The Golden Door

It was strange, Rye thought, that the house seemed so silent without Sholto. Sholto had said so little. Yet somehow, now he had gone, the very walls seemed to echo, as if they missed his calm, watchful presence.

At night, Rye now dreamed of Sholto as well as Dirk. The faces of both his brothers loomed at him out of the darkness, first one and then the other. Sometimes their mouths moved, but he could not hear their voices because of a rhythmic, pounding sound that echoed through every dream like a gigantic drum.

The bell tree marked the changing of the seasons, and Sholto did not return. At school, Rye’s friends no longer bothered to ask him to join their games. They knew he would refuse.

Rye spent his lunch hours reading. He had begun borrowing history books from the book room, hoping to learn something — anything — about the land outside the Wall, the land that had swallowed his brothers.

But he found very few facts that he did not already know. The story of Dann was like a fable, told always in the same way and with very little detail. It was as if all history had begun when Weld was made, and everything before that was darkness.

The only maps of Dorne that Rye could find were all exactly the same as the one that hung on the wall of the Southwall schoolroom, beside the Warden’s portrait. Rye could probably have drawn this map by heart, having stared at it so often during boring lessons. But still he spent one lunch hour copying it carefully.

He carried the scrap of paper home with the sour feeling that he had been wasting his time. But the following morning, he woke early and looked again at the map he had drawn.

As Rye stared at the map, really seeing it for the first time, his heart sank. He understood why the Warden had been so sure that Dirk, Joliffe, and the other volunteers were no more.

None of the volunteers could have simply lost his way home. Weld dominated the island. Its wall had to be visible from every part of Dorne.

I must accept it, Rye thought fiercely. Dirk is dead. And by now, Sholto is probably dead, too.

But he could not accept it. And as he ran his finger over the map, tracing imaginary paths from the Keep of Weld to the sea, he felt a growing certainty that Dirk and Sholto were alive — alive somewhere beyond the Wall.

Rye knew that he would not be able to explain this feeling to anyone, even Lisbeth. There was no logic to it, no sense. But it persisted, burning in the center of his being like a small stubborn flame that would not go out.

Skimmer season arrived again, more terrifying than ever before. The beasts flew over Weld in such numbers that the walls and roofs of the dark, sealed houses seemed to vibrate with the sound of their passing. It was very hot, and there were wild tales of folk who had run mad in their stifling rooms, throwing open their windows and taking great gulps of night air before skimmers overwhelmed them.

As Sholto had predicted, attacks became more frequent in Southwall, especially in the streets near Joliffe’s home. Deaths were now so commonplace that they were barely noted except by those close to the people who had been lost.

The Warden’s skimmer warning signs had gone up on every corner as usual, but no one touched them. The citizens of Southwall had lost the taste for protest, it seemed.

“And there have been no more riots, in Northwall or anywhere else,” Lisbeth said one evening when the house had been sealed as tightly as a jar of bell fruit preserves, and she and Rye had sat down to eat. “That is something to be grateful for, at least.”

Rye nodded absently. That afternoon, he had counted the buckets of skimmer repellent remaining in the storeroom. He thought there was enough repellent left to last until the end of the present season. But what of the next?

Sholto will be back before then, he told himself.

But a few days later, he came home from school to find Lisbeth wearing two gold flower badges instead of one. Lying on the table was the scroll bearing the Warden’s seal and declaring that Sholto was officially regarded as lost.

“Do not believe it, Mother!” Rye cried fiercely. “Sholto is not dead! And neither is Dirk!”

Perhaps Lisbeth had wept when the Warden’s letter first arrived, but she was tearless now. She shook her head and turned away.

“Stop hoping, Rye,” she said. “We have our home, and we have each other. Let that be enough.”

That night, Rye dreamed more vividly than ever.

He saw Dirk crawling through a dark, narrow space, his face blackened and running with sweat. He saw Sholto sitting in what appeared to be a cave, writing furiously in a notebook. He saw vast, scaled bodies beating water to foam. He saw monstrous feathered shadows flying through cloud. He saw the trunks of trees melting into the shapes of men and women with hair that flew around their heads like flames.

And rising above the rhythmic pounding sound that he had learned to expect, there were harsh cries and the deep, vibrating music of a vast bell or gong.

He woke, shaking, in the darkness and stayed awake till dawn. It was far better to lie listening to the skimmers than to risk dreaming again.

He left home at his usual time, but he did not go to school. Instead, obeying an impulse he could not really explain, he went to the house of Tallus the healer.

No patients were waiting. A scrappy note had been pinned to the door of the healer’s office.

Rye ventured down the hallway and hesitated outside the workroom door.

He had not seen Tallus face-to-face since, as a small child, he had fallen from Dirk’s back and dislocated his shoulder. He had never forgotten the experience.

“See this, young Rye?” Tallus had barked, pulling at the fluff of white hair that ringed his bald scalp. “Once it was as red as yours. Can you believe that?”

Openmouthed, Rye had shaken his head, for a moment quite forgetting the pain in his shoulder.

“Red hair means luck, they say,” Tallus had said. “Luck — and other things.”

For some reason, he had then glanced at Rye’s mother, who had looked worried and shaken her head, very slightly.

“But white hairs,” Tallus had gone on smoothly, “mean old age. And as you can see, I am very old indeed. If you can count the red hairs I have left on my head, you will know how many years I have to live. Will you do that for me? I should like to know.”

And while Rye, fascinated, was trying to find even one red hair in that mass of white, the healer had made a quick movement, and suddenly the arm that had been twisted out of shape was straight again, and the pain had gone.

Remembering, Rye smiled, and knocked at the door.

“What is it?” a gruff voice shouted.

“It is Rye, Sholto’s brother, Healer Tallus!” Rye called. “I need to speak to you … if you please.”

“Oh, very well,” the voice replied ungraciously. “Come in.”

Rye opened the door. He saw a large room lined with shelves of labeled jars. Pots bubbled on the stove in one corner. The room was filled with steam and reeked of skimmers.

Tallus, a small, crabbed figure wrapped in a stained white apron and wearing thick eyeglasses, was standing at a bench vigorously sharpening a thin-bladed knife.

“Shut that door!” he yelled, swinging around and brandishing the knife. “Do you want to stink the whole house out?”

Rye made haste to do as he was told, took two steps through the billowing steam, and stopped dead.

A dead skimmer, the largest he had ever seen, lay on a long table in the center of the room. Foam clotted its snarling jaws and ratlike snout. Its eyes were open, glazed in death so they looked like chips of white china. Its body, covered in pale, velvety fuzz, was as big as the body of a half-grown goat. Its leathery wings, spread wide and pinned flat, covered the table from end to end.

“Yes, they are larger this year,” Tallus said, seeing his visitor’s eyes widen. “And this one is still quite young, by the looks of the wings, which tend to become ragged with age. See how strong the spurs have become, too!”

He limped to the table and with the point of the knife he lifted one of the spines that jutted from the monster’s legs, just above the razor-sharp claws. The spur was half as long as the knife blade and twice as broad.

“The eyes,” Rye murmured, gazing in fascination at the skimmer’s blind white stare. “I have never seen them open before. I did not realize they were so —”

“Yes, this is a perfect specimen!” said Tallus, looking down at the skimmer with satisfaction. “Almost undamaged and very fresh. I found it only this morning in the water trap your brother made for me. A clever piece of work, that trap. You simply float spoiled goat meat in a tank of water, and —”

“Sholto has been declared lost,” Rye blurted out, and to his horror, he felt sudden tears burning behind his eyes and heard his voice quaver.

“Indeed?” Tallus murmured absently, moving the knifepoint to a swelling beside the skimmer’s spur and probing gently. “Has he been away a year already? Bless me, where has the time gone?”

Rye bit back a furious retort. What sort of master was Tallus, to encourage Sholto to go into danger and then care so little about what happened to him?

He took a deep breath to calm himself and was relieved to find that his anger had driven away the threatened tears. The blood rushed into his face as he realized that perhaps this was exactly what Tallus had intended.

“There, you see that?” Tallus said, adjusting his eyeglasses and nodding down at the skimmer.

Rye looked and saw the dribble of pale green fluid oozing from the swelling beneath the knifepoint.

“These spur venom pouches are at least twice the size of those I have seen on other young skimmers,” said Tallus. “That proves what I have been saying for years. As a species, skimmers adapt very quickly to conditions.”

“What … conditions?” Rye asked weakly.

“Why, a reliable source of nourishing prey!” Tallus exclaimed. “Prey that fights back, but which can be paralyzed almost instantly by skimmer venom.”

“By ‘nourishing prey’ you mean us, I suppose,” said Rye, feeling sick.

“Certainly!” cried Tallus. “Venom has become an important weapon for skimmers who prey on us. So, if my theory is correct, more and more young with large venom pouches will be born over the next few years.”

He straightened and wiped his knife blade on his apron.

“Sholto and I think that whatever creatures the skimmers fed on before they discovered us were slower and more defenseless than we are, so rarely had to be paralyzed before being consumed,” he went on enthusiastically. “Sholto goes so far as to suggest that the previous prey might have been a species of turtle because of the powerful grinding back teeth we observed in all the early skimmer specimens. Such teeth would be ideal for reducing hard shell to powder, you know.”

Rye nodded again, feeling sicker than ever.

“Well, we shall soon know the truth of it,” Tallus said confidently. “Sholto will certainly have settled the question by the time he returns.”

Rye’s heart gave a great thud.

“Healer Tallus!” he gasped. “You believe that Sholto is still alive?”

“Why, of course!” exclaimed the old man, gazing at him in astonishment. “Do you not think so?”

“Yes, I do,” Rye said breathlessly. “But the Warden —”

“Oh, the Warden!” Tallus flapped his hands contemptuously, the knifepoint missing Rye’s arm by a hairbreadth.

“I — I am sure that Dirk — my other brother — is still alive, too,” Rye stammered. “I do not know why I am so certain, but …”

“I daresay you can feel it, if you were fond of him,” the healer said vaguely, his eyes straying back to the skimmer on the table. “You and I are two of a kind. I knew it the first moment I saw you years ago. Sholto jeers at the idea, of course. Poor Sholto believes in nothing he cannot see.”

He tore his eyes away from the skimmer and looked back at Rye. “So — both your brothers are out there, beyond the Wall. And you plan to go and find them. Is that it?”

Rye’s breath caught in his throat. He gaped at the healer, unable to speak.

“If you have come to ask my opinion, I believe it is an excellent idea,” Tallus said, nodding vigorously. “I had not realized how you had grown, or I would have come to you to suggest it. I thought of going after Sholto myself, of course, but I hesitated to leave Southwall without a healer. Not to mention that it is unlikely a limping old man could do a pinch of good out there in the wilds.”

He clapped Rye on the shoulder. “But you, my boy, are a different matter. Go, with all speed! My thoughts will be with you.”

Rye swallowed and found his voice. “No! Healer Tallus, that is not why I came. I cannot go beyond the Wall! I am too young. And even if I were of age, I could not leave Mother alone.”

Tallus’s eyebrows shot up, and his mouth turned down at the corners.

“Indeed!” he growled. “Then why are you here?”

“I — I need to make more skimmer repellent,” Rye stammered. “So we have supplies for next season. I have Sholto’s recipe, but the ingredients —”

“Nonsense!” Tallus snapped, shaking his head irritably. “You could have come on the day of rest to ask me about that! Why hurry here today?”

Rye wet his lips. “I — I felt I could not wait,” he said feebly.

“Exactly!” Tallus cried. “You were drawn here because something in you knew I would understand you. Face it, boy! Stop deceiving yourself!”

“Healer Tallus, I cannot go beyond the Wall!” Rye almost shouted. “They would not let me!”

Tallus grinned at him, put down his knife, and drew on heavy gloves.

“Go and find your brothers, young Rye,” he said, picking up the knife again and bending over the skimmer. “You are young and strong, and your hair is as red as ever. You are just the man for the task. And it is what you want, even if you do not know it.”

“But —”

“I think you should go quite soon,” the old man went on without looking up. “Dirk and Sholto are alive for now, but plainly they are in danger. The very fact that you have come to me today is proof of that. Now be off with you!”

His mind in turmoil, Rye escaped from the evil-smelling room and ran from the house.