by Angie Sage
“Thank you, Jannit,” said Jenna. “Thank you so much.”
Jannit thawed a little more. “I hope you find your boat is well, despite your fears, Princess Jenna,” she said. She stood at the hut door, watching the group pick its way across the boatyard as they headed toward the Castle wall within which the Dragon House was secreted. Jannit was just closing the hut door (and looking forward to her sausage and beans) when she saw Spit Fyre about to step on a large pile of snow, under which lay her favorite rowboat.
“Stop!” she yelled, running out of the hut and waving her arms. The group did not hear. Jannit saw that Spit Fyre was about to lower his foot—suddenly she remembered something from her childhood. “Freeze!” she screamed. It worked. Everyone stopped in midstep, including Spit Fyre, whose great foot hovered a few inches above the pile of snow. Jannit raced out into the snow. “Wait right there!” she yelled. “Don’t move an inch.”
Spit Fyre stood with his foot swaying uncertainly in midair, looking increasingly unsteady. Jannit hurtled to a halt beside them. “Don’t step there!” she said.
Spit Fyre looked down at Jannit and wobbled. Any minute now, Septimus thought, he will topple over and squash someone.
“Easy now, Spit Fyre,” said Septimus. “Put your foot down here—next to mine.” He looked at Jannit. “It’s okay there?”
Jannit sounded relieved. “Yes, thank you, Apprentice.”
“Ouch!” Septimus gasped. Spit Fyre’s foot had come to rest on his boot.
Jannit now insisted on piloting the party across the yard. Dragons and boatyards did not mix, she told the visitors sternly. They reached the other side without any breakages and came to the edge of the Cut, which was a short and apparently dead-end run of water that led off the Moat and ended at the high Castle wall. Because the water in the Cut was virtually unaffected by the Moat’s currents it froze early. It was, Jannit informed them, easily thick enough to support the weight of a dragon.
Septimus was not so sure. Spit Fyre was—as his throbbing foot was telling him—extremely heavy. But it was true; the Cut was an ideal spot for the dragon to take off from, safely away from the boatyard clutter. To get to the nearest alternative takeoff area, Septimus would have to walk his dragon back through the boatyard, and he didn’t relish telling Jannit that. The Cut it would have to be.
Septimus climbed up into the dragon’s Pilot Dip. “Okay, Spit Fyre. Forward. One foot at a time and slowly.”
Spit Fyre looked at the ice and snorted doubtfully.
“Come on, Spit Fyre,” Septimus urged. “Foot down.”
Spit Fyre stretched out his huge right foot; its green scales glistened against the smooth white snow that covered the Cut. He leaned out from the icy edge, tipped forward a little and suddenly Spit Fyre went sliding onto the Cut. A groan came from deep within the ice and Septimus felt the surface beneath the dragon’s feet shift.
“Up!” he yelled to Spit Fyre. His shout was lost in the craaaaack that spread across the ice like the sound of the ripping of a thousand sheets. Spit Fyre needed no urging to go. He thrust his wings down just enough to raise his weight off the ice at the very moment it fell away beneath his feet. In a spray of ice splinters and snow Septimus and Spit Fyre were airborne.
Jenna, Marcellus and Jannit watched Spit Fyre rise up and head slowly toward the blank wall at the end of the Cut. Jannit, who appreciated how difficult it was to maneuver odd-shaped craft in confined spaces, was impressed. When Spit Fyre was only a few feet away from the wall, he stopped and hovered so that his nose was level with the burnished gold disc set into the Castle wall. The disc was just above a line of dressed stones that arched gracefully through the Castle wall—this was the only clue to the hidden entrance to the Dragon House.
A thrill of excitement ran through Septimus. He and Spit Fyre were going to make Fyre for real, not some practice run trying to hit the metal Fyre target in the Dragon Field. This was actually going to do something—it was going to open the Dragon House. He steadied Spit Fyre and patted his neck. “Ignite!” he yelled.
A deep rumble began inside Spit Fyre’s fire stomach, taking the phosphorus from the bones that Septimus had hastily fed him on his way to the boatyard, and turning it into the gases that would combine to make Fyre. The plume of gas swept up through Spit Fyre’s fire gullet and hit the air where it spontaneously Ignited with a loud whuuuuuumph. A thin, blindingly bright jet of Fyre streamed from the dragon’s mouth and hit the very center of the gold disc. The disc began to glow and turn from a dull gold to a dusky orange, to bright red, to a blinding white. Then there was a sudden flash of brilliant purple, which caused everyone to flinch and shut their eyes—Spit Fyre included.
When the watchers beside the Cut opened their eyes there was a collective sharp intake of breath. The wall was gone and the Dragon House was revealed: a towering lapis lazuli–domed cavern, covered in golden hieroglyphs. And below, held fast within clear blue ice, lay the Dragon Boat, her head resting on a marble walkway, where it had been laid almost three years earlier.
A sudden shout came from below. Septimus looked down to see Jenna running toward the Dragon House.
“She’s covered in ice!” he heard Jenna yell. “She’s dead.”
12
THE CHAMBER OF THE HEART
Septimus landed Spit Fyre on the broad space above the Dragon House where Jenna had listened for the dragon’s heartbeat. It wasn’t until Spit Fyre touched the ground that Septimus realized that what he had thought was a cleared patch of snow was in fact black ice. Spit Fyre’s feet disappeared from under him. He landed with a thud on his well-padded stomach and slid at great speed toward the battlements. A moment later the battlements were gone, sending an avalanche of stones thundering down to the Cut. It was only Spit Fyre’s talons digging into the ice—and a superb piece of tail-braking—that stopped Septimus and his dragon from following the stones into the Cut below.
A delighted face in an attic window watched the scene. “Gramma, Gramma, it’s Spit Fyre! Gramma, look!” yelled the boy.
His grandmother was less thrilled. “That tail could put all the windows out,” she said.
Septimus slipped down from the Pilot Dip and patted the dragon’s nose. “Well done, Spit Fyre. Go home!”
But Spit Fyre didn’t want to go home. He could see that there was another dragon right beneath his feet and he wanted to meet it. He thumped his tail in disapproval.
The little boy in the attic squealed with excitement. His grandmother threw open the window. “Careful!” she yelled.
“Sorry!” Septimus shouted. He looked at his stubborn dragon and a whisper of the Synchronicity between him and Spit Fyre came back—now he understood why Spit Fyre wanted to stay. Septimus put his hand to his ear, which was the sign that told Spit Fyre to listen. Spit Fyre dutifully dropped his head down so that Septimus could talk at dragon-ear height.
“Spit Fyre. The dragon is very ill. She may even be dying. If you stay you must be very quiet. You must not move. No tail thumping, no claw scratching, no snorting, no anything. Do you understand?”
Spit Fyre blinked twice in assent. Then he lay down on the ice and mournfully rested his head over the parapet: a dying dragon was a terrible thing. Septimus patted Spit Fyre’s neck and left his dragon to be watched over by a nervous grandmother and her excited grandson.
With Jenna’s cry of “she’s dead” still echoing in his head, Septimus raced down a narrow flight of stone steps that led to the opposite side of the Cut. As he made his way along the foot of the wall toward the Dragon House, a faint movement and a slight cooling of the air told Septimus that he was walking through a throng of ghosts. And from the restrained, somewhat regal atmosphere he guessed they were ancient Queens and Princesses, anxiously watching.
Septimus moved slowly through the ghosts toward the open mouth of the Dragon House. He now saw what Spit Fyre’s Fyre had revealed. It was eerily beautiful. The Dragon Boat, stark white against the deep blue lapis of the Dragon House, lay
deathly still, encased in a frosting of ice. A shaft of light from the winter sun glanced in and made the ice sparkle with such movement that for a moment Septimus thought that all was well and the Dragon Boat was breathing. But the concerned faces of Marcellus and Jenna—and even Jannit Maarten—on the opposite side of the Cut told him otherwise.
Septimus walked quickly across what was left of the ice, reached the boatyard side of the Cut and followed Marcellus and Jenna into the chill of the Dragon House. The air inside reminded Septimus of the Ice Tunnels—stale, strange and icy cold. He made his way along the icy marble walkway and joined Jenna and Marcellus where they stood, looking down at the Dragon Boat’s head.
Her head rested on a rug laid on the marble walkway. The swanlike curves of her neck, the fine detail of the scales, the intricate contours of the head all showed through the ice frosting, like a finely carved statue. In fact, it seemed to Septimus that the dragon had turned to marble, so cold and stonelike did she look.
Marcellus nodded to Septimus. “I have been explaining to Jenna that a dragon is a reptile with blood that cools but does not freeze, with blood that allows her to become deeply unconscious and yet still return to life. Indeed, some say dragon blood has the property of eternal heat. What I am saying is that it is good she is covered in ice.”
This made sense to Septimus, but from Jenna’s expression he could see that Marcellus still had some persuading to do.
“So,” said Marcellus, “shall we go aboard?”
“Aboard?” The thought of stepping onto the Dragon Boat made Jenna feel very uncomfortable. It felt disrespectful—like walking over a grave.
“Naturally. It is what we need to do. Or rather, what you need to do.”
“Me?”
“It is the Queens who have the touch. And, I believe, a small bottle of Revive.”
“Oh!” Jenna took the tiny the blue bottle from her pocket. On its small brown label was written Tx3 Revive. “So I can use it, even without the Triple Bowls?”
“Of course. There are many ways to use the Revive.”
“So, what do I do? Put it on her nose or something?”
“Something,” said Marcellus. Very carefully, he stepped onto the deck of the Dragon Boat and held out his hand for Jenna, who took it and stepped lightly in beside him, followed by Septimus. Almost reverentially, Marcellus moved toward the center of the deck, where there was a pair of tiny doors leading to a locked cabin. No one had ever been able to open the doors. When Jannit had repaired the boat, she had become quite spooked by the fact that there was a part of it she could not get to. And there were times when she thought she could hear something in there.
Marcellus kneeled down at the doors, which were mistily visible through the ice. He unwrapped his black velvet scarf and began to gently rub the ice until it was clear of hoar frost, and peered through the glassy surface of the ice to the mysterious azure blue doors below. “Apprentice, I wonder if you have something that would melt this ice?”
Septimus fished a small candle-end out of his pocket. “I’ve got my tinderbox. I can light this.”
Marcellus heaved a sigh. “That will take hours, Apprentice. Do you have, er, anything else?”
Septimus grinned. So much for Marcellus insisting on no Magyk while you’re my Apprentice. “You mean something like a spell?” he asked.
“A spell will be fine, thank you.”
Septimus kneeled down beside Marcellus and placed his hands on the ice that covered the doors. With his palms threatening to stick fast, he quickly muttered a simple Melt. Then he leaned all his weight onto his hands and pressed hard. He felt the heat of his palms spread out into the ice and soon there were two rapidly growing hand-shaped holes in the ice, water was running down the inside of his sleeves and his hands were through to the smooth wood below. Septimus rocked back on his heels, shook the warmth back into his freezing hands and watched the ice retreat to reveal two shiny, deep blue lacquered doors, each with a simple dragon symbol enclosed in a lozenge shape.
“Stop now,” said Marcellus. “I think it is safer to keep the temperature low until we find out what . . . what we are dealing with.”
“You mean, until we find out if she’s dead,” said Jenna.
“Personally, I do not believe she is dead,” said Marcellus. “Now we must open the doors.”
Septimus shook his head. “They don’t open. In fact, I think they’re false doors. Just one piece of wood.”
“That, Apprentice, is what they are made to look like. But they are not. I have opened them once before.”
“When before?” asked Jenna.
“You forget I was the husband of a Keeper,” Marcellus answered. He took off the heavy gold disc that hung around his neck—his Alchemie Keye—and placed it in a shallow indentation where the doors joined, saying, “My dear Broda once had a similar panic as you, Princess.”
“I am not panicking.”
“During a particularly cold Big Freeze she too was sure that . . . aha, the doors are opening!”
Jenna and Septimus crouched down beside Marcellus and watched the doors swing open to reveal a deep, red-tinged darkness. Gingerly, Marcellus leaned forward and looked inside; then he sat back on his heels and beckoned to Jenna to come closer. “Can you hear anything now?” he said in a hushed voice.
Jenna leaned forward through the hatchway into the dark. A sense of being deep inside the Dragon Boat made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She could smell something like warm iron; it was rich and strange and made her feel a little queasy. “Is this where her heart is?” she whispered.
Marcellus nodded. “Wait a few minutes. Her heart beats slowly when it is so cold.”
Like surgeons gathered around a patient on an operating table, they waited for a heartbeat. Marcellus took out his timepiece and looked at the second hand moving round. It made three sweeps of the dial, then four, then five.
“Nothing,” Jenna said miserably. “Nothing.”
“No,” said Marcellus heavily. “You are right, Princess. Of course.”
“She’s dead,” said Jenna despairingly. “She’s dead.”
“I do not think so. If she were dead I believe she would be frozen all the way through. But possibly she is getting near to it.” Marcellus looked up at Jenna, a serious expression in his eyes. “As your mother so rightly said, only you can save her.”
“But how?”
“It is something the Queens pass down one to another.”
“But no one’s passed it down to me.”
Marcellus was soothing. “I know. But I can tell you. That day in the Big Freeze when my Broda could no longer hear a heartbeat, she went to get my sister Esmeralda, who was Queen. I came with Esmeralda because she always panicked in the Queen’s Way. And I watched what Esmeralda did.” Marcellus gave a wry smile. “And what a fuss she made about it.”
“About what?” asked Jenna, irritated. Sometimes she thought that Marcellus enjoyed being obscure.
“I will tell you.”
By the time Marcellus was nearly through his explanation Jenna had a good deal of sympathy with Esmeralda. So did Septimus.
Marcellus finished with, “So now, Princess, you too must enter the Chamber of the Heart.”
Jenna looked at the reddish darkness beyond the two little doors and for a moment wished that she had never asked Marcellus for help. Like most Castle Queens and Princesses, Jenna had a squeamish side to her, and right then she felt quite sick. But she must do what she must do. She took a deep breath, ducked through the low opening and crept inside, where she found the wide, flat rib that Marcellus had described and crawled gingerly onto it. Below her, Jenna now knew, lay the Dragon Boat’s heart.
Following Marcellus’s instructions, Jenna tipped a few drops of the brilliant blue Tx3 Revive onto her palms and rubbed it in. The fresh smell of peppermint cut through the thick, meaty fug of the Chamber and took away her nausea. She reached down into the darkness, and her hand met something firm to the touch, cool
but not ice-cold and not, as Jenna had feared, at all slimy. It felt like touching the side of her horse, Domino, on a chilly night. This was, she knew, the Dragon Boat’s heart. Stretching out both hands, Jenna dropped forward and leaned all her weight onto the heart for a few seconds, then released the pressure. She repeated it twice and then sat back and waited. Nothing happened. Jenna counted to ten slowly and did it again. One . . . two . . . three . . . Once more she waited and once again, nothing happened. Jenna dropped forward for a fifth time and leaned all her weight onto the stilled heart, willing it to respond. One . . . two . . . three . . . wait, count to ten, then ready to begin again. Just as she was reaching the end of her count to ten, Jenna became aware of something happening below in the darkness. A flutter, a twitch . . . and then a low, slow ther-umm pulsed through the Chamber. Jenna was out of the doors as fast as she could go.
“It worked!” she whispered excitedly. “It worked. Her heart just did a beat. She’s alive!”
“A true Queen,” said Marcellus, smiling. “No one else could have done that. I suggest we wait for another beat before we close the doors. Just to make sure.”
They waited. And waited. “Two minutes.” Marcellus’s whisper echoed around the cavern after what had felt like at least ten to Jenna. “Three . . . four . . .”
And then at last—another ther-umm resonated through the Dragon House.
“Thank goodness,” whispered Marcellus. “Now, let us quickly close the doors. It is not good to expose such delicate areas to the air.” Marcellus placed his Keye on the doors to lock them once more. “Perhaps you could ice them over, Apprentice,” he said to Septimus.
“An Ice Spell you mean?” asked Septimus, grinning.
“Whatever,” said Marcellus, who, like Marcia, had now caught Septimus’s slang.
Ther-umm came another heartbeat.
Septimus completed his spell and a fresh skin of ice crept across the doors. Marcellus, Jenna and Septimus stepped off the Dragon Boat and walked along the walkway toward the brightness of the snowy boatyard where the small, anxious figure of Jannit Maarten waited. As they stepped down from the marble walkway, a strange sound like the rustling of autumn leaves greeted them—the sound of ghostly applause from the crowd of Queens and Princesses.
