PathFinder (16 page)

Marcia Overstrand regarded him with impatience. “Of course it hasn’t
gone
, Septimus,” she said. “It is still there, but
you
can’t see it.”

“Neither can I,” said Dandra.

“Well, Dandra, I’m sure you have more important things on your mind,” Marcia said diplomatically. She turned towards the ghost. “Alther?”

The ghost sighed. “I can
Feel
the disturbance, Marcia. But I, too, can see nothing. Sorry.”

“You will eventually,” Marcia told them. “It’s a skill you have to learn.” She took a stick of purple chalk from her pocket. “I will draw the outline. That way, if anyone wants to come and see me –” she looked pointedly at the ExtraOrdinary Wizard – “there is no excuse not to.”

While Marcia drew around the archway, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard turned to Tod. “Do you still see it?” he asked.

Tod nodded.

“Of course I still see it, Septimus,” Marcia said as she stood on tiptoe to reach the highest point of the arch. “How would I draw around it otherwise?”

“Actually, Marcia, I was talking to our young guest here,” Septimus said.

“Oh?” Marcia spun around and peered into the dimness past the steps. She saw for the first time a slight, barefooted girl wearing a scruffy old jacket covered with pockets, pulled over an Apprentice nightgown. “Goodness,” she said. “Who is this?”

“Marcia, this is Alice TodHunter Moon, the only one of us who can see your elusive archway. Tod, this is Marcia Overstrand.”

Tod felt quite overawed by the ExtraOrdinary Wizard including her in the “us” of his group of high-powered Wizards.

Marcia frowned. “You can
still
see the archway?” she asked Tod.

“Yes,” said Tod, trying to sound sure. She had the feeling that Marcia did not believe her.

“Well, well,” Marcia said. As she spoke, the tinny chimes of a distant clock drifted in on the still night air:
ting … ting … ting …
Silence fell as they all stood counting the chimes. Tod glanced at the ExtraOrdinary Wizard. He looked nervous, she thought. On the twelfth chime Marcia turned to him and said, “Septimus, I know we had arranged for you to
Go Through
on your own tonight on the Midnight Minutes, but this is very interesting
indeed
. Perhaps we could leave that for now and have a little chat with Tod instead? Upstairs, Septimus? In your rooms?”

Tod saw momentary relief flicker across the ExtraOrdinary Wizard’s features before he managed to suppress it. She didn’t blame him for not wanting to
Go Through
the archway. There was something unnerving about its misty depths.

“With pleasure, Marcia,” he said.

A few minutes later, Tod found herself escorted up the spiral stairs in some style, accompanied not only by the current ExtraOrdinary Wizard, but by the previous two ExtraOrdin­aries as well. It felt unreal – and just a little bit scary.

The Top of the Tower

On the seventh floor of
the Wizard Tower, Dr Dandra Draa did the last rounds of the night in her Sick Bay and tutted to herself about her protégée being whisked away by the Extra­Ordinaries. Dandra was of the opinion that twelve-year-olds should not be up after midnight. She decided to go to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard’s rooms as soon as she had finished and insist Tod come back to bed.

“What would Cassi say?” Dandra muttered to herself. “Letting the girl stay up so late?” She sighed. The honest answer was that Cassi, a free spirit, would have been perfectly happy about it. And she would have been thrilled that not only had her daughter shown signs of inheriting the
Magykal
skills of the Draa side of the family, but that it had been recognised so soon by two powerful Wizards.

Poignant memories of the very last time she had seen her friend came rushing back to Dandra. Dandra – a Wizard and a skilled Physician, who came from the Hot, Dry Deserts of the South – had some years ago received a request from Marcia to help with a difficult
DisEnchantment
. Dandra
had been only too pleased to leave her home, where things had become very dangerous for her. On her way to the Castle, she had stopped off at the TodHunter Moon household and Dandra still remembered the shock of seeing her old friend. Pale and thin, with a hacking cough and streaming red eyes, it was obvious that Cassi TodHunter Draa was seriously ill. Dandra knew there was nothing she could do to help her. Cassi had the dreaded Sand Sickness, caused by inhaling a small but deadly sand fly – common in Dandra’s homeland, but previously unknown in the PathFinder village. Dandra had stayed a few days with Dan and Cassi and had got to know their little girl, Alice, who was, she remembered, a very determined tomboy. It was one of the saddest moments of Dandra’s life when she said farewell to the little family, for she knew she would never see them together again. Her heart ached for Dan and Alice – or Tod, as the young Alice insisted on being called – as she waved goodbye from the Trading Post shuttle boat and began the very last stage of her journey to the fabled Wizard Tower. Dandra had promised Cassi to be a second mother to her little girl if ever she decided to follow the
Magykal
Draa side of the family and come to the Wizard Tower, but Dandra had never expected to see Tod again. She doubted Dan would ever let his one reminder of his beloved Cassi out of his sight. Dandra sighed. But now poor Dan was gone too. Who would have thought it? Forlornly, Dr Dandra Draa continued her midnight rounds of the Sick Bay.

Meanwhile, in the rooms of the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Tod’s head was buzzing with
Magyk
and excitement. She was ensconced on a small stool next to the fire, which burned with
Magykal
multicoloured flames. The room was filled with dancing shadows and fleeting purple lights that Tod could see only at the very edge of her vision. The room had an odd, echoing quality to it. It felt quite bare, apart from the heavy purple curtains on the windows and a small, furry rug beside the fire. It was sparsely furnished, as though someone had only recently moved in.

There was, however, an unusual purple sofa in front of the fire, on which Marcia had settled herself. She leaned back, kicked off the most astonishing pair of shoes that Tod had ever seen – purple snakeskin with tiny green jade buttons – and gave a contented sigh. “It’s nice to be back,” Marcia said, wiggling her toes. “It’s so
warm
here.”

The ghost of Alther Mella floated down next to Marcia, and to Tod’s surprise, the young ExtraOrdinary Wizard sat on the floor beside her. “Now,” he said to Tod. “If I am calling you Tod, then you must call me Septimus. OK?”

Tod smiled shyly. “OK,” she said.

“Likewise, Marcia is just Marcia and Alther is just Alther. We don’t use our titles when we are among people who understand
Magyk
.”

“Unless they are being
very
annoying,” Marcia put in.

“Marcia was ExtraOrdinary Wizard here up until six months ago,” Septimus explained. “But she has now found more interesting things to do. Like go wandering through all kinds of strange arches that none of us can see. Except for you, Tod, it seems.”

“Oh!” said Tod, somewhat lost for words. She could not quite believe what was happening. She sat very still, breathed in the
Magykal
air and listened to Marcia and Septimus bicker in the way that only old friends can do.

“Septimus, you exaggerate,” Marcia was protesting. “It is just this one archway at the Wizard Tower that you can’t see. All the others are perfectly clear; I don’t know what you are fussing about. I suspect there has been some kind of
Invisibility
screen put on this arch, and you know how
Invisibility
soaks into marble. You just can’t get it out however hard you try. But it is only a matter of practice before you see it.”

“Maybe.” Septimus sounded unconvinced.

Marcia was now in full flow. “And to set the record straight, Septimus, I did not ‘find more interesting things to do’, as you put it. It was time for me to go. The worst thing an ExtraOr­­­d­inary Wizard can do is to outstay her welcome. Look at that Brynna Jackson woman, she hung on until she was ninety-three. The Wizard Tower was a complete mess for years after that.”

“You had a little way to go until you were ninety-three,” Septimus pointed out.

“A little,” Marcia agreed. “But I was in the job for twenty-one years; it’s best to go when your powers are at their height.” She sat back and sniffed the air appreciatively. “You know, Septimus, you must be doing something right – I have never felt so much
Magyk
in the air. It’s quite exhilarating.”

A companionable silence fell as they watched the multicoloured flames of the fire leap and dance in the darkness and Tod supressed a yawn. It had been a very long day and it was beginning to catch up with her.

Alther spoke, and Tod felt goosebumps run down her neck. It struck her that there was no warning when a ghost was about to speak, because there was no intake of breath – it was very peculiar. “We should not keep this child up for any longer than necessary,” Alther said, his voice drifting into the room.

“No, of course not,” said Marcia. “Now, Tod, tell me. Are you by any chance a PathFinder?”

Tod stared at Marcia in astonishment. How did she know? It wasn’t as if Tod’s skin showed up shiny at night like most PathFinders. “I’m half PathFinder,” she said. “My dad is – I mean, was – a PathFinder.”

Marcia nodded. “And your mother is from a
Magykal
tribe?”

Tod felt almost spooked. How did Marcia know so much about her? “My mother was a Draa. But she is not alive now. Dr Draa is a distant cousin. And she was my mother’s friend, too.”

Septimus understood that it was not easy to talk of one’s dead mother and father. “Enough questions about parents, Marcia,” he said. “I am sure Tod doesn’t want to talk about that tonight.”

“Of course,” Marcia agreed. “But you
are
from a PathFinder village, Tod?”

Relieved not to have to talk about her parents, Tod began to speak about her PathFinder village and the terrible things that had happened. A solemn silence fell in the room as the three ExtraOrdinaries listened to her story.

As Tod drew to a close, Septimus said, “Tod, this is terrible. You must consider the Wizard Tower your home for as long as you wish.”

Marcia leaned forward impatiently. “But the reason I asked if you were a PathFinder is because a few years ago a friend of ours named Marwick found something rather exciting – a system of Ancient Ways that stretch across the world. And you get into them always through an archway. Most of these archways are in what is called a Hub – like a crossroads, really, where some Ways meet. Anyone can see the archways in a Hub. Even Septimus.” Marcia flashed Septimus a smile. “But there are other arches that are not in Hubs and they tend to be
Hidden
. These arches are always, Marwick said, at the end of what he called a blind Way – a Way that does not go to a Hub, but to one place only. And, you see, Marwick once said a very strange thing to me. He said he wished he were a PathFinder. I asked him what he meant and he said that PathFinders can see all the
Hidden
arches.”

“Have you seen any other arches, Tod?” Septimus asked.

“No,” said Tod. And then she suddenly remembered the creepy arch where she and Oskar had put on their
Tristan
tops – which felt like a lifetime ago. “Well, maybe I
did
see one,” she said. “In a wood near the OutPost.”

“The OutPost, eh? Now let’s see if we can work out which one that would be.” From a pocket inside her voluminous cloak, Marcia extracted a long, silver tube. She pulled a cork from the end of it and eased out a scroll of grubby, crinkled paper. She carefully unrolled it to reveal what looked to Tod like a drawing of a fishing net made by someone with her eyes closed.

“This,” said Marcia, “was drawn by Marwick. It is, he told me, a map of the Ancient Ways and it covers the whole world.”

“The whole
world
?” Tod breathed.

“Amazing, isn’t it? I didn’t believe him at first,” Marcia said. “And neither did you, did you, Septimus?”

Septimus shook his head. He felt bad about that still. But at least, he thought, his older brother Sam had believed Marwick. Septimus gazed at his old friend Marwick’s spider-like scrawl with a pang of sadness. The paper circle began to roll itself back up and Marcia quickly passed her hand over it. A flicker of purple light followed her hand and the paper obediently unrolled and lay as flat as a piece of glass.

Marcia put on a pair of small, round spectacles and joined Septimus on the rug. Unsettlingly, Alther floated off the sofa and hovered above the map, looking down at it. Tod found it hard to concentrate on the map with the ghost hanging in the air, his robes showing no sign of being affected by gravity at all.

The map was nothing like the sea charts that Tod was used to. At the very centre was a circle carefully coloured in blue. It was numbered like a clockface with twelve Roman numerals and contained a spiral and a heart-shaped symbol. Marcia placed a long, elegant finger on it. “Marwick told us that this is the Heart of the Ways. It’s the very centre of the network and is reputed to be made of solid lapis lazuli and built by a snake or something.
Very
strange. He never found it, though. Well … not as far as we know.”