The Seven Gifts Read Online Free Page A

sanctuaries to be
cast helpless and screaming into the spiritual wastes of the
ballroom. And as they went they dragged their hiding places with
them, pounding the terrified guests with broken images, bricks and
dying paintings.
    Then it suddenly retreated; permeating the
bones of the musicians as though to hide from the horrors it had
disturbed. And its alien resonance drove them into a wild frenzy of
playing that fed it and strengthened it, charging it with energy
from a long and furious run of riffs and discordant key changes
that took the musicians to the very brink of their already
crumbling sanity. Then, rejuvenated, like a bolt of lightning it
struck back into the room.
    It left Psycho foaming at the mouth,
clutching at his psychological synthesizer like a man possessed.
The copper triple bass player was kneeling on his instrument in a
desperate attempt to stop it levitating, his eyes bulging like
balloons. The Elephant Tusk Horn Section was upside down, pumping
out a strange, grinding dissonance that seemed to drive the other
instruments berserk. The dodo drums appeared to be dancing;
pounding away blindly by themselves as the drummer lay flat on the
floor in a trance.
    Only Coalhole Custer seemed untouched by it
all. He stood at the front of the stage dragging indescribable
chords out of that old thirteen string guitar, his long yellow hair
flailing in the peculiar breeze that seemed to blow from
nowhere.
    Then a heavy truss crashed from the ceiling,
pinning guests to the floor in a shower of dust and debris. Unable
to reach the exit through the jam of bodies, the ones still able to
move added their screams to the wild, electrifying music. And
Coalhole Custer sang on:
     
    When the cities fall in ruins
    Will you damn the human race
    When the sun goes supernova
    Will you smile upon its face
    And when Armageddon strikes us
    Will you cross yourself in case ---
    You'll never hide away from what is true
    For the images reflect what lies in you
     
    The music was now clawing at the very
structure of the palace, breaking up foundations and vibrating the
huge oak roof beams into clouds of feathery dust which filled the
air, choking guests and musicians alike. Deprived of support, half
the roof collapsed in a roar that almost drowned out the music.
    Smoke poured through the gaping hole and
Psycho in his frenzy could see Heaven itself, the eyes of God
peering through the stars at the carnage caused by Coalhole
Custer's music.
    And through the smoke and fire, the broken
beams and falling bricks, the screams and the running feet,
Coalhole Custer's band played on; its manic music whirling around
the insane and dying musicians, to pour ever more violently into
the shattered ballroom, pounding, hammering, tearing at the
nerve-ends; juddering the brain, roaming round the room now way
beyond the control of the musicians.
    Psycho was lying on his back with one leg in
the air, a completely vacant expression on his foam-flecked face.
The psychological synthesizer played on by itself, a great steel
beam piercing it from above. The copper triple bass player was now
airborne, clutching at the curtains as his maddened instrument
struggled up through the dust towards the stars.
    Small fires had broken out around the stage,
licking up the heavy drapes, but still Coalhole Custer stood firm
at the front. His yellow hair was singed and blackened with a smoke
that seemed to dance to the unearthly harmonies flowing from his
old thirteen string guitar, which he now held high above his head.
And still he sang:
     
    With the universal life force
    Of the cosmos at your feet
    You're standing at the crossroads
    Where the planes of life all meet
    And when you look inside yourself
    Who do you think you'll have to greet?
     
    Then the demons his music had released
turned on Coalhole Custer. As he stood at the front of the stage,
his yellow hair plastered with dust and sweat, his chest heaving
with exertion as he jerked out the closing chords, he was