The Third Door

12 - The Maze

And so began a nightmare journey through a maze of passageways and ruined chambers echoing with moans and creeping with the sense of ancient evil. Crumbling statues shrouded in spider web hulked in dark alcoves in the walls. Often the way was blocked by a cave-in or a pool of black, foul-smelling water and another way would have to be found. Here and there the dank walls were carved with the fantastic images of beasts—sea serpents, dragons, fish with wings, monsters with manes like mats of flabby seaweed. When the light of the crystal fell on them, the carvings seemed to loom from the stone, as if they were alive. And the sounds of suffering and misery, the growls of unnamed horrors, never ceased.

Do not listen to them, Rye! They are not real! They are only memories trapped in the stone. This way!

And Rye followed Sonia’s voice. Clear as a crystal bell it called to him, cheering and directing him, and it never tired or wavered.

Time ceased to have any meaning. When the light of the crystal finally picked out a figure ahead, a figure emerging eerily from a patch of shadow in a wall, he thought he was dreaming.

But then the figure was running. And Sonia was there in front of him, haggard with weariness, hugging him fiercely, sobbing with joy.

There was so much to ask, so much to explain, but at first Rye did not have the strength to speak. His throat was parched, his head was pounding and he was trembling with weariness. He drank from Sonia’s flask then let her lead him to the dark alcove where she had waited for him. It was bare and free of spider webs. Rye sank gratefully into its shelter.

‘I did not dare go any further in search of you,’ Sonia said, sitting down beside him. ‘My candle had burned away and I only had one pebble left.’ She opened her hand. On the palm lay a small, rounded stone, blue as the sky.

Another shadow drifted from Rye’s memory. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the two pebbles he had found on the floor in the chieftain’s lodge.

Sonia nodded wearily. ‘The rest are marking our trail out of here. Rye, why did you close your mind to me? I have not been able to sense you for days. It has been as if you were dead! Then suddenly I woke from sleep here and felt you clearly! In danger, but alive!’ Her voice trembled, though clearly she was trying to seem calm.

So Rye told her, as best he could, of his memory loss, of his life as Keelin. And when he had finished, Sonia told him her side of the story.

She told of waking on the Fell End riverbank to cries of terror. She told of running, of seeing him being taken, unconscious and surrounded by guards, to Farr’s barge. She told of fire, and people babbling of a beast sent by the enemy. She told of seeing Dirk and Sholto, both wounded, being carried onto the barge’s deck among many others. She told of hearing that Rye was to be taken to the chieftain’s lodge, and the barge chugging away, leaving her behind.

She said little of her journey to find him. But as she spoke, Rye caught glimpses of the long, dogged trek, the exhaustion, the hiding, the fear of asking for help from anyone.

In the city, she found her way to the chieftain’s lodge. The gossip of passers-by told her which room had been given to the stranger who had saved Zak from the beast. She called to Rye, tossed pebbles through his window two nights in a row, but still he did not respond. And then she saw him leave the lodge in a carriage driven by a scar-faced guard, and followed.

She did not see who made the blast that destroyed the museum, though she felt the danger just before it happened. In terror she heard the explosion, saw the building’s walls tilt and the roof fall. She saw the chieftain’s son and another boy running from the wreckage in a cloud of dust just before the final collapse. She saw them picked up and driven away by the scar-faced guard. Later, she saw the body of an old woman carried out.

‘But there was no sign of you,’ she said. ‘People were digging in the ruins—so many people that I could not get near. It seemed to me that some in the crowd were starting to look at me curiously—I look very ragged and wild by now, no doubt. But I could not bear to leave the place. I had to know …’

Her voice trailed off. She bit her lip.

And the rest of her story Rye saw in pictures that flashed from her mind into his. He saw Sonia slipping away from the crowd. He saw her climbing further up the hill to hide behind the shattered building. He saw her discovering what seemed to be the abandoned burrow of some animal.

He saw her crawling into the darkness, at first thinking only of shelter, then stumbling upon a maze of stone passages. He saw her moving on through whispering blackness, her candle flickering, blue pebbles falling from her fingers one by one.

And he saw her reaching the alcove and creeping into its shelter as her candle guttered and died.

‘Then you went to sleep,’ he said, covering Sonia’s hand with his. ‘Just before I woke in the pit knowing who I was, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’ Sonia made a face. ‘I seem to be making a habit of sleeping through exciting events. But I was very tired. And this alcove … it sounds strange, Rye, but it makes me feel safe. When I first came upon it, it seemed to welcome me. And in here the voices in the stones are quiet.’

Rye had not thought about it, but now that he did he realised Sonia was right. He could hardly hear the groans and whispers that had plagued him as he found his way here. Why should that be?

He flicked the crystal light around the small space, and wondered why it was empty, when statues had stood in all the other alcoves he had seen. Then, as the soft beam swept over the floor, he thought he knew. The base of the alcove was covered not with dust, but with a thick layer of rust particles.

‘Whatever once stood in here must have been made of metal instead of stone,’ he said slowly. ‘Over time, it has completely rusted away.’

Sonia nodded without much interest. She was leaning back on the hard stones. She looked exhausted but very relaxed, as if finding Rye had for the moment driven all other cares from her mind.

Or as if there really is something about this alcove that gives her peace, Rye thought. His skin prickled.

‘Sonia,’ he said abruptly, feeling in the bag hanging around his neck, ‘move out into the passage!’

The girl opened her eyes and blinked at him in surprise.

‘Please!’ Rye insisted, hardly able to contain his impatience. ‘There is something I want to try.’

Staring, Sonia did as he asked. Rye turned in the cramped space. He pressed the key he had taken from the bag to the back wall of the alcove.

And with a grating sound, part of the wall swung open, revealing a small cavity in which stood a golden casket, glimmering in the crystal’s light.

‘What is it?’ gasped Sonia. ‘How did you know it was here?’

Rye’s heart was beating so fast that at first he could not answer. Reverently he lifted the casket out of its hiding place. The lid was exquisitely inlaid with blue stones. The swirling patterns seemed to move, one moment making pictures of sea serpents and fish, the next the shapes of ferns and trees. He swallowed.

‘It is a legend. I read of it in an old book. It has been hidden here, underground, for a very long time. Carryl, the museum keeper, was trying to find it …’

The casket was firmly sealed. He touched it with the tiny key and its lock clicked. Gingerly he opened the lid.

Inside, resting on a cushion of threadbare velvet, was a disc as large as the palm of his hand and as thin as paper, its surface rippling green and blue like water in the light.

Rye heard Sonia catch her breath. He hesitated, then took the disc between his thumb and forefinger. Magic thrilled through him. The little bag hanging around his neck seemed to pulse against his skin.

Carefully he lifted the disc. The velvet cushion collapsed into dust. The disc brightened, the ripples on its surface swirling and forming into words.

‘This is Fellan!’ Sonia breathed. ‘It is like the writing we saw in the forest pool beyond the golden Door. But what does it mean?’

Rye’s heart was racing, and so were his thoughts. Hastily he put the disc back into the casket. His fingers felt scorched. The light crystal, the little key, the concealing hood—all the powers he carried, the powers he had thought so wondrous—suddenly seemed no more than clever tricks. The power of the disc was something very different. It stirred him to the depths of his being.

‘I think,’ he said in a low voice, ‘Sonia … I think it is the token of the ancient pledge by the Fellan not to interfere in the wider affairs of Dorne. The Fellan beyond the golden Door told us of that pledge—do you remember?’

Sonia nodded, staring at the disc in the casket.

In Rye’s mind was the sudden memory of a conversation he had overheard in the city of Oltan. A man called Shim had been talking to Hass the fisherman. The Lord of Shadows, Shim had said, was angry because he had been defeated in a place called the Land of Dragons—repelled by a magic more powerful than his own.

‘You are powerful magic,’ he murmured, his eyes on the disc. ‘But even more powerful are the beings who made you.’

‘What?’ Sonia cried sharply. ‘Rye, what are you talking about?’

Rye turned to look at her. She was staring at him, her eyes dark with what looked like fear.

‘The pledge must be what is stopping the Fellan fighting the Lord of Shadows,’ Rye said. ‘If Farr returns this token to them—breaks it, perhaps, before their eyes, the oath will be dissolved.’

‘Farr will not venture into the Fell Zone,’ Sonia said, shaking her head. ‘People here hate and fear the Fellan. I have heard little on the streets, but I have gathered that much.’

‘You forget—I know Farr now!’ Rye argued. ‘He trusts me. Sonia, why do you look like that? What is wrong?’

‘I—I do not know,’ Sonia said in a small voice, quite unlike her own. ‘I just think it would be better to take the disc to the Fell Zone ourselves, without saying a word of it to anyone.’

‘No!’ Rye said shortly. ‘Farr is the elected heir of that ancient chieftain who persuaded the Fellan to make their vow. The disc is his affair.’

‘It is no more his affair than it is ours!’ Sonia snapped. ‘What is this obsession with Farr, Rye? He is nothing to you! You are a citizen of Weld!’

‘You are a fine one to talk of that!’ Rye muttered, backing out of the alcove with the gold casket in his hands. But as he and Sonia picked their way out of the maze of passages, following the trail of blue pebbles she had dropped during her lonely wanderings in search of him, he began to feel more and more uncomfortable.

In truth, his escape through the wooden Door, his time at Fell End, his days and nights spent as Keelin in the chieftain’s lodge, had changed him even more than his other two journeys beyond the Wall had done. In truth, there was a part of him that no longer felt like a citizen of Weld, the home of his childhood, but like a citizen of Dorne. And in truth, Farr seemed more deserving of his loyalty than the Warden of Weld had ever done.

In silence, he and Sonia crawled from the underground into the waning light of evening. With a jolt of panic Rye looked at the sky, then remembered there was no need to fear. The skimmers did not come to the city. They were only a problem inland.

The sea breezes tossed Sonia’s hair into wild tangles. Rocks loomed around them, some solid, some hollow as chimneys and chattering with the clinks that had gnawed out their centres. Rye took a great breath of salty air and was filled with an overwhelming sense of relief.

‘I would never have escaped that place without you, Sonia,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘I am sure you would do the same for me,’ Sonia answered stiffly. Then she glanced at him sideways and her lips tweaked into a rueful smile. ‘I know you would do the same for me,’ she added. ‘So what choice did I have?’

She glanced at the little casket clutched in his hand and with a sigh pulled the red scarf from her neck.

‘Here,’ she said, giving the scarf to Rye. ‘Use this to carry that wretched thing. It would be best to keep it hidden for now.’

The scarf was a peace offering, Rye knew. He took it gratefully, knotted both the casket and the book from his pocket into it, and tied the small bundle firmly to his belt.

As they clambered down to the road below, they saw that people were still working in the ruins of the museum. Carryl’s precious exhibits were being thrown onto the rubbish carts along with everything else.

‘Rye, put on the hood,’ Sonia whispered, shrinking back. ‘It would be better if they did not see me.’

Rye wanted to tell her that the workers would not trouble her once they knew she was a friend of his, but decided not to risk another argument over something so small. He pulled the hood of concealment over his head and took her arm.

‘We should pack up for the night, Nils,’ he heard one worker say to another. ‘It’s pointless going on.’

‘It was always pointless,’ his companion growled. ‘We were never going to find that Keelin. He’s one of them, all right—set the explosion, then spirited himself away.’

Rye froze where he stood.

‘Zak said Keelin saved him and old Carryl’s grandson,’ the first man muttered.

Nils made a disgusted sound. ‘The boy was so shocked he wouldn’t know what happened. Probably mixed this up with that false rescue at Fell End.’

The first man frowned. ‘The scar-faced guard said he saw a raggedy girl hanging round just before the blast went off. Other people saw her too, afterwards. Green eyes, they said.’

The two men looked at each other meaningfully.

‘They were in it together, you mark my words,’ Nils growled. ‘Filthy spies! And old Carryl dead! The end of an era! Still, one good thing’s come out of it. Farr’s had enough. He’s given the order at last. The army’s on the move. And he rode out himself this morning, they say, as soon as he knew his lady was out of danger. By now, he’ll be in Riverside.’