Dragons of the Watch (41 page)

For a moment, she didn’t think her heart would allow her the experience. Looking into his eyes melted her resolve not to let him be a martyr and marry the country lass he’d been stuck with. The love she saw in his expression filled her with a surge of like emotion. There was more?

She nodded.

The full volume of Bealomondore’s emotions struck her.

She gasped.

Oh yes, there was more.

She felt as if she were drawn into his soul. In an instant, her being melded with his. Her tentative belief in Wulder burst like fireworks into full-blown awe. The sparkling background became a jumble of giddy feelings, elation, and jubilation.

As this myriad of emotions danced in ecstasy, a solid base formed beneath them. She felt like she could skip on the edge of a precipice with no fear because Graddapotmorphit Bealomondore loved her. He
loved
her.

She willingly went into his arms. He kissed her, and a kaleidoscope of bliss swirled through her. Because of their special bond, she felt her
own pleasure and his. Happiness doubled and twined a ribbon of color between them, through them, and all around.

“Hey!” Cinder hollered at their shoulders. “What are you doing? We found the door.”

Reluctantly, she and Bealomondore pulled apart.

“Well?” said Cinder. “Are you coming?”

Bealomondore pulled the keys out of one of his deep pockets. Orli had sorted the dozens of keys brought in by the children. The minor dragon eliminated those that were too small, too plain, or too shiny according to his memory. Bealomondore banked on the fact that dragons have long and accurate memories. Seven old, cumbersome keys remained. Each looked like the others with only slight variances in the etched design along the shank.

The light dragon now sat on Bealomondore’s shoulder, as eager as any of them to see the door open. Only Tak seemed disinterested. He sat off to the side, refusing to be a part of the press of onlookers gathered deep in the subter. Ellie stood at Bealomondore’s side, and the crowd of witnesses pushed forward, each trying to see as he placed one key in, gave it a twist, and tried the door. He handed the used keys, one by one, to Carrie.

He came to the seventh key, and the group as a whole held their breath. This would be the final attempt. The door would finally yield to the hand unlocking the plain mechanism.

When the knob did not budge for the last key, a disappointed sigh escaped from them all.

Bealomondore shrugged. “I guess tomorrow we’ll search for more keys.”

“Couldn’t we kick it in?” asked Grim, bouncing his foot against the stubborn door.

The tumanhofer laid his hand on the solid wood. “Son, a tumanhofer craftsman fashioned this door. Not only does the lock work, but there’s probably a simple device that also prohibits entry.”

Carrie stooped, examining the design across the bottom of the door. “Hey! These look like keys.”

She took one key and placed it in the first indentation. It fit. The children who could see cheered.

Porky jumped, trying to see from his position at the back. “What happened?”

Ellie glanced over her shoulder, then balanced on her toes to look above the children. “Carrie found a place to put the keys.” A murmur of excitement buzzed through the gathering.

Carrie stood and held up a key. “I’ve got one left over.”

Bealomondore held out his hand, and she placed it in his palm.

He lifted his eyebrows and grinned at Ellie. With no more ado, he inserted the key and turned it. Even the burble of rushing water didn’t drown out the click of the mechanism. Bealomondore twisted the doorknob, gave a push, and the door swung open.

With shrieks of excitement, the children stampeded past Ellie and Bealomondore. She lost her balance, and he grabbed her around the waist, pulling her close to avoid being trampled.

After the charge passed, a commanding voice rose above the din. “Be still.”

Silence. Absolute silence. Except for the stream behind them.

Bealomondore looked at Ellie’s startled face and answered her unspoken question.

“We’d better find out.”

They darted through the door and stopped.

Lightrocks studded the walls, making the great hall bright. The children stood in various poses, seemingly trapped by the authoritative words. Frozen in flight, the minor dragons hung like suspended hot air balloons above their heads.

On the opposite side of the large cavern sat an old man on a throne. If Bealomondore had any doubts as to who the gentleman might be, the pointed hat and elaborate robes pronounced a wizard.

Bealomondore bowed. Ellie, taking her cue from him, gave a small curtsy.

“Come, come.” The wizard gestured for them to cross the expanse between them.

As they passed under Det and Airon, Ellie looked up in amazement and mindspoke,
“How’d he do that?”

We could ask him to explain, but if he’s like Fenworth, the explanation will be indecipherable
.

“Wizard Pater?” Bealomondore asked as he guided Ellie through the field of statuelike children.

The wizard nodded.

Walking beside Bealomondore, Ellie’s expression reflected horror as she studied the frozen faces of the children. At the foot of the wizard’s dais, she rounded on the old man with an outraged tone. “What have you done?”

He laughed, a pleasant sound in the eerie stillness. “Do not worry, Miss Clarenbessipawl. It is not permanent. The cease-action command will last no more than five minutes. So we have less than five minutes to have our adult conversation uninterrupted.”

She lowered her accusing finger. “All right.”

He smiled, and Bealomondore felt Ellie’s acceptance, and perhaps even approval, of Wizard Pater.

Bealomondore stepped up on the small platform and extended his hand. The wizard took it to shake with a firm but gentle grip.

“Wizard Pater,” said Bealomondore, “we would like to leave Rumbard City. And according to Old One, you too would like to be free.”

“Old One? His name is Humbaken Florn. Yes, you have freed me from the city of Tuck, and I am grateful. But without the bottle of memories, none of us can slip through the glass walls of the city.”

Ellie frowned. “Don’t you know where you put it?”

“I do,” said the wizard, “and I don’t.”

Neither Bealomondore nor his bride-to-be spoke.

“Yes,” said Wizard Pater. “I put the bottle on a shelf in what I have taken as my storeroom.”

Bealomondore realized that their silence would prod the old man to explain more than a stream of questions they might ask. Of course, Ellie joined him without verbal prompting.

“And … many years have passed.” He looked at the children. “And I have placed other bottles on the same shelf.”

The wizard sighed with a huge gust of air. The emotion on his face piqued Bealomondore’s artistic interest. If he could capture that expression of regret, the portrait would resonate with every person who had ever done a foolhardy deed.

The wizard continued, “I arranged for the isolation of the urohm population without consulting Wulder. I was rather peeved at their lack of obedience. Therefore, being an o’rant and given to pride just as completely as were the urohms, I sought to teach them a lesson. In other words, I committed my own act of arrogance by judging and sentencing and carrying out the punishment in my own self-righteousness.”

He paused to rub his hands together, as if warming them. He then rested one on each knee. “Wulder was not pleased.” His hands rubbed forward and back several times before he uttered another word. “And Wulder, in His infinite wisdom, gave me the task of maintaining the city until only those children who were under six at the time remained. It would seem Wulder agreed that the urohms required discipline, as I had determined, but discipline given by the master, not the servant. Over the years, the people grew old and died off, quite naturally. You mustn’t think they chafed terribly under my reprimand. They seemed very content.”

He grimaced. “I must confess, that irked me even more. I’d devised retribution for their folly, and I seemed to be the one chastised most heavily.”

He smiled again at his audience. “The children are beginning to stir. I must be succinct.”

Bealomondore and Ellie surveyed the still unmoving crew. An eye twitched on a girl, and a lip curved a little on another. None of the children stirred significantly.

“Where was I?” asked the wizard. “Oh yes. The adult population dwindled until only the librarian walked the streets. At that time, Humbaken Florn was charged with seeing to the children in the city. I continued my service by providing sustenance and such that is needed, still trapped under the city. Humbaken’s response to the call was to barricade himself in the library. He seemed to suffer most. And you would think that finally I would get some satisfaction as he endured penance.”

Wizard Pater shook his head sadly and rubbed one hand across his face and down his beard, giving the chin hair a firm jerk. “No, I felt sorry for him. So I bottled his memories as well.”

A giggle behind them brought Bealomondore and Ellie around to face the children.

Another giggle answered the first, then snickering bounced from one child to the next.

Through his laughter, Cinder remarked as if he had a mouthful of food, “I can hardly move my lips to talk.”

“Me too.”

“Me too.”

“Me too.”

That set off another round of snickering.

“I got my toe to move,” one child reported with glee.

Now claims of movement of different body parts were conveyed with more titters and giggles and chuckling.

Ellie smiled at the wizard. “They don’t seem to have been harmed by your cease-action command.”

Wizard Pater’s eyes twinkled. “They never are. Of course, I haven’t used the command for eons. I used to teach at The Hall in Amara.”

“A university?” asked Bealomondore. “I think Fenworth mentioned The Hall.”

The old man’s eyebrows lifted. “Fenworth? Fenworth is here?”

“Yes, along with his librarian, Librettowit. Although by this time they may have returned to Amara.”

“Oh, I hope not. Fenworth can help us dissolve the bottle around the city. He is quite a master of our trade. Not the Master, of course, but very knowledgeable in Wulder’s ways.”

Two of the children managed a step forward with one leg. Cheers broke out among the others.

The wizard stood. “All right, children. Listen to your wizard, and all will be well.” He pointed down a hallway on the side of the room.
“I’m going to take the grownups down that hall and serve tea. As soon as you are able, follow along, and I’ll have cakes and daggarts and candied fruit for you.”

“And punch?” asked Porky.

“Definitely punch,” answered the wizard. “Now come along as soon as you’ve worked out your kinks, and don’t go into any of the rooms along the way. Come straight to the kitchen. You can’t miss it. It smells dandy, like roast and gravy, rolls and butter, cinnamon, licorice, and vanilla.”

As he mentioned the spices, the scents floated through the room. Several of the children expressed their appreciation with a word: “Yum.”

“Follow me,” said Wizard Pater.

Bealomondore glanced into the rooms as they passed, seeing spaces that looked like the entryways to homes. Typical tumanhofer furniture declared the residents’ race.

He stopped at the opening of a smaller door and pulled Ellie back to peer inside. Shelves lined a long, narrow storage room. Bottles of every size, shape, and color crowded every inch of the space. Some had twist tops. Others had corks. Some had rags stuffed in the opening. On the floor, dust covered bottles large enough to stuff a baby pig inside.

Wizard Pater called from ahead, “I did say I have a few bottles, didn’t I? There really isn’t much to do as a hobby here in Tuck. Of course, maintaining Rumbard City is an onerous task, but I did have a spare moment here and there where I tried my hand at something different.”

Ellie raised her voice to question him. “What do you have in all these bottles?”

“Elixirs, music, scenery, letters, books, atmospheres from different worlds, flowers, mountains, bits and pieces of time. And one bottle of memories.”