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voices twined like lovers. The two of them had spent the previous night together, Cadel knew, and it showed in their singing. Jedrek gave little credence to the moon legends, although he wasn’t above using the promise of a lifetime of love to lure a woman into his bed. He had been doing it for several years. Nonetheless, it still angered Cadel to see him behaving so recklessly under these circumstances. He hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to Jedrek about it this morning—Jedrek and the woman had arrived only a few moments before their performance began—but he would as soon as they ended their performance.
    The first woman— what was her name? —had reached the end of “Panya’s Devotion.” The counterpoint was to complete its cycle once, and then it was Cadel’s turn. He took a long, slow breath, readying himself. The opening of “Ilias’s Lament” was by far the most difficult part of the Paean’ s second movement. It began at the very top of Cadel’s range and remained there for several verses before falling briefly during the middle passages. It rose again at its
end, but by then his voice would be ready. The opening, that was the challenge.
    The counterpoint completed its turn. Cadel opened his mouth, and keeping his throat as relaxed as possible, he reached for the opening note. And found it. Perfectly. His voice soared, like a falcon on a clear day, and he gave himself over to the music, allowing the bittersweet melody and the tragic tale imparted by the lyrics to carry him through the movement.
    Those who knew him—or thought they did—solely through his profession would have been surprised to see what music did to him. At times, he was surprised by it himself. How many times had he finished a passage of surpassing emotion, only to find that his cheeks were damp with tears? Yes, there was a precision to the art that excited him, just the way the precision demanded by his other craft did. But there was more. Music had the power to soothe him, even as it exhilarated. It offered him both release and fulfillment. In many ways, it was not unlike the act of love.
    With no piece was all of this truer than with the Paean . Normally it was sung only once a turn, on the Night of Two Moons. But their performance last night had been such that all those who missed it and heard others speak of what they had done demanded that they repeat it this day. Jedrek and the women had been more than happy to oblige, but Cadel hesitated. The previous night’s performance had been wondrous. Singing the second movement, Cadel had felt for just a moment that Ilias himself had reached down from Morna’s sky to add his voice to Cadel’s own. The others had sung brilliantly as well, particularly the woman singing Panya’s part.
    But magic such as they had found the previous night was not to be taken for granted. They could not be certain that they would find it again. Besides, he and Jedrek had other things to do this day. It was only when one of the local innkeepers offered them twice the wage they had earned the previous night to sing the Paean again that Cadel realized he had no choice in the matter. Not that he or Jedrek needed the gold. But they were supposed to be wandering bards, and no bard could turn down such a wage without arousing suspicion.
    So here he was, singing the lament again, and, much to his amazement, giving a better performance than he had the night before. All of them were. He had only to see the expressions on the faces of those listening to them to know it was true. Even sung
poorly, the Paean was a powerful piece of music, capable of evoking tears from the most impassive audiences. But when sung by masters, it could overwhelm listeners with its splendor and arouse within them the same passion, longing, and heartache it described.
    It told of the love shared by Panya, a Qirsi woman, and Ilias, an Eandi man. The two races were young then, and the gods who created them, Qirsar and Ean, had long hated