The sun rose on the fourth day with a sickly, pale yellow hue, filtering through the morning mist of the Rhine. But in the central square of Strasbourg, the atmosphere had shifted from curiosity to a palpable, cold terror. The musicians, hired by the city council in their desperate ignorance, were exhausted. Their fingers bled from the constant plucking of fiddle strings, and their faces were gaunt, yet they dared not stop. The councilmen stood on the balcony of the Rathaus, their velvet robes looking heavy and out of place against the backdrop of the human tragedy unfolding below.
Elias watched from the perimeter of the square. He had spent the night in the cathedral's library, bribing a terrified acolyte with his last silver coin to gain access to the forbidden annals of the city. What he had found confirmed his darkest fears. This was not the first time the "Chorea Lasciva" had touched this earth, but it was the first time it felt so… calculated.
Below him, the number of dancers had swelled to thirty-four. Among them was the blacksmith, a man of immense strength, now reduced to a shuffling shadow. His leather apron was gone, and his massive chest heaved with every ragged breath. His eyes, once bright with the fire of the forge, were now glazed over like frosted glass. He was dancing with a young noblewoman, her silk dress torn and soiled. Social status meant nothing now; in the eyes of the plague, they were all just meat and bone in motion.
"Look at their feet," a voice whispered beside Elias.
Elias turned to see a man dressed in the dark robes of a physician, though his mask—the long, bird-like beak of a plague doctor—hung loosely around his neck. His eyes were sharp and tired.
"They aren't just dancing, Traveler," the physician continued, pointing a trembling finger. "They are treading a pattern. Look at the stones."
Elias looked. On the blood-slicked cobblestones, the constant friction of bare feet and worn leather had begun to wear away the grime of centuries. There was a shape forming. It wasn't a circle or a random sprawl. It was a geometric sigil, an intricate web of lines that seemed to pulse with a faint, sickly violet light whenever the moon was out.
"I am Dr. Guttlieb," the man said, extending a hand that smelled of vinegar and dried herbs. "And I fear we are witnessing the construction of a portal, fueled by the kinetic energy of human suffering."
Elias shook the hand, his mind reeling. "A portal? To where?"
"To a place where the music never ends," Guttlieb replied grimly. "The council thinks they are 'curing' them. I told them to bind the dancers, to hold them still, but the Mayor is afraid. He says the last time they tried to stop a dancer, the man's heart exploded like a ripe plum. So, they let them dance. They even brought in professional dancers to keep the rhythm steady. It's madness."
Suddenly, a piercing shriek broke the monotonous drone of the fiddles. Frau Troffea, the woman who had started it all, had finally reached her limit. Her legs, now little more than blood-soaked pillars of raw flesh, gave way. She collapsed near the fountain, her body twitching in time with the beat even as she lay on the stones.
Elias rushed forward, ignoring the shouts of the guards. He reached her just as her breathing stopped. But as he knelt beside her, he saw something that made his blood run colder than the Rhine in winter. Underneath her skin, something was moving. Not muscles, but something long and thin, like hundreds of tiny worms slithering beneath the surface of her face.
He reached out to touch her neck, but Dr. Guttlieb grabbed his arm. "Don't! Whatever is inside her is looking for a new host. The movement… it's how they travel."
Elias looked back at the other dancers. The blacksmith was now dancing closer to the fallen woman. His movements were becoming more frantic, his mouth opening in a silent scream. A thin, black thread of smoke—or perhaps it was shadow—began to drift from Troffea's cooling lips toward the blacksmith's open mouth.
"The music is the bridge," Elias realized, his voice a low growl.
He turned to the musicians on the stage. "Stop playing! Break the instruments!" he roared.
The musicians looked at him with hollow eyes, but they didn't stop. They couldn't. Their hands were moving independently of their wills. One fiddler was weeping, his tears carving paths through the dust on his cheeks, but his bow continued to fly across the strings at a suicidal pace.
Elias drew a heavy dunderbuss from his belt, a relic from his days in the southern wars. He aimed it at the lead violinist's instrument and fired. The loud crack of the gunshot echoed through the square, shattering the violin into a thousand wooden splinters.
The music faltered for a second. The dancers froze, their bodies jerking like broken puppets. For a brief moment, the blacksmith's eyes cleared. "Help me," he wheezed, his voice a mere ghost of a sound.
But the silence didn't last. From the very stones of the square, a new sound began to rise. It wasn't a violin. It was a deep, rhythmic thrumming, like the heartbeat of a giant buried deep underground. The dancers began to move again, faster now, their feet hitting the ground with enough force to crack the cobblestones.
"You cannot stop the Earth's song, Elias," a cold voice whispered in his ear.
Elias spun around, but there was no one there except the panicked crowd and the dying Frau Troffea. Dr. Guttlieb had backed away, his face pale as a shroud.
"The Great Cathedral," Guttlieb stammered, pointing toward the massive structure. "The bells… they are supposed to ring at noon. If the bells ring, they might break the frequency of this… this devilry."
Elias looked at the clock tower. It was five minutes to noon. But the bell-ringers had fled the city hours ago, terrified of the curse. If those bells were going to ring, someone had to climb the tower and ring them manually.
"Stay here. Watch the blacksmith," Elias commanded Guttlieb. "If he starts to lead them toward the Cathedral, do whatever you can to slow them down."
Elias began to run toward the towering shadow of the Strasbourg Cathedral. As he ran, the ground beneath his feet seemed to shift and tilt, the 'hidden music' trying to trip him, to force him into its rhythm. He felt the urge to skip, to sway, to let go of his purpose and join the waltz.
He bit his tongue hard, the sharp pain grounding him. He burst through the heavy oak doors of the cathedral, the smell of incense and old stone greeting him. But inside, it wasn't peaceful. The candles were flickering in a wind that didn't exist, and the shadows of the statues were dancing on the walls.
He reached the spiral staircase of the bell tower, his heart hammering against his ribs. Every step upward felt like lifting a mountain. The air grew thinner, and the humming from the square grew louder, vibrating through the very stones of the tower.
He reached the top, the massive bronze bell hanging before him like a silent god. He grabbed the heavy rope, bracing his feet. Below, in the square, the dancers had formed a perfect circle. They were no longer just people; they were a living machine of flesh and bone, spinning faster and faster.
"One… two… THREE!" Elias screamed, throwing his entire weight onto the rope.
The bell swung, but no sound came out. He looked up in horror. The clapper of the bell was wrapped in the same black, worm-like threads he had seen under Frau Troffea's skin. The bell was silenced.
And then, the shadows of the bell tower began to move toward him, swaying to the beat of the invisible drums.