“Kimi, go to Menolly. I need help. Get Menolly, Kimi.”
Sebell’s fire-lizard looked at Piemur, her eyes still whirling amber, then she began to keen, a long and heart-wrenching sound that tore at him like the cry of a distraught child. Slowly Piemur reached out his hand to rub her head. Her keening was so painfully hard to bear that Piemur, close to tears, could only make gentle shushing sounds.
“Shh, Kimi, don’t cry. We’ll find him, I promise. But you have to help, Kimi. Get Menolly,” he said and held his arm up high, trying to encourage Kimi to fly away and bring back help.
Kimi flew up into the air and circled slowly above Piemur’s head. Get help, he thought, get help, Kimi!
With one final, sad trill, she flew straight up into the sky and was gone, flown between. The silence she left behind was oppressive.
Piemur hoped that the little queen had done what he’d asked, and not disappeared between forever, as all dragons and fire-lizards did when their human partners died. Sebell was not dead! Kimi had to believe that! Overwhelmed, Piemur lowered his head and wept.
A long time passed before he finally wiped his tear-streaked face on his tunic and slowly stood up. What if Sebell really was dead? He had already been badly injured when Piemur left him hours earlier. What if Jerrol and his men had returned to beat Sebell again? Piemur’s thoughts raced around his head at a frantic pace. It seemed ages since he’d sent Kimi to get help. What if she didn’t come back? With a sinking heart, he began to believe that perhaps Kimi had indeed flown between forever, believing Sebell to be dead. Piemur had never before felt so helpless or hopeless.
His head was pounding again and he could feel an increase in the pressure in his ears, as if they were about to pop. He began gingerly to rub his temples; he was opening his jaws wide to unclog his ears when the space all around him exploded with fire-lizards.
First one, then two, then another pair…until a flurry of fire-lizards of all colors filled the air. They flew in tight circles around Piemur and chirped excitedly, calling to one another as if they’d found a prize. A gold quickly flashed in front of his eyes, too fast for him to see her clearly, and then flashed out of sight again, gone between. Was that Kimi? He didn’t dare hope it was her. Piemur stood up, staring at the fire-lizards; there were nine in total. He rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. He saw that all the fire-lizards were banded with harper blue and light blue on a background of white, framed by a lattice in yellow. Their origins were as clear as day: These were Fort fire-lizards! And they answered to a harper—Menolly!
“Ha! Is that you, Auntie One and Auntie Two?” he called to a pair of green fire-lizards as they flashed past him. “Ha-ha! Rocky, I haven’t seen you in ages, you handsome bronze, you!” The fire-lizards continued to fly around Piemur in lazy circles, comfortable in his presence. He’d helped Menolly feed her fair back when they were too young to hunt for themselves, but it had been a long time since he’d seen them.
“Diver, Lazybones, Mimic, and Brownie! It’s so good to see you all,” he said calling to another bronze and three brown fire-lizards. “Where’s that old blue grump? Where’s Uncle and the latecomer, Poll?” he called as the group flew around him.
A blue fire-lizard landed on Piemur’s shoulder, and he held up his hand for it to climb onto.
“Ah, Uncle,” he said, “it’s been absolute ages! Look how handsome you are, my friend.” Uncle chirruped at Piemur, as if his sentiments were identical, then he held out a foreleg where a message had been secured. “My flying friends, you cannot imagine how happy I am to see you all,” Piemur said. Carefully he retrieved the message and read it: Beauty brings help. Stay put. —M.
Piemur laughed, slowly at first and then with more enthusiasm, letting the tension he’d been feeling ease from his body with his growing relief. Maybe everything would be all right, he thought. Maybe Kimi had been unnecessarily distraught and Sebell was alive after all.
Piemur didn’t have long to wait before he felt a less subtle change in the air above him and looked up to see a dragon flying high overhead; he thought it was a bronze but he couldn’t be certain because the sun was shining brightly behind him. The dragon circled down quickly and Piemur ran to meet him as they came in to land. It was J’hon and Mirth, and Beauty was darting around Menolly as she clambered off the dragon’s back and ran toward Piemur. Without hesitation Piemur closed the gap between them and threw his arms around her in a tight embrace.
“I am so glad to see you, Menolly,” he said, releasing her with a final squeeze. “And I’ve never been happier to see your fire-lizards, either—every single one of them!”
“Shells, Piemur, what’s happened to you?” J’hon asked.
“Yes, what’s happened?” Menolly said as she looked him up and down, taking in his disheveled appearance: the blackening eyes, the bloodstains on both sides of his head, and, when she sniffed, the rank odor of alcohol. “You need to have that wound dressed, Piemur. It looks nasty.”
“I’ll do it later,” Piemur said. “Listen: Sebell and I were taken captive by Jerrol and two other men. I’m not completely sure what happened because I got hit on the head and passed out, but they brought us into the cellars of Nabol and while I was unconscious they gave Sebell a real hiding. His arm may be broken, and his legs aren’t much better, either.” Menolly’s mouth opened in a silent O and she quickly covered it with her hand. Piemur clenched his jaw and then continued.
“They tied Sebell to a bench but left me unbound. I was trying to release him when they came back, so I knocked one of them over and ran for the door.” The look on Menolly’s face transformed to one of shock, and Piemur realized she thought he had abandoned the journeyman masterharper. He faltered before continuing. “While I was looking for help, I found Kimi. She was in an awful state. I don’t think she can make a connection to Sebell.”
“I know, Piemur.”
“Shards, I should’ve stayed with Sebell! But he made me promise to run for help if I got the chance.”
“What good would it have done if you were both kept captive?” J’hon asked.
“It’s not your fault. We’ll find Sebell,” Menolly added in a determined voice as she gripped him by the shoulders.
“I shouldn’t have left him, Menolly!”
“Don’t think about that, Piemur, it won’t do any good.” Menolly shook his shoulders gently, then dropped her hands.
“Where did you get out of the Hold?” J’hon asked.
“On the other side.”
“I’ll send my fire-lizards to try and find Sebell,” Menolly said. “And I’ll have them ask the other fire-lizards here if they know anything. Goodness knows there’re enough fire-lizards in Nabol to help.”
“That’s a good idea,” J’hon said. He turned to Piemur. “Can you show us where you came out of the cellars?”
“I think so,” Piemur replied, though even to his own ears he didn’t sound very confident.
It took only a moment for J’hon and Menolly to strip off their flying gear and toss it in a small pile beside the huge bronze dragon. Then they set out at a run, Piemur leading as he sought to recollect exactly where he had exited the cellars. Periodically he stopped as he tried to find the small door he had come through, but each one he tried was shut tight and would not budge. How could he have failed to notice how many doors punctuated the perimeter of the Hold?
“Is this the one?” Menolly asked, but Piemur shook his head mutely and they ran on.
“How about this one?” J’hon suggested as they came to another door in the thick hold walls.
“That doesn’t look like it,” Piemur replied, and a growing sense of hopelessness began to cloud his thoughts. As they continued to run, Piemur’s pace slowed substantially as he realized he had no clue how to find the right way back into the Hold.
“Should we retrace our steps?” Menolly asked, panic squeezing
her throat and making her voice higher.
“I’m not sure…I don’t know!” Piemur hated how much he sounded like a whining little boy. His head was pounding unbearably and the ache in his back had grown stronger with every step.
Piemur put his hands to his head, forgetting about the lumps above his ears. The careless act made him wince in pain. He fell silent then, fighting back the mounting despair, too embarrassed to look at his friends and ashamed because he had failed Sebell.
You can’t hide from this, Piemur, he thought and forced himself to look up. As he slowly searched the faces of Menolly and J’hon he knew he had failed to hide his distress. Menolly started to fidget, and J’hon looked at the ground; both were clearly worried, and Piemur realized that nothing could be done to help find Sebell until he pulled himself together.
He took a few deep breaths and slowly rubbed his hands the length of his thighs, trying to remember how he had found his way out of the cellars.
“I came up out of the cellar through a wooden door. Then I saw the outer walls of the Hold and ran until I came to a very narrow door. I went through it and—” He faltered, trying to dredge the memory from his fuzzy head. “—and slammed the door closed. I remember that it made an odd sound—dull, like a thud, not a bang—but then I just kept running.” Piemur was slowly regaining his composure, and as he did so, he began to feel—and, he thought, sound—more certain.
“I’m going to retrace our steps,” Menolly said. “Piemur, you and J’hon keep looking in that direction.” And she turned around and ran, stopping to push against the first door she came to before moving on to the next.
“C’mon, Piemur,” J’hon said. “We’ll find it, I know we will.”
Piemur ran right past the correct door before he realized his error. He stopped, backed up, and stood in front of it, closely examining door and frame from top to bottom. Now he could see that this door wasn’t mounted properly; warped by decades of use and disuse, it listed slightly on its metal hinges. That was probably why it hadn’t sounded right when Piemur had slammed it shut behind him: It no longer met the frame squarely.
J’hon lifted the leg of his trousers, pulled out a sheathed dagger stashed in his boot, and began to scrape the blade along the bottom of the doorframe, loosening the dirt that filled the gaps around the edges of the door. Piemur jumped in to help, using the toe of his boot to pry at the dirt, and together they quickly cleared all around the door.
But even then, the door seemed to have no means by which it could be opened: no metal latch, handle, ring, or other device, only an empty hatch where a handle once had been. J’hon tried inserting the blade of his dagger into the hole, but it was too big. They both puzzled over it for several moments, stepping back a few paces to stare at it intently.
“Oy! Whadder you doin’?” a voice called.
Startled, Piemur and J’hon looked up but couldn’t locate the source of the voice. They searched all along the huge expanse of wall, but no one was visible.
“Up here, you thick two-wits!” the voice called again. Piemur and J’hon took another step backward and looked up once more. High up in the wall of the Hold they saw a head protruding from a tiny opening.
“Whadder you doin’?” the head repeated.
“Ah,” Piemur said, thinking quickly, “Lord Deckter wants us to check that all of these doors are working from the inside and the outside.” He made a big show of scratching his head, trying not to wince when he touched the sore spots. “But we can’t get in from this door, if you get what I mean.” He scratched his head again.
“You’ll never open that door from out there! Jaickers, there ain’t any knob! Where did they find you two? I don’t know why he wants you to check ’em all when the whole passway is going to be bricked up tight for good. But ne’er mind. Whadder I know?” the head yelled, shaking itself from side to side before continuing. “The Lord Holder knows best, I reckon. Listen here to me an’ I’ll tell you what to do. Go back to the rampart and in through the door; then go all the way down to the end of the passway. Take the second turn right, the third turn left, down two sets a’ steps, and to the passway at the very end. That’s where that door is!”
“Ah,” Piemur said. Craning his neck back to look up was making him feel decidedly ill, and the fierce pounding in his head was making it hard for him to process the directions.
J’hon grabbed Piemur’s shoulder and looked up, waving in understanding. “Ah! Er, yup!” he called. Then he muttered under his breath to Piemur, “I followed what he was saying, harper. Let’s go—now!” J’hon propelled him back the way they had come. In moments they were met by Menolly, who’d heard their hollered exchanges with the head-in-the-wall and was running to join them, anxiety stamped all over her face.
“We know how to get into the cellars,” Piemur told her quickly. “Let’s get him out of there, Lolly.” Menolly offered Piemur a weak smile and fell in beside him, following J’hon as he raced toward the Hold ramparts.
There was much more activity around this part of the Hold. A steady bustle of people and carts streamed in and out of the gates at the rampart. Piemur faltered at all the frenetic activity and stumbled several times. It was all starting to feel like too much to take: He just wanted to find Sebell so he could sit down somewhere quiet, lick his wounds, and forget about the awful events of the last day and night.
J’hon put a reassuring hand on Piemur’s shoulder, applying enough pressure so that Piemur knew he wanted him to stop and look at him. Menolly stopped and turned, too, the three of them standing in an impromptu huddle.
J’hon’s expression was intense, but when he spoke it was in his usual quiet manner. “We’ll get into the Hold as quickly as possible and find him. Be certain of that, Menolly.” J’hon nodded to punctuate his words, then continued. “Piemur, I can see you’ve been through the wringer, but just keep putting one foot in front of the other and if you need to, lean on me or Menolly.” He paused. “Do you hear me?” And when Piemur gave him a weak smile in answer, they advanced into the heart of the throng.
Menolly and J’hon fell in step next to Piemur, walking close enough to act as virtual bolsters on either side of him. It was a simple gesture, but Piemur felt a rush of gratitude. I must be more unsteady than I realize, Piemur mused, and took several more steadying breaths.
When they reached the rampart walkway and found the door the bodiless head had mentioned, J’hon led the way through. Once inside, they moved quickly, snaking their way through the passageways and down into the bowels of Nabol Hold.
No one had followed them, Piemur was relieved to see. In fact, the cellars of Nabol were eerily empty, and he thought they could walk these passageways for days without attracting anyone’s attention. The place seemed so abandoned that he was actually surprised to find a couple of glowbaskets on the wall of one intersection. Thinking fast, he grabbed them from their holders and handed one each to Menolly and J’hon.
“We have to search methodically,” Piemur said, “or we might overlook a cellar room or dead end somewhere. Do you think we should split up?”
“I think we should stay together, Piemur,” Menolly replied. “We can’t risk any of us getting lost, and anyway, there’s no telling whom we might come across down here.”
“Safety in numbers, eh?” he asked, feeling hugely relieved. He didn’t want to have to wander alone through these vast cellars…not again.
“Exactly,” J’hon said, holding up his glowbasket and moving ahead.
Menolly followed with Piemur, sticking close in case he needed help. But the dimmer light level down here was soothing his headache, and since they had to slow their pace in order to check each door they passed, his back didn’t hurt so much anymore, either. With his pain lessened, a wisp of optimism began to return to his spirit, even though he was ashamed to have barely enough strength to help Menolly and J’hon force open the most stu
bbornly stuck doors. As they made their way through the cellar maze, the light grew darker, the air dank, and Piemur began to see patches of moisture dripping down the thick stone walls.
“This must be the part they’re going to brick up permanently. It looks like it hasn’t been used in ages,” he said, running his hand down a section of slick wet wall.
“And no wonder,” J’hon said distastefully, ducking beneath the end of a broken, rotting beam that couldn’t be doing much to hold up the ceiling anymore. He turned and held a protective hand on the splintered wood while Menolly and Piemur crept past.
The doors here proved nigh impossible to move, jammed as they were with Turns of dirt, water leaks, and neglect. Painstakingly, they forced each open and searched the room behind it, but each one they entered was empty, or contained only useless objects like broken baskets, discarded small furnishings, or moldering piles of rags. When they arrived, disheartened, at the last door, they automatically put their shoulders to it—but this door wasn’t stuck closed. When the three of them pushed together, the door flew open with a whoosh, throwing them off balance.
Piemur, Menolly, and J’hon looked at one another, and Piemur could see that the others’ expressions mirrored the hope he was feeling. Without a word, they entered the dank space.
But this room, too, was unoccupied, save for one rotten half barrel standing against the back wall. J’hon stood, stooping slightly in the middle of the low-ceilinged room, and looked all around at the empty space. Beside Piemur, Menolly dropped to a crouch, hunkered on her heels, and cradled her head in her hands. Piemur heard a stifled moan escape her.
How could Sebell not be here? There were no more cellars to search. Disbelief and despair warred in Piemur. He swung the glow around the room, high above his head, and kicked at the dirt floor in frustration.
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