Syren (7 page)

“Here, Barney,” said his uncle, only just noticing him. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” sobbed Barney, and fled.

Barney scooted through a hole in the hedge at the end of the dragon field. All he could think of was that he must give the SafeCharm back to the lady-trapped-in-the-tent and explain what had happened—then maybe everything would be all right. But the lady-trapped-in-the-tent was nowhere to be seen.

And then, to his relief, Barney saw the edge of a patchwork tent disappearing through a little door into the old turret at the end of the Palace. Uncle Billy had told Barney that he was not allowed in the Palace, but just then Barney did not care what Uncle Billy had told him. He ran down the old brick path that led to the turret and a moment later he was inside the Palace.

It was dark in the Palace; it smelled funny, and Barney didn’t like it very much at all. He couldn’t see the lady-trapped-in-the-tent anywhere. To his right were some narrow, winding steps going up into the turret and to his left a big old wooden door. Barney didn’t think that the lady-trapped-in-the-tent would be able to fit up the narrow steps, so he pushed open the old door and gingerly went through. In front of him was the longest corridor Barney had ever seen. It was in fact the Long Walk, the broad passageway that ran like a backbone through the middle of the Palace. It was as wide as a small road and as dark and empty as a country lane at midnight. Barney crept into the Long Walk, but there was no sign of the lady-trapped-in-the-tent.

Barney didn’t like the corridor; it scared him. And all along the edges were weird things: statues, stuffed animals and
horrible pictures of scary people staring at him. But he was still sure that the lady-trapped-in-the-tent must be near. He looked at the SafeCharm and a glint of light from somewhere glanced off the shiny gold as if to remind him how important it was that he give the SafeCharm back. And then someone grabbed him.

Barney struggled and kicked. He opened his mouth to shout, but a hand was suddenly clamped over it. Barney felt sick. The hand smelled of licorice, and Barney hated licorice.

“Shhh!”
hissed a voice in his ear. Barney wriggled like a little eel, but, unfortunately, he was not quite as slippery as a little eel and was held fast. “You’re the dragon-minder’s kid, aren’t you?” said the voice. “Poo. You smell worse than he does.”

“Lemmego…” mumbled Barney through the horrible licorice hand, which had something really sharp on its thumb that hurt.

“Yeah,” said the voice in his ear. “Don’t want smelly kids like you around here. I’ll have that.” His attacker’s other hand reached down and wrenched the SafeCharm from Barney’s grasp.

“No!” yelled Barney, at last wriggling free. Barney made
a lunge for the SafeCharm and found himself face-to-face with—to his amazement—a Manuscriptorium scribe. He couldn’t believe it. A tall greasy-looking boy wearing the long gray robes of a scribe was holding the SafeCharm above his reach and grinning. Barney fought back tears. He didn’t understand it. Nothing was right this morning. Why was a Manuscriptorium scribe ambushing him and stealing his SafeCharm? You could trust scribes—everybody knew that.

“Give it back!” yelled Barney, but the scribe held the bottle just out of reach of Barney’s desperate jumps.

“You can have it if you can reach it, Shorty,” taunted the scribe.

“Please,
please
,” sobbed Barney. “It’s important. Please give it back.”

“How important?” asked the scribe, holding the bottle even higher.

“Really,
really
important.”

“Well, bog off then. It’s mine.”

To Barney’s horror the scribe suddenly disappeared. It seemed to Barney that he had
jumped into the wall
. He stared at the paneling in dismay, and a trio of shrunken heads that were lined up on a shelf stared back. Barney felt scared. How could
anyone disappear like that? Maybe he had just been attacked by a horrible ghost. But ghosts didn’t have licorice-smelling hands and they couldn’t grab things, could they?

Barney was alone; the long corridor was deserted and the SafeCharm was gone. The shrunken heads grinned at him as if to say,
Enjoy being a lizard. Ha, ha, ha!

W
hile Barney Pot was being
mugged in the Long Walk, Aunt Zelda watched Septimus’s departure from the little window at the top of the turret.

She saw Spit Fyre rise high above the Palace, his big white belly blotting out the sun. She saw the shadows of the dragon’s wings run across the Palace lawns as he headed toward the river, and she saw what seemed to be the precariously balanced tiny green figure of
Septimus almost hidden behind the great muscled neck of the dragon. She watched Septimus fly Spit Fyre three times around the striped tent on the landing stage and saw Alther Mella emerge from the tent and wave him off. Then she strained her old eyes to follow Septimus and his dragon as they set off toward a bank of mist coming in from the Port. As dragon and rider became nothing more than a dark spot in the sky, finally disappearing from view, Aunt Zelda sighed and told herself that at least Septimus had the SafeCharm—a live SafeCharm, no less.

Aunt Zelda stepped away from the window. She took a golden key from her pocket, pushed it into what appeared to be a solid wall and walked into the Queen’s Room. As she stepped into the quiet sanctuary, she put aside her worries about Septimus and turned her thoughts to the boy who had once been Septimus’s best friend. In the Young Army, Septimus and Wolf Boy had been inseparable—until the terrible night when Wolf Boy had fallen from the Young Army boat and disappeared into the dark waters of the river.

At the sound of Aunt Zelda’s rustling dress, Queen Cerys turned slowly in her chair and her deep violet eyes regarded her visitor vaguely. The ghost of the Queen rarely left the
room, for she guarded the Queen’s Way. It was a quiet, usually uneventful existence, and the ghost spent much of her time in a dreamlike state from which it was sometimes difficult to rouse herself.

Aunt Zelda curtseyed once more and drew out the long silver tube from her pocket. The sight of the tube brought Queen Cerys out of her reverie, and she watched with interest as Aunt Zelda took out a piece of parchment, carefully unrolled it and placed it on the arm of the chair in which the ghost sat.

“This is for a new Intended Keeper, if it please you, Your Grace,” said Aunt Zelda, who did not hold with calling Queens the newfangled “Your Majesty.”

Queen Cerys didn’t care what anyone called her as long as they were polite. Like her daughter, Jenna, she had always thought that being called “Your Majesty” was somehow ridiculous, and she considered Aunt Zelda’s use of “Your Grace” not much better. But she said nothing and looked with interest at the sheet of parchment before her.

“I have not had the pleasure of seeing one of these before, Zelda,” she said with a smile. “My mother saw none—although I believe my grandmother saw two or three.”

“I believe so, Your Grace. That was a bad run. By the time Betty Crackle took over, it was chaos. Poor Betty. She did her best.”

“I’m sure she did. But you have been Keeper for a long time now, Zelda?”

“Indeed. For over fifty years, Your Grace.”

“Oh, please, Zelda, just call me Cerys. Fifty years? Time goes so fast…and yet so slow. So who have you chosen? Not one of those Wendron Witches, I trust?”

“Heavens, no!” exclaimed Aunt Zelda. “No, it is someone I have had living with me for a while now. A young person who has, I am pleased to say, a great feeling for the Marsh and for all things within it. Someone who will make a good Keeper, of that I am convinced.”

Cerys smiled at Aunt Zelda. “I am very pleased. Who is it?”

Aunt Zelda took a deep breath. “Um…Wolf Boy, Your Grace—Cerys.”

“Wolf
Boy
?”

“Yes.”

“A strange name for a girl. But times change, I suppose.”

“He’s not a girl, Your—Cerys. He is a boy. Well, a young man, almost.”

“A young
man
? Heavens.”

“I believe he would make a wonderful Keeper, Queen Cerys. And nowhere in the Tenets of Keeping does it actually say that the Keeper must be a woman.”

“Really? Goodness me.”

“But of course the decision is yours, Queen Cerys. I can only advise and recommend.”

Queen Cerys sat and gazed at the fire for so long that Aunt Zelda began to wonder whether she had fallen asleep, until her clear, slightly hollow voice began to speak. “Zelda,” said the ghost of the Queen, “I realize that the duties of the Keeper have changed now that the Dragon Boat has returned to the Castle.”

Aunt Zelda murmured, “That is true.” She sighed. Aunt Zelda missed the Dragon Boat badly. She worried about the boat lying unconscious in the Dragon House deep within the walls of the boatyard—even though that was the very place that had been built to keep the Dragon Boat safe. And while Aunt Zelda knew that this meant Jenna was now free to leave the Castle without exposing it to danger, Aunt Zelda still regretted the loss of her Dragon Boat.

Queen Cerys continued. “So, it seems to me that, as the
duties of the Keeper have changed, maybe the very nature of the Keeper should change too. If you recommend this Wolf Boy, I shall accept him.”

Aunt Zelda smiled broadly. “I do recommend him, Queen Cerys. Highly recommend him, in fact.”

“Then I accept Wolf Boy as the Intended Keeper.”

Aunt Zelda clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh, that is wonderful, wonderful!”

“Bring him to me, Zelda, so that I may see him. Bring him through the Queen’s Way. We must see that he can go through the Way.”

“Um…he already has. I, um, I had to bring him once before. In an emergency.”

“Ah, well. He seems eminently suited. I look forward to meeting him. He has done the Task, I suppose?”

A small butterfly of anxiety settled in Aunt Zelda’s stomach. “He has embarked upon it as we speak, Cerys.”

“Ah. So we shall await his return with interest. If he does return, then I shall indeed look forward to making his acquaintance. Good-bye, Zelda. Until the next time.”

Her delight at the Queen’s acceptance of her Apprentice was somewhat tempered by the Queen’s mention of the Task,
which Aunt Zelda had managed to put out of her mind for a while. Slowly she rolled up the parchment and replaced it in the tube. Then she curtseyed and went across the room to the U
NSTABLE
P
OTIONS AND
P
ARTIKULAR
P
OISONS
cupboard. Cerys watched her open the door and struggle to squeeze inside.

“Zelda?” Cerys called.

“Yes?” puffed Aunt Zelda, poking her head out of the cupboard with some difficulty.

“Is it possible to eat an Enlarging Spell without realizing it, do you suppose?”

Aunt Zelda looked puzzled. “I shouldn’t think so,” she said. “Why?”

“No reason. I just wondered. Safe journey.”

“Oh. Thank you, Queen Cerys.” And she heaved the cupboard door closed behind her.

S
eptimus felt elated.
He was flying Spit Fyre, and from now on he could fly him
whenever he wanted
. It was, he realized, the very first time that he had flown his dragon without a sneaking feeling of guilt, and the knowledge that Marcia did not really approve or had actually forbidden it.

But this time she had waved him off with a smile. She had even given him a hug—which was a bit weird—and now he had the excitement of a whole journey ahead of him, just him
and his dragon. And even better, thought Septimus, as he took Spit Fyre up through a low bank of mist and emerged into the sunlight, he was on his way to see all the people who mattered to him the most. Well, nearly all. There were others, of course, but it was Jenna, Beetle, Nicko and Snorri who were waiting for him in an old net loft far away across the sea, and he was on his way to bring them home.

Septimus knew it would be a long flight. He had done it two days earlier with Marcia, Sarah and the very sick Ephaniah Grebe, and it had not been easy, but that had mostly been due to what Sarah had called Marcia’s “backseat flying.” But now it was just Septimus and his dragon, and he would fly his dragon exactly how he wanted to.

And so, skimming above the mist, Spit Fyre followed the winding curves of the river as it made its way down to the Port. Septimus sat in the Pilot Dip just behind the dragon’s neck and in front of the dragon’s broad, bony shoulders. With every long, slow beat of the wings, Septimus felt Spit Fyre’s muscles move beneath the cool scales under him. He leaned back and rested against a large, flat spine—known as the Pilot Spine—and held on loosely to a short spine at the base of the dragon’s neck, which some handbooks rather scathingly
referred to as the Panic Spine but which Septimus knew was more correctly called the Guide Spine, for it was through this that he felt the dragon’s every move.

Soon Septimus and Spit Fyre were flying across the Port. The mist had disappeared and small white clouds were scudding high above them—happy clouds, thought Septimus. A bright sun shone, and Spit Fyre’s green scales glistened with a beautiful iridescence. Septimus laughed out loud. Life was good—in fact, life was wonderful. He had survived the Queste—even better, he had successfully completed it—the only Apprentice ever to do so. And now, to his astonishment, he was a Senior Apprentice. He checked the hems of his sleeves—yes, the purple stripes were still there, shimmering in the sunlight.

Septimus looked down. Far below he saw the Port spread out like a patterned cloth. Many of the streets were still dark, as the sun was not yet high enough to reach deep into the warehouse canyons and take away their shadows, but the rays shone on the old slate roofs, which glistened from a recent shower of rain. Lazy curls of smoke rose from the chimneys below, and Septimus caught the sweet smell of woodsmoke in his nostrils. It was a good morning to be out on a dragon.

Leading away from the Port like a long white snake was a familiar raised road reaching out to the Marram Marshes: the Causeway. He set Spit Fyre to follow the Causeway, intending to fly out across the Marram Marshes to the Double Dune Lighthouse and from there set his course out to sea. As he drew toward the Marsh end of the Causeway, Septimus saw a figure, black against the whiteness of the road, making its way toward the Port.

Septimus did not altogether believe in a sixth sense. He was inclined to agree with Marcia that a sixth sense was “a load of witchy nonsense.” He did have, however, a well-developed sense of knowing when he was being Watched, and suddenly Septimus knew that the figure at the end of the Causeway was Watching him. Not Ill-Watching but just plain Watching, the kind of thing a Wizard might do when he sees his child off to school and follows his progress, checking that the local bullies aren’t lying in wait.

Septimus gave Spit Fire two gentle nudges with his left foot and the dragon slowly lost height. Now Septimus could see that the figure had stopped and was looking up, shading his eyes with both his hands. “It’s 409. I’m sure it is,” Septimus muttered, lapsing into his habit of speaking his thoughts out
loud when it was just himself and Spit Fyre. “Go down, Spit Fyre. Go down. Hey—not so
faaaaaaast
.”

Spit Fyre landed on the Causeway with a tremendous
thud
and went into a skid on the slippery clay surface. Trying to brake, he held his wings out at ninety degrees to the road and pushed his tail down but only succeeded in making a deep groove in the chalky surface. Front feet splayed, heels dragging, Spit Fyre was still going fast and heading straight for a deep puddle. A plume of dirty water spewed into the air, and finally the dragon ground to a halt, the clay at the bottom of the puddle sticking to his feet like Marcia’s mouse glue—a concoction she used for trapping the paper-eating mice in the Pyramid Library.

Septimus looked down from his perch. Where was 409? Surely he had been standing just about where they had landed. A horrible thought occurred to Septimus—Spit Fyre wouldn’t have landed
on
him—would he? Septimus Listened. He Heard nothing, only the soft sighing of the breeze rustling across the reeds on either side of the Causeway.

In a panic, Septimus scrambled down from the dragon. There was no sign of Wolf Boy in the road behind him; all he could see was the long tail groove and the skid marks of
Spit Fyre’s feet. Now an even more horrible thought came to Septimus—had the dragon dragged Wolf Boy along underneath him? “Stand up, Spit Fyre,” he said somewhat squeakily.

The dragon regarded Septimus as if to say,
Why should I?
but Septimus was having none of it. “Stand
up
!” he ordered. “Spit Fyre, stand up at once!”

Spit Fyre knew when he had to do as he was told, but it didn’t mean he had to do it gracefully. Irritably, he raised himself out of the puddle, which he was quite enjoying sitting in. Very warily Septimus peered underneath and suddenly felt much better. There was no sign of 409.

“Something wrong with the undercarriage, 412?” came a cheery voice from behind Septimus.

“409!” said Septimus, spinning around just in time to see his old friend emerge dripping with water from the reed beds. “I couldn’t Hear you. For a horrible moment I thought…well, I thought—”

Wolf Boy’s brown eyes laughed. “409’s been squashed,” he finished. “No thanks to you that I wasn’t. Your driving is a menace. Had to throw myself into the reed beds.” He shook himself like a dog, and a shower of drips flew off and
landed on Septimus’s wolverine skin. Wolf Boy eyed the skin suspiciously. He didn’t like to see wolverine pelts being worn. Wolverines were
family
.

Septimus caught Wolf Boy’s glance. Sheepishly he removed the wolverine skin and threw it onto Spit Fyre. “Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t worry. People wear ’em, I know that.” Wolf Boy chuckled. “There’s always trouble around here, isn’t there?” he said.

“Is there?” asked Septimus.

“Yeah. You know—weird stuff falling out of the sky. First your brother and now you.”

Septimus was not sure he liked being compared to that particular brother. He knew that Wolf Boy was referring to the time that Simon, in possession of the Flyte Charm, had swooped down on them almost where they were standing now and had tried to grab Jenna. But Septimus could never be annoyed when he was with Wolf Boy. He smiled and said, “Well, at least you didn’t take a shot at me with your catapult.”

“Nah. Still carry it though. So what are you doing, then?”

“I’m going to get Jenna. And Nicko and Snorri. And Beetle. Bring them home.”

“What—all of them? On
that
?” Wolf Boy eyed Spit Fyre dubiously. The dragon returned the compliment.

“Yep. It’ll be fun.”

“Rather you than me. I prefer where I’m going any day.”

“So where’s that—the Port?” This was not a difficult guess—the Causeway led nowhere else.

“You got it. Zelda wants me to—” Wolf Boy stopped. Aunt Zelda had told him to tell no one what he was doing. “Do some stuff,” Wolf Boy finished lamely.

“Stuff?”

“Um, yeah.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. There are things Marcia doesn’t let me tell anyone either. Want a ride?”

“Oh.” Wolf Boy looked at Spit Fyre. He had sworn that he would never, ever get on that dragon again. The scales gave him the creeps, and the way Spit Fyre flew—up and down like a yo-yo—made his stomach churn.

“It’s a long walk to the Port,” said Septimus, who didn’t want to leave his old friend on his own in the middle of nowhere. “And we won’t go fast, I promise.”

“Well, I…oh, all right then. Thanks.”

Septimus was as good as his word. He flew Spit Fyre very slowly about fifty feet above the Causeway, and they soon came to the first outlying buildings of the Port—a few rundown workers’ cottages. Watched by some silent young children—who had emerged wide-eyed at the sound of the dragon—Wolf Boy slipped down from his place behind Septimus. He landed on the Causeway like a cat and pulled his backpack straight.

“Thanks, 412. That wasn’t so bad.”

“Anytime. Look, watch out for the Port Coven, won’t you? They’re worse than they look.”

“Yeah. And they don’t look so great, either,” said Wolf Boy. “Hey—how d’you know I’m going to the Coven?”

Septimus was suddenly concerned. “I didn’t,” he said. “You’re not really going to the Coven, are you?”

Wolf Boy nodded. “Aunt Zelda, she…”

“Hmm,” said Septimus. “Well, just remember that Aunt Zelda didn’t get to be a Keeper by being a goody-goody white witch all the time.” He fixed his gaze on his friend’s dark brown eyes and lowered his voice. “
No one
gets to be Keeper without touching Darke, 409. Take care. Don’t get too close, okay?”

“I won’t. And you take care too. Come and see us when you get back.”

Septimus thought how wonderful it would be to spend some time at Aunt Zelda’s with Jenna and Nicko, just like it had been when they first met—only better. “We’ll
all
come and see you,” he said. “I’ll bring Nicko and Snorri—and Beetle too, and Jenna.”

“Great. And I’ll show you the Marsh. I know all the paths—well, most of them. I’ll take you to Chicken Island. I’ve got some good friends there.”

“Sounds good. Really good.” Septimus looked at Wolf Boy and wished he wasn’t headed for the Port witches. Septimus wasn’t sure that his friend understood just how dangerous they were. He reached into one of the pockets on his silver Apprentice belt and drew out a small metal triangle. “Here, take this,” he said. “It’s a Reverse. If those witches try anything, point the sharp end of this at them. It will send it right back to them—with knobs on.”

Wolf Boy shook his head regretfully. “Thanks, but no thanks,” he said. “Gotta do this on my own.”

“Okay,” said Septimus, replacing the Charm. “I understand. Be careful.” Septimus watched Wolf Boy’s long, loping stride
take him quickly past the cottages and onto a narrow, cobblestone track that led into the dark streets of higgledy-piggledy houses, which hugged the fringes of the Port. He watched until Wolf Boy turned a corner and disappeared into the shadows. Then, under the somewhat disconcerting gaze of the silent crowd of grubby toddlers and young children, he told his dragon, “Go up.”

Spit Fyre, who—despite what Barney Pot thought—was very careful of small children, cautiously beat his wings, and Septimus slowly saw the ground below loosen its hold once more.

They were on their way.