An Older Short Free-writing Prompted Exercise

This isn't really complete, but I do like the atmosphere of it, something to potentially expand on later on...

Prompt: “The golden harp...”
Wordcount: 530

written 07/2010

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The golden harp loomed over the left half of the castle’s antechamber, polished, shining, and as always untouched. It was said that the thing was a relic from another age, from when giants ruled the earth or, alternatively, when the kingdoms of man were still so great that a man’s fingers were large and strong enough to pull at its taut strings. These days, there were few brave enough to touch the thing, never mind actually using it for its intended purpose. These days, it stood only to awe and intimidate, kept in near-pristine condition by a good half-dozen overworked servants.

         

In that it was mostly successful, drawing stares from many of the less familiar faces among those milling around below it on some official business or other. It even affected Fiddle, who was perched atop it, though in his case it was excitement, rather than fear or awe, that raised his pulse above its usual steady rhythm. Fiddle was, among other things, a rather musical creature, and even now the young man’s fingers itched with the urge to try to make the old instrument sing. He could almost imagine the shocked, then appreciative looks of his audience – gratifying, yes, but sadly impossible. Fiddle, you see, happened to be invisible at the current moment, a state that granted him the freedom necessary to go about his business unharassed. The enchantment he was wearing cost quite a bit of coin to have cast, and would be quite ruined by an explosion of music in one of the castle’s most frequented chambers.

         

So the young man sighed, gave the golden harp one last forlorn glance, and scurried onwards, silently making his way to the core of the castle, where the most serious of city matters were being conducted. Among the many talents that the young man possessed, by far the most lucrative was his skill as a spy: Fiddle, the boss liked to brag, could not only get you any and all of the information you required, but also do it so the target would never suspect a thing. Spying wasn’t the funnest of activities – not nearly as nice as playing his lute on a street corner or even a good if not-so-honest game of cards, but as far as coin was concerned, nothing else came close. These days Fiddle could easily afford all kinds of nice little luxuries, chief among them these solid invisibility chants that stayed on for hours and didn’t wear off at the slightest hint of stress or moisture. Of course, Fiddle still tried to stay dry and calm, out of prudent habit if nothing else, but it was nice to have some leeway, a bit of just-in-case wiggle room and the like.

          

All that success did have its downsides – these days he had much more to lose if he failed, and the subsequent high-stress background to the missions was almost enough to make the man go back to selling his music for pennies in the street. Almost. “Well, I suppose everything in this world has to cost you something,” he told himself whenever thinking too much about the state of things started to give him a headache.

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