Side A – Nia
A part of Nia had hoped the drums would play for her. Even a single ‘bong’ from the smallest of the drums would have been a resounding confirmation.
But that wasn’t how they worked.
“That what I heard too,” Margrada said, offering a confirmation that was somehow even more valuable.
“That can’t be though,” Osdora said, shaking her head. “We’ve plummed the depths of what the drums can do. There’s never been another voice in there before. This has to be something new.”
“It’s not,” Grash said without adding any further elaboration.
“Osdora’s right,” Gossma said. “Especially with the songs we played over the last few days. If the drums were aware of us, we would have felt the echoes of that. We would have felt the echoes of someone else in there a long time ago. You Roadies know the drums, but you don’t know them how we do.”
Which was also true. Playing a Shatter Drum forged an undeniable bond between the drum and the drummer. Most drummers didn’t get stuck in moments of Resonance, but having been in far more than her fair share of them, Nia knew she should have seen some hint of the drums persona if one lay within the Shatter Drums she’d used.
“The drums aren’t just a part of this world,” she said, nearly whispering every word as a spark of understanding kindled in her mind.
She turned to Horgi and Grash for confirmation but both of them looked away. She wanted them to answer her doubts. She needed them too. They couldn’t though. They were bound by sacred vows.
“What do you mean?” Marianne asked, her gaze focused entirely on Nia though she was holding Belhelen’s hand in a comforting gesture.
“I don’t know,” Nia admitted. “I’m guessing at all of this.”
“Guess then,” Belhelen said before glancing at Grash to add, “If that’s okay?”
“She’s not bound by any of our pledges,” Horgi said, which was as close as he could come to giving her official permission Nia suspected.
“So, Yasgrid and I have seen some pretty strange things,” Nia said, searching for words to capture her nascent idea with.
“Hey! Who are you calling strange?” Belhelen said, though her levity felt more than a little forced.
“Let me put it like this; we stood in a Resonance and faced down the gods who created the Stonelings and were under the sway of an Elven Lich, and none of them are in the Top Three for weird things that we’ve seen, or weird places we’ve been since this happened.” Nia glanced over to Yasgrid who nodded in agreement but remained silent so she wouldn’t derail Nia’s argument. “I made a mistake at one point and we wound up somewhere outside our world. It was dark and empty and literally impossible for us to survive and what happened there? We met a new friend. You’ve seen King right? Where he comes from I’m not sure existence happens, at least not like we understand it.”
“So what are you saying?” Osdora asked.
“I’m saying that the drums aren’t just drums. They’re part of this world and a world beyond and the voice we hear in them, the companions who are waiting for us? We’ve never felt them when we play because they’re not within the drums, they’re beyond them.”
Side B – Yasgrid
Nia had put into words an idea that had been slipping away from Yasgrid every time she tried to wrap her mind around it.
“The drums are tools,” she said, first in a whisper and then again loud enough for the others to hear her.
“You do not mean that as the drummers here are understanding it,” Naosha said, which seemed to stifle a exclamation that had been about to boil out of Osdora’s mouth.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t,” Yasgrid said and turned to look at Nia to see if they shared an understanding.
Nia paused for a moment and then nodded a smile back.
“You two are figuring things out quickly this time,” Kyra said.
Which made sense.
The former Fate Dancer was all too aware of the existence of other layers of the world. Of course it came as no surprise to her that the Shatter Drums had that as a part of the fundamental nature.
“What I should say is that the drums themselves, the physicality of them, is a tool but we’re not the only ones who make use of it.” Yasgrid wasn’t certain if throwing different words at the idea did anything to clarify it, and Belhelen’s expression suggested the answer was a solid ‘no’.
“Shatter Drums aren’t magic,” Nia said, trying to flesh out the idea further. “They are formed and fashioned from real materials. Stone from these mountains, right?”
The Roadies made no comment.
“Or maybe elsewhere too. But that’s not important,” Nia said. “What matters, in this case, is that if I tool a chisel and carved the stone beneath my feet into the shape of a drum I wouldn’t have a Shatter Drum. I’d just have a lump of stone that might be in the shape of a Shatter Drum.”
“Because a Shatter Drum exists as more than the stone of our world. It exists beyond our world too,” Yasgrid said and let her magic lap against the nearest drums like the ocean caressing the shore. “Whenever one is played, its beats resound both in this world and the other one.”
“But it’s more than just that,” Nia said, her eyes alight with the ideas crashing together inside her. “There’s more than the bridge between the worlds in them.”
Yasgrid felt a gentle hand trace along the magic she’d extended to the drums. She could feel them, the ones beyond of the drums.
“There’s someone on the other side,” she said, not grasping what her own words meant at first. “There’s someone there. All the time. Playing with us.”
“Not playing,” Nia said. “Singing. Speaking. This is how they communicate. This is how they know us. The part of us that we think is important enough to put into song.”