It was past midnight by the time I got back to the mill yard. The full moon overhead made the walls of the mill stark and beautiful, and all the spaces between the buildings impenetrably black. It was quiet. The miller, it seemed, had had only one dog.

I stood by the side of the well, dithering. Finally, I lay down on my stomach and lowered my head through the irregular hole in the rotten cover. There was no sound from below. I stretched my neck and turned my head, listening for any sign of life, and impaled myself on a splinter of broken wood.

“Monsters of hell,” I whispered sharply, pulling away from the splinter that was sticking into my skin perilously close to my eye.

“Kamet?” said a quiet voice from below.

I nearly jumped out of my skin and then froze, not sure if it was the Attolian or the ghost of him that spoke.

“You’re alive?” I whispered.

“Of course I’m alive,” he said, sounding peeved.

“Well, why didn’t you say something?”

“I just did.”

“I meant before I stuck myself with a splinter like an awl.”

“Maybe because I thought you were the miller, you idiot.”

“Oh, you were expecting him to sneak into his own mill yard in the middle of the night?” I didn’t know why I was so angry.

“Kamet,” said the Attolian patiently, “stop arguing, please, and get me out of here.”

“How?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I’ve tried climbing the walls, but they are smooth down here, and I can’t get a grip.”

“I saw rope in the mill earlier.”

“That would help.”

I pulled my head out of the well and turned toward the yawning darkness that was the entryway to the mill. I’d seen the rope running through a pulley system deep inside, but I wasn’t sure I could find it in the dark. Fortunately, the moon was shining a bright beam of light through a window or a broken place in the dilapidated roof, and that beam picked out the block and tackle hanging from a rafter. I picked my way across the mill and tried to free the rope as quietly as possible, but the pulleys, like everything else, were in disrepair. The wooden wheels stuck, and as they turned, they squeaked. I cursed the miller and his stinking mill under my breath.

In the end I couldn’t free the rope entirely—the knot that held it to the final pulley was too old and too tight to be undone. I tried to cut the rope with my penknife, but the sun would have risen before I got the small blade through it. Cursing myself for having sold the longer knife, I scooped up the coil of rope I’d pulled free and carried it back toward the well, unwinding it as I went. At the well I dropped the remaining coil through the hole in the cover, hoping it wasn’t too rotten to hold the Attolian’s weight.

A whispered curse indicated that I should have given him some warning first.

Down on my knees, I stuck my face back into the well to apologize. There was a whisper of sound beside me, a footfall in the dusty soil, and I pushed myself backward onto my heels just as the miller’s club swung down. It hit the well cover, very near where my head had been, and caught in the rotten wood. I still had my penknife in my hand, and before the miller could wrench his club free, I plunged the little blade into his thigh. It made only a small wound, but I stabbed him again and again. He shouted and struck at me, but his blows landed with little force. He retreated, and I got to my feet.

Limping heavily, the miller came at me again. I circled away, staying outside the swing of the club, while the miller hurled abuse. “Thief,” he called me. “Stinking thief in my mill. Come to rob me, come to steal, nothing here for you but my club.”

I held my hands away from my body and said as calmly as I could, “I mean you no harm. I just came back for my friend. I’ve only come back for my friend.”

“He’s dead!” the miller snarled. “You can’t have him!”

Intent on hitting me with his club, he had turned his back on the well. He didn’t see the Attolian rising out of it like a mechanical god in a stage play, shining white in the moonlight.

Oh, dear gods, I thought, he really was dead.

My stark terror must have been obvious because the miller whirled to face the apparition. Just for a moment we stood frozen: the ghostly Attolian, the miller, and me. Then the club dropped from the miller’s nerveless fingers, and he produced a thin, whistling sound like a wounded toddler without the breath to scream. He tried again. Every breath brought a louder sound as he ran away, wobbling on his wounded leg. Staring back at us over his shoulder, he crashed full on into the wall of a shed and then staggered out of sight, still shrieking.

The Attolian looked after him, then turned his puzzled expression on me.

Emotions welled up in me until I was near drowning in them. I reached to touch his warm, living hand and swallowed a laugh and a sob. The Attolian cocked his head as if I were as inexplicable as the miller, but there was no time for explanation. If he was hale enough to climb out of the well, then he was equally capable of running. I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him toward the road, away from the cursed mill and its miller before any others came out to see the apparition and realized that he was no ghost at all, but a man still liberally coated in flour.

We ran until darkness and the high brush growing beside the road hid the mill from sight. Slowing, I turned to check on the Attolian. He seemed little injured by his fall—he had kept pace with me and appeared in every way whole. He was breathing heavily, but he smiled, realizing what had so frightened the miller.

“Woo—oo—hooo-o,” he said, floating his hands in the air.

Something in my chest split then like an overfull wineskin, and I laughed out loud. The two of us stood there clutching ourselves and heaving with laughter. Every time one of us tried to catch his breath, the other would raise up his arms with a “Woo—oo—hooo-o,” and off we would go again like children.

Finally, afraid that the miller might come to his senses and hear us out on the road, I waved a hand toward the city and, arm in arm, we staggered off. “I’ve still got my sword,” the Attolian said, “but I left the bow in the well.”

“We aren’t going back for it.”

“I guess not,” he said.

I led the way past now-familiar landmarks: the small town, the ditch where I had washed my shirt, the last rise above the city. As the moon dropped toward the horizon, the sun rose—it would be hot later, but the morning was cool and pleasant. I looked forward to the bustle of the city. Then I glanced at the Attolian, surprised to see how far he had fallen behind. My happy spirits settled with a thump.

“You’re hurt,” I said, walking back to him.

“I’m fine,” said the Attolian.

“No, you aren’t,” I said. He’d told me he’d landed on the dog—killing it and breaking his fall. He’d been senseless for a bit afterward but otherwise unharmed. Only now, he walked with his shoulders bowed and a hesitation in his step.

“I’m fine,” said the Attolian again, more curtly. Then he seemed to rethink. “Actually,” he said, “I am inches from death from a putrid sore throat and you should leave me in the nearest ditch.”

“What?” I was mystified. “If I wouldn’t leave you in a well, why would I abandon you in a ditch?”