PathFinder (World of Septimus Heap)

by Angie Sage

  Tod risked a quick glance backward and saw the Lady for the first time. A large, round woman, with a swathe of silver-and-gold cloth wound around her head and a thick rope of blue stones around her neck, was staring down at them, her blue silk robes billowing in the breeze, her red mouth open in a shout. “Get her!” she screamed. “Get her!”

  Behind them they heard heavy feet pounding down the gangplank. The chase was on.

  THE CHASE

  Ferdie’s feet hardly touched the ground as Tod and Oskar carried her between them, racing along the path that would take them back to the jetty. Behind them they heard their pursuers drawing ever closer, and as they rounded the bend, disaster struck. Their only hope of escape—Nicko and Snorri’s boat—was not there.

  “They’ve gone!” Oskar gasped in dismay. “What are we going to do now?”

  One glance at the water told Tod what had happened. The Adventurer was anchored in the mouth of the creek—Nicko and Snorri had had to move out into deeper water in order not to be stranded by the falling tide. Oskar had slowed down in despair and Tod found that she was dragging not only Ferdie along but Oskar, too. Tod yelled at him fiercely, “Get a move on, Oskie! They’re out in the creek. We can get to the jetty. There’s a rowboat!”

  Now Oskar understood. He picked up speed, but the long dusty path stretched out before them. The jetty seemed a million miles away and Ferdie was tiring fast.

  The pounding of the pursuers’ feet was drawing ever closer. Tod glanced back and wished she hadn’t. Rounding the bend were four sailors in striped Tristan tops, their knives glittering in the sun.

  “Those kids don’t stand a chance,” the lemonade-stall woman said to a customer.

  “Oh!” said her customer. “They’ve got her. They’ve got her!”

  “Got who, ducks?” asked the lemonade seller as her customer sprinted off. “Hey, you forgot your lemonade!”

  Tod saw a familiar figure running toward them and then Jerra was there, sweeping Ferdie up into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. “Follow me!” he yelled, and set off at a run back to the jetty. Tod and Oskar followed him down the steps and Jerra hurried them into a battered red rowboat with Bucket scrawled across her stern. Gently, he lifted Ferdie in, then he and Tod pushed the Bucket into the water and jumped aboard. As they rowed away, their pursuers pounded onto the jetty.

  Tod and Jerra pulled hard, but behind them the pursuit party had piled into a vicious-looking pointed blue boat with TT Tristan engraved upon the stern. They were setting off fast, and both Tod and Jerra knew that four rowers would soon easily outpace one. Meanwhile the Bucket was living up to her name, rocking and twisting in the turbulent waters of the outgoing tide, taking them whirling toward the Adventurer. And their pursuers were rapidly closing the gap.

  Nicko had pulled up the anchor and Snorri was edging the Adventurer toward the Bucket. As soon as they were within range, Nicko threw a rope. Oskar caught it. He hung on tight and Nicko pulled the Bucket alongside the Adventurer. Snorri threw down a ladder and Jerra carried Ferdie up it as fast as he could.

  Craaack! The pursuit boat hit the Bucket and the little rowboat went cannoning into the side of the Adventurer. Undeterred, Jerra was down the ladder again. He hauled Oskar up by his jacket, then helped Tod to scramble up.

  The Bucket did not look pretty, but she was built to last, unlike the thin pursuit boat, which, in the collision, had split from end to end. Immediately TT Tristan began to sink and the four pursuers found themselves ignominiously clinging to the ropes that were looped around the sides of the Bucket, begging for help.

  Nicko loved the Bucket but he knew what he had to do. He cut the rope and set her free. The Bucket was swept into the outgoing tidal stream and as the Adventurer set her sails and headed out to the channel through the sandbanks at the mouth of the creek, the Bucket followed slowly and sadly until one of its four unwilling crew managed to climb aboard and began the long row to the shore.

  Sound travels easily across water, and as the Adventurer left the mouth of the creek and began to carefully pick its way through the sandbanks, Ferdie heard the Lady’s scream drifting down the creek.

  “I want her back! Get her!”

  PART V

  THE ADVENTURER

  As the Adventurer nosed into the deepwater channel that would take them out to sea, Jerra saw something he had not expected to see again—Swan. Annar was waiting for them. Jerra grinned. Suddenly, everything was pretty near perfect.

  Annar waved and brought Swan skimming toward them. Soon she was sailing alongside. “Okay?” she shouted.

  “Yes, yes!” Jerra called down. “We’ve got Ferdie!”

  “Wow!” Annar had not really expected them to find Ferdie. She had not even expected to see Jerra again, so convinced had she been that the Lady would capture them all. But while they were gone, Annar had been determined to do something. “I’ve got Skimmer back!” she called up. “I’ll take you to her!”

  Jerra laughed out loud. Everything was totally perfect now.

  The Adventurer and her crew arranged to meet up with Jerra and Skimmer at Goat Rock later, and then free at last, they set sail. Ferdie sat at the prow with Tod and Oskar, savoring the sun, the salt spray and the heady sense of freedom. No one said a word. They sat with their arms around one another, luxuriating in the feeling of utter happiness and relief.

  They settled down to wait at Goat Rock quay. Nicko and Snorri, with the accustomed patience of those who had been at sea for a long time, occupied themselves with fishing and letting down a lobster pot onto the seabed, but Oskar was more impatient. He borrowed the telescope and climbed Goat Rock to watch for Skimmer, but it was not until dusk was falling that he saw a little green boat with a white sail bringing—to his surprise—Annar as well as Jerra skimming across the waves.

  “No one’s following?” Ferdie asked anxiously.

  Oskar shook his head. “Nope. No one.”

  It was nearly dark and the sea was choppy with the onset of the evening breezes when Skimmer jauntily rounded Goat Rock. The smell of cooking—Nicko was making a fish stew—drifted appetizingly up from below, but Jerra refused all invitations to stay.

  “We’ve got to get back,” he said. “I promised Mum we’d be home by nightfall.”

  Oskar looked dubiously at Skimmer, which seemed very small after the Adventurer. “We won’t all fit in there,” he said.

  “Of course we will,” Jerra said impatiently.

  Ferdie was as hesitant as Oskar. She longed to see her parents, but the thought of five of them in Skimmer out on the open sea in the dark scared her. “Jerra,” she said. “It’s too dangerous. After all this I . . . I just want to get home safely.”

  “Ferdie is right,” said Annar. “Skimmer will be slow and low in the water with five of us. If the wind freshens any more it could be difficult.”

  Tod agreed. “The winds around the headland are always strong at this time of year,” she said. “I don’t think it would be safe.”

  “It would be downright dangerous, if you ask me,” said Nicko. “Snorri and I will bring Tod, Oskar and Ferdie home tomorrow morning.”

  “That is very kind of you, Nicko, but I promised we’d be back tonight,” said Jerra.

  “And you will be, Jerra,” said Annar. “But Nicko is right, it is too risky for more than two people in Skimmer tonight. We will go now; Skimmer will be light and fast and you will soon be home to tell your parents that Ferdie is free.”

  And so Jerra and Annar sailed away. Tod, Oskar and Ferdie watched them until no one could see the white sail anymore, then they went below to large bowls of steaming fish stew.

  GOAT ROCK

  In the early hours of the morning, Ferdie woke. She stared up into the darkness, wondering why the Tristan was rocking and pitching so much. A flash of panic ran through her. What if the ship was sinking? How would she escape, shackled as she was to the floor? Ferdie’s hand found her right ankle, where the hated shackle lay, and to her amazeme
nt, it wasn’t there. She sat up with a start—and then she remembered where she was and a flood of joy rushed through her. Too excited to sleep, Ferdie crawled out from under her blanket and, stepping gently over Tod, climbed up to the hatch, which Nicko had left open to let the air in.

  Tod was suddenly awake, aware that the space next to her was empty. She glanced up and saw Ferdie’s bare foot disappearing through the hatch. Very quietly, Tod tiptoed past the sleeping Oskar and followed Ferdie outside. She found her friend sitting on the cabin roof, gazing up at the beautiful dusting of stars—stars that she had not seen for more than two months. Ferdie smiled at her. “Hey, Tod,” she whispered. “Can’t you sleep either?”

  Tod shook her head and sat down next to Ferdie. The warmth of the late summer’s night, the gentle creaking of the boat and the swish-swash of the swell lulled them into a contented silence. Behind them rose the comforting mound of Goat Rock, hiding them from the OutPost and its sinister creek. In front lay the wide expanse of the sea, and in the distance on the unseen horizon was home. Dreamily, Tod watched the water moving past the anchor chain, entranced by the tiny points of phosphorescence.

  Ferdie could not take her eyes off the sky. “Aren’t the stars beautiful?” she whispered.

  Tod looked up. “They are,” she agreed.

  “They were like this the night . . . the night I was taken,” Ferdie whispered, her nervous fingers playing with the little green dragon that Oskar had jubilantly returned to her.

  “Oh, Ferdie, don’t think about it,” said Tod.

  Ferdie shook her head. “I . . . I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t stop. I keep seeing those horrible white heads. Hearing those clicks . . . I thought it was Oskie fooling around with one of his mechanical things. So I opened the window to see. And then . . .” Ferdie shuddered. “And then I saw them. Huge, white snake heads bobbing . . . I remember one of them jumping up toward me and then something white and . . . and slimy, falling over me, sticking to me like glue and . . . I couldn’t move. I couldn’t shout. I couldn’t even breathe. Everything was so tight. And so, so cold. Like being trapped in ice. Argh!” Ferdie screamed, leaping to her feet. “What’s that?”

  Tod jumped up, heart beating fast. “What?” she gasped. “Where?”

  In the cabin below, Nicko sat up fast and hit his head on the ceiling above his bunk. Snorri managed to fall up the ladder. Two anxious faces appeared at the hatch.

  “What is it?” Nicko asked.

  “There—there’s something up here,” stammered Ferdie, pointing to the prow. “An animal.”

  “Ullr.” Snorri sounded relieved. “Come, Ullr, come and say hello.” The black shape of a panther stood gracefully and padded silently across the deck to Snorri. She patted the panther. “Ullr keeps watch for us at night,” she said.

  Both Tod and Ferdie looked puzzled—where had the panther come from?

  “Your cat is called Ullr too,” Tod said.

  Snorri smiled. “This is my cat,” she said. “Ullr is a Transformer. At night he becomes a panther. In the day he is my little orange cat.”

  Ferdie’s shout had unsettled Nicko. After Snorri, Tod and Ferdie had gone below, Nicko climbed to the top of Goat Rock and for the rest of the night he kept watch, leaving Ullr to guard the boat. He stared out to sea but all was quiet, just the gentle splish-splash of waves slopping up against rock. On the horizon, where Nicko supposed the PathFinder Village to be, he could see a red glow like the first rays of the rising sun—but surely it was too early for sunrise? Nicko frowned. He had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong.

  LETTERS

  The morning dawned clear and bright. Quietly and efficiently, Nicko and Snorri weighed the anchor, raised the sails and were soon away with the rising sun behind them.

  With Snorri at the helm, Nicko brought his FlickFyre stove up to the cockpit. Although Nicko came from an ancient Wizarding family, he found Magyk somewhat boring. He could manage a few simple spells if he needed to, but he was a practical person and preferred to work things out for himself. The FlickFyre stove was one of the few Magykal gifts Nicko had accepted for his voyage, and he had only done so on the grounds of safety. The stove used a flame contained within a Magykal field, which did not allow any sparks to escape and burned steadily whatever the strength of the wind. Ten minutes later Tod, Oskar and Ferdie were up on deck drinking Nicko’s hot chocolate.

  While Oskar and Ferdie talked excitedly about how happy their parents would be to see them home and how amazing it was that Ferdie had actually escaped, Tod sat quietly in the prow of the boat, stroking Ullr, who had now Transformed back into the small orange cat that Tod had first met. Tod watched the flat horizon growing more distinct as the Adventurer swished through the waves, taking her ever closer to home. Except, thought Tod, it didn’t feel like home anymore. What was there left for her back at the village? Nothing more than an empty, wrecked house. And although Tod loved the Sarns and knew that they would insist she live with them, she felt she would always be a stranger. Their history was not hers. And Rosie and Jonas, however lovely they were, could never be her mother and father.

  It was then that Tod realized that she had given up any hope that Dan would come back. She stared down into the fast-running water breaking from the prow and watched her silent tears drop into the salt water below.

  Two hours later, as the Adventurer sailed past the Beacon, her crew saw columns of smoke rising above the dunes. As they drew closer they smelled the acrid scent of burning. Silently, they passed the telescope from one to another and saw to their horror the charred remains of PathFinder houses, black against the clear blue of the sky.

  Snorri came in as close to the shore as she could, turned the Adventurer into the wind so that the boat slowed to a halt and Tod threw out the anchor. The Adventurer swung around on the chain so the prow was facing the shore.

  Minutes later, they saw a flash of white sail and the green prow of Skimmer as she cut through the water, heading toward them. As Jerra drew near, his drawn expression and the soot on his clothes and face told them all they needed to know. Wearily, he took Skimmer alongside, let the sail down and threw a rope to Tod. Willing hands helped him aboard and he collapsed onto the deck. Snorri offered him some clear liquid that smelled of dead leaves. Jerra drank a little, spluttered at the taste and sat up.

  “Fire,” he said. “Almost everything burned to the ground.”

  “But . . . but how?” whispered Ferdie.

  “Garmin—a whole pack,” said Jerra. “They came last night and set fire to the village.”

  Nicko shook his head. “Garmin? How can Garmin use fire?”

  “There were men with them,” Jerra said. “They had some kind of liquid they threw onto the stilts, then they set fire to it with what old Morris-next-door called Fire Sticks and the flames just shot up into the air—twenty, thirty feet high. No one in the attics had a chance.”

  “Was anyone in our attic?” Ferdie asked quietly.

  “It’s all right, Ferdie, no one was in the attic. Mum, Dad and Torr all got away, old Morris said. By the time Annar and I pulled Skimmer up the beach, most of the houses were on fire. We helped put out as many as we could but it was too late. By then they were just charred stumps.”

  Tod shook her head. “Why? Why did they do this?”

  “Revenge,” said Oskar.

  As soon as he said it, Ferdie knew Oskar was right. By escaping from the Lady it was she, Ferdie, who had caused this terrible destruction.

  The Adventurer rocked quietly on the gentle swell and the morning sun sent sparkles dancing on the top of the waves. It was—despite the destruction on shore—a beautiful day. A gust blew from the west and slowly the Adventurer swung around on her anchor chain so that she was facing into the wind—and toward the Castle. Nicko felt a stirring of restlessness. He wanted to set sail right now and take Snorri home.

  His hands sooty and shaking, Jerra fished two crumpled folds of paper out of his pocket. “I found thes
e,” he said. “Mum and Dad stuffed them into the old lead pipe at the bottom of the steps.” Jerra flattened one out on his knee and handed it to Oskar and Ferdie. It was their mother’s writing. Even without reading the words, the hasty pencil scrawl and the sooty smudges told a story.

  Darling Jerra, Oskie, Ferdie,

  In great haste. May you all be safe and with Ferdie. Garmin have come with men and fire. Do not worry, we are all right. A wise woman has come to show us a place where we can be safe for now. We will come back soon.

  Love, Mum xxx

  Ferdie shook her head in despair. She could not believe she had come so close to being reunited with her parents, only for them to be snatched away at the last moment.

  “I want to be with them,” Ferdie said with a sob. “I just want us to be together again. As a family.”

  Tod listened sadly. When Ferdie spoke of family, it made her feel even more alone.

  Jerra held out the other sooty piece of paper. “It’s for you,” he told Tod.

  Tod unfolded it and read the words with a growing feeling of wonder.

  Darling Tod,

  Your mother used to speak of a tower with a golden roof somewhere across the water. She wanted you to go there. This was very important to her, but I don’t know why. Dan was going to tell you on your fourteenth birthday. So I tell you now, just in case . . .

  Love, Rosie x

  Tod was sitting so still, so silent, that Oskar was worried. “Tod, what is it?” he asked.

  Tod read the letter out loud and Nicko and Snorri exchanged glances.

  “Wow,” Oskar said. “I wonder where that is?”

  Tod shook her head unhappily. “I don’t know,” she said. “And there’s no one I can ask now.”