Chapter the Fifth of Part the Second
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Mark Streeter in Assid City, Hooglaan.
“Next we will sing ‘On Judgement’ by Frank Burggo,” said Fresnik Singer.
The long-haired man waited for the boys to shuffle through their music papers until they found the song. Mark Streeter had never seen a man like Fresnik Singer before being he was assigned to the choir at the Venerable Nemor Gray’s discretion. Fresnik’s clothes were almost as ragged as a streeter’s but he and his wife lived in a set of rooms in the Venerable Nemor Gray’s mansion and so couldn’t be poor. The conductor raised his hands and then dropped them.
“Peete, I know you would rather play on the lawn outside, but looking at it through the window now only delays the wonderful moment when you will be out there. So please look at me, even though I’ve never won a glamor judgment in my life.”
Fresnik Singer raised his hands a second time and the boys sang:
If you do not judge another,
Another will not judge you.
If you judge another harshly,
By others you will be harshly judged.
The singing of the solemn piece became increasingly ragged and tentative until Fresnik Singer clapped his hands to stop the choir.
“As you undoubtedly noticed, that was not spectacularly good,” said Fresnik. “Mark, could you please sing it for us?”
In spite of the frown from Tormo Redhand, Mark was pleased to be called on. Fresnik played the chord on the harmony maker and Mark sang the verse clearly and steadily.
“Yes,” said Fresnik, “that is quite the way I like to hear it. Do the rest of you know why Mark Streeter sings so much better than the rest of you?”
“He’s better at singing,” said Timmon.
“Well, it is true that Mark has talent, but so do the rest of you,” said Fresnik. “I would suggest that the reason that Mark Streeter sings better than the rest of you is because he works harder at the music than the rest of you.”
Mark thought Timmon was right. Singing came easier to him than picking pockets. The reason he spent extra time learning the music was because he liked it so much.
“Now that you have heard the verse the way it should sound, sing it again,” said Fresnik Singer.
Mark could hear most of the boys leaning on his voice, but they still sang with some improvement.
“That’s better,” said Fresnik Singer. “You got most of the notes this time. Now the text that Frank Burggo set has some important things to say that we all need to hear. That is why the tempo is moderately slow and the solemn melody is not complicated. To get the mood of the music and the words across, you need to sing with strength, supporting your tone, and you must sing the words clearly. The word ‘harshly’ is on a high, climactic note each time it is sung. You need to swell in volume each time you approach that word. That too, is something that Mark Streeter did very well. Now again.”
The boys sang through the verse again with Mark doing what he could to push the choir without overdoing it, something Fresnik Singer had cautioned him about.
“Well, that is sounding better and I have hope that you will sound better still with some more practice and some more work. It might interest you that there is one other boys choir in this city, the Assid City Municipal Boys Choir. They rehearse and perform in the City Civic Hall. There are some people who think that only boys of rich families are capable of singing well. I don’t want anyone to think badly of those boys on account of their being born to rich families. However, I don’t want anyone to think badly of you boys because you come from—well, no families at all, in some cases. You are the ones who will have an opportunity to show this city what boys like you can do with a chance and a bit of work. Tomorrow we will have our first practice in the chapel where you will actually be performing your first public concert. You have worked hard. You may go.”
Mark noticed as he left the song room that Tormo Redhand had that look that spelled trouble. That was nothing new. There was nothing but trouble between them when they were both streeters and it stood to reason there would be nothing but trouble between them at the Venerable Nemor Gray’s mansion. Tormo’s welcoming words to Mark and Timmon and Guerry were that he wished the three boys would throw themselves in front of a speeding train. After being commended at Tormo’s expense by Fresnik Singer, Mark knew that a challenge was going to be hurled at him in the dormitory that night. Mark’s victory over Tormo his first night in the dormitory had not gone over well with Tormo. That night, Tormo announced to Mark, Guerry and Timmon that it was customary for first-night boys to walk a gauntlet where the other boys swung pillow sheets stuffed with shoes at them. Mark would not have minded the pain much for himself, but the smaller boys were terrified, for good reason.
“Is it true, then, that every boy here has suffered this gauntlet?” Mark asked.
Several boys nodded or said it was, but Mark could see that the question made two or three boys uncomfortable.
“It hurt, too,” said a boy named Malvert with more relish than Mark liked.
“Peete, did you suffer this gauntlet?”
The boy’s face convinced Mark that he had guessed right and his squeaking a “yes” did not convince anyone.
“Tormo, did you ever suffer the gauntlet?”
The question was fatal to the custom and that made Tormo a greater enemy than he ever was on the streets of Assid City. Many of the boys shrugged, but Malvert glared at Mark and then flung his shoe-filled pillow sheet at him. Mark caught the missile easily enough and tossed it on to Malvert’s bed, realizing that Malvert was going to be an even worse enemy than Tormo.
When the boys filed into their dormitory to change into their nightgowns, Tormo Redhand gave Mark a look that made it clear that he indeed was about to issue him a major challenge.
“Mark Streeter,” said Tormo is a voice loud enough to get everybody’s attention.
“What do you wish to ask of me?” Mark asked with mock respect.
“Have you noticed that the library is haunted?”
“Of course I have. I haven’t met any of the ghosts as yet, though.”
Mark did feel that the library was the sort of place where ghosts might lurk at night or even during the day.
“Well, tonight is your chance to meet one.”
“Which ghost?” asked Mark, making sure he showed no fear at what he now knew was being asked of him.
“The ghost of the Exalted Mayer Hossratt.”
“Who is he—or, who was he?”
“The Exalted Mayer Hossratt spent all of his time in the library, studying books that other people in the city thought should no longer be studied,” Tormo explained. “And so, one of the leading citizens of the town came into the library by night to spy on him. He found there the Exalted Mayer Hossratt reading a book he should not have been reading. And so the leading citizen killed him. Ever since, the ghost of the Exalted Mayer Hossratt has haunted the library where he reads all the books he still shouldn’t read. Since you like to read books so much, why not pay him a visit tonight and talk to him about what you have been reading?”
Mark did not believe the story and he knew most of the other boys did not believe it either. That, however, was all the more reason to accept the challenge. If the ghost of the Exalted Mayer Hossratt did not exist, then there was nothing to worry about except for the trick of lights and shadows and the gurgling noises an old house makes at night.
“There is one small detail,” said Mark. “The library is locked at night.”
Mark held up a key and cast his cool smile.
“It won’t stay locked if you use this.”
“In that case, I will spend the night in the library,” said Mark stoutly.
The other boys cheered Mark so loudly that Tormo realized his challenge might be hitting him by return train. Mark knew that was dangerous, but not meeting the challenge would be more dangerous yet.
By the middle of the night, Mark was sitting in his favorite reading chair in the library, the house guards being no match for an experienced streeter like him. Only a full moon coming through the tall windows relieved the darkness in the room. Although Mark was quite sure that Tormo Redhand made up the story of the ghost, Mark did believe that the library was haunted in some way. Even in daylight, Mark frequently saw dark shadows creep along one wall or another when the working of light did not account for them. At times, the shapes of the shadows suggested the sort of monsters he himself warned smaller children about to bring them in line. At other times, the shadows looked more like the silhouettes of people lurking. And then there were times when Mark thought that a secret passageway was opening up to a secret room. Every time Mark looked directly at the shadows to find out what they were, they either disappeared or they suddenly looked like normal shadows. Preferring to bite the musket barrel, Mark purposely positioned himself in front of the wall where he saw strange shadows most frequently, daring the ghosts that really haunted the library to show themselves. In the near darkness, Mark was constantly seeing the shadows he saw by day, and yet none of them stayed in place long enough for Mark to see what they really were. Mark had thought Tormo might follow him, but it was Peete who was shivering behind the librarian’s desk. Tormo was turning out to be more cowardly than Mark thought, which was all to Mark’s advantage. Fortunately, Mark had taught “his” boys a couple of tricks in case they were attacked while Mark was away.
The main reason Mark devoured books with even more intensity than he gulped down the food served him by the Venerable Nemor Gray’s cooks was because he had always wondered why it was that he and so many other children were left to grow up homeless on the streets, while so many other citizens of the Assid City were so rich. Mark suspected that it had something to do with rich people being as greedy as streeters like himself. After reading several books, Mark still thought that greed was the cause of the all the homelessness in the city, but he was getting an idea of how greed actually played itself out. In more than one book, Mark read about an evil group called The Disciples of the Master that, many years ago, invaded Hooglaan from an alien world and imposed their oppressive rule on the country. They forbad the printing of books that went against their teachings, they stifled the work of scientists, and they outlawed the selling of material goods for profit. As soon as the shackles of the Disciples of the Master were thrown off, Hooglaan’s scientists learned how to build railroads and make electric lights and factories. Merchants throughout Hooglaan used the factories to become so prosperous that they made Assid City the richest city in the world.
Mark also read that there were some rebels in Assid City who still believed in the teachings of the Master and, as a result, crime had risen as a great social problem, making it necessary for the city to hire huge numbers of guards to arrest the streeters so that they could be sentenced to work in the factories. These same thieves compounded their depravity by having children, although the men and women in the factories were forbidden ever to get together. Mark thought he was beginning to understand why there were so many helpless children and so few grown-ups in the cesspool of Assid City.
Interested in finding out what was so bad about the Disciples of the Master, Mark tried to find any books by anybody who liked the Disciples of the Master. Not having found any so far, Mark wondered if their books had been suppressed the way they had suppressed books they did not like when they were in power. One day, Mark finally asked the librarian, Vander Marco, about the Disciples of the Master. The old man smiled like a child up to twice as much mischief as Tormo Redhand, and then handed Mark a book that included some of the teachings of the Master. That was when Mark found out the words of Burggo’s song “If you do not judge another” came from that book. He was even more impressed when he came across a story of the Master feeding all the hungry people who came to listen to him. Mark began to wonder if more streeters would be fed if the Disciples of the Master came back to power. He also began to wonder if the Venerable Nemor Gray was himself a secret Disciple of the Master.
Mark’s wait for the ghost of the Exalted Mayer Hossratt was finally rewarded by the appearance of a large shadow that blotted out more than half of the wall in front of him. Inside the shadow were small pools of sparkling lights that lit up two gray-robed figures. Mark heard a short, stifled gasp from behind the librarian’s desk.
“You can come join me if it makes you feel safer,” said Mark quietly.
There was a brief silence, then a white streak zipped across the library and Peete’s arm wrapped itself around Mark’s waist. One more return train for Tormo, Mark thought with satisfaction. Mark stepped forward to the dark entrance, dragging a frantic Peete along with him.
“Come on in, the reading’s fine,” said one of the hooded ghosts in a voice that sounded like a boy’s.
Peete squeezed the breath out of Mark.
“He’s reading music,” said the second robed figure, another boy, who sounded as if reading music was like swallowing the medicine the Venerable Nemor Gray’s nurse gave the boys when they were sick.
Mark, hearing music sound in his head, decided that it was better to be brave rather than cowardly and he walked into the room, giving Peete no choice but to come with him. There Mark could see little sparks on the floor, three clusters of sparks where a wall might have been but wasn’t, and a bright lamp hanging above one pile of papers where the boys were reading, but it was not a lamp like anything Mark had seen.
“Are you alive or are you ghosts?” Mark asked them.
“Neither,” said the taller of the boys, “we’re student magi at the Drakkenfleiss Academy.”
“Gosh! We’re just streeters who got arrested and sentenced to sing in a choir,” Mark answered.
“I told you this place draws singers,” said the smaller boy.
“Not as long as I’m here it doesn’t,” said the taller boy.
Peete squealed and tightened his grip on Mark.
“You aren’t going to turn Peete into a garden slug are you?” Mark asked. “Peete’s a good kid and I’ll turn your faces into wheat if you hurt him.”
The older boy gave Mark a fierce Tormo Redhand sort of look and waved his hand as if casting an evil spell. Mark feared that he had overplayed his strength, but nothing happened that hurt him or Peete.
“See?” said the other boy. “I think you’re safe—from magic anyway. I’m Dunsland. Who are you?”
“I’m Mark and my friend here is Peete.”
“The student magus who tried to turn Peete into a garden slug is Malcoomb.”
“Hi Malcoomb,” said Mark.
But Mark could see that being friendly with Malcoomb was a useless as trying to make friends with Tormo.
“What makes you think this place attracts singers?” asked Mark. “Are you singers?”
“Yes, I’m a singer,” said Dunsland, “and so is a boy from another world we met here. And then these words appeared over here. Come take a look.”
Mark knew that Peete didn’t want to come any further into the strange room, if it was a room, than he had to, but Mark was inclined to trust Dunsland and he wanted to see what ‘this’ was all about, and so he dragged Peete over to the sparkling stones where he read the words:
MERITHWELL WILL RETURN TO LIFE WHEN BOYS SING THE STONES BACK INTO BEING WITH HEARTS BROKEN FOR THE LOVE OF SINGING
“Does this mean that if we sing something, more stones will appear? Mark asked.
“So far it does,” said Dunsland. “I’ve been studying some curious music that seems to come from a different world, maybe even yours. Want a look?”
“Truly,” said Mark.
By this time, Peete seemed to be more at ease and was probably more worried about having a boring time than of getting hurt. Mark looked at the music Dunsland showed him. The notation looked odd, but Mark thought he was getting an idea of how it was supposed to sound.
“Want to sing it with me?” asked Dunsland.
“Yes, truly.”
Dunsland sang the song while Mark and Peete followed along. Mark immediately liked it better than anything Fresnik Singer had taught him. The words were rather puzzling though:
Western wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine.
Christ, if my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!
Mark was about to ask who “Christ” was when he saw another boy appear in the space.
“I’m sorry,” said the boy as he backed off.
The clothes worn by the fair-haired boy confused Mark. On the one hand, the design was the sort that only the richest people wore, but the quality of cloth was closer to what market sellers in Assid City wore.
“Are you a singer, too?” Mark asked him.
“Uh—I can sing a little, but I’m not supposed to.”
“Who says?” asked Mark.
“Everybody.”
“Well, I say you can sing here,” said Mark, “so you can’t say ‘everybody’ says you can’t sing.”
“I—I’ve met three other boys here who said I could sing,” said the boy.
“Who?” asked Dunsland.
“Danzigger and Brendan and Luke.”
“Do they come worlds different worlds from your own?” asked Dunsland.
“They say they do. I don’t think anybody in Mastruum would say what they say or what you say.”
“Well, we’re not from whatever-that-place-is either,” said Mark.
“Have you seen the words over there?” Dunsland asked, pointing to the inscription.
“Yes, the words appeared when I was singing with Luke and Brendan.”
“Then you know this place,” said Dunsland.
“A little.”
“Have you sung this song here?”
Kyle looked at the music and his face almost lit up.
“Yea, Brendan and Luke say it comes from their world.”
“Then let’s sing it together,” Dunsland suggested.
And so the boys sang the song and then the next verses, some of which were quite different from the song, while in other verses the music was about the same. Mark, Dunsland and Peete found some of the verses difficult and they often dropped out and let Kyle sing the soaring phrases by himself. Malcoomb wandered off as if searching for something on his own. A ball of fire gently exploded some distance away from the boys. The singing started to falter, but Kyle kept it going and so the other boys joined back in until they came to a stopping place. Malcoomb swooped over and put his hand into the fire. It did not burn him. The other boys clustered around and saw that three stones had formed a part of a wall. To the touch, they felt like stones, but stones were very much alive with the music the boys had been singing.
Proceed to Chapter the Sixth of Part the Second