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With the sound of a million ripping sheets, the lightning snaked out of the clouds in front of them. For a split second, caught in the flash, Spit Fyre shone a brilliant green, his wings transparent red with a tracery of black bones - and his riders' faces a ghastly white.
Head up, nostrils flaring, Spit Fyre reeled back from the flash. For a terrifying moment, Beetle felt himself slipping backward. He grabbed hold of the spine in front and pulled himself back as Spit Fyre righted himself, put his head down and continued on. Some of Septimus's confidence began to ebb away. He could now hear a constant rumble of thunder, and ahead he could see flickering bands of lightning playing across the tops of the clouds. There was no getting away from it: Milo had been right - they were flying toward a storm.
Jenna tapped Septimus on the shoulder. "Can we go around it?" she yelled. Septimus twisted around and looked behind, only to see a fork of lightning streak down, narrowly missing Spit Fyre's tail. It was too late - suddenly the storm was around them.
"I'll take him down...fly near the water...less windy..." was all Jenna heard as the wind snatched Septimus's words out of his mouth.
The next thing Beetle knew, Spit Fyre was dropping like a stone. Beetle was convinced that Spit Fyre had been struck by a lightning bolt; the snake lying in the pit of his stomach began to tie itself in knots; he screwed his eyes shut and, as the roar of the waves got louder and the salt spray blew into his face, he waited for the inevitable splash. When it didn't come Beetle risked opening his eyes - and wished he hadn't. A wall of water as high as a house was heading right for them.
Septimus had seen it too. "Up! Up, Spit Fyre!" he yelled, giving the dragon two hefty kicks on the right. Spit Fyre didn't need to be told - or kicked. He disliked walls of water as much as his passengers did. He shot up just in time, and the huge wave traveled on below, showering them with spray.
Septimus took Spit Fyre up a little higher so that the dragon was flying just out of reach of the spray and peered down at the sea. He had never seen it like this - deep troughs and rolling mountains of water, their tops blown off by the wind into horizontal streaks of spume. Septimus gulped. This was serious.
"Keep going, Spit Fyre!" he yelled. "Keep going! We'll be out of this soon."
But they weren't out of it soon. Septimus had never before considered how large the storm might be. Storms were always something that passed overhead, but now he began to wonder how many miles wide the storm might actually be, and - more important - was it traveling with them or crossing their path?
They lurched on. The wind howled and the waves roared and crashed like marauding armies, throwing them to and fro in the midst of their battle. Violent gusts of wind snatched at Spit Fyre's wings, which Septimus was beginning to realize were somewhat flimsy - just thin dragon skin and a lightweight tracery of bones. Every time a squall caught Spit Fyre, they were thrown sideways or, even worse, backward - which was much more difficult to recover from and left Beetle gasping in terror. Septimus knew that Spit Fyre was getting tired. The dragon's neck drooped, and beneath his hands Spit Fyre's muscles felt knotted and weary.
"On, Spit Fyre, on!" Septimus yelled over and over again, until his voice was hoarse. They plunged forward through the wind and the driving rain, jumping at each roll of thunder, flinching with every craaaaack of lightning. It was then that Septimus thought he saw the light of a lighthouse in the distance. He stared, just to make sure it was not another lightning flash, but the glow that lit up the horizon was no flash - it burned steady and bright. At last Septimus felt they had a chance. Remembering what Nicko had told him about the passage home, he changed course and set Spit Fyre heading toward the light - into the teeth of the wind. At the back of the dragon, Beetle registered the change of course and wondered why, until he caught a glimpse of the light ahead. Suddenly his spirits lifted - it must be the Double Dune Light. Warm and happy thoughts of the welcoming Port not far ahead flooded him, and he even began to hope that maybe - if they were lucky - the Harbor and Dock Pie Shop might still be open, and one of his cousins could be prevailed upon to give them all a bed for the night.
As Beetle daydreamed about a warm, dry bed and a Harbor and Dock pie, Septimus felt hopeful too, as he was sure the storm was abating. He flew Spit Fyre high once more so that he could get a better view of where they were going. The light shone brilliantly into the night, and Septimus smiled - it was as he had hoped. There were two lights close together, just as Nicko had described - now he knew where they were. He flew steadily on until he was so close that he could even see the peculiar earlike points at the very top of the lighthouse tower. But as he flew Spit Fyre up a little higher before he made the course change, the storm had its last throw. From directly above, a great craaaack of lightning snaked down and, this time, it scored a hit - Spit Fyre was sent reeling. An acrid smell of burning dragon flesh enveloped them as the dragon fell from the sky.
They were sent plummeting toward the lighthouse. And as they fell Beetle came back to reality - he realized that the light was not housed in the ramshackle metal frame of the Double Dune Light but was two lights atop a blackened brick tower sporting two points that looked, Beetle thought in his terrified state, like cat ears. As they tumbled toward the sea, Beetle saw that there were no friendly lights of the Port awaiting them. Only blackness.
Chapter 20 Miarr
M iarr gazed out from the Watching platform on the CattRokk Light - a lighthouse perched on a rock in the middle of the sea, the very top of which resembled the head of a cat, complete with ears and two brilliant beams of light that shone from its eyes. Miarr was on Watch - again. At his insistence, Miarr did every night Watch and many of the day Watches too. He did not trust his co-Watcher any further than he could throw him - and given their huge discrepancy in size, that would not be very far, unless...a small smile flickered over Miarr's delicate mouth as he allowed himself his favorite daydream - heaving Fat Crowe out of one of the Eyes. Now that would be a very long throw indeed. How far down was it to the rocks below? Miarr knew the answer well enough - three hundred and forty-three feet exactly.
Miarr shook his head to clear it of such beguiling thoughts. Fat Crowe would never even make it up to the Light - there was no way he could squeeze through the tiny opening at the top of the pole that led from the Watching platform to the Arena of Light. Thin Crowe, on the other hand, would have no trouble. Miarr shivered at the thought of Thin Crowe squeezing up to his precious Light like a weasel. Given the choice between the Crowe twins - not a choice he ever wanted to make - he would choose the fat one any day. The thin one was vicious.
Miarr pulled his close-fitting sealskin hat down so that it covered his ears and wrapped his cloak tightly around him. It was cold at the top of the lighthouse, and the storm made him shiver. He pressed his small, flat nose to the glass and stared out into the storm, his big, round eyes wide open and his keen night sight piercing the dark. The wind screamed and the rain whipped against the thick green glass of the Watching platform windows. The two beams of Light picked out the undersides of the black storm clouds, which formed a continuous blanket so low that Miarr was sure the Ears of the lighthouse must be touching them. A silent sheet of lightning passed through the clouds, and the hairs on the back of Miarr's neck crackled with electricity. A burst of hail spattered against the glass, and he jumped in surprise. It was the wildest storm he had seen in a long time; he pitied anyone out there tonight.
Miarr prowled lightly around the Watching platform, checking the horizon. On a night like this it would be all too easy for a ship to be swept too close to the lighthouse and the danger zone. And if that happened he would have to get down to the rescue boat and try to guide the ship to safety - no easy task on a night like this. From the tiny sleeping cabin far below, loud catarrhal snores from Fat Crowe echoed through the cavernous stairwell of the lighthouse. Miarr sighed heavily. He knew he needed a helper, but why the Port Harbor Master had sent him the Crowe twins he had no idea. Ever since his fellow Watcher, his cousin, Mirano - the very last member of his family left, apart from him - had disappeared the night of the first visit of the new supply boat, Marauder, Miarr had been forced to share his lighthouse with what he had at the time considered to be creatures little better than apes. Since the Crowes' arrival Miarr had - out of respect to apes - revised that opinion. He now thought of them as little better than slugs, to which both Fat and Thin Crowe bore a remarkable resemblance. So now, in the depths of the lighthouse in what had once been his and Mirano's cozy little sleeping cabin, Miarr knew that Fat Crowe was occupying what had once been his comfortable goose-down bunk. Miarr, who had not slept properly since Mirano's disappearance, growled unhappily. Like all Watchers he and Mirano had taken turns to sleep in the same bed, spending only a few hours each day together when they sat on the Watching platform eating their evening meal of fish before the Change of Watch. Now Miarr slept - or tried to - on a pile of sacks in a chamber at the foot of the lighthouse. He always barred the door, but the knowledge that a Crowe was loose in his beautiful lighthouse meant he could never relax.
