SandRider (3 page)

PART II

N
INETY
-S
IX
H
OURS TO
H
ATCHING

I
t was just before dawn,
and Spit Fyre was on edge. This was the time when, in the dragon's experience, humans did secret things. From the top of his dune, Spit Fyre had a magnificent view. To the west, a gibbous moon was traveling through the star-dusted indigo sky, dropping slowly to Earth to meet the white ribbon of ocean that glimmered along the horizon. Silhouetted in the moonlight were the squat, square shapes of the port where, some twelve weeks ago, he had made landfall.

To the east, Spit Fyre saw the darkness of a vast, unpeopled desert. He knew that just over the horizon—for he had seen it as he had flown into the port—lay a sprawling city of red stone. A faint glow rose up from it, which at this time of night could easily be mistaken for the sunrise.

But Spit Fyre was not on his dune to enjoy the view. He was there to guard the Egg of the Orm—the egg that he had watched his
Imprintor
, Septimus Heap, pursue only to be struck down by a
Darke Dart
for his trouble. Spit Fyre had no doubt that Septimus would return for the Egg, and when he did Spit Fyre was determined that Septimus would find his dragon waiting. Over the long weeks of watching, Spit Fyre had gradually entered a trancelike state. He had stopped moving, eating or drinking. His scales had become roughened by the sun and caked with sand, and it was now the opinion of those in the camp below that Oraton-Marr had turned him to stone. This suited Spit Fyre well. He would move when the time was right—and not before. It amused him to sit motionless while the occasional brave visitor wandered up to stare at him or even dared to pat his sandy scales. He had been less amused by one of the deckhands poking his belly with a stick, but Spit Fyre had restrained himself. Only his red-ringed, emerald-green eyes moved—and then only when he was sure no one was looking.

The dragon's eyes now surveyed the encampment below, lying in the moon shadow of the dune. It was inhabited by the usual range of humans: some good, some bad and some
who hadn't yet made their minds up which to be. The humans lay sleeping in a motley collection of tents. In the center was a large, circular tent of faded blue covered in silver stars. Like planets orbiting the sun, a scattering of smaller tents was ranged around it, dark colors all bar one, which was white and round like the moon. A well-trodden path led from the tents to a dark pool of water that welled up from a spring in the rocks deep below. In it the dragon saw the reflection of the stars, glittering silver in deep black. Beside the pool were a small vegetable patch, two olive trees, soft succulents and a broad, flat slab of rock where clothes were laid to dry.

Spit Fyre turned his gaze to the moon tent in which he knew lay the Egg of the Orm, accompanied by Mysor, the Apothecary's Apprentice, and Subhan-Subhan, who was known by all as the Egg Boy. The Egg now spent the day covered in hot sand, being turned every hour by the Egg Boy. At night the white tent was erected over the Egg, and Subhan-Subhan wrapped the Egg in furs and slept beside it, conserving its heat, guarding the Egg with his life and—with the help of Mysor—waking to turn it every third hour, until the day it hatched. Only the Egg Boy and Oraton-Marr with their synchronized
Egg Timers
knew when this day would be. Even
the occupant of the Egg was not entirely sure, although it was beginning to feel a strange restlessness.

That night, after its midnight turn, the Orm embryo had added another fold to its flat little brain and it now felt an itch on the end of its stumpy snout where the egg tooth was beginning to break through its skin. It would not be long now.

Outside, the desert air held its breath and Spit Fyre watched, still as stone.

Inside the star tent the stillness was broken by the gentle rise and fall of a large mound of furs, beneath which Karamander Draa, the Apothecary, was sleeping. The only other occupant, the Apothecary's elder daughter, Kaznim Na-Draa, lay wide-awake. Her gaze wandered around the peaceful space she knew as home. A single candle burned in a dish of scented water set in the middle of the rug-strewn floor. Its soft light showed books piled along the sides of the tent, a scattering of cushions around a low table on which a bowl of dates and a jug were set ready for breakfast. The jewel-like glass of blue and green
potion bottles in neatly stacked boxes near the door glinted in the light of the steady flame and looked just like the jelly sweets from the Red City that Kaznim loved so much. She watched her mother's soft breathing for a while but avoided looking at the empty cot set at the foot of her mother's bed. Whenever she thought about her half-sister, Bubba, Kaznim felt as though she had swallowed a small cactus. It
hurt
.

After some minutes gathering her courage, Kaznim sat up, and, with several covert glances at her mother to check that she was still sleeping, she dressed quietly.

As a sliver of orange sun tipped above the distant horizon, Spit Fyre saw a movement in the wall of the star-strewn tent. He saw a small, dark-haired girl in a long red coat wriggling out from underneath the canvas and hopping awkwardly as she pulled on a pair of leather sandals. She set off toward the Egg tent, stopped outside and stood with her head tilted in thought. She slipped off her sandals and then, to the dragon's surprise, she simply faded away. Spit Fyre blinked, wondering if he had just woken from a dream. But the sandals outside the tent told him otherwise.

In her hand Kaznim clutched the
UnSeen Charm
that the sorcerer who had brought the Egg and stolen her little
sister had given her. It was beautifully wrapped inside a pale blue origami bird so that the opal pebble
Charm
formed the fat little belly of the bird. Kaznim loved the bird almost more than the
Charm
, even though she knew the sorcerer had made the bird himself with his own long, thin fingers and sharp, pointed nails. Kaznim knew it was a bribe to get her to spy on her mother. There was no way she would
ever
do that, but even so, she had accepted it because she had loved the little blue bird so much. Kaznim remembered how the sorcerer had presented it to her with the words: “For you, my dear. You can hide from anyone with this—except from
me
.” She had taken the bird and stuffed it deep into her pocket where her mother would never find it.

Kaznim was looking for her tortoise. The Egg Boy had stolen it—she
knew
he had. She did not hold out much hope of finding the tortoise in the Egg tent, but she had to check. Kaznim stood
UnSeen
in the dim hush of the tent and listened to the Egg Boy's snuffles and the slow breathing of the Apprentice. She had never been inside the Egg tent before. Subhan-Subhan had sneeringly said that girls were bad luck inside a hatching tent and besides, her terrified mother had forbidden her from going in.

Now that she was inside, Kaznim did not see what all the fuss was about. The tent was hot and stuffy in order to keep the Egg warm through the cold desert night. All she could see of the Egg was a bump covered in a black fur with the Egg Boy curled around it like a fat white maggot. Her mother's apprentice, Mysor—whose thankless task was to wake the Egg Boy every three hours and bring him anything he wanted whenever he wanted it—was hidden beneath a pile of thick blankets beside the door. Kaznim tiptoed past him and looked at the fur pelt that covered the Egg. She longed to lift it and see the beautiful gold-streaked blue of the Egg's lapis skin, but she did not dare. She reminded herself that she had come for her tortoise, nothing else.

Kaznim dropped to her hands and knees and crawled across the rugs, patting them gently to see if there were any tortoise-shaped lumps. As she had expected, there were none. She got slowly to her feet and looked down at the Egg Boy, thinking that no one would ever guess how spiteful he was when he was awake. As if aware that he was being watched, the Egg Boy stirred and Kaznim stepped hurriedly back—onto something hard. She nearly screamed—
she had trodden on her tortoise
.

Kaznim dropped to her knees with a soft thump and Mysor opened his eyes. She froze, hoping that her
UnSeen
was still working. Mysor stared straight at her and did not react. Kaznim shivered; it was a strange feeling to have someone look through you. She waited until Mysor closed his eyes again and then, terrified of finding a crushed tortoise, she gingerly pushed her hand beneath the rug toward the lump, which was worryingly flat. Her fingers closed around something cold and sharp-edged, and she pulled out a beautiful gold box. Kaznim smiled with relief—it was not a squashed tortoise. The Egg Boy mumbled something in his sleep and Kaznim hurriedly shoved the box into the pocket of her tunic and slipped out of the tent. It served the Egg Boy right, she thought. She
knew
he had taken her tortoise, and so she would take his precious box.

Spit Fyre saw a square of gold float out of the tent and then one of the sandals rise into the air, quickly followed by the other. He watched the sandals walk away as if they had got tired of waiting for their owner, while a lone golden box hovered above them. The dragon closed his eyes for a few seconds and when he opened them the girl had appeared. The sandals were now covered by her feet and the gold box was hidden in a
pocket in her long red coat. Spit Fyre watched the small, slight figure walk away from the encampment and head out into the emptiness of the desert and the sunrise beyond.

Kaznim hurried on, looking carefully for any telltale mounds of sand, which the long, slanting shadows of the sunrise would show. “Ptolemy . . .” she whispered, pronouncing her tortoise's name:
Tollemy
. “Ptolemy, where are you?” Kaznim knew she had to be very alert to have any chance of finding the tortoise. Ptolemy was not big—he fit comfortably in two cupped hands—and he moved fast. Once the sun had warmed the sand he would be awake and off for another day's hike. By the end of the day he would be miles away and lost forever.

Kaznim had looked for the tortoise all the previous afternoon, but when at dusk she had returned tortoise-less to find the Egg Boy putting up the Egg tent for the night, his smirk told her that he had something to do with Ptolemy's disappearance. When Kaznim accused him of stealing her tortoise he had told her that that he had seen Ptolemy out by
“the singing pit.” Kaznim knew at once that the only reason Ptolemy would be so far away and in such a dangerous place was if Subhan-Subhan had actually taken him there. Or was the Egg Boy bluffing—was it a ruse to get her trapped in the sinking sands of the Pit of the Singing Sands? Either way there had been nothing she could do that evening. By now the tortoise would, in his own small way, be doing the same thing as the setting sun—digging himself into the sand for the night. She would never find him, and besides, it was far too dangerous with the sand lions waking for their nighttime hunting. All Kaznim could do was to retreat into the star tent and plan Ptolemy's rescue and her revenge.

And now, she thought as her hand closed around the gold box, she had her revenge. Now the Egg Boy, too, would know how it felt to lose something precious. It served him right.

Kaznim walked quickly across the sand, leaving an unwavering line of footprints in her wake. On the far horizon she saw tall dunes rising like a swelling sea before a storm, dark against the strip of bright dawn sky. A little spooked by the vastness that lay before her, Kaznim turned to look back at her tent and saw the first rays of the rising sun catch its silver stars, sending them shimmering against the faded blue. She
caught her breath. Her home looked beautiful. She thought of the hateful Egg Boy and she wished the Egg would hurry up and hatch so that her little sister would return and he would go away and leave her in peace with her mother, her tortoise, Bubba and Mysor.

Kaznim thought of her mother asleep in her bed of furs. She had left a note using the name she called her mother when no one was listening:

Dear Ammaa,

I have gone to find my tortoise. I will be home soon.

Your daughter,

Kaznim

Kaznim hoped that she would be back with her tortoise well before Ammaa read it. Ever since Bubba had been taken, her mother panicked if Kaznim went anywhere on her own.

The sun was rising fast now and Kaznim broke into a run. She knew she must reach the Pit of the Singing Sands before the warmth of the sun woke Ptolemy. The tortoise moved surprisingly fast, and soon he would look like just another distant rock shimmering in the heat haze. Ten minutes later,
Kaznim had reached the pit. Once again, she looked back at the star tent; it seemed so far away that she felt a twinge of homesickness. She longed to be pulling back the door hangings, stepping into its cool shadows with her tortoise in her arms.
But first, Kaznim
, she told herself firmly,
you have to find him
.

The Pit of the Singing Sands was a large circle of unstable sand—a treacherous place where no one trod for fear of falling through to who knew where. But the early-morning sun made it relatively safe, for the slanting shadows showed where the solid ground beneath the sand abruptly stopped. That morning, the circle of the sand inside was quite a few inches lower than the solid rim and as Kaznim looked at it—hoping that Ptolemy had not decided to bed down there for the night—she saw the grains undulating as though some great beast was stirring below. It took all Kaznim's courage not to turn and run for the safety of the star tent. Heart pounding, she stood back from the edge and scanned the sand, watching for
the telltale upward push of sand that would herald a tortoise greeting a new day.