Emily Rodda - The Third Door

Without much hope he leaned forward, placed his hands on the nearest part of the rusty surface, and pressed down with all his weight.

And the door shattered—simply shivered into dust.

For an instant, as rusty fragments showered into the hollow he had made, Rye thought the honey sweet had worked after all. Then he saw the truth. The impressive-looking door had been so eaten away by rust that it had been just a shell, holding together by a miracle.

Even so, its collapse had made a difference to the fine balance of the ruins. The pillar moved, very slightly. There was an ominous rumble from above. Dust sifted down as massive blocks shifted and wood splintered beneath their weight.

Out! Get out!

Rye’s heart seemed to leap into his throat. He dived into the newly enlarged gap and squirmed through it. Gasping, covered in flakes of rust, he jumped to his feet. The stone-edged doorway gaped before him, framing thick, whispering darkness.

He did not hesitate. He hurled himself into the darkness and ran. He ran, sobbing and laughing by turns, as behind him a mountain of stone caved in and again a voice, a well-remembered voice, rang in his mind, drowning all other thought.

Rye! Oh, Rye, at last! This way! This way!

12 - The Maze

And so began a nightmare journey through a maze of passageways and ruined chambers echoing with moans and creeping with the sense of ancient evil. Crumbling statues shrouded in spider web hulked in dark alcoves in the walls. Often the way was blocked by a cave-in or a pool of black, foul-smelling water and another way would have to be found. Here and there the dank walls were carved with the fantastic images of beasts—sea serpents, dragons, fish with wings, monsters with manes like mats of flabby seaweed. When the light of the crystal fell on them, the carvings seemed to loom from the stone, as if they were alive. And the sounds of suffering and misery, the growls of unnamed horrors, never ceased.

Do not listen to them, Rye! They are not real! They are only memories trapped in the stone. This way!

And Rye followed Sonia’s voice. Clear as a crystal bell it called to him, cheering and directing him, and it never tired or wavered.

Time ceased to have any meaning. When the light of the crystal finally picked out a figure ahead, a figure emerging eerily from a patch of shadow in a wall, he thought he was dreaming.

But then the figure was running. And Sonia was there in front of him, haggard with weariness, hugging him fiercely, sobbing with joy.

There was so much to ask, so much to explain, but at first Rye did not have the strength to speak. His throat was parched, his head was pounding and he was trembling with weariness. He drank from Sonia’s flask then let her lead him to the dark alcove where she had waited for him. It was bare and free of spider webs. Rye sank gratefully into its shelter.

‘I did not dare go any further in search of you,’ Sonia said, sitting down beside him. ‘My candle had burned away and I only had one pebble left.’ She opened her hand. On the palm lay a small, rounded stone, blue as the sky.

Another shadow drifted from Rye’s memory. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the two pebbles he had found on the floor in the chieftain’s lodge.

Sonia nodded wearily. ‘The rest are marking our trail out of here. Rye, why did you close your mind to me? I have not been able to sense you for days. It has been as if you were dead! Then suddenly I woke from sleep here and felt you clearly! In danger, but alive!’ Her voice trembled, though clearly she was trying to seem calm.

So Rye told her, as best he could, of his memory loss, of his life as Keelin. And when he had finished, Sonia told him her side of the story.

She told of waking on the Fell End riverbank to cries of terror. She told of running, of seeing him being taken, unconscious and surrounded by guards, to Farr’s barge. She told of fire, and people babbling of a beast sent by the enemy. She told of seeing Dirk and Sholto, both wounded, being carried onto the barge’s deck among many others. She told of hearing that Rye was to be taken to the chieftain’s lodge, and the barge chugging away, leaving her behind.

She said little of her journey to find him. But as she spoke, Rye caught glimpses of the long, dogged trek, the exhaustion, the hiding, the fear of asking for help from anyone.

In the city, she found her way to the chieftain’s lodge. The gossip of passers-by told her which room had been given to the stranger who had saved Zak from the beast. She called to Rye, tossed pebbles through his window two nights in a row, but still he did not respond. And then she saw him leave the lodge in a carriage driven by a scar-faced guard, and followed.

She did not see who made the blast that destroyed the museum, though she felt the danger just before it happened. In terror she heard the explosion, saw the building’s walls tilt and the roof fall. She saw the chieftain’s son and another boy running from the wreckage in a cloud of dust just before the final collapse. She saw them picked up and driven away by the scar-faced guard. Later, she saw the body of an old woman carried out.

‘But there was no sign of you,’ she said. ‘People were digging in the ruins—so many people that I could not get near. It seemed to me that some in the crowd were starting to look at me curiously—I look very ragged and wild by now, no doubt. But I could not bear to leave the place. I had to know …’

Her voice trailed off. She bit her lip.

And the rest of her story Rye saw in pictures that flashed from her mind into his. He saw Sonia slipping away from the crowd. He saw her climbing further up the hill to hide behind the shattered building. He saw her discovering what seemed to be the abandoned burrow of some animal.

He saw her crawling into the darkness, at first thinking only of shelter, then stumbling upon a maze of stone passages. He saw her moving on through whispering blackness, her candle flickering, blue pebbles falling from her fingers one by one.

And he saw her reaching the alcove and creeping into its shelter as her candle guttered and died.

‘Then you went to sleep,’ he said, covering Sonia’s hand with his. ‘Just before I woke in the pit knowing who I was, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’ Sonia made a face. ‘I seem to be making a habit of sleeping through exciting events. But I was very tired. And this alcove … it sounds strange, Rye, but it makes me feel safe. When I first came upon it, it seemed to welcome me. And in here the voices in the stones are quiet.’

Rye had not thought about it, but now that he did he realised Sonia was right. He could hardly hear the groans and whispers that had plagued him as he found his way here. Why should that be?

He flicked the crystal light around the small space, and wondered why it was empty, when statues had stood in all the other alcoves he had seen. Then, as the soft beam swept over the floor, he thought he knew. The base of the alcove was covered not with dust, but with a thick layer of rust particles.

‘Whatever once stood in here must have been made of metal instead of stone,’ he said slowly. ‘Over time, it has completely rusted away.’

Sonia nodded without much interest. She was leaning back on the hard stones. She looked exhausted but very relaxed, as if finding Rye had for the moment driven all other cares from her mind.

Or as if there really is something about this alcove that gives her peace, Rye thought. His skin prickled.

‘Sonia,’ he said abruptly, feeling in the bag hanging around his neck, ‘move out into the passage!’

The girl opened her eyes and blinked at him in surprise.