“Then we are no worse off than we were before,” said Rye.
“Of course we are!” she cried. “Soon it will be dark. We do not dare to move on without a guide, in case we run into a fell-dragon net! And we cannot stay in this clearing, under the sky. You know that! You are the one who is so obsessed with skimmers!”
In sudden dread, Rye looked up. The orange light had faded. The sky above the clearing was gray, and he thought he could see the first glimmer of a star. To his relief, no dark, ragged shapes were flapping overhead.
“The first wave must fly to Weld from another direction,” said Sonia. “But who knows when others may come this way?”
Helplessly, Rye looked around the deserted clearing, which was now ringed with shadows. He thought he caught a flicker of movement and froze, staring at the place. The longer he looked, the more convinced he became that one shadow was deeper than the others.
Ask Dann’s Mirror….
The whisper was so faint that he was not certain that he had really heard it, yet he seemed to recognize the voice. He blinked, and suddenly the deeper shadow had vanished.
“Thank you, Edelle,” he murmured.
“What?” Sonia demanded irritably.
Rye stepped back to the edge of the pool and looked down into the dim water. Had Edelle really meant that he could ask the pool a question, and it would answer him?
He crouched by the pool. His reflection was now just a dark, blurred shape on the glassy surface. Whatever he asked, he had to ask it quickly. Soon it would be too dark to see.
A dozen questions trembled on his tongue. There were so many things he did not understand. So many things he needed to know.
But one was more important than all the rest. He could not miss this chance to ask it.
“Where is my brother Dirk?” he whispered.
The water began to ripple. Words appeared. Rye strained his eyes to make them out.
Rye’s heart seemed to leap into his throat.
“Where is the place of the Enemy?” he heard himself ask. “How do I get there?”
The darkening water swirled. New words formed.
Rye and Sonia followed the stream through the howls and screeches of the Fell Zone night. Leaves rustled, sticks cracked, and hungry eyes glittered in the blackness that fringed their path. But nothing sprang at them out of the blackness, and no nets barred their way.
At first, they had to walk blindly, guided only by the sound of water running beneath the mossy rock on which they trod. Then, just as the moon rose above the trees, the stream reappeared, bubbling from beneath a shelf of rock. After that, it was their constant companion, babbling beside them, winding ahead of them like a rippling ribbon of light.
It was a comfort, but the sense of danger was still very great, and Rye and Sonia walked tensely and in silence, not daring to stop for rest.
The bell tree stick held at the ready, Rye kept glancing up at the narrow band of sky above his head, checking for signs of skimmers.
There were no skimmers, or none that he could see. But there were stars — countless stars, studding the inky sky. Soon Rye found he was looking up as much in fascination as in fear. Never had he seen stars like these. The pale pinpoints of light that glimmered in the hazy night sky of Weld were nothing compared to this dazzling array of jewels glittering in a deep black sea.
“How beautiful they are!” Sonia whispered beside him. “I had no idea stars could be so beautiful!”
“Nor I,” said Rye. “It must be because the sky at home is never as clear as this.”
And all at once, the fierce, uncaring brilliance of the stars blurred before his eyes, and he felt a terrible longing to be back beneath a softer sky, among the things he knew, behind the high Wall of Weld.
It is no use thinking of that, he told himself furiously. There is no going back. And home is no longer home as it was. Is that not why you are here?
“You deceived the Warden in more ways than one, Rye,” Sonia said quietly. “You did not leave Weld to find the source of the skimmers and win the reward, did you? You want only to find your brother! That is why you chose the golden Door. It was the one you thought Dirk must have taken.”
Rye did not bother to deny it. Sonia had heard his first question at the pool.
“Dirk is in the place of the Enemy, so as it happens, you have not wasted your time by coming with me,” he muttered. “When we reach Oltan, we can go our separate ways. I will find Dirk, to take him home, and you can destroy the Enemy — if you are able.”
“There is nothing to say that the Enemy of Oltan is the one who is sending skimmers to Weld!” Sonia snapped, stung by his tone.
“Dirk plainly thinks he is,” Rye said stoutly. “I may not have come here hoping to stop the skimmers, but Dirk did! If he is in Oltan, he is not there for nothing, you can depend upon it.”
He heard a stealthy stirring in the bushes on the other side of the stream. Realizing that he had slowed, he moved quickly on, deliberately lengthening his stride so that Sonia was forced to fall behind. After that, he glanced at the sky less often, and when he did, he tried not to think of the stars.
He meant to keep up a brisk pace and to stay alert to danger, but as time slipped by, he found it harder and harder. Sonia was so silent that he had to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure she was still following.
We will soon reach the end of the Fell Zone, he told himself, remembering the schoolroom map. And that means we will soon be on the coast — in Oltan. No one will be stirring at this time of night. We will find shelter, and then we can rest.
But the stream wound on and on, the seething blackness beyond its banks never grew still, and the snarls and howls of invisible creatures killing and being killed never became less. And all Rye and Sonia could do was to move forward, driven by fear, keeping on their feet by pure will.
At last, however, there came a time when the ferns ended, the stream banks flattened and widened, and the trees became fewer.
“We are almost there, I think,” Rye called over his shoulder.
His voice sounded hoarse. It was hours since he had spoken aloud.
Sonia did not answer. Rye looked back and saw that between the streaks of dirt on the girl’s face, her skin was sickly pale. Her eyelids were drooping. She was stumbling as she walked.
He saw that she was exhausted. And only then did he realize how exhausted he was himself.
How long had they been following the stream? He could barely remember the last part of the journey. It was as if he had been walking in a dream.
“Just a little farther,” he called to Sonia and waited for her to catch up to him. She blinked, swaying like someone just woken from sleep.
Fearing she would fall, Rye took her arm. She made no protest. Cautiously they crept together out of the trees and stopped, staring.
A humpbacked stone bridge spanned the stream ahead. A bare dirt track trailed away on either side of the bridge, disappearing into the shadowy distance.
Beyond the track, there was open land divided here and there by straggling fences and dotted with small groups of trees. The land reared up into hills and sank into shallow valleys in a way Rye found disturbing and unnatural. Above the whole arched a vast, star-studded sky.
There were no houses to be seen. No shops or halls. No buildings at all. The only signs of human life were the fences, the bridge, and the road.
“This cannot be,” Rye said slowly.
Sonia’s eyes were huge in her pale, drawn face. Abruptly she pulled away from Rye, crouched beside the stream, and began splashing herself with water. When she stood up, her face, arms, and clothes were wet, and she no longer looked half-asleep.