SandRider (23 page)

“She understands what we say?” Oskar sounded surprised.

“I am not an animal,” Kaznim told Oskar crossly. “Of course I understand what you say.”

“I'm—sorry,” Oskar stammered, embarrassed. “I . . . I thought you might speak another language.”

“I am a Draa,” Kaznim said proudly. “Kaznim Na-Draa. Draa speak many tongues.”

Ferdie smiled at Kaznim. “Hello, I'm Ferdie.”

Kaznim smiled uncertainly.

“And this is my twin brother, Oskar.”

“Sorry if I was rude,” Oskar said. “I didn't mean to be.”

Ferdie continued, “I was helping Tod to look for you in the Castle yesterday. We couldn't find you anywhere. You just vanished.”

Kaznim looked at Tod. “Your tiger was chasing me,” she said accusingly. Tod laughed and Kaznim looked offended. “It was not funny,” she muttered.

Tod hurried to explain. “I wasn't laughing at you, honestly. But the tiger wasn't a real one. It was a jinnee. Called Jim Knee.”

Kaznim looked at Tod in awe. “You have your own jinnee?”

Tod shook her head. “He's not mine. He was helping me, that's all.”

Kaznim was still impressed. To have a jinnee helping you was a sign of great power.

“I'm sorry he frightened you,” Tod said. “He didn't mean
to. He's nice, really.” She paused and then said, “So . . . where did you go?”

Kaznim took out her precious blue piece of paper. “Here. To this funny little shop with the long name.”

“It
is
a funny shop,” Ferdie agreed. “I go there to see Oskie. He helps out downstairs.”

Kaznim nodded. “Yes. I saw him there. He had insect eyes.”

Oskar grinned. “I did. And I saw you too, once I took my insect eyes off. You were brave being with that horrible ghost. She can be really nasty at times.”

Kaznim nodded. “I could tell. But she said she would show me the Way out, so I followed her. And I went into the
Hidden
arch and through lots of Ways, just like I did with Sam and Marwick. The boy on the desk was nice at first and he gave me the numbers, you see, so I knew where to go.”

“Was it a long way?” Tod asked.

“It was,” Kaznim said. “And some bits were really scary. But I didn't care. I just wanted to go home to my Ammaa. But . . .” She trailed off and bit her lip. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Didn't you find your Ammaa?” Ferdie asked gently.

Kaznim shook her head. “The sorcerer got me.”

“Oraton-Marr?” asked Tod.

Kaznim nodded. “He was on a ship in the Port of the Singing Sands. I didn't know that was where he lived. I thought he would be in the Red City where they have lots of nasty sorcerers. Bubba saw me and called out. Then he got me.”

“Who's Bubba?” asked Oskar.

“My little sister. The sorcerer stole her so that my mother would make sure the Egg hatched.”

Ferdie, Oskar and Tod exchanged glances. This must surely be the Orm Egg.

“The Sorcerer does that kind of thing,” Ferdie said. “He stole our little brother.”

Kaznim looked at Ferdie with fellow feeling. “Did he give him back?” she asked.

“No,” Ferdie said. “We
took
him back.”

Kaznim looked at Ferdie with disbelief. Ferdie put her arm around the girl. “And we will take Bubba back too. You'll see. Come on, let's go down and find some breakfast.”

But first there was something Tod really wanted to know. “So . . . why did the sorcerer bring you into the Forest?” she asked.

Kaznim gulped. “He was cross because I had stolen the Egg Boy's box, but I gave it back because he said I would never see Bubba again if I didn't. And then when he opened it he saw that the
Egg Timer
was missing and he was so angry . . .” Kaznim stopped and looked scared. “I told the sorcerer that the nasty boy in the shop had the
Egg Timer
. I hoped he might go and find the boy and scare him. But then the sorcerer told me that
I
had to take him there.”

Tod's hand closed over the
Egg Timer
in her pocket. She remembered Septimus's conversation with Beetle about the importance of not using the Manuscriptorium Way and she was now totally on Septimus's side. The thought that Oraton-Marr could just walk into the Manuscriptorium whenever he felt like it was horrifying. So why had he ended up in the Forest instead? Tod was about to ask exactly that when Kaznim began to speak once more, her voice trembling.

“So I went back to the little alleyway where I had come out and there was nothing there,” Kaznim said. “The arch had gone and I was so scared that I couldn't see it however hard I tried. The sorcerer got very angry. He said he would take me to the Red City and then I was even
more
scared. I thought he was going to give me to the Red Queen for her to kill. She
likes doing that, you see. She killed my father.”

Tod looked at Kaznim, surprised. “But you said that Dandra Draa killed your father.”

“Well . . .” Kaznim looked embarrassed. “He died because of what Dandra Draa did. But the Red Queen was the one who swung the sword that cut off his head. Not Dandra Draa.”

“The Red Queen did that
herself
?”

“Yes. After she had thrown him to her lion just for fun. You are lucky you have such a nice Queen here. I don't think she would ever cut off anyone's head, however mad she was. But in the Red City the Queen does that every week. So I thought she would do the same to me.

“I asked to say good-bye to Bubba but the sorcerer just laughed. And then everything went very fuzzy and I didn't know where my hands and feet or even my head was; I felt like I was falling apart. The ground seemed to disappear and the next thing I knew, I was somewhere else and I was being sick all over the sorcerer's pointy feet. I knew I was in the Red City because the ground I was being sick on was covered with dark red sand. I guessed some horrible spell had brought me there.”

“You're right,” Tod said. “It was a really horrible spell.” She knew enough
Magykal
theory to understand that
Oraton-Marr had done a
Darke Transport
—he had taken a living person with no
Magykal
skills on his own
Transport
with no regard for her safety. No wonder Kaznim had been sick, Tod thought. She was lucky to still be alive.

“We walked along some alleyways and we came to an iron door in a wall. There was a woman standing there with a green headband and a long green cloak. I thought she was one of the Red Queen's guards and the door led to where the lion lived. But when she saw us, the green woman looked almost as scared as I was. And even more scared when Oraton-Marr asked her where the Apprentice was.”

“Apprentice?” Tod asked.

“Yes. The woman said there had been some trouble with some mold or something. The sorcerer grabbed her by the throat and said lots of the bad words that I used to hear the Egg Boy say when he thought that no one was listening. He told the green woman to open the bad-word door and he would go and get the bad-word Apprentice himself, seeing as everyone else around him was so bad-word useless. Especially bad-word witches. And then I understood that the woman was a witch, not a guard, and that I wasn't going to be eaten
by a lion. So I felt a lot better. She opened the door and we went into a nice courtyard with a palm tree and a fountain. We walked over to the palm tree and then something really strange happened. It got cold and dark and smelled funny, and suddenly we were in a tiny hut. And then I came out of the hut, and I was in the Forest.” Kaznim looked at Tod. “And so were you.”

Oskar, Ferdie and Tod looked at one another. There were so many questions they were longing to ask Kaznim about the Orm Egg, but at that moment a bell rang far below and they heard Sarah yell, “Breakfast!”

Kaznim yawned again. “I am so tired,” she said. Like a small animal she lay down on the leaves and curled into a ball, and her eyelids fluttered closed.

The Tribe of Three left Kaznim to sleep and slowly climbed down through the trees, discussing what to do. By the time they reached the fire-pit platform they had agreed on two things. First, they would tell no one about Kaznim or what had happened the night before in the Forest. And second, they would be going through the Forest Way into the Red City as soon as they could.

They found Galen stirring a bubbling pot of oatmeal. Tod gave her back the
WitchFinder
and Galen put it in her pocket with a smile. “Find any witches?” she asked.

Tod hated to lie so she said, “Yes, I did. Marissa Lane.”

Galen looked surprised. “She's trouble, that young woman,” she said.

“She is,” Tod agreed.

Galen's green eyes looked up keenly and Tod felt as if Galen knew exactly what had happened the previous night. But Galen did not comment. She turned her attention to the oatmeal, which was sticking to the bottom of the pan. “They're nasty baggages, those Wendrons,” Galen said. “You want to keep out of their way, you know. Especially at night.”

Sarah and Jenna joined them for breakfast. Both sat quietly. Sarah was concerned about leaving Galen alone. Her old teacher seemed so frail in the morning light, her fragile hands shaking as she spooned out the oatmeal. Jenna was tired; she had not slept well in her pod. Silas, anxious to be away as soon as
possible, had skipped breakfast and was busy packing their bags.

Tod was sipping her hot oatmeal, trying to work out how they were going to get away from the treehouse without being noticed, when a soft
whoop-whoop
came up from the Forest floor. Jenna hurried over to the edge of the platform and gave an answering
whoop
. Turning back to Galen, she said, “Ariel and Star are here. Can they come up?”

Galen did not like witches in her treehouse, but she knew that Ariel and Star were a little different. She nodded and picked up two more bowls. Witches were always hungry.

“Thank you, Galen,” Jenna said, and let down the ladder.

In the confusion caused by the arrival of Ariel and Star, Silas Heap's sudden appearance, his overeager helping of the young witches onto the platform, and Sarah's consequent irritation, Tod, Ferdie and Oskar slipped away. In a moment Ferdie and Oskar were shimmying down the rope to the Forest floor and Tod was climbing up to their pod. Quickly, she wrote a note:
Please do not worry. We are fine and will be back at the Castle very soon. Alice TodHunter Moon, Ferdie and Oskar Sarn.
She placed it in on the pile of blankets where it could be easily seen, then she woke Kaznim and hurried her down to join the others on the Forest floor.

Ariel and Star had a message from Septimus saying that he wanted Tod and Jim Knee back
as soon as possible
. While Jenna busied herself getting Sarah and Silas—who were on the verge of an argument—ready for the journey home, she had no idea what was happening fifty feet below on the Forest floor. Four guests—one of them uninvited—were leaving.

Oskar was looking doubtfully at the sleds. “But there's hardly any snow under the trees,” he whispered. “They will slow us down.” Tod knew that Oskar was right. Reluctantly, she pushed the
Wiz
and the
Beetle
into some bushes and hoped they would be safe. Then, under the cover of Sarah's raised voice in which the words “witch” and “silly old man” could easily be heard, Tod led the way along the path that she had taken the night before, while the sounds of Silas's indignant responses faded into the distance as they moved through the trees.

Some ten minutes later, as they stood before the first two sentinels of the avenue of trees, they heard more voices. This time it was their names being hallooed in the distance, with Ariel and Star's exuberant, whooping the loudest. The calls sounded anxious and Tod felt bad. She was for a moment tempted to head back, but as the towering trees slowly raised
their branches, she was overcome by the sense that they were on an essential mission, and calling voices or no, they were going to complete it. They would return to the Castle with the Orm Egg. And then everyone would understand.

They walked through the avenue with a feeling of awe as the boughs rose before them in a magnificent wave. The previous night Tod had not seen the astounding height of the trees nor understood how strange it was to see branches move like limbs of a massive beast. Now, as she walked silently along with Kaznim, her feet padding on the soft carpet of fine fir needles, Tod had goose bumps running up and down her neck. Behind her came Oskar and Ferdie, staring up in amazement at the moving cage of boughs. The last two trees raised their branches and Tod led the way into the clearing. “Here we are,” she whispered. “It's the middle one.”

Oskar and Ferdie looked disappointed. “It's just a pile of sticks with a door,” Ferdie said.

“I know,” Tod agreed. “But that's what everyone came out
of. That's right, isn't it, Kaznim?”

Kaznim nodded cautiously. She wasn't sure she wanted to go back into the hut. Suppose the sorcerer was waiting for her? Suppose this was all a trick? She could not help remembering that the Apprentice girl had picked her pocket while she slept. How could she trust someone who did that?

Tod saw the mistrust in the girl's eyes and guessed the reason. “Kaznim,” she said. “I'm sorry I took your cards. But I did it because the cards were our only clue to where the Orm Egg is. You see, Oraton-Marr is waiting for the Egg to hatch and when it does he will
Imprint
the baby Orm so that it belongs to him. And then, when it grows up it will begin to eat rock and turn it into lapis lazuli for him and Oraton-Marr will become the most powerful sorcerer ever.”

Kaznim frowned. “Why?” she asked.