Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [84]
The Supreme Custodian listened approvingly. Here at last was a Heap who made some sense. And when he offered Simon the possibility of an Apprenticeship with the new ExtraOrdinary Wizard—“seeing as, and I know this will just remain between you and me, young Simon, the present boy is proving most unsatisfactory, despite our high hopes for him,”—Simon Heap began to see a new future for himself. A future where he might be respected and be able to use his Magykal talent, and not treated merely as “one of those wretched Heaps.” So, late one evening, after the Supreme Custodian had sat down companionably beside him and offered him a hot drink, Simon Heap told him what he wanted to know—that Marcia and Jenna had gone to Aunt Zelda’s cottage in the Marram Marshes.
“And where exactly would that be, lad?” asked the Supreme Custodian with a sharp smile on his face.
Simon had to confess he did not know exactly.
In a fit of temper the Supreme Custodian stormed out and went to see the Hunter, who listened in silence to the Supreme Custodian ranting on about the stupidity of all Heaps in general and of Simon Heap in particular.
“I mean, Gerald—” (For that was the Hunter’s name. It was something he liked to keep quiet about, but to his irritation the Supreme Custodian used “Gerald” at every possible opportunity.) “—I mean,” said the Supreme Custodian indignantly as he strode up and down the Hunter’s sparsely furnished room in the barracks, waving his arms dramatically in the air, “how can anyone not know exactly where their aunt lives? How, Gerald, can he visit her if he doesn’t know exactly where she lives?”
The Supreme Custodian was a dutiful visitor of his numerous aunts, most of whom wished that their nephew did not know exactly where they lived.
But Simon had provided enough information for the Hunter. As soon as the Supreme Custodian had gone, the Hunter set to work with his detailed maps and charts of the Marram Marshes and before long had pinpointed the likely whereabouts of Aunt Zelda’s cottage. He was ready once again for the Chase.
And so, with some trepidation, the Hunter went to see DomDaniel.
DomDaniel was skulking at the top of the Wizard Tower, passing the Big Freeze by digging out the old Necromancy books that Alther had locked away in a cupboard and Summoning his library assistants, two short and extremely nasty Magogs. DomDaniel had found the Magogs after he had jumped from the Tower. Normally they lived far below the earth and consequently bore a close resemblance to huge blind worms with the addition of long, boneless arms. They had no legs but advanced over the ground on a trail of slime with a caterpillarlike movement, and were surprisingly fast when they wanted to be. The Magogs had no hair, were a yellowish-white color and appeared to have no eyes. They did in fact have one small eye that was also yellowish-white; it lay just above the only features in their face, which were two glistening round holes where a nose should be and a mouth slit. The slime they extruded was unpleasantly sticky and foul-smelling although DomDaniel himself found it quite agreeable.
Each Magog would probably have been about four feet tall if you had stretched it out straight; although that was something no one had ever attempted. There were better ways to fill your days, like scratching your nails down a blackboard or eating a bucket of frog spawn. No one ever touched a Magog unless it was by mistake. Their slime had such a revolting quality to it that just remembering the smell of it was enough to make many people sick on the spot. Magogs hatched underground from larvae left in unsuspecting hibernating animals, such as hedgehogs