“It’s a secret cupboard. There’s probably treasure in here.”
“Toopka,” said Bardon, “that wood looks fragile. Don’t—”
He took a step toward her and heard a crack. Instead of the panel splintering, it suddenly slipped all the way down, and Toopka tumbled head first down the hole.
Bardon raced across the room and threw himself down beside the gap in the wall. “Toopka!”
He reached into the darkness and felt nothing but rough wood.
Regidor was beside him, removing his cape and jacket. “Let me try,” he said. “My arms are longer.”
His wings expanded and then folded against his shoulder blades. The stylish coat he’d dropped to the floor had two large slits in the back.
“I’m all right! I’m all right!” Toopka coughed. “Really, I’m all right.” She coughed again. “I got something. It’s…it’s only a book. What is it with this castle and books?”
Bardon looked over his shoulder and saw that Toopka had captured everyone’s attention.
Kale stood at the open window. “Tell her not to be afraid. Ardeo is coming to give her some light. The others are coming too.”
Bardon turned back to the hole. “Ardeo is coming. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m stuck.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I scraped my face and my arm.” Her voice did not sound quite as brave as it had a moment before.
“Gymn is coming,” said Bardon. “He’ll come down and heal you.”
“At least I know there aren’t any spiders or leggybugs down here.” Her tone had slipped to timid.
“That’s right,” said Regidor in a deep, reassuring voice. “No insects.”
“It’s kind of stuffy,” she whined.
Bardon frowned. “I don’t suppose there’s a window you could open.”
“Of course not.” She sounded disgusted, which was what Bardon wanted to hear. Toopka being fainthearted just wasn’t natural.
Ardeo came in through the window, flew across the room, and dropped down the small shaft.
Toopka giggled. Gymn and Pat followed in a few seconds.
The little doneel laughed. “Gymn, you’re tickling me.”
Kale came to kneel beside Bardon. “Gymn says your fuzzy face is very red beneath the fur.”
“I’m upside down.”
Kale winked at Bardon and Regidor. “Toopka, Pat has figured out how to get you out. He wants you to put your hands down on the crossbeam Ardeo is sitting on. Pat and Gymn are going to unsnag your britches. You have to ease yourself down onto that beam and then turn right side up. The other dragons are coming to make sure you don’t fall.”
“Tell Metta not to sing to me. I don’t want Metta to sing to me.”
“Why not, dear? When Metta sings to me I feel brave. She could sing a song about marching into battle.”
“All right. But no baby-go-to-sleep songs.”
“Of course not.”
By peering over the edge of the floor, Kale and Bardon could see the activity below. As the dragons made suggestions, Kale relayed them to Toopka. She soon sat on the large crossbeam, her feet dangling over a space that opened to the inner wall of the floors below. She still had the book clutched under her arm.
“Give your treasure to Pat and Filia, Toopka,” said Kale. “They’ll carry it up for you.”
“It’s not a treasure. It’s just a book.”
The minor dragons shot up the skinny shaft with the book between them. Bardon took it and handed it to Regidor.
“Is it?” asked Cam.
The meech dragon smiled. “It is!”
The room shook with cheers.
“Hey!” yelled Toopka. “Hey!”
Bardon yelled back. “You can come out now.”
He heard scrabbling and looked down to see Ardeo lighting the way and the other dragons showing her where to put her hands and feet as she scaled the rough timber inside the wall.
When her head popped up in the opening, Dibl sat between her furry ears and Gymn circled her throat like a necklace.
“I had an adventure,” she said as Bardon pulled her free.
“You did, indeed.”
“Wait till I tell Sitti and Ahnek. They think they’re going to find something in a smelly old dungeon.”
Bardon kissed her cheek. “And you found something in a smelly old wall.”
54
THE DUNGEON
Kale watched Bardon holding Toopka and then turned to see the other wizards huddled over the two books with gleeful anticipation. Regidor had the translation volume memorized. The older, wiser wizards would make quick work of interpreting the newly found book. Kale decided her talents would best be served relieving the squire of the little doneel.
She walked to them with her arms out. “Come with me, Toopka. Let’s go spread the word that the book has been found.”
“And that I found it.”
“Yes. We’ll even go tell the boys in the cellar.”
Toopka jumped from Bardon’s arms to Kale’s. The Dragon Keeper put her down on her feet. “You can walk. I learned a long time ago not to carry you. I get bruises from your wiggling.”
With the minor dragons flying above them, Kale and Toopka went to the library. Everyone who did not have a pressing duty to perform had instinctively gone to help search through the shelves of books.
The doneel child ran into the room, straight to Taylaminkadot. “Are the daggarts done? We get to celebrate.”
“Yes, they’re done. What are we celebrating?”
“I found the book! It was in a hole in the wall.”
Holt and a few of the guard gave a cheer.
Bromptotterpindosset closed the book he was perusing and pushed it across the table. With a look of relief, he pulled a stack of maps from Strot’s collection toward him.
N’Rae sprang to her feet. “Have they already undone the spell? Is my father awake?”
Kale shook her head and felt her chest tighten. No one had promised this miracle would happen before time ran out.
Hope. Now we have a bigger hope, but still it is hope and not fact.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and practiced something Fenworth had taught her. She breathed in, remembering the promise Wulder had made in His Tomes that this world spun toward an end of His design. And she breathed out, purposefully shedding the demand in her soul that everything be made right. Right now, this very instant.
When she opened her eyes, N’Rae stood beside her. The young emerlindian gently placed a hand on Kale’s arm.
“I’m sorry, Kale. I forgot that you’re waiting for your father to wake up too.”
“Thank you, N’Rae. I’ve never known him, yet it would hurt to have this chance to meet him snatched away.”
Toopka bounced beside the two young women and tugged on Kale’s sleeve. “Let’s go. Let’s go to the cellar.” She turned to announce to the others in the room, “We’re going to tell Sittiponder and Ahnek that I found the book.”
Kale took her hand and started for the door. “Yes, we are, and the sooner, the better.”
Toopka pulled her down the hallway, into the servants’ wing, through a maze of rooms, and down a dark, narrow stairwell.
A shiver of dread hit Kale like an icy wind as soon as she stepped through the doorway at the bottom. The minor dragons cooed in slow mournful calls to one another. Gymn landed on one shoulder, Dibl on her head, and Metta on the other shoulder. Filia settled on one arm with Pat below her. Ardeo flew just ahead of her, lighting the way.
“Toopka!” Kale heard the fear in her own voice and wondered what was wrong in this dark basement. The area certainly smelled musty, but it appeared clean and orderly from what she could see. “Toopka!”
“I’m here.” She came around the corner, carrying an armload of lightrocks. “I take as many as I can, because I think it’s creepy down here.” She handed the biggest one to Kale. “This way,” she called as she scurr
ied off.
Kale followed, muttering to her dragon friends. “I don’t like this at all.” She got the impression they liked it even less.
“We’re going to get those boys and drag them up to the castle proper. This exploring for a dungeon has to come to an end.”
“They’re not here!” Toopka’s exclamation hastened Kale’s steps.
She came to the end of the hall in a storage room with wooden boxes stacked against the walls. The doneel child was nowhere in sight.
“Toopka!” she called in a hoarse whisper.
Her face popped out from behind a crate, and Kale jumped.
“Don’t scare me like that,” Kale scolded.
Toopka grinned and then nodded to a spot behind her. “There’s a little door back here. I think you can get through it. The boys did.”
Kale grunted as she moved the heavy stack of boxes farther away from the wall. She swung the waist-high door open a bit wider. Then, thinking she did not want to get trapped in any dungeon, she struggled to move those boxes against the door to hold it open.
“Come on!” urged Toopka.
Whatever had made her feel nervous when she first passed into this realm below the castle made her feel positively terrified here. Her skin crawled, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
“Filia,” she whispered. “Go back and get Bardon.”
When the little dragon hesitated to go by herself, Kale started to send Dibl with her. “No, you stay here with us, Dibl. I forgot your lightness of spirit gives me courage. And I need to be brave. Metta, go with Filia, and both of you be quick.”
Each dragon picked up a chip of lightrock from the stone floor and headed back the way they had come.
As she walked behind Toopka, Kale looked more closely at the structure of her surroundings. The floor and walls were chiseled out of solid rock. The cold, empty passageway had probably never been used for storage. They moved at a slower pace now.
“Toopka, do you know where we’re going?”
“No,” she said and stopped. “I’ve never seen that door before. This must be the dungeon.”
“I’ve only been in one dungeon before, and it had rooms, not just a long passage.”
“I think,” said Toopka, turning an earnest face to Kale, “I’ll tell Sitti and Ahnek about the book later. Let’s go back and wait until they come up for supper.”
“I think we had better find them and take them back with us,” said Kale.
She looked at the small child in front of her. Toopka turned and stared into the dark of the tunnel with such concentration, she hardly looked as though she was breathing. Her ears usually stood at points, now they drooped. This little girl who rarely stopped moving was immobilized by fear.
“Toopka, I need you to be very brave and go back to get more help.”
Toopka jerked at the sudden sound of Kale’s voice. She twirled to face Kale. “You sent Filia and Metta to get Bardon.”
“Yes, but I’ve decided it would be best if Captain Anton and the guard came. Maybe Holt, too. We may have to search more tunnels to find Sittiponder and Ahnek. I may need help. I’ll send Pat and Dibl with you.”
“All right. I can do that.” She trotted past Kale with the two minor dragons flying as her escort. But after a few steps back, she stopped and turned. “Kale,” she said, biting her lower lip, “You be careful. This isn’t a nice place.”
“I will. I’m just going to get the boys and come back.”
She watched the blue glow of lightrock grow fainter as Toopka ran down the passageway. When she could see the light no longer, she turned to face the dark tunnel ahead.
“Just get the boys and come back,” she repeated. “That sounds like a very good plan.”
She walked another hundred paces. The green dragon perched on her shoulder let her know he didn’t like this journey, either. A small smile touched her lips. “You haven’t fainted since you were a baby dragon, Gymn. You are not going to faint now. But should something pop out at us at this point, you may have to revive me from falling over in a swoon.”
A few feet ahead of her, Ardeo’s glow blinked out of sight. Before she could call to him, he reappeared, flying toward her.
He’d gone around a corner, and around the corner was a huge cavern lit by lightrocks.
Kale sighed in relief. “That’s where those boys will be.”
They quickened their pace and came to the end of the passageway. It came out as a balcony overlooking a huge cavern. The walkway turned and followed the wall in a slow descent to the main floor. Kale surveyed the room and gasped. Lining the walls of the main floor stood a ring of people, slumbering as the knights slumbered in the castle above.
There must be hundreds of them. All races. All ages. The servants!
“Ahnek! Sittiponder! Where are you?”
She heard grunts but no words. She drew her weapon and held the invisible sword so that the blade pointed the way. Rushing down the ramp, she kept her eyes open and trusted Gymn and Ardeo to help her watch for danger.
When she reached the cavern floor, she heard muffled groans and sounds of struggling. She turned to see the boys being held by a tall dark figure, their hands bound behind them. Gags stopped their mouths, and ropes wound around their ankles.
Wings flashed out from behind their captor. He stepped closer, into the light, and Kale let out a startled exclamation.
“You’re a meech!”
“Of sorts.”
He smiled, and Kale shivered, grasping her sword’s handle more tightly. She wondered if he could see it. Instantly, she regretted not protecting her thoughts from intrusion and said the words Granny Noon had taught her so long ago. My thoughts belong to me and Wulder. In Wulder’s service, I search for truth. I stand under Wulder’s authority.
She watched the meech’s expression to see if she could pick up some indication that he listened to her thoughts. His face maintained the wicked grin.
He wasn’t much like Regidor at all. While Regidor liked fancy clothes, this meech wore only a cloth around his waist. The muscles on his body stood out like on a sculpture, but his wings looked less developed than Regidor’s. She wondered if he could fly.
The boys continued to struggle, but the meech held them away from him as if they were no weight at all.
“So,” he said and tossed his head back, jutting his chin in a belligerent fashion. “The mighty Dragon Keeper has come to me. No doubt you’ve met your father. He didn’t give you much of a welcome, I suppose.”
“You have the advantage over me.” Kale kept her voice even.
“Oh, quite! Profoundly so, I would say.”
She ignored the interruption. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Well, in a way, I am Wizard Strot. And I am also a young meech dragon whose body I found particularly appealing for its youth and stamina. And I am two other wizards, so obscure I’m sure you’ve never heard of them.”
“And do all of you have one name?”
“I toyed with several, but in the end, I decided to keep my own. I am Lord Ire. And now you know why Crim Cropper and Burner Stox have not come to claim this property as their own, as heirs to Risto’s estate. Those puppies are amassing an army of creatures they hope to send to overcome me.” He laughed, an unpleasant sound in Kale’s ears.
“Well, I’ve just come for the boys. Sorry they intruded upon your living quarters. I’ll take them off your hands.”
He laughed again. The first one had been unpleasant. This one ripped across Kale’s nerves.
“Actually, dear Dragon Keeper, I intend to absorb them. It helps to keep me young.”
“How old are you?”
“Not as old as Wulder. But I know of no other than He who is older than I am.”
“Pretender?”
“How clever you are.”
Kale felt lightheaded, and darkness pressed in on her. My thoughts belong to me and Wulder. In Wulder’s service, I search for truth. I stand under Wulder’s auth
ority. I stand under Wulder’s authority. I am pledged to Wulder. Wulder is mine, and I am Wulder’s. His banner is over me. His girding is under me. His fortress surrounds me.
Kale didn’t know where the words were coming from, but she let them flow until Pretender interrupted her.
“I may not be able to touch you,” he roared. “But neither can you leave. Try to move, Dragon Keeper. Try!”
Kale looked at his enraged expression. His eyes glowed. He had tossed the boys to the side, and they lay in unconscious heaps.
She tensed her right leg and tried to lift her foot. It stuck to the floor. She tried the left. It, too, remained fastened to the stone beneath her.
“You know,” said the evil before her, “I don’t like what Wulder has made.” He waved his hand, indicating the many people who were statuelike against the walls. “I prefer to see them like this.” He sneered. “I understand you have summoned more to join us in this cavern. How gracious of you to add to my collection.”
“Gymn, Ardeo, go warn them not to come!”
A look from Pretender stopped the flutter of leathery wings. The two dragons dropped to the floor and lay still.
A sparkle of light seen out of the corner of her eye caught Kale’s attention. A kimen stood beside Sittiponder.
Kale looked back at Pretender, but he didn’t seem to see the small, lighted figure.
Kale closed her eyes.
My thoughts belong to me and Wulder. In Wulder’s service, I search for truth. I stand under Wulder’s authority. I stand under Wulder’s authority. I am pledged to Wulder. Wulder is mine, and I am Wulder’s. His banner is over me. His girding is under me. His fortress surrounds me.
55
LIGHT VERSUS DARK
Bardon strode across the mountain meadow with Captain Anton. They headed for the dragon field to check on the dragons and the rider stationed there on guard. Behind them a narrow waterfall plummeted over a cliff. Even knowing the castle was there, it took concentration to distinguish rocks from turrets, and windows from crevices. Bardon glanced over his shoulder. The sight always fascinated him.
Two minor dragons winged his way. He stopped, and Captain Anton stopped as well.
“Trouble?” asked the captain.