Page 52 of The Summer Pass

This passage led to the wine cellar and from there up to the lord’s chamber. It was the easiest way to get straight to the heart of the great house without passing through any of the more public areas. Vanu had known about it since he was a boy but hadn’t been through it in years. He remembered there was a short flight of steps in the passage between the wine cellar and the dungeon, but he couldn’t remember which way they went, coming in this direction—up or down.

Lill was still awake, and even reviving a little. He pressed his face against Vanu’s wet shoulder, and his lips moved—probably trying to say something, but it felt like a kiss. Abruptly, Vanu found the steps and discovered that they went down. He staggered, his wet boots slipping on the stone, and fell heavily sideways against the wall. Lill gave a small gasp of pain.

Vanu slid down the wall to sit on the steps. His heart was hammering harder than when he’d fought off those six men in the river chamber. He was shaking suddenly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Lill, gathering him closer, trying not to jostle him again. “Should’ve brought a lamp.”

“Never … make … a noise,” Lill mumbled. He seemed to be talking to himself. “Never. Noise. Didn’t.”

“You didn’t,” Vanu agreed.

He scooted down the rest of the steps on his backside and got to his feet at the bottom. Another minute of shuffling through the dark brought him to the door to the wine cellar. It was locked.

It couldn’t be locked. It didn’t have a lock, he remembered that distinctly. No, it hadn’t had a lock a decade or more ago, whenever he had last been down here. Maybe it had a lock now. Maybe it had been barred from the other side.

He stood in the dark with Lill in his arms. Lill felt heavier than he had back in the dungeon—maybe just because Vanu’s arms were tired, or maybe because Lill had lost consciousness finally, or worse. That was not helpful, he told himself sternly. Panicking was not helpful.

“Still with me, love?”

“ … brought a lamp,” Lill slurred. “Or … just glow … ” He rested his head on Vanu’s collarbone.

“Yeah, why’d’nt I think of that, hey?” He had a sense that they were having two different conversations, but it didn’t matter. Lill was awake enough to talk to him, which was good.

Maybe there was something blocking the door on the other side. That was the simplest explanation. Vanu put his back to the door, braced his feet, and pushed as hard as he could. He heard something crash on the other side, and something else grind across stone, and the door opened a crack, letting in a sliver of light.

Then he heard running feet from inside the wine cellar, and someone shouted.

“The door! The door!”

It was a voice he would know anywhere, although he didn’t hear it often because its owner communicated in hand language as a rule. It was Susami.

He could hear her on the other side of the door, probably picking up the pieces of whatever had fallen and crashed. She had been calling to someone, but he couldn’t tell where the other person was, and of course they didn’t call back. He froze, unsure what to do.

What was Susami doing in the wine cellar? Had he only imagined her voice? In another moment he’d have convinced himself of it. But before that happened, he heard more footsteps approaching and another voice, not shouting but hissing urgently:

“Barda, come here now.”

Vanu thumped the door with the heel of his boot. “Gurti! It’s Vanu!”

Silence from the wine cellar.

Vanu drew a slow breath, bracing himself to shout again, although his throat was spasming from the first attempt. Lill was looking up at him with wide eyes, mouth a little open, fully awake for a moment.

“Lord Vanu?” came Gurti’s voice, uncertain.

“Yes! Can you let me—” His voice gave out, and he could only finish in a whisper: “—in?”

“Tirtu!” That sounded like Barda. “Give me a hand here!”

“I’ve got it!” called another voice—not Tirtu but Halza?

Lill’s eyes had closed again. Vanu gathered him closer to his chest and pushed away from the door, while sounds of scraping and dragging and, “No, tip it this way—watch what you’re doing!” came from the other side.

Lill felt warm. He didn’t know why that seemed so special and important, but it did. There was some complicated pain happening to his left arm, which wasn’t quite as warm as the rest of him and also didn’t seem to be under his control, for some reason, but that wasn’t nearly as important as the warmth. He was leaning against the main source of it, and some of it was wrapped around him, and it felt⁠—

A particularly startling pain flared through his arm, and he heard himself make a noise like someone might make in their sleep. But he wasn’t asleep. Maybe he should open his eyes.

“There, it’s out,” said a voice that he thought he remembered from somewhere. “That was not easy.”