by Angie Sage
“Marcellus, time to get out,” said Jenna.
Getting out seemed like a very good idea to Marcellus. With Septimus and Jenna’s help, he pulled himself up through the hatch, slithered down the side of the Tube and made a remarkably agile leap across the flood onto the step.
“Pookie!” yelled Septimus.
“Like I’d forget!” Jenna shouted, grabbing the pink rabbit from the seat and clutching it firmly around its middle. Inside she could feel the sharp corners of the pyramid digging through the fabric.
The ice-cold spray and the roar of the water had brought Marcellus to his senses. He held out his hands to Jenna and Septimus and they leaped over the gap and grasped hold. Marcellus pulled them up and together they hurried up the steps to a shining purple door on the left-hand side at the top.
Septimus stared at the purple in dismay. “It’s Sealed,” he said.
“But you can UnSeal it, can’t you, Sep?”
Septimus shook his head. “Not from this side. It is Sealed against us.”
On the other side of the Seal, Marcia said to Beetle, “I’ve Armed the Seal.” She sighed. “I’ve never done that before. It’s unethical, in my opinion. But needs must.”
“Unethical—why?” Beetle asked.
“The Arming can kill anyone who touches it, but there is no apparent difference to the layperson from a normal Seal. Most Wizards will notice it, of course, although there are some that probably wouldn’t.” She sighed. “But it should keep the most powerful of Darke Wizards at bay for a while. Let’s hope it lasts until Jenna gets back.”
Beetle did not reply. The thought of Jenna at the House of Foryx upset him; he wished now that he had gone with her when she had asked him.
Only a few inches away from Beetle, Jenna put out her hand to touch the Seal. Septimus grabbed her hand and pulled it away. “Don’t touch!” he whispered. “It’s Armed.”
“Armed?”
“Shh. Yes, can you hear it buzzing?”
“Why are you whispering?” hissed Jenna.
“Because Marcia doesn’t use Armed Seals. She thinks they are wrong.”
Jenna looked at Septimus, scared. “You don’t think the Ring Wizards are . . . in there, do you?”
“I can guarantee they are not,” Marcellus said. “Duglius would not allow it.”
“Duglius?” Jenna and Septimus exchanged worried glances. Marcellus’s mind was clearly wandering.
“My head Drummin,” said Marcellus.
“I’m not surprised your head hurts, Marcellus,” said Jenna soothingly. “You have a huge lump on it.” A wave splashed up and she looked down to see that the water was now covering the lower two steps. “Sep,” she whispered, “the water’s rising.”
As Jenna was speaking, a huge surge of water ran through the tunnel, sending the Purple Tube bucking like a frightened horse. The anchor broke free and the Tube was dragged into the current—and then it was gone, merrily bouncing and banging along the roof of the tunnel.
Jenna, Septimus and Marcellus watched the light from the headlamp rapidly fade, plunging them into darkness. Septimus waited for his Dragon Ring to begin to glow, until he remembered that it was now back on Hotep-Ra’s finger.
They were on their own.
They stood in the dark, feeling the chill of the water lapping around their ankles. Something bumped up against Septimus’s boot and he looked down. It was his beautiful Wizard Tower sledge that he had left tied there after his last run through the Ice Tunnels with Beetle to celebrate him becoming Chief Hermetic Scribe. Septimus untied the sled’s azure-blue rope and, feeling as though he had found a friend, held on to it tightly.
Meanwhile, Jenna clutched the sodden and increasingly heavy pink rabbit to her. She was beginning to wonder if all they had gone through to get the Committal was going to come to nothing.
A wave swashed over them, taking the water up to their knees. “Apprentice,” said Marcellus, “you could try the old-fashioned way of finding out who is on the other side. You could shout.”
Another wave, which washed water up to their waists, convinced Septimus that he had nothing to lose. “Marcia!” he called out, his voice echoing in the domed, watery space. “It’s me—Septimus!”
There was no reply.
On the other side of the Armed Seal, a whispered conference was in progress.
“It is a trick,” said Julius. “Your Apprentice cannot possibly be back yet.”
“It is not a trick,” said Marcia. “It is Septimus. I can Feel it.”
Milo joined Marcia. “You should go with what you feel,” he said.
“Feelings!” said Julius. “Huh! That old mumbo jumbo.”
A wave pushed the water up to their chests. Marcellus raised his arm to check how much headroom they had left. Enough for two more waves, he reckoned. That was all.
“Let your rabbit go,” he told Jenna. “You will need both hands soon.”
“But it’s got the pyramid in it,” said Jenna. And then, seeing Marcellus’s puzzled look, she said, “It has the Keye to the Committal in it—the words that will put the Wizards back in the ring.”
Marcellus remembered. “Then give it to me. I will not let go of it, I promise you.”
Jenna gave the heavy, sodden pink rabbit to Marcellus. He took it by the ears and very nearly dropped it in surprise at its weight. But Marcellus was no stranger to carrying lumps of gold and he quickly stuffed it into the large leather pouch that he wore hidden under his cloak, where Pookie the rabbit joined a collection of gold coins and nuggets.
Released from her burden, Jenna put all her energy into yelling, “Marcia! Let us in!”
On the other side of the Shield, Milo gasped. “I can hear Jenna!”
“So can I,” said Beetle.
“It’s an old Darke trick,” the ghost of Julius Pike told them. “You hear the people you long for. That’s how a Darke Domaine begins.”
Beetle hesitated. The ghost was right—he knew that well enough.
Marcia also faltered. She looked at Milo. “He’s right,” she said.
“No, he’s not,” said Milo. “That’s my Jenna out there. And your Septimus. Let them in.”
Another surge of water had left Marcellus the one only able to stand and keep his head above water. Septimus had regretfully let go of his sled and now both he and Jenna were clinging to Marcellus, their heads bumping up and down against the brick roof of the stairwell. They knew the next wave would be their last.
“Mar . . . ceeee . . . aaaaaah!” they yelled.
Jenna’s and Septimus’s cries echoed out of the little broom cupboard and into the Great Hall of the Wizard Tower. A crowd of concerned Wizards gathered at the cupboard door.
“Marcia’s not there,” said Septimus despairingly. “She would let us in if she was. It must be the Ring Wizards.”
Another—mercifully small—wave washed up to their mouths and set them coughing and spluttering.
“Marcia! Let us in, for pity’s sake!” yelled Marcellus. “We are drowning!”
“That settles it,” said Julius. “It is the Ring Wizards. They have Marcellus hostage.”
Jenna, Septimus and Marcellus clutched one another. In a moment they would be gone—washed down the Ice Tunnels to begin an endless circuit in the currents like three Ice Wraiths.
Jenna gave one last desperate scream. “Heeeeeelp!”
“Marcia,” said Milo. “That was Jenna. I know my child.”
“And I know mine,” said Marcia. “I mean—I know Septimus. Be quiet, Julius.” With that she UnSealed the door.
A great wave of freezing water swept through the Seal, bringing with it three half-drowned people and Septimus’s Wizard Tower sledge, which Passed Through the ghost of Julius Pike like a blade of cold steel. The wave surged out of the broom cupboard and deposited Jenna, Septimus and Marcellus like stranded fish on the floor of the Great Hall. On and on the water came, until the combined efforts of Marcia and as many Wizards who could fit into the bro
om cupboard managed to Stop it. Then, while the water lay gently swashing to and fro, a dripping wet Marcia rapidly repaired the Seal.
Shattered, Septimus, Jenna and Marcellus could do nothing more than collapse onto the padded bench outside the Stranger Chamber and watch the Wizards Sweep the water out from the Great Hall, sending it cascading down the marble steps into the Courtyard, where it slowly drained away.
Dripping wet, wringing her cloak out as she splashed across the Wizard Tower floor, Marcia came hurrying toward them, relief that they were safe written across her face. She kneeled down beside Jenna and Septimus and grasped their hands, shocked how icy cold they were. “You did your best,” she said, consolingly. “And that is all you can do.”
Septimus knew that Marcia thought they had never made it to Hotep-Ra, but neither he nor Jenna had the energy to explain. Septimus nudged Marcellus. “Rabbit,” he said.
Too exhausted to speak, Marcellus nodded. He pulled the dripping pink rabbit from his pouch and wordlessly he handed it to Marcia.
46
SHOWDOWN
Dark columns of smoke were rising into the sky, each one a family’s home or livelihood going up in flames. In the very center stood the Alchemie Chimney with a massive plume of black smoke belching from it, like a Witch Mother on a midnight moot conducting her acolytes as they danced around her.
The breeze blowing at the top of the Wizard Tower brought with it the acrid smell of smoke but up there, Septimus had other things on his mind. With the Flyte Charm clutched tightly in one hand and the Reduced top of the pyramid in the other, he was lying facedown, hovering at arm’s length above the flat silver platform of the pyramid roof, on which the decoy hieroglyphs were incised. He must not—Hotep-Ra had impressed this upon him—make contact with the silver. If he did, the Keye would not work.
Hotep-Ra had told Septimus that he had stored his twenty-one Incantations inside the pyramid roof of the Wizard Tower. They were filed in order of use, with—he thought—the most recently used one at the top, so the Committal should be the very first one to Appear. If it didn’t, then that meant he had stored them back to front and it would be the very last to Appear. Septimus must then scroll through by lifting the little pyramid Keye off its indentation and replacing it. Every time he did this, another Incantation would Appear.
Very carefully, Septimus dropped the little gold pyramid into the Lock—the square indentation in the center of the hieroglyphs that had puzzled him and so many generations of Wizards and Apprentices before him. The little pyramid fitted the Lock exactly—just as a Keye should. Immediately, a symbol appeared on the blank silver square on top of the Keye, and Septimus felt heat rising from the silver platform. As he backed away, Septimus watched in awe as the meaningless hieroglyphs below began to dissolve and become words that he could understand: A Riddance for the Smell of Pig.
Septimus read the words and his heart sank—the Incantations were in reverse order. Pushing to one side the question as to why the first Incantation Hotep-Ra ever did in the Castle was for getting rid of pig smells, Septimus lifted up the pyramid Keye. The jumbled hieroglyphs returned and the top of the Keye became blank once more. He dropped the Keye back into the Lock and up came another symbol on its top and on the platform, the next Incantation: A Healing for the Young.
With the heat from the intense Magyk blazing in his face and the wind that always blew at the top of the Wizard Tower buffeting him to and fro, Septimus laboriously counted his way through the Incantations, dropping and picking up the Keye, until at last he reached the twenty-first. Holding his breath in suspense, Septimus dropped the Keye into the Lock for what he desperately hoped was the last time. A symbol appeared on top of the Keye that Septimus recognized: Hathor. And for the twenty-first time, the hieroglyphs dissolved into words. This time they read: A Committal to Gold.
“Yay!” yelled Septimus. Taking great care not to make contact with the silver platform (he could not bear the thought of having to scroll through everything again), Septimus took out his stylus and recording Tablet and meticulously wrote down the words to the Committal. He checked them three times—stopped himself from checking a fourth because he knew he had copied them right—took the Keye from the Lock and watched the words change into meaningless hieroglyphs once again.
Septimus put his Tablet safely into his secure pocket, stood up and stretched out his aching arms. He looked down to where Rose was watching anxiously from the little library hatch below and his happy wave told Rose all she needed to know.
“Hooray!” she called up. And then, “Are you coming down now?”
There was nothing Septimus wanted to do more. Even with the security of the Flyte Charm, heights still made him feel hollow inside. With the Keye safely joining the Tablet in his pocket, he slowly descended through the smoky air.
In the Wizard Tower below, Marcellus Pye saw the ghostly figure of Julius Pike sidling toward the spiral stairs. Marcellus thought he was seeing things. He closed his eyes but when he opened them, Julius was still there.
“Can you see that ExtraOrdinary Wizard ghost?” Marcellus whispered to Jenna.
“Yes,” said Jenna. “He’s a pain in the neck.”
“So it is him.” Marcellus got to his feet and wobbled.
“Marcellus, sit down,” said Marcia sternly. “You ought to be in the Sick Bay.”
“Huh!” said Marcellus. “Excuse me, Marcia, Princess, there is something I have to do.” He gave an old-fashioned bow and headed off unsteadily.
The ghost of Julius Pike watched Marcellus approaching with dismay. The Alchemist—hair plastered to his head, a livid bruise spreading around his right eye, his robes tattered and torn—looked as though he had been in a fight and was wanting another.
Marcellus stepped in front of the ghost. “Julius.”
“Marcellus,” said Julius, sounding somewhat unenthusiastic. “Um, how are you?”
Marcellus smiled. “Alive,” he said tersely.
A group of nearby Wizards who were cleaning up gasped at Marcellus’s rudeness. It was extremely bad manners to draw attention to one’s Living status when talking to a ghost. However, right then, manners were the last thing on Marcellus’s mind.
“Julius, you snake. It has taken me nearly five hundred years to figure this out, but now at last I know what caused the Great Alchemie Disaster.”
“Jolly good,” said Julius somewhat impatiently.
“Indeed, I know not only what caused it, but who—you!”
“Me?” Julius sounded shocked.
“Yes, you, you lying toad. You arrogant old f—”
“Marcellus!” Marcia had hurried over to intervene. “I realize you have had a severe blow to the head, but I must ask you to abide by the Wizard Tower code of conduct. ExtraOrdinary Wizard ghosts are our guests and are to be treated with courtesy and respect.”
“I am sorry, Marcia,” said Marcellus, seething. “But I must have my say. I have waited long enough.”
“You may have your say, Marcellus, but you may not insult our guest.”
“Thank you, ExtraOrdinary,” said Julius. “I must be off now.”
“Not so fast, Julius!” said Marcellus. “Perhaps you will do me the courtesy of hearing what I have to say.”
“It is late, Marcellus. Some other time. Excuse me.”
“I will not excuse you. And neither would Marcia if she knew the truth about what you did.”
“Marcellus, what is this about?” asked Marcia.
Marcellus spoke slowly, all the while looking Julius Pike in the eye. “This is about how a man—who for years I counted as my best friend and my confidant—how he destroyed my life’s work, and the work of all the Alchemists who went before me. And, as if that were not enough for him, how he then deliberately destroyed my reputation.”
“How so, Marcellus?” asked Marcia.
“How so? I will tell you how so. This”—Marcellus made a huge effort to control himself—“person here, in order to impress some tin-pot
Wizard from I-don’t-know-where, not only invaded my Chamber of Fyre—yes, Marcia, as you have already guessed, it does exist and I apologize for keeping it from you—he then deceitfully, deviously and recklessly threw the most dangerous thing possible into the Fyre Cauldron—the Two-Faced Ring!”
Marcia looked confused. “What is wrong with that? Surely, that is what we are going to do after the Committal.”
Julius Pike sensed an ally. “Quite, ExtraOrdinary. This is purely a fuss about protocol. I admit I did not ask your permission, Marcellus, for which I apologize. But this has nothing to do with the Great Alchemie Disaster, which happened weeks later.”
“Julius, it had everything to do with it. If you want to DeNature something in the Fyre you don’t just chuck it in like an old candy wrapper. The Fyre Cauldron is not a dustbin. DeNaturing by Fyre is a delicate task. You must keep the object suspended in the very center of the Fyre for many days and whatever you do, you must not let it touch the side of the Cauldron.”
Julius Pike began to Disappear. This did not go down well with Marcia.
“Mr. Pike. Pray do us the courtesy of remaining visible.”
“Thank you, Marcia,” said Marcellus. “So, Julius, when you threw the Two-Faced Ring into the Fyre it sank down through the Fyre rods and sat on the bottom of the Cauldron where, over the next three weeks, it Migrated. And the moment it made the hole, the Cauldron cracked, the water rushed out and the Fyre rods began to heat up, which they do when they lose water suddenly. My Drummins contained the Fyre by dousing it with our special cannel coal, as they are doing at this very moment—do not interrupt, Julius; this is the Alchemie Way and it works. But you, Julius, would not trust us to do our job. You would not listen to me when I explained. You panicked. You shut off our water. You shut off our air and just to make sure, you forced me to ice up our beautiful cooling system that kept the whole Castle warm in the winter. It was you, Julius, who caused the Great Alchemie Disaster.”
