Emily Rodda - The Third Door

Eldannen was fleeing the dark city, a bright light held high before him and a long string of people gliding behind him, hand in hand …

Eldannen was moving through low hills, and the line behind him was a little longer. The sky above was faintly tinged with the pink of sunrise. He lifted his hand, pulled a hood over his head, and he and his followers vanished …

Eldannen and his people, visible once more, were threading their way through enormous trees, climbing towards a cave that yawned in the rock of a mountaintop. Shadowy green figures flitted around them, and the beasts of the forest stayed away …

Eldannen was entering the cave and passing through it to a heavy wooden door bound with brass. He was tapping a smooth stick on the door and the door was swinging open. He was standing back as his followers passed through the doorway two by two. And at last he was raising his hand in farewell to the Fellan and passing through himself, the door swinging shut behind him.

Rye gaped, his mind reeling.

Olt’s youngest brother, friend of the Fellan, had led his followers not to the east, but to Weld. Olt’s brother Eldannen, who had fled into exile just before the first Gifting, had been the Sorcerer Dann.

But Rye and Sonia had arrived in Oltan just before the second Gifting, only seven years later. And by then Weld had existed for centuries.

Or so its people believed.

Rye shuddered all over. He wanted to pull the bell tree stick out of the water, turn his face away from the pool, but he could not move. He felt Sonia lose her way, lose her connection with him. And then the pictures were flashing through his burning eyes to his numbed brain so fast that he could do nothing but stare, clinging helplessly to Sonia’s cold hand while above the clearing the sky lightened and the stars began to fade.

When he came to himself he was lying on the moss with no memory of falling away from the pool. He thought back to the pictures he had seen in the water and his mind recoiled. No. He could not think about them yet. Not yet.

Sonia was slumped beside him and the bell tree stick was drying in his hand. The light crystal was still clutched in his other hand, but the armour shell had slipped from his finger. Numbly he pushed it back into place.

He turned his head and saw Farr sitting with his back to a tree fern, head bowed. So Farr had kept faith. He had waited through the long night till at last he had fallen asleep.

There was a faint sound high above. Rye looked up and his stomach lurched. The patch of sky glimmering between the feathery tips of the giant ferns was dark with skimmers. The skimmers were returning from their hunt, hastening to their nest in the Fell Zone, fleeing the rising sun.

The skimmers. Here, at least, was something Rye could understand. Here was something real to cling to, the reason he, Sonia, Dirk and Sholto had left Weld in the first place.

The main part of the skimmer swarm had already passed overhead. Only a few ragged shapes now flapped across the lightening sky. There was no time to lose.

Rye scrambled up. He thrust the stick in his belt, pushed the light crystal into his pocket and took out the feather. Up! he thought. And then he was rising slowly past the shaggy brown trunks of the vast ferns, rising through the lacy fronds that nodded against the green-grey sky, rising high above the crowns of the mighty trees beyond …

And he was watching the skimmers going to roost. He was staring at something he had to fight to believe. His heart was hammering in his chest. His throat was closing …

And then the beasts were gone, hidden, safe for another day. The blinding rays of the rising sun were streaking across the sky. And with the sun came a sudden, shocking burst of sound from the forest edge—barked orders, the clatter of falling metal, the thud of booted feet and a low, dangerous roar that raised the hairs on the back of Rye’s neck.

He faltered in the air, lost height, managed to steady himself only by a huge effort of will. His eyes dazzled and streaming, he looked down, towards Fell End. Beneath the high arch of the pipeline, two long sections of the metal fence had been flattened. Helmeted figures, clad from head to foot in gleaming white, were tramping over the metal sheets, their clumsy weapons roaring as they blasted the undergrowth ahead with flame. Brown smoke billowed upwards, tainting the clear morning air.

We are betrayed …

The Fellan voices came to Rye like the wail of the wind. His heart in his mouth, he plummeted down, down into the clearing where the giant ferns were thrashing as if beaten by a gale.

Sonia was standing by the pool, staring at Farr, who had risen to his feet. In her hand was the disc, the token of the treaty, glowing so brightly that her skin seemed drenched with green.

‘Farr!’ Rye bellowed. ‘Stop them! Stop—’

A distant chorus of shouts rose from below. The whole forest seemed to shudder. And Sonia screamed as the disc of the treaty shattered, and its fragments, fine as glittering dust, wafted away in air that shimmered with Fellan pain and rage.

22 - Terror

The chieftain stood up. His eyes were hard, his mouth set in a tight half-smile, and suddenly, with sick dismay, Rye saw the truth. Farr had known all along that the attack would go on without him. Farr had planned for everything, including his own capture or death. ‘Nothing must stop us now,’ he must have said to Manx, Barron and Sigrid as they left Riverside. ‘You are to move at sunrise whether I am with you to give the order or not.’

Farr had never trusted Rye—had not believed a word Rye said. He had agreed to go deeper into the forest, to go almost certainly to his own death, only to make the Fellan feel safe and give his soldiers the advantage of surprise.

There was another roar from below, and another. The sky above the clearing was dark with smoke. Sonia covered her face and swayed where she stood.

Rye ran to her and caught her before she fell. She sagged against him, her mind clouded, her whole body trembling.

‘You fool!’ he shrieked at Farr. ‘Do you know what you have done?’

‘I’ve done what I had to do,’ Farr snapped back. ‘And if I’m a fool, Keelin, you’re a greater one. How could you expect me to believe that the Shadow Lord had invaded Dorne without my knowing it? Why, when I first saw you at Fell End I had just returned from touring the east coast guard posts and seen for myself that all was well!’

Rye gaped at him over Sonia’s head, his mind frozen, his teeth chattering.

Farr raised his eyebrows and his face softened slightly. ‘Can it be that you really believe the nonsense you told me?’ he murmured. ‘Yes, I see you do. So you’re a dupe, Keelin, not a villain! It’s said that the Fellan can create illusions, make people see—’

He broke off with a start. Hooded figures were peeling away from the swaying trunks of the giant ferns. Their garments flew in the wind of their fury, their hoods blew back, and their long braids twisted and hissed around their heads like spitting snakes. Their bodies seemed to flicker as their colour changed from brown to green.

‘You have broken the treaty of our ancestors, human,’ a female rasped at Farr. ‘You have invaded our land. Your people will pay the price.’

Farr raised his chin. ‘My troops know their danger, Fellan,’ he said evenly. ‘As one man falls, another will take his place. You won’t stop us. You won’t defeat us. You and your cursed magic are finished!’

The Fellan looked at him, their eyes burning. He groaned and fell to his knees.

‘Do not harm him!’ Rye burst out. ‘He is the only one who can stop the attack! Make him understand! Tell him that it is only because you allowed it that the Lord of Shadows was able to invade! Tell him—’