Polyphonica: Concerto of Strange Hues

Stories

## Illustrations

## As Time Passes (Makoto Sannda)

As Time Passes (Makoto Sannda)

*(Illustration 003)

Saeki Lambert had no great reason for coming to this bar.

In a single sentence: he was in a bad mood.

He felt too low to face an ordinary bar. He thought he might as well walk, wandered into the neighborhood, and happened to choose this place. That was all.

(The director had no need to apologize.)

The moment he thought of Tsuge Yufenli—someone who stood at the very front even within Torbas Academy of the Divine Melody—Lambert could not help taking great gulps of whiskey. He did not usually care for drinking so much, yet he could hold a great deal. Everyone said his capacity had no bottom. Lambert himself agreed: watching the others drop drunk one after another, he really did hold his liquor better.

(However you looked at it, the one who failed ought to have been me.)

He drank and bit his lip. What kept turning in his head was the commission the Tsuge office had taken a few days before.

The job itself was simple: the removal of a structure.

They had been digging a foundation for a tower when they found ruins underground. The building plan could no longer be changed, and the ruins were fortunately small, so the developers made a bold proposal—have the spirits move them.

Small ruins or not, it was not work a single office could finish alone.

In the end several offices took it on together, and the one the Tsuge office sent was Lambert. To handle several at once…

## A Distant Note That Never Reaches the Ear (Rapo Asai)

A Distant Note That Never Reaches the Ear (Rapo Asai)

*(Illustration 065)

Is not knowing this a kind of happiness?

Music, a piece, a string of notes—does any of that count as such a thing?

I do not know. I cannot understand.

Because I cannot hear a single sound.

Because no sound can enter my ears.

I am strong, and empty, and meaningless.

I have nothing.

◆

Between the stone buildings I went on along a narrow passage. My footsteps were swallowed by soft rubber soles and damp flagstones.

Behind me I drew a wheeled case, and the case made no sound either.

Piat’s orders were always cruel, as if they existed to test what I could do. My employer would say it to my face—Druloi, want to try?—but if I did not obey, the only other choice was death.

I kept walking, opened my mouth, and drew in a heavy breath of air.

The sounds a human can hear run from 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. Cut that span into octaves and the middle falls exactly at 640 hertz.

Half of 640 hertz, about 320, is the average pitch of a woman’s voice; half again, 160, is the average pitch of a man’s. The lowest sound a human can hear, 20 hertz, multiplied by the highest, 20,000, gives 400,000 hertz; the square root of 400,000 is roughly 640 hertz.

640 hertz is about the natural resonance inside a human mouth when the lips are open. People seem rather fond of sound at this frequency…

## Western Rhapsody (Okuna Kamino)

Western Rhapsody (Okuna Kamino)

*(Illustration 127)

There is no record of when this happened, or where.

Only this is certain: it happened somewhere in this world.

Picture for yourselves a fitting age and a fitting landscape.

That will be enough.

Now, let this story begin—old, and new at once!

From the foreword to *The Rainbow of Limda*, by Minestari Conway

Morning was gone. The sun stood at noon.

Two rails lay across bare reddish-brown earth. A huge machine breathed smoke and turned its heavy metal wheels with force, dragging behind it several enormous boxes pierced by many windows.

The speed was something to marvel at. From dawn until dusk it could hold the pace of a horse run flat out.

People called this conveyance a steam train.

When the sun had tipped a little past overhead, the steam train, hauling twelve cars, reached a place called a station.

The great wheels eased to a stop. Workers threw up ladders and climbed at once. A huge water tank stood beside the train. They hauled over, by rope, the hose that stuck out from the tank, opened the hatch on top of the engine, and poured in the water steam required. It roared.

Passengers came down from the cars one after another.

There were ladies in light white silk dresses, and gentlemen in coats and trousers cut as if by a ruler, wearing tall hats that looked as though iron had been packed inside them. There were also young men in ragged work clothes, and others draped in clothes thick with dust…

## Dan Sariel and the Silver Tiger (Kohei Azano)

Dan Sariel and the Silver Tiger (Kohei Azano)

*(Illustration)

1

When the last note vanished completely into the air, applause broke through the hall like thunder.

The house lights came up, and light closed around the hall.

Many in the audience rose from their seats and threw praise at the stage without stint. It was not only humans. The spheres drifting over the stage like fireflies were lesser spirits, the Blei. The light on their bodies blinked on and off in delight, showing plainly how glad they were of the performance just ended.

The man on the stage slowly lowered the violin from his shoulder. He smiled at the Blei, then raised one hand toward the house, set that hand to his chest, and bowed.

He looked about twenty-five or twenty-six. His graceful bearing might have come from a painting. He was tall and slender, and striking in classical evening dress. Silver hair combed back and tied in a tail jumped with his movement like a hound’s.

He lifted his head and looked out at the house again.

Perhaps because he had played with everything he had, his breath was still a little quick, and the sweat on his brow shone. Under his glasses, though, his eyes held a satisfied light. When that fine-lined face showed a proud smile edged with shyness, the house cried out and cheered.

He stood bathed in acclaim, then, under applause that had not paused, walked toward the back of the stage.

☆

Tch, tch, tch, tch!

The dressing room was full of bouquets from admirers. Dan Sariel, as if…

## Afterword

Afterword — Makoto Sannda

Hello. I am Makoto Sannda, the one who wrote the opening story of *The Realm of Divine Melodies: A Concerto in Another Hue*. And while I am at it: my name is not read Mita Makoto. It is read Sannda Makoto. Sorry. It is a slightly troublesome name.

Next.

This must have been right at the end of last year. When Sakaki-sensei said to me, want to write a side story for the Realm of Divine Melodies?, the first thing that came to mind was Lambert.

Readers of the crimson series will know that Saeki Lambert is a strange character. He is the genius in everyone’s heart, and he will not admit the gift. He thinks of himself only as a counterfeit of a genius. His troubles and his joys are nothing like those of the protagonist, Phoron.

So writing a story with him at the center felt, to me, entirely natural.

It seemed a way to draw Lambert out from the place one step back, where he watches Phoron and the others.

And from another angle, perhaps, to see through this genius who has never been willing to look straight at himself.

It was a happy piece of work. Halfway through writing other series, I would catch myself, without noticing, setting the outline of this story first. (People do tend to run from what is in front of them.) Fugue and Fertida came into being that way, and they performed beyond anything I had imagined.

My thanks to Sakaki-sensei for giving me the chance to write this story.

And if readers find the story interesting, that is the author’s greatest joy.

Until we meet in some other new tale…