Besides the harp, there were three sets of pipes and a plain flute of bone or ivory on a stand. A more complicated flute, made of rosewood, with stops and a mouthpiece of brass and thin adjustable reeds in its throat, rested on a stand of its own. A scroll was clipped open beside it to show a strange spidery musical notation. An ekonne horn carved of black wood occupied another stand, and an unstrung kinsana stood in a corner, its strings coiled neatly on a shelf beside it.
With a last glance at the dragon carved on the harp, Nemienne left the room. She closed the door gently behind her and stood for a moment, studying it. On impulse she opened it a second time and looked in, but the music room was still there. She could hardly believe it was just an ordinary music room, but what else could it be? Did Mage Ankennes come here to play these instruments? Nemienne had never heard music in this house, but if he didn’t play, why have a music room at all? She shut the door again, questions unanswered, and went thoughtfully toward the mage’s workroom.
She could not help but glance sidelong at the plain black door when she passed it, but she didn’t touch it. She felt somehow that if she so much as brushed it, it might open, and she found she was afraid of it. It might be on the main floor of the house, but it looked like the sort of door that would open on infinite depths of darkness. She went past it hastily and up the stairs.
The mage was indeed in his workroom, doing something mysterious with an unidentifiable object of spun glass and copper. Nemienne perched on a tall stool on the other side of the table and watched him.
The mage glanced up, but did not speak. He was measuring a glittery white powder into a glass bowl held aloft by a ring of copper. Mage Ankennes made a fire burn in the air below the ring with a gesture. Then, apparently satisfied, he grunted and flung himself into a chair that whisked over to catch his weight.
“Well?” the mage asked her.
Nemienne told him about the music room first, at his prompting describing each instrument she’d found in it. “Are they magical?” she asked. “The harp looks like it ought to be magical.”
The mage half smiled. “It might be. It’s meant to be. I didn’t make it, though I had it made by Erhlianne craftsmasters. That harp isn’t really a thing of magecraft at all, but meant for a different kind of magic altogether, more akin to the sorcery of Kalches. Did you try to play it?”
Nemienne shook her head, hoping she hadn’t been expected to. Probably sending her to that room had been one of the mage’s subtle tests, but whether she’d done well or badly by not trying to play the instruments she’d found there, she had no idea. Watching the mage’s face gave her no clues.
“I’ll show you a book that describes dragon magic and bardic sorcery,” he told her. “You’ll find it on the table of your room. Kelle Iasodde wrote this one also. He wrote it several hundred years ago, so you may find the style difficult. Also, not everyone can perceive the words he set down in this book. You may be able to read it; if you can, I’ll ask you to tell me something useful about that harp in… shall we say, a month or so. Now, the beech door?”
The book sounded fascinating. Nemienne wanted to go look at it right away, make sure she was one of the people who could see the writing in it. She was sure she would be, only not really sure. She wanted to go find out. She wondered if the spell that let you read a language you had never learned would work on language you simply found difficult…
“The beech door?” the mage prompted patiently.
“Oh—” She described the beech wood. Mage Ankennes leaned his chin on his palm and made little hmm noises to show he was listening, but she couldn’t tell what he thought.
“It isn’t really a wood?” Nemienne asked him after a moment, when he didn’t seem inclined to speak. “If you go through that door?”
The mage smiled. “Oh, yes. It really is. That’s part of the enchanted forest of Enescedd. Enescedd possesses a strange sort of magic, different from any other I’ve encountered and less, hmm, tractable, than one might expect. Men there don’t, mmm, employ magic in any sort of craft. The magic is simply there. You come upon it unexpectedly, at the oddest times and places, and it seldom takes any form you would expect…” The mage rubbed his chin, studying Nemienne. “You didn’t go through that door. Did you want to?”
“Yes,” Nemienne admitted, wondering whether that was good or bad.
“Yes,” murmured the mage. “Hmm. Probably it would be better if you resisted the urge for the next little while, eh? Even if Enkea should go through the door ahead of you, yes? It’s easy to lose yourself in that wood, and not entirely safe. Although I would find you eventually.”