Emily Rodda - The Golden Door

“You all right up there?” he called politely.

“Yes, Rye, come down !” Sonia laughed.

It is all very well for her, Rye thought resentfully. He wanted very much to climb down. He had been trying to make himself begin for many long minutes. The trouble was, his limbs seemed to have frozen. Every time he looked down, his head swam. Never in his life had he been so high above the ground without a safety harness.

I got up here without a harness , he told himself. So I can get down.

He managed it at last, though his legs felt like water and his arms almost as bad. Magnus FitzFee watched the beginning of the ungainly descent, then discreetly turned his back to wave to his daughter on the cart.

“So you’re more of a runner than a climber, friend,” he said when he heard Rye sighing with relief as he finally reached the ground. “I’m the other way around, myself. Not built for running, but I can climb like a clink.”

“What is a clink?” Sonia asked without thinking.

FitzFee spun around. He gaped at Rye, then turned his startled gaze on Sonia. His eyes were blue as chips of sky in his brown face.

“And where would you two be from, that you don’t know what a clink is?” he demanded. “Why, there’d not be a house around here that doesn’t have a clink or two in the roof!”

There was a heavy silence. Rye saw Sonia’s face flush as red as her cap, and could feel the heat rising in his own cheeks and neck.

“We — we are not from around here,” he said awkwardly.

“No,” murmured Magnus FitzFee, looking keenly from one to the other. “No, I see you aren’t. I can’t think why I didn’t realize it before. That run …” He grimaced. “The bloodhog distracted me, I daresay. Well, well.”

“Dadda!” called the girl in the cart. “Dadda, come on !”

“One minute, Popsy!” FitzFee shouted over his shoulder. “Don’t you move, now!”

Rye glared at Sonia. She shrugged uncomfortably. They both made their faces expressionless as FitzFee turned back to them.

“Where are the rest of you?” he asked abruptly. “What are you doing here on your own?”

“We — got lost,” Sonia said.

“Lost?” FitzFee frowned and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “Lost …”

Again he looked over his shoulder, but this time, he seemed to be gazing past the road, to the tall trees of the Fell Zone. Quickly, almost furtively, he crossed his stubby fingers, and then his wrists.

Rye’s stomach lurched. FitzFee had guessed where they had come from! Did that mean he had stumbled across other Weld volunteers who had managed to escape the Fell Zone? It was quite possible, if he lived around here.

Sonia was frowning and gnawing her lip, her eyes fixed on the crossbow slung over the little man’s shoulder. Rye knew she was bitterly regretting the slip that had raised FitzFee’s suspicions. She feared that now they were in terrible danger.

Rye feared it, too. FitzFee had saved their lives, certainly. But that was before he began to suspect who they were. However friendly he seemed, he was still a barbarian — and the barbarians, one and all, were the savage enemies of Weld.

Somehow they had to convince FitzFee that his suspicions were wrong. They had to turn his thoughts away from the Fell Zone and the walled city hidden in its center.

I will say we are from another island, Rye thought feverishly. I will say our boat was wrecked on the shore of Dorne and that we have been wandering….

“Master FitzFee, we came here —” he began.

“Don’t say any more, friend,” FitzFee said gruffly, without turning his head. “I don’t want to know another thing about you, and what I do know I’m going to forget from now. These are dangerous times, and I’ve got my family to consider.”

He looked back at Rye and Sonia again. His face was very serious, but his eyes had softened with what looked curiously like respectful pity. He thrust his cap at Rye.

“Put this on,” he ordered. “You can keep it — I’ve got plenty more. And let’s say no more about this business. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a couple of ordinary, lost young travelers, see? How would a humble goat farmer know any different? You understand me?”

Speechless, they nodded.

“Very good!” FitzFee waited till Rye had put on the knitted cap and pulled it right down over his ears. Then he straightened his shoulders, thrust his hands into his pockets, and gazed up at the dazzling sky.

“Lovely morning, isn’t it?” he remarked, in quite a different tone. “So! What will you do now, young travelers? Can a humble goat farmer do anything more to help you?”

Rye took a chance. “You can help us to find our way home,” he said carefully. “Home … to Oltan.”

Bless my heart!” FitzFee gasped, quickly crossing his fingers and wrists again. “ Oltan? Just before Midsummer Eve? Have you lost your senses? You, of all people, shouldn’t be —”

He suddenly broke off and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as if to rub out the words he had been about to say. No doubt, Rye thought, he had remembered that he was supposed to be a simple goat farmer helping two lost strangers he knew nothing about.

“Surely you will not refuse to show us our way home?” Sonia urged, keeping up the story they all knew to be a lie.

FitzFee looked left and right, plainly not knowing what to do. Then, abruptly, he gave in.

“The turnoff to Oltan’s not too far ahead,” he mumbled, his lips barely moving. “There’s a signpost — you can’t miss it. You just stay on that road, and in the end, you’ll get to Oltan. When you get to Fleet — it’s just beyond those hills you can see on the horizon — you’ll know you’re about halfway.”

Rye stared in dismay at the distant hills. How long would it take to walk that far?

“Oh, dear,” groaned Sonia. Ruefully she looked down at her slippers, which were already worn almost to rags.

FitzFee heaved a gusty sigh.

“As it happens, Popsy and I are going to Fleet,” he said reluctantly. “We can take you that far if … if you’re sure —”

“We are!” Rye exclaimed in heartfelt relief. “Thank you, Master FitzFee.”

“Say nothing of it,” the little man muttered, looking far from happy. “Just you keep your heads down, and when we get to Fleet, remember who you are.”

“Lost young travelers,” said Sonia obediently.

“Quite!” FitzFee nodded. “The Fleet people don’t want trouble any more than I do. Especially now, when they’re —”

Again he broke off, clearing his throat, and plainly thinking better of what he had been about to say.

It sounded as if the people of Fleet had a secret, too. Rye wondered what it could be, and whether it had anything to do with Midsummer Eve.

But FitzFee had already begun trudging toward the road. He was making it very clear that as far as he was concerned, the subject was closed.

Very soon afterward, Rye and Sonia were jolting along in the green cart, being nuzzled enthusiastically by six large and curious goats.

Popsy had been thrilled to hear that her father was going to give the lost travelers a ride to Fleet. As Rye climbed into the cart, she gazed at him with embarrassing admiration.

“You run very fast,” she lisped. “Fast and faster! Are you a magic man?”

“Don’t talk foolish, Popsy!” her father ordered, shaking the horse’s reins, and the little girl giggled and hid her face in her hands.