Syren (40 page)

“Where’s he gone?” asked Septimus, trying not to panic.
“Where’s the crab?”

“Aah!” screamed Lucy. “It’s here. On the floor. Go away, go
away
!”

A tiny yellow ghost crab was heading for Lucy’s boots.

“Don’t kick it, Lucy.
Don’t kick it!
” yelled Septimus.

Wolf Boy dived to the deck, grabbed the crab between finger and thumb and held it in the air, legs waving. “Got it!” he said.

“Chuck it in the sea,” said Septimus. “Quick!”

Sarah, Silas and Maxie walked into the Wizard Tower courtyard.

Silence fell on the
Marauder
. Hardly daring to breathe, they watched the warrior jinn still emerging onto the beach, waiting for the moment when the relentless march would cease. They
watched, they waited, and
still
the jinn moved forward.

“What is he
doing
?” muttered Septimus.

A small yellow gull broke the surface and flew to the
Marauder
. It perched on the side, shook the seawater from its feathers and went
pop
. Jim Knee, looking somewhat harassed, sat in its place. “I am sorry,” he said. “It didn’t work.”

Sarah, Silas and Maxie went up the marble steps to the silver doors of the Wizard Tower.

“No!” a collective cry rose from the
Marauder
.

Septimus was horrified. He had staked everything on his theory that jinn from gold were more powerful than jinn from lead—and it was
wrong
. “Why?” he asked desperately. “Why
not
?”

Silas said the Password, and the great doors to the Wizard Tower swung open.

“They were Awoken with Darkenesse,” said Jim Knee. “They must be Frozen with Darkenesse. And, whatever you may
think of me, Oh Displeased One, I do not have any Darkenesse in me.”

“None?”

Jim Knee looked offended. “I am
not
that kind of jinnee.”

Wolf Boy reached into the leather pouch that hung at his waist and drew out the decomposing Grim tentacle. Everyone reeled. “Is that Darke enough for you?” he asked.

“I am not even
touching
that. It is revolting,” said Jim Knee. “And, before you command me to take it, Oh Desperate One, I warn you—take care. To command Darkenesse upon a jinnee is a dangerous thing.”

“He’s right, Sep,” said Beetle. “If you command it, you too become part of the Darkenesse, and you will never get rid of it. Implicated, it’s called. He’s not such a bad jinnee after all. Some of them would jump at the chance to Implicate their Master.”

Sarah, Silas and Maxie were in the Great Hall of the Wizard Tower, waiting for Marcia. “Are there builders in the basement?” Silas asked Sarah. “There’s a lot of banging down there.”

Septimus was thinking hard. “Okay…but what if he takes it because he wants to?”

“Then that’s all right,” said Beetle. “You’re not part of it then. But it won’t happen—he doesn’t want to.”

“Jim Knee,” said Septimus, “I wish you to Transform to a gull.”

Jim Knee sighed. There was a yellow puff of smoke and a
pop
. Once more the little yellow gull stood on the gunnels of the
Marauder
.

“Okay, 409,” said Septimus, “show the gull the tentacle.”

Marcia stepped off the spiral stairs and forced a welcoming smile for Sarah, Silas and the malodorous Maxie.

Wolf Boy held his hand out to the gull. The tentacle, rank and putrid, sat in his palm like a fat, juicy sand eel.

The little gull regarded its Master with a mixture of loathing and grudging admiration. It knew what was going to happen, but it couldn’t stop itself. With a swift peck at Wolf Boy’s scarred palms, it sucked up the oh-
so
-repulsive tentacle and gulped it down.

“Nice one, Sep,” said Beetle admiringly.

A massive crash came from inside the broom closet. Maxie growled. Marcia went to investigate.

Heavy with undigested tentacle, the gull took off from the
Marauder
. It skimmed the surface of the sea, searching for the telltale stream of tiny air bubbles that would be floating up from the armor of the final warrior jinn.

The ghost of Tertius Fume Passed Through the broom closet door into the Great Hall of the Wizard Tower.

“Ah, Miss Overstrand,” he said. “We have a score to settle.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, Fume,” Marcia blazed. “But you can get out—now! I won’t tell you again.”

“How true,” said Tertius Fume with a smile. “Indeed, you won’t. One of the many things you will not be doing again, Miss Overstrand.”

He spun around and yelled to the broom closet door, “Kill her!”

The gull stopped in mid-flight. There was a small puff of yellow smoke, the gull vanished and a tiny ghost crab plopped into the water.

Twelve warrior jinn came smashing through the broom closet door as though it were made of paper. In a second Marcia was trapped, surrounded by a circle of swords.

“Run!” she yelled to Silas and Sarah.

The watchers on the
Marauder
waited. Still the jinn marched out from the sea.

Frantically, Marcia began a SafeShield spell, but the Darke in the jinn made her Magyk slow. With the points of twelve razor-sharp blades just inches from her throat, Marcia knew it was too late. She closed her eyes.

A little yellow crab caught the heel of the last warrior jinn.

In an instant, the jinn Froze. Marcia felt the sudden chill in the air and opened her eyes to see twelve swords dulled by a fine, crystalline frosting surrounding her like a necklace. Marcia Shattered them and stepped out of the circle of Frozen jinn, shaking. She found three Wizards lying in a dead faint and Sarah and Silas white-faced with horror. She marched up to the shocked Tertius Fume and told him:

“As I said, I will not tell you again. But I will tell you this, Fume. I shall be taking steps to
Eradicate
you. Good day.”

Jenna heard a distant cheer go up from the
Marauder
. Through Milo’s telescope, she saw the jinn stopped in mid-step, covered with a sparkly sheen of crystal. She swung the telescope back to the
Marauder
—the closest she could get to joining in the celebrations. “Oh, yuck!” she said.

Jim Knee was getting sick over the side of the boat.

T
hat night found Jenna and
Septimus sitting together on what was once again their beach, a little way from a talkative group gathered around a blazing fire. At Jenna’s insistence, Septimus had just finished telling her all that had happened.

“You know, Sep,” said Jenna, “if being Queen means always having to watch everyone else do stuff, I don’t think I want
to be one. You and Beetle get to do exciting things with jinn and Ice Tunnels and sleds while
I
have to sit and politely listen to Milo drone on and
on
. Nicko and Snorri weren’t much better—all they talk about is boats.”

“The Ice Tunnels weren’t that great,” said Septimus. “Believe me.” He looked up and saw a banana-like figure emerge from the sand dunes. “Oh, at
last
—there’s Jim Knee. Excuse me, Jen. I have to talk to him.”

“Oh, go on then, Sep. I know
you
have important things to do,” said Jenna.

“You can come too, Jen. Actually,
he
can come to
us
. Jim Knee!”

Jim Knee wandered over, his doughnut hat swaying as he walked. “You called, Oh Sedentary One?”

“Did you do it?” Septimus asked anxiously.

“It was a battle,” he said, “but I won.” The jinnee smiled. Life with his Master was not turning out to be as tedious as he had feared. “We go back a long way, the Syren and I. I was due a little victory.”

Septimus had a sudden attack of goose bumps. He realized that he was talking to a very ancient being. “Thank you, Jim Knee,” he said. “Thank you. You are…incredible.”

Jim Knee bowed. “I know,” he said, and handed Septimus the small silver phial that Syrah had given him for Spit Fyre. It was ice-cold.

Gingerly, Septimus took the phial between finger and thumb and held it at arm’s length. “Is it Sealed?” he asked.

“Indeed it is, Oh Cautious One. Will that be all? I could do with that nap now. It has been a bit of a day.”

“No, that will not be all,” said Septimus, reminding himself that, however grateful he was, to his jinnee he must appear to be tough and not—as Beetle had recently reminded him—a pushover.

“What else do you wish, Oh Taxing One?”

“Three things, actually.”

“
Three
, Oh Insatiable One? You do realize that three is the maximum number of wishes that may be commanded at any one time?”

Septimus didn’t, but he was not going to admit it. “Three. Number one, I command you to stop calling me silly names.”

Jim Knee sighed. “Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted. Your wish is my command, Oh Great One—I may call you that, may I not? It is standard jinnee practice. Unless you prefer something else, of course.”

“I think,” said Septimus, considering the matter, “I would prefer Apprentice. That is what I am.”

“Not
Senior
Apprentice, Sep?” Jenna teased.

“Can you imagine what he’d make that sound like, Jen? No, Apprentice is just fine.”

Jim Knee sounded resigned. “Very well, Oh Apprentice.”

“I said Apprentice, not
Oh
Apprentice.”

“Very well,
Apprentice
.”

“Number two, I command you to go, as fast as you can, to the far end of the Frozen warrior jinn. I wish to know if they reached the Castle. If they have reached the Castle, you are to inform the ExtraOrdinary Wizard what has happened.”

Normally the jinnee would have protested that this was in fact two wishes, but he felt he was on soft ground. He had not entirely honored the agreement that had released him from the Sealed cell. “The ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Oh G—Apprentice?”

“Yes. You will find her at the Wizard Tower. Tell her I sent you.”

Jim Knee looked uncomfortable. “Ah,” he said, “that reminds me. She asked me to find you and get some kind of Keye…to, um, Seal some tunnels? Quite went out of my
head with all the excitement. I’ll do that now, shall I?”

Septimus could hardly believe what he had just heard. “Marcia asked you to Seal the tunnel? But I don’t understand—how did she know? And how on earth did you meet
Marcia
?”

Jim Knee looked shifty. “Just bumped into her,” he said. “I’ll go now, shall I?”

“I haven’t finished. My third wish is that you return all the jinn to their tubes.”

Jim Knee sighed. It was what he had expected, but that didn’t make it any easier. Never since he had been a slave in the stables of King Augeas had the jinnee faced such a Herculean task—except this time he doubted Hercules would turn up to help.

“Your wish is my command, Apprentice,” said Jim Knee, bowing low. The doughnut hat fell off, he snatched it up, crammed it back on and, mustering his dignity, walked off.

Jim Knee made his way to the first warrior jinnee he had Frozen. The tide was retreating and the seven-foot-long armor-clad figure lay facedown in the wet sand, his arms outstretched, his ax half-buried in the sand, his shield and the silver wings on his helmet caught up with strings of seaweed. At the sight of the indentations from the ghost crab’s claws
still visible in his unprotected heel, Jim Knee allowed himself a half-smile. He was thankful the jinn had not seen him coming, for they would have seen him as he really was—the wild, wall-eyed wise woman of some twenty-five thousand summers who had, mistakenly, she sometimes thought, chosen existence as a jinnee in preference to life as a turtle trader’s fourth wife. The turtle trader’s wife had once had the misfortune to meet the vicious warrior from whom they had been taken, and it was not an encounter Jim Knee wished to repeat.

There was a flash of yellow light, and Septimus saw his jinnee whiz along the line of fallen warriors and disappear into the dunes. He took Syrah’s book from his pocket and anxiously looked at the cover. It now read:

Syrah’s Book

Dedicated to: Julius Pike, ExtraOrdinary Wizard

Septimus smiled—the Syren’s crabbed writing was gone. He looked along the beach, then scanned the dunes.

“You okay, Sep?” asked Jenna.

“Yes, thanks, Jen.
Very
okay, in fact.” He glanced up to the hilltop.

“You expecting someone?”

“Well, I—oh,
bother
,” muttered Septimus.

A figure had detached itself from the group around the fire and was making its way toward them.

“Ah,
there
you are,” said Milo cheerily, settling himself down between Jenna and Septimus. “Mission accomplished, Princess.” He smiled at Jenna fondly. “I picked the rats up, though I would happily have left them stranded on that rock. Why you think the
Cerys
needs its rats back, I really do not know.”

Jenna grinned. “They’ll be leaving at the Port,” she said. “I’ll be arranging a pickup.”

Milo smiled indulgently. “So like your mother. Always some mysterious project going on.” He turned to Septimus. “And you, young man, I cannot thank you enough—you saved my precious cargo.”

“You’re welcome.” Septimus sounded preoccupied.

“
And
he saved the Castle,” said Jenna.

“Indeed, indeed. It was a very clever trick.”

“Trick?” Jenna spluttered indignantly. “Sep doesn’t do
tricks
. It was really brave and clever—hey, Sep, are you okay?”

“Yeah…fine,” said Septimus, glancing back at the dunes once more.

Milo was quite used to people looking distracted when he was talking to them. “Just think,” he said. “Just
think
how different things would have been if I had found this army when I first began searching all those years ago. You, Jenna, would have grown up with your real mother, not with some weird Wizards, and of course you, Septimus, would have spent those precious, never to be recaptured, early years with your own dear parents.”

“The weird Wizards, you mean?” asked Septimus.

“Oh. Oh, no,
no
, of course I didn’t mean that. Oh, dear.” Milo sprang to his feet, glad of a timely interruption. “Well, he
llo
. And who is
this
young lady?”

“Syrah!” gasped Septimus, also leaping up.

Milo suffered a rare attack of sensitivity. “I’ll just go and check on things,” he said, and hurried off toward the fire.

“Hello, Syrah,” said Jenna a little shyly.

“Princess Esmeralda.” Syrah dropped into an awkward curtsy.

Jenna flashed a questioning glance at Septimus. “No, please, I’m not—”

Septimus stepped in. “Syrah, are you all right?”

Syrah looked anything but all right. She was deathly pale; the dark shadows around her eyes looked even deeper and her
hands were trembling. “I am…I think…I am
me
.” She sat down suddenly and began to shake violently.

“Jen,” said Septimus, kneeling beside Syrah, “could you get some water, please—and a HeatCloak too?”

“Of course.” Jenna rushed off.

“Septimus,” Syrah whispered, “the Syren…I do not understand…where…where is she?”

Septimus held out his hand. In his palm lay the silver phial, covered with a fine frosting of ice, which shimmered in the light from his Dragon Ring.

“Here. The Syren is in here,” said Septimus.

Syrah stared uncomprehendingly at the phial. “In
there
?”

“Yes. Sealed in here,” said Septimus. “Syrah, I promise you, the Syren has gone. Forever. You are free.”

“Free?”

“Yes.”

Syrah burst into tears.

The moon rose, and in the distance the two beams of the CattRokk Light shone out across a calm sea. On his Watching platform, Miarr prowled contentedly. He looked out at the island and, as Milo threw another log on the fire, he
saw it blaze up into the night, illuminating the group gathered around it. Miarr smiled and chewed on a dried fish head. For the first time since Mirano’s disappearance, he felt at peace.

On the beach there was peace—but not quiet. The fire crackled and spat with the salt in the driftwood, people chattered and Spit Fyre snuffled and snorted. Septimus had decided that he was well enough to be moved down onto the beach. Spit Fyre was, he thought, becoming a little miserable on his own. The dragon, complete with bucket and bandaged tail, lay on the soft sand just below the sand dunes, gazing at the fire through half-closed eyes, watching Beetle dispensing cups of FizzFroot just out of reach of his tongue. He snorted, stretched his neck and tried to get a little closer. Spit Fyre liked FizzFroot.

Wolf Boy was showing Jenna, Beetle, Nicko, Snorri, Lucy and Jakey how to play Village Chief—a fast-moving game involving shells, scooped out dips in the sand and much shouting.

Septimus and Syrah sat quietly watching the game. Syrah had stopped shivering and had even drunk some of Jenna’s hot chocolate. But she was very pale, and against the bright red of the HeatCloak, Septimus thought she looked almost ghostly.

“How beautiful the
Cerys
looks in the moonlight,” said Syrah, gazing out at the ship, which was ablaze with light as the crew repaired the damaged rigging and set her to rights. “She will be ready to set sail soon, I think?”

Septimus nodded. “In two days’ time.”

“Septimus,” said Syrah, “I do not know how to thank you. I am so happy—all I wished for has come true. You know, I used to dream of sitting here with a group of friends from the Castle around a fire—and now, here I am.” Syrah shook her head in wonderment. “And soon, so very soon, I shall see Julius.”

Septimus took a deep breath. He had been dreading this moment. “Um…Syrah, about Julius, I—”

“Hey,” Wolf Boy called over. “You two want to play Village Chief?”

Syrah turned to Septimus, her green eyes shining in the firelight. “I remember that game. I used to love it.”

“Yep,” Septimus called back. “We’ll play.” He would tackle the Julius question in the morning.

But it wasn’t Septimus who tackled the Julius question—it was Jenna. Later that night as the
swish-swash
of the waves receded, the ancient roads in the sand slowly reappeared,
glistening in the moonlight, and Wolf Boy became Village Chief for the second time, Septimus heard Jenna say to Syrah, “But I am
not
Esmeralda—really I’m not. That was
five hundred
years ago, Syrah.”

Septimus was at Syrah’s side in an instant. “What does the Princess mean?” Syrah asked him.

“She—Jenna—means that…um…oh, Syrah. I am so sorry, but what she means is that you have been on this island for five hundred years.”

Syrah looked utterly bewildered.

Septimus tried to explain. “Syrah, you were Possessed. And you know that when someone is Possessed, they have no sense of time passing. Their life is suspended until the time they are—if they are lucky—DisPossessed.”

“So…are you telling me that when we get back to the Castle, five hundred years will have passed since I was last there?”

Septimus nodded. Around the fire, a fearful hush fell—even Milo was quiet.

“So Julius is…
dead
.”

“Yes.”

Syrah let out a long, despairing wail and collapsed onto the sand.