The World of Septimus Heap

The Ancient Castle

The castle in olden olden times, before the art of masonry was well-developed. But walls are what it took to separate the villagers from the forest dwellers.

The North Gate

The Palace

A grand and very old structure built in honor of the beloved immigrant Queen and her dragon boat.

The Palace Doors

The Long Walk

The transverse main hallway of the Palace. We are standing a little off the center, peering down the south wing.

Wizard Tower Construction

Hotep Ra's great project: prevailing upon the Castle inhabitants to erect the equivalent of a cathedral to his wizardly arts. Essentially a hand-built skyscraper, its stonework channelled by chimneys and faced with brilliant limestone, its twenty-two timber floors pierced by single large stairwell. I have to admire the workers -- it was certainly the farthest any of them had ever been from the ground.

The Wizard Tower

The Manuscriptorium

Bott's Cloaks

The Ramblings, an interior

The Ramblings is a huge, improvised labyrinth of homes and shops built higgledy-piggledy into and onto the castle structure over the course of many years. Streets and alleys transform into hallways, indoor spaces give way suddenly to the outdoors, passages dead-end inexplicably. The main thoroughfare, Straight-on Way, snakes and doubles back like a dropped length of yarn. In short, a place where anything can happen.

Jannit Maarten's Boatyard

The Grateful Turbot Tavern

The Grateful Turbot is one of those inns of questionable repute -- old, cold, damp, haunted, and with surly service. But what's a traveller footsore of many miles and days, caught outside the Castle gates to do?

The House of Foryx

In a land far across the sea to the east, stands a castle-like place sheltering some very strange behaviors of time.