Winter Door (23 page)

“I obey, Lady Elle,” the boy said, his eyes shining with adoration. He turned and slipped through a rough door behind Elle.

“The Stormlord!” Billy said. “Rage talked about him. Does a wizard serve him?”

Elle glanced at Rage. “I have wondered that, but so far I have heard no one talk of a wizard.” The boy that had not been sent away had drawn closer as Elle spoke, his face slack with devotion. Catching sight of him, Elle laughed, and ruffled his hair affectionately. Her laughter was truly lovely, especially in this dark place.

“How did you meet these boys?” Billy asked.

“I had no idea if it was early evening or late when I reached the settlement of Hollow. So I asked when the sun would rise, and everyone reacted as if I had sworn. I realized that I had made some sort of mistake, and left. Fortunately, as it happens, because I am told the gray fliers came for me.”

“Who or what are gray fliers?” Billy asked curiously.

“Winged creatures who serve the Stormlord,” Elle said. “I have not managed to see any of them up close, but they smell of nothing, so I think that they might be some sort of machines.”

“And these boys?” Rage asked.

“They are summerlanders. Their leader, Shona, came to me in the next settlement I found myself in. She explained that only summerlander rebels spoke of the sun rising, and then only to identify themselves to one another. She said that she knew I was a great warrior from the summerlands, come to free Null from eternal night. That is what the inhabitants of this place call it:
Null.
The summerlanders believe that it is the Stormlord who makes sure it is always night here and always winter.”

Billy sniffed the air. “Where are we now? It smells like we are underground.”

“Your nose is still keen, little brother. We are in a chamber at the end of a tunnel, which runs from the outskirts of the settlement of Sorrow to the edge of a cliff. The window there faces the great pillar upon which is built the fortress of Stormkeep. We have to keep it closed because gray fliers patrol the cliff. They don’t seem to have any sense of smell, but their hearing is keen.” Elle pointed to the door behind her. “This door was built to keep out the dampness and stink of the earth in the tunnel. Unfortunately, the only way to get back to Sorrow is to crawl along the tunnel.”

“Why are you here?” Billy asked.

“I wanted to see if I could smell if our wizard was there, but unfortunately the distance is too great.”

“You haven’t found any sign of him, then?”

“No, but that may not mean anything, for it was the wizard himself who showed me a spell to hide my scent.”

“Can I see Stormkeep?” Billy asked.

In answer, Elle led him to a slit in the wall. She opened the shutter and motioned everyone to silence. Billy leaned forward and peered through the opening. He stepped back after a long moment, his expression grave. Elle motioned to Rage, who looked out, too. There was a mist rising from the abyss into which the window opened; through it she could see the great pillar of stone upon which Stormkeep was built. Exactly as Thaddeus and Mr. Walker had described, its towering outer walls merged seamlessly with the pillar, leaving not even the slightest ledge where one might walk. The top of the battlements was far away, but she could see fire torches set along the top of the wall, revealing sharp, toothlike crenellations. Last of all, faintly, she saw the stone bridge—thin and insubstantial as a spiderweb—that was the only means of reaching the fortress.

“It is a grim place,” Elle said after she had closed the shutter. “Well, we must return to the others.” She ought to have been downcast, but she merely gave a philosophical smile. It was so dazzling that Rage did not wonder that the rebels worshipped her. Just being around her made you feel more hopeful.

“Others?” Billy asked curiously.

“Shona and some of her followers await us in Sorrow. If Lod has moved swiftly enough, Mr. Walker and the others might also be there by the time we arrive.” Elle went to the door and opened it.

Rage noticed the remaining boy staring at her and wondered if the Stormlord forbade smiling and laughter as well as sunlight.

Elle dropped to her knees and crawled into the sour-smelling tunnel. The boy gestured that Rage should go next. She nodded, took a deep breath, and crawled in after Elle, praying that there would not be any tremors.

“Who else came…?” Elle’s voice was muffled.

“Thaddeus, Puck, Nomadiel, and Rally,” Rage gasped, her hands and knees numb from crawling.

“Noma and Rally, too! I would not have guessed they would come. But that is nine, counting the wizard and me. Rue said that only eight were to come.”

“Billy and I don’t count because we didn’t come through the door,” Rage panted. “That makes seven that have come through, which means there is one other to come from Valley.”

The sheer physical effort of crawling made it impossible to go on talking. When they were all finally out, Elle closed a trap over the tunnel and led them through a door into the chilly night. Rage saw that they were just outside the settlement of Sorrow. There was no need to hide because not a soul was visible. They entered another building and were surrounded at once by a crowd of solemn, pale people, mostly teenagers or little children.

“Greetings, Lady Elle,” said an older girl. She bowed deeply and then the others did the same, even the little ones.

“Do not bow to me, Shona,” Elle said gently. “You are the leader here, and your followers should be in their homes. It is dangerous to gather like this.”

“I told them, Lady, but they wished to see you,” Shona said. Rage realized with a shock that this girl was the leader of the summerlanders. “They needed to see that you had not abandoned us.”

“You must have the courage to believe,” Elle said.

“I
do
believe. Does not the very earth shudder in anticipation of the sun rising since your arrival?” The girl made a gesture. Quickly, and in almost complete silence, all the people slipped away. Many reached out to touch Elle in passing.

“Who are they?” Shona asked, nodding at Rage and Billy.

“Old friends,” Elle said. “Now, let us have some food before we talk further.”

Shona nodded to the boy who had been in the tunnel hut and directed them to a circle of seats. “Lod came back and said he was to seek out other strangers. They are friends, too?”

“They are,” Elle said. “Let me introduce you to Rage Winnoway and Billy Thunder.”

The girl nodded to them in turn. “I am pleased to greet you, fortunate dwellers of the summerlands.” She turned back to Elle. “Your quest was successful? You smelled the presence of the wizard who is your ally?”

“I could not smell him,” Elle said. She reached out and laid a hand on the girl’s slumped shoulder. “You are tired. Go home and sleep. It is harder to be brave and to have hope when you are weary.”

The girl nodded and rose obediently. As she was leaving, the boy returned with several young people bearing covered dishes of food. It turned out to be the same dull stew Rage had eaten before, and she decided that she was not hungry. But Elle and Billy ate heartily while Rage told them again all that had transpired on her previous visit to Null.

“So, you vanish from here when you wake there, and when you dream-travel here, you appear just as you did in the tunnel hut, leaving your proper body behind?” Elle murmured. “An amazing ability, for you look and feel perfectly real. But how did you come here?”

“I was thinking about you when I fell asleep,” Rage said.

Elle shook her head. “Then it is only a matter of disciplining your mind to focus very intently on whom you want to come to for you to master this power.” She fell silent, then she rose suddenly. “I must think about what you have said.” Rage must have shown her surprise, for the dog-woman gave her a smile. “I am somewhat better able to see the use in thinking these days. Indeed, I am quite addicted to it. I also want to see if there is any word of the others before we discuss this further.”

“She is different,” Billy said softly to Rage when Elle had gone. “She smells, I don’t know, brighter?” He shook his head in his characteristic annoyance at being unable to find a human word to describe some nuance of dog-life.

Now that Elle had gone, the boy and the other children who had brought the food crept closer. “Will you tell us of the summerlands?” a boy asked.

“Have you ever seen the sun?” Billy asked curiously.

The children shook their heads as one. “The olders say there is no such thing, and that the sun has never shone here,” the boy said. “But I think they lie out of fear.”

“You think they are afraid of the sun?” Rage asked.

“Not of the sun, but of talking about it,” said a curly-haired moppet. “That’s what makes the fliers come take you to the keep.”

“To be aligned?” Rage asked.

“They look the same as before they are taken,” the girl said. “But they are different inside. They don’t talk about the sun or the summerlands anymore.”

“Perhaps they are afraid to talk about those things in case they are taken prisoner again,” Billy suggested gently.

But the girl shook her head. “They don’t
want
to talk about such things. They don’t care about them anymore.”

“What happens to them inside Stormkeep?” Billy asked.

“We don’t know,” the older boy said. “They don’t remember anything.”

“What does the sun look like?” asked an older girl gravely.

Billy looked at her and Rage saw pity in his soft brown eyes. “It is a hot, bright light, only very big and very far away. It rises in the sky and lights the world like a giant lantern, and all flowers open their petals and turn their faces to drink its warmth.”

Rage stared at him, touched by his gentleness, and by the poetry of his words.

“Then there
are
flowers,” the little girl declared, and she made a ferocious face at the boy beside her. “I told you!”

“Does the sun make the sky blue?” asked another boy.

“How could it do that?” said the older boy who had been in the tunnel hut. “The sky would be white with all of that brightness.”

“Sometimes it is almost white, but sometimes the sky is blue, too,” Billy said. “Other times it is red as blood and then still other times it is yellow like the palest candlelight.”

“I have dreamed of flowers,” the little girl said. “I have dreamed of how warm it will be when the Lady Elle defeats the Stormlord.”

Rage wondered uneasily what Elle had actually told these people. After all, their task was not to bring sunlight to this world but to find the wizard and close the winter door. But perhaps like Mr. Walker, Elle now had her own plans. One thing was certain: if she had told these people she would help them, then she would not go until she had done so.

Billy went on talking to the children. They drank in his stories of sunlight and warm beaches and butterflies and rainbows. Rage felt sick at the thought that these children might be taken inside Stormkeep to who knew what fate.

“What are you thinking about, Rage?” Billy asked suddenly. An older boy was shooing the children away with the empty plates.

“I was thinking about what will happen to these children. Elle can’t make the sun shine here.”

“Maybe the wizard can if…” Billy’s eyes widened. “Rage, I know what Elle wants you to do!”

“She didn’t ask me to do anything.”

“She didn’t, but she will. She is going to ask you to dream-travel inside Stormkeep!”

“Could you do it?” Elle had returned.

Rage ignored the fear that rose in her throat. “I
think
I could dream myself to the wizard.”

“I will go, too,” Billy volunteered. Rage felt a fierce love for him because he did not tell her that she could not go, that it was too dangerous or she was too young.

“I can go,” Rage said. “But first I have to wake up in my own world and go back to sleep again. And time passes faster here than there.”

Elle nodded. “I have considered that, but we have no choice. You have seen Stormkeep. We must learn if the wizard is there before we consider trying to get inside to save him.”

The door burst open behind her and both Rage and Billy jumped to their feet. It was the boy Lod. Behind him were Thaddeus and Nomadiel with Rally on her shoulder.

“Where is Mr. Walker?” Billy asked eagerly.

Only then, when Nomadiel and the boy stepped aside, did they see that Thaddeus was carrying Mr. Walker, hanging limp and dreadfully still in his arms.

“What happened?” Rage cried as Thaddeus lay Mr. Walker carefully on the nearest bench seat. The dog-man’s face was clammy pale except for bright spots of color high on his cheeks.

“He would not rest nor eat though I told him that I could smell sickness growing in him,” Nomadiel said. Her eyes were dry but diamond-hard in her heart-shaped face.

“But what happened to him?” Rage asked her. “He can’t just have gotten sick.”

“Well, he did!” Nomadiel snapped. There was a brittleness to her that was not far from tears. “Just as my mother did!”

Rage recoiled from the fury and despair in the girl’s voice and turned back to Mr. Walker. Elle was kneeling at his side now, her hand on his brow. She called his name softly. After an endless moment, the little man’s eyes fluttered and then opened a slit.

“You…,” he breathed.

“Yes, it is me,” Elle said lightly, smiling down at him. “Don’t think you are going to get out of helping us to close the winter door by getting sick!”

His lips curved slightly, and Rage wondered if there was anyone in any world who would not smile at Elle. But the smile faded almost at once, as if the effort of maintaining it was too great. “I’m sorry,” Mr. Walker whispered.

“Don’t dare talk like that,” Elle said with soft mock sternness. “As if you are making a farewell speech! I won’t have it.” She turned to Lod. “Go and see if there is not something we can give him for a fever.” Then she looked back at Mr. Walker. “As for you, rest and get well, for we have need of you.”

Mr. Walker closed his eyes and seemed to lapse back into unconsciousness.

“You must save him!” Nomadiel cried. Then, without waiting for an answer, she turned to Rage. “Where did you go when you vanished? It’s your fault he got sick! You made him lose heart.”