Septimus Heap 4 - Queste (37 page)

“Yeah,” said Septimus glumly. He was silent for a while and stirred his witches’ brew, watching the toffee whiz around faster and faster. Then he said, “I’d be a better Physician than a Wizard.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jenna. “You’ll be a great Wizard. One of the best. You know you will.”

“Marcia doesn’t think so.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“No. But I can tell she thinks it. She says I just mess around with stuff. It’s true, really. I…I don’t think I want to be a Wizard really, Jen.”

Jenna nodded. “Sometimes I think I don’t want to be Queen,” she said. “It’s horrible to feel you have to be something.

At least you can decide not to be a Wizard if you don’t want to be.”

Septimus did not reply. He put his hand in his pocket and felt the Questing Stone. He didn’t think there was going to be much chance of deciding anything anyway. “Jen,” he said.

“What is it, Sep?” Jenna looked concerned.

“Oh…nothing.” He couldn’t say it.

Later, when night had fallen and Jenna and Beetle were sleeping, the NightUllr was lying across the doorway, and even Ephaniah was breathing peacefully, Septimus took out the Questing Stone. Jenna stirred and he quickly shoved it back into his pocket—but not before he saw that the yellow had deepened to a dull orange: “Orange to warn you that over you’ll go.” And now Septimus knew exactly what that meant.

Septimus woke the next morning feeling groggy from the musty fumes of the Foryx skin. It was still dark inside the tree house and the only way that Septimus could tell it was morning was by the presence of a small orange cat mewing impatiently to be let out. He lifted a corner of the Foryx skin door and, tail up, Ullr stalked out into the morning air. A moment later the cat landed with a soft thud in the snow below the tree and set about hunting for a more interesting breakfast than dried fish.

Unskilled in the art of hunting tree voles, the occupants of the tree house had to make other arrangements for breakfast.

They set to heating some water and wondered if dried fish could be made more interesting by boiling it up with toffee.

Jenna thought not, although Septimus liked the idea. Beetle woke with a headache and a stiff neck and grumpily refused both fish and toffee, either separately or together.

Septimus put an end to the fish-or-toffee discussion by using the pan of boiling water for an infusion of strips of willow bark from his Physik tin. He made Beetle drink it. It was bitter and made Beetle gag, but half an hour later his headache and stiff neck were better and he was helping Jenna open three more of Sam’s packages. They discovered some tiny sticky raisin cakes that Melissa had made for Jo-Jo, and a long strip of dried bacon. Suddenly breakfast seemed a lot more interesting.

Septimus decided to take Ephaniah’s pulse; he wondered if it would be in the usual place. It was, even though his wrist was covered with soft rat fur. The pulse was weak but regular and Septimus was sure that Ephaniah was now in a deep sleep and not unconscious, but he could think of nothing in his Physik tin that would be of any help to the rat-man. It

was, he thought, a question of time and, later on, something to stop the recurring nightmares that always afflicted those who had been InHabited.

About midmorning—according to Beetle’s silent, tick-free timepiece—they had finished breakfast and decided that the only thing they could do was leave Ephaniah in the tree house to recover, and call for him on the way back. “Nik’s really strong,” said Jenna. “It will be so much easier with him to help get Ephaniah back to the Forest.”

Septimus said nothing. He didn’t think they’d be coming back at all, let alone coming back with Nicko, but Ephaniah was as safe in the tree house as anywhere—safer, in fact, than they were going to be.

Jenna kneeled beside the rat-man, covering him with their wolverine cloaks and making him comfortable. “Good-bye, Ephaniah,” she said. “We’ve got to go, but we’ll be back soon.” Ephaniah’s whiskers twitched and Jenna stroked his forehead. “You’ll be fine,” she said. Ephaniah half opened one eye. “He’s waking up!” Jenna gasped.

Ephaniah seemed to be trying to focus on Jenna. He groaned and lifted his hand restlessly. Jenna took his hand and laid it gently back on his chest, but Ephaniah resisted. Jenna let go and watched his long, bony fingers scrabble inside the folds of his robes around his neck. “What is it?” she asked. “Does your neck hurt?”

In answer, Ephaniah drew out something from a hidden pocket and pressed it into Jenna’s hand. Then, with a long sigh, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

Jenna stared at her hand. On it lay a slightly shiny circle of paper covered in a mass of finely detailed pencil lines. For a moment Jenna wondered what it could possibly be, but only for a moment. And then she knew—it was the missing piece of the map. It was the House of Foryx.

THE BRIDGE

T hey spread the map out

on the snow below the tree. As they unfolded it the stiffened paper crackled and looked yellow against the frosty whiteness.

“No, Ullr,” said Jenna. “You are not

sitting here.” She held up the missing piece. “Do I have to do anything special?” she asked. “Like say the ReUnite or something?”

“No,” said Beetle. He grinned. “It’s ready to go.”

Jenna let go of the circular piece of paper and slowly it fluttered down. Ullr went to bat at it with his paw but Jenna grabbed the cat and held him tight. The missing piece hovered for a few seconds above the hole, turning this way and that, deciding which way to go—and then, to the accompaniment of “Yaaay!” it slipped into place. Snorri’s map was complete once more.

“That’s amazing,” said Jenna. “You can’t even see the join.”

Beetle inspected the map with a professional air. “Nice work,” he said.

Septimus took his Enlarging Glass from his Apprentice Belt and held it over the center of the map. As the glass passed across, they watched the minutely annotated details rendered in Snorri’s neat hand spring into focus. They saw an octagonal building shaded a delicate gray. In heavy letters over the gray, Snorri had written HOUSE OF FORYX. In the middle of the octagon Snorri had drawn a key, and wrapped around the outside of the octagon was a huge snake. The House of Foryx was on what seemed to be an island, connected to the surrounding land by a spidery contraption of a bridge. Beside the bridge was a tree and a small figure with an arrow pointing to it. Snorri had written in tiny writing, BEWARE THE TOLL-MAN. She had also written the words BOTTOMLESS PIT across the gap that the bridge spanned, but Septimus did not care. He was so relieved that the Queste had not taken them away from the House of Foryx after all that he felt he could walk over a hundred bottomless pits if he had to—although he would rather not. One was quite enough.

With Ullr securely ensconced in her backpack, Jenna stood for a moment between the two soaring pillars that formed the gateway to the bridge. She looked up and saw it rise, black and spiderlike into the white air, its thin wire ropes shining with damp. The fog swirled around her feet and a long, low wail came from somewhere far below.

Jenna swallowed hard. This was the way to Nicko, she told herself, and this was the way she would have to go. She stepped between the pillars and onto the icy dusting of unmarked snow that lay on the first precarious plank. Ahead of her the line of planks rose up into a curve and disappeared into the fog. Jenna put out her hands to take the wire handrails. They were taut, cold, and felt frighteningly flimsy. Aware that Septimus was right behind her, Jenna gathered her courage and took another step forward. The bridge gave slightly under her weight. She froze, horribly aware that there was nothing but a thin plank of wood between her and a plunge to oblivion—but she was determined not to show how scared she was. “It’s fine,” she said brightly. “Come on, Sep.”

Septimus did not move.

“Go on,” said Beetle. He gave him a gentle shove and Septimus stepped onto the bridge. Jenna moved up a couple of paces. Once again the bridge swayed. In a panic, Septimus grabbed the wire handrails.

“Wait for me,” said Beetle, sounding more confident than he felt. He stepped onto the bridge, which moved once again.

Septimus felt sick. He had been determined to walk across the bridge calmly, as though it was no more than a few feet above the ground—but suddenly he knew he couldn’t.

Jenna glanced back and saw that Septimus’s green eyes were wide with fear. “It’s okay, Sep,” she said. “The trick is to just take one step at a time. One foot in front of the other is all you have to think about. It doesn’t matter how long it goes on for because we know we are going to get to the other side. All we have to do is put one foot in front of the other, okay? It’s easy.”

Septimus nodded. His mouth was too dry to speak.

Like a trio of snails creeping along a washing line, they set off up the bridge with Jenna counting out the steps.

“One…two…three…four…five…that’s it, Sep, you’re doing great. Look how far we’ve gone already—oh no, I didn’t mean that, no don’t look—keep going, keep going, ten…eleven…twelve…thirteen…”

Septimus obeyed, putting one foot in front of the other like one of Ephaniah’s automatons. Unblinking, he stared straight ahead into the mist. The scene before him was oddly unchanging—always a few feet of bridge in front of them, rising in a gradual curve and disappearing into the whiteness. Sometimes a gust of wind blew some of the mist away and revealed a little more of the stretch in front but Septimus did not see it, as whenever that happened he closed his eyes until the bridge stopped swaying.

But closing his eyes did not take away the terrible wails and despairing cries that issued from the bottomless pit. As they progressed along the wobbling planks, clinging onto the ice-cold handrails with numb fingers, the cries became louder and ever more desperate. These bothered Beetle more than the bridge and he began to sing his own very special tuneless version of an old Castle favorite, “How Much Is That Weasel in the Window?” For the first time ever, Septimus did not object.

And so, to the accompaniment of Beetle’s drone—which was at times hard to distinguish from the moans far below—they put one foot in front of the other and climbed the ever-ascending curve. They had probably been no longer than a quarter of an hour on the bridge when Jenna said, “It’s flattening out. Can you feel it? We must be nearly at the top.”

At the mention of “top” Septimus had a sudden vision of them suspended in the middle of nowhere. The dizzying absence of earth traveled up from the soles of his feet and made his head spin. He swayed backward—Beetle caught him and the weasel song stopped. “Hey, steady, Sep. Easy does it.”

Septimus could not move. His hands gripped the wires, his knuckles white. Jenna felt his fear seeping into her, too. A long, desolate lament drifted up from the chasm, rising and falling as if telling the lonely tale of the lost souls who inhabited the fog. Septimus listened, entranced. He felt an overwhelming urge to let himself fall into the soft pillow of fog and join the voices below. He loosened his grip on the handrails. At that moment a patch of fog lifted and Jenna saw a large black bird fly across their path. She gasped in surprise.

Septimus woke from his trance. “Jen…what is it?” he croaked.

“Nothing, Sep.” But the flight of the bird had triggered her thoughts. “Sep, the Flyte Charm. Remember?”

At Jenna’s words, Septimus felt as if the fog had cleared from his mind. He remembered the feeling of the Charm in his hand, the silver flights on the golden arrow fluttering like the wings of a tiny bird, the Charm buzzing in his hand. And as he remembered, his feet began to feel lighter and less anchored to the rickety planks of the bridge. His legs no longer felt like jelly and the keening voices from below no longer invited him to jump into the fog. To the accompaniment of a renewed burst of the weasel song behind him, Septimus took a step forward.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll soon be there.”

Septimus didn’t see the end of the bridge—his head was full of the image of the Flyte Charm and nothing else. But as Jenna and Beetle walked down the last few yards of the bridge, the gaunt shape of the House of Foryx slowly materialized out of the fog.

“It’s massive,” whispered Jenna.

Beetle replaced the weasel song with a long, low whistle.

With a huge feeling of relief, Jenna stepped off the bridge. As she kneeled to set Ullr free from the backpack, she found her eyes drawn up to the House of Foryx. It was a daunting sight. It towered above them—more of a fortress than a house—a forbidding mass of granite blocks perched on top of a rocky escarpment. True to Snorri’s drawing, it consisted of a central octagonal column flanked by four octagonal towers that disappeared into the milky white sky, the tops of their crenulated battlements hidden by a low snow cloud. A few small windows broke up the smooth gray surface but a strange swirling sheen—like oil on water—covered them. They reminded Jenna of the eyes of a blind old cat that she and her friend Bo had once adopted.

Spurred on by the resumption of the twenty-first rendition of the weasal song, Septimus had at last reached the end of the bridge. He stepped from the final wobbly plank and, with a feeling of exhilaration—he had done it—he let go of the image of the Flyte Charm. His feet felt heavy once more and his boots settled firmly back onto the ground. Painfully, Septimus tried to uncurl his fingers, which had been clamped tight to the freezing wire handrails, but they would not move. He shoved his frozen hands into his tunic pockets and the Questing Stone slipped into his right hand and nestled into his palm. “It’s hot!” he gasped.

“What are you talking about?” said Jenna. “It’s freezing.”

Septimus did not reply.

Gently, Jenna took Septimus by the arm and led him away from the edge of the chasm. “Come on, Sep,” she said, “let’s get going.”

But Septimus had something to say and he didn’t know where to begin. So he took his clenched hand from his pocket and opened it—in his palm lay the Questing Stone. It was glowing a brilliant orangy-red now, and it shone out in the white, muted surroundings like a beacon.