The Dark Symphony

across the street and into another covered passage that led toward a large square. He squinted and saw that there was a crowd out there, apparently gathered around something, watching. This was where the laughter came from.
    As he started forward, down the alley, two Musicians entered at the far end and walked rapidly in his direction, talking loudly and laughing hoarsely…

CHAPTER TEN
    Four neon stones in two heads:
a
pair of manbats.
    And, of course, Strong. His voice was heavy and unnatural as he strove for what he imagined were stirring tones. "Let the angel of the Lord chase them, let them be as chaff before the wind."
    They stood beneath the Primal Chord, obscured by its black shadows, Strong with a hand-sized crossbow and a dozen clips of steel darts pinned over a loud vest of alternating panels of bright cloth and fur. The manbats had no weapons other than their claws and fangs.
    Which were enough.
    Guil found it hard to imagine that this night had been conceived over seventeen years ago. Seventeen years ago, Loper had struggled up the side of the Primal Chord, fighting impossible chances and incredible odds to steal a child and kill it. Guil's stomach turned yet again as he realized for the first time that he had been partly responsible for the real Guil's death. His existence had led to the Dream, the Dream to Loper's murder of the baby, He would forget that. There was too much else to feel guilty about to start digging up new things. The bombs?" Strong asked.
    "All ready."
    Then let's move to those trees," Strong said. His voice was almost the voice of a child. The dreams of seventeen years had started to reach fruition. Soon, he felt confident, all that which God had promised him would be his. The air was sown with gnats among the hoary willows, warmer than it should have been. Strong silently said the prayers which had become a part of him for so long. He thanked his Lord for what had been sent him and prayed that they might succeed with that which they had undertaken. He had prophetic visions of seven gleaming white archangels dressed in brilliant golden robes lifting him to a bejeweled throne. It never occurred to him that he might be quite insane.
    Guil fixed his eyes to the towers and waited for Tisha. A moment later, he saw her, sleek in black leotards, a powerful sound rifle in one hand. He called softly to her, and she joined them in the willows as the towers of visible sound glowed around them. Guil took her free arm in his, said, "They should be going off—"
    "Now," Redbat finished for him.
    It was true. From the Congressional Tower came the muffled thuds of the tiny explosives as they wrecked the machinery in which they were planted. Then the Tower of Learning began to dissolve. It was an altogether awesome sight. The reaction began at the top of the building, far up at the glowing peak. It was not a simple fade-out, for the power could not be cut instantly. What was stored in the reserve batteries of the computers was used, moderately, to sustain the illusion-buildings. Since the points highest up were the hardest to sustain, they were permitted to go first. The red-cream-white ripples of the structure continued, sweeping from top to bottom as always. Near the top, however, the red ripple faded to pink, the cream to white, and the white misted completely out of the visible spectrum. Then the process slowly worked its way down.
    Every time a white ripple reached the lower peak, another few floors disappeared. The color ripples began flushing outward at a faster rate as if frantically trying to counteract the decay and restore the tower to its previous majesty. But as they moved faster, the decay also moved faster, and the tower rapidly disappeared as if an eraser had been rubbed over it.
    Those things that had not been sound configurations, the contents—in specific—of the various chapels and some of the private furniture, rained down on the lawn, smashing to pieces on the cement or merely crumpling apart on the grass, showering up in color-suffused fragments among some decorative neon stones.
    Guil saw a pew slam into a running Musician and split him as neatly as a sharp knife would cut through pudding. Together, the man and the pew fell apart. It had all occurred in silence, for the victim had not even had time to scream.
    He thought that he should feel revulsion at this death that was of his making, but he had seen so much death and violence recently that he could not bring himself to