The Infinity Concerto
by Greg Bear
In 1939, a composer named Arno Waltiri premiered his latest work, Concerto Opus 45: "Infinity". After the concert, another composer, who had been in the audience, filed a lawsuit against Waltiri, claiming that he was no longer able to properly hear or compose music after hearing Waltiri's work. Over the next several months, dozens of people simply disappeared, and the only thing they had in common with one another was that they had been in the audience at that same performance. Waltiri had been inspired to write the concerto by several conversations with a mysterious man named David Clarkham. The Concerto turns out to have been a "Song of Power", Songs of Power, if properly applied by those who understand them, have the power to literally remake the world. Songs of Power can exist in many artistic forms, including music, poetry, dance, art, architecture, and some less obvious creative fields. Clarkham had disappeared after the performance too, but he had left Waltiri a book and the key to his house, which Waltiri had never used.
The book's present story follows the experiences of a young man named Michael Perrin, a would be poet, who meets Waltiri two months before his death, and to whom Waltiri gives the book and the key. Following the instructions on a piece of paper he found inserted in the book, Perrin enters Clarkham's house, which has been vacant for decades, and soon finds himself in Sidhedark, a world inhabited by a powerful race of beings calling themselves the Sidhe (pronounced "shee"). He appears at what he learns is the house of someone called the "Isomage", who disappeared years ago, and meets a huge, strange woman named Lamia, who lives there. Michael is already in danger, because by treaty there is only one town where humans are safe from being hunted and killed by the Sidhe: Euterpe, where Lamia hastily sends Michael before anyone finds him.
Humans occasionally find their way to Sidhedark, and those who have survived all live in Euterpe, a town in the Pact Lands, which is the only place humans are permitted in Sidhedark, following an ancient war between Sidhe and the powerful ancient Humans. There Michael is befriended by a former teacher, Savarin.
He returns to the Isomage's house to talk to Lamia, asking her how he can get home, and she said that he will need training in order to make his way back to Earth. She orders him to go see the Crane Women, who are a trio of "Breeds" (part human, part Sidhe), who live on the outskirts of another town populated by other Breeds called Halftown. They train him with exercises that seem pointless and incomprehensible. During his training he returns periodically to Euterpe, telling Savarin about things that he has seen and learned.
One night a number of creatures called Riverines and Umbrals raid Halftown and kidnap three of the Breeds who lived there, taking them to serve Adonna, a sort of god of the Sidhe, by bleeding them of magic. They attack Michael, but he survives and makes his way back to the Crane Women. They tell him that he did something they call "out-seeing" to escape the Umbrals, throwing a "shadow" of himself as an illusion that deceived them long enough for him to escape.
The Crane Women take him with them on a journey across a desolate area known as "the Blasted Plain", which surrounds the Pact Lands. In the main part of the Sidhe world, where he meets Biri, a young Sidhe who has been sent to the Crane Women for training. He and Michael share some knowledge about each other's worlds. Meanwhile, Michael reads Clarkham's book that Waltiri gave to him, which is a book of poetry, and tries to write some of his own in the dirt. Sometimes, though, it seems as if he is writing words that aren't his own; he likens this experience to being "tuned into Death's Radio", giving a name to this strange contact, which comes and goes.
Michael finds himself attracted to Helena, a human woman who, prior to his arrival, was the most recent arrival from Earth. He learns that it is dangerous for humans to have sex in Sidhedark, however, because if the woman conceives, she will give birth to a monster. He also learns that the humans of Euterpe are working on a plan to rebel and escape from the Pact Lands into the rest of Sidhedark, where they hope to find a place to live free of Sidhe control. Meanwhile, a Breed woman named Eleuth is attracted to Michael, and it doesn't bother her that he is in love with Helena, because Sidhe men apparently don't fall in love, although the women do.
One night Eleuth tries to send Michael home to Earth, believing that she has learned enough magic to do so, but only manages to send him as far as the gateway within the Isomage's house. Michael no longer has the key, though, and cannot unlock the gate, and Lamia's monstrous sister nearly captures him, but Eleuth sacrifices her life to save him. At the same time, the humans in Euterpe stage their rebellion, and the Sidhe retaliate violently, especially a rider named Alyons. Michael rushes to try to help them, but ends up being pursued by Alyons into a dead-end canyon, where one of the Isomage's leftover magical traps goes off and kills Alyons, allowing Michael to escape.
Now that he has killed a Sidhe, the Crane Women know that they will not stop until they catch him, so they give him what they can, which is unfortunately only advice, and he crosses the Blasted Plane on foot, evading the monsters there only by means of using the training the Crane Women gave him. After he crosses, a shadow of Alyons comes to him and tells Michael that since Michael killed him, he must now accept Alyons' horse. Michael argues that he didn't kill Alyons; a trap set by the Isomage did, but it is to no avail; as a matter of honor he must accept the horse. So he does, and the horse makes his travel quicker.
He comes to a golden valley where there is a beautiful palace, inhabited by a man named Lin Piao Tai. It turns out that he is a Spryggla, neither human nor Sidhe, one of the few remaining of the many races that existed long ago, before the Human Sidhe war. The Spryggla were skilled architects. Lin Piao tells Michael a lot about the past, and how Humans were losing the war, until the Isomage was able to put up a final resistance which the Sidhe were unable to break, and thus fight them to an standstill and an uneasy, millennia-long truce.
Michael travels onward and meets a human man named Nikolai, who has been living in a forest as a hunter. He was originally a dancer, and was pulled into the Sidhe world just as the Isomage's war was ending. He is welcome in the Sidhe city of Inyas Trai, however, and he takes Michael there. Michael meets the Ban of Hours, a powerful Sidhe woman who tries to protect him, but not far from the city is the Irall, the Temple of Adonna, which would certainly punish Michael for Alyons' death if they caught him. Nikolai takes Michael to see a rare phenomenon known as the Snow Faces that occurs in the nearby mountains, where he meets some other pilgrims who have also come to see it. As they are returning to Inyas Trai, some of Adona's Sidhe followers known as "the Black Order" arrive to arrest Michael and take him to the Irall. Michael is brought before the god Adonna itself, who reveals itself to be Tonn, ancient Mage of the Sidhe, though most have forgotten this and now simply worship him as the god Adonna. Tonn reveals that he is growing tired and Sidhedark, which he created, will soon crumble and die, along with all within it. The only way to save the Sidhe is for Sidhedark and Earth to be reunited, but for the followers of Adonna, who hate humans, this is a blasphemy that they would never accept, even if Adonna itself told them. So Tonn needs Michael's help, but first he must deal with the Isomage, who has been manipulating Michael from the beginning. Tonn temporarily erases most of Michael's memory of the conversation and sends him back.
Michael, Nikolai and some of the pilgrims decide to go to the Isomage's palace, but on the way, Michael meets Biri again. He says that he has failed in his training to become part of the Maln, the Black Order, and now despises them. He attempts to teach Michael more about how Sidhe do magic, taking a bitter, solipsistic approach, claiming that to do magic one must emotionally isolate oneself from all love and companionship. Biri leaves Michael to contemplate this. As the group approaches the Isomage's residence, the pilgrims reveal that they are actually retainers in the Isomage's employ, and that they are there to make sure that Michael gets there safely—and that he doesn't change his mind and go elsewhere. Reaching the palace, Michael finds that it is as Lin Piao Tai said: a beautifully-constructed copy of Kubla Khan's palace from the poem. Michael meets the Isomage, who turns out to be David Clarkham, and tells him that Tonn stole the book from him, but Clarkham doesn't care, he has many copies of the poem along with other works of human literature. Biri is also there; he says that the Isomage represents his best chance for revenge against the Maln.
Clarkham finally reveals what he wants Michael there for: Michael is a poet, and Clarkham is not. He wants Michael to finish the Song of Power. Michael, however, suspects that while Clarkham seems to want to help humans, he really just wants power for himself—he wants to overthrow the Sidhe and set himself up as ruler instead. After discovering some other very unsavory things about Clarkham, he is unwilling to help him obtain ultimate power, but Clarkham threatens Michael with the death of Nikolai and with horrible magical torture for Michael himself if he doesn't cooperate. But suddenly Michael sees the form of the rest of the Song of Power and realizes that it isn't at all what Clarkham thinks it is. Michael writes a poem about the destruction of the great Khan's palace, the inevitable ending of the Song, and Clarkham's palace starts to collapse around them. As it is taking all his power to hold the palace together, Clarkham can't stop Michael and Nikolai from escaping, and Biri reveals that he did not in fact fail in his training and that he has been working for the Maln all along, helping Michael get to the Isomage to destroy him. Clarkham manages to attack Michael magically, but Michael throws a shadow consisting of all of the training that Biri had given him, which absorbs the attack and dies in his place.
Now that Michael had done what Tonn wanted, Tonn gives Michael what he wants: passage back home. Michael falls through the portal that Tonn creates and finds himself just down the street from Clarkham's house, but five years have passed on Earth in what had seemed like only about five months to Michael. His parents are happy that he is alive but upset that he hadn't told them where he'd gone, and they are astonished about how much he has changed. Michael finds a letter from Arno Waltiri's wife Golda, who had died about two weeks after her husband, leaving all of their assets to him but also giving him the responsibility of editing and publishing all of Waltiri's compositions. But meanwhile, Michael knows that Sidhedark is still collapsing and that the being who was Waltiri is most certainly not dead. He may be home, but his troubles are far from over.