The tower was only one street back from the river, and looked newer than the shops and dwellings around it. It was built of stone and taller than any building that Rye had ever seen. At the top it was lined with windows. Its base was solid, with a single iron door. The ground in front of it was neatly paved, and behind it was a little park, shaded by graceful old trees.
A few elderly people were sitting in the park, placidly watching children play. The paving outside the iron door, however, was crowded with people who were in a very different mood.
‘Bring him out!’ a man shouted to the soldier standing on guard by the door. ‘We’ll show him what we think of spies and killers!’
Their faces ugly with hate, the people behind him roared and pressed forward.
The four companions drew together so that they all shared the concealment of the hood, but there was no danger. The crowd was far too intent on the door to notice what was happening anywhere else.
‘We can do nothing here,’ Sholto said in a low voice. ‘Unless we wish to be discovered before we begin.’
He was right, of course. Dirk, Rye and Sonia could all see it. The way to the door was completely blocked. If they tried to fight their way through the crowd, invisible and armoured, everyone would know that a rescue attempt was being made—a rescue attempt using magic, too. It would make the guard and the crowd even more convinced that Jett was an enemy assassin. The guards would kill him before they would see him go free.
‘We will just have to wait until the crowd moves away,’ Dirk said, gritting his teeth.
We cannot wait! We must take the disc to the Fell Zone! Time is short!
Rye did not know if the thought was Sonia’s or his own. He looked up. The windows at the top of the tower glinted in the sunlight.
‘The door is not the only way in,’ he said slowly. He felt in the brown bag and pulled out the feather and the golden key.
Sholto’s pale face took on a greenish tinge, but he said nothing. Dirk frowned.
‘I am not sure I can fly with you, Rye,’ he said reluctantly, touching the sling that supported his right arm. ‘This arm is useless, and the burns on the other are still very painful.’
‘Sholto’s leg is plainly not fit for crawling about tower steps either,’ Sonia snapped. ‘Rye and I will go for Jett. You two wait here and decide where he is to be hidden.’
‘Yes, ma’am!’ Dirk replied dryly.
Sonia’s eyes widened and she shrank back a little as if she had been slapped. Then she recovered and shot Dirk a scathing look.
‘If you have a better plan, by all means tell us what it is,’ she said coldly.
As Dirk, looking a little abashed, shook his head, Rye raised the feather.
‘Wait!’ Sholto exclaimed. ‘Sonia—’
For an instant Rye thought his brother was actually going to beg Sonia to stay in safety on the ground. Then he saw that Sholto was pressing a tiny bottle and a white cloth into Sonia’s hand.
‘This is extract of myrmon,’ Sholto said. ‘I—ah—borrowed it from the healer’s store, thinking it might prove useful. Three drops on the cloth will put a grown man to sleep. Do not use more, or your victim may never wake.’
‘Thank you,’ Sonia said, tucking the little bottle and the rag into her pocket.
Sholto bowed. ‘I am sure you would do the same for me.’
With very mixed feelings, Rye tightened his grip on Sonia and raised his eyes to the glinting windows. Up, he thought, and felt her thoughts echoing his. Up! Up!
There was no faltering this time. Between one heartbeat and the next, it seemed, Rye was pressing the golden key to one of the tower windows, and he and Sonia were tumbling inside.
The small square room was flooded with sunlight. It contained only a chair and a table on which lay a long metal tube with thick glass at both ends—a far glass, Rye knew, used for making distant objects look larger and closer. Tallus had one like it, though his was made of polished goat bone.
There was a trapdoor in the bare wooden floor. It was easily raised, and after that everything went more smoothly than Rye could have hoped in his wildest dreams. The light crystal guided him and Sonia down the circular steps that led down from the trapdoor. The crystal’s power showed them what was behind the locked door that at last barred their way, and the golden key opened the door with only the tiniest of clicks.
Weighed down with iron chains bolted to the wall, Jett was huddled in a cell in a corner of the room. There was only one guard, and he was sitting drowsing on a stool, facing his prisoner. Sonia’s myrmon-sprinkled cloth subdued him in moments. The key opened the cell, and with only a little more trouble, the padlocks on the chains as well. Jett, who had clearly been beaten, was mumbling and half unconscious, but still able to drag himself up to the tower room with Rye and Sonia’s help.
And then the trapdoor was closing behind them, and they were blinking in the sunlit room where they had begun. The whole rescue had taken no more than a few minutes.
‘Rest here a moment, Jett,’ Rye said, pushing back the hood and leading the injured man to the chair. ‘Then we will take you out of here.’
At the sound of his voice, Jett stirred. He licked his torn lips and his half-closed eyes strained open. He saw Rye and gave a violent start.
‘You!’ he rasped. ‘Keelin!’
‘Do not fear,’ Rye said quickly. ‘We have come to get you out. We are from Weld, as you are. We know you are not guilty. We know you did not try to kill Chieftain Farr.’
A curious expression crossed Jett’s battered face. His mouth strained open and a hoarse, barking sound came out.
For an instant Rye thought he was having some sort of fit. Then he realised his mistake. The man was laughing.
‘You fool!’ Jett howled. ‘Of course I tried to kill Farr! By the Wall, how could you doubt it? I tried to blow him off the face of Dorne, and his poisonous councillors with him! Of course I am guilty—guilty as sin!’
16 - The Enemy of Weld
It was a moment Rye would never forget—a moment of shock, confusion, horror and pity. As Jett stood there in front of him, sweat starting out on his brow, blood seeping from his ruined mouth, Rye could not help but think that the man had lost his senses.
But it was not so. That was clear the moment Jett spoke again.
‘Did you think I was a traitor like you, Keelin?’ he sneered. ‘Did you think that I, too, was a grovelling pet of the enemy of Weld?’
Stunned, Rye gaped at him.
‘I was drawn to the golden Door, but in the old tales it is always the humblest choice that is the right one,’ Jett went on, his swollen eyes glittering. ‘So I went through the wooden Door. I fought my way through the Fell Zone. I found the enemy of Weld. I gained a place in his household. I bided my time, waiting my chance to kill him without fear of discovery so I could return home and claim my prize. I was a fool. I should have acted at once …’
He stopped to gasp for breath. With the back of his hand he swiped at the blood trickling down his chin, smearing it across his cheek. All the time he glared at Rye as if Sonia, standing motionless by the trapdoor, did not exist.
‘How did you survive the Fell Zone without harm, Keelin?’ he snarled. ‘Did Farr help you? Have you been a traitor from the start? By the Wall, if I had known what you were when I saw you playing your part in Farr’s evil charade at Fell End I would have seen to it that you died where you fell. But I did not realise you were from Weld till I heard you speak, and by then you were protected and it was too late.’
‘It was you who put that message in my dressing gown pocket,’ Rye whispered, his flesh creeping. ‘It was you who poisoned Janna and tried to poison me.’