SandRider (10 page)

Intrigued, Tod sat down on the bench beside Kaznim—who was still deeply asleep—and looked at the cards. At first glance the drawing on each card looked very similar. They both had the outline of the oval within which a little creature lay. But the pale blue card showed a more simple shape, whereas the red one showed a perfectly formed tiny dragon. Tod gazed at them both for some seconds, and then with a jolt, she realized what she was looking at. It was a cut-through of an egg, and the blue card showed the dragon at an earlier stage of development.
Or was it
, Tod suddenly thought with a stab of excitement,
an
Orm
?

With all traces of sleepiness now gone, Tod took the rest of the cards from the box and spread them out on the bench. She glanced guiltily at Kaznim. Something told her that Kaznim would not approve of this. In the beam of her
FlashLight
,
Tod began to examine the cards, which were numbered from one to twelve. As she concentrated on putting them in order, the
FlashLight
beam strayed onto Kaznim's face. The girl's eyelids fluttered and suddenly she was awake. Kaznim sat up with a start.

“It's all right, Kaznim,” Tod murmured, hurriedly shoving the cards back into the box.

Kaznim stared at Tod, for a moment wondering where she was—and then she remembered. She looked down and saw her box in Tod's hands. “That's mine,” she said. “Give it back.”

“Here you are,” Tod said. “It fell on the floor.”

Kaznim looked at Tod suspiciously, then she checked the box. Something was missing. “My sand!” she cried out, jumping down from the bench. “You've lost my sand!”

Tod realized what the grit actually was. “It fell out,” she said. “There's nothing we can do about it now.”

“Yes there is! We can sweep it up!” Kaznim was distraught. “It's my sand. From home.
My sand
. . .” With that she burst into tears.

Tod kneeled down and shone her
FlashLight
beam onto the floor. She was still learning
Basyk Magyk
,
and one of the
simple spells she had read—although not yet practiced—was a
Collecting
spell for small particles. Tod decided to try it. Anything was better than scraping sand off the floor at half past one in the morning with a grumpy little girl eyeballing her.

The excitement of trying some
Magyk
for a real purpose drove the sleep from Tod's fuzzy head. From her Apprentice belt, she took a small piece of ancient
Magyk
paper. She laid it on the floor and placed a grain of Kaznim's precious sand on the middle of it. Then, muttering,
“Like to like together spin, like to like gather in,”
Tod made a circling sign above the paper with her right index finger. There was a small blue flash and the grains of sand began to whizz around in circles. In the beam of her
FlashLight
, Tod saw them heading toward the paper. “Like tiny ants,” she murmured, smiling at her success.

Suddenly the sand stopped its orderly procession toward the paper. The grains began to run around the floor as though they had grown legs. Tod stared at them in dismay. What had gone wrong? And then she realized. She had forgotten that simple spells stay open until their task is done. The spell was now making the sand behave like tiny ants. Relieved that she had not likened the sand to spiders—Tod had a fear
of spiders—she muttered,
“like sand,”
and the procession resumed.

Triumphantly, Tod tipped the sand into Kaznim's gold box. She got no thanks at all. Kaznim snatched the box and looked at Tod with a new suspicion in her eyes. “Where's Ptolemy?” she asked.

“Who?” Tod asked, puzzled.

“My
tortoise
. Where is he? Is he still with Sam? Is Sam all right?”

Tod was relieved that they were on safer ground. “Sam is still very weak. But they took out a piece of a knife blade. Your tortoise is still with him. Dr. Draa says Ptolemy will help Sam get a good night's sleep.”

Kaznim frowned. “That's
my
name,” she said.

“What is?” asked Tod. The
Magyk
had left her and she felt stupid with tiredness.

“Draa. I am Kaznim Na-Draa.”

“What a coincidence. Well, tomorrow when you come and see Sam you will meet Dandra.”

“Dandra?” Kaznim looked shocked.
“Dandra Draa?”
Dandra Draa was a name Kaznim had heard throughout her childhood. And whenever it was said, it was accompanied by
a downward stab of the left thumb—the sign of the Eternal Curse.

“Yes, Dr. Dandra Draa. She's our physician here. She runs the Sick Bay. She is really nice.”

“Dandra Draa is
not
nice,” Kaznim said very determinedly.

“Oh, I'm sure you'll like her when you meet her,” said Tod, thinking what a strange person Kaznim was turning out to be.

“No, I won't,” Kaznim told her. She balled her left hand into a fist, pushed her thumb out and jabbed her fist toward the floor in a movement that was full of hate. Tod stared at Kaznim, shocked. Defiantly, Kaznim returned the stare. And then, spitting out the words one by one, she said, “Dandra Draa killed my father.”

A year ago the Junior Girls' Apprentice Dorm had had a makeover. Each bed now resided within its own private, tented space. Such was the dorm's popularity since the arrival of the tents that Apprentices who would have normally lived
at home now queued up for a chance to “live in the Wizzer,” as they called the Wizard Tower. It was rare for the dorm to have a spare bed, and that night as usual there were none. Tod was so tired that she could not think where else Kaznim could sleep, so she gave up her own bed. Kaznim seemed exhausted by her outburst against Dandra and as soon as she lay down she fell into a deep sleep. Wearily, Tod went to fetch some cushions and a spare quilt—there was enough space in the tent for her to sleep on the floor.

But Tod could not sleep. Her brain refused to switch off and thoughts whirled around her head like a merry-go-round. She lay staring up at the blue and green stripes of the silk that rose up above her, thinking about the cards in Kaznim's box, and about the sand from Kaznim's home. The more she thought, the more she was certain that Kaznim knew all about the Egg of the Orm. Maybe, Tod thought excitedly, she had even seen it.

Tod made a decision—she must show the cards to Septimus.
Right now
. And if she was going to have to be a low-down sneaky pickpocket to get them, then that was what she would be. Stealthily, Tod pulled back Kaznim's quilt and drew the gold box out of the sleeping girl's pocket. Careful
not to spill any of the wretched sand, Tod removed the cards, replaced the box and gently covered Kaznim up again. Then she tiptoed out of the tent into the quiet of the dorm and made her way up to the seventh floor.

Tod burst into the Sick Bay. “Look!” she said. “Look what I found!”

Six Heaps sitting around the central desk looked up in surprise.

“Tod,” Septimus said wearily, “it is two o'clock in the morning. You should be asleep.”

Tod faltered for a moment. She felt like a child who was being told off for not going to bed. But she remembered what her father used to say to her:
“If you think something is important, Tod, then it is.”
And so Tod pushed the cards into Septimus's hands. “Can you
Feel
something?” she asked.

Septimus held the cards and was still for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “It's faint. But I can
Feel
. . . echoes of
Magyk
. But not our
Magyk
.”

Tod was excited that Septimus could
Feel
it too. Her confidence grew. “So now spread the cards out so that they run one to twelve, picture side up,” she told him.

Septimus was amused that his new Apprentice had
suddenly turned teacher. Obediently, he did as he was told so that a rainbow of cards ran across the desk.

“Cool card game,” said Jo-Jo. “We should get some like that for the Grot.” “The Grot” was the slang name for Gothyk Grotto, the shop where Jo-Jo worked.

“They're not pretend,” Tod said scathingly. “They're for real.” But Jo-Jo had sowed a seed of doubt and Tod began to be afraid that these might indeed be some kind of game.

“They belong to the little girl who came with Sam and Marwick,” Septimus said. “I saw her playing with them. She did actually tell me they were a card game.”

“Oh,” said Tod. She suddenly felt very foolish. If Septimus too thought they were a game, she had made a really stupid mistake.

Septimus looked up and smiled at Tod. “I didn't believe her. I could see they were more than that. But we had other things to think about right then. Well done, Tod. I was wondering how to get a closer look without upsetting her.” He examined the cards one by one, peering closely at each diagram detailing a growing embryo unfolding like a bud.

Nicko, the seafaring brother, spoke. “They're like gulls' eggs,” he said. “I've seen the chick at all these stages.” He
pulled a face. “They taste revolting. You'd be surprised how crunchy the little bones are once it begins to look like a bird. And the tiny feathers get stuck between your teeth. Then, when you try to pull them out they break off and—” He stopped.
“What?”
he demanded. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“Yuck,” said Jo-Jo. “That is authentic
yuck
.”

“The stuff you guys eat at sea is unbelievable,” said Erik.

Nicko shrugged. “You'll try anything when you're starving on a rock,” he said.

Septimus looked up at Tod. “This
has
to be the development of the Orm inside the Egg. Twelve cards, one for each week.”

“And there was sand in the box too,” Tod said excitedly. “She said it was from her home.”

“Well, well, did she now?” Septimus murmured. “Sand from a desert . . . It all fits.” He shook his head. “But
why
has the little girl got them—what is her name again?”

“Kaznim Na-Draa,” Tod said.

“Draa,” said Septimus. “Strange coincidence. Why she has these with her is a mystery. We will ask her tomorrow.”

“I don't think she'll tell us,” Tod said. She explained what
had happened outside the Sick Bay when the box fell on the floor, leaving out the tirade against Dandra. Recently there had been a campaign in the Wizard Tower against gossip. The catchphrase had been:
Mud sticks
—
so don't throw it
. Tod didn't want to throw any mud against Dandra, someone she admired and liked very much.

Septimus was thinking. “Draa . . . Draa,” he was murmuring. “It all fits. You know that Dandra lived in a desert before she came to us?” He got up and walked over to the Quiet Room. “Dandra, can you leave your patient for a few minutes?”

Dandra woke Marwick so that he could watch Sam and tiptoed out of the Quiet Room. “Alice!” she said very disapprovingly. “What are you doing here? Go back to bed at once.”

“It's all right, Dandra,” Septimus said. “Tod has brought us something rather important. And it won't wait. What do you make of this?” He showed Dandra the rainbow of cards.

“It is the embryonic development of a reptile,” Dandra said. “In the later stages it looks like a dragon, but the early stages are significantly different.”

“We think it is an Orm,” Septimus said.

“Really?” Dandra put on a pair of small spectacles and looked closely at the cards.

“There's stuff on the other side, too,” Tod pointed out. “Like a timetable. Look.” She turned the cards over and spread them across the desk. The back of each card was divided into seven spaces and each space was split into eight. “It's like seven days of the week,” Tod said. “And each day is split into three-hour slots.”

“Like Watches on a boat,” said Nicko.

“True,” Septimus agreed. “Some task that has to be done at regular intervals, maybe?”

“Turning the Egg!” Tod said excitedly. “To keep it moving as though it were in its parent's coils—like it said in the book.”

Septimus nodded. “Yes . . . yes, that would fit very well.”

Tod felt thrilled to be taking an equal part in such an important discussion, and to be listened to because what she was saying actually mattered. She watched Septimus peer at the cards, frowning. She guessed what he was going to say.

“If that is the case,” Septimus said, “then the task is very nearly complete. Look.” Closer examination showed that the first eleven cards had all their boxes ticked. Card twelve—the bright red—had the first three days ticked and the first two boxes for the fourth day. The rest were blank.

Septimus picked up the red card and turned it over. It showed a tiny winged dragonlike creature curled into a ball. Its head was big, its eyes closed and its legs folded beneath its belly, with its tail wrapped around its body. On top of its nose was a pointed spike. “I am very concerned,” Septimus said, “that this is the stage of development that the Egg of the Orm has reached. Which means that we have only . . . sheesh . . .
three days
to find it before it hatches.”

Everyone stared down at the cards. No one spoke. And then Jo-Jo said, “Cool. A baby Orm. That is so
totally
cool.”

“Shut
up
, Jo-Jo,” chorused his brothers.

“Dillop,” added Nicko.

“But it
is
cool,” Jo-Jo protested. “Just think if we had one here. How amazing would that be?”

“Jo-Jo,” Septimus said. “You are, as Nicko pointed out, a dillop. But actually, you have just said something rather interesting.”