Septimus Heap 3 - Physik (8 page)

Catchpole was only a sub-Wizard and he was not progressing as fast as he had hoped—he had had to retake his Primaries twice and still had not passed—which meant that all Wizards in the Tower were senior to him. After years of being deputy to the fearsome Hunter, Catchpole hated being told what to do, especially when he always seemed to do it wrong. So when Marcia Overstrand strode into the old spell cupboard and demanded to know just what he thought he was doing, sitting there with his eyes closed and looking about as useful as a dead sheep, Catchpole's heart sank. What was she going to ask him to do? And what was she going to say when, as usual, he made a mess of it? Catchpole was incredibly relieved when all Marcia did was tell him to get down to the Palace at once and bring her Apprentice back with him. Well, he could manage that—and it would get him out of the cramped cupboard. What was more, thought Catchpole, as he ran down the marble steps and into the misty Wizard Tower courtyard, it seemed that that upstart Young Army boy who had inveigled his way into becoming the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice was, for once, in the wrong. He would enjoy that, he thought with a smirk.

Catchpole had now reached a large kennel-like structure. It was built of great granite blocks, was the height of a small cottage and was at least twice the length. There was a line of tiny windows just below the eaves to provide much-needed ventilation and for the occupant to look out if he wanted. At the front of the kennel was a hefty wooden ramp leading to a barn door that was made of thick oak planks. The door was firmly closed and had three iron bars holding it in place. Above the door someone had written in neat handwriting, SPIT FYRE. As Catchpole trotted by, something inside the kennel hurled itself against the door. There was a loud splintering sound and the middle iron bar on the door bent a little, but not enough for the door to give way. Catchpole's smirk vanished. He shot off at high speed and did not slow down until he was halfway along Wizard Way and could see the light from the palace torches glimmering through the mist.

After dispatching Catchpole, Marcia took the silver spiral stairs back up to her rooms at the top of the Wizard Tower. Something was bothering her. It was so unlike Septimus to miss an exam; something felt wrong. Still on nighttime mode, the silver stairs slowly corkscrewed their way to the top of the Wizard Tower, and Marcia, who was never at her best early in the morning, began to feel queasy with the movement of the stairs and the smells of bacon and porridge, which were competing with the incense that drifted up from the hall below. As Marcia rose past the fourteenth floor, still puzzling over Septimus, something occurred to her. Something important.

“Come on, hurry up,” Marcia snapped impatiently at the spiral stairs. Taking her at her word, the stairs sped up to double daytime speed, and Marcia shot up through the rest of the Tower, surprising three elderly Wizards who were up early for a fishing trip. The stairs stopped with the same enthusiasm with which they had obeyed Marcia's earlier command; in one seamless movement the ExtraOrdinary Wizard exited at the twentieth floor and hurtled through the heavy purple door that led to her rooms. Luckily the door saw her coming and flung itself open just in time. Moments later Marcia was racing up the steps to the Pyramid Library.

With a worried frown, Marcia swiftly leafed through the Prediction Practical Papers until she came across what she was looking for: a series of closely written formulae and interpretations that Jillie Djinn, the new Chief Hermetic Scribe, had provided from the All-Seeing Almanac. Marcia pulled out the piece of paper, and taking her illuminating pen from her pocket, she ran it over the formulae. As the pen moved across the page, the numbers began to rearrange themselves. Marcia stared at them in disbelief for several minutes.

Suddenly she threw down her pen and ran to the darkest corner of the Library, which housed the Sealed shelf. Trembling, Marcia tried three times until she clicked her fingers loud enough to light the massive candle that was set beside it. The flame illuminated the two thick Sealed silver doors that covered the shelf and opened only with the touch of the Akhu Amulet, which was passed from one Extra-Ordinary Wizard to the next. Marcia removed the lapis lazuli and gold amulet from around her neck and pressed it against the long purple wax Seal that covered the crack between the doors. The Seal recognized the amulet, the wax rolled itself up into a coil and, with a soft hiss, the doors swung open. Behind them was a deep, dark shelf from which the smells of stale air from hundreds of years ago drifted out. Marcia sneezed.

Marcia had never opened the Sealed section before. She had never had cause to until now. Alther had once shown her how to do it after he had decided that he wanted her to succeed him as ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Marcia remembered how encouraging Alther had been to her when she had been his Apprentice, and a twinge of guilt stabbed at her for being so short-tempered with the ghost.

With some trepidation, Marcia shoved her arm into the recesses of the shelf, for one never knew what might lurk in a Sealed place or what might have grown there since it had last been opened. But it did not take her long to find what she was looking for, and with a sense of relief, Marcia pulled out a solid-gold box. She checked the box in the light of the candle, ReSealed the doors and took it down to the desk. Taking a small key from her ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt, Marcia opened the box and lifted out a decaying leather book. As she cradled it in her hands, Marcia could see that it had once been beautiful. The small, thick book was tied with a faded red ribbon and covered in the fragile remains of soft leather on which intricate gold-leaf designs were visible—as was the title: I, Marcellus. Gently Marcia placed the book on the table, and as she did so the ribbon fell to pieces, a scattering of fine red dust covered her hands, and the black seal that had bound its two ends fell to the floor and rolled away into the shadows. Marcia did not bother to pursue the seal, for she was anxious—and yet afraid—to open the I, Marcellus.

Heart beating fast, Marcia gingerly lifted the cover, sending a shower of leather dust into the air.

“Atchoo!” she sneezed. “Atchoo, atchoo, atcboo!” and then, “No, oh, no!” for the pages of the book had fallen prey to the dreaded Pyramid Library paper beetle.

Marcia took a pair of long-nosed tweezers from a pot on the desk, and one by one, she lifted the delicate lace-wing pages, inspecting them closely with a large magnifying glass. The I, Marcellus was divided into three parts: Alchemie, Physik, and the Almanac. The first two sections, and much of the last section, were unreadable. Shaking her head, Marcia moved swiftly through the book until she came across a very fat, squashed paper beetle wedged under some astronomical calculations. With an air of triumph, Marcia lifted up the beetle with her pliers and dropped it into a glass jar on the desk, which already contained a collection of squashed paper beetles. Flipping faster now through the undamaged pages of the rest of the Almanac, Marcia soon came across the present year. Scanning down the cryptic entries, and occasionally consulting some tables at the back that were covered in ink blots, Marcia at last found the date she was looking for, the day of the Autumn Equinox—which was oddly out of sequence—and drew out an ancient piece of paper with familiar spidery writing scrawled over it.

Marcia's expression as she read this piece of paper changed from initial puzzlement to one of dawning horror. Shaking and deathly pale, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard staggered to her feet, gently placed the scrap of paper in her pocket and set off for the Palace as fast as she could.

The Queen's Robing Room

Over at the Palace, in Sarah Heap's small sitting room, Septimus was beginning to stir. His head felt fuzzy as he opened his eyes, wondering where he was. A dull grayish light filtered through Sarah's flowery curtains and Septimus could feel the dampness from the river in the air. It was not the kind of morning that made him want to get up.

Jenna yawned, still sleepy. She pulled her crocheted blanket up over her head and wished the day would go away. A strange feeling of foreboding was weighing her down, although she could not remember why.

“Morning, Sep,” she said. “How are you?”

“Wherrr...” Septimus mumbled blearily. “Where am I?”

“Um ... Mum's sitting room,” Jenna mumbled sleepily.

“Oh, yes, I remember ... Queen Etheldredda—”

Jenna was wide awake all of a sudden, remembering what her sense of foreboding had been about. She wished she hadn't.

Suddenly Septimus remembered something else: his Prediction Practical. He sat up, his straw-colored curls standing on end, a look of panic in his bright green eyes. “I gotta go, Jen, or I'll be late. I knew I was going to mess this up.”

“Mess what up?”

“My Prediction Practical. I knew it.”

“Well, then, that's all right, isn't it?” Jenna sat up and grinned. “I guess you've passed.”

“Don't think it works like that, Jen,” said Septimus gloomily. “Not with Marcia, anyway. I'd better go.”

“Look, Sep,” said Jenna. “You can't go back yet. You have to come see something first. I promised.”

“Promised? What do you mean, promised?”

Jenna did not reply. Slowly, she stood up and carefully folded the crocheted blanket.

Septimus saw a dark and anxious look in her eyes and decided not to push things any further. “Well, don't worry,” he said, reluctantly crawling out of his makeshift bed,

“I'll come see whatever it is first and then I'll go back. If I run fast I might just make it.”

“Thanks, Sep,” said Jenna.

As Jenna and Septimus closed the door of Sarah Heap's sitting room behind them, the ghost of Queen Etheldredda descended through the ceiling with a look of satisfaction on her sharp features. She settled herself down on the sofa, picked up the small book that Sarah had left on the table and, with fascinated distaste, began to read True love Never Lies.

Septimus and Jenna made their way along the Long Walk, the wide passageway that ran the length of the Palace like a backbone. It was deserted in the dim light of the morning, for the Palace servants were quietly employed elsewhere getting things ready for the day, and the various Ancients who haunted the Long Walk at night had fallen asleep in the early-morning light. Some were propped up in doorways, others were contentedly snoring in some of the moth-eaten chairs that were scattered along the Walk for the benefit of those who found the distance too far to travel in one trip.

A threadbare red carpet that covered the old stone flags ran like a broad path in front of Jenna and Septimus. The Long Walk always felt to Jenna as though it went on forever, although now it was more interesting than it had been, since her father, Milo Banda, had brought back all kinds of strange and bizarre treasures from the Far Countries and set them up in its empty niches and alcoves. In fact, Milo had been so pleased with what he had called “brightening up the place” that he had soon set off on another voyage to bring back even more treasures.

When they passed by what Jenna thought of as a particularly weird section—the area where Milo had displayed some shrunken heads from the Cannibal Islands of the South Seas—Septimus lingered, fascinated.

“Come on, Sep,” Jenna chided. “Don't stop here, this is a really creepy part.”

“It's not the heads that are creepy, Jen. It's that picture. Isn't that old Etheldredda?”

It was an imposing, full-length painting. Queen Etheldredda's sharp features gazed down at Jenna and Septimus with her usual expression, accurately caught by the artist. The Queen was posed haughtily against a backdrop of the Palace.

Jenna shivered. “Dad found it in a Sealed room in the attic,” she whispered as though the portrait was listening to them. “He took it out 'cause he said it was frightening his new Counter Colony. I'm going to ask him to put it back.”

“The sooner, the better,” said Septimus. “Before it scares the shrunken heads.”

A few minutes later, Septimus and Jenna were outside the Queen's Room on the top floor of the turret at the end of the Palace. A tall golden door with beautiful emerald-green patterns glinted in the dusty shafts of the early-morning sunshine.

Jenna unclipped a large emerald and gold key from the leather belt that she wore over her gold sash. Carefully, she placed the key in the keyhole that was in the middle of the door.

Septimus stood back and watched Jenna put the key into what appeared to him to be a completely blank and rather cracked wall. This did not surprise Septimus, for he knew he could not see the door to the Queen's Room. Only those who were descended from the Queen could see it.

“I'll wait for you here, Jen,” Septimus said.

“No, you won't, Sep. You're coming with me.”

“But—” Septimus protested. Jenna said nothing; she turned the key and leaped to one side as the door came crashing down like a drawbridge. Then she grabbed hold of Septimus's hand and pulled him toward what looked to him like an extremely solid and very hard wall.

Septimus resisted. “Jen, you know I can't go in there.”

“Yes, you can, Sep. I can bring you in. Now keep hold of my hand and follow me.”

Jenna pulled Septimus forward. He saw her disappear through the wall until only her hand, stretched out behind her and clasping his, remained visible. It was one of the strangest things that Septimus had ever seen, and instinctively he held back, unwilling to be dragged through a wall, even by Jenna. But an impatient tug pulled him so that his nose was right up against the wall—no, it was in the wall. Another insistent tug followed and suddenly Septimus found himself in the Queen's Room.

At first Septimus could see little, for there were no windows and the Room was lit only by a small coal fire. But once his eyes became used to the dimness, Septimus was surprised. The Room was much smaller than he had expected; in fact, it was rather cramped. It was furnished simply, with just one comfortable chair and a worn rug laid in front of the fire. The only thing of interest that caught Septimus's eye was an old cupboard set into the curve of the wall on which was written in familiar gold letters: UNSTABLE POTIONS AND PARTIKULAR POISONS. It was identical to the cupboard that Aunt Zelda had in her cottage in the Marram Marshes, and it gave Septimus a sudden longing for one of Aunt Zelda's cabbage sandwiches.