Chapter 32 Araphi #2
“Phi!” comes a shout from the doorway. Impossibly, Bramble stands there, Phi’s mother’s lute clutched in their hands. “Are you all right? I heard screaming! And we felt the ground shake.”
“Get out of here, Bramble! It’s not safe.”
But Bramble thrusts the lute toward her. “Take this, at least. Sage thought it might help. And I’m sorry…for everything.”
Before Araphi can reply, her mother rushes forward to grab the lute. “We have to help her,” she shouts, turning back to watch Menorath’s contortions. “He’s going to kill her!”
Some treacherous part of Araphi wonders whether the world would be a better place without her aunt in it, but she shoves that thought aside. This is Yael’s mother, and a human—if a vile one—who’s clearly in tremendous amounts of pain. “How?”
Menorath screams again, clutching at her hair and pressing her forehead desperately to the floor.
You will learn to respect me, Menorath Clauneck. I will show you power like you can’t fathom and then I will—
“Clauneck, enough!” Araphi’s mother yells.
She strums her skilled fingers over the lute’s strings.
It’s out of tune after a season without tending, and her mother must be out of practice.
But music is in her blood, and strained though it may be, the song sparks with magical potential as she hastily tunes the instrument.
“Mother, what are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done long ago!” She’s growing more comfortable with her old instrument now, plucking out a complex tune, and running trills over the lute. “I’ll banish you, Clauneck!”
Banish him? Araphi had never known such a thing was possible.
Clauneck’s laughter fills the room. You? A mere bard?
“Never ever underestimate a bard! Araphi, join me. Together we can send him out of this plane and shut the door behind him.”
Brenna starts to play, weaving a complex spellsong that grows dense around them.
Somehow the notes and melodies hang in the air, like dewdrops caught in a spider’s web.
Araphi’s never heard her mother’s voice so firm, so sure.
She’s never heard music like her mother is playing right now either.
Is this who Brenna was before the Claunecks pressed her into their mold?
She’s magnificent, fierce, and unbelievably powerful.
Araphi’s heart fizzes with excitement. This is it: the only way forward.
This is how she brings down the worst parts of her family, stops her aunt, and gets to be with Sage.
Without Clauneck, the family’s star will quickly wane, any heir made redundant.
She and her siblings will be free to become something more than Claunecks if they choose.
If only she and her mother can manage it…
“What should I play?” Araphi cries.
“Anything, really. Improvise! Do you know why Clauneck hates bard magic so? He despises devotion to anything but him. He hates creation for joy’s sake rather than for profit, and sees no value in passion.
But he’s wrong, and we’ll show him. Our songs woven together will strengthen the spell.
Pour all your intention into it. Think of freedom from Clauneck—not just for you, but for our whole family. ”
The idea is intoxicating, and Araphi does as her mother suggests, her fingers playing a song that matches the tone and feeling of her mother’s notes.
Together, they play. Fast, dangerous music, fighting music.
They weave the spell that draws Clauneck out of Menorath’s body in the form of a billow of purple smoke.
Their patron has no solid form, not on this plane, but the suggestion of a form—a sharply clawed hand emerging and then vanishing, a mouth yawning wide in a furious scream.
With every note, he’s wreathed in a cage of silvery threads spun from their shared song.
Araphi imagines her life without Clauneck hovering over her, menacing her future.
She imagines her siblings getting to choose who they want to be, not just who they’re expected to be.
She imagines her family depending upon their own skill, hard work, and ingenuity, not on fearful bargains and market manipulations.
She imagines a life with Sage.
The silver net around Clauneck pulls closer, ensnaring him.
DO YOU REALLY THINK YOUR MISERABLE FAMILY WILL SURVIVE WITHOUT ME?
Clauneck’s voice is strained. He presses at the threads of the banishment spell, but it draws more tightly around him.
“Survive? I think we’re going to thrive,” Araphi replies.
If you banish me, we will all lose! Your family will be on its own now, with no measure of magic. No matter how much you beg.
Araphi grins and keeps playing, hearing the frantic lie in his threat.
Perhaps Clauneck needs them for power on his plane, but she doesn’t need Clauneck’s magic.
She never did. Her own magic is something entirely different.
It brings people together, rather than tearing them apart.
It builds and soothes, rather than bargains and breaks.
“I don’t think we’ll miss you,” she says.
“Decidedly not,” Araphi’s mother adds. “Keep playing, Phi. We’ve almost got him.”
Aunt Menorath wobbles to her feet, looking between Araphi and her mother.
The silver threads cocoon Clauneck, consuming him, even as he tears at them wildly. He lets out one horrible, furious growl, and then a loud popping sound fills the room, almost like a cork flying out of a bottle.
Araphi and her mother stop playing at the same time. A puff of purple smoke wafts upward in one corner of the room, but beyond that there is no sign of Clauneck, or any of the silver threads of the banishment spell.
Araphi hauls in a breath, suddenly exhausted. She lowers her lute. “Did we do it? I can’t hear him or feel him in my head any longer. Can you?”
Her mother collapses into the closest chair. “I think so. He should be shut away on the abyssal plane by now. And if ever he claws the door open, we’ll banish him again, now that we know we can. Well done, my brave girl.”
Menorath barks a laugh from where she’s standing by the window. “I can’t believe you two actually pulled that off!”
Araphi’s mother walks over to the bar in one corner of the room and grabs a bottle and three glasses. “A little thanks might be in order, Menorath.”
She pours three glasses of amber-colored spirits and hands one to Menorath and one to Araphi.
Menorath downs hers in one long gulp. “Thank you. I think…he’s really gone.”
“It’s a good thing.” Araphi’s drink burns down her throat.
“You think so? The family will likely tear itself apart over this,” Menorath replies bitterly.
Araphi’s mother rests a hand gently on Araphi’s shoulder. “So what do you plan on doing now?”
Araphi looks out the window, to the Briarwall gate. She desperately hopes Sage is all right on the other side. “I think I’ll stay with my party leader and see where the road takes us.” Then she finishes her drink and walks out the door.
“Araphi, wait,” her mother calls out. “Do you want your lute back?”
Araphi pauses, a smile hovering at her lips. “You keep that one. I’ve got a new one.”
Her mother’s smile is soft and full of pride. “Be sure to stop by the house for dinner next time you’re in town. We’d all love to see you, and I imagine your siblings would adore a concert.”
Araphi grins. “I’d love that too. See you soon.”
Then she steps outside to find her ranger.