Without Rhythm (The Lament) (13 page)

That meant that Bard Benjamin, Doctor Millis and Judge Claire just stayed in the eating area too, the Bard grinning as the ship slowly listed, the room tilting by several feet, but the chairs not moving, since they were part of the floor.

"Alright everyone, would you like a special treat, since no one else is watching?" He gave Claire a conspiratorial look and pulled out his guitar, which he tuned carefully, then walked over to Pran slowly holding it out.

"If you would?"

Pran nearly said no. It seemed almost cruel to make her do it, but there was a need for it. These others, the respectable Doctor and the Judge needed to know that she hadn't been kicked out of school because she was a poor performer. That would be the most obvious reason after all. She took it and set herself, trying to stay totally focused, but finding that her world narrowed as she did it.

Then she played as if it were the most important thing she'd ever done.

The song was one she'd written about a year before. An instrumental piece that had complicated fingerings and very regular timing. She hadn't noticed that before, since all music was like that, but now she couldn't help it. All that strange running and paying attention was already having an effect.

When the song ended she paused for ten seconds, which was the normal time for such things and started singing a simple children's tune. It took her three passes, but the first was played the way everyone knew it, her voice sweet and young sounding. The nursery rhyme about animals and playing a game of chase sounding the way it was normally thought of.

Then without changing a single word, the song changed, new emphasis on each word making it darker, a dangerous thing that would haunt the memories of those that heard it. The song wasn't about animals playing a game at all. It was about death chasing a town. A plague that stole the life from even the most innocent.

Then she went through it again, going back to the simple children's version.

The next song was just her version of the popular song "Say Hey". When she stopped no one said anything for a long time. It was always an awkward thing for her when people did that. Did they like it or not? Had she suddenly gotten so bad that no one would ever talk to her again? Was it something else? She had to refrain from looking over her shoulders then, but an actual noise caught her attention. It was Mara, with Clark standing next to her, each holding weapons.

That and cleaning kits.

Clark grunted at her, looking less than pleased for some reason. For a few seconds Pran wondered if he found her music offensive, he looked so disgusted. It wasn't that. Not at all.

"So, do we know why they decided to destroy her career the day before she was to be shipped off? I can't imagine that an accidentally broken leg was the real reason. The boy didn't seek to press charges and from the sound of it, he'd have lost even if he had. An accident is, after all, just an accident."

Ben took the instrument back and started plinking a little tune on it absently, background music for the conversation.

"I talked to the Headmaster of the school earlier, to try and figure out that very thing. It isn't a big mystery. The school council is made of three people. Two of them are related to a young Bard named Ricards, who will be graduating next month. He apparently isn't as good as Pran, but is still quite serviceable. By getting rid of the competition he'll have a better chance of having a good appointment. Perhaps even a top choice. There's a rumor that Bard Clarice is looking for an apprentice. Anyone getting that position will pretty much have their career made for them. She's the head Bard after all. It would mean all the best parties and connections. It seems that the Headmaster was told, in no uncertain terms that this would be Ricards. When he suggested that it be taken on merit, as it always has been, there was a sudden change in the harshness of punishments. None as difficult as what Pran is undergoing however."

No one said anything for a few minutes, but Pran felt a fine and cool anger rise from the pit of her stomach and finally stood.

"That... I'll..." The thing was, she couldn't do anything to them for it. The school council was the final word on things like that, as far as she knew. It didn't seem fair at all, but she didn't have a real way to stop them. It wasn't like she could call on her family connections to fight them.

She plunked down and shook her head.

"I..." For the first time since the whole thing had started she cried. Large tears rolling over her cheeks at the unfairness of it all, she didn't sob though. After all, she hadn't been raped. No she'd only been robbed of her future.

Just to get a little bit more for a family member, those evil people had taken her life away. Everything she'd worked for was just gone now and nothing she could do would ever change it. Her heart hurt, but Doctor Millis just walked over to where she sat, and sunk into the chair next to her.

"There, there... don't worry overly. We'll simply contact the Bard's regional council and see if this can't be fixed. We can do that, can't we?" He looked over his glassed at the others, getting a nod from them all.

Bard Benjamin gave a small smile.

"That should do it. If not we have a few other things to try first. If nothing else we can have Pran play all over this sector, until everyone demands to know why she isn't a full Bard. We should hold off on that one, give the government a chance to fix this reasonably first."

It was a bit of hope and Pran took it, even knowing that for an orphan like her there probably wasn't a lot anyone would be willing to do.

Ricards would win, because he had people that
had
to look out for him.

She just didn't have that and never would.

Not now.

Her one real shot at making something of herself had been taken away.

Now all she had left was one slim thread to dangle from, this fake apprenticeship, which could snap at any time.

The easy thing to do would have been to just give up on hearing the news that things were as stacked against her as it seemed. Pran knew that never worked though. She'd seen it, over and over. People got a rough deal and then stopped trying. It could be an unfair grade in school, or not being picked to be adopted at the orphanage. Those people didn't do well at all. They gave up, and things just got worse for them, until they found the bottom of where the world was allowing them to go.

She wasn't at that point yet.

Instead she took a few deep breaths and tried to focus on the world around her, listening to what everyone else said, even if it wasn't about her or her little problems.

That was something she knew for a fact too. Her problems were nothing. She hadn't been raped the day before and even if she had, Pran was leaving on an airship with important people, not staying in the same town to be judged and pitied by her friends and people on the street like poor Meridith. No matter how bad things felt, they weren't that bad. She had a chance and something that Bard Ben had said got her attention after a few minutes.

"Wait, I can play places? I thought you had to be a full Bard to get any of the good jobs..."

That got everyone else in the dining room to look at each other, the Doctor looking particularly puzzled.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean dear..."

Ben grinned and shook his head slowly.

"But
I
do. At the art school the kids are told that they can't do anything in the world if they don't graduate. To an extent that's even true. Pran is a very good sculptor for instance, but the only group hiring regularly for statues is the state. If you aren't a full Bard it's hard to get work like that no matter how skilled you are." He placed his hands over the strings, making them silent, leaving the room with an empty feeling then.

"That doesn't mean there isn't work, just that you don't get the big money from doing it. No full Bard will play taverns or street corners for instance. You can make a living doing that, especially if you have real talent. No one keeps you from doing it, but it's a rougher crowd than what you get at the large city players' halls. Acting is the same way. You can join the smaller companies of actors and make a living at it, if the troop is good. There's a lot that can be done, but it isn't what the art students are told to expect. The dream is to be Bard Clarice and play four concerts a year for the High Council. I was kind of wondering why you'd jump straight to whoring yourself, even if you are cute. You could probably have simply sung and gotten people to pay you for it. Worked from there. Made some simple instruments and build a client base."

The news was kind of heartening, if true. Very different from what the school had taught her. It made her a little upset for a minute, until she forced herself to let that go too.

"That's good. I won't have to starve then, once I get kicked off the ship?"

That line got Mara to shrug.

"Probably not. Still, so far you've done well. You should at least give this a try for a few more days, maybe do some laundry, that sort of thing, before you just jump ship. It can't hurt to get a few extra skills anyway. Right? Maybe you could turn it into a story or something someday when you're famous." The words were pretty hopeful, which got Pran to stand up, staggering a little as the floor slowly tilted. not too much since it was moving back toward flat.

Clark noticed it and gestured.

"Leveling off. Then straight north until morning."

Pran sighed and tried to stretch which hurt a lot more than it should from just a little jogging. She hadn't gone far at all, but her legs burned inside. It was all she could do not to groan.

"Fine. Can we do laundry in the air? I might as well get to it now, if I can, before bed." She looked at Mara who looked pretty hopeful for a few seconds, then stood and chuckled.

"Ah... What a good apprentice you are. Let me just go and collect that. I'll show you to the room for it." She jumped up like she was getting a new home with a pony or something.

It got everyone else to do it too, including Claire and Doctor Millis. Ben was the first one out the door though, practically running.

Clark didn't, he just sat, looking down his nose at the other Guardian.

"Mara." It was a single word, flat and almost bored sounding. It didn't work to stop the woman though, as she grabbed Pran by the arm laughing and tried to drag her out.

"Don't worry about him. I'll get his clothes too. We'll just get this set right up and..."

Somehow that Pran didn't understand at all the large muscular man had moved in front of them in the hallway and stood hands out as if to catch them.

"Don't you think she's had enough to do so far today? By morning she'll probably have trouble walking. It seems a bit much to have her slaving away at our wash too."

Mara stopped and then put her right arm around Pran's shoulders protectively.

"I know what I'm doing Clark. It's a new meditative exercise. Mindful clothes washing. Think of it as a compliment to the rest of the training. Besides, I'm running out of things to wear and if it doesn't get done tonight, I'll have to do it myself. We can't have that, can we?"

Both of them were in black, but neither seemed to blend into the shadows all that well in the dimly lit corridor. Instead they stood out against the light gray of the walls, like she did. It would have been hard to vanish like they had the night before. Of course the black of the world outside was intense. The inside was lit with lamps of some kind that cast a strange light blue glow. It wasn't oil pod or anything she was familiar with. Not even electric.

Mara was still acting way too giddy over laundry when she opened the door to the room Pran was supposed to work in. It was just big enough for one person to be in at a time, with complex racks for hanging everything on. Fresh air, from outside most likely, blew in hard from vents in the ceiling right along the back wall. The floor was a grating, one of sturdy metal at least, which was good, since she was pretty sure that under that was open sky. She could make out black and nothing else, but what were the odds that was just the room below them? After all, it was the bottom floor.

The set up was pretty normal other than that, a wash tub next to one for rinsing. Then a set of rollers on the wall to help speed the drying. Not a big problem, except the fact that seeing the pitch black below them was intimidating. She didn't want to die, but it wasn't that bad, she decided, focusing on what she was doing instead of the chance of falling. Metal was strong. It would hold her.

Mara giggled, a young sound that got Pran to make a face at her.

"I see, so this is some kind of joke? Put the new girl in the room with no floor and see if she can hack it? Well, I don't care. Bring on the clothes." She sounded perfectly relaxed, which she wasn't, but this fear was a lot smaller than a lot of things she'd been facing lately. Pran knew she could manage it.

Clark grinned then, or smiled really, his white teeth shining in the dim light.

"Now that we know we don't have to listen to painful girlish shrieking I guess we should see to that." He patted her on the back, which was firmer than she expected, like it was conveying a message of some kind. Probably about not letting the others see how freaked out she actually was.