Winter Door (20 page)

If only they would all meet,
Rage thought confusedly. The sound of the wind was so feral that she began to think of the storm as a great, dark beast.

She longed for Billy, but he did not come. She thought of Logan, and the next thing, she was stumbling into him.

“Why do I keep dreaming about you?” Logan demanded, not noticing the wildness of the storm buffeting them. Again he was wearing pajamas. Rage tried to speak, but the storm seemed to have blown all the words out of her, making her no more than a tunnel through which it might bluster and moan.

“Rage! Talk to me,” Logan said, his confusion turning to anxiety. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m lost,” Rage whispered. “Billy is lost, too.” The thought of Billy being lost brought tears to her eyes, and she grasped at his pajama front. “Logan, you have to tell Billy I’m all right. Promise me!”

“Rage!”

Rage woke with a gasp to find Mr. Walker looking into her face. “Get up, someone is coming.”

She staggered to her feet, dazed with sleep and dreams. Thaddeus was standing with a hand on his sword, head tilted to listen. Puck was nowhere to be seen, which meant that he must be outside. But if someone was coming, why hadn’t he given a signal?

Rage listened, but she could only hear the sound of the storm outside at first. It sounded like the howling gale of her dreams, but then she realized there was an intermittent whistling sound as well.

“Puck,” Mr. Walker said.

The small, winged man appeared at the door to the cave, walking rather than flying. Behind him came Nomadiel, bedraggled and exhausted. Rally was clutching her shoulder under her hood.

“What are you two doing here?” Mr. Walker demanded.

Nomadiel gave a little shaky bow. “Father.”

“I said, what are you doing here?” Mr. Walker strode across the cave to glare down at her. “I forbade you to come here.”

“You can’t forbid me,” Nomadiel said. “The witch Mother said that I was supposed to come. Both Rally and me.”

“And when did
this
notion come to her?” Puck demanded, his voice almost as chilly as Mr. Walker’s.

The small girl looked taken aback, but she lifted her chin and said, “I was going to sneak through the winter door with Rally, but the Mother was there waiting, and Gilbert as well. She said that she had been waiting for two who were yet to pass through, and that it was obviously us. She made Gilbert let us go through.”

“Two…,” Thaddeus murmured, and they all turned to him. “One to go.”

“She should have said three.”

Nomadiel shrugged. “
She
must be the eighth.” She was looking at Rage resentfully.

“Do not speak of Rage Winnoway as
she
in such a disrespectful voice,” Mr. Walker said angrily.

“Of course not!” Nomadiel lashed back. “I mustn’t say anything about your precious Rage Winnoway, the one person in all the worlds that you love since my mother died!”

Mr. Walker’s face whitened with shock, and then his face became stony. “Do not speak to me of matters that are beyond your years and wisdom, daughter,” he said in a lifeless voice. He looked at Puck. “I will keep watch now.”

No one spoke as he walked out, then everyone turned back to Nomadiel, who was now ash-pale and trembling. She said defensively, “I did not mean to say that. I just—” She bit her lip, fighting tears.

“If the witch Mother said we are meant to come, then it is foolish to cry out against it,” Rally opined in a ripe, sonorous tone.

“He is right,” Thaddeus agreed, but the look he gave Nomadiel was not warm.

Rage would have liked to ask why Nomadiel had wanted to come through the winter door. It was clear that she would have done so whether or not Rue had approved.

“It is as dark as night still, but day has come,” Puck announced. “We should leave this place and go to the village now.”

“I will go in first, alone, as we decided last night,” Thaddeus said in a voice that brooked no argument. Puck snorted under his breath. It did not take the witch man long to comb his hair, drink some water, and don his coat and hat. There was another earth tremor as Thaddeus turned to Rally. “Will you come with me?”

“No!” Nomadiel cried, but Rally was already winging to the witch man’s shoulder.

“I must,” the crow told her. “If anything goes wrong, I can fly back with a warning.”

“Clever bird,” Thaddeus said with a smile. Then he left, saying that they would return within an hour, and everyone ought to be ready to move.

When Thaddeus was gone, Puck seemed to brighten as he set about preparing a breakfast from their packs. Rage contributed her own thermos and sandwiches. Nomadiel sipped suspiciously at the still-warm cocoa, and the first hint of a smile Rage had ever seen lifted the lips of Mr. Walker’s daughter. It was a smile of such surpassing sweetness that Rage was reminded of Nomadiel’s mother. It was so sad to think of Kelpie dying and leaving her daughter to Mr. Walker, who had become so strangely harsh.

“If neither of them return within the hour, we will have to go in after them,” Mr. Walker said.

“We might as well, because if they take him prisoner, you can be sure that they will soon be back for the rest of us,” Puck said.

Within half an hour, Rally returned, coming to land on the boulder where Puck was sitting. Mr. Walker strode over as Puck slid to the ground.

“What happened?” Nomadiel asked Rally eagerly.

“All doors are barred and the few small windows tightly shuttered in the settlement. The witch man pounded at one door. It opened, and the woman inside was dressed and smelled of breakfast. A man came out and told us to go away. He said strangers were not welcome. Thaddeus answered that he was a traveler in need of shelter. The man told him that there was a sleeping place for travelers at the end of the settlement, so we went there. The people did not want us to come, but Thaddeus insisted. When I spoke, they stared at me. I think that animals in this world do not talk. Indeed, I have not seen a single sign of bird or beast here.”

“What about Elle and the wizard?” Nomadiel urged. “Did the witch man ask about them?”

The crow ruffled its dark feathers and ignored the interruption. “The witch man said he had friends coming who would also want shelter, but the man said there was no room. Then he tried to make the witch man leave. When Thaddeus refused, the man demanded to be paid for lodgings. He wanted metal. Luckily, Thaddeus had some to give, then he sent me to fetch the rest of you. He didn’t dare leave in case the man barred the door to us all.”

“Let’s go,” Mr. Walker said impatiently. He looked at his daughter. “You will remain here.”

“No,” Rally said. “Thaddeus told me that if you ordered Noma to stay, I was to say that it would be safer for us to remain together. He said to remind you that in stories, expeditions that part always come to harm.”

Mr. Walker scowled at hearing his own oft-repeated words quoted against him, but finally he nodded, twitching his soft ears. He turned to his daughter and said coldly, “Stay close and do not speak when we enter this village. Do not hamper us with more than your presence.”

This was so cruel that Rage drew in a breath, but Nomadiel merely responded with a nod, head lowered. Rage wondered if she was hiding fury or hurt, and determined to talk to Mr. Walker about the way he treated his daughter the very next moment they were alone.

“At least you are more sensibly attired this time, Rage Winnoway,” Puck said as they left the cave.

Rage was too distracted to try to pay much attention because now that she had come outside, she saw that it really was as dark as the middle of the night though day must long have dawned.

“I
really
don’t like this place,” Puck muttered as they set out.

The settlement turned out to be an unprepossessing huddle of single-story, slab-roofed, gray-sided cottages set against a stretch of gray cliff too steep for snow to settle on. Windows were shuttered and doors barred just as Rally had said, but there were a few poles with lamps swinging from hooks, and these shed enough light to see. Except for these and the yellowish smoke coming from the smokestacks of the huts, it would have been easy to imagine the settlement was deserted.

“It doesn’t look very inviting,” Nomadiel murmured.

Mr. Walker gave her a hard look, but whatever he might have said was forgotten as a cloaked Thaddeus appeared.

The witch man was carrying a small lantern like the ones hanging from the poles, and his face was so serious that Rage felt he must have some terrible news to impart. But he only said, “They have agreed that we can stay here, but we will have to be careful because I don’t think it would take much for them to ask us to leave.” He spoke in a dull monotone and his eyes urged them to caution, so they followed him back through the settlement to a hut with a pale door. Thaddeus knocked. The door opened a crack and a wan face peeped out, the eyes huge and gray. Then a slight boy opened the door to let them in. His face showed no emotion and his movements were measured. He led them along a hall to a room where an older man and woman sat on a bench, their hands folded and their eyes blank. The boy stopped before them and bowed, then he stepped aside.

The old man addressed Thaddeus. “These are your travel companions?”

Thaddeus nodded.

The old man looked at each of them expressionlessly before nodding to the boy, who gestured for them to follow. Rage thought it odd that he showed no surprise at Puck, who wore little more than a cloak to hide his wings. But perhaps there were such strange things in this world as to make all of them seem ordinary. The boy then escorted them along another short passage to a low-roofed room with beds along one wall, as in a dormitory. A table and stools were set up before a small hearth. A tiny yellow fire burned there, but it was still very cold in the room.

Moving closer to the fire, Rage had a pang of longing for the bright fire in the cave where they had spent the previous night. When the boy opened the door to depart, Thaddeus asked him about food. Another door opened on the other side of the hall, and Rage had a clear view of a big public room where men and women sat drinking from mugs, eating stew from bowls, and smoking long, thin pipes. It was like watching a scene with the sound switched off, for no one spoke loudly or laughed or even rattled a mug. The expressions on the faces of the drinkers were as flat as those of the old man and the boy.

“What is wrong with these people?” Mr. Walker asked after the boy had gone.

“I don’t know,” Thaddeus said, coming to sit by the fire. “But I think it is better that we do not let anyone know we are outworlders just yet. They seem worried about strangers. If anything has happened to the wizard or Elle, it is very likely to be known that they came from another world. We need to fit in, and learn as much as we can without giving anything away.”

“How can we fit in?” Mr. Walker snapped. “Look at us!”

“Given their lack of reaction and the few bits of information I have managed to pry out of them, it seems like there are many different kinds of creatures here besides humans, mostly living in their own settlements.”

The earth trembled again. They all looked up at the roof uneasily, but not so much as a fall of dust resulted.

“I
really
don’t like this place,” Puck repeated.

“There are no windows in this room,” Mr. Walker said, pacing about.

“There is a small one, over there.” Thaddeus pointed toward the other end of the room. “That is how I sent Rally to get you.” He nodded to where the bird now sat, preening himself gravely.

“Did Elle or the wizard come through here?” Mr. Walker asked impatiently.

“I didn’t want to begin by asking too many questions, especially not big ones. There is a little maid bringing food and drink who might talk if coaxed. That is why I asked for food, aside from the fact that you might be hungry. I have already learned from the maid that the ruler here calls himself the Stormlord and lives in a fortress.”

“His name makes him sound like he might be behind the storms coming through the winter door,” Rage said.

“That is what I thought,” Thaddeus admitted. “So we must be careful. We don’t want one of these blank-faced villagers reporting to him that friends of the wizard have come looking for him. If our wizard did go to the Stormlord, then there is a chance that he is now being held prisoner.”

“But how could the wizard be held against his will?” Nomadiel asked.

“He was imprisoned by the firecat,” Puck said. “Besides, if this Stormlord is behind the winter door, then he must have a wizard working for him.”

“But why send storms to Valley?” Nomadiel asked.

“Perhaps it is the beginning of an invasion,” Thaddeus said.

“I’ve just been thinking,” Rage murmured. “If the wizard went to see this Stormlord, then Elle would have done the same thing.”

“Not without finding out about the Stormlord first,” Mr. Walker said. Rage opened her mouth to say that Elle would have rushed in, but Mr. Walker was saying, “She has been here. I can smell her.”

Nomadiel nodded her own confirmation, which seemed to disconcert her father.

“All right. That’s important to know,” Thaddeus said. “But it’s all the more reason for us to be careful. We need to find out about this Stormlord. If it turns out that he had nothing to do with making the winter door, we can ask for his help. It might even be that he saw our wizard and Elle and sent them somewhere else.”

“Where do these people think we came from?” Rage asked curiously.

“No one asks any questions. That is what made
me
wary about asking questions. The little maid assumes I came from another settlement.”

“We could pretend that we have come to pay our respects to this Stormlord,” Nomadiel said.

“Perhaps, but the maid behaved oddly when she spoke of the Stormlord, so do not make any specific reference to him. Perhaps they are so grim because he is a tyrant.”

“They don’t smell scared,” Mr. Walker said.

“They don’t smell of anything,” Nomadiel said. “Except that boy. He smelled of a tiny bit of curiosity.”