Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [128]
“That old chest in Marcia’s room at the Tower,” said Boy 412 as he wandered along the deck, trailing his fingers along the polished wood, “it had the same kind of writing on it.”
“Did it?” said Jenna doubtfully. As far as she remembered, Boy 412 had his eyes closed most of the time he was in the Wizard Tower.
“I saw it when the Assassin came in. I can still see it now in my head,” said Boy 412, who was often troubled with a photographic memory of the most unfortunate of times.
They wandered along the deck of the Dragon Boat, past coiled green ropes, golden cleats and shackles, silver blocks and halyards and endless hieroglyphs. They passed by a small cabin with its deep blue doors firmly closed and carrying the same dragon symbol enclosed in a flattened oval shape that they had seen on the door in the tunnel, but none of them felt quite brave enough to open the doors and see what was below. They tiptoed past and, at last, reached the stern of the boat.
The tail of the dragon.
The massive tail arched high above them, disappearing into the gloom and making them all feel very small and a little vulnerable. All the Dragon Boat had to do was swish its tail down at them, and that, thought Boy 412 with a shiver, would be that.
Maxie had become very subdued and was walking obediently behind Nicko, his tail between his legs. He still had the feeling he had done something very wrong, and being on the Dragon Boat had not made him feel any better.
Nicko was at the stern of the boat, casting an expert eye over the tiller. It met with his approval. It was an elegant, smoothly curved piece of mahogany, carved so expertly that it fit into the hand as if it had known you forever.
Nicko decided to show Boy 412 how to steer.
“Look, you hold it like this,” he said, taking hold of the tiller, “and then you push it to the right if you want the boat to go left, and you pull it to the left if you want the boat to go right. Easy.”
“Doesn’t sound very easy,” said Boy 412 doubtfully. “Sounds back to front to me.”
“See, like this.” Nicko pushed the tiller to the right. It moved smoothly, turning the huge rudder at the stern in the opposite direction.
Boy 412 looked over the side of the boat.
“Oh, that’s what it does,” he said. “I see now.”
“You try,” said Nicko. “It makes more sense when you’re holding it yourself.” Boy 412 took the tiller in his right hand and stood beside it as Nicko had shown him.
The dragon’s tail twitched.
Boy 412 jumped. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” said Nicko. “Look, just push it away from you, like this…”
While Nicko was doing what he liked to do best, telling someone about how boats worked, Jenna had wandered up to the prow to look at the handsome golden dragon head. She gazed at it and found herself wondering why its eyes were closed. If she had a wonderful boat like this, thought Jenna, she would give the dragon two huge emeralds for eyes. It was no more than the dragon deserved. And then, on impulse, she wrapped her arms around the dragon’s smooth green neck and laid her head against it. The neck felt smooth and surprisingly warm.
A shiver of recognition ran through the dragon at Jenna’s touch. Distant memories came flooding back to the Dragon Boat…
Long days of convalescence after her terrible accident. Hotep-Ra bringing the beautiful young Queen from the Castle to visit her on MidSummer Day. Days turning into months dragging into years as the Dragon Boat lies on the floor of the temple and is slowly, so slowly, put back together by Hotep-Ra’s boatbuilders. And each MidSummer Day the Queen, now accompanied by her baby daughter, visited the Dragon Boat. The years wearing on and still the boatbuilders have not finished. Endless lonely months when the builders disappear and leave her alone. And then Hotep-Ra becoming older and more frail, and when at last she is restored to her former glory, Hotep-Ra is too ill to see her. He orders the temple to be covered over with a huge mound of earth to protect her until the day she will again be needed, and she is plunged