Finally, her anger ran out, and with it, the words. She spread her hands, bow in one, fiddle in the other. "So that's it, sir. That's why I'm here."
"You and I have something in common, I think." Did she really hear those barely whispered words, or only imagine them?
She certainly didn't imagine the next ones.
"So you have come to fiddle for me, to prove to these ignorant dirt-grubbers that you are their-equal." The Ghost laughed, a sound with no humor in it, the kind of laugh that called up empty wastelands and icy peaks. "Well, then, girl. Fiddle, then. And pray to that Sacrificed God of yours that you fiddle well, very well. If you please me, if you continue to entertain me until dawn, I shall let you live, a favor I have never granted any other, and that should prove you are not only their paltry equal, but their better. But I warn you-the moment my attention lags, little girl-you'll die like all the others, and you will join all the others in my own, private little Hell." It chuckled again, cruelly. "Or, you may choose to attempt to run away, to outrun me to the stream at the bottom of the hill. Please notice that I did say attempt. It is an attempt that others have made and failed."
She thought for a moment that she couldn't do it. Her hands shook too much; she couldn't remember anything-not a single song, not so much as a lullabye.
Running was no choice either; she knew that.
So she tucked her fiddle under her chin anyway, and set the bow on the strings. . . .
And played one single, trembling note. And that note somehow called forth another and another followed that, until she was playing a stream, a cascade of bright and lively melody-
And then she realized she was playing "Guard's Farewell," one of her early tunes, and since it was a slip-jig, it led naturally to "Jenny's Fancy," and that in its turn to "Summer Cider"-
By then she had her momentum, and the tunes continued to come, one after another, as easily and purely as if she were practicing all by herself. She even began to enjoy herself, a little; to relax at least, since the Ghost hadn't killed her yet. This might work. She just might survive the night.
The Ghost stood in that "listening" stance; she closed her eyes to concentrate better as she often did when practicing, letting the tunes bring back bright memories of warm summer days or nights by the fire as she had learned them. The memories invoked other tunes, and more memories, and the friendships shared with musicians who called themselves by the names of birds: Linnet, Heron, Nightingale, and Raven; Robin, Jay and Thrush. When only parts of tunes came, half-remembered bits of things other musicians had played that she hadn't quite caught, she made up the rest. She cobbled together children's game-rhymes into reels and jigs. She played cradle-songs, hymns, anything and everything she had ever heard or half-heard the melody to.
When she feared she was going to run dry, she played a random run, improvised on that, and turned it into a melody of her very own.
It happened with an ease that amazed her, somewhere in the back of her mind. She'd wanted to write songs, she'd had them living in the back of her mind for so long, and yet she'd never more than half-believed that she was going to get them to come out. It was a marvel, a wonder, and she would have liked to try the tune over a second and third time. But the Ghost was still waiting, and she dared not stop.
Hours passed, longer than she had ever played without stopping before. Gradually the non-stop playing began to take its toll, as she had known would happen. Her upper bow-arm ached, then cramped; then her fingering hand got a cramp along the outside edge. The spot below her chin in her collarbone felt as if she was driving a spike into her neck.
Then her fingering arm burned and cramped, and her back started to hurt, spreading agony down her spine into her legs. She fiddled with tears of pain in her eyes, while her fingers somehow produced rollicking dance music completely divorced from the reality of her aching limbs.
Her fingers were numb; she was grateful for that, for she was entirely certain that there were blisters forming on her fingertips under the calluses, and that if she ever stopped, she'd feel them.
Finally, she played "Fields of Barley," and knew a moment of complete panic as her mind went blank. There was nothing there to play. She'd played everything she knew, and she somehow had the feeling that the Ghost wouldn't be amused by repeating music.
And there was no sign of dawn. She was going to die after all.
But her fingers were wiser than she was, for they moved on their own, and from beneath them came the wild, sad, wailing notes of the laments that the Gypsy Nightingale had played for her. . . .
Now, for the first time, the Ghost stirred and spoke, and she opened her eyes in startlement.
"More-" it breathed. "More-"
Rune closed her eyes again, and played every note she remembered, and some she hadn't known she'd remembered. And the air warmed about her, losing its chill; her arms slowly grew lighter, the aches flowed out of them, until she felt as fresh as she'd been when first she started this. Free from pain, she gave herself up to the music, playing in a kind of trance in which there was nothing but the music.
At last she came as far as she could. There was no music left, her own, or anyone else's. She played the last sobbing notes of the Gypsy song Nightingale had told her was a lament for her own long-lost home, holding them out as long as she could.
But they flowed out and away, and finally, ended.
She opened her eyes.
The first rays of dawn lightened the horizon, bringing a flush of pink to the silver-blue sky. The stars had already faded in the east and were winking out overhead, and somewhere off in the distance, a cock crowed and a chorus of birdcalls drifted across the hills.
There was nothing standing before her now. The Ghost was gone-but he had left something behind.
Where he had stood, where there had once been a heap of leaves, there was now a pile of shining silver coins. More than enough to pay for that second instrument, the lessons for it, and part of her keep while she mastered it.
As she stared at the money in utter disbelief, a whisper came from around her, like a breath of the cool dawn wind coming up off the hills.
"Go, child. Take your reward, and go. And do not look back." A laugh, a kindly one this time. "You deserved gold, but you would never have convinced anyone you came by it honestly."
Then, nothing, but the bird song.
She put her fiddle away first, with hands that shook with exhaustion, but were otherwise unmarred, by blisters or any other sign of the abuse she'd heaped on them.
Then, and only then, did she gather up the coins, one at a time, each one of them proving to be solid, and as real as her own hand. One handful; then two-so many she finally had to tear off the tail of her shift for a makeshift pouch. Coins so old and worn they had no writing left, and only a vague suggestion of a face. Coins from places she'd never heard of. Coins with non-human faces on them, and coins minted by the Sire's own treasury. More money than she had ever seen in her life.