The Key to the Opal Gate

Stories for Another Day

Once when a boy named Rustum was playing with a stick, it fell under a bush, and when he went to pick it up, he found a key. Now, whether the boy found the key, or the key made its way to the boy, there is no way of telling, but whatever the case, Rustum found himself brushing the dirt off a small, silvery key.

No sooner had he begun to wonder what sort of door this key with its intricate pattern of vines and leaves would open than a gate appeared in front of him. To begin with it was nothing but a hazy image, but it gradually became more solid. The gate itself was iron, shaped with leaves and flowers and wandering tendrils of vines all over it, but it was set inside an archway that glowed with all the colours and fire of an opal, blues and greens, pinks and golds, and glowing red.

Rustum put the key into the lock and opened the gate and went in. Then because he was a thoughtful boy, he took the key out of the lock and put it in his pocket, and closed the gate behind him.

He found himself in a room full of chests piled high with silver coins and lumps of silver, and silver plates, wealth beyond his wildest dreams. He went through this room and found another room, even larger, stacked with toppling piles of gold bars and gold coins and chains of gold, wherever he looked. Astonished, he went on into a third room, and found it crammed with jewels of all kinds, crowns and diadems, necklaces and sceptres and jewelled swords. He sat down amazed, trickling a handful of rubies through his fingers. Then he got up and began stuffing his pockets with gold and silver and jewels. He draped chains and necklaces around his neck and jammed two crowns onto his head, and then he made for the door. But it was nowhere to be found. The doorway through which he had entered had disappeared as though it had never existed.

Fear gripped Rustum’s heart, but he did not let it overwhelm him. Instead he began to think. He lifted off the crowns and chains and necklaces. In one corner of the room, a shimmering haze arose vaguely in the shape of a door. He emptied the gold and sapphires and amethysts, the silver and rubies and emeralds, out of his pockets. When every pocket was empty, the door took shape again, as solid as it had been before.

He sat down to give the matter some thought. It was then that he noticed another door he had not seen before. He opened this and found himself in a fourth room whose walls were covered in bookshelves stretching from the floor to a ceiling so far above him that it was almost out of sight. More bookshelves filled the centre of this vast room, except for a space at the very centre in which there was a desk with a single candle burning.

Rustum passed rows and rows of bookshelves and made his way to the desk. On it was a single piece of paper with only one line of writing. Rustum stared at it, then he read it over and over. It seemed that a wave of understanding came over him, and he understood a great many things that had been a mystery to him before.

He turned and went back through the rooms full of precious stones, of gold and of silver, until he came to the opal gate again. He had his hand on the gate ready to open it when something bright, glinting in a corner, caught his eye. He prised it out of the dirt, a single diamond, large and perfect, of untold worth. Rustum couldn’t resist slipping it into his pocket.

Immediately the gate began to shimmer and disappear. Rustum sprinted to it and threw himself through it before it clanged shut behind him.

On the other side of the gate, the world he had left just a short time ago was unrecognisable. Everything had lost its colour and its scent, and faded away to a dull, papery grey. The buildings were shabby and crumbling, the trees were dying, even the sky was grey and hung with listless grey clouds.

Rustum’s hand went straight to his pocket, and he fingered the diamond, thinking of what he could do with so much wealth, the house he could build for his grandmother, a well for the whole village, a school, even a hospital. He looked at the dull greyness creeping over everything in sight, and he made his decision.

The key to the opal gate was still in his pocket. He unlocked the gate and threw the diamond as far inside as he could. Immediately the great opal archway transformed into two towering, spreading trees covered with leaves in red and orange and gold. Behind him stretched the most beautiful garden with beds of flowers, vines covered in grapes, and trees with fruit of every kind. At the centre of the garden, under a blossoming cherry tree, there was a lake of cool, blue water which shimmered as the breeze stirred its waters.

The children of the village, which was now bright with colour and shining in the sunlight, streamed into the garden. They played in the tall grass and climbed the trees while their parents and the older people sat in the shade and shared the delicious fruit. Rustum smiled to himself, and walked down to the lake. He took off his shoes and swam in the cool water.

Try as he might, from that day to this, he could never remember what had been written on that single piece of paper. And as for the key to the opal gate, it was not in his pocket when he looked for it, and whether he had dropped it or it got out of his pocket some other way, I really cannot say.