Crimson Piano

I use to be a thief and a good one at that. Me and my partner, rest his soul, made a fortune from our savage robberies. That is until we tried to rob the house on St. Tulimn Island. What happened that night still haunts me in my dreams and lurks in every shadow during my waking hours. I remember the event like it was yesterday; oh, but I wish I could forget it, even with ale it still returns night after night to fling me into its cold remembrance.

Its was a cool night, and the sky was dark as the new moon was forming, its last sliver of light occasionally peered at us through the dark clouds. My partner and I had just reached the island, unnoticed and prepared to do our planed deeds. We had heard that the mansion on St. Tulimn island was playing host to a rich family party. Not missing a step we planed to rob them all and clean out the house. We sank all of the boats on the island but ours and made our way to the mansion.

Once inside it was easy to subdue all of the occupants, around twenty in all. I knew that something wasn’t right; all of the guests wore strange attire for a party. Everyone was dressed in black, and there were no stereotypical party items anywhere in the house. We tied them all and put them in a bed room and locked the door behind us. We searched the house and the party guests and did not find anything or real value, until we came upon a grand door.

The door its self had gold plating on it and contained several gems. It was locked and there were strange symbols on the door, engraved in the gold itself. Surely behind it would be the treasures and gold we sought to steal. We rattled the door violently trying to force it up, and as we did we could hear the family screaming and begging us not to open the room. We shrugged off their pleas and ripped the door open, breaking the feeble old lock. In front of us was a stone stair way that reached up into the very highest part of the house.

We climbed the steps and after around two or three floors we reached the room. It was a stone room with three windows on each side and a large picture window the middle. The room was dark, but there was a menacing light that didn’t as much light the room as much as it did darken it a little bit. My partner lights his lantern and walked around the room setting a flame to a candle that sat in-between each window. As the room released its dark veil a single object in the room became clear, a large piano.

I gazed at the massive piece of musical work and studied its unique markings. It was colored a dark red color that on first glance almost looked like black, it rested on legs that appeared to make out of ivory or some kind of bone; On each leg there where unintelligible symbols that where very similar to the markings on the door. I noticed that there wasn’t any more treasure in the room other than this crimson piano. My partner laughed and cursed our misfortune. In his anger he struck the piano with his knife scraping the perfect finish on the Piano.

As quickly as his rage had spawned it disappeared seconds after his blade impacted the table. he calmly sheathed his knife and he looked at me and said, “We will take the piano back with us to the mainland.” And then looked at the piano as if it where his child. I protested that it was to unique and they would find us if we sell it; he said that we would just keep it. I told him that there wasn’t enough room on the boat; he offered to stay behind until I got the boat to the mainland. I knew now that something was desperately wrong with my companion.

Before I could raise another protest he sat down on the bench and lifted the cover from the piano teeth. It hissed as he opened it, the sounds almost sounded like many voices calling out in some strange tongue, pleading to us to put the cover back on. I watched him pull his hands from his gloves and position them above the keys. I yelled at him not to leave finger prints on the keys, but it was too late, he struck a single key. The note echoed through the room leaving silence in its wake, then the cries of our prisoners ringing over it then silence once more.

I watched as the cut caused by his knife melted into the wood until it vanished. I turned and looked at him with a worried face, but he just returned a smile and repositioned his hands on the keys. He began to play a song I had heard as a child, it was pretty basic nothing to spectacular, but he played it with a certain zealous, that made it seam new. Suddenly I was hit by a gust of warm air. I backed away from the piano and the heat faded with the distance. I tried to step forward again, but the heat was impeding my efforts. I yelled at my partner that something was wrong, but he could not hear me, or chose to ignore me.

With a great chord his music began to increase in tempo and difficulty. The candles in the room flickered and then began to go out as the room filled with an evil wind. I tried to rush to him again but the heat was getting worse, and this time burned me. I pulled back in pain as the ethereal heat still covered my body singeing the hairs on my arms. I watched in horror as waves of heat radiated off of the piano, visably burning the hands of its player, but he kept on playing, and increasing in difficulty and speed.

Suddenly in the darkness outside two pin points of light appeared and then another pair. The light was red and deep, I peered closer and that’s when they came into focus; they where eyes staring at the piano player. I watched silently as more and more appeared, filling the windows with at fearful red light. Soon they started to fill in any dark place in the room, filling shadows and crevices with their stagnant stare. I tried to run but the stair case was dark, and now full of dark eyes that seamed to look through me, and watch the very essence of my soul, all the time the candles flicked more violently until they succumb to the howling wind that came from the piano.

The piano itself burst into flames but did not bring any light to the room. I found myself huddling under the last lit candle screaming for something to make the horror stop. Then with out warning the piano stopped and the eyes retreated back into the darkness from where they had spawned from. I looked up at my friend and he looked back at me with a calm smile on his face. I pulled myself to my feet and took a step toward him. He taunted me and took his burned hands above his head and looked down at the keys like a mad man and then he slammed his fingers upon the keys rocking the room and sending the last candle spilling to the floor; I watched quietly, as my ears rang, and saw it flicker then burn out.

He started playing and just as before the room filled with the eyes, and the piano burned with an unholy light. The ceiling of the room thrashed to the left and then flew off, leaving the pure black sky above me to sing with the piano in the form of thunder. The only time I could see anything in the room is when a flash of lighting would fill the sky, only then I could see the creatures that gazed into the flames of the piano. There hideous faces and bodies stood ready to take some sort of action. Any other time the only thing I could see was the piano and its player.

The Piano player started to play an incredible song that begged me to come forward. I saw the walls catch fire and the floor began to sizzle as the song continued, I found myself walking towards the song, seeing all that I had loved in my life begging me to come forward. I moved towards my loved ones about to embrace them when I realized I was in the heart of the flames standing inches from the piano. I felt my whole body engulf in flames and burn the clothing from my back. I could run and retreat back into the darkness of the room, but I instead pushed forward running my shoulder into the piano. It moved several inches sending the player into a frenzy, as his fingers missed their targets. I felt that it was the time as the flames flickered violently at the incorrect notes. I pushed with all of my might and all of my will and fell to the ground watching the piano fly away from me.

I watched it move toward the picture window and crash through it, teetering from its loft perch and the cold four story drop onto the stony ground below. The player screamed and ran for it in a fit of tears and grasped it with all of his might as it slowly rolled off the ledge. The room continued to burn but the eyes melt back to their darkness. I ran down the stairs and ran out of the mansion, all the time fighting the burning pain that almost forced me to pass out. I fought exhaustion and pain and reached the docks and then my efforts failed and I passed out.

I awoke in my boat some where near an unknown shore on the mainland. I could see the fire in the distance covering the entire island. I eventually found my way and found an inn where I could heal, and try to recover from the terror that twisted the island of St. Tulimn into a burning grave yard. I still bear the scares on my body today from that night, and I still feel the pain of it almost every time it crosses my mind, which it does a lot. As for Island, everything was destroyed, save one thing; an old piano found laying gently on the rocky cliffs of the island, with a single page of incomplete sheet music on it. The title of the song is “Miguel’s Inferno” the name of my friend, god rest his soul.