Queste

W hile Marcia waited for the glue to dry, Septimus was doing something much more interesting - squeezing through a small trapdoor in the floor of Beetle's hut.

"I didn't know you could get to the Ice Tunnels through here," Septimus said, as his feet found the rungs of the ladder fixed to the wall of ice below him.

"Tradesman's entrance." Beetle grinned up at Septimus. His breath was misting on the freezing air and his face was an unearthly color in the light of the flickering blue lamp he had just lit. "Miss Djinn makes me use it. Close the hatch, will you, Sep?"

"Yep," said Septimus. He pulled down the heavy Sealed hatch - typical of all the Sealed entrances to the Ice Tunnels - that was hidden under the trapdoor, and heard the soft hiss as it settled onto its Seal.

From beneath his Apprentice robes he took the Alchemie Keye that he wore around his neck and pressed it into a circular depression in the middle of the hatch. Then he climbed down the icy metal ladder into the depths below Beetle's hut and joined him on the slippery surface of the Ice Tunnel.

Septimus's dragon ring, which he wore on his right index finger, gave off a dim yellow glow. But it was Beetle's blue lamp that caught the beautiful white-blue sparkle of the ice covering the inside of the tunnel like cake icing and threw their distorted shadows across the icy vault of the high-arched roof.

"I'll just nip up and Seal the hatch," said Beetle. "Then we'll be off."

"It's all Sealed," said Septimus.

"No, Sep. I gotta use the Seal - see?" Beetle held up a wax disc - an exact copy of Septimus's solid gold Keye. In reply Septimus drew out his Keye and waved it at Beetle with a grin. Beetle shook his head in amazement. "Sheesh...I am not even going to ask how you got that, Sep."

"Marcellus gave it to me," said Septimus. "It's how Jenna and I got out."

"Ah," said Beetle, tactful enough not to mention Nicko, who had not gotten out and was still trapped in another Time. Mentioning Nicko upset Septimus, which Beetle did not like to see. Beetle took a simple wooden sled from a hook nailed into the icy wall. "Want to hop on?" he asked.

Beetle held the rope of the sled while Septimus climbed on; then he took his place at the front and fixed his lamp so that it became a headlight. Remembering what Beetle's sled driving was like, Septimus held on tight - and not a moment too soon. Before he had time to draw a breath the sled had shot off and was taking the first bend - a sharp right-hander - on one runner.

"Wheerrr...aaargh!" yelled Septimus. His shout was carried away on the icy air, traveling for miles joining with the many ghostly laments that lingered on the cold tunnel winds.

After almost two years as an Inspection clerk, Beetle was an expert sled driver - but unused to passengers. He took bends halfway up the icy walls, rounded corners using skid turns and if he had to stop he'd do what he called a double spin reverse whiz and end up facing the way he had come. After a few minutes Septimus was looking decidedly green. He had a brief respite as the sled trundled slowly up a long incline, but as it teetered at the top Septimus realized the worst was yet to come.

In front of him, in the light of Beetle's blue headlight, he could see a long brilliant white tunnel dropping into pitch-darkness, while above them the roof of the tunnel seemed to arch upward into a cavernous dome.

"This is my favorite part!" yelled Beetle over his shoulder. "Hold on tight!"

Septimus was already holding on so tight that he felt like his fingers had become welded to the sled.

He took a deep breath and braced himself. The sled teetered as if it, too, were taking a deep breath.

Then suddenly it went hurtling down the ice at breakneck speed, until Septimus felt a strange sensation, as though the ground was no longer there. He glanced down and realized to his horror that indeed the ground no longer was there. It was about twenty feet below them. They were airborne.

"Beeeeeee...tuuuuuuuul stop!" yelled Septimus, his voice whisked away by the wind.

Beetle was oblivious. This was the very best part of his week. It was something that, ever since he had perfected the sled jump, he had wanted to share with Septimus. It never crossed his mind that Septimus might not feel the same way.

They landed surprisingly smoothly, whizzing across a wide, flat expanse of ice and shooting straight into a tunnel so narrow that Septimus was forced to stop holding on to the sled for fear of his knuckles scraping the walls of ice. The tunnel twisted and turned. Beetle slowed down to avoid the sled getting stuck, but as they bumped slowly along between two great walls of ice Septimus began to get a horrible closed-in feeling. At last the tunnel widened out into a circular chamber with a high roof. Beetle drew to an unexpectedly sedate halt.

"We're here," he said in a low voice.

"Where?" asked Septimus, looking around at the huge Chamber. It felt familiar but he could not quite think why.

"You know," Beetle said in a loud whisper. "The place that Marcia told us to check out."

"Marcia?" Septimus was puzzled.

"Didn't she tell you?" asked Beetle.

"Marcia doesn't tell me anything," Septimus replied gloomily.

Beetle got off the sled. "Well, anyway, we gotta check out something, Sep. Stuff's been happening down here. Come on."

Septimus gingerly stood up on the ice and followed Beetle as he set off, shining his brilliant blue light around the smooth ice walls of the Chamber. Suddenly Septimus knew where they were. "It's the Chamber of Alchemie!" He gasped. "I...I used to come here every day." Septimus sounded wistful.

"Marcellus showed me tons of stuff. And he didn't nag me all the time."

"Yeah, well, I bet it was a bit warmer then too," Beetle said. "Ah, here we are. Look, it's melted and refrozen." Beetle's blue light had picked out the slab of ice that covered the old doorway to the Chamber. Unlike the rest of the hoarfrosted ice, this was clear, with hundreds of tiny bubbles trapped within it. It reminded Septimus of one of Beetle's FizzFroots - the lemon-flavored one that he did not like so much.

"That's new ice," Septimus whispered.

Beetle shrugged. "I know. But at least it's refrozen. I'll just check the Seal." Beetle pressed his wax Keye into the metal disc at the side of the ice. "Weird and weirder," he said. "It's been ReSealed.

Come on, Sep, we've got one more to check - but first I've got something to show you."

Five minutes later, Beetle threw his sled into a double spin reverse whiz and stopped in a spray of frost. Septimus fell off and lay on the ice, staring up at the blue-white roof of a tunnel.

"Come on, Sep," said Beetle. He grabbed hold of Septimus's hands and pulled him to his feet. "I found it last week. I figured out a shortcut down one of the Narrows and I saw that." He pointed to a small piece of purple rope sticking out of the ice.

Septimus got down on his hands and knees to have a closer look.

"There's no color down here," explained Beetle. "So it stood out a mile. I tried to dig it out but it's no good; the ice has taken it in. It does that. I dropped my lucky scarf once and I found it the next week, trapped under two inches of ice. For a while I'd see it when I went by, but it got drawn down deeper and deeper until one day I couldn't see it anymore. So it's funny that you can still see the rope." Beetle scraped at the ice with his penknife and freed up a little more of the rope so that a few inches stuck clear. "Well - go on," he said.

"Go on, what?" asked Septimus, puzzled.

"Grab hold of the rope and pull. It won't come out for me, but I reckon it will for you."

"Why me?"

"Well, it belongs to you."

"What belongs to me?"

Beetle smiled a mysterious smile. "You'll have to give a tug and find out, won't you?" he said.

Septimus shook his head with a puzzled smile and then, humoring Beetle, he took up the frayed rope end and pulled. He couldn't get much of a hold, but to his surprise a long length of thick purple rope freed itself from the ice as easily as if he had been pulling it from newly fallen snow.

"It's coming!" Beetle yelled, excited. "I knew it would. Keep pulling, Sep!"

Septimus needed no encouragement. He pulled steadily until the ice began to crumble and two golden runners broke the surface. Amazed, Septimus gave a hefty tug and from the depths of the ice emerged the most beautiful sled he had ever seen. "The Wizard Tower sled," he breathed. "Beetle, you found the Wizard Tower sled."

"Yeah," said Beetle with the biggest grin Septimus had seen in a long time. "Good, isn't it?"

"Good? It's incredible." Septimus brushed the dusting of ice crystals off the sled and set it down on its golden runners. It stood waiting patiently on the ice - sleek, high and delicate like a racehorse compared to the donkey of a sled that Beetle had. The intricately carved wood, inlaid with strips of lapis lazuli, felt almost warm to Septimus's touch, and its purple, blue and gold paint sparkled in the light of Beetle's lamp. Hanging from the gold bar that ran between the front of the two curved runners was a silver whistle, tied on with a green ribbon.

"No wonder they lost it," said Beetle. "They left the whistle on the sled. That's a dumb thing to do.

You should always keep it with you, Sep. Here." Beetle untied the whistle and handed it to Septimus.

"It will come whenever you whistle," he said, "and you might find you need to. These highly strung sleds were notorious for wandering off. I bet that poor Apprentice spent a long time looking for it.

Must have been a nightmare."

Septimus put the whistle in his tunic pocket. "Thanks, Beetle," he said. "You know so much stuff.

Stuff that even Marcia doesn't know."

"I dunno about that, Sep. Marcia knows more than you think. She just doesn't want to tell, that's all,"

said Beetle.

"She certainly doesn't tell me," said Septimus.

"So," said Beetle, quickly changing the subject - aware that Marcia had told him rather a lot that morning - "are you going to get on? I can teach you how to do a double spin reverse whiz and even a triple spin if you like."

"Um. Well, maybe later, when I'm used to it." Septimus gingerly sat down on his sled, half expecting it to shoot off the way Beetle's sled did. But it just sat patiently beneath him as if waiting for instructions. "How do you work these things?" he asked, realizing he never inquired how Beetle got his sled to go up and down the ice slopes and do exactly as he wished.

"You just think about what you want it to do and it does it - but only if you're the right person to ride it. If you tried to ride mine it would just ignore you."

"Okay, then, I'll give it a try," said Septimus, and in his head he thought, slowly - go slowly. And so, very, very slowly, the Wizard Tower sled set off to the sound of Beetle's laughter.

"What did you tell it, Sep?" he shouted after him. "Make like a snail?"

"I'm just testing," said Septimus a little defensively.

"So test how fast it'll go," suggested Beetle. "I bet it's amazing. Much faster than this old thing." He kicked his own sled affectionately.

"Well, maybe later," Septimus replied.

"Okay, Sep," said Beetle, getting on his sled. "But there's one last thing Marcia asked us to check out."

Septimus smiled - what did Marcia matter when he had a beautiful sled like this? "Okay, Beetle," he said. "I can help you with your Inspection now. Like they did in the old days."

Beetle grinned. "Great," he said.