PathFinder

by Angie Sage

  Drone bowed to Driffa as she stepped out.

  “No need to bow. She is nothing now,” Oraton-Marr snapped.

  Lucy followed, trying her best to look like a demure serving woman. It did not come easily.

  “Lock the cage,” Oraton-Marr instructed Drone. “Tell the guards to collect the fish. And their cat.” The sorcerer frowned. Fish . . . cat . . . There was a joke there somewhere, but he couldn’t quite think of it.

  Drone laughed anyway, just to be on the safe side. “The cat! And its fish! Oh yes, indeed. Ha-ha-ha!” With blood dripping from the deep cut across his palm, the sword carrier fumbled with the lock until it clicked home.

  Clutching the bars of the cage, Tod, Oskar and Ferdie watched the figures trudge up the walkway—Oraton-Marr escorting Driffa, followed by Lucy and then Drone, who left bright red spots of blood seeping into the trodden snow. The purple light disappeared around the next spiral and they were gone.

  Ullr was restless. He slipped through the bars and mewed.

  “Ullr,” Tod whispered. “Ullr, come back.” Ullr mewed again. The little cat crouched down and Tod suddenly understood. Far above them, the sun was setting and Ullr was about to Transform.

  Thirty seconds later, a sleek, big black cat lay free on the other side of the bars of the cage, and Tod had a thought. “Ullr,” she said. “Go find William Heap. Keep him safe.”

  Ullr’s green eyes looked at Tod, but she had no way of telling if he understood or was able to do what she had asked. She watched the panther pad away up the blood-spattered incline and wondered if she had let go their only protector.

  CAGED

  “Sheesh,” Oskar hissed. “Just stop asking me stuff, okay? Let me think.”

  Oskar was kneeling beside the lock, methodically twisting and pushing his lockpick, listening for the telltale click, feeling for a shift in the mechanism. The lock was complicated. Oskar had to pick through a section at a time, keeping each one open as he went—it was the most difficult thing he had ever done. Ferdie was helpfully holding a light stick for him, but she was also breathing in his ear and anxiously asking him how he was doing.

  “I don’t need the light. I just need someone to stop breathing down my neck,” Oskar said snappily.

  Rebuffed, Ferdie stepped back.

  Ker-lunk!

  “Woo-hoo!” Oskar leaped to his feet. “I’ve done it!”

  “Hey, Oskie, that is amazing,” said Tod.

  Oskar gave the door a tentative push and it swung open.

  “Clever boy,” Ferdie said, forgiving Oskar his grumpiness.

  “Phew,” breathed Oskar. “I thought I wasn’t going to get that one.”

  They hurried up the passage, following the trail of blood. At every twist the air grew colder, and soon the blue lapis walls had become covered in a frosting of ice. Around and around they went, climbing ever upward, afraid that they would meet the guards coming down to get them. After more turns than they could count, the blood trail left the walkway and went up some steps carved into wall of ice.

  They stopped, wondering which way to go.

  Thud-thud . . . thud-thud.

  The sound of heavy boots marching above decided for them. They raced up the steps, along a short tunnel carved through the ice, and came to a small, circular space. This was the lobby where people would rest before visiting the Chamber of the Great Orm. The ice passage led out of the opposite side of the chamber, but the blood trail disappeared through a curtained doorway to their left. This had once been a tunnel to the Snow Palace, but Driffa’s sisters had blocked it when Oraton-Marr arrived and it was now a short blind alley, where the sorcerer had made his underground headquarters. From behind the curtain some distance away, they could hear Driffa’s voice, low and angry.

  The little lobby had once been beautiful. Swirling patterns were carved into the ice walls, in which lay touches of gold and silver; these rose up to a high, conical ceiling glittering with a mosaic of blue and gold stones. Ebony benches were set into the walls and two fur cloaks hung from a line of lapis pegs driven into the ice. On the right hung a long blue silk curtain. From behind it came the dull thud of rocks being shifted and the hushed groans of effort.

  Ferdie stared at the curtain—something on the other side of it felt very bad. She felt so scared that her whole body seemed to be made of jelly. “They’re here,” she whispered, pointing at the curtain. “Through there. I can feel them.”

  After Ferdie had been right about the cells in the Far Fortress, Oskar was no longer scathing about what she felt. He caught his twin’s fear, and Tod saw Oskar turn as white as ice. Tod knew someone was going to have to look, so very gingerly, she drew back the curtain, just a little. “Oh!” she gasped.

  It was a dramatic scene. The curtain concealed a hole that had been smashed through the wall. Beyond it was a roughly made balcony, which looked out over a huge cavern. The cavern was open to the night sky far above and was lit by a bright ball of light that hovered Magykally in the air, illuminating clouds of dust and shining its light onto the floor below. There, men, women and children in tattered rags, dirty and exhausted, were working to clear the remains of a lapis roof that had recently fallen in. Slowly and painfully they were piling up lumps of rubble at the sides of the cavern. They had already cleared the dusty circle of ice in the very center, which a guard—dressed in chain mail and spikes—was sweeping clean. Tod searched the workers for a telltale sheen of PathFinder hair but saw nothing. And then, in the shadows, she caught the glint of light on bars. A huge cage was placed at the back of the cavern directly opposite the balcony. In this cage were people packed tightly together, and some of the less dusty had a sheen to their hair. Tod gasped. At the very front, illuminated by small globes of light fixed to the bars, were Rosie and Jonas Sarn, staring out with expressions of dread.

  Tod let the curtain drop back. “Ferdie, you’re right,” she whispered. “They’re down there. In a cage.”

  “Oh!” Ferdie gasped. She went to look but Oskar, afraid that Ferdie might once again shout out, stopped her. “No, Ferd. They might see us.”

  “We have to get them out,” whispered Tod. “They know that something horrible is about to happen to them. I can see it on their faces.”

  Suddenly, they heard Driffa’s voice raised in anger. Then the sound of a slap and a shriek. Then silence.

  “Let’s go,” said Tod.

  ICE AND RUBBLE

  Tod led the way out of the little lobby. They went down a small flight of steps and found themselves in a broad gallery dug from the walls of ice. Tod guessed this was the Sacred Ice Walk that Driffa had talked of.

  They moved slowly along the Walk as it curved gently within the walls of the Great Chamber of the Orm. Despite the destruction and sudden shouts of “Move! Move!” from the guards below, the Sacred Ice Walk still had a peaceful atmosphere. Every ten yards or so an ebony bench was set into the wall opposite a small, circular opening that looked down into what had once been the beautiful Chamber of the Great Orm with its Magykal frozen Orm Tube. Tod could easily imagine Driffa’s people sitting quietly in contemplation.

  At the sixth opening, Tod stopped. She reckoned they were now above the cage of PathFinders. Unable to resist a look, Oskar leaned out.

  “Careful, Oskie!” hissed Tod, pulling him back. “Someone will see you.”

  “No, they won’t,” said Oskar. “We’re in shadow here. And they’re all too busy moving rocks. Look.”

  Tentatively, Tod looked down. Through the dust she saw a muddle of people. Some of the guards were herding them to the edges of the cavern while others swept away the dust so that the perfect circle of ice now glittered and sparkled in the light of the sphere above. Tod got the feeling that time was running out.

  “Move it! Move it!” came more shouts from the guards below.

  “I’m going to climb down and unlock the cage,” Oskar said. “There’s a rock pile that reaches almost up to here.”

  “No, Oskie,” whispered F
erdie. “It’s dangerous.”

  Oskar looked annoyed. “Of course it’s dangerous,” he said. “Everything’s dangerous now. Do you have any better ideas?”

  “No,” said Tod. “We don’t. But we’re all going. Okay?”

  One by one, they slipped out of the opening and dropped onto the rubble. A few stones skittered to the ground but went unnoticed in the activity below. Cautiously, Tod, Oskar and Ferdie moved down the rubble pile, through the deep shadows thrown by the bright sphere of light above, which was focused precisely on the circle of ice at the top of the Orm Tube.

  At the foot of the rubble things began to get tricky. They became caught up in a group of workers who were being herded toward the cavern wall by a guard, his long stave with its red end prodding them like cattle. Tod, Oskar and Ferdie had no choice but to go with the flow. They ended up pressed against the sides of the Orm Chamber, wedged behind people so weary that no one gave them a second glance. Oskar began checking through his lockpicks. “I’m going to get the cage open,” he whispered.

  A sudden movement behind the balcony curtain caught Tod’s eye, and when she looked back Oskar was gone, slipping away like a sand snake and melting into the shadows.

  It was then that something happened to Ferdie, which she would remember forever—she felt a small, warm, gritty hand grasp hers. She looked down and saw a face encrusted with dirt, with streaks of pink revealed by smudged tracks of tears. Gazing up at her were the big blue eyes of her little brother, Torr. Ferdie snatched up Torr and held the little boy so tight that he had to struggle to breathe.

  “Look,” Ferdie whispered, swinging around to Tod. “Look what I’ve found!”

  TORR

  So many strange things had happened to Torr that seeing Ferdie again did not surprise him at all. “Ma and Pa are in a cage,” he whispered.

  “I know, sweetheart,” Ferdie whispered back. “But Oskie is going to get them out.”

  “Hurry, Oskie,” said Torr, with tears welling up in his eyes. “Before they make them jump in.”

  Ferdie felt sick. “Make them jump into what?” she whispered.

  “The ice,” Torr whispered, his voice hiccupping with sobs. “The ice on that pond thing. It’s really, really deep and they’re going to melt it and make people from our village jump in.”

  Ferdie and Tod exchanged horrified looks.

  “Why?” asked Ferdie.

  “To find something at the bottom,” whispered Torr.

  “How can they possibly find anything?” Ferdie said to Tod. “It must be fifty feet deep at least. They’ll drown. I don’t understand.”

  But suddenly, Tod did understand. She understood now why Aunt Mitza had been hiding, listening to the MidSummer Circle, hearing their secret. She understood that now their secret was known it would destroy most of them. One by one the PathFinders would be thrown in until the guards found a useful one with gills. Even if they had to throw in nine people who couldn’t breathe underwater before they came to one who could, what would that matter? There were plenty to spare.

  But Ferdie—who had yet to go to the Summer Circle and hear the secret—still could not understand. “Torr,” she said, “are you sure about this?”

  “Yes,” said Torr. “Me and my friend, we’ve been listening to the guards. They can’t see us; we’ve been hiding up there.” Torr pointed to a hollow in the rubble behind them, and Tod and Ferdie saw a thin, grubby little boy with long, wavy fair hair crouched like a monkey. They exchanged excited glances—the boy’s arm was casually draped over the broad shoulders of a large black panther.

  “He’s Willum,” Torr whispered, and William Heap flashed them a white-toothed smile. “Willum put dirt on my hair and my face so they didn’t know I should go in the cage. And now he’s found a panther. I want one too. If we had lots of panthers we could attack the guards and—oh! Look!” Torr pointed up to the balcony.

  Two torches on either side had suddenly burst into flames.

  LUCY

  Ever since Lucy had lost her William, she felt she was living a long, slow nightmare—and now it had reached the part where you wake up screaming. Except Lucy knew she wasn’t going to wake up.

  When they had been marched into Oraton-Marr’s headquarters, Lucy had been horrified to see the Lady sitting at a silver table at the end of the long ice passage. The Lady had coolly checked her timepiece and said, “So, Madam. Your boy’s time is very nearly up.”

  Driffa had caught Lucy as she began to sway. “It will be all right,” Driffa murmured. “Do not fear.”

  But Lucy did fear. And now, as she and Driffa walked behind Oraton-Marr and the Lady, heading for the long blue silk curtain in the little gilded chamber, the Lady’s orders to Drone played over and over in Lucy’s head. “Find the boy called William Heap. Bring him to the Orm Tube. We shall see how he swims.”

  As the curtain was drawn back and Oraton-Marr and the Lady stepped through it, Lucy knew she was going toward something terrible from which there was no escape.

  THE MELT

  The blue curtains at the back of the balcony were suddenly opened and Oraton-Marr sprang out like a jack-in-the-box. A suppressed gasp went through the Chamber of the Orm below, followed by silence as a sense of dread took hold. All eyes were on the balcony. They watched the Lady bustle eagerly out and then saw two young women quickly follow, clearly shoved through the curtains by an officious guard.

  Tod and Ferdie watched Lucy and Driffa blinking into the light, trying to work out what was happening. They saw Lucy squint down at the scene below, and they knew who she was searching for. They longed to be able to tell Lucy that William was with them. That he was safe—or as safe as any of them were.

  Up on the balcony Lucy could see very little. Dust hung in the air like a fine mist and the harsh glare of the overhead ball of light cast deep shadows around the sides where people were gathered. All she could see was the blind white circle of ice on top of the Orm Tube staring up at her.

  But William Heap had no such trouble. The balcony was ablaze with light and he could see everyone up there perfectly. And one of the people he could see was his mother. He leaped up, at once realized his mistake and stopped dead. But he was too late. The Lady had seen him. She turned to the guard behind her. “There is a boy loose on the rubble. Get him.”

  Oraton-Marr was annoyed. The Lady, who was his younger, endlessly annoying sister, was always trying to take over. “Leave the boy,” he snarled. “We have more important things to think about.”

  Behind the Lady, Lucy saw her William for the first time in two long months. She managed to stifle a gasp but her heart began to thud so loudly she was sure the Lady would hear it and realize who the boy was. Her mind began to race, thinking of ways to get to him. She watched him greedily, his blond hair standing out against the dark walls, and soon she saw in the shadows William’s companions. Lucy’s spirits soared. Tod and Ferdie had escaped from the cage, and now they had found William. Lucy’s eyes did not leave her son for a moment, and whenever he dared, William Heap popped his head up just to check that his mother was still there. And she was. William felt safe now. Because unlike Torr, who had seen his parents rendered powerless, William Heap had complete faith that his mother would make everything all right.

  With a pinky-ponk squeak, Oraton-Marr stepped forward to the edge of the balcony. He clapped his hands, and from them came a stream of dark sparkles, which spun into a circle to form a small, black ball. With a powerful overarm throw, Oraton-Marr sent it flying from his hands. All eyes—except for Lucy’s—followed the sphere as it whizzed around the chamber, buzzing like a demented black hornet, and finally came to rest a few feet above the ice of the Orm Tube.

  Oraton-Marr raised his hands and, holding his index fingers at eye level, he pointed them at the hovering sphere. Deep inside a dull orange light began to glow, brightening rapidly so that within no more than ten seconds the sphere looked like a miniature sun, shining an incandescent, dazzling white. Those close could fe
el waves of heat coming from it. The sorcerer stabbed his fingers downward and the white-hot sphere dropped onto the ice with a great hisssssss and began to whiz around in a tight circle. Faster and faster it went, with the ice fizzing and sizzling as it turned into water. Soon all that could be seen was a stream of brilliant light, glimpsed within billows of rising steam.

  From the balcony above came a desperate cry from Driffa.

  “Stop! Please! Stop!” Her voice echoed desolately around the Chamber of the Orm and faded away. Nothing was going to stop now.

  The top of the Orm Tube was now water, but ice was continuing to rise to the surface, sending small waves out across the lapis floor and washing over the feet of those in the cage. Dusty with blue scum, the water bubbled and frothed as the sphere heated its way down through the pillar of ice inside the Orm Tube. It took ten long minutes for the ice to melt, and when the last sliver had vanished in a hiss of steam, Oraton-Marr set the sphere free, sending it shooting up into the night sky to join the stars.

  The sorcerer leaned over the balcony. He gazed eagerly down into the depths of the Orm Tube for a few moments, then turned his attention to the cage full of PathFinders below. He saw the people in it staring up at him, their faces white with fear, and he smiled.

  “Let the diving begin!”

  THE DIVE

  Oskar was still looking for a lock to pick. He had managed to creep behind the guards only to discover that the PathFinders’ cage had no door. It was open at the back and led straight to a roughly hewn tunnel, which was heavily guarded by the spiky guards he had seen in the Far. As he crouched in the shadows wondering what to do, Oraton-Marr’s order rang through the Chamber of the Orm. Oskar felt the bars shudder and heard a harsh clattering sound—he realized that the whole front section was being raised. In the darkness at the back of the cage, someone began to push his way forward.