Emily Rodda - The Golden Door

Hass, Faene, and Sonia had all supplied parts of the story. Rye himself, dazed with weariness, shaking with shock, weak with relief, had said very little. He had spoken to Dirk only of what had happened at home since Dirk left. The hero of the hour, he sat now wrapped in a blanket and quietly sipping soup as he stared into the glowing coals of the fire.

Now and again, he looked at the palm of his hand and rubbed it thoughtfully, as if perhaps it was itchy or sore, though it looked perfectly normal and unmarked. Then he would touch the little brown bag that hung around his neck, as if to reassure himself that it was still where it ought to be.

Dirk wondered what his young brother was thinking about. At home, in the old days, he would certainly have asked. Here and now, it was different. A strange shyness gripped him at the thought of intruding on Rye’s silence.

At that moment, Rye looked up at him and smiled. And the smile was so familiar, so dearly familiar, that a lump rose in Dirk’s throat, and the feeling of awkwardness vanished.

“Does your hand pain you, Rye?” he asked quietly.

Rye shook his head. “Not now,” he said. “When first I was dry and the scale fell out, it did. But no longer.”

“Scale?” Dirk asked blankly.

“It had done its work,” said Rye, exchanging glances with Sonia. “It helped me get to you. Then it helped me hold the serpents back. I did not realize it at the time, but I have realized it since. They saw it, you see, when I held up my hand. It spoke to them, I think, like to like.”

Dirk stared at him, not knowing what to say to a brother who had saved his life but was now clearly wandering in his mind.

Rye smiled and yawned. “I am not making sense to you, I know,” he said. “I have so much to explain. I will tell you everything, Dirk — well, as much as I am able — on our way home tomorrow.”

Dirk sighed and gave it up.

“I did not find the source of the skimmers, Rye,” he said ruefully. “Olt was not the culprit. Evil as he was, he was concentrating only on keeping himself alive. No one in these parts has ever heard of skimmers. Perhaps Sholto has had better luck.”

“Perhaps.” Rye nodded sleepily. “We will go through the silver Door, and see.”

“We?” exclaimed Dirk. “But, Rye, I thought —”

“We,” Sonia put in firmly. “The three of us, or none of us.”

Rye shrugged at his brother’s horrified face.

“Believe me, Dirk,” he said, “it is better not to argue.”

And with that, for the moment, Dirk had to be content.

Turn the page for a sneak peek of The Silver Door , available April 2013!

The sorcerer Olt was dead. The island of Dorne was free of his tyranny at last. As the sun rose on Midsummer Day, Oltan city seethed with rejoicing people. Olt’s red banners lay trampled in the narrow streets. The dread stone fortress that for so long had glared over Oltan bay and out to the Sea of Serpents was a smoking ruin.

Olt had boasted that he would live forever, but Midsummer Eve had proved him wrong. Now, wild with relief and joy, most people were giving little thought to his other great boast — that his power threw a charmed circle around Dorne, protecting it from invasion by the Lord of Shadows in the west.

And Rye, the boy who had ended the tyrant’s reign of terror, was not thinking of Olt at all. Invisible beneath a magic hood that concealed him and everyone he touched, Rye was slipping quietly out of the smoke-filled city. The three he had saved from a terrible death — his friend Sonia, his brother Dirk, and Dirk’s sweetheart, Faene of Fleet — were by his side. His mind was fixed on home.

As the sun climbed higher and the hours passed, some drinkers in the packed taverns of Oltan began to wonder why Olt’s conqueror had not yet appeared among them, to claim their thanks. Others thought they knew and, over brimming tankards, loudly shared their views with anyone who would listen.

The hero of Midsummer Eve, these wise ones said, was on his way back to the east coast of Dorne, to report the success of his mission. The east was wild and barren, but there, it was rumored, Olt’s exiled younger brother had established a stronghold seven years before. If a boy with blazing red hair and magic at his command had not come from the exiles’ camp, where had he come from?

So the wise ones said — with perfect confidence, too. They would have been astounded to learn that Rye and his companions were in fact moving swiftly toward Dorne’s center, sped by a charmed ring, their goal an ancient walled city deep within the forbidden Fell Zone. The people of Oltan had never heard of Weld. They did not dream that any such place existed. As far as they knew, the dark forest at Dorne’s heart sheltered only monstrous beasts and the strange, magic beings called Fellan, who were best left well alone.

Only the four who had fled the city at first light could have told them differently, and it was far too late for that. By late morning, Rye, Sonia, Dirk, and Faene were already halfway to the Fell Zone and entering the deserted town of Fleet.

Rye, Dirk, and Sonia were anxious to reach the Fell Zone well before nightfall, but they had broken their journey for Faene’s sake. Faene knew that her people had fled Dorne. She knew that her town had been abandoned. Still, she could not pass it without a glance. She wanted to visit her parents’ grave. She wanted to say good-bye.

Fleet was a sad place now. A message of farewell had been scrawled on the sign that had once welcomed visitors. The horse fields were deserted. The graceful houses with their tall chimneys were closed and shuttered. The Fleet clinks, the little creatures whose ancestors had long ago hollowed out mighty rocks to make those chimneys, chattered in empty fireplaces, wondering where the people, and the people’s tasty food scraps, had gone.

The courtyard garden in the Fleet guesthouse looked as peaceful as when Rye had first seen it. The bell tree in the center stretched its branches over Faene as she knelt by the long, flat stone that marked her parents’ resting place.

As Rye gazed at the tree, pictures of home crowded his mind. His mother tending her beehives. His brother Dirk, home from work on the Wall, shouting a greeting as he swung through the garden gate. His other brother, Sholto, in the house, bent over his books after a long day helping Tallus the healer. Himself, the youngest, yawning over schoolwork in the shade of the bell tree that all his life had marked the passing of the seasons with its blossom, new leaves, golden fruit, bare brown branches …

That tree was gone — destroyed by the ravenous winged beasts called skimmers that flew over the Wall of Weld every night in summer, to hunt warm flesh.

Rye touched the sturdy stick he carried in his belt. It was all that remained of his family’s bell tree — all that remained of his old life.

His eyes stung. Looking hastily away from the tree, he caught a glimpse of the kneeling Faene and blinked back his tears. What was he thinking of, giving way to self-pity when Faene had lost so much?

There was no point in mourning his old, safe Weld life. Like the family bell tree, that life was gone — and gone for good, unless the skimmer attacks could be stopped.

For seven long summers, Weld had been a place of fear. Thousands of people and animals had died. Homes and crops had been destroyed. And the Warden of Weld had been exposed as the timid, stubborn leader he was. Only after there had been riots had he acted, challenging Weld’s heroes to go beyond the Wall and seek the Enemy who was sending the skimmers.