Emily Rodda - The Golden Door

Pulling the girl free at last, he caught her around the waist and hurled himself sideways, tipping them both over a leafy bank that rose beside the tatters of the net. Together they tumbled down a steep ferny slope. There was nothing to stop them. Nothing they snatched at was firm enough to hold them. Yelling, they rolled and slid, down and down, until at last they lay, panting and shuddering, on the soft, damp earth of the valley floor.

The light was dim and green. The thrashing, hissing sounds of the monster battle floated down to Rye’s ears. They mingled with other, closer, sounds. Sonia’s sobbing breaths. The gurgling of running water. Birdcalls, clear and pure, chiming like tiny bells. A soft, breathy murmuring that might have been ferns stirring in a breeze, or something more sinister.

Rye closed his eyes and held himself very still, concentrating on the murmuring noise, trying to make out what it was. Something slithering beneath a blanket of leaves? Skimmers waking, stretching their leathery wings somewhere near? Or … could it be — could it possibly be — whispering voices?

The murmuring gradually separated itself into words.

He is the one.

The signs are not perfect.

The third test remains. We shall see….

“Rye, wake up!” Sonia’s anxious voice cut through the whispers, which vanished abruptly.

Rye opened his eyes. Sonia was crouched beside him, shaking his shoulder. He blinked at her blearily.

“We should get away from here.” Sonia glanced nervously up toward the sound of the lizard battle. “The one that wins may come after us.”

Rye nodded and scrambled painfully to his feet. He found that his ears had not been deceiving him in one way at least. He had been lying on the sandy bank of a fast-running stream. He stared, fascinated, at the clear, bubbling water. It was so strange to see water flowing freely, with no gutters to guide it.

The stream rippled and sang over a bed of small, round blue pebbles that seemed to wink at him like bright eyes.

On the other side of the stream, fern-choked land rose as steeply as the ground behind him did. It was as if he and Sonia had fallen into a deep fold in the earth. Rye’s head swam as he looked up. Every bone in his body ached. His knees felt as if they were made of butter left too long out of the cool room. He knew he could not climb just yet.

Fortunately, Sonia appeared to feel the same. “I think we should go this way,” she said, pointing along the stream to the left.

“I, too,” said Rye, and wondered why he was so sure. Perhaps it was because the stream was running in that direction. It seemed right to follow the stream.

He looked around for the hatchet but was not surprised when he could not see it. He had lost his grip on it in that sliding tumble down the hill with Sonia, and it had stayed where it had fallen. Now it lay buried in ferns somewhere on that steep slope above him. He would never find it. Perhaps no one would ever find it again.

He had lost his bundle, too. It still lay by the first net, and he was certainly not going back for it. He would just have to do without spare clothes and the box of supplies.

But the stick, the bell tree stick, was at his feet. It, at least, had not deserted him. He picked it up, feeling its smooth, familiar weight in his hand.

Sonia was kneeling by the stream, reaching down into the water. When she scrambled up, her arm wet to the elbow, Rye saw that she had scooped up a handful of the blue pebbles.

She saw him watching her and raised her chin defiantly, as if he had questioned her. “I like them,” she mumbled, pushing the wet pebbles into the pocket of her tunic. “And they might be useful.”

“Indeed,” Rye said politely.

A boy with a stick and a girl with a pocketful of stones , he thought as he turned to go. What a fine pair of heroes we are, to be sure!

They began to follow the stream, looking warily left and right. Neither of them spoke. Gradually the sounds of the lizard battle faded away behind them, and at last, all they could hear was the babbling of the water, the bell-like calls of the unseen birds, and their own plodding footsteps.

“I would be dead now, if it weren’t for you,” Sonia said suddenly. “Thank you for — for what you did.”

Rye glanced at her. She was staring straight ahead and frowning, as if the words had been hard to say. No doubt she was annoyed because she had had to be saved.

“I am sure you would have done the same for me,” he murmured, replying to the thanks in the usual Weld fashion, though in Sonia’s case, he was not at all sure of any such thing. For all he knew, she would have left him struggling in the beast’s net.

“Why did you want to leave Weld, Sonia?” he asked abruptly. “Surely being a Keep orphan cannot be so bad? Surely the Warden is kind to you?”

She snorted with mirthless laughter. “The Warden? I have not seen the Warden face-to-face more than three or four times in my life! But that is not the point. I did not leave Weld just because I was unhappy. I left for the same reason you and all the other volunteers did.”

Rye blinked. “You — what?”

“I want to find the Enemy sending the skimmers and destroy him!” snapped Sonia. “I do not see why men only should have the chance to be the Warden’s heir! There now! Have a good laugh at me, if you will!”

She quickened her pace and walked on ahead without waiting for an answer. Rye followed, wondering.

They came to a place where the stream vanished from sight, though they could still hear it gurgling underground. The earth beneath their feet was carpeted in thick green moss. The ferns around them were giants — the trunks tall, straight columns of furry brown, the great emerald fronds arching gracefully overhead making a delicate canopy of living green lace. It was like wandering through a deserted temple.

Never had Rye seen anything so strangely beautiful. Awestruck, he walked on, barely aware of Sonia ahead, lost in a dream of shadowy green.

He had no idea for how long he had walked when, slowly, it came to him that something had changed. It took a moment for him to realize what the change was.

The birdcalls had stopped.

Rye looked around dazedly. The light was dimmer and greener than it had been before. He knew that in the world above, the sun must be going down.

An icy trickle of fear ran down his spine.

“Sonia!” he called in a low voice.

The girl was standing motionless between the trunks of two giant ferns that stood like sentinels not far ahead. She made no sign that she had heard him, but at least she had stopped moving.

Rye ran to catch up with her, blessing the soft moss that muffled the sound of his footsteps. He touched her shoulder, but still she did not turn or speak.

“Sonia, it is sunset!” he hissed, catching at her arm. “Past sunset! The skimmers —”

He broke off as she shivered all over. With astonishment, he saw that her eyes had filled with tears. Then he looked ahead, over her shoulder, and realized why she had stopped and what she was staring at.

Just beyond the two sentinels was a clearing ringed with shadowy fern trunks and open to a brilliant orange sky. Except for the sound of the gurgling water somewhere underground, the clearing was utterly still. In its center was a small round pool, gleaming like a mirror.

Dann’s Mirror … The words floated into Rye’s mind from nowhere. He did not realize he had repeated them aloud until the girl turned to look at him, amazement in her brimming eyes.

“What did you say?” she whispered.

Rye shook his head. He could not explain himself. Pushing past her, he stepped into the clearing and walked the few steps to the pool. He looked down at the glassy surface, and for a brief moment, his reflection floated there, shadowy and mysterious.