She sighed and turned on the landing for the second flight and stopped. Piemur was in the hall, motionless, his eyes enormous as he followed the excited flitting of the fire lizards. Lazy and Uncle had subsided to the banister.
“I’m not seeing things?” he asked her, watching Lazy and Uncle with apprehensive gaze. From the hand held rigid at his side, the forefinger indicated the two fire lizards.
“No, you’re not. The brown one is Lazy, and the blue is Uncle!”
His eyes followed the flight of the others a moment longer, trying to count. Then they popped out further as Beauty landed daintily on Menolly’s shoulder, in her usual position.
“This is Beauty, the queen.”
“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Piemur kept staring as Menolly descended to the floor level.
Beauty stretched her neck, her eyes whirling gently as she returned his look. Suddenly she blinked her eyes, and so did Piemur, which made Menolly giggle.
“No wonder Camo was cracking his shell over her.” Then Piemur shook himself, all over, like a fire lizard shedding seawater. “I was sent to bring you to Master Shonagar.”
“Who’s he?” asked Menolly, weary enough from the session with Master Morshal.
“Old Marshface give you a hard time? Don’t worry about it. You’ll like Master Shonagar; he’s my Master, he’s the Voice Master. He’s the best,” Piemur’s face lit up with real enthusiasm. “And he said that if you can sing half as well as your fire lizards do, you’re an assss…atest…?”
“Asset?” It amused Menolly to be so considered by anyone.
“That’s the word. And he said that it didn’t really matter if you croaked like a watchwher, so long as you could get the fire lizards to sing. Do you think she likes me?” he added, for he hadn’t stopped staring at Beauty. Nor had he moved.
“Why not?”
“She keeps staring at me so, and her eyes are whirling.” He gestured absently with one hand. “You’re staring at her.” Piemur blinked again and looked at Menolly, smiling shyly and giggling a bit self-consciously. “Yeah, I was, wasn’t I? Sorry about that, Beauty. I know it’s rude, but I’ve always wanted to see a fire lizard! Hey, Menolly, c’mon,” and now Piemur moved off at a half-run, gesturing urgently for Menolly to follow him across the courtyard. “Master Shonagar’s waiting, and I know you’re new here, but you don’t ever keep a master waiting. And say, can you keep them from following us, ’cause they might sing, and Master Shonagar did say it was you he wanted to hear sing today, not them again.”
“They’ll be quiet if I ask them to.”
“Ranly, he sat across the table from you, he’s from Crom and he’s so smart, he says they only mimic.”
“Oh no, they don’t.”
“Glad to hear that, because I told him they’re just as smart as dragons, and he wouldn’t believe me.” Piemur had been leading her toward the big hall where the chorus had been practicing that morning. “Hurry up, Menolly. Masters hate to be kept waiting, and I’ve been gone awhile tracking you down.”
“I can’t walk fast,” Menolly said, gritting her teeth at the pain of each step.
“You sure are walking funny. What’s the matter with your feet?”
Menolly wondered that he hadn’t heard that tidbit of news. “I got caught away from the cave just at Threadfall. I had to run for safety.”
Piemur’s eyes threatened to bulge out of their sockets. “You ran?” His voice squeaked. “Ahead of Thread?”
“I ran my shoes off my feet and the skin as well.”
Menolly had no chance to speak further because Piemur had brought her to the hall door. Before she could adjust her eyes to the darkness within the huge room, she was told not to gawk but come forward at a proper pace, he detested dawdling.
“With respect, sir, Menolly’s feet were injured out-running Thread,” said Piemur, just as if he’d always been in possession of this truth. “She’s not the dawdling kind.”
Now Menolly could see the barrel-shaped figure seated at the massive sandtable opposite the entrance.
“Proceed at your own pace then, for surely a girl who outruns Thread has learned not to dawdle.” The voice flowed out of the darkness, rich, round, with the r’s rolled and the vowel sounds pure and ringing.
The other fire lizards swooped in through the open door, and the Master’s eyes widened slightly. He regarded Menolly in mock surprise.
“Piemur!” The single word stopped the boy in his tracks, and the volume, which startled Menolly, caused Piemur to flick her a grin. “Did you not convey my message accurately? The creatures were not to come.”
“They follow her everywhere, Master Shonagar, only she says they’ll be quiet if she tells them to.”
Master Shonagar turned his heavy head to regard Menolly with hooded eyes,
“So tell them!”
Menolly detached Beauty from her shoulder and ordered them all to perch themselves quietly. And not to make a single sound until she said they could.
“Well,” remarked Master Shonagar, turning his head slightly to observe the obedience of the fire lizards. “That is a welcome sight, surrounded as I generally am by mass disobedience.” He glared narrow-eyed at Piemur, who had had the temerity to giggle, and, at Master Shonagar’s stare, tried to assume a sober expression. “I’ve had enough of your bold face, Piemur, and your dilatory manner. Take them away!”
“Yes, sir,” said Piemur cheerfully, and twisting about on his heels, he marched himself smartly to the door, pausing to give Menolly an encouraging wave as he skipped down the steps.
“Rascal,” said the Master in a mock growl as he flicked his fingers at Menolly to take the stool opposite him. “I’m given to believe that Petiron ended his days as Harper at your Hold, Menolly.”
She nodded, tacitly reassured by his unexpected willingness to address her by name. “And he taught you to play instruments and to understand musical theory?”
Menolly nodded again,
“In which Masters Domick and Morshal have examined you today.” Some dryness in his tone alerted her, and she regarded him more warily as he tilted his heavy head sideways on his massive shoulders. “And did Petiron,” and now the bass voice rolled with a hint of coming displeasure, so that Menolly wondered if her original assessment of this man was wrong and he was just as prejudiced as cynical Domick and soured Morshal, “did he have the audacity to teach you how to use your voice?”
“No, sir. At least, I don’t think he did. We…we just sang together.”
“Ha!” And the huge hand of Master Shonagar came down so forcefully on the sand table that the drier portions jumped in their frames. “You just sang together. As you sang together with those fire lizards of yours?”
Her friends chirped inquiringly. “Silence!” he cried, with another sand-displacing thump on the table.
Somewhat to Menolly’s surprise, because Master Shonagar had startled her again, the fire lizards flipped their wings to their backs and settled down.
“Well?”
“Did I just sing with them? Yes, I did.”
“As you used to sing with Petiron?”
“Well, I used to sing descant to Petiron’s melody, and the fire lizards usually do the descant now.”
“That was not precisely what I meant. Now, I wish you just to sing for me.”
“What, sir?” she asked, reaching for the gitar slung across her back.
“No, not with that,” and he waved at her impatiently. “Sing, not concertize. The voice only is important now, not how you mask vocal inadequacies with pleasant strumming and clever harmony. I want to hear the voice… It is the voice we communicate with, the voice which utters the words we seek to impress on men’s minds, the voice which evokes emotional response; tears, laughter, sense. Your voice is the most important, most complex, most amazing instrument of all. And if you cannot use that voice properly, effectively, you might just as well go back to whatever insignificant hold you came from.”