The Silver Door by Emily Rodda Page B

And no sooner had this second image vanished than another appeared, closer still and a little to Rye’s left.
    In this vision Sholto had his sleeves rolled up, and his brow was gleaming with sweat. Two of the giant insects were circling him, but he was paying no attention to them. He was lifting stones, stolidly piling one upon the other like a child making a tower of toy bricks.
    Rye blinked, and again Sholto’s figure vanished. But something remained where it had been—a small pyramid of stones, its peak rising just a little above the surrounding rocks.
    Rye gaped at it, awe-struck. If he had not seen Sholto building this marker, he would probably not have noticed it among all the other piles of rocks that littered the ground. Even if he had come across it by chance, he might not have realised it was made by human hands.
    But there it stood, clear evidence that he had seen the past—seen Sholto in the past! The visions had beenas true as the glimpses of Sholto that had so often come to him in dreams.
    Or … was the pyramid itself an illusion?
    Rye had to know. Calling hoarsely to the others, he jumped up and began scrambling across the rocks.
    He reached the pyramid in moments. It stood in a small circle of cleared earth, and was almost as tall as he was. He put out his hands and touched it. It was solid. It was real.
    So Sholto had truly been here, and Sholto had survived—survived to make his way to the red place, to find the source of the skimmers.
    And if he could do it, we can do it too, Rye thought. Deliberately he breathed out, letting the last of his fear and tension go.
    â€˜What is it?’ Sonia asked fretfully, coming up behind him. Rye glanced at her over his shoulder. She still looked listless, but at least she had followed him.
    â€˜Sholto built this,’ he said. ‘I saw him doing it.’
    Her eyes widened, but before she could ask what he meant, he turned back to the pyramid. And it was only then that he realised why the rocks looked so oddly rounded, and were so strangely patterned.
    Every stone was completely covered in snails! The creatures’ shells, striped and dotted with black, brown, orange, pink and blue, were pressed as closely together as tiles on a richly decorated wall.
    Amazed that he had not realised this before, Rye prodded the nearest snails with the tip of one finger.He could not shift them. They were clearly very much alive, holding on for dear life.
    They were similar to the sea snails Rye had seen clustered on the piers of the fishermen’s jetty in Oltan bay. These were land creatures, though, and the colours of their shells were not so bright.
    But just because of that, they reminded him of something else.
    Wondering, he slid his fingers into the little bag hanging around his neck. He found the smooth, round object he was seeking, and drew it out.
    The snail shell looked faded in the dull light. Rye put it into the palm of his hand, and examined it.
    There was no doubt. Except that it was empty and lifeless, it was exactly like the millions of shells that now surrounded him.
    â€˜Sonia!’ Rye said slowly. ‘We
are
in Dorne—here is the proof of it!’
    Sonia leaned forward and looked from the shell in his hand to the snails studding the pyramid.
    â€˜What does this mean?’ she whispered, with more excitement in her voice than Rye had heard since they went through the silver Door.
    Rye hesitated. ‘If it is like the feather, the ring and the serpent scale, the shell’s power has something to do with the creature it came from,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps it will help us to hide.’
    â€˜The hood does that already,’ Sonia objected, turning back to the pyramid and scanning the livingsnails eagerly. ‘It must be … Oh! What is that?’
    She crouched and pointed at something white that was poking through a small gap in the pyramid’s base. Gingerly she pulled at the thing and it came