Free Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino Page A

She wrote out music for her students, but that was because they were students.
    “You can’t tell me you’ll remember all of it.”
    “I certainly will.”
    He stared at her, then shook his head. “You’re out of my league, Christa.” He seemed almost afraid.
    “Nonsense,” she said softly. “It was not a part of your training. It was of mine.”
    “Yeah? Where did you study?”
    She hesitated. “In… Ireland.”
    Kevin leaned back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck. “You must have had one hell of a teacher.”
    Gently, she deflected the conversation. “Is there something by Malmsteen that you think would be suitable for me? I’d like to explore those sounds.”
    Kevin looked at her guitar, at her hands. “I’ll tell you, Christa, I wouldn’t dream of giving something like that to a beginning student. But if you’re a beginner, I’m damned scared to think of what you’ll be like when you’re advanced.”
    She smiled thinly, hoping that she would also frighten a certain Sidh bard. “How about ‘Black Star’? That had some wonderful harmonies in it. Very ppowerful.”
    “Let’s see.” He searched through a folder and came up with several scrawled pages of tablature. “I pulled it off the record a few months ago. It’s tough.” He handed her the sheets. “The lines are the strings,” he explained, “the numbers are frets.”
    She looked, understood. “Do you have something I can listen to?”
    “We can go into the sound room. There’s a stereo there. You want to try it?”
    “Please. If I may.”
    Guitar in hand, she followed him to the sound room. The student was still leaning up against the wall, and he eyed Christa as she went by. “How’s it goin’?”
    Kevin nodded at Christa. “Eddie Van Halen better move over, Jeff. This lady’s fantastic.”
    Jeff snorted softly and went back to his practicing.
    “Hey, remember,” said Kevin. “You heard it here first.”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    The sound room contained a stereo, albums, tapes, and two very large speakers. Christa drew up a folding chair while Kevin flipped through the records. “It’s in here somewhere.”
    “Is this any trouble for you?”
    “No trouble at all. I do this all the time. There isn’t much that’s actually written down in rock and roll, so almost everything I teach has to be pulled off a record.”
    “Oral tradition?”
    “Kind of.” He found the album and cued it up on the turntable. “You just have to remember it all. There’s no score, and it’s always changing.”
    Absently, Christa picked at her guitar. The Sidh did not change. “It lives, then,” she said.
    He blinked at her choice of words, but he nodded. “Yeah. I know some players who never repeat a solo.”
    The music started then, and she opened herself to it, listening with concentration, mentally cataloging the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms. Theme, countertheme, variation, free improvisation—she might have been sitting at Sruitmor’s feet as he worked magic, or in the shadows of the Sidh palace as Orfide wove his timeless spells.
    “Once more, please,” she said when the cut had finished.
    Kevin set the tone arm back to the beginning. When the music was done, Christa nodded and stood up.
    “I’ll have it ready for you next week,” she said, handing back the sheets of tablature.
    He stood as though struck. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    “I’ll have it.”
    Blankly, he looked at the pages. “All right, if you say so.”
    There was fear in his voice, though she could not understand why. Silently, she cased her guitar and picked up her purse. Kevin watched, his face drawn.
    “Do you happen to know any of the Ossipanic ballads?” he asked suddenly. “My grandfather used to sing them. I was trying to remember one the other day, but it just wouldn’t come.”
    “The songs of Oisin, son of Find Mac Cumaill? I do. Which are you thinking of?”
    “It’s a hymn to the Virgin. It starts off:
Sturad me dod