The Silver Door

15 - On the Road

The trader roared with laughter. ‘So what do you say to all that?’ he boomed over the chugging roar of the wagon. ‘Suspicious strangers in the Den, and Cap willing to do anything to keep the story quiet! On the very day that old Bones drags home the finest bloodhog skull I’ve ever seen! What a piece of luck!’

Rye, Sonia and Dirk tensed in their dark corner. Who was the man talking to?

Rye felt for the crystal in the bag around his neck. Masking the crystal’s light carefully with his fingers, he pressed it against the pile of sacks rising in front of him.

A window appeared around the crystal and there was Four-Eyes sitting in his throne-like seat. He was quite alone. His shoulders were shaking. The eyes in the back of his head streamed with tears of laughter.

A shiver ran down Rye’s spine.

‘A smoked whine, my dear?’ the man chortled at last, mopping his face with a purple silk handkerchief, then reaching round to dab at the second pair of eyes as well. ‘Why not? We’re celebrating!’

He dug into a bag on his lap and dropped something spiky onto the floor by the padlocked metal box. There was an excited chittering sound, a twitching nose appeared from behind the box, and the scrap was snatched away. There was the sound of ravenous crunching.

‘He is talking to his clink!’ Rye whispered, and heard Sonia and Dirk, who by now were both looking over his shoulder, breathe out in relief.

‘I agree with you, Snaffle dear!’ Four-Eyes cried merrily. ‘Your master is a genius! We’ll be able to trade that skull for a fortune at the Diggings! Not to mention that we still have those ducks in the back. Should we offer them to the Diggings guards as well?’

The nose reappeared at the box’s corner, and the clink gave a squeak.

‘You’re quite right, of course!’ Four-Eyes nodded. ‘They’d only eat them—feathers and all, most likely—which would be a pity, in some ways. Still, Snaffle my dear, we must be practical. Who else would have the means to pay us so much?’

Rye felt Sonia stiffen and heard Dirk swear under his breath. He gritted his teeth, trying not to think of Bones, and Bones’ great hopes for the three ‘magic ones’ who had brought him nothing but grief.

The trader wriggled in his seat, arching his back as if to ease aching muscles. The clink chattered, and again Four-Eyes nodded as if he understood exactly what it was saying.

‘Just a slight cramp—nothing to worry about, my dear. But I’m tired, I admit. I sometimes wonder if I’m getting too old for this business. Still, the skull was worth it.’

He took his left hand from the wheel and tapped the metal box with satisfaction. ‘Not to mention that the Den scourings brought the jell in our crock right up to the brim! That will please them at the Diggings. Especially now, when I hear …’

He leaned slightly towards the clink and lowered his voice as if speaking to it in confidence. Rye had to strain to hear him. ‘Especially now, Snaffle, when I hear whisperings that something big is about to happen at the Harbour. Something rather important to the Master, I gather, and therefore not on any account to fail. But hush! Not a word!’

He began to raise a finger to his lips, but stopped midway, put his head on one side, and stroked his chin instead.

The clink snuffled.

‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ Four-Eyes murmured. ‘Mysterious strangers in the Scour … and so-called wizards appearing in the Saltings … It could be chance, but it could also be connected with the rumours about the Harbour. The Master has his enemies, we all know that. Which means, Snaffle …”

He hunched forward, tapping the wheel with his fingertips. The eyes in the back of his head rolled upwards till only the whites showed. The sight was so horrible that Rye had to bite his lips to stop himself from exclaiming in disgust.

‘Which means,’ Four-Eyes went on slowly, ‘that the Master’s people would pay very well to hear what I’ve sworn to keep secret.’

Absent-mindedly he tossed a second smoked whine to the clink, and popped one into his own mouth as well.

‘Really most unfortunate,’ he mumbled, chewing rapidly. ‘I should have thought of it before. Oh, now I’ve given myself a headache!’

He groaned and rubbed his forehead. ‘Most unfortunate,’ he repeated. ‘But bargains are bargains. There’s no going back on them, Snaffle. Sharp trading is one thing, but my word is my bond.’

He bent over the wheel, staring pensively at the smoke puffing from his vehicle’s funnel. Slowly the eyes in the back of his head returned to normal.

‘And on second thoughts, my pet,’ he murmured, plucking a fragment of whine wing from his bottom lip, ‘it might be just as well if we know nothing about events that concern the Master. In fact, to be on the safe side, we might take a little holiday after this run—get ourselves out of the way for a few weeks, till the Harbour affair is settled one way or another. What do you say?’

Tiny claws scrabbled on the wagon floor and the clink chirruped.

‘I’m glad you agree, my dear,’ Four-Eyes said tenderly. ‘No, don’t ask me for any more treats. Smoked whines are very salty. Next you’ll be wanting a drink, and we need every drop of our water for the engine. Why don’t you get some sleep while you can? I’ll relax, too. Diggings in two hours.’

He settled himself more comfortably in his seat and began to hum tunelessly. Slowly the eyes in the back of his head closed.

Rye returned the crystal to the little brown bag and turned to his companions.

Sonia’s face was so pale that it glimmered in the dimness like an oval of floating white smoke. Without a word she slumped back on the heap of empty sacks, looking completely exhausted.

But Rye and Dirk, once they had settled down beside her, were too full of what they had heard to keep silent. They began at once to whisper to one another, confident that the humming trader would not hear them over the chugging and rattling of the wagon.

‘If Olt’s brother is the one sending the skimmers to Weld, this big event the trader spoke of could be some new plan of attack,’ said Rye.

Dirk grimaced. ‘It could be. We will find out soon enough. The thing I would like to know is why jell is so precious here. By the Wall, the trader keeps it in that locked box, as if it was gold! But jell is nothing! Its only use is as a dye, and a very little goes a long way.’

‘A dye for cloth, you mean?’ Sonia murmured.

‘Yes, and a very cheap, common dye at that,’ said Dirk, turning to look at her. ‘Why do you think the Keep soldiers’ leggings are red? Or the Keep orphans’ uniforms, come to that?’

‘Olt’s flags and banners were red too,’ Rye put in.

‘Of course.’ Dirk shrugged. ‘There is jell in plenty in the west. While I was staying in Fleet I often saw workers come across it when they were digging deep.’

Sonia blinked at him sleepily. ‘So in Weld, and in the west of Dorne, jell is not highly valued because it is plentiful and used only to dye cloth. But here it is very highly valued, so it is either not so plentiful—which does not seem to be the case—or it is used for something else.’

‘I cannot think what,’ Dirk said, shaking his head. ‘You cannot eat jell, or build with it, or use it as fuel—all those things, and dozens of others, have been tried.’

‘Yet the Master wants every scrap he can get,’ Rye said. ‘He must have discovered another use for it!’

‘Then he has succeeded where thousands before him have failed,’ Dirk muttered. ‘By the Wall, it is a mystery! I would love to know the truth of it.’

‘No doubt we will, when we reach the Harbour,’ Rye said uneasily.

Sonia yawned. Her eyelids were drooping. Framed by her close-fitting cap, her face looked small and pinched. ‘I am sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I am … so tired. I don’t recall ever having been so tired in my whole life before.’

‘It is all that thinking, Sonia!’ Dirk teased gently, and Rye noted with surprise that there was real affection in his brother’s voice. It seemed that Sonia’s eager support of the plan to steal the ducks had made Dirk think of her as a friend at last, instead of as a nuisance.

‘In fact, we should all get some rest,’ Dirk went on. ‘The sound of the wagon slowing and stopping will wake us when we reach the Diggings.’

Rye leaned back against the pile of smelly sacks. It was exquisite relief to close his eyes. He was just drifting deliciously into sleep when he felt a tickling sensation on the tip of his little finger. He woke with a start, realising that the armour shell was slowly sliding off.

He caught the shell just in time to stop it falling to the ground, and held it tightly, appalled at his own carelessness. He had become so used to the shell that he had almost forgotten he was wearing it. But as he had begun falling asleep it had sensed that he felt safe—safe for the first time since the attack of the giant bird—and it had loosened accordingly.

Vowing to take more care in future, Rye pushed the shell back into the little bag hanging around his neck. After a moment’s thought, he took off the speed ring and added it to the bag as well, just to be on the safe side.

As he lay back again, his hand curved protectively over the bag, he reminded himself that he had still not discovered the purpose of two of the powers inside it. The crystal, the ring, the hood, the serpent scale, the red feather and the snail shell had all revealed their strengths. But the paper-wrapped sweet and the tiny key remained mysteries.

And what of the ninth power?

Nine powers to aid you in your quest …

But there were only eight objects in the bag. Sonia was convinced that the Fellan Edelle had meant that the crystal possessed two powers—the power to light the darkness and the power to see through solid objects. Yet for some reason this answer did not quite satisfy Rye.

He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts wander. The wagon ground on along the track, shuddering and roaring like a beast. A memory of riding to Fleet in FitzFee’s cart slid into Rye’s mind. The only sounds on that journey beyond the golden Door had been the clip-clopping of the old mare’s hooves on the road and the sound of FitzFee and his little daughter singing. It had been far more pleasant than this.

Dirk and Sonia were already asleep, and despite the noise of the wagon, the prickliness of the sacks at his back and the loud, monotonous humming of the trader at the wheel, Rye soon joined them.

They slept the sleep of exhaustion and relief, secure in the knowledge that hours must pass before they would have to wake.

They did not hear the soft rasping as four lumpy sacks labelled Nanny’s Pride Tarny Roots were slit open from the inside. They did not hear the tiny sounds of four small, chunky figures sliding out of their long confinement, standing up in the darkness, and stretching cramped limbs.

They did not hear Four-Eyes the trader’s brief struggle as a white pad reeking of something sweet was clapped over his mouth and nose from behind. And they did not stir as one of the small figures took the wheel of the wagon while Four-Eyes’ slumped body was dragged from the driver’s seat.

It all happened in moments. The noises of the wagon did not alter. Snaffle the clink, fast asleep behind the metal box, did not stir.

And so it was that when strong hands seized Rye, Sonia and Dirk, they were taken completely by surprise.