Rage was trembling because the truth of all the wizard was saying was like a knife gliding into her. For hadn’t she even begun to see that she could no longer blame the wizard for what his brother had done to her mother and Uncle Samuel, and what they in turn had done to her? She felt humbled by the way Nomadiel had gone on believing in her fierce, proud little way that she deserved to be loved by her father. And she thought how Billy had gone on loving his mother, no matter how she hurt or rejected him. He had not despaired nor held the pain close, allowing it to gnaw at him. He had let go of it and passed on only his steadfast love. That was the highest kind of courage.
Rage looked into the wizard’s lined face and drew herself up. “You are right. I said the things I did to you in Valley because I wanted to hurt you because I had been hurt. Forgive me.”
The wizard’s amber eyes grew bright. “Forgive me,” he said.
“Maybe we can forgive one another,” Rage said, and brushed aside her own shyness to step forward and put her arms around the wizard. How wonderful it was to be hugged back so tightly, as if she was precious and worth living for. And how strangely easy to let go of anger and resentment and bitterness.
The ground shuddered. Rage and the wizard drew back in startlement.
“Can’t you do something about Mr. Walker using magic, sir?” Billy asked.
“I have too little strength to work a spell that would transport him,” the wizard said regretfully. “Especially when he does not will it.”
Rage had an idea. “Do you have enough power to make me invisible?”
“My dear Rage, invisibility is no small thing. But because it is you, and we are connected by blood, I may be able to make you extremely hard to see, which is almost as good as invisibility. But I won’t be able to hold the spell for long.”
“I will go to him,” Rage said, feeling that anything could be possible now. The world shuddered again. Rage wondered with a little thrill if she had caused that tremor. She hoped so.
“I’ll go, too,” Billy said.
But the wizard shook his head. “I will not be able to hide you as well as Rage.” He looked at her. “But perhaps you should think on it a little. Prince Walker is small but if he fights you, it is likely that you will both fall into the abyss spanned by the bridge. Or he might call the attention of the gray fliers.”
“I don’t mean to force him,” Rage said. “I am sure that he will come away willingly once he realizes that he is helping the Stormlord.”
The wizard looked at Rage. “Can you wait until the Lady Elle returns? My strength grows with each hour that passes. By tomorrow, I will be capable of much more than I am now.”
“I would wait, but Mr. Walker has been out for three days.”
“Very well. When will you go?”
“Now,” Rage said decisively, and her pulse began to race at her own audacity. “Do you have a coat that will fit Mr. Walker, and something I can carry a hot drink in?”
In a short time, she was padding along a snowy street. Billy and Thaddeus were with her and would wait at the edge of the settlement until she returned. Rage hugged Billy hard. Then she turned to say goodbye to Thaddeus, who held out his hand. She thought he meant her to shake it, but instead, she found it held another of the small pouches of sleep dust.
“Just in case Prince Walker is unable to listen to reason,” he said. “He will be easier to carry if he sleeps.”
“Thank you,” Rage said, putting the soft pouch into her pocket.
She turned and began to walk away from the buildings. Ahead, the glacier glowed white, and the stone bridge to Stormkeep looked as insubstantial as a thread stretching out across the black abyss. The torches that had lit the fortress crenellations had been extinguished, so Stormkeep was no more than a vague dark shape. Rage expected to hear the chittering clamor of gray fliers, but she heard nothing save the snow crunching under her boots. When she reached the stone bridge, she hesitated. Not only was it very narrow, but there were no rails. It also curved steeply up. Once she was standing on it, she could not see the other side.
Rage forced herself to step onto the bridge, and at once she shivered, for the glacier gave off an icy aura. She took a deep breath, fixed her eyes ahead, and began to walk. When she was about to pass over the edge of the glacier where it fell into the abyss, she made the mistake of looking down. Her head spun as she saw the white, glittering icefall plunging into blackness. She dragged her eyes back to the bridge and went on. She had taken only a few steps before it grew windier in blustering surges. If Rage took one wrong step, she would fall, and the chances of Logan waking her at that moment were very slim.
When she came to the midway point of the bridge, she was surprised that she could see the end of it: the great black doors to Stormkeep. But there was no sign of Mr. Walker. It was not until she had her feet on the broad platform of stone leading to the doors that she noticed a dark shape on the ground. She ran to where Mr. Walker lay half buried under snow, his face pressed against the pitiless gate.
“Mr. Walker,” Rage whispered, kneeling beside him and setting down the flask so that she could pull him around to her.
He was blue with cold, with a crust of ice over his face and long, furled ears. She unwrapped the cloak Thaddeus had given her and put it around the little dog-man. Then she unstopped the flask and poured a tiny amount of the steaming soup into his mouth. It trickled out at once, but he began to cough. The coughing did not stop. It built to a jagged, phlegm-clogged spasm that made her fear it would draw unwanted attention. At last the spasm ended, leaving Mr. Walker gasping.
“Mr. Walker,” Rage whispered urgently. “Prince Walker!” He did not move. “Mr. Walker, you must wake up and come with me, for Nomadiel’s sake.”
Brown eyes as dull as pond stones opened. “Nomadiel is gone. It is my fault,” he croaked.
“No. She chose to go,” Rage said firmly.
“She is a child.”
“Yes, but still she chose to go and try to get help because she has great courage.”
“I have been a bad father.”
“Maybe you have,” Rage said softly. “I don’t suppose you could help it if you were. But I don’t think she hates you for it or even blames you. She loves you, which is why she deserves for you to be better to her from now on.”
“It’s too late—”
“It’s never too late!” Rage said. “How could it be too late for you to love her and be a father to her? You must give up grieving for Kelpie and become a father to her daughter and yours.”
“I cannot forget her,” Mr. Walker said brokenly. “I loved her so much.”
“I didn’t say to forget her. You’ve spent too much time thinking about her dead instead of remembering her alive. You have to stop hurting yourself and Nomadiel because she died. Kelpie would be so sad to see how the two of you are.”
“Nomadiel is better off without me.”
“That’s not true,” Rage said fiercely, wondering if her mother had thought this, and maybe her uncle, too. “How can it possibly be better not to have a father? She loves you, and you have to be brave enough to love her. Now get up, because the spell hiding me from the gray fliers could wear off any time.”
“How can I love Nomadiel when she is lost to me?” Mr. Walker said.
“She can never be lost to you, any more than Feluffeen can. Plus we are going to defeat the Stormlord and free her. But your despair and guilt are just making him stronger right now. That’s what his machine and his world are made from and what keeps them strong. Bad feelings. He took Nomadiel because she is brave and bright and because she loves you.”
“Then…he did not take me because I…”
“Mr. Walker, there is no time for this. We can talk when we are safe.” At last, Mr. Walker allowed her to help him sit up. Rage gave him another drink from the flask. She lifted him to his feet, but when she let him go, they crumpled under him.
“It’s no use,” he said.
“I can carry
you,” Rage said, trying not to think how narrow the bridge was. She braced herself and hauled him as gently as she could onto her back. He tried to help but was too weak. “The main thing is for you to keep really still,” Rage told him, setting off.
Oddly, this time she found it easier on the bridge because their combined weight steadied her and the wind could not buffet her so easily. Despite the impulse to hurry, she forced herself to walk at a measured pace. Three-quarters of the way across, Mr. Walker began to cough violently. Rage stopped until the fit of coughing abated, then continued. She had just reached the end of the bridge when a chittering cry filled the air. The spell had worn off!
She heard the whirring of wings overhead and stepped with awkward haste down onto the snowy ground. She continued doggedly toward the settlement, keeping to the furrow she had made earlier. She would not have dared run even if she had the strength left for it, because Mr. Walker now flopped loosely against her and she was afraid he had fainted. If she was right, any sharp movement would topple them both.
The whirring grew louder and more menacing, and Rage remembered the sleep dust in her pocket. She pulled the pouch out with her one free hand, but the wind tugged it from her. The contents whirled away in a glittering arc.
There was no option but to keep trudging on.
“Go back over bridge,” chittered the nearest of the fliers, hovering between her and the settlement. Rage noticed absently how the snowflakes beginning to spiral down melted the moment they touched the smooth surface of its armor, and dimly wondered why it didn’t simply grab at her, as the other flier had done in Stormkeep.
“Let me pass or you’ll be sorry!” Rage gasped, because what did it matter now?
Rage expected the creature to attack then, for more fliers were hovering about. Then all at once she heard Billy calling her name. She looked through the fliers and saw him hurtling toward her from the settlement.
“No!” she cried as several fliers turned to face him, brandishing their long lances.
Billy stopped and so did Thaddeus, who was coming along behind him. They only had knives, which would be no use against the armor of the fliers. One of the creatures threw its lance. It struck Billy a glancing blow that sent him to his knees in a flash of bluish light. Rage screamed as the other fliers lifted their lances.
At that moment, a cry rang out across the barren waste. Rage turned to see Elle racing toward them, her blond hair flying like a pale, bright flag. Behind her were dozens of young summerlanders, their faces pale and determined in the light of the torches they carried. The fliers retreated as if some unbearable ray had been turned on them. And softly as rain, it came to Rage that the fliers were retreating not from the summerlanders’ makeshift weapons but from their courage and hope.
“Yes, fly away!” she shouted, exultant, understanding that this, too, was a weapon against them.
In minutes, the fliers had retreated behind the walls of Stormkeep. Elle lifted Mr. Walker gently from her back and Rage found herself crushed in Billy’s arms. She turned in his embrace to look at Mr. Walker, and the little dog-man’s eyes fluttered open. He smiled and then closed them again. But it was enough.
“They retreated!” called Shona, her face shining with triumph.
“They did,” Elle said as they made their way back to the settlement. “I take it the wizard has recovered enough to cast a spell.”
“No,” Billy said softly. “Don’t you see, Elle? The gray fliers retreated because you and the summerlander rebels came rushing at them so hopefully and bravely. That’s what hurt the Stormlord and his world. We must prove to him that hope and bravery are stronger than despair and hopelessness.”
“An interesting strategy,” Elle said thoughtfully.
The wizard turned away from the sleeping form of Mr. Walker, his lined face grave. “He has pneumonia and he is suffering badly from exposure. He will probably lose two fingers and a toe, but he is clinging to life, and that gives me more hope than his condition should allow because in this world, as Billy discovered, it is hope and courage that are the strongest weapons.”
“It wasn’t me,” Billy said. “It was our friend Logan, back at Winnoway. He figured most of it out. I just took the next step when I saw the way the fliers didn’t grab at Rage when she was bringing Mr. Walker back. I remembered how they hadn’t wanted to touch me when I was alone with them on the wall of Stormkeep. They used one of those lances to push me over the edge after the Stormlord woke. I thought I was dead when that flier threw its lance just now, but it only hit my backpack. And that was when it came to me that it had thrown the lance from so far back because it hadn’t dared to come any closer.”
“You were lucky the flier’s aim was not better,” the wizard said.
“Maybe it wasn’t luck,” Rage said, putting her arm through Billy’s. “Maybe Billy is so brave that this world can’t hurt him. Just like Elle.”
“Not like Elle!” Billy laughed, but he looked pleased. “No one is like her. I think Logan is right about her causing the earthquakes here. And by bringing hope and light to the summerlanders as she has done, she is making this whole world unstable.”
“Let us hope she does not shake it to pieces while we are here,” Puck said darkly, slipping through the door. “Anyway, she wants you now.”
The wizard nodded. “You two go. I will stay with Mr. Walker.”
“So, what is your plan?” Puck demanded in his usual bumptious way. He was seated on a table a little distance from Elle. There were many sorts of creatures as well as humans, all the offspring of parents who had been drawn to Null through the gaps. A red-haired foxlike girl with red ears and a great bushy tail sat close to Elle and gazed at her in adoration.
“We can storm the place just like you suggested before,” Thaddeus was saying. “Now that we know the fliers can’t attack us….”
“But they can attack, if only from a distance,” Elle reminded him. “They can throw their lances or drop things on us when we are crossing the bridge. And from what Rage and Billy have said of the door, I doubt it could be opened even if we did get there safely.”
“Can we not leave this accursed place, then?” asked one of the summerlanders. “We need no longer fear that the fliers would attack us.”
“Perhaps we could leave, but would you leave behind those who would also choose the sun, but for their long, weary life in this place that has sapped their hope? Would it not be a black and cowardly victory to go into the summerlands and leave them behind? And in the end, it would only be a short retreat, for the darkness here would be flowing out into all worlds as darkness and winter and despair.”
No one spoke.
“Aside from all else, I must remain no matter what you would choose because I have sworn to stop the deadly winter harming Valley,” Elle said.
“I will stay with you,” the fox-girl cried, jumping to her feet and swishing her great soft tail. The others took up the cry, and Rage saw that this adoration, too, was a power that could be wielded.
But Elle said, “I would urge you to go if I did not truly believe that this is a battle we can win, for I have also sworn that you will see the sun, all of you.” A wild cheer greeted her words. And then the ground twitched so violently that two or three of the standing summerlanders were thrown to their knees. After the first shocked silence, they burst out laughing and cheered again.
“See how this world tries to shake us from its back!” one of the summerlanders shouted.
“They would die for her,” Puck muttered sourly.
“I think they would, but she would not allow it,” Billy said softly. “She knows that she is the greatest weapon we have, and I believe she could face the Stormlord alone and still win, but she chooses to share the victory because it will make them all stronger.”
“So what are we to do?” Shona asked. “We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
“We will not do nothing,” Elle said, giving them all a grin so alight with mischief that Rage felt
her own lips curl up. “We will celebrate. You will tell me all the fragments you have heard from your olders that have come together to form the great tale of the summerlanders, the making of which was the first blow you struck against the Stormlord. Then we will feast and sing—”
“What is it to sing?” the fox-girl demanded.
Elle smiled. “We of the summerlands will teach you how to sing and then we will make such story-songs between us as to cause the Stormlord in his icy fortress to clasp his hands to his ears.”
“I hope your plan does not mean that we will destroy ourselves as well as the Stormlord,” Puck said tartly.
Elle laughed, flashing strong white teeth. “You have a point, little man. But I think the Stormlord will succumb before his world falls apart.”
“I hope you are right,” Puck muttered.
“What do you think he will do?” Billy asked Elle a little later as the summerlanders dashed about preparing a feast. Elle had them laugh and talk loudly as they worked. Some of the summerlanders were also putting together rough drums and stringing thin lines between chairs, strumming and tapping to test their makeshift instruments.
“I think that at first the Stormlord will do nothing, because he will expect us to try to attack or leave. When he realizes that we don’t intend to go and he realizes how we are attacking him, he will seek to parley with me. Before we will agree to that, he must release all the prisoners in his machine,” Elle said. “If nothing else, that will reduce his power and the flow of winter through the door.”
“Nomadiel—” Rage began.
“She and Rally and all the others will be released,” Elle said.
“Then what?” Thaddeus asked.
“Then we will talk about those wanting to leave for the summerlands being permitted to do so, and then about how we might deal with the winter door.”
Rage said worriedly, “If Billy is right about it being a gap that was turned into a door by the firecat, then—”
“He was right,” the wizard interrupted softly, coming over to join them. “I realized the truth during my imprisonment.” He looked at Billy. “You are very clever to have seen what I did not. I suppose the firecat happened on the gap, for it is ever sniffing about anything that smells of magic. It would have conjured the door because it wanted to explore the world beyond the gap in its never-ending search for a soul. But once it had magicked the door, it would have been terrified by the darkness of Null, which would have begun to leak through into Valley.”