The Golden Door (16 page)

Slowly it slid back from the headstone. And little by little, two terrified faces pressed closely together were revealed, blue eyes and green blinking in the sudden light.

T
he Gifters at the graveside gaped down at their find. “It’s not empty, Bern!” one bawled. “There are two of them alive in here! Two! Both perfect! And one’s a —”

“Subdue them, you fools!” barked Bern, his voice cracking in excitement.

And in that instant, as Rye tensed himself to leap from his perch, there was a high whining sound, and the Gifters blasted Sonia and Faene full in the faces with bright yellow light.

Nanion’s iron control broke. He roared and lunged forward. But Bern was ready. Like lightning, he snatched the club from his own belt and pushed it into Nanion’s back. There was a whining flare of yellow, and the big man crumpled to the ground.

Rye froze, seeing all at once that any attempt to attack the Gifters, or even divert them, was doomed.
What hope would he have against weapons such as these? No hope. None at all.

Stay where you are
, the voice of reason told him.
Stay hidden. Stay free. You will be no use to anyone as a prisoner.

So, though it was one of the hardest things he had ever done, he tightened his grip on the tree and forced himself to be still.

“You should have used the blue beam on him, Bern,” the Gifter with the sulky mouth muttered, eyeing Nanion’s sprawled body with disgust. “You had no cause to be gentle with him. He is a traitor to Dorne and deserves to die.”

“There will be time enough for that,” snarled Bern, pulling off his helmet to reveal close-cropped brown hair and a shrewd, narrow face. “After Midsummer Eve, when Dorne is safe once more, Nanion will die a thousand deaths. But only after he has seen his town burned to the ground, his people reduced to beggars, and his precious horses taken into the Chieftain’s keeping.”

He kicked Nanion viciously.

“Bring the prisoners!” he ordered the men beneath the tree. “Take care as you lift them! They must not be bruised or marked in any way.”

“We know, we know,” grumbled the Gifters at the graveside, bending to their task.

They changed the settings on the handles of their clubs once more and turned red beams back onto the
slab to finish opening it. Only when the whole length of the tomb was exposed did they lift first Faene, and then Sonia.

Both girls were breathing, but deeply asleep. Cradling them as if they were made of precious china, their captors carried them out from under the tree.

“Red hair!” gasped Bern, goggling at Sonia as if he was hardly able to believe his good luck.

“So I tried to tell you.” The Gifter who was carrying Sonia scowled. “But you were so busy giving orders —”

Bern punched the air, barely able to contain his glee.

“The daughter of the traitors D’Or
and
a copper-head! Both unmarked! What a reception we shall get in Oltan! Ah, never will there be such a Midsummer Eve as this!”

And the Gifters marched out of the courtyard with their prisoners and disappeared.

Shaking, Rye slid to the ground. The grave-shaped hole gaped dark and empty at his feet.

I do not need to chase them
, he thought dully.
I know where they are going. They are going to Oltan. When I am ready, when I know more, I will follow.

He moved out from under the tree, to where Nanion’s body lay motionless in the sunlight.

Dirk is in Oltan
, his thoughts drifted on.
I have only to find him and tell him that Sonia and Faene have been taken. He will think of a way to save them.

He crouched and shook Nanion’s arm, but the big man did not stir.

“If he was blasted with the yellow flame, he will not wake for an hour or two. It depends how much they gave him.”

Rye looked up and saw FitzFee standing at the courtyard entrance, his daughter in his arms and several silent Fleet people behind him. Popsy’s eyes were wide and dazed. The small man’s weathered face was gray.

“A bad man killed the poor clink dead!” Popsy whispered to Rye. “She came out of the chimney to get a piece of pie I threw. Then a bad man came in and shot blue light at her, and she died!”

Tears filled her shocked eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. FitzFee patted her back helplessly, and she buried her face in his shoulder. A young woman with a dark red birthmark covering one side of her face moved quietly forward.

“Popsy, would you come and help me give the horses some tarny roots?” she murmured. “They have been frightened. They want comfort, and they always like to see you.”

The little girl hesitated, then bravely nodded. FitzFee put her down and she trotted off holding the young woman’s hand. Without a word, Serri and Peron, the two young men who had unloaded the goats, bent to Nanion. Their companions followed as they carried him out of the courtyard.

None of them spared Rye a glance. Perhaps they thought that somehow he and Sonia had brought this disaster down upon them. Perhaps they were simply too shocked and grieved by the loss of Faene D’Or to notice he was there.

“I told you to stay where you were safe!” FitzFee muttered to Rye when they were alone. “Just like Nanion told Faene to injure herself like others her age did. But you wouldn’t listen. And Faene wouldn’t listen, oh no!”

His blue eyes were dark with pain as they moved from Rye’s stricken face to gaze at the gaping grave beneath the bell tree.

“Faene put all her trust in the hiding place this stranger she was fond of made for her before he went barging off to join the rebels in Oltan. And now look! She’ll die on Midsummer Eve, and your friend with her.”

“Why will she die?” Rye made himself ask. “Why Faene, at least?”

“Are you mad?” spat FitzFee. “You saw her!”

Rye closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. “Just tell me please, Master FitzFee,” he said quietly. “Why will Faene and Sonia die on Midsummer Eve?”

And finally, staring, FitzFee told him. At last, Rye heard the truth that Sonia had learned before him from Faene D’Or.

The seven prisoners to die on Midsummer Eve
were not captured spies. They were simply seven perfect specimens of Dorne youth — seven young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four, without a blemish, and in full health and strength. And they were to die so that Chieftain Olt, the ancient, failing sorcerer Olt, might live.

“The sacrifice of seven young ones at sunset on Midsummer Eve will grant Olt another seven years of life,” FitzFee finished dully. “The first Gifting was seven years ago. This is the second.”

“By the Wall, how is it possible?” breathed Rye.

FitzFee looked baffled. “By what wall? What do you mean?”

When Rye said nothing, he shrugged and went on.

“I can’t explain the magic — there is no Fellan in me, I’m glad to say. But Olt’s mother was a Fellan, and magic runs strongly in his veins. He created the spell and made the Gifting law. Once he was loved and respected — the greatest Chieftain Dorne had ever seen, they say. Now he’s a monster. And while he’s got Dorne’s young to prey on, he’ll never die.”

“But — but why do the people stand for it?” Rye stammered.

“Why?” FitzFee looked at Rye quizzically. “Fear, my friend. Fear of Olt’s guards. Fear of Olt’s power. Not to mention fear of what might happen if Olt dies and the magic circle he weaves around Dorne dies with him.”

Still he stared at Rye, his face puzzled. And Rye stood staring back, trying to grasp what he had heard, to make this horror seem real.

“You really didn’t know this before, did you?” FitzFee said slowly after a moment. “When you and the girl insisted on going to Oltan, you weren’t planning to join the rebels who fight the Gifting, like I thought. You just didn’t understand the danger.”

“No,” said Rye, his voice very low. “We did not understand.”

FitzFee shook his head in wonder. “Your parents must have guarded your ears and your eyes very fiercely, friend, if you didn’t even know the evil you were escaping!”

“We did not understand,” Rye repeated, turning his head away.

He had realized by now that FitzFee had no idea where he and Sonia had really come from. FitzFee thought merely that they were the lost members of a group who had gone into the wilds to try to save their young from the Gifters.

How wrong we were
, Rye thought bitterly.
We believed Weld was the center of everything, jealously desired by all. In fact, Weld is only a small, forgotten corner of Dorne, locked away so long that the suffering people beyond the Fell Zone neither remember nor care about it.

Only Olt remembered Weld — Olt, the tyrant who would sacrifice anyone and anything to clutch at a little more life, a little more power.

A touch on his arm roused him. He saw that FitzFee was looking up at him with pity etched in every line of his face.

“My good lady and I can give you a bed for tonight,” the small man said gently. “In fact, you’d be more than welcome to stay with us a while, and help me with the goats. I could do with a hand just now.”

“You are kindness itself, Master FitzFee,” Rye murmured, his heart very full. He glanced one last time at the bell tree, then led the way back into the guesthouse.

FitzFee followed him in silence to the big room where the two armchairs had been hurriedly pushed back from the central chimney, and the clink no longer chattered in the cold, empty grate.

Rye looked at the food on the table. His stomach heaved at the very sight of it. He pulled the knitted cap from his pocket. He now understood why FitzFee had made him wear it. Like Tallus the healer, Olt clearly thought red hair was a sign of special power.

Because Fellan have red hair, no doubt
, Rye thought grimly.

He remembered the Fellan’s smooth, serene faces with dislike. The Fellan did not have to fear the Gifting. They were safe in their protected territory — safe thanks to their treaty with the tyrant, who was half Fellan himself.

And that was all they cared about. Edelle was the
only one of them to have a grain of sympathy for the people who lived in terror beyond the Fell Zone.

Rye pulled the cap on, tugging it down till every coppery hair on his head was hidden.

“What are you doing?” FitzFee asked, eyeing him anxiously. “We won’t be leaving yet awhile.”

“I cannot thank you enough for your offer, Master FitzFee,” said Rye. “But I must go on to Oltan.”

In vain did FitzFee argue that nothing — no power in Dorne — could save Sonia and Faene. In vain did he tell Rye that no one in Fleet would dream of going after them, because the only ending to such a quest would be disaster. In vain did he rage that on foot Rye would reach Oltan too late in any case, and warn him not to imagine for a moment that he would be given the use of a Fleet horse to make the journey.

“I do not want a horse, Master FitzFee,” Rye said, twisting the shabby plaited ring on his finger. “I cannot ride. But I can run.”

A
nd so it was that Rye of Weld sped with the aid of magic from Fleet to the coast of Dorne in a single afternoon. So he, for the first time in his life, saw the vastness and beauty of the sea that surrounded his island home.

So, just before sunset on the day before Midsummer Eve, he entered the city of Oltan and knew that it was the place that for two long years had haunted his dreams.

Oltan was a maze of blackened stone, a confusion of narrow, twisting streets that seethed with dark and desperate life. People of every shape, size, and color jostled one another heedlessly between grimy, towering walls.

Their faces were wild with excitement, twisted with rage, blank with despair. They cursed and spat, roared their anger, laughed for no reason. Above their
heads, hundreds of red banners strung between buildings flapped and snapped in a fresh wind that did not seem to reach to the streets below. Every banner carried the same words.

Lost in the boiling throng, it was at first as much as Rye could do just to keep on his feet. His legs were trembling after his long run, but he was forced to keep moving, he knew not where. Dazed by the noise, the sights, the smells that beat at his senses, he was shoved mercilessly if he hesitated for a single moment to try to get his bearings. And he soon discovered there was no point whatever in trying to keep to the right.

He almost laughed as he thought of the old Weld rule.

There was no keeping to the right here. There was no order. There were no rules. There was only vigorous, pushing, frightening, brawling, selfish life.

Sweating food sellers wearing neither gloves nor clean white caps stoked the fires that kept their pots bubbling while they bawled to the passing crowds to come and buy.

Gaunt men and women crouched on every corner, holding up their cupped palms, begging for coins and crusts.

Drinkers of all ages spilled from the doors of taverns filled to bursting and roaring with heat and music.

Hairy, grinning creatures that looked a little like humans, but plainly were not, shambled through the crowd. Their nimble fingers lifted purses, watches, and even rings from the unwary, and passed the treasures on to the flashily dressed people who strolled casually beside them.

Strange, absurdly colored birds with curved beaks screeched on the shoulders of men with a rolling way of walking and faded, faraway eyes. The men themselves wore gold earrings, and their leathery skins were a patchwork of smudgy pictures that looked as if they had been burned on with a fiery pen.

The air was thick with the smells of stale sweat, hot food, spilled ale, spices, and blood. And pounding through the din of human and animal struggle was a deep, regular booming, like the beat of a gigantic heart.

Rye felt himself being pressed, slowly but surely, toward the source of the sound. It was as if the streets of the city were streams that might wander for a while but at last were compelled to flow to the sea.

And finally the sea lay before him, water and shore, separated from him only by a high metal net fence fluttering with flags. Here was Oltan Bay, broad
and rippling, its headlands dark against the reddening sky. Here were white sands where waves made their small thunders and foam ran, hissing, up the beach. Here a grim stone fortress loomed, dominating the shoreline, frowning out at the sea.

Rye looked up at the fortress and the hair rose on the back of his neck. He could feel the evil of a vast, cold, selfish will beating at him from every slitted window, every ancient stone. He could feel it streaming through the bars that sealed the stronghold’s gateway like long black teeth.

And he could feel terror, too — terror, pain, and death. Not just from the fortress itself, but even more strongly from the huge, flat-topped rock that rose from the sand directly below it.

Thick iron rings had been hammered into the rock’s surface. The rings might have been used to tie up boats, but Rye knew this was not their purpose. A wooden walkway stretched down from the fortress to a square platform just above the beach, then ran on, sloping more steeply, to the top of the rock. Like the fence, the walkway looked raw and new, as if it had been built only very recently.

In readiness for Midsummer Eve.

Just one among hundreds, Rye pressed his face against the fence. He saw the waves crash. He saw the foaming water run up the beach, hiss against the base of the rock, and retreat, leaving clumps and strands of flabby weed behind it. He saw that every time a wave
broke, the water surged a little higher, till at last there came a time when it did not retreat but remained swirling gently around the rock.

At first, his skin crawled at this evidence of Olt’s sorcery, so powerful that it could even control the waves of the sea. Then he suddenly realized that he was seeing with his own eyes something he had only read about before.

“The tide is rising!” he murmured aloud, tasting the words on his tongue. The man beside him glanced around, his sharp eyes curious, his red, beaky nose twitching.

Fortunately, at that moment, there was a stir in the crowd, and boots pounded on the walkway. Rye’s curious neighbor lost interest in him and turned quickly to look.

Men wearing the black helmets and scarlet tunics of Gifters were marching onto the rock, pulling a cart loaded with barrels. Ignoring the breathless, watching crowd, the Gifters began unloading the barrels and tipping their red, lumpy contents over the side of the rock, into the swirling water.

Rye smelled fresh blood. His stomach turned over.

“I daresay they’re glad this is the last time they’ll have to blood the waters, Dorrie,” he heard the man with the beaky nose comment to his companion, a hefty woman eating fried potato chunks from a greasy twist of paper. “I hear one of them slipped and got taken last night.”

“Sad,” the woman sighed, licking her fingers. “Still, it was his choice to be a Gifter. And the blooding has to be done, they say.”

“Of course!” the man said enthusiastically. “The serpents have to learn there’s a feed here for them at sunset, don’t they? Otherwise, we won’t have a good Gifting. They say five came in last night. I’ve bet on seven for Midsummer Eve. Seven’s my lucky number.”

The woman turned and peered at the sea. “Looks to me as if there’s more than that out there now,” she said placidly. “I’d say you’ve lost your bet, Coop. There’ll be nine or ten tomorrow night, for sure.”

Cold with horror, Rye also looked out at the water.

The sky was red as blood. The sea was heaving, boiling with white foam.

But it was not just the tide that was making the waters heave and swell. As Rye watched, a great, coiling shape broke the surface. He saw a flash of silver, and the silhouette of a vast, spiked head rising from the foam.

Rye clung to the fence, staring, unable to tear his eyes away. He had seen pictures of sea serpents — of course he had! Even the map of Dorne on the schoolhouse wall had shown serpents swimming sedately in the sea surrounding the island.

But nothing he had seen had prepared him for this first sight of the real thing. The savage, spined head rose higher and higher. The snakelike body — as
thick as the trunk of one of the giant trees of the Fell Zone — writhed in great, glittering loops. The monster could have wrapped itself twice around Rye’s little house in Weld.

The sea serpent opened its jaws, showing long, glinting fangs. A weird, high, hooting sound filled the air.

It must have been some sort of challenge, because another serpent surfaced almost instantly. This one was a darker color — blue, perhaps, or green. There was another hooting sound. Two sets of jaws gaped wide as the monsters rose even higher in the water and joined in battle, their bodies tangling and twisting horribly against the sky, their tails thrashing the water into froth.

“The smell of blood stirs them up,” Rye heard his neighbor say knowledgeably.

Then, suddenly, the waves close to shore erupted in an explosion of spray and snarling jaws. Three smaller serpents had sped unnoticed to the beach while everyone was watching the fight.

Green, sickly yellow, and glittering blue-black, the beasts lunged at the rock, tearing and gulping at the ragged chunks of flesh that drifted in the bloody shallows. As the drenched crowd screamed in a frenzy of excitement and fear, the Gifters leaped for safety, sprawling onto the walkway and taking to their heels.

Hissing, the serpents arched over the rock,
snapping at one another, searching for the live prey that had escaped them by a hair. They snatched at the abandoned barrels, cracked them like nuts, wallowed in the spilled blood, and tossed the remains aside. They struck at the cart, reducing it in moments to a jumble of splintered wood.

Then they turned to defend their prizes as more serpents writhed through the bloody foam, spines upraised to claim their share in the feast.

“That’s nothing to what you’ll get tomorrow night, my friends!” roared Rye’s neighbor. “Eh, Dorrie? Nothing to what they’ll get on Midsummer Eve!”

The hefty woman did not answer. Her eyes, fixed on the rock and the fearful, hissing beasts, were suddenly uncertain. Slowly she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Rye turned away from the fence and pushed his way through the crowd, his stomach heaving, his mind filled with confused, shadowed memories.

Glittering coils. Gaping jaws. Blood. Screams of helpless terror …

He had dreamed of all these things. Without knowing it, he had been dreaming of the serpents, of the captives, of the rock. And he had dreamed of Dirk, desperate, crawling through stone tunnels, peering into a deep pit.

Make haste! It is almost Midsummer Eve.

He raised his eyes to the fortress, dark against the scarlet sky.

The prisoners marked for sacrifice were in there. He could feel it. And just as strongly he could feel that Dirk was in there, too. Dirk and his band of rebels were hiding somewhere within that dark stronghold. Their plan had been to release the prisoners before the day of sacrifice.

But in all this time, they had only managed to rescue two of the seven. And those two had been replaced.

By Faene and Sonia.

The Gifting ceremony would continue. Sonia, Faene, and five unknown others would die, horribly, chained to the rock. And Olt would live, to kill again, and again, and again.

I must find Dirk
, Rye thought frantically.
I must tell him….

But what good would it do to tell Dirk that the Fleet woman he loved was to be one of the seven sacrifices to Olt’s greed for life? What could Rye offer Dirk but pain?

Nine powers to aid you in your quest …

Rye raised his hand to the little bag hanging around his neck. And with a thrill of horror, he felt a hot, hairy hand beneath his own.

He yelled aloud, grasped the hand, and threw it aside. He looked down at the sly, long-armed creature beside him. It chattered and gibbered angrily, then snatched the cap from his head and plunged away into the crowd.

Gasping, fumbling for the bell tree stick in his belt, Rye turned to give chase.

“Don’t bother,” a woman laughed beside him. “You’ll never catch a polypan. Just be grateful it didn’t get your purse. That’s a good idea — wearing it around your neck.”

It was the first friendly voice Rye had heard since arriving in Oltan. He glanced at the speaker. She was carrying a basket that smelled strongly of fish but now contained only a few vegetables. Her straw-colored hair was bundled into an untidy knot on the top of her head. Her hazel eyes were lively. He guessed she was still quite young, though her skin was weathered and creased by the wind and sun.

As the woman looked at him more closely, she frowned and glanced quickly left and right, furtively crossing her fingers and wrists.

“I don’t know why you’re still here, son,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth. “But you’re mad to be wandering around in plain view. What if the rebels get another prisoner out tonight? Then the Gifters will be looking for a replacement close to home, won’t they? Get right out of sight and stay there till tomorrow night’s over!”

Out of sight
, Rye thought dazedly.
Yes. That is what I need. Somewhere safe, so I can rest. So I can think.

He looked straight into the woman’s worried eyes. “Where can I go?” he asked.

She hesitated, looking at him doubtfully and
gnawing her bottom lip in a way that reminded him painfully of Sonia. Then she shrugged, as if she had suddenly decided to trust him.

“There,” she whispered, jerking her head to a low building hunched by the shore and surrounded by boats turned upside down in the sand. “Creep in, find a quiet corner, and stay there. Try not to be seen, but if you
are
seen, say Nell sent you. And get that hair of yours covered up again, as quick as you can!”

She hitched her basket higher on her arm and hurried away without looking back.