Emily Rodda - The Third Door

‘I have been thinking the same thing,’ Sholto agreed. ‘The workers at the Harbour are not aware that any other base exists, but they are isolated and know only what they are told.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Dirk snapped. ‘If there is another base, let us get out of these cursed trees and find it!’

With shaking hands, Rye pulled the hood over his head. As his companions gathered around him and he took the feather from the brown bag, the voices in his mind swelled to a triumphant clamour. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore them. He told himself that the Fellan had not won. They were not driving him away. He was leaving the Fell Zone because he wished it.

But as he rose with his companions through the misty air, and the whispers slowly faded from his mind, the relief was so intense that he felt dizzy. Only then did he admit to himself how much his resistance to the Fellan had cost him. Only then did he wonder if he could have stood against their will for much longer.

And only then did he wonder, with a prickle of fear, what would have happened if the Fellan had lost patience and decided to rid their forest of the unwelcome visitors by doing more than simply sending them away.

Before the companions reached the treetops the sun came out, transforming the mist into a shining golden haze. It became very difficult to see anything at all, but once they were above the muffling trees they did not need their sight to tell them which way to go. They could hear sounds coming from below, not very far away.

Music. Singing. The roar of voices. The occasional whinny of a horse. There were people, many people, somewhere near.

‘Our search will not be long, it seems,’ Dirk muttered. ‘Who else but the Master would place a settlement so close to the Fell Zone?’

‘I never heard music played at the Harbour,’ Sholto said dubiously.

Dirk grimaced. ‘They are celebrating the attack on the Keep last night, perhaps.’

Rye turned towards the sound, and as he and his companions began to glide rapidly through the shining mist he felt a small stab of triumph. The Fellan below might resent his possession of the bag of powers but they could not stop him using it. He had found it very hard to control the power of the feather at first. Now he had mastered it, as he had learned to master all the other powers at his command.

No, he thought suddenly. Not all. The sweet that smells of honey is still a mystery. And I still do not know what the ninth power is—or even if there is a ninth power! For all I know, the ninth power was lost or stolen from the bag long ago.

‘Rye!’ Sonia’s warning whisper jolted Rye out of his thoughts. He realised that he had lost height. His feet were brushing the topmost leaves of the trees. He put the Fellan and the powers out of his mind, focused again on the sounds ahead, and sped on.

‘Curse this mist!’ Dirk complained, leaning dangerously forward and peering down. ‘I cannot see a thing!’

But in a very few minutes the companions had reached the end of the trees, and as they flew lower they began to catch glimpses of the bushes and rocks that marked the forest’s fringe.

Then, abruptly, a tall, dark barrier was looming out of the mist in front of them. With Sonia’s cry of alarm ringing in his mind and his brothers’ yells loud in his ears, Rye managed to soar steeply upward just in time to skim over what seemed to be a fence made of great sheets of metal.

How he had done it he did not know. In another moment they would have crashed into the barrier as fatally as a sun-blinded skimmer slamming into a rock face. His heart thudding wildly at the narrow escape, Rye took a moment to realise that the voices and music had suddenly become very much louder.

‘By the Wall, look at that!’ he heard Dirk breathe, and at last glanced down.

Beyond the fence there was a small lake bobbing with ducks. From the lake, a narrow river confined between banks of stone flowed peacefully between clumps of trees. A paved road kept company with the river, and beside the road a huge pipeline was being built, its bulky stone supports marching all the way to the distant hills.

But close, very close, just where the river began, sprawled a rough, untidy town that throbbed with life.

People in bright, festive clothes thronged the town’s muddy streets, which were lined with very simple stone and metal dwellings. In the large central square, more people sat at long tables beneath striped awnings, eating, drinking, singing and pounding the tabletops in time to the rollicking tune being played by a nearby band of fiddlers. Others were dancing, stamping on the bare ground, careless of the mud the rain had left behind. Stalls choked the narrow side streets. Everywhere there were peddlers shouting their wares while busily selling sugared apples on sticks, dolls, jewellery and embroidered shawls to eager customers.

The people were of every kind, every colour, every size and shape. There were small people like the tribe from Nanny’s Pride farm and like FitzFee, who had saved Rye from a bloodhog beyond the golden Door. There were tall people like the fishing folk of Oltan and the scourers of the Den. A few soldiers in blue uniforms mingled with the crowd, but there were no grey guards, no slave-hunters—no sign of the Master at all.

Invisible beneath the protection of Rye’s hood, the companions landed beside the river amid a clutter of upturned canoes. Behind the barrier fence, the Fell Zone trees rose high, dark and secret, concealing the rocky summit where the companions had begun their flight.

‘Where in Weld are we?’ Dirk whispered.

Sonia pointed to a banner that had been strung between two trees facing a sturdy wooden jetty.

‘Fell End?’ Dirk shook his head in puzzlement. ‘I have never heard of it! In Fleet and Oltan I was told there were no other towns in Dorne—except for the exiles’ camp in the east. Who are these people?’

Sholto raised an eyebrow. ‘And who, I wonder, is Chieftain Farr?’

‘I think,’ said Rye, staring downriver, ‘we are about to find that out.’

6 - Fell End

An odd-looking vessel had come into view from behind a clump of trees, pushing along the ribbon of water with a faint chugging sound. It was square and low, with a steaming funnel. Many small red and yellow flags fluttered gaily above the heads of several figures gathered on its deck. As Sonia, Sholto and Dirk turned to look, a great cloud of steam billowed from the boat’s funnel, and there was a long, loud hoot.

Yells of excitement rose from the town. The music stopped and people began swarming towards the little jetty.

By the time the strange craft arrived, a small knot of self-conscious men and women had gathered beneath the banner to greet the visitors. Behind them, the mud-spattered townspeople were chattering, waving and cheering lustily.

As the vessel was tied securely, Rye wondered which of its passengers was Chieftain Farr. Was it the man with the lean face and sunken eyes in a long black robe and a close-fitting black cap? Was it the haughty woman with the coronet of iron-grey braids and the very correct dark green gown that covered her from wrist to ankle?

Was it the plump old woman who looked like a kind grandmother in a book of fairy tales? Or the elegant, golden-skinned woman smiling beside her? Or could Farr possibly be the beefy, red-faced man in a blue velvet coat and frilled shirt who was furtively tugging at his high collar as if it was strangling him?

As the gangplank slid into place, Rye discovered that it was none of them. The crowd roared as a big, black-haired man rose to tower above his companions, holding the small boy he had stooped to pick up in one arm. The man gave his free arm to the elegant woman and they moved over the gangplank together.