Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [4]
Simon leaped to his feet. He didn’t care what happened but he was not going back to the Darke. He raced to the door and pulled at the bolt but it would not shift. The Thing was close behind him now, so close that Simon could smell the decay and taste the bitterness of it on his tongue. He glanced at the window. It was a long way down.
His mind racing, Simon backed away toward the window. Maybe if he jumped he would land on the balcony two floors down. Maybe he could grab the drainpipe. Or haul himself up onto the roof.
The Thing regarded him with displeasure. “Apprentice, you will come with me. Or do I have to Fetch you?” Its voice filled the low-ceilinged room with threat.
Simon decided to go for the drainpipe. He threw open the window, half clambered out and seized the thick black pipe that ran down the rear wall of the Customs House. A howl of anger came after him and, as Simon tried to swing his feet off the window ledge, he felt an irresistible force dragging him back into the room—the Thing had put a Fetch on him.
Even though Simon knew that there was no resisting a Fetch, he clung desperately onto the pipe while his feet were being pulled so hard that he felt like the rope in a tug-of-war. Suddenly the rusty metal lurking below the drainpipe’s thick black paint came away in his hands, and Simon shot back into the room, pipe and all. He slammed into the bony—yet disgustingly soft—body of the Thing and fell to the floor. Unable to move, Simon lay looking up.
The Thing smirked down at him. “You will follow me,” it intoned.
Like a broken puppet, Simon was dragged to his feet. He staggered out of his room and lurched like an automaton down the long, narrow stairs. In front of him glided the Thing. As they emerged onto the quayside, the Thing became no more than an indistinct shadow, so that when Maureen from the Harbor and Dock Pie Shop glanced up from opening the shutters, all she saw was Simon walking stiffly across the quay, heading toward the shadows of Fore Street. Maureen wiped her hand across her eyes. Some dust must have got in them, she thought—everything around Simon looked strangely fuzzy. Maureen waved cheerily but Simon did not respond. She smiled and fastened open the last shutter. He was an odd one, that Simon. Always had his head in some Magyk book or chanting a spell.
“Pies ready in ten minutes. I’ll save you a veg and bacon one!” she called out, but Simon had vanished into the side streets, and Maureen could once more see clearly across the empty quayside.
* * *
When a person is Fetched, there is no stopping, no rest, no respite, until the person has reached the place to which he is Fetched. For a whole day and half a night Simon waded through marshes, scrambled through hedges and stumbled along stony paths. Rain soaked him, winds buffeted him, snow flurries froze him, but he could stop for nothing. Relentlessly on he went until finally, in the cold, gray light of the next day’s dawn, he swum an ice-cold river, hauled himself out, staggered across the early morning dew and climbed up a crumbling wall of ivy. At the very top he was dragged through an attic window and frogmarched to a windowless room. When the door was barred behind him and he was left alone, sprawled on the bare floor, Simon no longer knew or cared where—or who—he was.
Chapter 2
Visitors
Night and a cold drizzle were falling fast when the Port barge drew up at the New Quay, a recently built stone jetty just below Sally Mullin’s Tea and Ale House. Accompanied by assorted children, chickens and bundles, the frazzled passengers rose stiffly from their seats and stumbled down the gangway. Many of them made their way unsteadily along the well-trodden path to the Tea and Ale House to warm themselves by the stove and fill up with Sally’s winter specials: mulled Springo Ale and warm spiced barley cake. Others, longing to get home to a warm fireside, set off on the long trudge up the hill, past the Castle amenity rubbish dump, to the South Gate,