The Silver Door (7 page)

T
he skeleton man watched avidly as Rye, Sonia and Dirk read the sign. ‘Bones sees!' he cackled. ‘Bones sees your eyes a-reading along! You know your words all right, lords an' lady! See this one?' With a long, yellow fingernail he stabbed at the word ‘death'.

‘Stay where you are,' Dirk murmured to Rye and Sonia, his lips barely moving. He stepped forward, tightening his grip on the skimmer hook.

‘That's “death” that is,' the skeleton man said, nodding madly. ‘That's one Bones knows.' He jabbed at the second word on the sign. ‘An' “Saltings”, that's another.'

‘Indeed,' Dirk agreed politely. ‘And what of this?' Without taking his eyes off the stranger, he pointed to the strange symbol that followed the warning message.

Bones blinked rapidly. His hand crept up to the beads hanging around his neck and he began to finger them one by one, muttering under his breath. With a thrill of disgust, Rye realised for the first time that they were not beads at all, but human teeth.

‘Well?' Dirk asked roughly, tapping the symbol.

Bones cringed. ‘Is the mark,' he mumbled, his ridged yellow nails clicking feverishly on his repulsive necklace.
‘His
mark. The Master.'

The last words were no more than a hoarse whisper. Rye's own spine tingled in response to the man's terror. He felt Sonia grip his arm, but did not turn to look at her. He could not tear his eyes away from the symbol on the sign.

It was just a hand enclosed in a circle. There was a fuzzy white spot in the centre of the hand's palm, as if a light was burning there. Surely there was nothing so terrible in that. Yet as he stared at it, Rye felt dread gathering like a cold cloud around his heart.

‘The Master,' Dirk repeated slowly. ‘Your master rules this side of Dorne, does he?'

Bones stared, his mouth hanging open. ‘Bones don't know sides,' he said at last. ‘Bones only knows the Scour, an' the Saltings.'

‘What—where—is the Scour?' Dirk snapped.

Bones waved his arm helplessly at the flat, bare land. ‘All here, till where the Saltings starts.'

‘And it is death to enter the Saltings, is it?'

Again Bones nodded. And then, weirdly, though
his eyes remained fearful, his lips twisted into a crooked smile. He looked over his shoulder as if to make absolutely sure that no one else was listening. Then he leaned forward.

‘For most it is,' he whispered. ‘But not for Bones. Bones be too much for the Master that way. An' not for you, lords an' lady—no, no, no! You be too much for the Master as well, you three.'

A look of cunning appeared on his face. He tapped the side of his nose.

‘Bones knows. Bones sees it with his own two eyes! Hand in hand you comes, treading the Saltings like the wizard kings in the ol' tales. You sees the castles of stones, an' you follow, follow. An' the whiners, big as they are, and hungry for your blood, they don't dare come near.'

‘You were watching us!' Impulsively Rye moved forward, ignoring Dirk's angry hiss of warning. ‘I felt you, but I could not see you!'

The thin man tittered. ‘No one sees Bones in the Saltings. Bones squirms on his belly in the Saltings, flat as a twisty snake. You don't see Bones. But Bones sees you!'

His cackling broke off in a squeak of fright as Dirk lunged for him, reaching for his throat. With a cry Rye threw himself between them, and Dirk staggered back with a grunt of anger and surprise as the armour shell repelled him.

‘Let him be, Dirk!' Rye yelled. ‘He is harmless.'

‘Harmless?' Dirk spat. ‘He was spying on us! By the Wall, he was taunting us with it! This is no time for squeamishness, Rye. Stand aside and leave this to me!'

But Rye shook his head. He could feel the old man's confusion as well as his fear. And with a colder part of his mind he knew that Bones would tell them far more if they were kind to him than if they threatened him.

He turned to Bones, who was cringing against the pyramid frantically clicking his horrible beads.

‘I am sorry, Bones,' he said gently. ‘My brother was mistaken. He thought you were threatening us.'

‘Bones is no spy,' the old man croaked. ‘The Master has spies—many an' many! But Bones is not one of them. Bones is … only Bones.'

‘We understand that now,' Rye said, still in that same, gentle voice. ‘You have no more to fear from us.'

Bones wet his lips and at last nodded warily. Rye beckoned urgently to Dirk and Sonia. Dirk, his face thunderous, took no notice, but Sonia moved cautiously forward.

‘We are glad to meet you, sir,' she murmured, dropping one of her surprisingly graceful curtseys.

The curtsey looked as odd as ever to Rye. No doubt it was perfectly proper in the Keep of Weld, but it contrasted very strangely with Sonia's grubby orphan clothes.

Bones, however, was clearly impressed. His face full of awe, he abruptly folded his angular body into a bow so deep that his nose nearly touched his knees.

‘A honour,' he mumbled, straightening with a great rattling of beads and cracking of joints. ‘A honour, great lady!'

‘Bones,' Rye said carefully, ‘is there somewhere nearby where we could talk in safety?'

Bones' mouth stretched into that impossibly wide, toothless grin. “Course!' he crowed. ‘Den's not far up along. Wait! Wait!'

He jumped off the track and loped away to the left, the tooth necklaces bouncing and clicking on his chest. Reaching a low hump in the ground, he bent and began to scrabble in the earth, throwing dust aside by the handful.

Rye glanced at Dirk, who was clearly still very angry. ‘I am sorry, Dirk,' he said in a low voice. ‘But you were wrong. Bones is no danger to us, and he can help us—I know he can.'

‘And I know that you are listening to your heart instead of your head,' Dirk growled. ‘You are not in Weld now, Rye! You are not even in the part of Dorne we know. Olt's sorcerer brother rules here, and by the sound of it he is worse than Olt himself. Bones is terrified of him, and ten to one will betray us!'

‘What is he doing?' Sonia whispered, jerking her head at the old man, who was now almost hidden in the cloud of dust he had raised.

‘Digging up something he has buried, by the looks of it,' said Dirk in disgust. ‘By the Wall, the sun will be setting soon. How long do we have to wait?'

But in fact Bones had not buried his treasure, it seemed. He had just disguised it under a thin layer of dirt so it would be safe from prying eyes. The hump in the ground was quickly revealed to be a large object draped in a cloth made of many odd pieces of fabric sewn together. Bones glanced at the companions and, having made sure that they were watching, triumphantly whipped away the cloth, showering himself with dust.

The thing beneath the cloth was a large sled with two long shafts at one end. It looked a little like one of the sleds that Weld Wall workers used to move loads of newly made bricks across the slick, wet mud of the trench. It was heaped high with what looked like pieces of bleached wood.

Bones draped the cloth around his shoulders like a cloak and knotted two of its corners under his chin. Then he backed into the space between the sled's shafts. Gripping one shaft in each enormous hand, he came lolloping back, the sled bumping behind him.

As the sled slid down onto the pebbles of the track, Rye caught his breath. The entire vehicle was made of bones lashed together with leather thongs and rusty wire. Most were too large to be goat bones and too small to have belonged to a horse. Rye could not imagine what animal they had come from. And the
load was not wood, but a mass of even larger bones—the biggest Rye had ever seen. Right in the centre of the sled, carefully wedged in so it would not be damaged, was a vast animal skull from which jutted a wickedly sharp yellow-white horn.

‘By the Wall—a cursed bloodhog!' Dirk muttered, unconsciously rubbing the healed wound on his side.

Sonia wrinkled her nose in disgusted horror. No doubt, Rye thought in grim amusement, animal skeletons were not everyday sights in the polite world of the Keep. They had become all too familiar in the rest of Weld since the skimmer invasions began.

‘Out of the sky he come!' Bones grinned, plainly delighted by their reactions. ‘A wonder, it were! Sky serpent bird, he lets ol' bloodhog go, right up high, an' down ol' bloodhog come, bang into the Saltings! Never did Bones see such a thing in all his born days!'

With a stab of excitement, Rye remembered a very similar story told on one of the scraps of Sholto's notebook. Sholto, too, had seen a gigantic bird suddenly drop its prey and fly away.

Had Sholto and Bones both witnessed the same event? Surely they had, if Bones thought it such a wonder. And that meant that Bones and Sholto had been in this area on the same day. They might even have met, as Sholto left the Saltings!

Rye longed to question the old man about it, but decided it was better to wait until they were on their way. The light was fading fast now, and Dirk was
glancing uneasily at the cloudy sky.

Bones seemed quite unconcerned by the approach of night. He was nodding happily.

‘Big ol' bloodhog!' he crowed. ‘He be treasure for Bones an' the Den when he all picked clean, Bones says to hisself when he sees him first. An' today he be finished, shiny white, so Bones loads him an' brings him out. An' while he's a-doing that, Bones sees you! So Bones hides sled while he waits. An' out you comes from the Saltings, sure enough! An' now here we all is, good as gold!'

He turned his gummy grin on Sonia and gestured proudly at the sled. ‘Climb on, lady!' he said. ‘You be riding in fine style, as is fitting.'

‘Oh, no!' Sonia exclaimed, backing away from the bloodhog skull in horror.

‘Sonia means that she would far rather walk with you, Bones,' Rye put in quickly, seeing the old man's face fall. ‘But she thanks you kindly for your offer.'

He glared at Sonia until she forced a feeble smile and nodded.

Bones looked at her admiringly. ‘A true an' gracious lady, you,' he said. ‘A fine lady, like in the olden tales. Walk with Bones, then, and we'll go up-along like friends together.'

‘Is this Den place far from here?' Dirk demanded, glancing yet again at the sky.

‘A step or two,' grinned Bones. ‘But don't you mind about it—sky's a-darkening now, an' ol' sky
serpents, they hunt in the light.'

Rye wet his lips. ‘But surely sky serpents are not the only dangers,' he said. ‘Are there no other flying creatures to fear by night?'

‘No, no!' Bones said in obvious surprise. ‘Night's safe … ‘cept for bloodhogs, an' they be few in the Scour these days. Sky serpents has got most of ‘em.'

He waited courteously until Sonia and Rye had moved to his right hand side, and Dirk, frowning in puzzlement, had taken the place on his left. Then he seized the shafts of his sled and set off along the pebbly track at a great pace, with his companions hurrying along beside him.

‘Bones,' Rye began, raising his voice to compete with the dull roar of the sled's runners rasping over the pebbles of the track, ‘how well do you remember the day when the bloodhog fell into the Saltings? I know it must have been a long time ago, but—'

Bones cackled. ‘A sad ol' change it'll be when Bones don't bemember that far back! Why, only three days past, it were, counting this one just ended!'

Swallowing a groan of disappointment, Rye tried to return the old man's grin. Sholto had left Weld over a year ago. He could not have been in the Saltings all that time. How could he have survived?

Clearly Dirk thought Bones was lying or simply had no idea of time.

‘Three days ago? That would mean the snails stripped a bloodhog to bare bones in
two nights
,' he
scoffed, jerking his head at the sled's rattling cargo.

Bones nodded violently. ‘Yes, indeed, lords an' lady. A man, now—a man lays down in the dark, anytime, an' by dawning he's a-picked clean, ready for Bones to collect. But ol' bloodhog, he took two full nights! That's how big he were.'

Rye's stomach turned over. He glanced across the sled at Dirk. Dirk stared back, his eyes dark with horror.

‘So the Saltings is clearly no place to spend the night,' Sonia muttered.

Rye jerked his head round to look at her. Sonia's face showed nothing but pleasure at having been proved right. Either she had not heard what Bones had said about collecting human bones, or she had not thought about what it might mean.

Rye turned his eyes to the front again, forcing himself not to look at the smooth white bones of the sled—the bones that were too big for a goat, and too small for a horse, but were just right for a human being.

F
orget the sled, Rye told himself firmly. Forget what Bones collects in the Saltings. The important thing is that he visits the place often—maybe every day! He still might have seen Sholto. Concentrate on that—think only of that. And ask Bones about it, while you have the chance.

‘Bones, about the pyramids—the castles of stones—in the Saltings,' he managed to say. ‘Did you see the man who made them? Did you speak to him?'

Bones nodded then shook his head. Sweat had already begun dripping down his hollow cheeks, making long, clean lines in the film of dust.

‘Bones sees sure enough, but that day Bones has better business than talking to wanderers doomed to die. That day, Bones be squirming in the Saltings like a twisty snake, to find where bloodhog corpus lies so to take the skin afore night come. Bones sees wanderer
piling stone on stone and he thinks, by tomorrow's dawning he'll be a skelington, that fellow, ripe for picking. An' maybe ol' bloodhog too! But ol' bloodhog, he took longer.'

Rye's breath caught in his throat, and his stomach twisted into a hard, painful knot. He could feel Dirk's eyes burning into him, but refused to look round.

Was it possible? Was it possible that, after all, Sholto had left the Saltings only three days ago? Perhaps. Perhaps he had set up camp in a place of safety—some part of the wasteland Rye, Dirk and Sonia had not seen.

‘You were wrong though, Bones,' Rye said, fighting to keep his voice even. ‘That man did
not
die in the Saltings, did he? He reached the end, as we did. He made that pile of stones back there, where we met you.'

‘So he do!' Bones nodded enthusiastically, pop-eyed with remembered surprise. ‘Well, there's another wonder, Bones says to hisself, when he sees that castle rearing up by the Master's sign next dawning. Ho, wonders be coming thick an' fast these days, Bones says to hisself. Omens they be, for certain sure, of a even greater wonder to come. An' so Bones tells them all, at the Den, an' now they'll find out ol' Bones spoke true. ‘Cos here you be, lords an' lady! Here you be, good as gold!'

‘Is that why you waited to talk to us?' gasped Rye, his chest aching with the effort of talking and running
at the same time. ‘Because you thought—'

‘That's it!' The old man glanced from side to side, greedily drinking in the sight of his companions. ‘Bones sees you and straight away Bones knows magic abides with you. Bones smells it!'

He ducked his head at Sonia and showed his gums. Her face froze.

‘Like flowers, it is,' the old man whispered. ‘Like new grass growing. Like clear water bubbling. Like the air at dawning afore …'

For a moment his watery eyes stared blankly, as if they were seeing something other than the pebbled track, the bleak horizon. Then he blinked, and his face brightened as he looked quickly from side to side again.

‘You be a wonder, you three,' he said, nodding as he raced along, the sled rattling and roaring behind him. ‘Hand in hand through the Saltings you comes. An' Bones says to hisself, there'll be nothing for you out of this, ol' fellow! The hungry shells won't get those three an' turn them to skelingtons in the dark, no fear! They'll come to the end on their own legs, like the wizards of old. And so you do, lords an' lady, so you do!'

Abruptly he swerved off the track to the left and began dragging the clattering sled over rougher ground where a few tufts of grass struggled for life.

Ahead, a cluster of low dirt mounds rose against the dull red sky.

‘Ho!' Bones bawled at the top of his voice. ‘Come see! Bones has got magic ones here! Magic lords an' lady to save us all! Come see, me hearties! Come see!'

Puffs of dust began to erupt from the blunt tips of the mounds. The puffs became clouds, and powdery earth began to trickle downwards. In moments every mound had sprouted a tousled head, and dozens of startled eyes were peering at the newcomers.

‘Come see!' Bones cried, beckoning madly.

People began crawling out of the mounds. The sight was eerie and very disturbing. It was like watching the dead rising from their graves.

The mound people wore a bizarre assortment of rags in many different styles, and under the dust it was clear that their hair and skin were of many different shades. But all of them looked past middle age, all were as wretchedly thin as Bones, and, most startling of all, their hands and wrists were stained bright red, as if they had been dipped in blood.

Cursing under his breath, Dirk stepped quickly over the sled shafts to join Rye and Sonia.

‘What has happened to their hands?' Sonia whispered, staring at the walking skeletons.

‘Jell-stained, by the look of it,' Dirk said. He glanced at her, saw that she had no idea what he was talking about, and shook his head.

‘I daresay you have never dug in the earth in your life, Sonia,' he said, with a trace of scorn. ‘If you had, you would know that every now and then you
break into a seam of jell. Jell is bright red, soft as butter, and stains whatever it touches. It is a great nuisance in the Wall trench. Even a trace of it spoils a brick—stops the mud from drying. It has to be cleared away very carefully, using thick gloves to protect the skin.'

‘Indeed,' Sonia replied with icy politeness. ‘Well, thank you for the lecture—though perhaps you could have saved the boring details for another time, when we are not about to be overwhelmed by—'

‘Hush,' Rye hissed. ‘Be still, and for Weld's sake look confident! Bones has told these people we are wizards, so wizards we must be.'

And if they want magic, we will show them some, he thought. He touched the armour shell to make sure it was still fixed securely on his little finger. He took Sonia's arm, and, understanding, she took Dirk's.

The moving people were closer now. Rye could see their starved faces, their hollow, staring eyes.

At the head of a crowd was a haggard woman. Her long, grey-streaked black hair had fallen out in patches and what was left hung in greasy tails around her face. A knife of sharpened bone hung from a cord at her waist. As she walked, she muttered to the two gaunt men on either side of her, barely moving her lips. The men nodded slightly. Rye saw that they, too, carried knives in their belts.

‘I do not like the look of that trio,' Dirk growled.

‘Whatever happens, do not move,' Rye muttered back. ‘Trust the shell. We must convince them—'

‘What is this, Bones?' demanded a limping man who was leaning on a stick, and whose beaky nose and sunken eyes were almost completely hidden by his matted hair and beard. ‘You know better than to bring strangers here.'

‘Come see, Cap!' shouted Bones. Springing into the crowd, he seized the speaker's arm and bustled him forward. As the man came fully into view, Rye saw with a shock that he limped because his right leg had been replaced below the knee with a peg of bone.

‘Out of the Saltings they come, Cap, good as gold!' chattered Bones, gesturing grandly at Rye, Dirk and Sonia as if he was presenting royalty. ‘They be too much for the Master, these three!'

The crowd murmured, eyeing the visitors suspiciously. The haggard woman spat contemptuously in the dust.

‘Watch your tongue, Bones!' the one-legged man warned.

Bones laughed uproariously. ‘Bones says what he likes now, Cap!' he carolled. ‘Us be all safe now, me hearty! Magic ones be with us now!'

‘They're spies, you dunderhead!' the haggard woman said in a low, rasping voice. ‘More of the Master's spies!
Now!'

As she shouted the last word, she and the two men flanking her snatched their knives from their belts and threw themselves at Rye, Dirk and Sonia.

The attack was so sudden, and so violent, that
even though Rye had been half expecting it, he found it impossible not to flinch. But his terror lasted only a split second. One moment his ears were ringing with Cap's angry shout and Bones' shrieks of protest, and all he could see were bared teeth, red-stained hands and the wicked points of knives. The next moment the three attackers had bounced backwards and were sprawling in the dust at his feet.

Cries of fear and amazement rose from the crowd. Many people fell to their knees, crossing their fingers and their wrists. Bones howled with delight.

‘Bones told you!' he yelled, capering around the three on the ground, his dusty cloak flapping like the wings of some tall, bony bird. ‘Magic ones! Come out of the Saltings to save us, as was foretold!'

‘Shut your mouth, you crazy old fool!' the woman snarled. Sullenly she clambered to her feet, dusting her hands on her filthy skirt, which seemed to have been made from the remnants of many other garments roughly cobbled together. The two men stood up, too, glowering and rubbing their heads.

‘Sorcerers!' one of them said bitterly. ‘You've brought death to us all, Bones—death, or worse. They're servants of the Master!'

‘We are no one's servants!' cried Sonia, her eyes blazing in fury, her face still pale with the shock of the attack. ‘How dare you say so? Your tyrant master is as much our enemy as he is yours!'

The kneeling people cowered, darting terrified
looks at the sky. Bones whimpered, rattling his beads in agitation.

‘There!' shrieked the haggard woman. ‘She's trying to trick us into betraying ourselves! Only see the magic crackling in her hair and sparking from her witch's eyes!'

‘You have nothing to fear from us, I swear it,' Rye said, glancing angrily at Sonia, who tossed her head and turned away. ‘We mean you no harm!'

‘If we did, we would have done far more than simply defend ourselves when we were attacked, I assure you,' Dirk added quietly, raising the skimmer hook.

In the dead silence that followed, the one-legged man called Cap limped forward, leaning heavily on his stick. He pushed aside his straggly hair and peered first at Dirk, then at Sonia and Rye. His eyes were grey and very shrewd.

‘You see it, Cap?' Bones begged. ‘You see how it was right to bring them up-along? You feel the wonder of them?'

‘Yes indeed,' Cap said slowly, his eyes still fixed on the visitors. ‘You can leave them in my care now, Bones. Take the sled over to the Den, there's a good fellow. Four-Eyes will be by very soon and we don't want to miss him, do we? Not tonight.'

Bones hesitated, glancing uncertainly from Rye, Sonia and Dirk to his loaded sled as if he could not decide which he valued more.

‘Go, Bones,' his leader coaxed. ‘You'll move more quickly alone. If Four-Eyes comes, let him look, but on no account agree to a trade. I'll be with you as soon as I can.'

Bones gave a shuddering sigh, and nodded. He bowed to Rye, Dirk and Sonia and backed between the shafts of the sled. As he turned the vehicle around, the watching people gained a clear view of the great pile of bones and the mighty skull of the bloodhog for the first time. The sight seemed to drive everything else from their minds. They all jumped up, exclaiming in excitement.

Bones' hollow chest swelled. His face split into a gummy grin. ‘Told you!' he bellowed over his shoulder. ‘Told you ol' bloodhog were a wonder! Wait till Four-Eyes sees him! Ho, we'll feast tonight, me hearties!'

The sled rattling behind him, he loped back the way he had come, quickly disappearing into the gathering shadows.

‘May a sky serpent take the old loon!' the haggard woman muttered.

‘Take care what you wish for, Needle,' Cap replied mildly. ‘Who else would dare enter the Saltings and bring out the bones that keep us all alive? You?'

Needle scowled and turned away.

‘Finish here while I deal with our guests,' Cap called to the gaping, whispering crowd. ‘Floss, will you—?'

‘Oh yes, I'll bring your pickings along, Cap, for
what they're worth,' grinned an old woman whose skin was so webbed with fine lines that it looked like well-used leather. ‘It's painful enough watching you climb down the hole once a day, without watching you do it twice.'

‘So kind,' the man replied with a smile and a mocking bow.

The exchange broke the tension. A few people laughed. Needle and her two henchmen scrambled up a large mound and crawled into the hole at the top one by one. Then Floss and the others disappeared into their own mounds, and soon only Rye, Sonia, Dirk and Cap remained above ground.

In the silence that followed, the companions became aware of an ominous growling, panting sound in the distance. Rye's skin prickled. He felt Sonia grip his arm more tightly.

‘What is that?' Dirk asked sharply.

‘Nothing that concerns you,' snapped Cap, whose smile had vanished the moment they were alone. ‘Come with me.'