DragonLight (26 page)

Light from her orb caught a glint in Bardon’s eye. Kale resisted the urge to kiss him.
I am so very glad you insisted we go on this quest. Well, not
this
quest…to rescue Holt, but the original quest…to find the meech colony.

“Does the yellow have any significance?” asked Kale as she pulled the long gown over her head.

“Means you can make a mistake and not get killed for it. You’re a novice, and if you make a wrong turn, you’ll be prodded with a pole, but not beaten.”

“Comforting,” said Bardon. “Seezle said this would be easy.”

“It will be,” said the kimen. “Glaringtonover is a pessimist.”

“Follow me,” said the pessimist. “You will enter the city through Holt’s quarters. It’s no longer inspected.”

“The floor of the jail cell is stone,” explained Seezle before Kale or Bardon asked.

They came to a wooden ladder, and Seezle skimmed up the rungs with ease. She pushed open a trapdoor and slipped out.

“Coast is clear,” she whispered a moment later.

Kale hiked the yellow robe up and climbed the ladder. Bardon followed.

No light shone in the bare room, but a glimmer from a lamppost outside prevented total darkness. Seezle glowed a tiny bit, then her light faded to nothing. Kale could no longer see the kimen but heard her merry voice.

“Peek out the window. Watch a couple of groups go by so you can see how they march. It’s easy. You’ll catch on quickly. When a group passes to the right, we’ll sneak out and join their formation.”

“They’ll see us,” objected Kale.

“No, watch,” insisted Seezle.

The tune played by a brass ensemble must have been coming from the town center, but it could be heard clearly. The feet of most of the inhabitants of this Paladise tramped in unison, giving a steady beat behind the music, almost like a percussion instrument.

A group of four Followers approached.

Kale gasped. “They’re blindfolded.”

Marching in step and evenly spaced, they passed with faces pointed straight ahead. With precision, the four turned at the counter, just as another group entered the intersection of the two streets.

“They don’t ever collide?” she asked.

“Never,” answered Seezle. “The routine never varies, and if they start at exactly the same time and don’t vary pace or path, the march proceeds in perfect synchrony.”

“I assume you have blindfolds for us,” said Bardon.

“Oh yes.” Seezle giggled. “Only they aren’t exactly blindfolds, because you’ll be able to see right through them.”

Kale tied Bardon’s on, and he did the same for her.

She looked around the room and could see even better than before the cloth covered her eyes. “This has moonbeam thread in it, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” Seezle opened the door a crack. “Are you ready?”

Kale and Bardon spoke in unison. “Ready.”

         
34
         

T
HE
B
OTTOM
D
ROPS
O
UT

Seezle, Kale, and Bardon stood inside the door and peered through the crack. The marchers in a unit wore various colors. If they’d had to wait to join a yellow corps, they would’ve waited a long time. Several groups passed Holt’s quarters before one headed in the right direction. Kale and Bardon fell into step behind a group of citizens.

Following Seezle’s prompting, they switched groups at different corners, always lining up behind the marchers. Using a convoluted route, they ended up behind the round, white stone building in the center of the village.

Seezle stuck her finger in the keyhole, fiddled a moment with the locking mechanism, then opened the back door.

“No one is here but Holt,” she said.

Bardon frowned at the door and then at Seezle. “If you can open a lock like that, why haven’t you let Holt out a long time ago?”

“Because there was no way to get him out of the village after I got him out of jail. The village is gated with a wall around it.”

“The one I visited had no barricade.”

“According to Holt’s informants, all the villages will become forts soon.” She turned a corner, opened a door, and led them down some wooden steps.

Bardon hurried to follow her, still objecting. “Why couldn’t he have walked out in the same manner you walked us in?”

“The tumanhofers weren’t ready. Glaringtonover has his own plan for after we rescue Holt.”

Kale sensed they were getting closer. Holt’s unworried demeanor surprised her. He was more relaxed in these circumstances than when they’d parted ways in Vendela. Fresh air streamed in the shallow, barred window high on the wall of his cell and rushed in a draft past his visitors on the stair.

He came to his feet as they descended the steps.

“Greetings!” He spoke quietly but not in the hushed tones of one afraid of being overheard. “Is tonight to be the great escape?”

Seezle giggled and passed him what appeared to be a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of some drink.

He took them and went to sit on the cot. “Oh, Seezle, you are a true friend.” He unwrapped the food and took a big bite. “Umm.”

Kale crossed her arms. “And I was afraid you were going to starve to death.”

“What?” Holt’s charming smile brightened his face. “Seezle wouldn’t let that happen to me. And the people of the village…Well, some of them, anyway, are much more generous than the echoes.” He shuddered. “Those echoes are mean, like hornets under their guise of tranquility.”

“Seezle,” said Kale. She gave the kimen a stern look. “You led me to believe this prisoner was on bread and water.”

“He is as far as the Followers know.” Seezle swung the door open. “We haven’t time for a leisurely meal, Holt. We need to get out of here before the end of the march.”

He stood, and after taking another bite, he rewrapped the sandwich and put it in a loose pocket. Then he opened the bottle.

Seezle went into the cell. “Here are some fresh clothes.”

“Do you have a bathtub hidden away as well?”

She laughed again and danced away from the marione.

“She wasn’t carrying anything before,”
observed Bardon to Kale.
“I suppose she has a hollow in her dress.”

I think each kimen has a hollow. I can remember, even when I was very young and they came to market in River Away, I wondered how they brought their goods for sale.

“You could at least turn around,” Holt said, holding up the new clothes to remind them he was about to change.

“Hurry,” said Seezle.

“Hurry is your middle name,” said Holt.

He grumped but swiftly obeyed. He left the clothes in a pile on the floor. Seezle carefully locked the cell door, and they scurried up the steps. They managed to get back outside in just a few minutes. The kimen relocked the outside door.

She giggled. “The echoes will be stumped in the morning when they find their prisoner missing.”

With his voice just above a whisper, Holt answered, “Technically, I wasn’t a prisoner. I was receiving special training to bring my will, as well as my heart and mind, under the authority of the leaders.”

“Did it work?” asked Bardon.

Holt scoffed as he tied on the fake blindfold provided by Seezle. “Ha! Their first mistake was in assuming they had my heart and mind, so they just needed to work on my will. Their second oversight was the fact that Seezle or one of her friends brought me a meal each night. And rolls and such came sailing through my one poor, unglassed window at different times during the day.”

“Here’s where we join the parade,” warned Seezle. Her light went out, but on the cue she gave Kale, they stepped into the back of a formation as it passed. They made quick progress back to Holt’s compact house. Once inside, Seezle eagerly popped down the hole under the trapdoor.

Holt leaned over the underground exit. He saluted. “Thanks, fellows, for digging the escape route. I’m sure you’d agree with me that it seems a waste. All that effort, and I’m the only one to get out of here? Not an efficient use of labor.”

Glaringtonover answered. “What do you have in mind, young marione?”

“I suggest we rescue other members of this sect who are trapped and want out.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Seezle says you have dug a network of tunnels under Paladise. Why did you do that, good man?”

“I have plans of my own, boy.”

“Would it hinder your plans if we used those tunnels to locate and rescue those I have identified as Followers who realize they’re following a sham?”

Glaringtonover didn’t answer for a moment. “I’m thinking there’s no problem in doing a little side job.”

“Good!” Holt clapped his hands together and then gestured to Kale. “Ladies first, dear Kale.”

When they had all assembled at the bottom of the wooden ladder, Holt pulled out a rough page of pale brown. He unrolled it, revealing a hand-drawn map of Paladise.

“I’ve marked the houses we need to visit,” Holt explained.

“And how are we going to recognize these houses from below?” asked Glaringtonover.

“That’s where Kale and Seezle come in. With Seezle following the map on the streets above, Kale will be able to locate her using her talent from below. Seezle stops at a house indicated on the map, and we dig up.”

“Sounds like an all-night proposition,” one of the other tumanhofers remarked. “How many people are you talking about?”

“The population of Paladise is around six hundred. The people who are too afraid to leave, but want to, number ninety-three.”

Glaringtonover frowned at Holt. “Will they come if we knock on their floors in the middle of the night?”

Holt nodded. “If I’m there to reassure them that this is a real escape and not a trap, they’ll jump in your hole faster than you can say, ‘Followers beware.’”

Bardon smiled at Holt. “You know you’re risking not getting out yourself if we get caught.”

Holt’s serious expression touched Kale’s heart. The evidence suggested there was more to the young, rich marione than anyone knew. Bardon was right once more.

“I promised these people I’d help them.” Holt glanced around at the others. “Will you help me help them?”

Glaringtonover scratched his beard. “It’s lucky for you, when I made my design, I opted for digging under the houses instead of the streets.”

Bardon clapped the tumanhofer on the shoulder. “I’d say that was Wulder’s providence, not luck.”

“Aye,” agreed the short, stout man. “Time’s awasting. We better get after this job lest the sun catch us in the morning.”

The plan worked well, with a few tense moments each time they reached the wooden floor of the houses, knocked loud enough to wake the inhabitants, and then pushed up the boards. Holt told those who responded to pack a few things and come down below, then someone would guide them back to the shack in the woods, using the tumanhofer tunnels.

Holt told them, “Be quick packing and be sure not to touch the wooden supports in the tunnel.”

Once the confusion of having someone appear through their floors cleared, the citizens were eager to cooperate. Bardon and the minor dragons escorted the escapees through the maze of tunnels to safety.

Bardon waited by one of the openings. The diggers had moved to the next house.

A man jumped to the tunnel floor, then turned to catch two bundles of belongings from his wife. No one possessed much, since the life they’d led inside the compound was austere. He put these things on the floor and turned to help his wife down.

Bardon picked up one of the packages. “This way,” he said.

“You!” exclaimed the husband.

Bardon turned quickly to examine the man’s face in the glow of his light orb.

“Garmey?” He looked at the woman. Her lined face looked old. Sympathy flooded him for the young mother he’d met weeks before. Her hollow eyes met his. Deep sadness poured out, and he thought he heard a suppressed sob. “Elma?”

“They took our children,” explained Garmey. He put his arm around his wife. “They never told us that before. We wouldn’t have agreed to come. On the way to Paladise, they stopped the wagon and moved our boys to another cart, saying they were going to a school. We thought the school would be here, or close by.”

Bardon put his hand on the man’s back. “We’ll find them. We’ll get them back.”

“Some people here say the children are dead.”

Elma turned her face to her husband’s shoulder.

Bardon swallowed a protest. “We’ll find them. We’ll petition Wulder to keep them safe until we come.”

He gestured for them to follow and began the long trek out from under Paladise.

The rescuers managed to awaken and evacuate all the people Holt had listed on his map. They huddled in the shack while Bardon and Kale made plans for their next move. Pat checked the gateway to see if it would tolerate such a large group traveling through.

Glaringtonover pulled the curtains over the windows against the dawning sun and anyone who might travel by and see the activity within the shack.

A horn blew in the distance.

Holt grinned at the young lady next to him. “The Followers have discovered something out of place.”

She nestled into his side, and he wrapped an arm around her.

Kale’s eyes widened as she sought out her husband.
Do you suppose this is the echo’s daughter?

Bardon nodded.

I suppose that means there will be a heated search for her. Will that endanger the rest of these people?

“We shall have to get them to safety quickly.”

“What will happen at the sound of that alarm?” asked Kale.

“The citizens are required to assemble on the streets.”

Glaringtonover and his men began to chortle, then let loose with loud guffaws.

“What?” asked Holt.

One of the tumanhofers managed to ask a question between his bouts of laughter. “How long does it take them to vacate the houses?”

“Under a minute. Tardiness is not tolerated by the echoes.”

Glaringtonover and the other tumanhofers inched their way through the press of people. Lifting a barrel, they revealed it had no bottom, but hid a small coil of rope. Taking hold of the end of the rope, the men braced their feet, and together, tugged.

A creaking reverberated from beneath the shack. The rope yielded, and the men nearly fell over backward. Crashing timbers exploded below, and dust poofed through the cracks in the wooden floor.

“Dominoes,” said Glaringtonover with a silly grin plastered on his usually humorless features.

The frame around them shook. Several women shrieked.

“No cause for alarm, ladies,” said Glaringtonover.

“What’s happening?” asked one of the rescued women.

The tumanhofer leader smiled kindly at her. “The people in the barricaded village are standing in the streets. They’re watching the houses collapse in on themselves as the supports in the tunnels tip over and fall, knocking the next timber out of place. There’s a special tunnel all the way around Paladise, directly under the wall. That will be the last to sink into the ground.”