Septimus Heap 3 - Physik (25 page)

“It's a Glass, Alice, a Glass—not a mirror,” Alther corrected grumpily. “And if I knew where it was, I wouldn't be sitting here feeling like I'd been trampled by a herd of Foryx, would I?”

“Don't be silly, Alther,” snapped Alice. “Foryx don't exist.”

“Are you sure, Alice? You've probably got a whole stash of 'em stored up here somewhere,” said Alther testily.

“When I was little, I used to think Foryx existed,” said Jenna, hoping to help things along. “Nicko liked to scare me with bedtime stories about them—all half-decayed and slimy, horrible warty faces, huge feet with great claws running forever around the world and crushing everything in their path. I used to have to watch the boats from my window for hours before I forgot about them.”

“That's not a very nice thing to tell your little sister, Nicko,” said Alther.

“Jen didn't mind, did you, Jen? You used to say that you wanted to be a Foryx.”

Jenna gave Nicko a push. “Only so that I could chase you, you horrible boy.” She laughed. Snorri watched the brother and sister together and wished that she had a brother like Nicko. She would never have left home and come to this crazy place if she had.

Alice clambered over a pile of sacks containing seventy-eight pairs of backward-pointing joke shoes. Her foot went through one of the sacks and a cloud of leather-beetle droppings rose into the air. She succumbed to a coughing fit and slumped down on the chest beside Alther. “Alther, are you quite sure— cough—that this Glass— cough—is actually— cough, cough—here?”

Alther felt too full of dust to reply. The ghost was sitting in a shaft of light, and Jenna could see that he was full of millions of minute swirling particles. The dust cloud inside him was so thick that it made Alther appear almost solid and strangely grubby.

“But you think it could be here, don't you, Uncle Alther?” asked Jenna, coming over to sit beside the disconsolate ghost.

Alther smiled at Jenna. He liked it when she called him Uncle Alther. It reminded him of happy times when Jenna was growing up in the Heap household in their chaotic room in The Ramblings.

“Yes, Princess, I do think it could be here.”

“Maybe we should ask Aunt Zelda to come help?” Nicko suggested.

“Aunt Zelda had no idea where it was,” said Alther grumpily, remembering his trying time with the White Witch in Warehouse Number Nine. “She just stood in the middle of the floor waving her arms like this”—Alther did an impression of a windmill in a hurricane—“and saying there, Over there, Alther. Oh, you silly man, I said over there! ” Jenna and Nicko laughed; Alther did a surprisingly good imitation of Aunt Zelda.

“But I am sure that the Glass is here. Marcellus himself says so. One hundred and sixty-nine days after he had his first success with what he calls the True Glass of Time, which he made a great palaver about and had gold doors for it and all the works, he completed two more Glasses of Time. A matched pair this time, which would be portable. These worked very well, apparently. It's these I am looking for. I reckon one of them is here.”

“Wow...” Nicko whistled under his breath and looked around as if expecting to suddenly see a Glass of Time looming out of the junk.

“Are you sure, Alther?” asked the ever-skeptical Alice.

The dust particles inside Alther were beginning to settle and the ghost was feeling better. “Yes,” he said, more definitely now. “It's all in Broda Pye's letters, even though Marcia says they're a load of old claptrap.”

“Sep told me about Broda once,” said Jenna. “She was a Keeper, wasn't she? Oh, I so miss Sep, he used to tell me so much stuff about all sorts of useless things ... and I used to tell him to stop going on like a dumb parrot ... and I wish I hadn't. I really do.” Jenna sniffed and wiped her eyes. “It's just the dust,” she mumbled, knowing that if someone said anything remotely comforting to her she would burst into tears.

“Ah, well. I expect Septimus was interested in Marcellus's Physik,” said Alther. “It worried Marcia sick. She got jumpy every time he went near the Sealed section in the Library. I wonder where he found out about Broda?”

“Aunt Zelda told him,” said Jenna.

“Did she now? Well, well ... and did she tell him about the stack of letters she found behind the fireplace when she was making the cat tunnel for Bert?”

Jenna shook her head. She was sure Septimus would have told her that.

“Well, those were the letters from Marcellus Pye to his wife, Broda.”

“But Keepers aren't allowed to get married,” said Jenna.

“Right,” agreed Alther. “And this goes to show why.”

“Why, Uncle Alther?”

“Because Broda told Marcellus all the Keeper's secrets. And when things got tough for Marcellus, she let him use the Queen's Way as a shortcut to the Port. He brought all sorts of Darke Alchemical stuff through there. There are still pockets of Darkenesse hanging around. You must always take care going through there, Princess.”

Jenna nodded. She wasn't surprised. She always felt a little scared on the Queen's Way.

“So Marcellus told Broda that he'd put the Glass in this warehouse?” asked Nicko.

“No. He wrote and said he'd been swindled out of it. Apparently he had taken it through the Queen's Way, got it to the Port on a succession of stubborn donkeys and finally put it on a ship. He planned to take it to a small but powerful group of Alchemists up in the Lands of the Long Nights, but he was double-crossed by the ship's captain. As soon as Marcellus was out of the way, the captain sold the Glass to a certain Drago Mills—a merchant in the Port who was in the habit of buying a load of old tat without paying too much attention to where it had come from. Anyway, some months later Drago fell out with the Chief Customs Officer over a small matter of unpaid duty for another cargo and got the whole contents of his warehouse impounded for his trouble. No one, not even Marcellus, could get into the warehouse without the say-so of the Chief Customs Officer, whom Marcellus referred to as an Officiouse Tubbe of Malice, and the Officiouse Tubbe never did give the say-so.”

“So this was Drago Mills's warehouse?” said Nicko.

“You've got it, Nicko. Warehouse Number Nine. Even more junk has been added over the years, of course, but at the core of it is Drago's hoard. And somewhere, hidden away under all this stuff, there is a Glass that should take you through Time—one hundred and sixty-nine days after Septimus arrived.”

There was silence as Nicko, Jenna and Snorri took this in.

“We have to find it,” said Jenna. “It must be here somewhere. Come on, Uncle Alther.”

Alther groaned. “Give an old ghost a rest, Princess; I still feel like the inside of a carpet sweeper. Just a few more minutes and then I'll get back to it. Aha ... that dragon of yours is stirring. I'd see to it quickly if I were you. And you might want to take a shovel with you from that pile of old garden tools over there.”

A pungent smell filled the air. “Oh, Spit Fyre!” Jenna protested.

Ten minutes later, a large pile of dragon droppings was steaming outside Warehouse Number Nine, and Spit Fyre was gulping his way through a barrel of sausages that Jenna had bought from a passing cart on its way to market. The dragon downed the last sausage, sucked up the contents of a bucket of water that Nicko had fetched and snorted, sending a great lump of dragon spit slamming into a pile of novelty fake brass candlesticks and melting the paint off them.

Spit Fyre was content—a fire stomach full of bones, a food stomach full of sausages.

Now he just had to complete the Seek. With a purposeful air, the dragon thumped his tail down, sending a great cloud of dust up in the air, and closed his eyes, Seeking the way to his Imprinter.

Ever since Spit Fyre had been Seeking, he had felt drawn to the Port, and apart from the irresistible call of breakfast on Snorri's boat, he had not been deflected from his purpose. He had circled for hours above the Port, Seeking, until at last he had felt something. He had landed on the old dock and followed the faint callings of the Seek all the way to the great green door of Warehouse Number Nine. But now, with a full stomach, Spit Fyre could think clearly—and the Seek was stronger, much stronger.

Suddenly, with a loud snort, the dragon reared up and crashed his way into the depths of the warehouse, sending the pride and joy of Drago Mills flying in all directions. Jenna, Nicko, Snorri and Alice saw him coming, but Alther, pale and full of dust, did not. In a moment, the ghost was tossed into the air, Passed Through by a dragon on a mission and thrown to the ground, where he lay feeling worse than he had ever felt in his entire ghosthood.

As Alther lay dusty and trampled on the floor, Spit Fyre ripped into the ebony chest that the ghost had been sitting on. In seconds the iron bands were peeled off, the giant lock snapped and the lid of the chest flipped open by a large, sharp dragon claw.

Inside the chest, lying in soft velvet folds, was a Glass.

The Dark Pool

A strange silence fell over Warehouse Number Nine. Even Spit Fyre stopped his excited snorting and became unusually still. Everyone stepped a little closer, gingerly peered into the black ebony chest and shivered. It had a ghastly coffinlike look to it. The Glass lay like a dead body within, held secure and cushioned from the world for the past five hundred years in dark red padded velvet, which was shaped perfectly to every little swirl and twirl of its gold frame. Silently, four people, one ghost, a dragon and a thin orange cat gazed into the depths of the chest, trying to see into the dark pool of Glass, over which a dim white mist hung suspended as though it lay over still water on a fall morning.

The Glass was horribly enthralling. Spit Fyre stared into it, his tail slowly swishing from side to side, clearing the way through the debris of ten dozen smashed novelty gnomes and a hundred pounds of crushed wax fruit like a great windshield wiper.

Nicko wanted to jump in and see how deep it was, and Snorri wondered if she could See her great-aunt Ells. Alice wanted to see exactly what it was she had bought in the job lot of Warehouse Number Nine—for the Glass belonged to her now and she felt responsible for it.

Alther was fascinated to see the very thing that he had read about in Marcellus Pye's letters, written all those long years ago. It looked exactly as he had imagined it would. As Alther stared deep into its depths, he had the sensation of gazing into a bottomless pit, a pit into which he would love to lose himself forever. Stop it, you old fool, Alther told himself sternly. With some difficulty, he shook himself out of his reverie.

“Funny you didn't notice that you were sitting on the Glass all that time, Alther,” said Alice.

“Not particularly funny, Alice,” said Alther huffily, “since the chest is lined with solid gold. Soaks up most stuff, does gold. No wonder Marcellus was complaining to Broda about the weight of the Glass—what on earth did he expect?”

Jenna stared at the Glass, gathering her courage. If Alther was right, then here was the way to Septimus. Here was her chance to make amends for the harm she had done to him; all she had to do was jump into the Glass and find him, wherever he may be. She had no choice. Taking them all by surprise, Jenna scrambled onto the edge of the chest.

“Get back!” Alther shouted. Jenna jumped at the sound of alarm in the ghost's voice, lost her balance and fell toward the Glass.

Nicko was there in an instant. “Jen!” he yelled, but he was too late. Jenna tumbled forward, awkwardly, arms outstretched like those of a diver who has misjudged her dive, and plunged through the liquid blackness of the Glass. All that was left were a few ripples, which soon subsided, leaving the surface undisturbed as before.

A horrified silence was broken by Nicko yelling, “Jen, Jen!”

He threw himself into the chest, but was hauled out, just as his boot touched the Glass, by a hefty heave from Alice Nettles.

“No, Nicko, it's too dangerous,” puffed Alice, keeping a tight hold on his arm.

“I don't care,” said Nicko fiercely, unable to take his eyes off the thing that had just swallowed his little sister. “Let go of me. Jen's in there on her own. Let me go!”

Alice hung on like a ferret with a rabbit, but Nicko was very nearly as tall as she was, and three months' hard work in Jannit Maarten's boatyard had made him strong.

With a desperate twist he wrenched himself away, and before Alice could do anything, Nicko threw himself forward once more. This time he succeeded.

It was cold going through the Glass. Nicko felt as though he was falling through liquid ice. The surface of the Glass passed over him like a tight, frozen band and let him go, as if it was no longer concerned with what happened to him. And then Nicko was in free fall, tumbling, twisting and turning like an autumn leaf on the still night air, until he was pulled into another sheet of coldness, which ran over him and let him go, leaving him to drop into a pile of old coats. Nicko got up, hit his head on something and was sent flying by the advent of a small orange cat with a black-tipped tail hurtling into his back.

“Ullr ... Snorri?” asked Nicko, rubbing his head. He was sitting half in and half out of a large green cupboard, which was full of dusty old coats. As he twisted around .to see where Ullr had come from, he saw Snorri tumble from an old looking glass—just like the one he had just jumped through—which was propped up at the back of the cupboard.

“Hello, Nicko.” Snorri stepped out of the UnderCooks' coat cupboard—no longer used due to the UnderCooks having taken over the second footmen's coatroom after a bitter power struggle. Snorri looked at Nicko uncertainly. What would Nicko think of her following him like that? Her mother had always told her that a girl must never chase a boy ... Snorri shook her head to get rid of the thought of her mother. Well, she told herself, her mother never said anything about not jumping through a Glass after a boy. Never.

The UnderCooks' coat cupboard was in a deep recess at the junction of two passageways. Warily, Snorri and Nicko crept out and looked around. The place was pervaded with a strong smell of roasting meat, which immediately made Nicko feel hungry, but there was no sign of Jenna. None. The place was deserted. Nicko suddenly realized how stupid he had been. Jenna could be anywhere. Who was to know where the Glass would have taken her?