The Silver Door

24 - The Testing Hall

The light pouring through the bars was dazzling. The great birds were gigantic shadows, lunging and shrieking at the intruders they could see only as ghostly outlines. Their eyes streaming, Rye and Sholto clung to the bars and peered through to the room on the other side.

The first thing they saw was bright sky. Vivid squares of clear blue sparkled above the silvery grating that stretched over the testing hall. Sunshine streamed through the grating, and now that he was so high, Rye could feel its warmth.

He thought of Dirk, and in his mind Dirk’s face was framed in that bright, sunny blue. But no doubt wherever Dirk was by now a sullen pall of grey cloud still hung over the tortured earth. No doubt the blue was just a solitary patch over the Harbour building, and the Master would allow it to gleam only for as long as the test continued.

The monster birds screeched in fury. Again and again their talons rasped on the mesh of the cage, setting Rye’s teeth on edge. He felt Sholto’s fingers tighten painfully on his arm, and looked round.

Sholto’s face was grey, and gleaming with sweat.

‘I—daresay this gap was left to give the birds more air,’ he said, his lips barely moving. ‘It—is very convenient for us. But I wish it was not—so far above the ground.’ He swallowed.

Rye cursed himself. How could he have forgotten? How could he not have realised what this climb had cost Sholto? Sholto was amazingly agile and had lightning reflexes. He could dodge a danger or duck into hiding faster than anyone Rye knew. But he had always feared heights. That was why it had been understood in the family that he would never be able to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Wall worker, like Dirk.

As a schoolboy, Dirk had taken mischievous delight in climbing onto the roof of the house in Southwall and walking close to the edge, just to make Sholto turn pale and sick at the sight while young Rye laughed.

‘Come down, Dirk!’ their mother would scold, if she caught him. ‘What would the Warden say if he saw you playing such dangerous games? And do not think you are better than Sholto because you can climb without fear, either! Sholto is good at other things.’

But not the things that mattered to Dirk, or to me, or to our father, in those days, thought Rye. And for the first time he realised that Sholto, for all his learning, might have had all his life the sense of not being good enough—a feeling that only his mother had suspected.

At this moment, Sholto was no doubt thinking that Rye would have done far better if he had had Dirk as a companion in this desperate adventure.

Wondering guiltily if this was why thoughts of Dirk kept floating into his mind, Rye pressed closer to the bars and looked down.

The room beyond the bars was very large—more like a meeting hall than an ordinary room. Long balconies jutted from all four walls. Slight shimmers in the air showed that invisible barriers shielded them. The balcony on the wall Rye was facing was the only one that did not have a narrow staircase leading up to it from below. The front of its transparent shield bore three large, black circles.

‘Almost certainly the skimmers will be released through those openings,’ Sholto said, jerking his head slightly at the circles and clearly making an enormous effort to keep his voice even.

Rye nodded, relieved that the balcony was still deserted.

The balcony below the bars was also empty. The other two, on the shorter walls to Rye’s left and right, were filled with seated men and women wearing black uniforms or grey coats. Some of these were looking at the balcony with the circles, eager for something to happen. Most were looking down.

‘I am going to try to get through the bars,’ Rye hissed in Sholto’s ear. ‘Then you can follow. Do not worry, I will not let you go.’

He waited for his brother’s sick-looking nod and then turned sideways and pushed his way between the bars. It was a tight fit, but by wriggling a little, he managed it. Sholto slid through easily, but his face, when he was finally standing beside Rye with his back to the bars, was the colour of goat cheese.

Rye looked down, and, despite the heat of the sun pouring through the grating above, his forehead was suddenly beaded with cold sweat.

The prisoners were directly below him, hemmed in by guards. Kyte the slave-hunter was strutting up and down in front of them, high black boots shining, belt bristling with weapons, making the most of her moment of glory.

Her guards stood facing her, shoulder to shoulder. Their backs formed a solid grey barrier across the corner of the testing room, pressing their captives into a huddle.

Rye made out Bird and Bean, standing side by side. There was Itch, his arms around his sisters. There were Chub and Pepper, hand in hand. There were all the other prisoners from Nanny’s Pride farm.

And there, behind them all, her back to the wall, was Sonia.

Rye’s chest tightened painfully. In her severe black coat and cap, Sonia seemed to tower over her companions. Her head was bowed so her face was hidden from view, but other than that she was standing very upright, making herself look as tall as possible. Despite the terror that must have been clutching at her heart, she was still pretending to be Rye.

Sonia, I am here, just above you, Rye called to her in his mind. I am trying to think what it is best to do.

He thought he saw Sonia give a tiny start, but she did not raise her head.

Just do not think too long … The answer floated into his mind, light as a falling leaf.

‘Is there anything in your bag of tricks that you can use as a weapon, Rye?’ Sholto asked.

He was still as pale as wax, but he too was looking down—down at the prisoners, and at the guards surrounding them.

‘No,’ said Rye. ‘But if I can reach Sonia and the others—close enough to touch them—I can protect them, at least.’

And what then? he wondered, but could think of no answer.

Sholto raised his eyebrows. ‘Then we had better get down there, brother,’ he said softly, looking up and meeting Rye’s eyes. He nodded across the room.

There was movement behind the screen of the balcony with the three black circles. Controller Brand, clutching the black box, was standing to one side with the grey-faced supervisor. They were both watching as guards pushed three huge, transparent cages forward. Each cage was alive with flapping, snarling skimmers.

Rye’s mind went blank. Behind him the giant birds shrieked. Below him, the people in the balconies were stirring with excitement. But all he could see were the skimmers, with their ragged wings, their rat-shaped snouts and their mud-coloured eyes, being wheeled closer and closer to the edge of the sunlit balcony, closer to the three circles.

Then he distinctly heard a crack, a clang, and a muffled curse, directly above him. He jerked his head up, and to his utter astonishment saw Dirk scowling down through the grating, blue sky brilliant behind his head.

For a moment Rye froze. For an instant he thought he must be dreaming. Then he saw Dirk pull the broken skimmer hook free from the corner of the grating, which was bent and partly lifted, and he knew that what he was seeing was real.

Dirk had not left the Harbour. He had never left the roof! He had been here all along, trying to prise the grating over the testing room open, using the shrieks of the monster birds to disguise the sound.

‘The cursed thing has snapped!’ Dirk muttered to someone beside him, throwing the hook aside.

‘Dirk!’ Rye called softly.

Dirk jumped and looked wildly around.

‘Here!’ Rye said, between the screeches of the birds. ‘Just below you. I am wearing the hood. Sholto is with me.’

‘Dirk, for Weld’s sake, why are you still here?’ hissed Sholto. ‘Did I not tell you—?’

‘How could I go when I saw blue sky appear above this part of the building, and heard the iron of the roof slide open?’ Dirk retorted, pressing his face against the grating and squinting down in an effort to see them. ‘By the Wall, it is more than even you could expect of me, Sholto! But I cannot get through this cursed grating! Rye, where is Sonia?’

‘Down below, with the others,’ Rye said. A great, aching lump rose in his throat.

Then his heart gave a jolt as a familiar, hollow-eyed face appeared beside Dirk’s, wild spikes of white hair shining in the sun.

‘The lady?’ cried Bones, blinking rapidly and frantically clicking his beads. ‘The lady’s in danger? I hear sky serpents a-roaring and a-screeching! Is that—?’

‘No!’ Rye managed to say, refusing even to think about how Bones and Dirk happened to be here, and together. ‘The birds are caged, in the room next to this one. But Dirk, the Master’s people are going to release skimmers in here! The new skimmers that can see in daylight! We have to get Sonia and the others out! But they are surrounded by guards …”

‘Yes, I see them,’ Dirk said grimly, blinking down through the grating. ‘Here, give me that, Bones!’

Silently the old man passed him a long, heavy white bone that looked like one of the precious bloodhog bones from the sled. Dirk stuck the end of the bone into the gap made by the bent corner of grating and pushed upward till the sweat stood out on his brow.

Nothing happened. The square of grating did not budge.

‘The key, Rye!’ Sholto muttered. ‘Try the key!’

Rye looked up at the twisted, upturned corner of grating. Sholto was right. What was that broken grating, but a kind of door?

He dug the tiny key from his pocket, stood on the tips of his toes, and reached up, straining higher and higher till the key touched the bent corner. And without any sound at all, the square of grating folded neatly back, leaving a man-sized hole.

Bones whooped, and clapped his hands to his cheeks in amazement. But instantly, without an exclamation or a question, Dirk was slipping through the opening, sliding down the nearest bar one-handed and swinging himself into position beside Rye and Sholto. He gripped Rye’s shoulder to gain the protection of the cloak, but he did not need the feather to hold him steady—no one who had been a worker on the Wall of Weld would have needed that.

‘Bones!’ he hissed, holding up his hand. ‘The rope!’

A length of thick rope slithered down through the hole in the grating. Dirk grabbed the end and held it, gathering the slack over his shoulder.

‘It is tied to an air vent, and is secure,’ he said crisply. ‘Now! Our best plan is to lift Sonia and the others to safety. Even invisible and armoured, we cannot hope to get them out on the ground, past so many guards. Agreed?’

He waited for his brothers’ nods before going on.

‘Sholto, you go up onto the roof. It is almost flat. You will feel safer there. Bones will haul you up. Rye, put the feather away. We will get to the ground much faster without it. You and I will slide down the rope and—’

‘No!’ Rye barely recognised his own voice. As his brothers gaped at him, he cleared his throat.

‘It will be better if I go down alone. I do not know how strong the feather’s power is—how many people it can raise at one time. On the ground you will add weight, Dirk, but if you stay up here you can lower me down, and also pull on the rope when the time comes, to lift us more quickly.’

‘He is right,’ said Sholto at once.

Dirk hesitated for a split second, then nodded.

Tucking the feather into his pocket with the key, Rye took the rope Dirk thrust at him and grasped it firmly, about a body length from the end. He saw by his brothers’ faces that the rope had almost vanished from sight when he touched it. Good. That was what he had hoped. Once he was away from the iron bars, the hood should hide him and the rope completely.

There was a strange ringing in his ears. Everything seemed unreal, but his mind was very clear. He looked down at Sonia’s bent head.

Sonia, we can escape through the roof. I am coming down to you with a rope. It will not be visible, but everyone must be ready to take hold of it the moment I land. And everyone must be linked.

Sonia’s answer came in a flash.

We will be ready.

No doubt she had not intended it, but a gale of other thoughts and feelings came on the heels of those simple words. Rye felt them, and his heart swelled.

Sonia knew that the plan was desperate. She realised that if it were to have any chance of success the prisoners would have to be off the ground, out of reach, before their captors realised they had vanished. But she wanted to live. She wanted them all to live. And she was determined that Rye’s effort would not be in vain.

‘I think you will be visible when I am gone, even holding the rope, because you will have no direct contact with me,’ Rye said rapidly to Dirk and Sholto. ‘And the others will be visible too, once they reach you and break contact with the hood. I will have to come up last, to keep the feather and the armour shell working till the end. But with luck no one will look up here—they have other things to interest them.’

He glanced across the hall to the balcony on the other side. The guards had gone. Figures in grey coats were fixing large, clear pieces of pipe to the black circles on the skimmers’ cages. Other figures were attaching the free ends of the pipes to the circles on the balcony shield. Brand was sitting down, the black box on his knees. The supervisor was still standing, watching her workers intently.

‘Wish me luck,’ Rye said.

He felt Dirk and Sholto grip his shoulders briefly before letting him go. Then he stepped into space.