Syren (25 page)

“Well, you’re not dead,” said Lucy. “Anyway, if you
were
dead you wouldn’t be able to get it back, would you? But now you can, can’t you?”

“But how?” Miarr wailed.
“How?”

“We can help, can’t we?” Lucy looked at Wolf Boy.

Wolf Boy opened his eyes wide as if to say,
Are you crazy
?

“Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
howled Miarr.

Lucy recognized a kindred screamer, and she knew exactly what to do. She stepped smoothly into the shoes usually occupied by Mrs. Gringe: “Now, just
stop
it, Mr. Miarr. Stop it right now. No one is listening,” she said sternly. Miarr stopped in surprise. No one had talked to him like that since his old granny had died.

“That’s better,” said Lucy, well into Mrs. Gringe mode.
“Now sit up, wipe your nose and behave. Then we can figure something out.”

Like an obedient child, Miarr sat up, rubbed the sleeve of his sealskin cloak across his nose and looked expectantly at Lucy. “How shall you get my Light back?” he asked, his big yellow eyes gazing earnestly at her.

“Well, um…first we will need the rescue boat, obviously, and then we’ll need a…” She glanced at Wolf Boy for help.

“A plan,” he said with a grin.
“Obviously.”

Lucy stuck out her tongue. A smarty-pants boy and a tantrum-prone cat-man were not going to stop her from getting even with two murderous thugs and their insulting skipper. No
way
.

M
iarr staggered to his feet,
but his legs gave way. He sat on the floor of the bunkhouse shaking. “Leave me alone,” he whimpered. “I am doomed.”

“Now, Mr. Miarr,” said Lucy sternly, “this kind of behavior won’t get your Light rescued, will it? Wolf Boy and I will carry you.”

“We
will
?” asked Wolf Boy.

“Yes, we will,” said Lucy.

So they did. They carried Miarr—who, happily, was even
lighter than he looked—down the scarily shaking steps until at last they reached firm ground in the well of the lighthouse. Gently they set him down on the earthen floor and got their breath back.

“Through there,” said Miarr, pointing to two narrow doors—one black, one red—hidden in the shadows under the last turn of the steps. “Open the red one, then come back for me. I must rest for a few moments.”

Wolf Boy took the lamp from its holder on the wall and held it up for Lucy so that she could see to unlock the door. The key turned easily, and Lucy pushed the door open. The smell of the sea hit them, and far below they heard the wash of the waves. Lucy caught her breath in amazement. Wolf Boy, who was usually not impressed by much, whistled in surprise.

“What is that?” he muttered.

“That is the
Red Tube
,” came Miarr’s voice from the lighthouse. He sounded amused. “It is the rescue boat.”

“That’s not a
boat
,” said Lucy. “That’s…” She trailed off, unable to find the words to describe the huge red capsule in front of her.

Wolf Boy stepped up to the
Red Tube
—and gingerly gave
it a poke. “It’s metal,” he said.

“But how can it be metal if it’s a boat?” said Lucy.

Wolf Boy scraped a spot of rust off with his fingernail. “But it is. You know,” he said, “it reminds me of those stories about people in olden times who used to fly to the moon in things like that.”

“Everyone knows they’re not true,” said Lucy. “How could you possibly fly all the way up to the moon?”

“Yeah…well, of course they’re not true.
Obviously
.”

Lucy stuck out her tongue.

“But I used to like the old stories all the same,” said Wolf Boy, tapping the side of Miarr’s boat. It rang like a bell. “We had a nice Chief Cadet for a while—before they found out that he
was
nice and put him in a Wolverine pit for a week. Anyway, he used to tell us moon stories, and they were all about things like this.”

The
Red Tube
lay cradled between two metal lattice platforms that came halfway up its sides. It was, Wolf Boy guessed, about fifteen feet long, and had a line of tiny, thick green glass windows punctuating the sides and a larger one in the front. Through the glass Wolf Boy could just about make out the shapes of high-backed seats that were unlike
any seats he had ever seen before.

The
Red Tube
rested on two sets of parallel metal rails. The rails extended for about twenty feet and then took a steep turn downward and descended into the dark, toward the sound of the waves. Wolf Boy and Lucy peered down, and the lamplight caught the glint of metal rails disappearing into black water.

“We can’t possibly go in that thing,” said Lucy, her voice echoing in the cavern.

“But how else are we ever going to get off this lighthouse?” asked Wolf Boy. “Swim?”

“Crumbs,” Lucy said before falling uncharacteristically silent.

Miarr walked shakily through the red door and joined them on the metal platform beside the
Red Tube
.

“Please open the pilot hatch,” he said, pointing to the smallest and farthest of four hatches ranged in a line along the roof. “Push on the black button in front of it and it will open.”

Feeling as if he were in one of the Chief Cadet’s stories, Wolf Boy leaned over the rescue boat and pushed a black circle of some rubbery kind of material that was set flush with the
metal of the roof. With a faint
whir
, the oval hatch flipped open smoothly, and a smell of iron and damp leather came from inside of the capsule.

Catlike, Miarr jumped onto the
Red Tube
and disappeared down through the hatch. Lucy and Wolf Boy watched through the thick green windows as the fuzzy shape of Miarr strapped itself into the tiny seat in the nose of the
Red Tube
and then, in what seemed to be a well-practiced maneuver, began turning an array of dials in front of him. Slowly Miarr’s hatch closed, and Lucy wondered if he was going without them. Looking down at the stomach-churning drop, she thought that she really wouldn’t mind if he
did
go without them. But no such luck; suddenly Miarr’s oddly distorted voice came crackling into the air—how, Lucy and Wolf Boy had no idea.

“Embark
now
, please.” Miarr’s disembodied voice filled the cavern. The larger hatch behind the pilot’s swung open. “Make haste. The capsule will release in one minute.”

“One
minute
?” Lucy gasped.

“Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight, fifty-seven…”
Miarr’s countdown began, but Wolf Boy and Lucy hung back.

“Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight…”

“Oh, crumbs, we’re stuck here if we don’t,” said Lucy, looking panicky.

“Yeah.”

“Forty-one, forty, thirty-nine…”

“We might never get off the lighthouse.
Ever
.”

“Yeah.”

“Thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one…”

“And we said we’d rescue the Light.”

“
You
said, you mean.”

“Twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three…”

“Well, get in then.”

“You first.”

“Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…”

“Ohcrumbshurry
up
!” Lucy clambered onto the rounded metal top of the rescue boat, took a deep breath and dropped through the hatch. She landed on the seat behind Miarr’s, though she could see nothing of its occupant, as the wide, padded headrest concealed his neat, sealskin-clad head from view. Lucy looked out the thick green window and saw Wolf Boy hesitating on the platform.

“Eleven, ten, nine…”
Miarr’s voice was loud and clear inside the rescue boat.

“Get
in
!” Lucy yelled at the top of her voice and rapped sharply on the glass.

“Seven, six…”

“For goodness sake, get in
now
!”

Wolf Boy knew he had to do it. He suspended all hope of surviving for more than another minute and jumped in. He landed with a
bump
next to Lucy and felt as if he had landed in his coffin. The hatch closed above him and nailed his coffin lid shut.

“
Five
,
four
…fasten seat belts, please,” said Miarr. “All crew must wear their seat belts.”

Lucy and Wolf Boy fumbled with two thick leather straps and buckled them across their laps. Lucy realized that something must have told Miarr that they were fastened, as the cat-man did not look around but continued his countdown.

“Three, two, one—release!”

The
Red Tube
set off deceptively slowly along the first twenty feet of rail, then it tipped forward. Lucy felt sick. Wolf Boy screwed his eyes shut tight. There was a jarring
clang
as the boat’s nose hit the rails—and they were off.

The
Red Tube
was down the rails in less than two seconds. They hit the water with a deafening
bang
and then—to Wolf
Boy’s horror—they kept right on going, down, down, down into the blackness, just as he had done so many years ago that night in the river when he had fallen from the Young Army boat.

And then—just as had happened on that night in the middle of the river—the terrifying dive leveled off, the water loosened its hold and, like a cork, they began to rise to the surface. Beautiful green light began to shine through the tiny windows and, a moment later, in a fountain of dancing white bubbles, they broke the surface and sunlight flooded in.

Wolf Boy opened his eyes in amazement—
he was still alive
.

He looked at Lucy. White-faced, she managed a flicker of a smile.

“Launch complete,” said Miarr, his voice still eerily crackly. “Surface successful. Hatches secure. Commence controlled dive.”

And to Lucy and Wolf Boy’s dismay, the
Red Tube
began to sink once more. The sunlight changed to green, the green to indigo and the indigo transformed to black. Inside the capsule a dim red light began to glow, giving a contradictory warmth to the chill that was seeping in from the cold depths of the sea.

Miarr twisted around to speak to his passengers. His sealskin cap blended into the shadowy background and his flat, white face shone like a small moon. His big, yellow eyes were bright with excitement. Miarr smiled and once again his two lower canine teeth edged over his top lip. Lucy shivered. He looked very different from the pathetic creature collapsed on the bunkroom floor whom she had so much wanted to help. She began to wonder if she had made a terrible mistake.

“Why have we…sunk?” she asked, trying to keep a tremor out of her voice and not entirely succeeding.

Miarr was obscure. “To find the Light, first we must enter the dark,” he replied, and turned back to his control panel.

“He’s gone bonkers,” Lucy whispered to Wolf Boy.

“Nuts,” agreed Wolf Boy, who knew he had been right all along about the coffin. “Totally raving, screaming
nuts
.”

N
either Jenna, Beetle nor Septimus
saw
the
arrival of the
Marauder
that morning—they were all fast asleep in the hideout. The thick layer of grass that Septimus had laid over the canvas had protected them from being woken by the heat of the sun, and they had finally emerged close to midday.

Beetle had waded out through the retreating tide to a large rock with a flat top that he already thought of as his fishing rock, and within half an hour landed three of the black
and silver fish they had enjoyed so much the previous day. While Beetle fished, Septimus had rebuilt the fire on the beach, and now he was slowly turning the fish over the glowing embers of driftwood. Beetle was idly drawing in the sand with the WaterGnome, while Jenna stood, gazing out to sea with a frown.

“That’s odd,” she said.

“It’s meant to be the Wizard Tower sled,” said Beetle, “only the water keeps splashing and making the lines go funny.”

“No, not your drawing, Beetle. Out there.” Jenna pointed out to sea. “Look…”

“What?” said Beetle, who was a little shortsighted.

“The lighthouse,” she said. “It’s dark.”

“Yeah,” said Beetle, trying to get the sled runners right in the sand. “They cover them with tar. Helps stop the seawater getting into the bricks.”

Septimus stood up and shaded his eyes. “The light’s gone out,” he said.

“That’s what I thought,” said Jenna.

“I wonder why?”

“Maybe the sun’s too bright…”

“Maybe…”

They ate the fish with more of Marcia’s StayFresh bread and some of Jenna’s hot chocolate. Beetle decided that he wanted to catch some bigger fish.

“There’s some really deep water over there,” he said, pointing to the Pinnacle. “I bet there are some big fish. I wouldn’t mind seeing what I can catch out there. Would anyone like to come?”

“I’ll come,” said Jenna.

“Sep?”

Septimus shook his head. “No, I’d better not.”

“Come on, Sep,” said Jenna. “You haven’t been anywhere yet.”

“No, Jen,” said Septimus a little regretfully. “I think I should stay with Spit Fyre. He doesn’t seem too good, and he hasn’t even drunk any water this morning. You and Beetle go.”

“Well…okay, Sep,” said Jenna. “If you’re sure…”

Septimus was sure that he should not leave Spit Fyre, though he was not so sure that he wanted to be left alone once more. But that, he told himself, was just being silly. “Yep, I’m sure. I’ll be fine with Spit Fyre.”

Septimus watched Jenna and Beetle set off briskly along
the beach. At the end of the bay they clambered up the line of rocks and waved. Septimus returned their waves; he watched them jump down onto the other side and disappear from sight. Then he turned to attend to Spit Fyre.

First he checked the dragon’s tail. The HeatCloaks were dark and, when he touched them, were stiff and stuck fast to the scales. Septimus was not sure what to do. He was afraid that pulling them off would do more harm than good, so he decided to leave them be. He sniffed. Something did not smell too great, but he told himself it was probably the seaweed that he had packed over the wound. He decided that if the smell got worse by the afternoon, he would have to investigate.

Back at the bucket end of the dragon, things did not look a lot better. Spit Fyre’s eyes were firmly closed, and however much Septimus prodded him and told him, “Spit Fyre, wake up and drink,” the dragon would not respond. Septimus hoped that maybe Spit Fyre was sulking because of the bucket on his head, but he was not entirely sure. He thought the dragon’s breathing seemed a little labored and wondered if he was hot, but the rocks provided almost complete shade and his scales felt quite cool. Septimus picked up the WaterGnome. He pulled Spit Fyre’s lower lip out a little and drizzled some water
into his mouth, but he was not sure whether the dragon actually swallowed it, as much of it seemed to dribble back out and land in dark patches on the rocks. Disconsolate, Septimus sat down. He stroked Spit Fyre’s nose and murmured, “You are going to be all right, Spit Fyre, I
know
you are. And I won’t leave you until you’re better, I promise.”

Suddenly Septimus heard a movement in the sand dunes behind him. He jumped up. “Come out, wherever you are,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster, scanning the apparently empty dunes. He half-closed his eyes—all the better for Seeing things, as Marcia often said—and there, in the dunes not far away, he did indeed See something. A girl—he was sure it was a girl—in green.

As if she knew she had been Seen, the girl began walking toward him. He watched her head bob through the sand dunes, and as she stepped from the cover of the last dune onto the beach below, Septimus saw a tall, thin, barefoot girl wearing a tattered green tunic.

Septimus skirted Spit Fyre’s bucket and jumped down onto the sand. The girl walked slowly toward him and, as she drew closer, Septimus could see that she was wearing what looked like a very old-fashioned Apprentice tunic from the time when
they still embroidered them with Magykal symbols. Two faded purple stripes on the hem of each sleeve proclaimed that she too was a Senior Apprentice. Her thin, straggly dark hair framed a careworn face covered in freckles. Septimus had the distinct feeling he had seen her before—but
where
?

The girl stopped in front of him. Her green eyes regarded him a little anxiously and then she gave a small formal bow with which, he suddenly remembered, Apprentices in Marcellus’s Time would greet each other. “Septimus Heap,” she stated.

“Yes?” Septimus replied warily.

“We have…met before. It is…good…to see you again.” The girl spoke, Septimus thought, as though she were unused to speech.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I…am Syrah. Syrah Syara.”

The name was familiar too. But from where?

“You don’t remember me, do you?” asked the girl.

“I think I do, but…”

“The Wizard Tower?” the girl prompted.

That was it! Septimus remembered the pictures he had seen on the walls of the Wizard Tower just before he escaped
the Siege—especially the one of the girl aiming a punch at Tertius Fume. He shook his head in disbelief. Surely this could not be her—that had happened hundreds of years ago.

“I said hello to you,” said the girl.

“You said hello?”
Now Septimus was completely lost.

“Yes. That is why I know who you are. You are…the Alchemie Apprentice, the one who mysteriously disappeared. But I congratulate you. You came back, I suppose, and have taken my place with Julius.”

“Julius?” asked Septimus, puzzled.

“Julius Pike, now
your
ExtraOrdinary Wizard.” Syrah sighed wistfully. “Oh, what I would give to see dear Julius once more.”

Septimus felt his whole world shift. What was this girl Syrah saying—that he was back in that Time
again
? Septimus forced himself to remain calm. He told himself that nothing had happened to even suggest that they had gone back in Time once more, unless…unless the storm had something to do with it…or perhaps the weird lighthouse they had nearly crashed into…or maybe even the lightning bolt? Maybe—maybe once you had been in a Time you could somehow get dragged back there without even knowing? No, he
told himself, that was not possible. The only explanation was that Syrah was a ghost. A very solid-looking one, it is true, but island life was obviously good for ghosts.

“You have a dragon,” said Syrah.

“Yes,” said Septimus.

“I have a confession to make. I have been watching you and your dragon.”

“I know you have. Why didn’t you just come and say hello?”

Syrah did not answer. “Your dragon has its head stuck in a bucket,” she said. “You should take the bucket off.”

“No way,” said Septimus. “It was hard enough to put it on.”

“
You
put the bucket on? That is most cruel.”

Septimus sighed. “My dragon has a badly injured tail. The bucket is to stop him from biting the bandages.”

“Oh. I see. I had a cat once and—”

“Really?” said Septimus, somewhat abruptly. He wanted Syrah to go. Ghost or not, her talk about Marcellus and Julius Pike unsettled him. He scanned the distant rocks, hoping to see Jenna and Beetle to bring him back to reality—where
were
they?

But Syrah showed no inclination to go. She seemed
fascinated by Spit Fyre. She climbed onto the rocks and walked slowly around him. Septimus felt annoyed.

“He needs to rest,” he told her. “He shouldn’t be disturbed.”

Syrah stopped and looked at Septimus. “Your dragon is dying,” she said.

“What?”
Septimus gasped.

“His tail smells of the stinking black slush.”

“I thought the smell was the seaweed.”

Syrah shook her head. “No, it is the slush. That will be the reason he has been trying to bite it off. A dragon knows such things.”

“No…”
But Septimus knew that Syrah was right.

Syrah put her hand on Septimus’s arm. Her touch was warm and friendly and it horrified Septimus—she was
alive
. And if Syrah was alive, what Time were they in now? He was so shaken that he did not at first take in what she was saying to him. “Septimus,” she said, “I can save your dragon’s life.”

“You can? Oh, thank you,
thank you
.” A great feeling of hope washed over Septimus.

“But there is a condition.”

“Ah,” said Septimus, his spirits sinking once more.

“There is something I want you to do in return. And I should tell you, it is a dangerous thing.”

“What is it?”

“I cannot tell you.”

Septimus met Syrah’s steady stare. He didn’t know what to make of this strange girl who was looking at him with the same mixture of hope and desperation that he himself felt.

“And if I don’t agree to do this whatever-it-is, will you still save Spit Fyre?”

Syrah took a deep breath. “No,” she said.

Septimus gazed at Spit Fyre—his big, messy, contrary, galumphing dragon, who he had seen hatch from his egg, an egg that Jenna had given him. His daft, greedy, irritable dragon who had eaten most of the cloaks of the Ordinary Wizards in the Wizard Tower, the dragon who had saved Marcia from her Shadow and done unspeakable things to her carpet—his beautiful dragon was dying. Deep down he knew that he had known it all morning, ever since Spit Fyre had refused to drink. Septimus swallowed hard. He couldn’t let Spit Fyre die, he
couldn’t
. If there was the slightest chance that Syrah could save his dragon he would have to take it. He had no choice.

“I will do whatever you want,” he said, “if you will save Spit Fyre. I don’t care what it is, I will do it. Just make Spit Fyre live.
Please
.”

Syrah was brisk and professional. She unwrapped the bandages, and as the last scrap of tattered HeatCloak fell away, Septimus reeled back. The smell of rotting meat was overpowering. The wound was swimming with slime. The bones showed as glimpses of dull yellow islands in a greenish-black sea of slush, and previously healthy scales were peeling back like dead leaves, revealing yet more ominous soft black flesh underneath. Apart from his shock at the state of Spit Fyre’s tail, Septimus was mortified at the failure of his Physik skills.

Syrah read his expression. “I know Marcellus taught you some Physik, and I am sure you did your best, but you mustn’t blame yourself,” she said. “The stinking black slush comes, as they say, like a wolf in the night and steals people away from even the finest physicians.”

“So what can
you
do?” asked Septimus.

“I shall combine Magyk and Physik. Julius—dear Julius—taught me this. It is powerful stuff; Julius and Marcellus
worked it out together. The effect of Magyk and Physik used together is more potent than you would expect the combination to be. It was the very last thing I learned. Julius showed me how to combine them on the very day before the Draw….” Syrah’s voice trailed off for a moment as she became lost in her memories.

Ten minutes later Spit Fyre was surrounded by a Magykal cocoon. Septimus had watched as Syrah made the stinking black slush evaporate in a stream of foul-smelling black vapor, the stench of which had lingered in the air until Syrah was almost finished. He had watched Syrah work like a skilled surgeon, handing her a variety of knives, forks and spoons from Marcia’s Young Army Officer Cadet Hostile Territory Survival Pack, which she used to scoop out all kinds of unmentionable stuff (Septimus made a mental note not to use the utensils for supper). Then he had watched as Syrah sprinkled a few drops of green oil from a tiny silver phial onto the wound and then Engendered a Magykal purple haze tinged with green. The haze spread over the injured tail and covered it with a glimmering, transparent gel—something that Septimus had never seen before. When the gel was set, Syrah showed him how the scales were already turning back to green and, even as he
watched, the flesh was beginning to grow over the bones. A clean, fresh smell of peppermint now hung in the air.

“Take this.” Syrah handed him the silver phial. “It has an essence that speeds healing. I can see that his wings are torn in places. When he is stronger take him somewhere he can spread his wings and drip one drop of oil over each tear—they will knit together. But for now let him sleep while his tail mends.” She smiled. “Do not worry, Septimus. He will live.”