Winter Door (21 page)

There was a knock at the door and Thaddeus went to open it. A girl with mousy brown hair scraped into a tight plait that ran down her back stood there. Her expression was bland, but her eyes were bright and inquisitive. “You wanted food?”

“My companions are hungry,” Thaddeus said. He made a gesture and the girl entered. Her eyes darted about before returning to the floor. Thaddeus had her recite the choices, then ordered olvish stew, milbread, and a jug of brew.

He dismissed the girl, but as she moved to the door, he nodded pointedly to Mr. Walker.

“Uh. Wait, girl,” Mr. Walker said. The girl gave him a startled look, and he quickly modified his own voice and expression. “Perhaps you can settle our argument.” The girl waited, saying nothing, and Mr. Walker continued. “My friend here says this settlement is not far from the Stormlord’s fortress, but
I
think we are still some distance away.”

“Usually those going to Stormkeep are summoned,” the girl said.

“We are not summoned there,” Thaddeus said hastily. “It is merely a game my companion and I play in guessing distances to pass time as we journey about.”

“A game,” the girl echoed blankly. “Well, Sorrow is a day’s walk from the fortress of the Stormlord, if the black wind does not blow, or the gray rain fall, or if the Stormlord does not send one of his storms to purify us.”

Thaddeus nodded triumphantly to Mr. Walker and casually dismissed the girl. Once he had closed the door, he signaled them to stay quiet and pressed his ear to the door. Then he straightened and said softly, “I don’t think she would listen, but it is better to be careful.”

“Sorrow,” Puck murmured. “I wonder if its closeness to this fortress is not the reason for the name.”

“I don’t like the sound of a ruler wanting to purify anyone,” Rage said.

“He sends storms,” Rally croaked pointedly.

“We should not jump to conclusions,” Thaddeus warned. “She and the others here may
believe
the Stormlord sends storms, but it might not be true. Or if it is, he might have some reason.”

“What do you suppose she meant by saying that people are usually summoned to Stormkeep?” Rage asked.

“Where there is someone with power, there are always soldiers to enforce their power,” Mr. Walker said bleakly. A look of pity crossed Nomadiel’s face.

“Rage?” Thaddeus said. “When the girl returns with the food, see if you can learn anything from her about Elle. But be careful. A person who will gossip might be more than merely inquisitive.”

There was another knock on the door. Rage answered it this time. It was the maid bearing a laden tray. Thaddeus had drawn the others away. Now he called out in a peremptory voice for Rage to help lay the table, his tone suggesting that Rage was also a servant. The girl gave her a shy look and passed her a loaf of heavy, grayish bread and a knife.

Slicing bread while the other girl ladled out bowls of an unappetizing grayish stew with a vinegary smell, Rage let their eyes meet again. There was warmth in the other girl’s eyes, though she did not smile. “You must live far from here for your masters to so freely name Stormkeep,” the girl whispered. “Some say the black wind listens for the sound of that name and reports the speaker to its master.”

“They say that in our village, too,” Rage lied.

“Your masters are foolish.”

“Perhaps they are brave,” Rage murmured, and was unprepared for the burning look the other girl gave her. Unable to decipher it, Rage added a shrug, as if it had been a joke. Then she said, “It is said in our village that those who travel from place to place lose themselves, and it may be that my masters have lost wise fear.”

“I suppose they are paying your parents well,” the maid said.

Not understanding, Rage judged it safer to change the subject. “I…I met a woman in another village where my masters stayed. A woman with ears somewhat like the little man’s over there. She had golden hair over her body and seemed to me to be unlike anyone I had ever met before. She was coming toward Stormkeep.”

“She came here,” the girl murmured, casting a quick look over her shoulder at the others. “But we must not speak of her.”

“I suppose it is always better to mind one’s own business,” Rage said.

The maid leaned closer and said in a barely audible voice, “It’s not safe to speak of her. She asked when the sun would rise!” Rage tried to look shocked, but she must have failed because the maid added, “Do you not know that this is how summerland rebels greet one another?”

“You think she was a summerland rebel?” Rage asked, struggling not to reveal how lost she was.

“What else could she be?” the maid asked eagerly. “And do you know, the earth began to shudder and groan the day she came!”

Rage stared at the girl, trying to understand what she was being told.

“That will do,” Thaddeus called.

Rage started as sharply as did the maid, which was just as well. They completed laying the table in silence. When the girl had gone, Rage told the others what had been said.

“Rebels?” Nomadiel asked, puzzled. “Perhaps they oppose the Stormlord.”

“I wish I’d asked outright if Elle went to Stormkeep,” Rage said. “I didn’t really learn anything useful.”

“It was
good
that you did not show too much interest in her,” Thaddeus disagreed. “Especially if something Elle said made her seem aligned with people rebelling against the Stormlord.”

“What do we do now?” Nomadiel asked.

“I’d like to take a look at Stormkeep,” Thaddeus said.

“Just make sure that its lord does not have a look at you, or maybe you will find yourself summoned,” Puck sneered.

“Good thought,” Thaddeus said promptly. “I had better take someone with me, just in case I am spotted. Master Puck,
you
can easily slip away to warn the others if there is any trouble.”

Rage thought the little fairy man would argue, but he merely grunted. In the end, Mr. Walker went as well. He pointed out that if Elle or the wizard were about, he would be able to smell them, thereby saving the three-some the need to expose themselves by asking questions.

Left alone with Nomadiel, Rage thought to see if the little girl could be brought to talk about her father. But as if she guessed Rage’s intent, the small girl immediately went and lay on the farthest bed, turning her back. Rage paced for a while before lying down, too. She drifted back into the dream of wandering in a storm, which continued until she was roused by a knock at the door. Rage answered it, her heart thumping, but it was only the maid, come to clear away the dishes. Rage helped her and asked when day would come.

The other girl gave her a shocked look. “Day is only a summerlander fairy tale, but the telling of it will rouse the wrath of the Stormlord.”

After the maid had gone, Rage went to the small window and unlatched it, staring out into the relentless darkness. “Could it be that day does not come in this world?” she whispered.

“Perhaps the wizard who made the winter door keeps day from coming,” Rally said from behind her.

Rage turned and looked into the crow’s eyes. “Then the summerland rebels…”

“Would be rebelling against him,” Rally concluded.

Rage nodded. “If the Stormlord gets angry at someone talking about day, then he must be working with the wizard who stops it from coming. But what sort of people would want the sun never to rise and winter to rule?” Rage asked.

“Those whose own souls are bleak and cold and dark,” Rally said.

There was a thump at the door. It swung open to reveal Thaddeus, Puck, and Mr. Walker. Rage opened her mouth to speak but Thaddeus shook his head. A moment later the maid appeared with a tray of hot drinks. Nomadiel sat up and yawned theatrically.

“Stormkeep is a good step from here,” Thaddeus said when they were alone again. “It is an impregnable fortress built on a great, freestanding pillar of stone rising from an abyss. There is a narrow stone bridge to the mainland that goes over the abyss and also over a glacier that runs across this icy land and over the edge into the abyss. There is no other approach.”

“Are there walls about the fortress?” Nomadiel asked.

“Of course,” Mr. Walker said. “High as three willow seat towers atop one another, they run straight up from the edges of the stone pillar, so the fortress is a sort of extension of it,” Mr. Walker murmured.

“If we wanted to get in, would there be no choice but to pretend to be a servant or something?” Rage said.

“Impossible,” Thaddeus said. “We stopped in a tavern to drink, ask questions, and listen to gossip. Seems like no one but those who are summoned go into Stormkeep. The interesting thing is that when they come out, they are changed.”

“Changed how?”

“They are what the settlers call ‘aligned,’” Mr. Walker put in.

“But other people must go to the fortress,” Nomadiel objected. “What about those working there? Maids and cooks and cleaners and guards? What about whoever brings supplies? And who escorts the people who are summoned into the keep?”

“No one lives there but the Stormlord. He is served in all capacities by things called gray fliers,” Thaddeus said. “It is they who do the escorting.”

“One man told us that summerlanders needed alignment,” Puck said.

“Alignment is a punishment, then,” Rage said. She told them what the maid had said.

“It can’t be too terrible, though, because there were a couple of people in the tavern pointed out to us as having been aligned. They looked fine other than being a little more grim than the rest,” Thaddeus said.

“Did you ask if there was a wizard creating the storms?” Rally inquired.

“No one spoke of any wizard,” Thaddeus answered. “But a wizard might not necessarily want anyone to know he exists. Or maybe he is a prisoner being forced to do the Stormlord’s bidding. In which case the Stormlord might not want to advertise his presence.”

“What are we to do, then?” Rage asked.

“Well,” Thaddeus said, “it seems to me that there is only one way to enter Stormkeep and that is openly and by the front door.”

“You
are
mad,” Puck said cheerfully. “Shall we send a letter to announce that we are coming so that they can prepare the method of execution in advance?”

“I did not say that we would enter that way, only that it was the sole way to enter,” Thaddeus said. He looked at Rage. “I wonder if you are right, though, about this place being a world of night.”

“There are such lands in fairy tales but usually they are under some sort of evil enchantment,” Mr. Walker murmured.

“The sun must have risen here once or how else could the summerlanders speak of it?” Puck said.

“Maybe it never rose but they
want
to believe it could,” Nomadiel said slowly. “Wouldn’t you want to believe that sunlight and summer existed somewhere or even once upon a time? Maybe these summerlanders’d rather believe and fight for something beautiful than accept the way things are, even if in their hearts they don’t think there really could be anything else.”

Thaddeus gave her a long look, then he said, “Even if you are right, the notion of sun and daylight have to have come from somewhere. If these summerlanders have never seen the sun, how could they have a word for it?”

Before anyone could answer, Rage felt the tugging sensation of her flesh calling her dream-traveling self back. She fell into darkness.

And woke to pain.

Rage groaned. Her hands, feet, and face burned as if they were on fire. She would have screamed, but her throat ached as if she had already yelled herself hoarse. Somewhere she could hear a deep, muffled howling.

She felt the same soft, wet warmth on her face that had wakened her. Heartened, she forced her eyelids apart, but it was too dark to see anything. Nevertheless, a breath of hot air told her that someone was leaning over her. The soft wetness brushed her again. A tongue! And when she felt fur tickling her cheek, she knew that it was Billy licking her face.

“What happened?” she croaked, trying to rise. There were blankets over her, heavy and peculiarly stiff. She tried again to sit but had no strength left. Billy nuzzled the front of her jacket, caught hold of it, and dragged her upright. She flopped forward when he let go. She stretched her hands out and found Billy’s soft form. She held on to him with one arm and put the other back to hold herself up. Her fingers brushed cold, damp wood.

Where on earth was she?

Rage listened to the booming howl of storm winds outside. Then she knew exactly where she must be: the hikers’ hut in her world! Her last memory was of struggling through the snow and falling. She must have hit her head and, while unconscious, dream-traveled to the world of Bleak. Meanwhile, Billy had dragged her to the hikers’ hut, got the door open somehow, and pulled the fire blankets over her.

Rage pulled Billy close, whispering, “You saved my life.”

She massaged life back into her stiff limbs and then got clumsily to her feet, realizing that she was still wearing her pack. Billy had not been able to undo the buckles with his teeth, of course. No wonder she had been lying so awkwardly. Shrugging the pack off, she felt in the side pocket for the matches in plastic and the stump of candle she kept there. It took three matches before she managed to light the candlewick, and then she took out her thermos. It was eerie to find it full of the hot chocolate she had drunk already in another world. She drank half a mug and poured a bit in the lid for Billy to lap up. Then she gave Billy some dog biscuits and ate one of the sandwiches.