The Golden Door

Rye slept heavily on his bed of straw. His sleep was filled with dreams of raging bonfires, of dark stone passages, of chains, weeping, and blood. And threading through the dreams like a repeating pattern were images of Dirk, face blackened and fists clenched, repeating over and over again: “Make haste! Time is short. It is almost Midsummer Eve.”

Rye woke with a start, a beam of sunlight shining straight into his eyes through a split in the roof. He sat up, confused and panic-stricken. How long had he slept? How much precious time had been lost?

Calling urgently to Sonia, he grabbed the bell tree stick and crawled to the door. His legs and back were aching. His skin itched, and his clothes were stiff with dried mud and slime. Feverishly he unbarred the door and pushed out into the light.

He staggered to his feet and took a few stumbling steps forward, his heart still pounding with the panic he had felt on waking. He stared dazedly over bumpy sunlit fields and distant hills, his eyes watering.

Everything looked shockingly bright. The sky above him was a great bowl of cloudless blue — dazzling and unnatural. Behind him, he heard Sonia calling sleepily from the shelter.

Then he heard another sound — a low, menacing sound. And it, too, was coming from somewhere behind him.

His heart seemed to stop. Slowly he looked back.

And there, looming from the side of the shelter, lumbering around the corner to hulk between Rye and the open doorway, was the horned beast.

The beast looked even more fearful in daylight. Its shaggy coat was matted with mud, burrs, and the dried blood of its kills. Its tiny eyes flamed with the hunger of its long hours of waiting. The single yellow-white horn, sharp as a blade, gleamed in the sun as the creature pawed the ground, its foaming jaws stretched into that hideous, grinning, blunt-toothed snarl.

Time seemed to stand still. Thoughts flew and tumbled over one another in Rye’s mind, flashing choices at him like a handful of playing cards thrown high into the air.

He could try to dodge around the shelter and get up onto the roof, but the beast was too close. It would be upon him before he could even begin to climb. If he ran toward the road, the creature would certainly catch him before he even reached the flattened fence. If he turned and made for the open fields, he might last a little longer, but the result would be the same.

The fact was, the beast would easily catch him whichever way he ran. He had seen its speed. But run he must, as fast as he could, and not just to try to save himself.

Sonia was in the shelter. At the very least, he had to lead the beast as far away from her as he could, so she had the chance to shut and bar the door.

Rye glanced to his left, to the grove of trees. There was a low-branching tree at the edge nearest the road. He knew it was his best chance.

The beast lowered its head and charged.

Rye yelled, threw the stick wildly, and ran.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the beast wheel and come thundering after him. He could hear the creature’s grunting bellows and the pounding of its hooves already drawing closer, closer to his heels. The grove of trees seemed very far away.

Run faster, he urged himself in terror. Faster!

And then, suddenly, the low-branched tree was right in front of him. Suddenly he was flinging himself up onto the lowest branch, seizing a higher one with sweating, trembling hands, and climbing up, up….

How have I done this? he thought in confusion as he climbed. How did I outrun it?

The tree shook as the beast battered its trunk, butting and tearing at it in fury. Rye wrapped his arms and legs around the branch he clung to, screwing his eyes shut, pressing his cheek against the rough bark.

Then there was a thud and a piercing squeal.

Rye opened his eyes and looked down.

The horned beast was lying at the foot of the tree. A metal spike was sticking out of its side. Its body jerked once, and was still.

“Got it!” a voice roared from the direction of the road.

Rye peered around the branch and blinked into the sun. A dark, chunky, child-sized figure in a green cap was standing just inside the flattened section of fence. The figure was lowering a glinting metal triangle that was plainly some sort of barbarian bow.

Behind the figure, pulled up in the middle of the road, was a bright green horse-drawn cart loaded with enormous bleating goats. Fixed to the cart’s side was a bold white sign.

Another figure, even smaller than the first and wearing a bunchy striped skirt, sat on the driver’s seat of the cart, punching the air with one hand and holding the horse’s reins with the other.

“Good shot, Dadda!” the figure in the cart cried, and at the same moment, Rye realized with a shock that the person at the fence was not a child at all but a very short man.

“Ho there!” the short man called, waving to Rye. “You can come down now!” He slung the weapon over his shoulder and began striding toward the tree.

Rye clung to his branch, staring in disbelief. Who were these people, who looked like sturdy children but carried weapons strong enough to slay monsters? And how rich, or how mad, must they be, to use a horse to draw their cart, while their giant goats rode?

“Rye!” The bell tree stick clutched in her hand, Sonia ran into Rye’s view and came to a skidding halt below him. She looked up, laughing with relief. “Rye, come down! The beast is dead!”

“Dead as a doorknob,” the short man agreed, joining her under the tree and nudging the fallen beast with the toe of his boot.

“How can we ever thank you, sir?” cried Sonia. And to Rye’s enormous surprise, she dropped a graceful curtsy, which looked very odd indeed in comparison with the mud-smeared rags she wore.

“Ah, say nothing of it!” the little man said, pulling off his green knitted cap and bowing magnificently. “Magnus FitzFee at your service. Always glad to help a stranger in a fix. And I hate bloodhogs anyhow.”

Casually placing his foot on the dead beast’s shaggy side to brace himself, he began heaving at the spike jutting from the body.

“We come along, and there’s the boy running like a streak of lightning with the bloodhog after him, see,” he grunted, pulling at the spike with all his might. “And I say to Popsy, ‘Bless my heart,’ I say, ‘look at that! Did you ever see a fellow run that fast, even with a bloodhog after him?’ And Popsy, she says she never has.”

With a final, determined heave, he pulled the spike free. Its wicked barb and the lower half of its shaft were thick with dark blood. He crouched to wipe it on the grass.

“So then I say, ‘Well, he’s got to the tree, but that won’t do him much good if we don’t give him a hand, will it? Bloodhogs never give up, Popsy, as you know,’ I say. ‘That mean old specimen will have that tree down in the end. And then that champion young fleet-of-foot will be minced meat in two minutes flat.’”

Sonia smiled and nodded. High in his tree, Rye shuddered.

Having cleaned the spike to his satisfaction, Magnus FitzFee stood up.

“And Popsy says I’m dead right,” he went on, stowing the spike in a leather pouch he carried on his back. “So I stop the cart, and get my old crossbow out from under the seat, and do the business. Nothing to it!”

He glanced up at Rye, clearly wondering why he was still in the tree.

“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.”