“Oh, no, you are a legend. Legendary. Not just as a rock star, but one who tempted the King of Faery himself. The greatest guitarist who ever lived. No one shall ever forget Robert Mynwar.”
He grins: “I am glad to hear of it; glad I was right to accept Oberon’s invitation. If I’d stayed in the Waking World I’d be old now—how long has it been?”
“Seventy-three years,” Sylvie says.
He shudders. “I’d be as old as you, older even. Decayed, decrepit. No offense, dear lady. Long ago superseded by someone younger, someone maybe not as talented but flashy. Now, I shall live forever.”
“But here, in Faery. Among the faeries. Where nothing is real.”
“It seems real enough to me, feels real—and if it feels real what else matters? And much less complicated than the Waking World. No love, no jealousy, no fear—”
She says: “Those are things that make a musician great, the emotions that generate creation. To live without turmoil, without passion, to live passively—”
“To live is to grow old, and to grow old is to die, to fade away. Far, far better to burn out, dear lady.”
“And what about the rest of the band? Sylvanna, Merrick, Tashie?” she asks bitterly. Suddenly she feels a fool. Here she thought she was rescuing him from a faery enchantment and it turns out that enchantment was his heart’s desire. Well, bucko, she thinks to herself. Prepare to be disappointed. The party is over.
“Oh, I’m sure they profited nicely from my spectacular exit.”
“And your children?”
“Sangyn? She was a toddler, I’m sure she didn’t even miss me.”
This was quite untrue, but no point in saying so now. Sylvie had been five weeks pregnant when he left; he doesn’t even know that he also has a son. There’s no point in mentioning it now. He’s lost interest in the conversation anyway; she knows that eager look in his eyes. He wants to play.
He says: “Strange, I would expect, after all these years, for the Queen of Life to be out of tune, but she’s not. Richard has taken good care of you, my lovely.”
Sylvie says nothing, but her heart writhes with rage. She had fired Richard, Robert’s roadie and chief crony, two hours after Robert’s abduction. He spent the following years peddling baroquely viscous gossip about the band before choking on his own vomit after a particularly heavy bender. She’s been the Queen of Life’s caretaker all this time. For the first five years or so, she didn’t touch the guitar; even the thought of doing so was too agonizing. But then, as time went on, the guitar became, instead of a painful reminder, a comforting companion. She never played it in public, but all her songs were composed upon it. A guitar that isn’t played, Robert Mynwar often said, grows sour, just as does a woman who isn’t touched. Well, that last hadn’t been a problem for her, but she was still sour.
Titania, bored with this talk, has risen from the divan. She stands over Robert, drops a hand upon his gleaming head.
“Play,” she says. “Play for us.”
“As you will, my lady.” He grins, standing, slinging the guitar-strap over his shoulder. He has to adjust it downward; he always played with the Queen of Life hanging around his knees, but Sylvie had shortened the straps. The faeries part the dance floor for him. He climbs the stairs to the stage; the faery musicians have moved aside. A shaft of brilliant sunlight pierces the gloomy water and pins him in place, like a butterfly spiked to a specimen board.
Sylvie closes her eyes; she can’t bear to watch.
But in her mind’s eye she sees him, as she’s seen him so many times before, those long years ago: the guitar balanced on the outthrust leg, the hopping strut, the left hand flying up and down the fretboard, fingers moving so fast that the individual chords are a blur. The half-smile hidden by the swinging hair, and the sound, the melody like a racing river, snatching one up into its currents, carrying one away…
The memory is so vivid in her mind, that it takes her a moment to realize she doesn’t hear any music.
She opens her eyes.
And there he is, just as she had remembered him, playing furiously, and yet there is no music. It’s not the lack of amplification; the Queen of Life is a charged instrument, she doesn’t need an outside source of galvanism to play. It’s not the new strings; she’d changed them herself. But he is acting as though he hears the song, and, peering through the murk, the other faeries seem to be listening intently. Then she realizes. She’s in Faery. Only faery glamour works here. No other kind of magic holds sway, not even Robert Mynwar’s magick. The sunglasses show the glamour but they can’t make her hear it.
Her heart—already shattered—crumbles even more. Rage collapses into pity. That his music should be reduced to a frivolous glamour in the service of a cold-hearted king and queen seems a travesty, a true horror. Even worse—he does not know it.
One long flourish of his left arm, sending the soundless chord flying up towards the watery ceiling. Robert Mynwar stands, panting, grinning.
“Any requests?” he cries. The Queen of Life purrs a random flourish. Sylvie recognizes the chords, so she can hear the lick in her mind—the opening riff to A Tender Curb.
“The Angel of Avalon,” Sylvie shouts out, before anyone else can do so, and before he can launch further into A Tender Curb.
Robert Mynwar looks surprised. They wrote The Angel of Avalon together, when it was just the two of them, before they formed Love’s Secret Domain. It’s a deep cut; they only played it in concert a few times. Too old-fashioned. Not a heavy enough bass line. But it remains her favorite of all their songs. “That’s an old one,” he says. “Very old. I am surprised you know of it. Are you a fan?”
“Your biggest fan,” she says. “I went to every one of your shows. Never missed a one.”
“I’m honored,” he laughs. “You brought me my girl; I shall give you the song! But I shall have to sing both parts. And it shall be a bit thin without Sylvie’s harmony. Toss me a pick, honey.” Robert Mynwar is a finger-picker; sometimes he’d come off a show with fingertips cut to meat; his guitar solos were flecked with flying drops of blood. But she played lead guitar on The Angel of Avalon (another reason they rarely played it live) and she never saw any reason to be so dramatic with her playing. She uses a pick.
She’s carried the pick all the way from the Waking World nestled in the vee of her breasts; it’s warm from her flesh, and it glints like a tiny black star when she flicks it through the air towards him.
The second the iron pick touches his hand, the enchantment fails. Sylvie knows it fails because she can hear the melody of The Angel of Avalon begin to dance out of the Queen of Life. The familiar notes make her grin with joy; despite herself, she finds her hips, her shoulders, begin to move in time to the song’s pull. It’s a happy song, a song made for dancing, and for love, despite the yearning lyrics. His eyes are closed; he’s so intent on playing he doesn’t see she’s climbed on the stage, doesn’t see her coming towards him.
She sings out:
“Still statue standing
My life is a protection
I’m waiting for a crown, a king—
His voice joins hers now: “That may never come—”
He looks up, and sees her, his face crumbling into bewilderment. His left hand freezes on the fretboard, his right hand lets fall the pick. But the song does not stop, the song has taken on a life of its own, it dances on, chords tumbling over each other, furiously racing out into the faery throng, filling the ballroom with a glorious galloping melody that makes her bones quiver, her organs vibrate, her teeth clatter in her mouth. The lake, above, has churned into a squall.