Septimus Heap 3 - Physik (10 page)

“412's in trouble, isn't he?” asked Wolf Boy.

Jenna nodded again, not trusting herself to say anything. Wolf Boy put his arm around Jenna's shoulders. “Then we'd better get him out of trouble ... yeah?”

Jenna nodded.

“I'll come with you. Wait, I'd better leave a note for Aunt Zelda and tell her where we've gone.” Wolf Boy rushed over to Aunt Zelda's desk, which looked faintly ridiculous with duck feet on the ends of its legs and a pair of arms to help with the paperwork, both courtesy of Marcia Overstrand. Aunt Zelda hated these additions but Wolf Boy had learned to use them to his advantage.

“Piece of paper, please,” he asked the arms. The rather clumsy hands on the ends of the arms scrabbled around in the desk drawer, took out a crumpled piece of paper, smoothed it out and put it neatly on the desk.

“Pen, please,” asked Wolf Boy.

The right hand picked a quill pen from a tray on top of the desk and held it surprisingly delicately, hovering above the paper.

“Now write: Dear Aunt Zelda—what's the matter?” The left hand was impatiently drumming its fingers on the paper. "Oh, sorry. Ink, please. Now write: Dear Aunt Zelda, Jenna and me have gone to rescue 412. With love from 409. Oh, and Jenna.

Love from Jenna too. That's it, yes, thank you. Thank you, you can stop now. Put the pen away. No, you don't need to blot it, just leave it on her desk and make sure she sees it." The hands rather fussily put away the pen, and then the arms folded themselves somewhat crossly, as if dissatisfied with being asked to write so little.

“Let's go,” said Jenna, stepping back through the door of the Unstable Potions and Partikular Poisons cupboard.

“Coming,” said Wolf Boy, and then remembering something, he dashed back to the fire and picked up an uneaten cabbage sandwich.

Jenna eyed the sandwich warily. “Do you really like those?” she asked.

“No. Can't stand 'em. But 412 does. Thought he'd like this one.”

“He's going to need a whole lot more than a cabbage sandwich, 409.” Jenna sighed.

“Yeah, well. Look, I'll follow you and you can tell me about it. Okay?”

Wolf Boy and Jenna emerged from the cupboard in the Queen's Room with Wolf Boy in a somber mood. Jenna had told him what had happened. They walked past the Queen's chair, unaware of her shocked expression at the apparently sudden change that Septimus had undergone—from neatly dressed Apprentice to a half-wild-looking boy. As Wolf Boy passed the ghost, he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise; he looked around like a wary animal and a low growl rose from the back of his throat. “Something funny in here, Jen,” he whispered.

Jenna shivered, unnerved by Wolf Boy's feral growl. “Come on,” she said. “Let's get out of here.” She grabbed Wolf Boy's hand and pulled him through the door. Jillie Djinn, recently Chosen Chief Hermetic Scribe, was waiting for them.

Jillie Djinn

“Miss Djinn!” gasped Jenna, taken aback at the unexpected sight of the Scribe's indigo robes with their impressive gold flashes. How did Jillie Djinn know where she had been? And how come the Scribe knew where the Queen's Room was? Even Marcia did not know that.

“Your Majesty.” Jillie Djinn sounded a little breathless. She inclined her head respectfully, her new silk robes rustling as she moved.

“Please don't call me that,” Jenna said angrily.

"Call me Jenna. Just Jenna. I am not Queen yet.

And I don't ever want to be either. You just end up being a horrible person doing horrible things to everyone. It's awful."

Jillie Djinn looked at Jenna with a concerned expression and was not sure how to reply. The Chief Hermetic Scribe had no children and, apart from a very solemn and precocious Temple Scribe in a Far Country some years ago, Jenna was the first girl of eleven that Jillie had spoken to since she herself was eleven. Miss Djinn had devoted her life to her career and had spent years traveling in the Far Countries learning the arcane secrets of the many and varied worlds of knowledge. She had also spent some years researching the hidden secrets of the Castle, which she was pleased to see had not been wasted.

“Jenna,” Jillie Djinn corrected herself, “Madam Marcia wishes to see you. Her Apprentice is missing and she fears the worst.” Jillie Djinn's gaze alighted on Septimus's boots, which hung by their laces from Jenna's right hand. “I assume that I am right that something of that nature has occurred?”

Puzzled, Jenna nodded. She wondered how Marcia could possibly already know what had happened. And then she sniffed. And sniffed again. A strange smell of dragon poo was in the air. Jillie Djinn sniffed too. She scraped her right shoe—a neat black lace-up—vigorously on the floor, inspected the sole, then scraped it again.

“Would I be right also, Princess, if I were to say that there is a Glass in the Queen's Room?” Jillie Djinn's bright green eyes fastened onto Jenna expectantly. Jillie had many theories about many things and she was excited to think that one of them might be working out right now.

Jenna did not answer, but she did not need to. The Chief Hermetic Scribe was not the best person in the Castle at reading people's expressions, but there was no mistaking the look of astonishment on Jenna's face.

“You may not be aware, Princess Jenna, but I have made an extensive study of Alchemical Glasses— extensive—and we actually have a specimen in the Hermetic Chamber. This morning, I saw a disturbance in that Glass. I made haste to the Wizard Tower to report the disturbance, which we are duty-bound to do by our Charter, and I met Madam Overstrand leaving in a distressed state. I have drawn my own conclusions and now respectfully ask if you will consent to accompany me to the Manuscriptorium,” said the Scribe, as if addressing a lecture hall of particularly slow scholars. “I have also asked Marcia Overstrand to meet us there.”

Marcia was about the last person Jenna wanted to see just then, as she knew she would have to tell her that she had caused Septimus's disappearance. But Jillie Djinn's mention of another Glass in the Manuscriptorium had raised her hopes.

Could it be possible that the old man in the Glass was just one of those weird old scribes from their spooky Spell Vault that Septimus used to talk about? Maybe he had just pulled Septimus through to the Manuscriptorium? Maybe Sep was waiting for her there right now, and then he'd spend the rest of the day telling her all about it until she was completely fed up? Maybe...

Anxious now to get to the Manuscriptorium, Jenna followed the bustling, bright-eyed Scribe down the narrow winding steps. Wolf Boy, who had been hanging around in the shadows, blending into the background like the Forest creature that he was at heart, joined them, causing Jillie to jump in surprise. At the foot of the steps, Jillie scraped her shoe once more and then took the side door out of the turret.

“I must say,” said Jillie self-importantly as she strode along the path around the back of the turret, “it is most gratifying when a theory is proved right. I had narrowed the whereabouts of the Queen's Room down to two positions. The first was down there—” Jillie Djinn waved her hand toward the old summer house by the riverbank, whose octagonal golden roof was just visible above the early-morning river mist. “Of course, Princess Jenna, I knew that your key would open both, but nothing else about the summer house made sense, although I did wonder whether its legend of the Black Fiend had been put about by the various Queens to keep people away. But naturally, by looking at all the facts and giving them due consideration, I chose the right place. Most interesting.”

“Interesting?” muttered Jenna under her breath, wondering if Septimus's disappearance was no more than a diverting academic exercise for the Scribe.

With Wolf Boy and Jenna in tow, Jillie Djinn rounded the base of the turret and emerged at the front of the Palace. She set off across the lawns toward the Gate, and as their feet made dark footprints in the dew, the Chief Hermetic Scribe continued to expound on various pet theories, for Jillie had a captive audience and she was not about to waste it. Her audience was not, however, appreciative; Jenna was too preoccupied with worrying about Septimus to listen and Wolf Boy gave up after the first sentence. The way that Jillie Djinn talked made his head ache.

Despite her diminutive size, Jillie kept up a fast pace and they were soon rushing along Wizard Way, which was beginning to stir. Wizard Way was one of the oldest streets in the Castle. It was a broad, straight avenue lined with beautiful silver torch posts. It ran from the Palace Gates at one end to the Great Arch of the Wizard Tower at the other. The houses and shops were built from the oldest yellow limestone from quarries emptied long ago. They were weathered and crooked but had a friendly feeling to them that Jenna loved. The Way was lined with countless small shops and printers, selling all manner of printed papers, inks, books, pamphlets and pens, plus an assortment of spectacles and headache pills for those who had spent far too long reading in dark corners.

As the shopkeepers and printers peered through their misty windows and decided against putting out their wares in the damp air, the first thing they saw was the Chief Hermetic Scribe striding down the Way, accompanied by an odd-looking boy with tangled hair and the Princess, who was carrying an old pair of boots.

Two-thirds down the Way, the trio stopped outside a small purple-painted shop with its window stacked so high with papers and books that it was impossible to see inside. On the door was the number 13, and over the window was the inscription: Magykal MANUSCRIPTORIUM AND SPELL CHECKERS INCORPORATED. Jillie Djinn, her ample figure almost filling the narrow doorway, regarded Jenna and Wolf Boy with a solemn air.

“The Hermetic Chamber is not to be entered by anyone who has not been inducted into the tenets of the Manuscriptorium,” she informed them ponderously. “However, in these difficult circumstances I will make an exception for the Princess, but the Princess only. Indeed there is a possibility of precedence as I have reason to believe that some of the more ancient Queens have been admitted to the Chamber.” With that, the door to the Manuscriptorium opened with a little ping and Jillie Djinn stepped inside.

“ What did she say?” Wolf Boy asked Jenna.

“She said you can't come in,” said Jenna.

“Oh.”

“Well, not into the Hermetic Chamber anyway.”

“The what?”

“The Hermetic Chamber. I don't know what it is, but Sep told me a bit about it. He's been in there.”

“Maybe he's there now,” said Wolf Boy, brightening.

“Well, I—I suppose he could be,” said Jenna, hardly daring to hope.

“You go in and have a look. I'll wait outside like she said, and I'll see you and 412 in a minute. How about that?”

Jenna grinned. “Sounds good,” she said, and she followed Jillie Djinn inside.

The Navigator Tin

As Jenna walked into the front office of the Manuscriptorium, she heard a strange noise, rather like the stifled squeak of a distressed hamster, coming from behind the door. She peered around and saw the shadowy figure of a slightly chubby boy with a shock of black hair wedged behind the door handle. “Beetle?”

she asked. “Is that you?”

The distressed hamster, who was indeed Beetle, holding the door open for his Chief Hermetic Scribe, replied with another squeak, which Jenna decided to take as a yes.

Jenna glanced about the Manuscriptorium with some trepidation, but to her relief there was no sign of Marcia.

“This way, please, Jenna. We shall have to proceed without Madam Marcia.” Jillie Djinn's voice came from somewhere at the back of the office and Jenna hurried toward it, skirting a large desk at the far end. She joined the Scribe beside a small door in a half wood, half glass partition wall. Jillie Djinn pushed open the door, and Jenna followed her into the Manuscriptorium itself.

A hushed silence hung over the Manuscriptorium, broken only by the sound of the scratching of pens and the occasional twang of a broken nib. Twenty-one scribes were hard at work copying out Incantations and Invocations, Chants and Charms, Summonses and Spells and even the occasional love letter for those who wanted to make an impression. Each scribe was perched at a high desk, laboring under a small pool of yellow light cast by one of the twenty-one oil lamps, which were suspended on long and sometimes dangerously frayed ropes from the vaulted ceiling.

The Chief Hermetic Scribe beckoned Jenna to follow her. Jenna found herself tiptoeing through the tall banks of desks while each scribe turned to look at the Princess, and wondered what she was doing and why she was carrying a pair of old boots. Twenty-one pairs of eyes watched Jenna follow Jillie Djinn into the narrow passageway that led to the Hermetic Chamber. Surprised glances were exchanged and a few eyebrows were raised, but no one said anything. As Jenna disappeared around the first corner of the passageway, the scratching of nibs on paper and parchment resumed its normal level.

The long, dark passage that led into the Hermetic Chamber turned back on itself seven times to cut short the flight of rogue spells and anything else that might try to escape from the Chamber. It also cut out the light, but Jenna followed the rustling sound of Jillie Djinn's silk robes and before long she stepped into a small, white, round room. The room was virtually empty; in the center was a simple table on which was placed a lit candle, but it was not the candle that drew Jenna's eye, it was the Glass—a horribly familiar, tall, dark Glass with an ornate frame propped up against the roughly plastered wall of the Hermetic Chamber.

Jillie Djinn saw Jenna's hopeful expression fade. There was no Septimus, just the sight of another Glass, which was the last thing she wanted to see again.

“From my studies,” the Scribe said, “I understand that the early Glasses were simple, one-way-only openings. And from my calculations, I would say that this Glass is an early model and was made at the same time as the Glass in your room. I suspect this one actually comes back from that place.”

“The place where Septimus is?” asked Jenna, her hopes rising yet again.

“Indeed. Wherever that may be. So tell me,” Jillie said, “does this look the same as the Glass in the Queen's Room?”