The Piper's Lament

CW: Death and child abduction

The man stood gaunt atop the gallows, a spectre of flesh and shadow flanked by two knights encased in blackened steel. Chains clinked softly against his wrists as he shifted, his head bowed low, letting greasy strands of hair obscure his sharp, hollowed features. But not the smile. No, the smile lingered, faint and unsettling as it always did. His clothing stood in stark contrast to his surroundings, with bright extravagant colours. Below, the gathering crowd seethed like a restless tide, their voices rising in a cacophony of curses, prayers, and the occasional hurled stone that fell short of its mark. The church bells rang in the distance, calling more to the day’s spectacle.

A woman in black and crimson plate ascended the scaffolding, her heavy boots striking the wood like a drumbeat. She moved with the authority of someone who carried the Empire’s will in her every step, her presence silencing the crowd to a simmering murmur. There was an elegance to her movements, something that the man couldn’t quite place. Reaching the crest of the platform, she turned to him, her eyes hard as flint as she addressed him. 

“Master Hunold Singuf,” she intoned, her voice cutting through the remaining whispers, “you stand accused of crimes against the Empire and her people. These include unsanctioned witchcraft, the kidnapping of innocents, and multiple counts of murder - heinous acts too numerous to count. How do you plead?”

For a moment, the man remained silent, as though savouring the weight of her words. The air grew heavy, the crowd straining forward in anticipation. Then, with a voice soft enough to barely carry over the platform but sharp enough to pierce the silence, he spoke. 

“Guilty, ma’am,” his tone almost courteous, as though he was confessing to a minor indiscretion rather than atrocities.

The woman’s stern expression faltered for the briefest of moments, her lips pressing into a tighter line as if she hadn’t expected the simplicity of his response. The crowd, however, erupted into chaos - shouts of outrage mingled with cries for swift justice. One of the knights shifted uncomfortably, his gauntleted hand gripping the hilt of his sword as though prepared for the storm below to spill onto the scaffolding.

Singuf raised his head at last, his eyes gleaming with something between defiance and melancholy. The smile remained, though it twisted now, sorrow curling at its edges. He turned slightly, his gaze sweeping over the crowd as though each face deserved a fraction of his attention. Then, finally, he spoke again, louder this time, his voice carrying a note of eerie calm. 

“Guilty,” he repeated, his voice echoing through the din like the final note of a requiem. “But not of the crimes you claim. No m’lady, I am guilty of something far worse.”

The crowd fell silent, as if digesting his words, a spark of curiosity rippling through them. Even the armoured woman paused, her brow furrowing in intrigued suspicion as she folded her arms across her chest. 

“And what, pray tell, would that be?” she asked, her voice laced with disdain.

Singuf exhaled a laugh, soft and bitter. “Simply, I am guilty of being a fool,” his gaze was distant now, as if he were looking at something only he could see. “As we all are. Playing with powers we seldom understand.”

The crowd began to murmur again. He could see the confusion spreading through their ranks, but he ignored it, his focus now solely on the woman before him. He leaned slightly forward, as if sharing an intimate secret, the weight of his words heavier than any noose or chain. 

“I was not always this,” he began, his voice low and careful, his bound hands motioning to his brightly coloured outfit, “You think of me as a man who chose to play the piper, don’t you? A monster who saw the rats, heard the villagers cries, and thought he could make a fortune. A creature of greed. But the truth is far darker. I was once a boy also, as innocent and foolish as any child, before I too followed the music.”

The woman stiffened, and several members of the crowd muttered uneasily, but Singuf was too far gone in his memories to notice.

“When I was a child, all I ever wanted to do was play music. I saw the way my mother smiled when the bards played at the inn. The way it made even the most hardened individual sway. Music made people happy, or so I thought. I was no more than ten winters old, wandering near my village,” he continued, his eyes distant now, staring deep into the crowd. “The fae are cunning creatures, but I was young. Too young to understand the dangers that lay in the wilderness. That's where I met her and oh… how beautiful she was. I didn’t stand a chance.”

Singuf’s voice softened, a thread of longing threading through his words. “She was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Skin pale as starlight, hair that shimmered like moonlight on stormy waves, and eyes… gods, those eyes. Eternally blue, like the eyes of the devil himself. She glided through the woodland, as though the earth itself dared not touch her.”

He glanced at the armoured woman, his smile faint and twisted. “You wouldn’t have believed she was dangerous. None of you would. She spoke with a voice that would make even the most talented siren jealous, each word a melody that wrapped around me, as sweet and inviting as the spring bloom. She said she could tell I was wishful, that I wanted to do good, and she could give me the power to do that. I believed her. I believed every single word.”

The woman shifted slightly, her plate gauntlets creaking softly. “Fae rarely give for free. What did she want from you?”

Singuf let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “What do the fae always want? A bargain. A pact. She offered me her flute, carved from bone. Bear I think, so smooth it seemed to glow in the moonlight. It had these runes carved on one side that used to gently glow when you played. It was magic, she told me, said it would make my music draw from the eternal well of life itself. ‘Play this,’ she told me, ‘and the world will follow your melody.’”

He paused, his face twisted with a mixture of sorrow and anger. “I was a child. How could I know the price of such a gift? How could I understand what I was trading away?”

The crowd was silent now, their anger momentarily stilled by the tale. Singuf’s gaze turned inward, his voice trembling. “I was so eager to prove myself. I played the flute the moment she put it in my hands. And the music… It was heavenly. The air shimmered with every note, then creatures came - rabbits, birds, even the deer stepped out of the trees to listen. It felt like power, my power..”

He hesitated, his hands flexing against the manacles. “But the music changed, it always did. The notes, they were distorted, they were wrong. They grew darker, sharper. There was a hunger to it. The animals began to cower, their bodies trembling as if in pain. I tried to stop it but I just kept playing. I wanted to keep playing. It wanted me to keep playing..”

The armoured woman’s brow sharpened, her stern demeanour giving way to something colder. “And the fae? Did she tell you what you’d done?”

“She smiled,” Singuf said, his voice barely a whisper now. “She just smiled, dancing between the dead animals in the clearing. Asked me to let everyone hear the music. The more I played it, the more the flute took from me - my will, my dreams, my life. And when it had taken enough, it began to take from others. But every now and then, she would grace me with her presence. Thank me for my work, and I started to enjoy what I was doing. Enjoyed knowing someone was pleased with my deeds.”

The crowd gasped, the realization dawning on them like a shadow stretching over the square. “And so you became the Pied Piper,” the woman said slowly, her voice carrying the weight of accusation.

Singuf met her gaze, his eyes hollow. “Not willingly. At least not at first. But then why not? The flute played me, as much as I played it. The fae’s curse left me little choice. I was a pawn in their game, their instrument. I tried to resist, to break free, but that magic is older than iron and stone. It binds tighter than any chain.”

The woman’s lips pressed into a thin line, her knuckles tightening against the hilt of her sword. The crowd began to stir again, their unease turning to murmurs of anger.

“And now you seek pity?” she asked sharply. Singuf looked up at her, there was something about her that made his hairs stand on end. Something he just couldn’t shake.

“No,” he snapped confidently, his voice steady despite the storm brewing in the crowd. “I seek nothing but to tell the truth before I’m gone. Pity won’t undo what was done in Hamelin. Nothing will.”

He straightened slightly, as though even the gallows could not hold him down. His gaze swept over the crowd, searching for a flicker of understanding before finally settling back on the woman before him. “Do you even know the truth of Hamelin? Or have you only heard the stories they whispered when it was already too late?”

The woman tilted her head ever so slightly, her expression unreadable. “Tell me, then. Tell us all. What really happened in Hamelin?”

Singuf drew a deep breath. “Hamelin was supposed to be my redemption,” he began. “The rats had overrun the town - hordes of them, thick as tar, choking the streets, fouling the wells. The people were desperate, and I…” he paused, as sorrow swept across his face. “I thought, for a moment, that I could use the flute to do something good. To undo the harm I’d caused in other places.”

His eyes darkened. “I knew she would come to me, asking for an offering, after I helped the villagers. So I asked for payment, not for me, but to satiate her. I sought assurances from the villagers that they could offer something, anything in return. And they agreed.”

“And then, when the rats were gone, the people cheered. They hailed me as a saviour. For the first time in years I felt seen. But when they refused to pay, when they broke the deal, chased me out of town... I could feel the anger, not mine but the flutes. I had nothing else to give, so it… I took what I could.”

He faltered, his voice trembling. “The children… they were the ones who heard it most clearly. Every single one in the dead of night followed me out of that village.”

Singuf’s eyes burned now, locked on the armoured woman as though she held some hidden answer. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to see their faces, to hear their laughter turn to screams, and know that you are powerless to do anything. But then, why should I have? It was the villagers that broke their promise, maybe I should have taken more.”

The woman’s gaze didn’t waver, but something about her seemed to shift, as a subtle change in the air around her. Her posture was too still, her expression too composed. “And where did you take them, Singuf?” she asked, her tone measured. “Where are they now?”

Singuf’s eyes narrowed. For the first time, he seemed to truly see her. His breath caught, and a flicker of recognition crossed his face. “You already know,” he said, his voice quiet but with a hint of accusation. “You know exactly where they are, don’t you?”

The woman’s lips curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smile, but she said nothing.

“You didn’t come here for justice,” he shouted, his voice sharp and ragged. “You came to finish your game. Have I not suffered enough?”

The woman leaned in close so only Singuf could hear. “Justice is a mortal concept, Singuf. One of your kinds many fragile illusions. No, I did not come for justice. We had a deal, and you have not been keeping your end of the bargain as of late. So I am here to collect.”

The air around her seemed to shimmer, the faint edges of her armour glinting with an unnatural light. Now he could see those timeless blue eyes staring back at him. The crowd continued to murmur to themselves, utterly unaware of what was conspiring as the faint scent of wildflowers and moss wafted through the square. Singuf stumbled back, his chains rattling and the noose gripping against his neck.

“I have nothing left to give.” he spat, though his voice trembled. “I won’t play.”

She tilted her head playfully, her expression still calm and composed. “Oh, Singuf,” she said, her voice lilting like a soft melody. “You never had a choice.”

With a flick of her fingers, the chains binding his wrists fell away, and in his hands appeared the flute. Singuf’s fingers clenched around the flute as if it burned, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. “No,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “No, I won’t.”

But the woman stepped close, her eyes gleaming. “Play,” she commanded, her voice a deep melody of its own, snaking its way into his ears, coiling through him, suffocating like a second noose. “Play for them, Singuf. Let them hear one final tune. You owe me that much.”

The crowd stirred uneasily, craning to hear what was happening on the gallows. 

“Don’t make me do this,” he pleaded, his voice cracking, as his hands were already making the journey to his mouth. “Please.”

The fae woman smiled wider, the image of her face shimmering until it resembled her true form, the thick plate melted into a long flowing dress of stitched silk and leaves. “One last performance, Piper. Then you may rest. I promise.”

The first note was soft, a hesitant sound trembling from the flute as if it were a creature waking slowly after a long hibernation. Singuf’s face contorted in pain as his fingers moved in rhythm, the music spilling forth, weaving through the air like smoke, wrapping itself around the crowd like vines.

The crowd, entranced by the magic, any brief moment of fear or confusion melted swiftly into simple blank serenity. One by one, they began to sway, their bodies moving in time with the haunting tune. Mothers clutched their children, husbands held their wives, but none resisted the call of the music. 

Singuf’s tears fell freely now, but his hands wouldn’t stop. The notes quickened, rising to a fever pitch, and the crowd began to step forward, moving in unison towards the gallows. The fae woman spun around as if dancing, her arms outstretched as the first of them reached the edge of the platform. One by one, they fell to their knees, heads bowed, their movements unnaturally smooth, like puppets guided by invisible strings.

With a final, discordant note, the flute fell silent, and those remaining standing in the crowd collapsed where they stood, their faces slack, their eyes staring into nothing. The town square was filled with the silence of the aftermath, broken only by Singuf’s ragged sobs. 

The fae woman turned to him, her expression radiant and triumphant as she brought the crescendo to an end. “Good boy. You see?” she whispered. “The song always finds its offering.”

Singuf’s body trembled, his strength gone as she took the flute from his hands. “You said it would end,” he croaked. “You said-”

She pressed a cold finger to his lips, silencing him, before strutting flirtatiously across the gallows and bowing mockingly towards him. “Yes, of course, as promised. Hunold Singuf of mortal men, I hereby release you of your contract.”

With a wave of her hand, Singuf felt a weight suddenly release from his chest and for the first time in decades, he felt he could breathe fully. “I’m free?”

“Yes, you served me well, piper.” she pouted towards him. “It is such a shame however, you’re still a wanted criminal.” Singuf’s eyes shot over to the woman just in time to see her smile, a faint, terrible thing, as she flicked the release mechanism with a delicate finger.

The last note of his life lingered in the air, faint and haunting, as the fae woman turned to the silent, spellbound crowd.

“Now then,” she said, her voice carrying a hint of excitement as she swung the flute in her hand, “who among you would like to learn the flute?”