Midnight Over Sanctaphrax (8 page)

Their sensitive talons could detect the shifts of a ripe flight-rock. Their acute ears could pick up the whisper of a rock about to float free. Once, occasionally twice, a season, the great flock would take to the sky and circle round the Raintasters’ Tower. Then, like a great drift of snow, they would alight on the sloping roof of the Loftus Observatory, signalling to the academics of Sanctaphrax that the rock harvest should begin.

Under the watchful eye of the Most High Academe,
the ceremonially blessed and ritually purified academics would descend from Sanctaphrax and go to work.
k
With stone-nets and rock callipers, they secured the flight-rocks one by one as, with ghastly howls, they broke free.

Superstitious at the sight of the great white flock - like a visitation of ghostly spirits from beyond the Edge - the Undertowners quaked with fear. The howling of the rocks and the shrieking of the ravens - known by most as
the chorus of the dead -
was almost too much to bear. It panicked the animals, it sent youngsters scurrying indoors with their ears stopped and struck terror into even the bravest of hearts. The Undertowners would clutch their best-favoured talisman or charm and whisper urgent prayers that death might spare
them
a while longer.

Yet, for all their fears and superstitions, the Undertowners would have been still more alarmed if the noise ever failed to come. For, terrifying as it was, the ghoulish clamour heralded the delivery of the flight-rocks upon which each and every one of them depended. If the supply of flight-rocks ever dried up, no ship would ever again be able to take to the sky.

Richly rewarded by Undertown for the flight-rocks,
the academics were only too aware of the importance of this material side to their duties. It brought them both great influence and enormous wealth, allowed them their elevated existence in the magnificent floating city, and enabled them to continue their own lofty studies.

Despite the importance of the rocks, the academics felt no need to guard the Stone Gardens. That task could be safely left to the white ravens. The moment the academics finally completed their work and departed, the great white birds would swoop down noisily from the Lof tus Observatory to gorge on the hammelhorn and tilder carcasses left out for them - or, when death had visited Sanctaphrax, on the ceremonially laid-out bodies of the deceased academics themselves.

It was into this place of death, and growth - the Stone Gardens - that the shooting star had fallen. Above the sound of the wind which whistled in and out of the stone stacks, a faint hissing had been heard and the white ravens had looked up to see a tiny ball of light flying in from beyond the Edge.

As it came nearer the sizzling, spitting sound had grown louder; the light, bigger, brighter. Abruptly, a bank of dark cloud had blotted out the moon, but the Stone Gardens had become lighter, not darker, as the glowing ball of light had hurtled towards them. It had turned the water in the dips and hollows to black mirrors, and the stacks of spherical rocks to orbs of burnished silver.

The white ravens had flapped their ragged wings and screeched with terror. It was a shooting star, and
it was heading straight for their rocky home.

Down, down, down and … CRASH
!
The object had landed with a loud muddy splash beside the highest stack of rocks. And there it had remained. Dazzling, yet motionless.

Hopping forwards inquisitively, the white ravens had formed a circle around the shiny object. Was it dangerous? Was it edible? They had screeched and flapped and stabbed at it nervously before Kraan had stopped them with an angry shriek.

‘Waaaark!’

Any unusual intrusions into the Stone Gardens had to be reported to the Professor of Darkness without delay. And, as leader of the flock of white ravens, it had been Kraan's duty to do so.

‘Waaaaark!’ it had screeched a second time, as it flapped away.

The white ravens were to guard the shining object until his return.

*

‘Faster, you addle-brain!’ shouted the Professor of Darkness. ‘Good grief, you must be the slowest barrow-driver in all of Undertown!’ He leaned back and struck the lugtroll on the shoulder with his wooden staff. ‘Faster,’ he bellowed.
‘Faster!’

Instead of speeding up, the lugtroll stopped completely and lowered the wooden shafts to the ground. The professor slumped backwards, braced himself against the side rail and turned on the lugtroll furiously.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he bellowed.

‘This is as far as I go,’ came the reply.

The professor looked round and was surprised to see that they were at the edge of the Stone Gardens. ‘And not before time,’ he said gruffly. ‘But I'm not done with you yet. I need you to take me into the Gardens themselves.’

The lugtroll shook his head.

‘Did you hear me?’ the professor demanded.

Scuffing his bare feet in the dust, the lugtroll looked away. ‘I'm not going another step,’ he said firmly. ‘I've already brought you further than I like coming.’ He shuddered. ‘I hate this place. Gives me the creeps, it does.’

‘I see,’ said the professor curtly. He climbed down from the barrow and straightened his robes. ‘You will wait for me here,’ he said.

‘Oh, but…’ the lugtroll whined.

‘It will be the worse for you if you do not,’ the professor warned him. ‘If you are not here when I return, I shall see to it that you never push another barrow so long as you live.’

The lugtroll looked over his shoulders anxiously. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘But … try not to be too long.’

The professor surveyed the grim, rocky landscape and shivered with foreboding. ‘Believe me,’ he muttered. ‘I shall be as quick as I possibly can.’

Wrapping his gown tightly around him and raising his hood, the professor set off. His feet stumbled and squelched; his wooden staff tapped at his side. He felt weary and increasingly ill at ease. The Stone Gardens, groaning and creaking all round him, suddenly seemed uncomfortably immense - and the prospects of finding the fallen shooting star pitifully small.

Where should he try first? What should he look out for?

Looking round, as the low moon brightened and dimmed with the passing clouds, the professor caught a flash of flapping wings far ahead. His heart missed a beat. The savage birds that roosted in the Stone Gardens were both unpredictable and dangerous and, hearing their raucous cawing fill the air, he was about to head off in the opposite direction when a horrible thought struck him.

‘Since it was Kraan who told me about the shooting star,’ he said to himself, ‘there is every likelihood that it is the shooting star they are all flapping around now. Ah me,’ he sighed. ‘Be brave now. Show no fear, or they will be upon you at once.’

As the moon sank down beneath the horizon, the temperature fell sharply. Mist, coiling up from the
ground, swirled around the professor's shuffling feet and tapping staff.

‘Sky protect me,’ he murmured in a quavering voice as the screeching of the white ravens grew louder.

Guided only by the incessant noise of the raucous birds, he stumbled on over the uneven ground, half-blinded by the thick mist.

All at once, a tall stack of rocks loomed out of the misty shadows before him. He paused. Half a dozen of the great white ravens were perched on the boulder at the top, squabbling for position. Others clung to the sides. A dozen more - massive specimens, each of them - were down on the ground, wings outstretched, loping round in their strange, weightless dance. They were guarding something, that much was clear.

The professor took a step closer. His heart thudded -not only with fear, but also with excitement. Whatever the white ravens were clustered around, it was still glowing. He took another step. And another …

‘Waaaaark!’
the white ravens cawed furiously as their attention was grabbed by the intruder.

Those on the stack flapped their wings and rose up screeching into the air. Those on the ground loped forwards and thrust at him with gaping beaks and savage talons. They were angry - and hungry.

‘D … do you not know me?’ the professor cried. He held out the heavy gold seal of high office which hung from the chain around his neck. ‘It is I, as Most High Academe who sees to it that you are fed, who …’

He fell still. The birds were paying no heed to his words.
They were all around him now in a wildly flapping circle, and beginning to test his strength. To keep them at bay was a hopeless task. Even while the professor was lashing away at those in front of him with his heavy wooden staff, others were snapping viciously at his back.

‘Kraan!’ he bellowed. Surely his old friend wouldn't let any harm come to him.
‘
KRAAN
!’

From above his head came a flurry of wings as the largest and most powerful white raven of all spiralled down out of the sky. Its talons glinted. Its beak gleamed. It was Kraan. Staggering backwards, the professor watched it land on the back of an attacker and sink its beak in its neck. A loud shriek echoed round the Stone Gardens. Blood trickled down over white feathers.

‘
WAAAARK
!’
Kraan screeched menacingly.

The other white ravens fell back.

‘Dangerous here,’ Kraan croaked, spinning round to snap viciously at a bird that had ventured too close.

‘The shooting star … ?’ the professor stammered.

‘Shooting star,’ Kraan confirmed raucously, turning and cutting a swathe through the gathering of disgruntled white ravens. The professor followed him, nervous still. If the colony banded together they could overpower their leader in an instant.

As they approached the glowing object, the professor squinted down into the dense mist. He trembled, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. It must be his imagination. Or a trick of the light and shade. He moved closer still, crouched down and reached out. His fingers confirmed what his eyes had already told him. This
was no fallen star. No fireball. No blazing rock.

It was the body of a sky pirate, lying on its front, face turned away - and glowing from head to toe more brightly than a flaming torch.

‘I knew I hadn't imagined seeing the sky ship,’ he muttered. ‘It must have exploded. And the shooting stars I saw, those eight balls of light…’ He looked back at the glowing sky pirate. ‘Could they have been the crew?’

The cawing of the white ravens grew louder than ever. Now the professor understood why they had been guarding their find so jealously, and why his arrival had aroused such fury. To them, the sky pirate who had dropped into their midst was a free meal - a free meal Kraan and this gowned intruder were preventing them from enjoying.

He reached forwards and seized the sky pirate by the shoulder. As he did so, his fingers brushed against something as sharp as needles. He pulled back and looked more closely.

‘Hammelhornskin fleece,’ he said thoughtfully. He noted the sky pirate's build, his youth - and the thick, matted hair. This time when he took hold of his shoulders he did so more carefully. He rolled him over and stared down at the face.

‘You!’ he gasped. The body pulsed with the eerie luminous glow. ‘Oh, Twig, what has happened to you? What have you done?’

All around them, the white ravens screeched and squawked, the bravest of them hopping forwards to
stab at Twig's legs with their cruel beaks.

Twig!’ the professor called desperately. The intrepid young sky pirate captain was alive still, but fading fast. Twig, wake up. I'll take you back to Sanctaphrax.
Twig!
You wouldn't listen to me. Oh no! “I'm a sky pirate captain,” you told me. “Like my father, and his father before him,” you said. “It's in the blood.” And look where it's got you! Why, if your father, Quintinius Verginix, could see you now …’

At the sound of his father's name, Twig stirred. The professor smiled. The white ravens hopped back, squawling with fury.

Twig's eyelids fluttered. The professor observed the movement with excitement.

‘Or, perhaps I should call -him by his other name. The ^ name of the most feared and respected sky pirate captain ever to sail the skies. Cloud Wolf…’

Twig's eyes snapped open. ‘Father,’ he said.