Before sunrise, Mount Rigi was dark and quiet. Polly couldn't sleep because yesterday had changed everything. She found Kaspar sitting on a rock with his alphorn, looking at the fading stars.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked, landing next to him.
He shook his head sadly. "Gottfried went to the festival committee. They canceled my performance because it wasn't traditional enough." His laugh was bitter. "Thirty-seven years of playing, and now they want to erase me."
Emma came out of her tent with bad news on her tablet. "It's worse. They made an official statement. Any musician who uses electronic sounds with alpine music will be banned forever."
The weight of their decision pressed down on them. The mountain stayed silent around them.
"So that's it," Kaspar said, starting to take apart his instrument. "The old ways win. Innovation dies."
"Wait," Polly said. Her sharp hearing caught something the humans missed. "Someone's playing music, but not with an alphorn."
They followed the sound up a dangerous path. In a natural circle of rocks, they found a group of musicians. But instead of alphorns, they held stones.
"Lithophones," Emma whispered. "Stone instruments. They're older than alphorns by thousands of years."
An elderly woman looked up from striking two rocks together. "We heard what happened," she said simply. "The committee can ban alphorns, but they can't ban the mountain itself."
The musicians continued playing. The sound was beautiful and haunting. They used Kaspar's echo techniques, creating layers of music no committee could control.
"Your composition works perfectly with these stones," the woman said, offering Kaspar a pair. "Will you join us?"
Kaspar's hands were steady as he took the stones. His breathing problems hadn't destroyed his music - they had helped him find something older and deeper.
"The festival's tomorrow," Emma said quietly. "What do we do?"
Kaspar struck the stones together, making a pure, clear note. "We play," he said simply. "Not for judges or committees. We play for the mountain."
As the sun rose over the peaks, Polly understood something important. Sometimes the biggest problems weren't obstacles - they were chances to discover what was always there, waiting in the silence.
