Septimus Heap 3 - Physik (19 page)

Wolf Boy arrived just in time to see Lucy Gringe running across the deck of the Alfrun and tripping over the sleeping Spit Fyre's tail. But nothing put Lucy Gringe off her stride for long. She picked herself up, held her nose as another bubble of gas erupted from Spit Fyre and lowered herself over the side of the Alfrun.

Nicko followed her. “Where are you going in that?” he asked, concerned.

“None of your business, nosy boy. Are all Simon's brothers such irritating busybodies?”

Snorri added Simon to the brother count. How many did Jenna have?

“That paddleboat is not safe on the river,” Nicko persisted. "It's no better than a toy.

They're only meant for fun on the Moat."

Lucy jumped into the paddleboat, which rocked alarmingly. “It got me this far and it'll get me to the Port, just you see.”

“You can't go to the Port in that!” said Nicko, aghast. “Have you any idea what the tide race is like at the mouth of the river? It will spin you around and drag you out to sea—and that's only if you haven't already been sunk by the waves that run in off the Great Sandbar. You're crazy.”

“Maybe. I don't care,” said Lucy sulkily. “I'm going anyway.” She untied the rope, took up the paddle handles and began turning them furiously.

Nicko watched the little pink boat wobble its way out into the river until he could stand it no more. “Lucy!” he yelled. “Take my boat!”

“What?” Lucy shouted above the clattering din of the paddles.

“Take my boat— please!”

Lucy felt relieved, although she was not going to show it. She had a terrible feeling that Nicko was right about the paddleboat. With some difficulty—and only by rapidly turning one paddle and then another for at least five minutes—Lucy steered the boat around and arrived back at the Alfrun, breathless and hot and still in a bad mood.

Jenna, Snorri, Wolf Boy and Nicko watched Lucy Gringe set off once again, this time in Nicko's deep and seaworthy rowboat.

“But how are you going to get back now?” Jenna asked Nicko. “You're not going in that paddleboat, are you?”

Nicko snorted. “You must be joking. I wouldn't be seen dead in one of those, especially one that stupid color. I'm coming with you to find Sep, silly.”

Jenna smiled for the first time since Septimus had disappeared. Nicko would make everything all right. She knew he would.

The I, Marcellus

From the Diary of Marcellus Pye:

SunnDay. Equinox.

Today has been a Wondrousyet most Fearfull day.

Though I didst Forecast this Happening in mine Almanac (which will be the Laste Parte of my Booke, the I, Marcellus). Truly, I did not believe that it would come to Pass.

At the Appointed Hour today, Seven minutes past Seven of the Clock this morning, my new Apprentice didst Come Through. Though I was up betimes this morn and made sure that I was beside the Great Doors to Await their Opening, great was my surprise when they did part and Reveal my Glass. Beyond the Glass, dimly didst I see a boy with Feare in his eyes.

His garb was a strange green tunic with a silver belt, he wore no shoes, and his hair was ragged but he had a pleasant Face and I liked him well enough at first sight. But what I didst not like, what indeed I hated and feared, was the sight of the Creature behind him. For this Creature I know to be none other but my Poore Self—in five hundred yeares' Time.

The Boy came through the Glass well and is here in my House now. I pray that his Despair will soon abate when he sees the wonders of which he is destined to partake and the good that he will do.

Woden'sDay It is some three days since my new Apprentice hath Come Through. He seems a promising boy, and as we are Approaching the Conjunction of the Planets for which I have long waited, I do begin to have hope for my new Tincture.

I pray that it may be so, for yesterday I foolishly didst ask my Apprentice,

“How was the Ancient Dribbling Ghastliness, my Poore Self, who tookyou fromyour Time? Was he—was I—so very repulsive?” My Apprentice nodded but would not speak. I pressed him to tell me and, seeing my Concern, he did relent. How I wish that he had not. He has a strange way of speech, yet I Feare I didst Understand him all too well.

He didst tell me in much detail how my stench was most unbearable, that I shuffled like a Crabbe and cried out in pain at each step, cursing my fate.

He didst Saye my nose was ridged and like unto the hide of an Elephant (though I know not what that Creature be but suspect it to be a most foul Toad) and my ears were like great cabbages and spotted also and full of slugs. Slugs—how can tbis be? My nails were long and yellow like great claws and filthy with hundreds of years of Grime. I do detest dirty fingernails—surely I will not come to this? But it seemeth so. I have Five Hundred Yeares of Decay and Mouldering to endure. I cannot Beare to think on it.

After this I didst detect a lightening in my Apprentice's Gloom, but an increase in mine Own.

Freya'sDay. The Conjunction of the Planets.

A day of Hope. Septimus and I didst mix the Tincture at the Appointed Hour. Now it is set to Ferment and Stewe in the cabinet in the Chamber, and it is for Septimus to know when I may add the Final Part. Only a Seventh Sonne of a Seventh Sonne may tell this to the Moment, I know this now. It grieveth me that I didst drink of my first Tincture before Septimus Came Through. Mama was right, for hath she not always said, “Thy Hastiness and Haughtiness shall be thy Undoing, Marcellus”? Indeed, I was both too Hasty and too Haughty to think that I could make the Tincture perfectly without the Seventh of the Seventh. Alack, it is true (as Mama also do Saye) I am but a Poore Foole. <>I pray that this new Tincture will work and give me not only Everlasting Life but Eternal youth also. I have faith in my Apprentice; he is a most talented and careful Boy and has a great love for Physik , just as I did at his age, though I am sure I was not so given to Despondency and Silence.

Tir's Day It is some months now since we didst mix the new Tincture and still Septimus will not say that it is ready. I do grow impatient and afraid that something will happen to it while we wait. It is my Last Chance. I can make no more, for a Conjunction of these Seven Planets will not come for many hundreds of yeares hence, and I know that In my State to Come I will not be Fitte to make Another. Daily Mama grows insistent on her own Tincture. She wheedles from me all my doings and I cannot keep anything from her.

Loki's Day I write with some Excitement, for this Day we do Seal my most Precious Booke, my I, Marcellus. My young Apprentice, who hath now been here One Hundred and Sixty Nine days and hath worked so well, is completing the last few checks upon the final Pages. Soon I must away to the Great Chamber, for all there do Await me.

After I have Sealed my great Work, I shall yet again aske the Boy Septimus to look at my new Tincture. I pray it will be ready soon that I may drink of it. Mama doth grow impatient for she thinketh it is for her.

Ha! To think that I shouldst desire Mama to live forever too. I wouldst rather die. Except that I cannot ... Oh woe. Ah, the Bell sounds for Ten of the Clock. I must Tarry no more but make Haste to My Booke.

At the sight of Marcellus Pye arriving, Septimus quickly finished his letter to Marcia and put it in his pocket. He planned to sneak it into the I, Marcellus as soon as he could, before the book was Sealed that afternoon at the propitious hour of 1:33.

Septimus knew Marcellus Pye's book well; he had read it many times over the seemingly endless days he had now spent in Marcellus's time. The book was divided into three sections: the first was Alchemie which was, as far as Septimus could tell, completely incomprehensible—although Marcellus insisted that it gave clear and simple directions for transmuting gold and finding the key to eternal life.

The second part, Physik, was different, and Septimus understood it easily. Physik contained complicated formulae for medicines, linctuses, pills and potions. It had well-argued explanations of the origin of many diseases and wonderfully detailed drawings of the anatomy of the human body, the likes of which Septimus had never seen before. In short, it had everything anyone would ever need to become a skilled Physician, and Septimus had read, reread and then read it again until he knew much of it by heart. He now knew all about iodine and quinine, creosote and camomel, ipecacuanha and flea-seed, and many other strange-smelling substances. He could make antitoxins and analgesics, narcotics, tisanes, emollients and elixirs. Marcellus had noticed his interest and given him his own Physik notebook—a rare and precious thing in that Time as paper was very expensive.

The third section of the I, Marcellus was the Almanac, a day-to-day guide for the next thousand and one years. This was where he planned to hide his note—in the entry for the day that he had disappeared.

Septimus was dressed in his black and red Alchemie Apprentice robes, which were edged with gold and had gold Alchemical symbols embroidered down the sleeves.

Around his waist he wore a thick leather belt, fastened with a heavy gold buckle, and on his feet, instead of his lost—and much-loved—brown boots, he wore the strange pointy-toed shoes that were fashionable and made him feel very foolish. Septimus had actually cut the ends off each point because he had kept tripping over them, but it did not exactly improve the shoes' appearance and made his toes cold. He sat huddled in his winter woolen cloak. The Great Chamber of Alchemie and Pnysik felt cold that morning, as the furnace was cooling after many days of use.

The Great Chamber was a large, circular vault underneath the very center of the Castle. Aboveground there was nothing to show but the chimney that rose from the great furnace and spouted noxious fumes—and often rather interestingly colored smoke—day and night. Around the edge of the Chamber were thick ebony tables, carved to fit the curve of the walls, on which great glass bottles and flasks filled with all manner of substances and creatures, alive, dead—and halfway between—were lined up and neatly labeled. Although the Chamber was underground and no natural light reached it, it was full of a bright, golden glow. Everywhere great candles were set burning and the light from these reflected off a sea of gold.

Set into the wall near the entrance to the Chamber was the furnace where Marcellus Pye had first transmuted base metal into gold. Marcellus had so enjoyed the thrill of seeing the dull black of the lead and the gray of the mercury slowly change to a brilliant red liquid and then cool to the beautiful deep yellow of pure gold that barely a day since had passed when he did not make a little gold just for the fun of it.

Consequently, Marcellus had amassed a large amount of gold, so much that everything in the Chamber that could be made of gold was—hinges on the cupboard doors, drawer handles and their keys, knives, tripods, rushlight holders, doorknobs, taps—everything. But all these little golden knickknacks paled into insignificance beside the two largest chunks of gold that Septimus had ever seen—and wished he never had—The Great Doors of Time.

These were the doors that Septimus had been pushed through one hundred and sixty-nine days ago to the day. They were set into the wall opposite the furnace, two ten-feet-tall chunks of solid gold covered with long strings of carved symbols, which Marcellus had told him were the Calculations of Time. The Doors were flanked by two statues brandishing sharp swords, and they were Locked and Barred—Septimus had found that out soon enough—and only Marcellus had the Keye.

That morning, Septimus was seated at his usual place, the Siege of the Rose, next to the head of a long table in the middle of the Chamber, with his back to the hated Doors. The table was lit with a line of brightly burning candles placed down the center. In front of him was a pile of neatly stacked paper, the results of his early morning's work that had involved the last, laborious checking of Marcellus's astrological calculations, which were the final touches on what he called his Great Work.

At the other end of the table sat seven scribes, for Marcellus Pye had a thing about sevens. Normally the scribes had little to do and spent much of the day staring into space, picking their noses and tunelessly humming strange songs. The songs always made Septimus feel terribly alone, for their notes were put together in an odd way and they were like nothing he had ever heard before. Today, however, all seven scribes were fully employed. They were scribbling furiously, copying out in their very best script the last seven pages of the Great Work, desperate to meet the deadline. Every now and then, one stifled a yawn; like Septimus, the scribes had been hard at work since six that morning. It was now, as Marcellus reminded everyone as he strode into the Chamber, ten o'clock, or ten of the clock, as he put it.

Marcellus Pye was a good-looking, somewhat vain young man with thick black curls of hair falling over his brow in the fashion of the day. He wore the long black and red robes of an Alchemist, which were encrusted with a good deal more gold than those of his Apprentice. That morning there was even a dusting of gold on his fingertips. He smiled as he looked around the Chamber. His Great Work—the I, Marcellus that he was sure would be consulted for centuries to come and make his name live forever—was nearly finished.

“Bookbinder!” Marcellus snapped his fingers impatiently as he surveyed the Chamber in search of the missing craftsman. “Pray, you dullards and dolts, where hideth you the Bookbinder?”

“I hideth not, Your Excellency,” a voice quavered from behind Marcellus. “For surely, I be here. Even as I have so stood upon these cold stones these last four hours or more. Indeed, I was here then and still I be here now.”

Several of the scribes stifled giggles, and Marcellus spun around and glared at the hunchbacked elderly man who was standing next to a small bookbinding press.

“Spare me thy twitterings,” said Marcellus, “and bring the press to the table.”

Seeing the man struggling to lift the press, Septimus slipped down from his place and went to help him. Together they heaved the press onto the table with a thud, sending ink flying from the inkwells and pens leaping to the floor.