Golden dominance
The applause for the last performer is his cue, and as it dies away, he steps on stage and takes his place at its center. He feels peoples' eyes on him, young eyes, but he ignores them. Last stray noises die away until the whole auditorium is silent again, and it's so quiet that he can almost hear his own ears ringing, as if they're protesting the utter lack of sound. Concerts at Bloor's are always like this, but it strikes him oddly this time.
He waits for his cue to begin, standing still and quiet, not looking forward to it, but not dreading it either. It's just there, like he is. Just there, but it doesn't stand out to him. It's just another song to play.
The pianist counts quietly, giving him the slow waltz beat. One, two, three, one, two--he begins on a pick-up note. He hits it perfectly in tune and on pitch, the sweet note ringing throughout Bloor's auditorium.
And now the beat rings throughout his body too, and he drifts back to before.
----- Can't forget the past -----
"Come on, come on, you'll be late!" called Fidelio, pulling Charlie behind him.
"Aw, stop," said Charlie, pulling his arm out of his friend's grip. "I don't care! What does it matter?"
Fidelio looked back over his shoulder with a mock scowl. "Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but I'd rather not get detention on my first day back!"
It was, of course, the first day of the new school year and, despite the difficulties he had had at this school, thirteen-year-old Fidelio Gunn was not as excited to abandon it as Charlie was. Mostly because it was the only place he had ever received an education he could actually learn something from--snarly teachers and Manfred Bloor notwithstanding.
They entered assembly and Fidelio headed on stage, receiving a glower from Manfred. "You're late, Gunn," he said.
"Sorry, sir," shrugged Fidelio, trying to look contrite as he took his place and began to tune his violin. He gave Charlie the customary thumbs-up, then everyone fell silent.
They played. There was nothing new about the song; it was a hymn that Fidelio was fairly sure he could play in his sleep. He was able to get away with not paying much attention to the conductor at all, following the song by ear alone, but that wasn't anything new either.
When the song ended and assembly was dismissed, Fidelio rose from his chair and left the stage to pack his violin away and head out for first break.
And he would have, too, had a heavy hand not landed on his shoulder.
"Gunn," said a low voice in his ear. Fidelio turned.
"Yes? … Sir?" This last was tacked on hurriedly as he caught sight of Manfred's face. Manfred looked unhappy--but it was the kind of unhappiness that turns to anger all too easily. Fidelio thought it best not to cross him.
"We have someone we'd like you to meet," said Manfred. "Come with me."
Fidelio closed his violin case and quickly tucked it under his arm, following Manfred. The talents master took him back into the auditorium, where there was a lone figure sitting at the piano. Manfred nodded to him, then turned to Fidelio. "this is Dr. Domitare," he said, with an odd look to his face.
Fidelio gave the man a smile; he turned, pulling his face out of shadow. The man was young, dark-eyed but with blond hair, and a strange, blank face. Fidelio stuck out a hand to shake; Dr. Domitare did so, his grip firm.
"We have brought him here to teach some of the more gifted students," said Manfred with an odd grin. "We chose you as one of the pupils he will tutor. Don't misbehave with him," he warned with both his voice and his hard, flinty eyes. "He doesn't take disobedience."
"Yes, sir," said Fidelio easily, still eyeing Dr. Domitare. "Of course."
"you begin your lessons now," said Manfred, turning away.
"But sir," Fidelio began. "I have--have …" His voice failed, his mouth going slack as he caught the look in Dr. Domitare's eyes. It was a frightening, sharp look, but his conscious mind didn't register that. All he registered was the disappointment.
And Fidelio, having already gazed into the man's eyes too long, didn't want to disappoint.
"… Yes, sir," he said finally. He didn't see Manfred smile as he walked out.
----- But how crucial is the present -----
He almost falters now, remembering the look that first caught him, like a mouse in a trap. The beat almost wavers, but he keeps it on track when he catches the eye of the pianist. Dr. Domitare doesn't need a music score. He keeps his eyes on his young charge, the pride and disapproval fighting for attention. Should his student succeed, the pride will show. Should he fail, then will come the disapproval.
The younger man looks back down at his violin, counting out the beat in his head with a child's single-minded need to please, and foregoes his tutor's disappointment. He stops noticing the audience, concentrating wholeheartedly on the music he plays. He doesn't even need to look at Dr. Domitare to know the man is staring at him, just waiting for him to look up again.
He doesn't quite yet. He keeps his eyes down on the stage at his feet, and the grain of the wood has so many irregularities that, despite how many times he's performed on this stage before, he's never noticed.
It takes him several measures to gather himself again. When he's managed that, he looks up and into the crowd. Familiar faces leap out at him, but they are concealed behind a mist, a fog that, despite being thin and light, he can barely see through. He sees Manfred, eyeing him intently, but it doesn't matter. He thinks he sees Charlie in the crowd, mouth open in awe. Olivia, a slight grin on her lips. Gabriel, eyes fixed on Dr. Domitare at the piano, caught in rapture.
The only thing that's still crystal-clear after these years, though, is the music.
----- The past, shaping who we are -----
"No! No! Do it again!" Somehow, Fidelio had a bad feeling about his tutor. He kept his eyes on his music and restarted the piece again, but he could feel the man's eyes boring holes in his forehead.
The notes came out as beautifully as Fidelio could coax them to be, flowing from the violin with more precision than he had ever managed before. Dr. Domitare wasn't happy, though. Even after two weeks of practicing and practicing, over and over, the same piece, he was still not satisfied.
"Flat!" he cried on the third note, and Fidelio's bow fell still. He glanced up at Dr. Domitare, almost ready to say something.
The look in his teacher's eyes was annoyed. Fidelio couldn't stare at it for long and looked back down, restarting the piece again.
This time, the fourth note was sharp. The third time, his sixth note squeaked. Fidelio, frustrated, slammed his hand down on his leg and looked up. "Dr. Domitare," he said, "I didn't hear a thing. Why--"
"Don't talk back," said Dr. Domitare, reaching out one hand. "Your violin, please."
"Yes, sir," said Fidelio, handing the instrument over.
"And your bow."
That went over too. Dr. Domitare placed the violin under his chin, situated his fingers, and then played. Fidelio's world faded to the music, and everything else became unimportant, insignificant. He felt his mouth drop open in awe of the older man's playing. He lost track of time, caught in the music's net.
When Dr. Domitare stopped, Fidelio half-raised a hand to beckon for more before remembering himself and dropping it again. Dr. Domitare stared straight at Fidelio. "That," he said fiercely, passionately, "is what I want. That's what you'll be able to do when I'm done with you."
Fidelio swallowed. "Yes, sir," he said, but there was slight doubt there. Oh, he wanted to try--at that moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to coax such music out of his violin--but somehow, he wasn't quite sure. And this became the first time in the young virtuoso's life that he had doubted his ability to play.
"Go," said Dr. Domitare. Fidelio stood and held out his hands for his instrument. Dr. Domitare shook his head. "I'll keep the violin tonight," he said forcefully, but quietly. "You go."
Fidelio did go, quietly, music still playing in his head. But that night, he couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned all night, his fingers itching for the violin, his head ringing with extraordinary notes he couldn't play. In the morning, he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. The music still played.
----- And what we don't know can't hurt us -----
"Is it working?"
Dr. Domitare sank into a chair with a wide smile. "It is, Master Bloor," he said sincerely, leaning back in his chair. "He was easy to manipulate. He's taken now, all we have to do is polish him."
Manfred didn't look into Dr. Domitare's eyes. "Don't try your magnetism on me," he snapped, just to dissuade any ideas on Dr. Domitare's part. "You've done good work. Keep working on him, and don't let his friends know. That will ruin it all. Do you hear?"
"Of course," said Dr. Domitare, standing up. "I've done this before. I know how things work."
Manfred nodded shortly. "Go," he said, waving a hand. Dr. Domitare went.
No one was any the wiser, of course; but most clueless was Fidelio, trapped in Dr. Domitare's musical mousetrap.
----- And the present shapes who we'll be -----
"He's amazing," whispers Charlie, staring in awe at his best friend. Fidelio doesn't look up, eyes on the stage at his feet. The beautiful harmonies of piano and violin float through the auditorium, striking even the least musical to their cores. Even Olivia's mouth has dropped open.
"Listen to the pianist," whispers Gabriel from next to him, enraptured by the beautiful chords and harmonies. "I want to learn from him! Fidelio's so lucky …" His voice trails off into silence, and he continues to listen in awe to the pianist.
Only one person thinks something might be wrong. Billy Raven, with Blessed at his feet, has his mouth turned down in a light frown. "Blessed says there's bad things going on," he whispers to Emma, on his left. "He says there's magic."
Emma shakes her head. "Not here, Billy," she says, enchanted by the crescendoing music. "The only magic here is skill."
Billy shakes his head, grunting quietly to Blessed. "No one believes me," he says forlornly.
Blessed grunts back simply, "Bad magic, Billy. Bad magic …"
And on the stage, Fidelio plays on, chasing after his tutor's approval, prodded on by the music at his heels. Play on, it seems to say in his ear, whispering enchantingly straight into his head. Play on. Play on. You have to.
He, the musician, just as enchanted by the notes as his audience is, plays on.
----- Flash back, flash back to before -----
"Flat! Flat! Stop, start again! No, no, make that note flow! Dammit, Gunn, stupid boy!"
"I'm trying!" Fidelio yelled, voice breaking, as he was forced to halt yet again. "I'm sorry! Dr. Domitare, can we please, please play all the way through? Once?" The plea, coming from someone who knows that practice entails stopping, working on things and restarting again, sounded odd. But in Fidelio's head, everything was fuzzy but two things--the music and Dr. Domitare's angry stare. The stare bored into him, making him shift uncomfortably. He knew he had done something wrong, but he couldn't seem to correct it.
And the music? Fidelio had never felt a tug so strong, so fierce; he wanted to play through the piece again and again, make it flow like Dr. Domitare had, and hear those flowing notes--just one more time.
"No," snapped Dr. Domitare. "You'll get this right, if I die to make it happen! Do it again, Gunn!" Fidelio glanced up at his teacher's scowling face and then played, trying to wipe the scowl away. It only deepened, and he cringed inwardly, hating that look. "no, Gunn," snapped the tutor. "Make it flow! Make it--" he reached out and grabbed the instrument from Fidelio's slack fingers, placing it under the chin and, using his own bow, beginning to play.
The notes that emerged whisked Fidelio away, buzzing through his head and carrying his whole body to a place that he thought must be as close to heaven as he was ever going to get. God, but it was beautiful. Words, Fidelio thought--or would have, had he had the coherence to think--couldn't describe the notes Dr. Domitare coaxed from that violin. He needed no accompaniment, for the notes were enough on their own, swirling around Fidelio's head and whipping away everything he had ever worried about in his life. It was everything any composer had ever written and more--so, so much more--a haunting, solo tune that filled the world. It was everything music was or would ever be again, the only music that could truthfully be music, the essence and soul and drive of music--emotions and sensations and thoughts, and it was the world, painted and sung and handed to him by the bow and his own violin.
Drunk and high on the notes, Fidelio would have fallen from his seat had it not had armrests and a sturdy back. His eyes glazed as the other world--the one where music was the only thing that existed--took him over. The clatter of his own bow falling to the floor didn't register in his mind.
And then, when the coherent spark had gone from Fidelio's open, glassy eyes, when he had gone limp in his chair, when his jaw had gone slack, Dr. Domitare stopped playing.
Fidelio's body, taken over by an enchanter's magic, craved more. So badly did it crave more that his head throbbed as he surfaced from his musical high; his temples pounded and his head grew light. His body knew there was something wrong, sending panic signals to his brain. Something wrong, it said urgently. Something horribly wrong.
But, ensnared in a spider's web coated in gold, his brain was oblivious. It clung to the feeling of the music, clamoring for more, more, moremoremoremore--
"That," said Dr. Domitare in a soft whisper, "is what I want. That is what you want." And, handing Fidelio's violin back, he murmured, "play."
All he wanted was more, another taste, another note. Another glimpse of the passion Dr. Domitare displayed as he bowed the violin. Picking up his dropped bow, Fidelio played again.
----- Look through their eyes, walk in their shoes -----
Billy Raven, so different, is the only one not enraptured by Fidelio's violin. He stares at his friend on the stage, with Blessed by his feet and Rembrandt in his breast pocket. They protect him from the enchanter's music Fidelio and the pianist are releasing, and he is the only one who sees clear. Everyone else has been swept along in the musical tide, drowned in the sea of melody and countermelody, crescendo and decrescendo. No one else really sees Fidelio or the pianist; they only hear the music.
Billy sees. Billy sees the looks passing across Fidelio's face, subconscious attempts of his body to signal that something is so wrong, so wrong. See the fear, the anger, the helplessness, the all-encompassing longing, the sadness. See the addiction, filling Fidelio's mind with beautiful golden fog that's really only spilled yellow watercolors. See, because no one else can.
And see, on the face of the pianist? See that range of expressions, so carefully calculated? Look close. Maybe the calculation isn't visible to the normal eye, but it's there, behind the skin and slight beard. Yes, just there. See how he calculates every expression, every subtle shift in his face? Hear Fidelio's violin go ever so slightly flat, and see the disapproval on the pianist's face. See Fidelio's eyes drop …
Billy can't stand it, watching the emotion on both faces as they play--the one face displaying every emotion like a carefully drawn picture, but the other's so open and real. "Can't they see it, too?" Asks Billy.
"No," say Blessed and Rembrandt. "Just you."
And Billy, only twelve years old and too unsure to help his friend, can only sit and watch.
----- Remember when there was something else -----
"Mom, please, can I have a violin?" Fidelio stood before his mother on the weekend, wondering why the din of Gunn House seemed less … real to him. Mrs. Gunn glanced down at him, hands wet with dishwater.
"If you can find one," she said distractedly. "Mimi isn't here, but maybe someone else has one stashed away."
Fidelio ran up the stairs, almost desperately searching out the violin. Dr. Domitare had taken his, saying he would keep it for the weekend. He said that practicing too much was a bad thing, and it could harm your playing, not aid it.
Fidelio didn't care. He had felt a headache building in his temples since he had woken up that morning; aspirin refused to clear it. His body clamored, frantically--there's something wrong, something wrong--but Fidelio's fogged mind, taken in by enchanter's magic, took this sign as something else. He needed the music again, and he wanted to play it again--to make it as good as Dr. Domitare's.
And he looked all over Gunn House for a violin--one that worked. But no matter how he searched and scoured the musical house, there was none to be found. He asked every person in the Gunn House, and none could give him anything.
Finally he went to the attic, head pounding and light, and rummaged around to see if there was something.
And sure enough, he did find a violin. It was badly out of tune and missing a string; but Fidelio, addicted by music that no mortal could play, didn't care.
He played and played and played, again, again, again, but the violin screeched and screamed in his hands, producing a sound that he couldn't abide. He tried again, again, again, one more time, but the violin would not play.
Temples throbbing violently, he took the broken instrument downstairs to his father, pleading that he fix the thing.
"Play it," instructed his father. Cringing slightly, Fidelio played.
"It doesn't sound broken," his father said--for to him, the notes floating from the violin were astounding, considering the state of the thing. "I could never make it play that way."
Fidelio scowled. "It's horrible," he declared vehemently, plucking a string and hearing, through the mist in his head, a tinny, staccato note.
"What happened to yours?"
"Dr. Domitare has it," said Fidelio, staring wistfully into the distance over his father's shoulder.
"Dr. Domitare?"
"My tutor," said Fidelio. "I'll have to ask for it back on Monday."
He trudged back upstairs and put the violin down, resolving to play it later. As he put down the bow, his headache increased; with a little groan, he dropped onto the bed, placing an arm over his forehead as it pounded ferociously.
He stayed abed all that day, the headache and lightheadedness growing and growing and growing with each tick-tock, tick-tock of the clock in his room. His skin began to ache and burn, as if he had a fever, though he knew he did not. Around him, unnoticed, Gunn House fell asleep.
But Fidelio had gone too long without the music, like a druggie who can't get his hands on his daily dose of escapism. He stood, eyelids drooping with tiredness, and picked up the broken violin.
Again he played, desperate for the sound that would carry him away and ease the burning of his skin and the pounding of his head and heart. To the rest of the world, the notes Fidelio coaxed from the broken violin were pure and lulling. For him, the addict ensnared by drugged food and drink, they snarled in his ears and pounded pain in his head and set new fires to overwrought nerve endings. The fever his brain thought he had grew with every second, with every note he couldn't draw out of his instrument.
When Mrs. Gunn rose to investigate the violinist's midnight concert, she found him shaking violently on the edge of his bed, legs turned to jelly as his brain told them they were too weak to support him. Mrs. Gunn couldn't tell what was wrong; her boy was perfectly normal looking, not too pale or too red, not feverish nor too cold, not concussed in any way. But he shook like one in the throws of a high fever, the broken violin held in playing position, the bow strangely steady over the strings. He didn't even seem to know what he was doing--he just played, played and played and played, and she couldn't pull the violin out of his hands. He didn't even seem to see her. She could only stand back and watch.
He finally dropped back onto his bed, the violin still held against him, his eyes slowly fluttering shut. She still couldn't prize the violin away. He held it with a dead man's grip, but it didn't even crack in his tightly clenched hands.
She, worried, headed back for bed--at least he was asleep now. But she couldn't get the thought of that expression, that death-grip on the violin, out of her mind. Not for the first time, she wondered about that school.
----- Come back, it's not real anymore -----
Every moment he spends with the violin in his hands, playing the beautiful music, is hell and heaven and bliss. He knows he'll have to put it down eventually, and he never wants to again--he wants to remain in this world where music is everything, where he can fly on its dips and curves … but his subconscious screams, shouts desperate warnings, because it's one thing Dr. Domitare hasn't crushed yet. It knows this is wrong. It knows he's addicted, it knows he's been taken in, ensnared. It knows he's gone, caught up in the golden dips and swirls of enchanter's music.
Oh yes. And yet, he still plays, on and on and on forever, or at least until forever ends (and too soon, that will be), because otherwise he's sure he'll wither away and die. The subconscious part of him, the one that surfaces still only in his dreams, hates his dependency, his enslavement, his willingness to obey if only to play again. The part of him that's still inherently Fidelio obsesses over the past and times when he could put down his violin without beginning to feel sick. In a way, even that part is enslaved, because oh how cunning the enchanter, the dominator, can be. Those parts of the boy's mind he hasn't caught up in the music, he catches in the past--in memories of when he was free, of when he was a virtuoso because he was born that way, not made that way. Oh, how clever Dr. Domitare can be.
----- There's more to life than this -----
"Dr. Domitare, please, can I have my violin?"
He studied the eyes of his student carefully, searching them deeply and calculating his own expression accordingly. He saw worry there--so he returned it with annoyance. The longing he returned with compassion, the fear he returned with disappointment. So simple, so easy. Fidelio's trapped mind whirred, found the sympathetic emotion and latched onto it. Longing, that's what he clung to, because that's what the compassion was for - somehow, he was sure of it.
He looked back at his teacher, waiting for the verdict, shifting in his seat. The pause took forever, eternity, but finally words emerged.
"After lunch."
God, thought a brain too dependent on unreal music to think about anything else. God, too long!
He opened his mouth to protest, and felt the sharp rap of his teacher's disapproval on his mind like a physical blow. He forced his mouth closed again and stood, nodding. "Yes, sir," he said quietly, trudging from the room and wondering how he could survive the day without it.
As he left, quiet strains of music reached his ears. Too beautiful to be real, flowing, dipping and rising and whisking him away. Magicked music, music no mortal could draw out.
But Fidelio didn't care. It was a taste of the drug he couldn't live without; as he listened, forcing his feet to continue moving, the rest of the world faded away.
----- Watch the music growing now -----
Crescendo, decrescendo. Slow, now quicker. The rhythms flow through his body, giving him energy, life, health and breath, the essential things he can't live without. His subconscious tries to pull him away--the end of the spell is near, it knows, he's fallen too far--with flashes and flashes and flashes of memory, one, two, three, each beat of the music--each beat of his heart--a new memory. Memories of before, just before, when he was still a human and not an enchanter's puppet. And here, a flash of the horrible withdrawal, lying in bed and shaking and feeling about to die--do you want to live that again? Do you want to? And here, a flicker of a face he remembers, a hedge of hair, a boy named Charlie Bone--friendship, do you remember what that is?
(One, two, three, controlling the beating of his heart)
And a flash of a horrible, crushing uncertainty as he gazed into his teacher's eyes one time, with Olivia standing behind his left shoulder--that felt wrong, didn't it? So wrong, right? And a flash now, just a flicker, of a world that isn't clouded by a golden haze--it used to be that way, you know that!
(One, two, three, and he's sure the clock is ticking in time as well)
And now they're not memories. Now the memories fight--fight the golden mist, battle fiercely, press it back, press it away. For a moment, one precious moment, Fidelio Gunn is free. He stares out at a sharp, clear, un-hazed world. At the audience staring back. Familiar faces, his friends, in awe--like he was, like he used to be.
(One, two, three, and the enchanter knows he's breaking through)
Don't do it, don't let him, he begs in that moment while he is still Fidelio Gunn. Don't let him take you too! And he spots something at the door--is that some kind of ticket booth? And he hears the echoes, focuses on them--not the music, but the echoes that the music leaves behind as it fades. All music eventually dies to echoes.
(One, two, three, and he thinks, are you so sure?)
All music dies to echoes. Echoes can't control anyone. Press the golden dominance back, stare at the clear world you haven't seen for … for two years. Ever since you met the doctor. See, the familiar faces in the audience? Charlie, Emma, Gabriel? See the rapture? Push back the mist, or that will happen to you again, too.
(One, two, three, and the mist closes in)
Fight it. He stares into the audience, making eye contact with as many people as he can, and fights with all his strength. He has always been strong-willed, fearless. He fights for his freedom from this dominant addiction with every ounce of strength he has.
(One, two, three, hear the piano crescendo)
In the audience, the animals instinctively know he is losing. They tell Billy, but Billy is sure Fidelio is stronger than that.
(One, two, three … And look, feel the winds again)
Music is no prison. Music is no prison. Music is no prison. He thinks it over and over again, fighting back the enchanter's magic. Music doesn't control, no. Music is an outlet, a tool, an escape--
(One, two, three, feel it calling, escape)
… An escape …
(One, two, three)
Fidelio feels himself spiral up, up, up, as the music grips him again. His subconscious is swept away, a forgotten fighter in a crushed rebellion. Dr. Domitare has control again, and no one is any the wiser. He's swept up in a whirlwind of pleasure and pain; the winds that whisk him away cut knives into his skin, and the blissful other world, the one where only music exists, pricks him with strange memories of people he thought he once called friends. Drunk and high on the notes again, Fidelio's eyes glaze over.
(One, two, three, and now go ahead, start screaming)
Except he's not happy anymore. He's drunk on alcohol that sets his insides afire, high on drugs that tear his mind apart, because he knows he doesn't want to be here anymore. He sees through the enchanter's musical spell, but it has too firm a hold on him.
(One, two, three, one, two, three, one … two … three …)
The music slows, and the last minor chord rings clear throughout the auditorium. Golden cobwebs tighten around Fidelio's mind, cutting tracts there, demanding more, more, more. Play or lose the will to live, they say, because music is all you have to live for. The world isn't real. There's no applause. There's just the golden cobwebs, and they aren't so soft anymore.
----- And he doesn't even know, he's used -----
"Get him to bed, he looks pale," says Manfred, gesturing to a frighteningly white Fidelio. He leans on Dr. Domitare's arm, violin case in one arm, head pressed into his other hand. Dr. Domitare nods, begins to leave with his weakened musician, and then turns back.
"How much money did he gain for us?"
"Nearly two hundred pounds," says Manfred, smiling. "We'll use him again, I'm sure. Completely successful." He gives Dr. Domitare a nasty smile. "Extremely good work."
----- Golden Dominance -----
And no one's life has been as devoted to music as Fidelio Gunn's. Music is his life, and his soul, and everything that sustains him. Music is crushing, smothering golden mist.
The golden mist is all he has.