Septimus Heap 4 - Queste (19 page)

Although Jenna had seen Ullr Transform

many times now, it still fascinated her. She watched almost in awe as the black tip on the little orange cat’s tail began to grow. She saw the fur rippling as the muscles below the skin grew thick and strong. Now the little cat grew fast, the black from his tail spreading across his body like the shadow of an eclipse running over the land, turning the scraggy mottled orange fur to a sleek shiny black and, finally, his blue eyes to a glittering green. Within the space of forty-nine seconds, the DayUllr had become the NightUllr and Jenna had a panther—with an orange-tipped tail—for company in the passageway.

Beetle found Jenna’s pin in the alcove. Feeling very pleased, he picked it up. As he was about to rush back to Jenna, Tertius Fume’s menacing laugh echoed up the steps. Beetle froze.

“You share the taste I once had for licorice, I see,” he heard the ghost say.

What was the ghost talking about? Beetle wondered. Curious, he lingered for a moment.

“What is this…thing?” Tertius Fume sneered.

“It’s a snake. My last one.” The boy sounded aggrieved.

Beetle could not resist a quick look. The new scribe was clumsily trying to tie the snake into a circle. “See,” he said sounding panicky, “I can make it smaller—I can. Then it can be a ring, a really nice ring.” Beetle saw the boy close his eyes and guessed he was doing a Shrink

Spell. To Beetle’s surprise it appeared to work. The snake disappeared in a puff of black smoke and the boy held out his hand to show something to Tertius Fume.

“So be it,” said the ghost. “Give the Thing its ring and we will proceed.”

Beetle dared not stay any longer—he had left Jenna alone for long enough. He sped back up the twisting passage and, as he was nearing the end, his heart gave a fearful lurch. Two glittering green eyes were staring out of the shadows where he was sure he had left Jenna.

“Jenna?” he whispered, hardly daring to imagine what might have happened. “Jenna?”

Jenna stepped out of the shadows by the walls. “Did you find it?” she asked anxiously.

“Shh,” said Beetle. “Don’t move.”

“Why not? Oh, Beetle, wasn’t it there?”

“Just…don’t…move. Okay?”

Jenna froze. Something was wrong. She watched as Beetle stealthily crept along the wall, keeping to the shadows. A low rolling growl came from Ullr. “Ullr, shh,” whispered Jenna.

Beetle pounced.

Ullr snarled.

“No! Stop! Beetle, it’s only Ullr. Ullr let go!” There was a tearing sound as Beetle wrenched his sleeve out of Ullr’s jaws and Jenna hauled Ullr away. “No, Ullr. Leave.” Ullr glared at Beetle angrily. He didn’t like being pounced on—he was the one who did the pouncing. “Leave,” Jenna repeated sternly.

“Ullr?” gasped Beetle.

“Yes. You know he was Snorri’s cat? He’s a Transformer.”

“Really?” said Beetle faintly. “Wow…”

“Beetle, um, did you—”

Beetle shook off the awful fear that something terrible had happened to Jenna. He uncurled his hand and showed Jenna a

small gold ‘J’ lying in his palm.

“Oh, Beetle!” Jenna picked up the pin and fastened it back in her cloak. “Oh, Beetle, thank you!” And she threw her arms around his neck. Beetle grinned. That was worth fighting a hundred panthers for.

Down by the Vaults, Merrin was not receiving such an enthusiastic response from the Thing. It peered at the licorice ring in disdain—what a cheapskate, it thought. The Thing

sighed a hollow sigh; unfortunately it was no more than it would have expected. And things were not so bad; its new Master looked infinitely more promising. The Thing

took the sticky black ring as though it were picking up a particularly disgusting insect, and placed it on its left thumb.

The Contract was complete.

FIRED

B eetle, Jenna and the NightUllr

stepped through the concealed door in the bookshelves into the shadowy Manuscriptorium, lit only by the windswept Wizard Way torches, which cast a red dancing light through the glass of the office partition.

“That boy,” said Jenna as she followed Beetle through the towering ranks of dark, empty desks. “I think I know who he is.”

“Yeah,” said Beetle gloomily. “He’s the new scribe. Miss Djinn must need her head examined employing someone like him. You think she’d be able to see—”

“See what exactly, Beetle?” Jillie Djinn’s voice came out of the dark.

“Argh!” yelled Beetle, still jumpy after the Ullr incident. “What…where?”

“Up here,” said Jillie Djinn from somewhere above them. Beetle looked up and saw to his dismay that Jillie Djinn was perched on Partridge’s seat, peering at a sheaf of papers through her tiny illuminated magnifying glass. Jillie Djinn turned her attention to Beetle and Jenna, not noticing the NightUllr in the shadows. She gazed down with a face like thunder. “I was occupied in checking Mr. Partridge’s work. It has not been up to scratch these past three days. I have been examining his calculations for the increase in the rate of paper wastage by scribes of less than one year’s experience averaged out over the past three-and-three-quarter years,” she informed them. “I was just coming to the conclusion that they do not possess the standard of accuracy that I expect from my scribes, when not only do I hear the state of my head being so insolently discussed with a mere outsider but—”

“Jenna’s not an out—”

“Do not interrupt. However important Princess Jenna may be, she is not a member of the Manuscriptorium, ergo, she is an outsider. And you, Mr. Beetle, have just taken an outsider through a Restricted Access passageway.”

“But I—”

Jillie Djinn’s tirade swept on, “Not only that, Mr. Beetle, you have been discussing sensitive Manuscriptorium business with the aforementioned outsider and

insulted your Chief Hermetic Scribe, to whom you have taken an oath to show respect at all times. You have broken three of the sworn tenets of the Manuscriptorium.”

“But—”

“Do not

interrupt. I am not finished. In addition, Mr. Beetle, it has not escaped my notice that you have neglected to take due care of the Inspection sled.”

A small groan escaped Beetle.

“My new scribe, Daniel Hunter, informed me of a conversation he overheard between you and Mr. Fox. I understand that two days ago you took Mr. Fox on an unauthorized errand into the Ice Tunnels to retrieve the Inspection sled, which you had neglected to secure in the approved manner. I also understand that Mr. Fox then spent the remainder of the day in the sick room after encountering the Ice Wraith and thus we were yet again one scribe short that afternoon. Is that correct?”

Beetle nodded miserably.

“Answer me!”

“Yes. It is correct,” mumbled Beetle. Jenna gave Beetle a sympathetic glance, but Beetle, who was staring wretchedly at his boots, did not notice.

Unfortunately, Jillie Djinn was still not finished. “Normally, on receipt of a written apology and an undertaking to conform to the regulations of the Manuscriptorium at all times, I would be prepared to overlook such poor behavior.”

Beetle glanced up at Jillie Djinn but she looked straight through him. Even in the red glow from the torchlight through the window, Beetle looked pale. He knew there was a but coming. A big but.

It came.

“But,” said Jillie Djinn, “one thing I am not

prepared to overlook is my Inspection Clerk colluding with a successful attempt to UnSeal a hatch. And then, so I understand, entering through the hatch into a forbidden area.”

Beetle felt sick. Jillie Djinn had found out—just as he had known she would.

Jillie Djinn looked down from her lofty height. She seemed unwilling to get down from the desk—possibly, thought Jenna, because Beetle was a good six inches taller than she. But right then, Beetle could not have felt any smaller. He just wanted to curl up and disappear somewhere for a very long time.

“Mr. Beetle.” Jillie Djinn drew herself up straight and, like a judge about to deliver a particularly harsh sentence, she announced, “I give you notice that I hereby terminate your employment at the Manuscriptorium immediately. Your Indentures shall be burned. You will leave now and take your personal effects with you.”

Both Jenna and Beetle gasped. “What?”

“You’re fired,” snapped Jillie Djinn, who could be horribly concise when she wanted to be.

“You can’t do that!” protested Jenna. “Beetle is brilliant

here. This place couldn’t run without him. You’re crazy to get rid of him—he’s the best person here.” Jenna stopped, realizing too late what she had said.

“It is no concern of yours, Princess Jenna,” Jillie Djinn replied coldly. “I shall run the Manuscriptorium as I see fit and will not be dictated to by anyone. Not even you.”

Beetle could not speak. The great looming shapes of the desks seemed to dance mockingly around him as he struggled to take in what had just happened. Jenna took Beetle’s arm and led him toward the front office. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “She doesn’t mean it. She can’t mean it.”

But Beetle knew better. He knew that once Jillie Djinn got an idea into her head that was it—nothing could change it.

As Jenna pulled open the door to the front office, Jillie Djinn’s voice echoed through the empty Manuscriptorium: “You have five minutes to clear your desk, Mr. Beetle.”

After that the Chief Hermetic Scribe said nothing more—for she had just caught sight of the NightUllr padding through the shadows behind Jenna. Jillie Djinn had a horror of wild animals. She remained motionless, marooned on Partridge’s desk until well past midnight, when she finally plucked up the courage to make a run for it to the safety of her upstairs chamber.

Jenna propelled Beetle—who moved as if he were sleep-walking—into the front office and angrily slammed the door.

One look at Beetle told her that he was not going to be doing any desk clearing. Beetle just stood and gazed around the office, taking in all the things he loved: the great stacks of papers and books piled up in the window, his desk, his swivel chair, the sausage sandwich that Foxy had bought him that morning and he had forgotten to finish—even the door to the Wild Book Store. All these things Beetle stared at, knowing that he would never see them again in the same way. Even if he ever dared to venture into the Manuscriptorium—which he didn’t think he would—they would not be the same.

They would belong to another clerk who would be sitting at his desk, eating Foxy’s sausage sandwiches.

“Is there anything you want to take with you?” asked Jenna.

Beetle shook his head.

Jenna looked at Beetle’s desk, which he had tidied and made ready for the end of the day. His Manuscriptorium pen sat in its pot along with other, more workaday pens. “I’ll bring your pen. You don’t want to leave that behind.”

But Beetle didn’t want to take anything to remind him. “Foxy,” he croaked. “Give it to Foxy.”

“Okay.”

Quickly, Jenna wrote a brief note to Foxy, found some Spell-Binding twine and tied the note to Beetle’s Manuscriptorium pen—a beautiful black onyx with an ornate jade green inlay that, if you looked closely, you could see that the complicated swirls spelled out BEETLE

along the length of the pen. Jenna left it on the desk and hoped that Foxy would notice his name, which she had written on the outside of the note in her large, looping handwriting, which her essay tutor complained got bigger every day.

Gently, Jenna took Beetle by the elbow and steered him toward the door. She tugged the handle hard and the door flew open with a pi-ing. Outside the wind whined and spots of cold rain spattered onto the windowpanes. The evening was oppressively dark, almost untouched by the light from the torch flames, some of which had blown out. Eddies of litter and leaves came skittering into the Manuscriptorium and swirled around their feet. Beetle stood motionless on the doorstep until Jenna linked her arm through his and stepped outside, taking him with her.

Behind them the door slammed with a great crash.

THE PROJECTION

H igh on their silver

torch posts, the last pair of torches at the end of Wizard Way struggled to stay lit in the wind, their flames thrown about like wet rags in a storm.

“Come on, Beetle, you’ve got to fight this!” Jenna yelled above the howl of the gale as they approached the Great Arch.

“She can’t just dump you like that. You wait—when Marcia hears about this Jillie Djinn won’t stand a chance.”

Beetle did not have the energy to reply. As Jenna propelled him through the Arch and into the Courtyard, all Beetle could think about was how he was going to break the news to his mother, who frequently told anyone who would listen that the proudest day of her life was the day that Beetle passed the Manuscriptorium entrance exam. But something his mother never mentioned was the fact that it was Beetle’s weekly pay—a silver half crown—that paid the rent on their tiny rooms in The Ramblings and bought them a steady supply of potatoes and fish.

The Wizard Tower Courtyard was sheltered from the wind, and the light from the torches in their holders along the walls was steady and bright. Jenna thought the Courtyard looked unusually clean—gone were the nasty surprises, and even the precarious slippery feeling underfoot had disappeared. As she and Beetle approached the great white marble steps that led up to the Wizard Tower, the reason for this sudden attack of hygiene appeared carrying a shovel and a very big bucket.

“Hildegarde!” said Jenna in surprise. “What are you doing here? I thought you were having some time off.”

Hildegarde swept a grimy hand across her forehead, stopped and leaned wearily on her shovel. “I wish,” she said.

Jenna noticed that the sub-Wizard’s blue robes were soaked and splattered with mud—or worse—and her short brown hair had been blown into something resembling a bird’s nest. “I suppose it’s not quite the job you wanted at the Tower,”

said Jenna sympathetically.

“No, it’s not,” replied Hildegarde and then, realizing she had been curt, she said, “But of course I am happy to help out while the Apprentice is unable to look after his dragon and—”

“Why, what’s happened?” Jenna interrupted, suddenly alarmed. “Is Sep ill? Has he had an accident?”