The boy is hasty. The boy is rash, hand full of knife and heart full of outrage. At his shoulder the older man shares his glimpse into the cave, into a hellmouth of bloodshed and innocence devoured. Plenty of good men would have wept at the sight, would have fled the ghastly scene in horror. This one staggers a reflexive pace back, features ashen, fixed in a mask of revulsion and shock.
It is a matter of a moment, a few hurried breaths to reclaim as much composure as he needs; a step aside, glancing over his shoulder in case the other pair - very well, the other man - might wish to follow the youth's example. Marek Waldemar, student of history, miller of excellent flour, is not so reckless, or perhaps not so bold; he stands instead, a handkerchief pressed to his lips as if fearful of retching, murmuring with the cadence of feverish prayer, as the fingertips of his left hand dance in palsied curls and twitches at his side.
The music falters, stumbles, and he must move quickly before its echoes fade entirely. A swift step into the cave mouth, hand thrown forward over the heads of the enraptured children as if casting a net; teeth gritted, fingers closing on the air and pulling sharply back; a final syllable growled, strained -
- summer lightning; it must be, for the cave is briefly frozen in green-violet afterimages, a nightmarish tableau -
- crashing thunder; it must be, for the air is solid with a sudden clap of noise, a rushing cacophony of merry strings and young voices raised in pain and despair, pressed into the span between one heartbeat and the next -
- and immediately these things pass there is a gaping void, a smothering absence where before had been fey music and childish cries of dismay and foul liquid noises from the creature that squatted at its centre. No sound at all, save perhaps one's own racing pulse and sobbing breath. Silence, save for a stifled cough, and a man's voice calling to the back of the charnel-pit in a voice like scraping fiddle-strings. Where the fiddler's tune had beguiled and entranced the miller's voice commands, compels with stolen power. Walking stick lifted in summons, an impatient flick of fingers while his other hand clenches tight upon a crumpled linen handkerchief.
"Children. Come with me."