Fyre (22 page)

“Are you all right?” Septimus asked, sitting down beside him.

“I will be in a minute. I just need . . . a little fresh air.”

“Not much of that down here.”

“No . . . but more than in that . . . coffin.”

Septimus shuddered. That had been his thought too. “I wonder what fell on it?”

“Bricks. Sounded like bricks,” said Marcellus.

“But why? Something must have made them fall.”

“Probably Marcia looking for you. It’s late.” Marcellus looked at his timepiece. “One hour past midnight.”

Septimus looked at Marcellus aghast. “Yes. Of
course
she would look for me. I was due back for the Wizard Warming Supper.”

“Don’t look so concerned, Apprentice. It’s good that she came, surely? Without her we’d still be stuck.”

Septimus now matched Marcellus’s pallor. “Oh, Marcellus. Supposing . . . supposing what you said is really true.
Literally
true.”

“Huh?”

“That without Marcia we would still be stuck.” Septimus put his head in his hands, trying to get the sound of the last thing that fell onto the chamber’s roof out of his head: heavy, yet soft.

Marcellus’s thoughts were on a different track. “Of course I would prefer that Marcia did not know about the moving chamber, Apprentice, but given the circumstances I—”

“Marcellus—the last thing that fell onto the roof . . . it wasn’t a brick, was it?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Well, it
wasn’t
a brick. It was heavy. But . . . kind of soft.”

“Soft?”

“Yes. Soft. And up there at the top, you couldn’t see the drop, could you? You wouldn’t be expecting it, would you? It would just be dark. You’d probably think it was a tunnel. In fact, you’d probably think that was where we had gone . . . got lost maybe. So you’d step in and there would be
nothing there
. You’d grab hold of the bricks, they’d fall away in your hand and then . . . and then . . .”

Marcellus suddenly got it. “Oh, great Alchemie! No!”

Septimus felt sick. He had hoped Marcellus would have an explanation. “So you think so too?”

“I can’t think of anything else,” said Marcellus, clutching his head with a groan.

They sat in silence. “We have to get back to the Alchemie Quay,” said Septimus after a while. “We have to see what’s happened.”

“If something
has
happened, then we won’t see anything,” said Marcellus. “It’s a long climb, Apprentice. I suggest we get going. Follow me.” He went to get up, but Septimus stopped him.

“Marcellus, I am going to do a
Transport
to the Alchemie Quay. I have to know what’s happened—
now
.”

“A
Transport
. Yes, of course. I will follow you by more normal methods.”

Marcellus watched Septimus begin his
Transport
. He saw his Apprentice close his eyes, and watched a strange shimmering purplish light begin to run across him. Marcellus shivered. This was serious
Magyk
. The thought of moving a human being from one place to another—blood and bone through brick and stone—made Marcellus feel very odd. He was in the presence of something he did not understand. It was right, he thought, that Septimus returned to Marcia as her Apprentice; there was more
Magyk
to him than he had ever realized. At the thought of Marcia, Marcellus remembered the soft yet heavy
thud
of something falling and a stab of dread shot through him.

If
Marcia was there to return to.

18

T
RANSPORTS

S
eptimus arrived in the middle
of Alchemie Quay. As the blanketed feeling of the
Transport
wore off he was relieved to find he had judged it perfectly.
Transports
into confined spaces were difficult and dangerous; Septimus was not officially allowed to do them. But—unlike much
Magyk
, which required a clear head—a
Transport
was made more accurate by distress. And right then Septimus had
that
by the bucketful.

He stood still, allowing the last vestiges of
Magyk
to drift away. Septimus did not want to move. He wanted to stay right where he was and never, ever have to walk over to the right-hand arch and peer down into the depths. But he knew he must do it. He
had
to know what had happened.

Feeling as if he were wearing lead boots, Septimus walked slowly across the Quay to the right-hand archway. A terrifying feeling of vertigo came over him as he approached the black hole in the middle of the bricks—unlike Marcia, thought Septimus, he knew about the huge drop that lurked behind them.

Septimus inspected the jagged hole in the bricks. There was a large bite out of the bricks at about shoulder height, exactly at the place where he would have expected Marcia to grab hold of them. Very, very carefully, Septimus leaned forward.

“Marcia . . .” he called down into the darkness, tentatively. The sound fell into the blackness and died. “Marcia!” Septimus called more loudly. And then, “Marcia, Marcia, can you hear me?”

There was no response, just a heady sense of the emptiness below his feet. Septimus stepped back from the drop and leaned against the wall to steady himself. Of course there was no reply, he told himself; how could there be? Maybe, he thought, Marcia hasn’t been here at all. Maybe the mortar had suddenly given way and the bricks had fallen on their own. Maybe . . .

It was then that Septimus saw something he really did not want to see: a small jade button lying on the ground beside the
Fyre
Globe. He bent down to pick it up and cradled it in his hand. He knew what it was—a button from Marcia’s shoes. She had been complaining that Terry Tarsal had not sewn them on properly. A wave of despair washed over him. Recklessly, Septimus leaned into the darkness of the shaft.

“Marcia!” he yelled. “Mar . . . seeee . . .
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
” As the sound died away, Septimus stumbled out from the archway and heard a very faint something that made him think his mind was playing cruel tricks.

“Septimus . . .”

He stopped. A shiver ran down his spine. It was Marcia’s voice.
It was her ghost calling to him
. Septimus stared at the gaping hole in the brickwork, half expecting to see Marcia’s ghost float out of it.

“Septimus . . .” There it was again.
Behind him
.

Septimus spun around. Nothing. The Quay was empty. Slowly, silently, he walked out of the arch, listening hard.

Tippy-tap
,
tippy-tap
,
tippy-tap-tap
 . . .

The lapis lazuli of the Labyrinth lit up, glowing a brilliant blue with its streaks of gold glistening. A figure in purple hurried out—and screamed.

“Septimus! Oh, Septimus!” Marcia hurled herself toward Septimus and enveloped him in her cloak. “You’re alive. I thought . . . I thought you were dead. I thought you’d fallen . . .”

“Me too,” said Septimus, holding on to Marcia.
“Me too.”

Marcellus awoke, aching all over. He lay in his bed staring at the winter sunlight that shone through the window and he felt an odd feeling of happiness. He was not sure why. And then he remembered.
The carpetbag
—his soft carpetbag heavy with a crowbar and a lump hammer. It was the carpetbag that had fallen onto the roof of the moving chamber. Marcellus sank back into his pillow with a sigh of happiness. He remembered his long, slow, dismal climb through the tiny shafts that led up to Alchemie Quay. He remembered how as he had gotten nearer he had been convinced that Marcia had fallen to her death; and then he had been overcome with worry that Septimus, too, might have fallen while looking for her. By the time he had emerged onto the Quay, Marcellus was very nearly in a state of collapse. And at the sight of Marcia sitting on the edge of the Quay with her arm around Septimus, he had felt happier than he had could ever remember—which was odd, considering how annoying Marcia was. But it had been wonderful when Marcia had grabbed his hands and told him in response to all his questions that yes, it
was
her. Yes, she
was
real.

“Well, well, well,” muttered Marcellus, smiling to himself. He reached out for his timepiece on his bedside table and squinted at it. Nine o’clock. He had three more hours in bed before he was due to see his new Apprentice. The old Alchemist closed his eyes and soon the sound of snoring filled the room.

In the house on the other side of Snake Slipway, Lucy was excited. She had just found a note that had been pushed under the front door. She rushed into the kitchen. “Si, Si! Look, it’s from Marcellus.”

At the kitchen table, over a pot of coffee, Simon read out the note to Lucy.

“‘Dear Simon, my sincere apologies for breaking our appointment last night. I regret to say that I was detained by circumstances beyond my control and could not get a message to you. However, all is now resolved. Would it be convenient for you to renew our appointment for midday today?’”

“Yaay!” yelled Lucy, jumping up and punching the air. “Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say it would be all right?”

Simon grinned. “Yes, Lu, you did. You said it quite a lot, I seem to remember.”

At the Wizard Tower, Septimus slept on.

Up in the Pyramid Library, Marcia was very happy indeed. She had her Apprentice back and now things could get back to normal. Marcia was preparing the next stage in Septimus’s
DeCyphering
course—the practical. For all Apprentices, this meant having a go at the hieroglyphs inscribed into the flat silver top of the golden Pyramid that crowned the Wizard Tower. It was generally agreed that they were indecipherable—or as Marcia preferred to call them, gobbledygook. But it was a tradition and she supposed they should stick with it.

In front of Marcia was the old rubbing that a long-ago ExtraOrdinary Wizard had made of the hieroglyphs. It wasn’t, thought Marcia, very clear. No wonder no one had figured out what they meant. She remembered ruefully a comment she had made to Septimus about “going back to original sources” and she had a nasty feeling that was what he might do. He would take himself to the very top of the Pyramid and sit there, working it out. Or, at the very least, go up there to do his own rubbing. A shiver went right through Marcia—she had had enough nightmares about Septimus falling to last her a lifetime. Marcia came to a decision. She scribbled a note for Septimus in case he woke before she returned, then she was off—tippy-tapping down the stone stairs, pinning the note on Septimus’s door, then back up to the Library to pick up an envelope she’d forgotten, down the steps again, rapidly past the ghost of Jillie Djinn and out of her rooms.

In the Great Hall, Marcia rapped on the door of the duty Wizard’s cupboard. Hildegarde answered.

“Ah, Miss Pigeon,” said Marcia frostily. “I thought you might have company this morning.”

“No, Madam Marcia. It is very quiet this morning.”

“Mr. Banda otherwise engaged, is he?”

“I think so, Madam Marcia. Did you want to leave a message in case he drops by?”

“No,” said Marcia. “I don’t.”

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

Marcia handed Hildegarde an envelope. “My choice for the rotation scheme Apprentice for the Pyramid Library. Send it up to the Sick Bay, will you?”

“Of course, Madam Marcia. Right away.”

“I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“Very well, Madam Marcia.”

Hildegarde called for the duty Message Apprentice and gave him the envelope; then she went into the duty Wizard’s cupboard and sat down with a sigh. She knew she had done something to offend Marcia but she had no idea what. She sat down and finished a note.

Dear Milo,

Thank you for your message. I will meet you at the old bakehouse at two o’clock this afternoon.

Hildegarde

Marcia ignored Hildegarde on the way back. She hurried by, put the stairs on
fast
and zoomed straight up to the twentieth floor. She found Septimus in the kitchen, making porridge.

“Aha, Septimus!” she said cheerily.

“Morning,” said Septimus, blearily scraping the porridge into his bowl.

“Coffee?” asked Marcia brightly.

“Oh! Yes, please.” Septimus looked surprised. Generally it was his job to make the coffee.

Marcia snapped her fingers at the coffeepot, which was loitering in the shadows with the sugar bowl. “For two!” she told it. The coffeepot scooped in a couple of spoons of coffee, added three teaspoons of sugar, stood under the tap, which obligingly turned on, then scuttled over to the stove and settled onto a ring. “Light!” Marcia told the stove.

Septimus smiled. When
he
made coffee, he had to do it himself. The coffeepot was a one-Wizard pot and took absolutely no notice of him.