Fyre (19 page)

Marcellus gave a rueful smile. “I am not surprised, Apprentice. I had a little, ah, contretemps with Marcia recently and to tell the truth, I was not expecting anything else.” He raised his glass to his old Apprentice. “Here’s to you, Septimus. And my thanks to you for all your work. I know this last month has not been quite what you had hoped for, but I have so enjoyed having you to help me.” Marcellus paused. “I did hope you might decide to . . . what is the phrase . . . jump ship. Become my permanent Apprentice.”

“I did think about it,” said Septimus. “A lot.”

“But you decided not?”

“Yes.”

Marcellus nodded. “I understand. One has to make choices. You will be difficult to replace, Apprentice. However, I do have someone in mind.”

Septimus looked surprised. It had not occurred to him that Marcellus would replace him with someone else. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Late that evening, when Septimus had gone up to his room to pack his bag, the new residents of the house opposite Marcellus Pye got an unexpected visit from their neighbor.

Lucy Gringe, resplendent in a beribboned dressing gown she had just finished making, opened the door. “Oh!” she said. And then, remembering her manners, “Hello, Mr. Pye. Do come in.”

“Thank you.” Marcellus stepped inside. “Goodness,” he said. It was chaos.

“Excuse the mess. Wedding presents,” said Lucy cheerfully. “It’s nice to see you. Would you like some herb tea? Come through.”

“Oh, well, actually I wondered if Simon was—” But Lucy had already set off. Marcellus followed her along the dark, narrow corridor, catching his long pointy shoes on various objects strewn across the bare floorboards.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry, Mr. Pye. You okay?”

“Oof. Yes. Thank you, Lucy.”

They negotiated the obstacle course and reached the tiny kitchen, which consisted of a fire with a large pot hanging over it and a deep stone sink set on tree-trunk legs, in which sat the remains of supper. The kitchen was a jumble, covered with pots and pans that had nowhere to hang, half-open boxes and stacks of plates. Lucy saw Marcellus’s gaze travel around the room. “We’ll get it sorted,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll call Si; he’ll be really glad to see you.”

“Ah,” said Marcellus, still lost for words.

Lucy opened the back door and yelled into a tiny yard enclosed by a high brick wall, “Si . . .
Si!
Mr. Pye!”

Simon, who had been trying to unblock a drain, emerged from the shadows, wiping his hands on his tunic.

“Si, Marcellus is here to see you,” said Lucy.

Simon smiled. “Good evening, Marcellus. Good to see you. Would you like some tea?”

Marcellus, a fastidious man, had decided it might be safer not to risk the tea. “Your good lady wife . . .”

Lucy, still not used to being called Simon’s wife, giggled.

“. . . kindly offered me some, but I mustn’t stay long. I have a proposition to put to you, Simon.”

Lucy and Simon looked at each other.

Simon cleared a pile of plates off a rickety chair. “Please, do sit down, Marcellus.”

Marcellus saw the sticky ring left on the chair and shook his head. “No, no. I really must get back. This won’t take a moment.”

Five minutes later Simon and Lucy watched Marcellus Pye cross the snowy slipway back to his house, the moonlight glinting off the gold fastenings on the back of his shoes.

Simon was lost for words. In his hand was a precious copy of the Alchemist’s oeuvre, the
I
,
Marcellus
, with instructions to read it thoroughly and meet Marcellus at six o’clock the following evening.

“Well,” said Lucy. “Who’d have thought it?”

15

T
HE
L
AST
D
AY

S
eptimus awoke early in his
little bedroom at the top of the house on Snake Slipway. Outside the snow was falling fast and the room was dull with the gray winter morning light. He lit his bedside candle and leaned back against the pillow, reluctant to get out of bed. That was one thing he would not miss. The Wizard Tower was always a perfect temperature. Marcellus’s house was, like all old Castle houses during the Big Freeze, bitterly cold.

An hour later Septimus was with Marcellus in an old lock-up at the end of Gold Button Drop—a dead-end alleyway just off the end of Alchemie Way. The lock-up was a cover for a secret entrance to Alchemie Quay, which Marcellus had recently reopened. After locking the little iron door behind them, Marcellus pulled open the circular manhole cover in the center of the earthen floor. A glow of red light shone upward, lighting the rough stones of the lock-up’s conical roof. Carefully, Marcellus unhooked a small
Fyre
Globe from its peg just below the manhole cover, clipped it onto his belt, and began the descent down the iron rungs set into the brick chimney. Septimus swung himself in after Marcellus and pulled the trapdoor shut with a clang.

There followed a long descent down a brick-lined shaft, eerily lit with the red light from the Globe. Eventually Marcellus and Septimus reached a wide, brick-lined tunnel and set off along it. Some minutes later, they emerged into the first curve of the Labyrinth, but instead of turning left, as they normally did for the Great Chamber, Marcellus turned right and led Septimus out onto Alchemie Quay.

“It is your last day, Apprentice,” Marcellus said.

“It is,” agreed Septimus, wondering what Marcellus had in mind. He hoped it was going to be more interesting than cleaning sand out from cupboards with a toothbrush.

“Septimus,” said Marcellus. “I wish to apologize for sending you off on a wild-goose chase to collect the Cloud Flask. I needed time to think.”

“Oh?” said Septimus.

“Indeed. And your absence made me realize how much I valued you. I have made an error in not telling you everything that I am doing here.”

“Ah,” said Septimus, not entirely surprised.

Marcellus took a deep breath, aware that he was taking an irrevocable step. “I want to show you the
Fyre
,” he said.

Septimus did not understand. “But you haven’t lit it yet.”

“Apprentice, the furnace that you see in the Great Chamber is a decoy. The true
Fyre
has already begun.”

Suddenly things began to make sense.
“Where?”

“Come. I will explain.” Marcellus led Septimus over to the edge of the Quay, where the pink paddleboat bobbed quietly, tethered to its ring. Marcellus kept it just in case—an Alchemist always had an emergency escape route. The UnderFlow Pool lay dark at their feet and the familiar feeling of vertigo that always got to Septimus when he stood on the edge of the UnderFlow Pool made him feel dizzy.

“See the currents in the water?” asked Marcellus.

Septimus nodded.

“A hundred feet down from here is a sluice gate. Some weeks ago I opened it. Now water is flowing through it, pouring down a channel bored through the rock to a reservoir far below. This is the water that is making the
Fyre
.”

“But water doesn’t make
Fyre
,” said Septimus.

“Alchemical
Fyre
is different,” said Marcellus. “It is a beautiful, living thing. And life needs water. Before you leave me, Septimus, I want you to see it. So that when you return to the Wizard Tower, you will understand that whatever they may tell you about the
Fyre
, it is not true.”

Septimus was puzzled. “But no one has ever told me anything about the
Fyre
,” he said.

“They do not speak of it,” said Marcellus. “But if they ever do, I would like you to understand that it is not the terrible thing they say it is.”

“Right.”

“But . . . there is one little thing.”

“Yes?” said Septimus warily.

“Promise me that you will tell no one what you see today.” Marcellus glanced around as though he expected to find Marcia lurking in a corner. “Not even Marcia.”

“I can’t promise that,” Septimus said regretfully. “Not now that I am going back to Marcia. Anyway, Marcia asked you to start the
Fyre
, didn’t she, so she knows already.”

“Marcia thinks the
Fyre
we are lighting is in the Great Chamber of Alchemie. She does not know that the true
Fyre
is in the place that all ExtraOrdinary Wizards fear and have promised to keep
Sealed
forevermore—the Chamber of
Fyre
. If she knew that she would close it down, just as Julius Pike once did.”

“I don’t think Marcia would close it down, because she doesn’t know anything about it.”

“Of course she knows about it,” said Marcellus. “She is the ExtraOrdinary Wizard.”

“But before I was coming here I asked her about the
Fyre
and she said she didn’t know a thing.
Nothing
.”

“There are many things Apprentices are not told,” said Marcellus.

Septimus was not convinced. He knew when Marcia was deliberately not telling him things—she had a certain “don’t go there” warning look in her eyes. But when they had discussed the
Fyre
, Marcia’s expression had been one of bemusement. He remembered her saying,
“There is something about this
Fyre
stuff that we just don’t know anymore. I wish I knew what it was . . .”

“Apprentice, let me explain,” said Marcellus. “After the Great Alchemie Disaster, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Julius Pike—who was once my dear friend—told me that he would make sure that all future ExtraOrdinary Wizards would never allow the
Fyre
Chamber to be
UnSealed
. Never again would the
Fyre
Cauldron be used. The only reason Marcia has agreed to the
Fyre
is because she thinks it is the one in the Great Chamber of Alchemie. And I know that, like any other ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia would never let the Chamber of
Fyre
be opened. All I ask you is to keep it secret for”—Marcellus did some quick calculations—“another month? After that I will reveal it to Marcia, I promise.”

“But why in a month—why not tell Marcia
now
?”

“It will not be ready until then. Alchemical
Fyre
is delicate in its early stages of Life and takes time to reach maturity. But once the
Fyre
is ready and Marcia sees that it has been burning safely for some time, then I have a chance to prove to her that all is not as she has been told. Do you understand?”

“I suppose so. . . .” Septimus understood, but it did not make keeping the secret feel any better.

Marcellus was uneasy; it felt decidedly risky having Septimus go back to Marcia at such a delicate time. “That, Apprentice, is why I am so sorry you are leaving me now. Before it all begins. Perhaps, when you see the
Fyre
, you will reconsider your decision to leave.”

“It’s not really my decision,” said Septimus.

“Indeed, no. While you are Marcia’s Apprentice it is not your decision. It is hers. But if you were to decide to become the Castle’s first Alchemie Apprentice then that would be different.” Marcellus left the offer hanging in the air.

“Sometimes,” said Septimus, staring at his reflection in the dark waters of the UnderFlow, “I wish there were two of me. I wish I could be in the Wizard Tower and here at the same time.”

Marcellus smiled. “Even the greatest
Magyk
cannot make that happen,” he said.

“Not for longer than seven seconds,” said Septimus.

Marcellus looked impressed that it could happen at all.

Septimus thought for a while. “Okay,” he said.

There were three arches leading off from the Alchemie Quay, each one lit by a
Fyre
Globe. Marcellus headed for the right-hand archway. Inside the archway, he turned to Septimus apologetically.

“I know you do not like building work, Apprentice, but I assure you this is the last you will have to do.” Marcellus opened the old carpetbag in which every day he brought their lunch, and to Septimus’s surprise, from underneath the neatly wrapped sandwiches he took out a hammer and heavy chisel, which he handed to Septimus.

“Thanks,” said Septimus ruefully.

Marcellus indicated a shallow arch within the bricks, just above head height. “Remove the bricks below the arch, please, Apprentice. They should come out quite easily.”

Septimus sighed and got to work. He was pleased to find that the bricks did indeed come away easily.

“Alchemist’s mortar—never sets,” said Marcellus. “It began as a mistake when we had to do a lot of building ourselves. Looks solid, but is as soft as butter. Very useful at times.”

Septimus took away the rest of the bricks below the arch. Behind them was a black shiny surface reflected in the flames of the
Fyre
Globe.

Marcellus smiled. “I understand you have seen something like this before.”