“Good,” said Beetle.
“But…how? He was unconscious.”
Beetle shook his head. “I saw his eyes open—just for a moment. He looked at me. Can’t do that if you’re unconscious.”
“But how could he go so fast? Ephaniah can’t even walk very well.”
“Doesn’t make any difference who they InHabit,” said Beetle. “They can still shift it.”
Jenna looked Beetle in the eye. “You really do think that Ephaniah has been—what do you call it?—InHabited, don’t you?”
Beetle nodded solemnly.
“And you honestly, truly saw the snake ring on his finger?”
“Yep. Little pinky, left hand. Where they always wear them.”
“Okay,” said Jenna reluctantly. “I believe it now.”
Beetle grinned with relief and pleasure—Jenna had listened to him. It was a good feeling.
Septimus appeared, out of breath. “I saw it at the top of the hill,” he said. “It’s heading off.”
“Good,” said Beetle.
Jenna had something she wanted to say. “Beetle, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“’S okay.” Beetle shrugged.
“I know I should have.”
“I don’t see why—it’s weird stuff. Why should you believe it?”
“Because I know who that boy is. The one you call Daniel Hunter.”
“You do?”
“He was DomDaniel’s Apprentice. You remember, Sep? I know he’s changed a lot—he’s taller and his skin has gotten bad and his hair is long and horrible—but it is him, isn’t it?”
Septimus wasn’t too good with faces. But now that Jenna had said it, he knew she was right. “So that’s why he said he was me—because for ten years he was. Well, he thought he was. Poor kid.”
Beetle looked puzzled. “Tell you later, Beetle,” said Septimus. “But we ought to get going.” He held out the compass.
The needle was still pointing steadily—but not in the direction he had hoped. “Darn. It’s pointing the way the Thing has gone.”
“We’ll have to follow it,” said Jenna.
“No, Jen. That’s just plain dangerous,” Septimus protested.
Jenna stuck out her bottom lip stubbornly. “I don’t care, Sep. If that’s the way to the House of Foryx, then that’s the way we go.”
Septimus appealed to Beetle. “It’s crazy to follow that Thing. You agree, don’t you, Beetle?”
“Well…” Beetle hesitated.
“Beetle,” Septimus protested.
“If it’s going in the right direction we could do worse than to follow it. That way we keep an eye on it. Much better to have something like that in front of you than behind you where you can’t see what it’s doing.”
“Yes,” said Jenna briskly. “Just what I was thinking.”
“You know, Jen,” said Septimus as they set off following the Thing’s tracks, “sometimes you really do remind me of Marcia.”
40
THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS
T hey followed the long, scuffling
tracks away from the hut. The tracks led over a small stone bridge that Snorri had marked on the map, then up a steep slope and down into another valley beyond. As they walked through the tall trees at the head of the broad valley, all around was silence and snow; not a breath of wind stirred the branches. Once or twice they caught a glimpse of the Thing
far below, speeding down the slope with its odd, lurching gait, but the white of its robes made it hard to spot against the snow and it drew ever farther ahead until they lost sight of it.
Still following the tracks, the compass needle led them down to a frozen marsh on the valley floor. It was noticeably colder here. The mix of ice and marsh mud crackled beneath their feet and the tall, black spikes of reed that stuck up through the snow snagged on their wolverine-skin cloaks. As they continued on a downward slope, the marsh gave way to a wide frozen stream, along which the Thing
had traveled in long, sliding strides. Jenna picked up Ullr and placed him on top of her backpack. The cat perched precariously and surveyed the scene in a disapproving manner. Slipping and sliding, they set off along the ice, leaning forward to balance their backpacks. Soon they got into a steady skating rhythm and picked up speed along the smooth ice of the stream.
The stream widened and led them into the lower reaches of the valley. Septimus, who was in the lead, suddenly saw a huge bank of thick white fog rising in front of them. He skidded to a halt and Beetle cannoned into him, closely followed by Jenna and Ullr, who toppled onto the ice with a loud meow.
“Ouch,” said Beetle, dusting himself off and struggling to his feet. “You might have warned us you were putting on the brakes.”
“Didn’t have time,” said Septimus. “Look.” He pointed to the fog.
Beetle whistled between his teeth. “Where did that come from?”
“I saw it,” said Jenna, “but I thought it was snow.”
It was true—the fog was exactly the same color as snow. It stretched from left to right as far as the eye could see and blended seamlessly into the gray-white snow-filled sky. Jenna did not like fog; it reminded her of the time when she had sat marooned inside a Magykal
fog near the Marram Marshes, listening to the click of a pistol no more than a few feet away, aimed at her heart. “Do you think the Thing is in there, waiting for us?” she whispered.
“No,” said Beetle. “Look—the Thing
saw it before we did. There are the tracks.” The lopsided tracks had left the frozen stream, doubled back on themselves and disappeared up the hill and into the trees.
As they scanned the tracks, a long low rumble began to shake the ground. Deep within the fog, something was coming.
“Can you hear that?” asked Jenna, wide-eyed and pale.
Septimus and Beetle nodded.
“Run?” said Beetle as the ground vibrated through the soles of his boots. “Now?”
“Where to?” asked Jenna, glancing around. Nowhere looked safe to her.
Septimus shook his head. “No…no. It’s going away now. Listen. It’s passed by. Whatever it was.”
“Whatever it was,” muttered Beetle, “I would not have liked to have been in the way.”
Not so very far away, at the top of the hill, the Thing
stopped and looked down on the three figures standing uncertainly on the edge of the fog bank. It grimaced, contorting Ephaniah’s rat mouth into a vicious snarl. Just a few more careless steps, it thought, and the job would have been done.
But no matter—let them take their chance with the Foryx on the precipice path. And if they miss the Foryx then it will do exactly as its new Master had instructed. The Thing
respected its new Master. Slowly and clumsily, it turned away and, increasingly tired of the unwieldy body it had saddled itself with, lumbered off through the snow.
Back at the frozen stream Septimus was looking at the compass, shaking it in irritation. “Bother, bother, bother. Stop it.”
The needle, however, took no notice of being spoken to and carried on spinning wildly. “Jen,” he said, “we’d better look at the map. I think we’ve reached the edge of the hole.”
“Literally,” Beetle said with a gulp. “Look.” The fog was a mixture of eddies and swirls that drifted up in the air. It was constantly shifting, in some places dense, in others almost clear—and it was in one of these clear patches that Beetle had seen that no more than a few steps away the frozen stream had become a waterfall of ice, plunging over the edge of an abyss.
“Oh…” Septimus swayed and closed his eyes. A horrible feeling of vertigo shot up from the soles of his feet and made his head spin.
Beetle and Jenna crept forward and warily peered over. The fog rose, swirling in long tendrils that wrapped themselves around their feet and chilled them to the bone. Beetle crept even closer to the edge; he picked up a rock from the pile of stones beside the waterfall and hurled it into the chasm. They counted the seconds, waiting for the sound of the rock hitting the bottom, but after one whole minute they had still heard nothing. A sudden gust of wind caught Beetle’s cloak and sent it noisily flapping.
“Beetle!” Jenna gasped, grabbing hold of his sleeve. “You’re too close. Come back.” This was exactly the kind of thing that Beetle’s mother would have done. If it had been his mother, Beetle would have become extremely petulant and deliberately stood even closer to the edge—but not with Jenna. A decidedly unpetulant Beetle allowed himself to be pulled away.