Through the stones of St. George's Cathedral the music reverberated from the ranks of pipes as Chief Organist Lupian played with stabbing thrusts of his long fingers upon the manuals. Beside him Anne Teesdale listened in admiration of her tutor's technical finesse. Her eyes followed the sheet music before them, an anthem in intricate counterpoint that Lupian had written for the Coronation three days hence.
"It sounds so different on the Dragon's Breath Organ." She recalled his playing selections from it on a smaller organ in the archbishop's palace.
Lupian nodded, the heavy curls of his wig bobbing. "The Dragon's Breath has more pipes and uses an ancient magical air shaft to provide its wind, rather than bellows, so the pipes speak more intensely. Moreover, the palace organ is tuned to a good circulating temperament, while this one is in the old meantone system. I must avoid certain modulations because of the wolf."
"Wolf?" Anne shot a wary glance over the console's top to the wind chest from which the ranks of pipes rose. The dragons carved on it, said to represent the Old Ixilons who had created the Dragon's Breath wind shaft, were scary enough without a wolf.
"It's a figure of speech for the discord created by the syntonic comma..." Lupian broke off at Anne's raised eyebrow. "Ah, get me started talking music theory and I'll still be going by Evensong. Better to demonstrate."
He modulated into a different key and struck a chord that howled fit to rake Anne's ears raw. There was flash of movement among the 16' open diapason rank. A pair of flaming eyes glared down, then vanished. That scream had not come entirely from the pipes.
She flung herself sideways to catch Lupian as he fell backwards from the bench, wig awry. In silence as agonizing as the dissonance it followed, she lowered her tutor to the cold stone flags of the choir.
Lupian lay still, eyes open and staring, breathing shallow and irregular. Footsteps echoed in the quiet cathedral. A man in a presbyter's cassock approached, and Anne recognized him one of the cathedral canons.
"What happened?" He knelt beside Anne, opening a prayer book to prayers of healing.
"Something attacked him." Anne wet her lips. "I think he's hurt bad..."
"Devil and Cromwell's ghost, but the king will be furious if this disrupts the Coronation." The canon's eyebrows drew together. "Where's your father?"
As the senior cleric of the Church of New Albion, Archbishop John Teesdale had potent magics at his disposal. "At the palace, I hope." Anne pulled herself upright. "I'll call the sextons."
On shaking legs she hurried to summon some of the cathedral's lay workers, burly men who fashioned a litter for Lupian. Anne started to follow them to the door, but the canon stopped her.
"There's nothing you can do for him, and as his understudy, you'd do better to practice for the Coronation, so somebody can play if he doesn't recover."
Anne opened her mouth to protest, then realized he was correct. Gritting her teeth, she climbed back onto the bench and scanned the stop knobs. Lupian had chosen a registration fairly typical of his tastes, although a bit heavy on reed pipes. She'd seen him use them a dozen times at Sunday services without ill effect. Why now?
She couldn't sit and dither forever. She spoke aloud, half to herself and half to the dragons carved in the facing of the wind chest and the stone screens about the pipes. "You have three days until King William's Coronation, and he will not tolerate delay."
Bracing herself, Anne played the opening notes of the Coronation Anthem. Above her the pipes voiced, a deep throbbing of multiple flues and reeds. The hairs on the back of her neck pulled tight under her braid as the tingle of malice trickled up through her fingers. She jerked her hands away from the manuals.
"Sweet Jesus have mercy," she muttered, half prayer and half oath. She looked up at the shining tin flues above her, expecting something nasty to crawl from the mouths cut in their faces.
She cast about the empty choir stalls and across the communion rail to the nave in a hope of seeing anyone who might help her. On the other side was the sanctuary with the high altar and the cathedra, the great stone seat of the archbishop.
No, she was alone. It's up to me to fix this.
Anne rose and walked along the console. She ran her hands over the places where the wood butted against the stone of the great piers that rose from bedrock to support the roof. Coolness flowed through the ancient granite, and a faint tingling that pulsed upward to make her skin twitch with unease.
Anne recalled something Lupian had said. "The Dragon's Breath comes up from the crypt level."
She hurried through choir and transept to the stairs down to the Bethlehem Chapel. She feared the crypt gates might be locked, but they swung open under her touch. She paused to borrow a taper from one of the candelabra before entering the quiet darkness.
The single flickering candle transformed the shadows of tombs and sarcophagi into menacing shapes on the walls. Anne shuddered. She'd always been afraid of the dark.
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