PathFinder (22 page)

A smile flitted across Marcia’s face. She remembered moonlit sleigh rides out to the mysterious tall, conical hill of lapis lazuli, always free of snow, in the middle of a vast plain of white.

Driffa held out her hands to show bracelets made of silver and glittering stones of blue and a ring with a piece of polished lapis as big as Tod’s paint-splashed pebble. “This is the stone that the Great Orm has given to us in return for guarding its precious Egg. We are peaceful people. Our pleasure is to build snow towers and polish stones. Our duty is to guard the Egg of the Orm.” The Princess bit her lip and her voice trembled. “Which … we have failed to do.”

Tod looked up.
So the Snow Princess is human after all
, she thought.

Driffa continued. “The Egg of the Orm gives us the
Enchantment
that covers our lands with beautiful snow throughout the year and allows us to live in towers of ice. Far beneath the Blue Pinnacle is the Chamber of the Egg of the Orm. In the middle of this chamber is the Orm Tube, and at the bottom of the Orm Tube lies the Egg. The Chamber of the Egg of the Orm is a hallowed place, full of silence and sleep. Around it is the Sacred Ice Walk, where we go to contemplate the Egg and give thanks for its
Enchantment
. Or we did.” The Snow Princess blinked back tears. She got out a white handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. “But now …” she said angrily. “Now all is desecrated. By a fiend called Oraton-Marr.”

Tod looked at Driffa with some sympathy. It seemed that the Snow Princess had lost her village too.

Driffa continued. “In our family there is a Time Traveller. She is my great-great-great-grandmother. On my sixteenth birthday I opened a letter from her. It was an invitation to meet her in the House of Foryx.”

Marcia gasped.

“You know this place, O Sorcerer?” asked the Snow Princess.

“I do,” said Marcia. “It is not somewhere I would invite a granddaughter to.”

“I understand what you say, but I did not know what it was then. I thought it was the house where my many-times-great-grandmother lived. When I arrived I found her sitting in the chequered lobby on a chair carved like a dragon. She recognised me at once, but I would never have known her. She was young, no more than ten years older than I am. She took me to her little room high up in one of the octagonal towers and she told me a terrible thing. She said that an evil sorcerer was coming to take away the Egg of the Orm. I asked her how she knew and she said she had seen it.”

“If this has happened,” Septimus said, “it cannot be changed.”

The Princess looked miserable. “That is what I thought too. I asked her why she was taunting me with such terrible news, but all she would say was that some things could be prevented. She did not say what they were. She said it was important for me to do this because we live at the centre of the world, where all roads meet and the evil must not travel further. I laughed at her because we live in a dead end. There is but one pass through the hills that leads into our SnowPlain and we see few travellers. Those who come are usually lost. They walk around the foothills looking for a way through to the other side but there is none. We are hospitable people and we offer them shelter and good food and guide them back the way they came. It is hardly the centre of the world.

“My grandmother became cross with me for laughing. She told me to leave. I must wait in the dragon chair for a handsome, young ExtraOrdinary Wizard – she described him very well – wearing new robes and carrying a
Magykal
black stone. I must Go Out with him because that would be the right Time. What I did not know was that the right Time for my great-great-great-grandmother was not the right Time for me. When I returned home, my three younger sisters were old women, my parents were dead and our towers of ice were deserted. Almost everyone had run away.

“And Oraton-Marr was already there. My sisters – who, being princesses, were brave and had not run away – had watched the sorcerer arrive. He did not walk the foothills, looking for a way out as others do; he went straight across the plain to our
Enchanted
Blue Pinnacle and he set up camp. He took the snow and made it into Iglopuks – big, round houses – leaving the earth bare.” She turned around to Tod and Marcia, smiling. “When we are children we do this. We make a snow house, which is fun, and from where we have taken the snow, the rock is bare. Then we watch the
Enchantment
bringing the snow back. That is even more fun, to see the snow return.” She shook her head sadly. “But the snow did not return and my sisters became anxious, because they knew this must mean the sorcerer was destroying our
Enchantment
.

“My sisters sent our most powerful sorcerer to ask the
Darke
one to leave, but she did not return. They sent the second most powerful sorcerer and he did not return either. The third most powerful sorcerer pleaded not to be sent, and my sisters told me that there seemed little point in losing him, despite the fact they all found him very annoying. They wished they had sent him first.

“There was nothing my sisters could do but watch. They saw Oraton-Marr dig down into the ice beside our Blue Pinnacle. After some months, they said, people began to appear, although no one saw them come. It was very strange. But these wretched, enslaved people were set to work.

“When I returned everything was being destroyed. Heaps of black and filthy earth were piled up on our beautiful white snow and my sisters told me that Oraton-Marr was digging down to the Chamber of the Egg of the Orm. I had to do something – a princess cannot spend all her life in her tower of ice counting her blue stones. And so early this morning before it was light, I took my best horse, the fair Nona, and I set off to challenge the foul sorcerer.

“I have some snow
Magyk
– enough to make stupid people think that I am nothing more than a gust of snow. I knew it would not fool Oraton-Marr but I thought it would allow me to get past his guards and get close to him. The
Enchantment
covered Nona’s tracks with fresh snow and we made no sound, but as we drew near, the sorcerer’s influence came into being, the
Enchantment
weakened and Nona’s tracks began to show. But we reached the bare earth unseen and with my small
Magyk
, we moved across the spoil like a gust of Akkilokipok – the soft snow with fat flakes that settles fast. This makes a better disguise than Kanevvluk, the small, sharp snow, which is colder and gives less cover.

“From within our tiny blizzard Nona and I saw that a great pit was being dug down into the ground, towards the Chamber of the Egg of the Orm. Guards with spikes on their heads marched around the top of the pit, each with a Garmin on a leash. Nona and I saw hundreds of people working. Some were pushing barrows of earth up steep paths that led out of the pit. Others were hacking at the rock and ice below. All kinds of people were there; even little children were working and all were dirty, cold and utterly wretched. It was a terrible sight.

“There was a path into the pit that was not being used by the workers and I decided to take a closer look. The path descended, circling deep inside the walls around the pit. Nona is a good horse; she bravely went down the path into the darkness of the rock. Suddenly we came upon Oraton-Marr. I challenged him and asked him what he was doing. He laughed and said that he was ‘egg collecting’.” Driffa looked disgusted. “He said it with no respect – as though our precious Egg of the Orm were a chicken egg. I pretended not to know what he meant. I told him there was nothing here for him and he should go away and let his poor slaves go free. But he set his guards on us and I am ashamed to say Nona and I fled. Our way back up was blocked by guards by then, so we had no choice but to go down. We found ourselves descending through a circular tunnel of lapis covered in ice, I expected that soon we would be caught, but I was not going to make it easy for them. And then, to my amazement, Nona cantered into the most wonderful place I have ever seen. A huge blue chamber lit with torches with twelve silver arches and a great spiral of blue for the roof.”

She was interrupted by a gasp. “The Heart of the Ways,” Marcia whispered. “It
must
be.”

“No,” said Driffa. “It is the long-lost Chamber of the Great Orm itself. This was where the Great Orm came to die after it had laid its last egg – our Egg. But I had no time to look. There were guards in the Chamber waiting at an archway, so Nona and I cantered into the nearest arch and found ourselves in the strangest of places.”

“Did the sorcerer follow you?” Marcia asked.

“No, but three of his Garmin did. Nona and I travelled through many strange places. Some were hot, some were cold; in some it was night-time, in others it was day, but always there were twelve arches and always there were Garmin behind us. Nona was fast and brave. She outran them – until we came here, where she cast a shoe. Then I used a blizzard to try to conceal us from the Garmin – and your three fierce creatures with knives.”

“I am sorry,” said Marcia. “The Drummins meant no harm.”

“I understand,” said Driffa. She looked at Marcia. “I meant no harm to you, either, but I saw you were a sorcerer. Indeed, you look a little like him.”

“I
do
?”

“A little. You are taller, and your hair is longer. But the green eyes are the same. And the purple pointy shoes made of snake.”

Marcia was aghast. “He has shoes like mine? Well, that does it, we’ll have to get rid of him.” She smiled at Tod. “Only one of us can wear these shoes. And that is
me
.”

Nona

It was late. Septimus had returned
to the Wizard Tower, the Drummins were asleep in the Fire Pit, and down in the Hub Milo was noisily busy with a bucket and a shovel.

A bright purple light emanating from the
Seals
suffused the Hub. It looked very pretty, Milo thought, but it did not make it easy to search for horse poo. Milo had just found what he hoped was the last shovelful at the foot of the stairs when he heard the
tippy-tap-tap
of Marcia’s pointy purple pythons. The pythons were, he could tell, in a hurry.

Marcia rounded the last twist of the spiral stairs, her multi­coloured cloak flying behind her, and ran straight into Milo. “Goodness, Milo, what
are
you doing?” she asked.

“Avoiding the curse of the silent footstep.”

“The curse of the silent footstep?” Marcia sounded puzzled, and then a waft of horse dung drifted up to her nose. “Oh, Milo,
thank you
,” she said.

Milo put down his bucket and leaned his shovel against the wall. He looked serious. “Marcia, I know we agreed not to interfere with each other’s work, but please tell me – what on earth is going on?”

Marcia took Milo’s hands. “Milo, Tod and I are going to take the Snow Princess to the Wizard Tower. Septimus wants to understand who this sorcerer, Oraton-Marr, is. He’s gone to look a few things up and talk to the older Wizards. I promised we’d follow on.”

Milo sighed. “Does this really matter, Marcia? All this stuff is happening on the other side of the world. Why should it bother
us
?”

“Because, Milo, any moment Oraton-Marr could turn up here.” Marcia looked anxiously around at the
Seals
.

Milo had great faith in Marcia’s
Magykal
abilities. “But you’ve
Sealed
it all. And I’m not stupid, Marcia. I know you added a whole
ton
of
Darke
stuff. Nothing can get through those now.”

Marcia shook her head. “No
Magyk
lasts for ever, Milo. And no
Magyk
is infallible. If Oraton-Marr becomes as powerful as he clearly is determined to be, he will, if he wishes, eventually be standing here, where we are right now.
In this Hub
. And then all he will have to do is take a short stroll into Way VII and he will be in the Wizard Tower. We
have
to stop that from happening.”

Milo was not convinced. “Marcia, you worry too much. This sorcerer chap sounds bonkers to me. He’s obsessed with some mythical egg. Soon enough he’ll find his precious egg doesn’t exist, and he will give up and go somewhere else. I can’t see him bothering to come here. Why would he?”

Marcia smiled. “To get to the most powerful seat of
Magyk
in the whole world maybe?” She shook her head. “Anyway, Milo, I think it’s possible that this Egg
does
exist. Marwick used to tell me about the legend of the Orm. It was a giant worm, he said, that created the Ancient Ways. It ate through the rock, leaving lapis lazuli behind.”

Milo laughed. “Young Marwick always had a few good stories to tell. Better than mine sometimes, I have to admit. But it doesn’t mean they are true.”

“And it doesn’t mean they
aren’t
true,” Marcia countered. Her hand closed over the silver whistle she wore around her neck. Not so long ago, in its place Marcia had worn the Akhu Amulet. This amulet, a
Magykal
source of power for all ExtraOrdinary Wizards, was made from lapis that – legend had it – came from the belly of the Orm.