Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #13 April 2015 | Page 149

arms around the harp to protect it, and she heard a
sickening crunch in her wrist that sent a spike of pain
along her forearm.

drummer, looking neither left nor right. She was sickened to see that the youngest had no more than eight
summers behind her.

Elvienne hissed her contempt, but she said nothing,
her paper-dry hands helping Onelle to her feet. Her
fingers lingered on Onelle’s wrist where she had landed on it.

At the sound of the first drumbeat, Onelle paled, and
now she swayed slightly, clinging to her harp. “My
mother…” she moaned.

“It’s not broken,” she said. “Can you still play?”
“I have to, don’t I?”
“If you want Rosleen to live…”
“Then I can play.” There was sticky warmth on her
shins. “My legs…?”
“Bleeding, but not badly.” Elvienne lifted the precious
harp from her arms, and there was a soft thump as she
set it down on the platform. Onelle heard the scrape
of a stool and she sat on it cautiously, trying to orient
herself now she was robbed of her sight. She groped
forward, felt the strings of the harp tremble and thrum
under her fingers. A hand brushed her shoulder, dry
skin and knuckles like knots. Elvienne.
“Will you tell me when?” Onelle asked.
Elvienne squeezed her shoulder lightly. “I will,” she
promised.
#
The cloudwood tree the village took its name from
stood at the edge of the stream, and this morning its
lower branches were decorated with blood red ribbons. A few feet in front of it, a thick stake the height
of a man was driven into the ground. A crowd of
eager spectators gathered, both on the green and in the
specially erected viewing stand where Elvienne and
Onelle now waited. There was an air of hushed anticipation, and then, softly at first but growing louder as it
approached, came the steady beat of a drum. The people on the green parted as if at a signal, and Elvienne
could see the slow-moving procession of white-robed
girls, each carefully shielding the candle she carried
with her hand. They moved as one, in step behind the

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“Your mother, yes. Remember. Remember what happened that day. Remember your song. Now is the time,
Onelle. You must sing. And don’t stop, no matter what
you may hear.”
Onelle nodded, raising her hands to the harp, instinct
finding the right strings. She winced as she began to
play, twisting her swollen wrist unnaturally, forcing
her voice through the pain. As the first notes sounded
and her voice rose the people around her fell silent,
and stepped back in respect.
Elvienne leaned over the rail and watched the procession. Rosleen walked at the back of it like a sleepwalker, hands bound behind her. As she passed the stand
she turned her face towards the healer, and Elvienne
saw the exhaustion there, the quiet, futile rage. She
wished she could call some word of comfort to the
girl, but Onelle’s lament filled her ears, working the
magic she had given it.
The girls in white spread out to form a circle around
the stake as two of their number led Rosleen up to it.
There was a brief struggle as they untied her hands,
then rebound them behind it before picking up the
tapering candles they had left on the grass. Rosleen
leaned her head back against the pillar. If she was crying, she did so silently.
Onelle may not be able to see her, but she turned her
blind face unerringly in that direction. Her voice was
rising now, lost as she was in the song she had worked
all night to create. She sang a counterpoint to the chant
of the maidens of Whitewood as they circled the stake
like wolves on the prowl.
“She who loves true will not burn,
She who loves true will be spared,
She who loves true will not burn.”