Syren (5 page)

S
eptimus Heap, ExtraOrdinary Apprentice,
was woken up by his House Mouse leaving a note on his pillow. Blearily he opened his eyes and, with a sense of relief, remembered where he was—back in his bedroom at the top of the Wizard Tower, Queste completed. And then he remembered that Jenna, Nicko, Snorri and Beetle were still not home. Septimus sat up, suddenly awake. Today, no matter what Marcia said, he was going to go and bring them back.

Septimus sat up, picked up the note and brushed a couple of mouse droppings off his pillow. He carefully unfolded the tiny piece of paper and read:

FROM THE DESK OF MARCIA OVERSTRAND EXTRAORDINARY WIZARD

Septimus, I would very much like to see you at midday in my study. I hope that is convenient for you.

Marcia

Septimus let out a low whistle. Even though he had been Marcia’s Apprentice for nearly three years, he had never had an appointment with her before. If Marcia wished to speak to Septimus, she would interrupt whatever he was doing and speak to him. Septimus would have to stop what he was doing
right away
and
listen
.

But today, his second day back from the Queste, it seemed that something had changed. As Septimus read the note again, just to make sure, the distant chimes of the Drapers
Yard clock drifted through his window. He counted them—eleven—and breathed a sigh of relief. It would not be good to be late for his first-ever appointment with Marcia. Septimus had slept late, but that was on Marcia’s instructions; she had also told him that he did not have to clean the Library that morning. Septimus looked at the rainbow-colored beam of sunlight filtering through the purple glass in his window and shook his head with a smile—he could get used to this.

An hour later, dressed in a new set of green Apprentice robes that had been left out in his room for him, Septimus knocked politely on Marcia’s door.

“Come in, Septimus.” Marcia’s voice drifted through the thick oak door. Septimus pushed open the creaky door and stepped inside. Marcia’s study was a small wood-paneled room with a large desk set under the window and a fuzz of Magyk in the air that set Septimus’s skin tingling. It was lined with shelves on which were crammed moth-eaten leather-bound books, stacks of yellowing papers tied with purple ribbons and a myriad of brown and black glass pots that contained ancient things even Marcia was not sure what to do with. Among the pots Septimus saw his brother Simon’s pride and joy—a wooden box with
Sleuth
written on it in Simon’s loopy Heap
handwriting. Septimus could not help but glance out of the tall, narrow window. He loved the view from Marcia’s study—a breathtaking vista across the rooftops of the Castle to the river and beyond that to the green slopes of the Farmlands. Far, far in the distance he could see the misty blue line of the foothills of the Badlands.

Marcia was sitting behind her desk in her much-worn—but very comfortable—tall purple chair. She looked fondly at her Apprentice, who was unusually well turned out, and smiled.

“Good afternoon, Septimus,” she said. “Do sit down.” Marcia indicated the smaller but equally comfortable green chair on the other side of the desk. “I hope you slept well?”

Septimus took his seat. “Yes, thank you,” he replied a little warily. Why was Marcia being so
nice
?

“You’ve had a difficult week, Septimus,” Marcia began. “Well, we all have. It is very good to have you back. I have something for you.” She opened a small drawer, took out two purple silk ribbons and laid them on the desk.

Septimus knew what the ribbons were—the purple stripes of a Senior Apprentice, which, if his Apprenticeship went well, he would get to wear in his final year. It was nice of Marcia to let him know that she would make him a Senior Apprentice
when the time came, he thought, but his final year was a long way off, and Septimus knew only too well that a lot could go wrong before then.

“Do you know what these are?” Marcia asked.

Septimus nodded.

“Good. They are yours. I am making you Senior Apprentice.”

“What,
now
?”

Marcia smiled broadly. “Yes, now.”

“Now? Like,
today
?”

“Yes, Septimus, today. I trust the ends of your sleeves are still clean. You didn’t get any egg on them at breakfast, did you?”

Septimus inspected his sleeves. “No, they’re fine.”

Marcia stood up and so did Septimus—an Apprentice must never sit when his tutor is standing. Marcia picked up the ribbons and placed them on the hems of Septimus’s bright green sleeves. In a puff of Magykal purple mist, the ribbons curled themselves around the hems of the sleeves and became part of his tunic. Septimus stared at them, amazed. He didn’t know what to say. But Marcia did.

“Now, Septimus, you need to know a little about the rights and duties of a Senior Apprentice. You may determine fifty
percent of your own projects and also your main timetable—within reason, of course. You may be asked to deputize for me at the basic-level Wizard Tower meetings—for which, incidentally, I would be very grateful. As Senior Apprentice, you may come and go without asking my permission, although it is considered courteous to inform me where you are going and at what time you intend to return. But as you are still so young, I would add that I do require you to be back in the Wizard Tower by nine
P.M
. on weekdays—midnight at the
latest
on special occasions—understood?”

Still gazing at the Magykal purple stripes shimmering on the ends of his sleeves, Septimus nodded. “Understood…I think…but why…?”

“Because,” Marcia said, “you are the only Apprentice
ever
to return from the Queste. Not only did you return
alive
, but you returned having successfully completed it. And—even more incredible—you were sent on this…this terrible thing before you had even gotten halfway through your Apprenticeship—and you
still
did it. You used your Magykal skills to better effect than many Wizards in this Tower could ever hope to do. This is why you are now Senior Apprentice. Okay?”

“Okay.” Septimus smiled. “But…”

“But what?”

“I couldn’t have done the Queste without Jenna and Beetle. And they’re still stuck in that smelly little net loft in the Trading Post. So are Nicko and Snorri. We
promised
to go right back for them.”

“And we will,” Marcia replied. “I am sure they did not expect us to turn around and fly back immediately, Septimus. Besides, I haven’t had a moment since we returned. This morning I was up early getting some ghastly potion from Zelda for Ephaniah and Hildegarde—both of whom are still very sick. I need to keep an eye on Ephaniah tonight, but I shall set off on Spit Fyre first thing tomorrow morning to collect them all. They’ll be back very soon, I promise.”

Septimus looked at his purple ribbons, which had a beautiful Magykal sheen, like oil on water. He remembered Marcia’s words:
“As Senior Apprentice, you may come and go without asking my permission, although it is considered courteous to inform me where you are going and at what time you intend to return.”

“I shall get them,” he said, swiftly getting into Senior Apprentice mode.

“No, Septimus,” Marcia replied, already forgetting that she was now talking to a
Senior
Apprentice. “It is far too risky, and
you are tired after the Queste. You need to rest.
I
shall go.”

“Thank you for your offer, Marcia,” Septimus said, a trifle formally, in the way he thought Senior Apprentices probably should speak. “However, I intend to go myself. I shall be setting off on Spit Fyre in just over an hour’s time. I shall return the day after tomorrow evening by midnight, as this can reasonably be classified, I think, as a special occasion.”

“Oh.” Marcia wished she hadn’t informed Septimus quite so fully on the rights of a Senior Apprentice. She sat down and regarded Septimus with a thoughtful look. Her new Senior Apprentice seemed to have grown up suddenly. His bright green eyes had a newly confident air as they steadily returned her gaze, and—yes, she had known something was different the moment he had walked in—he had
combed his hair
.

“Shall I come and see you off?” Marcia asked quietly.

“Yes, please,” Septimus replied. “That would be very nice. I’ll be down at the dragon field in just under an hour.” At the study door he stopped and turned. “Thank you, Marcia,” he said with a broad grin. “Thank you very much indeed.”

Marcia returned his smile and watched her Senior Apprentice walk out of her study with a new spring in his step.

I
t was a bright, blustery
spring day in the Marram Marshes. The wind had blown away the early-morning mist and was sending small white clouds scudding high across the sky. The air was chilly; it smelled of sea salt, mud and burned cabbage soup.

In the doorway of a small stone cottage a gangly boy with long, matted hair was pulling a backpack onto his broad shoulders. Helping him was what appeared to be a voluminous patchwork quilt.

“Now, you are
sure
you know the way?” the patchwork quilt was asking anxiously.

The boy nodded and pulled the backpack straight. His brown eyes smiled at the large woman hidden within the folds of the quilt. “I’ve got your map, Aunt Zelda,” he said, pulling a
crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. “In fact, I have
all
your maps.” More pieces of paper emerged. “See…here’s Snake Ditch to Double Drain. Double Drain to the Doom Sludge Deeps. Doom Sludge Deeps to the Broad Path. Broad Path to the reed beds. Reed beds to the Causeway.”

“But from the Causeway to the Port. Do you have that one?” Aunt Zelda’s bright blue, witchy eyes looked anxious.

“Of course I do. But I don’t need it. I remember
that
all right.”

“Oh, dear,” Aunt Zelda said with a sigh. “Oh, I do hope you’ll be safe, Wolf Boy dear.”

Wolf Boy looked down at Aunt Zelda, something that had only very recently become possible—a combination of him growing fast and Aunt Zelda becoming a little more stooped. He put his arms around her and hugged her hard. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll be back tomorrow, like we said. Listen for me about midday.”

Aunt Zelda shook her head. “I don’t Hear so well nowadays,” she said a little wistfully. “The Boggart will wait for you. Now, where is he?” She scanned the Mott, which was filling fast with brackish water from the incoming tide. It had a thick, muddy appearance that reminded Wolf Boy of the
brown-beetle-and-turnip soup that Aunt Zelda had boiled up for supper the previous evening. Beyond the Mott stretched the wide open flatness of the Marram Marshes, crisscrossed with long, winding ditches and channels, treacherous oozes, mile-deep mires and containing many strange—and not always friendly—inhabitants.

“Boggart!” called Aunt Zelda.
“Boggart!”

“It’s all right,” said Wolf Boy, eager to be off. “I don’t need the Bog—”

“Oh,
there
you are, Boggart!” Aunt Zelda exclaimed as a dark brown, seallike head emerged from the thick waters of the Mott.

“Yes. I is here,” said the creature. He regarded Aunt Zelda grumpily from his large brown eyes. “I is here
asleep
. Or so I thought.”

“I am so sorry, Boggart dear,” said Aunt Zelda. “But I would like you to take Wolf Boy to the Causeway.”

The Boggart blew a disgruntled mud bubble. “It be a long way to the Causeway, Zelda.”

“I know. And treacherous, even with a map.”

The Boggart sighed. A spurt of mud from his nostrils splattered onto Aunt Zelda’s patchwork dress and sank into
another muddy stain. The Boggart regarded Wolf Boy with a grumpy stare. “Well, then. No point hangin’ about,” he said. “Follow me.” And he swam off along the Mott, cutting through the muddy surface of the water.

Aunt Zelda enveloped Wolf Boy in a patchwork hug. Then she pushed him from her, and her witchy blue eyes gazed at him anxiously. “You have my note?” she said, suddenly serious.

Wolf Boy nodded.

“You know when you must read it, don’t you? Only then and not before?”

Wolf Boy nodded once more.

“You must trust me,” said Aunt Zelda. “You
do
trust me, don’t you?” Wolf Boy nodded more slowly this time. He looked at Aunt Zelda, puzzled. Her eyes looked suspiciously bright.

“I wouldn’t be sending you if I didn’t think you could do this Task. You do know that, don’t you?”

Wolf Boy nodded a little warily.

“And…oh, Wolf Boy, you
do
know how much I care for you, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” muttered Wolf Boy, beginning to feel embarrassed—and a little concerned. Aunt Zelda was looking
at him as though she may never see him again, he thought. He wasn’t sure if he liked that. Suddenly he shook himself free from her grasp. “Bye, Aunt Zelda,” he said. He ran to catch up with the Boggart, who had already reached the new plank bridge over the Mott and was waiting impatiently.

Warmly swathed in her padded quilt dress, which she had spent much of the winter sewing, Aunt Zelda stood beside the Mott and watched Wolf Boy set off across the marshes. He took what appeared to be a strange, zigzagging route, but Aunt Zelda knew that he was following the narrow path that ran beside the twists and turns of Snake Ditch. She watched, shading her old eyes against the light that came from the vast skies above the Marram Marshes, the light uncomfortably bright even on an overcast day. Every now and then Aunt Zelda saw Wolf Boy stop in response to a warning from the Boggart, and once or twice he nimbly jumped the ditch and continued on his way on the opposite side. Aunt Zelda watched for as long as she could, until the figure of Wolf Boy disappeared into the bank of mist that hovered over the Doom Sludge Deeps—a bottomless pit of slime that stretched for miles across the only route to the Port. There was only one way through the Deeps—on hidden stepping stones—and
the Boggart knew every safe step.

Aunt Zelda walked slowly back up the path. She stepped into Keeper’s Cottage, gently closed the door and leaned wearily against it. It had been a difficult morning—there had been Marcia’s surprise visit and her shocking news about Septimus’s Queste. The morning had not improved after Marcia had left, because Aunt Zelda had hated sending Wolf Boy off on his Task, even though she knew it had to be done.

Aunt Zelda sighed heavily and looked around her much-loved cottage. The unaccustomed emptiness felt strange. Wolf Boy had been with her for over a year now, and she had grown used to the feeling of another life being lived beside her in the cottage. And now she had sent him away to…Aunt Zelda shook her head. Was she crazy? she asked herself. No, she told herself sternly in reply, she was
not
crazy—it had to be done.

Some months before, Aunt Zelda had realized that she was beginning to think of Wolf Boy as her Apprentice—or Intended Keeper, as tradition had it. It was time she took one on. She was getting toward the end of her Keeping Time, and she must begin to hand over her secrets, but one thing worried her. There had never been a male Keeper in the long history
of Keepers. But Aunt Zelda didn’t see why there shouldn’t be. In fact, she thought, it was about time that there was one—and so, with much trepidation, she had sent Wolf Boy away to do his Task, the completion of which would qualify him to become an Intended, providing the Queen agreed.

And now, thought Aunt Zelda, as she perused her rack of cabbage-trimmers, looking for the crowbar, while he was away she must do her very best to make sure the Queen
did
agree to Wolf Boy’s appointment.

“Aha!
There
you are.” Aunt Zelda addressed the lurking crowbar, reverting to her old habit of talking to herself when she was on her own. She took the crowbar from the rack, then walked over to the fire and rolled back the rug in front of the hearth. Huffing and puffing, she kneeled down, pried up a loose flagstone and then, gingerly rolling up her sleeve (because the Great Hairy Marram Spider made its nest under the flagstones, and this was not a good time of year to disturb it), Aunt Zelda cautiously drew out a long silver tube hidden in the space below.

Holding the tube at arm’s length, Aunt Zelda inspected it warily. A sudden stab of horror ran through her—clinging to the end was a glistening white clutch of Great Hairy Marram
Spider eggs. Aunt Zelda screamed and did a wild dance, shaking the tube violently, trying to dislodge the eggs. However, the slime had coated the silver tube and it flew from her grasp, traced a graceful arc across the room and sailed through the open kitchen door. Aunt Zelda heard the telltale splash of something landing in brown-beetle-and-turnip soup, which now became brown-beetle-turnip-and-spider-egg soup. (That evening Aunt Zelda boiled the soup and had it for supper. At the time she thought the flavor much improved by the extra day it spent sitting on the stove, and it was only afterward that it crossed her mind that maybe spider eggs had something to do with it. She went to bed feeling somewhat nauseous.)

Aunt Zelda was about to rescue the tube from the soup when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move. Two huge, hairy legs were feeling their way out from the space beneath the flagstone. With a shudder, Aunt Zelda heaved up the flagstone and let go. It slammed down with a
thud
that shook the cottage—and parted mommy spider from her babies forever.

Aunt Zelda retrieved the silver tube, then sat down at her desk and revived herself with a cup of hot cabbage water into which she stirred a large spoon of Marshberry jam. She felt
shaken—the spider had reminded her of what she had sent Wolf Boy off to do and what she had once also been dispatched to do by Betty Crackle. She sighed once more and told herself that she had sent Wolf Boy off as well-prepared as she could—and at least she hadn’t written the note on cardboard, as Betty Crackle had done.

Carefully Aunt Zelda wiped off the brown-beetle-turnip-and-spider-egg soup from the tube. She took out a small silver knife, cut the wax seal and drew out an ancient, damp-stained piece of parchment with the words “Indentures of the Intended Keeper” written at the top in old-fashioned, faded letters.

Aunt Zelda spent the next hour at her desk Naming Wolf Boy in the Indentures. Then, in her very best handwriting, she wrote out her
Petition for Apprenticeship
for the Queen, rolled it up with the Indentures and put them both into the silver tube. It was nearly time to go—but first there was something she wanted to get from the U
NSTABLE
P
OTIONS AND
P
ARTIKULAR
P
OISONS
cupboard.

It was a tight squeeze in the cupboard for Aunt Zelda, particularly in her new well-padded dress. She lit the lantern, opened a hidden drawer and, with the aid of her extra-strength spectacles, she consulted a small, ancient
book entitled U
NSTABLE
P
OTIONS AND
P
ARTIKULAR
P
OISONS
C
UPBOARD
: K
EEPERS
’ G
UIDE AND
P
LAN
. Having found what she was looking for, Aunt Zelda opened a small, blue-painted drawer of Charms and Amulets and peered inside. An assortment of carved precious stones and crystals were laid out neatly on the blue baize cloth that lined the drawer. Aunt Zelda’s hand hovered over a selection of SafeCharms and she frowned—what she was looking for was not there. She consulted the book once more and then reached deep inside the drawer until her fingers found a small catch at the back. With a great stretch of her stubby forefinger, Aunt Zelda just managed to flip the catch upward. There was a soft
clunk
and something heavy dropped into the drawer and rolled forward into the light of the lantern.

Aunt Zelda picked up a small, pear-shaped gold bottle and placed it very carefully in the palm of her hand. She saw the deep, dark shine of the purest gold—gold spun by the spiders of Aurum—and a thick silver stopper inscribed with the single hieroglyph of a long-forgotten name. She felt a little nervous—the small flask that rested in her hand was an incredibly rare
live
SafeCharm, and she had never even touched one before.

Marcia’s visit to Keeper’s Cottage to collect the potions for Ephaniah and Hildegarde earlier that morning had left Aunt Zelda feeling very twitchy. After Marcia had left, Aunt Zelda had been overcome by a sudden Sight: Septimus on Spit Fyre, a blinding flash of light and nothing more, nothing but blackness. Feeling extremely shaken, she had sat very still and Looked into the blackness but had seen nothing. And nothing was a terrifying Sight.

After the Seeing Aunt Zelda had been in turmoil. She knew enough about what people called second Sight to know that really it should be called first Sight—it was never wrong. Never. And so she knew that despite Marcia’s insistence that she herself would be flying Spit Fyre to get Jenna, Nicko, Snorri and Beetle, it would actually be Septimus on the dragon. What she had Seen would surely happen. There was nothing she could do to stop it. All she could do was send Septimus the best kind of SafeCharm she had—and this was it.

Aunt Zelda squeezed out of the cupboard and very carefully took the live SafeCharm over to the window. She held the little bottle up to the daylight and turned it around, checking the ancient wax seal around the stopper. It was still intact—there were no cracks or any sign of disturbance. She
smiled; the Charm was still Sleeping. All was well. Aunt Zelda took a deep breath and in a weird, singsong voice that would have given goose bumps to anyone listening, she began to Waken it.

For five long minutes Aunt Zelda sang one of the rarest and most complicated chants that she had ever performed. It was full of rules, regulations, clauses and subclauses, which, if written down, would have put any legal document to shame. It was a binding contract, and Aunt Zelda did her very best to make sure there were no loopholes. She began by describing Septimus—the recipient of the Charm—in great detail and, as she sang his praises, her voice rose to fill the tiny cottage. It cracked three panes of glass, curdled the milk and then curled out of the chimney into the breezy spring Marsh morning.