Chapter Twenty-Two — The Stone Door

There were only really two problems with Holsley’s plan, but, granted, they were big problems. 

The first problem was that he didn’t know how to handle a rowboat — which wasn’t the end of the world. The second problem, and perhaps the more concerning of the two, was that he had never learned how to swim and had what some might call a paralysing fear of the water.

These two little problems combined meant he had spent the past twenty minutes rowing around in circles and trying desperately not to upset the boat. When Holsley had seen people do this, it all seemed so easy. Just grab the oars and row. Turns out, there was more to it than he had initially thought.

‘Ye need some help?’ Krell laughed from above. ‘Where exactly are ye heading, young one? Except, of course, back where ye started, har har!’

Holsley looked up at the dragonborn’s toothy grin leaning over the ship’s side; he debated whether to tell him. ‘Not too far. Just along the cliffside.’

The young bard struggled with the oars, practically juggling them to get them back into the water. Laugher erupted. Along the docks, a crowd had gathered to admire Holsley’s attempts at getting the boat started. For the most part, he ignored them, but it was getting harder to do that with every mocking point and whispered giggle.

‘I can’t stand this,’ Krell’s voice boomed from above.

A sudden torrent of water shot into the air and drenched Holsley from head to toe. The rowboat shook viciously. Holsley clenched his teeth and dug his fingers, down to the nail, into the wood, like talons. If he entered that water, he’d go to a seabed grave.

The dinghy wobbled as the great dragonborn pulled himself aboard and shook his coat dry. Well, dryer. He confidently took hold of the oars, sunk them into the water, and quickly brought the rowboat around to face the dock’s exit.

A tremendous cheer went up from the crowd as he did this. Holsley sunk lower in his seat. Perhaps, he thought, if he sunk low enough, he might become invisible to the naked eye. If he were lucky, maybe he’d just disappear altogether.

‘Not sure where ye going, but ye sure as anything ain’t gonna get there on ye own.’ Krell laughed. ‘I’ll take us. All ye have to do is point and yell.’

‘Thanks,’ Holsley grumbled.

***

Captain Krell Longshort was a natural with the rowboat. Without breaking a sweat, he brought the dinghy over the length of the docks and through the gates leading out to the open sea. The dragonborn had also performed this feat in minutes, although Holsley couldn’t tell if that was quick for the task or if it just felt quick because he’d been labouring around for twenty minutes.

The young bard carefully manoeuvred himself up to the prow as soon as they were over the threshold. From there, he shouted directions and, if the situation warranted, pointed out dangers the rowboat was heading towards. The young bard certainly did one more than the other, as Tressa’s shoreline was riddled with jagged rocks and ravenous waves.

‘Why’s ye want to go near the cliff anyway, young one?’ Krell had his back to him, commanding the oars effortlessly. ‘What’s there for ye?’ 

‘Uh.’ Holsley wasn’t sure if he should answer. The truth was a secret. Not many people knew about The Bard’s Drop — a clandestine hideaway at the base of Tressa’s cliffside that had become famous amongst Everfall’s most prestigious musicians. Most regarded it as a place where you could play respects to deceased bardic legends.

‘A friend of mine is buried down here.’ Holsley came up with a reasonable-enough-sounding lie. ‘I’ve come to play my respects.’

‘What? Did your friend fall off the balcony or something?’

‘Yes, I buried him here when he died.’ 

The dragonborn swallowed his tongue. 

It was another lie, but the truth wasn’t far off. Holsley had come here when Dan had died, but it certainly wasn’t from falling over the side of a balcony. He dearly wished that was the case. No, he had only come here to add Dan’s magical lute to the collection inside the drop before leaving this awful city behind forever.

Dan — Holsley hadn’t thought about the name in years, but he supposed it was only inevitable that he’d have to end up thinking about him eventually. What with coming back to Tressa. Still, he tried to push the memories back.

‘I’m sorry.’ Krell pulled off his hat respectfully. ‘Shouldn’t poke fun at a man in mourning. Ye carry on, young one.’

With a jolt, the rowboat came up on the rocks, and it didn’t take long for Krell to moor it to the nearest pillar of jagged rock. Holsley told him it would be best if he went alone to play his respects, and the dragonborn gave him a knowing yet sympathetic nod. Honestly, it was impressive how much emotion and communication the dragonborn could express with just a slight nod of his head.

Krell took up a comfortable position with his back to the stern, placed his tricorn hat over his eyes, and was snoring long before Holsley had made his tenth pace from the rowboat.

The rocks proved to be the most difficult obstacle. They sat unevenly on the ground, which forced Holsley to stumble awkwardly across them. Occasionally, he would slip and catch himself, but his feet remained tentatively on the ground for the most part. After a few minutes of recalling this area, he found what he was looking for.

It was invisible to anyone who was not keen-eyed or already knew it was there. 

A set of crudely formed steps was carved masterfully into the cliffside, chiselled out of the stone itself. Holsley started up them. They had been built, he had been told, so that they could only be seen from dead on. If you try to spot this entrance from the sides, you’d only see the all-too-common rocky walls that went up for a few hundred feet.

Deep down, a part of him had secretly hoped the way was flooded. At least then, he wouldn’t be faced with this terrible choice — either to rescue a friend in dire trouble or keep a promise to the long deceased. It made his stomach churn just thinking about it. Holsley needed a lute, though, especially if he was going to save Roland, and he didn’t need just any lute, either. 

He needed Dan’s. 

Holsley had been to the Bard’s Drop precisely two times before. The first time, he couldn’t remember. He had been very young, but he could remember, if he thought hard enough, that there had been some songs and a lot of dancing with strangers.

The second time was clearer. Much clearer. Dan had brought him back and explained the purpose of the Bard’s Drop while laying his friend’s violin to rest. When a good minstrel died, he had told Holsley, their instrument was forever added to those already in the Bard’s Drop. It was an honour to be counted amongst the greats.

That’s what Holsley had done for Dan. In the higher levels, standing tall, he had placed the lute on an empty pair of hooks. Now, he was coming back to get it.

The agonising steps finally reached their end. They led, simply enough, to a seemingly inconspicuous wall. No door, window, or anything — a simple section of the cliffside almost indistinguishable from the rest. Holsley knew better, though. 

A wooden sign hanging crooked on a nail nearby read: “Speak Minstrel and Enter.”

Holsley moaned loudly. ‘Riddles.’

***

For the life of him, he could not remember having to solve a riddle when he was younger. Was that new? He had no idea, but more pressingly, he had no idea for the answer. Holsley wasn’t very good at riddles. That’s the kind of stuff more imaginative people were good at. He was a bard, which meant he was sort of good at playing songs and roaming about without much purpose.

‘Okay.’ Holsley sat himself calmly upon a nearby waist-high boulder. It was positioned well enough so that he could read the sign across the path. He stared intently at it as if his very gaze might get it to reveal the answer accidentally. 

It didn’t, of course.

The next thirty minutes were spent driving himself to near madness. The afternoon was going down over the horizon, and it’d be night in a couple of hours, but he didn’t pay the time of day any mind. He couldn’t. Holsley was too busy scratching possible answers into the rockface with a broken quill. There was something about “Speak Minstrel and Enter” that seemed so simple, but that only made it harder for some reason.

Was it a language? Had Dan taught him a language? Maybe he had to sacrifice a minstrel in order to enter. No, wait, that was dumb. A song, then? He didn’t know any with that exact name, but he tried a few — badly. Nope. Perhaps it was a minstrel’s name, like a famous minstrel. He rattled off a few of the ones he knew, starting with Marlin Mandrovi. Nothing. Of course, nothing. Then what could it be!? 

‘Damn the luck!’ Holsley kicked the small boulder in frustration, which, as expected, did more damage to him than to it. 

Maybe this was fate, he came to realise. Holsley couldn’t enter the Bard’s Drop because he wasn’t a bard. Let’s face it, he didn’t practice, got jittery around crowds, and he had allowed his lute to be smashed into two pieces. 

‘I’m so damned stupid,’ he huffed, plopping himself back down on the rock. ‘Just a stupid, useless bard. What am I doing here? I can’t save Roland. I can barely save myself!?’

Ariesse came to mind. She often did when he was this frustrated. The lovely Ariesse had pointed ears, a cherubic face, and a mane of golden hair. She danced about him in his memories, mocking how stupid humans were. They got bent out of shape so easily, she had told him, by the simplest of things. 

There weren’t many elves in Donathal. Really, it was only a handful. Most of them appeared as adults, or at least something resembling adults when, in fact, they were centuries older. Ariesse was the only teenage-looking elf, and she acted like it too. She played pranks on him, giggled during their lessons together, and teased Holsley to no end with a parade of facts about humans — like the fact they usually die in their seventies, whereas an elf like her could live up to five hundred years. 

Whenever he got angry, which happened a lot with the uppity elves of Donathal, who insisted that he get every single damn thing right, she would follow him to his room. She’d whistle and attract the birds from their tree branches. Without skipping a beat, she’d switched the tune and make them dance about his bed. Unlike him, she was naturally talented at the weaving of magical songs.

Holsley always asked her how she did it, but her reply was always the same. ‘By not worrying about it. Stupid human.’

How do you not worry about something? It was like figuring out how not to breathe. Holsley was worried. In fact, he was more worried now than he had ever been in his life. Almost. His best friend was about to die, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it without that lute. He was a deer stepping into a lion’s den, and he needed that protection.

Holsley took a deep breath. Then another. He didn’t reread the wooden plank as he already knew what it said. Instead, he just listened and allowed his mind to drift. The young bard’s breathing slowed, and he focused on his chest’s rise and fall.

The waves crashed noisily against the rocks.

The city above was a boisterous clatter of lively conversation and stamping feet.

Sea birds screeched and squawked as they hungrily hunted for fish unfortunate enough to be in the shallows.

Krell was still snoring.

His mind returned to the last time he had been right here, waiting patiently for Dan to help him inside. There had been a riddle. Holsley could remember Dan pointing it out and asking him for the answer. Except, he didn’t know it. Come on, Dan had prodded, just think about it, Holsley. It’s a joke.

He opened his eyes.

The answer hit him like a piano full of bricks. It was so damned obvious. So much so it was embarrassing. Without hesitation, Holsley leapt to his feet and stood where he knew the door should be. 

‘Minstrel,’ he said clearly. Then, waited patiently to see if something would happen.

Speak minstrel and enter. 

Literally, say the word minstrel. He grunted with the revelation. It was so stupid. Where had the architects of the drop stolen that little conundrum from? He was sure he had heard of it before, perhaps in one of Marlin’s adventures.

The stone suddenly shifted. Clockwork clicked and coiled on the other side. A block of wall slid across smoothly, backing away from him, then discreetly gliding to the side and out of the way. A doorway became obvious immediately, leading into dark places almost unknown. Beyond, Holsley would find the Bard’s Drop in its entirety — the single most incredible collection of legendary instruments known to the Further Kingdoms.

Holsley only hesitated once to look back and ensure the rowboat was still there. When he was satisfied that he could still see it back down the way, the young bard turned back with a smile and stepped across the threshold into the darkness. 

The door sealed shut behind him.

---