The Golden Door

Nodding 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.