Emily Rodda - The Golden Door

“How beautiful they are!” Sonia whispered beside him. “I had no idea stars could be so beautiful!”

“Nor I,” said Rye. “It must be because the sky at home is never as clear as this.”

And all at once, the fierce, uncaring brilliance of the stars blurred before his eyes, and he felt a terrible longing to be back beneath a softer sky, among the things he knew, behind the high Wall of Weld.

It is no use thinking of that , he told himself furiously. There is no going back. And home is no longer home as it was. Is that not why you are here?

“You deceived the Warden in more ways than one, Rye,” Sonia said quietly. “You did not leave Weld to find the source of the skimmers and win the reward, did you? You want only to find your brother! That is why you chose the golden Door. It was the one you thought Dirk must have taken.”

Rye did not bother to deny it. Sonia had heard his first question at the pool.

“Dirk is in the place of the Enemy, so as it happens, you have not wasted your time by coming with me,” he muttered. “When we reach Oltan, we can go our separate ways. I will find Dirk, to take him home, and you can destroy the Enemy — if you are able.”

“There is nothing to say that the Enemy of Oltan is the one who is sending skimmers to Weld!” Sonia snapped, stung by his tone.

“Dirk plainly thinks he is,” Rye said stoutly. “I may not have come here hoping to stop the skimmers, but Dirk did! If he is in Oltan, he is not there for nothing, you can depend upon it.”

He heard a stealthy stirring in the bushes on the other side of the stream. Realizing that he had slowed, he moved quickly on, deliberately lengthening his stride so that Sonia was forced to fall behind. After that, he glanced at the sky less often, and when he did, he tried not to think of the stars.

He meant to keep up a brisk pace and to stay alert to danger, but as time slipped by, he found it harder and harder. Sonia was so silent that he had to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure she was still following.

We will soon reach the end of the Fell Zone, he told himself, remembering the schoolroom map. And that means we will soon be on the coast — in Oltan. No one will be stirring at this time of night. We will find shelter, and then we can rest.

But the stream wound on and on, the seething blackness beyond its banks never grew still, and the snarls and howls of invisible creatures killing and being killed never became less. And all Rye and Sonia could do was to move forward, driven by fear, keeping on their feet by pure will.

At last, however, there came a time when the ferns ended, the stream banks flattened and widened, and the trees became fewer.

“We are almost there, I think,” Rye called over his shoulder.

His voice sounded hoarse. It was hours since he had spoken aloud.

Sonia did not answer. Rye looked back and saw that between the streaks of dirt on the girl’s face, her skin was sickly pale. Her eyelids were drooping. She was stumbling as she walked.

He saw that she was exhausted. And only then did he realize how exhausted he was himself.

How long had they been following the stream? He could barely remember the last part of the journey. It was as if he had been walking in a dream.

“Just a little farther,” he called to Sonia and waited for her to catch up to him. She blinked, swaying like someone just woken from sleep.

Fearing she would fall, Rye took her arm. She made no protest. Cautiously they crept together out of the trees and stopped, staring.

A humpbacked stone bridge spanned the stream ahead. A bare dirt track trailed away on either side of the bridge, disappearing into the shadowy distance.

Beyond the track, there was open land divided here and there by straggling fences and dotted with small groups of trees. The land reared up into hills and sank into shallow valleys in a way Rye found disturbing and unnatural. Above the whole arched a vast, star-studded sky.

There were no houses to be seen. No shops or halls. No buildings at all. The only signs of human life were the fences, the bridge, and the road.

“This cannot be,” Rye said slowly.

Sonia’s eyes were huge in her pale, drawn face. Abruptly she pulled away from Rye, crouched beside the stream, and began splashing herself with water. When she stood up, her face, arms, and clothes were wet, and she no longer looked half-asleep.

“Where is the city?” she demanded. “And where is the sea? Surely we should be able to see it from here. The maps in all my books —”

“Mine, too,” said Rye.

A clammy coldness was creeping over him. He did not know what to believe. Either the Fellan had lied, and this land was not Dorne at all, or the map he had seen every day of his school life, the map upon which he had depended, was terribly, bizarrely, wrong.

It took only a moment for him to decide that he would rather trust the Fellan than the map. Why, he had not even known the Fellan existed until he had seen them with his own eyes! He had always been taught that the Fell Zone was nothing but a safety barrier for Weld — a forbidden belt of land dreaded by the barbarians and filled with monsters.

If he had not known about the people of the Fell Zone, what else did he not know about the land beyond the Wall of Weld?

He felt suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion. It was all he could do to stop himself sinking to the ground. If he had been alone, perhaps he would have done it. But Sonia was with him, and pride kept him upright. He was determined not to show weakness before her again.

Deciding to follow her example, he bent to the stream and splashed his face vigorously. The shock of the cold water made him gasp, but when he stood up, his head felt clearer.

“Still no skimmers,” Sonia said, scanning the sky. “Well, that seems to settle one question, at least. The skimmers do not menace Dorne as a whole. Only Weld.”

“Dirk was always sure of it,” said Rye. It was a relief to speak his brother’s name. It made him feel stronger, steadier on his feet.

“If Dirk could find Oltan, we can find it, too,” he went on. “It cannot be far away. And surely there will be signposts, now we are out of the Fell Zone.”

They moved farther along the stream, then left it and climbed up to the little stone bridge.

Tired as he was, Rye had been quite looking forward to standing on the bridge. The only bridges in Weld were those that spanned the brick trench, and these were forbidden to all but Wall workers. His pleasure was spoiled when he saw that one of the bridge’s inner walls was defaced by a string of roughly painted words.

“How could anyone — even barbarians — splash paint on fine stone like that?” Rye muttered.

“This reminds me of the scribbles on the skimmer notices at home,” said Sonia, gazing at the painted words with interest. “Oh, how those scribbles enraged the Warden!”

She smirked, clearly enjoying the memory. “Whenever the soldiers brought a damaged sign back to the Keep, he — the Warden — would lose his temper. Then he would order the notice to be burned. Burned in the courtyard, too, so everyone could see.”

Rye’s frown deepened. “This is not at all the same! The gifting must cease — it is nonsensical! To give a gift is a good thing, not a bad one.”

Sonia shrugged. “We do not know how things are done out here. For all we know, there may be a very good reason for — Oh!”

The sudden exclamation made Rye spin around in fright, but Sonia was looking excited rather than alarmed. She was pointing along the road.