Verse 08 -- Video

[poeticverses]

[The feed opens up on a bewildered Jehan. He has in his hands a set of panpipes]

While I was out in the city today, I came across these panpipes at the base of one of the arches in the city. No sooner did I pick it up then this--

[He's cut off by the pipes playing the first part of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. After a moment, it automatically quiets down so it's just a little background music as Jehan speaks]

--happened. As I returned home, it began to play Ave Maria when I began to hum it. I do not know how it knows these songs nor how it is possible for a set of pipes to play them, yet it does and it is. If these belong to you, I am in the Wood Sector if you wish to retrieve them.

[He hopes no one claims them. They're marvelous.

Lucky for him that no one will]

Comments

action

[poeticverses]

Of course. There is no one I trust better to tell me if my panpipes are something to be wary of.

[He hands them to Dorian]

action

[depicted]

You may be better off with a magician proper—Molly, maybe, or Sabriel. Even so.

[Dorian turns it over in his hands, and he listens to it. Dorian doesn't really have magical abilities himself; what he has is passive, gifted to him at the cost of his soul. But he has a certain familiarity with the supernatural. Particularly of the malicious variety.

After a moment, he smiles and offers it back.] If it all goes wrong, you have my sincere apologies. But I think this is simply an ordinary enchanted flute. No curses, no soul-stealing, no life-draining.

action

[poeticverses]

Wonderful!

[He takes it back, pleased by the diagnosis]

Would you like to hear it play?

action

[depicted]

Certainly. Would it know Tannhauser?

[He has a favourite. A long-standing favourite.]

action

[poeticverses]

It knows whatever I ask it to know, including music composed after my time.

action

[depicted]

What, you mean it could do, say, Madonna? "Like a Virgin"?

action

[poeticverses]

I'm sorry, did you say "Like a Virgin"?

[What on Earth...

Of course, as soon as Jehan wonders what sort of song that is, the pipes start playing it]

action

[depicted]

[Dorian's actually taken by surprise.] Lord, it really worked. [There's a second more and then he just can't not laugh. Magical panpipes playing "Like a Virgin," really?]

action

[poeticverses]

[Jehan is alarmed, but not by the pipes]

There is a song in the future entitled "Like a Virgin"?

action

[depicted]

[Whoops.] There are . . . a lot of songs in the future with titles like that. And lyrics. The late 20th century and early 21st really enjoy a more open attitude to a lot of things.

action

[poeticverses]

I...I see. Oh dear. That sort of song is not reserved for the wine shops and inns?

action

[depicted]

[He laughs.] No, no, that sort of conservative approach to things is fading. We're still stuffy about the strangest things, don't get me wrong. But war has been waged on the borders of common decency and it has lost much ground to the shock tactics of youths.

action

[poeticverses]

Well, I suppose it is nice to hear that the youth of the world are the ones responsible for change in the future, just as they are in the past.

action

[depicted]

History even repeats its revolutions. [Whoops he didn't mean to sound as cynical as he let that come out. He waves a hand.] Not that that's a problem, sorry. I've just . . . seen a lot of them.

action

[poeticverses]

No, I understand.

[A slight smile]

I cannot imagine being as old as you and seeing all that you've seen, Dorian. If anyone is entitled to a little cynicism, I would imagine it'd be you.