Deppen Ditch

Marcia was snappy. Very snappy. Keeping two spells on the go was a tough one. Especially since one of them, being a Projection, was a Reverse form of Magyk and, unlike most spells that Marcia used, still had links to the Darke side - the Other side, as Marcia preferred to call it. It took a brave and skillful Wizard to use Reverse Magyk without inviting the Other in. Alther had taught Marcia well, for many of the spells he had learned from DomDaniel did indeed bring in Darke Magyk, and Alther had become adept at blocking it out. Marcia was only too well aware that all the time she was using the Projection, the Other hovered about them, awaiting its chance to break into the spell.

Which explained why Marcia felt as though her brain had no room left for anything else, certainly not for making the effort to be polite. "For goodness' sake, get this wretched boat moving, Nicko," snapped Marcia.

Nicko looked hurt. There was no need to talk to him like that. "Someone's got to paddle it, then," muttered Nicko. "And it would help if I could see where we're going."

With some effort, and a consequent increase in snappiness, Marcia cleared a tunnel through the Fog. Silas kept quiet. He knew that Marcia was having to use a huge amount of Magyk energy and skill, and he felt a grudging respect for her. There was no way Silas would ever dare attempt a Projection, let alone keep a massive Fog going at the same time. He had to hand it to her - she was pretty good.

Silas left Marcia to her Magyk and paddled Muriel through the thick white cocoon of the Fog tunnel while Nicko carefully steered the boat toward the bright starry sky at the end of the tunnel. Soon Nicko felt the bottom of the boat scraping along rough sand, and Muriel bumped up against a thick tuft of sedge grass.

They had reached the safety of the Marram Marshes.

Marcia breathed a sigh of relief and let the Fog disperse. Everyone relaxed, except for Jenna. Jenna, who had not been the only girl in a family of six boys without learning a thing or two, had Boy 412 facedown on the deck in an armlock.

"Let him go, Jen," said Nicko.

"Why?" demanded Jenna.

"He's only a silly boy."

"But he nearly got us all killed. We saved his life when he was buried in the snow and he betrayed us," Jenna said angrily.

Boy 412 was silent. Buried in the snow? Saved his life? All he remembered was falling asleep outside the WizardTower and then waking up a prisoner in Marcia's rooms.

"Let him go, Jenna," said Silas. "He doesn't understand what's going on."

"All right," said Jenna, a little reluctantly releasing Boy 412 from the armlock. "But I think he's a pig."

Boy 412 sat up slowly, rubbing his arm. He didn't like the way everyone was glaring him. And he didn't like the way the Princess girl called him a pig, especially after she had been so nice to him before. Boy 412 huddled by himself as far away from Jenna as he could get and tried to work things out in his head. It wasn't easy. Nothing made sense. He tried to remember what they told him in the Young Army. Facts. There are only facts. Good facts. Bad facts. So:

Fact One. Kidnapped: BAD.

Fact Two. Uniform stolen: BAD.

Fact Three.. Pushed down rubbish chute: BAD. Really BAD.

Fact Four. Shoved into cold smelly boat: BAD.

Fact Five. Not killed by Wizards (yet): GOOD.

Fact Six. Probably going to be killed by Wizards soon: BAD.



Boy 412 counted up the GOODs and the BADs. As usual, the BADs outnumbered the GOODs, which didn't surprise him.

Nicko and Jenna clambered out of Muriel and scrambled up the grassy bank beside the small sandy beach on which Muriel now lay with her sails hanging loose. Nicko wanted a rest from being in charge of the boat. He took his responsibilities as skipper very seriously, and while he was actually in Muriel he felt that if anything went wrong, it was somehow his fault. Jenna was pleased to be on dry land again, or rather slightly damp land - the grass she sat down on had a soggy, squashy feel to it, as though it was growing on a big piece of wet sponge, and it was covered in a light dusting of snow.

With Jenna at a safe distance, Boy 412 dared to look up, and he saw something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Magyk. Powerful Magyk.

Boy 412 stared at Marcia. Although no one else seemed to have noticed, he could see the haze of Magyk energy that surrounded her. It glowed a shimmering purple, flickering across the surface of her ExtraOrdinary Wizard cloak and giving her dark curly hair a deep purple shine. Marcia's brilliant green eyes glittered as she gazed into infinity, observing a silent film that only she could see. Despite his Young Army anti-Wizard training, Boy 412 found himself awestruck in the presence of Magyk.

The film Marcia was watching was, of course, leiruM and her six mirror-image crew. They were sailing fast toward the wide mouth of the river and had nearly reached the open sea at the Port. They were, to the Hunter's amazement, reaching incredible speeds for a small sailing boat, and although the bullet boat managed to keep leiruM in sight, it was having trouble closing the distance enough for the Hunter to fire his silver bullet. The ten oarsmen were also tiring, and the Hunter was quite hoarse from screaming at them to go "faster, fools!"

The Apprentice had sat obediently in the back of the boat for the entire Chase. The angrier the Hunter had become, the less he had dared to say anything at all and the more he had slunk down into his tiny space at the sweaty feet of Oarsman Number Ten. But as time went on Oarsman Number Ten began to mutter extremely rude and interesting comments about the Hunter under his breath, and the Apprentice got a little braver. He gazed out over the water and stared at the speeding leiruM. The more he looked at leiruM, the more he knew that something was wrong.

Finally the Apprentice dared to shout out to the Hunter, "Did you know that that boat's name is back to front?"

"Don't try to be clever with me, boy."

The Hunter's eyesight was good, but maybe not as good as a ten-and-a-half-year-old boy's, whose hobby was collecting and labeling ants. Not for nothing had the Apprentice spent hours at his Master's Camera Obscura, hidden far away in the Badlands, watching the river. He knew the names and histories of all the boats that sailed there. He knew that the boat they had been chasing before the Fog was Muriel, built by Rupert Gringe and hired out to catch herring. He also knew that after the Fog the boat was called leiruM, and "leiruM" was a mirror image of "Muriel." And he had been an Apprentice to DomDaniel for long enough to know exactly what that meant.

leiruM was a Projection, an Apparition, a Phantasm and an Illusion.

Luckily for the Apprentice, who was just about to inform the Hunter of this interesting fact, at that very moment back in the real Muriel, Maxie licked Marcia's hand in a friendly, slobbery wolfhound way. Marcia shuddered at the warm wolfhound spit, her concentration lapsed for a second, and leiruM briefly disappeared in front of the Hunter's own eyes. The boat quickly reappeared again, but too late. leiruM had given herself away.

The Hunter screamed in fury and slammed his fist down on the bullet box. Then he screamed again, this time in pain. He had broken his fifth metacarpal. His little finger. And it hurt. Nursing his hand, the Hunter yelled at the oarsmen: "Turn around, you fools!"

The bullet boat stopped, the oarsmen reversed their seats and wearily started rowing in the opposite direction. The Hunter found himself in the back of the boat. The Apprentice, to his delight, was now in the front. But the bullet boat was not the efficient machine it had been. The oarsmen were rapidly tiring and were not taking kindly to having insults screamed at them by an increasingly hysterical would-be murderer. The rhythm of their rowing faltered, and the smooth movement of the bullet boat became uneven and uncomfortable.

The Hunter sat glowering in the back of the boat. He knew that for the fourth time that night the Trail had gone cold. The Hunt was turning bad.

The Apprentice, however, was enjoying the turnaround. He sat low at what was now the prow and, rather like Maxie, put his nose in the air and enjoyed the sensation of the night air rushing past him. He also felt relieved that he had been able to do his job. His Master would be proud. He imagined himself back at his Master's side and how he would describe the way he had detected a fiendish Projection and saved the day. Perhaps it would stop his Master from being so disappointed in his lack of Magykal talent. He did try, thought the Apprentice, he really did, but somehow he just never quite got it. Whatever it was.

It was Jenna who saw the dreaded searchlight coming around a distant bend. "They're coming back!" she yelled.

Marcia jumped, lost the Projection completely and, far away at the Port, leiruM and her crew disappeared forever, much to the shock of a lone fisherman on the harbor wall.

"We've got to hide the boat," said Nicko, jumping up and running along the grassy bank, followed by Jenna.

Silas shoved Maxie out of the boat and told him to go and lie down. Then he helped Marcia out, and Boy 412 scrambled after her.

Marcia sat on the grassy bank of Deppen Ditch, determined to keep her purple python shoes dry for as long as she possibly could. Everyone else, including, to Jenna's surprise, Boy 412, waded into the shallow water and pushed Muriel clear of the sand so that she was floating again. Then Nicko grabbed a rope and pulled Muriel along the Deppen Ditch until she rounded a corner and could no longer be seen from the river. The tide was falling now, and Muriel floated low in the Ditch, her short mast hidden by the steeply rising banks.

The sound of the Hunter screaming at the oarsmen drifted across the water, and Marcia stuck her head up over the top of tne Ditch to see what was going on. She had never seen anything quite like it. The Hunter was standing very precariously in the back of the bullet boat wildly waving one arm in the air. He kept up a nonstop barrage of insults directed at the oarsmen, who had by now lost all sense of rhythm and were letting the bullet boat zigzag across the water.

"I shouldn't do this," said Marcia. "I really shouldn't. It's petty and vindictive and it demeans the power of Magyk, but I don't care."

Jenna, Nicko and Boy 412 rushed to the top of the Ditch to see what Marcia was about to do. As they watched, Marcia pointed her finger at the Hunter and muttered, "Dive!"

For a split second the Hunter felt odd, as though he was about to do something very stupid - which he was. For some reason he could not understand, he raised his arms elegantly above his head and carefully pointed his hands toward the water. Then he slowly bent his knees and dived neatly out of the bullet boat, performing a skillful somersault before he landed perfectly in the freezing cold water.

Reluctantly, and rather unnecessarily slowly, the oarsmen rowed back and helped the gasping Hunter into the boat. "You really shouldn't have done that, sir," said Oarsman Number Ten. "Not in this weather."

The Hunter could not reply. His teeth chattered so loudly that he could hardly think, let alone speak. His wet clothes clung to him as he shivered violently in the cold night air. Gloomily, he surveyed the marshland where he was sure his quarry had fled but could see no sign of them. Seasoned Hunter that he was, he knew better than to take to the Marram Marshes on foot in the middle of the night. There was nothing else for it - the Trail was dead and he must return to the Castle.

The bullet boat began its long, cold journey to the Castle while the Hunter huddled in the stern, nursing his broken finger and contemplating the ruins of his Hunt. And his reputation.

"Serves him right," said Marcia. "Horrible little man."

"Not entirely professional," a familiar voice boomed from the bottom of the Ditch, "but completely understandable, my dear. In my younger days I would have been tempted myself."

"Alther!" gasped Marcia, turning a little pink.