SandRider

by Angie Sage

  The spider saw what was coming and thought fast. There was a flash of bright yellow light and Tod dropped the tray with a clang. She stared at the window where the flash had come from: the spider had disappeared but in its place were two sets of elegant fingers clinging to the window bar. Suddenly Tod understood. “Jim Knee!” she gasped. She rushed to the window to see the jinnee dangling precariously two hundred feet above the ground.

  “Kindly desist from attacking me with that tray, Apprentice,” Jim Knee said. “I have come to rescue you, if you will allow me to do so.”

  “I am so sorry!” said Tod. “Can I help . . . er, maybe I could pull you inside?”

  “No, thank you,” Jim Knee said. “Before my plan was so rudely interrupted I intended to leave you a thread.” He sighed. “Now I shall have to Transform once again into a nasty little hairy thing with too many legs and a bad attitude. I do not like the way a spider thinks, I can tell you. Right then, I will be off.”

  Tod felt desolate. “Please don’t go, Jim Knee. I am truly sorry.”

  “I’m not leaving you forever, child,” Jim Knee said wearily. “Before my fingers give up, you need to understand what to do. I will leave a thread behind, which will go all the way to the ground. When I am back on the ground I will Transform into myself and attach the thread to a cord. You will then pull the thread up and the cord will come with it. You will loop the cord around the bar and drop it back to me. This is important because once you are on the ground we can pull it all down and no one will be any the wiser. Got that?”

  Tod laughed with relief. “Yes! It’s brilliant. Oh, thank you. And I am so sorry about the tray.”

  “I hope you are. And now I am going to Transform, so please try to restrain yourself.”

  Sheepishly, Tod stepped back. There was another flash of yellow light and once more the spider sat upon the windowsill. The next moment it was gone. Tod rushed to the window and saw it flying down through the air, a thin thread trailing behind it, glinting in the light of the torches burning in the alleyway below. She took the fine, slightly sticky thread between her finger and thumb and wrapped it around the bar, just to be sure.

  While Jim Knee attached the cord below, Tod went to the cupboard and took out the rugs and the bucket. Then she slipped off her cloak, placed its hood over the bucket and rolled up one of the rugs to form the shape of her body. She arranged her “bed” carefully in the shadows opposite the door and stood back to inspect her work. Tod was satisfied. Anyone taking a quick look—particularly a lazy pig like Marissa—would think she was sleeping quietly. Tod drank the rest of the sherbet, put the dates into her pocket and returned to the window.

  Everything worked as Jim Knee had planned. Tod watched the jinnee tie the end of a long length of worryingly thin cord to the spider thread and at a signal from him, she pulled the thread very carefully upward, holding it away from the rough stone of the walls, praying that it would not break. But the jinn spider had spun a particularly strong silk. Soon Tod had the cord looped around the bar and was running it back down to Jim Knee. Now came the scary bit. She had to wriggle out through the gap between the bar and the edge of the window and not fall.

  As Tod climbed out the window, a high, thin bell tolled in the distance. Determined not to look down, she grasped both lengths of the cord, leaned outward—just as she always used to when climbing down the side of her house in the PathFinder village—and began her descent.

  Halfway down Tod very nearly fell off in surprise. A cacophony of chimes all across the city began to strike up. It was the midnight chiming of the thousand Red City clocks—the very moment that Jim Knee had timed his rescue for. The huge variety of chimes filled the air; moderate, mellow tones keeping pace with each other, deep, slow, resonant chimes overtaken by rapid, excitedly tinny chimes. Long and deep, high and fast, doubles and trebles, every clock in the Red City waited twenty-four hours for its moment of glory and made the most of it when it came. They each chimed twenty-four times and were still going when Tod reached the ground.

  To the echoes of the last long, low booms, Tod helped Jim Knee pull down the cord. As they slipped away into the shadows, the jinnee allowed himself a smile. “Perfect. No one will have heard a thing with all that racket going on.”

  In the room at the top of the tower, the door opened and Marissa peered in. “G’night, Alice,” she said. “Sleep well. You’ve got an egg-citing day tomorrow. Ha-ha!” Marissa stared at the unresponsive form for a few seconds. “All right, sulky brat. Be like that, then.” She turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her.

  In the stillness of the room, the bucket fell out of its hood and rolled across the floor.

  MIDNIGHT IN THE COURTYARD

  Ferdie, Oskar and Kaznim were sitting in the chill of the courtyard, wrapped in the discarded wolverine skins. “What’s the time?” whispered Ferdie.

  “You keep asking that,” Oskar said, a little snappily.

  A few seconds later a high, clear chime rang through the night air. “That’s the midnight Harbinger bell,” Kaznim said.

  They listened as the sound of the bell died away. “But it’s not chiming midnight,” Oskar said.

  “Just wait,” said Kaznim. A few seconds later the midnight peals began. The courtyard turned into a bowl of sound and the three sat suspended within it, entranced. As the last deep chimes faded Oskar whispered, “That was so beautiful.”

  They sat in the silence and waited. Nothing happened. “I thought Jim Knee said Tod would be here at midnight,” Ferdie whispered.

  “He did,” Oskar said. And as he spoke, the door to the courtyard opened and in walked Jim Knee and Tod.

  “Tod!” Ferdie and Oskar shouted together.

  “Shh!” hushed Jim Knee. He looked around the courtyard anxiously. “This place gives me the creeps,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  No one needed any persuasion.

  “Kaznim knows the way,” Ferdie told Tod.

  Tod was feeling a little edgy. “I bet she does,” she said. “Just like she knew the way to the ambush at Oraton-Marr’s tower.”

  “Oh, Tod, that’s not fair. Jim Knee explained,” Ferdie protested.

  “Explained that she double-crossed us? He explained that, did he?”

  “Stop bickering,” Jim Knee intervened. “Miss Na-Draa was under a Witch’s Draw. It was not her doing. Anyway, no one is going anywhere with Miss Na-Draa unless she decides to come back to the Forest with us.”

  But Tod had not escaped from Oraton-Marr’s clutches only to run back home. “We’re not going to the Forest,” Tod told the jinnee. “We’re going into the desert to get the Egg of the Orm. You know that, Jim Knee.”

  “I know no such thing,” Jim Knee replied. “My Command is to keep my master’s Apprentice safe.”

  “And to seek out the Egg of the Orm,” Tod told Jim Knee.

  “Indeed. But my Master gave me two separate Commands. And if two Commands are incompatible—which these are, for I cannot seek the Egg of the Orm and keep you safe—the human safety Command prevails. So I am taking you back to the Forest.”

  “I’m not going,” said Tod.

  “Yes, you are.” Jim Knee took a step toward Tod only to find his way barred by Ferdie and Oskar.

  “Are you Commanded to force me to do something against my will?” Tod demanded.

  “Well . . . no. I am not.”

  “But I am refusing to go,” Tod said. “And if you make me go I will fight you. And because you are much more powerful than I am, I shall get hurt. Which is hardly very safe.”

  Jim Knee was shocked. “I would never hurt you, Alice,” he said. He sighed. “You have the luxury of free will. I do not. I gave that away in exchange for my succession of lives. So I will leave you to enjoy your free will and trust that it all turns out as you wish. Farewell.” With that Jim Knee bowed and walked into the center of the courtyard.

  “Wait!” Tod called.

  Jim Knee turned. He had expected a change of heart at the las
t minute. Humans were prone to panicking when left alone, especially young ones. “Yes, Alice?” he asked, a little smugly.

  “Will you wait a moment, please? I want to write a note for you to give to Septimus. To tell him where we are. And where the Egg is.” Tod rapidly scribbled the note and handed it to Jim Knee.

  Jim Knee looked at the note disdainfully. “I am not a Message Rat,” he said.

  Tod pushed the note into the jinnee’s reluctant hand. “This is part of your Command,” she told him. “If you give it to him, I will be safe.”

  With the uncomfortable feeling that Tod had outwitted him, Jim Knee took the note. Then he stepped into the pool of darkness in the center of the courtyard and disappeared.

  WHISTLING IN THE DARK

  “Kaznim,” Tod said, “can you guide us to your tent from here? Please?”

  Kaznim looked at Tod. She did not answer.

  Tod was not surprised. Now that they were in Kaznim’s territory the balance of power had shifted. The Tribe of Three needed Kaznim to take them to the Egg, but Kaznim no longer needed the Tribe of Three to help her get home. She could do that for herself. Now they were nothing more to Kaznim than three people who would place her sister in grave danger if they got their way about the Orm Egg.

  The Tribe of Three exchanged glances. Tod could see that Ferdie and Oskar were thinking the same thing she was. So all were surprised when Kaznim said, “We must follow the stars. Just before dawn, my tent will be beneath the Great Palm of Dora.”

  “Can you see trees in the dark?” Ferdie wondered.

  “It’s a constellation,” Kaznim said.

  “I don’t know that one,” Tod said, puzzled.

  “Our star names are different from yours,” Kaznim said. She frowned. “I hope we do not cross the path of the sand lions.”

  “Sand lions?” Oskar whispered.

  “The lionesses hunt all night at this time of year, for their cubs are growing fast.”

  Oskar and Ferdie exchanged anxious glances. “Maybe we should wait until daylight,” said Oskar.

  “But we have to get to the Egg as soon as we can,” Ferdie said. “Don’t we, Tod?”

  Tod nodded. “I’ve got an idea,” she said. “We might have to wait a bit, but it will be worth it.” She drew out the Wiz’s silver whistle and blew. No sound came but Tod could feel the vibrations in her throat. The whistle had worked.

  Oskar knew what Tod was doing. “It won’t hear you,” he said.

  “It might,” said Tod.

  “What might?” Ferdie asked.

  Tod didn’t want to say, in case nothing happened, which seemed very likely. She reached into her pockets. “Anyone want a date?” she asked.

  They sat in the darkness of the courtyard, eating the stuffed dates supplied by Marissa and listening to the sounds of the nighttime Red City. Once they heard footsteps approaching, but they passed by safely. Another time they heard the shrieks of fighting cats. And then, drifting across the rooftops, came a scream. “Noooooo!”

  “Was that Marissa?” Ferdie whispered.

  “I don’t think so,” Tod said, uncertain. All screams sounded much the same.

  Oskar looked anxiously at the door. “If it was . . . she’ll come looking for you. And this is the first place she’ll come.”

  Ferdie was on her feet, convinced that Marissa was on her way. “Tod, we’ve got go. Now,” she said.

  “I know, I know . . .” Tod said. “But please, just a moment longer. It’s on the way now, I’m sure it—” Tod was cut short by a flash of silver shooting out from beneath the palm. With perfect timing, the Wiz arrived. And behind it, to Tod’s surprise, came the Beetle. Someone had carefully knotted the sleds’ ropes together.

  Ferdie stared at Tod as though she had gone crazy. “What do you want those for?” she asked.

  “To get to the Orm Egg, of course,” Tod said, trying to unknot the intricately joined ropes.

  “Tod, those are sleds,” Ferdie said. “For snow. They can’t run on sand.”

  Tod grinned. “Want to bet on it?” she asked.

  Ferdie gave her friend a quizzical look. “You know something about the sleds that we don’t,” she said. “I can tell.”

  “Well, Oskie knows it too, don’t you, Oskie?”

  “Knows what?” asked Oskar.

  “About the SandRider Charm.”

  Oskar looked blank.

  “It was in that book, Oskie,” Tod told him. “The one that Beetle—I mean the Chief—gave us about the sleds’ history.”

  Oskar looked sheepish. “I didn’t get around to reading it.”

  “Well, you missed something really interesting. The Charm for these sleds actually comes from the desert. Ancient sorcerers used huge sleds for traveling across the sands. They called them SandRiders. And the Beetle and the Wiz are both SandRiders.”

  “Wow . . .” Oskar breathed. “They run on sand?”

  “Yes. Even better than on snow.”

  Oskar grinned. He was suddenly looking forward to the desert a whole lot more. He kneeled down and helped Tod undo the ropes, which were tied in a very complicated knot—the kind that a turtle trader’s wife once used to secure her turtle baskets.

  FIND HER!

  Somewhat unsteadily, Oraton-Marr was on his way back to the tower. The Queen’s banquet had been an exciting taste of many important occasions he knew were to come and he had made a few mental notes on it for the life he was planning for himself in the Castle. He had particularly liked the live ducklings over which scalding-hot orange sauce was poured before the diner. This was most definitely a tradition he intended to start. He could set up a nice little hatchery on the banks of their muddy little river . . .

  Oraton-Marr’s mind traveled back to the earlier events of the day. He had very much enjoyed the ceremony in the Queen’s Square, even though it had been cut short by that monstrous jinnee and the Queen had had to postpone the beheadings. The sorcerer turned his thoughts to another Queen, far away—Jenna, the Castle Queen. She was, the witch had told him, no more than a girl living in a ratty old building that needed pulling down. Well, he’d soon get rid of her and her crumbling old palace. In fact, Oraton-Marr mused, most of the Castle could do with being razed to the ground; the Wizard Tower was the only decent building in it. Once he’d taken charge of that and got the Red Queen installed in a nice new palace, he’d make sure she kept the Castle under control and operating as he wished. He would insist she had a compulsory weekly roll call for all Castle inhabitants to keep them in order and let them know who was in charge. From what he had seen of the Castle in his clandestine visits through a scrappy little arch high above the Moat, the place was a shambles. But the Wizard Tower was another matter. That was very impressive indeed; he certainly would not object to living there . . .

  Oraton-Marr bounced happily along the alleyways, mulling over his plans, looking forward to greeting his Apprentice in her prison. The girl would be quite amenable by now, he thought. He took the narrow ope that led to the side gate of the Queen’s guest tower—known as the Hospitable Gard—and let himself in.

  Marissa was dozing in a chair in the entrance hall. She jumped guiltily to her feet as the door swung open.

  Oraton-Marr frowned. “I hope you have been keeping watch,” he said.

  “I haven’t moved,” Marissa assured him.

  “Well, you can move now,” the sorcerer told her. “I need to sit down.”

  Marissa stepped aside and Oraton-Marr sank gratefully into her chair. He pulled off his spring blades with a sigh of relief and threw them clattering onto the floor. “My feet are killing me,” he muttered.

  After Marissa had brought him a restorative sherbet, Oraton-Marr said, “Right then, let’s have a look at my little key to all the Wizard Tower passwords.”

  After a weary climb, Marissa drew back the bolts and stepped aside to let Oraton-Marr in.

  “Bucket!” She heard him gasp—and then the metallic sound of the bucket being kicked ac
ross the floor. The next moment Oraton-Marr had his hands around Marissa’s neck.

  “Where is she?” he hissed.

  “Erg . . .” Marissa gurgled. The hands were squeezing so hard, she could hardly breathe. Not a moment too soon, Oraton-Marr let go. Marissa swayed with relief. It was all she could do not to fall to the floor, but she understood well enough that to show weakness was dangerous. “It’s no good you getting in a temper,” Marissa told him hoarsely. “She must be here. She’s done some kind of kids’ UnSeen. She didn’t get out past me, I know that.”

  Oraton-Marr was furious. “I can tell you, she is not here. Are you suggesting I cannot See the spell of a child?” he demanded. Marissa wisely refrained from saying that yes, that was exactly what she was suggesting. She watched Oraton-Marr check the room for an UnSeen Tod, but he knew she was gone. He could Hear no human heartbeat. How she had escaped was a mystery, but that did not matter. The mystery only added to her value; the Apprentice was clearly talented. She must be retrieved. He wheeled around to Marissa and screamed into her face, “Find her!”

  The Tribe of Three and their guide were heading toward the distant light of the two torches burning on either side of the Beggars’ Gate, when a high-pitched shriek echoed across the rooftops: “Find her!” They picked up speed and hurried on.

  Inside the Hospitable Gard, Oraton-Marr was—as Marissa observed with dismay—in a panic. How was this sorcerer going to set her up as Witch Mother of the Wendrons if he couldn’t even work out where a stupid kid Apprentice had gone? It was obvious to anyone with half a brain. Marissa, however, was far too clever to use those words to Oraton-Marr.

  “Your Highness.” She coughed tactfully.

  “What?”

  “The Apprentice—I mean your Apprentice—will surely have taken the Forest Way back to her home. I can go after her if you wish.”

  Oraton-Marr tried not to look relieved, even though he felt it. Of course that was where she had gone. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself? Oraton-Marr remembered how the Red Queen had proudly told him that every one of her guest towers contained a windowless dungeon complete with nests of scorpions for the convenience of her guests. “Servants,” she had told him, “can be such trouble.”