Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [121]
“No. You go, Marcellus.”
“No. You.”
It was Benjamin Heap’s door that settled it. There was a sudden craaaaack. A panel split and a long stream of Darkenesse poured in. In a moment the fire in the hearth was out.
“Oh, that poor horse,” said Sarah, still dithering.
“Sarah, get out,” said Marcellus. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the window. “We both go,” he said.
Sarah gave in. Surprisingly agile, she clambered out of the window and swung herself onto the rope—she had not lived in Galen’s tree house for nothing. Marcellus followed. He slammed the window shut, jamming it on the rope. Then he, too, easily began the descent, which was nothing compared to the tall chimney in the Old Way that he had regularly climbed in his old age. Far below Septimus, Jenna, Simon and Lucy looked at each other in relief.
Sarah and Marcellus made good progress, slowed only by Stanley’s bush, which Sarah irritably kicked at. It was the last straw for the bush, and it went tumbling in a shower of stones, which scattered the watchers below. When they looked back up, the light in the small mullioned window had gone out. The great rock face wall of the Ramblings was now completely in Darkenesse.
At last Sarah stepped unsteadily onto the ground. Jenna flung her arms around her.
“Oh, Mum.”
Marcellus pushed away from the wall and jumped athletically—he hoped—away from the knot of people gathered around Sarah. He landed with a splat. “Eurgh,” he muttered. “Wretched horse.”
“You only just made it,” Septimus told him disapprovingly. He thought Marcellus should have stuck to the agreed order of leaving.
“Indeed,” said Marcellus, inspecting his ruined shoe.
Marcellus’s casualness annoyed Septimus. “But we decided the order we would leave for a reason. It was important—for the whole Castle,” he persisted.
Marcellus sighed. “But things that are right in the cold light of reason may feel very wrong when faced with reality. Is that not so, Simon?”
“Yes,” said Simon, remembering the Thing strangling Sarah. “Yes, it is.”
“It’s my fault,” said Sarah. “I wanted to be last—like a captain leaving her ship. Anyway, it doesn’t matter; we’re all safe now.”
“It doesn’t feel very safe,” said Lucy, saying what most of them were thinking. She looked at Jenna accusingly. “You said there were always boats here. But I can’t see any.”
Jenna looked along the strip of mud that ran between the edge of the river and the sheer walls of the Ramblings. She didn’t understand it. There were always little boats tied up on the numerous outhauls—lengths of rope that snaked out from rings in the walls to weights sunk onto the riverbed. But now there were none.
Lucy was getting agitated. “What are we going to do? The water’s coming up and I can’t swim.”
“It’s okay, Lucy,” said Septimus, sounding more confident than he felt. “I’ll Call for Spit Fyre now. He’ll probably come now that we’re away from the Darke.”
Septimus took a long, deep breath and gave the loudest dragon Call he had ever made. The piercing, ululating sound bounced off the Ramblings walls and echoed across the river, and as the last faint whispers died away, his Call was answered—not by the hoped for sound of dragon wings beating the air, but by the answering cry of a monster within the Castle.
“Sep . . . what have you Called?” whispered Jenna.
“I don’t know,” whispered Septimus in reply.
Spit Fyre did not come, and Septimus dared not Call again.
The thin strip of mud between the sheer walls of the Ramblings and the broad band of the deep, cold river was a temporary refuge only. They knew that as the tide came in it would slowly disappear. They gazed longingly over to the safety of the opposite bank. Far away to the right, flickering through the bare branches of the winter trees, were the distant lights of a farmhouse. Upstream to the left was glow of firelight in the downstairs window of the Grateful Turbot Tavern. Both were unreachable.
“We’ll have to walk down to Old Dock,” said Septimus. “See if we can find a boat there.”
“One that isn’t half sunk already,” said Jenna.
“Do you have any