“But what if the sea-spiders weren’t eating just any old wood?” interrupted Tom. “Think about it. The old Onion was an ordinary pirate ship.…”
“There was nothing ordinary about her,” growled Cassie.
Tom flushed pink. “I know. I mean she was made of ordinary wood. But the new Onion was moored at Magical North for a hundred years. It changed her into something magical, and just because she’s settled down into a pirate ship now—it doesn’t mean the magic has gone. Her wood is full of it. What do you think would happen to a spider if it ate a hundred times its own weight in magic?”
Cassie twisted the emerald around her neck. “I suppose the spider might grow,” she admitted. She walked to the side of the deck and stared down at the sea, as if wondering what else might emerge.
“Is this what you meant?” Brine asked Tom. “When you said that without dragons, there’s too much magic in the world—and increased magic means increased strangeness?” She hadn’t really believed him before, but if this was what magic did to something as tiny as a sea-spider, maybe Tom was right after all.
Tom tucked his hair behind his ears and nodded. “The books I’ve read say dragons consume magic, so as there haven’t been any sightings of dragons for hundreds of years, well … apart from Boswell”—he gestured at the dragon who was locked in a tug-of-war over a spider leg with the ship’s cat, Zen—“then the amount of excess magic must have been going up all this time. We could be reaching an unsustainable level.”
Ewan Hughes frowned. “We’re pirates, not scientists. Can you use smaller words?”
“He means giant spiders are the least of our worries,” said Brine. “Unless we do something to reduce the level of magic in the world, this sort of thing is just going to happen more often.”
“More spiders,” said Tom. “And strange weather, and magical creatures … Remember the fish-birds and snow bears from Magical North? Things like that, popping up all over the eight oceans.”
“Right,” said Cassie uncertainly. “So either we find a load more magicians and get them casting spells, or we find more dragons.”
“Dragons,” said Ewan Hughes. “Let’s find dragons. I hate magicians.” He caught Brine’s glare. “All magicians except Peter, I mean.”
CHAPTER 2
SEA-SPIDER CURRY
Take several giant sea-spiders—as many as you can fit in a frying pan. Fry gently with lots of onions and a whole tub of curry powder until you start to choke on the smoke, then fill the pan up with water. Simmer for an hour then serve or throw away.
(from COOKING UP A STORME—THE RECIPES OF A GOURMET PIRATE)
Everybody was so used to Peter needing time on his own that when he climbed down the ladder to the lower level of the ship, nobody commented. That was the best thing about being a magician, he thought. You could do what you liked, and everyone assumed you were busy with secret magicky things.
Of course, being a magician had its disadvantages. Such as everyone’s assumption that if something strange happened, it had to be your fault. And the way the crew kept trying extra hard to be nice to him. As if they thought Peter was on the edge of a mental breakdown and had to be handled as carefully as starshell—in case he cracked and turned them all into worms, like he’d done to the Mother Keeper of Barnard’s Reach. The crew didn’t know Peter still had nightmares about it. He kept telling himself it hadn’t been his fault, but it didn’t make any difference. Because of him, the Mother Keeper was living in a jar, eating leaves, and Tom’s mother was in charge of Barnard’s Reach.
Peter paused at the bottom of the steps in case Brine was planning on following him. Thank goodness she was as irritating as ever. Peter needed that because it felt normal, and right now he didn’t think anything else was ever going to be normal again.
He still wasn’t quite used to the feel of the new Onion. The old Onion had two levels belowdecks, but this ship only had one. Cassie had taken the captain’s cabin at the prow end. Then there was Trudi’s galley, a small workroom, and the sleeping quarters where the pirates took it in turns to occupy the hammocks because there weren’t quite enough of them. And, finally, right at the back, a storage area where wooden crates were stacked up right to the ceiling.
Zen, the ship’s cat, slunk past Peter’s ankles, a well-chewed spider’s leg dangling mustache-like from his mouth. Tom’s messenger seagull opened its eyes, decided that Peter was boring, and then went back to sleep. Peter picked up a lantern and made his way past the hammocks and discarded piles of stripy socks and underpants to the back of the ship. He’d found out that if you squeezed between the third and fourth storage crate—you had to be small to do it—you’d end up in a narrow gap where no one could see you.
It was the closest thing to privacy Peter had been able to find on the ship. He squeezed through, then set the lantern on the floor and sat down next to the light, his back pressed against one crate and his knees squashed up against another. The crew meant well—it wasn’t their fault they kept eyeing him like he was a poisonous blowfish about to explode. They were doing their best, but they were afraid of magic, especially after what had happened with Marfak West.
And yet, if you gathered all their fears together and multiplied them by a million, they still wouldn’t come close to the heart-stopping terror Peter felt every time he thought about casting a spell.
Peter drew in a shaky breath and wiped his hands over his face. He’d gone through this a thousand times. He needed to discover himself again, he thought. He’d been a magician for so long that he couldn’t remember what he was like before—Peter without the magic. He just hoped the crew would give him the time to work it out. Brine, too. Peter had given all his starshell pieces to her, and it had seemed right at the time. But their adventure to Magical North had changed Brine. She was the Onion’s Chief Planning Officer now, and she thought she had to have a plan to fix absolutely everything. She didn’t seem to realize there were some things that just couldn’t be fixed.
Peter nudged the lantern, making the shadows jump. One of them stretched up taller than the rest, and if you stared at it for too long, it began to look like a person. A man, to be precise, tall and bald and wearing a cloak. Peter couldn’t take his eyes off it. Marfak West the magician was dead. Peter knew he was dead because he’d been there when it had happened. He’d watched Boswell’s egg explode in the magician’s hands and blow him to pieces.
Most of all, Peter knew Marfak West was dead because otherwise his ghost couldn’t be grinning down at him right now.
“Well,” said the dead man, “this is very cozy.”
Marfak West looked much the same as he had in life except a little more see-through. A rim of shadow surrounded him, as black as the flecks in his amber eyes.
Peter sat still and said nothing, feeling his heart beating ever so slightly faster.
The first time Marfak West had appeared, Peter had assumed, quite reasonably, that he’d gone insane. After being almost drowned twice, swallowed alive by a whale, and forced to help Marfak West in his attempt to destroy Barnard’s Reach, it was no wonder Peter was seeing things.
“Dragon got your tongue?” asked Marfak West.
Peter brought his thoughts back under control. Marfak West couldn’t hurt him now. “You’re not real,” he said shakily. “I don’t know why you keep hanging around.”
“Because it’s more entertaining than the afterlife,” said the ghost of Marfak West. “I don’t know what you’re fussing about. It’s not like I’ve tried to tempt you to sink the ship or kill Cassie.”
“Yet…” said Peter. And he tried not to think about how much he’d missed this. Even though Marfak West was pure evil. Even though he had used Peter, played on his fears, and taught him magic only so he could betray him later. He’d tortured him and threatened to kill him. And yet his absence had left a gap. When he was with Marfak West, Peter had been able to exercise some part of himself that no one else understood.
Peter stood up. “You’re no
t going to trick me again. If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to tell Cassie about you.”
“Go ahead and tell her,” said the ghost. “Tell her you’ve been having conversations with the man you murdered. Cassie will know what to do. Do they have somewhere safe to lock you up on this ship?” He grinned. “I bet they could build something out of the packing crates for you, and you can go mad all by yourself in the dark.”
“I’m not going mad,” said Peter, hating the uncertainty in his own voice. Mad or not, he knew that Marfak West was right. If Peter told Cassie about this, she wouldn’t care whether he was haunted or hallucinating—she’d make sure someone was watching him every single second. He’d never have a moment to himself. For Cassie, the Onion always came first.
“You shouldn’t blame Cassie,” said Marfak West, almost sympathetically. “Whatever the stories say about her, she’s just an ordinary sailor, and you are a most extraordinary magician. You must be—you killed me, after all.”
Peter punched a crate and immediately regretted it. “Will you stop saying that?” he hissed, rubbing his smarting knuckles. “I didn’t kill you—you grabbed the dragon’s egg and it blew up. It was your own fault.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” said Marfak West. “You can go back to using magic because you’ve only ever used it for safe, happy things, never to hurt or kill.”
Peter looked away from him. Of course he wanted to use magic again. He wanted the feeling of power in his hands, the satisfaction of drawing a perfect spellshape into the air and releasing the spell to do its work. Even more than that, he yearned for the freedom he’d felt when he’d found out that he didn’t need spellshapes, that true magic was all about experimentation and rule-breaking and going as far as his imagination could take him. In other words, to some very dark places indeed.
Peter sighed.
“What’s happened to make you miserable this time?” asked the ghost.
“Nothing’s happened. That’s the problem.” The spiders had been the first thing that had happened in weeks, and it had almost been a relief to have something to do. Brine was bored, Tom was bored, even Cassie was becoming restless, and when Cassie got bored, it was time to get worried.
“Do dragons consume magic?” he asked. “Tom thinks the amount of magic in the world has been increasing and that’s why strange things are happening.”
“You’re a magician. More magic is a good thing.” Marfak West casually leaned back against the crates. Could ghosts lean? Peter wondered. Shouldn’t Marfak West go straight through? He sighed. He definitely had too much time on his hands when he started wondering how the laws of physics governed his delusions.
“You might be interested to know,” said Marfak West, still leaning, “that while you lot have been messing about up on deck, I’ve had a nice chat with the Onion.”
Great. Now his delusion was developing delusions. “You do know that ships can’t talk, right?” said Peter.
“Yes, they can, especially when they’re this full of magic. It’s just that nobody ever takes the time to listen. Given that I’ve got a lot of time and not much to do with it, I’ve been listening.”
Peter tried to look as if he didn’t care. “What’s the Onion been saying, then?”
“Nothing much. Only that you won’t need to worry about boredom for much longer. You know what they say, don’t you? Sail west past Auriga, and first the sea will stop moving and then you’ll fall off the edge of the world.”
That old story again. Peter picked up the lantern. “We’re not going to fall off the edge of the world. The world is a ball—there’s no edge.” Without waiting for an answer, he squeezed out through the crates. A ripple of laughter followed him as he hurried back to the steps.
He stopped at the bottom, looking up at the patch of sky through the hatch. He didn’t want to stay here with Marfak West, but he couldn’t face another round of worried looks from the crew, either.
Something bumped into his knees, then burped fire over his shoes.
“Boswell,” said Peter.
The little dragon nudged at his knees again. Not worried, not wanting him to be something he wasn’t, just wanting some company. Peter sat down against the bottom rung of the ladder and let Boswell clamber onto his lap. “If you eat magic,” he said, “why aren’t you eating the ship?”
Boswell snorted, sounding so outraged that Peter laughed. He stroked the dragon’s head. The dark spot on his palm where the starshell chip was lodged felt cool. He hadn’t cast a spell for so long, the starshell should be buzzing with magic, but he could barely tell it was there. Maybe Boswell really was consuming the excess.
Boswell tried to climb inside Peter’s shirt. When he was newly hatched, he used to fit—Peter still had the claw and singe marks to prove it. Now, the dragon could only get his head and shoulders inside. Not for the first time, Peter wondered what would happen to Boswell when he outgrew the ship.
Peter detached the dragon’s claws from his front. “Don’t worry,” he said, sure that Boswell wasn’t worried at all. “We’ll find Dragon Island for you.”
The light from the hatch dimmed. “Peter?” said Brine. “The crew is busy if you want to come out.”
Peter looked up. “I know the crew’s busy. I’m sitting here with Boswell.”
Brine appeared slightly disappointed that he wasn’t in the middle of a breakdown. Peter wondered whether he ought to tell her about Marfak West, but the ghost was already fading from his mind. Maybe later, Peter thought, once they were safely past the edge of the world and Marfak West was proved wrong. He moved Boswell aside and climbed back up the ladder.
“I was thinking,” said Brine, “if Tom’s right, the starshell in your hand will be overflowing with magic. You ought to cast a spell. Just a simple one to get rid of the excess.”
Sometimes Peter wished there was a spell that could make Brine leave him alone. But he doubted even magic could achieve that. “Honestly,” he said, “I’m fine. Don’t worry.” He looked around for Tom and spotted him scraping spiderweb off the mast and examining it. “Tom, can I borrow one of your books about dragons and magic?”
Tom wiped his fingers on his library robe. “Yes, of course. As long as you promise to take care of it and return it by the due date.”
“The due date? We’re on the same ship. What do you think I’m going to do—jump overboard with it?”
Tom grinned. “Oh, right. I guess we don’t really need the library rules here. I’ll get the whole box for you and you can read whichever ones you like.”
“Since when did you want to read?” Brine asked Peter as Tom scurried off, librarian-like.
Peter gave her a grin. “Since I thought books might be interesting.”
Books were actually a good way to hide in plain view, Peter found. He could sit on the deck in the sun, and, apart from Trudi coming over once to ask if he was reading anything good, everyone left him alone. He didn’t even notice how quiet it had grown until he happened to glance up and he saw that the ship was barely moving.
Cassie was standing at the prow of the ship, gazing into the distance. “I don’t like the look of this sea,” she said as Brine and Peter approached.
The sea looked fine to Peter. It was flat and calm and not doing much, but it wasn’t trying to drown, freeze, or eat them. “It could be worse,” he said, expecting Cassie to agree with him. Instead, she frowned.
“Worse is in the eye of the beholder. When the weather is bad, we can fight it. But no weather at all? That’s a different matter. Without wind, we’re stuck.”
As if to prove her point, the last shred of breeze died, and the Onion glided to a standstill.
Tim Burre gave a moan. “I told you. It’s the great stillness before the end of the world. We’re all going to die.”
CHAPTER 3
Another ship has disappeared in the rectangle of sea between the islands of Acamar and Betria in the Agena Ocean. This so-called Agena Rectangle has now claimed eig
ht ships, all vanished without a trace. Baron Mora of Acamar blames all the magicians who have moved to the island, recently claiming that starshell recharges faster there.
(from STRANGE TIDES: JOURNAL OF THE UNEXPLAINED AND INEXPLICABLE, Submitted to Barnard’s Reach by news-scribe)
Despite Tim Burre’s prediction of doom, the wind was the only thing that died. The Onion bobbed gently on a flat sea, barely making any progress. With nothing else to do, Brine raided the galley for leftover meat and took Boswell up on the main deck for a flying lesson. “Come on,” she said, holding a piece of meat up high. “Come and get it.”
Boswell tried to lick his own backside, overbalanced, and landed on his nose. Then he sat and stared at Brine mournfully until guilt got the better of her and she gave him the meat anyway.
Bill Lightning stopped to watch. “You should take him up to the top of the mast and drop him if you want him to fly. It’s how my dad taught me to swim.”
“Your father threw you from the top of a mast?” said Brine.
Bill grinned and nodded. “Luckily we only had a small boat, so it wasn’t too high. Even luckier still that I landed in the sea and not on the deck, or I’d have gone straight through. Boswell’s a dragon. He’s got to learn to toughen up.”
“He’s the last of his kind, for all we know,” Peter said, looking up from Tom’s books. “If anything happens to him, we’ll have lost the only dragon in the world.”
“We’ll find more. Don’t worry.” Bill slapped her on the shoulder. “He’s probably just a bit young. Try it again in a month if we’re still alive. He’ll learn when he needs to.”
Tim Burre stamped past them. “I told you. It’s the Great Stillness. Either we’ll all die of thirst here, or we’ll start moving again and fall off the edge of the world.”
He sounded pleased to be proved right. If the ship fell off the edge of the world, he probably wouldn’t even notice, Brine thought, he’d be so busy shouting, I told you so!
“If the world ends just after Auriga,” she said, “how can I come from an island farther west?”
The Journey to Dragon Island Page 2
