Chapter the Second of Part the Fourth
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Kyle Pen Marsanga in Wearmont, Mastruum.
A soft chime sounded to end the first silent interval of the meditation. Several of the people rustled quietly in their places and some attendants responded to signs from their masters to fetch what was desired. Kyle Pen Marsanga and the other boys in his choir rose to sing a musical meditation. Magister Marlow Pen Vango stared at the boys to make sure they were ready. Once satisfied, his face softened to put them into the mood for meditative singing. He gave a gentle cue and the boys’s voices floated in. The musical meditation by Toro Pen Norva was, like many works of this genre, was wordless. For the most part it was soft, giving everybody in the meditation room a musical backdrop for their further ruminations. Many of the boys seemed bored with this style of music, but Kyle was quite taken by the unearthly beauty of it. Towards the end, there was a gentle swelling of volume and then a soft conclusion. Just as the last chord was melting away, Kyle sang a brief solo, soaring up softly to a high note. He reached the note with precisely the mellow sound he was aiming for. Magister Pen Vango nodded curtly, a sign that he was not outraged by the performance, and gave the signal either to sit for the next silent mediation period or leave.
Many of the boys left the meditation hall but Kyle stayed, as he often did. Some of the boys gave him sidelong glances on their way out. Even Magister Pen Vango gave Kyle as suspicious look as if he thought Kyle was going to use the time to dream up mischief for the choir. It did not make Kyle popular when he showed more interest in meditation than the other boys did, but if Kyle left with them, one or more of the boys would be sure to say something unflattering about his solo. As for Magister Pen Vango, he would say nothing about the solo except to find fault with it in some way.
Kyle shrugged off the looks and sat down. Franco shuffled his feet and remained standing. Kyle wished he could let Franco sit but that was impossible. An attendant had to stand at all times when on duty, as Kyle knew very well. And even though Kyle wouldn’t want to be served a hot mint during meditation as some people did, he could not dismiss Franco if he stayed in the meditation hall as that also would be contrary to custom. Fortunately, Franco claimed to have some liking for meditation and was content for Kyle to have the same liking. For himself, Kyle was learning to enjoy the long periods of silence more than he thought he would. Meditation was a common custom among the inheritors of Mastruum and most of them went to their nearest meditation hall at least occasionally, and some frequently. Kyle had hardly ever been ordered to attend a family member at meditation hall and so he had almost no experience of the custom before coming to the Wearmont Universal Music Institute. The inclusion of a large meditation hall for the benefit of the students and teachers was expected by custom and required by law, but attendance was not mandatory except for when musical duties required it. Meditation sessions alternated between times spent in total silence and spoken meditations given by meditating speakers or music, such as the sung meditation just sung by the boys.
The concentration of talent at the Wearmont Universal Music Institute made its meditation hall one of the most popular in all Mastruum. The sound of boys’ voices was considered especially suitable for musical meditations by inheritors and so the boys choir of the Institute sang frequently, not only in the meditation hall of the Institute, but was also in demand at other meditation halls within traveling distance. It amazed Kyle that his fellow boys could, as a choir, sing so meditatively when they had, as yet, no use for meditation.
By the time the next soft chime sounded, Kyle was feeling a sense of peace that ran deeper than the constant anxiety that drove his life as an imposter at the Music Institute. Perhaps that was why he liked meditation as much as he did, Kyle reflected. A meditation speaker was going to say some words and Kyle did not usually like listening to words in the meditation hall, partly because they sometimes touched on the natural superiority of inheritors, so he decided to leave.
“I have a question,” Kyle said to Franco once they were back in his room. “Meditation usually makes me feel more peaceful. Is it that way with you?”
“Yes.”
“Feeling peaceful makes me want to be nicer to people, but most everybody else around here seems to be about as mean as they would be without doing meditation. How is that?”
“Nobody does anything in this world for the purpose of being nicer to anyone,” Franco replied.
“Then why am I so different?” Kyle asked. “Am I a freak?”
“Yes, you are a freak,” was Franco’s solemn reply. “Part of it is because you are a disinherited boy forced to act like an inheritor. My parents and I never thought you could fit in, but we are doing the best we can. The thing that makes you as big a freak as you are, though, is making friends with these boys from the other worlds. They are a bad influence on you.”
“But they’re the only friends I have. Don’t you like them?”
“They are not bad, but they have no understanding of our world. Acting like them makes you a bigger freak than you would be otherwise. Your solo this morning was good. It gives great honor to the Pen Marsanga family.”
In general, life at the Institute furnished constant and often stimulating work for Kyle. Even for a student who had been given the education normally given to inheritors of leading families, including the advanced musical education presupposed at the Wearmont Universal Music Institute, the demands of the Music Institute were challenging. On top of those challenges, Kyle had to do large amounts of extra study to avoid being caught not knowing things everybody else knew. Understanding the history of Mastruum was particularly difficult as a true inheritor would have known the basic outline of the history and who the most important historical figures were. Studying the development and “the ultimate theoretical insights,” as philosophers called them, made Kyle want to squirm in his seat. He wished he dared to cry out that the whole system was a pyramid of lies, but his orders from Franco forbad such a thing. Kyle dreamed of the day when he could tell the truth to an astounded audience and destroy the inheritance system with one simple sentence, but he knew that this disclosure, too, could never be allowed by the Pen Marsanga family. The music classes were exciting for Kyle. Since he was required to study an instrument, he was learning to play the harp under the guidance of Lydia Pen Mansard, one of the few gentle people in the Institute. Choir rehearsals were Kyle’s greatest highlights, much as he disliked Marlow Pen Vango. He greatly enjoyed the many concerts given by teachers and students, not to speak of performances with his choir. Deanna Pen Lear was considered the best hammerharp student in the Institute and Kyle had no trouble agreeing with that assessment as her recitals were both meditative and thrilling by turns. It had not taken Kyle long to know something of the style of most leading composers and to have a sufficiently informed opinion as to disappoint the students who were poised to mock him every time he made a fool of himself, which was often.
The times where Kyle most often made of a fool of himself was during the dance evenings to which all students and teachers were invited and expected to come. As a disinherited child, he was never allowed to be friends with anybody, not even with other disinherited relatives, let alone have any kind of childhood romance with a girl. Much as many of the girls attracted Kyle, Kyle felt hopelessly awkward around them, even when some girls sought him out between classes or at meals because they liked his singing, his looks, or both. Dance evenings heightened the awkwardness because dancing was a skill Kyle was expected to have learned but, of course, had not.
The dance evening on the day he sang his solo in the meditation hall proved to be a typically unpleasant time. At wide intervals, he picked out a girl who seemed polite to him, and asked her to dance. Kyle did the best he could, and he watched the other boys carefully to learn the steps, but he still managed it badly. Not even the girls who liked his singing or his looks could cope with his ineptitude on the dance floor, not even when they tried to be polite. When his second dance partner of the evening had to retire to the grooming room to recover from the heat, Kyle retired to the punch bowl and had a drink. He tried to enjoy the music, but he did not usually like dance music as much as he liked the music played in concerts. As Kyle’s mind fogged over, he was startled by a tap on the shoulder. It was Deanna Pen Lear. Kyle was astonished as Deanna always had the most dashing boys dancing with her by turns.
“May I have the next dance?” she asked.
“But—“
“Perhaps you did not hear the announcer. This dance is a girl’s choice.”
“I’m not good at this,” Kyle stammered.
“You will be better at this by the end of the dance. The step is not so difficult and I do want this dance with you. Come.”
Kyle had to obey that summons. Just holding Deanna’s hands was a thrill he thought would never happen in his life. True to Deanna’s word, the steps were easy. Deanna whispered the movements: left foot forward, slide right foot up, left foot forward, slide right foot up, slide left foot to the right, slide the right foot after it, slide right foot to the right, slide the left foot after it. Repeat in the reverse direction. For once Kyle had the satisfaction of not hopelessly messing up a dance for his partner.
“See?” said Deanna when the dance came to an end. “When a two-slide step is played, you can dance it with any girl you choose. Next time I will teach you another step. Your solo this afternoon was sublime. Do you want me to accompany you tomorrow when you practice your next solo?”
“Ah—sure.”
“Good.”
Deanna then flew off into the arms of another boy who was growing impatient to have her back. For Kyle, his practice time with Deanna could not come soon enough. When the time came and Kyle was standing by the hammerharp and Deanna was sitting at the bench, Kyle thought he was dreaming. Deanna played the interlude of Carl Pen Sierra’s Cantor Piece that led into his solo and nodded to Kyle. Somehow, with Deanna and his attendant Franco as the only listeners, Kyle felt more nervous than he did before a large audience. Deanna smiled encouragingly and Kyle forged on ahead. Before long, the sweeping melodic lines drove out Kyle’s nervousness and he sang with abandon.
“That is extraordinarily good, Kyle,” said Deanna Pen Lear. “If you can relax your throat more, your tone will be all the purer. Just because you have all the other boys beat doesn’t mean you can’t sing better than you already do. When you get to the quadruple runs on the words ‘and birds melt into the sky and the sky melts in the sun,’ don’t think of singing the notes; rather, think that you are releasing the birds with your voice to let them fly away. If you manage that, the hearts of all listeners will fly away with the birds. Again.”
Kyle sang the solo spot a second time. Deanna’s encouragement put him at ease and that made it easier to let go of the quadruple runs and let them fly off as Deanna suggested they should.
“Kyle, you are outdoing yourself,” said Deanna, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. “As I said, you are the best singer among the boys. I want you to know that you are the best boy in this whole school. For your own protection, I can’t show you the public favor I wish I could, but I want you to know how I truly feel. I treasure the moments when I assist at your singing practice. I know you are a bit younger than I am, but I already see the young man you will be. In a few years our age difference will not matter so much. I promise you, Kyle, if you have need of me, I will do anything to help you.”
Imposter that he was, Kyle cringed inside at the thought of what Deanna Pen Lear would say and do if she found out the truth about him.
“Deanna,” Kyle blurted out, “I will do anything for you if you need me.”
“I know you will,” said Deanna with a smile that knocked out his heart.
It was Deanna’s presence at the choir rehearsal later in the day that made that ordeal almost bearable for Kyle. Practicing Carl Pen Sierra’s Cantor Piece was frustrating because every time Kyle started to sail off with the lyrical phrases, Magister Marlow Pen Vango stopped the music to complain about one detail or another until every boy’s ear was red from his assault. When they reached the solo spot, Kyle was asked to sing it first. Kyle thought it had gone almost as well as it did the second time he sang it with Deanna, but the choir director only frowned and asked Burton Pen Parsley to sing it. The singing was not bad, but Magister Pen Vango’s frown grew darker. When Burton finished the passage, Magister Pen Vango darted over in Burton’s direction and caned the boy’s attendant on the palm of his hand.
“I think it not realistic to expect you ever to sing as well as Kyle Pen Marsanga does, considering the first-born Pen Marsanga blood that runs in his veins,” Magister Pen Vango began, “but you could greatly help the quality of the choir’s performance and improve the quality of Kyle Pen Marsanga’s performance in particular, if you could be bothered with using the voice your mother gave you to improve your own singing of the solo spot so as to force Kyle Pen Marsanga to work harder in order to surpass you, as he surely can and will. Do you understand me?”
“I do,” Burton Pen Parsley replied.
Outside the door of the choir room, several boys formed a semi-circle around Kyle as he left the rehearsal with Franco. Kyle presented them with the same stone-face act he had used as a disinherited child when faced with reprimands for orders not filled out quickly or well enough.
“How may—do you wish to speak to me?” Kyle asked.
“You were off to a good start the first rehearsal,” said Burton Pen Parsley.
“And now?”
“It has gotten to be a long time since you got your disinherited attendant caned for anything.”
Kyle had not expected this, but he realized instantly that he should have. Franco had hinted at this problem and Kyle had not heard him. Even so, Kyle was not about to say or do anything he could not live with and there was no sense in trying to gain the good will of boys he did not like at Franco’s expense when they would probably find some other excuse to withhold their good will from him no matter what he said or did.
“I wish to sing as well as I can,” Kyle replied.
“You can sing as well as you like,” said Burton Pen Parsley, “and, as you can see, it doesn’t take much to raise the ire of Magister Pen Vango, with interesting results for your disinherited attendant. After a little episode, you can go back to singing like a midnight swallow, if you wish.”
Kyle was tempted to get the boys off his back with a vague promise, but even that was something he could not live with. Deanna had just told him that she liked him better than all the other boys. She was close by, watching everything, and Kyle knew she would be disappointed in him if he even tried to appear to give in to what the other boys were asking of him. Kyle also knew that there was no way that his friends Luke, Brendan, Danzigger or Mark would ever promise to get another boy caned just to make other boys happy. That Franco had to stand by helplessly and listen to this whole exchange only made the whole thing still more painful for Kyle.
“Franco can serve me best if his hands are not blistered,” said Kyle.
Before Burton Pen Parsley or any of the other boys could reply to that, Deanna sidled up to Burton and slid her arm into his.
“Would you like a little walk in hedge garden?” she asked the boy, knowing he could hardly refuse her anything.
“You are being very foolish,” Franco said to Kyle in a low voice, once the two were alone in the marble corridor.
“I can’t stand to get you caned on purpose.”
“I don’t care if you can stand to do what I order you to do or not,” said Franco. “You have to act more like the other boys or they will figure out everything. My family could never tolerate the disgrace if that should happen. Better a few blisters than that.”
Kyle opened his mouth to argue further with Franco but realized that he was still a disinherited child subject to the orders of an inheritor. His mouth did not close, however, because the nearest door was opening up, not to the music practice room Kyle knew was supposed to be there, but to someplace else.
“Not that place again!” Franco muttered.
“Yes, that place again,” Kyle whispered, as he dove into Merithwell before Franco could stop him.
“What kind of place is this?” asked one of the gray-robed boys.
“I don’t have time to explain,” the other boy answered. “Trust me. Bring Raissa in first.”
Kyle recognized Dunsland’s voice and he saw a small room opening into Merithwell where a misshapen girl and an unconscious Malcoomb lay.
“Why should we trust you?” asked the other boy.
“You saw how the Healing Master Magus wrecked the healing spell I was doing,” Dunsland replied.
“There’s a harp here!” exclaimed the girl in a gray robe.
“I said this is a musical place,” said Dunsland. Dunsland sang a few notes and a padded pallet appeared on the floor. “Put her here.”
“Gosh, you can do music,” said the other boy as he eased the stricken girl on to the pallet.
“Do you need any help?” Kyle asked
“Yes,” Dunsland gasped just as Danzigger and Pir Min, dressed in furs, came running.
Proceed to Chapter the Third of Part the Fourth