SIMON HEAP: ALCHEMIE APPRENTICE.
LUCY HEAP: ARCHITECT.
HEATHER, ELIZABETH AND SAMSON SNARP: STONEMASONS AND LIGHTHOUSE BUILDERS.
Septimus looked at the names for a few minutes, taking them in. There it was, set in stone—he was no longer anything to do with Marcellus. Or Alchemie. Or the Fyre. Where his name could have been, there was Simon’s.
Lucy was so busy supervising the dismantling of the scaffolding that she did not notice Septimus wandering away disconsolately and disappearing into the shadows of Gold Button Drop. The mist in the Drop was thicker than in Alchemie Way. It settled around him like a blanket; it muffled the sound of his boots and set his Dragon Ring glowing in the dull light. The conical shape of the lock-up solidified out of the mist, flat at first like a cardboard cutout; then details came into view: the rough stone blocks, the dark arch of the door. And then he saw the door open and a black-and-red-cloaked figure emerge.
“Marcellus!”
“Ah, Septimus. Well, well, what a coincidence. I was on my way to find you.”
Septimus brightened. “Really?”
“Indeed. The chimney is complete and we are about to bring the Fyre up to its operating level. I would like you to see this, so that when you become ExtraOrdinary Wizard—”
“ExtraOrdinary Wizard?” said Septimus. “Me?”
Marcellus smiled. “Yes, you. Do you not expect to be?”
Shaken by seeing Simon’s name carved into the chimney, Septimus was full of regrets for Alchemie. He shook his head. “No. Oh—I don’t know.”
“Well, just in case it turns out that way. I want the Fyre to be as much part of your life as it is part of mine or, indeed, Simon’s. I want you to trust it and understand it, so that never again does an ExtraOrdinary Wizard even think of killing the Fyre.”
“I would never do that. Never,” said Septimus. “The Fyre is amazing. It makes everything, even the Wizard Tower, feel dull.”
“Ah. But you have made your decision, Septimus.”
“I know,” Septimus sighed. “And it’s set in stone.”
Marcellus and Septimus took the climbing shaft and tunnel down to Alchemie Quay and then transferred to a much narrower and steeply sloping tunnel that wound its way in a spiral, down between the web of Ice Tunnels that radiated off from below the Chamber of Alchemie. It was over half an hour later that they reached the end of the tunnel where the upper Fyre hatch, illuminated by a Fyre Globe, lay.
“This is but a short climb down, Apprentice,” said Marcellus. “But we must make it a fast one. This is the one point where we can be seen on the Live Plan. And I do not wish to be seen just yet. You do understand?”
“Yes,” said Septimus a little guiltily.
Marcellus placed his Alchemie Keye into the central indentation of the hatch and it sprang open. A waft of heat came up to meet them. Septimus waited while Marcellus swung himself into the shaft, then he quickly followed and pulled the hatch shut. He clambered down the metal ladder and waited while Marcellus opened the lower Fyre hatch, then dropped down after Marcellus onto the flimsy metal platform.
Simon, in his black-and-gold Alchemie robes, was waiting for them.
“Hello, Simon,” said Septimus, not entirely pleased to see him.
Simon, however, looked happy to see his little brother. “Hello, Sep,” he said. “What a place. Isn’t it beautiful?” He pointed to the Fyre below.
“Yes, it is. It’s amazing,” said Septimus, thawing a little at Simon’s enthusiasm.
“Apprentices,” said Marcellus. “It is not safe for the secrets of the Fyre to be known by only one person. Or even two. By the end of today, I hope that there will be three of us who will understand all there is to know about the Fyre. ‘Safety in numbers’ is the expression, I believe. And safety is what we want.”
And so, they became a team. Patiently, Marcellus took Simon and Septimus through all the stages of bringing the Fyre to its full power, which, now that the chimney was completed, it was safe to do. They worked through the day, methodically running through Marcellus’s long checklist. They regulated the water flow through the Cauldron, cold when it entered, hot when it left to find its way out through the giant emergency drain into the river. They drummed the Cauldron, they measured the height of the Fyre rods, they checked the levers that operated the huge hoppers of coal buried in the cavern walls—the Fyre blanket, Marcellus called it—and a hundred other small things that Marcellus insisted upon. “For safety,” as he said countless times that day.
It was late afternoon when Marcellus, Septimus and Simon stood once more on the dizzyingly high platform at the top of the Fyre Chamber. Above them was the huge oval opening to the Alchemie Chimney, which would take up the heat and the fumes and provide a much-needed airflow through the Chamber. But it was not the unobtrusive opening in the roof that claimed their attention—it was, of course, the perfect circle of the eye of Fyre far below, brilliant red brushed with its delicate blue flame, that returned their gaze. Underneath the blue they could see the dark twinkling of the graphite rods, each one a perfect five-pointed star, silently powering the Fyre around it. Marcellus smiled. All was well. They climbed up the pole to the lower Fyre hatch, sweaty, tired and longing for fresh air once more. But there was one more thing to do.
An hour later, the decoy fire in the furnace of the Great Chamber of Alchemie and Physik was lit and burning well. Marcellus lowered the conical fireguard over it so that the flames were safely contained. “Good,” he said. “That will produce enough smoke to satisfy everyone. Time to go.”
They headed wearily up the long incline back to the lock-up. Septimus had been so impressed with Marcellus’s insistence on safety that—even though he knew Marcellus did not like to talk about it—he said, “I just don’t understand how the Great Alchemie Disaster ever happened.”
Marcellus sighed. “That, Septimus, makes two of us. I don’t understand either. It makes no more sense to me now than it did all those hundreds of years ago. But what I do know is that if the ExtraOrdinary Wizard had not intervened in such a high-handed manner—excuse me, Septimus, it rankles to this day—and closed down the Fyre, then many lives would have been saved. And my house in Snake Slipway would not be so perishing cold every Big Freeze.” Marcellus smiled at Septimus’s bemused expression. “The Ice Tunnels were not just the old communication tunnels between the ancient Castle buildings; many of them were also part of the Castle heating system. As you know, they run beneath every old house. The hot water from the Fyre kept us all warm. People loved the Fyre in those days.”