Synopsis
Set in the city of Viador, a city set in a deep valley between hills, A Door to Nowhere opens with a passage considering the nature of doors. “Doors are interesting things” says the text, for “Like all good stories, doors have a beginning, a middle and an end.”
From this brief discussion of doors we are then introduced to the city of Viador itself, and most importantly, the bakery on the side of which the mysterious “door to nowhere” is located. We are next introduced to our two heroes Thomas and Jane who are sitting across the street from the bakery, staring longingly in through the window. We quickly learn that Thomas and Jane are cold, hungry and homeless, for their parents have been imprisoned by the evil Sheriff Stinkbottom for failing to pay their taxes.
We are introduced then to the evil Sheriff, who is described as having not only the most unfortunate name in the whole Kingdom, but he is “also endowed with, on the end of his rather large nose, the biggest, bumpiest, most bulbous wart imaginable”. It is while Thomas and Jane are staring longingly in through the bakery window that the Sheriff approaches and starts raging at the baker over some unpaid taxes. The Sheriff’s rage provides Thomas and Jane with an opportune moment to steal some loaves of bread. Just as they do, the Sheriff spots them and the chase begins.
“Chases are strange things”, and because of this, our two young heroes find they are disoriented and are eventually chased back to the scene of their crime. They soon decide to cut down an alleyway to try and avoid the Sheriff but unfortunately find they hit a dead end. Just as the Sheriff approaches to handcuff the two young thieves Jane reaches out for her brother’s hand but instead accidentally reaches out and touches the handle of the mysterious door.
In the blink of an eye Thomas and Jane are sucked through the door and find themselves now in a large old mansion: the wizard’s house. Searching their way through the house they shortly meet a strange mud-like creature called Norbert who settles himself on Thomas’s feet. As soon as Jane is able to dislodge the mud-creature from her brother our two young heroes find their way to the kitchen and meet at last the wizard Ozimandus.
Ozimandus is a rather eccentric old wizard. His hair is long and wild because he has had an accident with a hair growth potion. After introductions are made and their story told, the wizard agrees to help Thomas and Jane rescue their parents and take revenge on the evil Sheriff. While preparing a potion to make the Sheriff “live up to his name”, Thomas, being the mischievous young rogue that he is, asks the wizard to add some of his hair potion into the mix. Thus the “Hairy Stinkbottom” potion is created.
The wizard then takes our heroes to a corridor full of blue doors and picks one out as his famous “door to anywhere” which he intends to use to enter Thomas and Jane’s parents’ cell. When asked how he knows the door he has picked is the right one, the wizard says it’s the right one “because it is blue”! It’s clearly never a good idea to question the logic or indeed the sanity of wizards and so Thomas and Jane put their faith in the old wizard and follow him through the door to a dark, damp cell somewhere in the dungeons of Viador. In the cell they find their parents.
In a final confrontation the evil Sheriff appears and enters the cell to confront the wizard and his companions. There is a stand-off between the wizard and the Sheriff until it is ended by the wizard using his magic to freeze the Sheriff to the spot and give everyone time to escape back through the door.
Having escaped the clutches of the evil Sheriff the reunited family decide to come and live with the wizard, with the promise that Thomas and Jane will become his young apprentices.
The story ends with the Sheriff receiving a bottle of what he thinks is wine from a mysterious source. He drinks the “wine” and we are left finally with the image of the Sheriff succumbing to the mischievous effects of the “Hairy Stinkbottom” potion. Thomas and Jane have achieved their final revenge.