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Futuria Fantasia, v. 1, issue 4, Spring 1940
Page 12
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12 "Wild-eyed Piper on the hill, Crying out your rigadoons, Bring the savages to kill 'Neath the waning Martian moons!" "What is that?" asked the boy. "A poem," said the old man. "A poem I have written in the last few days. I feel something is going to happen very soon. The Piper's song is growing more insistent every night. At first, twenty years ago, he played only a few nights of every year, but now, for the last three years he has played until dawn every night of every autumn when the planet is dying." "Bring the savages?" the boy sat up. "What savages?" "There!" Along the star-glimmered mountain tops a vast clustering herd of black, murmuring, advancing. The music screamed higher and higher. "Piper, pipe that song again! So he piped, I wept to hear." "More of the poem?" asked the boy. "Not my poem--but a poem from Earth some seventy years ago. I learned it in school." "Music is strange." The little boy's eyes were scintillant with thought. "It warms me inside. This music makes me angry. Why?" "Because it is music with a purpose." "What purpose?" "We shall know by dawn. "Music is the language of all things -- intelligent or not, savage or educated civilian. This Piper knows his music as a god knows his heaven. For twenty years he has composed his hymn of action and hate and finally, tonight perhaps, the finale will be reached. At first, many years ago, when he played, he received no answer from the subterrane, but the murmer of gibbering voices. Five years ago he lured the voices and the creatures from their caves to the mountain tops. Tonight, for the first time, the herd of black will spill over the trails toward our hovel, toward the road, toward the cities of man!" Music screaming, higher, faster, insanely, sending shock after macabre shock thru night air, loosening the stars from their riveted stations. The Piper stretched high, six feet or more, upon his hillock, swaying back and forth, his thin shape attired in brown-cloth. The black mass on the mountain came down like amoebic tent-
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12 "Wild-eyed Piper on the hill, Crying out your rigadoons, Bring the savages to kill 'Neath the waning Martian moons!" "What is that?" asked the boy. "A poem," said the old man. "A poem I have written in the last few days. I feel something is going to happen very soon. The Piper's song is growing more insistent every night. At first, twenty years ago, he played only a few nights of every year, but now, for the last three years he has played until dawn every night of every autumn when the planet is dying." "Bring the savages?" the boy sat up. "What savages?" "There!" Along the star-glimmered mountain tops a vast clustering herd of black, murmuring, advancing. The music screamed higher and higher. "Piper, pipe that song again! So he piped, I wept to hear." "More of the poem?" asked the boy. "Not my poem--but a poem from Earth some seventy years ago. I learned it in school." "Music is strange." The little boy's eyes were scintillant with thought. "It warms me inside. This music makes me angry. Why?" "Because it is music with a purpose." "What purpose?" "We shall know by dawn. "Music is the language of all things -- intelligent or not, savage or educated civilian. This Piper knows his music as a god knows his heaven. For twenty years he has composed his hymn of action and hate and finally, tonight perhaps, the finale will be reached. At first, many years ago, when he played, he received no answer from the subterrane, but the murmer of gibbering voices. Five years ago he lured the voices and the creatures from their caves to the mountain tops. Tonight, for the first time, the herd of black will spill over the trails toward our hovel, toward the road, toward the cities of man!" Music screaming, higher, faster, insanely, sending shock after macabre shock thru night air, loosening the stars from their riveted stations. The Piper stretched high, six feet or more, upon his hillock, swaying back and forth, his thin shape attired in brown-cloth. The black mass on the mountain came down like amoebic tent-
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