Queste

T he next morning Billy Pot was up early mixing Spit Fyre's breakfast according to Septimus's strict instructions - but the dragon was not interested. Spit Fyre lay outside his new Dragon Kennel and regarded Billy drowsily through a half-open eye. As Billy approached with the breakfast bucket, a subterranean rumbling shook the ground and the dragon burped. Billy reeled.



He scratched his head, puzzled. If Billy didn't know better, he'd say that the dragon had already eaten.



"I'll leave yer bucket o' breakfast here, Mr. Spit Fyre," he said. "You might like it later."



Spit Fyre groaned and closed his half-open eye. Deep in his fire stomach he could feel the old Necromancer's bones lying heavy and Darke. He wished he'd never swallowed that nasty old sack. He didn't ever want to eat again.



As the dragon's fire stomach slowly geared up for the Darke task of dissolving the bones, the ghost of DomDaniel was reveling in being at the Wizard Tower once more. It had done him good to see old Nastier Underhand get her comeuppance at long last - it amused him to see her hanging around like any other common Wizard, waiting to be told what to do. And now he had cornered his old Apprentice, Alther Mella, who had pushed him off the golden pyramid at the top of the Wizard Tower. That memory was still there, clear as the day it had happened. DomDaniel was enjoying telling Alther in great detail all the Darke plans he intended to put into action now that, at last, he had become a ghost - when he began to feel a little strange. At that moment Alther noticed that DomDaniel's left leg had disappeared.



Alther watched, fascinated, as next DomDaniel's entire right arm faded from view, then his left knee...left forearm...toes...both ankles...Astonished, Alther stared as, piece by piece, his old master disappeared.



DomDaniel did not like the way Alther was watching him - it was, he considered, extremely rude and did not show him the respect he was due. He opened his mouth to tell Alther to stop gaping and his head vanished, leaving a disembodied left hand gesticulating wildly and a large part of his stomach wobbling with indignation.



And then, as DomDaniel's last few bones dissolved in Spit Fyre's fire stomach, the old Necromancer disappeared completely - and forever. For there was no Two-Faced Ring with him in Spit Fyre's stomach to get him out of trouble this time. It was a moment that Alther would savor for a very long time - along with the memory of the next few minutes when he found Marcia and told her that the Gathering was no more.



Marcia, too, savored the memory of the end of the very last Gathering. She particularly enjoyed remembering Tertius Fume's reaction when she had triumphantly evicted him from her sofa - he had a nerve, she thought - and told him that not only was the Gathering at an end, but there could be no Gathering ever again and he could get out of her rooms right now. Tertius Fume had refused to believe her until Alther had backed her up. It was true what Marcia had said to Beetle - Tertius Fume had no respect for women.



Tertius Fume had instituted the Siege to force Septimus to make the Draw. When he had realized that Septimus was missing, he had sworn to continue the Siege - forever if necessary - until Marcia told him the whereabouts of her Apprentice, whom Tertius Fume was convinced was Hidden somewhere in the Wizard Tower. But now, without the power of the Gathering behind him, Tertius Fume had no means of continuing the Siege. The Siege was ended.



Marcia wasted no time. She got Catchpole to escort Tertius Fume ignominiously off the premises and, as the Magyk returned to the Wizard Tower, she stood at the door smiling through gritted teeth.



"Good-bye, good-bye. Thank you so much for coming," she said as the bewildered Gathering floated out.



Outside the Wizard Tower a wet, cold rat watched the huge doors open - at last. To his amazement a seemingly endless stream of purple ghosts spilled down the steps. He waited impatiently until the last ghost had wandered out, then he bounded inside, calling out, "Message Rat!"



While Stanley scuttled between the feet of an excited group of Ordinary Wizards surrounding the recipient of his message, Tertius Fume was in a huddled conversation in the shadows of the Great Arch with what appeared to be a young sub-Wizard.



"Find him," said Tertius Fume. "The Queste is begun and must be done."



The Thing nodded. It watched Tertius Fume stride angrily back to the Manuscriptorium and began to chew the ends of Hildegarde's fingers. It was bored with InHabiting the sub-Wizard. Her ordinariness - and her niceness - was irritating; it had seeped into the Thing and made it feel rather depressed. The Thing fancied InHabiting something a little more unusual, something maybe with a twist of Darke to it. It leaned back against the cold lapis lazuli walls of the Great Arch and, passing the time by seeing how far it could spit bits of Hildegarde's nails, it waited for something to turn up.



Some hours earlier that morning, Ephaniah Grebe had woken in a damp tepee feeling very strange.



After Jenna, Septimus and Beetle had retreated to their tepee, Ephaniah had accepted a sweet, heavy drink from Morwenna. He knew as soon as he drank it that it was drugged and he had surreptitiously poured most of it away, but as the Witch Mother escorted him to his tepee, Ephaniah felt the ground sway beneath him and a bitter taste in his mouth. He had vainly fought against sleep - but his vivid dreams had woken him a few hours later. Determined not to fall asleep again, he had crept out of his tepee to breathe the fresh night air. There, in the middle of the Summer Circle, he saw Morwenna in a heated conversation with a young witch.



"Where is Marissa, pray?"



The young witch looked terrified.



"Tell me, Bryony. Now."



"Um. She went to Camp Heap."



"I did not give her permission. She will regret it. You will take her place."



"Me? Oh, but I don't think - "



"You don't have to think, girl. Just do as you are told. I want a tepee made ready for the Princess and her familiar. We will need it in the morning."



"Oh. Then she really is going to be - "



"Stop babbling. And be sure to make the tepee Secure."



Bryony bobbed an awkward curtsy and rushed off. How did you make a tepee Secure? she wondered.



How?



Ephaniah felt sick - now he knew what Morwenna would ask for the next morning. He guessed that the nightcap - as Morwenna had called it - had been designed to keep him quiet and amenable come the morning. Ephaniah cursed himself for being such a gullible fool and for promising what he could not give. Stealthily, he crept over to the other guest tepee, his head spinning. What was he going to tell them?



When Ephaniah found Jenna, Septimus and Beetle's tepee empty he felt a surge of relief - but it did not last long. All kinds of worries came into his head. Where had they gone? Why didn't they tell him?



Didn't they trust him? Had he slept through their cries for help? In a daze, Ephaniah limped down the spiral path from the Summer Circle, his white robes shining in the light of the full moon. Bryony saw him go, but she dared not say anything to upset the Witch Mother. She watched Ephaniah disappear into the Forest where - left alone by the Forest night creatures, which preferred to avoid giant rats - he staggered back to the Castle.



By dawn Ephaniah Grebe found himself standing beside the Moat, watching Gringe lower the drawbridge. He paid his silver penny and hobbled across, oblivious to Gringe's inquisitive stare.



"You see all sorts in this job," Gringe mused later as he watched Mrs. Gringe warm up last night's stew for breakfast. "Saw a giant rat this morning. With specs on."



Mrs. Gringe broke a habit of not listening to her husband. She stopped stirring and peered into the brown depths of the saucepan. "I thought those mushrooms looked funny," she said.



"What mushrooms?" asked Gringe, confused.



"Last night. They were a funny color. Didn't eat any meself."



"But you let me eat them?"



Mrs. Gringe shrugged and poured the stew into Gringe's bowl. "Better pick the mushrooms out," she said.



"No, thank you," said Gringe. He got up and stomped back to the drawbridge. By midday Gringe thought the mushrooms were probably wearing off. Apart from being convinced he had seen Lucy peering around the corner - which was most upsetting - there had been no other ill effects.



When Ephaniah had returned to the Manuscriptorium that morning, his feeling of gloom had not been improved by the sight of the new Front Office Clerk sitting with his feet up on the desk chewing a black snake with his mouth open. At the sight of the Conservation Scribe, Merrin had stared and insolently carried on chewing what was, in fact, his breakfast. It wasn't often that Ephaniah missed the power of speech, but as he watched the tail of the snake get noisily sucked into Merrin's mouth and looked at his boots messing up the desk that Beetle used to lovingly polish every morning, Ephaniah had an overwhelming desire to tell the boy, Get your feet off the desk.



And then, suddenly, he was glad he couldn't speak. For, as Ephaniah stared balefully at the offending pair of boots, he saw a small, round piece of paper stuck to the sole of Merrin's right boot. An instinct nurtured by years of putting things back together told Ephaniah that this belonged to something - and he was pretty sure he knew what. As he advanced upon the offending boots a flicker of fear ran across Merrin's face - what was the rat-man doing? And then, in a flash - like a rat after a rabbit - Ephaniah had the mangled scrap of paper in his hand and Merrin was on his feet, yelling, "Get off me, weirdo!"



Leaving the Front Office Clerk coughing up the remains of his snake, Ephaniah had rushed down to his basement, slammed the green baize door and locked it. And now, as he examined his find, he felt exhilarated. This was it - this was the missing piece of the map.



Painstakingly Ephaniah spent the next hour Restoring the fragile scrap of paper. It went well and before long he had in front of him a small, perfect circle with a finely detailed pencil drawing of an octagonal building encircled by a snake. In the middle was a key. Ephaniah carefully put the precious circle of paper into a secret pocket under his tunic. He pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead and sat back with a sigh. He had done it. The most painstaking - and maybe the most important - piece of Restoring he had ever attempted was finished.



Now came the difficult part - the ReUnite.



"No," said Stanley, his mouth full of breakfast. "Positively not. A Message Rat does not make deliveries. Mmm, nothing hits the spot like a cold bacon sandwich after a night out in the rain, does it? Care for a bite?"



"No, thank you," Ephaniah replied disdainfully.



"Suit yourself."



"It would be to your advantage."



Stanley laughed bitterly. "Oh, ha. They all say that. But it never is. You end up starving in some lunatic's cage or shoved under the floorboards and left for dead. You won't catch me like that."



"I can get you rats."



"Rats?"



"All the rats you want. I'll get them."



Stanley put down his cold bacon sandwich. "You mean staff?" he asked.



Ephaniah nodded.



Stanley considered the matter. He imagined the East Gate Lookout Tower once more being headquarters of a thriving Message Rat Service - with him in charge. He imagined the paperwork and the wages bills...and Dawnie hearing about his success and deciding to make another go of things.



"No," he said.



As Ephaniah walked slowly back from the East Gate Lookout Tower he saw something he had not expected to see - the Magykal lights of the Wizard Tower were back. He blinked in surprise - yes, they were still there. The familiar purple and blue flickering lights were once more playing around the Tower, the deep glow of the golden pyramid at the top of the Tower shone out into the dull gray day and the purple windows shimmered once more with their Magykal haze. All Ephaniah's worries left him. Everything was fine - he would go to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and ask her to do a Send. All would be well. With a spring in his step - as much as he could manage with the painful bumps on the underside of his sore foot - Ephaniah wrapped his white cloths extra tightly around his face and took the next set of steps down to Wizard Way.



As he walked into the deep blue shadows of the Great Arch, Ephaniah bumped into Hildegarde Pigeon - and remembered nothing more.