Rye’s stomach churned. He had to get to Farr—tell Farr what he knew. He had to stop the attack that could lead only to disaster.
As he snapped the book shut, the title written in gold on the front cover seemed to wink at him slyly. The Three Brothers. No wonder that title had stirred him when he first saw it! The coincidence still gave him a strange feeling. How could he have forgotten he was one of three?
Yet somehow he had forgotten. For the long days of his illness he had been Keelin, alone. And strangely, despite his physical weakness and the shadows that still veiled some things in his past, he felt stronger than he had before.
He pushed the book into his pocket and held the feather high. The light of the crystal gleamed on the stone walls as he rose to the top of the pit.
He felt a slight draught on his face. It seemed to be blowing through a gap between two great blocks of stone. Cautiously, trying not to think about what would happen if the blocks shifted, he eased himself through the gap.
He found himself crouching in a small cavity in the rubble. A wedge of fallen wood and stone loomed low above his head. Every now and then there was a slight grating sound, and dust filtered down in a tiny shower.
When Rye put the crystal gingerly to the rock above him, he could see nothing but more stone, more wood. There was no escape that way. He was buried deep. But he could still feel that tiny draught of air wafting from somewhere behind him.
Carefully he turned round. He wet his finger and felt the little breath of air cool on his skin. The draught was coming from a hole at the base of the wall of rubble, where a stone pillar had collapsed at an angle over a thick slab of rusty iron—a door that had fallen from its hinges long ago, by the look of it.
Rye lay flat, shining the crystal light through the gap. The glow was a little fainter than usual, no doubt because the iron slab weakened its magic, but the golden beam was bright enough for him to see something that made his heart leap. Beyond the gap there was clear space and the edge of a low doorway.
He had to get through to that doorway—he had to! But the triangle framed by the pillar, some lumps of stone and the metal door was far too small for him to squirm through.
If only I had the power to pass through solid objects, Rye thought desperately. Or shrink at will! Or if I had the strength of a hundred men, even for a few moments, I could lift the pillar high enough to be able to slide underneath it!
Suddenly he remembered the wrapped honey sweet—the only charm he had not yet used. Perhaps its power was strength! Bees had to be strong to work from dawn till dusk collecting pollen and carrying it back to the hive.
With rising hope, he found the sweet, unwrapped it and slid it into his mouth. It tasted exactly like a honey sweet he might have bought any day at the Southwall market. And however hard he tried, he still could not move the pillar by so much as a hair.
At last he gave up, wrapped the sweet again and put it back in the bag. The sweetness of honey lingered on his tongue, but his disappointment was bitter. The air wafting through the gap beneath the pillar seemed to mock him. He turned his face away from it, fighting despair. He had no wish to die alone in this tomb, but even worse than the thought of dying were the other thoughts that were crowding into his mind.
Sonia, Dirk and Sholto, his mother, would never know what had happened to him. The quest to save Weld was lost. Farr and his people were lost. And the little bag of powers, which should have helped to save them all, was lost, buried and lost, because it had fallen into the wrong hands. His hands.
The future is in your hands …
Who had said that? It was Farr, talking to his workers at Fell End. Rye stirred. He looked down at his clenched fists, so grimy with dirt and ancient ash that he could hardly see the speed ring on his finger.
Magic had failed him this time. But he still had his will, and his own two hands.
Slowly, stubbornly, he began to clear away the rubble that lay between him and the gap. Of course it would be impossible to move the iron door that formed the base of the triangle, but if he could dig out some of what lay beneath the door, he might be able to press it down a little—just enough for him to squeeze between it and the pillar.
He dug. He dug till his nails were torn, his fingers were raw, and his shoulders ached with the strain of reaching forward. His mouth was as dry as sand and his eyes were stinging when at last he felt it was time to try to force the iron door down.
Without much hope he leaned forward, placed his hands on the nearest part of the rusty surface, and pressed down with all his weight.
And the door shattered—simply shivered into dust.
For an instant, as rusty fragments showered into the hollow he had made, Rye thought the honey sweet had worked after all. Then he saw the truth. The impressive-looking door had been so eaten away by rust that it had been just a shell, holding together by a miracle.
Even so, its collapse had made a difference to the fine balance of the ruins. The pillar moved, very slightly. There was an ominous rumble from above. Dust sifted down as massive blocks shifted and wood splintered beneath their weight.
Out! Get out!
Rye’s heart seemed to leap into his throat. He dived into the newly enlarged gap and squirmed through it. Gasping, covered in flakes of rust, he jumped to his feet. The stone-edged doorway gaped before him, framing thick, whispering darkness.
He did not hesitate. He hurled himself into the darkness and ran. He ran, sobbing and laughing by turns, as behind him a mountain of stone caved in and again a voice, a well-remembered voice, rang in his mind, drowning all other thought.
Rye! Oh, Rye, at last! This way! This way!
12 - The Maze
And so began a nightmare journey through a maze of passageways and ruined chambers echoing with moans and creeping with the sense of ancient evil. Crumbling statues shrouded in spider web hulked in dark alcoves in the walls. Often the way was blocked by a cave-in or a pool of black, foul-smelling water and another way would have to be found. Here and there the dank walls were carved with the fantastic images of beasts—sea serpents, dragons, fish with wings, monsters with manes like mats of flabby seaweed. When the light of the crystal fell on them, the carvings seemed to loom from the stone, as if they were alive. And the sounds of suffering and misery, the growls of unnamed horrors, never ceased.
Do not listen to them, Rye! They are not real! They are only memories trapped in the stone. This way!
And Rye followed Sonia’s voice. Clear as a crystal bell it called to him, cheering and directing him, and it never tired or wavered.
Time ceased to have any meaning. When the light of the crystal finally picked out a figure ahead, a figure emerging eerily from a patch of shadow in a wall, he thought he was dreaming.
But then the figure was running. And Sonia was there in front of him, haggard with weariness, hugging him fiercely, sobbing with joy.
There was so much to ask, so much to explain, but at first Rye did not have the strength to speak. His throat was parched, his head was pounding and he was trembling with weariness. He drank from Sonia’s flask then let her lead him to the dark alcove where she had waited for him. It was bare and free of spider webs. Rye sank gratefully into its shelter.
‘I did not dare go any further in search of you,’ Sonia said, sitting down beside him. ‘My candle had burned away and I only had one pebble left.’ She opened her hand. On the palm lay a small, rounded stone, blue as the sky.
Another shadow drifted from Rye’s memory. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the two pebbles he had found on the floor in the chieftain’s lodge.
Sonia nodded wearily. ‘The rest are marking our trail out of here. Rye, why did you close your mind to me? I have not been able to sense you for days. It has been as if you were dead! Then suddenly I woke from sleep here and felt you clearly! In danger, but alive!’ Her voice trembled, though clearly she was trying to seem calm.