StarChaser

by Angie Sage

  Jenna looked puzzled. Try as she might, she just couldn’t picture her hut.

  “You know, the one with the leaky roof,” Marissa explained. “Beside the toilets.”

  “Oh . . . yes . . . of course,” Jenna said. “Silly me, forgetting.”

  “Well, you know how dippy you are, little sis,” Marissa said cheerfully. “Off you go now.”

  And so Jenna hurried away into the rain, feeling extremely disconcerted. If she had not bumped into Septimus coming up the drive, she would have spent a very uncomfortable night indeed.

  While Septimus was trying to work out why Jenna was being so odd, Marissa was leading the Red Queen and Mitza up the sweeping Palace staircase. Marissa had once been to a party there and thought she remembered where the Throne Room was. She led the two bewildered women along a galleried corridor at the end of which she was relieved to see the ornate double doors of the Throne Room. With a confident flourish, Marissa unlocked them with her Universal Castle Key and showed the Red Queen and Mitza inside. And there she left them, the Red Queen ensconced upon the throne, Mitza sitting glumly at her feet.

  Five minutes later, snake tongue still in place, Marissa was back with another, even crazier plan. “Sister Queen,” she said, “I am sure you would wish to start your new reign with a clean crown. My Palace has an overnight crown-cleaning service, which you will want to use.”

  The Red Queen thought that there was nothing she would like better. She handed her crown to Marissa, then she leaned back in the throne with a sigh and closed her eyes. It had been a long and rather trying day. With her fool curled up at her feet, the Red Queen fell into a sleep full of strange dreams. The fool at her feet, however, did not sleep a wink. The Red Queen had the most outrageous snore.

  Marissa retreated to one of the guest rooms. She put the snake tongue back in its little green box and swapped Jenna’s circlet for the Red Queen’s crown. It fit perfectly. It is not easy to sleep wearing a crown, but Marissa managed it with no trouble at all.

  As soon as Jenna told Septimus about her “sister” Marissa returning to “her” Palace Septimus realized that Jenna had been BeWitched—and it was obvious by whom. Gently but firmly, he led her to the Wizard Tower, then he sent for Jo-Jo. Jo-Jo had been enjoying his hero status and was mortified to find he was once again the no-good Heap brother. Almost tearfully, he confessed to giving Marissa the snake tongue.

  Armed with a Mongoose Reverse, Septimus released Jenna from her BeWitchment. Jenna was furious when she understood what had happened and it was all Septimus could do to dissuade her from setting off for the Palace right away.

  “Jen,” he said, “you need to sleep this off. Being BeWitched messes with your head. Leave Marissa and her weird friends there for tonight; they can’t do any harm. I’ll come back with you tomorrow and we’ll sort them out together.”

  Jenna discovered that Septimus was right. She felt edgy and anxious and could not sleep. She stayed up all night playing cards with Milo and slept most of the next day, leaving Marissa the run of the Palace.

  The next morning, while Jenna at last drifted off to sleep in the spare room at the top of the Wizard Tower, the occupants of the Throne Room were wide-awake and furious: their BeWitchment had worn off. Mitza now knew she was nobody’s fool and the Red Queen knew that the Castle was a dismal place unworthy of her talents. They both wanted out. But when they tried to open the Throne Room doors they found they were prisoners in what the Red Queen called “this ratty little dump.”

  With the Red Queen’s crown stowed safely inside her secret cloak pocket, Marissa walked past the shouts and the reverberating thuds upon the door with her head held high and proceeded down the stairs. Let them see what it’s like to be helpless, she thought. It served them both right.

  As Marissa reached the Palace doors, a ghostly ancient knight with one arm and a serious dent in his head stepped forward and barred her way with his sword.

  “Halt!” barked the knight, whose name was Sir Hereward.

  Marissa let out a loud shriek.

  “I shall raise the alarm,” Sir Hereward said in a low, threatening voice. “Unless you leave Queen Jenna’s circlet here, in my custody.”

  “Huh, you daft old ghost,” Marissa said, recovering fast, “I was going to do that anyway. See?” With that she hung the circlet on the doorknob. From it dangled a note saying, Jenna: All yours, I’ve got a better one now. Have fun! Marissa x

  Sir Hereward gave a disapproving sniff and watched Marissa flounce out and head off down the drive. Then he Caused the door to slam shut and stood guarding the circlet until its rightful owner returned.

  Marissa set off to look for Jo-Jo. She found him in Gothyk Grotto in a very gloomy state, and took him to Wizard Sandwiches. There, over a Palace Special (a long hot dog covered in red ketchup and yellow mustard—red and gold being the colors of the Castle Queen), Marissa told Jo-Jo her latest, most daring plan. Jo-Jo listened, his eyes growing ever wider with amazement. Sometimes Marissa’s sheer nerve astounded him.

  “Well?” Marissa asked. “What do you think? Are you up for it?”

  Jo-Jo stared at Marissa. “I think it’s a crazy idea,” he said.

  Marissa’s face fell. She wanted to do this so much, but only—she suddenly realized—if Jo-Jo was with her.

  But Jo-Jo hadn’t finished. “And yeah,” he said, “I’m up for it.”

  Marissa broke into a huge smile. “You are?”

  “Yeah. I am. Queen Marissa.”

  “King Jo-Jo?” asked Marissa.

  Jo-Jo laughed. “No, thanks. Not for me. But I’ll enjoy hanging out in the Palace.”

  “And the Red City too,” said Marissa. “You’ll love it. There are tons of sorcerers. You can have your own sorcerer tower and everything. Because when I’m Queen of the Red City, you can have anything you want.”

  And so Marissa and Jo-Jo sat planning their future over the Palace Special. When they were finished, Marissa paid the bill—to the surprise of the staff—and then she and Jo-Jo walked out and headed for the Hidden arch that the Red Queen and Mitza had Come Through the night before.

  It was late morning when the senior Palace housekeeper heard some very rude language coming from the Throne Room. She opened the doors to find not a couple of drunken sailors—as she had expected—but two very peculiar women who she assumed had wandered off from the Castle Home for Confused and Deluded Persons. The housekeeper’s suspicions were confirmed when the tall, scary-looking one stormed out, declaring she was returning to her Queendom at once and anyone who tried to stop her would soon find they had mislaid their head. The housekeeper watched her go, shaking her own still firmly attached head, thinking how sad it was, the state that some people ended up in. When the housekeeper turned around, the weird one with a mouth like a hatchet had gone. The housekeeper was on edge all day, hoping she wasn’t going to bump into her around some dark corner. That night she armed herself with a saucepan and bolted her bedroom door.

  In the gloom of the eighteenth floor of the Wizard Tower, Septimus, Marcia and Newt were closeted in the Darke Archives, a circular room clad with ancient slate that glimmered in the candlelight like the surface of a deep, black lake. This was where Septimus had placed all the Darke documents from the Pyramid Library. It also contained the contents of Sorcerer’s Secret, an ancient and surprisingly Darke bookshop that had recently closed in the Port.

  Septimus had rescued the entire stock just as it was being thrown on a large bonfire. Much of it was still packed in boxes and all of it smelled of smoke. It was these boxes that they were now examining, for Septimus and Marcia knew that there was no Kraan Reverse to be found in the Wizard Tower.

  “So we can do the Reverse on that Kraan you’ve got in the Sealed Cell, and then all the others get Reversed too?” asked Newt. “At the same time. All at once?”

  “Yes. That’s what happens with a Chain Reaction,” Marcia said.

  “They go back to being beads, right?” asked Newt. “Six for each
Kraan?”

  “Right,” Marcia said curtly. “Now get on with those boxes.”

  “Yes. Sorry.” Newt got back to work unpacking the boxes and sorting the books and pamphlets into possibilities.

  Septimus and Marcia carried on methodically going through each page of every book, trawling through endless permutations of nasty, vindictive and vicious spells, Enchantments and Incantations. It made for dismal reading.

  “The things people want to do to others,” Marcia said, exasperated at one particularly gruesome Hex. “It makes you despair.”

  “Horrible,” Septimus agreed, as he reached the end of a small pamphlet called A Fear a Day the Easy Way.

  They worked steadily on through the mire of nastiness, desperate to find the Kraan Reverse. Newt made them coffee, brought them sandwiches, stacked away used books and did anything he could to speed their search, but they dared not go too fast for fear of missing a vital clue. And they dared not go too slow either, for they knew that every hour that passed was another hour that Tod, whom Septimus feared was still deep in the Ways, was in mortal danger.

  PART X

  THE NEXT WATCH

  Tod awoke in the Far Hub to find that everyone was up and getting ready to leave.

  “Morning, Tod,” Jerra said cheerily. “I left you to sleep. You looked like you needed it.” He grinned. “It’s five hours after dawn now; the next Watch should be here pretty soon.”

  “Oh.” Tod felt wretched. What kind of Apprentice fell asleep when there was something so important to do?

  “Fancy any breakfast?” Jerra asked.

  The bacon smelled wonderful. “Yes, please,” Tod said, telling herself that there was no point traveling the Ways faint with hunger.

  Jerra’s bacon sandwiches were even better than his cheesy bean soup. As Tod ate, a feeling of dread crept over her at the thought of going back into the Ways. But it was her duty, she told herself, and she must do it.

  Breakfast over, Tod helped put the Hub to rights, leaving it tidy for the next Watch. She tried her best to look relaxed, but inside she felt like a coiled spring wound up tight—ready to run as soon as she got the opportunity. At last it came, with the thud of purposeful footsteps crossing the room above. The next Watch had arrived.

  Jerra grinned. “Bang on time,” he said. “I would expect no less.” Jerra picked up the Way Book—where all travelers through the Hub were logged—in order to hand it over. Ferdie asked to see it and Oskar, always curious, peered over his twin’s shoulder as she leafed through, looking at the descriptions of the occasional traveler wandering the Ways.

  Tod took her chance. She slipped over to Way IV, drew back the bolts, and as Jerra turned around she was through the door and running. Far behind her, unheard by Tod, came Dan Moon’s cheery voice as he hurried down the steps into the Far Hub.

  As soon as Tod ran into the Vanishing Point, the acrid, eerie smell of sulfur invaded her nostrils. She hesitated for a moment, then forced herself to go on. This was her last chance to get to the Castle. If she did not take it, Septimus would know nothing of the danger until the Wizard Tower collapsed. At least if she managed to get to him he could evacuate the Tower and save the lives of hundreds of people.

  Despite the weird smell, the Vanishing Point appeared to be still working. The mist closed behind her and as ever, Tod felt as though she was moving forward at breathtaking speed. All was as it should be, she told herself. Any minute now she would walk out of the mist and see the shape of the Hidden arch in the Castle Wall before her. And then her direction of travel shifted, and instead of going forward, she was falling. Down, down, down she fell, slowly like a leaf, twisting as she went, supported by the Wild Way Wind—until suddenly it disappeared and she dropped like a stone. Seconds later, the ground seemed to come up and hit her.

  In the Far Hub, Dan Moon found three Sarns staring at the open door to Way VII. They looked shocked.

  “Morning, all,” said Dan cheerily. “Typical. I’ve just missed the only excitement for the next three days. Well, rather them than me down that unstable Way.”

  “Jeez,” Jerra said, still staring at the door. “I can’t believe she did that.”

  “Who? Did what?” Dan asked.

  “Tod. Went Through Way VII,” Jerra said.

  “Tod?” Dan looked blank.

  “Your Alice, Dan. She just took off.”

  “Tod was here?”

  “Until a few seconds ago, yes.”

  “So why did she go?” Dan asked, staring at the open door.

  “There’s bad stuff happening in the Ways, Dan,” Jerra said. “And she wanted to go and tell Septimus at the Castle.”

  “Go back to Septimus? Even though I was coming?” Dan sounded hurt.

  “I didn’t tell her you were doing the next Watch,” Jerra said. “I wanted it to be a fun surprise. Stupid idea, obviously.”

  Dan went over to the open door to Way VII. He turned to Jerra with a worried look. “This Way smells weird to me. I don’t like it. I’m going after her.”

  Jerra expected no less from Dan. “Hurry, Dan,” he said. “If there’s a Way Wind blowing through, then with any luck you can catch the same one as Tod.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Dan said, already through the door.

  Silently, Jerra, Ferdie and Oskar watched the tall, wiry figure of Dan Moon run along the Way and disappear into the white mist of the Vanishing Point.

  Winded, Tod lay in pitch darkness, coughing and spluttering. She had landed heavily in what felt like a deep pile of soft sand. As her breath returned, she gingerly tried out each arm and leg in turn. They seemed to work, so she found her FlashLight in her pocket and switched it on, to reveal nothing but a thick cloud of gray dust.

  Tod had just got to her feet when there was a loud thud behind her. She spun around and to her amazement saw Dan Moon lying facedown in the dust. “Dad!” she gasped. “Dad, Dad!” She threw herself down beside Dan, coughing as clouds of dust swirled up into the air.

  Dan Moon did not bounce as well as he used to, he woozily told Tod as he struggled to sit up. Tod told him that she didn’t care about how well he bounced; she was just so pleased he was here.

  “Well, Alice,” Dan began, but stopped as he was overcome by a fit of coughing. Tod’s smile faded. Dan only called her Alice when he was cross with her. Dan fought down his cough and continued. “I can’t say that I am pleased to be here. Whatever were you thinking of, running into an unstable Way?”

  “Dad, the Ways are crumbling fast and I had to warn Septimus. I didn’t want to go, but it’s my job now. You know that.”

  “Of course I know that.” Dan paused for another coughing fit. “But you mustn’t go putting yourself in danger. Septimus would never expect that, not ever.”

  Tod knew Dan did not understand. “But Dad,” she said, “this is really, really bad. The whole Wizard Tower could collapse at any moment. And kill everyone in it.”

  Dan shook his head. “A few unstable Ways aren’t going to make that happen,” he said. But Tod knew better. She scooped up a handful of the fine gray dust they had landed in and held it out to Dan. “Dad, this is lapis lazuli.”

  Dan frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  But Tod had no time to reply. A violent eddy threw her toward Dan. He caught her and, clutching each other, Dan Moon and his daughter were dragged into a vortex of dust. Like butterflies in a hurricane, they were sucked up into the very center of a Wild Way Wind.

  WINDED

  Inside Way VII, as close to the Vanishing Point as he dared go, Jerra waited, lantern in hand.

  Watching him anxiously from the doorway were Ferdie and Oskar, who were under strict instructions not to take even one step into the Way. “Can you see anything?” Oskar asked, his voice echoing along the tunnel.

  “Shh, Oskie,” Jerra hissed. “I’m trying to listen, okay?” In the distance somewhere deep inside the Way came an eerie sound like someone blowing across the top of a bottle, and Jerra thought he co
uld see a few eddies inside the white mist of the Vanishing Point. As he held his lantern higher to get a better look, Tod and Dan came barreling out of the mist and knocked him flying. Jerra hit his head on the tunnel wall and Tod and Dan fell in a heap on top of him.

  Oskar and Ferdie raced toward the pile of bodies. They pulled Dan and Tod to their feet, but Jerra did not move. Taking one limb apiece, they carried him out of the tunnel and lowered him gently onto the cushions in the Hub.

  “Jerra! Jerra!” Ferdie said, patting her brother’s face none too gently.

  “Werrr?” Jerra moaned. He blinked and tried to focus. Two people were speaking at once, and they both looked like Ferdie.

  “Jerra!” Ferdie said. “It’s okay, Jerra. Tod and Dan are safe and you hit your head.” She could see a large egg-shaped bump coming up on Jerra’s forehead.

  While Jerra lay woozily on the cushions, Tod explained to Dan about the crumbing of the lapis lazuli. She told him everything that had happened, except, for Oskar’s sake, the fact that Septimus thought the Ormlet had died.

  Dan listened quietly and calmly. When at last Tod stopped speaking, he said, “It’s bad for the Castle; I can see that. But the Ways have brought nothing but trouble to our village. I think it will be a good thing for us.”

  Tod was aghast. “But we’re PathFinders,” she said. “The Ways are part of our history. We can’t let them fall to pieces as if they don’t matter anymore. Because they do matter—to all kinds of people, all over the world.”

  “Perhaps,” Dan said. “But there is nothing we can do, is there?”

  “We’re PathFinders,” Tod repeated stubbornly. “There must be something we can do. There must be.”

  “I can’t think what,” Dan said.

  Jerra opened his eyes. He blinked hard to get rid of the second Tod, sat up and said, “The Path. We found it when we were rebuilding the village. Hidden under the bell. There might be something there.”