The Third Door

15 - The Watchtower

As soon as Jett had been taken away, Farr and his councillors left the square. The crowd followed eagerly. Dirk and Sholto stood waiting while the chattering tide surged past them. And at last the little square was as bare as a wave-washed shore except for the two who waited and the two standing invisible in the shelter of Rye’s hood.

The shock of Jett’s arrest could not overshadow the glad reunion of the four. Their relief at finding one another safe and well was so great that even Sholto could not hide his joy.

Dirk seemed to assume that Sholto had caught a glimpse of Rye and Sonia, and Sholto did not correct him. Neither did Sonia, who merely looked amused. Perhaps, Rye thought, Sholto had convinced himself that Dirk must be right, and that the call he had felt was simply his brain playing tricks. Sholto would believe anything before accepting that people could speak mind to mind.

Well, now is no time to make him uneasy by trying to persuade him differently, Rye thought. Soon enough there will be something more important I will have to make him accept. He touched the red bundle at his belt, feeling the shapes of the gold casket and the book, and silently warned Sonia to say nothing of them for now.

Food, at least, was no longer a problem. The red knapsacks, which had been given to Dirk and Sholto that morning on their release from the Riverside healer’s care, were packed with supplies. Soon Rye and Sonia were eating ravenously, talking and listening at the same time.

Dirk and Sholto had heard that Farr was to attack the following day, but they knew very little else. There had been no talk of war in the quiet chambers guarded by the Riverside healer. The only whisper they had heard on the streets since their release was that many of the soldiers would be armed with weapons called ‘flamers’.

‘Perhaps “flamer” is another name for “scorch”,’ Rye suggested hopefully. If Farr’s troops carried the deadly weapons Olt’s Gifters had wielded, they would be able to defend themselves from the Master’s grey guards, at least.

Dirk shook his head. ‘Nothing so powerful, I fear. Flamers sound like very crude devices—heavy, and difficult to aim, from what I heard.’

‘It does not matter what weapons Farr’s soldiers use,’ Sholto said restlessly. ‘The Master cannot be defeated by ordinary means. He commands powers that … that we cannot understand.’

It was the closest he had ever come to admitting that the Lord of Shadows was a sorcerer. Rye knew there would never be a better time to tell his secret. Hastily he freed the red cloth bundle from his belt and unwrapped it.

Dirk and Sholto exclaimed over the casket and looked at the disc inside with interest, but to Rye’s dismay they did not seem to feel the disc’s magic at all. And as he told them his plan, his words tumbling over themselves in his eagerness to explain, they both looked at him as if he had lost his senses.

‘Farr will never ask the Fellan for help, Rye,’ Dirk said. ‘He knows they are not to be trusted, and you should know it too. Have you forgotten that they stood by and let hundreds of Weld heroes die horribly in their cursed forest? By the Wall, I have not!’

‘Yes, but—’ Rye bit his lip. If only he could explain why he had faith in the guardians of the Fell Zone! For a moment he considered breaking his solemn promise not to tell where the bag of powers had come from, but his throat closed at the thought. He could not do it, and Sonia was bound by the same promise.

‘If the Fellan were the ones who made my mind a blank and drove me into the Saltings, I agree they are not to be trusted,’ Sholto said. ‘Also, I think you are putting too much faith in that disc, Rye. If the Fellan are as powerful as you say, how could a mere object stop them from doing anything they wished?’

Rye shook his head in frustration. ‘To the Fellan, the disc is not just an object! It is the symbol of an oath they cannot break. See here! I found this last night—it proves I am right!’

He flipped through the little book till he found the page he wanted, and read aloud:

The chieftain swore that the forests of the centre would remain Fellan territory, forbidden to outsiders. The Fellan, in their turn, swore that they would not trouble the newcomers or interfere in the wider affairs of Dorne. And so the agreement was forged, for good or ill, and a charm was struck to be its sign.

‘You see?’ Rye exclaimed. ‘The disc may have been lost for centuries, and Farr’s people may have forgotten how the agreement began, but to the Fellan it still stands.’

He looked up to see Dirk and Sholto exchanging dubious glances and Sonia looking down at her hands.

‘Farr will understand me, even if you do not!’ he said angrily. ‘I am going to him now!’

‘You will not get in to see Farr now, Rye,’ Dirk said, with a kindly patience that Rye, in his present mood, found infuriating. ‘By this time he is again locked away with his councillors.’

‘And if my ears did not deceive me, Rye, you are thought to be an enemy spy,’ Sholto murmured. ‘You should keep out of sight and leave Farr to Dirk and me. We had always planned to see him as soon as he was alone. We will tell him what we know of the enemy, and with luck he will believe us and at least postpone the attack.’

Rye opened his mouth to argue, but Sonia lifted her head and spoke before he could say anything.

‘I agree that Farr will never be persuaded to take the disc to the Fellan,’ she said coolly. ‘And I agree that Rye will be in danger if anyone sees him here.’

‘Good!’ said Dirk, looking rather surprised. ‘So—’

‘So Rye and I will return the disc to the Fellan ourselves, and see what comes of it.’

Dirk was speechless. Rye shook his head. ‘Sonia, I told you, Farr should be the one to—’

‘If Farr is unwilling, someone else must do it,’ Sonia broke in. ‘And who better than you, Rye?’

Her eyes met his. Her voice whispered in his mind.

Who better than the one the Fellan trusted with the nine powers?

‘The Fellan here are not—not friendly to me,’ Rye stammered.

‘They are Fellan, wherever they are,’ Sonia said quietly. ‘However they feel, they will recognise the truth.’

Sholto was watching her intently. She returned his gaze with a defiant toss of her head.

‘You cannot know it is the truth, Sonia!’ Dirk growled. ‘You are relying on a tale from an old book that might be nothing but make-believe!’

‘Could I see it, Rye?’ Sholto asked, holding out his hand.

A little reluctantly, Rye passed over the book. Sholto began flipping through it, scanning a few sentences here and there as he had always done at home when he was deciding if something was worth reading.

‘Interesting,’ he said after a moment, and went back to the beginning.

Dirk frowned. ‘I do not care how interesting it is! Rye cannot go into danger, chasing after a myth that may or may not be real!’

‘It is real,’ Rye said stoutly. ‘And Sonia is right. If Farr is out of the question, she and I must go to the Fellan. You cannot stop us, Dirk!’

Dirk stared at him for a long moment, then grimaced. ‘No, I cannot stop you. Once I could have done, I daresay, little brother, but those days are gone.’

Ruefully he rubbed his forehead with his good hand. ‘Very well—have it your own way. But not before you have helped us release Jett. I doubt Sholto and I can do it alone, the way we are. We will need the hood and the key, at least.’

‘Surely Jett is safe enough where he is for now,’ Sholto objected, his eyes on the book.

‘He is not,’ said Dirk grimly. ‘If Jett stays in the watchtower he will not survive the night. Nothing is more certain.’

Rye felt a thrill of horror. ‘But Farr would never allow—’

‘Farr will have nothing to do with it. Somehow the real assassin will manage the business so that it looks as if Jett killed himself rather than face questioning. We cannot let that happen. Jett is one of our own. He has been falsely accused—’

‘How can you know that?’ Sonia demanded, frowning.

‘Because I know him,’ Dirk said simply. ‘He was one of the Northwall volunteers. Joliffe, Crell and I met him at the Keep. Jett was the leader of the Northwall riots. He is passionately loyal to Weld. He would never have tried to kill Farr, who is facing the same enemy as Weld and is our natural ally.’

Sholto looked up, his finger marking his place. ‘Then the proofs of his guilt must have been planted in his room.’

‘Yes,’ Dirk said grimly. ‘And if he dies tonight without speaking, the real spy will be safe and free to try again.’

There was no more to be said. Even Sonia, who was plainly burning to be gone, could not face the thought of leaving Jett to his fate. Trusting the book to Sholto, who plainly did not want to part with it, Rye wrapped the gold casket in the scarf again and tied it back to his belt. Then he slipped the armour shell onto his little finger, and in the shelter of the hood he and Sonia followed Dirk and Sholto to the watchtower.

The tower was only one street back from the river, and looked newer than the shops and dwellings around it. It was built of stone and taller than any building that Rye had ever seen. At the top it was lined with windows. Its base was solid, with a single iron door. The ground in front of it was neatly paved, and behind it was a little park, shaded by graceful old trees.

A few elderly people were sitting in the park, placidly watching children play. The paving outside the iron door, however, was crowded with people who were in a very different mood.

‘Bring him out!’ a man shouted to the soldier standing on guard by the door. ‘We’ll show him what we think of spies and killers!’

Their faces ugly with hate, the people behind him roared and pressed forward.

The four companions drew together so that they all shared the concealment of the hood, but there was no danger. The crowd was far too intent on the door to notice what was happening anywhere else.

‘We can do nothing here,’ Sholto said in a low voice. ‘Unless we wish to be discovered before we begin.’

He was right, of course. Dirk, Rye and Sonia could all see it. The way to the door was completely blocked. If they tried to fight their way through the crowd, invisible and armoured, everyone would know that a rescue attempt was being made—a rescue attempt using magic, too. It would make the guard and the crowd even more convinced that Jett was an enemy assassin. The guards would kill him before they would see him go free.

‘We will just have to wait until the crowd moves away,’ Dirk said, gritting his teeth.

We cannot wait! We must take the disc to the Fell Zone! Time is short!

Rye did not know if the thought was Sonia’s or his own. He looked up. The windows at the top of the tower glinted in the sunlight.

‘The door is not the only way in,’ he said slowly. He felt in the brown bag and pulled out the feather and the golden key.

Sholto’s pale face took on a greenish tinge, but he said nothing. Dirk frowned.

‘I am not sure I can fly with you, Rye,’ he said reluctantly, touching the sling that supported his right arm. ‘This arm is useless, and the burns on the other are still very painful.’

‘Sholto’s leg is plainly not fit for crawling about tower steps either,’ Sonia snapped. ‘Rye and I will go for Jett. You two wait here and decide where he is to be hidden.’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ Dirk replied dryly.

Sonia’s eyes widened and she shrank back a little as if she had been slapped. Then she recovered and shot Dirk a scathing look.

‘If you have a better plan, by all means tell us what it is,’ she said coldly.

As Dirk, looking a little abashed, shook his head, Rye raised the feather.

‘Wait!’ Sholto exclaimed. ‘Sonia—’

For an instant Rye thought his brother was actually going to beg Sonia to stay in safety on the ground. Then he saw that Sholto was pressing a tiny bottle and a white cloth into Sonia’s hand.

‘This is extract of myrmon,’ Sholto said. ‘I—ah—borrowed it from the healer’s store, thinking it might prove useful. Three drops on the cloth will put a grown man to sleep. Do not use more, or your victim may never wake.’

‘Thank you,’ Sonia said, tucking the little bottle and the rag into her pocket.

Sholto bowed. ‘I am sure you would do the same for me.’

With very mixed feelings, Rye tightened his grip on Sonia and raised his eyes to the glinting windows. Up, he thought, and felt her thoughts echoing his. Up! Up!

There was no faltering this time. Between one heartbeat and the next, it seemed, Rye was pressing the golden key to one of the tower windows, and he and Sonia were tumbling inside.

The small square room was flooded with sunlight. It contained only a chair and a table on which lay a long metal tube with thick glass at both ends—a far glass, Rye knew, used for making distant objects look larger and closer. Tallus had one like it, though his was made of polished goat bone.

There was a trapdoor in the bare wooden floor. It was easily raised, and after that everything went more smoothly than Rye could have hoped in his wildest dreams. The light crystal guided him and Sonia down the circular steps that led down from the trapdoor. The crystal’s power showed them what was behind the locked door that at last barred their way, and the golden key opened the door with only the tiniest of clicks.

Weighed down with iron chains bolted to the wall, Jett was huddled in a cell in a corner of the room. There was only one guard, and he was sitting drowsing on a stool, facing his prisoner. Sonia’s myrmon-sprinkled cloth subdued him in moments. The key opened the cell, and with only a little more trouble, the padlocks on the chains as well. Jett, who had clearly been beaten, was mumbling and half unconscious, but still able to drag himself up to the tower room with Rye and Sonia’s help.

And then the trapdoor was closing behind them, and they were blinking in the sunlit room where they had begun. The whole rescue had taken no more than a few minutes.

‘Rest here a moment, Jett,’ Rye said, pushing back the hood and leading the injured man to the chair. ‘Then we will take you out of here.’

At the sound of his voice, Jett stirred. He licked his torn lips and his half-closed eyes strained open. He saw Rye and gave a violent start.

‘You!’ he rasped. ‘Keelin!’

‘Do not fear,’ Rye said quickly. ‘We have come to get you out. We are from Weld, as you are. We know you are not guilty. We know you did not try to kill Chieftain Farr.’

A curious expression crossed Jett’s battered face. His mouth strained open and a hoarse, barking sound came out.

For an instant Rye thought he was having some sort of fit. Then he realised his mistake. The man was laughing.

‘You fool!’ Jett howled. ‘Of course I tried to kill Farr! By the Wall, how could you doubt it? I tried to blow him off the face of Dorne, and his poisonous councillors with him! Of course I am guilty—guilty as sin!’