Fyre (17 page)

“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.

Ther-umm.

The ghosts parted to let them through, all passing favorable comments on Jenna’s Queenly abilities. Her grandmother, Queen Matthilda, who had left her daughter sulking in the turret, could resist no longer. She
Appeared
to Jenna. “Well done, my dear,” she said.

Jenna looked shocked. No ghost of a Queen—apart from the ghastly Etheldredda—had ever spoken to her. There was, as she knew from section 133 in
The Queen Rules
, a ban on ghosts speaking to Living Princesses and Queens. It was put there for the very good reason that all Queens were convinced that they knew best and would have no hesitation in telling the current incumbent so. But Queen Matthilda—who had watched over her granddaughter since the day she was born—could keep silent no longer. Her granddaughter needed to know she was doing well and Queen Matthilda intended to tell her. She lightly patted Jenna’s arm and smiled. “You will make a good Queen,” she said.

“Oh!” said Jenna. “Thank you!”

Ther-umm.

A sudden gasp from Jannit broke the moment. “My hot pot!” she yelled and took off running across the yard, leaping over the upturned boats, heading for her hut. A cloud of black smoke was billowing from the stovepipe in the roof and suddenly everyone could smell burning.

Septimus went to help.

To the background of sailor’s curses and the sound of a metal pot hissing in the snow, Marcellus and Jenna looked at the Dragon Boat, lying white and majestic in the blue of the Dragon House.

Ther-umm.

“I don’t want to wall her in again,” Jenna said. “I want to be able to come and talk to her. To watch over her, just like Aunt Zelda would do if she were here.”

“I understand, Princess,” said Marcellus, “but perhaps you should seek advice from the Keeper first.”

Jenna was not sure. “Aunt Zelda forgets stuff now,” she said. “I don’t know if she knows what’s best anymore.”

Marcellus was still annoyed with Marcia, but he knew he must give as good advice to Jenna as possible. “Then ask Marcia,” he said. “She will know.”

Septimus took a very reluctant Spit Fyre back to his Dragon Field and arranged to meet Jenna by the Great Arch. Jannit retreated to her hut, locked the door and embarked upon cooking sausage-and-bean hot pot take two.

It was later that evening that Jannit, to her utter dismay, found she had two dragons in the boatyard. Spit Fyre had returned and was sitting, perfectly quietly, at the entrance to the Dragon House. Jannit was not pleased, but there was something about the two dragons together that touched her. It was almost, she thought, as if they were mother and son.

13

W
ELCOME
B
ACK

A
lther Mella, ex-ExtraOrdinary Wizard, ghost
and mentor was up in the Pyramid Library with Marcia. Alther’s presence broke the convention that ExtraOrdinary Wizard ghosts did not return to the Wizard Tower, but after her old tutor’s shocking death, Marcia had missed Alther so much that when he was released from his year and a day in the place where he had entered ghosthood, Marcia had asked Alther to come back to the Wizard Tower and to use it just as he had when he was Living. She had never regretted it.

The tall, purple-clad ghost with his white hair tied back in a ponytail was hovering over a large book with tissue-thin pages, wafting them over one by one. He was helping Marcia search for something—
anything
—that would explain the puddles. It was a thankless task. They had found nothing. But Marcia could not shake off the feeling that deep below the Castle
something was going on
. It was even giving her nightmares: fires burning out of control and monsters coming out of the deep regularly invaded her sleep.

Marcia knew that everything relating to What Lies Beneath the Castle was stored either in the Manuscriptorium Vaults or in the Pyramid Library. Beetle had done a complete search of that section in the Vaults and found nothing more than his Vent diagram—so whatever information there was had to be in the Pyramid Library.

What puzzled Marcia was that although she and Alther had found nothing positive, they had found some strange absences. In many of the shelf indexes there were unexplained gaps, even complete empty pages. The Alchemie section was almost nonexistent apart from some very basic student primers, and the notes relating the Ice Tunnels went back no further than when they were
Frozen
after the Great Alchemie Disaster, which was very odd, Alther said, because they were as old as the Castle itself. It seemed to both Marcia and Alther that a large chunk of Castle history had been systematically removed. And Marcia was beginning to suspect that the lack of information about the
Fyre
and the Vents was linked. They must be, she thought, part of the same system and were therefore removed at the same time.
But why?

“The funny thing is, Marcia,” Alther said as he wafted through the pages of yet another index, “you wouldn’t know things were missing unless you were looking for them.”

“Exactly,” Marcia agreed. “And if you didn’t know about them to start with, you wouldn’t be looking for them, would you?”

“If you ask me,” said Alther, “someone has spent a long time up here, systematically removing anything relating to Alchemie and ancient structures beneath the Castle. It must have been an ExtraOrdinary Wizard—no one else would have had the access. I wonder who it was?”

“More to the point, I wonder
why
,” said Marcia. She thumped a pile of pamphlets down and a cloud of dust
Passed Through
Alther. The ghost spluttered. “Careful, Marcia. I’m allergic to dust.”

Marcia laughed. “You can’t be, Alther. You’re a ghost.”

Alther looked a little offended. It was not polite to remind a ghost of their ghosthood. “Well, I
am
,” he said huffily. “Ever since that ghastly Drago Mills place.”

“It’s not totally ghastly,” said Marcia. “I got a very nice rug from the sale. Oh, hello!”

The little door to the Library had swung open and Septimus and Jenna came in.

“How lovely to see you both!” said Marcia. She looked at her Apprentice, who she had not seen for some weeks. “Oh, Septimus, you look so
pale
.”

Septimus fielded a barrage of questions about whether he was eating properly and did he ever get outside in the daylight, and then went to talk to Alther, leaving Jenna to ask Marcia’s advice about the Dragon Boat.

Ten minutes later, Septimus, Jenna and Marcia were out in the corridor, waiting for the stairs to change direction. They were on slow mode due to the arrival of the elderly parents of one of the Wizards, and Marcia was polite enough to wait until they had got off. Septimus watched the silver treads rise sedately upward; the shafts of sunlight coming in through the azure-blue glass of the stairwell window threw lazy, glimmering patterns onto the solid silver treads. He loved this time of day in the Wizard Tower; there was something
Magykal
about the evening sun when it came in low through the windows. Septimus took a deep breath and breathed in the scent of
Magyk
—sweet with a hint of sandalwood.

“Have you seen him acting suspiciously?” Marcia said suddenly.

“Huh?” said Septimus, heady with the
Magyk
.

“Marcellus. Have you noticed anything . . . strange?”

It was a difficult question for Septimus to answer: many things that Marcellus did could be thought of as strange—especially by Marcia. But Septimus did not like to tell tales. “No,” he said.

The stairs changed direction and Marcia hopped on. “I’ll look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow evening, Septimus.” She looked at her Apprentice critically as he stepped back to let Jenna get on before him. “It’s not good for you, being buried like a mole under the ground.”

Marcia was beginning to disappear from view. Jenna jumped on after her and made her way down a few steps until she was near enough to talk. “It really is all right, then?” she asked Marcia. “The Dragon House staying open?”

“Fresh air and some sunshine—just what the Dragon Boat needs,” Marcia said. “And Septimus too.”

The stairs were now approaching the fifteenth floor. Dandra Draa, the new Sick Bay Wizard—headhunted by Marcia for her skills in
DisEnchantment
—had just finished an emergency callout to a Wizard who had been convinced he had
Enchanted
himself by reading an ancient text. Dandra had diagnosed Papyrophobia and was now on her way up to see Marcia. She was waiting patiently for the stairs to change direction when she saw the distinctive purple pointy pythons appearing above her.

“Good afternoon, Madam Marcia,” said the Sick Bay Wizard. She waited politely for Marcia to rotate past.

“Jump on, Dandra,” said Marcia. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than wait there.”

Dandra Draa was new to the Wizard Tower and was unsure of protocol. She had recently arrived from the Dry, Hot Countries in the South where she had lived in a beautiful, star-encrusted, circular tent beside a deep pool on the edge of a desert. Life there had been so much simpler. It had certainly not involved stairs of any description—or ExtraOrdinary Wizards with weird shoes. Dandra hesitated. Surely it was not right to stand
above
the ExtraOrdinary Wizard? But it was impossible to step on below as those stairs had already passed. And
oh, no
, here came the Princess, slowly revolving down. Dandra did a confused half bow, half curtsy. What was she to do now? Could she jump on in front of the Princess? Oh, it was all too much.

“Get on, Dandra, do,” said Marcia impatiently.

Dandra took a deep breath and jumped nervously onto the empty stair between Marcia and Jenna. It was an embarrassing squash and Dandra hardly dared breathe. She decided to deliver her message, whatever the protocol.

“Madam Marcia. What we hope for happen. Syrah Syara wake.”

Marcia took a moment to digest Dandra’s way of speaking. But Septimus understood at once.

“Syrah’s awake?” he asked. “You mean she is
DisEnchanted
?”

Dandra looked up to see the big brown boots of the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice. “Yes,” she said. “Syrah is
DisEnchanted
.”

“Dandra, that is marvelous news,” said Marcia. “I shall go and see her at once.”

“So shall I,” said Septimus.

Marcia stepped off the stairs, closely followed by Dandra Draa, who performed an awkward jump and to her embarrassment landed on Marcia’s cloak hem.

“See you tomorrow, Sep,” Jenna said, as she carried on down.

“See you, Jen,” Septimus called, as he jumped onto the seventh floor.

Jenna saw Marcia put her arm around Septimus’s shoulders and lead him down the dimly lit corridor that led to the Sick Bay. She was glad to see Septimus back with Marcia in the Wizard Tower; it suited him better and, she had to admit, it felt safer. Jenna pushed away a niggle of anxiety at the thought that he still had one more day to go in the Great Chamber of Alchemie and Physik—Septimus would soon be back, she told herself.

Jenna jumped off the stairs in the Great Hall and wandered across to the tall silver doors, watching the flickering images on the walls—which showed important and often dramatic moments in the history of the Tower—fade in and out of focus. One that she had not seen before came into view: Septimus and Spit Fyre attacking the
Darke
Dragon. She smiled and wondered if Septimus had seen it yet.

Jenna had an idea. She scribbled a Welcome Back party invitation for Septimus and knocked on the door of the duty Wizard’s cupboard. Hildegarde Pigeon peered around the door.

“Oh!” she said, looking surprised and glancing back into the cupboard.
“Princess Jenna,”
Hildegarde said, oddly loudly. She peered out. “How can I help you?”

A muffled cough came from inside the cupboard. Jenna thought it sounded familiar, although she couldn’t place it. “Can you give this to Septimus, please?” she asked.