Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [129]
But the Queen does not forget what Hotep-Ra has told her—that she must visit the Dragon Boat each MidSummer Day. Every summer she comes to the island. She orders a simple cottage to be built for her ladies and herself to stay in, and every MidSummer Day she lights a lantern, takes it down into the temple and visits the boat she has come to love. As the years go by, each successive Queen pays a midsummer visit to the Dragon Boat, no longer knowing why, but doing it because her own mother did so before her, and because each new Queen grows to love the dragon too. The dragon loves each Queen in return, and although each one is different in her own way, they all possess the same distinctive, gentle touch, as does this one.
And so the centuries pass. The Queen’s midsummer visit becomes a secret tradition, watched over by a succession of White Witches who live in the cottage, keeping the secret of the Dragon Boat and lighting the lanterns to help the dragon through her days. The dragon dozes the centuries away, buried under the island, hoping one day to be released and waiting for each magical MidSummer Day when the Queen herself brings a lantern and pays her respects.
Until one MidSummer Day ten years ago when the Queen did not come. The dragon was tormented with worry, but there was nothing to be done. Aunt Zelda kept the cottage ready for the advent of the Queen, should she ever arrive, and the dragon had waited, her spirits kept up by Aunt Zelda’s daily visit with yet another freshly lit lantern. But what the dragon was really waiting for was the moment when the Queen would again throw her arms around her neck.
As she had just done.
The dragon opened her eyes in surprise. Jenna gasped. She must be dreaming, she thought. The dragon’s eyes were indeed green, just as she had imagined, but they were not emeralds. They were living, seeing dragon eyes. Jenna let go of the dragon’s neck and stepped back, and the dragon eyes followed her movement, taking a long look at the new Queen. It is a young one, thought the dragon, but none the worse for that. She bowed her head respectfully.
From the stern of the boat, Boy 412 saw the dragon bow her head, and he knew he was not imagining things. Neither was he imagining something else. The sound of running water.
“Look!” yelled Nicko.
A narrow dark gap had appeared in the wall between the two marble pillars holding up the roof. A small trickle of water had begun to pour ominously through the opening as if a sluice gate had been nudged open. As they watched, the trickle soon became a stream, with the gap opening wider and wider. Soon the mosaic floor of the temple was awash with water, and the stream pouring in had become a torrent.
With a thunderous roar, the earth bank outside gave way, and the wall between the two pillars collapsed. A river of mud and water swept into the cavern, churning around the Dragon Boat, lifting and rocking her from side to side, until suddenly she was floating free.
“She’s afloat!” yelled Nicko excitedly.
Jenna stared down from the prow at the muddy water swirling below them and watched as the small wooden ladder was caught up in the flood and swept away. Far above her, Jenna became aware of some movement: slowly and painfully, with a neck stiff from all the years of waiting, the dragon was turning her head to see who, at last, was at the helm. She rested her deep-green eyes on her new Master, a surprisingly small figure in a red hat. He did not look anything like her last Master, Hotep-Ra, a tall dark man whose gold and platinum belt would flash in the sunlight glancing off the waves and whose purple cloak would fly wildly in the wind as they sped together over the ocean. But the dragon recognized the most important thing of all: the hand that once again held the tiller was Magykal.
It was time to go to sea once more.
The dragon reared her head, and the two massive leathery wings, which had been folded along the sides of the boat, began to loosen. Before her, for the first time in many hundreds of years, she could see open water.
Maxie