"Would you like to try it?" asked Janus.

"What does it do?"

"It's a tiny bit of bardic magic. If you do it right it should sound a very lovely pure tone."

"How do I do that?" Serali was dubious about being able to do magic, but then she had been much more dubious about her ability to fly if she jumped off the end of the world, and that had proved to be quite possible.

"Hold the crystal by one end, which one doesn't matter, and think of the note you want to hear. Then flick the crystal sharply and it should ring."

Serali nodded. "All right." She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing the result she wanted, and then opened her eyes and flicked the crystal with her finger. The result was a very soft, pure, shimmering chord. Three perfectly tuned crystalline notes that rang so softly, they could hardly be heard.

Serali grinned. "That's beautiful!"

Janus, however, was looking stunned. "It wasn't meant to do that. It's not possible to do that!"

"What do you mean? It did just what you said it would."

"No, I said it would make a single note. You got three out of it! That's not supposed to be possible!"

"I was thinking of a chord, yes. One note alone isn't very musical, after all."

"That doesn't matter. The spell is for one note, you could have been thinking of a symphony, and it still should have just given you one note! It's..." He trailed off, then shook himself. "Never mind. Whatever happened, it's probably not important."

"No, though it's certainly beautiful. Here, do you want this back?" She held out the crystal.

Janus hesitated, then took it. He held it up and flicked it himself. It hummed with one single, pure tone. He shook his head and put it back in his belt pouch.