‘How—?’ Sholto shook his head, frowning in disbelief.
‘Skimmers attacked the tower chimney the night before we left,’ Rye told him. ‘The damage was mended, but—’
‘The Warden was far more concerned with the look of the chimney than with its strength, and no doubt gave his orders accordingly,’ Sonia said. ‘The skimmers must have found a weakness. They broke through.’
She sounded perfectly calm, but Rye could feel her trembling. In his mind he could see her ghastly visions of skimmers bursting into the darkened tower room, flapping and shrieking, needle teeth bared. He could hear her silent cries of fear and grief.
Annocki! Oh, Annocki, Annocki!
‘It may not be, Sonia,’ Rye murmured, putting his arm around the girl and trying to shield his own feeling of dread.
‘There should have been no skimmer attack in Weld last night,’ Sholto muttered, rubbing his forehead. ‘I was told that the skimmers kept on the lower floor of the Harbour building were the only ones in existence.’
‘Well, that was untrue, it seems,’ said Dirk. He was turning the fragment of tile over and over in his blunt fingers. His face was ashen. Clearly he was thinking of Faene—beautiful, gentle Faene of Fleet, who had trusted him, who had followed him to Weld, who had agreed to hide in the tower room with Annocki, believing that there she would be safe.
Rye wet his lips. ‘We cannot know what has happened until we see for ourselves. We must get up to ground level.’
‘The chimney may be entirely filled with rubble, for all we know,’ Dirk said heavily, throwing the tile fragment aside. ‘Clearing it from down here will take days—if we can do it at all.’
Rye saw that his brother was not thinking clearly. With his free hand, he felt in the bag hanging around his neck and drew out the light crystal.
‘Come on,’ he urged, turning Sonia away from the fireplace. ‘Dirk, Sholto, you too! There is another way out. Have you forgotten how we came into this chamber in the first place?’
Dirk’s eyes widened. He swung round, snatched up a broken brick, and charged to the far end of the chamber.
‘Ho there!’ he bellowed, battering the bare stone wall with the brick. ‘Guards! Returning volunteers here! Let us in!’
The echoes of his calls rang in the Chamber of the Doors so that it seemed as if a dozen men were shouting instead of only one. But there was no response from the other side of the wall, and the hard stone surface remained cold and blank.
Dirk spun round as Rye, Sonia and Sholto joined him. His forehead gleamed with sweat.
‘I thought we had decided to come and go without being seen,’ Sholto drawled.
‘What does that matter now?’ Dirk panted. ‘We have to find out what has happened!’
‘Stand away, Dirk,’ Rye said quietly. He stepped past his brother and pressed the light crystal to the wall. The dusty stone seemed to dissolve beneath his hand, leaving a clear hole like a window. Through the window they could all see part of a small, round room, its curving walls covered in tiny tiles arranged in swirling patterns of red, yellow, green and white.
Rye moved the crystal from side to side, but there was nothing more to be seen.
‘Where are the guards?’ Dirk hissed.
Rye fought down a feeling of dread. The soldiers who guarded the entrance to the Chamber of the Doors would surely not have left their posts except in the case of some truly fearful emergency.
For one thing, a vital part of their duty had to be listening for returning volunteers. There were still some Weld heroes who had not been away long enough to have been declared dead.
His stomach churning, he jerked the crystal away from the wall and the view of the bare, tiled room winked out. He pushed the crystal into his pocket and drew out the little golden key.
‘Take hold of me,’ he said.
He felt his brothers grip his shoulders. He tightened his arm around Sonia. His heart thudding, he pressed the key to the wall, praying that this time it would work.
Heat shot up his arm like flame. His face burned. Stars danced before his eyes … Then the heat vanished abruptly and he was sagging against a surface that was smooth and cool on his cheek. He took a deep, shuddering breath. The air that rushed into his lungs was dank, but free of soot and dust.
We are through, he thought.
He opened his watering eyes. The patterns made by the tiny, glittering tiles swirled around him like live things. And suddenly he found that he could see pictures in the patterns. Suddenly he was gazing at banks of ferns and flowers, trees waving in the wind, a bubbling stream …
Wondering, he looked up. Above him arched the blue ceiling, shining like bright sky.
The Sorcerer Dann, Weld’s founder, had made this room. These pictures were Dann’s visions of the world outside the Wall—the world beyond the golden Door, at least. How he must have missed it! For some reason an ache rose in Rye’s throat, and the vivid images shimmered before his eyes.
‘Rye!’ Dirk’s impatient call shattered the silence. Rye blinked, and the pictures on the walls became meaningless patterns again.
Dirk, Sholto and Sonia were at the doorway of the little chamber, staring out at the steep, narrow steps that spiralled up through the heart of the Keep. Torches had already sprung into life on the staircase walls, flooding the steps with flickering golden light.
‘You go first, Rye,’ Dirk said, beckoning feverishly. ‘Keep the key handy. You will need it to open the door into the waiting room.’
In single file the four hurried up the steps, turning and turning again as the staircase wound. Gradually the smells of damp and mould grew fainter. Slowly Rye’s skin ceased to prickle as the ancient magic that lingered in the depths of the Keep was left behind.
He could hear the clump of Dirk’s boots, and Sholto’s laboured breathing. But Sonia, who was directly behind him, made no sound at all. Her mind was closed to him. She was quivering with tension.
Rye’s journey down these steps with the Warden of Weld had seemed to take a very long time. He vividly remembered feeling that it would never end. So he was startled when, far sooner than he had expected, the steps wound for the last time and he found the way ahead barred by a narrow door.
‘We are at the top!’ he exclaimed, stopping and dipping into his pocket for the key and the light crystal.
Sonia caught her breath. Rye felt the walls she had raised to guard her thoughts tremble and crack.
Soon I will know … Oh, Annocki …
Then Sonia’s control broke. All her dammed-up anger and dread, her terrible need to know, burst from her in a mighty wave and crashed into Rye’s mind. His hands pressed uselessly to his ringing ears, he lurched forward. The narrow door loomed in front of him. He heard a loud, echoing click …
And the next moment he was stumbling over the long red curtain that had once hidden the door, but now lay tangled underfoot. He kicked himself free, trying to gather his wits. His mind felt bruised. The speed ring was on his finger and the golden key was in his hand, but he could not remember using either of them. He could not even remember the door opening.
But he had to believe the evidence of his own eyes. Dirk and Sholto, looking very startled, were emerging from the stairway and closing the door after them. And he was in the waiting room—the once-elegant waiting room where dust now hung heavy in the air, curtain rods tilted drunkenly over cracked windows, and rubble spilled from the fireplace.
He pushed the key and the crystal back into the brown bag. After a moment’s thought, he did the same with the armour shell. He would not need protection here at home, and the shell would loosen if it sensed he was not in danger. He could not risk its falling off and being lost.