Septimus Heap 4 - Queste (7 page)

“Don’t be stupid,” said Beetle.

“No one calls me stupid!” the boy shouted. “No one. Got that?”

“Okay, okay,” said Beetle. “But you are not Septimus Heap.”

“How do you know?” the boy said with a sneer.

“Because I know Septimus Heap. And he’s not you. No way.”

The boy’s dark eyes flashed angrily. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I know who I am. You don’t. So where it says

‘name’ on your little form you can write down ‘Septimus Heap.’”

“No.”

Beetle and the boy stared each other down. The boy looked away first. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I was called that. Once.”

Beetle decided to humor the boy in case he suddenly lost it—not that Beetle was concerned about coming off worse in a fight. Although the boy was a little taller than him, he was thin and had a weak look about him, whereas Beetle was sturdy and powerfully built. But Beetle did not want the front office trashed, particularly while he was in charge. “So what are you called now?” he asked quietly.

The boy did not answer right away. His black eyes, which Beetle noticed were flecked with green, flickered around like a lizard’s. It seemed to Beetle as if the boy was making up a name on the spot.

Beetle was right. Merrin needed a name fast and he wanted something special. He didn’t like being Merrin Meredith; it didn’t feel like him. Besides, it was a stupid name. Meredith was a girl’s name and he thought that Merrin was plain silly. He needed something scary. Quickly, Merrin chose the two scariest people he had known in his life—DomDaniel and the Hunter.

Beetle was getting impatient. “So what’s your name?” he asked.

“Dom—er, I mean, Daniel.”

“DomDaniel?” Beetle shook his head.

“Don’t be stupid. I said Daniel. Daniel. Got that?”

Beetle concentrated on keeping calm and said, “Daniel what?”

“Daniel Hunter.”

“Okay. I’ll put down ‘Daniel Hunter,’ all right?” asked Beetle with exaggerated patience.

“Yeah.”

“You sure? Don’t want to change your mind again, do you?”

“Look, it’s my name, right? So put it down,” the boy said with a snarl.

Deciding that the best thing to do was to get rid of the boy as soon as he could, Beetle hurriedly filled out the rest of the form. He made no comment when the boy told him he had had at least ten years experience as an Apprentice to two Wizards and a working knowledge of White Witchcraft. Beetle did not believe a word of what the boy said and would have written down that he had flown to the Moon and back if it would have sped up his departure.

At last the form was filled in. With some relish, Beetle viciously impaled it on the spike of paperwork awaiting Jillie Djinn’s return.

The boy showed no sign of leaving.

“That’s it,” said Beetle. “You can go now.”

“So when do I come for my interview?”

Bother, thought Beetle. Merrin watched him closely as he looked through the Daily Diary, a hefty ledger that lived on Beetle’s desk and was his job to keep up to date. “Two thirty-three precisely,” he said. “Not a minute early, not a minute late.”

“See ya then,” said the boy with a smirk.

“Look forward to it,” replied Beetle coolly. “Allow me to show you out.” Beetle got up, held the door open and stared at Merrin until he was gone. Then he slammed the door with a bang that shook the office. At that the Rogue Spell Alarm sounded.

The Rogue Spell Alarm was designed to be particularly annoying—a series of loud screeches to the accompaniment of shrill, unremitting bell. Unsure whether it was another Darke trick or if there really was a rogue spell on the loose, Beetle sent four reluctant scribes down to the basement to check it out. But despite some serious thumping sounds echoing up from the basement, the alarm did not stop. Beetle was faced with a rebellion from the remaining scribes, who

were trying to get on with the day’s work. Exasperated, he sent two of the more beefy scribes down as reinforcements and suggested that the others find some earplugs. This was not received well.

At that point, a great crash shook the front office. Fearsome growls and thuds could be heard through the reinforced door that led from the office to the Wild Book Store. Beetle took a deep breath and peered through the inspection flap in the door. A big fight had broken out. The air was thick with fur and feathers. Beetle knew he had to get in there fast, before the whole bookstore got trashed. As he tentatively opened the door, a large—and very hairy—Spider Almanac tried to force its way out.

Unfortunately Beetle asked Foxy, one of the more highly strung scribes, to help him hold the door. It was not a good choice. Foxy screamed and fainted, knocking over two huge bottles of indelible ink, which spilled their entire contents over two weeks’ worth of Jillie Djinn’s calculations that Beetle was supposed to be copying for her.

Beetle put his head around the door to the Manuscriptorium and yelled, “Erase Spell! Quick!” Then, taking a deep breath, he plunged into the Wild Book Store.

Ten minutes later a disheveled, sore, but successful Beetle emerged from the store. Foxy was still flat out on the floor, being stepped over by the scribes as they hunted desperately for an Erase Spell before Jillie Djinn returned. The Rogue Spell Alarm was still ringing. And Beetle, who had taken his own advice and had two cork earplugs with twirly handles sticking out of his ears, was nursing some nasty scratches from an ambush by a Foryx Field Guide. It could not, thought Beetle, get any worse.

It could.

There was a sudden ping

and the door counter clicked over to four. In strode Marcia Overstrand, ExtraOrdinary Wizard; her purple cloak flying in the wind, her dark curly hair wet and windswept from the cold spring rain. Marcia frowned at the shrieking of the Alarm, which drilled into her ears and seemed to meet somewhere in the soft and delicate middle of her head.

“Beetle!” she yelled. “What on earth is going on?”

THE VAULTS

T here was something about Marcia

Overstrand that always seemed to fill the space she was in—and then some. Beetle instinctively stepped back to give the ExtraOrdinary Wizard more room.

“What on earth is this awful din?” Marcia shouted.

“She’s not here,” replied Beetle, who thought Marcia had asked, “Where on earth is the awful Djinn?”

“What?”

Beetle glanced desperately at the clock—had Jillie Djinn only been gone for such a short time? “Back in thirty minutes!” he yelled.

Marcia was beginning to get the feeling that she had stepped into the middle of one of the new-style plays that Septimus had taken her to see in the small Theater in The Ramblings. “And what have you got growing out of your ears?” she asked.

Beetle suddenly remembered his earplugs and pulled them out with a faint pop. “Sorry,” he said, raising his voice above the Alarm, which chose that very moment to stop.

“No need to shout,” said Marcia.

“No. Er, sorry,” Beetle stammered. “Can I help you, Madam Marcia? I’m, um, in charge until Miss Djinn gets back.”

“Oh, good.” Marcia smiled as if relieved, which surprised Beetle.

“Been a bit of a morning,” he said. He tried unsuccessfully to smooth down his thick black hair, which always stuck out at odd angles when he got flustered.

“So I see,” said Marcia. “Well, it happens to us all.”

“Does it?” said Beetle, surprised.

“All the time.” Marcia sighed. “Now, Beetle, unfortunately I need to go down to the Vaults.”

Feeling tremendously relieved that Marcia was taking things so well, Beetle led the ExtraOrdinary Wizard into the Manuscriptorium. As they stepped through the door there was a flash of green light. A huddle of scribes leaped back with a shout and then craned forward to see the results of their Erase Spell. A loud shriek came from the middle of the huddle. “Argh, my feet! Look at my feet!”

A collection of gasps rose from the group.

“I told you that spell was moldy but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Hey, those are big toadstools!”

“Yeah, massive.”

“Now your feet look like they smell, Partridge.”

A loud laugh come from the group; then one of the scribes noticed Marcia standing behind them. He nudged the scribe next to him and seconds later an embarrassed silence fell.

“Good morning, Scribes,” said Marcia.

“Good morning, Madam Overstrand,” the scribes chorused like good schoolchildren.

“Having trouble?” asked Marcia with a smile.

The scribes nodded sheepishly.

Beetle was amazed at Marcia’s good temper. He did not realize that Marcia was particularly fond of him ever since he had helped her with a difficult episode in her life not long before, which had involved an aggressive bunch of bones.

Beetle watched admiringly as Marcia, with a flick of her fingers and a flash of Magykal purple light, wiped out the impressive crop of toadstools that had sprung up from Partridge’s feet and burst through his boots in a spectacular array of red, orange and lurid yellow. Leaving Partridge gazing at his boots, which now had a random selection of holes dotted over them, Marcia Erased the spilled ink, ReFilled the ink bottles and Restored Jillie Djinn’s calculations.

Amid the chorus of grateful “thank-yous” from the scribes—particularly from Partridge—Marcia stepped over the recumbent form of Foxy. Beetle showed her through a concealed door in the bookshelves that lined the Manuscriptorium, then he followed Marcia into a candle-lit, winding passage. The passage was long and sloped steeply downward until it came to a flight of stone steps. At the foot of these was a huge studded iron door—and the belligerent Ghost of the Vaults.

The Ghost of the Vaults was one of the Ancients—ghosts over five hundred years old—who inhabited the older parts of the Castle. But unlike all the other Ancients, he was not particularly faded and his voice was still strong. He had a hectoring manner and was one of the most unpleasant ghosts in the Castle. The Ghost of the Vaults refused to tell anyone his name, although his old-fashioned Chief Hermetic Scribe robes were somewhat of a giveaway. Marcia was well aware who he was and Beetle had figured it out too—the ghost was the very first Chief Scribe ever to hold office, Tertius Fume. But although Beetle had searched for information about Tertius Fume, he had found nothing—except a snippet hidden in a damp old tome that he had rescued from propping up the rotten end of a bookshelf in a Manuscriptorium storeroom. The book, which Beetle guessed was part of an old series for children, was called: One Hundred and One Questions

You Have Always Wanted to Ask About: HOTEP-RA!

(Our Castle’s very first ExtraOrdinary Wizard)

Deluxe edition with answers

Although the last few pages of answers were eaten away by mold, Beetle had found out a lot of things he hadn’t known.

One of the questions was: Did Hotep-Ra have a best friend?

The answer intrigued Beetle: Yes, he did!! (The book was much given to exclamation marks.) But, boys and girls, he was not a good friend. He was an old friend who came to visit from far away, and his name was Tertius Fume. At first Hotep-Ra was pleased to see him. They had lots of fun! Hotep-Ra gave his best friend a house to live in on Wizard Way.

Tertius Fume was very clever and soon his house became the Manuscriptorium! But although Hotep-Ra’s best friend was clever, he was not nice! (Remember, boys and girls, that it is much better to be nice than clever.) Soon Tertius Fume was doing bad things that Hotep-Ra did not know about and so he came to a Bad End!

That was the only place Beetle had seen Tertius Fume’s name actually written down—apart from heading the list of all the Chief Hermetic Scribes inscribed on the honor board in the front office. It was as if everything about him had been expunged.

Tertius Fume glared at Marcia and Beetle as they came down the steps. He was not a pleasant-looking ghost. His deep black eyes were narrow slits in his pale face, which sported a long gray goatee. The ghost’s thin white lips were drawn back into a mocking snarl and moved, Beetle realized, even when he was not talking. It looked as if he were chewing the cud.

“Password…” said Tertius Fume. His deep, hollow-sounding voice echoed off the damp stone walls and made the hairs on the back of Beetle’s neck stand up. The ghost gave him the creeps.

Marcia sighed as if expecting trouble. “Tentacle,” she said.

“No.”

“Stop messing around,” said Marcia. “Of course it is.”

“Why?” Tertius Fume leaned back against the door, folded his arms and regarded Marcia with a superior air. Beetle, who was not a violent boy, felt like giving him a good kick.

“I have not the faintest idea why,” said Marcia irritably, “but that is not the point. One doesn’t have to know why; a password just is. Now let us through. Tentacle. Tent-a-cle.”

“No. I’ve changed it.”

“You can’t change a password without clearing it first with the Password Committee, of which I am Chairwoman. And you haven’t. Tentacle it was and Tentacle it remains.”

But the great iron door to the Vaults stayed firmly closed. Tertius Fume looked at Marcia with an amused expression and started examining his ghostly fingernails as if Marcia was no longer of any consequence at all. Beetle began to think that there was some truth in the old story that Tertius Fume had been assassinated by a group of disaffected scribes.

“Very well,” said Marcia. “You leave me no choice but to OverRide the password. Stand back, Beetle.”

“Ah. Just testing,” said Tertius Fume a little hurriedly. “You’ve passed. In you go now, and don’t mess anything up.”

“Idiot,” said Marcia under her breath.

Beetle took a couple of lamps from the rack outside the door and lit them. Marcia gave the door a bad-tempered shove.

It creaked open and the smell of damp earth and musty paper wafted into the stairwell. Inside the Vaults, Marcia locked the door and did an Alarm on it. If Tertius Fume was going to sidle up and eavesdrop she wanted some warning.

Marcia was still seething about the ghost. “He doesn’t like women, that’s his trouble,” she told Beetle. “He never did that with Alther, but ever since I took over he’s done that every time. Every time. It drives me crazy.”