The Silver Door

3 - A Friend in High Places

They were in the Chamber of the Doors. Rye knew that, even with his eyes screwed shut. The smells of ash and ancient rock were very familiar. His skin was prickling with old magic.

Safe. Rye opened his eyes and gazed at the stone walls, the gaping fireplace, the dusty rock floor. The room looked smaller than he remembered. He felt his companions slipping away from him, but he could not move. For a moment he could do nothing but stand motionless, gripped by the memory of the last time he had been in this place.

It had only been a few days ago, but it seemed like weeks—months! He felt like a different person from the boy who had recklessly lied his way into this secret chamber in the foundations of the Keep of Weld.

Slowly he turned to look behind him.

There were the three magic Doors, side by side. Magnificent gold, elegant silver, sturdy wood bound with brass.

Only a dead leaf on the floor showed that the golden Door had opened to let them in. No sound penetrated from the world outside.

Rye stared at the images carved into the Door’s gleaming surface. On his first visit to the Chamber he had thought they were just elaborate decorations. Now he could see that they were pictures of things that actually existed in the land beyond the Wall. Bloodhogs. Fell dragons. Sea serpents …

He quickly turned away before his eyes could stray to the silver Door. He did not have to think about that yet. Not yet.

‘Rye!’ Sonia was kneeling by the fireplace. He went to her, aware that Dirk and Faene were slowly following him.

Sonia pointed into the shadows at the back of the fireplace and, crouching, Rye saw the dangling end of a rope.

‘The Keep chimneys are a maze, but if you keep hold of the rope you will not get lost,’ Sonia said briskly. ‘It will be a tight squeeze for Dirk, but I daresay he can manage it, and Faene too, if you use the feather to help them.’

‘You do not need help yourself, of course, Sonia?’ Dirk enquired, trying but completely failing to hide his irritation.

‘Oh, no.’ Sonia laughed. ‘I am used to travelling by chimney, and I can climb like a clink.’ Pulling the red scarf over her mouth and nose to protect them from soot, she began recklessly tearing strips from the bottom of her already ragged skirt to make masks for her companions.

‘But where will you take us, Sonia?’ Faene asked anxiously. ‘If no one is to know—’

‘One person must know,’ Sonia said, her voice muffled by the scarf.

‘What?’ Dirk frowned. ‘Who must know?’

‘Let us just say that I have friends in high places,’ Sonia replied. ‘One friend, at least. Do not worry. She can be trusted.’

Even with the feather making them weightless, the climb up the dark chimney was not easy for Rye, Faene and Dirk. Their elbows and knees scraped painfully against the stones as they half scrambled, half floated upward in an awkward chain.

Amid all his discomfort Rye found himself feeling glad that Sonia, moving nimbly ahead of them in the gloom, was showing that she really could climb like a clink. He had never doubted it, but he was sure Dirk had suspected it was an idle boast. Now perhaps Dirk would see that idle boasting was not Sonia’s way.

As they climbed higher, it became clear why Sonia had called the Keep chimneys a maze. The chimney they were using was obviously the oldest and largest, but it had many offshoots leading to fireplaces on other floors. By leaning into these offshoots the climber could hear what was happening in the rooms beyond the fireplaces.

And so it was that, reaching the place where the Keep kitchen chimney joined the main stack, Rye suddenly heard, over the clatter of dishes, his mother’s voice.

‘I do not mind the task,’ Lisbeth was saying. ‘She always thanks me very politely.’

‘By the Wall, and so she should!’ another woman retorted. ‘After you have toiled up all those stairs with a heavy tray!’

Bracing his back against the chimney wall, hissing a warning to Faene that he had stopped, Rye fumbled for the light crystal, and pressed it against the blackened stones. A window appeared, and through it he saw his mother in the room below.

Lisbeth was standing at a table chopping vegetables. An elderly woman was working with her, and a third woman was washing dishes on the other side of the room.

Like the other kitchen workers, Lisbeth was wearing a white apron and a white cap that covered her hair completely. She had deep shadows under her eyes and looked so pale that at first Rye feared she was ill. Then he saw that the old woman was just as pale, and realised that he had grown used to seeing faces browned by a stronger sun than Weld’s.

‘Well, I am very grateful you have taken over carrying the trays, my dear, and you are good to make light of it,’ the old woman said to Lisbeth. ‘I did it for years, but my poor knees would not have taken much more of it.’

The third woman turned from the washing up. ‘It is a wicked waste of time and effort, I say,’ she said sharply. ‘Trays in her room three times a day indeed! If it is good enough for the Warden to eat in the dining room, why is it not good enough for his daughter?’

The old woman snorted. ‘If you had been here as long as I have, Bettina, you would know that the Warden likes his daughter to stay out of the way. The very sight of her makes him uncomfortable, they say, and he prefers other people not to see her either.’

‘What?’ cried Lisbeth. ‘But why—?’

‘Well, she should have been a boy, shouldn’t she?’ the old woman said, frowning over her chopping board. ‘The Warden wanted a son who could take his place as leader of Weld. He has no use for a daughter.’

‘Poor child,’ Lisbeth said in a low voice. And Rye, remembering the proud, closed face of the finely dressed young woman he had seen by chance on his first visit to the Keep, suddenly found that he was sharing his mother’s pity for the Warden’s daughter.

Bettina sniffed and went back to her washing up.

‘The girl’s mother, rest her sweet soul, died when the child was only toddling,’ Lisbeth’s companion went on. ‘And the Warden could never make up his mind to marry again, so there have been no more children.’

‘The Warden can never make up his mind to do anything,’ grumbled the woman at the sink.

‘My sons used to say that,’ Lisbeth murmured. ‘The two … who went beyond the Wall.’

She raised her hand to the bib of her apron. Rye guessed that the two flower badges she had been sent when Dirk and Sholto were officially declared lost were pinned to her dress beneath the crisp white cloth.

‘Do not grieve, my dear,’ the old woman muttered to her. ‘At least you know that your youngest is safe in the Centre.’

‘Yes.’ Lisbeth nodded, trying to smile. ‘We may not be together, but Rye at least is safe.’

Rye’s heart seemed to twist in his chest.

‘Rye!’ Dirk called from below. ‘Move on, I beg you! I am stifling!’

And Rye, realising that his brother had not heard their mother’s voice, and knowing there was nothing to be done, pulled the crystal from the chimney wall and let the magic feather draw him on.

The next time he heard voices floating up through a chimney offshoot, he almost did not stop. Then a familiar name came to his ears and he halted abruptly.

‘Tallus, Warden,’ a gruff voice repeated. ‘The Southwall healer. An elderly man, with a limp.’

‘Oh, yes. Tallus. And what does the old nuisance want this time?’

Rye would have known the Warden’s thin, irritable tones anywhere. Quickly he felt for the light crystal again.

‘He says he must see you, sir,’ the gruff voice said. ‘He claims to have made an important discovery about the skimmers.’

Rye pressed the crystal to the chimney wall. Again, it was as if a window had opened in the sooty stone.

He found himself looking down into a room he recognised. It was the waiting room where just a few days ago he had signed the statement all volunteers had to sign before going through the Wall.

He could see the tops of two heads by the polished table he so well remembered. One head was almost bald. It belonged, Rye was sure, to the officer who dealt with the volunteers. The other head, the Warden’s, was engulfed in a large three-cornered red hat from which sprang a forest of nodding white plumes.

‘I cannot see anyone now, Jordan,’ the Warden said fretfully. ‘I have two sympathy scrolls to sign, and must review the changing of the guard very soon. Then there are the evening protection spells to be seen to. And then it will be time for dinner. Tell the old busybody to go away. I will meet with him another day. Possibly. If I have the time.’

The bald man shook his head. ‘He says he will not leave the Keep until he has seen you, sir. He is sitting on the ground outside my office, telling his tale to anyone who will listen. And people are listening to him, sir, unfortunately. Is it your wish that I have him removed by force?’

‘Force? Ah … well, now, yes, perhaps …’

‘Only, he will not go quietly, sir, for sure,’ Jordan went on. ‘And he being so old, and limping as well, it might not look good to the crowd.’

‘No indeed! By the Wall, what a dilemma!’ The Warden wrung his pudgy little hands, then raised them to his hat as if to ensure that it was still securely in place. ‘Perhaps … ah …’

‘Perhaps I should offer him a meal and a bed for the night, and say you will see him in the morning, sir,’ Jordan suggested smoothly.

‘Yes!’ The Warden’s plumes swayed madly as he nodded with obvious relief. ‘That will get him out of the public view for now, at least. See to it, Jordan. At once!’

Rye tucked away the crystal and moved on up the chimney, burning to tell Dirk and Sonia what he had seen.

What had brought Tallus to the Keep? Surely he was not going to try yet again to persuade the Warden to put Sholto’s skimmer repellent into use throughout the city? That idea had been rejected several times already. The Warden flatly refused to admit that a repellent might work where his spells of protection did not.

No, thought Rye. It must be something else— something Tallus has discovered since I saw him, too, for he said nothing of it to me.

At that moment he realised that he could no longer hear the faint sounds of Sonia climbing ahead. No doubt she had grown tired of waiting for him and had hurried on to warn her mysterious ‘friend in high places’ that she was bringing visitors.

Rye raised the red feather above his head, thought of flying, and heard Faene and Dirk gasp as he shot upward, faster than ever before.

In no time at all he heard Sonia’s voice calling him. There she was, a dark figure beckoning in the pale light that leaked into the chimney from yet another fireplace.

‘Here, Rye!’ she called. ‘I have told her. She is waiting to meet you.’

Rye reached her and felt her hand touch his. With a low call of warning to Faene and Dirk he twisted, crouched, and followed Sonia through the fireplace, crawling clumsily into the room beyond.

He fell onto a soft hearthrug, and jumped to his feet, blinking in the sudden brightness. Paintings, tapestries and bookshelves lined the curved walls of the room. A huge, diamond-shaped window with hundreds of shining panes looked out on the pale Weld sky.

Rye realised with a shock that he was in the Keep tower. As his eyes adjusted to the light, as Faene and Dirk clambered out of the fireplace after him, filthy and gasping, he saw a table on which lay an open drawing book, several fine brushes, and pots of coloured ink. He saw curtained doorways that no doubt led into other rooms. He saw a golden harp and a book of music on a stand.

And he saw, standing beside the harp, rigid with disapproval, a dark-haired, finely dressed young woman.

Rye’s jaw dropped as he recognised her.

It was the Warden’s daughter.