The Silver Door

19 - The Harbour

The door slid shut behind them, sealing them in. Ahead was abroad passage with walls and floor of dull, smooth grey. White light glared down from the ceiling, but there were no lanterns. There was nothing on the ceiling at all except an occasional small round hole sealed with mesh through which the salty air of the Harbour drifted.

Rye remembered the light that had flooded the narrow stairway as the Warden led him deep into the oldest parts of the Keep. That light, too, had seemed to have no source. But how different it had been! Golden and mysterious, it had lit those steep, winding steps warmly, gently, at one with the magic that had seeped from the ancient stones.

This light was cold—hard and chill as the floor beneath Rye’s feet. And the magic he could sense was cold too. It pressed in on him, touching him with icy fingers, filling him not with awe but with dread.

How could anyone have followed the man who created this? Rye thought. How could anyone have thought that it was better to trust him than to stand and fight Olt’s tyranny? Could they not see what he really was?

Plainly they could not, Sonia’s voice whispered in his mind. He hid his true nature till he could get them isolated here.

Rye glanced across the lines of prisoners and saw Sonia almost opposite him. Her shoulders were bowed, and she was shambling along with her head down, so that she looked no taller than Chub, who was walking beside her.

Sonia must have felt his shock at seeing her in such despair, because she raised her head a little and looked directly at him. Her eyes were dark with fear, but her message came to him clearly. So far they have not realised that I am not like the others, and I do not want them to find out. It might be useful. Who knows?

With Kyte in the lead, and guards on either side of them, the prisoners walked the length of the passage. The silence of the place was like a living thing. Even the guards’ heavy boots seemed to make no sound, as if the walls and floor absorbed and swallowed the echo of their tread.

These guards, Kyte’s guards, did not look like the Krops of the Diggings. They were burlier, with broad cheeks and pointed chins. But they were just as inhuman. And they all looked exactly alike.

Kyte was nearing what looked like a dead end. A circular design had been painted in the centre of the wall.

Rye had never seen anything like it, but its message was clear enough. The candle in the centre of the circle had a bar across it, as if it had been deliberately crossed out. Flame was forbidden here.

Without breaking stride, Kyte pointed the grey tube at the sign. A section of the wall slid away, revealing another passage exactly like the first. The door closed the moment the prisoners had moved through it, and the silence seemed to become even more intense.

At last another smooth wall barred Kyte’s way. This time she halted and adjusted the collar of her coat before raising the grey tube. Then, as a panel slid aside, she swaggered forward, a slight smile on her lips.

She stopped dead as a hissing voice rose from the desk directly in front of the doorway.

‘Do you guarantee it, Brand?’

The voice was so filled with menace that Kyte took a step back, and the watchers outside the room shuddered as if blown by a freezing wind.

A man was sitting behind the desk, but he did not seem to be the one who had spoken. He had raised his eyes as Kyte entered the room, but he merely stared at her glassily. His narrow face was gleaming with sweat. His hands were clasped around a black box set in front of him on the shining desktop. His knuckles were white.

He opened his lips with what seemed a great effort. ‘Yes, Master,’ he said. ‘The trial will be successful. I guarantee it. And as for the spies the bird claims to have seen in the Saltings, there has been no sign of them. If they exist, they will be captured very soon, I promise you.’

‘It had better be so, Brand. I have waited long for this, and I do not tolerate failure.’

The hissing voice was coming from the black box. There was no doubt. Rye felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.

‘Once, Brand, the people of this island rejected me, and my own brothers united to send me into exile,’ the voice rasped. ‘I swore then that I would return. I swore that I would tear out Dorne’s heart and use it as even then I suspected it could be used. I swore revenge on the rabble who had raised my doltish elder brother to the high place that should have been mine.’

The man gripping the box made no reply. His eyes, still fixed on Kyte, seemed to have sunk more deeply into their sockets. There was a pale line around his lips, and he trembled all over like a man in the grip of a fever as the low, venomous voice whispered on.

‘How fitting it is that both my brothers are dead while I live on in greatness! How fitting that they quarrelled, and the younger was forced to flee, as he had forced me to flee! How fitting, Brand, that he—he—began the great work that will make me invincible! And how fitting that the rabble who rejected me at last turned against Olt as well, and in their ignorance opened the way for my return!’

The horror Rye felt at that moment was like nothing he had ever felt before. It was as if the ground had fallen away beneath his feet. It was all he could do to remain upright.

This evil being whispering from the black box was not Olt’s younger brother. This was the other—the sorcerer who in his exile from Dorne had become the terrible Lord of Shadows.

And Dorne was open to him because of Olt’s death, the death Rye had caused.

Rye had been warned. He had heard Olt’s claim that only his power kept Dorne safe from its ancient enemy. He had heard the fears that enemy warships were lurking off-shore in the east, in the hope that Olt would die.

But he had not believed it. So Olt’s long life had ended, the charm had been broken, and the enemy had swooped, destroying the tyrant of the east, taking over all he had built.

And it would not stop there. Perhaps at this very moment enemy warships were sailing into Oltan bay. And FitzFee and his family, the brave fisherman Hass, all the other innocent, hardworking people who had rejoiced at the death of Olt, would wake to find themselves enslaved again—this time by a being whose evil knew no bounds, and who could never be defeated.

Rye was swaying where he stood. Sonia’s horrified dismay was clamouring in his mind, but so great was his own shock that he could not even try to make out what she was saying.

‘Who is speaking?’ the voice hissed sharply. ‘Who is with you, Brand?’

Horrified, Rye realised that his thoughts, and Sonia’s, had been detected. He struggled to make his mind a blank.

‘No one is speaking, Master!’ gasped the man behind the desk. ‘And no one is with me—no one of importance. It—it is only …’ He swallowed, unable to continue.

‘It’s only Slave-hunter Kyte, Master,’ Kyte said, stepping forward eagerly. She was afraid, Rye could feel it, but she was not going to miss this chance to impress the Master.

‘I’ve brought the specimens for the test tomorrow, Master,’ Kyte hurried on. ‘And Master, I’m happy to tell you that among them is—’

‘Kyte!’ the voice broke in coldly. ‘You were the one whose task it was to find the laboratory workers I sent to help prepare for the test. According to Brand, you brought back only one of the six. I found this … disappointing.’

Kyte stiffened, but defended herself without any outward sign of panic.

‘Perhaps Controller Brand didn’t tell you the full story, Master,’ she said, with a spiteful glance at the man sitting at the desk. ‘Your servants’ ship missed the Harbour entrance and fell foul of the rocks. I found bodies washed up on shore—those that the sea serpents hadn’t taken. But I also saw footprints leading away from the water, and knew that one man had survived. I tracked him, and didn’t rest till I’d found him.’

If she had been expecting praise for her cleverness, she was disappointed.

‘Fortunately, the rest were not needed, it seems,’ the voice replied indifferently. ‘The test will be held on time. That is all that matters.’

And despite all he knew, Rye’s blood ran cold at the utter callousness of a being who could take so lightly the deaths of five laboratory workers and the whole crew of a ship.

You are not in Weld now, Rye …

‘So, Brand!’ the voice of the Master hissed. ‘You will keep me fully informed as the test progresses. If it succeeds, I will come to Dorne and you will be rewarded. If it does not … you will regret it.’

There was no further sound or sign, but suddenly it was clear that the evil presence that had been dominating the room had vanished.

Brand’s hands slipped from the black box. His hollow eyes regained a spark of life. He straightened his shoulders and glared at Kyte.

His hair, slicked straight back from his bony forehead, was thin and peppered with grey. His narrow face was closely shaved. The high collar of the plain black robe he wore gaped slightly around his scrawny neck.

Once, lulled by the placid security of Weld, Rye would not have feared such an ordinary-looking man, but now he knew better than to be deceived by appearances. He recognised Brand as a cold and calculating enemy. He could see that Brand had no more feeling for others than the desk at which he sat, or the master he served. Brand cared for no one but himself, and would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

‘You take too much upon yourself, Kyte!’ Brand snapped at the woman standing in front of his desk. ‘How dare you barge in here uninvited, pushing yourself before the Master!’

‘I didn’t know you’d be speaking with the Master, Controller Brand,’ Kyte drawled insolently. ‘And I didn’t know that you found your conferences with him so … disturbing. I came to tell you—’

‘Whatever it is, I do not wish to hear it!’ Brand snapped. ‘Get out! Cage the specimens! And if you tell anyone what you have heard here, you will be sorry! Do you understand?’

‘Perfectly, sir,’ Kyte spat. She spun round and marched out of the office.

As Brand’s door slid shut behind her, she turned to face the right-hand wall of the passage.

‘We’ll go this way, I think,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder at her prisoners. ‘I’d like you to see what you can expect tomorrow.’

She lifted her grey tube. A gap opened silently in the wall’s blank surface, revealing a bare little room no bigger than a storeroom. Smiling very slightly, Kyte waited as the prisoners were herded into the room, then she strode in after them and turned her back to face the door.

The door slid shut. The lights dimmed. Packed together so tightly that they were unable to move, the prisoners waited in silence. There was a tiny creak, then a strange, breathy sound, and suddenly it felt to Rye that the room—the room itself—was sinking into the earth!

Someone gave a tiny moan, quickly cut off. A guard sniggered.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the sense of movement stopped. A shaft of scarlet light lit the dimness, broadening as the door of the room began to slide open once more.

A strong, unpleasant odour drifted through the gap. Rye recoiled.

‘J-jell!’ he heard Itch mutter. ‘And smoke.’

‘Mixed with something else,’ Bird whispered back. ‘What is it?’

Death, thought Rye.

And at the same moment he realised that Sonia was sharing the horrific picture that had formed in his mind. He had not meant to send it to her—he had not even been thinking about her—but she had received it all the same.

Her reaction shook him to his core. There was fear in it, certainly. But there was elation, too. Then her voice came to him.

We did it! We have found them!

There was no need to answer, for already they were being herded out of the little room, into the red light. The smell was very strong. Figures in grey coats and black gloves were turning to look at them, some with what looked like weapons in their hands. And all around them huge skimmers flapped and lunged, their pale, rat-like snouts smeared with blood, their needle teeth bared, the spurs on their hind legs raking the air.

The prisoners cringed and cried out in terror. Kyte laughed.

‘Oh, the slays can’t touch you now,’ she jeered, patting the air in front of the nearest skimmers to display the invisible barrier that confined them. ‘They’re caged by the Master’s sorcery. But tomorrow morning it’ll be a different story—for you, at least, little rats!’

Already the grey-coated figures had gone back to their work. Kyte swaggered up to one of them and tapped him familiarly on the shoulder.

‘So, Vrett, we meet again,’ she crowed. ‘I was just talking to the Master about you—telling him that you were none the worse for your ducking in the sea. I’ve brought the specimens for the test. Do you want to see them?’

The man turned. It was Sholto.