The Darke Toad

by Angie Sage

  Screams of “Abandon ship!” filled the harbor as the collapse began to spread along the line of ships. Masts fell like ninepins and hulls caved in like eggshells. The Harbor Master, festooned with life buoys, hurried along the Quayside, hurling them into the water, which was now dark with debris and full of struggling sailors, many of whom could not swim.

  In the chaos, Daphne sneaked back to retrieve her empty woodworm box. She carefully put it in the wheelbarrow and headed toward Fishguts Twist. Daphne could take no more; she was going home. However, when she reached the stone bench where DomDaniel was slumped with his mouth open, snoring, the sight of the bag of Hallowseeth herrings was too much of a temptation. Daphne sat down and began to crunch her way through the now-cold, but still deliciously salty, little fish—heads and all. Daphne was not a delicate eater, and the noisy sucking of fish bones invaded DomDaniel’s dreams and woke him up.

  Daphne tipped the remaining herring scales into her mouth, screwed up the bag and threw it angrily at a passing crocodile with an ax in its head. “I hate her,” she said.

  “The crocodile?” DomDaniel asked blearily.

  “No, Linda. She killed all my lovely woodworms. She’s a cow.”

  For some reason DomDaniel liked Daphne. It was an odd feeling to like someone, and DomDaniel did not intend to encourage it. But he put his hand into his old cloak pocket and took out a miniature silver box inlaid with onyx. “Have you still got Dukey?” he asked.

  Daphne looked stunned. “How do you know about Dukey?”

  DomDaniel smiled, his lips slipping over his teeth like skin on cold custard. “I make it my business to hear what’s going on,” he said.

  “Yes, I’ve still got Dukey,” whispered Daphne.

  “Well, then, let’s see him.”

  Bewildered, Daphne took Dukey out of her pocket. DomDaniel inspected the fat worm covered in fluff. “He’ll fit,” he said. Then he flicked the lid off the silver box, revealing a brilliant blue interior that shone like a jewel. “Drop him in there,” he told Daphne.

  Dazed at such attention from the great DomDaniel, Daphne dropped her last, precious and very dead woodworm into the box. DomDaniel snapped the lid shut. “Keep it closed for twenty-four hours,” he told Daphne. “Then when you open it you will have an endless supply. You’ll soon get your colony back.”

  Daphne stared at the little silver box in amazement. “Th-thank you,” she stammered.

  “Don’t mention it,” said DomDaniel.

  Daphne understood. “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

  Daphne and DomDaniel sat in companionable silence, Daphne smiling with sheer happiness, DomDaniel worrying about why he felt as though his skin was about to fall off.

  While peace descended into the shadows at the entrance to Fishguts Twist, pandemonium still reigned in the harbor. The Quayside swarmed with all kinds of creatures carrying ropes and floats and hurling them into the harbor. Some were braving the gribble worms and jumping into their own rowboats in desperate attempts to reach sailors struggling in the water. Not all rowboats made it back safely. Marcia directed her energies to Reviving those sailors who were brought out of the water half—or sometimes fully—drowned. If she got to them within three minutes of drowning, she knew she had a chance of saving them.

  Simon worked hard too. Unnoticed in the melee he pulled sailors from the water and he even delivered one to Marcia without her recognizing him. Simon was near exhaustion when he caught sight of a young boy clinging on to a spar that was rapidly disappearing under gribble attack. He dived into the sludge floating on the surface of the water and pulled the boy to safety. As he helped the shivering, red-haired boy up the steps, a woman’s voice said, “Ah, poor dearie. Let me take him, Simon Heap.” Shattered, he handed the boy over. It was only some minutes later when he had recovered his breath that it occurred to Simon to wonder how the woman had known his name.

  From the window in the Customs House, Septimus had watched the unfolding drama—at first with excitement at the beautiful display of lights and then, when he realized that a disaster was taking place, with frustration that he could not be down there, doing something. But he remembered what Marcia had told him and he dutifully stayed where he was.

  It was when Septimus saw three vicious-looking women in witches’ cloaks dragging away a struggling, half-drowned boy, that he could stand it no more. And when the boy saw him in the window and yelled, “Help me!” Septimus was off. He threw on his Apprentice cloak, buckled up his Apprentice belt and hurtled down the stairs. But by the time he got outside, the boy and the witches were gone.

  Marcia’s final Revive had worked. The sailor sat up and groaned. “You’ll be okay,” she told him, helping him to his feet.

  “I’ll get him along to the Harbor Master’s,” said Alice. “They’re opening the emergency bunkhouse out the back.”

  Marcia watched Alice help the bedraggled sailor slowly across the Quayside. She turned and looked at the harbor. The water reminded her of one of Aunt Zelda’s stews—thick, brown and full of white stringy things. It was, in fact, now more of a rubbish dump than a harbor. The remains of thirteen ships—mainly a tangle of ropes, sails and fishing nets—floated in a thick scum of gribble-digested wood dust. A somber crowd of Port people had gathered and were hugging one another in dismay. Not only were all thirteen ships gone, but the harbor itself was now unusable. Below the watery sludge lay the ironwork from thirteen ships piled onto the harbor bottom, along with, they feared, the remains of more than a few drowned sailors. Marcia joined the onlookers. She felt powerless to do anything to help. No Magyk could help the drowned now, or restore the ships. Marcia shook her head in dismay—the Port Witch Coven had done a terrible thing.

  Suddenly she heard a voice calling, “Marcia!” She spun around to see Septimus racing toward her. “Septimus, I told you to stay inside,” she said, trying—unsuccessfully—to be stern and not show how pleased she was to see him.

  “I’m sorry,” said Septimus, “but the witches … they …” He stopped to catch his breath.

  “I know,” said Marcia. “It’s awful.”

  “They … kidnapped a boy.”

  Now at last there was something Marcia could actually stop them doing. “Right, let’s get them,” she said. “Which way did they go?”

  Septimus pointed toward Fishguts Twist. “Up there. I think.”

  They stopped by an empty bench at the mouth of Fishguts Twist. The alleyway had numerous branches off it—or dives, as they were called in the Port.

  Septimus eyed the dives despondently. “But they could have gone down any of those,” he said.

  Marcia was unwilling to give up. “So we’ll just have to take our chances.”

  It was at that moment that the Darke Toad’s Listening Time was up. It hopped out from the drainpipe and the movement caught Septimus’s eye. “Oh!” he said. “It’s a toad.” To Marcia’s disgust Septimus squatted down and picked it up. The toad sat in his hand and stared balefully at him. Septimus stared back, remembering a rude rhyme about DomDaniel they used to whisper in the Young Army:

  If you want to know where DomDaniel sat,

  Go where it smells of rotting cat.

  If you want to know where DomDaniel’s gone,

  Find a fat toad and you won’t go wrong.

  Because wherever he goes

  There is always a toad.

  Just follow the toad in the road.

  The Darke Toad shifted uncomfortably on Septimus’s hand. It didn’t like the feel of human warmth one bit.

  “Put that horrible thing down, Septimus,” said Marcia. “You don’t know where it’s been.”

  “But I do know where it’s been,” said Septimus.

  “Up some disgusting drainpipe, no doubt. Put it down.”

  “It’s been with DomDaniel,” said Septimus.

  There was something about Septimus’s certainty that made Marcia take notice. “Really?” she said.

  “I reckon,” said Septimus, r
aising his hand to his face so that he and the toad were eyeballing each other, “that this is a Darke Toad.”

  “Most Port toads have some Darke in them,” said Marcia. “We have the Port Witch Coven to thank for that.”

  “But this is a DomDaniel toad,” said Septimus. “I’m sure it is.”

  Marcia looked puzzled. “How do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well, they used to say that DomDaniel always took a toad with him when he went anywhere. When he left, he’d leave it there as a sort of spy. The toad would hang around for, er—” Septimus trawled his photographic memory and scrolled down page three of his old Young Army Memory Book. “It was 5.71666666666667 minutes, I think, to listen to what people said about DomDaniel after he left, then the toad would catch up with him and tell him. It got a lot of people into big trouble. When I was in the Young Army we were taught to recognize a DomDaniel toad. And not stamp on it. Ever. We had signs stuck up in the barracks saying Respect the Toad.”

  “So you mean that this one will hop off now and tell DomDaniel what we’ve been saying?” asked Marcia.

  “I reckon so,” said Septimus.

  “Well, it can tell him from me that I know he’s at the bottom of this and he is not getting away with it. It can tell him from me that I’m coming to get him.”

  But it was not DomDaniel who concerned Septimus; it was the Port Witch Coven. “Marcia, Alice Nettles said that DomDaniel was with the Port Witch Coven, didn’t she?”

  “Well, yes, she did. I must admit, Septimus, I did think she was mistaken, but maybe she was right after all. Well, there’s only one way to find out. Let the toad go and we’ll follow it.”

  Septimus put the toad onto the ground and it quickly hopped away. “Just follow the toad in the road,” he murmured.

  Marcia looked at her Apprentice quizzically. “Another Young Army rhyme?” she asked.

  “Well …” Septimus always felt reluctant to admit to remembering anything from the Young Army. It felt somehow disloyal to Marcia.

  But Marcia was not concerned at all. She smiled. “There was a surprising amount of sense in some of their rhymes,” she said, “Come on, Septimus, let’s go.”

  11

  FOLLOW THE TOAD

  Jakey Fry—only ten or possibly eleven years old, he was not sure which—was terrified. Jakey knew enough about witches to know he was in big trouble. A witch had him in her Grasp, her long black fingernails felt as though they were drilling into his shoulder, and no matter how loud he tried to yell, he could make no sound. In front of him was a witch with a cracked white face, who walked on spikes and was leaning on another weird witch with a cone of hair stuck on her head. Behind him was a witch pushing a wheelbarrow that kept jabbing into the back of his legs. And behind her was something really horrible that Jakey couldn’t see, even though he knew it was there. The only person who looked kind of normal was a young man in an old black cloak who was hurrying along behind the wheelbarrow witch; but every time Jakey looked back and tried to catch his eye, the young man looked away. Jakey knew that look well enough. He’d seen it on people’s faces when his father—the notorious Skipper Fry—shouted at him in the street. It was the I-don’t-want-to-get-involved face. He’d find no help there. Jakey knew he was on his own.

  Jakey was so scared that his legs kept giving way beneath him, but the witch who had her fingers dug into his shoulder didn’t care. She had dragged him halfway along Fishguts Twist, down Spider Slide, through the Dripping Duck and out into a run-down road called The Shambles, which Jakey knew very well indeed. As they went past the lodging house where he lived with his father, Jakey stared desperately up at the dark window, hoping that maybe Skipper Fry was looking out for him. But he knew his father would never do that—he didn’t want his son at home. Jakey had to earn his keep as a ship’s rat and as soon as he arrived back in the Port his father always signed him up for another voyage.

  As Jakey was dragged past the battered front door of the lodging house he gave a silent sob. No one would ever know what had really happened to him—everyone would assume he had drowned in the harbor that night. For Jakey understood that whatever the witches had planned for him, he was not going to survive it.

  A few streets away from Jakey, pursued by two purple snakes bristling with sharp, bright Magyk, the Darke Toad was moving fast. It hurried past the bookshops on Fishguts Twist longing to catch up with its Master, who would surely make short work of the snakes. Hoping to put them off its trail, the Darke Toad delayed its turn into Spider Slide until the very last minute and then shot into its shadows. The ploy very nearly worked. Marcia hurried by, but Septimus was not fooled. He dived into the Slide, and Marcia, realizing what had happened, followed him.

  Spider Slide was so narrow that they had to go in single file. “You stay in front, Septimus,” said Marcia. “That way I can make sure you’re okay. There are some strange people around here at night.”

  Septimus felt glad of Marcia’s protection and tried not to think about how scared the kidnapped boy must be, out there on his own.

  The Darke Toad now headed toward one of its favorite places, a dank, covered way known as the Dripping Duck. The Dripping Duck was well named—its dripping roof was so low that Marcia had to duck, and the ground was covered in thick slime. As they emerged into the fresh air, Marcia inspected her shoes with a sigh. They were never going to be the same.

  Septimus and Marcia now found themselves on The Shambles. At the far end Septimus’s keen eyesight picked out a small, round figure with a wheelbarrow rapidly disappearing around the corner. “There they are!” he said excitedly.

  “Are you sure?” asked Marcia, peering along the empty street.

  “Yes. I saw the little one with the wheelbarrow.”

  “Aha, the wheelbarrow.”

  The Darke Toad sped up. Marcia and Septimus hurried along behind it and saw it hop around the corner at the end of the street. At the corner Marcia signaled to Septimus to wait. She peered around, and to her surprise, the witches and the boy were no more than a few yards away, with the witches engaged in a furious—yet oddly silent—argument.

  Marcia backtracked and bumped into Septimus. “You’re right,” she whispered. “It’s them.”

  “Is the boy there?” asked Septimus.

  “Yes.”

  “So why are we waiting? We have to help him!”

  “Shh!” shushed Marcia. “Septimus, I want you to stay here. I didn’t see DomDaniel but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s done some kind of Invisibility. I don’t want him to know you are here. You know that the reason you ended up in the Young Army was because he wanted you for his Apprentice. If Alice is right and he is actually alive, then he is a danger to you. He may still want you as his Apprentice. Understand?”

  “But the boy,” Septimus protested. “I have to rescue him!” He thought of all the times in the Young Army when he had dreamed that someone would come and rescue him, but no one ever had. And now he had a chance to help another boy who Septimus just knew was feeling just like he had—and Marcia wasn’t going to let him do it.

  Marcia was afraid that Septimus would take off at any moment and run straight into the clutches of DomDaniel. She looked him in the eye and held his gaze. “Septimus, you are my Apprentice and you have to trust me. We must act together as a team. You have done your part of the rescue and now I have to do mine. That is how it works. Okay?”

  Septimus could only nod in reply. He felt really upset.

  “Good. Now you stay right here. I do not want DomDaniel to have the slightest suspicion that you are here. I will be back as soon as I can and I promise you that I will be bringing the boy with me.”

  “Okay,” Septimus said reluctantly.

  “Well done.” Marcia set off purposefully around the corner. She had made a promise to her Apprentice and she was determined to keep it.

  12

  GOLDFISH

  DomDaniel saw Marcia coming and scuttled into the shadows of a nearby doorway. Inv
isible or not, he was taking no chances. Invisibility is not a reliable state, particularly between Wizards—and even more so between ExtraOrdinary Wizards. And Selective Invisibility is even more unreliable.

  Marcia was not fooled. She saw the dim shape in the doorway with its familiar stovepipe hat, she saw the glint of the Two-Faced Ring—which she knew was almost impossible to make Invisible—and the Darke Toad sitting fat and gulping on the doorstep and she knew for sure that Alice was right. DomDaniel was here. But Marcia paid him no attention; the only thing that mattered to her right then was her promise to Septimus. She had to rescue the kidnapped boy—and fast. She had a feeling that Septimus was not going to wait around the corner for long.

  Marcia’s mission was made easier by the fact that the four witches did not notice her approach—they were still immersed in their silent argument. This had begun when they had emerged from the Dripping Duck, and Linda had laid claim to Jakey as her personal servant to do with what she wanted. The Witch Mother had disagreed, saying he was for the use of the Coven, but Linda was having none of it—she had gotten the boy first, and the boy was hers. So there. The argument had escalated along The Shambles, and as they had rounded the corner into Fore Street it had become a full-blown fight. Veronica had taken Linda’s side because she was too scared to do otherwise. Daphne, who now regarded Linda as a mass murderer of woodworms, took the Witch Mother’s side. Linda had Thrown the first Silent Spell at the Witch Mother, who retaliated fast. This was followed by Daphne and Veronica throwing a Silent at each other at exactly the same time. Now all four witches were Silent.

  It did not take Marcia long to realize what had happened. A nickname for the Silent spell is the “Goldfish,” due to the way those under the spell try to shout ever louder and, goldfish like, open and close their mouths with no sound emerging. And right then the four witches—plus the unfortunate Jakey Fry, who had had a Silent put on him the moment Simon had handed him over—looked like an unhappy fish family recently thrown out of their bowl.