Syren (41 page)

They rowed Syrah over to the
Cerys
and laid her in a cabin. Septimus kept watch all night, but she did not stir. And when the
Cerys
set sail for the Castle, Syrah still lay unconscious in the cabin, so thin and insubstantial beneath the blankets that sometimes Septimus thought no one was there.

Three days later, the
Cerys
drew up alongside Merchant Quay in the Port. The Town Band struck up its usual cacophony, and an excited chattering came from the crowd gathered on the quay. It was not every day that such an impressive ship came into Port carrying a
dragon
—and it was certainly not every day that the ExtraOrdinary Wizard came to meet a ship.

Marcia had caused quite a stir when she had arrived, and comments were flying around the crowd.

“She’s got lovely hair, hasn’t she?”

“Look at that silk lining on her cloak—must have cost a fortune.”

“Not sure about the shoes though.”

“Isn’t that the old White Witch from the Marshes with her?”

“Ooh, don’t look, don’t
look
. It’s bad luck to see a Witch and a Wizard together!”

Marcia listened to the comments and wondered why people thought that wearing ExtraOrdinary Wizard robes made her deaf. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar figure hanging around at the back of the crowd.

“Is that who I think it is?” she said to Aunt Zelda.

Aunt Zelda was much shorter than Marcia and had no idea who Marcia was staring at, but she did not want to admit it. “Possibly,” she said.

“The trouble with you Witches, Zelda,” said Marcia, “is that you never give a straight answer to a straight question.”

“And the trouble with you
Wizards
, Marcia, is that you make such sweeping generalizations,” snapped Aunt Zelda. “Now excuse me. I want to get to the front. I want to make sure Wolf Boy really
is
safe.”

Aunt Zelda pushed her way forward through the crowd while Marcia quickly made her way to the back, the crowd respectfully parting for the ExtraOrdinary Wizard.

Simon Heap saw her coming, but he stood his ground. There was no way he was going to walk away from seeing his Lucy and asking her if she still wanted to be with
him—not even Marcia Overstrand could make him do that.

“Simon Heap,” said Marcia, striding up to him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m waiting for Lucy,” said Simon. “I’ve heard she’s on board.”

“She is indeed on board,” said Marcia.

“She
is
?” Simon’s face lit up.

“There’s no point hanging around here,” said Marcia.

“I’m sorry, Marcia,” said Simon, politely but very definitely. “I’m not leaving.”

“I should hope not,” said Marcia—then, to Simon’s amazement, she smiled. “You get yourself right to the front. You don’t want to miss her.”

“Oh! Well, thank you. I…yes, I will.”

Marcia watched Simon Heap disappear into the crowd. Suddenly a loud voice came from the ship. “Marcia!” Milo had spotted the distinctive purple robes.

The gangplank was lowered and the crowd cleared a path for Milo, who, resplendent in a new set of dark red robes liberally trimmed with gold, cut an impressive figure. He reached Marcia, bowed dramatically and kissed her hand—to the sound
of some cheers and some desultory clapping from the crowd.

Jenna watched from the
Cerys
. “Oh, he is
so
embarrassing,” she said. “Why can’t he just be like a normal person—why can’t he just be…okay?”

“You know, Jen,” said Septimus, “just because Milo isn’t how you think he should be, doesn’t mean he
isn’t
okay. It’s just that he’s okay in a Milo kind of way.”

“Hmm,” said Jenna, not entirely convinced.

Milo was leading Marcia toward the
Cerys
. “Do come aboard. I have a most
precious
cargo to show you.”

“Thank you, Milo,” Marcia replied. “I have arranged for the precious cargo to be taken straight to the Sealed Room in the Wizard Tower, where it will remain indefinitely. Mr. Knee here will be in charge of it.”

Milo looked dumbfounded. “B-but—” he stammered. There was a yellow flash, a faint
pop
and the distinctive shape of Jim Knee materialized. He bowed to Milo and walked serenely up the gangplank of the
Cerys
, where he was nearly knocked over by Lucy Gringe as she hurtled down, braids flying. “Simon!” Lucy was yelling. “Oh,
Si
!”

From the back of the crowd two late arrivals pushed forward.

“Silas,
why
are we always late?” puffed Sarah. “Oh look—there he is. Nicko,
Nicko
!”

Nicko stood at the top of the gangplank, looking out for his parents, ready to meet them at last. “Mum! Dad! Hey!”

“Oh, come on, Silas,
do
,” said Sarah.

“Oh, my…oh, Sarah, he looks so grown up.”

“He’s older, Silas. An awful lot older, if you believe what they say.”

As the hubbub died down, on the quayside a rat stood holding a sign, which read:

R
ATS
!

A
RE YOU

SICK OF SEASICKNESS
?

B
ORED WITH BISCUITS
?

W
EARY OF WEEVILS
?

C
OME TO THE
C
ASTLE AND BE A
M
ESSAGE
R
AT
!

Apply at this notice. Ask for Stanley.

And for once, the rat was doing good business.

G
HOST
S
HIPS

Every now and then, a panic sweeps through the Port that a ghost ship is approaching. The panic is generally unfounded, but there has been at least one occasion when it has not been.

A ghost ship is an actual ship that is inhabited by the ghosts of all crew, passengers and livestock (even seabirds) that were on board at the moment it became Ghostly. No one knows whether these ghosts understand what has happened to them, for they appear to carry on with their lives as usual, sailing the ship aimlessly across the oceans. It is very rare for a ghost ship to actually put into a port, but there is a credible story of one arriving at the Port at the dead of night during a snowstorm some fifty years ago and leaving at sunrise.

A ship becomes a ghost ship by two methods:

A ship may anchor off one of the Spirit Islands at the Dark of the Moon. At the rising of the sun, she will become a ghost ship—and all on board will be ghosts.

A ship may also encounter a ghost ship out at sea. The ghost ship may appear to be asking for help or to be adrift. The Living ship will draw alongside the ghost ship to offer assistance, and as soon as the Living ship touches the ghost ship she—and all on board—will become Ghostly.

There have been incidents of grieving relatives who have chartered a ship in order to catch a glimpse of their Ghostly loved ones from afar and to try to communicate with them. Naturally it is very difficult to charter a ship for this purpose, skippers being a superstitious breed. No Port skipper will accept such a commission since the Incident of the
Idora
, a fishing boat chartered for just such a purpose. The
Idora
actually found the ghost ship it was searching for but was blown alongside it and became one itself.

Beetle’s uncle—then a boy of fourteen—was reputed to have been lured on board the ghost ship that snowy night at the Port, although for years his mother refused to believe it. In her old age she chartered a ship to go looking for her son and
she never returned. The family always believed that she had found her son’s ghost ship and jumped aboard.

T
ERTIUS
F
UME

Tertius Fume had, when Living, once commanded the army of a particularly nasty minor potentate of a small Principality that bordered on the Endless Desert. The potentate had ambitions to be ruler of a considerably larger amount of land and so set about annexing his neighbors. He had little success until he employed a young mercenary by the name of Tertius Fume. Tertius Fume was on the run from his own country after an unpleasant episode that became known as the Great Betrayal, and he was glad of a chance to reinvent himself. He was a charismatic young man whose elaborate stories people wanted to believe—and so very often they did. The potentate gave him his entire army to command (not as impressive as it sounds) and Tertius Fume’s tales about being the youngest general in his own country were put to the test. Due to a combination of luck, recklessness and the fact that all his critics had mysterious and unpleasant “accidents,” Tertius Fume
was considered successful. It was here that he encountered his first platoon of warrior jinn, and it was due to them that he successfully invaded four neighboring castles, always by tunneling beneath their walls or using existing supply tunnels. He became known as the Night Sneak. A scandal caused him to leave his post suddenly, and some years later he arrived at the Castle.

T
HE
L
UCY
G
RINGE

Lucy is very proud of the fact that she now has a fishing boat with red sails named after her. All through the last evening on the island, Jakey had gathered his courage to ask Lucy something, but he was afraid she would just laugh and call him fishbrain. If Beetle hadn’t offered him some FizzFroot, it might never have happened.

FizzFroot was the most amazing thing that Jakey had ever tasted and it gave him an idea. Cup in hand, he went to find Lucy, who was standing by the water’s edge thinking of Simon Heap. Nearby, the
Marauder
was drawn up in the shallows, its anchor dug into the beach. Jakey took a deep breath and
gathered all his courage—more than he had needed for a very long time—and made the longest speech of his life.

“Lucy, I knows yer won’t come with me on me boat, however much I’d like yer to, so I wants yer to name ’er. She’s
my
boat now, see, and I can give her a name that
I
like. So yer have to pour this fizzy stuff over her and say, ‘I name this ship the
Lucy Gringe
’—all right?”

“Oh,
Jakey
.” Lucy was lost for words.

“I’ll probably just call her
Lucy
fer short,” said Jakey. “It’s a nice name, Lucy.”

S
KIPPER
F
RY AND THE
C
ROWES

When Milo and his crew returned to the
Cerys
—armed to the teeth—they found Skipper Fry and the Crowes in no state to offer any opposition. All three were unconscious in the saloon, having found the saloon’s stock of rum and drunk the lot. What Milo said about the state of the saloon cannot be reported here and can only be excused on the grounds that Milo had had a difficult day. Fry and the Crowes were locked in the cargo hold with a bucket of water each and taken out
when they arrived at the Port. They are now in the Port Prison, awaiting trial.

When Jakey Fry heard the news, he was relieved—now he truly was free.

M
ERRIN
M
EREDITH (AKA
D
ANIEL
H
UNTER)

Merrin spent two long nights trapped behind the wainscoting.

After he realized he was locked in, he ate his entire stock of candy. He then felt sick and began moaning. Sarah Heap heard, but she assumed it was the ghosts of the little Princesses that Jenna had told her about. After a while Merrin fell asleep, only to wake at midnight and begin screaming again. Sarah sent Silas down to investigate, but halfway down the stairs, Silas thought the better of it and came back to bed, telling Sarah it was “cats.” Merrin fell asleep in despair; he slept all that night and for much of the next day. He then spent the next night yelling too, and Sarah Heap had horrible nightmares about cats.

It was late in the evening the following day when, running
his hand along the panels, counting the knots in the wood, Merrin’s fingers found the catch to open the door. Not caring whether anyone heard or saw him, he raced up to his room in the attic, where he ate his way through his emergency supply of licorice and Banana Bears and fell asleep once more.

The next morning Merrin was tempted to forget about the Manuscriptorium altogether but then thought better of it. He liked the scribe’s uniform—it made him feel important—and besides, he needed the wages to buy more licorice.

Merrin could hardly believe his bad luck in bumping into Aunt Zelda, but he thought he handled it pretty well. He had breezed confidently into the Manuscriptorium, expecting to be welcomed back, only to find that Jillie Djinn was no longer quite the pushover she had once been. She descended on him with demands for some kind of key, which it was true, he had hidden—but it really wasn’t his fault and he didn’t see what the big deal was about. He had only done it because the Ghost of the Vaults had told him it was Manuscriptorium Joke Day (an old tradition) and the newest scribe had to hide something and see how long it took to be found. The ghost had helpfully told him the codes for the Keye Safe and even suggested a hiding place—an old Hidden Chamber under
the loose floorboard below the Front Office desk. Jillie Djinn didn’t seem to see the joke at all—not even when Merrin gave her the Keye back.

Merrin did not think it was at all fair when Jillie Djinn told him he was to be on door duty outside the Vaults until the Ghost of the Vaults could be found. It was cold and creepy and no one came to see him. And he didn’t like the way the scribes snickered when he came up to the Manuscriptorium either. Merrin spent the next few weeks shivering in the chill outside the Vaults and twisting the two-faced ring on his thumb, planning revenge. He would show Jillie Djinn and he would show those stuck-up scribes too.

T
HE
Sphere of Light

Miarr’s Sphere of Light was one of the Ancient Wonders of the World.

The Light is cold to the touch and its source of energy is unknown. It is thought to go back to the Days of Beyond when, legend has it, a chain of Lights encircled the earth, guiding mariners on their way. Miarr is descended from the
Guardians of the Light, who in turn were descended from the mysterious Guardians of the Seas. It is not known where the cats came into the family tree.

T
HE
Lights
OF THE
I
SLES OF
Syren

The four lighthouses around the Isles of Syren were built by Guardians of the Seas as part of a program to protect sailors from what were then called “Troublesome Spirits.” In each was placed a Sphere of Light, and two Keepers were appointed to tend it.

In ancient times, many islands were InHabited by spirits. The vast majority of spirits were merely mischievous and would do no more than Engender the odd storm for their amusement, but some, like the Syren, were malevolent and would pass the time by luring ships to their doom, or sailors to madness upon their island. The Syren was unusual in that she combined a power of devastatingly beguiling song with being a Possessive Spirit, and so four lighthouses were placed around the group of islands to mark the range of the Syren’s song, past which it was not safe to go.

The lighthouses were very effective, and the Syren hated them. Over the years she had contrived to get the Lights removed from three of them, along with their Keepers. The Syren was a beguiling spirit and she had had many willing ghost or spirit helpers—but Tertius Fume was the only one who had managed to use the Syren to his advantage.

T
HE
A
RMY IN THE
C
HEST

Some merchants had spent their lives searching for the chest containing the army of jinn, which they knew would command an astronomical price. Across the centuries, a huge number of battered old chests containing all kinds of garbage—including empty lead tubes—had been sold to gullible merchants for exorbitant prices. Most merchants no longer believed the chest existed and those who continued to search were thought fools at best and deranged at worst. It was considered such a lost cause that if someone was setting off on an ill-advised voyage it would often be said that he or she was “searching for the army of jinn.”

Milo was, of course, one of those who were convinced of
its existence. After he married Queen Cerys, he had become obsessed with providing the unguarded Castle with an army. But a standing army is expensive to maintain and Milo didn’t want to pay more than he had to. Neither, it has to be said, did Queen Cerys. The army in the chest fit the bill perfectly—no maintenance, no housing problems, no massive food bills and no trouble on the street from a bored garrison. And so, very soon after his marriage, Milo set off on his first voyage to search for the chest, combining many profitable ventures along the way.

Milo was not to know that Tertius Fume had tracked down the chest some years previously and had been trying to work out a way of getting it back to the Castle for his own use. The ghost was tired of the sloppy way the Castle managed its affairs and he was particularly disgusted with the fact that there was now a female ExtraOrdinary Wizard in charge. Tertius Fume knew he could do things better, but he needed force to back him. For him too, the army of jinn was a perfect solution.

Through the ghostly grapevine Tertius Fume had found out that Milo was searching for the chest and he decided to use that to his advantage. It did not take long before Milo had swallowed the bait. Not only did he buy the chest for more
money than Tertius Fume could believe, he also provided the transportation. It only remained for a little arrangement with the Syren for Tertius Fume’s plot to come to fruition. A deal was struck whereby, in exchange for access to the Ice Tunnels, Tertius Fume agreed to remove the last remaining Light—which he had intended to do anyway. It was, as Tertius Fume had boasted to the uncomprehending Skipper Fry, “a win-win situation.” Or so he thought.

S
YRAH
S
YARA

It was being a reluctant witness to the deal between Tertius Fume and the Syren that set Syrah on her road to freedom—but it was a long and perilous road. Deeply unconscious, Syrah was taken back to the Port on the
Cerys
. A few days later she was placed in the Quiet Room in the Wizard Tower sick bay, which had previously been occupied by Ephaniah Grebe and Hildegarde Pigeon (they were now well enough to be moved to the main area of the sick bay). Every day Septimus visited her and told her what he had done that day, but Syrah slept on…and on…and on.

M
IARR AND
M
IRANO
C
ATT

Miarr and Mirano were the last of the Catt family, which had manned (or was it catted) the four lighthouses that guarded the Isles of Syren. A combination of isolation, a lack of incomers and various schemes of the Syren had brought the Catt family to the brink of extinction. Mirano had indeed been killed by the Crowes—Thin Crowe had pushed him out of the bunkroom window. Mirano had bounced off the rocks below and sunk without a trace. Miarr had taken the
Red Tube
to look for him but had found nothing. The strong currents that swirled around the base of the lighthouse had taken Mirano’s body to a deep-sea trench some miles away.

J
IM
K
NEE

Jim Knee had had many names in his and her many existences. “Jim Knee” was not the worst name—but it was by no means the best.

Many were the times when the turtle trader’s fourth wife wondered if she had made the right decision to become a
jinnee, but when she remembered the turtle trader, she figured she had. Overall she had had some good existences. Cleaning out the horse mess in King Augeas’s stables had probably been the worst; the best had been as a handmaiden to a beautiful Princess in a Palace on the Eastern Snow Plains—until she had mysteriously disappeared. Jim Knee still missed her and wondered where she had gone.