Modulated Delay

Ebenholz had come to appreciate his music lessons with Czerny to an extent that his past self never would have understood. The man was still abrasive in his criticism and sparing in his praise, but Ebenholz had the measure of him now. As unpleasant as he could be, he’d also been willing to die protecting two boys he barely knew. After that, it was hard to take anything he said too much to heart.

Also, it helped, spending time with the only person aboard the landship who had really known Kreide.

“You still overdo the ornamentation,” Czerny lamented. “You must learn to trust yourself and your ability to play the piece.”

“You’re right about the ornamentation,” Ebenholz said. “But as for trusting myself…”

Czerny grimaced. Today, he’d paired his customary three-piece suit with a dressing gown, forgoing his cravat entirely, and it only served to emphasize how worn he looked. He was thinner now than when they’d met, and the skin beneath his eyes was perpetually smudged with purple. Sometimes Ebenholz found himself staring at the man’s massive hands and worrying over how fragile they looked.

Back in the Afterglow, Ebenholz had known that Czerny was planning to retire after the concert, but he hadn’t really understood what that meant. After half-a-dozen lectures from the medical team about managing his own Oripathy, he was starting to get it.

“You may never be a professional cellist, but that wasn’t your goal to begin with, now was it?” Czerny said. “Our goal here is to be worthy of the music we are playing, and you are more than equal to that task.”

“I’m not so sure,” Ebenholz muttered, even as he picked up his bow once more.

The sound of the music room’s door opening startled them both. Ebenholz wasn’t Czerny’s only student, but the others were well aware that this time slot was taken, and even if they weren’t, they’d put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. Czerny had even enlisted a few of his other students to translate it into different languages.

The woman standing in the doorway had shocking magenta hair long enough to reach the small of her back and pale green eyes. Ebenholz didn’t recognize her, but he didn’t know everyone on Rhodes Island.

“Oh, am I interrupting?” the woman asked. “I heard something…”

“We were just practicing,” Czerny said, a bit coldly.

“No, not just that…” the woman said. “There’s…something odd, something discordant…”

Ebenholz stiffened.

“Now, I will admit that this young man could use some additional practice--” Czerny started.

Despite himself, Ebenholz glared at his teacher.

“It wasn’t what he was playing,” the woman interrupted.

“Aya--” someone called. The girl turned around, then stepped to the side to allow another, shorter woman into the room. This one wore glasses and had black hair that faded to dark green at the tips. Unlike her companion, she was actually carrying an instrument--a small guitar.

“Do you hear it?” the pink-haired woman, Aya, asked her.

“Yes,” she said. She picked absently at the guitar for a few seconds, then looked up, staring at Ebenholz. “You.”

“Me?” Ebenholz echoed.

“That song isn’t yours,” Aya said. “Frost agrees with me. It’s too old to be yours.”

“Excuse me, who are you?”

Aya blinked. “Oh, my name is Aya, and this is Frost. We’re musicians and friends of Dr. Kal’tsit.”

“Dr. Kal’tsit?” Ebenholz grimaced, thinking of the sharp-eyed woman who’d helped welcome him to the landship.

“Ebenholz…” Czerny started.

Ebenholz glared.

“Anyhow, about that song…” Aya started.

Frost started playing, and it took Ebenholz a few minutes to recognize the melody. Czerny was faster, crossing the room to place a hand over hers before Ebenholz could so much as blink.

“Do not play that song,” Hhe snapped, and then wavered on his feet.

Ebenholz leapt up to help him, but ended up just hovering at his shoulder, uncertain. Czerny steadied himself against a nearby music stand as Frost backed away from him slightly.

“You do know it,” Aya said.

“Yes,” Czerny said. “And it’s far too dangerous to be played casually.”

Frost glanced at Aya, then strummed her guitar a bit more.

“She’s right,” Aya said. “It’s dangerous, but…I think we could handle it.”

“You’re wrong,” Ebenholz managed.

Aya looked him right in the eyes, and Ebenholz realized that whatever this woman was, she wasn’t human. He stepped backward, startled.

“What are you?” Czerny asked.

“We don’t like to tell people,” Aya said, as if that settled things. She turned to Frost. “Go get the others, okay?”

Frost slipped out as Ebenholz stared.

“What are you planning?” Czerny asked.

“That song…it’s hurting him,” Aya said. “I think if we work together, we can do something about it.”

“You can’t,” Ebenholz said.

“Someone tried to pull it out of you before,” Aya said. “I can hear it. We’re going to try something else.” She hummed. “If we wear away at it a little, I think…we can turn it into something that’s too weak to hurt you.”

Ebenholz stared at her, then turned to Czerny.

“Would that work?”

“I don’t know,” Czerny said. “I don’t think I’d know how to do that.” He frowned at Aya. “I want you to explain what you’re going to do before you do it.”

“Of course,” Aya said.

“You believe them?” Ebenholz asked.

“I believe that she thinks she’s telling the truth,” Czerny said. “Whether she’s correct is a different matter.”

“Oh, geez, you weren’t kidding,” said a new voice. “That’s gnarly.”

Frost had returned, and trailing behind her were two more strangers. One was obviously Aegir, with grey skin, pointed ears, and shark-like teeth, while the other was an otherwise unremarkable woman with her blonde hair dyed pink at the tips.

“We should be able to handle it, though,” the less shark-like of the two said. “I’m Alty. Frost and Aya sometimes come on a bit strong, so I’m sorry if they’ve startled you. But seriously, you can’t be comfortable like that.”

Ebenholz tried not to bristle, and failed.

“Dan,” said the one with shark teeth, grinning. “Where’d you pick that up, anyhow?”

Ebenholz looked away.

“I believe he would prefer not to discuss it,” Czerny said. “As would I, honestly. As I told your companion, I would like a full explanation of what you intend to do before you begin. Ideally, Medic Hibiscus should be present as well. She’s been primarily responsible for Ebenholz’s health for some time.”

“That’s not a problem at all,” Alty said. “We might need a little while to discuss things before we can give you that explanation, though.”

“I’d expect nothing else,” Czerny said.

“No,” Ebenholz said.

“No?” Czerny repeated. “To which part?”

“To all of it,” Ebenholz said. He knew he needed to calm down, his head was throbbing already, but he couldn’t do this again. “I don’t care what you people are, doing anything with that music kills people. I’m not in immediate danger, so just leave it alone.”

A few months ago, he would’ve killed for someone to take the Voice from him. He nearly had, or at least he had nearly enabled Gertrude to do so. But now, with the last attempt fresh in his memory, with Kreide dead and Czerny worryingly ill, he couldn’t imagine taking the risk again.

He still wanted to be rid of it. The aches and exhaustion of Oripathy only made the headaches worse, and sometimes the thought of living years or even decades with that damned Voice still whispering in his ear made him want to sob. But he wasn’t about to risk more strangers for it, not so soon after Kreide.

Czerny was looking at him with so much sympathy that it made Ebenholz want to snap at him, just to wipe it off of his face, but Aya and her companions just looked confused.

“I tried to explain that we could do it, but I guess I wasn’t clear enough,” Aya said.

“Let them present their case, at least,” Czerny said.

“You can listen to them if you want,” Ebenholz said. “I’m going to take a nap.”

Czerny looked alarmed. “Should I send for someone?”

“I’ll be fine,” Ebenholz said. His head was throbbing, now.

His room wasn’t far from the music room, but even so, he was panting by the time he made it to the door. His medication was still sitting on the desk, along with the water bottle he’d used last time he’d taken it.

He unwrapped a pill and drank just enough to wash it down, then laid on the bed, mentally running through chord progressions just to try to distract himself from the pain.

He knew he’d probably scared Czerny, just now. After they’d gotten to Rhodes Island, he’d made the mistake of letting him sit in on one of his appointments with Hibiscus, in hopes of reassuring him, but instead the man had latched onto the fact that no one really knew how his Voice of Terra might react with Oripathy. Now, he fussed every time Ebenholz’s head so much as twinged.

Ebenholz didn’t want to die. Not when Kreide was counting on him to live on; not when doing so would be a surrender to the fate they’d fought together. But since they’d established that there wasn’t a safe way to remove his voice, there was no sense in worrying about it. Either he’d get sicker, or he wouldn’t. At least he had access to good medical care, unlike Kreide and his grandfather and most of the Infected in the world.

Czerny was foolish to worry so much. He’d already done more for Ebenholz than he deserved, all while expecting the bare minimum in return.

Ebenholz really needed to apologize…

He woke to gentle pressure on his shoulder and the feeling of something wet and cold on his brow. It took a few seconds for him to realize that someone must’ve given him a cold compress, and to identify the most likely suspect.

“Czerny,” he said, turning over to face the rest of the room and ignoring the soft sound of the cloth falling away from his eyes and onto the pillow.

Sure enough, his teacher was sitting in the desk chair, looking twice as tired as he had in the morning but cheerful nonetheless. He extended a hand, and Ebenholzt took it, then slowly sat up.

“Their theory is sound,” Czerny announced. The remnants of Ebenholz’s headache throbbed in time with the cadence of his speech.

“I told you, no,” Ebenholz said.

“Czerny, the medics are concerned--”

“Well, they ought to be!” Ebenholz snapped. “They’ll be treating those friends of Kal’tsit’s before long, assuming they live long enough to warrant it.”

“No, they won’t be,” Czerny said. “They aren’t human. They practice something like Arts, but without any need for originium. Dr. Kal’tsit believes they can do it, and she assured me that they’d be at no risk.”

“That can’t be right.”

“If you wish to tell Dr. Kal’tsit that she is wrong, by all means.”

“That can’t be right,” Ebenholz repeated, clenching his fists around the bedsheets.

“Ebenholz, please--”

“You can’t tell me that they can actually do it,” Ebenholz snapped. “You can’t tell me that. You can’t tell me that my whole life, Kreide’s whole life, your farewell concert…all of it could’ve been fixed in an instant if we’d just gotten lucky enough to run into those four sooner.”

Czerny’s expression was pained.

“I wanted it to mean something,” Ebenholz said, more quietly.

“It did,” Czerny said. “The two of you fought against your fates valiantly. That means everything.”

“That’s what Kreide said,” Ebenholz said. “That’s what I wanted to believe.”

“It’s true,” Czerny said. “I believe you are approaching this the wrong way. You feel as though your struggles were meaningless because they could have been prevented. But they were not, as it was only by struggling in that way that you made it to this moment. If what these women do works, it will only work because you survived long enough to come to them.”

“It just seems so pointless,” Ebenholz said. “It was one thing, with Kreide, but I’m barely that sick!”

“You have been asleep for nearly two hours,” Czerny said, a hint of rebuke to his tone.

“It won’t kill me,” Ebenholz said.

“We don’t know that,” Czerny snapped. “Everyone thought Kreide was fine, until his condition accelerated.”

“Due to his Voice of Terra,” Ebenholz said.

“Due to the combination of your two Voices,” Czerny corrected. “Because we knew of his effect on the conditions of others, we assumed it was his own Voice negatively affecting him. But we do not know.”

“You need to stop worrying so much,” Ebenholz said.

“I am accustomed to worrying over an entire neighborhood. Until such time as I have more close acquaintances at Rhodes Island, you will have to put up with my being a little overbearing.”

Ebenholz groaned.

“Please, let them try,” Czerny said.

“I can’t accept it,” Ebenholz said.

“It’s painfully unfair, I know,” Czerny said. “But if there’s a chance that remaining as you are will harm you, isn’t it more respectful to Kreide--”

“Don’t,” Ebenholz snapped.

Czerny looked away. “I overstepped.”

“Yes, you did,” Ebenholz said. “But you were right. I just hate it. It feels cruel; to find a solution now, when it doesn’t really matter.”

“It matters,” Czerny said tiredly. “But I can see why you’d believe otherwise. Now, will you let them try?”

“Yes,” Ebenholz said.

“They’ve set up in the music room,” Czerny said. “Shall we go?”

“I don’t suppose we could go to the medical department first?” Ebenholz said. “If it’s all the same to everyone else, I don’t actually want to be awake for this.”

Czerny’s expression softened. “Both Hibiscus and Dr. Kal’tsit have promised their presence. Between the two of them, I’m sure something can be arranged.”

They walked to the music room in silence, garnering a few strange looks from passing operators as they went. Ebenholz was certain that they made quite a sight-- Czerny in his black-and-gold dressing gown, and Ebenholz in the same dramatic black getup he’d first worn to the Afterglow. Even among Rhodes Island’s extravagant dressers, they stood out.

The music room had been overhauled for the coming ritual, all the instruments pushed against the wall to make room for Alty’s group and their unfamiliar instruments, notably a massive drum set and several different stacks of speakers. Frost had exchanged her small guitar for one of more normal size, while Alty now had a violin, albeit no bow to play it with. Aya, meanwhile, was standing behind a microphone, tapping her feet as the others performed sound checks.

Kal’tsit stood off to the side, leaning against Czerny’s grand piano, while Hibiscus glanced around nervously.

Ebenholz was seized with the sudden desire to run. Only the sudden pressure of Czerny’s hand on his shoulder kept him in place.

“We were wondering if any part of this ritual required Ebenholz to be awake,” Czerny said.

Aya startled, and Alty looked thoughtful.

“I don’t really think so,” Alty said at length.

“Hibiscus, keep an eye on things here,” Kal’tsit said. “I’ll go find Iris, or someone else who can help.”

“Couldn’t we just use nitrous oxide?” Hibiscus asked. “The Arts interactions…”

“Alive Until Sunset aren’t using Arts, so it won’t be a problem,” Kal’tsit said.

The two of them fell into a pitched, whispered debate as Czerny guided Ebenholz to a chair in the middle of the room.

This is foolishness, the familiar voice in Ebenholz’s head hissed, accompanied by yet another throb of pain.

He’d been wondering when it was going to speak up.

I don’t care, he replied mentally. It will make Czerny less worried. Even if that’s all it accomplishes, that’s enough.

“Ebenholz…” Czerny said, startling Ebenholz out of his thoughts.

He looked up to see Iris standing over him. The two of them weren’t well acquainted, but their Arts were similar, so they’d shared a training room once or twice.

“Dr. Kal’tsit tells me that you want to be put to sleep,” she said.

“That’s right,” Ebenholz said.

“Easy enough,” Iris said, and the lantern she carried with her flared bright blue.

When Ebenholz’s vision cleared, Iris was gone, the band members were in entirely different places, and Czerny was leaning over him.

“How do you feel?” he asked urgently.

“Where’s Iris?”

“She left after the band began,” Czerny said.

“What?”

“It’s over,” Czerny said. “They’ve done what they said they’d do. Did it work?”

“I-I don’t know,” Ebenholz said. This all felt too sudden.

“Try to remember the song,” Czerny said.

Ebenholz tried. He could feel the shape of it, tucked up in the back of his skull like it always was. But actually remembering it was harder. Notes were missing or not-quite-right, and he couldn’t get a handle on the tempo.

“I can’t,” he said slowly. “Not really. It’s like trying to remember a song I haven’t heard for years.”

“It worked, then,” Alty said, as she placed her violin in its case. Next to her, Dan was taking her drumset apart, while Frost and Aya had started deconstructing the towers of speakers.

“Are you sure?” Czerny pressed.

“It’s not gone,” Alty cautioned. “But it isn’t strong enough to speak to him anymore. He might still have headaches, but they should be less frequent, and less severe.”

“We checked whether it was affecting his, uh, what’s it called…the rock disease?” Aya added. “It’s not. He’ll be fine.”

“Aya, the rock disease kills them eventually,” Alty hissed.

“Oh, really?” Aya asked. “But Kal’tsit--”

“She’s a special case,” Alty said.

“Oh, okay,” Aya said. “It won’t make the rock disease worse, at least.”

“I don’t believe you have any idea of the magnitude of what you’ve done,” Czerny started. “But I--”

“You don’t need to thank us,” Alty said. “We got to play our music for an appreciative audience. That was good enough.”

“It makes me want to try more of this kind of music,” Dan said. “It’s pretty different from our normal stuff.”

“If any of you are interested in lessons…” Czerny started.

“I think we’ll pass,” Alty said. “We might incorporate elements of classical music into our next song, but we’re going to stick with the techniques we usually use.”

“But your finger placement at the start--” Czerny pressed.

“Did what we needed it to,” Alty said.

“If you want to thank us, you should check out some of our other songs,” Dan said. “We can always use new listeners.”

Hibiscus spoke up, startling Ebenholz, who had quite forgotten that she was there at all. “I don’t think Mr. Czerny’s going to be much of a metal fan.”

Ebenholz grimaced. He wasn’t terribly familiar with the genre, but he’d heard enough to agree with Hibiscus’s assessment.

“You should go back to your room and rest,” Hibiscus told Ebenholz. “You had a lot of power running through you today. Your body needs time to equalize.”

Ebenholz agreed. He still couldn’t quite believe in what had just happened. It didn’t feel real.

“I’ll take him,” Czerny said.

The next few minutes passed in staccato. One moment, he was fumbling through a thank-you to the band, and the next, he was in the hallway hyperventilating. Time didn’t spring back into its normal shape until he was in his room, lying on the bed while the sunset painted everything orange.

Czerny was still there. He’d picked up one of the music texts Ebenholz was reading this week and was paging through it, clearly uninterested in the actual content.

Ebenholz attempted to sit up, but his arms felt…odd. Like they were something entirely separate from him, even though he knew he was the one moving them.

Czerny set the book down on the desk and placed a hand on his back. That had to be where it was, because Ebenholz could see the rest of his arm. But Ebenholz felt entirely separated from the person Czerny was interacting with, as though he was watching someone else entirely.

Czerny said something. Ebenholz saw his mouth form words, and heard noise with the cadence of his speech. But it was indecipherable.

Czerny frowned.

Ebenholz wanted to tell him that he hadn’t heard what he’d said, but his mouth felt clumsy and uncoordinated. He tried anyway, and Czerny’s eyes widened in alarm.

Time skipped forward again.

“There’s nothing physically wrong with him,” Hibiscus said.

Hibiscus hadn’t been here before.

“You see it sometimes, with trauma,” she added.

“I’m not unfamiliar, but given today’s events, I was concerned,” Czerny said.

“That’s reasonable,” HIbiscus said. “I’m glad you decided to make sure he was alright.”

"I'm glad he is," Czerny said.

"The band may have been the ones to weaken the song, but he only let them try because of you," Hibiscus said.

That was true, although Ebenholz didn't get why she was bringing it up now.

"Even so, I can't help feeling a bit surplus to requirements," Czerny said.

That, on the other hand, was false to the point of offense.

“If what I did wasn’t worthless, neither was what you did,” Ebenholz said.

Czerny looked at him, startled, so Ebenholz repeated himself.

Hibiscus was smiling. “He has a point,” she said.

“I suppose so,” Czerny said.

Ebenholz still felt unmoored, but Czerny was still here, and that was something solid that he could hold onto.

“Thank you,” he said, deliberately lowering his voice.

Czerny was merciful enough to pretend that he hadn’t heard.