Syren

by Angie Sage

Chapter 11 Harborside

  T hat afternoon, while Wolf Boy was trying not to feed Lucy to the Grim, Simon took Maureen's advice. He sat on a bollard on the quayside and stared gloomily across the open space of the harbor front.

  It was a wide, paved area surrounded on three sides by a variety of tall flat-fronted houses. Sandwiched between the houses were a few shops. In addition to the popular Harbor and Dock Pie Shop, there was a small, rundown shop selling artists' materials, a tiny bookshop specializing in maritime manuscripts and Honest Joe's Chandlery. The chandlery took up the ground floors of three adjoining buildings next to the Harbor Master's imposing red-brick house. All manner of ropes, blocks, windlasses, nets, boat hooks, spars and sails tumbled out from its open doors and colonized the harbor front. The Harbor Master was engaged in a perpetual quarrel with Honest Joe, for the chandler's wares often spilled across his impressively pillared front doorstep. Like an attentive audience in the theater, Simon watched the comings and goings across the Quay. He saw the Harbor Master - a portly man wearing a navy jacket with a good deal of gold braid - emerge from his house, pick his way over three coils of rope that lay neatly set out on his doorstep and march into the chandlery. A line of children chattering and clutching their notebooks walked past on their way to the little museum in the Customs House. The Harbor Master - somewhat redder in the face than he had been - came out of the chandlery and marched back into his house, kicking the rope to one side and slamming the door behind him. A few minutes later Honest Joe scuttled out. He recoiled the rope, replaced it on the doorstep and added a few boat hooks for good measure. All this Simon watched with a steady gaze, waiting for the moment when Lucy would walk across the harbor front, as surely she must - eventually. Every now and then, when it grew quiet, Simon stole a glance at a small window at the top of the stucco-fronted Customs House. The window belonged to the attic room that he and Lucy had rented a couple of days ago, after leaving the Castle rather more suddenly than they would have wished.

  It wasn't a bad room, thought Simon. Lucy had seemed really excited when they saw it, talking about how she would paint the walls pink with big green stripes (Simon hadn't been so sure about that) and make some rag rugs to match. They had taken the room right away, and when Lucy had said she wanted to go to the market "just to check out that fun stall with the fabrics and all those ribbony things," Simon had pulled a face and Lucy had laughed. "Yeah," she had said, "you'll only get bored, Si. I won't be long. See you!" And she had blown him a kiss and breezed out.

  No, thought Simon, Lucy hadn't been in a temper. If she had been, he would not have wandered off, happy and carefree, down to the old bookshop in Fishguts Twist to see if there were any Magyk books worth having. He had been lucky and found a very mildewed and ancient Spell Book with the pages stuck together. A suspicious lumpiness had told him that there were still some Charms trapped between the pages. Simon had been so absorbed in extricating the Charms and discovering the delights of his purchase - which was a good one - that he had been surprised to find it was already getting dark and Lucy had not returned. He knew that the market closed one hour before sunset, and his first thought was that she had gotten lost. But then he remembered that Lucy knew the Port far better than he did - having spent six months living and working with Maureen at the pie shop - and a stab of concern shot through him. That night had not been good for Simon. He had spent it searching the dark and dangerous streets of the Port. He had been mugged by a couple of pickpockets and chased by the notorious Twenty-One Gang - a group of teens, many of them ex - Young Army boys, who lived rough in Warehouse Number Twenty-one. At dawn he had trailed back to the empty attic room in despair. Lucy was gone.

  Over the next few days, Simon had searched for her ceaselessly. He suspected the Port Witch Coven and had knocked loudly on their door, but no one had answered. He had even crept around to the back of the house, but all was quiet. He waited outside the house the whole day and Listened. But he had Heard nothing. The place seemed deserted, and eventually he decided he was wasting his time.

  By the time he had talked to Maureen in the pie shop that morning, Simon had convinced himself that Lucy had run off with someone else. He didn't really blame her - after all, what could he offer her? He would never be a Wizard, and they would forever be exiled from the Castle. She was bound to find someone else sooner or later, someone whom she could take home to meet her parents and be proud of. He just hadn't expected it to be quite so soon.

  The afternoon wore on and Simon did not move from his bollard. The harbor front became busy. A flood of officials in navy blue Port uniforms embellished with varying amounts of gold swept across the quayside like a dark riptide. They negotiated around the ambush of boat hooks and rope and poured into the Harbor Master's house for the annual Harbor Moot. Behind them they left the usual detritus of the Port - sailors and shopgirls, fishermen and farmers, mothers, children, dockhands and deckhands. Some rushed by, some sauntered, some dithered, some dallied, some nodded to Simon and most ignored him - but not one of them was Lucy Gringe.

  Still like a statue, Simon sat. The tide rose, creeping slowly up the harbor wall, bringing with it the fishing boats that were being made ready for departure on the high tide later that day. Morosely Simon stared at all who walked across the harbor front, and when it began to empty in the lull before the evening's activity, he stared at the fishing boats and their crew instead.

  Simon did not realize how threatening he appeared to the fishermen. He still had a certain brooding quality to him, and his Magykal green eyes had a commanding stare, which was not lost on the superstitious fishermen. His clothes also set him apart from normal Port folk. He wore some ancient robes that had once belonged to his old Master, DomDaniel - when the Necromancer had been younger and a good deal thinner than he later became. Simon had found them in a trunk and had thought them rather stylish. He was unaware of the effect that the embroidered Darke symbols had on people, even though they were hard to see now that the cloth had faded to a dull gray and the symbols themselves had begun to unravel and fray.

  Most fishermen were too wary to approach Simon, but one, the skipper of the nearest boat - a large black fishing boat named Marauder - came up to him and snarled, We don't want your kind here, ill-wishin' the fishin'. Bog off. Simon looked up at the skipper. The man's weather-beaten face was far too close for comfort. His breath smelled of fish, and his black-button little piggy eyes had a menacing look. Simon got to his feet and the skipper stared belligerently, his short gray hair standing on end as if personally offended. A large vein in his wiry neck throbbed underneath a tattoo of a parrot, making it look as though the parrot was laughing. Simon had no wish for a confrontation. With a certain dignity, he wrapped his tattered robes around himself and walked slowly away to the Customs House, where he trailed up the stairs to the attic room and resumed his watch from the window. The window looked across the quayside, quiet now in the hiatus between the daytime bustle and the nighttime Port life. The only activity worth watching was on the Marauder. Simon saw the skipper yell at his crew - a boy of about fourteen and a thin, shaven-headed man with a nasty scowl - and send them off to Honest Joe's. A tall, bony woman with spiky hair emerged from the Harbor Master's house and went across to the Marauder, where she stood on the quayside, talking intently to the skipper. Simon stared at the woman. He was sure he knew her from somewhere. He searched his memory and suddenly her name came to him - she was Una Brakket, someone with whom Simon had had dealings during an episode involving some bones, an episode he would like to forget. What, he wondered, was Una Brakket doing with the skipper? The boy and the shaven-headed man came back clutching armfuls of rope - the boy carrying so much that he looked like a pile of rope on legs. They were sent back for more, and the skipper's conversation continued.

  Simon thought the skipper and Una Brakket looked like a most unlikely couple, but you never knew. After all, who would have thought he and Lucy. . . Simon shook his head and told himself to stop t
hinking about Lucy. She must have found someone else; he was just going to have to get used to it. He watched Una Brakket hand over a small package, give the skipper a thumbs-up sign and stride off. Not the most romantic of good-byes, thought Simon gloomily - but who cared? Romance was a waste of time. A waste of time or not, Simon could not tear himself away from his window. The shadows were beginning to lengthen and the wind was picking up, sending the occasional pie wrapper skittering across the old stones. On the water the excitement of the high tide was beginning to take effect. The last of the nets were being stowed, and fishermen were beginning to unfurl their sails and make ready to leave. The Marauder already had her heavy red canvas staysail fixed at her stern, and her crew were hauling up her mainsail. Simon felt his eyelids begin to droop. He had had very little sleep since Lucy disappeared, and the soporific feeling of the late afternoon was beginning to catch up with him. He leaned his head against the cold glass of the window and briefly closed his eyes. A chorus of shouts jolted him awake.

  "Hey!"

  "Bad luck - look away, look away!"

  "Cast off, cast off!"

  The crew of the Marauder were frantically untying their last mooring rope and pushing off from the harbor. And as Simon wondered what could possibly be sending them into such a panic, he saw a boy and a girl hand-in-hand, dirty and drenched, come tearing across the quayside. The girl was dragging the boy behind her, her braids flying just like Lucy's always did, and -

  Simon was out the door, leaping down the narrow stairs three at a time, down, down through the tall Customs House he flew, skidding around the corners, scattering the returning line of children and at last hitting the harborside just in time to see his Lucy leap onto the departing Marauder with the barefoot boy at her side.

  "Lu - !" Simon began, but his shout was cut short. A great roar like a furnace came from behind him and something Darke pushed him out of the way. Simon fell through a tangle of ropes, hit his head on an anchor and tumbled into the deep green water, where he drifted down and came to rest on the harbor bed.