Inside the lobby, a Wizard stood staring at the Seal to the tunnel, watching for any changes that would indicate a disturbance on the other side. Seal Watch was a boring task requiring little skill but a lot of concentration, and it was not a popular duty. A rotation of half-hourly shifts was kept, which used up a lot of Wizards every twenty-four hours.
Marcia approached the watcher. “I have come to do an inspection. If you would like to stand aside, please?”
There was nothing that Thomasinn Tremayne, the Seal Watch Wizard, would have liked better. She stepped to one side and shook her head. The flickering lights made her feel nauseous and gave her a thumping headache. It was a horrible job.
“I am taking my Apprentice with me to inspect the Sealed Cell,” Marcia said in a low voice. “You are to remain on guard. If we do not exit within ten minutes I authorize you, for security, to ReSeal the door.”
Septimus glanced at Marcia in surprise. That seemed a little drastic, he thought.
“Very well, Madam Marcia,” whispered Thomasinn. And then, “Shall I watch your backpack, Apprentice?”
“Oh—thank you.” Septimus shrugged off his backpack and it fell to the floor.
“Ouch!” gasped Thomasinn. “My foot!”
“Shhh!” shushed Marcia.
“Oh, gosh. I’m so sorry,” Septimus apologized.
“Really, Thomasinn, it’s only a little backpack,” said Marcia. “Come along, Septimus.”
Marcia held her hands out about an inch above the shimmering Seal, concentrating hard. Suddenly, she pushed her hands through and pulled them rapidly apart, unzipping the Seal as she did so, to reveal a narrow silver door.
Marcia pushed the door open and squeezed through, “Come on, Septimus. Quickly.”
Septimus slipped inside and Marcia closed the door with a soft ker-lunk. She pressed her hand onto its smooth surface and a temporary Seal flashed across like purple lightning. Then she took a lamp from a hook beside the door, Lit it and set off. Septimus followed. Lamp held high, Marcia walked along the sloping brick-lined tunnel that snaked down to the Sealed Cell, which was buried in the bedrock below the Wizard Tower. They walked quickly, the sound of their footsteps absorbed by the thin clouds of Magyk hanging around the tunnel. Every seven yards, Septimus saw a small door set into the tunnel wall, beyond which he knew was a chamber used for storing all manner of potentially troublesome objects. Septimus was excited. He knew how the Sealed Cell worked and he had even, in the first year of his Apprenticeship, made a small model of it, but he had never actually been to the end of the tunnel and seen it—let alone been inside.
The Sealed Cell was the most secure place in the Wizard Tower. It was used for imprisoning the most dangerous and powerful Magykal objects, entities, Spells and Charms. Its last occupant had been Septimus’s jinnee, Jim Knee, securely confined until he had agreed to do Marcia’s bidding. But now it was the Two-Faced Ring that languished behind the tiny door to the Sealed Cell at the very end of the tunnel.
For more effective use of the Sealing Magyk, this door was only three feet high and even narrower than the entrance door. Not all previous ExtraOrdinary Wizards had actually been able to fit through it—DomDaniel himself had once got stuck, much to his then-Apprentice’s amusement (a memory that Alther still cherished). What the door lacked in height and width, it made up for in thickness. It was, like the great doors into the Wizard Tower, made from solid silver, which shone through the misty purple haze of the Seal that encased the door.
Marcia placed her lamp on a small shelf beside the door; then she put her hand into the purple and with a deft flick of her wrist she broke the Seal. She took three small silver keys from her ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt and placed them in three keyholes: one at the top of the door, one at the foot and one in the middle. Marcia turned the middle key and Septimus heard three old-fashioned barrel locks rotate in unison. The door swung open with a small squeak.
Marcia lifted off the long pair of Protected forceps (known as the Bargepoles) that hung on a hook beside the door, picked up her lamp and squeezed through the narrow opening into the cell. Septimus quickly followed.
With the door closed the lamplight turned the dark space—which was lined in two-inch-thick solid silver—into a sparkling, shining jewel. But its brilliance did not disguise the fact that the Sealed Cell was tiny. Septimus felt sorry for Jim Knee, although it was, he supposed, better than the inside of a silver bottle. In fact, it felt not unlike being inside a very big silver bottle, for the shining walls were molded to the rounded contours of the end of the tunnel.
