The Golden Door (19 page)

N
odding inside the white-furred hood of his purple velvet cloak, Olt’s face was like a death’s head. His thin, seamed lips had shrunk back from his yellowed teeth. His skin hung over his bones, blotched with rough, gray-green patches that looked like fungus. His hands, clutching the coils of his bizarre throne, were like the hands of a skeleton.

But his sunken eyes, ringed in shadow, were burning. And they seemed to be looking straight at Rye.

The door clicked and began to creak open. Rye jumped aside, muffling the light crystal under his jacket, his heart crashing in his chest.

Bern the Gifter appeared in the doorway. He had taken off his helmet, but his black club was in his hand. He looked around the landing. Flattened against the wall, Rye crossed his fingers and wrists.

“There’s no one here, my Chieftain,” Bern said.

“I felt a presence,” a cracked voice whispered. “Look again!”

Bern frowned down the steps, then glanced around the landing once more.

“There’s no one here, my Chieftain,” he repeated, turning back into the room. “Perhaps you felt one of the prisoners waking. The two new ones were definitely regaining consciousness when we arrived. Shall I …?”

Eagerly he raised the black club.

“No!” Olt rasped. “Leave them! I have control of them. You are far too free with your scorch, Bern! Thanks to you, one of the sacrifices is damaged. Only look at her!”

Rye caught his breath. Sonia! Without considering the danger, he whirled around and pressed the crystal to the wall. Instantly the stones seemed to dissolve before his eyes, and he had a clear, sharp view of another part of Olt’s chamber.

One part of his mind registered with relief that the crystal was not failing after all and that iron must simply lessen its power. The rest of his attention was fixed on what he was seeing.

The stiff, glittering coils of Olt’s sea serpent throne were to the right of the picture now. Not far beyond them, seven figures lay in line. Their eyes were closed. They floated a handbreadth above the floor, as straight and rigid as if they were suspended on invisible wires.

There were three males and four females. Sonia was one of them. She lay beside Faene D’Or, the fiery golden red of her hair trailing on the stones, which seemed to be spattered with gleams of light.

Rye gaped at the seven floating figures, trying to accept what he was seeing.

The prisoners were here, in Olt’s chamber! But they were supposed to be in the holding pit in the dungeons. The notice given to the guards on the gate had clearly stated it.

Most of the seven might have been asleep in their own beds, so peacefully did they lie. Only Sonia’s face showed signs of tension. Only her eyelids flickered, as if she was trying to resist the spell that held her motionless in a charmed sleep.

Rye’s heart was wrung. It was terrible to see Sonia still fighting, trying to open her eyes as if this would give her some control over what was happening to her.

Sonia, I am here!
he tried to tell her in his mind.
I have found you! Do not despair!

Sonia’s brow wrinkled slightly. And Rye thought that for a moment the lines of strain on her face lessened, almost as if she had heard him.

Olt’s breathy, rasping voice floated through the open door, cutting through his thoughts.

“The scrawny one was badly weakened by her second scorching. See for yourself!”

A skeletal hand, rattling with loose gold rings and horribly patched with gray-green, appeared in
Rye’s view over the serpent coils. It was gesturing not at Sonia but at the smallest of the floating prisoners.

The girl looked frail as a bird. Her short black hair was dull and lifeless. Her eyelids were veined with blue. Her mouth hung a little open, showing small, crooked teeth, and her skin was bleached to the color of old parchment.

“I had to scorch her a second time, my Chieftain,” Bern was whining. “We had no choice. She tried to escape when we moved her from the pit.”

Hearing the fear in his voice, Rye reflected grimly that the swaggering Bern was a very different man when he was dealing with his master.

“The second dose would not have harmed her if she had not been scorched too heavily when she was first taken!” snapped Olt.

“I’m sorry, my Chieftain,” Bern mumbled. “As I told you, the girl was hiding in a goat house, behind the beasts. Several scorch beams meant for the animals hit her instead. It was an error. The men responsible have been punished.”

Rye stared at the small, black-haired girl floating helplessly just above the ground, her arms crossed on her chest. Words scratched over and over again on a rough stone wall came vividly into his mind.

How long had this young girl hidden herself in that lonely shelter, scratching her plea on the wall over and over again as if it were a talisman that could keep her safe? Hours? Days? Weeks?

And it had all been for nothing. The Gifters had found her — felled her goats and dragged her out of her hiding place like a stalker bird plucking a snail from its shell.

Olt’s hand made an impatient gesture and fell heavily onto the serpent coils that formed the arm of the throne. Silver scales pattered to the floor like rain, to join the other gleaming fragments scattered there.

Dimly, Rye realized that the magic that preserved the serpent was beginning to fail. Just as the magic that preserved Olt himself was failing. The sorcerer and the symbol of his power were disintegrating together.

“The girl was not worth taking in any case!” snarled Olt. “She is a miserable specimen! Plain, ill-bred, and undergrown — barely acceptable! With her heart strained as well, she will be of little use to me. If time were not so short, I would demand a replacement.”

“Oh, my Chieftain —”

“But time
is
short, so I will not demand it,” Olt cut in coldly. “Fortunately for you, the two you brought to me today from Fleet will make up for the scrawny one’s weakness. The copper-head is strong — very strong.”

“I knew you’d be pleased, my Chieftain!” Bern babbled. “When I saw her —”

“She is a prize indeed,” said Olt. “You did well to find her. And yet …”

He paused, and his hand beat softly on the
preserved serpent coils, causing more scales to fall. When he spoke again, his voice was fretful and slightly slurred as if he were exhausted.

“And yet, why was she there to find? How could such a one have been left behind? It is a mystery. I do not like mysteries. Yet she is here, ripe for Gifting, and I cannot resist…. Bern, look outside again! I feel a presence, I tell you!”

Bern appeared in the doorway, looking uneasy. He gave the landing only the briefest of glances before turning back to his master.

“There’s no one, my Chieftain. My Chieftain, forgive me, but I should leave you to yourself. Controlling the prisoners, while at the same time holding the disguise spell over the decoys in the pit, is draining your strength. I’ll come back when —”

“Yes,” Olt said. “When you have the rebels. When you have them all!”

Rye gripped the wall, weak with horror. Why had he not seen this before? Sonia and the other captives were here because Olt was setting a trap for the rebels! Olt knew very well that Dirk and his band were inside the fortress. He
expected
them to make another attack on the holding pit. He was determined to capture them, once and for all.

I must warn them
, Rye thought frantically.
Somehow I must find them, and tell them….

But he did not dare move. Olt was already suspicious. The slightest sound would alert him to the
fact that whatever Bern said, someone was indeed on the landing, watching and listening.

Someone with access to magic. Someone who could not be seen.

Rye knew that this must not happen. The light crystal, the hood, and the ring were the only weapons he had. If he were to have the smallest chance of helping Dirk and rescuing Sonia, those weapons must be kept hidden from Olt.

“The secret must be kept safe,” he heard Olt mumbling in a strange echo of his own thoughts.

“It is safe, my Chieftain,” Bern replied. “Except for ourselves, no one knows it but the seven Gifters who carried the prisoners to this chamber, then took their places in the pit.”

“And the Gifters guarding the pit?”

“They believe their prisoners are what they seem,” said Bern. “And if they die fighting the rebels, we can well do without them. The decoys in the pit are my finest men and fully armed. They know what to do.”

“Good. Then all is in place. You may go. And you had better pray the traitors attack as early as we hope they will. As you have so kindly pointed out, my strength is ebbing.”

The pale lips drew back even farther from the yellow teeth. More scales fell from the decaying serpent throne.

“The attack will come at any moment, my Chieftain,” Bern promised recklessly. “By now, the
rebels will have heard of your Special Orders. Their spies are everywhere. They’ll make their swoop as soon as they can, hoping to take the Gifters by surprise.”

“Then why do you wait here?” Olt muttered. “It may be happening at this moment! Go and see! But take care not to
be
seen. We do not want to rouse their suspicions.”

Bowing, Bern backed quickly out of the chamber. He kept his head low until the iron door clanged shut behind him. Then he straightened, and Rye caught a single glimpse of his strained, sweating face as he turned and hurried down the steps, quickly disappearing into the dimness.

Rye followed as fast as he could, his footfalls like dim echoes of Bern’s heavier tread. In moments, it seemed, he had reached the bottom of the steps. He glanced through the archway into the dark, deserted courtyard, then plunged after Bern into the foul-smelling stairwell that led down to the dungeons.

Cold sweat was beading his forehead. His mind was filled with pictures of Dirk — Dirk, dirty and unshaven, crawling through a tunnel barely wide enough to clear his broad shoulders, Dirk whispering to others crawling behind him.

No, Dirk! Rye thought frantically. Dirk, turn back! It is a trap!

But as he reached a gallery that overlooked a stone pit ringed with blazing torches and saw Bern smiling in the shadows, he knew he was too late.

Gifter guards sprawled unconscious on the floor of the gallery and around the pit. Ropes secured by iron spikes dangled over the pit edge, and the dark-clad figures clinging to the ropes had already almost reached the bottom.

Most of the rebels were making the descent clumsily, like the newest apprentice Wall workers. One was not. One was bounding down the side of the pit with the ease of long practice.

Dirk.

At the base of the pit, seven pale figures stood looking up. Four young women, three young men — exact copies of the prisoners in Olt’s chamber. The figures seemed to waver, as if seen through a mist, but Rye knew the rebels would not see that.

They would only see what they expected to see — seven helpless victims they were determined to save.

And so it was that, before he could utter a sound, Rye saw with his own eyes the seven prisoners transform into Gifters the moment the rebels’ feet hit the bottom of the pit. He saw the Gifters draw their weapons. He saw the rebels’ shocked faces, Dirk’s face among them. He heard whining sounds, high and low. He saw the yellow and blue flashes of the scorch beams flying.

And he saw the rebels fall. He saw Dirk, his brother, fall. And he saw Bern leaning back against the dank wall of the gallery, weak with relief, and laughing, laughing, laughing.

R
ye heard a terrible cry and realized it had burst from his own throat. He saw Bern spin around, scorch in hand, eyes bulging in shock. Then the scorch was wailing as Bern fired wildly at the intruder he had heard but could not see. Blue light sprayed the wall, just missing Rye’s shoulder.

Rye turned and ran. His feet barely touching the ground, he fled up the dungeon steps and out into the courtyard.

The gate was rasping open. The Gifters on guard outside had heard the wailing of the scorches and the muffled baying of their fellows in the pit. They were spilling into the courtyard, racing for the dungeons, pushing each other out of the way in their eagerness to reach the center of the excitement.

Rye flung himself heedlessly through the press of bodies. The Gifters did not notice him. They could
not see him. Every man thought it was his neighbor who had pushed him. None of them imagined for a moment that a shadow was rushing through their ranks, half mad with shock and grief.

Bursting out of the fortress into a world of salty wind and pounding waves, Rye hurtled down the track toward the city, blinded by tears and spray.

He had no idea where he was going. He just ran, ran like a wounded animal looking for a place to hide. He ran as if by running he could escape the memory of Dirk’s crumpling body, from the scalding knowledge of his own helplessness and failure.

The area before the fence, where the crowd had gathered, was deserted now. Rye saw the lights of the Flying Fish tavern and made for them merely because the tavern was a place he recognized. He stumbled to the corner of the low building, where he had hidden once before. And there, at last, his back to the wall, he slid to the ground.

He was shivering all over. The hood was cold and wet with spray, clinging to his neck and ears. The strings around his neck seemed to be strangling him. He tore the hood off and took great gulps of salty, foul-smelling air. A great wave of sickness swept over him. Moaning softly, he curled himself into a ball, screwed his eyes shut, and knew no more.

When at last Rye woke, he found himself staring into a pair of curious black eyes. He blinked. The eyes
disappeared, and Rye heard the sound of small feet running away. He puzzled over this for a moment but made no sense of it.

He was thinking about allowing his eyelids to droop again when he heard more footsteps. The steps were slower and heavier this time, and they were coming closer.

“My son tells me you’re awake,” a deep, vaguely familiar voice said.

A large figure towered over Rye. It was holding something that smelled delicious. Rye’s mouth watered.

“Sit up and take some soup,” the deep voice rumbled. “It’ll help.”

Rye pulled himself up into a sitting position. His head swam, and he swayed. The next moment, a strong arm was supporting his back, and a steaming mug was being held to his lips. He sipped obediently.

Hot, savory liquid slipped down his throat. Eagerly he sipped again, and again. His head began to clear. His surroundings came into focus.

He was in a dim wooden shed that smelled of fish, the sea, and serpent repellent. Golden light showed between the boards of the shed walls, on which tools and fishing nets hung. His boots stood neatly beside the sacks that made his rough bed. The bell tree stick lay with them.

The man crouched at his side had brown skin and thick, untidy black hair.

A name floated into Rye’s mind.
Hass.

And suddenly he remembered everything. The dreamy, comforting haze that had clouded his mind lifted like a veil, and the terrible happenings at the fortress glared at him in all their horror.

At the same moment, he understood what the golden lines of light between the shed boards meant.

With a cry, he struggled to get up, but the arm around his shoulders held him back. He struggled feebly, clawing at the coarse blanket that covered his legs, trying to beat off wave after wave of sickening dizziness.

“Stay where you are, boy,” Hass said impatiently. “You aren’t fit to get up yet.”

“What day is it?” Rye choked. “What day?”

There was a pause, then: “It’s Midsummer Eve,” Hass growled. “Did you think you’d slept through it? No such luck. There’s still an hour till sunset.”

Rye went cold. He must have turned pale, too, because Hass’s arm tightened around his shoulders.

“You’re safe, boy,” the deep voice said, more gently than before. “No one knows you’re here — only me and my wife, Nell, and our own boy, who was watching over you just now. Nell and I found you, on our way home last night. She told me she’d seen you earlier — told you to hide in the tavern.”

He looked at Rye inquiringly. Rye nodded, remembering Nell’s worried, sun-browned face.

“But there you were, lying under the stars for anyone to see,” Hass went on. “We couldn’t wake you.
You lay there like a log. Just exhaustion and hunger, Nell thought, but we couldn’t leave you in the open.”

“You are very kind,” Rye murmured.

He felt numb. Vaguely he remembered pulling off the gray hood. Where was it now? Still lying like a discarded rag behind the tavern? Perhaps by now it had blown into the sea. Or …

Another wisp of memory came to him. He looked down and saw that one of his fists was clenched. He forced his stiff fingers open. And there was the hood, pressed into a tight little gray ball.

He felt no relief, only dull despair. An enchanted silk hood that did not just disguise but completely concealed its wearer! A hood so fine that it could be hidden within a nutshell!

It was a miraculous power. Worn by the right person, it would surely have made all sorts of wonders possible.

But what did I do with it?
Rye thought bitterly.
I crept, and hid, and watched, without being able to lift a finger to change anything, stop anything, save anyone.

His mind filled with pictures of Sonia fighting to wake in Olt’s chamber, of Dirk falling, of Bern laughing. Fresh misery welled up in him. He felt for the little brown bag under his shirt. Yes, there it was, quite safe. Safe — and useless.

“We didn’t dare take you home, so we brought you here, to the boathouse,” Hass said gruffly. “That way, if the Gifters found you … well, we could just say
you’d got in by yourself, couldn’t we? Olt’s made cowards of us all.”

He sounded bitter and ashamed. Rye forced himself to speak.

“You are very kind,” he said again, looking up into the man’s troubled face. “Thank you for helping me.”

Hass grimaced. “We did little enough. But at least you had shelter, and now the danger’s almost past. Just stay here, out of the way, till it’s over. The Gifters won’t come looking. Olt can do without you. We heard there was another rebel attack last night, but it failed. Your fellow prisoners and the two replacements are still in the fortress.”

“You and Nell think I am one of the prisoners who were rescued the night before last!” Rye murmured, suddenly understanding.

“Of course!” Hass rumbled, his heavy brows drawing together. “Surely you aren’t going to insult me by trying to deny it? Don’t you trust me even now?”

He snorted in disgust and felt in his pocket.

“If you were not in the fortress, how do you explain this?” he demanded, holding out his hand.

Rye stared at the object balanced on the fisherman’s broad, calloused palm.

It was a paper-thin disc that gleamed silver as it caught the light.

“Where did you get that?” he gasped, his hand flying to the little bag hidden under his shirt.

“It was caught in the treads of one of your boots,” said Hass. “I saw it when I took your boots off last night. You’ve been in Olt’s fortress — in Olt’s very presence! Where else are sea serpent scales lying about underfoot?”

“Sea serpent scales …?” Rye’s voice trailed off as he stared at the shimmering thing on Hass’s palm.

He remembered scales showering from Olt’s failing serpent throne. Bern must have trodden some of the scales out of Olt’s chamber. And one had become wedged in the sole of Rye’s boot as he followed Bern down the steps.

As Hass watched him angrily, Rye lifted the cord from around his neck and felt in the little brown bag. The disc that had so puzzled him was still there, along with everything else. He drew it out and held it up to the light, feeling the familiar deep trembling begin in the pit of his stomach. The disc gleamed blue-green. Except for its color, it was the twin of the one in Hass’s hand.

Hass’s frown had deepened. Suddenly he looked suspicious as well as angry.

“Who are you, boy?” he asked in a low, menacing voice. “Who are you, a copper-head who wears a Fleet ring, yet carries around a sea serpent scale like a precious charm?”

“Fleet ring?” Rye repeated stupidly.

“A horsehair ring, from Fleet!” Hass thundered.
“There on your hand for all to see! Don’t act the innocent with me! Who sent you here?”

Rye looked at the shabby little ring on his finger with new eyes. Now Hass had pointed it out to him he could see that the plaited threads were not threads at all, but hairs — hairs from the tail or mane of a horse — a Fleet horse, the fastest of all horses.

Powers to aid you in your quest …

He wet his lips, turning his eyes to the disc gleaming between his finger and thumb.

If the Fleet horsehair ring, enchanted, gave him miraculous speed, what might the scale of a sea serpent do if steeped in the same magic?

His heart began to pound.

“Well?” Hass growled. “I’m waiting!”

Rye looked up at him. He saw the furious face, the black eyes narrowed with distrust. He remembered the argument in the tavern, and the lively, curious gaze of the boy who in seven years would be fifteen. He made up his mind.

“I am not a spy, if that is what you fear, Master Hass,” he said huskily. “I have no master — in Dorne or anywhere else — who wants to seize power from Chieftain Olt. But I must try to stop the sacrifice of the seven at sunset. I beg you to help me.”

And as Hass stared at him in blank amazement, a great bell began to toll.