Winter Door (24 page)

“I awoke back in my world,” Rage said gently, pitying the girl. “It turned out that I had been asleep the whole time I was here after all. I didn’t know because I had fallen and knocked myself out. When I slept again in my world, I tried to will myself to you and Mr. Walker, but I thought of Elle for a moment, and…” She waved her hand at Elle.

Puck glared at Elle. “You might have waited for us, and then we would not have wasted so much time looking for you! We ought to have gone through all together.”

Elle only gathered him up and hugged him. He seemed to enjoy it despite his scowls. “I am glad to see you, for your bad temper is like a warm fire in this wearyingly bland world where no one seems to feel anything very much, and if they do, they are soon taken away.”

“Is it only summerlanders who are taken?” Billy asked as she set Puck down.

“Mostly,” Elle said. She turned her attention now to Nomadiel and held out her hand solemnly. Nomadiel blushed as she laid her own small hand in it.

“I am very glad to see you, Lady,” she said.

“And I you, Noma, though these are difficult days,” Elle said very seriously. “We will have need of your courage on this quest.” She bowed her head gracefully to Rally, who stood on Nomadiel’s shoulder blinking at her. “And we will have need of your wisdom, too, Master Crow.”

The bird gave a pleased squawk and preened slightly. “I am at your service, Lady Elle,” he said.

Elle nodded and rose to face Thaddeus. “It is good to see you again, witch man, though I am surprised your lady spared you.” Puck snorted rudely. “I wish I had realized sooner who was seeking me. When I heard that a big, grim-faced man was asking questions, I thought it must be some agent of the Stormlord. Indeed, I was planning to capture you because you were the first person I had heard of who might be capable of answering questions about the keep.”

“Grim-faced!” Thaddeus echoed indignantly. “I could hardly go about smiling like a great fool here, could I?”

“True,” Elle conceded, grinning. “You have met my summerlander friend?” She nodded at the door through which Lod had gone in search of fever medicine.

“
He
is a summerlander?” Thaddeus asked incredulously. “Why, he is no more than a child.”

“Almost all of the rebels are young or very young, including their leader,” Elle said. “I do not know why, but they are as brave and determined as any adult warrior could be.”

“Well, that may be,” Thaddeus said, looking unconvinced. “The lad said only that the Lady Elle wanted to see us. So we came at once. But how did you get mixed up with summerland rebels anyway?”

“It is they who decided to mix themselves up with me,” Elle said, gesturing to them to sit. “Their leader declared that she knew that I was a great summerland warrior who had come to free this world from endless night. It seems there is some legend here to that effect, and the fact that the earth tremors here seemed to have begun about the time I arrived doesn’t help.”

“You were not stupid enough to let them believe that you were their legendary warrior come to unveil the sun, I hope,” Puck said sourly.

Elle laughed. “I make no promises that I will not keep, little man,” she said. “Now, let us talk seriously. Rage has told me quite a lot, but you must add what you have learned since her departure.”

“Not much,” Thaddeus confessed apologetically. “When we could find no way to confirm that the wizard was here, we put our efforts into finding you.” He added that the only thing they had heard about the wizard was a rather vague rumor of an old man visiting Stormkeep, but when they investigated, the description did not sound like the wizard.

“The man who told us of him did not smell of lies,” Nomadiel added earnestly. Rage noticed that her eyes hardly left Elle’s face as she spoke, as if all hope lay in the lovely dog-woman’s face, which perhaps was true.

“Perhaps he did not lie,” Elle murmured thoughtfully. “The wizard would have known how to prevent anyone marking him as a stranger. I have been unable to find proof that he is here, either, but the fact that the people here believe the master of the keep visits his wrath upon them in the form of storms makes me certain that our wizard would at least have gone to Stormkeep, even if he went somewhere else afterward.”

“You have a plan?” Nomadiel asked, her eyes alight.

Elle nodded. “The bones of one, at least. It is a twofold plan. Rage will be drawn back to her world again when she wakes. Next time when she sleeps, she will dream-travel to the wizard. If he is in Stormkeep, then he will most likely be a prisoner. It may be that Rage will be unable to break the iron circles that will bind him, but at least she will be able to speak to him.”

“Iron circles?” Rage echoed blankly.

“Everyone knows that iron stops magic,” Nomadiel said scornfully.

“Remember the bracelets the High Keeper made girls wear to stop them becoming witch folk?” Thaddeus said.

“I remember, but the wizard was trapped in an hourglass when I was here last, and he couldn’t do magic then…”

“The circles do not have to be about his hands. They can also be either side of him or above and below him,” Nomadiel said.

“The hourglass was capped at both ends with iron circles,” Billy said softly to Rage. “He could manage to reach your dreams as he did because the iron wasn’t actually around his wrists.”

“I think this plan is madness,” Puck announced. “What if the wizard is dead? What if she dream-travels herself under the ground?”

Rage’s skin rose into gooseflesh, but Elle merely shook her head. “He is not dead.”

“What if the Stormlord’s pet wizard is waiting?”

“I am not sure there is a wizard in Stormkeep, but—” Elle began.

“An alarm clock!” Rage broke in. “I can set it so that I will only sleep a little while. That way I won’t be there long enough for anyone to notice me.”

Elle nodded her approval. “A good thought. So Rage will wake, then sleep again as soon as she can manage it, and then she and Billy will return to tell us what they discovered. Our wizard might also be restored to us by then.”

“Puck is right,” Thaddeus protested. “The danger to Rage will be great. You cannot count upon the Stormlord not noticing an intruder, even if she is only there for a short while.”

“That is true, witch man,” Elle replied. “But I will send a message to him announcing that I mean to send one of my minions inside his supposedly impregnable keep to reveal my power. If he captures Rage, he will want to question her about me.”

“You can’t know that,” Puck said.

“He would be a fool if he did otherwise, and I do not think the master of this place is a fool. Yet there is a risk,” Elle admitted. “And Rage has already agreed to take it.”

“It is a better plan than sending Rally or me flying over the walls to see if the wizard is there,” Puck said grudgingly, giving Thaddeus a black look.

“You would have been spotted and shot from the air by arrows, for the watch-walks about the walls are manned by gray fliers,” Elle said.

“And if Rage cannot release the wizard so that he can effect his own escape?” Rally asked.

“I have some thoughts on that, but I am not ready to utter them yet,” Elle said calmly. “Rage, how long do you think before you will wake?”

Rage thought of how tired she had been after her long walk to the dam and back. “I’m afraid it might be a while yet.”

Thaddeus let out a low cry. “I have something that won’t help you wake in your own world, but it might help you sleep, if you can carry it there with you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pouch. “Sleep dust. The best thing about it is that you won’t sleep for long.”

Rage did not know if things could shift with her dream form, but it would be marvelous if she did have the sleep dust with her when she woke because they would not have to wait to return to Null.

“All right, now we must compose a letter for the Stormlord, and think on how it might be delivered,” Elle said briskly. She looked at Nomadiel. “Since I cannot write, you will have to do it for me.” She rose and Nomadiel followed her.

As they reached the door, Rage had an idea. “Elle, what made you come here so suddenly from Valley? Isn’t it because you dreamed of the firecat?” she cried. Rage felt herself flush as everyone stared at her, including a puzzled-looking Elle. “I’m sorry I yelled,” Rage said, feeling foolish. “I just thought talking about the firecat might make me wake up, because every other time I’ve tried to tell anyone about it, I’ve woken up.”

“A pity it did not work,” Elle said. “But how did you know that I had dreamed of the firecat?”

“You saying that the wizard wasn’t dead made me think of it. Because how could you know that unless the firecat had come to you again?”

Elle laughed. “It is true that the wretched creature plagues my dreams, demanding that I seek out its master, but it can offer no help except to insist that he is here somewhere. For some reason, the firecat is terrified of entering this world. What did it tell
you
?”

Rage felt the blood in her cheeks drain away. “It said that the wizard was in trouble. But I wouldn’t listen. I thought it was a dream.”

“So that is why it came to me! I did wonder. Well, you shouldn’t trouble yourself about it,” Elle said.

Nomadiel suddenly gave a little scream and everyone turned to her in startled alarm. “He disappeared right in front of my eyes!”

“Who did?” Thaddeus asked.

“That boy. That Billy Thunder.”

Rage swung round, but even as she did so, she experienced the pulling sensation of waking.

She woke to find Billy gnawing her fingertips gently.

“It’s all right! I’m awake!” Rage sat up and gave him a hug, marveling that for once her mind was quite clear about what had been happening. It was pitch dark and she looked at the clock. It read five o’clock. She had been asleep for a long time. She was wide awake, but if she
had
managed to bring back the sleep dust, she could use it and go right back to sleep. She dug into her pocket but it was empty. She would just have to wait until she was sleepy.

The bedroom was icy cold, which meant the power was out again, but the stove would still be hot. Rage climbed over Billy, who wagged his tail and got down, too. She patted him and told him to be quiet so as not to wake her uncle.

If he had come back.

Rage pulled on her robe and went through the house to the extension. The door was open, which meant he had not come in. Just the same, she went to the front door and opened it to make sure the car was not in the driveway. Billy slipped past her and padded away around the side of the house. It was too cold to wait for him to come back, so Rage shut the door and went back to the bedroom. She dressed in jeans, two sweaters, and her old zebra-head slippers.

She went to the kitchen, flicking the light switch as she entered. Nothing happened. She checked the fuse box by the back door but it was fine, so the power was out. She opened the flue to the stove and fed in some more wood. She had used the last in the wood box, so she went to get some more from the outside stack, dragging on the old coat hanging on the back of the door as she went though it.

Once the wood box was replenished, Rage scrambled eggs and made tea. Only when she sat down to drink it did she let herself think about what might be happening in Null. She worried most about Mr. Walker, and whether he had recovered. Elle had seemed certain that he would. But something had been wrong with the little dog-man, even before he had gone through the winter door.

Disliking the somber turn of her thoughts, Rage decided that the quickest way to get sleepy would be to tire herself out, so she went to chop some wood. Then she dusted and swept and lit candles around the house, feeling like a seventeenth-century maid. She even mopped the kitchen floor. Then, with nothing else to do, she got out her homework. Spreading it on the floor beside the stove, she immersed herself in reading, but thoughts about her uncle kept creeping in to distract her. Why hadn’t he called?

He iss having accident!
whispered the firecat inside her mind.

“What do you want?” Rage snapped aloud, but there was no answer. The firecat voice was merely the voice of her own gnawing doubts and fears.

Billy scratched at the door and she let him inside and fed him, then she forced herself back to her homework. For a time, she managed to concentrate. Finally, she threw the book aside. “Oh, Billy, I can’t bear this waiting,” she cried.

As if in response, the power suddenly came on. At the same time, the phone began to ring. Rage froze in surprise, then she scrambled to her feet and ran across the room. Instinct made her hesitate to lift the receiver. She heard her voice on the answering machine greeting the caller, then came the voice of Mrs. Somersby asking for Uncle Samuel. To her horror, she heard the older woman say that she was sorry to have missed their meeting, but that she looked forward to discussing the program with him as soon as was convenient. Then she hung up.

Rage felt sick.

Why would Uncle Samuel agree to a meeting if he wasn’t planning to get rid of the responsibility of looking after Rage? Perhaps he had guessed that she had been trying to keep him from learning about it.

She calmed down, telling herself she didn’t really know what had happened. Going restlessly to the window, she peered out. It had begun snowing lightly again. There was mist rising that gave the white landscape a strange, ghostly look, as if everything in the world were dissolving.

Rage thought about her uncle and found herself going back through the house to the extension. The last few nights at home, he had gone to his room early, saying he had work to do. It had not occurred to her before to wonder what work he meant. She went to the desk. All his books and papers were as they had been except for two notebooks that had been set aside. She took up one of them. It was new, while the one under it was battered like all the others that her uncle had brought from the jungle.

Rage flipped through the new notebook. It fell open at a point where the writing broke off halfway down the page.