Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [9]
Marcia was satisfied. Today she needed to look impressive. Impressive and just a little scary. Well, quite a bit scary if necessary. She just hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.
Marcia wasn’t sure if she could do scary. She tried a few expressions in the mirror, which shivered quietly to itself, but she wasn’t sure about any of them. Marcia was unaware that most people thought she did scary very well indeed, and was in fact a complete natural at scary.
Marcia clicked her fingers. “Back!” she snapped.
The mirror showed her her back view.
“Sides!”
The mirror showed her both side views.
And then she was gone. Down the stairs two at a time, down to the kitchen to terrorize the stove, which had heard her coming and was desperately trying to light itself before she came through the door.
It did not succeed, and Marcia was in a bad temper all through breakfast.
Marcia left the breakfast things to wash themselves up and strode briskly out of the heavy purple door that led to her rooms. The door closed with a soft, respectful clunk behind her as Marcia jumped onto the silver spiral staircase.
“Down,” she told the staircase. It began to turn like a giant corkscrew, taking her slowly down through the tall Tower, past seemingly endless floors and various doors that all led into rooms occupied by an amazing assortment of Wizards. From the rooms came the sounds of spells being practiced, chanted incantations, and general Wizard chitchat over breakfast. The smells of toast and bacon and porridge mixed strangely with the wafts of incense that floated up from the Hall below, and as the spiral stairs came gently to a halt, Marcia stepped off feeling slightly queasy and looking forward to getting out into the fresh air. She walked briskly through the Hall to the massive, solid silver doors that guarded the entrance to the Wizard Tower. Marcia spoke the password, the doors silently swung open for her, and in a moment she was through the silver archway and outside into the bitter cold of a snowy midwinter morning.
As Marcia descended the steep steps, treading carefully on the crisp snow in her thin pointy shoes, she surprised the sentry who had been idly throwing snowballs at a stray cat. A snowball landed with a soft thud on the purple silk of her cloak.
“Don’t do that!” snapped Marcia, brushing the snow off her cloak.
The sentry jumped and stood to attention. He looked terrified. Marcia stared at the waiflike boy. He was wearing the ceremonial sentry uniform, a rather silly design made from thin cotton, a red and white striped tunic with purple frills around the sleeves. He also wore a large floppy yellow hat, white tights and bright yellow boots, and in his left hand, which was bare and blue with cold, he held a heavy pikestaff.
Marcia had objected when the first sentries arrived at the Wizard Tower. She had told the Supreme Custodian that the Wizards did not need guarding. They could look after themselves perfectly well, thank you very much. But he had smiled his smug smile and blandly assured her that the sentries were for the Wizards’ own safety. Marcia suspected he had put them there not only to spy on the Wizards’ comings and goings but also to make the Wizards look ridiculous.
Marcia looked at the snowball-throwing sentry. His hat was too big for him; it had slipped down and come to rest on his ears, which conveniently stuck out at just the right places to stop the hat from falling over his eyes. The hat gave the boy’s thin, pinched face an unhealthy yellow tinge. His two deep gray eyes stared out from under it in terror as the boy realized that his snowball had hit the ExtraOrdinary Wizard.
He looked, thought Marcia, very small to be a soldier.
“How old are you?” she said accusingly.
The sentry