The Golden Door

And so it was that Rye of Weld sped with the aid of magic from Fleet to the coast of Dorne in a single afternoon. So he, for the first time in his life, saw the vastness and beauty of the sea that surrounded his island home.

So, just before sunset on the day before Midsummer Eve, he entered the city of Oltan and knew that it was the place that for two long years had haunted his dreams.

Oltan was a maze of blackened stone, a confusion of narrow, twisting streets that seethed with dark and desperate life. People of every shape, size, and color jostled one another heedlessly between grimy, towering walls.

Their faces were wild with excitement, twisted with rage, blank with despair. They cursed and spat, roared their anger, laughed for no reason. Above their heads, hundreds of red banners strung between buildings flapped and snapped in a fresh wind that did not seem to reach to the streets below. Every banner carried the same words.

Lost in the boiling throng, it was at first as much as Rye could do just to keep on his feet. His legs were trembling after his long run, but he was forced to keep moving, he knew not where. Dazed by the noise, the sights, the smells that beat at his senses, he was shoved mercilessly if he hesitated for a single moment to try to get his bearings. And he soon discovered there was no point whatever in trying to keep to the right.

He almost laughed as he thought of the old Weld rule.

There was no keeping to the right here. There was no order. There were no rules. There was only vigorous, pushing, frightening, brawling, selfish life.

Sweating food sellers wearing neither gloves nor clean white caps stoked the fires that kept their pots bubbling while they bawled to the passing crowds to come and buy.

Gaunt men and women crouched on every corner, holding up their cupped palms, begging for coins and crusts.

Drinkers of all ages spilled from the doors of taverns filled to bursting and roaring with heat and music.

Hairy, grinning creatures that looked a little like humans, but plainly were not, shambled through the crowd. Their nimble fingers lifted purses, watches, and even rings from the unwary, and passed the treasures on to the flashily dressed people who strolled casually beside them.

Strange, absurdly colored birds with curved beaks screeched on the shoulders of men with a rolling way of walking and faded, faraway eyes. The men themselves wore gold earrings, and their leathery skins were a patchwork of smudgy pictures that looked as if they had been burned on with a fiery pen.

The air was thick with the smells of stale sweat, hot food, spilled ale, spices, and blood. And pounding through the din of human and animal struggle was a deep, regular booming, like the beat of a gigantic heart.

Rye felt himself being pressed, slowly but surely, toward the source of the sound. It was as if the streets of the city were streams that might wander for a while but at last were compelled to flow to the sea.

And finally the sea lay before him, water and shore, separated from him only by a high metal net fence fluttering with flags. Here was Oltan Bay, broad and rippling, its headlands dark against the reddening sky. Here were white sands where waves made their small thunders and foam ran, hissing, up the beach. Here a grim stone fortress loomed, dominating the shoreline, frowning out at the sea.

Rye looked up at the fortress and the hair rose on the back of his neck. He could feel the evil of a vast, cold, selfish will beating at him from every slitted window, every ancient stone. He could feel it streaming through the bars that sealed the stronghold’s gateway like long black teeth.

And he could feel terror, too — terror, pain, and death. Not just from the fortress itself, but even more strongly from the huge, flat-topped rock that rose from the sand directly below it.

Thick iron rings had been hammered into the rock’s surface. The rings might have been used to tie up boats, but Rye knew this was not their purpose. A wooden walkway stretched down from the fortress to a square platform just above the beach, then ran on, sloping more steeply, to the top of the rock. Like the fence, the walkway looked raw and new, as if it had been built only very recently.

In readiness for Midsummer Eve.

Just one among hundreds, Rye pressed his face against the fence. He saw the waves crash. He saw the foaming water run up the beach, hiss against the base of the rock, and retreat, leaving clumps and strands of flabby weed behind it. He saw that every time a wave broke, the water surged a little higher, till at last there came a time when it did not retreat but remained swirling gently around the rock.

At first, his skin crawled at this evidence of Olt’s sorcery, so powerful that it could even control the waves of the sea. Then he suddenly realized that he was seeing with his own eyes something he had only read about before.

“The tide is rising!” he murmured aloud, tasting the words on his tongue. The man beside him glanced around, his sharp eyes curious, his red, beaky nose twitching.

Fortunately, at that moment, there was a stir in the crowd, and boots pounded on the walkway. Rye’s curious neighbor lost interest in him and turned quickly to look.

Men wearing the black helmets and scarlet tunics of Gifters were marching onto the rock, pulling a cart loaded with barrels. Ignoring the breathless, watching crowd, the Gifters began unloading the barrels and tipping their red, lumpy contents over the side of the rock, into the swirling water.

Rye smelled fresh blood. His stomach turned over.

“I daresay they’re glad this is the last time they’ll have to blood the waters, Dorrie,” he heard the man with the beaky nose comment to his companion, a hefty woman eating fried potato chunks from a greasy twist of paper. “I hear one of them slipped and got taken last night.”

“Sad,” the woman sighed, licking her fingers. “Still, it was his choice to be a Gifter. And the blooding has to be done, they say.”

“Of course!” the man said enthusiastically. “The serpents have to learn there’s a feed here for them at sunset, don’t they? Otherwise, we won’t have a good Gifting. They say five came in last night. I’ve bet on seven for Midsummer Eve. Seven’s my lucky number.”

The woman turned and peered at the sea. “Looks to me as if there’s more than that out there now,” she said placidly. “I’d say you’ve lost your bet, Coop. There’ll be nine or ten tomorrow night, for sure.”

Cold with horror, Rye also looked out at the water.

The sky was red as blood. The sea was heaving, boiling with white foam.

But it was not just the tide that was making the waters heave and swell. As Rye watched, a great, coiling shape broke the surface. He saw a flash of silver, and the silhouette of a vast, spiked head rising from the foam.

Rye clung to the fence, staring, unable to tear his eyes away. He had seen pictures of sea serpents — of course he had! Even the map of Dorne on the schoolhouse wall had shown serpents swimming sedately in the sea surrounding the island.

But nothing he had seen had prepared him for this first sight of the real thing. The savage, spined head rose higher and higher. The snakelike body — as thick as the trunk of one of the giant trees of the Fell Zone — writhed in great, glittering loops. The monster could have wrapped itself twice around Rye’s little house in Weld.

The sea serpent opened its jaws, showing long, glinting fangs. A weird, high, hooting sound filled the air.

It must have been some sort of challenge, because another serpent surfaced almost instantly. This one was a darker color — blue, perhaps, or green. There was another hooting sound. Two sets of jaws gaped wide as the monsters rose even higher in the water and joined in battle, their bodies tangling and twisting horribly against the sky, their tails thrashing the water into froth.

“The smell of blood stirs them up,” Rye heard his neighbor say knowledgeably.

Then, suddenly, the waves close to shore erupted in an explosion of spray and snarling jaws. Three smaller serpents had sped unnoticed to the beach while everyone was watching the fight.

Green, sickly yellow, and glittering blue-black, the beasts lunged at the rock, tearing and gulping at the ragged chunks of flesh that drifted in the bloody shallows. As the drenched crowd screamed in a frenzy of excitement and fear, the Gifters leaped for safety, sprawling onto the walkway and taking to their heels.

Hissing, the serpents arched over the rock, snapping at one another, searching for the live prey that had escaped them by a hair. They snatched at the abandoned barrels, cracked them like nuts, wallowed in the spilled blood, and tossed the remains aside. They struck at the cart, reducing it in moments to a jumble of splintered wood.

Then they turned to defend their prizes as more serpents writhed through the bloody foam, spines upraised to claim their share in the feast.

“That’s nothing to what you’ll get tomorrow night, my friends!” roared Rye’s neighbor. “Eh, Dorrie? Nothing to what they’ll get on Midsummer Eve!”

The hefty woman did not answer. Her eyes, fixed on the rock and the fearful, hissing beasts, were suddenly uncertain. Slowly she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Rye turned away from the fence and pushed his way through the crowd, his stomach heaving, his mind filled with confused, shadowed memories.

Glittering coils. Gaping jaws. Blood. Screams of helpless terror …

He had dreamed of all these things. Without knowing it, he had been dreaming of the serpents, of the captives, of the rock. And he had dreamed of Dirk, desperate, crawling through stone tunnels, peering into a deep pit.

Make haste! It is almost Midsummer Eve.

He raised his eyes to the fortress, dark against the scarlet sky.

The prisoners marked for sacrifice were in there. He could feel it. And just as strongly he could feel that Dirk was in there, too. Dirk and his band of rebels were hiding somewhere within that dark stronghold. Their plan had been to release the prisoners before the day of sacrifice.

But in all this time, they had only managed to rescue two of the seven. And those two had been replaced.

By Faene and Sonia.

The Gifting ceremony would continue. Sonia, Faene, and five unknown others would die, horribly, chained to the rock. And Olt would live, to kill again, and again, and again.

I must find Dirk, Rye thought frantically. I must tell him….

But what good would it do to tell Dirk that the Fleet woman he loved was to be one of the seven sacrifices to Olt’s greed for life? What could Rye offer Dirk but pain?

Nine powers to aid you in your quest …

Rye raised his hand to the little bag hanging around his neck. And with a thrill of horror, he felt a hot, hairy hand beneath his own.

He yelled aloud, grasped the hand, and threw it aside. He looked down at the sly, long-armed creature beside him. It chattered and gibbered angrily, then snatched the cap from his head and plunged away into the crowd.

Gasping, fumbling for the bell tree stick in his belt, Rye turned to give chase.

“Don’t bother,” a woman laughed beside him. “You’ll never catch a polypan. Just be grateful it didn’t get your purse. That’s a good idea — wearing it around your neck.”

It was the first friendly voice Rye had heard since arriving in Oltan. He glanced at the speaker. She was carrying a basket that smelled strongly of fish but now contained only a few vegetables. Her straw-colored hair was bundled into an untidy knot on the top of her head. Her hazel eyes were lively. He guessed she was still quite young, though her skin was weathered and creased by the wind and sun.

As the woman looked at him more closely, she frowned and glanced quickly left and right, furtively crossing her fingers and wrists.

“I don’t know why you’re still here, son,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth. “But you’re mad to be wandering around in plain view. What if the rebels get another prisoner out tonight? Then the Gifters will be looking for a replacement close to home, won’t they? Get right out of sight and stay there till tomorrow night’s over!”

Out of sight, Rye thought dazedly. Yes. That is what I need. Somewhere safe, so I can rest. So I can think.

He looked straight into the woman’s worried eyes. “Where can I go?” he asked.

She hesitated, looking at him doubtfully and gnawing her bottom lip in a way that reminded him painfully of Sonia. Then she shrugged, as if she had suddenly decided to trust him.

“There,” she whispered, jerking her head to a low building hunched by the shore and surrounded by boats turned upside down in the sand. “Creep in, find a quiet corner, and stay there. Try not to be seen, but if you are seen, say Nell sent you. And get that hair of yours covered up again, as quick as you can!”

She hitched her basket higher on her arm and hurried away without looking back.