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“Don’t!” Jenna yelled. “Don’t jump! I can see Marcia!”
Marcia had stood up. She was still staring at the Dragon Boat in disbelief. Surely it was just a legend? But, as the dragon swooped down toward Marcia, her dragon eyes flashing a brilliant green and her nostrils sending out great jets of orange fire, Marcia could feel the heat of the flames and she knew that this was real.
The flames licked around DomDaniel’s sodden robes and sent a pungent smell of burned wool into the air. Singed by the fire, DomDaniel fell back, and for a brief moment a faint ray of hope crossed the Necromancer’s mind—maybe this was all a terrible nightmare. Because on the top of the dragon’s head he could see something that was surely impossible: sitting there was the Queenling.
Jenna dared to let go of one of the dragon’s ears and slipped her hand into her jacket pocket. DomDaniel was still staring at her, and she wanted him to stop—in fact, she was going to make him stop. Jenna’s hand was shaking as she drew the Shield Bug out of her pocket and raised it up in the air. Suddenly, out of her hand flew what DomDaniel took to be a large green wasp. DomDaniel hated wasps. He staggered back as the insect flew toward him with a high-pitched shriek and landed on his shoulder, where it stung him on the neck. Hard.
DomDaniel screamed, and the Shield Bug stabbed at him again. He clapped his hand over the bug and, confused, it curled itself up into a ball and bounced down onto the deck, rolling off into a dark corner. DomDaniel collapsed onto the deck.
Marcia saw her chance and took it. In the light of the fire coming out of the dragon’s flared nostrils, Marcia steeled herself to touch the prostrate Necromancer. With trembling fingers she searched through the folds of his sluglike neck and found what she was looking for. Alther’s shoelace. Feeling extremely sick but even more determined, Marcia pulled at an end of the shoelace, hoping the knot would untie. It didn’t. DomDaniel made a choking sound, and his hands flew up to his neck.
“You’re strangling me,” he gasped, and he too grabbed hold of the shoelace.
Alther’s shoelace had done good service over the years, but it was not up to the task of resisting two powerful Wizards fighting over it. So it did what shoelaces often do. It broke.
The Amulet dropped to the deck, and Marcia swept it up in her grasp. DomDaniel lunged desperately after it, but Marcia was already retying the shoelace around her neck. As the knot was tied, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt Appeared around her waist, her robes glistened in the rain with Magyk, and Marcia stood up straight. She surveyed the scene with a triumphant smile—she had reclaimed her rightful place in the world. She was, once again, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard.
Enraged, DomDaniel staggered to his feet, screaming, “Guards, guards!” There was no response. The entire crew was deep in the bowels of the ship on a wild goose chase.
As Marcia prepared a Thunderflash to hurl at the increasingly hysterical DomDaniel, a familiar voice above her said, “Come on, Marcia. Hurry up. Get on here with me.”
The dragon dipped her head down onto the deck, and, for once, Marcia did as she was told.
45
EBB TIDE
The Dragon Boat flew slowly over the flooded marshes, leaving the powerless Vengeance behind. As the storm died away the dragon dipped her wings and, a little out of practice, landed back on the water with a bump and a massive splash.
Jenna and Marcia, who were clinging tightly to the dragon’s neck, were soaked.
Boy 412 and Nicko were knocked off their feet by the landing and sent sprawling across the deck, where they ended up in a tangled heap. They picked themselves up and Maxie shook himself dry. Nicko breathed a sigh of relief. There was no doubt in his mind—boats were not meant to fly.
Soon the clouds drifted away out to sea, and the moon appeared to light their way back home. The Dragon Boat glimmered green and gold in the moonlight, her wings held up to catch the wind as she sailed them home. From a small lighted window far across the water Aunt Zelda watched the scene, a little disheveled from dancing triumphantly around the kitchen and colliding with a pile of saucepans.
The Dragon Boat was reluctant to return to the temple. After her taste of freedom she dreaded the thought of being shut away underground again. She longed to turn around and head out to sea while she still could and sail away across the world with the young Queen, her new Master and the ExtraOrdinary Wizard. But her new Master had other ideas. He was taking her back again, back to her dry, dark prison. The dragon sighed and hung her head. Jenna and Marcia nearly fell off.
“What’s going on up there?” asked Boy 412.
“She’s sad,” said Jenna.
“But you’re free now, Marcia,” said Boy 412.
“Not Marcia. The dragon,” Jenna told him.
“How do you know?” asked Boy 412.
“Because I do. She talks to me. In my head.”
“Oh, yes?” Nicko laughed.
“‘Oh, yes’ to you too. She’s sad because she wants to go to sea. She doesn’t want to go back into the temple. Back to prison, she calls it.”
Marcia knew how the dragon felt.
“Tell her, Jenna,” said Marcia, “that she will go to sea again. But not tonight. Tonight we’d all like to go home.”
The Dragon Boat raised her head high, and this time Marcia did fall off. She slipped down the dragon’s neck and landed with a bump on the deck. But Marcia didn’t care; she didn’t even complain. She just sat gazing up at the stars while the Dragon Boat sailed serenely across the Marram Marshes.
Nicko, who was keeping a lookout, was surprised to see a small and oddly familiar fishing boat in the distance. It was the chicken boat, floating out with the tide. He pointed it out to Boy 412. “Look, I’ve seen that boat before. Must be someone from the Castle fishing down here.”
Boy 412 grinned. “They chose the wrong night to come out, didn’t they?”
By the time they reached the island, the tide was rapidly ebbing and the water covering the marsh was becoming shallow. Nicko took the tiller and guided the Dragon Boat into the course of the submerged Mott, passing the Roman temple as he did so. It was a striking sight. The marble of the temple glowed a luminous white as the moon shone upon it for the first time since Hotep-Ra had buried the Dragon Boat inside. All the earth banks and the wooden roof that he had built had been washed away, leaving the tall pillars standing clear in the brilliant moonlight.
Marcia was astounded.
“I had no idea this was here,” she said. “No idea at all. You’d have thought one of the books in the Pyramid Library might have mentioned it. And as for the Dragon Boat…well, I always thought that was just a legend.”
“Aunt Zelda knew,” said Jenna.
“Aunt Zelda?” asked Marcia. “Why didn’t she say so?”
“It’s her job not to say. She’s the Keeper of the island. The Queens, um, my mother, and my grandmother and great-grandmother and all the ones before them, they had to visit the dragon.”
“Did they?” asked Marcia, amazed, “Why?”
“I don’t know,” said Jenna.
“Well, they never told me, or Alther come to that.”
“Or DomDaniel,” Jenna pointed out.
“No,” said Marcia thoughtfully. “Maybe there are some things it is better for a Wizard not to know.”
They tied the Dragon Boat up to the landing stage, and she settled down into the Mott like a giant swan easing herself onto her nest, slowly lowering her huge wings and folding them neatly along the side of her hull. She dipped her head to allow Jenna to slip down onto the deck, then the dragon gazed around her. It may not be the ocean, she thought, but the wide expanse of the Marram Marshes with its long, low horizon stretching as far as the eye could see was the next best thing. The dragon closed her eyes. The Queen had returned, and she could smell the sea. She was content.
Jenna sat and dangled her legs over the edge of the sleeping Dragon Boat, surveying the scene before her. The cottage looked as peaceful as ever, although maybe it was not quite as neat as when they had left it, due to the fact that the goat had munched its way through much of the roof and was still going strong. Most of the island was now out of the water, although it was covered with a mixture of mud and seaweed. Aunt Zelda, thought Jenna, would not be happy about the state of her garden.
