Free The Golden Door by Emily Rodda Page A

like a fly in a spiderweb. In terror, he saw a second monstrous, drooling lizard peel itself from the tree to which it had been clinging and lumber forward to claim its captured prize.
    But the monster chasing Sonia was not willing to surrender its prey to a rival. Seeing the second lizard, it gave a harsh bellow and rose onto its hind legs, the fan of skin on the back of its neck deepening to bloodred.
    The second lizard snarled and sprang. The next moment, the two beasts were locked in combat, biting, slashing, and hissing.
    And so intent were they on destroying each other that Rye, reaching the place at last, was able to dart past them to the web in which Sonia was struggling.
    Without the hatchet, he would never have been able to free her. The slimy, foul-smelling cords of the net stretched as he tore at them, sticking wherever they touched and threatening to trap him, too. But the hatchet, once he stopped panicking and thought to use it, sliced through the slimy strands like a knife cutting greasy string.
    Pulling the girl free at last, he caught her around the waist and hurled himself sideways, tipping them both over a leafy bank that rose beside the tatters of the net. Together they tumbled down a steep ferny slope. There was nothing to stop them. Nothing they snatched at was firm enough to hold them. Yelling, they rolled and slid, down and down, until at last they lay, pantingand shuddering, on the soft, damp earth of the valley floor.
    The light was dim and green. The thrashing, hissing sounds of the monster battle floated down to Rye’s ears. They mingled with other, closer, sounds. Sonia’s sobbing breaths. The gurgling of running water. Birdcalls, clear and pure, chiming like tiny bells. A soft, breathy murmuring that might have been ferns stirring in a breeze, or something more sinister.
    Rye closed his eyes and held himself very still, concentrating on the murmuring noise, trying to make out what it was. Something slithering beneath a blanket of leaves? Skimmers waking, stretching their leathery wings somewhere near? Or … could it be — could it possibly be — whispering voices?
    The murmuring gradually separated itself into words.
    He is the one.
    The signs are not perfect.
    The third test remains. We shall see….
    “Rye, wake up!” Sonia’s anxious voice cut through the whispers, which vanished abruptly.
    Rye opened his eyes. Sonia was crouched beside him, shaking his shoulder. He blinked at her blearily.
    “We should get away from here.” Sonia glanced nervously up toward the sound of the lizard battle. “The one that wins may come after us.”
    Rye nodded and scrambled painfully to his feet. He found that his ears had not been deceiving him inone way at least. He had been lying on the sandy bank of a fast-running stream. He stared, fascinated, at the clear, bubbling water. It was so strange to see water flowing freely, with no gutters to guide it.
    The stream rippled and sang over a bed of small, round blue pebbles that seemed to wink at him like bright eyes.
    On the other side of the stream, fern-choked land rose as steeply as the ground behind him did. It was as if he and Sonia had fallen into a deep fold in the earth. Rye’s head swam as he looked up. Every bone in his body ached. His knees felt as if they were made of butter left too long out of the cool room. He knew he could not climb just yet.
    Fortunately, Sonia appeared to feel the same. “I think we should go this way,” she said, pointing along the stream to the left.
    “I, too,” said Rye, and wondered why he was so sure. Perhaps it was because the stream was running in that direction. It seemed right to follow the stream.
    He looked around for the hatchet but was not surprised when he could not see it. He had lost his grip on it in that sliding tumble down the hill with Sonia, and it had stayed where it had fallen. Now it lay buried in ferns somewhere on that steep slope above him. He would never find it. Perhaps no one would