StarChaser

  A large, toothy fish positioned itself between them, as though protecting Tod, and Oskar returned the compliment: Fishface.

  Where’s the beast? Ferdie signed anxiously. She did not have a sign for Kraan.

  Tod showed her the six red beads. Here, she signed.

  Oskar and Ferdie were impressed. Good Magyk, they signed.

  Yes, Tod signed. But not mine. She grabbed their hands and held them tight. So pleased you are here, she signed. And then she added, Egg.

  Egg? Ferdie and Oskar signed in unison.

  Egg, Tod confirmed. And then added, I hope.

  Tod led them to the cleared patch of sand, beneath which the Orm pod lay. Proudly, she shone her FlashLight on the orange circle with its central dot and then onto the StarChaser still sitting crooked in the lock. With a sense of awe, wondering who had been the last person to do this, Tod pushed the StarChaser home into its bed. She felt a click and then, beneath her hands, a buzzing began. The sand began to move. Tod stepped back and very slowly a round hatch opened at their feet.

  Tod stared down in utter disappointment. Below was an obviously empty chamber. There was no Egg. But she could not bear to give up after coming so far. Maybe, she thought, there was a hidden compartment within, where an Egg might still be lying. I’m going in to check, she signed.

  Not without us, Ferdie signed.

  Right, Oskar agreed.

  Tod dropped down through the hatch first, her feet finding solid, smooth metal beneath them; then she moved to one side to allow Oskar and Ferdie to follow. The chamber was easily big enough for three, even with two potato heads. Tod let her FlashLight beam roam around the smooth, gray walls of the chamber, but there was nothing to be seen and no hatch leading to anywhere else. It was an empty dead end.

  She shook her head desolately and signed, Nothing. After all this. We find nothing.

  But Ferdie was not so sure. Move your big feet, she signed to Oskar.

  Move your own, he returned irritably.

  I already have, she replied. But you’ve just stood there all the time like a lemon. Move.

  Now Oskar understood. He stepped away and beneath his boots was another StarChaser indentation.

  Ferdie tapped Tod on the shoulder. Found it, she signed.

  Tod was out of the chamber and back with the StarChaser in seconds. Ferdie held her FlashLight while Tod dropped the StarChaser into the lock. Once more there was a vibration, and a buzzing that sent ripples through the water. And then, to their horror, the hatch above them closed.

  They looked at one other, shocked: they had expected an opening, not a closing. Tod dropped to her knees to pull the StarChaser out of its lock, but it fitted so tightly that it seemed to have become part of the metal floor. Tod looked up at Ferdie and Oskar; the air bags over their heads no longer seemed quite so comical. She wondered how much air they had left.

  Oskar had just sneaked a look at his timepiece and he knew exactly: four minutes and fifty seconds. He fell to his knees and was trying desperately to pry the StarChaser out with the point of his knife when a vibration began to spread through the metal beneath him and he became aware of a disturbance in the water. Oskar looked up at the hatch, but it was still firmly closed. However, within the pod, something very strange was happening. From the smooth metal encasing them a mass of tiny bubbles were streaming out, turning the water a dense milky white.

  Oskar’s hand found Ferdie’s and Tod’s hand found Oskar’s. They held tight to one another as all around them bubbles whirled, lifting them off their feet, taking them up into a powerful eddy. Ferdie and Oskar could see nothing out of their glass windows for they were now covered with tiny air bubbles, but Tod had no such trouble. To her amazement she saw a big silver bubble of air forming just above her head in the top of the chamber; she felt warm air touch her hair and then suddenly she was coughing, spluttering, retching as her breathing made the transition from gills to lungs.

  Tod took her first breath of ancient air and gagged with the taste of metal. She let go of Ferdie’s hand and wiped her friend’s visor. Air, she signed. You can breathe!

  By the time Ferdie and Oskar had taken off their air bags the three were standing in an empty chamber full of stale but wonderfully warm air. Like a snake gratefully leaving its old skin, Tod shucked off her waterproofs, and as fast as the water cascaded from their clothes it was sucked into what they could now see were thousands of minute holes covering the chamber wall—they were inside a giant sieve.

  “What is this?” Oskar whispered.

  As if in answer to his question, a zigzag pattern appeared on the side of the sieve like a crack in an eggshell. It rapidly widened, the two sides swinging away from each other in a smooth, spiraling motion so fast that seconds later they were looking into the strangest space any of them had ever seen.

  THE POD

  “Wow,” Oskar murmured. “Look at all those lights! It’s just like MidWinter’s Eve with lots of tiny candles in the window.”

  “And there’s a seat, too, so you can watch them,” said Ferdie.

  They were inside a small, spherical space lit by tiny white spots of light, randomly flicking on and off. The lights were ranged along a broad, slightly angled shelf, in front of which was a long bench seat in blue padded leather. The seat was shaped to fit five and had an unusually high back, topped with five shiny black tubes.

  But Tod had eyes only for the dull metal ovoid that sat behind the seat. She felt shivery with excitement, for stamped upon it was a large circle with a dot in the middle: Egg.

  It did not take Tod long to see the telltale StarChaser indentation in the center of the dot. She easily retrieved the StarChaser from the floor of the sieve—with its job done it was already half out of its bed. Then, with her hands trembling with excitement and Ferdie and Oskar breathing down her neck, she pushed the StarChaser into the middle of the dot.

  Like the lid of an ancient tomb, the top half of the metal ovoid slid slowly back. Breathless with excitement, they peered into the depths to see, like the egg of a bird cradled in a nest of down, an Orm Egg lying in a cloud of white padding molded to its shape. The Egg’s brilliant blue color shot through with fine streaks of gold was a shock after the monochrome of the silvery black that surrounded them. Hardly able to believe it was real, Tod reached out to touch the Egg. She felt its smooth, leathery surface, cool to her touch, and she knew she wasn’t dreaming. She turned around to Oskar and Ferdie. “It’s an Orm Egg,” she whispered. “It really is.”

  Ferdie and Oskar were just as wide-eyed. “You did it,” Oskar said. “You really did it. You found an Orm Egg.”

  “We did it,” Tod corrected. She gazed down at the beautiful lapis egg, taking it in. They had an Orm Egg. There was no sorcerer to snatch it from them, no dragon to whisk it away. It was theirs and theirs alone, to do with as they wished.

  “But it’s sad it will never hatch,” Oskar said. “Ormie could have had a little brother or sister.”

  Tod was saved from replying by Ferdie’s brisk, sisterly response. “Oh, don’t be so daft, Oskie.”

  Oskar turned away in a huff.

  While Tod and Ferdie leaned over the Orm nest, trying to work out the best way of lifting up the egg, Oskar, intrigued by the lights, went to inspect them more closely. He sat down on the outside seat of the row to get a better look. As his weight settled onto the seat, he heard a faint whirr, and what looked to him like a large, flat snake shot across his lap and bit the other side of the seat. “Argh!” he yelled.

  Ferdie and Tod wheeled around. Ferdie raced over to Oskar. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Snake!” Oskar whispered, pointing to the offending strip of shiny black that had him imprisoned in the chair.

  Ferdie was scathing. “It’s only a belt, Oskie.”

  Oskar looked down at his lap and saw that Ferdie was right. “Yeah. Well, it looked like a snake,” he muttered. “And it acted like one too—the way it moved. It just shot across and bit that thing.” Oskar poin
ted to the fastening that kept him in his seat. “And now I’m stuck.”

  “Of course you’re not stuck,” Ferdie said. She went around the other end of the bench and shuffled along until she was sitting next to Oskar so she could release him. And as soon as Ferdie sat down another black snake shot across her lap and bit the side of her seat.

  “Argh!” yelled Ferdie.

  “See?” Oskar said triumphantly. “I told you.”

  The two lap belts refused to come free. They also utterly resisted the attempts of Oskar’s knife to cut through them.

  “I think,” Tod said, trying to figure out how they worked, “there’s a release button where it goes into the holder thingy. See, here . . .” She pressed the button on top of the fixing for Oskar’s lap belt. There was yet another whirr and the shiny, fat, black tube at the top of his seat back detached itself and in a fast, smooth motion swung over Oskar’s head and came to a halt resting gently on the front of his shoulders. Oskar was now effectively pinned to the seat.

  “Thanks, Tod,” Oskar said. “That was really helpful.” He shoved the heel of his hand under the tube and pushed up with all his strength, trying to lever it up. It would not budge.

  “Trust you to get stuck, Oskar,” Ferdie said irritably.

  “It’s not my fault,” Oskar replied petulantly. “The seat did it. And Tod. All I did was sit down, same as you.”

  “I only sat down because I was trying to help you,” Ferdie said snappily. “Can’t think why I bothered.”

  Tod could hardly believe her two friends had been silly enough to get in such a mess. But there was nothing to be done but to get them out of it. She could hardly take the Orm Egg and leave them behind, however tempted she felt right then with them bickering in the background. Somehow, she had to get them free. “There’s another space there for the StarChaser,” she said, pointing to a star indentation in the dashboard. “Maybe that will unlock the belts.”

  Ferdie and Oskar thought it was worth a try.

  Tod closed the lid of the Orm locker and took out the StarChaser, then she shuffled along the bench so she was next to Ferdie, but not sitting down. She knew better than to do that. She placed the StarChaser into the indentation and immediately it lit up, pulsing bright red. A whirr came from behind them: the hatch between the sieve and the pod was moving. It was beginning to close.

  “Jeez!” said Oskar.

  “No!” Ferdie gasped.

  Tod’s fingers scrabbled at the StarChaser, trying to pull it out, but they all knew that was not going to work. Once more the StarChaser was sitting tight and was not to be moved.

  The hatch settled into the entrance with a soft hiss, entombing them in the metal bubble. The pod gave a lurch, as though something had released it, and Tod fell onto the bench. In an instant, the lap belt had shot across and secured her, too. The lights inside grew dim, and Tod’s and Ferdie’s seat restraints swung over their heads, securing them like Oskar. All three exchanged uneasy glances. Something was about to happen.

  A deep, powerful rumbling shook through their bones and made their teeth tingle. They clasped hands, closed their eyes, and were thrown back into their seats by a violent thrust. Moments later they felt as though they were in a giant ball, kicked hard and heading high into the air.

  THE WANDERING MOON

  It was Tod who opened her eyes first. Her sharp intake of breath made Oskar and Ferdie open theirs in unison. There was silence while all three took in the sight before them. At last, Oskar broke it.

  “We’re flying,” he whispered.

  “It’s so . . . beautiful,” Ferdie said.

  What, in the darkness beneath the water, had been smooth featureless black was now—but only to those inside it—transparent. It was as if they were inside a bubble tumbling through the sky.

  “This is from the Days of Beyond,” Tod said, awed. “This is what we used to do.”

  There was a brief whirr, and they tensed, but it was merely the shoulder restraints setting them free and swinging back above their seats. They risked tentative smiles; the pod clearly felt that all was well and there was no need to protect its passengers.

  “I suppose we had better figure out how to land this thing,” Oskar said. He leaned forward and grinned at Tod. “Over to you—you’re in the pilot’s seat.”

  Tod studied the panel before them, seeing how the random flickering lights had transformed to reveal a large, lighted glass map directly in front of her, over which a small red circle was very slowly moving. In the center of the map was a rounded silver stub, which Tod had an urge to press but dared not for fear of what it might do. The map was surrounded by displays showing a mix of numbers and red bars, constantly adjusting. Her StarChaser sat in its place above the map, outlined in a red glow. Tod thought of her promise to Rose to tell her if she found out what the StarChaser did. She reckoned she was going to have a hard time getting Rose to believe this.

  As Tod sat in their bubble, surrounded by blue sky, moving through the white wisps of low-lying clouds, she felt exhilarated, but also a little scared. She was in the pilot’s seat, but had no idea how to actually be a pilot.

  “You know what would be really, really good?” Ferdie was saying. “If we could take the Orm Egg directly to the SnowPlains.”

  “That would be brilliant,” Oskar said excitedly. “Just think. We could save everything. Today!”

  “Yeah, Oskie, it would be great,” Tod said. “If I knew how to fly this. Which I don’t.”

  “You could use Magyk?” Ferdie suggested hopefully.

  Tod shook her head. “This isn’t a Magykal thing, Ferd.”

  “Yeah, Ferd, it’s a PathFinder thing,” Oskar said. Tod pointing out that she did not know how to fly the pod had brought him back to reality. Oskar felt scared—and when he got scared, he got picky.

  There was a strained silence as the reality of their predicament began to sink in. They stared out the window watching the world move slowly beneath them. The pod had settled into a steady flight, low enough to see the details of the landscape below. Broad expanses of forests, broken by wide clearings with patchworks of fields and clusters of houses passed silently and serenely beneath them. Those on the ground below who looked up—and there were many who did—saw a dark sphere traveling fast and silently across the sky. It was the beginning of many legends of a wandering moon searching for its lost light.

  Oskar’s words went round and round in Tod’s mind. A PathFinder thing . . . A PathFinder thing. Almost absentmindedly, she took her now empty PathFinder from around her neck. She ran her finger around the silver band that had once enclosed the lapis dome while she thought: Magyk may not work for a PathFinder pod, but maybe Magykal thinking will.

  Tod had learned from Septimus to hold an object and Listen to what it told her. So, as the land unrolled beneath them and began to turn into a series of small lakes, Tod slipped the empty band of the PathFinder onto her right thumb so that it sat neatly above her mother’s snake ring. And then she Listened. But the PathFinder was silent.

  “Will it show us the way?” Ferdie whispered.

  Yes. The word came unbidden into Tod’s mind. Yes. I will show you the way. And then came a question. Where do you wish to go?

  Tod felt spooked. She glanced at Ferdie and Oskar to see if they had heard anything. Ferdie caught her glance. “Tell it where we want to go,” she whispered.

  “We want to go to the Heart of the Ways,” Tod said out loud. And then added, “Please.”

  Point me to that place came into Tod’s head.

  “The map,” Tod said out loud. “I have to point it at the map.”

  They stared at the map, trying to find the Heart of the Ways, but the landscape was meaningless to them, no more than a jumble of unfamiliar coastlines, mountains, plains and rivers.

  “I think it should be over there,” Oskar said, putting his stubby finger onto the far right of the map, “but it doesn’t go that far.”

  “It moved!” Ferdie gasped. “
The map moved.”

  Oskar was intrigued. He moved his finger across to the right, and the map scrolled with it. Oskar’s finger had reached the edge of the map now, but he kept it pressed down and the map continued to scroll, slowly revealing more. On the left side of the map Tod saw the red dot of their pod disappear, and still Oskar kept his finger pressed, and still the map scrolled, and Oskar inspected every feature that revealed itself.

  “That’s it!” he said suddenly. “There—look!”

  Oskar’s nail-bitten finger pointed at a brilliant blue dot. It lay in the middle of a white circle that itself was almost surrounded by mountains.

  “That’s it,” Ferdie said. “Clever old Oskie.”

  Oskar grinned.

  Tod touched the tip of the PathFinder to the blue dot. The map did not react.

  “Do what you did before, Tod,” Ferdie said.

  “Do what?” asked Oskar.

  “Shh, Oskie,” Ferdie told him. “Just wait.”

  Buoyed by his success with the map, Oskar did not react. He gazed down at the land far below, watching it slowly move by. It was an amazing sight, and Oskar thought that if he weren’t so afraid that he would never walk on it again, this would be the best thing that had ever happened to him. Ferdie’s fingers found his and they held hands in silence, waiting for Tod to do whatever it was she was doing.

  And then, Tod did it. She took the PathFinder off her thumb and placed it onto the silver stub in the center of the map. “That,” she said, “is where it wants to be.”

  The PathFinder settled onto the stub as though it were made for it—which, Tod thought, it probably was—and the map came to life. It was no longer just a diagram: it showed the world beneath them as if they were looking at it through a lens. The map moved, rolling back to where they were now, showing the pod as a small red dot in the middle, blinking steadily.

  They sat for some time, enthralled, watching the world slowly scrolling by unfolding mile upon mile as they moved steadily across the sky, heading toward the Eastern SnowPlains and the Heart of the Ways.