Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(98)

But such silences take their form only when the performer steps onstage. Behind the Crier’s Guild front door, at the head of her choristers, Gabby heard the crowd’s rumble: angry, expectant, exited, confused. Robes swayed as her singers shifted.

She opened the door, and the silence fell.

The crowd filled the square, filled Providence, filled Flame beyond. She stepped, helpless and proud as a bowsprit carving, onstage.

She’d done this before.

Admittedly, not in front of so many people. Each member of the Crier’s Guild had her own specialty. Gabby wrote music and reported stories to match that music. She sang to keep her voice in trim. And, rarely, for pieces she could not bear handing off to Madison or Sternbridge or Yao, she directed the choir.

But this was bigger than the Ash Riots or the dreamglass crisis. These people were angry and scared. They needed security, which her interview with Aev and Cat and Seril did not offer. She would challenge their faith at a time when they yearned for its comfort.

She was about to set this crowd on fire.

She turned her back on the audience. The choir stood in mixed formation. Cross, the deepest bass, had vomited for several minutes in the bathroom before warm-ups. Thank gods and demons alike for mouthwash and toothbrushes. But a choir was a corps. They had discipline. Even faced with such a crowd, they held together.

She raised her hands, and they sang.

*

Seril Moon-mother did not die in the wars.

Abelard listened.

He knew this story. He’d lived the tale’s unraveling. But knowing did not prepare him to listen while the Crier’s Guild recounted his life in counterpoint and fugue. In the goddess’s own words, no less. And Aev’s.

We returned to see our Lady carved into a mockery of self.

I was diminished, a lost voice among the trees.

Seril’s voice twined soprano and bass; Aev, alto and tenor.

The music was masterful, but mastery could go only so far.

The crowd rumbled. “Bullshit” was the word the man before him whispered.

The first cry of “Blasphemy!” came from back on Prospect, but others took it up fast. The crowd chanted against the choir.

They should have done this earlier. They should have trusted the people earlier. There was no time to convince them now.

They needed a miracle.

“Pray with me,” he told Sister Hildegard.

*

Onstage, her back to the audience, Gabby heard the anger. Her shoulders tensed, and the beat her hands carved in the air slipped. The singers looked scared.

Should she stop? They’d almost reached the restatement of the theme; the piece’s harmonics weren’t yet resolved, the story half-done—she had to explain Seril’s return. Failure to finish might make the situation worse.

Curses filled a brief fermata; she invited the choir to sing louder, wrecking the dynamic effect. Soon they’d throw things at the stage. She hoped for rotten fruit. It was soft.

Stop, a wise voice inside her urged. Or change the story. Give these people what they want to hear.

Fuck what they wanted to hear.

This was news.

*

Faith on the corner of Providence and Flame was a tangled net, a self-propagating snarl at Kos Everburning’s core. Lord Kos was born from His people, and grew with them. He changed them, and they changed Him, through time.

So if the crowd was confused, and angry, so too was the God—and hurt, and scared. A small core within Him revolted against Himself.

Abelard prayed through chaos and uncertainty. The many voices clashed and cackled, senseless.

—Cannot believe what she’s selling— —they think they are, that’s not how God— —can’t be, impossible— —tear them off that stage and show them fire— They need to hear this song, Abelard prayed, and felt Hildegard and other priests throughout the crowd join him. They must know its truth.

—wish that I could hear the part— —we should just rush the f*cking stage— —how can I get out of here— —just have to do— And the fire sang.

*

When the crowd hushed, Gabby heard new voices.

The guild recruited evensingers from the best choirs in the New World. They could memorize a piece faster than a scribe could copy it. Even Gabby, who knew how to listen, could not identify an individual breath in two hours of performance. They shaped notes to perfection, matched sound to sound with crystal purity.

No human choir could match them.

The new voices were not human. Nor were they, exactly, new.

Streetlight gas lamp flames unfolded above the crowd, and within each stood Gabby’s choristers—their voices grown within the fire.

Some in the crowd looked at the lamps. Others stared farther up.

Into the clouds.

Which the sunset stained red, and which shaped themselves as she watched—oh God—into her, and her choir, miles tall, singing with flame-touched tongues.

Singing her story. Seril’s story.

Some in the crowd fell to their knees. Gnarled fingers framed the sign of the Lord.

Gabby wanted to kneel as well. But when her beat faltered, so did the song in the sky.

An unfamiliar warmth filled her.

She was not the target of this miracle. She was its vessel.

Gabby set aside shock and glory, and focused instead on sound, speed, rhythm. The amplified voices screwed with her blend. Cacophony loomed, discord overlapping chord, dynamics squelched as delays crushed rests. And the mix had to slip a little: amplification goosed the tenors and shrilled the soprano line.