Although Alther had been helping Septimus practice the Art of Flyte for three months now—ever since Septimus had found the Flyte Charm—he still felt a flash of fear when he saw the boy standing on the edge of a sheer drop.
“I'll follow you,” said Septimus, his voice almost blown away by a sudden gust of wind.
“What?”
“I'll follow you, Alther. Okay?”
“Fine. I'll watch you take off first though. Just to make sure you're nice and steady.”
Septimus did not object. He liked Alther being with him, and once or twice during the early days of Flyte, he had been very glad of the ghost's advice, particularly one nasty time when he had nearly crashed into the roof of the Manuscriptorium.
Septimus had, in fact, been showing off to his friend Beetle, but Alther had merely Caused a sudden uplift of air and set Septimus safely down in the backyard and had not mentioned the showing-off at all.
The Flyte Charm was beginning to feel hot in Septimus's grasp. It was time to go.
Taking a deep breath, Septimus hurled himself into the night. For a brief moment he felt the leaden pull of gravity dragging him toward the earth, and then the thing that he loved happened: The downward drag disappeared and he was set free, free like a bird to fly and soar, to loop and swirl through the night air, supported and held safe by the Flyte Charm. At the moment the Flyte Charm kicked in, Alther relaxed and set off in front of Septimus, arms held out like the wings of a gliding eagle, while Septimus followed more erratically, trying out his new slalom skids.
They arrived at the Hole in the Wall Tavern with a bump—or rather, Septimus did.
Alther shot straight through the wall, leaving Septimus to use a slalom skid for real and land with a crash in the bushes that grew across the tumbledown entrance to the tavern.
Alther came a few minutes later to find Septimus picking himself up out of the bushes. “Sorry, Septimus,” Alther apologized. “Just saw old Olaf Snorrelssen. Nice chap. Northern Trader, never got home to see his baby, you know. Sad, really. Goes on about it a bit but he's a good soul. I keep telling him he ought to get out and about the Castle, but there're not many places he can go apart from the Traders' Market and the Grateful Turbot. So he just sits here staring into his beer.”
Septimus brushed a few leaves off his tunic, put the Flyte Charm back into his Apprentice belt and surveyed the entrance to the Hole in the Wall Tavern. It didn't look much like a tavern to him. It looked pretty much like a pile of stones dumped at the base of the Castle wall. There was no sign outside the door. In fact, there was no door, neither were there the usual steamy, lit windows that Septimus was used to seeing in taverns because, well, there were no windows either. As Septimus wondered whether Alther was playing some kind of complicated joke on him, a ghostly nun wafted by.
“Good evening, Alther,” said the nun in her soft accent.
“Good evening, Sister Bernadette,” Alther replied with a smile. The nun gave him a flirtatious wave and disappeared through the pile of stones. She was followed by a virtually see-through knight with his arm in a sling, who carefully tied up his limping horse to an invisible post and shuffled through the bush from which Septimus had just extricated himself.
“Looks like, being a busy night tonight, we've got quite a few visitors,” mused Alther, nodding in a friendly fashion to the knight.
“But—they're gbosts,” said Septimus.
“Well, of course they're ghosts,” said Alther. "That's the whole point of the tavern.
Any ghost is welcome; all others are by invitation only. And it's not easy to get an invitation, I can tell you. At least two ghosts have to invite you. Of course, we've had the odd gate-crasher over the years but it's still a pretty well-kept secret."
Three faded Ancient ExtraOrdinary Wizards had now arrived and were stuck at the entrance trying to decide who should go in first. Septimus nodded politely to them and asked Alther, “So who else has invited me?”
Alther, distracted by the sight of the three Wizards deciding to go in all at once to the accompaniment of much giggling, did not answer the question. “Come on, lad, follow me,” he said, and disappeared through the wall. Some moments later, Alther reappeared and said, a little impatiently, “Come on, Septimus, best not keep Queen Etheldredda waiting.”
“But I—”
“Just squeeze behind the bush and slip behind the pile of stones. You'll find the way in.”
Septimus pushed through the bush, and feeling his way with the help of the light from the glowing Dragon Ring that he wore on his right index finger, he found a narrow passage' way behind the stones that took him deep into a broad, low space hidden within the Castle walls—the Hole in the Wall Tavern.
Septimus was astonished; he had never seen so many ghosts together in one place.
Septimus was used to seeing ghosts around the Castle, as he had always been the sensitive kind of boy that ghosts liked to Appear to, and since he had been wearing the green robes of an Apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Septimus had noticed that even more ghosts chose to Appear to him. But there was something about the relaxed atmosphere in the Hole in the Wall Tavern—and the fact that he was with Alther, one of the most popular regulars—that meant most of the ghosts allowed Septimus to see them. It was an amazing sight: there were the usual ExtraOrdinary Wizard ghosts, all in purple but with many different styles of robe reflecting the fashions over the years; Septimus was used to seeing these around the Palace and the Wizard Tower. There were a surprising number of Queens and Princesses too. But there were other ghosts that Septimus was unused to seeing: knights and their pages, farmers and farmers' wives, sailors and traders, scribes and scholars, tramps and tinkers and all manner of Castle inhabitants from the last few thousand years, all holding on to their Hole in the Wall tankards, which they had been given on their first visit and had never needed to refill.
A quiet hum of ghostly chatter pervaded the atmosphere as conversations started many years ago continued their leisurely way, but over in a far corner a regal figure heard the hesitant footsteps of a living boy cut through the noise. She got up from her seat beside the fire and glided through the throng, a respectful sea of ghosts parting before her.
“Septimus Heap,” said Queen Etheldredda. “Five and a half minutes late, but no matter. I have been waiting five hundred years. Follow me.”
5
Queen Etheldredda