The Doorway and the Deep

by K. E. Ormsbee

  “I’m not asking about your brother,” said Dorian. “What do you know about her?”

  “W-well, Iolanthe may be working for Starkling, but she has her own set of plans, a way of setting things right for all sprites. Many Southerlies aren’t happy with Starkling. There are rumors he’s not even a true sprite at all, but an impostor from another world. Many say that Iolanthe is better qualified for the throne.”

  “You’re talking about a coup,” Dorian said lowly. “But rumors that loud have surely reached Starkling himself.”

  “Only rumors,” said Nash. “Iolanthe has proved nothing but faithful to the king. She used to be the captain of the Southerly Guard, you know. And in all those years, she obeyed his every order. Now Starkling wants the Heir of Fiske gone, so Iolanthe has taken it upon herself to see it done. And that’s all I know, Ingle, I swear on a piskie’s wings. It’s all I know.”

  “Worthless,” growled Reeve. “That’s what you are.”

  “I swear,” said Nash, his voice rising to a whine. “I swear it, Ingle! And you wouldn’t gain a thing by cutting me up in front of these poor children, traumatizing ’em for life.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Fife. “I’d be quite content to watch Dorian dice you up.”

  “Hush, Fife,” said Oliver. “You don’t mean that.”

  “You can stop your begging,” Dorian told Nash. “I’m not going to touch you. I’m taking you to the Northerly Court with the rest of us. I’ll let Rebel Gem decide what to do with a traitor.”

  “W-what?” Nash’s shoulders shook. “No. No, you can’t do that!”

  “Then which is it?” sneered Reeve. “Death now, or later?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Nash. “My little brother, he lives at court. It’d kill him to see me denounced that way—me, his only kin.”

  “Then what do you propose we do?” said Dorian. “What’s a suitable punishment for a treacherous dog like you?”

  Nash was very quiet. Then, meekly, he said, “Just let me off at the next dock?”

  Reeve roared with laughter. “Now I’ve heard it all! I’ve ruddy heard it all.”

  Dorian shook his head at Nash, disgusted.

  “You’ll go north,” he said. “And as far as I’m concerned, this is your position for the rest of our trip—with your own knife at your throat.”

  “But you need me,” Nash said. “You’ve got no lookout without me.”

  “We’ll manage,” said Dorian. “Meantime, I’m not taking my eyes off you.”

  “Lottie?” whispered Eliot. “Everything all right?”

  For the past minute, Lottie had been struggling to watch what was going on, to listen to Dorian and Nash’s talk. But the heaviness that had claimed her eyelids earlier had returned, more forceful than ever. She felt drained all over from the healing she’d transferred to Nash.

  “Eliot,” she said, reaching for him. “I just need a little rest.”

  Eliot wrapped an arm around Lottie, then fit himself beside her, so close that their knees and shoulders were touching.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “That’s good,” said Lottie, her words breaking into a yawn. She tucked her head against Eliot’s shoulder, and he rested his on her tangled hair.

  She could hear Nash and Dorian still talking, but she no longer had the strength to translate the sounds into words. Still, her mind was whirring with thought.

  She had done it. She had healed someone. Mr. Wilfer had told her it would take weeks, even months more before she was ready to use her keen. He’d said she still had to focus on clearing her mind. But Lottie’s mind hadn’t been anywhere close to clear when she’d healed Nash. She hadn’t used Mr. Wilfer’s training. She’d done things on her own terms.

  Maybe Mr. Wilfer had been wrong. Maybe Lottie was more powerful than he thought. She had to be pretty valuable if Starkling had sent out a whole band of assassins to kill her. And though Lottie knew that thought should have made her tremble with fear, it instead filled her with excitement. She was important in this world. She wasn’t useless. Maybe, she thought as she drifted to sleep, she’d just begun to discover how useful she really could be.

  Lottie was cold, much colder than she’d been when she’d fallen asleep. Even under her periwinkle coat and the new light of sun, she felt goosebumps on her arms. She sat up, blinking against the sunlight, which shone off floating mounds of white in the passing water.

  Ice.

  They were sailing past ice.

  The River Lissome rippled past them, spotted with chunks of white sludge. Lottie’s breaths emerged as clouds. The air felt fresher in her lungs, but thinner, too. The thick evergreens that lined the riverbanks seemed particularly green. The blue of the sky seemed bluer. And cutting into that bright blue, above the tree line, were the peaks of mountains that had looked very distant before and now seemed close enough for Lottie to reach, pluck, and hold in her hand—an assortment of dark, snow-capped triangles. She wondered just how far they’d traveled during the night and realized they must have sailed not just farther north but farther up, into a higher altitude. Lottie felt around clumsily at the blanket on her shoulders and discovered that Eliot was no longer by her side.

  “Lottie!”

  Eliot waved to her from the other side of the boat. He was sitting between Adelaide and Oliver, eating a wedge of cheese. Fife sat in a hover, arms crossed, watching Nash, who had been moved to the middle of the boat. True to his word, Dorian still sat by the prisoner’s side, knife in hand. At the back of the boat, Reeve steered them on. Lottie marveled at his endurance. She wondered if learning to stay awake for hours on end, all while using one’s keen, was part of the strenuous sharpening Adelaide had mentioned.

  “How’re you feeling now?” asked Adelaide, joining Lottie where she sat. She offered her a clay tumbler of water and a handful of dried berries.

  “Better, I think,” Lottie said, taking the water and gulping it down at once. “How long was I asleep?”

  “It’s nearly sunset,” said Adelaide. “You slept the day through. Rather remarkable, given all the jostles and bumps we’ve had. Reeve says that’s because of the ice in the water. And the boys have been talking so loud. I told them a hundred times to keep their voices down, but . . . well.”

  Adelaide looked over at Fife, who soon felt the gaze of both girls on him. He stuck his tongue out at them.

  “At last,” he said. “The Heir of Fiske graces us with consciousness.”

  Lottie rolled her eyes. She wasn’t sure she’d forgiven Fife for his behavior earlier.

  “It’s not much longer,” Adelaide said. “We should dock in a few hours, and then Dorian says it’s just a short walk to the court gates.”

  Lottie nodded, but she’d grown distracted by the sight of Nash, who sat with his head turned down, arms still bound. The events of last night were crowding in on her memory, piecemeal.

  He tried to kill me last night, Lottie thought. I could’ve been killed.

  “We’ve all been talking about it,” said Adelaide, dropping her voice to a whisper. “You healing Nash like that. Where did it come from, Lottie? Was that something Father taught you?”

  Lottie shook her head. “No. I can’t explain it entirely. I just know it had something to do with Nash. I think it’s because I felt sorry for him.”

  Adelaide looked aghast. “You felt sorry for him?”

  “Well, no, that’s not exactly what I mean. I just . . . felt for him. And then the bad spell came on, so I did what I did before with Eliot: I took his hands, and I let go. I told you, it’s hard to explain.”

  “It was certainly something to watch. And, well, not that I think that horrible man deserved any kind treatment, but”—Adelaide leaned in closer, dipping her voice even lower—“thank you. I know how wretched Oliver felt about those bruises, and he’s much better off having seen them healed, you know?”

  Lottie ventured a glance at Oliver, who sat talking to Eliot. T
hey were both laughing, and Oliver’s eyes were a happy violet—a color Lottie hadn’t seen much of lately. She smiled at the sight. Then the boat heaved, and Lottie went tumbling forward.

  “What was that?” she asked, righting herself.

  “Just ice on the water,” said Adelaide.

  “Tougher to navigate than it looks,” called Reeve.

  Lottie looked out at the chunks of ice surrounding them.

  “It looks very tough to navigate,” she said.

  The boat shuddered again, but this time Lottie had a better grip and didn’t topple.

  “Pretty soon, I guess we’ll be able to ice-skate to the Northerly Court, huh?” she called to Reeve.

  But Reeve was no longer smiling.

  “That,” he said, “wasn’t ice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dorian!” shouted Reeve, ignoring her. “You’re going to want to look at this.”

  Dorian bounded across the boat to where Reeve sat. Nash’s knife was still in his hand. He squinted at the horizon, then shook his head.

  “It’s too early in the season,” he said. “It can’t possibly be.”

  “It can’t,” said Reeve, “but it is.”

  The boat heaved again, this time sending Eliot flying. He nearly landed in Oliver’s lap.

  “Steer right,” Dorian said, his voice lifting to a shout. “Right!”

  “If I veer much farther, I’ll run us straight into—”

  The boat shuddered once more.

  “What can we do to help?” Lottie shouted to Dorian.

  “Stay put, and stay silent! Reeve, are you asleep at the rudder?”

  “Doing the best I can!” Reeve shouted.

  “Whoo, we’re going to die,” Fife said chipperly. “How’ll it be, do you think? Drowning, or the jaws of whatever river monster is boxing us in?”

  “Not now, Fife!” snapped Adelaide.

  “Aren’t you scared?” Eliot asked him.

  “Witless,” said Fife, grinning.

  “You’ve something wrong with your head,” said Adelaide.

  “Who of us can swim?” Fife asked. “I know Ollie can, and—well, Ada, have you ever touched a body of water?”

  “For your information, I’m a fabulous swimmer, thanks very much.”

  “I know how,” said Lottie, “but Eliot doesn’t.”

  “Right,” said Fife. “Well, look, if it comes to it, I can float us out one at a time, and—”

  “Brace yourself!” Nash shouted. “It’s coming on fast!”

  A hard jolt knocked Reeve from the rudder. The boat wavered for a brief moment, motionless on the water. Then they sped backward, fast, into the current.

  Reeve didn’t try to regain control of the rudder. He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a rust-colored robin. He put his lips close to the genga’s head, whispering something. The bird twittered in reply and then flew to the bank and into the wood, out of sight.

  Of course, Lottie realized. Reeve was sending out his genga to alert someone that they were in danger. Lottie shoved her hand into her own coat pocket. It was empty. Panicked, she checked the other one, though she knew that she only ever stored Trouble in her right pocket, not her left. Her heart pattered. Trouble wasn’t there. When had he left her? Where could he possibly be at a moment like this?

  Lottie’s thoughts came to a splintering stop when a sound, low and loud, blasted into the air. She couldn’t identify it. It was like nothing she’d heard before. It was so deep and overwhelming that it felt like the sound was in the water and in the trees alike, spinning itself around the boat like a physical thing. Just when Lottie thought she could take no more of it, the sound ceased. Then, ahead of the boat, the water broke apart in a great heave, sending waves crashing toward them. Lottie’s senses were hit hard with cold and wet. She was suddenly dripping, and the base of the boat was filled ankle-high with water.

  “Hold it off, Reeve!” shouted Dorian.

  Reeve was leaning far over the boat’s edge, hands plunged in the icy water. He was forming waves, it seemed, but they were small and choppy, not like the massive ones that had crashed over the boat. Those bigger waves had come from something else entirely, something that now towered high above the boat.

  It was a monster. Lottie couldn’t think of a better word for the massive creature that had emerged from the river. Its body stood as high and wide as a three-story building, broken into thick, fleshy segments, from which poked row after row of spindly legs. Its skin was slick and white. Two large red eyes protruded from the top of its body, which was crowned by a set of short antennae. The monster’s mouth was open, baring a row of black, jagged teeth.

  Lottie thought of the ghost stories Reeve and Nash had told in the dark. One of them hadn’t been just a story.

  “It’s an ice crawler,” Oliver whispered.

  The monster’s mouth opened wider, and that low sound filled the air again. From where Lottie was crouched, the ice crawler’s throat looked infinite.

  Reeve was still at the boat’s edge, using his hands to whip up waves from the river water, even as the boat sped backward, putting distance between them and the ice crawler. The waves spiked like jagged mountaintops and shot in front of the boat, growing ever higher. Reeve was trying to form a wall between them and the monster.

  But it won’t do any good, thought Lottie. That ice crawler is far more solid than a wall of water.

  “It isn’t going to hold!” Reeve yelled.

  “The boat’s going to capsize!” Dorian called to the others. “We’ve got to get to shore!”

  Fife was already hovering above the water’s surface.

  “Take Eliot first,” Lottie said. “Please.”

  Fife nodded doggedly. “But I’ll come back for the rest of you,” he said. “I’ll take him to shore and come back for you all, I promise. Just hang in there!”

  Fife swung his arms around Eliot’s middle and lifted him into the air.

  “No!” screamed Eliot. “Lottie!”

  Lottie’s heart stammered, but she said nothing, only watched as Fife and Eliot disappeared into the growing shadows of twilight, through the spray of water on the Lissome.

  “Nash,” said Oliver, turning to Lottie. “We should loose his bonds.”

  “What?” shrieked Adelaide.

  “We’re going under,” Oliver said. “He at least deserves a chance to fight for it!”

  But Lottie didn’t need Oliver’s reasons. Whatever Nash had done earlier, even Lottie didn’t wish drowning on him. She stumbled to where he sat and began struggling against his gauze binding.

  “Please,” Nash whimpered. “Please help me.”

  “I will,” said Lottie, “but you’ve got to hold still.”

  It took several seconds’ worth of squinting and tugging, but she found the first of the knots and set about undoing it. The boat juddered. Reeve and Dorian continued to exchange frantic yells. Lottie didn’t look up. Setting sights on that ice crawler would do nothing for her concentration.

  She loosened the first knot, then the next, and the third. The gauze came free in her hands, and Lottie threw the last of it into the wind. She found her gaze meeting Dorian’s, and she saw something there she had not expected: an apology.

  “It’s all right,” Lottie said, not at all sure that Dorian could hear her. “You did what you could.”

  The current was dragging them at a disorienting speed, and for the moment it had put some distance between them and the monster. Meantime, Reeve’s wall of water had grown so high that all Lottie could see over its crest were the stubby antennae of the ice crawler.

  At last, the creature had become aware of its escaping prey. It tilted forward and broke through Reeve’s wall, shattering it to watery pieces and plunging back into the Lissome. Reeve hung over the boat’s side, spent from effort. For a terrifying moment, the monster was nowhere to be seen.

  Then the ice crawler burst from the river once more, this time just a foot from the
boat’s edge. A fresh shock of icy water poured down on them, soaking Lottie’s face and forcing her eyes shut. She wiped the water away, freeing her vision in time to see Dorian leap before the ice crawler, sword in hand.

  The monster bellowed its air-rippling cry. Dorian lunged forward and drove the blade into the monster’s flesh. There was a horrendous squelch. Dorian drew the sword out and plunged it again and again. The cries of the ice crawler grew louder, but Lottie didn’t know if Dorian’s fighting was doing any good; the ice crawler was so big and Dorian’s incisions so small. Reeve still hung slumped by the boat’s edge, and Lottie began to wonder if he was even conscious. And Nash . . . Nash was nowhere to be seen.

  Hurry up, Fife, she thought.

  Why didn’t we escape to the bank earlier? she thought.

  But it was too late for thoughts like those.

  Lottie looked toward the tree-crowded riverbank, but she could see no sign of Eliot or Fife. All was turning black in the onrush of coming night.

  Then another thought came to Lottie, more horrible than all the rest:

  What if the ice crawler could move in water and on land?

  Water swept over the boat once more. It was up to Lottie’s shins, and she realized with horror that the boat had reached its limit. They were sinking—low and low and lower still.

  The ice crawler bent its body toward them, its segments folding in on themselves. Several pairs of legs grabbed hold of the boat as though it were little more than a flimsy matchbox. The legs clenched, and the wood cracked, and Dorian gave a hoarse shout as he once more ripped his sword across the ice crawler’s flesh.

  The boat tipped forward into the water. The ice crawler was bringing them down, and Fife hadn’t returned from the bank, and Lottie saw now that there was only one thing left to do.

  “Come on!” she screamed to the others. “We’ve got to jump for it!”

  She didn’t know if they’d heard her. She’d barely heard herself over the ice crawler’s bellowing. Lottie looked to the bank. She thought she could see the dim outline of something hovering above the water, but she couldn’t be sure. She jumped.