by Angie Sage
He already knew that every morning, for some reason, Aunt Zelda lit two lanterns and disappeared into the potion cupboard under the stairs. At first Boy 412 had thought nothing of it. After all, it was dark in the potion cupboard and Aunt Zelda had many potions to tend. He knew that the potions that needed to be kept in darkness were the most unstable and required constant attention; only the day before, Aunt Zelda had spent hours filtering a muddied Amazonian Antidote that had gone lumpy in the cold. But what Boy 412 noticed this particular morning was how quiet it was in the potion cupboard, and he knew that Aunt Zelda was not generally a quiet person. Whenever she walked past the Preserve Pots they rattled and jumped, and when she was in the kitchen the pots and pans clanged and banged; so how, wondered Boy 412, did she manage to be so quiet in the small confines of the potion cupboard? And why did she need two lanterns?
He put down his book and tiptoed over to the potion cupboard door. It was strangely silent considering it contained Aunt Zelda in close proximity to hundreds of little clinky bottles. Boy 412 knocked hesitantly on the door. There was no reply. He listened again. Silence. Boy 412 knew he should really just go back to his book but somehow Thaumaturgy and Sortilage: Why Bother? was not as interesting as what Aunt Zelda was up to. So Boy 412 pushed open the door and peered in.
The potion cupboard was empty.
For a moment, Boy 412 was half afraid that it was a joke and Aunt Zelda was going to jump out at him, but he soon realized that she was definitely not there. And then he saw why. The trapdoor was open, and the musty damp smell of the tunnel that Boy 412 remembered so well drifted up to him. Boy 412 hovered at the door, uncertain of what to do. It crossed his mind that Aunt Zelda might have fallen through the trapdoor by mistake and needed help, but he realized that if she had fallen, she would have got wedged halfway, as Aunt Zelda looked a good deal wider than the trapdoor did.
As he was wondering how Aunt Zelda had managed to squeeze herself through the trapdoor, Boy 412 saw the dim yellow glow of a lantern shining up through the open space in the floor. Soon he heard the heavy tread of Aunt Zelda’s sensible boots on the sandy floor of the tunnel and her laborious breathing as she struggled up the steep incline toward the wooden ladder. As Aunt Zelda started to heave herself up the ladder, Boy 412 silently closed the cupboard door and scuttled back to his seat by the fire.
It was quite a few minutes later when an out-of-breath Aunt Zelda poked her head out of the potion cupboard a little suspiciously and saw Boy 412 reading Thaumaturgy and Sortilage: Why Bother? with avid interest.
Before Aunt Zelda had time to disappear back into the cupboard, the front door burst open. Nicko appeared with Jenna closely following. They threw down their skates and held up what looked like a dead rat.
“Look what we found,” said Jenna.
Boy 412 pulled a face. He didn’t like rats. He’d had to live with too many of them to enjoy their company.
“Leave it outside,” said Aunt Zelda. “It’s bad luck to bring a dead thing across the threshold unless you’re going to eat it. And I don’t fancy eating that.”
“It’s not dead, Aunt Zelda,” said Jenna. “Look.” She held out the brown streak of fur for Aunt Zelda to inspect. Aunt Zelda poked at it warily.
“We found it outside that old shack,” said Jenna. “You know the one, not far from the Port at the end of the marsh. There’s a man there who lives with a donkey. And a lot of dead rats in cages. We looked through the window—it was horrible. And then he woke up and saw us, so me and Nicko went to run off and we saw this rat. I think he’d just escaped. So I picked him up and put him in my jacket and we ran for it. Well, skated for it. And the old man came out and yelled at us for taking his rat. But he couldn’t catch us, could he, Nicko?”
“No,” said Nicko, a man of few words.
“Anyway, I think it’s the Message Rat with a message from Dad,” said Jenna.
“Never,” said Aunt Zelda. “That Message Rat was fat.”
The rat in Jenna’s hands let out a weak squeak of protest.
“And this one,” said Aunt Zelda, poking the rat in the ribs, “is as thin as a rake. Well, I suppose you had better bring it in, whatever kind of rat it may be.”
And that is how Stanley finally reached his destination, nearly six weeks after he had been sent out from the Rat Office. Like all good Message Rats he had lived up to the Rat Office slogan: Nothing stops a Message Rat.
But Stanley was not strong enough to deliver his message. He lay feebly on a cushion in front of the fire while Jenna fed him pureed eel. The rat had never been a great fan of eel, particularly the pureed variety, but after six weeks in a cage drinking only water and eating nothing at all, even pureed eel tasted wonderful. And lying on a cushion in front of a fire instead of shivering at the bottom of a filthy cage was even more wonderful. Even if Bert did sneak in the odd peck when no one was looking.
Marcia did the Speeke, Rattus Rattus command after Jenna insisted on it, but Stanley uttered not a word as he lay weakly on his cushion.
“I’m still not convinced it’s the Message Rat,” said Marcia a few days after Stanley had arrived and the rat had still not spoken. “That Message Rat did nothing but talk, if I remember rightly. And a load of drivel most of it was too.”
Stanley gave Marcia his best frown, but it passed her by.
“It is him, Marcia,” Jenna assured her. “I’ve kept loads of rats and I’m good at recognizing them. This one is definitely the Message Rat that we had before.”
And so they all waited nervously for Stanley to recover enough to Speeke and deliver Silas’s longed-for message. It was an anxious time. The rat developed a fever and became delirious, mumbling incoherently for hours on end and almost driving Marcia to distraction. Aunt Zelda made up copious amounts of willow bark infusions that Jenna patiently fed to the rat through a small dropper. After a long and fretful week, the rat’s fever at last abated.
Late one afternoon, when Aunt Zelda was locked in the potion cupboard (she had taken to locking the door after the day Boy 412 had peeked inside) and Marcia was working out some mathematical spells at Aunt Zelda’s desk, Stanley gave a cough and sat up. Maxie barked and Bert hissed with surprise, but the Message Rat ignored them.
He had a message to deliver.
30
MESSAGE FOR MARCIA
Stanley soon had an expectant audience gathered around him. He hobbled stiffly off the cushion, stood up and took a deep breath. Then he said in a shaky voice, “First I must ask. Is there anyone here answering to the name of Marcia Overstrand?”
“You know there is,” said Marcia impatiently.
“I still have to ask, Your Honor. Part of the procedure,” said the Message Rat. He continued. “I am come here to deliver a message to Marcia Overstrand, ex–ExtraOrdinary Wizard—”
“What?” gasped Marcia. “Ex? What does that idiot rat mean, ex–ExtraOrdinary Wizard?”
“Calm down, Marcia,” said Aunt Zelda. “Wait and see what he has to say.”
Stanley carried on, “The message is sent at seven o’clock in the morning…” The rat paused to work out just how many days ago it had been sent. As a true professional, Stanley had kept a record of his time imprisoned in the cage by scratching a line for each day on one of the bars. He knew he had done thirty-nine days with Mad Jack, but he had no idea how many days he had spent delirious in front of the fire in Keeper’s Cottage, “…er…a long time ago, by proxy, from one Silas Heap residing in the Castle—”
“What’s proxy mean?” asked Nicko.
Stanley tapped his foot impatiently. He didn’t like interruptions, especially when the message was so old that he was afraid he may not remember it. He coughed impatiently.
“Message begins:
Dear Marcia,
I hope you are keeping well. I am well and am at the Castle. I would be grateful if you would meet me outside the Palace as soon as possible. There has been a development. I will be at the Palace Gate at midnight, every night,
until your arrival.
Looking forward to seeing you,
With best wishes,
Silas Heap
“Message ends.”
Stanley sat back down on his cushion and breathed a sigh of relief. Job done. He may have taken the longest time a Message Rat had ever taken to deliver a message, but he’d done it. He allowed himself a small smile even though he was still on duty.
There was silence for a moment, and then Marcia exploded. “Typical, just typical! He doesn’t even make an effort to get back before the Big Freeze, then, when he finally does get around to sending a message, he doesn’t bother to even mention my KeepSafe. I give up. I should have gone myself.”
“But what about Simon?” asked Jenna anxiously. “And why hasn’t Dad sent a message to us too?”
“Doesn’t sound much like Dad anyway,” grunted Nicko.
“No,” agreed Marcia. “It was far too polite.”
“Well, I suppose it was by proxy,” said Aunt Zelda uncertainly.
“What does proxy mean?” Nicko asked again.
“It means a stand-in. Someone else gave the message to the Rat Office. Silas must have been unable to get there. Which is to be expected, I suppose. I wonder who the proxy was?”
Stanley said nothing, even though he knew perfectly well that the proxy was the Supreme Custodian. Although no longer a Confidential Rat, he was still bound by the Rat Office code. And that meant all conversations within the Rat Office were Highly Confidential. But the Message Rat felt awkward. These Wizard people had rescued him, looked after him and probably saved his life. Stanley shifted about and looked at the floor. Something was going on, he thought, and he didn’t want to be part of it. This whole message had been a complete nightmare from start to finish.
Marcia walked over to the desk and slammed her book shut with a bang.
“How dare Silas ignore something as important as my KeepSafe?” she said angrily. “Does he not know that the whole point of an Ordinary Wizard is to serve the ExtraOrdinary Wizard? I will not put up with his insubordinate attitude any longer. I intend to find him and give him a piece of my mind.”
“Marcia, is that wise?” asked Aunt Zelda quietly.
“I am still the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and I will not be kept away,” Marcia declared.
“Well, I suggest you sleep on it,” said Aunt Zelda sensibly. “Things always look better in the morning.”
Later that night, Boy 412 lay in the flickering light of the fire, listening to Nicko’s snuffles and Jenna’s regular breathing. He had been woken up by Maxie’s loud snores, which resonated through the ceiling. Maxie was meant to sleep downstairs but he still sneaked up to lie on Silas’s bed if he thought he could get away with it. In fact, when Maxie started snoring downstairs, Boy 412 often gave the wolfhound a shove and helped him on his way. But that night Boy 412 realized that he was listening to something else apart from the snores of a wolfhound with sinus trouble.
Creaking floorboards above his head…stealthy footsteps on the stairs…the squeak of the second-to-last creaky step…Who was that? What was that? All the ghost stories that he had ever been told came back to Boy 412 as he heard the quiet swish of a cloak along the stone floor and knew that whoever, or whatever, it was had entered the same room.
Boy 412 sat up very slowly, his heart beating fast, and stared into the gloom. A dark figure was moving stealthily toward the book that Marcia had left on the desk. The figure picked up the book and tucked it into its cloak, then she saw the whites of Boy 412’s eyes staring at her out of the darkness.
“It’s me,” whispered Marcia. She beckoned Boy 412 over to her. He slipped silently out of his quilt and padded across the stone floor to see what she wanted.
“How anyone is expected to sleep in the same room as that animal I do not understand,” Marcia whispered crossly. Boy 412 smiled sheepishly. He didn’t say that it was he who had pushed Maxie up the stairs in the first place.
“I’m Returning tonight,” said Marcia. “I’m going to use the Midnight Minutes, just to make sure of things. You should remember that, the minutes on either side of midnight are the best time to Travel safely. Especially if there are those abroad who may wish you harm. Which I suspect there are. I shall make for the Palace Gate and sort that Silas Heap out. Now, what’s the time?”
Marcia pulled out her timepiece.
“Two minutes to midnight. I will be back soon. Perhaps you could tell Zelda.” Marcia looked at Boy 412 and remembered that he hadn’t uttered a word since he had told them his rank and number in the Wizard Tower. “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t. She’ll guess where I’ve gone.”
Boy 412 suddenly thought of something important. He fumbled in the pocket of his sweater and drew out the Charm that Marcia had given him when she had asked him to be her Apprentice. He held the tiny pair of silver wings in his palm and looked at them a little regretfully. They glinted silver and gold in the Magykal glow that was beginning to surround Marcia. Boy 412 offered the Charm back to Marcia—he thought he should no longer have it, since there was no way he was ever going to be her Apprentice—but Marcia shook her head and knelt down beside him.
“No,” she whispered. “I still hope you will change your mind and decide to be my Apprentice. Think about it while I’m away. Now, it’s one minute to midnight. Stand back.”
The air around Marcia grew cold, and a shiver of strong Magyk swept around her and filled the air with an electric charge. Boy 412 retreated to the fireside, a little scared but fascinated too. Marcia closed her eyes and started to mutter something long and complicated in a language he had never heard before, and as he watched, Boy 412 saw the same Magykal haze appear that he had first seen when he was sitting in Muriel in the Deppen Ditch. Suddenly Marcia threw her cloak over herself so that she was covered from head to toe, and as she did so, the purple of the Magyk haze and the purple of the cloak mixed together. There was a loud hiss, like water dropping onto hot metal, and Marcia disappeared, leaving only a faint shadow that lingered for a few moments.
At the Palace Gate, at twenty minutes past midnight, a platoon of Guards was on duty, just as it had been every night for the past fifty bitterly cold nights. The Guards were frozen and were expecting yet another long boring night doing nothing but stamping their feet and humoring the Supreme Custodian, who had some strange idea that the ex–ExtraOrdinary Wizard was going to turn up right there. Just like that. Of course she never had, and they didn’t expect her to either. But still, every night he sent them out to wait and get their toes frozen into blocks of ice.
So when a faint purple shadow began to emerge in their midst, none of the Guards really believed what was happening.
“It’s her,” one of them whispered, half afraid of the Magyk that suddenly swirled in the air and sent uncomfortable charges of electricity through their black metal helmets. The Guards unsheathed their swords and watched as the hazy shadow composed itself into a tall figure wrapped in the purple cloak of an ExtraOrdinary Wizard.
Marcia Overstrand had Appeared right in the middle of the Supreme Custodian’s trap. She was taken by surprise, and without her KeepSafe and the protection of the Midnight Minutes—for Marcia was twenty minutes late—she was not able to stop the Captain of the Guard from ripping the Akhu Amulet from her neck.
Ten minutes later Marcia was lying at the bottom of Dungeon Number One, which was a deep, dark chimney buried in the foundations of the Castle. Marcia lay stunned, trapped in the middle of a Vortex of Shadows and Shades that DomDaniel had, with great pleasure, set up especially for her. That night was the worst night of Marcia’s life. She lay helpless in a pool of foul water, resting on a pile of bones of the dungeon’s previous occupants, tormented by the moaning and the screaming of the Shadows and Shades that whirled around her and drained her Magykal powers. It was not until the next morning—when, luckily, an Ancient ghost got lost and happened to pass through the wall of Dungeon Number One—that anyone apart from DomDaniel and the Supreme Cu
stodian knew where she was.
The Ancient brought Alther to her, but there was nothing he could do except sit by her and encourage her to stay alive. Alther needed all his powers of persuasion, for Marcia was in despair. In a fit of temper with Silas she knew she had lost everything that Alther had fought for when he deposed DomDaniel. For once again DomDaniel had the Akhu Amulet tied around his fat neck, and it was he, not Marcia Overstrand, who truly was now the ExtraOrdinary Wizard.
31
THE RAT’S RETURN
Aunt Zelda did not possess a timepiece or a clock. Timepieces never worked properly at Keeper’s Cottage; there was too much Disturbance under the ground. Unfortunately, this was something that Aunt Zelda had never bothered to mention to Marcia as she herself was not too concerned with the exact time of day. If Aunt Zelda wanted to know the time, she would content herself with looking at the sundial and hoping that the sun was out, but she was much more concerned with the passing of the phases of the moon.
The day the Message Rat was rescued, Aunt Zelda had taken Jenna for a walk around the island after it got dark. The snow was as deep as ever and had such a crisp covering of frost that Jenna was able to run lightly across the top, although Aunt Zelda in her big boots sank right down. They had walked along to the end of the island, away from the lights of the cottage, and Aunt Zelda had pointed up at the dark night sky, which was brushed with hundreds of thousands of brilliant stars, more than Jenna had ever seen before.
“Tonight,” Aunt Zelda had said, “is the Dark of the Moon.”
Jenna shivered. Not from the cold but from a strange feeling she got, standing out on the island in the middle of such an expanse of stars and darkness.