The Worlds of Christopher Walker

BEONNA’S EYES SCRAPED open upon a large room dimly lit, enclosed in oily dark beams and rafters. She found herself lying on her back on a hard wooden floor, stiff and bruised. An abrasive rasping echoed over and over through the gloomy room. Cloying sweet incense poisoned her nostrils and turned her stomach sour. 

Where am I?

When she tried sitting up, her throbbing head forced her back to the floor. She took many long, deep breaths until it slowed. Then, fighting through the sickness churning in her belly, she rolled onto her side. She froze at the sight of a hunched over old woman squatting twenty feet away. The crone wore black rags and rocked back and forth with a guttering candle rooted to the planks in front of her, swaying with empty eye sockets staring blindly ahead. Her unintelligible chanting rasped over and over again under her gurgling breath. Beonna remained frozen to the spot for a long time, terrified by the malice pouring from the blind hag. She waited for the witch to rise and do something terrible to her. But the gnarled old woman continued chanting and rocking, rocking and chanting without ceasing, filling the darkened room with her evil.

After a long fearful moment, with her eyes riveted to the evil witch, Beonna ventured to sit up. Her stomach twisted when she turned and found two more witches squatting and chanting opposite her. The three together formed a large triangle with Beonna in the center.

Then she noticed her hands were clenching something with all their strength. Beonna opened them and there found the Silmaril glowing softly, filling her with warmth. Then she remembered: she was back in her body on the Dagor fortress now! A pang of sorrow knifed through her when she remembered leaving Inolduay’s peaceful presence to come back here. She had to get the Silmaril far away from the fortress, far from Angor!

Beonna closed her hands around the Silmaril again and rose to a wary crouch. The Jewel of Inolduay, she noticed, didn’t shine as brightly now. Had she offended him? Or was being in the tree with him just a dream? She shook her head. No, now wasn’t the time for doubt.

“Miss Beonna! Can you hear me?” A familiar voice, the voice of a child, whispered across the murky room behind her. “Miss Beonna, over here!”

Her eyes flashed around to the corner. There, near the door, crouched someone she could never have expected to find in this place. “Millen? Is that you?” The young lad nodded and waved to her. Beonna looked at the three witches, but they appeared oblivious to Millen’s presence.

“Hurry, Miss, if you please!” Millen waved again. “We’re here to rescue you, but we don’t have much time!”

Beonna struggled to her feet, fighting through the dizziness in her head and bubbling rottenness in her guts. Keeping her eyes fixed on the crouching witches, she took a cautious step towards the corner. To her surprise, they didn’t react at all, but kept to their monotonous chanting as they swayed back and forth. Beonna held the Silmaril close to her chest and took another step. Millen waved at her to hurry. When the witches still did nothing, Beonna began creeping through their midst, out of their triangle, over to the smiling boy.

“Millen, what are you doing here?”

“Rescuing you, Miss Beonna. Come with me before we’re found out. Let’s go!”

Beonna glanced back one more time, amazed that they either didn’t notice or care that she was escaping. “Okay, let’s go.” They slipped out the door into a dark corridor. “Who else is here with you?” she asked, scarcely believing that deliverance could be so close.

“Everyone! The captain is down at the bottom of the fortress, freeing the crew of the Freedom Hawk. He’s making a big distraction while I sneak up here to find you and lead you out to safety, Miss Beonna. The Dagor soldiers are busy fighting with them below! Follow me, now, and stay close, if you please. It’s easy to get lost in this stinking place.”

Millen led the way through the empty corridors. “What about Lumpolas and Aragunk? Are they alright?”

“Oh, they’re fine, Miss Beonna, just fine. They’re powerful worried about you, though. Especially Mister Aragunk. He’ll be right happy to see you, he will. He does carry on about you. I think he’s taken quite a shine to you, Miss, if you don’t mind my saying so.” Beonna might have blushed if she didn’t feel so queasy, but she decided not to comment.

He led her further and stopped short. “Now which way was it? It’s hard to go back the way you came sometimes, isn’t it? You get your directions all mixed up.” He tapped his head. “This is it!” He turned left and brought her to a ladder leading to a hatch in the wooden ceiling. Millen scampered up and pushed it open to peek his head out. “It’s clear, Miss Beonna, let’s go.” She struggled up the ladder with one hand while she held the Silmaril close in the other. “I can hold that for you, Miss, while you climb.” Millen held his hand down to her. But she shook her head. “No, I can’t let it go. It’s too dangerous,” she said, climbing the ladder despite the stiffness in her bones.

“Are you alright?” asked Millen when she got to the top.

“Just a little woozy. I don’t know how long I was asleep with those horrible witches.”

“It’s so good to see you again, Miss Beonna. I thought you were a goner when those bog-bats took you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Millen. But I wish Gandalf and Captain Yorlov hadn’t put you in this much danger to rescue me.”

“It’s not that dangerous. See? Nobody around. The captain had a good plan, he did. Drew ‘em all right down to the belly of this wreck so we could escape. But we need to keep moving, Miss Beonna.”

Millen helped her up, and they started along another corridor that had a narrow doorway at the end. “How did you get aboard?” Beonna asked, still full of wonder to see him here.

“Oh, I climbed up, I did. Right up the side of the fortress. You know I’m the best climber on the Freedom Hawk. No one can make it up to the crow’s nest faster than me, not by three yards! That’s why I’m the best look-out on the ship. Ah, this is it,” he said, leading her to the narrow door. “I came through here, I’m sure of it.” Beonna took a step forward and had to put her free hand on the wall to steady herself. “Are you okay?” asked Millen. “You’re powerful green around the gills, ma’am, if you’ll forgive my saying so.”

“Yes, I’m alright,” she answered through her wooziness. “I don’t know what they did to me, but I can’t shake this grogginess.”

“You just need some of Mister Lumpolas’s cooking, Miss Beonna. That’ll cure whatever ails you, I’m sure. You look like you haven’t eaten in a week.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. But her stomach still churned, and she wanted nothing but to curl up in a bunk back on the Freedom Hawk and let someone feed her some of Lumpolas’s savory dumpling soup.

“I can carry that for you if you think it might help, Miss Beonna,” said Millen, holding his hand out to the Silmaril again. “You’ve got enough to worry about on your own. I’ll be real careful with it, I promise!”

“No,” she said. “No, it’s better if I hold on to it, Millen. Just keep leading the way.”

“Suit yourself, Miss.” He shrugged and pulled open the door. They stepped into a tiny room lit by a single porthole that let the cheerless pre-dawn light in. It was stuffy and cramped—little more than a mop closet—and smelled of moldy leather and lamp-oil.

“We’re almost there, Miss Beonna.” Millen pointed up. “There’s another hatch, there in the ceiling. That’s where I came through, but it was easier to come down than it will be to get back up there. I can’t quite reach it on my own.”

Beonna cast about for a way up. “I’ll have to give you a boost.” But she wasn’t sure how to do it without setting the Silmaril aside. “Here, climb on my back and see if you can reach it, Mill.” He climbed onto her back as she hunched over and, with a great effort not to fall, she stood up, dizzy and nauseous.

“Just a bit higher, Miss Beonna. I can almost get my fingers on it.” Beonna, her head spinning, reached out to the porthole to balance herself as she pushed up on her tiptoes. “I got the ledge, but I need a little more to pull myself up.”

Beonna clenched her teeth. “Hold on!” She jumped as hard as she could.

“Got it!” Millen scampered up through the hatch as Beonna collapsed onto the floor of the closet with the world careening all around her. “Miss Beonna! Are you okay?” The waves of nausea settled enough for her to nod.

“I’m alright.” The sweat on her back slid like beads of ice. She could only think how good it would be to be back home at her brother’s hearth instead of here. “I just need a minute to get my bearings. Do you have a rope?”

Millen shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Beonna. I wish I had thought of that before I came aboard. But I can pull you up if you take my hand.”

“Millen, I don’t think you’re strong enough yet to pull me up.”

“No, I can. Honest!”

“Millen, isn’t there something up there you can find? A box or a stool or a piece of rope?” But before he could answer, boots marching in the corridor outside came clomping up to the door. Beonna crouched against the door and listened. The boots stopped right outside. She spotted a broken mop shaft, snatched it, and wedged it under the door’s latch. Her breath froze in her chest as the iron door handle rocked up and down against the stick, but it held, preventing the latch from turning.

“What are you looking in there for?” a muffled soldier’s voice drifted through.

“Thought I heard something mucking around in here,” answered another. The door handle rattled harder.

“Oh, leave off. Probably just a rat, it was.”

“That’s what I thought too. Thought I might catch it for your breakfast. Blast! This latch is stuck!”

“Oh, get out of the way. Can’t even open a door handle, eh? Let me show you.”

Millen whispered down to her. “Give it to me and climb up, Miss Beonna! Quick!” She glanced at him again and then at the Silmaril. Every fiber of her being screamed that she must not let it go. No matter what! But the latch was giving way. If they caught her in here, she might never get another chance to escape!

Beonna shut her eyes and took a deep breath, fighting back the sloshing in her belly and the grinding fatigue in her bones. With one desperate effort, Beonna leaped up, getting purchase with her foot against the wall. Then she launched herself up to the hatch, just getting her elbows over the edge without letting go of the precious jewel. Her feet dangled in mid-air until her toes found the porthole and she could scrabble up through the hatch. She rolled away on the floor, trying to calm her breathing as the door below crashed open with a kick.

Beonna’s heartbeat pounded through her head. She fought to keep her stomach in its place while she strained to listen. “Well, if that was a rat, it was the biggest rat I ever heard,” said the guard.

“Look at that hatch up there in the ceiling,” said the other. “What do you suppose that’s for, then?”

“The Kûll has dozens of creepy hidden passages built in, lad. Doubt if even Lord Angor knows them all.”

“Aye, and he’s got even creepier things aboard to creep around in them. Why, I’d swear on your mother’s beard there’re more little monsters lurking about on this boat than there are people!”

“Aye to that. If you hear something thumping around in this place, it’s better to leave it be, lad. A rat would be a welcome sight.” The guard’s voice trailed off as he stepped out of the closet. The closing of the door and the fading clomp of their boots made the sweetest sounds Beonna could recall hearing.

“They’re going, Miss Beonna. We can get moving when you’re feeling up to it, but we shouldn’t wait too long.”

Beonna sat straight up and smacked the back of her head on a beam. “Ouch!” A cramped crawlspace enclosed them that even Millen couldn’t stand up in—one of the “secret passages” of the fortress.

“Sorry, I should have warned you, Miss!”

“It’s alright,” she said, rubbing the rising bump on her scalp. “And you don’t have to keep calling me ‘Miss.’ You can just call me by my name. We’re friends now, aren’t we, Millen?”

“Right as rain we are, Miss Beonna.” He shrugged sheepishly. Beonna laughed despite her queasy stomach.

They crawled along the narrow duct with Millen leading the way. Beonna clutched the Silmaril close, nested near the dimmed Jewel of Inolduay.

She began smelling the same sickly sweet incense from the room with the three witches. Her guts gurgled and bubbled as the odor grew stronger. “We’re almost there,” said Millen as they arrived at a wooden grate blocking their way. “See that window on the other side near those big carved doors? Out that, and we’ll be outside. Then we just have to climb down and we’ll be free, Miss.”

Beonna nodded as he pushed the grate open and set it aside. They crawled out into a large chamber that reeked of bitter wood-smoke and rotting meat. She held her nose and wondered that Millen didn’t seem bothered by it. The room lay furnished with a single chair of iron in the center, facing a wide altar table overlaid with soot-darkened metal. As they crept past the table, Beonna noted a jagged fire-blackened knife resting on the altar. A broad chimney flue depended above it. Offerings were burned regularly on that altar table, she realized with a shiver. “I don’t like this,” Beonna said. “This is a terrible place.”

“It’s just a room, Miss Beonna, that’s all. No need to worry.”

But the gloom and the rancid air oppressed her. Evil acts were done in this room. She tried to take comfort in the Silmaril’s soft light. “Let’s get out here, Millen.”

They crept across the wide room to the window with Beonna all but staggering behind him. She took courage that their escape stood so close. Millen struggled to open the window latch. “It’s stuck, it is! I can’t get it open. I don’t understand, Miss Beonna. It was wide open when I left it!”

“Here, let me try it,” she said, stepping forward and grabbing hold of the latch. But it snapped off as though made of brittle, burnt wood. “Oh, no!” She stared at it in disbelief.

“What do we do now?”

“Break the window and hope that nobody is close enough to hear.”

“Those crossbars are solid iron, Miss Beonna. It won’t do us any good to break the glass. We’ll have to find another way out.”

Beonna leaned her head against the window and fought the urge to weep. The open sea and clouds in the early morning sky filtered through the filthy glass. “Don’t worry, Miss Beonna, I’m here with you. We’ll get free, I promise,” Millen said. “We’ll go out those doors there and we’ll find another window and climb down from there.” Beonna forced herself to nod.

He was already halfway to the carved doors when the Silmaril suddenly grew warmer in her hands. “Millen, wait!” she called just as he cracked the immense door open. A bony claw shot through and snatched the boy by the wrist. He gave a yelp and tried to yank his hand away, but another gnarled claw reached through and grasped him by the elbow.

“Miss Beonna, run for it!” Millen yelled as he struggled to get free. The massive doors flew wide. There stood the three blind witches in their black rags. Two of them held Millen between them and lifted him up off the floor. The third witch came hobbling on her gnarled cane up to the altar table. Groping in front of her, she found the blackened knife on the altar table and whipped it around to the boy’s throat.

Beonna froze. She longed to bolt back to the grate and escape. But she couldn’t leave Millen to the malice of the evil hags. “Let him go!” She held the glowing Silmaril up, hoping its sacred light would do them harm. The witches kept a continual rasping chant among them that riddled Beonna’s ears with their malice. She took a step closer and, even though they couldn’t see it with their empty eye sockets, they flinched from the light of the jewel. But the crone holding the knife pressed the filthy blade harder against Millen’s throat, causing him to cry out.

“Put him on the altar!” commanded a booming voice from beyond the doors. Behind the three witches, a towering figure in black armor arose with a tall and jagged pike in his fist. The witches obeyed, heaving the struggling Millen over to the blackened table and slamming him down on its sooty metal top with a bang.

“Stop!” cried Beonna, fear coursing through her. “What are you going to do with him?”

Lord Angor strode through the door, each heavy step pounding a slow funeral drumbeat. His grim jaw, jutting out from beneath his high helmet, betrayed not the slightest fear of the Silmaril that she held up to ward him off. “They are going to sacrifice him, girl. An honored gift to our Lord Melkor. An honor you too shall be blessed to offer to him soon.”

“He has done nothing to you! Let him go!”

Angor pulled his black helmet off and glowered down at her. “Do it,” he said to the witches. Millen howled in fear as the witch’s bony arm raised the darkened knife high above him.

“No!” Beonna screamed. “Don’t!”

The grimmest of smiles creased Angor’s mouth. “You know what I want,” he said, his gray eyes slipping to the Silmaril.

Beonna’s gaze shot over to the altar where Millen’s legs flailed under the grip of the three crones. “Miss Beonna, please! They’re going to cut me! Please, I don’t want to die!”

Angor’s face loomed impassive as a craggy mountainside. “Place it on the altar or he dies now.”

Beonna’s tear-filled eyes turned back to Angor’s granite face. Then she looked to the Silmaril in her hand before raising her gaze to Millen and the black knife poised above him. Millen’s life or the life of the world? She couldn’t hear herself think over the pounding of her heart.

“Please don’t let them do it, Miss Beonna! I can’t die like this!” Millen cried through his tears. If only Inolduay would talk to her, tell her what to do right now! She brought the Silmaril to her breast again and backed away, tears streaming down her face. “Millen, I’m sorry. I can’t give this into his hands. I can’t.”

Angor nodded. “Kill him. Now!” Millen wailed in terror as the words rumbled through the room. Beonna’s stomach filled with ice as the knife slashed through the air. Her knees buckled when Millen screamed.

The knife struck home.

But instead of dying in agony, the form of Millen exploded into a thousand shrieking bog-bats, darting all around the evil altar. Beonna’s eyes gaped wide. Her mind reeled, trying to understand what had happened. The sound of the witch’s cackling filled the room. Lord Angor stood aloof, studying her like a big cat watching a small mouse. He smiled—if a block of granite could smile—measuring her terror and confusion.

“It wasn’t Millen,” she said as relief and realization dawned on her. “It was never Millen at all. It was a trick.”

The Dagor Lord removed his gauntlets and placed them on the black altar, along with his pike and helmet. “A test,” he said, stepping towards her again, resuming the slow drumbeat of his heavy boots. “My compliments to you, daughter of Beorn the abomination. You have proven that we are no different from one another.” He was an immense predator, with his prey trapped before him.

She lifted the Silmaril up for protection. “I’m nothing like you! You murdered my father! You’re a monster, a servant of the evil one. I’m going to kill you and save the world from his darkness!” But the steady drumbeat of his footsteps continued. Despite her resolve to stand fast, Beonna found herself retreating several paces backwards as he drew closer.

“A monster?” A mirthless chuckle boomed from Angor’s chest as he backed her towards the wall. “And yet, like me, you stand willing to sacrifice an innocent for your own aims. Would your father have done that, Beonna? Be thankful he didn’t live to see the monster his daughter became. Now you must spend your last hours with that knowledge, young one. That, like me, you, too, are a monster.”

Rage flooded through Beonna. “And you will always live with the shame that you have failed your master! His evil will fail. You will never wrench this Silmaril from my hand! No matter the tricks and deceptions you and your foul hags conceive. You fear taking it in your hand because your heart is not pure, and it burns all that is unworthy!” 

The Silmaril glowed brighter in Beonna’s hand, illuminating Angor’s rough-hewn face from below. His dark eyes exploded wide with wrath and malice, without the slightest hint of fear of the Silmaril’s power. “Tricks and deceptions? Foolish girl. I will show you what a pure heart is!”

Beonna stumbled backwards and just caught herself from falling. She stood near the open grate and turned to dive into it. But before she could leap, Angor surged forward like a panther and caught her by the wrist holding the Silmaril. She screamed in pain and surprise as he jerked her off the floor by one arm. Beonna’s legs flailed and fear poured through her as she dangled in his powerful grip. Now face to face, Beonna could scarcely believe the cruelty in Angor’s eyes. Her wrist throbbed, close to shattering under his inhuman strength. 

“You think I fear pain or death, girl?” Angor shouted into her face. “Watch!” He reached across and tore the Silmaril out of her hand. The instant he took it in his grasp, his hand erupted in a bright ball of white flame. A slow cry erupted from Angor as pain howled to life from the fire. His grip tightened on Beonna’s wrist like a vice as he contended with his agony, tighter and tighter until at last she felt it snap. Her own scream of pain joined Angor’s, echoing through the room now.

The light of the Silmaril—now a ball of white-hot glass—grew brighter as it burned in Angor’s huge hand. He threw Beonna to the ground with a shout of defiance against his suffering. Despite the agony of her broken wrist, hope surged in her heart as his face twisted in unthinkable pain. She waited for him to drop it so she could escape with it.

But at length, an eerie calm descended over him as he mastered his agony. An insane smile spread across his broad jaw even as his tortured fist burned under the power of the Silmaril. Angor brought the burning orb to his face and regarded it like a child might look at a strange stone it had found in his wanderings. He loomed over her and lowered his gaze to her. “Now you see what a pure heart looks like, girl!” he said, just barely controlling the pain torturing him. “I would suffer anything for my master! I would die a thousand deaths to satisfy his will! That is what my master demands. That is why the world will fall before his unending power!”

The throbbing pain in Beonna’s shattered wrist fled before the overwhelming fear racing through her. The maelstrom of agony and malice storming across Angor’s crazed face made her despair of ever seeing a good thing again. How could anyone fight such evil? Beonna clutched at her wrist and glanced at the open grate so close by.

And then, mesmerized by the light of the Silmaril and the agony it dealt him, Angor whispered something under his breath like a dark prayer. He turned and made his way to the blackened altar table. “Take her,” he said as he collapsed into the throne, his eyes locked onto the flaming jewel in his left hand. “She will be the sacrifice our Lord Melkor requires when we reach Arn.” The witches, whispering to one another, bowed low. Turning to Beonna, they crouched down onto all fours and stalked towards her where she lay like three old spiders.

Raw fear spurred Beonna. She crawled on her elbows to the open grate with her broken arm curled beneath her. Only a few feet of floor stretched before her, but it felt like a mile with the three witches flowing across the planks behind her. She wanted to cry and scream for help, but all that fell aside—she had to focus on getting away! Their rasping chanting buzzed in her ears so that she was sure they were almost upon her. With a burst of fresh terror, Beonna threw herself headfirst through the opening.

She scrabbled through the narrow crawlspace, but she still wasn’t safe. The first witch came darting in behind her. But instead of crawling on the floor like Beonna, the old hag crawled upside down towards her, along the roof of the duct! Beonna stifled a scream at the sight and struggled faster to get away, her broken wrist pulsing in torment. The witch’s continual chanting sounded even closer in this tight space. She knew without looking that the other two had followed.

The crawlspace stretched on, but coursing fear hurled her forwards. “Please!” Beonna prayed through tears as she fought to get back to the hatch. “Inolduay, if you’re still there, please help me!” Her fear-drenched voice sounded foreign in her own ears, like it belonged to someone else. “Forgive me for leaving you! I should have stayed with you.”

The duct seemed narrower and tighter now as she crawled and her breaths came shorter and shallower. Icy, bony fingers gripped her by the ankle. Beonna screamed and kicked backwards, delivering a glancing blow to the upside down witch. But the crone only cackled as she fell back and then resumed her pursuit.

At last, Beonna made it to the hatch to the closet and went tumbling through it, landing hard on her broken wrist. A shriek of agony erupted from her lips. She couldn’t draw breath for the pain exploding through her. Terror forced her eyes up to the hatch, where she found the witch’s empty eye sockets gaping down at her. Another appeared. In an instant, this hag spun onto the ceiling and crawled head first down the wall like an insect. Beonna’s cry of terror seized in her throat.

She yanked the door latch but couldn’t budge it this time. The guards must have locked it when they left! “Inolduay! Help me!” she whimpered, pressing into the corner, preparing for the end. Another witch crawled into the tiny room and Beonna knew then she was doomed. Trapped with nowhere left to run. The evil rotting-fruit smell of the witches filled the closet, and hunger and despair followed with them. She closed her eyes and prayed it would be quick.

Then, a flash of brightest, clearest light erupted from the jewel at her breast. A howl erupted from the three in a hellish chorus, as though someone had stabbed them through the gut. Beonna’s eyes snapped open. Silvery light flooded the room, brighter and brighter, pushing outwards. Now the blind witches clawed one another to climb out of the room, panicking and cursing and fleeing to get away from the light.

Through waves of dazzling brightness, Beonna descried the form of an elven warrior in glorious shining armor standing in their midst. His sword flashed as the witches flew before his wrath. Joy and amazement chased away terror as the witches fled through the hatch and disappeared into the belly of the fortress. The light blazed in the room with such power that Beonna could see nothing else. But she knew she was safe. Even the pain in her wrist receded.

The elven warrior turned, blinding in his splendor, and gazed at her with silvery eyes full of kindness. His voice sounded in her mind like the sweetest music she had ever heard: “My friend, you see now the malice we contend against. It is too mighty for even the strongest to fight alone. You are safe now, but you must not stay here. Be of good courage, Beonna—you are not alone!” The beautiful light faded and the vision of the warrior with it.

“Wait! Don’t leave me!” she cried. “Please!” Without hearing him say it, she knew Inolduay was not angry and that he would never leave her. But as the light faded, a pang of sadness pierced her, even as fresh courage flooded through her soul.

After a moment, Beonna wiped the tears from her cheeks and took deep healing breaths again. Indeed, the air smelled clean now, purified by the light. The illness in her stomach troubled her no longer. But her shattered wrist began its painful throbbing again. She had to keep moving. But to where?

Beonna pressed her ear to the door and listened for footsteps. Hearing nothing, she tried the handle again and found the door latch unlocked now. She clutched the locket again and offered a prayer of thanks as renewed resolve rose in her. Beonna cracked the door and found an empty corridor. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out.

She had to seek a way off the fortress. But how? And where should she go? She couldn’t see any way to stop Angor right now, not by herself. Inolduay was right: he was far too strong for anyone to fight alone. The sight of the fanatic Dark King sitting on the throne with his hand ablaze tore through her mind. Beonna shuddered at the memory of the agony in his eyes as he grappled with the power of the Silmaril. How can you fight someone so possessed by the will of his evil master?

Beonna came to a corner and crouched to listen for guards. Should she head downwards, closer to the water? She could try to find the captured crew of the Freedom Hawk down there. She had seen them at the battle of the Oarni temple, so they had to be aboard somewhere. And she would find Gandalf and Yorlov battling the Dagor soldiers. But it had been the false Millen who had told her that her friends were aboard. It could have been a lie too, a trick to give her false hope. Her heart fell a little, but Inolduay had said that she was not alone. If she could free the enslaved crew, perhaps they could find a boat and escape. Thus Beonna’s thoughts ranged as she sought through the gloomy corridors for a way to the lower reaches of the tall fortress.

She passed what appeared to be the bridge room where the floating fortress was steered. Three Dagor sailors manned it, one at the tiller in front of an open window and two behind him. These consulted a map and a strange obsidian globe that she guessed enabled them to navigate. Inolduay told her while still in the great tree with him that the Dagorim fled to a place called Agoth Arn. Beonna longed to have a look at the map to divine where that was and how far away they were from it. She crouched low as she snuck by, below the railing fencing in the bridge, until she made it past the sailors undetected.

Along another dark corridor, she crept until she came to a ladder leading to the deck below. Beonna struggled down it with her throbbing left arm curled against her chest. The instant her feet hit the floor, the sounds of shouting and the boot stomps of running men thundered her way. She cast about for a place to hide and found a little corner alcove that stored a coiled chain with massive links. She crouched behind the chain and tried to quiet her sharp breathing.

A group of Dagor soldiers came pouring around the corner with axes in their hands. “Move, you dogs! Move!” shouted one behind them. They each hurled themselves up the ladder. And in a few heartbeats, the pounding of their boots receded away on the planks above. Her ears strained, listening for other soldiers coming her way. If her friends had got free of the fortress by boat, then it made sense that the Dagorim would go upwards to fire arrows or other projectiles to sink them. Still, her best chance had to be to head down towards the water.

At length, she dared to breathe and move again, creeping along the passageway whence they had come. Twice she had to dive under cover again as more Dagorim soldiers thundered by.

Her pace quickened until found a spiral staircase leading to a lower deck. Beonna gave thanks not to have to climb down another ladder with only one hand. She found herself on a high balcony overlooking a large cargo area that showed the signs of a recent battle littered all around. Little fires burned here and there, and many bodies lay strewn across the deck. Beonna didn’t look for fear of recognizing someone she knew lying dead there.

If the crew had fought here, she reasoned, they must have gone on to the dry dock where the galleys harbored. Beonna descended a stairway to the cargo deck. But right away she discovered she was not alone: a pair of Dagor soldiers crept about the floor of the hold, looting the bodies of armor and coin. Beonna darted behind a stack of large crates and crouched next to a lumpy canvas tarp. She peered between the crates, across the hold to the open door beyond. That must lead to the boats, she guessed. That had to be where the crew would have gone. Beonna spied another stack of cargo crates along the wall that she thought she could get to unseen. She touched the locket again, praying for courage. Beonna rose when the Dagor soldiers busied themselves with pulling the boots off someone’s dead feet.

“Ah-choo!” She nearly died for fright when the shapeless tarp next to her let out a sudden muffled sneeze. Then a sharp “Shhh!” shot from beneath it, followed by an even sharper, “Shhh yourself!” in reply. Beonna’s heart pounded like ten drums in her ears, all thumping together at once. But whoever was under the canvas tarp didn’t seem to realize she was there. She had to go, now, before the looters could investigate the noise.

But as she took her first ginger step, a scuffle broke out under the canvas as the two concealed parties argued over who bore the most right to shush the other. The tussle beneath it escalated and the canvas flew aside, revealing the last thing she could have expected to see. Before her, Lumpolas and Aragunk sat frozen with hands wrapped around each other’s throats. Their eyes shot to Beonna as she crouched in front of them. A long breath passed until the light of recognition kindled in their startled eyes.

She dove and covered Aragunk’s mouth when he gathered himself to shout her name. And indeed, she was having a hard time not squealing for happiness herself at the sight of her friends. Lumpolas was literally bouncing on his bottom with both hands covering his mouth, trying not to howl for joy.

“Shhh,” Beonna whispered, “we can’t talk here. Follow me.”

“I knew we’d find you!” Aragunk cried, unable to control himself.

“Shhh!” hissed Lumpolas, jamming his elbow into Aragunk’s ribs.

“Shush yourself!” said Aragunk in a fierce whisper, shoving Lumpolas back hard with his shoulder.

Beonna could see that escaping undetected was going to be much harder now with these two in tow. She glanced through the crates. One of the Dagor mercenaries had stopped his pillaging of the dead and cocked an ear. “Hey, Pangol! Did you hear something?” he said to his companion.

“All I can hear is the sound of my purse jingling louder and louder every minute.”

But the first looter drew his curved sword and took a step towards them, squinting hard at the piled crates. “I thought I heard someone. Over there, those crates in the corner. Suppose someone’s seen us looting? We don’t need ‘em tattling on us, do we?”

The second thief pulled a knife from his boot sheath. “Tattlers got purses too, ain’t they Dolge? Purses they won’t be needin’ anymore when their throats’re slit.”

“You go that way, and I’ll go the other.”

The two robbers bent low and began stalking towards the crates with blades flashing in the light of the small fires around them. Lumpolas, Aragunk, and Beonna all froze and gazed in terror at one another. “What do we do?” Lumpolas mouthed silently with fear streaming from his elven eyes.