Emily Rodda - The Third Door

And through a gap in the moving crowd, Rye suddenly saw Dirk and Sholto standing together not far away. They were wearing unfamiliar clothes, and small red knapsacks were slung on their backs. Dirk’s arm was in a sling. Sholto was leaning on a stick. They both looked ill and pale. But they were alive!

A great, burning lump rose in Rye’s throat. Tears sprang into his eyes. Until that moment he had not known how strong his secret fears for his brothers had been. He felt Sonia sway beside him as his powerful emotion crashed into her mind without warning.

Where, Rye?

There! There! They live, Sonia! Both of them!

He felt her joy and relief lapping through him like warm, fragrant water, surrounding him, then flowing on to gather Dirk and Sholto in its embrace. He saw Sholto raise his head and look round, his brow creased in puzzlement, his clever eyes scanning the crowd.

We are here, Sholto! In the corner. Behind the bench. Come!

It seemed to Rye that he and Sonia were calling with one mind, one voice. He had never felt anything like it before. His whole body thrilled as he saw Sholto touch Dirk’s arm, murmur to him, and begin sidling awkwardly through the crowd, towards the corner. Dirk followed, frowning and glancing repeatedly at Jett.

‘Chieftain, I am not guilty!’ Jett cried, holding out his arms to Farr. ‘Do not believe—’

‘Silence, Jett!’ Farr’s face was seamed with grey lines. His eyes were bleak. ‘This is a bitter day. I have trusted you, but you have deceived me utterly. I must believe the evidence of my own eyes. The makings for the device have been discovered hidden among your possessions.’

The crowd shouted angrily. Jett shrank back, showing his teeth like a cornered beast.

‘I always thought it suspicious that he was so eager to guard the spy Keelin,’ Sigrid said tightly. ‘I told you so, Farr, at the beginning. Both of them injured when you took them in! Neither of them carrying proof of who they were or where they came from! Both with strange patterns of speech that proved they were foreigners! It seems my suspicions were justified. They were in league!’

Rye felt a chill. Sonia tightened her grip on his arm.

‘Plainly,’ snapped Manx. ‘And the plot was a deep one. Jett has been in Farr’s service for years.’

‘By the stars!’ Barron groaned. ‘If only we had unmasked them before poor old Carryl …’

His chin wobbled and he hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

‘I had nothing to do with the explosion at the museum, you bloated windbag!’ Jett snarled. ‘I do not make war on children and old women!’

‘That is enough!’ Farr snapped. ‘Take him away!’

Again the crowd parted as the soldiers holding Jett began wrestling him none too gently out of the square. The expression on the prisoner’s scarred face was desperate, ferocious. He fought like a wild man, bellowing that he was innocent of any crime. Twice he almost slipped through the hands that gripped him. Twice he was secured again. At last the biggest of his captors twisted his arm behind his back and he screamed in pain.

‘Barbarians!’ he roared. ‘Filthy barbarians!’

Rye’s stomach turned over. He looked wildly at Sholto, still moving determinedly towards them, at Dirk, who was staring in horror at the struggling man, and finally at Sonia.

Sonia had clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Can it be?’ she breathed through her fingers.

Rye nodded grimly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am sure of it, and by Dirk’s face he knows it too. Jett is one of us. He is from Weld.’

15 - The Watchtower

As soon as Jett had been taken away, Farr and his councillors left the square. The crowd followed eagerly. Dirk and Sholto stood waiting while the chattering tide surged past them. And at last the little square was as bare as a wave-washed shore except for the two who waited and the two standing invisible in the shelter of Rye’s hood.

The shock of Jett’s arrest could not overshadow the glad reunion of the four. Their relief at finding one another safe and well was so great that even Sholto could not hide his joy.

Dirk seemed to assume that Sholto had caught a glimpse of Rye and Sonia, and Sholto did not correct him. Neither did Sonia, who merely looked amused. Perhaps, Rye thought, Sholto had convinced himself that Dirk must be right, and that the call he had felt was simply his brain playing tricks. Sholto would believe anything before accepting that people could speak mind to mind.

Well, now is no time to make him uneasy by trying to persuade him differently, Rye thought. Soon enough there will be something more important I will have to make him accept. He touched the red bundle at his belt, feeling the shapes of the gold casket and the book, and silently warned Sonia to say nothing of them for now.

Food, at least, was no longer a problem. The red knapsacks, which had been given to Dirk and Sholto that morning on their release from the Riverside healer’s care, were packed with supplies. Soon Rye and Sonia were eating ravenously, talking and listening at the same time.

Dirk and Sholto had heard that Farr was to attack the following day, but they knew very little else. There had been no talk of war in the quiet chambers guarded by the Riverside healer. The only whisper they had heard on the streets since their release was that many of the soldiers would be armed with weapons called ‘flamers’.

‘Perhaps “flamer” is another name for “scorch”,’ Rye suggested hopefully. If Farr’s troops carried the deadly weapons Olt’s Gifters had wielded, they would be able to defend themselves from the Master’s grey guards, at least.

Dirk shook his head. ‘Nothing so powerful, I fear. Flamers sound like very crude devices—heavy, and difficult to aim, from what I heard.’

‘It does not matter what weapons Farr’s soldiers use,’ Sholto said restlessly. ‘The Master cannot be defeated by ordinary means. He commands powers that … that we cannot understand.’

It was the closest he had ever come to admitting that the Lord of Shadows was a sorcerer. Rye knew there would never be a better time to tell his secret. Hastily he freed the red cloth bundle from his belt and unwrapped it.

Dirk and Sholto exclaimed over the casket and looked at the disc inside with interest, but to Rye’s dismay they did not seem to feel the disc’s magic at all. And as he told them his plan, his words tumbling over themselves in his eagerness to explain, they both looked at him as if he had lost his senses.

‘Farr will never ask the Fellan for help, Rye,’ Dirk said. ‘He knows they are not to be trusted, and you should know it too. Have you forgotten that they stood by and let hundreds of Weld heroes die horribly in their cursed forest? By the Wall, I have not!’

‘Yes, but—’ Rye bit his lip. If only he could explain why he had faith in the guardians of the Fell Zone! For a moment he considered breaking his solemn promise not to tell where the bag of powers had come from, but his throat closed at the thought. He could not do it, and Sonia was bound by the same promise.

‘If the Fellan were the ones who made my mind a blank and drove me into the Saltings, I agree they are not to be trusted,’ Sholto said. ‘Also, I think you are putting too much faith in that disc, Rye. If the Fellan are as powerful as you say, how could a mere object stop them from doing anything they wished?’

Rye shook his head in frustration. ‘To the Fellan, the disc is not just an object! It is the symbol of an oath they cannot break. See here! I found this last night—it proves I am right!’

He flipped through the little book till he found the page he wanted, and read aloud: