Drums and Bells

The man sank into a padded chair, pausing to take a long sip from his pipe. His audience stood in silence, posed thoughtfully around the parlor next to an inlaid wood end-table, a marble bust of Lorāela II, an immense stone hearth crowned with painted shields, a shelf of leather-bound tomes, a desk of crystal decanters and glasses, a stained glass window overlooking a courtyard of waiting carriages. Blowing a cloud of blue-gray smoke toward the high ceiling, a grin came to his lips. “I would not reach so far as to call the music beautiful,” he began slowly, as if searching the cloud above him for the words to say. “Yet, it was undeniably passionate.” Skeptical glances were traded around the room. “Not passionate as the Taldànyr would have it, but infused with history, with duty, with the weight of the entire world. As if each beating drum, each ringing bell, every throaty voice shared a common burden, like soldiers returned from battle. To hear their music was to hear the heartbeat of the world, overwhelming at first, penetrating your every thought and sense, until you realize by the vibration in your bones, that the beat grows weaker and weaker as the song continued. And though the song may not end in your lifetime, you are left with an abiding fear that a generation, not too distant from today, may hear its final note.”

The Dwürdèni musical traditions are not as refined as the Eylfāe, or even the Yrūn for that matter. Their music follows the same template that it has for Ages, varying only in textual content. A Second Age listener with no understanding of Murdwürmor, would not be able to distinguish the songs from those of the present day.