Derek Ramone's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Derek Ramone wanted his band to headline the biggest festival in the realm. Tonight he could not even land a bar gig. His amp sat dead on the tavern floor, its speaker cone split down the middle. The owner had heard one crackle and waved them off. "Fix that," she said, "then we'll talk." Derek gripped his drumsticks and stared at the broken thing. No amp meant no sound. No sound meant no crowd. And a drummer with no crowd was just a guy hitting things in an empty room. Outside the Riffing Tavern, the neon guitars buzzed pink and gold. Derek dragged the amp down the steps. That was when Dylan Mercer found him. Dylan fronted a rival slacker band, and everyone said both bands were going nowhere. He looked at the split speaker and said nothing for a while. "Broken," Dylan said. "Thanks," Derek said. "I hadn't noticed." "There's a glue man," Dylan said. "Fixes things that shouldn't hold." He gave a flat nod down the road and walked off. He did not explain. He never did. Derek hauled the amp to the glue man's hut. Inside, an old gnome in a stained purple coat bent over a workbench. Goggles covered half his face. Vials hung from his belt. This was Mortimer Bindwell. Derek had heard the name whispered by root traders. Bindwell mended broken swords and cracked bone with a compound that stayed soft instead of setting hard. "Split cone," Bindwell said before Derek spoke. He did not look up. "Can you fix it?" "Yes." Bindwell held out a hand. Derek passed the amp over. The gnome ran one finger down the tear, then reached for a green vial. "Glue holds. Cone won't sing. Compound deadens the vibration." He set the vial down. "You need someone who works sound, not glue." Derek's chest tightened. He had walked all this way for a no. Then the hut door opened. A tall figure in a starry purple robe stepped in, a golden horn hanging at his chest. Aldric Hornkeeper. Derek knew him only by reputation, a man who worked with sound and had once helped wake stone sentinels with his horn. "Bindwell," Aldric said. "I need more paste." He saw the split cone and stopped. "That's a resonance problem." "Told him," Bindwell said. Aldric took the amp. He pressed the runes on its metal trim, and the core gave a faint blue glow. "This isn't an ordinary amp. It's an arcane one. Wrong hands, it stays dead." He looked at Derek. "I can re-tune the core. But it'll do more than play loud. It'll carry whatever a beat is meant to carry." Derek thought of the drumming forum. The vanished man in Tulsa. The sticks that turned rhythm into a spell. "Do it," he said. Aldric worked the horn against the runes. The cone knit whole. The core burned bright. The amp thrummed, alive and enchanted now, humming under Derek's palm. He had his sound back. But it was no longer just a sound.