by Angie Sage
Sarah Heap clasped her hands together tightly, and Jannit noticed that her fingernails were bitten down to the quick. Sarah was trembling and did not speak for some seconds. Then, just as Jannit thought she would have to break the silence, Sarah said, “He will come back. I don’t believe they went back in Time—no one can do that. Jenna and Septimus just thought they did. It was some wicked, wicked spell. I keep asking Marcia to figure it out. She could Find Nicko, I know she could, but she’s done nothing. Nothing. It’s all a complete nightmare!” Sarah’s voice rose in despair.
“I’m so sorry,” Jannit murmured. “I really am.”
Sarah took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “It’s not your fault, Jannit. You were very good to Nicko. He loved working for you. But of course you must find another apprentice, although I would ask you one thing.”
“Of course,” replied Jannit.
“When Nicko returns, will you renew his apprenticeship?”
“I would be delighted to.” Jannit smiled, pleased that Sarah had asked for something she could readily agree to. “Even if I have a new apprentice, Nicko would step straight into Rupert’s shoes and become my senior apprentice—or journeyman as we call it down at the yard.”
Sarah smiled wistfully. “That would be wonderful,” she said.
“And now”—this was the part Jannit had been dreading— “I am afraid I must trouble you to sign the Release.” Jannit stood up to pull a roll of parchment from her coat pocket, and the pile of towels, suddenly losing their support, fell down and took her place.
Jannit cleared a space on the table and unrolled the long piece of parchment that formed Nicko’s apprentice Indentures. She secured it top and bottom with whatever came to hand—a well-thumbed novel called Love on the High Seas and a large bag of biscuits.
“Oh.” Sarah caught her breath at the sight of Nicko’s spidery signature—along with her own and Jannit’s—at the foot of the parchment.
Hastily, Jannit placed the Release—a small slip of parch-ment—over the signatures and said, “Sarah, as one of the parties who signed the Indentures, I have to ask you to sign the Release. I have a pen if you . . . if you can’t find one.”
Sarah couldn’t find one. She took the pen and ink bottle that Jannit had taken from her other coat pocket, dipped the pen in the ink and—feeling as though she was signing Nicko’s life away—she signed the parchment. A tear dripped onto the ink and smudged it; both Jannit and Sarah pretended not to notice.
Jannit signed her own signature next to Sarah’s; then she took a needle threaded with thick sail cotton from her bottomless coat pocket and sewed the Release over the original signatures.
Nicko Heap was no longer apprenticed to Jannit Maarten. Jannit snatched up the hat balanced behind her and fled. It was only when she reached her boat that she realized she had taken Sarah’s gardening hat, but she stuffed it on her head regardless and rowed slowly back to her boatyard.
Silas Heap and Maxie the wolfhound found Sarah in her herb garden. Sarah was, for some reason Silas did not understand, wearing a sailor’s boater. She also had Jenna’s duck with her. Silas was not keen on the duck—the stubble gave him goose bumps when he looked at it and he thought the crocheted waistcoat was a sign that Sarah was going a little crazy.
“Oh, there you are,” he said, heading along the neatly tended grass path toward the bed of mint that Sarah was absent-mindedly poking at. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Sarah gave Silas a wan half smile in reply, and as Silas and Maxie plowed through the defenseless patch of mint, she did not venture even a small protest. Silas, like Sarah, looked careworn. His straw-colored Heap curls had recently acquired a gray dusting of salt and pepper, his blue Ordinary Wizard robes hung loosely from him, and his silver Ordinary Wizard belt was pulled in a notch or two more than usual. Accompanied by the heady smell of crushed mint, Silas reached Sarah and launched straight into his prepared speech.
“You’re not going to like this,” he said, “but my mind is made up. Maxie and I are going into the Forest and we’re not coming out until we’ve found him.”
Sarah picked up the duck and hugged it tightly to her. It let out a strangled quack. “You are a pig-headed fool,” she said. “How many times have I told you that if you would only get Marcia to do something about this horrible Darke Magyk that has trapped Nicko somewhere, then he’d be back in a moment. But you won’t. You go on and on about the stupid Forest—”
Silas sighed. “I told you, Marcia says it’s not Darke Magyk. There’s no point asking her over and over again.” Sarah glowered so Silas tried another tack. “Look, Sarah, I can’t just do nothing, it’s driving me crazy. It’s been six months now since Jenna and Septimus came back without Nicko and I’m not waiting any longer. You had the same dream as I did. You know it means something.”
Sarah remembered the dream she had had a few months after Nicko disappeared. He was walking through a forest deep in snow; it was twilight and in front of him a yellow light shone through the trees. There was a girl beside him, a little taller and older than he was, Sarah thought. The girl had long, white-blond hair and was wrapped in a wolfskin pelt. She pointed to the light ahead. Nicko took the girl’s hand and together they hurried toward the light. At that moment Silas had started snoring and Sarah had woken up with a jolt. The next morning Silas had excitedly described a dream he had had about Nicko. To Sarah’s amazement it was identical to hers.
Since that moment Silas had become convinced that Nicko was in the Forest and he wanted to go search for him. But Sarah had disagreed. The forest in the dream was not, she had told Silas, the Castle Forest. It was different, she was sure of that. Silas, in turn, had also disagreed. He knew the Forest, he said—and he was sure it was the Castle Forest.
In their time together Sarah and Silas did not always agree, but they would quickly resolve their differences, often when Silas brought home a few wildflowers or herbs for Sarah as a peace offering. But this time there was no peace offering. Silas and Sarah’s arguments about forests became increasingly bitter and they soon lost sight of the real reason for their unhappiness: Nicko’s disappearance.
But now Silas had just bumped into the departing Jannit Maarten, who was carrying Nicko’s ex-Apprentice Indentures. He had made his mind up. He was going into the Forest to find Nicko and no one was going to stop him—particularly Sarah.
2
FREE!
Feed the Magogs, do not touch Sleuth, and don’t go nosing around my room. Got that?” Simon Heap told his scowling assistant, Merrin Meredith.
“Yeah, yeah,” sulked Merrin, who was sitting list-lessly on the one comfortable chair in the Observatory. His dark, straggly hair hung limply over his face, masking a large pimple in the middle of his forehead that had sprung up overnight.
“You got that?” asked Simon crossly.
“I said ‘yeah,’ didn’t I?” mumbled Merrin, swinging his long, gangly legs so that his feet hit the chair with an irritating regularity.
“And you better keep the place tidy,” Lucy Gringe told him. “I don’t want to come back to a complete mess.”
Merrin jumped up and made a mock bow to Lucy. “Yes, Your Ladyship. Can I do anything else for you, Your Ladyship?”
Lucy Gringe giggled.
Simon Heap frowned. “Come on, Lucy,” he said irritably. “If you want to get to the Port before nightfall, that is.”
“Wait a minute, I’ve just got to find my—”
“I’ve got your bag and your cloak. Come on, Luce.” Simon strode across the Observatory, his footsteps sounding hollow on the black slate, and disappeared through the granite arch that led to the stairs. “And, Merrin—don’t do anything stupid.” Simon’s voice echoed up the stairs.
Merrin kicked the chair angrily and a cloud of dust and disturbed moths flew out. He was not stupid. He was not, not, not stupid. Merrin had spent the first ten years of his life being called stupid by his old master, DomDaniel, and he had had enough
of it. Merrin had been mistakenly known as Septimus Heap for all those years, but however hard he had tried, he had been a poor substitute for the real Septimus. DomDaniel never did realize the mistake—or the reason why his hapless Apprentice never managed to do anything right.
Scowling, Merrin threw himself back into the old armchair. He watched Lucy Gringe, plaits and ribbons flying, rush around, gathering up her last-minute bits and pieces.
At last Lucy was ready. She snatched up the multicolored scarf that she had knitted for Simon during the long winter evenings in the Harbor and Dock Pie Shop and ran after him. As she, too, disappeared under the gloomy granite archway, she gave Merrin a little wave. Merrin lost his scowl and waved back. Lucy always managed to make him smile.
Happy to be away from what she considered to be the creepiest place on earth, Lucy did not give Merrin another thought as he listened to the hollow sound of her boots beginning the long descent to the cold, damp, Wurm-slimed burrow where Simon’s horse, Thunder, was stabled.
As the sound of Lucy’s boots faded away into the distance and a heavy silence replaced it, Merrin sprang into action.
He seized a long pole and quickly began lowering the black blinds that covered the skylight at the top of the room—it poked up from the rough grass and rocky outcrops at the top of the tall slate cliffs, the only part of the Observatory visible aboveground. As Merrin pulled down blind after blind, the huge room slowly darkened until a dim twilight reigned.
Merrin went over to the Camera Obscura—a large, concave dish that filled the center of the circular room—and gazed at it with a rapt expression. What had been a blank white dish in the early-morning sun streaming through the skylight was now transformed to show a beautifully detailed, colorful scene. Entranced, he watched a line of sheep silently amble along the cliff top above the ravine, the pink clouds of the sunrise drifting slowly behind them.
Merrin reached up, took hold of a long pole hanging down from the center of the skylight, and began to turn it. A protesting squeak started up from a small bonnet at the apex of the skylight, which held the lens that focused the scene onto the dish below. As Merrin slowly turned the bonnet through a full circle, the picture before him changed, showing a silent panorama of the outside world. Merrin took a turn through the whole 360 degrees just for fun and then sought out the spot he wished to watch. He let go of the pole, the squeaking stopped and, pushing his straggly black hair out of his eyes, Merrin leaned forward and stared intently at the scene before him.
The dish showed a long, winding path that snaked down between rocky outcrops. A deep ravine could be seen to its right, and sheer slate cliffs to the left, broken only by an occasional rock fall or cascade of gravel. Patiently Merrin waited until at last he saw Thunder come into view. The horse slowly picked his way along the path, carefully guided by Simon, his black cloak wrapped around him against the early-morning chill. He was muffled in Lucy’s scarf, the end of which she had also wound around her own neck. Lucy sat behind Simon, swathed in her precious blue cloak, her arms clasped tightly around his waist.
Merrin grinned as he watched the horse travel silently across the dish. He was, he said to himself, seeing them off the premises. As he watched Thunder’s slow progress, Merrin congratulated himself on having engineered the whole thing. From the moment Lucy Gringe had arrived a couple of weeks ago—accompanied by an immensely irritating rat that Merrin had also seen off the premises with a well-aimed kick—Merrin had started planning. His opportunity arose sooner than he had expected. Lucy wanted a ring—and not any old ring either. A diamond ring.
Merrin had been surprised at how quickly Simon had agreed to Lucy’s way of thinking about many things—even diamond rings. Seizing his chance, Merrin had suggested that he could look after the Observatory while Simon took Lucy to the Port to find a ring. Simon said yes, as he had in mind a visit to Drago Mills’s warehouse clearance sale, which the rat had talked about at length. It had started the week previously due to the death of the owner of the warehouse, and was apparently full of the most amazing bargains. Lucy Gringe, however, had other ideas. She had already decided on the perfect ring and it was definitely not from Drago Mills’s warehouse clearance sale.
At last Merrin’s patience was rewarded by the sight of Thunder carrying his two riders off the edge of the dish. As the horse’s tail disappeared Merrin let out a loud whoop. At last, at long last—after spending his whole life being told what to do by someone else—he was free!
EXCERPT FROM
SEPTIMUS HEAP
BOOK FIVE
Syren
PROLOGUE:
A CROSSING OF PATHS
It is Nicko’s first night out of the House of Foryx, and Jenna thinks he is going a little crazy.
Some hours previously, on Nicko’s insistence, Septimus and Spit Fyre took Jenna, Nicko, Snorri, Ullr and Beetle to the Trading Post—a long string of harbors on the edge of the land where the House of Foryx lies hidden. Nicko had been desperate to see the sea once more, and no one, not even Marcia, felt able to refuse.
Septimus objected a little more than anyone else. He knew his dragon was tired after the long flight from the Castle to the House of Foryx, and they both faced a long journey home with the dangerously ill Ephaniah Grebe. But Nicko was adamant. He had to go to—of all places—a ramshackle net loft on Harbor Number Three, which was one of the smaller harbors on the Trading Post and used mainly by local fishing boats. Nicko told them that the net loft belonged to the bosun on the ship that he and Snorri had sailed on all those years in the past, bound from the Port to the Trading Post. In mid-crossing Nicko had saved the ship from catastrophe by doing an emergency repair of a broken mast, and in gratitude the bosun, a Mr. Higgs, had given Nicko a key to his net loft and insisted that anytime Nicko was in the Trading Post he could—indeed must—stay there.
When Septimus pointed out that that was five hundred years ago and the offer may not still stand—let alone the net loft—Nicko had told Septimus that of course it still stood, an offer was an offer. All he wanted, Nicko said, was to be near boats once more, to hear the sea again, and to smell the salt in the air. Septimus argued no further. How could he—or any of the others—refuse Nicko that?
And so, with some misgivings, Septimus left them at the end of the dingy alleyway that Nicko insisted contained Mr. Higgs’s net loft. Septimus and Spit Fyre had returned to a snowy tree house near the House of Foryx where Ephaniah Grebe, Marcia and Sarah Heap waited to take them back to the Castle.
However, after Septimus’s departure, all had not gone well at the net loft. Nicko—surprised to find that his key would not fit—had to break in, and no one was impressed with what met them inside. It stank. It was also dark, damp, cold and, apparently, used as the local fish garbage dump, judging by the pile of rotting fish heaped up below the small, unglazed window. There was, as Jenna irritably pointed out, nowhere to sleep because most of the top two floors were missing, allowing a fine view of a large hole in the roof, which the local seagull population was apparently using as a toilet. Even so, Nicko remained undeterred. But when Beetle fell through the rotten floor and was left dangling by his belt over a cellar full of unidentifiable slime, there was a rebellion.
Which is why we now find Jenna, Nicko, Snorri, Ullr and Beetle standing outside a seedy café on Harbor Number One—the nearest place to eat. They are looking at scrawls on a chalkboard offering three varieties of fish, something called Pot Luck Stew and a steak from an animal that no one has ever heard of.
Jenna says she doesn’t care what the animal is as long as it is not Foryx. Nicko says he doesn’t care either—he will have one of everything. He is, he says, hungry for the first time in five hundred years. No one can argue with that.
And no one in the café argues with them either, quite possibly because of the large, green-eyed panther that follows the tall blonde girl like a shadow and emits a low, rumbling growl if anyone comes near. Jenna is very glad of Ullr’s company— the café is a menacing
place full of sailors, fishermen and assorted traders, all of whom notice the group of four teenagers sitting at the table by the door. Ullr keeps people at bay, but the panther cannot stop the endless, uncomfortable stares.
All choose the Pot Luck Stew, with which, as Beetle observes, they do not strike lucky. Nicko proceeds to do as he threatened and eats his way through the entire menu. They watch Nicko demolish numerous plates of odd-shaped fish garnished with a variety of seaweed and a thick red steak with white bristles on its rind, which he feeds to Ullr after one mouthful. Nicko is at last eating his final dish—a long white fish with a lot of tiny bones and a reproachful stare. Jenna, Beetle and Snorri have just finished a communal bowl of harbor dessert—baked apples sprinkled with sweet crumble and covered with chocolate sauce. Jenna is feeling queasy. All she really wants to do is lie down, and even a pile of damp fishing nets in a smelly net loft will do. She does not notice that the whole café has fallen quiet and all are looking at an unusually richly clad merchant who has just walked in. The merchant scans the shadowy interior, not seeing who he expects to see—but then he does see someone he most definitely does not expect to see—his daughter.
“Jenna!” shouts Milo Banda. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Jenna jumps to her feet. “Milo!” she gasps. “But what are you doing here . . .” Her voice trails off. Jenna is thinking that actually, this is exactly the kind of place she would expect to find her father—one full of odd people, with an air of suspicious deals and suppressed menace.
Milo pulls up a chair and sits with them. He wants to know everything—why they are there, how they got there and where they are staying. Jenna refuses to explain. It is Nicko’s story to tell, not hers, and she does not want the whole café listening in—as they surely are.
