Julius did not know the exact words of the Committal, but he knew the pattern that ancient Incantations took, and he could tell that Jenna was now heading toward the end. But both he and Beetle could also tell that the Heaps were nearing the end of their strength. Silently they urged Jenna on, Julius waiting for the Keystone word that would signal the beginning of the end of the Committal and render the Wizards powerless. The ExtraOrdinary Wizard ghost knew all 343 possible Keystone words and, increasingly anxiously, he waited for one of them.
Suddenly, Jenna stopped speaking. Julius waited for her to continue—it was dangerous to pause for too long. But Jenna stayed silent and Julius realized with horror that Jenna thought she had finished.
The Heaps’ eyes began to roll.
Jenna waited for the Committal to work.
The Heaps’ fists began to clench.
Julius Pike could stand it no longer. “Run!” he yelled. “For pity’s sake—run!”
Beetle grabbed Jenna’s hand and pulled her away. Jenna looked shocked. It hadn’t worked. It hadn’t worked. Why? She had remembered every word right. She knew she had.
To the accompaniment of groans from Edmund and Ernold, Beetle and Jenna tore up the seemingly endless steps. It was like one of Beetle’s nightmares. He ran as fast as he could, aware that he and Jenna were in full view of the Wizards, presenting what must have been the easiest target they had ever had. At any moment he expected them to be felled by a Thunderflash or worse. Up, up they ran, and suddenly they were at the top, around the corner and leaning breathless against the wall.
“Breath . . . back,” panted Jenna, cramming her circlet back on her head.
Beetle nodded, unable to speak. He had the most terrible stitch in his side. As he fought for breath, Jenna peered around the corner. She turned back and grinned, holding her arms out and making pincer movements with her hands.
Down in the doorway, two giant scorpion claws held Edmund and Ernold Heap prisoner; beside them lay two snapped Volatile Wands.
Beetle and Jenna crashed into the Manuscriptorium. “Foxy, get everyone out!” Beetle yelled.
Foxy didn’t need telling twice. Thirty seconds later Marissa, Partridge, Romilly and Moira Mole were outside. “I’m taking Jenna to the Wizard Tower for her own safety,” said Beetle. “I suggest you all come too.”
“Forget it,” snapped Marissa. “I’ve got better things to do,” and she headed off to Gothyk Grotto.
Beetle headed up Wizard Way, pulling Jenna behind him. “Beetle, wait,” said Jenna, who had seen Septimus and Marcia hurrying up Wizard Way. “There’s Sep and Marcia. We have to tell them.”
“No!” said Beetle. “It’s not safe.”
“I’ll tell them,” said Foxy, determined to be brave. “You go on ahead.”
“We’ll all tell them,” said Partridge. “Come on, Foxy.”
As Jenna and Beetle hurtled through the Great Arch they overtook the ghost of Alther Mella, who was herding Merrin and Nursie across the Courtyard in the manner of a shepherd rounding up two particularly stupid sheep. He watched Jenna and Beetle disappear into the Wizard Tower and heard hurried footsteps behind him. Moments later Marcia and Septimus, along with an assortment of scribes, came pounding through the Great Arch. As soon as they were in, Marcia took off her amulet and pressed it into a small indentation beside the Arch. The pitted old Barricade came rumbling down through the middle of the Great Arch, Sealing the Courtyard.
Edmund and Ernold Heap dragged themselves up the long, steep steps from the Vaults. Behind them lay a badly damaged scorpion, its pincers mangled and burned.
The Ring Wizards were becoming angry—their hosts were putting up much more of a fight than they had expected. What the Wizards had not accounted for was that Edmund and Ernold Heap were identical twins. All through the nightmarish trek along the Bolt, if one weakened the other encouraged him onward; in this way the Heaps had managed to keep going far longer than would have been possible if two unrelated Wizards had been InHabited. But the Heap twins had used their very last ounce of energy in protecting Jenna and now, as they fell out of the concealed door and ricocheted through the desks of the Manuscriptorium like two slow-motion pinballs, they were at the end of their endurance—and the Ring Wizards were at the end of their patience. The twins were hurled through the flimsy door that separated the Manuscriptorium from the Front Office, smashed into the stacks of papers piled up by the window and thrown through the front window.
Edmund and Ernold Heap lay crumpled on the pavement in front of the Manuscriptorium, sprinkled with rainbow shards of glass. A few passersby rushed over to help—but they stopped dead when a green mist began to swirl out from the bodies of the Heaps and rise up to form two pillars at least ten feet tall. Recognizing the Darke Magyk for what it was, people ran to the Wizard Tower for help only to find, to their dismay, that the Barricade was down. They hurried home and locked their doors.
But two visitors, Vilotta Bott and Tremula Finn, who had just arrived on the night Barge for the Magyk of the Castle tour, stayed to watch. The tour had not been going well. The Wizard Tower was unaccountably shut; not even the Courtyard was open. In the fabled Wizard Way most of the shops were closing, rather than opening, and now, to cap it all, the tour guide had run off.
“At least someone’s putting on a bit of a show,” Vilotta whispered to her friend.
Within the striking green pillars Vilotta and Tremula saw the mist circling slowly, purposefully, creating shadows and shapes. They were very impressed when within each one a human form began to solidify—ten feet tall, wearing the ancient carapace armor of a Warrior Wizard and a very odd cloak, which looked dark and sparkly at the same time. Vilotta and Tremula were pleased—this was more like it. They watched in delight as shimmering green particles spun around the two impossibly tall figures like candy floss.
“I suppose they’re on stilts,” whispered Tremula.
“They’re very good; it’s really hard to stay still on stilts,” replied Vilotta.
As each wandering atom found its place the beings became clearer. The mist began to evaporate, sending sparkling, dancing motes up into the beams of sunlight that glanced off the silver torchpost outside the Manuscriptorium.
“So pretty,” murmured Tremula.
Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light and four beams of thin red light shot from the beings’ brilliant green eyes.
Vilotta and Tremula gasped with excitement.
In unison, Shamandrigger Saarn and Dramindonnor Naarn flung out their arms and two new Volatile Wands appeared. They swung around, the pinprick beams from their eyes sweeping along Wizard Way. Vilotta and Tremula offered a shy round of applause.
“It’s very realistic, isn’t it?” said Tremula, a little nervously.
It was horribly realistic.
Four red rays of light swung back and came to rest on Vilotta and Tremula. “Ooh, that prickles,” giggled Vilotta.
“This is a bit scary,” whispered Tremula.
“It hurts!” Vilotta gasped. “Ouch! Get off me.” She tried to brush the beams away.
Tremula screamed.
Craaaaack! A Bolt of lightning zipped from each Wand and Vilotta and Tremula fell to the ground, wisps of green smoke rising from their new trip-to-the-Castle summer dresses.
Shamandrigger Saarn and Dramindonnor Naarn looked at each other, the ghost of a smile playing about their thin lips. Thousands of years spent trapped side by side in the Two-Faced Ring had given them a communication that did not require speech.
Fyre . . . We smell it . . . In the air . . . The means of . . . Our destruction . . . Must be . . . Destroyed.
The Ring Wizards spun around and marched down Wizard Way in perfect step. They left behind two brightly colored piles of rags outside Bott’s Cloaks, and outside the Manuscriptorium what appeared to be two empty, muddy sacks, strangely sad in the late spring sunshine.
38
DRAGONS AWAY
The fat, opalescent Searching Glass sat like a crouching spider on its gimbals in the center of Search and Rescue. The circular black-walled room was dim with shadows, the only light coming from the Magykal Glass that floated mysteriously inside its delicate black frame. Marcia and Hildegarde were staring into its depths in horror.
Hildegarde had her hands clamped over her mouth. “They’ve killed them!” she cried.