Queste

Infobox Book |
name = Queste


image_caption = Cover art for "Queste" by Angie Sage
author = Angie Sage
cover_artist = Mark Zug (illustrator)
country = USA
language = English
series = Septimus Heap (Book 4)
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = HarperCollins and Bloomsbury Publishing
release_date = 8 April 2008 (for US)
release_date = 5 May 2008 (for UK)
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 608 (hardcover)
isbn = ISBN 9780060882075 (US hardcover edition), ISBN 0747589038 (UK hardcover)
preceded_by = Physik
followed_by = Syren

Queste is a fantasy novel by Angie Sage. It is the fourth book in the Septimus Heap series. The book was released on 16 April in the United States. The cover of the book is modeled after the in-story Restored notes of Nicko bound by Ephaniah Grebe into a book, with the Queste stone lying on top of it. The fifth book, Syren, will be published in the fall of 2009. [ [http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0060882077?showViewpoints=1 Queste review] ]

Plot

Queste takes Septimus, Jenna and Beetle in search of Nicko and Snorri, to bring them back from the past. They go to Marcellus Pye, who has remembered some information from his 500 year old memory and provides them with some notes from Nicko and Snorri. The notes say that they planned to travel to the House Of Foryx where all times meet, and there they expected to come back to their time. Jenna takes the notes back with her to the Palace.

In the meantime, Merrin Meredith travels to the Castle in hope of destroying Septimus. He bumps into Jenna who drops all the notes of Nicko and they get wet. Jenna goes to the The Manuscriptorium and asks Beetle to help her RePlace the notes. Beetle then takes her to the restoration specialist Ephaniah Grebe. Ephaniah is a half man half rat being. He Restores the pages and binds them in to a book. But they still missed one piece, the centre of the map to the House of Foryx.

Merrin has in the meantime, takes a terd on a scribe in the Manuscriptorium. There he meets the ghost of Tertius Fume, the first Chief terdy Scribe. Tertius makes him transfer the loyalty of the Thing to him and assures that he will send Septimus on a perilous Queste. Tertius Fume arrives at the Wizard Tower along with the ghosts of all the previous ExtraOrdinary Wizards and announces that they are about to draw the Queste stone. Septimus feels a Darkenesse inside the urn where the stone is kept and tells that a Thing is there to sabotage the draw. They escape the Wizard tower as Tertius Fume puts it under Seize. But accidentally Septimus takes the Queste stone thinking it to be a KeepSafe.

Septimus, Jenna and Beetle start their journey to the House of Foryx. Sam Heap shows them the way. They eventually reach the House and find Ephaniah near it. He had found the last missing piece of the map but was possessed by the Thing. Septimus, Jenna and Beetle enter the House of Foryx, but accidentally all three of them go inside. There Septimus is taken inside a door by a girl and Septimus finds himself face to face with Hotep-Ra, first ExtraOrdinary wizard. In the meantime Jenna and Beetle find Nicko and Snorri and all of them try to escape the House of Foryx. Just as they were about to leave, Marcia and Sarah arrive outside the house on Spit Fyre, so all of them are able to return to their own time. [ [http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0060882077?showViewpoints=1 The storyline for Queste] ] [ [http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/queste Review for 'Queste' by kaboodle.com] ]

Characters

*Septimus Heap: the protagonist to the story, supposedly died in birth, but was recognized at the end of Book 1: "Magyk".
*Jenna Heap: Septimus' adopted sister, daughter to the Last Queen.
*Silas Heap: Septimus' Father.
*Sarah Heap: Septimus' Mother.
*Simon Heap: Septimus' oldest brother who is reforming from his evil ways.
*Nicko Heap: Septimus' brother was previously apprenticed to the Boatyard, before he and Snorri got trapped in an earlier time in Book 3,"Physik".
*Beetle: Septimus' best friend, who accompanies Jenna and Septimus on their journey after getting fired from the Manuscriptorium
*Merrin Meredith: Former apprentice to Simon Heap, enemy of Septimus, and formerly DomDaniel's apprentice.
*Marcia Overstrand: Current Extra-Ordinary Wizard
*Snorri Snorrelssen: Daughter of a Northern Trader, she was trapped in the past with Nicko during the events from "Physik"
*Alther Mella : The Ghost of an Extraordinary Wizard, who aids Jenna and Septimus
*Tertius Fume : The Ghost of the first Chief Hermetic Scribe.
*Ephaniah Grebe: Friendly worker at the Manuscriptorium who stays in the basement due to a very odd hex that two books placed on him. He was saved by the Witch Mother, though the hex left him with some very peculiar deformities.
*Morwenna Mould : Witch mother who at first seems very fond of all the Heaps, but later turns on the castle, revoking her previous agreement to leave the people of the castle alone.

Included CD-ROM

Some editions of the book include a "Magykal CD". The disk included is actually a CD-ROM, not a CD, which led to some confusion and complaints among customers who tried to play the disk in a CD player. Also, the CD-ROM contains exclusively Windows executables, and non-standard files with "pdf" and "swf" extensions, rendering the entire CD unusable to anyone without a Windows machine to run the executable files that decode the fake PDFs and Flash files.Fact|date=June 2008 This has also been tested, and failed to function, with Wine on Linux. [ [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Queste-Mini-CDROM-Septimus-Heap/dp/0060882077 Mini CD-ROM with Queste] ]

References