A silence emphasized by Piemur’s tiny gasp of astonishment fell over the dining hall as Sebell and Talmor rose from their table and walked up the aisle by the hearth. They stopped. Startled, Menolly looked up at Sebell’s shy grin and Talmor’s broad smile.

She couldn’t grasp the significance of their presence, though she heard Audiva’s cry of joy and saw the stunned amazement on the faces of Briala and Timiny.

She glanced wildly about her, saw Master Robinton grinning, nodding, gesturing for her to rise. But it wasn’t until Piemur kicked her on the shins that she shed her paralysis.

“You’re supposed to walk the tables, Menolly,” Piemur said in an audible hiss. “Get up and walk. You’re a journeyman now. You’ve made journeyman.”

“Menolly’s a journeyman! Menolly’s a journeyman!” echoed the other apprentices, clapping their hands in rhythm to their chant. “Menolly’s made journeyman. Walk Menolly, walk. Walk, Menolly, walk!”

Sebell and Talmor took her by the elbows and lifted her to her feet.

“Never saw an apprentice so loath to take a walk,” muttered Talmor under his breath to Sebell.

We could carry her,” Sebell said, in a whisper, “because, between you and me, I don’t think her legs are going to walk her.”

“I can walk,” said Menolly, shaking off their helping hands. “I’ve even got harper boots. I can walk anywhere!”

The last vestige of anxiety lifted from Menolly’s mind. As a journeyman in blue, she had rank and status enough to fear no one and nothing. No further need to run or hide, She'd a place to fill and a craft that was unique to her. She’d come a long, long way in a sevenday. The pulse of her words suggested a tune. She’d think of that later. Now, holding her head high, while the fire lizards swept in from the windows, trilling their happy reaction, she walked between Talmor and Sebell to the oval tables of her new station in the Harper Craft Hall of Pern.