• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Regidor and Bardon circled the vaulted hall without saying a word. The knights stood, sat, and reclined around the room as if they were visiting in someone’s home. Only the knights did not breathe, their closed eyes saw nothing, and their skin felt hard like marble and cold like ice.

Twelve. Twelve young knights exiled from their lives.

The room itself looked like the great hall of an old castle, dusty and smelling of mold. Under the layer of disuse, the chamber exhibited age-old elegance.

Regidor plunged into an investigation of everything he saw. He examined books, furniture, the walls, the sleeping knights, the candles, everything, in a rush.

Bardon’s second slow walk around the room included a careful study of all the knights. These men did not appear as statues, since their skin tones looked natural. Two urohm knights sat on the floor next to the curtained windows. Their heads leaned back against the wall, halfway to the ceiling. One tumanhofer knight sat in a chair too tall for him. An untouched tea tray sat on the table at his elbow. No mariones, kimens, or doneels had been captured. Five emerlindians and four o’rants made up the remaining knights.

“Look at these two emerlindians, Reg,” Bardon called to his friend. “They’re brothers, maybe even twins.”

Regidor left the picture that had caught his attention and came to examine the two sleeping knights.

“Definitely,” he said. “They probably looked more alike as boys. Their lives have marked their faces.”

“I wonder,” said Bardon, “if they are Jilles and Joffa.”

“You said Joffa was killed in an ambush.”

Bardon nodded.

Even though both had raised their voices, many of their words were drowned in the noise of the cascading water outside. This roaring waterfall claimed Bardon’s attention as the meech hurried off to inspect a tea service.

Long, narrow windows lined one wall. Bardon moved aside a set of dusty drapes to consider thick, beveled glass set in movable frames. He stepped up on the deep ledge of a window and tried to wrench it open. The old frame would not budge.

“Reg, I could use some help here,” he shouted.

After Bardon’s second call to break Regidor’s concentration, the meech dragon pushed a heavy chest under the window. The deep ledge was too narrow for both of them to stand on. Regidor examined the frame and then removed a bottle of oil from his hollow. He poured this slick lubricant down the side grooves where the window stuck in the wooden track. He put two fingers of each hand at the top of the grooves. After a moment, he drew back.

“Try it now.” Regidor gestured with his hands as well as shouted. The tumult of falling water obscured their words.

Bardon lifted the window easily. “You’re handy to have around, Reg.”

The meech just grinned and returned the bottle of oil to the hollow.

“What do you see out there?”

Bardon pushed aside thick vines that had completely covered the opening and peered out. A fine spray of water landing in cold droplets on his face startled him. A cascade of water flowed over the building from a narrow river. The water splashed in what looked like a deep pool at the base of the castle and then sped away in white-water rapids.

“I can see the waterfall. It appears to plummet over the end of the castle. We’re at the front of the building, near the top.” He leaned out the window. “From the position of the sun, I’d say it’s late afternoon and we’re at the eastern end of the castle. There’s so much growth covering the walls, it’s hard to distinguish the mountain from the castle. Both are made out of the same type of stone. Who would build their home so that one end is perpetually wet?”

“Let’s explore. We need to find Bromptotterpindosset. Perhaps we’ll discover the answer to other questions along the way.” Regidor motioned for Bardon to come out of the window and jump down. The meech dragon replaced him on the windowsill. “Let me try something,” he yelled.

Bardon did not see his friend do anything, but the sound of the waterfall faded. The roar