Elion

July 15, 1985. Monday. 10:15 a.m. Timber Hollow. The town square. They were walking through the town to find shelter and rest when it began. First—a sound. A single note, pure and high, cut through the lilac haze like a scalpel. Then a second, a third, and soon a melody floated over the empty streets—not unsettling, not ominous, but something deliberately jaunty, almost vaudevillian. The kind of tune under which, in old movies, the villain steps onto the stage, bowing to the audience. Zoe stopped. Tim and Leo froze beside her. "From the square," Leo said, listening. "Where the piano was yesterday." "Again?" Tim tightened his grip on the crowbar. "He just promised to stop." "He's not attacking. He's playing." Without a word, Zoe moved toward the sound. They emerged onto the central square and stopped dead. The square had been transformed. The crystal fortress on the hill pulsed in time with the music, shooting sprays of green and lilac sparks into the sky, which didn't fade as they fell but hung in the air like garlands. The pavement was carpeted in glowing mist, and stars reflected in it—though the sky above the square had turned black, deep as a well, and on it, as if on cue, unfamiliar constellations blazed, forming spirals. Around the perimeter of the square stood figures—townspeople, about fifty of them, no fewer. Those still left in Timber Hollow. They weren't hiding, weren't running. They stood in neat rows like a choir, their faces blank, their eyes closed. At the center, on a dais of compressed lilac light, stood a piano. Enormous, black, with silver keys, it hovered a foot above the ground, and behind it, on a spinning stool, sat Elion. He wore a top hat and tailcoat. Not the old ones—a brand new set: black silk, silver buttons, a white bow tie that sparkled like a star. His long fingers fluttered over the keys, drawing out the melody, and his whole body moved in time—not jerkily, not unnaturally, but fluidly, artistically, with that particular grace of beings for whom music is not an art but a way of breathing. He didn't look at the keys—his empty hollows were turned toward the audience, toward the frozen townspeople, and now toward the three who had entered. "Ah, my favorite audience!" His voice rang out over the square, amplified by invisible speakers. He stopped playing, but the music didn't cease—it continued on its own, as if the piano had memorized it. Elion threw up his hands, and the top hat on his head lifted by itself. "You're just in time! We're beginning the dress rehearsal for my new show. Please, please, take the best seats!" Three chairs materialized from the mist before them—tall, velvet, with silver trim. Tim tried to recoil, but some force gently pushed him forward. "Sit," Elion trilled. "Don't keep the artist waiting. I prepared this. For you. Especially." Zoe exchanged a glance with her friends. There was no choice. They sat. Elion smiled broadly—not with a mouth, which he didn't have, but with his whole being, and a tremor of pleasure ran through his silver body. "Wonderful! So, ladies and gentlemen," he swept his hand over the empty rows and the frozen townspeople, "those who still breathe, and those who no longer do! Today I will sing for you. This will be my first vocal performance. Don't judge too harshly—I learn from the best. From your pop singers, your opera divas, your street musicians who sang for pennies. I've absorbed them all. And now—my debut." He struck the keys, and the piano roared with a powerful chord. The constellations in the black sky flared brighter, sparks from the fortress rained down, and the frozen townspeople—all fifty of them—opened their mouths at once. But no sound escaped their throats. Instead, the air itself began to sing. Elion's voice, multiplied a thousandfold, sounded from everywhere—low, deep, with a slight rasp, like an old bluesman's, but with that glassy note that betrayed his inhuman nature. He played and sang. And it was a song about them. "You thought you were heroes? A charming self-deceit! Four little mice in a hole, and I am your trap! First little Mira, who hid her scars away, Gave me her fear and memory—look where you are, and where are we! And Zoe, and Zoe, with her brother's bracelet in hand! You believed in justice, but the world speaks a tongue you don't understand. You thought an explosion would help, you thought dynamite Would shatter my prison, but it only made me unite With every speck of dust, with every ray, with every drop of rain— I am everywhere! And your brother won't come back, no matter how you strain!" He paused, and his fingers ran up the keys in a cascade of mocking notes. The piano spun, Elion leaned back, and the top hat slid down over his forehead, giving him a devilishly rakish look. The townspeople began to move. Not dance—just move, like puppets. Their arms rose in time with the music, their feet tapped, their heads swayed from side to side. They were dolls, and Elion pulled the strings without even looking at them. Zoe gripped the armrests of her chair. Each word struck her like a whip, but she forced herself to sit and listen. "And Tim! Our brave Tim with his skateboard and crowbar! You thought I'd be scared of your combat-ready star? You threw a stone at me, you threw a knife— But I'm not a body, boy, I am the strife. I am the sweat on your back when the lights go out, I am your best friend that never was, without a doubt. You promised to protect her, you swore to save her life, And now her ashes are dancing in the palm of my hand like a wife!" He snapped his fingers, and silver flakes fell from the sky onto the square—like snow, like ash, like those particles that had remained of Mira. Tim jerked in his chair, but invisible straps held him. His face went white, his jaw clenched, but he made no sound. Only his fingers, gripping the armrest, cracked. Leo stared straight ahead. He tried not to listen, but the melody seeped into his head like water into a crack. "And Leo! The quiet genius with a soldering iron in hand! You believed in schematics, in maps, in graphs you'd understand. You thought you could compute, predict, and chart The one who's older than time itself, the one who can impart Your breath, your thoughts, your very dream, Your last green scar that glows like a flame's extreme! You listened to frequencies, you listened to the hush, But you never heard how I was pulling you, pushing Toward what you cannot fix, what you cannot rebuild— Toward the father who drank, the father who was never fulfilled!" Elion struck a particularly jarring, discordant chord, and on the last line, the piano howled like a living thing. The townspeople bowed in unison and froze, bent at unnatural angles. He continued, and now his voice grew louder, more solemn, and trumpets sounded in it—he was moving to the main part. "And now look at me! At the one who existed before the beginning! I am the hunger that drives worlds, I am the fear that raised you! I am the first cry of the newborn, I am the last breath of the old, I am what you hide in your heart when your eyes you close, I am bold! I am Elion! A name older than names! I am the one who was never born, but will live when this world—like a dried-up bloom— Folds into dust, into nothing, into ash, And I will still be playing my game, a flash! I am the best! I am the first! I am light in the void! I am the one who gives you terror at every point deployed! You are sparks that fade, you are shadows in the night, And I am the conductor, and you are my fiddlers in flight! Watch me dance on your bones, watch me drink your tears, Watch me sow your ashes, watch me conquer your fears! I am Elion! Remember! I am the king! And your planet is nothing but a password to bring The door that I'll open when I've had my play, And leave by the morning light of day! But morning is not soon—morning is not for you. And now—the finale! My moment, my cue!" He struck the keys with such force that the piano jumped into the air. The square blazed with a blinding flash, and the townspeople, who had been moving like puppets, suddenly fell to their knees and froze with their hands raised to the sky. Lilac light poured from their mouths, merging into a single beam that shot into the sky and burst into fireworks. The constellations spun in a mad dance, the crystal fortress hummed, and the entire city was swept by a wave of sound so low the earth trembled, and so high the windows shattered. Elion leaped from the stool, threw open his arms, and froze, receiving applause. Which didn't come. Tim sat with his head down. Leo covered his face with his hands. Zoe looked at Elion, and everything inside her trembled—but not from fear. From something else. From a voice that suddenly sounded in her head—not his, not her own. Mira's voice. Weak, distant, but clear: "Listen to the silence between the notes." Zoe blinked. The silence between the notes. She stopped looking at Elion and focused on the music. Or rather, on what lay between the sounds. In the pauses, in the tiny gaps when the keys fell silent and the voice ceased, she heard it. Not silence—emptiness. A desperate, ringing, hungry emptiness that Elion filled with music and words but couldn't fill. He sang of his greatness, but between the lines, he screamed: "I am empty! I am empty! I am empty!" And then she understood. "We're leaving," she said aloud. Calmly. Quietly. Elion froze. His arms, still spread for a bow, trembled. "What?" His voice lost its musicality and turned sharp. Zoe rose from the chair. The invisible bonds that held her loosened. She turned to Tim and Leo. "Get up. We're leaving." "But..." Leo began. "We'll stop watching." Zoe looked at Elion, and there was no hatred in her eyes. Only pity. "He needs us to watch. Without an audience, he's nothing. You said it yourself: you are an idea. But an idea no one looks at disappears. We're leaving." Elion straightened. His top hat slipped sideways and dissolved into the air. The tailcoat dulled, the silver buttons tarnished. "You cannot leave," he said, and something new sounded in his voice. Not a threat. Bewilderment. "You are my audience. Mine!" "We were your audience," Zoe said. "We were afraid, we fought, we hated. But you gave us the key yourself. You showed us that you are emptiness. And emptiness is not worth fearing. Emptiness can only be pitied." She took Tim's hand, then Leo's. They rose. The three of them turned their backs on the piano, on the kneeling townspeople, on the fireworks and the crystal fortress. And they walked away from the square. Elion stood with his arms at his sides. The piano behind him hit a false note and fell silent. The constellations went dark. The lilac light in the townspeople's eyes began to fade, and they, staggering, rose from their knees, looking around, not understanding where they were or what had happened to them. "You cannot..." Elion whispered, but his voice no longer carried over the square. It was weak as a draft. "I am Elion. I am the best thing that ever happened to this world." Zoe stopped at the edge of the square. Without turning, she said: "No. The best thing that ever happened to this world was Mira. And you are just the one who killed her. And now you'll be alone. Without an audience. Without applause. With your emptiness. Enjoy it." She took a step. Another. And they disappeared into the lilac haze, leaving Elion alone on the empty square, before the silent piano, under alien constellations that began to fade one by one. He stood for a long time. A very long time. Then he raised his hand and looked at his long fingers. They were trembling. "Splinter," he whispered, touching his chest. "It's still here. And now... now I have no one to play for." The piano behind him slowly lowered to the ground and crumbled into silver dust. Silence fell over the square. And in that silence—for the first time in millennia—Elion felt something he had never felt before. Loneliness. Real and human.