horns were urgent, and their tempo had increased. She stood, and turned her face to the sounds. Percussion, strengthening and quickening as well, drew the more melodic horns into what seemed an orbit, circling nearer and nearer, descending the scale towards the thudding, stomping welcome of the drums. She stepped towards it, and felt inside a flutter of baby-feet like the singing bells of her home, a flurry like snowfall in the shining dawn. Hesitation gripped her, and she placed her hand on her womb, which was quietly growing the heir of the king.

Down the hill the climax came: songs converged and melded and swirled, released the dammed desire, and the noise was like a frenzy. Suddenly there were more sounds: strings and hollower notes like tapping, all running and jumping and clapping as though order had been left for forgotten. Yearning to share the rupture, she followed the hill’s slope downward. Her long strides halted at the edge of a cave. The song of the shadow-band finished with stifling silence, and Queen Marie Elantre joined them around their red fire, and was never seen at home again."