Jaxom stopped, stunned by a dawning realization. Almost fearfully he turned and ran his hand down the wall behind him. It was smooth. He gulped and his chest hurt more than the throb of the scratches. “Felessan…?”

“What—what’s the matter?”

“This wall is smooth.”

“So what?”

“But it’s smooth. It’s not rough!”

“Say what you mean.” Felessan sounded almost angry.

“It’s smooth. It’s an old wall.”

“So?”

“We’re in the old part of Benden.” Jaxom got to his feet, running a hand over the wall, walking a few paces.

“Hey!” Jaxom could hear Felessan scrambling to his feet. “Don’t leave me. Jaxom! I can’t see you.”

Jaxom stretched his hand back, touched fabric, and jerked Felessan to his side.

“Now hang on. If this is an old corridor, sooner or later it’ll run out. Into a dead end, or into the main section. It’s got to.”

“But how do you know you’re going in the right direction?”

“I don’t, but it’s better than sitting on my rump getting hungrier.” With one hand on the wall, the other clinging to Felessan’s belt, Jaxom moved on.

They couldn’t have walked more than twenty paces before Jaxom’s fingers stumbled over the crack. An even crack, running perpendicular to the floor.

“Hey, warn a guy!” cried Felessan, who had bumped into him.

“I found something.”

“What?”

“A crack up and down, evenly.” Excitedly Jaxom stretched both arms out, trying to find the other side of what might even be a doorway.

At shoulder height, just beyond the second cut, he found a square plate and, in examining it, pressed. With a rumbling groan, the wall under his other hand began to slide back and light came up on the other side.

The boys had only a few seconds to stare at the brightly lit wonders on the other side of the threshold before the inert gas with which the room had been flooded rushed out to overcome them. But the light remained a beacon to guide the searchers.

—

“I had the entire Hold mustered this morning, only to find him in the bowels of the Hold itself where a rockfall had barred his way,” Lytol said to Lessa as he watched the boys running toward the Lower Cavern.

“You’ve forgotten your own boyhood then,” F’lar laughed, gesturing courteously for Lytol to proceed him to the weyr. “Or didn’t you explore the back corridors as a weyrling?”

Lytol scowled and then gave a snort, but he didn’t smile. “It was one thing for me. I wasn’t heir to the Hold.”

“But, Lytol, heir to the Hold or not,” Lessa said, taking the man’s arm, “Jaxom’s a boy, like any other. No, now please, I am not criticizing. He’s a fine lad, well grown. You may be proud of him.”

“Carries himself like a Lord, too,” F’lar ventured to say.