Midnight Over Sanctaphrax (12 page)

‘Well, I … I mean, I think …’

‘I can answer that,’ came a voice. The Professor of Darkness stood in the study doorway. ‘I should have known I couldn't make a professor out of you, Twig, my boy,’ he said sadly. ‘You're just like your father, a born adventurer - and like him, you're probably destined to be lost for ever in open sky’

Twig seized the professor's hand. ‘My father?’ he said. ‘You know what happened to my father?’

The professor shook his head. ‘Only that he was swept away in the Great Storm many weeks ago, and hasn't been seen since,’ He looked deep into Twig's troubled eyes. ‘Did you … ? Out there … ?’

‘I don't know,’ Twig said unhappily. ‘I can't remember.’ He grasped the professor's hand in his own and squeezed it tightly. ‘Professor, you must help me find my crew. As their captain, I made a promise never to abandon them, come what may. If there is even the
slightest
chance that any of them are alive, then it is a promise I must keep.’

‘But Twig,’ said the professor. ‘Even if …’

‘And maybe,’ said Twig, cutting through the professor's objections, ‘just maybe, my crew might help me retrieve my memory’ He pulled away from the professor and looked into his eyes. ‘For who knows what I might have forgotten - out there, in open sky. Something useful perhaps? To you, Professor. To Sanctaphrax.’

The professor nodded uneasily. Twig had a point.
Having sailed so far into open sky he had experienced what no-one before had ever experienced; what the aged academic himself had only dreamed of doing - namely, entering the source of the weather itself. What was more, Twig had survived and returned to tell the tale. For the moment, of course, his mind was shut tight, but if it could be unlocked …

‘Very well,’ said the professor. ‘I can see your mind is made up. Go in search of your missing crew, Twig, and with my blessing.’ He pulled a leather pouch full of gold pieces from the folds of his robes and placed it into Twig's hand. ‘For your journey,’ he said. ‘Use it wisely. Now follow me to my study and I shall show you the chart I made the night you fell to earth. It shows the approximate position of the other shooting stars - if my calculations are to be trusted. A few fell not far, somewhere in Undertown. A couple fell farther off in the Deepwoods, Sky help them. And one - the final one -fell so far away that I couldn't track it with any certainty’

‘Show me, Professor!’ said Twig excitedly. He turned to his apprentice. ‘We're going to find my crew, Cowlquape. To be reunited…’ He paused. ‘Perhaps they will even be able to tell me about my father …’

‘Twig,’ said the professor sternly. ‘Go charging off on this shooting star hunt if you must. And indeed, I see that you must. But for Sky's sake leave the lad here, safe in Sanctaphrax where he belongs.’

Cowlquape stepped forwards, grasped Twig's arm and faced the professor. ‘I'm sorry, Professor,’ he said. ‘But I too have made a promise!’

• CHAPTER EIGHT •
THE LULLABEE INN

‘C
owlquape,’ said Twig gently. ‘The basket will soon V^be here.’ Cowlquape looked up from the old barkscroll he was examining. ‘Trust you,’ Twig smiled. ‘We're just about to set off on an arduous, not to say possibly futile, quest and you've got your nose stuck in a scroll.’

‘Sorry, Twig,’ said Cowlquape. ‘But this particular scroll really is fascinating.’

Twig smiled. ‘You're dying to tell me about it, so go on then.’

‘It's
The Myth of Riverrise,
Prof… I mean, Twig,’ said Cowlquape excitedly.

‘What, that old tale?’ said Twig. ‘Spelda, my mother -or rather the woodtroll who raised me as her own - used to tell it to me when I was a young'un.’ A smile played on his lips as his eyes glazed over.
‘Once upon a velvet blackness came a spark …
’ Twig murmured. ‘Oh, how my
heart thrilled when she spoke those words. Of all the many tales she told,
The Myth of Riverrise
was always my favourite.’

‘The spark turned. And the wind breathed. And the rain cried …’
Cowlquape read.

Twig nodded.
‘And the sun smiled. And the first minute of all minutes came to pass,’
they said together.

‘You know it off by heart!’ said Cowlquape, delighted.

‘The Myth of Riverrise
is told in every corner of the Edge,’ said Twig. ‘I heard it in the caverns of the termagant trogs, I heard it on board the
Stormchaser
- different versions, but essentially the same. What you've got there is the classic’

‘It makes sense of things,’ said Cowlquape.

Twig tugged at the ends of the scarf around his neck. ‘Sometimes there is truth buried in the old tales,’ he said seriously.

‘Do you think, then,’ said Cowlquape, ‘that somewhere out there is the place where it all began?’

‘That
the Mother Storm did strike the highest point of that barren, jutting rockland and seed it with life?’
said Twig. ‘Why not? I've seen many strange things out there in the Deepwoods, in the Twilight Woods …’ He fell silent.

‘What is it, Twig?’ asked Cowlquape, concerned.

Twig was staring into the empty sky beyond the Edge. ‘There is something,’ he whispered. ‘I'm sure of it. Something I can't remember.’ His voice grew more urgent. ‘Something I
must
remember …’

‘Twig,’ said Cowlquape, and nodded behind him. ‘The basket-puller's arrived.’

Without another word, Twig and Cowlquape climbed into the basket. Cowlquape trembled giddily. The basket-puller, a gnokgoblin, unhitched the rope and began winching them slowly down from the floating city. ‘A lot of weather we've been having recently,’ he said, and looked at them askance. ‘But then I'm sure I don't have to tell you two that.’

They were being pumped for information. Like all Undertown-ers, the gnokgoblin was desperate for any explanation of the treacherous weather that, of late, kept blowing in from beyond the Edge. Twig said nothing, and Cowlquape followed his example.

As the basket was lowered, Twig and Cowlquape removed their gowns and rolled them up, so that they could travel incognito. The smells of Undertown grew stronger, the lower they got. Pungent smells. Familiar smells. Roasting pinecoffee beans, burnt tilder oil, and, the sickly sweet scent that so many used to mask the stench of untreated sewage.
And noises. The clatter of iron wood wheels on cobblestones, the banter and badinage, the endless bustle of feverish activity.

The gnokgoblin brought the basket down in the artisans’ quarter - a sprawling hotchpotch of ironmongers, leather workers and glassblowers.

Stepping out of the basket, Twig pointed down a winding alleyway to his left.

This way, Cowlquape,’ he said. ‘We need to be methodical, so let's start by visiting all the taverns in the east of Undertown.’

‘But I'm not thirsty,’ said Cowlquape nervously.

‘Nor am I, Cowlquape. But there's plenty that are -traders, slavers, merchants and skysailors. And when they drink, Cowlquape, they talk. And when they talk, we'll listen. And maybe, just maybe we'll hear something. Stay close,’ Twig told him, ‘and keep your eyes and ears open.’

‘I'm a good listener,’ Cowlquape smiled as he followed him into the crowd.

Cowlquape soon lost count of the inns, taverns and drinking dens they visited - the Running Tilder, the Rusty Anchor, the Hook and Eye - the names merged into one another. By the end of that first day, however, they had heard nothing! Weary and footsore, Cowlquape followed Twig out of the Redoak. Night had fallen long ago and the oil street lamps had all been lit. Cowlquape looked round, bleary-eyed. ‘Which one should we …’ He stifled a yawn. ‘… we try next?’

Twig smiled. ‘No more for this evening,’ he said. ‘We'll take lodgings for the night and resume our search tomorrow.’

Cowlquape looked round uncertainly. ‘You want to spend the night here in Undertown?’ he said.

‘We're on a quest to find my missing crew, Cowlquape,’ Twig reminded him. ‘We can't go scurrying back to Sanctaphrax every time we get cold or wet or tired, can we?’

Cowlquape shook his head. ‘No,’ he said a little sorrowfully. ‘I suppose we can't.’

They secured lodgings that night in a small, dark room above the Redoak. It was simple, yet adequate. There were two straw mattresses against the walls, and a large pitcher of fresh water in the corner enabled them to swill out their mouths and wash away the smell of stale smoke.

‘Goodnight, Cowlquape,’ said Twig.

‘Look for your roots, captain,’
whispered a voice.

‘What did you say? Cowlquape?’ said Twig. But there was no reply. Cowlquape had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.

They woke late the following morning and, after a hearty breakfast, set off once more. And so it continued. For three days - from noon to midnight - they trudged round the eastern quarter of Undertown, resting up for the night in the tavern they had ended up in when the clock struck twelve. On the fourth day, they found themselves outside a tavern - the Lullabee Inn - in a particularly rough part of Undertown down by the boom-docks.

‘The lullabee tree shares your roots,’
said a soft, sibilant voice by Twig's ear.

Twig turned to Cowlquape. ‘What do you know of lullabee trees?’

‘Me?’ said Cowlquape, puzzled. ‘Nothing, Twig.’

Twig frowned. ‘Well, we might as well try here,’ he said.

Cowlquape looked up at the tavern sign of a Deepwoods tree with a broad knobbly trunk and fan-like upper branches. The artist had even painted a suspended caterbird cocoon hanging from its branches.

‘Come on, look lively,’ ‘ said Twig, stepping for- 1 wards. ‘We …’

CRASH
!

A heavy log bench came bursting through the window to the right of the door. Twig and Cowlquape ducked down. Just in time, for the next moment, a heavy barrel came hurtling through the glass in the door itself. It missed their heads by a fraction, struck the ground with a resounding
crack
and spilled its contents.

‘Like I say, Motley, accidents can happen,’ an angry voice shouted from inside.

‘Yeah,’ said a second voice menacingly. ‘Troughs can get damaged. Barrels can get broke.’ The statements were accompanied by the sounds of splintering wood.

‘And faces can be rearranged,’ hissed a third. ‘If you get my drift.’

‘Yes, yes,’ came a fourth voice - a small and anxious voice.

Twig and Cowlquape pulled themselves up and peered cautiously through the broken door. Three hefty hammerhead goblins were standing round the hapless landlord, a slight character with tufted hair and mottled skin. His body was trembling from head to toe. ‘Times are hard,’ he stammered. ‘Takings are down. I just d … don't have the money’

Twig looked at Cowlquape, his eyes burning with indignation. ‘How I hate to see the strong picking on the weak,’ he said.

Cowlquape placed a hand on his arm. ‘There are too many of them,’ he whispered. ‘You'll get hurt…’

But Twig brushed Cowlquape's hand aside. ‘Perhaps I should also have left you to be beaten up by that apprentice cloud watcher,’ he said.

Cowlquape reddened with shame.

‘It's OK, Cowlquape. You stay here if you want to,’ said Twig. ‘But I'm going in.’ He climbed to his feet and pushed the broken door open.