The Dark Symphony

beveled to a relatively thin knifelike blade. With the speed the hunchback had given it, it was as deadly as a sonic knife, the only difference being that this blade must physically connect where a sonic knife could kill at a distance. Guil had only to remain out of its reach. If he could. If…
    He backed.
    In a way, he was fortunate that Rosie had come here in the manic, wild peak of emotion he had. Otherwise, he might have thought to bring a sound whistle to put Guil to sleep before killing him. Then he would have Lad no chance. Not even the slim one he now enjoyed.
    Enjoyed?
    That was not the word, not the word at all.
    He backed a little faster.
    And Rosie jumped, swinging the brilliant trinket.
    Guil dodged, ducked. The Medallion swung over his head, pulling a detectable cool breeze after it.
    Rosie lowered his arm to correct his aim and catch his quarry.
    Guil fell, for there was no other way to avoid the weapon. The Medallion sliced the air inches above his head, just about where his stomach would have been…
    Rosie screamed in frustration, his face a fierce mask of desperation that turned Guil's insides around and around as if they were on a phonograph turntable. This was surely the face of someone he had never seen before. It was a demon mask, a madman's vision of the denizen of Hell. Guil rolled, grabbed the Composer's feet, jerked as hard as he could, and toppled him. Lunging onto him, he tore the Medallion from the struggling fingers and tossed it away. It clattered across the floor, the echo ringing back as it came up against the bookcase.
    This should have been enough. Rosie was disarmed. The fight could not continue, for Rosie had no strength to use his fists. It really should have been enough. But it wasn't. Guil threw fist after fist into the hunched shoulders…
    Rosie gurgled, choked, and shrieked, sounded as if he were a hundred small animals running in fright.
    Guil felt pain in his sides, realized the mutant was bringing the spurs on the backs of his hands into the game. Springs of blood welled up where they dug in, and crimson rivulets followed the scorching paths they made down his flesh. He grabbed both of the other's arms and muscled the wicked hands away from him.
    Panting, he felt a great thrill of triumph pour down through him.
    Then, as he held the hands of the hunchback away where they could do no harm, he realized nothing had been won yet. As soon as he released the hands, they would come back, gouge even more deeply into him. For a moment, he gave way to panic, then realized what he had to do. Letting go of the left arm, he grabbed the right with both hands. Hissing breath between his teeth with the force required, eyes bloodshot and stinging, he rammed the hand back against the floor again and again, over and over until the spur crunched audibly and dangled loosely from the flesh, no longer a valid weapon.
    Rosie's free hand had raked his thigh three times, though only the last had been serious. Still, he bled from all of them, and bleeding had never been recommended as a healthy exercise. But the pain in his chest and on his sides was not what concerned him. He had a great fear now that, in this last few moments, the hunchback would
put on
a burst of energy and go for his eyes. The spur that remained would tear easily through such soft tissue…
    Again, he had to muscle the other arm away from him, though he found it easier now that he had both hands to work with. He pushed it away, swung it down, smashing the spur on the floor. Over and over… It seemed as if it would never break, but when it finally did, it tore the skin around it and broke cleanly with the bone to which it had been anchored.
    Rosie heaved, trying to toss him off.
    Guil threw more punches into the other's shoulders, liking the way they felt as they bounced off him and left bruises behind. A part of him looked out of a barred window in his mind and cried and screamed at what he was doing. But that part of him was no longer in control. A little fragment from some dark nook of his soul had clambered into the driver's seat and was calling all the shots now.
    When the mutant would still not surrender, he drove his fists ruthlessly into the face, sweat bathing his skin, his heart beating like the heart of a rabbit. His mind clattered and rattled as the jailed part of his psyche strained at its bars. The horrible realization had come that he, as all the Musicians and Populars, had a barbarous base to him, though it