Chapter the Third of Part the Fourth
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Tel Arman in World Drakkenfleiss.
When Tel Arman next awoke in his room, he was still in severe pain from his wounds. Even reaching for the light switch was an ordeal. There were no windows, which suited Tel Arman. He was used to that. An imperial slogan said: Windows only give you a view of what you can see in your own room. As usual, an imperial food packet was lying next to his bed within easy reach, along with a bottle of water. His appetite good, Tel Arman quickly consumed the morning eating, or afternoon eating or evening eating. With no bells ringing for exercises and cadet classes, he had lost all track of time.
Tel Arman painfully positioned himself to a sitting up position on his bed and switched on the video player. He winced a bit when he realized that it was showing the same old videos he had already seen many times since being placed in the secret room created for him by Malcoomb Nordrench. When Tel Arman first saw the video player in his room and switched it on, he was excited to have such a strong touch of the home the rebels had destroyed. But, as he watched the same parades, the same documentaries, the same choral performances, Tel Arman was beginning to realize that Malcoomb had only recreated what Tel Arman remembered of videos he had already seen. Apparently Malcoomb could not, or at least could not be bothered with, creating new videos. The instructional videos only repeated the information Tel Arman had learned. The documentaries repeated the same history of imperial wars that stamped out all rebellion to the Empire. Seeing the same videos over and over again showed Tel Arman how repetitious the many videos were in the first place. It seemed that the barking of the officers and the instructors drowned out the repetition and made it seem that new things were happening when they were not. If the Fairhead Rebellion had not broken out, there would have been no break in the dull routine of his life and Tel Arman would have had no occasion to hear the fatal phrases of rebel music that got him ejected from the elite cadets’ choir, a choir that was no more.
Tel Arman thought that it was getting close to time for Malcoomb Nordrench to come and check up on him, but he did not come. Although Malcoomb had relieved much of the pain and repaired the worst of his injuries, Tel Arman needed much more healing, healing that Malcoomb had promised to do for him.
“How are you feeling?” Malcoomb would ask when he came, flourishing the intimidating flame that flickered off his left sleeve.
“About as sore as ever.”
“You have to be patient. It takes time to recover from the injuries you sustained.”
“Pir Min recovered a lot faster. He was hurt about as bad.”
“That’s because Danzigger worked on him a lot more than he worked on you. Actually, he made you worse. Sleeping on the hard lumpy ground in his world set you back quite a bit. As you can see, in Drakkenfleiss, you don’t have to put up with hard lumpy grounds. That rebel music, as you call it, really scrambled your system, too. As a result, I have to undo a lot of what the other boys did.”
“I guess there’s nothing to do except sleep and get better.”
“That’s right,” said Malcoomb. “Lots of rest can do wonders now that you don’t have to listen to what you call rebel music.
Neither did Dunsland Dilworth come to see him again. That proved that Dunsland did not really want to help Tel Arman any more than Danzigger wanted to heal him. Dunsland had only come to make sure that Tel Arman was still suffering from his injuries and was not capable of causing trouble to Pir Min and that rebel’s allies at Merithwell.
Tel Arman watched more videos past counting and, still, Malcoomb did not come, not even to deliver another imperial food packet. Tel Arman had the feeling that he was being pushed aside as of little concern just because, apparently, Malcoomb had something else to do with his time. Tel Arman felt like pacing about his room, but he was too sore to do that. He flipped on the video player again, but the same old video clips rolled across the monitor. Finally, Tel Arman flipped it back off. As soon as the silence in the room struck him, memories of the rebel music he had been forced to listen to flowed into his mind as if they were bursting the dam the videos had created. Tel Arman covered his ears, but that exertion hurt him, and the gesture did him no good. Finally, Tel Arman gave up fighting the music and just listened to it. He listened again to the scrap of melody he heard the rebel boy, Pir Min, sing just before the imperial missile attack. He remembered the song that Danzigger sang with his string instrument when the rubble from the attack seemed to move him into Merithwell. Then Tel Arman remembered the disorganized, but haunting, singing of all the boys together to start a healing process for Tel Arman and Pir Min. He remembered the music that Luke taught the other boys to begin the process of building up the walls of Merithwell. All of it was rebel music, but Tel Arman was beginning to accept the fact that it was much more interesting than the imperial music that he had sung all his life. Certainly, remembering this music was more interesting, even with repetition, than the same old videos on his video player.
Tel Arman slowly and painfully pushed himself up and out of his bed. He looked down at his cadet uniform. Unlike the uniform that was shredded by the blast, this uniform was in perfect shape and any wrinkles that appeared automatically smoothed themselves out as soon as Tel Arman sat up. Somehow, listening to the rebel music in his head seemed to give him just a touch more energy. Tel Arman felt like doing a little exploring for the first time. He looked for the door. There wasn’t one. Tel Arman slowly stood up and walked along the wall, supporting himself against it and tapping it, looking for any sign of a door. There was nothing. Tel Arman finally realized that he was a prisoner of Malcoomb Nordrench.
Feeling a bit dizzy from his exertion, Tel Arman sat back down on his imperial model easy chair. He flipped on the video player but flipped it off immediately when he saw, again, the same victory parade in a documentary celebrating the Empire’s Final Victory. Discovering that he was a prisoner changed many things for Tel Arman. Suddenly, he no longer trusted Malcoomb. It did not matter how well he was cared for. What he wanted most was the freedom to leave and go where he wished. And then again, with his stomach growling from lack of food, Tel Arman was no longer being well cared for. That was when Tel Arman thought again of Dunsland’s visit. Malcoomb made no secret of his anger over everything Dunsland said during that visit. It was obvious to Tel Arman that Malcoomb did not like having Dunsland with him. So why was Dunsland with Malcoomb? Tel Arman knew from the way life operated among imperial cadets that Dunsland must have had something that Malcoomb wanted, something Malcoomb could get only through Dunsland. For all of his show of strength, Malcoomb had a weakness, a weakness that could be exploited, if necessary. The other thing that Dunsland’s presence told Tel Arman was that Dunsland wanted to visit Tel Arman badly enough to use his bargaining piece, whatever that was, to try and undermine Malcoomb. That meant that Dunsland wanted to make use of Tel Arman in some way, and that meant that Tel Arman could play the two boys off each other. If, that is, he could escape his imprisonment. If, that is, Malcoomb or Dunsland ever came to see him again. Perhaps Malcoomb had decided to leave Tel Arman to perish in his secret room that nobody else could get to. Perhaps Tel Arman’s rough rejection of Dunsland’s offer of escape had sealed his fate and Dunsland had given up on him and was not going to return. If Tel Arman were in better shape, he would have kicked himself for not doing a better job of keeping his options open.
Having nothing else to do, Tel Arman tried singing what he could remember of the rebel music he had heard and sung. He cringed inside and braced himself for a tirade from an officer, but then he remembered that there was were no imperial officers in Drakkenfleiss. For that matter, there might not be any imperial officers anywhere in the seven worlds, just as there might not even be an Empire anymore. And so Tel Arman resumed singing the rebel music: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek.” Tel Arman had hated those words when he heard the other boys sing them. He still did not like them, but he had to admit their truth. Up to just a few days ago, the Empire was indeed mighty. It ruled its world and could have spread to the other worlds and taken them over as well, but it had suddenly been destroyed by a group of rebels who did not appreciate the Empire. When Tel Arman sang what he could remember of Danzigger’s song, he broke into tears and had to stop singing until the tears stopped and the lump in his throat dissolved. It was embarrassing enough to be crying while alone. If another cadet had caught him at it, he would have been subjected to another word bomb and disgraced for life. The tears of an imperial subject are missiles in the hand of a rebel, was one of the maxims drilled into Tel Arman’s head from and early age. But then, Tel Arman was already disgraced for life. Even if he should find his way back to his own world and the Empire was recovering from the attack and Tarboc Ductor was alive and well and conducting the imperial choral groups as before, there would be no place for him because of the way the rebel music had infected his singing during the concert of celebration. Tel Arman ruthlessly wiped the tears off his face and tried to compose himself as an imperial cadet should. Once recovered from his fit of tears, Tel Arman sang once more Danzigger’s song, a song that sang of his own sense of loss at seeing his Empire destroyed in one blow when the Emperor and the chief officers thought the Empire was too strong to be hurt by attack.
As Tel Arman sang to himself, he thought of the prophecy that emblazoned one of the walls of Merithwell, a prophecy that, along with the narrative read by Dunsland, Tel Arman scorned because it was so anti-imperial. But the time had come when Tel Arman realized that his heart really was breaking with the song he was singing. The prophecy was coming true for him as much as it was coming true for the other boys who had gathered in Merithwell from their separate worlds. But Tel Arman’s heart had broken too late to help either himself or Merithwell. Nobody was coming to the room where he was imprisoned and he would never see Merithwell or any of the other boys again. Even as it did him no good, the music Tel Arman heard the other boys singing would not leave him. Finally deciding that singing, as long as his sore neck would allow it, would make the last series of bells of his life less horrible, Tel Arman sang the song “The Western Wind:”
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!
After finishing the verse, Tel Arman’s throat felt better instead of worse, and so he sang it again. This time, he thought he heard other voices join with his, but he assumed that was his imagination. The third time Tel Arman sang the song, there was no mistake about it. A sizeable group of boys was singing the song with him. And the words had been changed to:
Western wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine.
Christ, if these two were healed again
And back to life again!
Tel Arman wondered who it was that needed healing this time. Had somebody else’s world just been destroyed by a rebel attack? He remembered hearing Luke say he was worried that might happen to his world. Then Tel Arman noticed then that the wall facing him had changed. One panel had become filled with patches of sparkling light. Tel Arman realized that what he was looking at was an opening, and not just any opening, but the opening to Merithwell! He saw several people in gray robes and then recognized Mark and Brendan and Pir Min, who looked funny in the furs Danzigger had given him. Many boys Tel Arman had never seen were there as well, and all were singing. He thought the boys had just gathered to sing for the sake of singing when he saw that Malcoomb and a girl in a gray robe were stretched out on the floor, looking at least half-dead. That explained Malcoomb’s failure to come see him. Tel Arman jumped out of his chair to join the other boys but collapsed back into it from the pain his action caused. He caught himself groaning out loud and starting to cry again with the pain and frustration. Tel Arman would just have to wait until he regained strength. He would not wait for the boys to fetch him. An imperial maxim stated: Do not burden the Empire by waiting for the Empire to help you.
Tel Arman closed his eyes and let the song wash over him. To his surprise, it seemed to be healing him as much as, he hoped, it was healing Malcoomb and the girl with him. He was startled out of this reverie when two or three pairs of hands took a hold of him. Tel Arman’s trained instinct was to strike at his attackers but they had gripped him just firmly enough to counter his own strength. Tel Arman then realized that it was Brendan and Mark and Pir Min who were lifting him off his imperial reclining chair and bringing him into Merithwell with them.
Tel Arman found himself singing with the boys quite naturally, the soreness in his neck completely gone and the rest of his body growing in strength. As they sang with him, Tel Arman finally realized that these boys had truly wanted his healing all along and that Danzigger was right when he said the Tel Arman was fighting his own healing. As the last note of the verse sounded, after countless repetitions, a star high above the boys flared up and dropped down into the room. None of the boys ducked out of the way or avoided the star as it found a place for itself as another cluster of singing stones in the tower of Merithwell.
“Woah!” exclaimed a couple of the boys who had not been in Merithwell before.
“I told you this was a strange place,” Brendan said to those boys.
“Thanks for coming,” said Dunsland. “You’re singing is a big help. Tel Arman, I am glad you are here, too, this time. Now we have everybody. I hope you are feeling better?”
“Yes,” said Tel Arman, “I feel better.”
“You sing well,” said Pir Min.
“Where are Polnar and Passenell?” asked Mark.
The boys looked around and realized that those two boys had not come with the others. As if in answer to that question, they heard the sound of a boy chanting from another room outside of Merithwell. The words sang of somebody chopping somebody else into pieces. “And then the High Devoted One took a knife!” sang the boy, the notes suddenly high and piercing, “and the High Devoted One raised his knife to slice the innocent body of the Dedicated Singer!”
Proceed to Chapter the Fourth of Part the Fourth