Septimus Heap 4 - Queste (13 page)

It was not long before Septimus and Beetle arrived at the end of the passageway and emerged into the large vaulted cellars below the house. Septimus strode through them and, worried that he was already late for Jenna, ran up the cellar steps and pushed open the cellar door under the stairs. “Marcellus?” he called out. “Marcellus?” There was no reply.

Septimus padded into the house, closely followed by a wary Beetle. The place smelled odd to Beetle. The waxy scent of candles was combined with a bittersweet aroma of oranges, cloves and something he could not identify. Beetle could not get rid of the feeling that he had somehow gone back in time. It had the same effect on Septimus. He was used to it now, but when he had first visited Marcellus just after the old Alchemist had moved in, Septimus had suddenly become convinced that he was still trapped in Marcellus’s Time and his return to his own Time had been nothing more than a dream. In a terrible panic he had run out of the house, and to his joy he had seen Jillie Djinn bustling past. Jillie never did figure out quite why Marcia’s Apprentice had thrown his arms around her and said how thrilled he was to see her, but she had gone back to the Manuscriptorium that morning with a spring in her step. People did not often throw their arms around Jillie Djinn.

The silence of the house fell upon Septimus and Beetle like a blanket. They walked along the narrow hallway, which was lit with more candles than Beetle had ever seen in his life. When they reached the foot of a steep flight of dark oak stairs, Beetle was amazed to see a lit candle had been placed on each step.

“All these candles, they’re weird,” whispered Beetle, feeling somewhat spooked.

“He doesn’t like the dark,” whispered Septimus. “Shhh, I can hear footsteps upstairs. Marcellus? Marcell…us,” he called out.

“Apprentice?” came a wary voice from the floor above. “’Tis you?”

“Yes, it’s me,” Septimus replied.

Heavy footsteps sounded above and then Beetle saw a sight so strange he remembered it for the rest of his life. Coming slowly down the stairs, lit from below by each candle that he passed, was a dark-haired young man sporting an old-fashioned haircut. He was wearing what Beetle knew—from old engravings—were the black and gold robes of an Alchemist. The sleeves of the young man’s tunic were what Beetle considered to be ridiculously long and they trailed down the stairs behind him. They were matched by the strangest shoes that Beetle had ever seen in his life—the points of the shoes must have been about two feet long and were tied up onto garters that the young man wore just below his knees. Beetle suddenly became aware that his mouth had fallen open and he rapidly closed it.

The young man reached the foot of the stairs and Septimus said, “Marcellus, this is my friend Beetle. He works at the Manuscriptorium. Beetle, this is Marcellus Pye.”

A feeling of unreality stole over Beetle. Marcellus Pye was five hundred years old. He was the Last Alchemist. His writings were banned—even from the Manuscriptorium—and he, Beetle, was being introduced to him. It was not possible.

Marcellus Pye extended his hand and said in a somewhat strange accent, “Welcome. It is wonderful work you young scribes do. Wonderful.”

Like a lost sheep, Beetle gazed in bewilderment and made a small baa.

A quick nudge from Septimus sorted the sheep out. “Oh…thank you,” Beetle said, shaking the offered hand, which was, to his relief, warm—not ice-cold as he had expected. “But I’m not a scribe. I’m the Inspection clerk. I check the Seals in the ice tunnels.”

“Ah,” said Marcellus. “A necessary evil that I hope one day soon will be removed.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” said Beetle, back in professional mode. “But I do know that the hatch for this house has been UnSealed recently.”

“Possibly. But not for long. I have ReSealed it. You have no need to worry.”

“But—” Beetle was cut short by the tinkling of a bell far above his head.

Marcellus started at the noise. He looked panic-stricken. “’Tis the doorbell,” he said, staring at the door.

“Shall I answer it?” Septimus offered.

“Must you?” asked Marcellus.

“You should try to be more sociable, Marcellus,” Septimus scolded him. “It’s not good for you to hide away like this.”

“But the sun is so bright and the noise so loud, Apprentice.”

There was another, more insistent, ring of the doorbell.

“I think it’s probably Jenna,” said Septimus, itching to open the door. “You said I could bring her here, remember? You said you were ready to tell us what happened. To Nicko.”

Marcellus looked puzzled. “Nicko?” he asked.

Septimus’s heart sank. For six months now he had been trying to get Marcellus to tell him what he knew about Nicko, and a few days earlier Marcellus had finally agreed. Now it seemed as though he had forgotten—again. Septimus found it hard to get used to the fact that although Marcellus Pye looked like a young man once more, he often behaved like an old man. Marcellus had centuries-old habits that were hard to discard—he would lapse into a shuffling old-man gait and adopt a querulous manner. But it was Marcellus’s bad memory that annoyed Septimus the most. He had grumpily told Marcellus that this was just laziness, but Marcellus had countered by saying that he had five hundred years of memories in his head and where exactly did Septimus think he was going to find space for all the new ones?

Septimus sighed. He left Marcellus dithering in the hallway and went to answer the door.

“Sep!” said Jenna, sounding relieved. She stood on the doorstep, looking windswept and cold. Her dark hair was wet, hanging in tendrils around her face, and she had her thick red winter cloak wrapped tightly around her. “You took your time,” she said, stamping her feet with the cold. “It’s horrible out here. Aren’t you going to let me in?”

“Password please,” said Septimus, suddenly serious.

Jenna frowned. “What password?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No. Oh, bother. Can’t you let me in anyway?”

“Hmm…I don’t know about that, Jen.”

“Sep, I’m freezing out here. Please.”

“Oh, all right, then. Since it’s you.”

Septimus stepped back. Jenna rushed in out of the rain and stood shaking the drips off her cloak. Suddenly she stopped and looked at Septimus suspiciously. “There isn’t a password, is there?” she said.

“Nope.” Septimus grinned.

“Horrible boy!” Jenna laughed and gave Septimus a push. “Oh, hello, Beetle. Nice to see you.”

Beetle blushed and found that, once again, he had forgotten how to speak—but Jenna did not seem to notice. She was occupied taking out a small orange cat from beneath her cloak and tucking it under her arm, which surprised Beetle—he hadn’t thought of Jenna as someone who would have a cat. Then for some reason Beetle did not understand, Marcellus said, “Welcome, Esmeralda.”

“Thank you, Marcellus,” said Jenna. She smiled; she had almost forgotten how she had once been regularly mistaken for Princess Esmeralda in Marcellus Pye’s Time.

Then, with an old-fashioned half bow, Marcellus said, “Pray, Princess, Apprentice and Scribe, follow me.”

A moment later Beetle was following Jenna, Septimus and Marcellus upstairs, weaving his way around dripping candles, wondering what he had gotten himself into. And

how he was going to explain it all to Miss Djinn when she found out—which she always did.

IN THE ATTIC

T hey followed

Marcellus up to a small room right at the top of the house—a dark space, tucked in under sloping eaves and lined with wooden paneling. The room was sparsely furnished with an old trestle table with two benches, and a few chairs lined up along the walls—all left by the previous owner, Weasal Van Klampff. In the center of the table was a cluster of candles, lit earlier that morning by the housekeeper and already half burned down.

As Marcellus showed them in, a pang of recognition shot through Septimus—this had been his room not so long ago.

Yet he knew it was so

long ago that it seemed impossible. This was the room where, for the first few nights he had been in Marcellus’s Time, an Alchemie Scribe had slept across the doorway to stop him from trying to escape. This was the room where he had desperately thought up all kinds of crazy plans to return to his own Time; the room where he had sat for hours looking out of the window longing to see a familiar face pass by in the street far below. It was not, all things considered, his most favorite place in the world—but now here he was, back again with Beetle and Jenna. That was something he had never dared to imagine. Suddenly Septimus felt very peculiar. He sat down with a bump on one of the benches at the trestle table.

Beetle and Jenna sat beside him, and soon three expectant faces were looking up at Marcellus Pye. Marcellus returned their gaze with a puzzled expression. “Now…why did we come up here?” he asked.

“It’s to do with Nicko. You remember,” said Septimus hopefully, although he had no idea why Marcellus had taken them all the way up to this particular room.

“Nicko?” asked Marcellus blankly.

“Nicko. My brother. He was trapped in your Time. You must remember,” said Septimus, a trace of desperation surfacing in his voice. It had taken months for him to arrange this meeting and now, as Marcellus’s memory did its familiar disappearing act, he felt it all slipping away again.

“Ah, I remember,” said Marcellus. Septimus’s spirits lifted. “It was my spectacles. I still need them; it is most annoying.

Now, where are they?”

“They are on the top of your head,” said Septimus wearily.

“Indeed, so they are.” Marcellus reached for his spectacles and settled them on his nose. “Good,” he said. “I shall need them for Nicko’s papers.”

Septimus felt excited—now

they were getting somewhere. He smiled at Jenna, whose eyes looked suspiciously bright, as they always did when Nicko’s name was mentioned.

Lapsing into his old man’s shuffling gait—which Beetle blamed on the weird shoes—Marcellus went over to the chimney and pressed on a small panel high up on the side. The panel swung open with an apologetic creak. Everyone watched as he took out a ragged collection of brittle, yellowing papers. Carefully, he brought them over to the table and gently laid them down.

Jenna gasped—they were covered in Nicko’s distinctive scrawl.

“Nicko and Snorri left these behind,” Marcellus said. “I put them in the chimney for safekeeping as I was afraid that someone might throw them away, for they appear to be but notes and jottings in an untutored hand. But, as the years went by—and there were many, many years—I forgot about the hiding place. Indeed, Apprentice, I did not remember again until some months after you asked me about your brother.”

“When you said you didn’t remember,” said Septimus.

“’Tis true, I did not. But then things about my old life began to come back to me. And one day when I came up to this room I did remember. Briefly. After that I spent many weeks coming all the way up here only to wonder what it was I wanted. But when you last spoke to me about Nicko, I wrote it down. I carried the note everywhere and then, when I came up here again, I remembered. I even remembered the hiding place—which, to my amazement, I found undisturbed.

Which is why I sent you the message to come here today.”

“Thank you, Marcellus,” said Septimus.

“I owe it to you, Apprentice. I confess I cannot read much of what is in Nicko’s hand, but perhaps you can understand your brother’s writing better than I. It may be that the notes will tell their own story. But I will fill in the gaps as much as I can.”

Jenna cautiously looked at the papers. The ink was faded to a pale sepia color, and the paper was thin and almost as brown as the ink. Even so, Jenna knew it was Nicko’s work. There were doodles of boats, sketches of various sail rigs, numerous games of noughts and crosses, battleships, hangman, plus some she did not recognize and a lot of lists. But somehow instead of making her feel closer to Nicko, seeing his scribbles on such ancient, fragile things made him feel even farther away. Jenna found herself staring at a long, thin piece of paper with tears pricking the backs of her eyelids.

“What does it say, Jen?” asked Septimus.

“He…he’s made a list.”

“Typical Nicko,” said Septimus. “Go on, Jen. Read it out.”

“Oh. Okay. It says:

2 backpacks

2 bedrolls (if can find) or wolfskins from market

Food for two weeks at least. Ask at market for salted stuff.

Dried biscuits & fruit

Tinderbox

Candles

2 water bottles or flagon things

Permit to travel? Ask M.

2 warm cloaks

Boots with fur if possible

Aunt Ells’s lucky socks—remember

2 gold trinkets. For Toll-Man.

Case for Snorri’s compass.”

As Jenna finished reading the list, the paper began to crumble in her fingers. She quickly laid it down on the table. “I…I wonder where he was going,” she said.

“Somewhere cold. You can tell a lot from a list,” said Beetle, who was a big fan of lists himself.

Jenna hated to think of Nicko—five hundred years ago—setting off for somewhere cold. It made her feel terribly bleak and empty. She sat slowly stroking Ullr for comfort. The cat was curled up on her lap, apparently asleep, but Jenna knew better. She could feel a watchfulness in the way Ullr lay very still and slightly tensed, as if ready to pounce.

Septimus looked at Marcellus Pye. He knew his old master well enough to know that Marcellus had something to tell—something important. “You know something, don’t you?” Septimus said. “Tell us. Please, Marcellus.”

Marcellus nodded but said nothing. He sat at the end of the table as if in a daydream, staring at the cluster of candles, watching their flames dance in the eddies that blew through the gaps of the ill-fitting windows. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he looked up. “First,” he said, “some warmth.” Marcellus got up and, striking a flint in the old-fashioned way, he lit the fire that was laid in the grate.

As the flames leaped up around the logs, the Alchemist leaned across the table and began to speak slowly—a habit Septimus remembered from his Alchemie Apprentice days, when Marcellus had wanted his full attention. But that afternoon Marcellus did not lack attention from his audience—all eyes were on him. Accompanied by a distant rumble of thunder—and embarrassingly for Beetle, a much nearer rumble from his stomach—Marcellus Pye began to speak.