Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [108]
“Why are you staring at me?” asked the tumanhofer.
“Do you understand that noise they make? Do you speak that twitty kind of talk?”
“They understand each other with the language they use out loud. I understand what they are thinking, words and pictures. It takes some getting used to, but if you have the gift, you can learn to fashion the information together to make sense.”
Amee flew around the corner, a black and white blur of scales and wings. She passed overhead without stopping.
“What’d it say?” demanded Cinder. “What’d it say?”
“She said to go through the theater. Yawn has no one guarding that area.” Bealomondore approached the street and paused to look over the immediate vicinity. “Det?”
The dragon took off and circled above the intersection. He came back, and Bealomondore signaled for his followers to move forward.
Cinder seemed to be jumping rather than walking. His excitement burst out in small leaps. “He said no one was here, right? He looked and didn’t see anyone, so you knew we could move, right?”
“Right, but you’d better be quiet, or Yawn’s gang will hear you.”
Bealomondore opened one of the front doors of the theater. Cinder held the other while Tak and the children and Ellie entered. They stopped in the lobby and waited until they were all gathered.
Soo-tie squirmed through the knot of people to get to Bealomondore. “I know the way. I play in here a lot. There’s a back door behind the stage.” She pointed. “On that side.”
Bealomondore nodded. He’d explored this building several times during the months before Ellie came. He went to Tak’s head and led the goat and cart through the doors into the theater proper. The rest of the crowd followed.
He saw Ellie start at the sight of the cavernous room. The rows and rows of huge seats looked like markings on a scalloped seashell. Large glass windows allowed light to come in through the slanted roof above. He knew that a catwalk led to the windows, and these could be covered during a performance.
In this light, enough of the great hall could be seen to admire its glamour, but the shadows along the edges caused a trickle of wariness. The children hushed and tiptoed down the slanted, carpeted aisle. They probably imagined spooky creatures, more ominous than their rough playmates.
He looked ahead and grimaced. He’d forgotten that the only way to the back was to either climb the steps on either side of the orchestra pit or to enter narrow doors at each side and climb even more constrictive stairways.
He halted his companions as the floor leveled off at the front row of seats. “I need a couple of boys to come with me to carry wide boards.”
Three jumped to be his helpers.
He nodded at Ellie. “We’ll be right back. There are boards backstage we can use for a ramp.”
She acknowledged his plan with a dip of her head and climbed into a huge theater seat. The other children followed suit. Even before Bealomondore and his three volunteers left, the children had discovered that jumping back and forth between the rows was much more entertaining than sitting.
Bealomondore felt Ellie’s indecision about whether to make them sit quietly or let them play. She relaxed when he mindspoke to her that the children probably could not be heard from outside.
He and the boys found several sturdy boards long enough to make the ramp. Ellie led the nervous goat, speaking softly. Bealomondore pushed from behind, steadying the cart and keeping the wheels from coming between the boards and pushing them apart. He gave a number of boys the job of keeping the boards from shifting, and he had to remind them often to keep their fingers from getting smashed. The other children laughed as Tak clambered up the wooden incline, and they danced up the boards once he was onstage.
Bealomondore and the boys brought the boards with them to get down the steps from the rear entrance to the theater. Maree swooped into the alley and landed on Tak’s back. His bright blue scales caught the beam of light slanting into the broad passageway from above. Tak’s