SandRider (18 page)

The sight of real
Magyk
had made Darius so in awe of Tod that all he could do was stare.

Aware that the seconds were ticking by fast to the Lead Out, Tod said urgently, “Darius, please. I have to get through.”

“All of you?” Darius whispered.

“Yes. All of us. Thanks!” Tod scooted down Sled Alley and skidded into the Sled Shed to find Drammer Makken standing proprietorially beside the
Wiz
. Drammer looked shocked.

“Thank you, Drammer,” Tod said coolly. “I'll take over now.”

Drammer glared angrily, turned on his heel and stormed out of the shed.

“You cut that fine,” Oskar said. “You had nine seconds left.”

The Lead Out bell rang and the Sled Shed became quiet and tense. Each racer stood by their sled, and as Tod took her place beside the
Wiz
the Chief Hermetic Scribe appeared at the door, impressive in his ceremonial dark-blue-and-gold robes.

Despite his formal dress, Beetle was smiling broadly and looked as excited as any of the racers. He surveyed the lineup and looked particularly fondly at his old Inspection Sled. Under Oskar's care it had become a sleek, low-level racer, and Beetle was impressed. Its rough wood shone with a deep, polished shine and some new and very shiny levers on the front bar promised some slick maneuvers on the racecourse.

Beetle began to speak. Tod listened with rapt attention as he complimented the racers on their sleds and wished them good luck. Tod smiled. She liked the way Beetle looked, how his shiny black hair flopped forward over his eyes, the way he always pushed it back when he was concentrating. She liked the air of seriousness he carried with him too, but today, Beetle had a carefree air that Tod had never seen before. He caught her eye and smiled. Tod smiled shyly back. She was so glad she had not run off to tell Septimus about Kaznim going through the Manuscriptorium Way.

Tod was right, Beetle
was
happy in the Sled Shed. When he needed peace and quiet in which to think, Beetle often retreated there and sat quietly with the sleds. It was not only because he loved the company of sleds, but also because it was the one place in the Manuscriptorium where the ghost of Jillie
Djinn could not go. In life Jillie Djinn had never set foot in the Manuscriptorium boatshed and now she had to obey the rules of ghosthood: “A ghost may only tread once more where, Living, she has trod before.”

It was time for the Lead Out and traditionally, Beetle's old sled led the way, followed by the Wizard Tower sled. Feeling nervous, Oskar took his sled's dark blue rope and set off through the wide sliding door. The frisky sled came bouncing behind him, watched with a fond gaze by the Chief Hermetic Scribe.

Tod followed Oskar along Sled Alley. When all the sleds were out, Oskar stopped and the line drew to a halt. Beetle strode to the head of the procession and then Oskar led off behind him. As they moved through the shadows of Sled Alley in the wake of the dark silk robes of the Chief Hermetic Scribe, everyone fell quiet with the sense of occasion.

They followed Beetle out into the bright whiteness of Wizard Way. The thunderous roar of the crowd burst upon them like a wave, reminding Tod of the time she and her father had once almost lost their boat in the surf. Her thoughts were cut short by a piercing peep of a whistle. The seconds stepped
forward, and when Tod's second—Romilly Badger—helped her guide the
Wiz
onto the grid, Tod felt as though she had been thrown a lifebelt.

“Someone spiked the FizzFroot,” Romilly said. “They've all got a bit silly.”

While the seconds were fussing with the sleds and making sure each was correctly in its grid box, Beetle's distorted voice came through the megaphone.
“Riders for the Apprentice Race, take your places on your sleds!
”

Tod sat on the
Wiz
, untied the whistle and put it into her pocket. She placed both feet on the front bar, took hold of the purple rope and felt Romilly rest her hands on the back bar, ready for the all-important push-start. Tod glanced over at Oskar, who had Colin Partridge as his second. Partridge was bent double like a spring waiting to uncoil.

The riders focused their gaze on the course that stretched out in front of them: a wide, straight line of shiny white ice that disappeared into a sharp right turn at the far end of Wizard Way.

Beetle's disembodied megaphone voice began to count down. “
Get set . . . Three . . . two . . . one . . . GO!”

A massively powerful shove from Romilly took Tod by surprise. The
Wiz
shot forward and set Tod off balance; she leaned slightly to the left and, in a shower of Death Wings, she found herself heading straight for the
Grot
. Tod leaned hard over to the right and pulled the
Wiz
away from the black spiked runners of the
Grot
in the nick of time. To her embarrassment, the
Wiz
continued on its diagonal track, now running fast toward the snow wall that divided the racetrack from the spectators. Panicking a little, Tod leaned too far to the left, the
Wiz
veered away from the wall and careered once again diagonally across the track, heading for the opposite wall. But this time there was no danger of crashing into any sleds—they were all well in front, heading down Wizard Way in a fine spray of ice. As Tod fought to get control of the zigzagging
Wiz
, she became aware of laughter and a triumphant yell from Drammer Makken: “Useless!”

Tod wished the snow would swallow her up. But as the
Wiz
once again shimmied over to the opposite snow wall,
she heard Beetle's voice above the ever-increasing laughter. “Silence! Silence, or I shall restart the race. This is a normal start for the Wizard Tower sled. Do not disturb the rider's concentration.”

Despite most of the spectators knowing that this was most definitely not the normal start for the
Wiz
, they fell silent. The relief from the laughter and Beetle's support gave Tod the clarity she needed. She leaned forward and whispered the words that were written on the little silver wings Septimus had given her when she had become his Apprentice: “Fly free with me.” And then it happened. Tod felt the
Wiz
's energy gather into its very center and at last the sled became balanced. Concentrating hard, Tod steered the
Wiz
into the middle of the track and suddenly, they were off.

A gasp came from the crowd as the
Wiz
shot down the racecourse in a glint of purple and gold, trailing a rainbow spray of minute ice crystals behind. As the last of the six sleds in front shot around the first bend, the
Wiz
was rapidly making up lost ground and the crowd's laughter had transformed to cheers and whoops of excitement. No one had seen the
Wiz
go so fast before, and by the time it, too, had disappeared, it was generally agreed that the Chief Hermetic Scribe had got
it wrong. Tod had been deliberately fooling around in order to give the field a decent chance—and provide an entertaining start to the race in the bargain.

The
Wiz
hurtled down Snake Slipway and as the sled swooped around to the right in a beautifully controlled turn and entered the Moat section of the course, exhilaration swept through Tod. She felt as she did when she was sailing her boat with the wind filling the sails and the white wake of foam running behind, but now—she dared to risk a quick glance behind her—it was a rainbow-colored ice spray.

Tod took the
Wiz
across the track at the Castle bank to take advantage of the inner bend. Here the snow was clear from sled tracks but much deeper. It was now that the effect of Septimus's purple cloth became apparent—the
Wiz
cut through the snow like a hot knife through butter. As Tod leaned into the gentle curve of the Castle Wall, she became aware of cheers from the houses along the Walls and for the first time since the start, she risked a smile. With the swish of the snow loud in her ears, the wind in her hair and the spray curling up behind her, Tod headed past the East Gate Lookout Tower. A line of rats gathered on the roof waved enthusiastically, but Tod had eyes only for what was in front of her. And what she saw made her
laugh out loud—she was catching up. Fast. No more than twenty yards ahead were three sleds:
Grot
and
Spit Fyre
neck and neck with
Sarnie
trailing. A few seconds later the markers for Forest Ramp came into view and she saw Oskar's sled heading across the Moat and up the ramp into the next section of the course. Not far ahead of him was the
Bucket
and in the lead was the
Spurius Fatuus
, raced with a supreme fearlessness. The
Spurius
, Tod thought, would be hard to beat.

It was on the wide Moat course that overtaking was easiest and Tod was determined to take advantage of that—there was no way she was going to be the last one up Forest Ramp. She leaned outward, took the
Wiz
flashing across the tracks of the frontrunners and flew past the
Sarnie
in a shower of spray. Tod settled the
Wiz
into the tracks of the
Grot
and moments later was winging past the
Grot
and then the
Spit Fyre
in quick succession, both of whose riders looked shocked. Then she, too, was zooming up the Forest Ramp to the sound of cheers.

Tod and the
Wiz
were now entering the narrowest part of the course, which the riders called “the trench.” There was really only room for one sled here, two if you were being reckless. The track was U-shaped in profile with banks of snow
so high that all spectators now lost sight of the sleds for some thirty seconds.

Ferdie was watching through a pair of
Enlarging Glasses
that Oskar had borrowed from the Manuscriptorium,
“So that you can see me win, Ferd.”
She saw the
Wiz
disappear into the trench, closely followed by a furious
Grot
, which had edged the
Spit Fyre
off course and into the bank. Ferdie turned her attention to Oskar. Oskar had overtaken the
Bucket
at the top of Forest Ramp and somehow in the confines of the trench he had done the impossible. To her delight, Ferdie saw her twin emerge ahead of Larry's scribe, Doran Drew. The scribe looked wild. She was crouched down on the long, narrow sled, which shone silver against the snow, and was on Oskar's tail, so close that their runners almost touched. They were in the straight that headed to the Forest Pit and the snow was soft and loose. The
Beetle
was throwing up a stream of slush that covered Doran's goggles and every time she ran her hand across to clear them, she lost ground.

“Go, Oskie, go!” Ferdie yelled.

Suddenly a dip hidden in loose-packed snow caught on the
Beetle
's
stumpy runners and threw the sled to one side. Ferdie
gasped. She watched Oskar struggle to pull the
Beetle
back into the smooth center of the course. He managed it well, but Doran took her chance and now the
Beetle
and
Spurius Fatuus
were neck and neck, flying along the long, wide, straight track beside the Forest, heading for the Pit.

Catching up fast was the
Wiz
.

Ferdie put down her
Enlarging Glasses
and leaned out to get a better look at the whole course. Oskar and Doran had just disappeared over Dead Drop, the precipitous slope that went down into the Forest Pit. Ferdie watched the
Wiz
—closely pursued by the
Grot
,
its rider crouched like a cat, his black robes streaming behind him—running down the long straight toward Dead Drop.

The straight was lined on the far side by the outlying trees of the Forest—tall, impassive spectators. As Tod sped beneath their overhanging branches, Ferdie caught a flash of silver from behind one of the trunks. Ferdie was not as technically
Magykal
as Tod, but she had a gift of
Feeling
the presence of people who were—or would be in the future—connected with her. And right then Ferdie
Felt
that there was someone in the Forest, watching. And not in a good way.

Ferdie was right, there
was
a watcher in the Forest. A young witch named Marissa was standing in the shadows of an ancient oak that the Forest witches (known as the Wendrons) called the Guardian, the most outlying of the Forest trees that allowed the witches to
Blend
with its shadow. Marissa wore her old dark green Wendron cloak despite the fact that she had fallen out with the coven and no longer belonged. (Marissa had also been a member of the Port Witch Coven, but she had had enough of them too. She was now what she called “freelance.”) And so, as Marissa stood beneath the Guardian, her long brown hair held back by a plaited leather headband, her Wendron cloak wrapped around her, she was as near to invisible as it is possible to be without an
UnSeen
.

The glint of silver that caught Ferdie's eye came from the collection of silver rings that Marissa wore on every finger and both thumbs—and the reason they glinted was because Marissa's hands were shaking. For the first time in her life, Marissa was scared. Someone had made her an offer that she dared not refuse and she had to double-cross Morwenna Mould, Witch Mother of the Wendron Witches, in order to make it happen. Maybe, Marissa thought as she stood in the
shadows of the Guardian oak, maybe being freelance wasn't such a great idea after all.

Tod was now hurtling toward Dead Drop. As if sensing her trepidation, the
Wiz
slowed and she heard the swish of approaching runners behind—the
Grot
was catching up fast.
“Go-go-go!”
Tod yelled, and the
Wiz
was gone, shooting over the edge of Dead Drop and plummeting down. Tod's breath seemed to be pulled out of her as she fell, and then with a jarring
thump
the runners caught the slope and the
Wiz
was off, shooting across the icy floor of the quarry. Another
thump
from behind announced that the
Grot
, too, had landed and Tod urged the
Wiz
on, gaining ground on Oskar and Doran, who were hurtling across the quarry floor, neck and neck.