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.
When the water had ebbed from the landing stage, Marcia and the crew climbed out of the Dragon Boat and made their way up to the cottage, which was suspiciously quiet and the front door was slightly open. With a sense of foreboding, they peered inside.
Brownies.
Everywhere. The door to the Disenchanted cat tunnel was open and the place was crawling with Brownies. Up the walls, over the floor, stuck on the ceiling, packed tight into the potion cupboard, munching, chewing, tearing, pooing as they went through the cottage like a storm of locusts. At the sight of the humans, ten thousand Brownies started up their high-pitched squeals.
Aunt Zelda was out of the kitchen in a flash."What?" she gasped, trying to take it all in but seeing only an unusually disheveled Marcia standing in the middle of a heaving sea of Brownies. Why, thought Aunt Zelda, does Marcia always have to make things so difficult? Why on earth had she brought a load of Brownies back with her?
"Blasted Brownies!" bellowed Aunt Zelda, waving her arms about in an ineffectual way. "Out, out, get out!"
"Allow me, Zelda," Marcia shouted. "I'll do a quick Remove for you."
"No!" yelled Aunt Zelda. "I must do this myself, otherwise they will lose respect for me."
"Well, I wouldn't exactly call this respect," muttered Marcia, lifting her ruined shoes out of the sticky slime and inspecting the soles. She definitely had a hole in them somewhere. She could feel the slime seeping in between her toes.
Suddenly the shrieking stopped, and thousands of little red eyes all stared in terror at the thing a Brownie feared the most. A Boggart.
The Boggart.
With his fur clean and brushed, looking thin and small with the white sash of his bandage still tied around his middle, there was not quite as much Boggart as there had been. But he still had Boggart Breath. And, breathing Boggart Breath as he went, he waded through the Brownies, feeling his strength returning.
The Brownies saw him coming, and desperate to escape, they stupidly piled themselves up in the farthest corner away from the Boggart, higher and higher until every Quake Ooze Brownie but one, a young one out for the first time, was on the teetering pile in the far corner by the desk. Suddenly the young Brownie shot out from underneath the hearth rug. Its anxious red eyes shone from its pointy face and its bony fingers and toes clattered on the stone floor as, watched by everyone, it scuttled down the length of the room to join the pile.
It threw itself onto the slimy heap and joined the throng of little red eyes staring at the Boggart.
"Dunno why they don't just leave. Blasted Brownies," said the Boggart. "Still, there's bin a terrible storm. Don't suppose they wanter go out of a nice warm cottage. You seen that big ship out there stuck on the marshes sinkin' down into the mud? They're lucky all them Brownies is in 'ere an' not out there, busy draggin' 'em down inter the Ooze."
Everyone exchanged glances.
"Yes, aren't they just?" said Aunt Zelda who knew exactly which ship the Boggart was talking about, having been too engrossed watching everything from the kitchen window with the Boggart to have noticed the invasion of the Brownies.
"Yeah. Well, I'll be off now," said the Boggart. "Can't stand bein' so clean anymore. Just want ter find a nice bit a mud."
"Well, there's no shortage of that outside, Boggart," said Aunt Zelda.
"Yeah," said the Boggart. "Er, just wanter say thank you, Zelda, fer ... well, fer lookin' after me, like. Ta. Them Brownies'll leave when I've gone. If you get any more trouble, just yell."
The Boggart waddled out of the door to spend a few happy hours choosing a patch of mud to spend the rest of the night in. He was spoiled for choice.
As soon as he left, the Brownies became restless, their little red eyes exchanging glances and looking at the open door. When they were quite sure that the Boggart was really gone, a cacophony of excited shrieks started up and the pile suddenly collapsed in a spray of brown goo. Free of Boggart Breath at last, the Brownie pack headed for the door. It rushed down the island, streamed over the Mott bridge and headed out across the Marram Marshes. Straight for the stranded Vengeance.
"You know," said Aunt Zelda as she watched the Brownies disappear into the shadows of the marsh, "I almost feel sorry for them."
"What, the Brownies or the Vengeance?" asked Jenna.
"Both," said Aunt Zelda.
"Well, I don't," said Nicko. "They deserve each other."
Even so, no one wanted to watch what happened to the Vengeance that night. And no one wanted to talk about it either.
Later, after they had cleared as much brown goo out of the cottage as they could, Aunt Zelda surveyed the damage, determined to look on the bright side. "It's really not so bad," she said. "The books are fine - well, at least they will be when they've all dried out and I can redo the potions. Most of them were coming up to their drink-by date anyway. And the really important ones are in the Safe. The Brownies didn't eat all the chairs like last time, and they didn't even poo on the table. So, all in all, it could have been worse. Much worse."
Marcia sat down and took off her wrecked purple python shoes. She put them by the fire to dry while she considered whether to do a Shoe Renew or not. Strictly speaking, Marcia knew she shouldn't. Magyk was not meant to be used for her own comfort. It was one thing to sort out her cloak, which was part of the tools of her trade, but she could hardly pretend that the pointy pythons were necessary for the performance of Magyk. So they sat steaming by the fire, giving off a faint but disagreeable smell of moldy snake.
"You can have my spare pair of galoshes," Aunt Zelda offered. "Much more practical for around here."
"Thank you, Zelda," said Marcia dismally. She hated galoshes.
"Oh, cheer up, Marcia," said Aunt Zelda irritatingly. "Worse things happen at sea."