The Silver Door by Emily Rodda Page A

fist!
    Pushing back his hood, he scrambled to his feet, pulling Sonia up with him. She was deathly pale. With one hand she clung to Rye, with the other she brushed feverishly at her neck as if to make absolutely sure that the monstrous insect was no longer there.
    â€˜By the Wall, where are we?’ Dirk grunted, crawling to his feet behind them.
    â€˜Wherever it is,’ Sonia said bleakly, ‘it is not Dorne.’
    Very startled, Rye tore his eyes from her stricken face and for the first time registered his surroundings.
    He saw a barren wasteland of rounded, weirdly patterned stones and gaping holes from which oozed a sickly yellow mist. Thick grey cloud hung low overhead like a brooding ceiling, and walls of fog rose on every side, obscuring whatever was beyond.
    The place was utterly desolate. There was not a single green, growing thing. There was not a breath ofwind. And there was no sound at all.
    Instinctively Rye looked over his shoulder for the silver Door, but there was no sign of it—and no sign of the Wall of Weld either. He was not surprised, but still an iron hand seemed to clutch at his heart.
    â€˜Of course this is Dorne!’ he retorted, more sharply than he had meant.
    Sonia shook her head helplessly.
    â€˜We must be on the eastern side of the island,’ said Dirk, bending to examine something at his feet. ‘We were told that the east was wild and barren. People fled here to escape from Olt, Faene says, but before that it was deserted. If this place is an example of one of its beauty spots, I can see why.’
    His small joke fell flat. Sonia’s expression did not change.
    â€˜This cannot be Dorne,’ she repeated dully. ‘Everything here is dead.’
    Rye fought down a surge of irritation. ‘Well, there is no point in standing around arguing about it,’ he said. ‘The silver Door delivered us here and that is all that counts. Which way do you think we should go?’
    Sonia merely shrugged. Dirk, who had prised a strangely shaped object from the ground and was scraping it clean with the side of his boot, did not appear to be listening. And as Rye surveyed the dreary wasteland around him, his own will to move began to falter.
    The place reeked of sadness and loss.
    Everything here is dead …
    He glanced back at Sonia. She was gnawing her bottom lip. Her shoulders were drooping, her eyes dull as muddy water.
    And suddenly he understood that he had begun to feel what she had been feeling all along. It was as if the weird rocks, the lowering sky, the despair that seemed to seep from the ravaged earth like the yellow mist, were somehow draining his strength. He could feel himself wilting where he stood, like a plant starved of water, like a flame starved of air.
    What was happening? Could the mist be some kind of poison? Or could it be …?
    Sorcery!
    Rye recalled the evil shadow of his dream and instinctively crossed his fingers and his wrists. Then, determined to resist the spell, he lurched forward.
    Almost at once he tripped and fell. His knees and the palms of his hands struck hard, lumpy ground. Scalding tears of pain sprang into his eyes.
    What in Weld are you doing, Rye, barging about without a thought in your head?
    Rye froze where he lay. The drawling voice in his mind was so clear that it was almost as if Sholto had actually spoken to him!
    And in that moment he knew, without question, that Sholto had been in this very spot not so long ago. He jerked his head up, and through the tears that still blurred his eyes he saw his brother standing inthe distance among the patterned rocks, writing in a notebook.
    His heart leaped, but just as he drew breath to call out, the lean, dark figure flickered and disappeared.
    An illusion! Rye’s throat tightened with bitter disappointment. But then he saw Sholto again. This time Sholto was a little closer, peering intently into a hole in the earth as if trying to work out the yellow mist’s cause.