Marcellus shook himself out of the memory and the distant echoes of the past faded. He told himself that all were long gone. Even the redoubtable Julius Pike was now no more than a ghost, said to have gone back to where he grew up—a farm near the Port. But he, Marcellus Pye, was still here, and he had work to do. He had the Fyre to start and the Two-Faced Ring to destroy.

Marcellus swung himself onto the metal ladder that led down from the upper platform and cautiously began the descent into the Fyre Chamber—or the Deeps, as the Drummins had called it. The ladder shook with each step as Marcellus headed doggedly downward toward a wide platform far below from which yet more Fyre Globes winked up at him. Some ten long minutes later, he set foot on what was known as the Viewing Station, and stopped to take stock.

Marcellus was now level with the top of the Fyre Cauldron. He peered down at the star-shaped tops of the Fyre rods glistening with the dull shine that undamaged Fyre rods possessed. The last time he had seen them they were on fire, disintegrating before his eyes and now . . . Marcellus shook his head in admiration. How had the Drummins done it?

A narrow walkway known as the Inspection Circle ran around the rim of the Cauldron. It was made of metal lattice, which Marcellus could see had been repaired where it had buckled in the heat. Very carefully, he stepped down onto it, holding tight to the guardrails on either side. From his tool belt he took a small hammer, known as a drummer, and clasping it tightly he set off. Every few paces he stopped and tapped the metal rim of the Fyre Cauldron, listening intently. To his ears it appeared to be sound, although he knew his hearing was nowhere near as acute as it needed to be for the job.

This was what the Drummins had done all day, all night, all the time. They had swarmed over the Cauldron, drum, drum, drumming with their tiny hammers, listening to the sounds of the metal, understanding everything it told them. Marcellus knew he was a poor substitute for a Drummin but he did the best he could. After walking the Inspection Circle, he returned to the Viewing Station, knowing that he could put off no longer the thing he had been dreading the most. He must go down to the floor of the Chamber of Fyre.

A flight of curved metal steps wound their way around the belly of the Cauldron down into the dimness below, which was lit by a few scattered Fyre Globes. Slowly, Marcellus descended into the depths and the smell of damp earth came up to meet him. On the bottom step, he stopped, gathering the courage to step onto the ground. Marcellus was convinced that the cavern floor must be strewn with the remains of the Drummins and he could not bear the thought of crunching their delicate little bones like eggshells underfoot.

It was some minutes before Marcellus stepped off. To his relief there was no sickening crunch. He took another step—on tiptoe—then another, and felt nothing below his feet but bare earth. Carefully, Marcellus tiptoed around the base of the Cauldron, tapping it with his hammer, listening, then moving on. Not once did he tread on anything remotely crunchy. He supposed that the delicate bones had already turned to dust. After a circuit of the underside of the Cauldron, Marcellus knew that all was well.

It was now time to begin the Fyre.

Back on the Viewing Station, Marcellus headed off along another frighteningly flimsy walkway that was strung out across the cavern, thirty feet up. He walked cautiously, glad of the light from a corresponding line of Fyre Globes placed on the ground. At last he arrived at a chamber burrowed into the rock face at the back of the cavern and stepped inside. He was back in his old control room.

Below the coating of hundreds of years’ worth of dust, Marcellus could see that the walls had been repainted white and everything shone—there was no sign of the greasy soot that had covered everything. Marcellus walked across to the far wall where, beside a line of iron levers, there was a large brass wheel set into the rock. Taking a deep breath, Marcellus grasped the wheel. It moved easily. As he slowly turned it, Marcellus could feel the slip and slide, the clunk and the thunk of the chain of command, which reached up through the rock into the depths of the UnderFlow. Somewhere far above him a sluice gate opened. A great gurgle echoed around the sooty darkness of Alchemie Quay and the sluggish waters began to move. Marcellus felt the rumble inside the rock face of the tumbling water as it poured through ancient channels and began to fill the reservoir deep within the cavern walls.

Now Marcellus turned his attention to a bank of twenty-one small wheels farther along. Once the Fyre was begun, he must have a way of getting rid of excess heat. In the old days the heat had been dispersed through what were now the Ice Tunnels and used to warm the older buildings of the Castle. Marcellus had given the current ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia Overstrand, his word that he would preserve the Ice Tunnels. This meant he needed to open up the secondary venting system—a network of pores that snaked up to the surface of the Castle.