Tale of the Music-Thief

By Earl T. Roske

What if you started forgetting every song you know?

 

And what if everyone else did, too?

 

By day, an opera performer. By night, a minstrel. Music is Allegra's life, and now it's being stolen from her mind, from her music sheets, even from the crystals. With each lost song, more of Allegra's buried past is revealed to her. They are memories filled with a pain she doesn't feel ready to face.

But she may not have any choice.

 

Even when she discovers how the music is being stolen, Allegra can't convince the authorities to do anything. Allegra is on her own. Or is she? With the help of friends and sympathetic strangers, Allegra sets out to find and confront the music-thief. There's one problem with her plan.

 

The problem is time.

 

Allegra must catch the music-thief before he leaves the region. Once he's gone, so is the music. Can Allegra find the music-thief? Can she save the music? Can she save herself? Only time will tell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Earl T. Roske
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224683352

Earl T. Roske

Earl T. Roske is a San Francisco Bay area writer. He lives with his wife, daughter, a silly poodle, and two neurotic cats.

Book preview

Prologue

Gerritt huddled up to the small crystal heater of his meager lodgings which gave off the weakest hints of warmth. The heat crystals inside were old and, by his reckoning, had probably been moved from the more luxurious rooms on the lower floors of the inn and placed here in the cheaper rooms. His chair wobbled as he shifted to warm his hands and that only persisted in reminding him how rotten his life had become.

Once, he too slept in the best rooms of the inns of the cities and towns he traveled through. That was when he’d been another merchant’s assistant. A most successful merchant. Since he’d set out on his own things had quickly slid downhill to the refuse heap. Perhaps it was the area he’d chosen for his specialty. It’d seemed a sure thing at the time. Everywhere he went people persisted in musical entertainment. Even now he could hear the screech and yowl from the inn’s main room. Patrons were barking the chorus of some miserable tale or another.

All across the region, since the fall of the last dark magician more than a hundred years ago, music had become more than a way to communicate without being detected by the dark magicians. Music had turned from being the messenger of resistance to a call to celebration. Everyone seemed to have the talent of music. Everyone except him.

He’d grown up in a family of extensive musical ability. A family who saw his utter lack of musicality as an embarrassment. Being a music merchant should have redeemed him. Instead, it only served to mock his lack of talent as it dragged him further into destitution. More and more he hated music and wished it all would stop, even if it meant he’d continue to live in poverty for all the rest of his days.

A knock at his door shook him from his dark contemplations.

Yes? Who is it? he asked, not even bothering to turn his face towards the door.

I have a business proposition for you. Open the door. The voice was confident. It was filled with an expectation that he, Gerritt, would jump to the command.

He tensed. Was it another creditor come to seek him out, demanding payment he couldn’t make? He’d have been better off bartering with rags than music sheets.

Not interested. Go away. If they continued he’d have to slip out the window and sleep in the hay loft to avoid detection.

There was a clack of metal moving. Gerritt turned, stumbling out of his chair as it rocked under him. The key in the lock had turned as if by an invisible hand. The door knob was twisting and the door began to creak open. He moved to the far side of the room near the open window. He placed a hand on the window frame, ready to jump over the sill.

As the door slowly swung open, he saw a single figure, cloaked and hooded, standing on the other side of the threshold. The stranger’s hands were hidden in the folds of their cloak, giving the impression that they had opened the door by other means.

Who are you? Gerritt’s voice quivered. He’d known anger and sorrow in his life, but he had never known fear until this moment. What do you want?

The cloaked figure glided into the room, the door shutting behind him without aid.

Who I am is of no concern. What I want is a different matter.

Gerritt mustered his arrogance, something he had in plenty, to tamp down the rising fear. What is it that you want?

I want to give you the two things you want most.

What two things? He could think of a lot of things he wanted. To be safely away from this room was the first thing that came to mind.

Within the hood, Gerritt caught a flash of teeth in a predatory smile. The figure then reached forward with a covered arm and waved it across the top of the small table in the center of the room. Where there had been the few bits of bread and cheese on a plate along with a stein of thin beer, there was now only a clear teapot, a crystal teapot.

Wealth, of course, the figure said. And revenge.

01

Allegra stood on the stage surrounded by a dead silence that shouldn’t have been there. This was to be the opening night of the new opera that told the tale of the return of the Last King’s general and the final battle to defeat the dark magicians. This very moment should have been filled with the sounds of the symphony, singers adding their voices to the story, but there was only this silence. The music had been stolen.

In the muted lights Allegra walked over and stood on the mark where she would have been at the rise of the curtains.

The first night of previews had gone flawlessly as was the expectation for the City-Along-The-Lake opera company. Each note and lyric had flowed over the audience with precision. The standing ovation had continued until Herman, the artistic director, came on stage and begged the audience to go home.

It was a magnificent opera, filled with larger than life characters and grand arias. Every singer and every musician had worked slavishly to bring the production to perfection.

Then the second night happened.

Allegra moved across the stage, tracing the path to each of her marks in the first act.

The second night of previews had sold out. This wasn’t a rarity for the city’s famed opera company, but the size of the disappointed crowd that had to be turned away was worth much discussion in the dressing rooms two floors beneath the stage. The first act on the second night of previews had been as perfect as the first night. Everyone was animated with excitement. Many of them felt that this would be the production performers a hundred years from now would still be talking about, the one that all future productions would be measured against and found wanting.

Then things began to go wrong. At first it was just a few dropped notes and a forgotten word or two. These could easily be dismissed as pre-opening night jitters.  But then one of the principal singers stepped up to sing the pivotal aria of the act. Allegra could still see him standing at the edge of the stage. Several of the instruments in the symphony had gone surprisingly silent. The symphony suddenly stumbled over a jumble of notes and then there was nothing.

The performer, Klaus, had looked around, confused. He staggered back and looked helplessly to the rest of the cast. At that moment they all realized the same thing: none of them could recall a single line from the opera.

It was almost as if the opera had never existed. Allegra could still recall the story of the general and his defeat of the magicians’ armies, but she was unable to connect to any of the lyrics. Even the motif of the opera evaded her attempts to recall it.

The performers, the orchestra, the audience, all were silent. Everyone was waiting and nothing was happening.

Herman had broken all the rules of performance and rushed onto the stage and had a whispered conversation with Klaus. Though their words were indecipherable, the anger and fear in them were not.

Herman hurried to all the other performers and had whispered conversations with each, including Allegra.

Your lines?

She’d taken a second to respond, trying one last time to find the melody, the words, motif, any of it. I don’t understand.

No one does, said Herman. His voice was a whispered growl.

Behind him they could hear the audience beginning to grow restless.

How does this happen?

I don’t know, Allegra said. But it’s been happening everywhere.

So I heard. An illness someone said. But none of you are ill. Are you ill?

Just suddenly sick to my stomach.

You aren’t alone.

Herman turned and walked to the edge of the stage. Allegra could see him looking down at the conductor of the orchestra who had turned pale, wiping at his brow with a now damp handkerchief. He shook his head to a whispered question from Herman. Herman turned around and waved all the performers off the stage. People in the audience shouted out questions and demands.

Allegra and several other performers stopped just off stage and watched Herman with concern.

My dear guests, Herman said. He turned to face the audience, his face blooming with a pleasant smile. I do apologize. There has developed a problem with the mechanisms for the scenes. They are stuck. This as you understand, is why we have previews, to catch problems and fix them. Unfortunately, we will not be able to fix this problem in mere moments, it will take much longer than that. However, in good faith, I will be returning to you the price of your admission as you leave the theatre.

Several of the performers gasped behind Allegra. Herman was tightfisted when it came to money. To even hear him speak of giving it back to anyone was surely a sign of how bad things were.

The musicians and singers retreated to the rooms below the auditorium, hiding until everyone in the audience had grudgingly taken their refund and left for home or other entertainment. Only then did the musicians and singers leave to their own homes to wait for further instructions from Herman, once he figured out what to do.

But Allegra could not stay away, even if there wasn’t a performance. In normal times she would have hidden herself in one of her disguises and performed at one of the music halls or gone to the university and joined one of the random performances that often took place in the halls and classrooms before moving out to one of the taverns or someone’s apartment nearby. But all of that was gone, too.

The music halls had shuttered their doors weeks ago, being some of the first places to be struck dumb by what was happening. Most of the university classes were canceled until further notice.

Many called it a sickness and had taken to distancing themselves from others even though that didn’t keep the music from disappearing.

What made it worse for Allegra was that she was alone in the city. She had traveled from the Great Steppes further east by way of a conservatory near the South Sea where she’d studied music for many years. Her family had died in a plague that had wiped out her entire clan, leaving her alone in the world.

Music was all that she had. Music was the solace and companion that kept her company through the days. As long as she was able to keep the music around her she was able to avoid facing the pain that was the memories of her childhood and their direct connection to her lost family. So while other members of City-Along-The-Lake’s opera company hid in their homes, in the company of their families, Allegra came to the one place that felt like home to her.

Hello?

Someone was coming onto the stage from the wings. Allegra could tell by his breathing and heavy footfall that it was Herman. She could hear him pause behind her. The light crystals at the front of the stage and in the chandeliers over the auditorium had been dimmed to conserve their energy. Enough light remained to safely walk without tripping but the gloom was such that discerning a person’s identity from a distance was unlikely.

Who’s there?

Allegra, she said, not turning.

Allegra?

She felt the stage floor vibrate with his steps until he paused next to her.

Why are you here? Why aren’t you at home?

This is home.

He did not answer right away. His silence acknowledged her feelings. She was sure he felt the same way, but for different reasons. Herman had been a part of the opera since his prepubescent days when he’d sung soprano. Allegra knew he had a wife and children but she also knew that he always seemed to be at the theatre even when she wasn’t.

We’ve canceled the entire performance. No choice.

I know. She wiped her hands down the skirt of her dress, smoothing invisible wrinkles; a nervous habit. I just wanted to come and stand here.

They stood in silence some more before Herman spoke again.

It’s bad, isn’t it? I hear it’s bad. I don’t really get around much and I’ve only heard. His voice trailed off uncomfortably.

There’s some song. In the taverns mostly, but rare.

Used to be that you could walk down the street and hear a song or tune being whistled or ditty being shared from every house and business you passed by.

Allegra nodded in agreement. It was the one thing that stuck most with her when she’d come to City-Along-The-Lake, that everyone seemed to be singing or playing an instrument at any time in the city. From the minstrels on the ships that crossed the lake past the sirens on the Necklace Islands, to the workers in the textile factories as they turned the wool and cotton into great rolls of cloth. Any reason was good enough to break into a song in this city. She liked being surrounded by music. Music kept the memories at bay.

I told my wife that I had some paperwork to finish up. Though not really. Herman paused and looked out at the empty auditorium. It just seemed so unreal I had to come to the theatre just to see it empty once more. I hate seeing it empty, but it is. And I feel quite helpless.

Allegra agreed but remained silent. She hadn’t come to see it empty. That’s not what she wanted. She wanted the music and the performance.

"There was a moment, last week, when I finally began to believe this horror was coming our way. I’d been walking home, after one of our wonderful rehearsals, humming an old aria. At least I think it was an aria. See, that’s the strange part, one moment I was fully engrossed in this song and then suddenly I’m spraying spittle because I can’t remember a single note. I remembered the idea of the piece I’d been humming, a man searching for the meaning of life, but I couldn’t latch onto a single note.

Now, I have the score of the opera on a shelf at home. So when I got home I went into my study and pulled out the score and flipped it open. Do you know what I saw?

The same thing I’ve been seeing for weeks, Allegra thought. It looked blank.

So true, said Herman. He nodded slowly. "Looked. Because if I wasn’t paying attention to the score, maybe looking at it sideways, I could see there was something there. But the moment I tried to focus on it, it just sort of melted or faded or ran away. Whatever was happening, the music wasn’t readable.

I’d heard there were problems but it had always been distant problems. At that moment I realized it was coming closer.

Allegra had heard the stories, too, experienced them herself. She’d also seen the music halls shutter their doors and watched as fewer and fewer minstrels stepped up onto the stages of the inns and taverns. A city that once vibrated with music as its life’s blood was close to being completely silenced.

There were rumors, suggestions, but no one really knew what or why or how this was happening.

Anyway, Herman said and slapped his palms together. There’s nothing I can do here. There’s nothing I can do at home, either, but at least I can be miserable in the company of my wife and children.

All right, said Allegra. She would have to go home too, but there would be no one there, just stacks of empty music sheets and lifeless song crystals. And she would have to face it alone.

I’m going to turn off the crystals. No need to waste the energy if they aren’t needed. Maybe soon we’ll get our music back. One can hope. Coming?

Herman was walking to the side of the stage where the crystal controls were set. Allegra turned and followed him.

Herman walked into the left wing of the stage. On the far wall were the rows of levers that controlled the crystals. Pulling or pushing on a lever caused a rod in the lights to rise or lower, breaking contact or allowing contact between three crystals. The closer the crystals were to each other, the brighter the light. Herman pulled all the stage levers down as far as they would go and the stage slowly faded away into blackness. He looked into the space of the darkened stage and then sighed.

This way, he said. We’ll go out the front.

They exited the backstage area through a small curtained doorway. On the auditorium side it was hidden by a stone golem dressed in armor. It stepped aside as they pulled the curtain away and stepped into the auditorium. Golems had been an infrequent sight in years past, something reserved for the magicians who once controlled all the magic. The new magic was changing all that, bringing magic to places like the opera house and even to the average laborer’s home.

The carpeted aisle muffled their footsteps as they walked to the front of the building. Allegra looked back to the stage. She was distracted by the golem resetting itself before the small passage they’d just come through, but then her attention drifted back to the darkened stage. The curtains were pulled to the sides, the sets were either up in the flies or stuffed into the wings leaving a giant mouth gaping in silence. She shivered with an indefinable fear and turned away to hurry and catch up with Herman.

Through another discreet doorway hidden by a curtain were the controls to the crystals in the chandeliers over the auditorium. Herman pulled down the levers, washing the large and empty room in darkness.

We’ll go through the ticket booth, he said and moved without waiting.

They walked across a silent and dim foyer to the ticket booth. Inside were controls for the foyer lights and the ticket booth lights. The glass windows of the ticket booth allowed light from The Grand Avenue to enter, allowing for some illumination as Herman fumbled the booth door open and ushered Allegra through.

Herman turned to Allegra after he locked the ticket office door. Do you want me to walk with you until you find a cab?

Allegra looked at the avenue, hauntingly empty. I think I’m going to walk, she said. You’re to the east, yes?

I am. Herman lived in a newer home built near the park, north of the opera house. Allegra lived in one of the older buildings that had once been someone’s grand home but later was converted into apartments. She could have afforded better, but it put her near the center of the city, near the music halls and the college of music.

You’ll be safe? he asked.

I will. Thank you, Herman.

Of course. He looked like he wanted to say something more. She watched him struggle with it before shrugging and making a small wave with his hand. Good night, then.

Good night.

Herman turned and trudged down the stairs and then onto the sidewalk towards home.

Allegra stood for a few more minutes and watched him leave. Her gaze then drifted across The Grand Avenue to the city park – once the private property of the Last King – and then back to the avenue itself where she would walk to get home. She breathed in deeply then let it out with a long, mournful sigh and started walking.

02

The Grand Avenue ran a parallel course to the lake by which the city was built. It was unusually deserted. It was a disquieting situation to Allegra. This being a Fifth-day evening, The Grand Avenue should have been lined with strolling couples and crowds of friends. Coaches, carriages, and other conveyances should have filled the road with their gaily adorned passengers. There should have been the noise of traveling musicians, hawkers of hand foods, and the animated chatter of relaxed and free conversation.

That was how it was before the music began to disappear. Now most people sheltered in their homes, fearful of things they could not understand, afraid that if music could be pulled from their heads, what else might be stolen?

So this night Allegra walked alone, her steps echoing against the walls of shuttered homes. Ahead, on the opposite side of the road, the only other presence was the sweeper minder with his straw golems. The golems were twice the size of their minder who followed along behind them. They pushed brooms as wide as a person was tall. There was a gentle swish-swish of the brooms that teased Allegra with the beat of a song she knew she should remember but could no longer recall; lost to her like so many other songs.

The golem minder offered up a bored wave as she passed. Allegra returned the salutation as she continued to her apartment.

The building where Allegra lived was once the house of a prosperous merchant. As his wealth increased, so did his desire for a house that physically represented what he felt was due his status. He now lived on The Royal Arc, a street that curved like a bow around the city park to touch the far ends of The Grand Avenue. The old house had been sold to a prosperous banker. The banker then had the home divided into a series of apartments and set up his mother-in-law to look after the building as the live-in landlady.

When Allegra first accepted her contract with the City-Along-The-Lake opera company, she’d rented only half of the attic apartments. As her personal fortunes increased she’d acquired the entire attic along with the garden deck. Here she created a personal sanctuary that provided the occasional peace and solitude she needed to rejuvenate her spirits. These things had become more important to her during the years that she moved further away from her ancestral homeland on the Great Steppes.

The landlady was asleep as Allegra entered the building. Otherwise she would have been there to greet Allegra and to inquire about the evening’s performance. An unfortunate conversation Allegra was glad to avoid this night. She locked the door behind her and walked the four spiraling flights to her apartment.

The walk was long and wouldn’t have made this apartment a preferred choice for living. However, the cost was much lower than the apartments beneath; and cost had been an important factor when she’d been paid the mere ensemble member wages of the opera company. But the apartment had one thing that those beneath did not have. There was a rooftop garden with six small shade trees, hedges around the perimeter, and a small fountain. On a Rest-day morning she could sit in the garden, like an oasis among slate roofs and chimney tops, and rejuvenate. The sounds of the city below were masked by the sounds of the fountain.

But at this moment Allegra did not wish to sit in the garden. She wanted something else, something important to her psyche. She needed to hear music.

Unlocking the door to her apartment she stepped in and pulled the tiny lever attached to the wall beside the door. The lever was attached to a rod that ran up the wall. Pulling the lever moved the rod, which pulled on a second that shifted the light crystals in their glass bowls overhead. The shifting of the crystals brought them into contact with each other and they glowed brightly at the contact. The main rooms of her apartment were quickly filled with the brilliant illumination of the light crystals.

Allegra had lived in towns where they still relied on oil lamps. She found the modern convenience of crystals more pleasant and infinitely safer. No set of light crystals had ever burned a building to its timbers.

The room was thickly carpeted but sparsely furnished. Allegra rarely had visitors so there were few seats. However, she was known to pace, often into the dark of the night. The randomly spread carpets provided comfortable footing. They also muffled the sounds of her steps which pleased the families in the apartments below. Not that any complaint would have resulted in her eviction. There was a certain cache in having one of the premier performers of the city opera living in your building, even if she was a foreigner.

Besides the sparse seating and carpets there was a piano-forte, lifted to the apartment with much effort and expense, a crystal player, and crates of sheet music.

The crates of sheet music had normally been meticulously organized by composer or genre. But over the last few weeks, as Allegra had sifted through the sheets to find music that was still playable and readable she’d been more careless. Now sheets of music had been stacked on the floor if unreadable. These stacks had grown and eventually slumped to one side or the other creating soft avalanches that turned the stacks into careless heaps. The despair over the loss blanketed the anxiety over disorder that would have driven her to organize or neatly re-stack the meaningless sheets.

But Allegra was too distracted by the evening’s events to play. She wanted to listen, to be soothed by the sounds of performance. She crossed the room and opened the lid to the crystal player.

The crystal player was her most expensive purchase. She’d originally balked at the idea of music being stored in crystals to be replayed at will by the person who possessed the crystal. But after listening to several recordings of the opera house performances she was a believer. She’d purchased the best player available and constantly added crystals to her collection. The music ranged from the operas she’d first heard on crystals to collections of tavern songs that her friend, Trevor, had collected and compiled.

The crystals were in felt lined drawers that were then stored in the player stand. At least that was during normal times and normal times were fast receding. Now the drawers were laid out on the floor in a long row like soldiers ready for inspection.

Crystals normally glowed with the energy of the music contained within them. Most of the crystals in Allegra’s collection were now dark. She counted and learned that she had twenty-seven crystals remaining of the more than three hundred she’d collected.

Even as she examined the crystals, one of the twenty-seven dimmed and then faded. She picked the crystal up. It was a favorite. At least she remembered it as being a favorite. She tried to recall the songs on the crystal. There was a vague notion of knights and a battle, but the lyrics failed her. The songs in the crystal were gone. Now she had twenty-six.

She chose one at random and slipped the crystal into the player and tilted the curved cone so that its narrow tip touched the top of the crystal. She tapped the tuning fork against the side of the box and then touched the vibrating fork to the crystal. The crystal glowed brighter and music immediately began to flow from the flared top of the cone.

A symphony. Long pulsing waves of an orchestral arrangement filled the soundless void around Allegra. The tempo was slow, forlorn. It fit her mood exactly. She sat in a padded arm chair and pulled off her shoes and loosened ties on the bodice and the waist of her dress. She curled up in the chair, hugging a pillow, and closed her eyes. The music flowed across her in a caress that soothed the fear and worry in her head.

As long as there was some music she would be all right. She would survive.

She drifted asleep, safe in the caress of the symphony. Maybe everything would be all right.

But three days later there was only one crystal left.

Allegra had remained shuttered in her apartments, choosing like so many others to remain home. She’d wandered from room to room, and paced the hallway. She returned often to the music crystals to play what was still glowing. At first, each time she’d counted one less glowing crystal her heart raced in a panic. Then she’d begun to bow to the inevitable.

Sheet music littered the ground around the piano-forte like giant snowflakes. None of the sheets on the floor were readable. She’d played song after song, some of them repeatedly. When the notes on the sheets became incomprehensible, when the memory of the song slipped from her mind, she’d flipped the useless sheet to the ground and started playing the next one.

In the second day of her seclusion she panicked. What if her playing the music caused it to disappear? She’d closed the lid over the keys on the piano and the top of the crystal player. She sat in silence. Then she paced in silence. She tried to sleep but the lack of music in her head kept her awake.

But the next morning when she examined the crystals, half of the remaining ones were now dulled and empty. The music sheets that she could still read were reduced to a single basket. Abstinence had not helped and had merely cost her a day of music.

She switched back to playing what music she had left. When her hands grew tired she switched to the crystal player. She brewed a pan of dandelion root coffee and ate raw vegetables and fruit to sustain herself. She continued to play and listen to music until she was exhausted and curled up on the padded chair. She fell asleep to the sounds