Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [77]
Simon had reached the Palace doors. A thin film of Magykal purple flickered across them, to which every Thing gave a respectful distance.
“Open the doors,” instructed the Thing.
“Don’t you dare!” said Sir Hereward, who had suddenly grasped what was happening. “We don’t want them all over the Castle.”
Simon ignored Sir Hereward—he had enough to think about. He stared blankly at the Thing but his thoughts were racing. He now understood why he had been Fetched—it was to break a Quarantine. A truly Darke entity can never get through a Quarantine, which is a powerful form of Anti-Darke. It needed a human being with Darke knowledge—knowledge that the Things knew Simon had. It was well known that Things would seek humans out to do this for them, for no human can be completely Darke—all have some small remnant of good feeling left lurking somewhere. Even DomDaniel had had a tiny bit: the old necromancer had once taken in a stray cat and given it a saucer of milk—a Thing would have skinned and eaten it.
The crowd of Things was growing impatient. “Open . . . open . . . open!” They whispered in unison.
Simon decided that, whatever the consequences for himself, he would not open the doors. If someone—he was sure it was Marcia—had put a Quarantine on the Palace it was for a good reason, most probably to keep the Darke Domaine isolated to one place and to protect the Castle. He himself would have done the same, and reinforced it with a Cordon too. No doubt Marcia had done something even better—and he wasn’t about to mess it up.
“No,” Simon croaked. “I won’t. I won’t open the doors.”
“Well said!” harrumphed Sir Hereward.
“Open . . . the . . . doors,” repeated the Thing who had half strangled him.
“No,” said Simon.
“Then perhaps your mother will persuade you.” The Thing clasped its ragged, peeling hands together and, one by one, Simon heard its knuckles crack. He watched it push its way through the crowd of Things and, taking four other Things with it, lope off down the Long Walk in the direction of Sarah’s sitting room.
Surely, thought Simon, his mother wasn’t still in the Palace—was she?
Chapter 25
Simon and Sarah
Sarah Heap looked much smaller than Simon remembered. In fact, when the Things that had gone to fetch her came back into the entrance hall, Simon could see no sign of Sarah. For a brief moment of hope he thought his mother was not there after all. But as they drew near, Simon saw Sarah’s faded yellow curls just visible inside the press of Things that surrounded her.
Murmuring in the excited way that Things have when they know something unpleasant is going to happen to someone, they pushed and poked the terrified Sarah Heap toward Simon. Sarah stared at Simon in horror, and on her face Simon read what he had been so afraid he would see—his mother thought that this was his doing.
“Mum, Mum, please, I didn’t do this. I didn’t!” said Simon, instantly back to being a little boy wrongly accused of something.
Sarah clearly did not believe him. “Oh, Simon,” she sighed.
But the next few seconds made Sarah change her mind.
“You will open the door now,” the strangler-Thing intoned.
“N-no,” stuttered Simon.
“You will,” the Thing informed him. It shoved a smaller Thing standing beside Sarah out of the way, then it raised its bony hands and placed them around Sarah’s neck, which looked, Simon thought, so very thin and fragile.
“Simon,” whispered Sarah. “What do they want?”
“They want to get out, Mum. But they can’t. They want me to do it for them.”
“Out into the Castle?” Sarah looked horrified. “All of them? Out there? With all those poor people?”
“Yes, Mum.”
Sarah looked outraged. “No son of mine will do that, Simon.”
“But Mum, if I don’t . . .”
“Don’t!” said Sarah fiercely. She closed her eyes.
The Thing tightened its fingers around Sarah’s neck. Sarah began to choke.
“No!” yelled Simon. He sprung forward to wrench the Thing from his mother but the four other Things