PathFinder

by Angie Sage

  Tod stared at him, amazed. “How do you know?”

  “It must be,” Nicko said. “It all fits. It’s across the water and it’s got a golden pyramid on the top. Like a roof.”

  “Have you been there?” Tod asked.

  Nicko grinned. “Yes. It’s where my dad works. And some of my brothers.”

  “Nicko has a lot of those,” Snorri said with a wry smile.

  “Yeah.” Nicko said. “I lose count sometimes.”

  Snorri looked at Tod quizzically. She saw a thin, dark-haired girl twisting her elflock in her fingers, staring stonily at the smoking ruins of her village. Snorri knew that sometimes you had to leave the place where you grew up. She put her hand on Tod’s and said, “The Wizard Tower is in the Castle, Tod. The Castle is a fine place, full of good people. This is where Nicko and I are going.”

  Tod twisted her gold-and-silver snake ring. She thought of her mother’s wish for her. She thought of the house now wrecked by Garmin and the emptiness that awaited her on the shore. And Tod realized that, for the first time since her father had disappeared, she felt something good—a flicker of hope. She turned away from the devastation of her village and said to Snorri, “Take me with you. Please?”

  GOOD-BYE

  Arms around each other, Oskar and Ferdie stood among the charred remains of their house. Nothing was left but four blackened stilts, the tangled metal reinforcements of the ladder and the old message pipe half-buried in the ground. They watched Jerra poking about, picking out a few objects that had escaped the fire. He laid them on the flat stone and surveyed them gloomily. “Three forks, Dad’s old penknife and a couple of fish-gutters. Not much to show for the Sarn household, is it?” Jerra kicked the ground angrily and an acrid cloud of ash rose into the air, sending them all coughing. Then he saw Ferdie’s face, desolate and drawn—this was not the homecoming he had wanted for his little sister. He forced himself out of his anger.

  “But we’ll show them, won’t we, Ferdie? We’ll build the house just how it was before. And Mum, Dad and Torr will be back soon and we’ll all be fine. Hey, Annar!”

  Annar arrived, breathless. Jerra put his arm around her. “Annar and I want to build a house here too. Down by the marsh so that Annar can see the Trading Post lights at night.”

  “Build a house? Together?” Oskar and Ferdie looked amazed.

  “Yes. We are very happy together,” Annar said.

  “Yes,” said Jerra. “We are.”

  Ferdie and Oskar looked at each other—suddenly the Sarn family felt different. Oskar wasn’t sure if he liked the difference, but Ferdie hugged Jerra, then more shyly, Annar. “That’s lovely,” she said. “I can’t wait for Mum and Dad and Torr to come back. They’ll be so excited.”

  “Thank you, Ferdie,” Annar said with a bashful smile. “But I came to tell you, there is a meeting. There is a house with green shutters at the far end of a track. They missed that one. People are going there now.”

  “That’s Tod’s house!” exclaimed Oskar. “Oh, Jerra, do you think she’d stay if she knew her house was okay?”

  Jerra shook his head. “I don’t think so, Oskie. There are bad memories here for Tod. She wants a new start.”

  “But Tod loves her house. And now that Aunt Mitza is gone it belongs to her. Oh, please, Jerra, please can we go and tell her? Please? Before it’s too late!”

  Jerra hated seeing his little brother so upset. “We can go if you really want, Oskie,” he said. “But I don’t think it will make any difference.”

  “Please, Jerra,” Ferdie said quietly. “I miss Tod already.”

  Leaving Annar to go on to the meeting, Jerra headed off to the beach with his brother and sister. But as they reached the top of the dunes and looked out to sea they saw the Adventurer’s sails filling with the freshening wind.

  “The tide has turned,” said Jerra. “They’re going.”

  Landsman that he was, Oskar did not understand. He raced down the dune, shouting to Jerra, “Hurry, Jerra! We’ve got to catch them! Hurry, hurry!”

  Jerra and Ferdie caught up with him. “The Adventurer’s caught the wind and the tide together,” Jerra said. “She sails fast. There’s no way Skimmer could catch her. It’s impossible, Oskie. I’m so sorry . . .”

  Oskar was suddenly overwhelmed at the thought he might never see Tod again. He raced back up to the top of the dune, and frantically waving both arms he yelled, “Tod! Wait! Don’t go. Please don’t go! Tod, Tod!”

  From the Adventurer Tod saw Oskar waving at the top of the dune. She waved back.

  “Bye, Oskie,” she whispered. “Good-bye.”

  PART VI

  TO THE CASTLE

  Tod woke early the next morning and, hearing Nicko still snoring in his cabin, tiptoed up the ladder and padded onto the deck. She stopped and took a deep breath—it was beautiful.

  It was just before dawn and through the dim twilight, Tod saw a thin layer of mist hanging over a green river, enfolding the Adventurer in a soft blanket of silence. She stood for some minutes, listening to the peep-peep of river birds and the soft slip-slop of wavelets caused by the dive of a duck. After the restlessness of the sea, Tod was entranced by the stillness of a river. As her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, Tod saw that Snorri and Ullr were already on deck, sitting quietly at the prow. She went forward and sat down beside Snorri and her panther, sleek and black in the darkness—apart from a bright orange tip to its tail.

  Snorri looked up and smiled a welcome. “It is a beautiful morning, Tod,” she whispered.

  Tod smiled. It was beautiful, even though all she could see was the mist surrounding them and the tops of trees poking out of it. But as she settled down next to Snorri, Tod saw a small gap between the mist and the water, which sat green and still. Everything felt so mysterious—just how it should be when you were on your way to a Magykal tower with a golden pyramid for a roof. A sudden plip of a fish breaking the surface made Tod laugh. “It’s so different,” she said. “I’ve never seen a river like this.”

  Between Snorri and Tod lay Ullr: peaceful but watchful, as if waiting for something to happen. Tentatively, Tod rested her hand on Ullr’s back, feeling the strong muscles below the warm, smooth fur. She found it hard to believe that such a powerful beast was also Snorri’s daytime scraggy orange cat.

  The mist was slowly clearing now and Tod could see the sky—a pale greenish yellow—and as she gazed toward a low, flat land Nicko had called the Marram Marshes, the first glow of the sun broke above the horizon and Tod felt a shudder pass through the panther. She snatched her hand away in surprise.

  “Do not be concerned,” Snorri murmured, stroking Ullr’s head. “Ullr is about to Transform.”

  Tod watched the orange tip to the panther’s tail begin to spread, changing Ullr’s fur from black to a brindled orange. With the tide of color, Ullr began to change shape, shrinking before Tod’s eyes so that in no more than a few moments the creature sitting beside her was once more a small orange cat with a black-tipped tail.

  Snorri patted Ullr. “Good morning, little cat,” she said.

  Tod shook her head in amazement. This was the first Magykal creature she had ever been close to. Dimly remembered tales told to her by her mother began to come back to Tod—stories of Magykal Transformations that Dan had laughed about, but Tod had always believed, however strange they had seemed.

  An hour later, after a breakfast of eggs and bacon, the wind freshened and the Adventurer set off up the river once more. Tod sat in the prow, leaning against the bowsprit, watching the green water rushing past. The mist had disappeared in the early morning sunshine and Tod gazed dreamily as the scenery sped by. On the right was farmland with meandering tracks, wide green fields and orchards dotted with round, woolly grazing sheep. It was quiet, but occasionally Tod glimpsed a farmer going about his work or saw smoke emerging from a chimney of an isolated farmhouse.

  On the left of the river a much less welcoming scene presented itself. Ranks of trees crowded
the bank, dark and tall and so thickly set together that Tod could see no farther than a few yards in. Every now and then the distant howl of a creature drifted across the water and set the hair on the back of her neck prickling. But sitting on the Adventurer, Tod felt happily secure. There would be no more lonely, fearful evenings with Aunt Mitza, and although she still had a sad pit of emptiness when she thought of her father, she no longer felt that she was falling headlong into it.

  The hours wore on, and as the sun rose higher in the sky a feeling of nervousness began to creep up on Tod. They were sailing ever deeper into a new country and she could not help but wonder what awaited her in the Castle. What were the people like? Where would she live? And how would she live? Nicko had told her not to worry, that he and Snorri would make sure she was okay, but it began to dawn on Tod that she had only met Nicko and Snorri two days ago. She hardly knew them.

  By the time the Adventurer rounded the last bend and a tall, forbidding escarpment of rock reared up on their left, Tod had some very large and energetic butterflies in her stomach. But when the Adventurer cleared the rock and Tod saw a huge Castle, bright in the sunlight, spread out before her, the butterflies vanished. Sitting on the bowsprit, her feet dangling over the water, Tod watched, spellbound, as the detail of the Castle began to unfold before her—the ancient walls surrounding it, with houses clustered along them, colorful and bright in the afternoon sun. As they drew closer Tod saw a long, low crenelated building of mellow old stone, which Nicko said was the Palace. Its lawns stretched down to the water, where a landing stage sported red-and-white-striped poles with gilded tops. And there, walking across the grass, Tod saw a young woman in red wandering down toward the river. On her head was a circlet of gold that flashed bright in the sun.

  “Hey—Jen!” Nicko yelled.

  The young woman stopped dead. She stared as if in disbelief, then she let out a piercing shriek and broke into a run, hurtling down to the landing stage, waving and yelling, “Nicko! Nicko!”

  “My sister, Jenna,” Nicko said to Tod with a smile. “Very undignified behavior for a Queen, if you ask me.”

  Tod nearly fell off the bowsprit. “A Queen? So you’re a prince?”

  Nicko laughed. “Oh, I must tell Jen that. No, I’m not a prince. It’s not like that.”

  “Hey, Nik!” yelled the Queen, running along the landing stage, her red-and-gold cloak flying out behind her. “Tie up here, Nik!”

  Nicko looked at Snorri. “Okay?” he asked.

  Snorri grinned. “Okay!”

  “Hey-ho,” Nicko said, pushing the tiller across. “Around we go.”

  Tod leaped onto the deck to help Snorri with the sails and the Adventurer swung in gently toward the landing stage, the sails flapping as they lost the wind. Snorri threw the ropes to the Queen, who caught them easily and tied them around the gilded poles, pulling the Adventurer alongside the landing stage as she did so.

  Snorri put down the landing ladder and to Tod’s amazement, the Queen hitched up her long red silk tunic—revealing a pair of very sensible brown leather boots—clambered aboard and threw her arms around Nicko. “Nik, oh, Nicko, you’re back safe after all this time. We thought you were gone forever. Oh, I can’t wait to tell Mum! Oh, Nicko!”

  Suddenly, something caught Tod’s eye—something very big, green and shiny was moving behind a tall hedge on the far edge of the Palace lawns. Tod heard frantic shouting and a young man wearing a leather jerkin came running through a gap in the hedge, dragging a fat hosepipe toward the river. Behind the hedge, flames were rising.

  “Oh,” Snorri said. “It is that wretched dragon. I hope he is not coming near the boat.”

  “Spit Fyre!” the Queen gasped. “He’s set light to the Dragon Kennel. Again. ’S’cuse me”—she flashed an apologetic smile at Tod—“gotta go!” The Queen leaped from the boat and raced toward the flames, but the young man—who Tod rightly took to be the dragon’s keeper—stepped into her path to stop her.

  “Barney, let me pass!” Tod heard the Queen shout.

  The young keeper stepped aside and Tod saw the most magnificent dragon, the sun shining on his smooth green scales, his head held high, his huge, leathery wings slowly moving up and down, rising up into the clear blue sky.

  “Come down, Spit Fyre, you bad dragon!” the Queen yelled, jumping up and down. “Come down right now!”

  Tod saw the dragon tilt his head to one side, as if considering the matter. Then he opened his mouth and a great stream of flame came roaring out, dancing up into the sky. To Tod’s excitement, the dragon swooped down low across the Palace lawns and headed straight toward the Adventurer.

  “No!” yelled Snorri. All on board threw themselves onto the deck but at the last minute, the dragon curved upward, his pale green tummy no more than a few inches above the top of the mast. And then he was gone, flying out across the river, leaving behind a strong smell of under-wing dragon sweat.

  “Come back!” the Queen yelled. “Spit Fyre, come back, you stupid dragon!”

  But Barney Pot, the dragon keeper, knew his charge was not coming back. “Queen Jenna,” he said, “it is seven years now since Spit Fyre grew his adult spurs. He has gone to find a mate.”

  Jenna sighed. “I know, Barney. You did warn me. But we’ll miss Spit Fyre so much.”

  “Aye, that we will,” said Barney. He threw the end of the fire hose into the river and then raced away to start turning the pump, leaving the Queen gazing sadly up at the sky.

  On board the Adventurer, they picked themselves up off the deck and Nicko chuckled. “Welcome to the Castle, Tod,” he said.

  THE PALACE

  Tod spent the rest of the day at the Palace, meeting more new people in one afternoon than she had ever met in her life. By the evening, when Nicko’s family were gathered together in a large room overlooking the lawns that swept down to the river, Tod’s head was spinning. It seemed to her that Nicko had a very large family indeed, and he had introduced her to every one of them. “Except my little brother, who can’t get away from work,” he explained. “You’ll meet him tomorrow when we go to the Wizard Tower.” Nicko smiled. “I’ve booked you in for a tour.”

  They had a noisy, happy supper at a long, narrow table. At either end were Nicko’s mother and father, both with curly straw-colored hair, just like Nicko’s—except a little faded with age. Sarah and Silas Heap were surprisingly scruffy for parents of a Queen, Tod thought. But everything in the Castle seemed a little odd to Tod—surely as the Queen’s parents were still living, they should be the King and Queen of the Castle?

  At supper, Tod sat next to Sarah Heap. Sarah was ecstatic at having her second-youngest son home after four long, uncertain years and she was very talkative. “You see, Alice,” said Sarah—who thought Tod was a very strange name for a girl—“my seven are lovely boys, but boys will be boys. I hardly ever have them all here, safe with me. And for the first ten years I thought my youngest was dead—yes, it was shocking, Alice, shocking, poor little Septimus—and then just as I found him, my eldest, Simon, went a little bit wild. You know, like they do at that age sometimes. And by then my other four were living in the Forest with some very disreputable witches. It was not ideal, I can tell you. And then Nicko got trapped in another Time and I thought I’d never see him again. But he came back eventually, thank goodness.”

  Tod stared at Sarah in amazement, her spoon suspended in midair. She was rendered speechless, which was fortunate, because Sarah Heap still had a lot to say.

  “For a while, Alice, all my boys were doing really well. The twins, Edd and Erik, they were Apprentices at the Wizard Tower. Simon had married a lovely girl, Lucy; Nicko worked at the boatyard; my fourth son, Jo-Jo . . .” Tod saw a flicker of disapproval cross Sarah’s face. “Well, Jo-Jo got himself a job at a very interesting shop here, and my second-oldest, Sam, decided to go out to the Marram Marshes and help young Marwick out there. And of course my youngest, Septimus, he’s always done very well; we’re very proud of him indeed. B
ut nothing lasts, does it? Nicko decided to go over the seas and find his old girlfriend, Snorri—who is a lovely girl, Alice—but he was gone for four whole years. Can you imagine? We thought he was never coming home. And then to top it all off, Sam and Marwick disappeared. Gone. Gone. And now poor little William. I still can’t believe it . . . I was such a proud Grandma . . . oh dear.” Sarah got out a large white handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. “So sad . . .” To Tod’s relief, the flow was stopped by the Queen passing Sarah a bowl of something stodgy floating in custard.

  “Mum! Look, here’s your favorite pudding.”

  While Sarah protested that she couldn’t eat a thing and passed the bowl down to Silas, the Queen turned politely to Tod. “So, Tod, what would you like to do now you have come to the Castle?”

  Tod’s head was spinning and for a moment she had no idea why she was at the Castle at all. And then she remembered Rosie Sarn’s note. “Well . . . my mother wanted me to come to the Wizard Tower.”

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Your mother must realize you have some Magyk about you,” the Queen said.

  “Really?” Tod said, pleased.

  “Yes. You really do have that Magyk something. And I should know—I grew up with whole ton of Magykal brothers, and I can tell.” The Queen shook her head and looked puzzled. “It’s a strange thing. It’s not just the green eyes, it’s something else too. I don’t have it, of course.”

  “But I don’t have green eyes!” Tod said, dismayed.

  Queen Jenna peered at Tod in the candlelight. “So you don’t. But that doesn’t matter.”

  Tod was confused. “But I thought you said you had to have green eyes.”

  “Not right at the beginning,” the Queen explained. “If you have that Magykal thing—whatever it is—then your eyes will begin to turn green when you are exposed to Magyk. And I don’t suppose you had any where you come from, did you?”