“Thanks,” said Septimus ruefully.
Marcellus indicated a shallow arch within the bricks, just above head height. “Remove the bricks below the arch, please, Apprentice. They should come out quite easily.”
Septimus sighed and got to work. He was pleased to find that the bricks did indeed come away easily.
“Alchemist’s mortar—never sets,” said Marcellus. “It began as a mistake when we had to do a lot of building ourselves. Looks solid, but is as soft as butter. Very useful at times.”
Septimus took away the rest of the bricks below the arch. Behind them was a black shiny surface reflected in the flames of the Fyre Globe.
Marcellus smiled. “I understand you have seen something like this before.”
Septimus looked suspicious. “It’s not some kind of Time Glass, is it?” he asked.
Marcellus looked guilty. “Oh, dear. I am so sorry about the way we met, Apprentice. It was, I see now, very wrong. You do know I would never do that again, do you not?” Marcellus picked up the chisel, counted down from the top brick on the right-hand side of the doorway. He levered out the seventh brick and placed his hand on the smooth black substance behind it. A faint green light began to glow beneath it.
Septimus stared at it, astonished.
“You recognize it, Apprentice?” Marcellus smiled.
“Is . . . is this a moving chamber?”
“Indeed it is.”
“Like the one on the Isles of Syren?”
“Pretty much. Unfortunately I cannot remember the finer details of its operation. I used to know it, but like many memories, it has faded. I was hoping you might remember. I would like to get it working again. So much more pleasant than the long climb down.”
“To the Chamber of Fyre?”
“To the Chamber of Fyre. So, Apprentice. Shall we go?”
Gingerly Septimus stretched out his hand and placed his palm on the opening plate—the worn part of the smooth, cool surface behind the brick. The green light sprang up below once again; it grew bright and then began to fade.
“Oh,” said Septimus. “That shouldn’t happen.” He took his hand away and rubbed it on his tunic; then he put it back and leaned his whole weight against the surface. This time the green light immediately glowed bright and suddenly, silently, a concealed oval door slid open revealing a tiny, blue-lit chamber.
“Oh, well done!” said Marcellus, excited. “Shall we step inside?”
Septimus followed Marcellus through the door into a virtually spherical space. Its walls were a smooth, shiny black material with no obvious features. It was, as far as Septimus could tell, identical to the one he had known on the Isles of Syren.
“Perhaps you would like to close the door, Apprentice?”
Septimus was not sure that he would. “Marcellus, when did you last use this?” he asked.
Marcellus looked surprised. “Oh, goodness. Well, it’s all a bit of a blur, really. There was a lot going on at the time. Esmeralda was with me; I remember that.”
“So, about four hundred and seventy-five years ago?”
“About that, I suppose.”
For someone who had dabbled in moving from one Time to another, Marcellus was always annoyingly vague about time, Septimus thought. “I’m asking because Syrah said that it needed to be used every day to keep it, er, alive.”
“Alive!” Marcellus laughed. “Superstitious nonsense. It is a piece of machinery.”
“I know,” said Septimus, “but that was how she explained it. And it makes sense to me. She said its life drained away unless it was . . . what was the word she used? Recharged.”
Marcellus was skeptical. “Septimus, you must remember that Syrah was Possessed. She was just saying words like a . . . Oh, what are those birds with many colors?”
“Parrots. Syrah was not like a parrot,” said Septimus, annoyed.
“No, of course not. Not the real Syrah,” Marcellus said soothingly. “However, I can assure you that this chamber is not alive.”
Septimus felt that it would be wrong to back out now. There was a worn spot beside the door, and he placed his palm onto it. A red light glowed beneath, lighting up his hand, and the door closed silently. A small orange arrow pointing downward now appeared on the other side of the chamber. Septimus went over to it and reluctantly raised his hand to press it. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Marcellus. “Of course I am.”
Taking a deep breath, Septimus placed his hand on the orange arrow and pressed. The floor of the chamber gave a sickening lurch and his stomach did the same. The chamber was falling fast and Septimus had forgotten just how terrifying it was. When he had been in the one on the Isles of Syren, he had been with Syrah, and she had known what she was doing. Now he was with Marcellus, who looked just as scared as he was. Septimus watched the orange arrow plummeting down the wall, like a bird hit by a stone.
It is going too fast, he thought. It is going too fast.
Suddenly the descent stopped with a bone-jarring thud that set their teeth rattling in their skulls. Marcellus staggered back and grabbed hold of Septimus. This brought them both slithering to the floor, which—being shiny and slightly tilted—sent them cannoning across the chamber, where they fetched up in a pile against the wall.
“Aaaaah,” Marcellus groaned.
Septimus extricated himself from Marcellus’s shoes. He stood up shakily and shook his head, trying to clear the buzzing inside.
“Do you think it’s landed all right?” Marcellus whispered from the floor.
Septimus didn’t think it had, but there was only one way to find out—open the door. He saw a telltale worn patch on the opposite side of the chamber from where they had come in; he walked gingerly across the sloping floor and placed his hand on the wall. Septimus waited for the green light to appear that would signal the opening of the door. A glimmer of green rose briefly beneath his hand, then faded away. Septimus rubbed his hand on his tunic to remove any dust and pushed it back on the patch, leaning all his weight on it.
Nothing happened. No green light. No opening door. Nothing.
A sharp intake of breath came from Marcellus. “Try again, Apprentice,” he urged.
Septimus tried again. Nothing happened.
“Maybe there?” said Marcellus, pointing to another spot.
Septimus tried there. Nothing. He told himself to keep calm.
“Perhaps that might be the place,” said Marcellus, indicating a slightly less shiny spot that was not, Septimus thought, anywhere near where the door should be.
Nothing.
“Apprentice,” said Marcellus, “we should ascend.”
Septimus thought they should too. He put his hand on the orange arrow, which was still pointing downward, and moved his hand in an upward direction, which should have flipped the arrow around to point up. The arrow stayed just as it was. Septimus tried again but still the arrow did not move. And neither did the chamber.
“You’re not doing it right,” Marcellus said.
“You do it, then,” Septimus replied, irritated.
Marcellus—whose hand, Septimus noticed, was trembling—had no luck with the arrow either. It stayed where it was, pointing resolutely to the floor.
“Sheesh,” muttered Marcellus.
“Perhaps it needs to go down a bit more first,” Septimus suggested, running his hand down from the orange arrow. But whether the chamber needed to or not, it would not budge.
It was then that the blue light illuminating the inside of the chamber began to fade. The last glimpse it showed Septimus was the flash of panic that shot across Marcellus’s face. And then it was dark—no orange arrow, no green light, nothing but a total blackness.
Septimus waited for the glow from his Dragon Ring to kick in. It was strange, he thought, because he didn’t usually have to wait at all. His left hand found his right index finger and he checked that the ring was still there. It was. So why wasn’t it glowing like it always did? Why? Sep
timus felt a flicker of panic in his stomach and fought it down. The total darkness took him straight back to a terrifying night that he had spent, age seven, in a Young Army wolverine pit.
“My ring,” he said into the darkness. “My Dragon Ring. It’s not doing anything.”
“No,” came Marcellus’s voice, dismal in the dark.
Septimus felt as though he could not bear being trapped inside the blackness a moment longer. He had to do something.
“I’m going to do a Transport.”
He heard the Alchemist sigh and mistook the reason.
“Marcellus, I’ll come back; you know I will. But I have to get some help. Marcia will know what to do.”
Another sigh.
“Marcia will have to know now, Marcellus. We’ve got no choice. I’ll Transport right back here. I won’t leave you, I promise.”
There was silence.
“You do believe me, don’t you?”
At last Marcellus spoke. “Yes, I do believe you, Apprentice. I believe you because I trust you absolutely. But even if I didn’t trust you I would still believe you—because unfortunately I know you won’t leave me. Not with a Transport.”
“What do you mean?” Something about the way Marcellus had spoken made Septimus feel very scared.
There was a long silence and then Marcellus spoke. “Apprentice, Magyk will not work in this chamber.”
“No. That’s not true!”
“So . . . does your Dragon Ring shine?”
“That isn’t the same.”
“It, too, is Magyk, Apprentice.”
Septimus ran his fingers across the Dragon Ring. It sat cold and unresponsive on his finger, just like any other ring. The little buzz of Magyk that he always felt from it was no longer there. A feeling of doom swept over Septimus. He knew Marcellus spoke the truth—Magyk did not work inside the chamber.
They were trapped.
16
MISSING
That evening at five past six, Lucy—who was trying to hang up an interesting experiment in knitted curtains—watched from the window as Simon Heap waited on Marcellus’s doorstep. She saw Simon knock for a third time, step back and look up at the windows, shake his head and cross the road back to their house.
“He’s not there,” Simon said forlornly, as he wandered into their tiny front room. Lucy was inspecting her curtains with approval—she particularly liked the holes where she had dropped the occasional stitch. “Don’t worry, Si,” she said. “He’ll be back soon.”
Simon took the I, Marcellus out of his pocket and looked at it. “I thought it was too good to be true,” he said gloomily.
“Don’t be silly, Si. If Marcellus didn’t want you to be his Apprentice, he wouldn’t have given you his precious book, would he? We’ll sit and wait for him to come back.”
Simon made a pot of herb tea and set it down on the table next to a small, battered box that bore the label SLEUTH. He opened the box, took out his old and worn Tracker Ball and began gently throwing it from one hand to the other as he always did when he felt unsettled. Lucy poured the tea and together they sat at the window, watching for the return of the Alchemist.
Night began to fall and candles were placed in the windows of the houses on either side of Marcellus’s, but his remained dark. Suddenly Lucy saw a cloaked figure stride quickly down the slipway and walk up to his front door.
“There he is!” she said. Simon threw Sleuth into its box and was heading out of the room when Lucy said, “Oh. It’s Marcia.”
The sound of the angry rapping of Marcellus’s doorknocker carried across the snowy slipway. They watched Marcia wait and then step back and peruse the dark windows, just as Simon had. Then they saw the ExtraOrdinary Wizard spin around and head across the slipway toward their door. Simon rushed into the hall, leaping over a rolled-up rug, a potted plant and a box of books. He opened the door just as Marcia was about to knock.
“Oh!” she said, surprised.
“Sorry,” said Simon. “It falls off its hinges if you knock hard.”
Marcia did not waste words. “Have you seen Marcellus?” she asked.
“No, I haven’t.”
“It’s too bad, Simon. It’s Septimus’s last day and I’m expecting him back for a Wizard Warming Supper. We have two new Ordinaries to welcome.”
“Right.” People becoming Wizards were still a sore spot for Simon.
“I’d be very grateful if as soon as they come back you would kindly tell Septimus to get straight over to the Wizard Tower?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Thank you, Simon.” With that Marcia turned and strode away up Snake Slipway. Simon closed the door.
“What was that about?” asked Lucy.
“I’m being a messenger for my little brother, that’s all,” said Simon glumly. “And it looks like that’s all I’m ever going to be.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Si. Just because Marcellus is late home it doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind about making you his Alchemie Apprentice, does it? We’ll watch for him to come back and as soon as he does you can go and see him.”
“All these new Wizards, Lu. It’s not fair.”
“You don’t want to be a boring old Wizard,” said Lucy. “Alchemie is much more exciting.”
“I guess so.”
“Besides,” Lucy said with a smile, “you look really good in black.”
But Marcellus did not come back. Simon watched all evening from the front-room window and, much to Lucy’s annoyance, would not let her draw her new curtains. Lucy wanted to see the effect of the moonlight through the holes, but Simon was adamant—he had to watch for Marcellus. By the time midnight was drawing on, Simon was worried.
“I’m going to the Wizard Tower, Lu,” he said. “Something’s not right.”
Simon had not even reached the end of Snake Slipway when he saw the unmistakable figure of Marcia striding toward him.
“Simon! Oh, good, I see you are on your way to tell me. Thank goodness they’re back. Whatever was Marcellus thinking of? It really is too bad. Septimus must be exhausted and—”
Simon interrupted as soon as he could. “No, Marcia—they’re not back.”
Marcia stopped. She looked shocked. “Not back?”
“No.”
“Simon, are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ve been watching all evening. The house is still in darkness. That’s what I was coming to tell you.”
Even in the moonlight, Simon could see that Marcia had gone pale. “Something’s happened,” she muttered. “Something in that awful underground pit has gone wrong.” She shook her head. “I should never have agreed to this. Never.”
Sixty seconds later Simon was standing alone on the Snake Slipway ice, feeling very odd. He had just witnessed Marcia’s Transport to the Great Chamber of Alchemie and he’d forgotten how exciting Magyk could be. With the feeling of Magyk still buzzing in his head, Simon walked slowly back to the only house with a lighted downstairs window and went inside. Lucy met him anxiously.
“What’s going on, Si?” she asked.
Simon shook his head. “I dunno, Lu. But it doesn’t look good.”
Marcia’s fizzing purple Magyk was the first light the Great Chamber of Alchemie had seen all day. She waited for the last vestiges of the Transport to wear off, then she pulled a FlashLight from her pocket and swung its beam around to check if anyone was there—perhaps they were lying overcome by noxious fumes or victim of a bizarre Alchemical accident. Marcia wasn’t quite sure what an Alchemical accident would look like but she figured she would know one if she saw one. However, it was soon clear that nothing untoward had occurred and that the place was deserted. She headed out of the Chamber and into the Labyrinth, walking quickly, the tippy-tapping of her python shoes echoing through its deep blue coils.
Although Marcia knew that there were tunnels running off the Labyrinth she had never actually been along them and she decided to explore what she knew first. Marcia knew all about the plan
ning of Labyrinths—it had been a hobby of hers when she was a girl—so finding the way to Alchemie Quay was no problem. She emerged through the left-hand tunnel and stood a moment surveying the deserted Quay. Marcia was beginning to think that maybe Marcellus and Septimus had done something completely stupid like running away, when she saw a flash of color and movement against the stone of the Quay—the gently bobbing pink paddleboat.
Marcia rushed over and looked down at the paddleboat—its chubby, childish shape and its vibrant pink sitting incongruously on the deep, dark waters of the UnderFlow Pool.
“So they are here,” she muttered to herself. The worm of worry that had been niggling Marcia since Septimus’s nonarrival at the Wizard Warming Supper turned into a fat snake of fear. Something was wrong. She knew it. She peered into the inscrutable black waters below her and a horrible conviction came over her. Septimus was somewhere below—somewhere deep. Marcia gave a gasp and sat down on the steps, trembling.
They had fallen in and drowned. It explained everything.
No doubt it was Marcellus in those ridiculous shoes who had lost his footing and dear, darling, brave Septimus had dived in to save Marcellus—who had surely grabbed on to him with those long bony fingers and pulled him down with him. Marcia stifled a sob and sat staring into the water for some minutes.
When she’d calmed down a little, Marcia—who was a naturally optimistic person—began to wonder if there might be another explanation. She got to her feet and paced the Quay, trying to empty her mind of panic. There were, she told herself, other possibilities: they could be trapped somewhere, or even lost in one of the old tunnels off the labyrinth. The most sensible thing was to go back to the Wizard Tower and do a Search from the Search and Rescue Center. Marcia walked quietly along the edge of the Quay, her purple pythons no longer tippy-tapping in their usual exuberant way. She was loath to leave, which was odd, she thought, as the Alchemie Quay gave her the creeps. And then Marcia realized why she didn’t want to go; it was because she Felt that Septimus was still here. And that meant that he was still alive. Close by.