The Golden Door (9 page)

Right across their path, strung between two trees, a slimy net sagged like a vast, crude spiderweb. And hanging in the web was the skeleton of a man, the bones picked clean.

Rye felt a roaring in his ears. His mind flew to Dirk, but almost at once, he realized that his fears were foolish. These pitiful remains were not Dirk’s. The bones showed that in life the dead man would not have been much taller than Crell. And instead of a skimmer
hook, a small hatchet lay half buried in leaves at the foot of the net.

“What has done this?” Rye whispered.

Sonia shuddered. She looked pale and sick.

“Who knows?” she muttered. “Some creature of the Fell Zone — one of the creatures stalking us now, no doubt. They are all around us. Can you not feel them?”

Rye nodded, his heart thudding. He felt breathless. Again he thought he caught a flicker of movement by the side of the path. He swung around with a gasp, his hand tightening on his stick, but still he saw nothing.

“We had better move on,” he said. “Soon the sun will set. And the skimmers …”

“Skimmers!” Sonia made an impatient sound. “Are skimmers all you can think of? You are as obsessed with them as everyone else in Weld!”

“Of course I am!” snapped Rye. “Because of the skimmers, I have lost my home and everyone I love! As you have yourself, Sonia! Or have you been so long in the safety of the Keep that you have forgotten?”

Sonia paused. An expression that might have been shame crossed her face. Then, without another word, she stepped from the path to move around the slimy net and its hideous burden.

And instantly the tree on that side seemed to come alive. What looked like a thick section of mottled bark peeled away, revealing itself to Rye’s horrified eyes as a huge, lizardlike beast, foul-smelling slime dripping from its snarling jaws.

T
he monster reared up on its hind legs and lunged at Sonia, its mottled tail lashing, a fan of spines and skin rising on the back of its neck. Sonia screamed and ducked, avoiding the snapping jaws by a hair, and ran for her life. The beast dropped to all fours and leaped after her, frighteningly fast.

Yelling in shock, Rye shrugged off his bundle, snatched up the dead man’s hatchet, and gave chase.

Ahead he could see flashes of red as Sonia wove frantically between the trees below him. The gigantic lizard was hurtling after her, gaining on her every moment. At first, it looked weirdly like a huge piece of tree bark careering down the slope, but in moments, its knobbly, scaly skin had begun to change, quickly taking on the nutty brown color of the dead leaves. Soon it was visible only because it was moving.

Rye pounded after it, slipping and sliding,
keeping his feet by a miracle. His heart felt as if it were bursting in his chest. The hatchet was in his hand. If only he could get a clear line of sight, he could throw it. His aim was usually good — not as good as Dirk’s, but good enough. Surely, even running, he could hit a target as large as this huge lizard. Injure it, at least. Delay it.

And then what? Then his only weapon would be the bell tree stick.

He could not think of that. He just had to keep running, waiting for the moment when …

He lost sight of Sonia behind a tangle of bushes. He could hear her sobbing gasps, but he could not see her. He could only see the beast, a surging, hissing mass of brown. For an instant, it was directly below him, but before he could hurl the hatchet, the creature had wheeled around the bushes and disappeared. Then, suddenly, Sonia burst into view again. She was glancing over her shoulder, her face twisted in terror.

The beast was right behind her. It was almost upon her. And ahead of her …

Rye went cold. “Sonia!” he bellowed. “In front of you! Beware!”

He saw Sonia’s head jerk as she heard him. She looked blindly ahead but did not see what Rye could see so clearly — the slimy strands of another crude net stretched across her path.

In horror, Rye saw the red figure run straight into the net. In horror, he saw her fixed by the
sticky, gleaming strings, struggling like a fly in a spiderweb. In terror, he saw a second monstrous, drooling lizard peel itself from the tree to which it had been clinging and lumber forward to claim its captured prize.

But the monster chasing Sonia was not willing to surrender its prey to a rival. Seeing the second lizard, it gave a harsh bellow and rose onto its hind legs, the fan of skin on the back of its neck deepening to bloodred.

The second lizard snarled and sprang. The next moment, the two beasts were locked in combat, biting, slashing, and hissing.

And so intent were they on destroying each other that Rye, reaching the place at last, was able to dart past them to the web in which Sonia was struggling.

Without the hatchet, he would never have been able to free her. The slimy, foul-smelling cords of the net stretched as he tore at them, sticking wherever they touched and threatening to trap him, too. But the hatchet, once he stopped panicking and thought to use it, sliced through the slimy strands like a knife cutting greasy string.

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.

Then the water began to ripple. It was as if a pebble had been thrown into the pool or a leaf had fallen. But no stone had been thrown. No leaf marred the dark surface.

The ripples were making a pattern. Rye felt his throat close as he saw a single word appear.