The Darke Toad
Author: Angie Sage
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Young Adult; Fiction; Magic; Middle Grade; Childrens; Short Stories; Adventure; Witches; Novella
Description: The evil Dom Daniel is up to something with the Port Witch Coven, and he needs Simon Heap’s help. Is Simon ready to do his master’s bidding? And in the state that Dom Daniel is in, how will he fare against the nasty—and ever entertaining—Port Witch Coven? A novella that takes places between the stories told in MAGYK and FLYTE.
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Rights: All rights reserved

DEDICATION

For Karen and Peter Collins, with love. May you never meet a Darke Wombat.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Chapter 1     ♦     Trick or …

Chapter 2     ♦     Treat?

Chapter 3     ♦     Knock, Knock …

Chapter 4     ♦     Who’s There?

Chapter 5     ♦     Blood

Chapter 6     ♦     Going Out

Chapter 7     ♦     Alice at the Window

Chapter 8     ♦     Invisible

Chapter 9     ♦     Working the Crowd

Chapter 10   ♦     Gribbles

Chapter 11   ♦     Follow the Toad

Chapter 12   ♦     Goldfish

Chapter 13   ♦     Truth

Excerpt from Fyre

1: What Lies Beneath

2: A White Wedding

About the Author and Illustrator

Other Works

Copyright

Back Ads

About the Publisher

1

TRICK OR …

Flick. Flick. Flick. Simon Heap walked slowly around the darkening Observatory, Lighting the candles. He was using the old Darke trick of clicking finger and thumb together to produce a small black flame. It was the first thing he had mastered when he arrived at the Observatory some six months previously, and although he had learned Darker and more dangerous skills since then, he was still proud of his Darke flame.

Flick. Flick. Flick. Simon touched the wicks of the candles that he had placed on the old slate worktops, which were built into the circular walls of the underground chamber in the manner of a laboratory. Soon an orange glow took hold and began to light the large dismal space. Simon knew he shouldn’t be cheered by the light of a flame; he understood only too well that he should love the dark and damp shadows of an October evening, but he didn’t. He missed the light and warmth of a fire; he also missed the prospect of a hot supper in the company of friends. And even though he tried his hardest not to think about it, he missed his family—well, most of his family. He didn’t miss his new so-called youngest brother one little bit.

Flick. Flick. Flick. The thought of the scrawny kid who now called himself Septimus Heap and who was living in splendor at the top of the Wizard Tower, prancing around being ExtraOrdinary Apprentice—taking the Apprenticeship that Simon had dreamed one day would be his—made Simon seethe. Fueled by his anger, the Darke flame on his thumb leaped high into the air and very nearly singed his eyebrows.

Simon approached the last candle with trepidation. Fat and white, it stood alone at the far end of the benchtop opposite the stairs. But it was not the candle that filled Simon with dread; it was the thing that sat beside it—the skull of his Master, DomDaniel. Simon’s hand shook as, under the disapproving glare of the skull, he put the flame to the wick and watched the yellow light flare up, sending dark, dancing shadows deep into the eye sockets.

Simon shivered and pulled his black woolen cloak around him. The cloak, heavily embroidered in Darke symbols, was one of his Master’s castoffs. According to DomDaniel it was steeped in Darke Magyk, but so far all Simon had found it steeped in was the smell of old sweat. He had also found a damp toffee stuck to the lining, three dead spiders squashed inside the collar and a mouse skeleton in one of the pockets. Simon sighed. He glanced at the rest of his Master, which was propped up in a carved oak chair a few feet away, guarding the top of the stairs. The headless skeleton gave him the creeps, and the two nasty green faces on the thick gold ring that was wedged tight on DomDaniel’s left thumb bone stared at Simon malevolently. The prospect of the long, cold night ahead with nothing but Darke bones for company filled Simon with gloom.

Phut. The candle flame went out. Simon looked down and saw, to his shock, that the skull was now hovering in the air. As he watched, the form of his Master’s face slowly became visible, with DomDaniel’s lips pursed in blowing-out-a-candle mode.

Simon stared in amazement. DomDaniel had been trying to get his Clothing Bones Spell right ever since his bones had been picked clean by the Marsh Brownies when his ship, the Vengeance, had sunk with all hands. However, Clothing Bones was, DomDaniel informed Simon, the kind of Magyk that was very difficult to do for oneself. To DomDaniel’s frustration, Simon had been no help at all—“about as much use as a chocolate teapot, Heap.” But after witnessing several failed attempts by DomDaniel to Clothe his bones, Simon had begun to wonder whether his Master really was the powerful and talented Wizard he had made himself out to be when he had recruited Simon into his service.

But now at last DomDaniel was having some success. Simon watched with a kind of revolted fascination as the outlines of the skull slowly faded below the blobby contours of DomDaniel’s face, and the old Necromancer’s cylindrical stovepipe hat appeared out of the shadows and planted itself onto the thinning hair. DomDaniel’s head was now looking unpleasantly realistic. The disembodied head, which was hovering some six inches above the workbench, turned an almost complete circle until it was facing its bones, which sat—still UnClothed and displaying a distinct lack of interest—in their chair. The head now set off to join them. Floating about four feet off the floor, it traveled sedately across to its bones, lined itself up with the top vertebra—the atlas—and then slowly descended until once again it sat upon its body.

The head swiveled around and gave Simon a triumphant smirk.

“Amazing,” said Simon. “Quite superb.” Simon knew that the easiest way to keep his Master happy and to stop him from indulging in petty little nuisance Spells like hair-tangling, itching in embarrassing places—or, even worse, itching right in the middle of his head—was to lay on the flattery with, as his mother would have said, a trowel.

“It’s nothing compared to how I used to be,” said DomDaniel’s rather squeaky voice. “But I’ll show them, Heap. I will. And then they will all be …” His voice faded away into the clammy night air.

“Sorry?” Simon finished for him.

The head nodded and began to topple. Simon leaped forward and caught it as it tumbled toward the floor. It glared at him ungratefully. Very carefully, his hands trembling slightly, Simon balanced the head on top of the broad, flat vertebra and snatched his hands away. He felt quite sick.

“Not like that, you idiot!” said the head, beginning to wobble. “Push it down, man. It’s got to fit. Properly.”

Simon swallowed hard. DomDaniel’s head was cold as ice, and although the Clothed skull did have substance, it felt unpleasantly squishy and Simon was afraid his fingers might push through its surface at any moment. Gingerly, he pushed the head down until he could feel the connection between the base of the skull and the atlas.

For once, the expression on DomDaniel’s face was one of satisfaction. “Ooh, nearly there … a bit to the left … yes, yes … now push. Got it! Hey, Heap—where are you going?”

But Simon was gone, racing to find a bucket to be sick in.

He returned, white-faced and shaky, to find DomDaniel standing at the top of the stairs, waiting impatiently. The Necromancer had wrapped himself in his newest Darke cloak and was wearing a stout pair of boots. But beneath the cloak, Simon glimpsed white bones going into the boots and he knew that there was no more than a skeleton beneath the dark folds of cloth.

“Ready?” DomDaniel demanded.

“Er, yes,” said Simon, wondering what it was he was meant to be ready for.

“Get a toad, will you, Heap? A nice big one. Then we’ll be off.”

“Oh. Right.” Simon quickly unscrewed the top of the toad jar and peered in. A large, particularly googly-eyed toad blinked up at him. Simon grabbed it and held it out to show his Master.

DomDaniel eyed the toad with approval. “Very nice. It should go down well. Put it in a toad bag, Heap.” Simon took a black, shiny bag from beside the toad jar and dropped the toad into it. The newly Clothed skull smiled. “Off we go!” it said.

Simon followed an unusually jolly DomDaniel as he began to lurch toward the stairs. Suddenly something clattered to the floor—something white and thin.

Arm bones, thought Simon, steeling himself to pick them up.

DomDaniel looked impatiently at Simon trying to put together all the little wrist bones. “Oh, put them in the toad bag for later. Give me your arm, Heap.”

Simon looked horrified. “But … but …”

A slightly hysterical laugh echoed around the Observatory like a door swinging wildly on its hinges. “To lean on, Heap—to lean on. Ha ha ha.” And then, menacingly, “Don’t go giving me ideas, will you?”

Simon and DomDaniel began the long descent down through the cold slate cliffs. At the foot of the stairs outside the Magog Chamber, DomDaniel stopped and drew his lips back into what Simon guessed was meant to be a smile. Taking courage from the smile, Simon asked where they were going.

DomDaniel looked exasperated. “Why do I always get the stupid ones? Toad, boy—toad!”

“Oh,” Simon said, none the wiser.

“We are going to pay a little visit to our fan club in the Port.”

“That’s nice,” Simon said politely, although he had not heard of a Port DomDaniel fan club. He supposed that was because it was rather small.

DomDaniel seemed to find Simon’s puzzled expression funny. A series of squeaky chuckles came from somewhere in his neck. “You didn’t know I had a fan club did you? Ha ha! Ha ha ha!” DomDaniel’s head rocked from side to side as though it were on a hinge.

Simon looked horrified.

“You may well look shocked, Heap. We are going to visit the Port Witch Coven! Oh!”

DomDaniel’s head gave one last wobble and fell off.

2

TREAT?

Marcia Overstrand, ExtraOrdinary Wizard, was regretting her decision. It was the first time she had taken her new Apprentice, Septimus Heap, away from the Castle, and it was turning into a nightmare.

Septimus had been working hard in the Wizard Tower for six months now, and Marcia had decided that it was time he had a break. She had arranged what she called a “treat” for Septimus—a treasure hunt through the bookshops in the Port in search of a book that she knew Septimus loved: A Hundred Stories for Bored Boys. Marcia had already tracked the book down to Woollie Wottery’s Pots’n’Books, an odd little shop that she was fond of. With the help of Woollie Wottery, who owned the shop, Marcia had devised a series of clues to lead Septimus to the book, which Miss Wottery had hidden in a Magykal box under the counter. Not only would the treasure hunt be fun for Septimus, it would also be a good way for him to learn how to get around the Port safely. Marcia had been very pleased with her idea—until now.

Right now she and Septimus were sitting on the Port Barge, which was itself sitting on a sandbank that the skipper swore had moved overnight. Using the Port Barge had been part of Marcia’s plan. She wanted to show Septimus how to get around for himself, so that he did not need to rely on Magyk or the Wizard Tower ferry boat—which meant that everyone always knew where you were going and why. But right now Marcia wished she had taken the easy way and used the Wizard Tower ferry.

Marcia was wet, cold and an uncomfortable focus of interest for the other passengers from the Castle, who had not expected to find their ExtraOrdinary Wizard keeping them company. Marcia, in her turn, had not expected her fellow passengers to look so very weird. There were three young men wrapped in bandages stained with what Marcia hoped was fake blood, two young women wearing vast quantities of black netting and someone in a ferret costume, the head of which he or she wore throughout the voyage. Marcia supposed they were all going to some kind of fancy dress party.

As the waves of the incoming tide bashed against the side of the barge and darkness fell, Marcia felt miserable, but she was relieved to see that Septimus was still excited to be on a journey just for fun. When Marcia had proposed the trip, it had come as a shock to her that Septimus had clearly never thought it might be possible to go anywhere purely for pleasure. It had caught Marcia somewhere in her throat and made her eyes water when she realized that all her Apprentice’s previous outings from the Castle had been terrifying Young Army maneuvers from which he had had a well-founded fear that he might not return. This had made Marcia even more determined that Septimus would have a really good time in the Port. But, as she watched Septimus smiling broadly and gazing excitedly at the lights of the Port—which were tantalizingly close—Marcia realized that there were more important things in life than being annoyed at being stranded on a sandbank, and she smiled too.

Five minutes later there was a round of applause from the passengers, and the Port Barge was floating free. They now made rapid progress to Castle Quay, where the mortified skipper saw her strange passengers off the barge and into the nighttime Port.

Like all ExtraOrdinary Wizards, Marcia had the use of a suite of rooms in the Customs House on the main harbor front. She was looking forward to getting there, where she knew the fire would be lit and supper awaiting them. She hurried Septimus off into the network of alleyways that would take them to the harbor front. After about ten minutes, Septimus, who had been lagging behind, said, “Are we there yet?”

Marcia tried very hard not to be snappy. This is meant to be fun, she told herself. “Nearly there,” she said.

Ten cold minutes later, Septimus said, “We’ve been here before.”

Marcia stopped. “Bother,” she said.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?” said Septimus.

“No. No, not at all,” Marcia insisted.

Septimus fished out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “It’s a good thing I’ve brought a map.”

“A map?” Marcia wished she had thought of that.

“Yes. ‘It’s a fool who travels to places new, without a map to guide him through.’”

“Well, really!” Marcia said indignantly—and then she remembered. “Oh, that’s one of your Young Army sayings, is it?” she asked in her gentle, talking-about-the-past voice.

Septimus nodded. “They were quite useful, really,” he said—and then he remembered some rude ones they had had to learn about Marcia. “Well, most of them.” Septimus and his map now led the way and they quickly emerged from the maze of alleyways into a wide and well-lit street.

“I thought it best to get out of the alleys,” said Septimus, “and then head back down the bigger streets to the harbor. It’s safer at this time of night.”

“Yes, good idea,” Marcia agreed, thinking that maybe Septimus wasn’t in need of learning how to get around the Port safely after all.

A cold rain began to spatter down and Septimus shivered. The street felt somewhat creepy, and something, he didn’t know what, was making the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Marcia set off briskly and Septimus hurried after her, checking his map for the first turn that would take them down to the harbor. Suddenly he heard Marcia hiss, “Unseen number three. Now, Septimus. Right now!” Excited at the urgency in Marcia’s voice that told him this was for real, Septimus quickly did as he was told.

A few seconds later, two Unseen shadows were walking along very quietly, watching two figures coming toward them on the other side of the street. One was hooded and swathed in a dark cloak; the other looked very strange.

“Goodness,” Marcia whispered to Septimus. “For a horrible moment I thought it was DomDaniel. It’s got his face, but look at the way it’s walking—how it lurches from side to side like a huge puppet.”

“It looks like someone dressed up, like those people on the boat,” Septimus said. “But it feels really horrible.”

Marcia was pleased with her Apprentice. “Exactly,” she said. “I suspect it is some kind of Darke illusion. There are, unfortunately, a few places here where you can buy those kind of things.” She sighed. “There are some very strange people living here in the Port, Septimus.”

Septimus agreed. He had never seen so many peculiar things in one place before.

Marcia watched the two figures turn a corner and disappear into the night. “We can let go the Unseens now, Septimus,” she said.

At the end of the road, Septimus found his shortcut to the harbor. Known as Drab Dive, the alleyway ran between the backs of small, drab houses, but despite its name it was bright and cheerful. Septimus and Marcia hurried along, noticing that the lights that lit their way were of an unusual variety. Balanced on the sills of windows that looked out over the Dive were all kinds of hollowed-out gourds with candles placed inside them. The gourds had been carved with fiendishly grinning faces, which stared down into the Dive and appeared to laugh and leer at them from their perches. Septimus was entranced; Marcia less so. “How very peculiar,” she said.

Things rapidly became even more peculiar—as they rounded a corner, they met three white-faced ghouls leading a dog on a string. The ghouls were laughing in a happy, unghoul-like way. As they approached Marcia and Septimus they said cheerily, “We know who you are!”

“Jolly good,” said Marcia frostily.

“Oh, ha ha. Very good. That’s just what she’d say, isn’t it?” the ghoul asked its companions. They laughed in agreement and stopped to talk.

“Yeah, but you know, the real Marcia’s much scarier.”

“Oh?” said Marcia.

“And taller,” added another ghoul.

“Yeah, man, a good foot taller, I’d say. And seriously weird. I wouldn’t like to meet the real one down the Dive on a dark night, ha ha!”

“Well, really!” said Marcia. “How rude!”

“Love it! Keeping in role. Very good. See ya—Marcia!” The ghouls departed, still laughing. One of them turned back and shouted, “And the new Apprentice too. Good touch. Have a good night!”

Bemused, Marcia watched them go. “I don’t know, Septimus,” she said. “The Port never fails to surprise me.”

Some ten minutes later Septimus and Marcia were sitting by a small—and highly luxurious—coal fire. Septimus had never seen coal burning before and he was amazed at the heat it threw out. Outside, the rain was falling heavily and a wind was blowing in from the sea, sending the ropes thrumming against the masts of the boats tied up in the harbor no more than a few feet from the Customs House. Septimus felt really happy—for the first time in his life, he was away from the Castle and not outside in foul weather. And, even more amazingly, he was not scared. Not one little bit. He wriggled down into the warmth of the squashy armchair and breathed in deeply. Something smelled delicious.

“Supper,” said Marcia. “And about time too.”

3

KNOCK, KNOCK …

DomDaniel and Simon were standing on the wide doorstep of what had once been a typical Port townhouse: tall and narrow with a large front door. This particular house looked as though it were about to fall down. The windows had planks nailed across them and there were Darke symbols painted on the wall over which had been scrawled some very rude graffiti. It was, thought Simon, just the kind of place he would expect DomDaniel to visit.

“Toad, Heap,” snapped DomDaniel.

“But—” Simon began defensively, thinking that DomDaniel was insulting him.

“The toad. In the toad bag, noodlebrain.”

When DomDaniel spoke, his lips did not move in quite the right way. It was odd, Simon thought, like being with a bad ventriloquist. Simon suppressed the uncomfortable idea that that probably made him the ventriloquist’s dummy. He plunged his hand into the toad bag, scrabbled past the arm bones and at the bottom of the bag his fingers found a damp, squashy lump. The toad, covered in bone dust, sat on Simon’s hand, blinking in the shock of the cold night air.

DomDaniel chuckled. “Fat and ugly,” he said. “They’ll love it.”

Simon grimaced. Try as he might, he could not see the attraction of toads.

“I’ll give you a piece of advice, Heap,” DomDaniel said confidentially. “Give a witch a Darke Toad and she will do anything you ask. If a Coven has one of these on their door, they’ll get respect from every Coven in the land. No witch will dare to mess with them. Well, go on then, Heap. Place the toad.”

Simon looked confused. “Where?”

DomDaniel looked exasperated. “On the door, cabbage brain.”

Simon stared at the door. It was bristling with nails like a hedgehog and showed signs of having been attacked with a hammer. But among the forest of nails Simon spotted a small plinth just below a plain, flat doorknocker, and above the plinth someone had scrawled: TOADYWOADY. He reached up and carefully placed the toad on the plinth. To Simon’s surprise the toad did not stay there. It hopped off and landed neatly onto the doorknocker where it settled down onto what Simon now realized was a toad-shaped surface. A Darke ripple passed across the toad and it Transformed into a toad-shaped doorknocker.

“Good,” said DomDaniel. “If a Darke Toad knocks, the Coven has to answer. Well, go on, then.”

“What?”

“Knock, you fool.”

Simon raised his hand to the cold metal toad, but before he could do anything, there was a tremendous thudding of footsteps inside the house, and the door was thrown wide open. Simon leaped to one side just in time and out burst a disheveled young man with piercing blue eyes, dressed in black. He pushed DomDaniel aside in a fine football tackle and hurtled down the street as though in pursuit of the ball. DomDaniel swayed dangerously, and Simon heard the bones clink ominously against one another beneath the cloak.

Ter-link-clink-plink.

DomDaniel was just regaining his balance when another figure in black—female this time—came pounding out of the door yelling, “Madrigor! Madrigor! Wait. Please wait. Pleeeeeeese!”

She too elbowed DomDaniel aside in as fine a tackle as her quarry had done, and it caught DomDaniel on the rebound. With a loud clinkle-clank his bones folded up and descended into an orderly pile on the doorstep, on which his cloak settled like a cover over a birdcage. Simon watched as DomDaniel’s head dropped neatly down onto the top of the pile. The head stared angrily up at Simon as though it were all his fault. Simon could do no more than return the stare in amazement, while he tried to fight the desire to pick up the head and run with it and join in the football game that seemed to be in full swing farther down the street—accompanied now by shrieks and a few well-aimed punches from the female protagonist.

A moment later a white-faced woman swathed in black—teetering on shoes from the soles of which sprouted a forest of spikes twelve inches high—arrived at the door. The woman stared at Simon and gave a gruesome smile, showing a few stubby black teeth. She turned around and yelled into the house, “Veronica! Dorinda! Daphne! Look what we’ve got here!” Then she leered at Simon. “Hello young man, young man.”

Simon felt horribly uncomfortable. Three young witches arrived at the door. “Ooh, Witch Mother.” They giggled, staring at him. “Where did you get that?”

Simon felt himself turning pink.

“He’s blushing,” said one of the witches, who had a conical peak of hair balanced on the top of her head.

“So sweet,” added the small, chubby one.

The third witch said nothing and stared at Simon with disconcertingly big blue eyes.

The Witch Mother leaned forward to inspect Simon at close quarters. Hastily, he stepped back from the old-cat breath. The Witch Mother went to take another step forward but a sudden screech came from somewhere near her left boot—the sharp spikes of which DomDaniel had a distressingly close view.

“Pamela!” shrieked DomDaniel’s head. “Stop!”

The woman stared down at her feet and swore loudly.

“No need for that kind of language,” DomDaniel said primly.

The Witch Mother stared with incredulity at DomDaniel’s head, so neatly placed on its cloak. Her shoulders began to shake, and suddenly the thick white makeup that was plastered over her face split into a tracery of cracks and she burst into hoarse, barking laughs. “Dommie, is that you?” she spluttered.

“Yes, as it happens, it is me,” said DomDaniel. “I don’t see what is so funny, Pamela.”

“You never did have a sense of humor, did you?” the Witch Mother observed. “So, are you coming in or what?”

“At present, Pamela, I am somewhat immobile. However, my assistant here—when he stops gawping like a stuck fish—will assist me. Pick me up, will you, Heap?”

Simon stared at the fleshy head sitting atop its pile of bones. He suppressed a shudder. “Oh! Well, yes. Um …”

Unexpectedly, the Witch Mother came to Simon’s rescue. “Leave him,” she commanded and turned to the young witch with the big blue eyes. “Dorinda! Wheelbarrow!”

“Yes, Witch Mother,” said Dorinda, and she disappeared back into the house.

“No!” yelled DomDaniel’s head.

The Witch Mother looked down and favored DomDaniel with a black-toothed smile. “I suppose you’re a pile of bones under that fancy cloak of yours?”

DomDaniel scowled in answer.

The Witch Mother’s smile grew even wider and blacker. “I thought so. Well, we don’t want them dropped, do we? A wheelbarrow it must be.”

“Pamela, you are a cruel woman.”

“But a practical one, Dommie, dear.”

And so it was that DomDaniel was ignominiously wheeled over the threshold of the Port Witch Coven in a wheelbarrow—just as the Witch Mother, in a fit of fury with DomDaniel over one broken promise too many, had once foretold. Simon, however, was escorted in style, with a young witch on each arm.

4

WHO’S THERE?

There was a very peculiar smell in the kitchen of the Port Witch Coven. Simon sat on a small greasy sofa, squashed uncomfortably between Veronica—the witch with the cone of hair on top of her head—and Daphne, the small, chubby one. To take his mind off how uncomfortably close they were—and what knobby elbows Veronica had—Simon tried to work out what the weird smell was. Soon, as his eyes grew accustomed to the murky darkness—which was illuminated only by the fire in the stove—he realized what it was. Cats. Countless pairs of blank yellow eyes, glinting in the glow from the flames, were staring at him.

Simon felt edgy. He was wedged so tightly between the witches that he could hardly breathe. It was just his luck, he thought, that the nice witch who had fetched the wheelbarrow was not sitting next to him. She was busy stirring a dirty old pot on the stove, from which came another peculiar smell—Witches’ Brew. Every now and then she glanced around at Simon and smiled shyly at him, and Simon smiled back. But even Dorinda’s smiles did not stop Simon from longing to jump up and run out of the fug, into the clean night air of the Port. However, he knew better than to leave his master, who was piled on the kitchen table with his head placed at a jaunty angle by Dorinda.

DomDaniel was looking at the Witch Mother, who seemed, Simon thought, to have a score to settle. “What did I tell you, Dommie?” the Witch Mother crowed. “I said you’d come to no good in the end. I told you the next time you came to see me it would be in a wheelbarrow.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Pamela,” DomDaniel snapped. “Anyway, things are perfectly fine. I am regrouping. Reassessing. Recharging. That Overstrand woman—she’ll be sorry. I have plans. Rather clever ones, actually. I will soon be back with a vengeance. Won’t I, Heap?”

“Yes,” Simon said obediently, though right then he thought it seemed highly unlikely.

DomDaniel stared at up the Witch Mother. “To that end, Pamela, I need a little assistance.”

The Witch Mother gave a snort of amusement. “A little!”

“Ahem. With a Clothing Bones Spell. Difficult to do it for oneself.”

The Witch Mother leaned down, put her elbows on the table and stared eye to eye with DomDaniel’s head. Simon saw the head wince at the onslaught of cat breath. “Well, now, who would have thought it—you asking me a favor?” the Witch Mother said with a stubby-toothed smile.

DomDaniel looked very uncomfortable. “You won’t regret it, Pamela. You get me back on my feet so that I can sort out old Nastier Overstrand for keeps, and I will let you keep the Darke Toad, which is, at this very moment, sitting on your door.”

“The Darke Toad? For keeps?”

“For keeps, in exchange for a top-of-the-range, permanent Clothing Bones. I need one that lasts even without the bones—after they have been, let us say, Placed elsewhere. Can the Coven do that, Pamela?”

The Witch Mother frowned. What DomDaniel was asking for was a very difficult and complex Darke Spell, and she wasn’t sure that the Coven could do it—especially the bit about lasting without the bones. What, she wondered, was the old goat planning? But a Darke Toad was a huge status symbol—a sign to any passing witch or warlock that beyond the door lay serious Darke Magyk. The Witch Mother made a decision: The Coven could manage something, and once the Darke Toad was theirs, what did she care about DomDaniel’s boring old bones?

“Yes,” she said. “We can do that. No problem.”

Crash! The sound of the front door crashing open, then slamming shut, shook the kitchen floor and far, far beneath it, Simon thought he felt something stir. A heavy pounding of footsteps came toward the kitchen and the door burst open. Bang! The fifth witch, Linda, rushed in. Her dark blue eyes glowed in the gloom and her long, shiny black nails flashed like claws. Linda looked furious. Simon saw Dorinda cower in fear, and beside him Daphne and Veronica went tense.

“Ear-flapping, nosy cow!” Linda yelled at Dorinda.

Dorinda dropped the wooden spoon and, like a rabbit caught in a flashlight, she watched, terrified, as Linda set a course for her, kicking her way through the rubbish-strewn floor.

Linda reached her victim and poked her in the ribs. “Madrigor has gone,” she said. “And he is not coming back. Ever. And it is all your fault, you nasty little earwig, you filthy string of nose slime, you—”

“Now, now, Linda,” said the Witch Mother. “Language.”

“I’ll give her language,” snarled Linda. “Earwigging at my door. Listening to every word we said. And then giggling.”

Dorinda gave a whimper and hid her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean to,” she said.

“Yes, you did, you lying little weasel. You listen at all our doors; don’t think I don’t know.”

“Does she really?” asked the Witch Mother, looking worried.

“Yes, she does. You’d be amazed at the secrets those delicate little ears have heard.”

“Oh dear,” muttered the Witch Mother.

Linda reached out and tweaked one of Dorinda’s ears. Dorinda squealed. Linda leaned closer and breathed the special kind of Linda mouse breath all over the terrified witch. “Never mind, Dorinda. I’m going to do you a favor.”

Relief flooded across Dorinda’s face. “Oh, Linda, are you?”

Simon sighed. Dorinda must be very silly, he thought—anyone else could see that Linda was planning something very nasty indeed. On either side of him, Veronica and Daphne were watching, enthralled.

“What are you going to do, Linda?” they asked in unison.

“Well, seeing as how Dorinda loves to go flapping her ears around the place, I’m going to give her some ears she can really flap.”

Dorinda began to look worried.

Quick as lightning, Linda grabbed hold of Dorinda’s ears, her nails digging in viciously. Dorinda whimpered in pain. “I’d keep still if I were you,” Linda hissed. “Because I am going to Bestow upon you the finest pair ever of …”

“Yes, yes?” chorused Daphne, Veronica and the Witch Mother.

“Elephant ears!”

Dorinda screamed so loudly that Simon stuffed his fingers in his own (thankfully human) ears and closed his eyes. When the smoke cleared and the smell of burning flesh subsided into the comparatively pleasant odor of cat poo, Simon opened his eyes just in time to see Dorinda flee sobbing, her huge, gray African elephant ears flapping wildly as she hurtled from the kitchen, pursued by gales of raucous laughter. Simon felt sorry for the young witch; he knew that a Bestow was a permanent spell, and for the rest of her life Dorinda would have to live with a pair of elephant ears sprouting from her head. The fact that they looked so comical and that Simon had trouble not joining in the laughter somehow made it even worse.

The laughter subsided and the Witch Mother turned her attention to DomDaniel. The elephant ears had put her in an extremely good mood. It had also shown her that Linda was a force to be reckoned with.

“Linda, dear,” she said obsequiously, “I do hope it would not be too much trouble for you to assist us in a Clothing Bones Spell?”

Linda smiled. “With pleasure, Witch Mother.” She looked down at DomDaniel, who was beginning to relax. “Is this old tramp here for us to practice on?”

DomDaniel frowned but said nothing. He was so near to getting what he wanted, he did not want to jeopardize anything.

The Witch Mother giggled—not a pleasant sound. “Oh, Linda, you are so very amusing. Oh, ha ha. So droll. This, of course, is none other than DomDaniel.”

Linda looked shocked. “Really?” She bent down and stared at DomDaniel’s head. “Gosh,” she whispered. She waggled her fingers in what Simon supposed was a wave and trilled, “Hello, Mr. Daniel. I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

“Oh, get on with it!” said DomDaniel, who had reached his limits of patience.

“Very well,” said the Witch Mother. “Let it begin.”

5

BLOOD

A chill fell in the fuggy kitchen and the hairs on the back of Simon’s neck prickled. The Witch Mother signaled to Daphne and Veronica and they struggled out of the sofa, elbowing Simon in the ribs as they got up to join her and Linda. The four witches linked hands and stood around the table. Suddenly the Witch Mother broke the circle and stared at Simon.

“What now?” DomDaniel asked grumpily.

“Him.” The Witch Mother nodded her head toward Simon. “Your acolyte. Is he safe?”

“Oh, Heap.” DomDaniel sounded dismissive. “Don’t bother about him.”

Simon was not sure how to take this, but he told himself it was good that he was presumably considered “safe.” He sank back into the sticky sofa and tried to ignore the sharp points of the springs poking into him.

The witches rejoined hands and began an intense, achingly high-pitched humming, which found its way right into the middle of Simon’s head and sent pains stabbing through his back teeth. He longed to stuff his fingers into his ears once more, but he did not dare.

The humming grew louder and more intense until—at the very moment that Simon thought he would scream at the needle that was surely being driven into his ears—it stopped. Dead. A heavy silence fell and Simon began to sense the presence of something cold descending upon the kitchen.

Suddenly there was a hiss, a scuffle among the rubbish at Simon’s feet and a loud yowl. A pile of cats had started a fight.

The Witch Mother turned to Simon as if it was his fault. “Shh!” she hissed.

Simon spread his arms as if to say, It’s nothing to do with me, and the Witch Mother glared at him. “Stop them at once,” she ordered.

Simon knew better than to ignore the Witch Mother. He got up and steeled himself to scrabble through the mixture of old papers, vegetable peelings and bits of filthy blankets, which were heaving with cats scrapping and batting at one another with increasing ferocity. Simon managed to grab hold of one by the scruff of the neck. There was an ear-splitting yowl and then a scream. Simon leaped to his feet with a small yellow cat dangling from his hand, its teeth firmly sunk into the flesh below his little finger.

“Argh!” yelled Simon, frantically shaking his hand, trying to get the cat off. The cat swung wildly to and fro and with every swing its teeth sank in deeper. Simon began to panic.

“Tiddles!” yelled the Witch Mother. She stamped across to Simon, the spikes on her shoes spearing an assortment of potato peelings as she went, and came so close to Simon that he could see her angry red face below the cracks in her thick white makeup.

“Stop … playing … with … my … cat,” she hissed furiously.

The pain in Simon’s hand was jangling his head and he forgot how important it was to be polite to a Witch Mother. At all times. He said a very rude word and added, “… you and your filthy cat.”

A sharp intake of breath came from everyone in the kitchen and Simon stammered, “I—I’m sorry.”

“You will be.” The Witch Mother glared at him. She put her hands around the cat’s sticky-out ribs and hissed. “Teeth Release!” The cat let go and Simon grabbed his hand back. White-faced, he held it tightly while drips of blood dropped onto his boots.

The Witch Mother smiled. “Blood,” she hissed. “Give!”

“Uh?” Simon felt faint. He hated the sight of blood.

“Give it. Then I might, just might overlook your attack on poor little Tiddles.”

Simon began to come out of his daze. He realized what the Witch Mother wanted. He held his hand up and watched the steady drip of blood from the cat’s jagged tear drip into the Witch Mother’s cupped hands. When there was a small pool, she rubbed her hands together and went back to the table, elated. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of human blood before. Now the Clothing Bones was sure to last long enough to get DomDaniel past the end of the street and safely out of sight. She didn’t want to be walking by a resentful pile of bones every day.

“Now we shall begin,” said the Witch Mother happily. “With the blood of a Cowan, it will go well.”

Sucking his injured hand, Simon watched. Once again the chill descended and this time no cat stopped it. The circle began to chant in high, squeaky witch voices and move slowly around the table. DomDaniel’s head followed them, swiveling complete circles in the way that Simon found so chilling. Around and around it turned, eyes fixed always on the Witch Mother. The witches’ singing grew higher and fainter as they increased their speed until it sounded like the distant trilling of birds. Faster and faster they went, until Simon could no longer make out who was who, and all he could see was a faint blur buzzing around DomDaniel’s head. By now the head had—wisely, Simon thought—stopped following the witches and was sitting on top of its black cloak with its eyes closed and its lips reposed in a smug little smile.

And then it happened. There was a flash of brilliant, bloodred light and a loud craaack. Suddenly, standing on the table, his bones fully Clothed, was DomDaniel. A little unsteady, it is true, and fatter than Simon had expected—but he looked as human as anyone in that room.

The witch circle slowed until each witch was once again visible and the chill in the room was replaced by the old warm fugginess overlaid by a lingering smell of burnt pumpkin. The Witch Mother regarded her success—who was now nervously trying to work out how to get down from the table without upsetting his Clothed Bones—with excitement. The Darke Toad was as good as hers.

6

GOING OUT

DomDaniel looked down fretfully at his large, rounded stomach. “Pamela, I was never this fat.”

“Yes, you were,” the Witch Mother told him. “In fact, if you ask me, I have erred on the thin side.”

“And look at the state of these clothes—they’re disgusting.” DomDaniel inspected his tunic. “There’s dried egg all down the front.”

Simon was surprised how curt the Witch Mother was with DomDaniel. “Oh, stop moaning, Dommie. That’s how I remember you, and that’s the way you are now.”

DomDaniel sighed loudly. “I suppose it will have to do. Help me down, Pamela, will you?” Supported by the Witch Mother, DomDaniel gingerly stepped down from the table.

“Right,” said the Witch Mother, “time to go home. I’ll see you to the door and you can hand over the toad.”

“I need a little rest first,” DomDaniel said.

“What—here?” the Witch Mother said unenthusiastically.

“If it were anywhere else, I would have to get up and go there, wouldn’t I? Then it wouldn’t be a rest, would it?” DomDaniel said snappily as he lowered himself onto the lumpy sofa with a sigh of relief. The newly Clothed Wizard looked suspiciously at the Witch Mother. She was up to something, he was sure. “And then, when I have had my rest,” he said, “I shall go for a little test drive.”

“A test drive?” asked the Witch Mother. “What on earth do you mean?”

“I want to check that everything works properly, Pamela. And then, if it doesn’t, you’ll be able to fix it.” DomDaniel glared at her. “Won’t you?”

“But what about the toad?”

“You’ll get your toad. A bargain is a bargain,” said DomDaniel. “But I won’t be rushed, Pamela. I am going to sit here and get used to my new Clothes; then we shall take a little walk around the Port. To make sure that nothing falls off.”

Veronica and Daphne were overtaken by a fit of giggles but Linda was made of sterner stuff. A walk with DomDaniel presented the opportunity she had been looking for.

“Now that we shall have a Darke Toad,” Linda said to the Witch Mother, “we will need a servant to answer the door.”

“Ooh, yes,” Veronica chimed in. “A servant. That would be fun. But one that lasts, not like all the other ones.”

“They never last, Veronica,” said the Witch Mother. “That’s the trouble. You just can’t get the staff nowadays.”

“Maybe if we fed them,” said Daphne, “they would last a bit longer.”

“Feed them!” The Witch Mother sounded shocked. “Don’t be ridiculous, Daphne.”

But Linda wanted a servant. And what Linda wanted, Linda got—especially now, after Dorinda’s elephant ears.

Linda had it all worked out. “We’re not dragging some idiot Port girl off the streets this time; we need a professional who is used to a tough life. I reckon if we feed one just a bit—we don’t have to give it much—then we’ll get at least six months’ use before it wears out.”

The Witch Mother looked impressed. She had never had a servant long enough to wear one out. “That’s a good idea, Linda. But what kind of professional? Not a nasty little Wizard Apprentice, I hope.”

Linda laughed. “No, something much better than that. A ship’s rat!”

“A rat?” The Witch Mother sounded scornful. “We’ve got plenty of those living in this rubbish.” She kicked at the floor and sent flying a shower of liquified carrots. As if on cue, a rat fled for cover.

Linda sighed. “Not a real rat, Witch Mother. It’s what they call those kids who work on the ships doing all the nasty jobs that no one else wants to do. They’re tough little things. One of those would last for ages.”

The witches fell silent. Simon could tell that the suggestion was not popular.

“But Linda,” Daphne ventured, “those rat kids live on ships. And ships live on salt water. And, well, you know what happens to us in …” Daphne trailed off. It was considered bad luck to mention that Darke Witches had a tendency to dissolve in salt water (which is why you will never see a Darke witch cry).

“I know exactly what happens to us, Daphne, thank you,” said Linda. “But we shall not need to go near any of that saltwater stuff. Because we will get the kid to come to us.”

“How?” asked Daphne.

“Woodworm,” said Linda.

Daphne went pale. She could tell that Linda had something nasty planned.

Linda turned to the Witch Mother. “Tell Daphne to go get her giant woodworms, please, Witch Mother.”

“Go get your giant woodworms, Daphne,” the Witch Mother said obediently.

Daphne looked horrified. “Why?”

“Why?” the Witch Mother asked Linda.

“Because I say so,” said Linda.

“Because she says so,” said the Witch Mother.

“B-but …” Daphne spluttered.

“Unless, Daphne,” Linda snarled, “you, too, would like a pair of elephant ears. So that you and Dorinda could have little elephant-ear styling sessions together.”

The Witch Mother cackled loudly and Veronica dutifully joined in.

Daphne gulped. “How many woodworms would you like, Linda?”

Linda smiled, her yellowing teeth glinting in the light from the stove. “All of them.”

Daphne looked horrified. “All of them?”

“You heard. Get them!”

Daphne fled. She clattered up a ladder and disappeared through a hole in the kitchen ceiling.

Simon and DomDaniel sat awkwardly on the sofa together, watching the preparations for going out. Drowsy in the warm fug of the kitchen, Simon fell asleep and was woken half an hour later by the nasty, squashy sensation of DomDaniel’s hand squeezing his shoulder.

“Come on, Heap,” his Master said. “Time for my test drive.”

Simon got blearily to his feet and very nearly fell over the wheelbarrow.

“Mind my woodworms!” yelled Daphne.

“Oh. Sorry,” Simon mumbled.

Daphne glared at him. “You will be, if anything happens to them.”

A grating laugh came from Linda. “Get used to it, Daphne. A lot is going to happen to those boring—ha ha, boring, get it?—little biters.”

Excited now by the prospect of a servant and the Darke Toad—and much encouraged that the Clothed Bones were still Clothed—the Witch Mother smiled, her makeup cracking like a dried-up riverbed. “Ah, Dommie,” she said. “Off out on the town, eh? Just like the old times.”

DomDaniel sighed. The old times with the Witch Mother had been nothing but trouble. “Indeed, Pamela,” he murmured.

“Oh, you know you can call me Pammie, Dommie.”

DomDaniel grimaced and Simon suppressed a smile—clearly that was a step too far.

“Off we go!” The Witch Mother threw open the kitchen door and offered her arm to DomDaniel, who obediently took it and led her out. A quick scuffle between Linda and Veronica ensued over who should go next. It was settled by a nasty kick to the shins that left Veronica hobbling down the corridor in Linda’s wake.

Simon followed Daphne and her wheelbarrow, in which lay a large black metal box containing, he guessed, the woodworms. The box was covered in tiny writing, which Simon stared at, trying to decipher.

“Nosy, aren’t you?” said Daphne.

Simon sprang back. “Sorry,” he said. “I mean, about your woodworms.”

Daphne immediately thawed. No one had ever been nice about her woodworms before. “They’re my friends,” she said. “I know every single one of them. Look, I’ve written all their names on the box.”

Trying to be friendly, Simon asked, “Gosh. How do you think up so many names?”

Daphne looked indignant. “I don’t think them up. They tell me what their names are. Stupid.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course they do.”

Daphne sighed. “They are all in there except for Louise, Paulie, Bernina and Freddo, who are stuck on the spikes of the Witch Mother’s shoes. Oh, and Dukey, who died last night. Do you want to see him?”

“Oh! Well, no, thanks, I—”

But Daphne was not listening. From her pocket she pulled out a surprisingly large—and clearly dead, judging by its stiffness and the amount of pocket fluff stuck to it—segmented fat brown worm with stumpy legs. “He was one of my favorites,” Daphne said sadly. “I used to tell him bedtime stories, and he had his own little house and everything. But he got ill last week after I fed him some cat food. You don’t think I killed him, do you?”

Simon thought that Daphne probably had, but he knew better than to say so. “No, of course not,” he said.

Daphne dropped the ex-Dukey back into her pocket, wiped her arm across her eyes and sniffed. “It was probably Linda. Nasty cow.” With that, the witch grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and trundled out of the kitchen.

Simon followed the procession down the dark corridor toward the front door. Suddenly everyone came to a halt. A door opened and Dorinda came out, a huge towel wrapped precariously around her head.

“Oh, hello, Dorinda,” the Witch Mother said, as though nothing to do with elephant ears had ever happened. “We’re going out. You coming?”

Dorinda gingerly patted her towel and gave a small, brittle smile. “Oh, not tonight, thank you, Witch Mother. I’ve just washed my hair.” And she wandered back into the shadows.

The witches staggered down the corridor and fell out of the front door, screaming with laughter.

From its perch on the doorknocker, the Darke Toad watched its Master go. It waited its statutory Listening Time—five minutes and a little bit more—then it hopped down and set off along the street, following its Master as a Darke Toad must.

7

ALICE AT THE WINDOW

It was two in the morning, and a small, high window on the ground floor of the Customs House still showed a light. Alice Nettles, Chief Customs Officer to the Port, believed in doing her fair share of the late shift, but she was beginning to wish she weren’t quite so evenhanded. A large shipment of brown Wellington boots had come in on the late tide and a dispute had arisen about the classification of the boots (work or domestic use) and consequently which rate of duty applied to them. Alice had settled the argument by impounding the lot, and some half an hour ago had sat down to write her report. It was tedious but it had to be done—tomorrow was another busy day.

Alice was an imposing, businesslike woman, with gray hair and more often than not a stern expression, which she had acquired from her time working as a judge at the Castle. But tonight she looked tired and a little lonely as she sat in the chilly little office with her deep blue Customs Officer robes wrapped around her. She was, to her relief, reaching the conclusion of her report: … inclusion of child-size footwear indicates domestic destination, therefore shipment impounded until the higher rate of duty paid … when she heard yet another disturbance outside.

It had been a noisy night in the Port. All Hallows’ Eve—or Hallowseeth, as it was known—was a festival that was ignored in the Castle but enthusiastically celebrated in the Port. It had kicked off just after midnight, and since then the revelers had done nothing but make a nuisance of themselves, thought Alice. And would continue to do so until dawn. Alice sighed. She wouldn’t mind, but the Customs House had important guests that night in the form of the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and her new Apprentice. Alice dragged her chair over to the window, stood on it and looked out to see what kind of trouble was happening now.

To Alice’s surprise, some foolish people had been brave enough to dress up as the Port Witch Coven. They were obviously performing some kind of comedy routine centered around a wheelbarrow that contained a large box over which they were fighting. Alice tutted under her breath. She hoped the revelers knew what they were doing—it was well known that the Port Witch Coven did not take kindly to being made fun of. Alice watched the performance, which was turning a little violent now as one of the characters—she wasn’t sure which witch he or she was meant to be—had hurled themselves across the box and was kicking another, much taller witch. Alice winced as the taller witch aimed a nasty kick in return that sent the smaller witch sprawling onto the ground. The trouble with Hallowseeth, she thought, was it always got out of hand. It was at times like this that she missed the peace and quiet of the Castle.

Alice was just wondering if she ought to call the Harbor Master for help to break up the fight when she saw something very peculiar. Someone was hanging around the witches dressed as DomDaniel. That, thought Alice, was very rash. (Alice shared the Port Hallowseeth superstition that dressing as a particularly evil human called up bad things for the night.)

Alice watched the witch theater continue. Things had calmed down a little, and they had now opened the box. Three of them were standing around it while the small, chubby witch lay on the ground pretending to cry. Alice’s view began to get obscured by the growing crowd of costumed people who were gathering to watch the show—but not before she saw the three witch figures embark on what looked like a very good imitation of a typical witchy spell, involving a lot of arm waving and jerky dancing around the box.

A party of very tall Grula-Grulas now moved in front of Alice’s line of sight and the show was lost to view. But the crowd of ghouls, black fairies, Chimeras, mummies and a large amount of Gragull (it was easy to look good in a blood-sucking Gragull costume) continued cheering and shouting encouragement, and the noise filled the little office. Alice was about to get down from the stool and find some earplugs when she saw the crowd part to allow the DomDaniel figure through—no one wanted to touch him. Alice shivered. Whoever had been stupid enough to dress up like that had done a good job; it was just how she remembered him. The figure was now out of the crowd and heading toward the Customs House. Alice realized that her lighted window must be shining out like a beacon; she suddenly felt very exposed and fought a desire to duck down and hide.

“Don’t be silly, Alice,” she muttered to herself. “It’s not really him.”

Alice had met DomDaniel in his time as ExtraOrdinary Wizard, and his parting words still invaded her nightmares: “I will see you again, Miss Nettles. Unfortunately for you. Ha ha.” But Alice was determined to tough it out—she was not going to be scared by a Hallowseeth reveler. She watched the figure walk carefully across the cobbles, bright with rain from the recent downpour; she saw a gust of wind take his cloak and wrap it around him; she saw the light flashing from his rings—in particular, the creepy ring with two evil green faces that he always wore on his left thumb; she saw his ringed hand reach up to keep hold of his tall stovepipe hat and she saw his sweaty, excited face shining in the glow of the harborside torches. And when he stopped right beneath the window and his dark green eyes stared straight into hers, Alice went cold.

“It’s him,” she whispered in horror. “Sheesh. It’s the real thing!” Alice leaped off the stool, hurried over to her desk and blew out the candle. Then she collapsed into her chair, shocked.

Alice sat in the dark, trembling. “But how could it be DomDaniel?” she muttered to herself. “He’s dead.” Fighting down her panic, she began to think things through.

Alther Mella had told her that DomDaniel had drowned in the Marram Marshes when his ship, the Vengeance, had sunk some six months ago. Even Alice, who was not much interested in ghosts (apart from Alther) knew enough about things ghostly to understand that this could not be DomDaniel’s ghost, for a ghost must stay in the place where it entered ghosthood for a year and a day. And so any ghost of DomDaniel would still be languishing deep in Marsh mud—and serves it right too, she thought. Besides, wind did not snatch at ghostly cloaks; it blew right through them. The only answer was that somehow DomDaniel had survived the loss of his ship. And now, here he was, back in the Port.

Shaking, Alice got to her feet. She hurried out of her office, across the empty hallway and up the stairs, glancing over her shoulder just in case, somehow, DomDaniel had gotten inside. When Alice reached the upstairs galleried landing, she broke into a run and did not stop until she came to the double doors that led to the guest suite.

Alice paused, suddenly unwilling to disturb Marcia. Suppose she had made a mistake. Suppose it really was just some Hallowseeth reveler. “Come on, Alice,” she told herself firmly. “You know it was him. And Marcia has to know too. Now. Before something awful happens.”

And so Alice, never one to do things by halves, took her Customs House gavel out of her pocket and thumped Marcia’s door. Hard.

8

INVISIBLE

Marcia was on the Port Barge. A shark was slamming against the side, and only she knew why—it was trying to get to Septimus and eat him.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Septimus, who was sleeping in the box room near the door, leaped out of bed and stood at attention with the familiar feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach at the thought of the Do-or-Die night exercise that surely lay ahead. It took him a full minute to remember that he was no longer in the Young Army and that he was actually safe.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Septimus opened his bedroom door and peered out into the entrance lobby, which was dimly lit by a small night candle.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sturdy oak panels of the door shook with the blows—someone was trying to break the door down. Septimus padded across to Marcia’s door but as he reached it, it was thrown open.

“Septimus?” said Marcia, bleary in her purple night robe. “What is going on?”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“There’s someone at the door,” Septimus said, rather unnecessarily.

“Marcia!” a voice called. “Marcia, it’s me, Alice!”

Marcia tugged open the doors. “Alice? Goodness, you look awful. Come in.”

“Marcia. I’m really sorry to wake you but …” Alice glanced over her shoulder, half-afraid that DomDaniel might be lurking in the dark corridor behind her, listening. Alice dropped her voice to a whisper. “DomDaniel’s outside.”

“What?” Marcia gasped.

“Come and see.” Alice took Marcia—with Septimus following—over to the round window on the landing that looked down onto the Quayside. She looked out and her heart sank. The Quayside was packed with even more Hallowseeth revelers, who were gathered excitedly at the water’s edge around the Port Witch Coven show. There was no sign of DomDaniel anywhere.

Alice shook her head. “Oh, I can’t see him. There are so many people.”

Marcia looked down at the bizarre crowd below. She respected Alice Nettles very much indeed, but she could not help but think that Alice had mistaken someone dressed up as DomDaniel. How could she possibly tell the difference in such a muddle of people, and at night, too? Marcia sighed. What unfortunate timing for Septimus’s visit to the Port. Why hadn’t she remembered it was their Hallowseeth?

Alice felt horribly embarrassed. “I am so sorry to wake you up, Marcia. But it really was DomDaniel; I am sure of it. He came right up to my window and stared at me. And he had that ring with those two evil green faces …” Alice shuddered. “It was horrible.”

Marcia saw how shaken Alice was, and she knew that Alice was not given to fanciful imaginings. “Don’t worry, Alice,” she said. “I’ll go down and take a look.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Alice.

“So will I,” said Septimus.

“No, Septimus,” said Marcia. “You will stay here.”

“But I’m your Apprentice now. It’s my job to come with you,” Septimus said.

“Not this time, Septimus. I don’t want you anywhere near that evil old Necromancer. You may watch if you must.”

Marcia hurried back to her room. She put her ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt around her purple night robe, threw her cloak over her shoulders and pulled on her pointy purple python shoes. She was ready.

Marcia and Alice emerged from the Customs House unnoticed. The Quayside was thronged with so many bizarre costumes that no one paid any attention to an ExtraOrdinary Wizard in a night robe. “Over there.” Marcia pointed to the center of activity surrounding the Port Witch Coven. “Something’s going on.”

“It’s some kind of performance, I think,” said Alice. “About the Port Witch Coven.”

The sound of chanting began and the crowd started clapping along in time, vigorously stamping their feet.

“Let’s take a closer look,” said Marcia. “Alther always said that if you found trouble, you would find DomDaniel in the middle of it.”

Alice smiled at the mention of Alther. “Well, that is where DomDaniel was before he came over to my window.”

“There you are, then,” said Marcia. “Let’s go and see.”

The throng was so thick that Marcia and Alice had to skirt around the outside. They passed by the archway that led into Fishguts Twist—a dark and slimy place that smelled of old cabbage. Marcia stopped.

“What is it?” whispered Alice.

Marcia shook her head. Something Darke was nearby, but not as Darke as she would have expected if it were DomDaniel. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Not him?” asked Alice.

“Hmm. Let’s have a look.” Marcia took a small glass ball from her ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt, warmed it in her hand, then, holding it between finger and thumb, she gingerly put her hand into the gloom of the archway. The little ball glowed brightly, and to Marcia’s surprise it showed no shadows of Darke at all—just an old stone bench to their left and ahead the winding, torch-lit alley with its Magykal bookshops, which Marcia was looking forward to visiting with Septimus. Marcia shrugged. “That’s odd,” she said to Alice. “I was sure there was something in here.”

From its hiding place underneath the stone bench, the Darke Toad was keeping out of the way of the heavily booted Port feet. All human feet looked much the same to the Darke Toad—big, ugly and, when they were wearing their foot armor, dangerous. But when a pair of purple pointy python shoes stopped in front of it, the Darke Toad shrank back in fear. These were the most terrifying shoes he had ever seen. The Magyk surrounding them was as strong as the dreadful smell of snake that emanated from them. The Darke Toad quickly backed into the end of a drainpipe and hoped the snakes did not come after it. It waited anxiously until the snakes turned and went away, then it rubbed itself in a convenient pool of slime to get rid of the prickling sensation of Magyk. Five minutes later, its Master found it.

DomDaniel sat down on the stone bench very carefully and heaved a sigh of relief. Despite an unpleasant slipping sensation inside him whenever he moved, his Clothed Bones had worked well enough to allow him to throw up a Darke Screen and do a bit of Selective Invisibility on old Marcia Overstrand—or Nastier Overstrand, as he liked to call her—and that annoying woman she was with. What was her name? Malice Dock Leaf, that was it. Of course, he could have had a showdown if he had wanted to, but he preferred to bide his time. He was planning something rather special for old Nastier and he didn’t want to spoil it.

DomDaniel looked out from the archway, watching the Hallowseeth revelers milling around the harborside. He thought how amusing it would be to make them become what they were dressed as for real—that would show them. He smiled. Maybe next year, when Nastier had been disposed of and he was ExtraOrdinary Wizard once more. But right now he fancied a little nap.

Simon Heap returned with a bag of hot Hallowseeth herrings (a Port delicacy) for his Master—as he’d been instructed—and found him snoring. Simon put the herrings down on the bench and tiptoed away to join the throng. The lure of normal life—or as normal as it got at Hallowseeth in the Port—was irresistible.

9

WORKING THE CROWD

Marcia and Alice pushed their way through the stamping, clapping and highly excited crowd. Marcia was unused to people not making way for her at once. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she repeated irritably, over and over again.

“Oi! Just because you’re dressed like old Bossy Boots doesn’t mean you have to behave like her too,” a giant Bogle Bug remonstrated as Marcia tried to elbow it out of the way. Marcia then found her path to the witches deliberately blocked by the Bogle Bug’s friends—a giant Water Nixie, a luminous Specter and two pink Magogs.

“Stop pushing, will you?” one of the pink Magogs told Marcia. “We can’t all be at the front!”

Marcia resisted the urge to send a self-propelled Sting Bug into the Magog’s costume and doggedly carried on through the throng. She and Alice were heading for a space at the front of the crowd, where an open metal box lay on the edge of the Quay. Around the box—in which a sea of worms wriggled and writhed—were Linda, the Witch Mother, Veronica and Daphne, who had her fists tightly clamped over her eyes.

It was Linda who was running the show—she had the crowd in the palm of her hand and was chanting an Incantation in time to the stamping feet. At the end of each phrase she turned to the crowd and yelled, “Yeah!” which the crowd repeated with gusto. Linda’s eyes shone with exhilaration; with every “Yeah!” the crowd added their energy to the spell. This is going to be massive, Linda thought.

“Let them fly way up high! Yeah!” Linda screamed.

“Yeah!” the crowd yelled in return.

“Let them grow when they go! Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Let what we see no longer be! Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Let them be part of the sea! Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Let them be … gribble!”

There was a sudden, shocked silence.

“Gribble?” a mummy in front of Marcia muttered to its fellow mummy. “But isn’t that one of those worms?”

“Yeah. Er, I mean yes. Ship-eating worms.”

The first mummy laughed. “Hey, Bill, we’re acting like it’s real.”

Bill-the-Mummy laughed uneasily. “Felt like it,” he said.

Linda had forgotten she was in the middle of a crowd of people who were closely connected with all things maritime. Almost every person on that Quay knew what gribble worms were—little marine worms that ate their way through ships’ timbers in no time at all. A ship could set off from Port with a few gribbles buried in its timbers and a couple of weeks later disappear into the ocean, leaving nothing more than a froth of wood dust on the surface of the water.

But Linda was no fool; she sensed that the crowd was turning against her. The Incantation needed time to brew—there were thousands of worms to turn—and Linda knew she had to get the crowd back on her side for at least another two minutes.

“But hey, guys, we don’t want to do that—do we?” she yelled.

“No!” a few uncertain shouts came in reply.

“We want to have fun!” Linda shouted, frantically jumping up and down and grinning so hard that she thought her face might crack. “Hey! And that’s what we are going to do. Fun! Yeah?”

It worked.

“Yeah!” yelled the crowd.

This was too much for Daphne. She turned to the crowd and screamed out, “But it’s not fun. It’s not. I hate you, Linda. I hate you all!”

Linda—once a supremely accomplished playground bully—recognized an opportunity. “Ooh,” she said. “She hates us. Ooh.”

“Ooh,” those in the crowd who had not been bullied echoed obligingly.

“Perhaps I should turn her into a gribble?”

“Yeah!” someone yelled from the back. “Gribble!”

Linda reckoned she was getting the crowd back on her side. “She’d like that,” she said. “She’d like it in there, wriggling around with her slimy little friends.” Linda pointed to the box at her feet, which was now, to her relief, glowing a bright orange and hissing. She grabbed Daphne by the collar and asked the audience, “So, what do you say—shall I turn this moaning little worm into a gribble?”

The audience sensed some fun was on the way. “Yeah!” more people shouted. “Yeah! Turn her into a gribble!” A chant began to build. “Grib-ull, grib-ull, grib-ull!”

Daphne looked horrified. She wrenched herself away from Linda and ran. The crowd parted to make way for her exit and Daphne cannoned straight into Marcia. There was a roar of laughter.

“Brilliant timing!” said someone. “Absolutely brilliant.”

Marcia winced as Daphne’s sticky witch cloak brushed against the Magyk in her own cloak.

“These witches are very realistic,” Alice shouted to Marcia over the noise.

“They’re more than realistic, Alice,” Marcia shouted back. “They’re real.”

“Real?” Alice yelled. “Really real?”

“There’s a witchy Darkenesse in the air you could cut with a knife,” said Marcia.

“But Marcia, if they’re real, then what they are doing is real too,” Alice said.

“I would imagine so,” Marcia said drily. With Alice at her heels, Marcia moved rapidly through the cleared space and headed toward Linda, who was now working her audience into a frenzy.

“What do we want?” Linda was shouting.

“Grib-ull, grib-ull!” everyone yelled.

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

To the delight of the crowd Marcia, backed up by Alice, was now face-to-face with Linda. “Hey, Wizard and witch fight!” someone yelled.

The call was quickly taken up: “Wizard and witch! Fight! Fight! Fight! Wizard and witch! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“Quiet!” Linda yelled—and such was her crowd control that she got it at once. “Gribble first—then fight! Yeah?”

“Yeah!” yelled the crowd. “Gribble first! Then fight!”

Eyeing the suspiciously glowing box of woodworms, Marcia waited until the noise had died away enough for her to be heard. Then she took a deep breath and yelled, “Port Witch Coven! I command you to stop. Now!”

“Spoilsport!” came a shout from the crowd, and it was quickly taken up into a chant. “Spo-il-sport! Spo-il-sport! Spo-il-sport!”

Linda laughed and Marcia felt horribly uncomfortable. She had forgotten how much she had come to rely on the respect people automatically gave her as ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Suddenly she was just another Hallowseeth reveler in a dodgy costume—and it was a shock.

Eager to see what was happening, people began to push past Marcia and Alice, who were quickly edged out of the space around the witches. Marcia lost patience. With the help of a few well-judged Pushes, she emerged into the clearing. In front of her sat the box—from which emanated a powerful, crowd-fueled Magyk—now alive with writhing woodworms glowing brilliant red. Linda and the Witch Mother were staring into the contents, willing them to do something fast.

Veronica saw Marcia coming. “Pigs!” she said. “It’s the pigging ExtraOrdinary Wizard!”

“It’s only some idiot in a purple nightie, stupid,” snapped Linda.

But the Witch Mother knew Marcia from way back. “No, it’s not,” she snapped. “Quick, Linda. Do it!”

Linda became flustered. “It’s done, you stupid old trout,” she hissed. “We just have to wait for it to—”

Marcia was upon them.

“Pig off!” yelled Linda.

Marcia hurled a Freeze Flash at them.

It was too late. Its energy was diverted into the witches’ Magyk and it triggered the spell. There was a deafening boom that resonated all around the harborside. The crowd screamed in excitement, Daphne’s box erupted in a blaze of light and a stream of brilliant red stars whooshed into the sky. All eyes followed them as they rose up and up, and then with a faint pfut broke into myriad pinpoints of light that rained gently down and settled daintily onto the ships. A roar of appreciation came from the crowd, followed by riotous applause.

“Jolly good,” Linda said to the Witch Mother. “The rats will be jumping ship soon. Now, girls, lose yourselves in the crowd before anyone realizes what’s going on. Remember, I want a kid small enough to fit up the sewer pipe. It so needs unblocking. Ha ha.”

“Stop right there!” said Marcia.

“Oh stuff off,” Linda snarled, and pushed past Marcia. Marcia swung around and threw a long, low Trip-Up that went curling around Linda’s feet, sending the witch sprawling onto the wet cobblestones. Linda burst out laughing. “Too late!” she yelled. “Too pigging late!”

A shriek from Alice Nettles took Marcia’s attention away from the witches.

“Oh my goodness,” gasped Marcia. The ships were melting.

10

GRIBBLES

A horrified silence fell across the harborside as the crowd watched the masts of the three ships that had been directly beneath the cascade of stars rapidly crumble into nothing. It took many long, shocked seconds for the assorted Specters, Bogle Bugs, mummies, Grula-Grulas, Chimeras and Gragull to understand that this was actually happening for real. But as the Quayside reverberated to the hollow thud of sails and ropes falling onto decks, then the long, slow crunching sound of decks folding in under their weight like wet paper bags, people at last began to react. They rushed toward the ships and began urging the sailors to jump. Many hurried off to the Chandlery to fetch ropes and life buoys. A party of young Specters bravely leaped into the water and began hauling out anyone they could find.

Screams of “Abandon ship!” filled the harbor as the collapse began to spread along the line of ships. Masts fell like ninepins and hulls caved in like eggshells. The Harbor Master, festooned with life buoys, hurried along the Quayside, hurling them into the water, which was now dark with debris and full of struggling sailors, many of whom could not swim.

In the chaos, Daphne sneaked back to retrieve her empty woodworm box. She carefully put it in the wheelbarrow and headed toward Fishguts Twist. Daphne could take no more; she was going home. However, when she reached the stone bench where DomDaniel was slumped with his mouth open, snoring, the sight of the bag of Hallowseeth herrings was too much of a temptation. Daphne sat down and began to crunch her way through the now-cold, but still deliciously salty, little fish—heads and all. Daphne was not a delicate eater, and the noisy sucking of fish bones invaded DomDaniel’s dreams and woke him up.

Daphne tipped the remaining herring scales into her mouth, screwed up the bag and threw it angrily at a passing crocodile with an ax in its head. “I hate her,” she said.

“The crocodile?” DomDaniel asked blearily.

“No, Linda. She killed all my lovely woodworms. She’s a cow.”

For some reason DomDaniel liked Daphne. It was an odd feeling to like someone, and DomDaniel did not intend to encourage it. But he put his hand into his old cloak pocket and took out a miniature silver box inlaid with onyx. “Have you still got Dukey?” he asked.

Daphne looked stunned. “How do you know about Dukey?”

DomDaniel smiled, his lips slipping over his teeth like skin on cold custard. “I make it my business to hear what’s going on,” he said.

“Yes, I’ve still got Dukey,” whispered Daphne.

“Well, then, let’s see him.”

Bewildered, Daphne took Dukey out of her pocket. DomDaniel inspected the fat worm covered in fluff. “He’ll fit,” he said. Then he flicked the lid off the silver box, revealing a brilliant blue interior that shone like a jewel. “Drop him in there,” he told Daphne.

Dazed at such attention from the great DomDaniel, Daphne dropped her last, precious and very dead woodworm into the box. DomDaniel snapped the lid shut. “Keep it closed for twenty-four hours,” he told Daphne. “Then when you open it you will have an endless supply. You’ll soon get your colony back.”

Daphne stared at the little silver box in amazement. “Th-thank you,” she stammered.

“Don’t mention it,” said DomDaniel.

Daphne understood. “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

Daphne and DomDaniel sat in companionable silence, Daphne smiling with sheer happiness, DomDaniel worrying about why he felt as though his skin was about to fall off.

While peace descended into the shadows at the entrance to Fishguts Twist, pandemonium still reigned in the harbor. The Quayside swarmed with all kinds of creatures carrying ropes and floats and hurling them into the harbor. Some were braving the gribble worms and jumping into their own rowboats in desperate attempts to reach sailors struggling in the water. Not all rowboats made it back safely. Marcia directed her energies to Reviving those sailors who were brought out of the water half—or sometimes fully—drowned. If she got to them within three minutes of drowning, she knew she had a chance of saving them.

Simon worked hard too. Unnoticed in the melee he pulled sailors from the water and he even delivered one to Marcia without her recognizing him. Simon was near exhaustion when he caught sight of a young boy clinging on to a spar that was rapidly disappearing under gribble attack. He dived into the sludge floating on the surface of the water and pulled the boy to safety. As he helped the shivering, red-haired boy up the steps, a woman’s voice said, “Ah, poor dearie. Let me take him, Simon Heap.” Shattered, he handed the boy over. It was only some minutes later when he had recovered his breath that it occurred to Simon to wonder how the woman had known his name.

From the window in the Customs House, Septimus had watched the unfolding drama—at first with excitement at the beautiful display of lights and then, when he realized that a disaster was taking place, with frustration that he could not be down there, doing something. But he remembered what Marcia had told him and he dutifully stayed where he was.

It was when Septimus saw three vicious-looking women in witches’ cloaks dragging away a struggling, half-drowned boy, that he could stand it no more. And when the boy saw him in the window and yelled, “Help me!” Septimus was off. He threw on his Apprentice cloak, buckled up his Apprentice belt and hurtled down the stairs. But by the time he got outside, the boy and the witches were gone.

Marcia’s final Revive had worked. The sailor sat up and groaned. “You’ll be okay,” she told him, helping him to his feet.

“I’ll get him along to the Harbor Master’s,” said Alice. “They’re opening the emergency bunkhouse out the back.”

Marcia watched Alice help the bedraggled sailor slowly across the Quayside. She turned and looked at the harbor. The water reminded her of one of Aunt Zelda’s stews—thick, brown and full of white stringy things. It was, in fact, now more of a rubbish dump than a harbor. The remains of thirteen ships—mainly a tangle of ropes, sails and fishing nets—floated in a thick scum of gribble-digested wood dust. A somber crowd of Port people had gathered and were hugging one another in dismay. Not only were all thirteen ships gone, but the harbor itself was now unusable. Below the watery sludge lay the ironwork from thirteen ships piled onto the harbor bottom, along with, they feared, the remains of more than a few drowned sailors. Marcia joined the onlookers. She felt powerless to do anything to help. No Magyk could help the drowned now, or restore the ships. Marcia shook her head in dismay—the Port Witch Coven had done a terrible thing.

Suddenly she heard a voice calling, “Marcia!” She spun around to see Septimus racing toward her. “Septimus, I told you to stay inside,” she said, trying—unsuccessfully—to be stern and not show how pleased she was to see him.

“I’m sorry,” said Septimus, “but the witches … they …” He stopped to catch his breath.

“I know,” said Marcia. “It’s awful.”

“They … kidnapped a boy.”

Now at last there was something Marcia could actually stop them doing. “Right, let’s get them,” she said. “Which way did they go?”

Septimus pointed toward Fishguts Twist. “Up there. I think.”

They stopped by an empty bench at the mouth of Fishguts Twist. The alleyway had numerous branches off it—or dives, as they were called in the Port.

Septimus eyed the dives despondently. “But they could have gone down any of those,” he said.

Marcia was unwilling to give up. “So we’ll just have to take our chances.”

It was at that moment that the Darke Toad’s Listening Time was up. It hopped out from the drainpipe and the movement caught Septimus’s eye. “Oh!” he said. “It’s a toad.” To Marcia’s disgust Septimus squatted down and picked it up. The toad sat in his hand and stared balefully at him. Septimus stared back, remembering a rude rhyme about DomDaniel they used to whisper in the Young Army:

If you want to know where DomDaniel sat,

Go where it smells of rotting cat.

If you want to know where DomDaniel’s gone,

Find a fat toad and you won’t go wrong.

Because wherever he goes

There is always a toad.

Just follow the toad in the road.

The Darke Toad shifted uncomfortably on Septimus’s hand. It didn’t like the feel of human warmth one bit.

“Put that horrible thing down, Septimus,” said Marcia. “You don’t know where it’s been.”

“But I do know where it’s been,” said Septimus.

“Up some disgusting drainpipe, no doubt. Put it down.”

“It’s been with DomDaniel,” said Septimus.

There was something about Septimus’s certainty that made Marcia take notice. “Really?” she said.

“I reckon,” said Septimus, raising his hand to his face so that he and the toad were eyeballing each other, “that this is a Darke Toad.”

“Most Port toads have some Darke in them,” said Marcia. “We have the Port Witch Coven to thank for that.”

“But this is a DomDaniel toad,” said Septimus. “I’m sure it is.”

Marcia looked puzzled. “How do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, they used to say that DomDaniel always took a toad with him when he went anywhere. When he left, he’d leave it there as a sort of spy. The toad would hang around for, er—” Septimus trawled his photographic memory and scrolled down page three of his old Young Army Memory Book. “It was 5.71666666666667 minutes, I think, to listen to what people said about DomDaniel after he left, then the toad would catch up with him and tell him. It got a lot of people into big trouble. When I was in the Young Army we were taught to recognize a DomDaniel toad. And not stamp on it. Ever. We had signs stuck up in the barracks saying Respect the Toad.”

“So you mean that this one will hop off now and tell DomDaniel what we’ve been saying?” asked Marcia.

“I reckon so,” said Septimus.

“Well, it can tell him from me that I know he’s at the bottom of this and he is not getting away with it. It can tell him from me that I’m coming to get him.”

But it was not DomDaniel who concerned Septimus; it was the Port Witch Coven. “Marcia, Alice Nettles said that DomDaniel was with the Port Witch Coven, didn’t she?”

“Well, yes, she did. I must admit, Septimus, I did think she was mistaken, but maybe she was right after all. Well, there’s only one way to find out. Let the toad go and we’ll follow it.”

Septimus put the toad onto the ground and it quickly hopped away. “Just follow the toad in the road,” he murmured.

Marcia looked at her Apprentice quizzically. “Another Young Army rhyme?” she asked.

“Well …” Septimus always felt reluctant to admit to remembering anything from the Young Army. It felt somehow disloyal to Marcia.

But Marcia was not concerned at all. She smiled. “There was a surprising amount of sense in some of their rhymes,” she said, “Come on, Septimus, let’s go.”

11

FOLLOW THE TOAD

Jakey Fry—only ten or possibly eleven years old, he was not sure which—was terrified. Jakey knew enough about witches to know he was in big trouble. A witch had him in her Grasp, her long black fingernails felt as though they were drilling into his shoulder, and no matter how loud he tried to yell, he could make no sound. In front of him was a witch with a cracked white face, who walked on spikes and was leaning on another weird witch with a cone of hair stuck on her head. Behind him was a witch pushing a wheelbarrow that kept jabbing into the back of his legs. And behind her was something really horrible that Jakey couldn’t see, even though he knew it was there. The only person who looked kind of normal was a young man in an old black cloak who was hurrying along behind the wheelbarrow witch; but every time Jakey looked back and tried to catch his eye, the young man looked away. Jakey knew that look well enough. He’d seen it on people’s faces when his father—the notorious Skipper Fry—shouted at him in the street. It was the I-don’t-want-to-get-involved face. He’d find no help there. Jakey knew he was on his own.

Jakey was so scared that his legs kept giving way beneath him, but the witch who had her fingers dug into his shoulder didn’t care. She had dragged him halfway along Fishguts Twist, down Spider Slide, through the Dripping Duck and out into a run-down road called The Shambles, which Jakey knew very well indeed. As they went past the lodging house where he lived with his father, Jakey stared desperately up at the dark window, hoping that maybe Skipper Fry was looking out for him. But he knew his father would never do that—he didn’t want his son at home. Jakey had to earn his keep as a ship’s rat and as soon as he arrived back in the Port his father always signed him up for another voyage.

As Jakey was dragged past the battered front door of the lodging house he gave a silent sob. No one would ever know what had really happened to him—everyone would assume he had drowned in the harbor that night. For Jakey understood that whatever the witches had planned for him, he was not going to survive it.

A few streets away from Jakey, pursued by two purple snakes bristling with sharp, bright Magyk, the Darke Toad was moving fast. It hurried past the bookshops on Fishguts Twist longing to catch up with its Master, who would surely make short work of the snakes. Hoping to put them off its trail, the Darke Toad delayed its turn into Spider Slide until the very last minute and then shot into its shadows. The ploy very nearly worked. Marcia hurried by, but Septimus was not fooled. He dived into the Slide, and Marcia, realizing what had happened, followed him.

Spider Slide was so narrow that they had to go in single file. “You stay in front, Septimus,” said Marcia. “That way I can make sure you’re okay. There are some strange people around here at night.”

Septimus felt glad of Marcia’s protection and tried not to think about how scared the kidnapped boy must be, out there on his own.

The Darke Toad now headed toward one of its favorite places, a dank, covered way known as the Dripping Duck. The Dripping Duck was well named—its dripping roof was so low that Marcia had to duck, and the ground was covered in thick slime. As they emerged into the fresh air, Marcia inspected her shoes with a sigh. They were never going to be the same.

Septimus and Marcia now found themselves on The Shambles. At the far end Septimus’s keen eyesight picked out a small, round figure with a wheelbarrow rapidly disappearing around the corner. “There they are!” he said excitedly.

“Are you sure?” asked Marcia, peering along the empty street.

“Yes. I saw the little one with the wheelbarrow.”

“Aha, the wheelbarrow.”

The Darke Toad sped up. Marcia and Septimus hurried along behind it and saw it hop around the corner at the end of the street. At the corner Marcia signaled to Septimus to wait. She peered around, and to her surprise, the witches and the boy were no more than a few yards away, with the witches engaged in a furious—yet oddly silent—argument.

Marcia backtracked and bumped into Septimus. “You’re right,” she whispered. “It’s them.”

“Is the boy there?” asked Septimus.

“Yes.”

“So why are we waiting? We have to help him!”

“Shh!” shushed Marcia. “Septimus, I want you to stay here. I didn’t see DomDaniel but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s done some kind of Invisibility. I don’t want him to know you are here. You know that the reason you ended up in the Young Army was because he wanted you for his Apprentice. If Alice is right and he is actually alive, then he is a danger to you. He may still want you as his Apprentice. Understand?”

“But the boy,” Septimus protested. “I have to rescue him!” He thought of all the times in the Young Army when he had dreamed that someone would come and rescue him, but no one ever had. And now he had a chance to help another boy who Septimus just knew was feeling just like he had—and Marcia wasn’t going to let him do it.

Marcia was afraid that Septimus would take off at any moment and run straight into the clutches of DomDaniel. She looked him in the eye and held his gaze. “Septimus, you are my Apprentice and you have to trust me. We must act together as a team. You have done your part of the rescue and now I have to do mine. That is how it works. Okay?”

Septimus could only nod in reply. He felt really upset.

“Good. Now you stay right here. I do not want DomDaniel to have the slightest suspicion that you are here. I will be back as soon as I can and I promise you that I will be bringing the boy with me.”

“Okay,” Septimus said reluctantly.

“Well done.” Marcia set off purposefully around the corner. She had made a promise to her Apprentice and she was determined to keep it.

12

GOLDFISH

DomDaniel saw Marcia coming and scuttled into the shadows of a nearby doorway. Invisible or not, he was taking no chances. Invisibility is not a reliable state, particularly between Wizards—and even more so between ExtraOrdinary Wizards. And Selective Invisibility is even more unreliable.

Marcia was not fooled. She saw the dim shape in the doorway with its familiar stovepipe hat, she saw the glint of the Two-Faced Ring—which she knew was almost impossible to make Invisible—and the Darke Toad sitting fat and gulping on the doorstep and she knew for sure that Alice was right. DomDaniel was here. But Marcia paid him no attention; the only thing that mattered to her right then was her promise to Septimus. She had to rescue the kidnapped boy—and fast. She had a feeling that Septimus was not going to wait around the corner for long.

Marcia’s mission was made easier by the fact that the four witches did not notice her approach—they were still immersed in their silent argument. This had begun when they had emerged from the Dripping Duck, and Linda had laid claim to Jakey as her personal servant to do with what she wanted. The Witch Mother had disagreed, saying he was for the use of the Coven, but Linda was having none of it—she had gotten the boy first, and the boy was hers. So there. The argument had escalated along The Shambles, and as they had rounded the corner into Fore Street it had become a full-blown fight. Veronica had taken Linda’s side because she was too scared to do otherwise. Daphne, who now regarded Linda as a mass murderer of woodworms, took the Witch Mother’s side. Linda had Thrown the first Silent Spell at the Witch Mother, who retaliated fast. This was followed by Daphne and Veronica throwing a Silent at each other at exactly the same time. Now all four witches were Silent.

It did not take Marcia long to realize what had happened. A nickname for the Silent spell is the “Goldfish,” due to the way those under the spell try to shout ever louder and, goldfish like, open and close their mouths with no sound emerging. And right then the four witches—plus the unfortunate Jakey Fry, who had had a Silent put on him the moment Simon had handed him over—looked like an unhappy fish family recently thrown out of their bowl.

At Marcia’s appearance a brief glimmer of hope flashed across Jakey’s face. Linda leaped into action. Yelling foul Silent words, she lunged at Marcia, dragging with her Jakey, who was still in her Grasp.

Marcia easily sidestepped the attack. “Now, now, Linda, there is no need to swear,” she said. (Like all Wizards, Marcia could lip-read). “If you behave nicely and take your Grasp off this boy I might, possibly, Reverse the Silent for you.”

We don’t need your help, you stupid cow! Linda’s mouth opened and closed Silently. We’ve got a much more powerful Wizard than you.

So there with knobs on! Veronica yelled Silently.

“That would be the powerful Wizard who is hiding in the doorway, too scared to show himself, would it?” Marcia asked coolly.

DomDaniel decided to leave before things got worse. He slunk out of the doorway and headed along Fore Street to look for Simon, who he had sent on ahead to find “a decent horse, Heap, to get us home.”

Marcia watched the departing Darke shape with a feeling of relief—Septimus was safe. She turned to Linda and told her, “I’ll give you three seconds to take your Grasp off the boy. If you do not, I shall Remove it. The Wizard code requires me to warn you that a forced Remove may lead to some personal damage.”

You pigging purple cow! Linda yelled Silently.

“One second, two seconds, three se—”

Linda dropped her Grasp.

Jakey Fry gaped at Marcia in astonishment—the Wizard woman had rescued him. Tears of gratitude pricked the inside of his eyelids. Thank you, he mouthed, forgetting he was Silent.

“You are very welcome,” said Marcia.

Linda gave Marcia a sharp nudge in the ribs. What about your promise, then? she asked, pointing to her mouth.

“I promised nothing,” said Marcia.

Yes, you did, you lying old bat! yelled Linda.

Marcia turned her back on the witch and said to Jakey Fry, “Let’s get you talking again, shall we?”

Linda positioned herself very close to Marcia, waiting for her to work her way through the Silent Reverse.

Marcia finished with, “What’s done is done, by all or one, I now set you free.” She threw a small ball of light in the air, it whizzed around Jakey’s head, touched him on the mouth and Jakey laughed out loud—it tickled. Quick as a flash, Linda’s hand snatched the ball out of the air and touched her own mouth with it. “Got it!” she crowed. “Not as clever as you thought, are you?”

Marcia said nothing. The Witch Mother grabbed the ball from Linda; a fight to be next erupted between Daphne and Veronica, and Marcia hurried Jakey away. As they disappeared around the corner, a barrage of swearing erupted behind them.

Septimus was waiting anxiously. At the sight of Marcia with Jakey he broke into a broad grin. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked Jakey.

“Yeah,” Jakey muttered. And then, in case the Wizard woman decided to take him prisoner for herself, he took off along The Shambles at top speed.

Marcia and Septimus watched the spindly figure of Jakey Fry hurtle away from them. They saw him skid to a halt outside one of the more decrepit lodging houses, throw himself against the front door and disappear inside.

Jakey raced up to the room he called home to find—to his relief—that his father was not there. From the window he watched his purple rescuer and the boy who had asked if he was okay coming along the street. As they passed under his window the Wizard woman looked up and smiled at him—and suddenly Jakey realized who she was. A smile spread over his face. He couldn’t be as rubbish as his father kept telling him he was. He must be worth something if the ExtraOrdinary Wizard from the Castle had bothered to set him—Jakey Fry, lowly ship’s rat—free.

13

TRUTH

Heading for home, the witches hurried along Fore Street and caught up with DomDaniel and the Darke Toad.

“Give me the Darke Toad and then push off, you old bag of bones,” the Witch Mother said to DomDaniel.

DomDaniel and the other witches looked shocked. The Witch Mother looked horrified. “Did I just say that?” she asked.

“Yes, you smelly old haddock, you did,” said the normally timid Daphne.

“Daphne!” said Linda. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

“And mine,” said Veronica. She laughed. “Witch Mother, you look like a cracked old teacup with that stupid white stuff on your face.”

“Or the fungus under the sink.” Daphne giggled.

The witches stared at one another in horror—they were all saying exactly what they were thinking.

The sound of hooves clip-clopping toward them heralded Simon’s return. He was leading a big, beautiful black horse, which he had found in a tiny, filthy and unlocked stable. Simon, who still had some scruples, had left a crown (the standard price for a horse) plus a silver sixpence for the saddle and bridle.

DomDaniel looked at the horse approvingly. “Very nice,” he said. “Time to go. I’ll take the horse, Heap. You’ll be walking.”

“Not for long, you slimy old basket.” The Witch Mother laughed.

“What did you say?” demanded DomDaniel.

“You heard,” snapped the Witch Mother. “Hand over the Darke Toad, you weasel-eyed stoat face.”

DomDaniel was used to the Witch Mother being rude to him. It had once been something he had liked about her, but now he thought she was going a bit far. “I have not forgotten that the Darke Toad was part of our bargain, Pamela,” he said stiffly. He bent down very slowly—he hated the way he could feel skin and fat slipping over his bones—and picked up the toad.

The Witch Mother looked longingly at the Darke Toad as it sat gulping and blinking on DomDaniel’s very squishy palm.

“Give it to me,” she said. “Hurry up!”

DomDaniel frowned—he would have liked to refuse but a Darke bargain must be kept. Grumpily, he dropped the toad into the Witch Mother’s outstretched hand.

“Say the words,” snapped the Witch Mother.

“Say the words, please,” DomDaniel said peevishly.

“Oh, get on with it, fatso,” snapped the Witch Mother.

DomDaniel looked very annoyed. If he hadn’t suddenly felt unpleasantly itchy he would have said something equally rude in return. But all he wanted to do was get away from the witches and have a good scratch. “Madam, I assign to you all rights to this Darke Toad. May its Darkenesse follow you for all your days. So be it. Ooof.” DomDaniel could stand it no longer. He found a particularly itchy spot on his stomach and gave it a surreptitious scratch.

The Witch Mother cradled the Darke Toad in her hands. “Toady-woady,” she cooed.

“I’ll be off now,” said DomDaniel. He felt as though his skin were crawling with ants.

“Good riddance, you smelly old slime bucket,” returned the Witch Mother. “Come on, girls. Home. Oh, and Daphne, give Heap the wheelbarrow.”

“Why?” asked Daphne.

“Because those Clothed Bones won’t last much longer. Ha ha!”

DomDaniel could bear the itching no more. “What”—scratch—“do you”—scratch-scritch-scratch—“mean?”

The Witch Mother laughed. “You vain old lump of gristle, don’t you realize? We’re rubbish at stuff like that. There’s no way we could make a spell that powerful permanent, not even with Cowan blood. In fact, I am amazed it has lasted as long as it has. Ha!” She poked DomDaniel in the chest and her finger sank deep into his robe. “Eurgh, that is not nice.”

DomDaniel stared down at the hole in his chest. He looked up at the Witch Mother in shock as, like a crumpling balloon, his cloak caved in and the remains of the witches’ Clothing Bones spell evaporated. DomDaniel emitted a long, low groan, his legs folded out from under him and he collapsed into a heap on the road.

“You tricked me!” his—still Clothed—head screamed.

“Yes, we did. Serves you right, you smarmy little snake,” said the Witch Mother.

Linda was astonished. “You tell him, Witch Mother. I must say, I’m impressed. You’re not as utterly pathetic as you look.”

The Witch Mother pointedly ignored Linda. She turned to Veronica and Daphne and said, “Unlike Linda. Who is as completely vile as she looks.”

Daphne and Veronica laughed with delight. “Yeah. Vile!” they chorused.

Linda was speechless with fury.

The Witch Mother chuckled—she was back in control of her Coven. She held up the Darke Toad and smiled. A lump of white makeup fell onto DomDaniel’s head, once more atop a pile of bones. The Witch Mother stared down at the head. “No one will mess with us now,” she said. “Not even you.”

DomDaniel hurled the worst Darke swear words possible at the departing Coven, but they took no notice as they followed the Witch Mother up the street, a line of mismatched chicks trailing after their mother hen.

With gritted teeth Simon picked up the bones and put them into the wheelbarrow, carefully balancing the head on top while DomDaniel swore at him. Simon patted the horse’s nose and wondered whether he should let him go. He decided to leave the decision to the horse.

“Thunder,” he whispered—for that had been the name scrawled over the stable door—“you can follow me if you want to. It’s a long way, but I’ll look after you, I promise.” The horse pawed at the ground and sniffed the early morning air. The sun would soon rise, and he wanted to be off and away from the dark and cramped stable.

As the night sky began to lighten, Fore Street echoed to the clip-clop, clip-clop of Thunder’s hooves and the plaintive eek-eek, eek-eek of a squeaky wheel as Simon pushed the wheelbarrow and its contents along the pavement. At the end of Fore Street the wheel fell off the barrow and DomDaniel’s head rolled onto the street. “Put me on the horse, you dithering idiot,” it snarled.

Simon had had enough insults for the night. “All right,” he said. “I will.” In one seamless, angry movement, he threw off his cloak, caught the head and the UnClothed bones up into it, bundled them up into a ball and slung it onto the horse. Then he swung himself into the saddle and rode off toward the dawn, heading along the track that wound through the dunes and would take him across the Sheeplands, up into the Badlands and back to the dark, dank Observatory.

From its new home on the doorknocker of the Port Witch Coven, the Darke Toad blinked and watched them go.

Septimus and Marcia emerged from Fishguts Twist onto the deserted harbor front. A somber atmosphere hung over the harbor, and a few people were sitting mournfully on the harbor wall, staring at the dark water, thick with wreckage. The Harbor Master’s house was a blaze of lights as the surviving sailors bunked down for what remained of the night.

Marcia closed the thick oak door of the Customs House with a quiet thunk. She and Septimus headed across the entrance hall and up the wide stone stairs to the guest quarters.

“It was very nice of you to reverse the witches’ Silent,” said Septimus as Marcia Lit a nightlight and gave it to Septimus to take into his room.

“Not as nice as you might think,” Marcia said, smiling.

“Oh?”

“It had a twenty-four-hour Think Speak on it.”

Septimus laughed. “You mean they will have to say exactly what they are thinking for the next twenty-four hours?”

“They will indeed,” said Marcia. “That will make life rather interesting, I should imagine. Now, Septimus, off to bed. That’s enough excitement for one night.”

Septimus yawned. He reckoned Marcia was right. “Good night,” he said. And then, “That boy … why did he run away from us? We were only trying to help him.”

“I seem to remember another boy who wanted to run away, not so long ago,” said Marcia. “It took him a while to realize that I wanted to help too.”

“What boy?” asked Septimus. And then he realized that Marcia meant him. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

“Good night, Septimus,” said Marcia, smiling. “Sleep well.”

“I will,” said Septimus.

EXCERPT FROM FYRE

The Magykal series by Angie Sage concludes with Fyre—more funny and fantastical adventures reuniting the entire Septimus Heap cast, and with one last powerful incantation:

May Magyk be with you,

May you soar high in Flyte.

May Physik guide you and

Queste be your goal.

May Syren not find you,

May Darke be behind you,

May you always have Fyre in your soul.

Read on for a sneak peek at Fyre, the stunning finale to the Septimus Heap series!

1

WHAT LIES BENEATH

In the Vaults of the Manuscriptorium, The Live Plan of What Lies Beneath was unrolled on a large table. Lit by a bright lantern that hung above the table, the large and fragile sheet of opalescent Magykal paper lay weighted down by standard Manuscriptorium paperweights—squares of lead backed with blue felt. The Live Plan of What Lies Beneath was a map of all the Ice Tunnels that ran below the Castle—apart from the section that traveled out to the Isles of Syren. As its name suggested, the Live Plan was a little more than just a plan. Magykally, it showed what was happening in the Ice Tunnels at that very moment.

Gathered around it were the new Chief Hermetic Scribe, O. Beetle Beetle; Romilly Badger, the Inspection Clerk; and Partridge, the new Scribe of Maps. If you had walked into the Vaults at that moment it would not have been clear who actually was the Chief Hermetic Scribe. Beetle’s long blue-and-gold coat of office had been banished to a nearby hook because its gold-banded sleeves scratched the delicate Live Plan and he was wearing his comfortable old Admiral’s jacket, which kept out the chill of the Vaults. With his dark hair flopping forward over his eyes, Beetle looked very much at home as he leaned over the Live Plan, concentrating hard.

Suddenly Romilly—a slight girl with light brown hair and what Partridge thought was a cute, goofy smile—squeaked with excitement. A faint luminous splodge was moving along a wide tunnel below the Palace.

“Well spotted,” said Beetle. “Ice Wraiths are not easy to see. I reckon that’s Moaning Hilda.”

“There’s another one!” Romilly was on a roll. “Ooh … and look, what’s that?” Her finger stabbed at a tiny shadow near the old Great Chamber of Alchemie and Physik.

Partridge was impressed. There was a minuscule blip at the end of Romilly’s finger. “Is that an Ice Wraith too?” he asked.

Beetle peered closer. “No, it’s too shadowy. And slow. Look—it is hardly moving at all compared to Moaning Hilda, who is way over there now. And it is too well defined; you can see it actually has a shape.”

Romilly was puzzled. “Like a person, you mean?”

“Yes,” said Beetle. “Just like a—bother!”

“It’s gone,” said Romilly sadly. “That’s a shame. It can’t have been a person then, can it? Someone can’t suddenly disappear. It must have been a ghost.”

Beetle shook his head; it was too solid for a ghost. But the Live Plan was telling him that all the Ice Tunnel hatches remained Sealed, so there was nowhere the person could have gone. Only a ghost could disappear from the middle of an Ice Tunnel like that.

“Weird,” he said. “I could have sworn that was human.”

It was human—a human named Marcellus Pye.

Marcellus Pye, recently reinstated Castle Alchemist, had just dropped down through a hatch at the bottom of an unmapped shaft, which went close enough to an Ice Tunnel to show on the Live Plan. As soon as he was through the hatch Marcellus knew he was safe—the Live Plan did not show anything lower than this level.

A pole with foot-bars led down from the hatch and Marcellus climbed down it with his eyes closed. He reached a flimsy metal platform and stood, not daring to open his eyes, not believing that after nearly five hundred years he was back in the Chamber of Fyre.

However, Marcellus did not need to open his eyes to know where he was. A familiar metallic sweetness that found its way to the back of his tongue told him he was back home, and brought with it a flood of memories—the tear that had run up from the base of the Cauldron, the sharp crack of the splitting Fyre rods and the heat of the Fyre as it spun out of control. Swarms of Drummins working ceaselessly, trying to contain the damage. The smell of burning rock as the flames spread beneath the Castle, setting the old timber houses alight. The panic, the fear as the Castle threatened to become a raging inferno. Marcellus remembered it all. He prepared himself for a scene of terrible devastation, took a deep breath and decided to open his eyes on the count of three.

One … two … three!

A jolt of surprise ran through him—it was as if nothing had happened. Marcellus had expected black soot to cover everything, but there was none—quite the reverse. Illuminated by the neatly placed Fyre Globes, which still burned with their everlasting flames, the metal platform shone. Marcellus picked up a Fyre Globe, cupping it in his hands. Marcellus smiled. The flame inside the ball licked against the glass where his hands touched it, like a faithful dog welcoming its owner home. He replaced the ball beside his foot and his smile faded. He was indeed home, but he was home alone. No Drummin could have survived.

Marcellus knew that he must now look over the edge of the dizzyingly high platform on which he was standing. This was when he would know the worst. As he gingerly walked forward, he felt the whole structure perform a slight shimmy. A feeling of panic shot up through his feet—Marcellus knew exactly how far he had to fall.

Nervously he peered over the edge.

Far below lay the great Fyre Cauldron, its mouth a perfect circle of blackness ringed by a necklace of Fyre Globes. Marcellus was immensely relieved—the Fyre Cauldron was intact. He stared down into the depths, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the dark.

Soon he began to make out more details. He saw the metal tracery that was embedded in the rock and covered the cavern like a huge spider’s web gleaming with a dull silver shine. He saw the peppering of dark circles in the rock that marked the entrance to the hundreds, maybe thousands, of Drummin burrows. He saw the familiar patterns of Fyre Globes that marked out paths of the walkways strung across the cavern hundreds of feet below and, best of all, he could now see inside the Cauldron the graphite glitter of one hundred and thirty nine stars—the ends of the Fyre rods that stood upright like fat little pens in an inkpot.

Marcellus shook his head in utter amazement. He had found his Fyre Chamber cleaned, repaired, neatly put in mothballs and, by the look of it, ready to go. The Drummins must have survived much longer than he had realized. They had worked so hard and he had never even known. Something caught in his throat; he swallowed hard and wiped his eyes. Suddenly Marcellus experienced what he called a Time Slip—a flashback to all those years ago, when he had been standing on the very spot where he was now.

His loyal Drummins are swarming around him. Julius Pike, ExtraOrdinary Wizard and one-time friend, is on the upper platform, yelling above the roar of the flames, “Marcellus. I am closing this down!”

“Julius, please. Just a few hours more,” he is begging. “We can control the Fyre. I know we can.” Beside him on the platform old Duglius Drummin is saying, “ExtraOrdinary, we Drummins do guarantee it, we do.”

But Julius Pike doesn’t even recognize a Drummin as a living thing. He completely ignores Duglius. “You have had your chance,” Julius yells. “I am Sealing the water tunnels and Freezing them. It is over, Marcellus.”

He is dragged toward the hatch by a bunch of thickset Wizards. He grabs hold of Duglius, determined to save at least one Drummin. But Duglius looks him in the eye and says sternly, “Alchemist, put me down. My work is not done.”

The last thing he sees as the hatch slams shut is the old Drummin sadly returning his gaze—Duglius knows this is the end.

After that, Marcellus had cared no more. He had handed Julius his Alchemie Keye; he had even helped to Seal the Great Chamber of Alchemie and done nothing more than shrug halfheartedly when Julius, smiling the kind of smile a pike would if it could, had told him that all memories of the Chamber of Fyre would be expunged. “Forever, Marcellus. It shall never be spoken of again. And in the future, no one will know what is here. No one. All records will be destroyed.”

Marcellus shook himself out of the memory and the distant echoes of the past faded. He told himself that all were long gone. Even the redoubtable Julius Pike was now no more than a ghost, said to have gone back to where he grew up—a farm near the Port. But he, Marcellus Pye, was still here, and he had work to do. He had the Fyre to start and the Two-Faced Ring to destroy.

Marcellus swung himself onto the metal ladder that led down from the upper platform and cautiously began the descent into the Fyre Chamber—or the Deeps, as the Drummins had called it. The ladder shook with each step as Marcellus headed doggedly downward toward a wide platform far below from which yet more Fyre Globes winked up at him. Some ten long minutes later, he set foot on what was known as the Viewing Station, and stopped to take stock.

Marcellus was now level with the top of the Fyre Cauldron. He peered down at the star-shaped tops of the Fyre rods glistening with the dull shine that undamaged Fyre rods possessed. The last time he had seen them they were on fire, disintegrating before his eyes and now … Marcellus shook his head in admiration. How had the Drummins done it?

A narrow walkway known as the Inspection Circle ran around the rim of the Cauldron. It was made of metal lattice, which Marcellus could see had been repaired where it had buckled in the heat. Very carefully, he stepped down onto it, holding tight to the guardrails on either side. From his tool belt he took a small hammer, known as a drummer, and clasping it tightly he set off. Every few paces he stopped and tapped the metal rim of the Fyre Cauldron, listening intently. To his ears it appeared to be sound, although he knew his hearing was nowhere near as acute as it needed to be for the job.

This was what the Drummins had done all day, all night, all the time. They had swarmed over the Cauldron, drum, drum, drumming with their tiny hammers, listening to the sounds of the metal, understanding everything it told them. Marcellus knew he was a poor substitute for a Drummin but he did the best he could. After walking the Inspection Circle, he returned to the Viewing Station, knowing that he could put off no longer the thing he had been dreading the most. He must go down to the floor of the Chamber of Fyre.

A flight of curved metal steps wound their way around the belly of the Cauldron down into the dimness below, which was lit by a few scattered Fyre Globes. Slowly, Marcellus descended into the depths and the smell of damp earth came up to meet him. On the bottom step, he stopped, gathering the courage to step onto the ground. Marcellus was convinced that the cavern floor must be strewn with the remains of the Drummins and he could not bear the thought of crunching their delicate little bones like eggshells underfoot.

It was some minutes before Marcellus stepped off. To his relief there was no sickening crunch. He took another step—on tiptoe—then another, and felt nothing below his feet but bare earth. Carefully, Marcellus tiptoed around the base of the Cauldron, tapping it with his hammer, listening, then moving on. Not once did he tread on anything remotely crunchy. He supposed that the delicate bones had already turned to dust. After a circuit of the underside of the Cauldron, Marcellus knew that all was well.

It was now time to begin the Fyre.

Back on the Viewing Station, Marcellus headed off along another frighteningly flimsy walkway that was strung out across the cavern, thirty feet up. He walked cautiously, glad of the light from a corresponding line of Fyre Globes placed on the ground. At last he arrived at a chamber burrowed into the rock face at the back of the cavern and stepped inside. He was back in his old control room.

Below the coating of hundreds of years’ worth of dust, Marcellus could see that the walls had been repainted white and everything shone—there was no sign of the greasy soot that had covered everything. Marcellus walked across to the far wall where, beside a line of iron levers, there was a large brass wheel set into the rock. Taking a deep breath, Marcellus grasped the wheel. It moved easily. As he slowly turned it, Marcellus could feel the slip and slide, the clunk and the thunk of the chain of command, which reached up through the rock into the depths of the UnderFlow. Somewhere far above him a sluice gate opened. A great gurgle echoed around the sooty darkness of Alchemie Quay and the sluggish waters began to move. Marcellus felt the rumble inside the rock face of the tumbling water as it poured through ancient channels and began to fill the reservoir deep within the cavern walls.

Now Marcellus turned his attention to a bank of twenty-one small wheels farther along. Once the Fyre was begun, he must have a way of getting rid of excess heat. In the old days the heat had been dispersed through what were now the Ice Tunnels and used to warm the older buildings of the Castle. Marcellus had given the current ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia Overstrand, his word that he would preserve the Ice Tunnels. This meant he needed to open up the secondary venting system—a network of pores that snaked up to the surface of the Castle.

Marcellus dared not risk discovery yet. He needed precious time to set the Fyre going, time to prove that it was not a danger to the Castle. Although Marcia had agreed that he could start up the Fyre, Marcellus knew that she assumed that the Fyre was the small furnace in the Great Chamber of Alchemie and Physik. Indeed, that was what he had led Marcia to think. Julius Pike had told Marcellus that he would make sure that no ExtraOrdinary Wizard would ever give permission to open up the Chamber of Fyre again—and Marcellus had believed him.

And so now Marcellus turned his attention to the little brass wheels that would open heat vents scattered throughout the Castle and wick excess heat safely away from the awakening Fyre. Marcellus had given this some thought—the trick was to open vents in places where the unusual heat could be explained away as something else. He took a rumpled piece of paper from his pocket and consulted a list. Counting carefully along, he spun nine selected wheels until they stopped. Marcellus checked his paper again, checked the wheels and stood back satisfied.

By now a red pointer on a dial was telling him that the reservoir was nearly full; Marcellus turned the wheel to close the sluice gate, rechecked his list and left the control room. Job done.

Two hours later, the water was flowing through the Cauldron and the Fyre was beginning the slow, gentle process of coming alive once again. Wearily, Marcellus pushed his Alchemie Keye into the dip on the lower Fyre hatch. He remembered the time, when they were both growing old, that Julius had come to see him. He had given Marcellus back the Alchemie Keye because, “I trust you, Marcellus. I know you will not use it.” And he hadn’t.

Well, not until now.

Romilly and Partridge had long gone back to work, but in the Vaults, Beetle still watched the Live Plan—he knew that what goes down must come up. Beetle’s stomach rumbled and as if on cue, Foxy, Chief Charm Scribe, poked his head around the half-open door. Beetle looked up.

Marcellus climbed through the lower Fyre hatch. Once again, he was a blip on The Live Plan of What Lies Beneath.

“Ta-da!” said Foxy. “Sausage sandwich!” He put a neatly wrapped package beside Beetle’s candle. It smelled wonderful.

Marcellus closed the lower Fyre hatch and began to climb—fast.

“Thanks, Foxy,” said Beetle. He looked back at the plan but his eyes, tired after so much staring, did not focus well enough to see the Marcellus blip. He glanced at the sausage sandwich longingly. He had no idea he was so hungry.

“I’ll unwrap it for you,” said Foxy. “You don’t want sticky stuff on the Live Plan.”

Beetle peered at the plan once more.

“Seen something?” asked Foxy.

“Yeah—I think …” Beetle pointed to the Marcellus blip.

Foxy leaned forward and his beaky nose cast a shadow over the blip.

Marcellus reached the upper Fyre hatch.

“Shove over, Foxy,” said Beetle, irritated. “You’re blocking the light.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Beetle looked up. “Sorry, Foxo. Didn’t mean to snap. Thanks for the sandwich.”

Marcellus was through the upper Fyre hatch and off the Live Plan.

Beetle bit into his sausage sandwich.

And down in the Deeps, the Fyre began to wake.

2

A WHITE WEDDING

The Big Freeze had come in, covering the Castle in a deep blanket of snow.

On a sunny late afternoon in the breathtakingly still air, pencil-thin columns of smoke rose from a thousand chimneys up into the sky. Along Wizard Way a crowd had gathered to watch a wedding procession walk from the Great Arch to the Palace. As the procession passed by, people from the crowd dropped in behind and followed, chattering about the young couple who had just gotten married in the Great Hall of the Wizard Tower: Simon and Lucy Heap.

Simon Heap, with his curly straw-colored hair neatly tied back in a ponytail, wore new blue robes—which, as the son of an Ordinary Wizard, he was entitled to do on his wedding day. The freshly dyed blue was bright and trimmed with traditional white wedding ribbons, which trailed behind him. Lucy Heap (née Gringe) was wearing a long, white, floaty woolen dress, which she had knitted herself and edged with pink fur. She had lovingly embroidered entwined blue and pink letters “S” and “L” across the skirt. Her mother had objected to this, saying it was bad taste, and for once in matters of taste Mrs. Gringe was probably right. But it was Lucy’s Big Day and what Lucy wanted to do, Lucy was going to do. No change there, then, her brother, Rupert, had remarked.

The wedding party progressed down Wizard Way toward the Palace, crunching through newly fallen snow. The sky was a brilliant winter blue, but a small snow cloud directly above obligingly provided a few fat snowflakes, which floated down and landed on Lucy’s beribboned long brown hair, where they settled like confetti. Lucy and Simon were laughing and talking happily to each other, Lucy twirling in the snow to show off her dress and sharing a joke with her new brothers.

Next to Lucy walked her own brother, Rupert, and his girlfriend, Maggie. Simon had considerably more companions: his adoptive sister, Princess Jenna, and his six brothers, including the four Forest Heaps: Sam, twins Edd and Erik, and Jo-Jo.

Mrs. Theodora Gringe, mother of the bride, walked right behind her daughter, occasionally treading on Lucy’s train in her eagerness to be at the front. When they had emerged from the Great Arch, Mrs. Gringe had had to be restrained from actually leading the wedding party down Wizard Way. Lucy’s mother was the proudest mother of the bride that the Castle had seen for a long time. Who would have imagined, thought Theodora Gringe, that the guests at her daughter’s wedding would have included the great dignitaries of the Castle? The ExtraOrdinary Wizard, the Princess and the Chief Hermetic Scribe, and even that weird Alchemist fellow: they were all here. There was no doubt about it—the Gringes were on the way up.

But it was a shame, she thought, about the Heaps. They were a disreputable-looking bunch, and there were so many of them. Everywhere she looked she saw the distinctive curly straw-colored Heap hair topping a scruffy-looking individual. The Gringes were massively outnumbered.

A shout of laughter drew Theodora Gringe’s attention to a group of four noisy men who reminded her of Silas Heap and who, she supposed (correctly), were his brothers. Mrs. Gringe grimaced and cast her critical eye over the Heaps she recognized. She grudgingly admitted to herself that Silas and Sarah looked smart enough in their blue and white wedding clothes—if a little eccentric with Sarah carrying that ridiculous duck-in-a-bag. Mrs. Gringe eyed up the duck: ready-plucked, perfect for a stew. Deciding to suggest that to Sarah later, she scrutinized the Heap boys with mixed feelings. The two youngest, Nicko and Septimus, weren’t too bad.

Septimus in particular looked rather fine in his impressive formal Apprentice robes with the long purple ribbons dangling from his the sleeves. He was taller than Mrs. Gringe remembered and she noticed that his typical Heap hair had actually been combed. She didn’t approve of Nicko’s sailor’s braids wound through his hair, although she supposed that his sober navy-blue boatyard tunic with its rather fetching sailor’s collar was acceptable.

But at the sight of the remaining Heaps, Theodora Gringe’s mouth puckered in distaste. The four Forest boys were a disgrace. She tutted as she watched Sam, Edd, Erik and Jo-Jo straggle along beside the bridegroom like—she searched for the right words—yes, that was it, like a pack of wolverines. At least they could have had the decency to keep to the back.

(While the wedding party had been in the Wizard Tower Courtyard, Mrs. Gringe had tried to push the Forest boys to the back. A struggle had ensued and her husband, Gringe, had had to drag her off. “Let it be, Theodora,” he’d hissed. “They are Lucy’s brothers now.” Mrs. Gringe had felt quite faint at the thought. She had had to take a long look at their trophy guest, Madam Marcia Overstrand, ExtraOrdinary Wizard, to get over it—which had been a little embarrassing as Marcia had asked her, rather sharply, if there was something wrong.)

Mortified by the memory, Mrs. Gringe sighed and then realized that she had been overtaken by the crowd. Happily unaware that the tall, pointy felt triangle perched on top of her hat gave onlookers the impression that a shark was cruising through the wedding party, stalking the bride, Mrs. Gringe began to elbow her way back up to the front.

At last they reached the Palace Gate. The onlookers clustered around, offering congratulations, gifts and good wishes. Lucy and Simon accepted them all, laughing, exclaiming, handing the gifts to various friends and relations to carry for them.

Sarah Heap linked her arm through Silas’s and smiled at him. She felt unbelievably happy. For the first time since the day Septimus had been born, she had all her boys with her. It seemed as though a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders—in fact right then Sarah felt so light that she would not have been surprised if she had looked down and seen her feet floating a few inches above the pavement. She watched her gaggle of Forest boys, all young men now, laughing and joking with Simon as though he had never been away. (“Away” was the word Sarah used to describe Simon’s Darke years.) She saw Septimus, confident in his Apprentice robes, talking with her little Jenna, who looked so tall and Queenly now. But best of all, Sarah saw her oldest son’s eyes—bright green once more—shining with happiness as he looked around, no longer an outcast, back where he belonged. In the Castle. With his family.

Simon could hardly believe it himself. He was stunned at all the good wishes and the feeling that people actually seemed to like him. Not so long ago, when he had lived below the ground in a Darke place, he’d had dreams just like this. But he would wake from them in the middle of the night, distraught when he realized they were only dreams. Now, to his amazement, they had come true.

The crowd continued to grow and it looked as if Simon and Lucy were going to be at the Palace Gate for a while yet. On the edge of the crowd, Marcia Overstrand cut an imposing figure. She was wearing ceremonial ExtraOrdinary Wizard robes of embroidered purple silk lined with the softest, highly expensive Marshmouse fur. From below the robes two pointy shoes made of purple python skin peeked out into the white snow. Marcia’s dark wavy hair was held back in a formal gold ExtraOrdinary Wizard headband, which glinted impressively in the winter sunlight. Marcia looked impressive—but prickly. Her green eyes found Septimus and she beckoned irritably to her Apprentice. Septimus excused himself from Jenna and hurried over to Marcia. He had promised Sarah that he would “make sure Marcia didn’t take over,” and he could see the warning signs.

“Septimus, have you seen that mess?” Marcia demanded.

Septimus followed the direction of Marcia’s pointing finger, although he knew exactly what she was talking about. At the end of Ceremonial Way—which led straight up from the Palace Gate—a tall column of scaffolding covered with a brilliant blue tarpaulin reared up, garish against the snow. Around it were scattered untidy piles of bricks and a clutter of builders’ equipment.

“Yes,” Septimus replied—not very helpfully, in Marcia’s opinion.

“It’s Marcellus, isn’t it? What is he doing starting already?”

Septimus shrugged. He didn’t see why Marcia was asking him, especially as Marcia still hadn’t set a date for him to begin his month with Marcellus. “Why don’t you ask him?” he said.

Marcia looked a little guilty. “Well, I promised your mother when she came to see me that there would be no … er, arguments.”

“Mum came to see you?” asked Septimus, surprised.

Marcia sighed. “Yes. She brought me the guest list and said that if there was anyone on it I didn’t like, she would quite understand if I didn’t come. Naturally I said that of course I was coming to Simon’s wedding and it didn’t matter at all who was there. She didn’t look convinced, I must say. I ended up promising her that I would be, well”—Marcia pulled a face—“nice to everyone.”

“Wow.” Septimus glanced across at Sarah Heap with new respect.

“Apprentice! Marcia!” Marcellus Pye’s voice caught their attention. Marcellus had escaped the clutches of Mrs. Gringe and was desperate to talk to someone—even Marcia. “Well, well,” he said jovially. “You both look very splendid.”

“Not quite as splendid as you do, Marcellus,” said Marcia, eyeing the Alchemist’s new set of black robes, the sleeves of which were slashed to show the red velvet shirt he was wearing underneath. Both cloak and tunic were liberally sprinkled with gold fastenings that glittered in the sunlight. Septimus could tell that Marcellus had made a big effort. His dark hair was freshly cut in a short bob and brushed forward over his forehead in the old-fashioned style that the Alchemist still favored on special occasions, and he was wearing his favorite pair of red shoes—the ones that Septimus had given him for his birthday two years previously. Marcia noticed the shoes and tutted. They still gave her an uncomfortable twinge of jealousy of which she was not proud.

Marcia waved her arm in the direction of the tarpaulin. “I see you have already begun,” she said, a little disapprovingly. She forced herself to refrain from adding that Marcellus had agreed not to begin building the chimney until the Great Chamber of Alchemie had been reopened.

Septimus saw Marcellus give a guilty start. “Goodness! What, um, makes you say that?”

“Well, I should have thought it was obvious—that rubbish at the end of Ceremonial Way.”

Septimus saw a look of relief fly across Marcellus’s face. “Ah. The chimney,” he said. “I’m merely making preparations. I know you do not wish to keep the Two-Faced Ring for longer than necessary. Keeping that ring safe must be a nightmare.”

As she had promised Sarah, Marcia made an effort. “Yes, it is. But at least we have it, Marcellus. Thanks to you.”

Septimus looked impressed. His mother had done a remarkable job, he thought.

Marcellus felt encouraged. He decided to ask a favor. “I wonder, Marcia, if you would object to a change of name?”

Marcia was flummoxed. “I am perfectly happy with Marcia,” she said.

“No, no—I mean the Ceremonial Way. In the old days when the Great Chamber was operating and we had the chimney at the end of it—as we soon will again—it used to be called Alchemie Way. I wonder if you would allow it to resume its old name?”

“Oh,” said Marcia. “Well, I suppose so. It was called Alchemie Way before so it is only right that it is Alchemie Way once more.”

“Thank you!” Marcellus beamed. “And soon Alchemie Way will lead to the newly built Alchemie Chimney.” He sighed. “Well, it will when the builders bother to turn up.” A sudden outbreak of cheering and clapping signaled that the wedding party was beginning to head off to the Palace. Marcellus slipped away before Marcia had a chance to ask any more awkward questions.

Marcia felt dismal. An evening spent with a mixture of Heaps and Gringes did not figure anywhere on her good-nights-out list—not even at the very bottom. She glanced back longingly toward the Wizard Tower, wondering if she could make a run for it.

Septimus intercepted her glance. “You can’t leave now. That would be very rude,” he told her sternly.

“Of course I’m not leaving now,” Marcia said tartly. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

The wedding supper carried on late into the night. Heaps and Gringes did not always mix well and there were a few tricky moments, particularly when Mrs. Gringe put the duck stew suggestion to Sarah Heap. But nothing, not even Mrs. Gringe’s insistence that it would be no trouble at all to take the duck home, and seeing as it was nice and plump it would do enough for everyone and she could bring the stew over the next day to save Sarah the bother of cooking could dent Sarah’s happiness for long. She had all her children with her for the first time ever, and that was enough for her.

Marcia was surprised to find that her evening was not as bad as she had feared. After some very tedious speeches by various increasingly merry Heap uncles, a welcome distraction appeared. Through the long windows of the Ballroom, which reached to the floor and looked out across the Palace lawns down to the river, a barge ablaze with lights was seen drawing up at the Palace landing stage.

“Goodness, who can that be?” Marcia commented to Jenna, who was sitting next to her.

Jenna knew who it was. “It’s my father. Late as usual.”

“Oh, how nice,” said Marcia. And then, hurriedly, “Not nice that he is late, of course. Nice that he has made it to the wedding.”

“Just about,” said Jenna.

Silas and the four Heap uncles, glad of an excuse to escape, went to inspect the barge and escort Milo back to the wedding supper. He arrived resplendent in what some people thought was the dress uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet and others were sure they had seen in the window of a fancy dress shop in the Port—but whatever it was he was wearing, Milo caused a stir. He strode up to the bride, bowed, kissed her hand and presented her with a tiny ship of gold in a crystal bottle, much to Lucy’s delight. Then he congratulated Simon and took his seat next to Jenna.

It was not long before Jenna made an excuse to go and talk to the Forest Heaps at the far end of the table. Milo then took Jenna’s place next to Marcia and from that moment Marcia found the evening was much improved. So much so that she stayed rather longer than she had planned.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

Grosefield Photography

Angie Sage was born in London and grew up in the Thames Valley, London, and Kent. She now lives in Somerset in a very old house that has a secret tunnel below it. The first six books in the Septimus Heap series are international bestsellers. She is also the author of the Araminta Spookie series. You can visit her online at www.septimusheap.com or follow her on Twitter @AngieSageAuthor.

Mark Zug has loved fantasy novels since he was a teenager. He has illustrated many collectible card games, including Magic: The Gathering and Dune, as well as books and magazines. He lives in Pennsylvania. You can visit him online at www.markzug.com.

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OTHER WORKS

ALSO BY ANGIE SAGE

Septimus Heap, Book One: Magyk

Septimus Heap, Book Two: Flyte

Septimus Heap, Book Three: Physik

Septimus Heap, Book Four: Queste

Septimus Heap, Book Five: Syren

Septimus Heap, Book Six: Darke

Septimus Heap, Book Seven: Fyre

Septimus Heap: The Magykal Papers

Araminta Spookie: My Haunted House

Araminta Spookie: The Sword in the Grotto

Araminta Spookie: Frognapped

Araminta Spookie: Vampire Brat

Araminta Spookie: Ghostsitters

COPYRIGHT

Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Septimus Heap: The Darke Toad
Text copyright © 2013 by Angie Sage
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Mark Zug

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EPUB Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN 9780062236258

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