Ghost Ship (5 page)

She shook her head. “Around the next island, there’s a bay with lots of shallow water and the course gets very complex. If I don’t know which way to take, we could run aground, or even tear a hole in the ship.”

Safe once again in deep water,
Northseeker
slowed to a halt.

“We have to get the map back, then,” Rollo said, shrugging out of his fur cloak.

“What are you doing?”

“Going to get the map.”

“But it’s too deep. You’ll drown.”

Rollo grinned. “No. I can breathe underwater, remember?”

“But, Rollo—”

“Breath of a fish within me,” he shouted, and dived over the side of the longship.

“Rollo, no!” She peered over the side into the water. He had disappeared from sight. How long should she wait before she panicked? One minute? Two? What if the enchantment didn’t work? It was deep here, and dark and cold. Two minutes passed. Asa gnawed on her thumbnail and watched.

“Come on, Rollo, come on,” she muttered.

A moment later, he surfaced,
clutching the map and laughing.

She reached down to help him back on board. “Did you do it? Did you breathe underwater?” she asked.

“Asa, it felt amazing!” he shouted.

She reached for a cloth to dry him off. “Wasn’t it cold?”

“Not at all. I felt like a fish. And I could see
Northseeker
the whole time.” He pulled his fur cloak back on. “I don’t feel ill or tired, despite what Egil said.”

Asa was thinking. How she longed to try out her special magic, too.

“Asa?”

She smiled at him, then closed her eyes and threw open her arms. “Wings of a raven upon me!”

What a sensation! Her shoulders hunching together, her bones and muscles contracting, her fingers elongating and growing light. Her chest tightened, but it wasn’t painful. A feeling of weightlessness gripped her
and she flung out her arms to find they were actually black wings.

She took to the sky.

A giddy rush as the air surrounded her and she shot out of the cloud of mist around
Northseeker
and into the pale blue sky. She tried to laugh, but only a raven’s caw came out and, watching the clouds spin above her, she dipped and dived on the wind.

And then there was something else. Something black and hissing. A sky patrol.

Her blood turned to ice.

She dropped down and back to
Northseeker
, but the balloon was moving fast and gaining on her from behind. Her tiny bird’s heart began to beat in a panic as she plummeted through the sky.

Sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
.

The mists parted around her and she was back on
Northseeker
. She let her breath go and her wings dissolved. Her own body, feeling heavy and stiff, gathered around her once more.

“Sky patrol,” she gasped.

Rollo was staring at her. “That was amazing!”

“Sky patrol, Rollo!” She wondered why he wasn’t panicking.

Rollo turned his face upward. The balloon was directly overhead now. “Why are you worried, Asa?” he said. “They can’t see us.”

Of course
. Why hadn’t she thought of it? She was so used to hiding when she saw one of the dark balloons, but
Northseeker
was invisible. She began to laugh, with relief and with the thrill of having changed into a bird.

Rollo laughed, too, and then poked his tongue out at the balloon. “You can’t see us,” he teased in a singsong voice. She joined in, and they laughed until the sky patrol had gone ahead, over the cliffs and into the distance.

“I don’t feel ill at all,” she said. “Maybe Egil was making it up.”

“Probably trying to scare us,” said Rollo. “Trying to stop us having any fun at all so we’re just as miserable as him.”

She agreed and they kept sailing.

But by nightfall, after sailing the twisted course between the islands, she was feeling distinctly queasy.

“I don’t think I can sit up any longer,” she said.

Rollo was picking at his plate of cheese and pickled fish. “I feel sick.”

“And exhausted,” she added. “Like my arms and legs weigh a ton.”

“It hurts to breathe. Like my ribs are bruised,” he groaned.

“This is what Egil meant, isn’t it? We’re sick because we used our magic powers.”

“I think I’m going to—” Rollo was suddenly on his feet, leaning over the side of the ship and throwing up.

Asa steered into the shelter of a bay and dropped anchor. They were so close to Margritt’s tower, but they weren’t going to make it tonight. Even though it was early, they would have to sleep.

Asa laid the bearskin in the bottom of the longship and Rollo snuggled next to her.

“I feel terrible,” he said.

“A good night’s sleep will help,” she said, pulling the
blankets over them. She closed her eyes and tried to fight the queasy feeling.

“Do you regret it, though?” Rollo said.

Asa was just on the edge of sleep, and smiled. Regret turning herself into a bird and feeling those magical sensations? Never. “No,” she said.

“Nor do I.”

And they both fell into a deep slumber.

So it wasn’t until early morning, with the low line of an island to shadow them, that they sailed into sight of a thin black spire on the horizon. Dark clouds gathered around it and the water was black beneath it.

Rollo frowned. “That looks creepy.”

“It’s Margritt’s tower,” Asa said. “We’ve arrived.”

Margritt’s tower had once been the finest tower in the north. Even though the base was now half submerged, the tall peak still rose higher than the ragged black cliffs around it.
Northseeker
came to rest against a narrow spine of stairs that wrapped around the tower. Asa could see the stairs continued deep under the water and wound high up above them. An icy wind chafed her face as she measured the distance upward with her eyes.

“Is that the only way in?” Rollo asked.

“Unless you want to go under the water.”

He smiled. “I could.”

“But I couldn’t. And we have to stick together.”

She grabbed his hand and they left
Northseeker
behind. The stairs were slimy with algae and there was no railing to hold on to, so they picked their way up carefully. Above, Asa could see a collar around the tower. It had once been a bulwark, but now it was the entrance.

“That’s where we’re going,” Asa said, pointing.

“Will they let us in?”

“I hope so. Egil Cripplehand said that we had to ask for Margritt and to say we were friends of his. No matter what happens, don’t tell anyone we’re the Star Queen’s children. We don’t know who we can trust.”

He nodded and they continued up the narrow stairs. Asa’s heart was thumping, from the effort of climbing as much as from excitement. Somewhere in this tower, according to Egil, was their baby sister.

Finally, they reached the bulwark. It was now a
wide, muddy courtyard. Once they were on level ground, Asa and Rollo found their way barred by a heavy iron gate lined with spikes. Beyond it, they could see a cobbled path and men in long, hooded cloaks moving around in a stony garden.

“Hello?” Rollo called. “Hello?”

One of the hooded men turned to them. His face was in shadow.

“We’re here to see Margritt,” Asa said.

The man approached the gate. “Who are you?”

“Friends of Egil Cripplehand.” Asa was careful not to admit to her true identity. “Can you tell her we’re here?”

“Wait,” he said, then crossed the courtyard and disappeared.

An hour passed, then another, and Asa started to think they had been forgotten. Rollo sat on the muddy ground drawing pictures with a stick, and Asa paced. They were so close to Una now. She couldn’t bear this long wait.

Finally, the hooded man (or another—they all
looked the same) opened the gate without a word and led them through. A twisted black tree, bare of leaves, stood in the center of the courtyard. Ugly carved gargoyles crouched on the corners, their evil eyes and sharp stone teeth decorated with spiderwebs. Asa and Rollo entered a long, low hallway, where only the faintest glow from a lamp lit the way.