Emily Rodda - The Third Door

The Sorcerer Dann had made each of the three Doors for a different purpose.

The oldest, made of wood and brass, was an ordinary door, put in place to seal the hollow mountaintop that was to shelter Weld. The other two were powerful portals, created to serve two urgent needs.

Thinking back over what he now knew of the Sorcerer Dann, Rye felt he knew what these needs were.

Dann missed the world he had left behind. Especially he missed the forbidden forest, and the Fellan who were his mother’s kin and his friends. As the years went by, his longing became so great that at last the tiled pictures he had made to remind him of what he had lost were not enough to comfort him. Brief escapes through the wooden Door did not satisfy his need either. So much time had passed that even in the forest much had changed, and he felt like a stranger.

So he created the golden Door—a door to the past. Through it, secretly, he could leave Weld and spend time with Edelle and the other Fellan he knew well, in the forest that was still as he remembered it. He could forget, for a time, his duties as Weld’s leader, his fears that his people’s magic was fading inside the Wall, and his growing doubts that he had done the right thing in shutting himself away from the outside world.

‘So when we went through the golden Door,’ Sonia breathed, ‘we went into the past. We travelled from the Fell Zone to the coast and back again with no idea that we were seeing Dorne as it was centuries ago—only a few years after Dann founded Weld!’

‘Yes,’ Rye said quietly. ‘And we have just made the same journey, following much the same route, with no idea we had done it before.’

He shrugged as Sonia gasped in disbelief. ‘A thousand years have passed. All the landmarks have changed so much that we did not recognise them. Vine has taken over parts of the forest. The buildings of Fell End cover land where there were only fields and a goat shelter before. The stream has been widened and deepened to make a river. Riverside has grown up on the old site of Fleet. Oltan bay has been made safe for ships to anchor close to shore. Oltan itself has been rebuilt and renamed New Nerra—’

‘And the stone maze where I found you is all that remains of Olt’s fortress—the part that was below the ground. The museum was built on the ruins.’ Sonia shook her head. ‘Rye, I can hardly take this in! I cannot believe we moved through the same part of Dorne twice without knowing it.’

Rye wet his lips. ‘Not twice,’ he said. ‘Three times.’

Sonia stared at him, coughing a little in the smoke haze. And slowly her face paled.

Rye nodded. His mouth was very dry. ‘I think Dann created the silver Door because his doubts became too much for him. He had to know … to know the result of his decision to leave Olt to rule Dorne unchecked. So in the space between the golden Door and the wooden one he placed a silver Door, covered with images that change depending on what is happening beyond it. The silver Door leads to exactly the same place as the other two do. But it is a Door to the future.’

‘The—’ Sonia looked wildly around. At the rich, deep green behind her. At the blackened track stretching up towards Weld. At Fell End, the sparkling river, the rolling fields. She began shaking her head.

‘You must believe it, Sonia!’ The pain in Rye’s chest and throat was like a knife, but he knew he had to go on. ‘I imagine that what Dann saw beyond the silver Door was Olt living on and on, preying on his people, becoming more cruel and monstrous by the day. What we saw was our future—the time to come after the deaths of the Fellan, after the invasion of the Lord of Shadows. We saw something that has not yet happened, but is in the making now.’

‘No!’ Still Sonia was shaking her head, stubbornly, helplessly, as if somehow by doing that she could shake away the truth.

‘Yes!’ Rye said harshly. ‘Weld and the Fell Zone will become the Saltings, blasted to rubble, littered with metal, sour with salt, infested with sea snails that have adapted to life on land. Fell End and the surrounding farms will become the desert of the Scour. The river will dry to a pebbled track. Riverside will become the Diggings, where FitzFee’s descendants will be enslaved and grey guards will roast their meat over the slab that marked Faene’s parents’ graves. New Nerra will be covered by the Harbour …’

And, he thought but did not say, I think Pieter, Carryl’s youngest grandchild, the funny, eager boy who loves old tales, will become Bones, the hero of the failed Resistance, the half-mad wanderer in the Saltings, the clown of the Den.

‘Wait!’ Sonia exclaimed, her face brightening. ‘Rye, you are wrong! When Sholto first went through the silver Door he was in the Fell Zone! The Fell Zone , Rye, as alive and magic as it is now! He was there for a long time, and there were trees and vines and—’

‘Sholto was in the Fell Zone for a long time,’ Rye agreed, still in that same, harsh voice. ‘For over a year. Then one evening the forest vanished, and he found himself in the Saltings.’

‘That was how it seemed to him,’ Sonia protested, ‘but—’

‘That was how it was ,’ Rye cut in flatly. ‘Sholto was living in the future, Sonia! What happens in the future depends on what has happened in the past. And that night the past was changed in a moment … by the death of Olt.’

All the light died from Sonia’s face. She pressed her hands to her mouth.

‘When Olt died, his secrets died with him,’ Rye went on relentlessly. ‘And the Lord of Shadows could start to plan … for this.’

He waved his hand at the troops with flamers, at the clear pipe snaking up from Fell End, at the carts still dumping their loads of metal on the scorched earth, at Farr waiting on the track only a few steps away. The chieftain’s words prickled in his mind.

I have been well advised …

Sonia took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she took her hands from her mouth, raised her chin and tossed back her hair.

‘So—we changed the distant past, and so changed the future,’ she said. ‘Well, now we are in the present, and as far as the future we saw is concerned, this is the past as well! So it is not too late, Rye! We still have a chance to stop that future from happening! It is not too late!’

24 - Nine Powers

Almost unwillingly, Rye felt Sonia’s fierce determination fanning the dying embers of his hope back into life. She was right. It was still not too late to change the future, if only they could find a way. But the people of Fell End were marching up the black, burned track two by two, the giant hose pipe held between them and death drawing closer to the Fellan with every step. And Farr was moving forward, holding up his hand in greeting.

The people at the head of the line stopped dead, staring at Farr open-mouthed. The people behind them pressed forward, saw what they had seen, and stopped as well. Sonia stiffened. Rye knew why. He too could feel wickedness and triumph somewhere very near.

‘Keep moving!’ a voice shouted.

It was Councillor Manx, his gaunt face set in a peevish scowl. Beside him was Sigrid of Gold Marsh, picking her way through the ash, a lace handkerchief held to her nose. And lumbering behind them both was Barron, coughing and very red in the face.

The astonished workers suddenly found their voices.

‘Farr!’ The roar was so loud that even the troops at the head of the track heard it and turned in amazement to recognise Farr’s familiar figure and to cheer.

‘By the stars, Farr, we thought you were dead!’ Barron bellowed, mopping his streaming face. ‘The man Jett came stumbling into Fell End at sunrise, just as the attack began, gabbling that the Fellan had you. How did you escape?’