Syren (17 page)

“Tomorrow we sail,” said Nicko, staring out to sea longingly.

Snorri nodded. “Yes, Nicko. Tomorrow we shall go.”

And so they sat, well into the night, wrapped in the soft blankets that Milo kept in a trunk on deck. They watched as, one by one, the stars disappeared below the incoming bank of clouds. Then, curled up beside Ullr for warmth, they fell asleep.

Above them, the storm clouds gathered.

B
eetle was not sitting in
the most comfortable position in which to ride a dragon. He was behind the wings and on the downward slope toward the tail, which meant that, because Spit Fyre used his tail to control his flight, Beetle found himself moving up and down like a yo-yo. He was, however, tightly wedged between two very tall spines and kept telling himself that there
was no way he could fall off. He did not find himself totally convinced.

After Spit Fyre had taken off, Beetle had twisted around and looked back past Spit Fyre’s massive tail, watching the boats in the harbors grow ever smaller, until they looked no bigger than tiny toys. Then he had concentrated on the twinkling lights of the Trading Post, strung like a necklace along the shore. Beetle had watched them grow ever dimmer and, when the night finally closed in behind them and the last faint glimmer disappeared, a feeling of dread had crept over him. He shivered and pulled his HeatCloak closer, but Beetle knew he was not cold—he was
scared
.

Being scared was not something that had happened to Beetle before, as far as he could remember. He’d had moments in the Ice Tunnels, especially during his first few trips, when he had been a bit uneasy, and he had not felt too great in the frozen forest on the way to the House of Foryx either, but he didn’t think he had ever felt the feeling of dread that was now sitting like a fat snake curled up in the pit of his stomach.

Spit Fyre flew steadily on. Hours passed—which felt like years to Beetle—but his fear did not subside. Beetle now
realized why he felt so bad. He had ridden Spit Fyre before with Septimus on illicit trips out to the Farmlands and once even up to Bleak Creek, which had been extremely creepy. He had even sat exactly where he was sitting now when they had all flown from the House of Foryx to the Trading Post, but he had always flown low and had been able to see the land beneath. Now, in the dark and high up over the sea, the great emptiness all around them overwhelmed him and made him feel as though his life were hanging by a thread. It didn’t help that it was becoming increasingly windy, and when a great gust of wind suddenly caught Spit Fyre and sent him wheeling sideways, the snake in Beetle’s stomach curled up a little tighter.

Beetle decided to stop looking out at the night and focus instead on Septimus and Jenna, but he could only see Jenna—and not much of her. She too was wrapped in a HeatCloak, and the only clue as to who was actually inside it was an occasional long tendril of hair escaping in the wind. Septimus was out of sight, down in the dip of the dragon’s neck and hidden by the broad Pilot Spine. Beetle felt weirdly alone. He would not have been surprised to suddenly find that he was the only one riding Spit Fyre.

Septimus, however, was fine. Spit Fyre was flying well, and even the gusts of wind, which were getting stronger and more frequent, did not seem to bother the dragon. True, Septimus wondered if he could hear distant thunder, but he told himself that it was probably the noise of Spit Fyre’s wings. Even when a sudden squall of freezing rain hit them, Septimus was not too concerned. It was cold, and it stung when it briefly turned to hail, but Spit Fyre flew through it. But it was the sudden
craaaaack
of lightning that shocked him.

With the sound of a million ripping sheets, the lightning snaked out of the clouds in front of them. For a split second, caught in the flash, Spit Fyre shone a brilliant green, his wings transparent red with a tracery of black bones—and his riders’ faces a ghastly white.

Head up, nostrils flaring, Spit Fyre reeled back from the flash. For a terrifying moment, Beetle felt himself slipping backward. He grabbed hold of the spine in front and pulled himself back as Spit Fyre righted himself, put his head down and continued on.

Some of Septimus’s confidence began to ebb away. He could now hear a constant rumble of thunder, and ahead he could see flickering bands of lightning playing across the tops of
the clouds. There was no getting away from it: Milo had been right—they were flying toward a storm.

Jenna tapped Septimus on the shoulder. “Can we go around it?” she yelled.

Septimus twisted around and looked behind, only to see a fork of lightning streak down, narrowly missing Spit Fyre’s tail. It was too late—suddenly the storm was around
them
.

“I’ll take him down…fly near the water…less windy…” was all Jenna heard as the wind snatched Septimus’s words out of his mouth.

The next thing Beetle knew, Spit Fyre was dropping like a stone. Beetle was convinced that Spit Fyre had been struck by a lightning bolt; the snake lying in the pit of his stomach began to tie itself in knots; he screwed his eyes shut and, as the roar of the waves got louder and the salt spray blew into his face, he waited for the inevitable
splash
. When it didn’t come Beetle risked opening his eyes—and wished he hadn’t. A wall of water as high as a house was heading right for them.

Septimus had seen it too. “Up! Up, Spit Fyre!” he yelled, giving the dragon two hefty kicks on the right. Spit Fyre didn’t need to be told—or kicked. He disliked walls of water as much
as his passengers did. He shot up just in time, and the huge wave traveled on below, showering them with spray.

Septimus took Spit Fyre up a little higher so that the dragon was flying just out of reach of the spray and peered down at the sea. He had never seen it like this—deep troughs and rolling mountains of water, their tops blown off by the wind into horizontal streaks of spume. Septimus gulped. This was serious.

“Keep going, Spit Fyre!” he yelled. “Keep going! We’ll be out of this soon.”

But they weren’t out of it soon. Septimus had never before considered how large the storm might be. Storms were always something that passed overhead, but now he began to wonder how many miles wide the storm might actually be, and—more important—was it traveling with them or crossing their path?

They lurched on. The wind howled and the waves roared and crashed like marauding armies, throwing them to and fro in the midst of their battle. Violent gusts of wind snatched at Spit Fyre’s wings, which Septimus was beginning to realize were somewhat flimsy—just thin dragon skin and a lightweight tracery of bones. Every time a squall caught Spit Fyre,
they were thrown sideways or, even worse, backward—which was much more difficult to recover from and left Beetle gasping in terror. Septimus knew that Spit Fyre was getting tired. The dragon’s neck drooped, and beneath his hands Spit Fyre’s muscles felt knotted and weary.

“On, Spit Fyre, on!” Septimus yelled over and over again, until his voice was hoarse. They plunged forward through the wind and the driving rain, jumping at each roll of thunder, flinching with every
craaaaack
of lightning.

It was then that Septimus thought he saw the light of a lighthouse in the distance. He stared, just to make sure it was not another lightning flash, but the glow that lit up the horizon was no flash—it burned steady and bright. At last Septimus felt they had a chance. Remembering what Nicko had told him about the passage home, he changed course and set Spit Fyre heading toward the light—into the teeth of the wind.

At the back of the dragon, Beetle registered the change of course and wondered why, until he caught a glimpse of the light ahead. Suddenly his spirits lifted—it must be the Double Dune Light. Warm and happy thoughts of the welcoming Port not far ahead flooded him, and he even began to hope
that maybe—if they were lucky—the Harbor and Dock Pie Shop might still be open, and one of his cousins could be prevailed upon to give them all a bed for the night.

As Beetle daydreamed about a warm, dry bed and a Harbor and Dock pie, Septimus felt hopeful too, as he was sure the storm was abating. He flew Spit Fyre high once more so that he could get a better view of where they were going.

The light shone brilliantly into the night, and Septimus smiled—it was as he had hoped. There were two lights close together, just as Nicko had described—now he knew where they were. He flew steadily on until he was so close that he could even see the peculiar earlike points at the very top of the lighthouse tower. But as he flew Spit Fyre up a little higher before he made the course change, the storm had its last throw. From directly above, a great
craaaack
of lightning snaked down and, this time, it scored a hit—Spit Fyre was sent reeling. An acrid smell of burning dragon flesh enveloped them as the dragon fell from the sky.

They were sent plummeting toward the lighthouse. And as they fell Beetle came back to reality—he realized that the light was not housed in the ramshackle metal frame of the Double Dune Light but was two lights atop a blackened brick tower
sporting two points that looked, Beetle thought in his terrified state, like cat ears.

As they tumbled toward the sea, Beetle saw that there were no friendly lights of the Port awaiting them. Only blackness.

M
iarr gazed out from the
Watching platform on the CattRokk Light—a lighthouse perched on a rock in the middle of the sea, the very top of which resembled the head of a cat, complete with ears and two brilliant beams of light that shone from its eyes.

Miarr was on Watch—again. At his insistence, Miarr did every night Watch and many of the day Watches too. He did not trust his co-Watcher any further than he could throw him—and
given their huge discrepancy in size, that would not be very far, unless…a small smile flickered over Miarr’s delicate mouth as he allowed himself his favorite daydream—heaving Fat Crowe out of one of the Eyes. Now
that
would be a very long throw indeed. How far down was it to the rocks below? Miarr knew the answer well enough—three hundred and forty-three feet exactly.

Miarr shook his head to clear it of such beguiling thoughts. Fat Crowe would never even make it up to the Light—there was no way he could squeeze through the tiny opening at the top of the pole that led from the Watching platform to the Arena of Light. Thin Crowe, on the other hand, would have no trouble. Miarr shivered at the thought of Thin Crowe squeezing up to his precious Light like a weasel. Given the choice between the Crowe twins—not a choice he ever wanted to make—he would choose the fat one any day. The thin one was vicious.

Miarr pulled his close-fitting sealskin hat down so that it covered his ears and wrapped his cloak tightly around him. It was cold at the top of the lighthouse, and the storm made him shiver. He pressed his small, flat nose to the glass and stared out into the storm, his big, round eyes wide open and
his keen night sight piercing the dark. The wind screamed and the rain whipped against the thick green glass of the Watching platform windows. The two beams of Light picked out the undersides of the black storm clouds, which formed a continuous blanket so low that Miarr was sure the Ears of the lighthouse must be touching them. A silent sheet of lightning passed through the clouds, and the hairs on the back of Miarr’s neck crackled with electricity. A burst of hail spattered against the glass, and he jumped in surprise. It was the wildest storm he had seen in a long time; he pitied anyone out there tonight.

Miarr prowled lightly around the Watching platform, checking the horizon. On a night like this it would be all too easy for a ship to be swept too close to the lighthouse and the danger zone. And if that happened he would have to get down to the rescue boat and try to guide the ship to safety—no easy task on a night like this.

From the tiny sleeping cabin far below, loud catarrhal snores from Fat Crowe echoed through the cavernous stairwell of the lighthouse. Miarr sighed heavily. He knew he needed a helper, but why the Port Harbor Master had sent him the Crowe twins he had no idea. Ever since his fellow Watcher,
his cousin, Mirano—the very last member of his family left, apart from him—had disappeared the night of the first visit of the new supply boat,
Marauder
, Miarr had been forced to share his lighthouse with what he had at the time considered to be creatures little better than apes. Since the Crowes’ arrival Miarr had—out of respect to apes—revised that opinion. He now thought of them as little better than slugs, to which both Fat and Thin Crowe bore a remarkable resemblance.

So now, in the depths of the lighthouse in what had once been his and Mirano’s cozy little sleeping cabin, Miarr knew that Fat Crowe was occupying what had once been
his
comfortable goose-down bunk. Miarr, who had not slept properly since Mirano’s disappearance, growled unhappily. Like all Watchers he and Mirano had taken turns to sleep in the same bed, spending only a few hours each day together when they sat on the Watching platform eating their evening meal of fish before the Change of Watch. Now Miarr slept—or tried to—on a pile of sacks in a chamber at the foot of the lighthouse. He always barred the door, but the knowledge that a Crowe was loose in his beautiful lighthouse meant he could never relax.

Miarr shook himself to get rid of his miserable thoughts—it
was no good brooding about the good old days when CattRokk Light was one of four Living Lights and Miarr had more cousins, brothers and sisters than he had fingers and toes to count them on. It was no good thinking about Mirano—he was gone forever. Miarr was not as stupid as the Crowes thought he was; he did not believe their story that Mirano had been sick of his company and had sneaked away on their boat for the bright lights of the Port. Miarr knew that his cousin was, as Watchers used to say, swimming with the fishes.

Miarr crouched beside the thick, curved window, staring into the dark. Far below he saw the waves building, growing too high for their own strength and then breaking with a thunderous crash, sending great showers of spume high into the air, some even splattering the Watching glass. Miarr knew that the foot of the lighthouse was now under water—he could tell by the deep shudders and thuds that had begun reverberating up through the granite blocks below, thuds that traveled all the way up through the pads of his felt-booted feet to the tip of his sealskin-clad head. But at least they drowned out the snores of Fat Crowe, and the shrieks of the wind carried away all Miarr’s thoughts of his lost cousin.

Miarr reached into the waterproof sealskin pouch that he
wore slung from his belt and brought out his supper—three small fish and a ship’s biscuit—and began to chew. All the while, eyes wide, he Watched the sea, illuminated by the two great beams of light that swept across the heaving mountains of water. It was, he thought, going to be an interesting night.

Miarr had just swallowed the last of his fish—head, tail, bones and all—when he realized just how interesting the night was going to be. Miarr usually Watched the water, for what could there possibly be of interest in the sky? But that night the mountainous waves blurred the boundary between water and sky, and Miarr’s wide eyes took in everything. He was a little distracted by dislodging a fine bone wedged between his delicate, pointy teeth when one of the beams of the Light briefly caught the shape of a dragon in its glare. Miarr gasped in disbelief. He looked again but saw nothing. Now Miarr was worried. It was a bad sign when Watchers began to imagine things—a sure sign that their Watching days were numbered. And once he was gone, who would Watch the Light? But in the next moment all Miarr’s fears disappeared. As clear as day the dragon was back in the path of the beam and, like a giant green moth hurtling toward a flame, it was coming straight for the Light. Miarr let out a yowl of amazement, for now he
saw not only the dragon
but its riders
.

A sudden crash of thunder directly overhead shook the lighthouse, a brilliant snake of lightning streaked down, and Miarr saw the lightning bolt hit the dragon’s tail with a blinding blue flash. The dragon tumbled out of control and, horrified, Miarr watched as the dragon and its riders, outlined in an iridescent mantle of electric blue charge, hurtled straight for the Watching platform. The Light briefly illuminated the terrified faces of the dragon’s riders, then instinct took over and Miarr threw himself to the floor, waiting for the inevitable crash as the dragon hit the glass.

But none came.

Gingerly Miarr got to his feet. The two beams of Light illuminated nothing more than the empty rain-filled sky above and the raging waves below. The dragon and its riders were gone.