‘Armour,’ he breathed. He tugged experimentally at the shell, but it would not budge. He suspected it would remain part of him until it sensed he felt safe from attack. He knew he should be glad of it, but the sight of it made him feel sick.
‘So!’ Sonia cried, clapping her hands. She grinned fiercely up at Dirk’s startled face. ‘You see? You did nothing to save us, Master Hero! As it happens, it was Rye’s magic that saved you!’
Different expressions flitted across Dirk’s face—anger, disbelief, confusion, embarrassment, and finally, acceptance.
‘Well?’ Sonia crowed. ‘What do you have to say for yourself now?’
Dirk took a breath. ‘There is nothing to say except that I am sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I did not mean to claim thanks I did not deserve. I did not understand.’
‘Any more than we did!’ Rye exclaimed, glancing angrily at Sonia.
But she was staring at Dirk, biting her lip, the spark of triumph slowly dying from her eyes. Dirk’s frank readiness to admit he had been wrong had thrown her off balance. Suddenly, in one of the lightning changes of mood Rye had noticed in her before, she was ashamed of her gloating.
‘You did deserve thanks,’ she said stiffly. ‘Nothing changes the fact that you risked your life trying to shield us. So I, too, apologise.’
Now it was Dirk’s turn to stare.
Sonia turned her head away, tearing off the dreadful Keep orphan’s cap and shaking out her hair.
‘So—which way should we go?’ she asked, with a briskness that sounded completely false. ‘With cloud hiding the sun so completely it is impossible to tell where north, south, east and west might be.’
Rye knew exactly what they should do, though the idea filled him with dread.
‘There,’ he made himself say, pointing towards the place where the giant bird had disappeared into the clouds. ‘That bird is an evil thing. I think—I know—it is the Enemy’s creature. If we wish to find him, and Sholto, we should follow it.’
Sonia glanced at him, saw the certainty in his eyes, and instantly murmured agreement.
Dirk’s brow creased. ‘But Rye, how could you possibly know—?’ he began, almost angrily. Then, no doubt remembering other strange things that his young brother had lately said and done, he changed his mind about what he had been going to say.
‘I hope we are right in thinking Sholto chose the silver Door,’ he said instead. ‘I have seen no sign of him.’
Rye looked up eagerly. ‘But we have!’ he exclaimed. ‘We found his notebook—or what remained of it.’
He felt in his pocket and pulled out the scraps of paper he had taken from the pyramid. He handed them to Dirk, who scanned them one after the other, his frown deepening as he read.
‘I agree this is Sholto’s writing,’ Dirk said after a moment. ‘But … I wish it were not.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rye exclaimed. He snatched three of the paper scraps from Dirk’s hand, and read the one on the top.
‘He was losing his mind,’ Dirk muttered.
‘Not Sholto!’ Rye said stoutly, though a heavy, sinking feeling was weighing him down. Quickly he glanced at the next fragment, very aware of Sonia crowding in to read over his shoulder.
Sonia made a small sound of distress. His mouth dry, Rye looked at the last fragment.
9 - Following the Bird
In sombre silence, Rye, Sonia and Dirk built the pyramid up again. Then they set off across the snail-covered stones, trudging in the general direction the monster bird had taken.
At first they had hoped that the red feather would help them glide above the rocks, but that idea had been quickly abandoned. The feather had lifted the three of them a little way off the ground, but with no wind to help them, and no trees they could use to pull themselves along, they had merely floated helplessly in one place, unable to move.
They could not use the horsehair ring, either. Dirk insisted that speed would be dangerous.
‘It is not just that the rocks are treacherous,’ he said as they began walking. ‘The earth in the bare patches, where the holes are, crumbles and caves in at a touch. And there are obstacles everywhere. The settlers use this wasteland as a rubbish dump, it seems. See here!’
With the toe of his boot he nudged at a snail-covered object that Rye had taken to be a stone. As the object rolled, Rye made out a spout and a handle. He realised with astonishment that it was a kettle, just a little larger than the kettle his family had always used for heating water on the stove.
He shook his head in disbelief. The kettle was dented on one side, and there was a hole in its base, but what did that matter? It could be mended.
How could anyone throw away something so precious? The kettle at home in Southwall was a family heirloom, hundreds of years old, and polished and prized above anything else in the house.
‘No doubt the snails eat the rest of the waste,’ Dirk said, kicking the kettle aside and moving on. ‘Only objects made of metal remain. When I was cleaning the skimmer hook I saw all manner of things—old tools, metal pipe, lengths of roofing iron …’
‘But why would the people abandon such treasure?’ Rye exclaimed.
Dirk laughed without humour. ‘In Weld it is treasure, but outside the Wall it is not. That was one of the things that most amazed me when I first realised it in Fleet. There is little metal in Dorne’s earth, but metal is plentiful here all the same. Ships from other islands bring loads of it to Oltan, and they bring ready-made goods, too. Pots and pans, knives, nails, belt buckles, fish hooks, packets of pins and needles …’
He and Rye exchanged glances. Both were thinking of their mother’s one precious steel sewing needle, handed down to her through the generations. It was worn fine as a hair, and kept for only the most important of mending tasks. Needles made of goat bone were used for everyday darning and patching.
The shared memory seemed to draw them closer, and apart from Sonia, child of the Keep. As if she sensed this, and resented it, Sonia looked at them sharply and spoke, shattering the mood.
‘Well, if there is a lot of metal here, one mystery is solved, at least,’ she said. ‘We know that metal—especially iron—affects the magic of the powers in the bag. That is why the hood did not work as well as it should, even before Dirk came along with his hook. And that is very good news! It means that the snail shell will be even more powerful as protection once we are away from this place.’
Rye nodded, frowning slightly. He had already worked that out, and did not want to talk about it. For now, he did not want to think of the magic he carried, or of what the future might hold.
The warm memories of home had given him a moment’s comfort, but they had brought Sholto vividly into his mind, too—Sholto as he had been, in the old days. Rye was haunted by the words he had read on the notebook fragments. It was terrible to think of his calm, clever brother crazed by hardship and loneliness, suffering delusions, fearing imaginary enemies, doubting his own sanity.
They trekked on, watching their feet and speaking very little. Giant insects soon came buzzing around them, and they were forced to walk awkwardly, with their hands linked, so that the snail shell on Rye’s finger could protect them all. As Dirk had warned, countless obstacles lay strewn among the rocks, covered in snails and very hard to see. For all their care, Rye and Sonia stumbled often, and Dirk himself fell sprawling when his boot caught in a tangle of wire.
Strangely, this fall proved to be a stroke of good luck. As Dirk began clambering painfully to his feet, he suddenly stiffened and pointed to something ahead.