Septimus Heap 4 - Queste (38 page)

“What’s that?” asked Beetle suspiciously.

“Huh,” said Jenna. “It’s a Magykal hand-warmer. You might have told us, Sep, we could have all used that.”

“It’s not a hand-warmer,” muttered Septimus.

“No, it’s not, is it?” said Beetle, peering down at the Stone. “You kept this quiet, Sep.”

“Kept what quiet?” asked Jenna.

“The Questing Stone,” said Beetle. “He’s got the Questing Stone. Sep—why didn’t you say?”

“Because we were looking for Nik and Snorri, that was the important thing. And, well, at first I didn’t think it mattered.”

“You took the Questing Stone and you didn’t think it mattered?” Beetle was aghast.

“Give me a break, Beetle. I didn’t know it was the Stone when I took it, did I? I wouldn’t have taken it if I had.

Hildegarde gave it to me just before we escaped from the Wizard Tower. She said it was her SafeCharm.”

“Well, it’s obviously not her SafeCharm,” said Beetle snappily.

“And she wasn’t Hildegarde,” said Septimus.

“What’s going on?” asked Jenna crossly. “Who wasn’t Hildegarde? Tell me.”

“Hildegarde wasn’t Hildegarde,” replied Beetle, a trifle unhelpfully.

“Beetle,” protested Jenna, fixing Beetle with a Princessy stare.

“Beetle’s right, Jen,” said Septimus, coming to Beetle’s rescue. “I’ve been going over and over it—the moment when I took the Stone. I know Marcia says never accept Charms from strangers, but I didn’t think Hildegarde was a stranger.

But she had been standing next to the Questing Pot, hadn’t she? And I Saw the Thing in the Pot. So when Tertius Fume started putting the Tower into Siege, I reckon the Thing must have got out of the Pot and InHabited Hildegarde. It was so dark and crazy anything could have happened.”

Jenna looked at Septimus, puzzled. “But why didn’t you tell us?” she asked.

“Well…when I first found out I had it, I really thought that if I got away from the Castle and the Questing Guards like Marcia told me, then it would be okay. And we could all go and find Nik and Snorri and forget about the Queste. And then when it turned green—”

“When what turned green?” asked Jenna.

“The Stone. It started off blue but then, when we were in the hut, I saw it had turned green, just like Alther said it would.

And then I realized I was on the Queste.”

“So why didn’t you tell us?”

Septimus took a while to answer. “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I’m sorry. We were following Snorri’s map and everything seemed okay so I thought…” Septimus ran out of words. He felt terrible, as if he had betrayed his closest friends.

“But Sep, it is okay. We’re still rescuing Nik, aren’t we?” said Jenna.

“No,” snapped Beetle suddenly. “This has nothing to do with Nicko now. We are with Sep, and Sep is on the Queste. He has no choice. Once you Accept the Stone, Your Will is Not Your Own. Isn’t that right, Sep?”

Septimus nodded miserably.

Jenna shook her head in disbelief. “No! No way. We are on our quest—for Nik. And, look, we’ve done it.” She pointed up to the great octagonal towers looming out of the mists. “Because there is the House of Foryx.”

Beetle was adamant. “We don’t know that,” he said. “We don’t know anything anymore. Like I said, all we know for certain is that we are with Sep, and Sep is on the Queste. Oh yes—and one more little detail…”

“What?” asked Jenna quietly, surprised at Beetle’s angry torrent of words.

“That no one has ever come back from the Queste.”

There was silence as this sunk in.

Septimus felt awful. “I…I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m really sorry.”

A few stray snowflakes drifted down from the sky. Fiercely, Jenna brushed them from her eyes. She looked up at the great granite fortress looming out of the mist far above them, hoping somehow to find a clue that Nicko was indeed there. As she stared at the blind windows, a flight of ravens flew out of one of the towers, cawing. Jenna shivered and pulled her cloak tighter. Ullr mewed miserably and rubbed against her leg, his hackles raised.

At last Jenna spoke. “Well, if we’re on some stupid Queste, then that’s okay. We’ll do it and we’ll come back—with Nik. That will show them.” With that, Jenna marched off up the steep zigzag path, with Ullr at her heels.

Beetle and Septimus followed in her wake.

“I’m sorry,” said Septimus after a few minutes. “I should have told you about the Stone.”

“Yes,” said Beetle. “You should have.” A few minutes later he said, “Wouldn’t have made any difference. I would have still come.”

“Thanks, Beetle.”

“Jenna would have too,” said Beetle.

“Yeah,” said Septimus. “I don’t think I could have stopped her.”

“I don’t think you could stop Jenna from doing anything,” said Beetle with a grin. “Not once she’s made up her mind.”

Halfway up the path Jenna stopped and waited for Septimus and Beetle to catch up. Snow was falling steadily now and it seemed as if the only color in the whole world was the fiery orange of the Questing Stone that shone in Septimus’s hand as he and Beetle emerged from the mist.

“You know,” said Jenna, “this place reminds me of a story Dad used to tell us about the weary travelers who climbed up to a huge tower in the mist. They got to a door with weird creatures carved all around it and pulled the bellpull. Ages later it was opened by a little hunchback figure who stared at them for hours and then said in a really creepy voice,

‘Yeeeeeeeees?’ You remember that, Sep?”

“Nope,” said Septimus. “I was in the Young Army at the time—probably at the bottom of a wolverine pit while you were listening to bedtime stories.”

“Oh sorry, Sep. Sometimes it feels as though you were with us all the time.”

“Wish I had been,” said Septimus quietly. Sometimes he tried to imagine what he had missed but it wasn’t a good thing to do. It gave him a feeling of heaviness that was hard to shake off.

They set off once more walking together, but soon the path narrowed and they were forced to go on in single file. The path became steeper, winding in and out of rocky outcrops, and as they climbed the air grew colder. Beetle had a feeling that they were near the top. He braced himself for the sight of the snake that Snorri had drawn wrapped around the tower.

It must, he thought, be enormous. He wondered what it ate—and then he decided to stop wondering. It wasn’t making him feel good.

Now the path widened and began to level off. With their boots crunching on fine gravel, they approached the smooth white marble of the wide terrace that surrounded the House of Foryx. On the terrace they stopped to catch their breath.

In front of them a bank of mist rose, rolling and swirling with the snow, and behind that they could just make out the gray granite of the House of Foryx. They glanced at one another. Where was the snake?

Stealthily, they crept across the terrace, their feet slipping on the damp smoothness of the marble. Septimus held out the Questing Stone and like a beacon it guided them through the whiteness to the foot of a flight of wide, shallow steps.

“Wait there,” Septimus whispered. “I’ll go check out the snake.”

“No,” said Jenna. “We’ll all go. Won’t we, Beetle?”

Beetle nodded reluctantly. He hated snakes. “Okay,” he said.

Cautiously, they crept up the steps, Septimus holding the Questing Stone before him to guide the way. “There’s no snake,” said Septimus from the mist. “Just a big old door with lots of strange carvings around it.”

“No snake?” asked Beetle just to make sure.

“No snake,” came Septimus’s voice, “not even a tiny licorice one.”

THE DOORKEEPER

T he huge door to the

House of Foryx was almost as tall as the Wizard Tower doors. It was made out of great planks of ebony, fixed together with blackened iron bars and long lines of rivets. Around the door was a heavy frame carved with monsters and bizarre creatures that stared down at Jenna, Septimus and Beetle. They stood with the snow settling onto their wolverine cloaks, plucking up the courage to ring the long bellpull that emerged from the mouth of an iron dragon poking through the granite beside the door.

“Now, you remember what we decided?” Septimus asked Beetle.

“Yep. You and Jen go in and I’ll wait outside. I’ll give you three hours on the timepiece and then ring the bell. If you don’t come out, I’ll ring every hour until you do. Okay?”

“Great.” Septimus gave Beetle a thumbs-up sign.

Jenna reached up and yanked hard on the bellpull. Deep within the House of Foryx a bell jangled. Silently they stood in the steadily falling snow and waited…and waited.

After what felt like hours, the door creaked slowly open. A small, bent figure peered out. “Yeeeeeeeeees?” it said.

Jenna stared at the DoorKeeper. She remembered Silas hunched over the storybook, putting on his funny, squeaky voice in which he pronounced the “R” as a “W,” and making silly faces at her and her brothers. An attack of giggles overcame her.

The DoorKeeper looked somewhat affronted at Jenna’s laughter. Usually no one laughed when they arrived at the House of Foryx. He reminded Jenna of a brown bat. He was small, with tiny hooded eyes, a close-fitting brown moleskin cap and a long brown cape made of some kind of closely cropped fur. Like a roosting bat, he clung to the doorknob as if he were afraid of being blown away.

“Um, may we come in, please?” asked Jenna.

“Dooooooooo

you have an appointment?” asked the DoorKeeper, standing in the gap made by the open door, barring their way in.

“An appointment?” replied Jenna. “No, but—”

“Nooooooooo

one enters the House without an appointment.” The DoorKeeper said in his swooping, bat-squeak of a voice. He stared at Jenna reproachfully, his eyes like little black beads.

“In that case I would like to make an appointment, please,” Jenna told him.

“Veeeeeeeeewy well. You may enter when you have made it. Good-bye.”

“But how do we make—” The DoorKeeper began to close the door. “No—wait!” Jenna yelled.

Beetle leaped forward and put his foot against the door. The DoorKeeper pushed hard against Beetle’s boot. A battle developed between Beetle’s boot and the door, but inch by inch the DoorKeeper pushed Beetle’s boot back. Beetle added his shoulder to the pressure of his boot and leaned against the door, but the strength of the DoorKeeper was out of proportion to his small size. Jenna began to panic. They had to get inside—they had to. It was unthinkable to be so close to Nicko and to have the door slammed in their faces. She threw herself at the door, adding her weight to Beetle’s, but still the door kept closing.

“Stop!” yelled Septimus. “We don’t need an appointment.” He thrust the Questing Stone under the nose of the DoorKeeper. “We’ve got this.”

The DoorKeeper stopped pushing and looked at the Stone. He peered up at Septimus and said suspiciously, “What, are all of you on the Queste?”

“Yes,” said Septimus defiantly.

“Typical. You wait thousands of years for one Appwentice and then thwee come along at once.”

Jenna stared at the DoorKeeper in amazement. He spoke exactly as Silas had done—he couldn’t pronounce his Rs. Did Silas know about the House of Foryx, she wondered? Had he been here once?

The DoorKeeper scrutinized them more closely, taking in the fact that only Septimus wore a green tunic. “You can come in,” he said to Septimus, “but the other two can’t.”

Jenna panicked at the thought of Septimus going into the House of Foryx on his own. If he did, she was sure they would never see him again. She imagined herself and Beetle waiting outside for days, for weeks—months even, and then going home without him. That

was unbearable. In desperation—remembering the next part of Silas’s bedtime story—she said, “We demand the Right of the Riddle.”

The DoorKeeper looked at her in amazement. “You what?” he asked.

Aware that Septimus and Beetle were staring at her as though she had gone crazy, Jenna repeated, “We demand the Right of the Riddle.”

“The Wight of the Widdle?”

“Yes,” said Jenna very firmly, determined to keep a straight face—despite a suppressed splutter from Beetle.

“Vewy well,” the DoorKeeper replied grumpily.

“Go on, then,” prompted Jenna.

The DoorKeeper sighed and began to chant in his high-pitched voice,

“I spit like bacon,

I am made with an egg,

I have plenty of backbone, but lack a good leg,

I peel layers like onions, but still wemain whole,

I am long like a flagpole, yet fit in a hole,

What am I?”

Now Jenna understood Snorri’s drawing. “A snake,” she replied with a grin.

The DoorKeeper looked surprised and not particularly pleased. “Vewy well. You have two more. I think you will not be smiling then.” Once more he began his chant:

“What force and stwength cannot get thwough,

I with a gentle touch can do.

And many in the stweet would stand,

Were I not a fwend at hand.

What am I?”

Jenna knew at once. “A key,” she said.

Now the DoorKeeper was irritated. “Cowect,” he said very reluctantly. “But you will not find this one so easy.” He began once again, this time chanting much faster and in a whisper. They leaned forward to catch his words.

“I am only one color, but not one size.

Though I’m chained to the earth, I can easily fly.

I am pwesent in sun, but not in wain,

I do no harm, I feel no pain.

What am I?”

This time Jenna was stumped. What else was on the map? There was nothing she could remember.

“I’m wait—ing,” said the DoorKeeper in a singsong sneer. “You have one minute to answer and then I shall let the Questor in. Alone. You two can go home—if you pay the Toll-Man enough.” He gave a horrible chuckle.

In a panic, Jenna unfolded the map.

“No cheating. I said no cheating!” The DoorKeeper screamed excitedly. He snatched the map and began tearing it into shreds.

“No!” yelled Jenna, lunging forward to grab the map. “Give it back!”

“Jen, Jen, we don’t need it anymore,” said Septimus, pulling Jenna back. “We’ve got to keep calm and think.”

“Twenty seconds,” came the DoorKeeper’s taunting squeak. “Fifteen seconds…ten, nine, eight, seven—”