It was an odd tune. Odd yet compelling. Larin heard it across the courtyard and stopped the strumming of his own lute to listen. It was unlike any music he had ever heard. He half hoped to see a new, unknown instrument in the hands of the player and was only slightly disappointed when he saw that it was a simple lute much like his own.  But it didn’t sound like a lute.  The sound that echoed within its hollow chamber was much deeper, but it still held that wondrous magic that only the higher notes can invoke.

Larin edged closer to the musician, walking around a pillar to get a better view of the man’s face.  His face was dotted with dirt, his beard sprinkled with crumbs.  His clothes were tattered and ripped, and from where he was standing, Larin thought he could smell the stench of the man; the smell of sweaty flesh and unwashed clothes was repugnant.  It was faint this far away, but he dared not move closer.  The instrument the man played belied his appearance.  It was perhaps the most finely crafted lute Larin had ever seen.  It seemed the man’s soul was in that lute, almost as if the instrument had drained him of life and left the dirty, smelly carcass behind.  If the man’s music was a reflection of his soul, then Larin was certain the man was the richest man to have ever lived.

Others were watching the musician from their corners and their chosen patches of asphalt in the courtyard.  Larin noticed that very few people were still playing their instruments.  The awe on his face was mirrored on the faces of his fellow musicians.  The rise and swell of the tune held him entranced.  He fumbled about for his recorder but found that he had forgotten it.

Larin couldn’t remember a time when one musician held the attention of everyone.  It bordered on sin, and more than one face wore a frown.  It was almost harmonic.  That very word sliding through Larin’s mind made him shiver.  Thinking about things he shouldn’t always made him feel that way.  It was delightful and terrifying at the same time.

No one moved for a long time.  They watched the artist with mixed feelings of awe, outrage and envy.

From the east side of the courtyard another man entered.  He was carrying a violin.  He deliberately walked up to the man playing his lute and sat next to him.  Larin’s heart skipped a beat when the violinist put the violin to his neck and started to play.  There were audible gasps from the onlookers.  Most turned and left——quickly.  A smile crept up on Larin’s face.  The woman standing next to him cursed, spat on the ground and fled the courtyard.

It was simply the most beautiful music Larin had ever heard.  Beautiful as it was, there was still something missing.  Like the missing third leg of a tripod, the tune toppled and fell.  Right in the middle of a note, the two musicians stopped playing and strode off out of the courtyard.  And in that first moment of silence afterward, Larin left a mix of anger and guilt.  Guilt for enjoying the harmony.  Anger that it had ended.

Soon, he found himself alone.  He couldn’t remember everyone leaving and chided himself for losing his soul for those brief moments to the music.  It was his weakness.  He knew the evil of harmony, that music could strip a man of his soul.  But he knew there were some who said that a man didn’t have a soul without music.  The Harmonizers.  They were Harmonizers, he realized.

He shook himself physically and mentally before turning for his lute.  He picked it up and followed his long gone peers out of the courtyard.

***

It was a long walk home, but the music rendered time meaningless.  During the long stretches of road between the homesteads where he was sure no one could hear him, Larin strummed two strings together and shivered at the sound, the harmony, that floated around him and threatened to steal away his soul.  It was orgasmic.  He longed for those moments in shear agony and knew that the guilt he felt was tearing away the beauty of it all.  How could he call it that?  It was rotten, but he could not stop.  Like the spring melt, he could not fight the rush of harmony that threatened to sweep him out to sea.

He shuddered to think what would happen to him if someone found out.  Why the lute was even made with more than one string make him angry.  The Makers and Elders claimed that the temptation to harmonize was good, that in resisting the temptation a man would strengthen his resolve.  Larin thought that was plain stupidity.  Of course, he wasn’t an Elder or a Maker.  He was just an apprentice musician.

Larin picked up his pace toward home.  He had a story to tell of this day, of the harmony in the courtyard.  A few minutes later, just as he saw the speck of the house where he lived off in the distance, he heard footsteps behind him.  Turning, he goggled.

The two musicians, the Harmonizers, were behind him.  The dirty one waved to him.  Larin didn’t know how to react.  Should he wave back?  Dare he talk to them?

He lifted his arm and weakly waved back.  And he didn’t turn back toward his home.  He waited for them.  Something rooted his feet on the hard-packed dirt road.  Maybe they would play for him.  Better yet, maybe Larin would play with them.

The two men trotted up to him and stopped.  The second musician who had entered the courtyard was an exact opposite of the first.  Where the first was dirty, the second was clean.  His clothes were obviously new; the only sign of wear was the dust on his shoes.  His violin, however, was as tattered and worn as the dirty, bearded lutist.  They were both sweating, and while the lutist picked his nose and scratched his butt, the violinist pulled a white square of cloth from his pocket, wiped his forehead and then dusted off his shoes.

“It’s a hot day today, isn’t it lad?” said the violinist.  The lutist coughed, snorted and spat on the ground at his feet.  He rubbed it into the dirt with his foot.

“It is that, yes,” said Larin.

“I wonder if you might be able to spare us a glass of water?  I’m parched.”

“Of course, but my house is yet a way up the road.”

“We’ll walk with you, lad.  And talk, of course.”

Larin turned without another word and started walking toward his home.  What had he just done?  Invited a pair of Harmonizers to his home?  Apprehension made him stumble, and he barely caught himself with one hand on the ground while quickly moving his lute out of the way with the other.

“Watch your step,” said the lutist, his first words.  His voice sounded like sandpaper on the wood of a new lute.

“I’m sorry,” Larin said, declining the violinist’s outstretched hand.  “I guess I’m a little nervous.  Are you two. . .”  He couldn’t bring himself to ask the question.

“Harmonizers?” the violinist finished for him.  Then he laughed.  “Actually, yes.”

“I don’t think you better come to my house, then.  I’ll not be seen or associate with Harmonizers.”  If they only knew how difficult that was for him to say.  His heart told him to abandon everything and join them, to let loose his need for harmony, to accept who he really was instead of suppressing it.

“We’ve been watching you,” said the lutist.  “It’s time for you to join us.”

The violinist shot an angry look toward the lutist.  “Not so fast, Gerad.”  He turned back to Larin.  “You remained in the courtyard until the end.  You were touched by the. . .harmony.”

“I was touched, yes, but that doesn’t mean I will join you.”  He glanced at Gerad.  Gerad was looking at the ground, however, and wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Harmony is not a sin, Larin.  That’s just what you’ve been taught all your life.  We are—”

“I’ve argued with myself over the same points,” said Larin.  “I can find no justification.  Harmony brought down our ancestors to near extinction.  I have no desire to be part of a people who will allow history to repeat itself.  The Harmonizers have wars.  We do not.  That is more important to me than harmony itself.”  And that wasn’t a lie.

“I told you he would be—“

“Shut-up!” said the violinist.  When he was calm again, he smiled.  “You mean the chance of history repeating itself.  You know your history.  The Valudians, for example.  They brought themselves to total extinction and they didn’t allow harmony.”

“I know all the arguments,” said Larin.  “Believe me, I’ve done my research.  I want more than anything to embrace harmony, but as I said before, I cannot justify it.”

“We’re wasting our time,” said Gerad. “Let’s go, Eran.”  Eran ignored him.  He lifted his violin and began to play.  It was a lilting tune, a ballad.  But it was so drab, so skeletal.  Larin knew the second part of the tune.  He had once heard them played together on a recording.  That second part had breathed flesh into the music, made it whole—and turned his stomach with guilt.  Before he realized what he was doing, he raised the lute in his arms and was about to strum a note.  At a smile of encouragement from Gerad, Larin caught himself just microseconds before creating the harmony that would threaten his soul.  But then he played anyway.  Careless and wild, he let the music come, felt it course through his fingers.  And his soul rejoiced.  The harmony gave life color, gave it meaning and dressed it in flesh.  How could something so beautiful be so bad?  A moment passed, and then Gerad was playing, too.  Three instruments together!  It was the most blessed sound Larin had ever heard.  He couldn’t stop, now.  Not until it was over.  Oblivious to anyone who might pass by and hear them, Larin played on.  The notes came out effortlessly and flawlessly, as if he had played with the two for a hundred years.  He wished he had his recorder so that he might listen to such beauty in the days and weeks to come.

Too soon, it was over.  The last trailing notes faded and brought a fitting close to the music.  Larin wiped tears from his eyes.  His legs were trembling, and he slowly brought his lute down to his side.

Eran, too, was wiping tears from his eyes.  “Wasn’t that the most beautiful thing you have ever heard?” he asked.

That was what had been missing from their music in the courtyard, Larin realized.  A second lute.  His lute.  But now the sound was gone.  And rushing in to fill the void was guilt.  It overpowered Larin with anger.  Was he angry that the music had stopped or that he had played it in the first place?  As he stood pondering that question, the realization of what he had done sunk in.  He could be banished from his people for that one song.  But it wasn’t his fault!  If these two hadn’t come along. . .

The two men standing before him were his enemies, sent to bring about his banishment so that he would have nowhere to turn but to them. “You used me!” he bellowed.  In a spout of rage, he smashed his lute on the ground.  Again and again he hit the ground with it.  “You manipulated me!” he raged.  When there was nothing left but a pile of splintered wood and twisted strings, he sat down, put his head in his hands and wept.

“You are a good man, Larin,” Eran said guardedly.  “Good enough, I’m sure, to understand that we mean no ill-will toward you or yours.”

Between sobs Larin said, “You’ve just destroyed my life!  I’ll be banished.”

“You can come with us.”

Larin looked up at the man.  “You made me play with you!  It was your intent to make me play so that I would be forced to turn to you!  Wasn’t it?”

Eran spread his arms in a gesture of self-defense.  “You played your lute, not I.  I do not control your fingers.”

“Is that who the Harmonizers are?  A group of people who have been manipulated, who don’t really wish to be Harmonizers?  Will I now go with one of you to recruit others?”

“It’s not like that, Larin.  Your music gives your life purpose.  Here. . .” he gestured in a circle, “there is nothing.  In a place without music, nothing can live.  Are you alive, Larin?  Have you truly lived?  Are you happy?  Shake off your shackles and see the truth.  There is nothing glorious in this place.  Come to heaven with us, Larin.  There is a heaven on earth.  And it has music.  It has harmony.”

For a long moment there was only the sound of Larin’s heavy breathing.  Finally he said between clenched teeth, “Go to hell.  Both of you.”  He turned and sprinted up the road, leaving his smashed lute on the ground.

Eran watched him go, then walked to the broken lute and stooped to pick it up.  “I guess he’ll not be sharing his water with us, now,” said Gerad from behind.  “I don’t think anyone here will.”

“The boy will share with us.  He is ours now.  Let’s go.”  He left the broken lute where it lay and trotted after Larin, Gerad right behind.

***

Larin knew they were following him.  He didn’t need to glance back to see them coming.  Some dark place within him rejoiced that they were, and try as he might, he could not suppress it.  The harmony refused to leave his mind.  He had never imagined such feeling existed.  The tingling of his whole body, the fullness of his soul during that music was so overwhelming that he could think of nothing else, almost could not remember his own name.  How could that be so wrong?  He should turn and accept them. . .

No.  He would not, could not, give in to such temptation.  The beast of harmony, the eater of human souls, the cause of so much death.  That’s what it was.  It controlled minds, shaped thoughts by its lilts and dives and intricate combinations.  Its rhythms swayed flesh to its bidding, made slaves of honest people and they couldn’t even see it.  They even accepted it wholeheartedly.  No, Larin would not let music trap him.  He would overcome it, keep it at bay, and the two demons following him would go back to the hell on the outside with the other demons.  He would not go with them.  He would find a way to pay for his sin, to reconcile his wrongdoing with the ones he loved.  They would forgive him if he pleaded.  It had happened before.

Larin dared not turn to look at the demons, but ran, sometimes walking to catch his breath, all the way home.  They would get no water from him!

He arrived home quickly, threw open the door, walked into the kitchen where his mother was preparing supper, slammed the door behind him and promptly fell to his knees.  With tears in his eyes, he said, “Oh, Mother.  Please forgive me, for I have committed a terrible sin.”

His mother was there in a moment, hugging his head to her stomach.  “What is it, son?  What have you done?”

“I played harmony with the Harmonizers, two men I saw at the courtyard this morning.  They came upon me and manipulated me into playing with them.  From start to finish, I played a song with them. Forgive me!  I felt the pull of the music, Mother.  It took over my soul.  It could have done whatever it wanted with me.”

Just then there was a knock at the door.  Larin leaped up from the floor and cowered behind his mother.  “That’s them.  They followed me home.  Don’t let them take me to the outside.  Make the Elders forgive me.  Make them give me one more chance!”

Larin’s mother gently pushed him away.  She smoothed her skirts and apron, walked to the door and timidly opened it a crack, peering outside.  A man with a big smile looked back at her and said, “Good lady.  Might I ask for two glasses of water, one for myself and one for my companion?  We’ve come a long way and it is a hot day.”  He looked up at the sun, returned his smile to her.

“Harmonizers are not allowed in this home.  Not even for a glass of water.”

“You’ve only just met us, good lady,” the man replied.  “To suggest that we are Harmonizers is indeed most unkind.  I assure you, good lady, that we are not and do not associate with the Harmonizers.  A simple glass of water is all we ask, and then we’ll be on our way.”

She let the door open all the way and admitted the two strangers.  What harm could they be?  A glass of water and they would leave.  It was her duty to help.  Larin hissed and moved to the corner, in the shadows.  The two men he had shared a song with walked into their home.

“Thank you, good lady,” said Eran, taking a seat at the small dining room table.  Gerad took a seat next to him.  They both waved to Larin as if to a little boy.  Not a word was spoken while Larin’s mother fetched a pair of heavy pewter glasses and filled them with water.  When the two glasses were before them, the two musicians lifted them in unison and drank in unison, replacing them empty on the tabletop at precisely the same moment.  They even sighed together.  “Harmony is unity,” said Eran.  “Unity is strength.  And where there is strength, there is harmony.  Which comes first?  Strength cannot exist without unity.  Unity cannot exist without harmony, but harmony can exist all by itself.”

“Get out of here!” cried Larin.  “Get the hell out of here right now!”

“Yes,” echoed his mother.  “Leave now.”

“Thank you for the water.  It tasted like. . .like music.  Like the harmonious melody we just played, Larin.  You and I and Gerad, together.  May you drink with us again.”

“Get out!” Larin commanded. He disappeared up the staircase.

“I regret that I let you in,” Larin’s mother said softly.  She wasn’t one to raise her voice and could not even now, with Harmonizers in her kitchen.  “Please leave.  You’ve caused the boy enough trouble.  I must see to him.”

“To feed him the lie of solidarity, no doubt,” said Erin just as softly.  “That solitude is the way of man today.  Every one in his own world, every one a hermit.  Live a one note life, right?  Too many notes cause wars and strife.  Deny the pleasure to avoid the pain.  Such a shame.”  He tapped his fingers on the table and shook his head.  Larin’s mother wrung her apron until her knuckles were white.  She didn’t like having her beliefs questioned by someone who could wrap words in a bow when she herself fumbled them like a handful of pebbles.

“I asked you to leave.  I won’t ask again.”

Erin held out his hands, palms up, then stood and pushed in his chair.  “Again, thank you for the water,” he said, bowing.  Then he and Gerad left.  Larin’s mother watched them for a long time through the parted curtain partially covering the front window.  Then she went to the staircase and started to climb.

***

Larin knew the soft knock at his door was his mother’s.  He also knew that letting her in would show his penitence.  He called softly to her and she entered.  He felt her weight when she sat on the bed next to him and felt her hand on his back.  She massaged his back up and down, slowly.  For a long time she said nothing, then, “Everything’s going to be all right, Larin.”

They were the sweetest words he had ever heard.  He was forgiven!  He turned and hugged her, wetting her shoulder with his tears.

“No one will ever know,” she whispered.  Larin’s sobs deepened.

“I love you, Mother,” he said when he found his voice again.  “I’ll never do it again.  I Promise.”

“I know you won’t,” was the gentle but firm reply.

For one brief moment Larin felt a pang of regret.  The harmony had been so absorbing, so powerful and so poignant that he longed to rush out his door and abandon everything that was right and true to taste it just one more time.

He was proud of how quickly he was able to suppress it.
 

Copyright 1997 Chad Cottle

You can e-mail Chad chad@titanzine.com
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