Emily Rodda - The Third Door

As Dirk, looking a little abashed, shook his head, Rye raised the feather.

‘Wait!’ Sholto exclaimed. ‘Sonia—’

For an instant Rye thought his brother was actually going to beg Sonia to stay in safety on the ground. Then he saw that Sholto was pressing a tiny bottle and a white cloth into Sonia’s hand.

‘This is extract of myrmon,’ Sholto said. ‘I—ah—borrowed it from the healer’s store, thinking it might prove useful. Three drops on the cloth will put a grown man to sleep. Do not use more, or your victim may never wake.’

‘Thank you,’ Sonia said, tucking the little bottle and the rag into her pocket.

Sholto bowed. ‘I am sure you would do the same for me.’

With very mixed feelings, Rye tightened his grip on Sonia and raised his eyes to the glinting windows. Up, he thought, and felt her thoughts echoing his. Up! Up!

There was no faltering this time. Between one heartbeat and the next, it seemed, Rye was pressing the golden key to one of the tower windows, and he and Sonia were tumbling inside.

The small square room was flooded with sunlight. It contained only a chair and a table on which lay a long metal tube with thick glass at both ends—a far glass, Rye knew, used for making distant objects look larger and closer. Tallus had one like it, though his was made of polished goat bone.

There was a trapdoor in the bare wooden floor. It was easily raised, and after that everything went more smoothly than Rye could have hoped in his wildest dreams. The light crystal guided him and Sonia down the circular steps that led down from the trapdoor. The crystal’s power showed them what was behind the locked door that at last barred their way, and the golden key opened the door with only the tiniest of clicks.

Weighed down with iron chains bolted to the wall, Jett was huddled in a cell in a corner of the room. There was only one guard, and he was sitting drowsing on a stool, facing his prisoner. Sonia’s myrmon-sprinkled cloth subdued him in moments. The key opened the cell, and with only a little more trouble, the padlocks on the chains as well. Jett, who had clearly been beaten, was mumbling and half unconscious, but still able to drag himself up to the tower room with Rye and Sonia’s help.

And then the trapdoor was closing behind them, and they were blinking in the sunlit room where they had begun. The whole rescue had taken no more than a few minutes.

‘Rest here a moment, Jett,’ Rye said, pushing back the hood and leading the injured man to the chair. ‘Then we will take you out of here.’

At the sound of his voice, Jett stirred. He licked his torn lips and his half-closed eyes strained open. He saw Rye and gave a violent start.

‘You!’ he rasped. ‘Keelin!’

‘Do not fear,’ Rye said quickly. ‘We have come to get you out. We are from Weld, as you are. We know you are not guilty. We know you did not try to kill Chieftain Farr.’

A curious expression crossed Jett’s battered face. His mouth strained open and a hoarse, barking sound came out.

For an instant Rye thought he was having some sort of fit. Then he realised his mistake. The man was laughing.

‘You fool!’ Jett howled. ‘Of course I tried to kill Farr! By the Wall, how could you doubt it? I tried to blow him off the face of Dorne, and his poisonous councillors with him! Of course I am guilty—guilty as sin!’

16 - The Enemy of Weld

It was a moment Rye would never forget—a moment of shock, confusion, horror and pity. As Jett stood there in front of him, sweat starting out on his brow, blood seeping from his ruined mouth, Rye could not help but think that the man had lost his senses.

But it was not so. That was clear the moment Jett spoke again.

‘Did you think I was a traitor like you, Keelin? ’ he sneered. ‘Did you think that I, too, was a grovelling pet of the enemy of Weld?’

Stunned, Rye gaped at him.

‘I was drawn to the golden Door, but in the old tales it is always the humblest choice that is the right one,’ Jett went on, his swollen eyes glittering. ‘So I went through the wooden Door. I fought my way through the Fell Zone. I found the enemy of Weld. I gained a place in his household. I bided my time, waiting my chance to kill him without fear of discovery so I could return home and claim my prize. I was a fool. I should have acted at once …’

He stopped to gasp for breath. With the back of his hand he swiped at the blood trickling down his chin, smearing it across his cheek. All the time he glared at Rye as if Sonia, standing motionless by the trapdoor, did not exist.

‘How did you survive the Fell Zone without harm, Keelin? ’ he snarled. ‘Did Farr help you? Have you been a traitor from the start? By the Wall, if I had known what you were when I saw you playing your part in Farr’s evil charade at Fell End I would have seen to it that you died where you fell. But I did not realise you were from Weld till I heard you speak, and by then you were protected and it was too late.’

‘It was you who put that message in my dressing gown pocket,’ Rye whispered, his flesh creeping. ‘It was you who poisoned Janna and tried to poison me.’

‘Poison?’ Jett spat. ‘Do not judge me by your standards, scum! A warrior of Weld does not use poison as a weapon! A dagger to the heart was what you deserved, but the witch Petronelle was always on the watch. So I wrote the note. You should have taken the warning while you had the chance. Now I will do what I have longed to do for days!’

His hands reaching for Rye’s throat, he launched himself forward and fell heavily, screaming in pain and rage as the armour shell repelled him.

‘Sorcerer!’ he hissed, crossing his fingers and his wrists. ‘So that was your pay for betraying your people! That is how the enemy of Weld has made you his creature!’

‘Farr is not the enemy of—’

‘Liar!’ Jett shouted. ‘Do you think I do not know? Farr has never fooled me! I have always known the skimmers were his doing. I have always known that he was duping his people, rousing their hatred, to persuade them to make war on Weld!’

‘Jett, you are wrong!’ Rye burst out. ‘Farr is not going to make war on Weld! The enemy he is about to attack is our enemy too—a sorcerer from across the sea, who has taken possession of another part of Dorne.’

Because I caused Olt’s death, he thought but did not say. Because when Olt’s life ended the ring of protection he threw around this island vanished.

He fought down his guilt and concentrated on Jett, who was sneering in disbelief.

‘You must believe me, Jett,’ he begged. ‘Some call this sorcerer the Master. Others call him the Lord of Shadows. He is breeding the skimmers in a place called the Harbour. I have been there! I have seen them!’

‘I daresay you have, traitor!’ Jett snarled. ‘But you cannot trick me with your half-truths! I have always known that Farr must have a powerful ally. I have always known that the skimmers were being bred far from here! How else could Farr have kept his doting people in ignorance for so long?’

He had an answer for everything. Despairingly, Rye glanced at Sonia. To his dismay he saw that she was looking at Jett thoughtfully, biting her lip.

Sonia! You cannot believe him! He is raving! His hatred for Farr has blinded him to the truth!

Sonia met his eyes.

Or are we the ones who have been blinded?

Her question hissed into Rye’s mind like chill wind. As he shook his head helplessly, more words came to him.

Ask him about the pipeline …

‘The pipeline, Jett … What do you know of that?’ he made himself say.

Jett gave another hoarse, bitter laugh. ‘I am not so stupid that I have not guessed its true purpose, if that is what you mean! I am not an oaf who thinks “pipeline” must always mean “water”.’