The Last of the Sky Pirates (5 page)

The creature’s nasal-flaps fluttered as it sniffed at the air and a long glistening tongue licked round its lips. Its eyes narrowed. It drew back, ready to pounce.

Felix brandished his sword menacingly. ‘Guard the exit, Rook,’ he said. ‘This one isn’t going to escape.’

Rook took up a position at the end of the pipe. He
gripped his dagger tenaciously – although he couldn’t help wondering how much use it would be against the muglump’s thirty terrible blades if the creature
did
turn on him.

Eyeing Felix’s sword warily the muglump retreated. Walking slowly backwards, it crossed the ceiling –
squelch, squelch, squelch
. Rook swallowed nervously. It was heading for the exit pipe; it was heading for
him
.

‘It’s all right, Rook,’ Felix reassured him. ‘I’ll get it. Just keep your nerve, and—’

Just then the muglump flipped down from the ceiling, twisted in mid air and landed on the ground directly in front of Rook. It glared at him, nasal-flaps rasping loudly, and snorted with fury.

Felix bounded across the cistern, his sword slicing through the air. Rook raised his dagger and held his ground – only to be batted aside the next instant by a mighty blow from the creature’s whiplash tail. He fell heavily to the ground. The muglump bowled past him and into the tunnel.

‘Don’t let it get away!’ Felix yelled.

Rook pulled himself up and sent the dagger flying through the air after the retreating muglump. With a rasping
crunch
, the gleaming blade severed the long, prehensile tail in one curving slash and embedded itself at the top of the creature’s right hind-leg.

The muglump froze, and howled with agonizing pain. Then it turned, and Rook felt the creature’s furious gaze burning into him.

‘Well done, Rook,’ came Felix’s voice from behind him. ‘Now move out of the way, and let me finish the job off.’

Wounded it may have been, but the muglump seemed no slower on five legs than on six. Before Felix had gone a dozen strides, the muglump had reached the end of the tunnel and disappeared.

‘This time you’ve got away!’ Felix roared after it. ‘Next time you will not be so lucky! That, my evil friend, I guarantee!’

Rook poked at the severed tail with his boot. The question was, when would that ‘next time’ be? After all, Felix was about to be sent off to Lake Landing, where blood-crazed muglumps would be the last thing on his mind.

At that moment, from far away in the depths of the underground sewers, there came the roar of a cheering crowd. It throbbed along the tunnels, drowning out the noise of the dripping water. Felix turned to Rook. ‘The Announcement Ceremony,’ he said. ‘It’s started. Quickly, Rook, we must hurry. I’ll never live it down if I miss my own name being announced!’

They had by now reached the end of the narrow pipe. Felix looked up and down the adjoining tunnel. ‘Left, I think.’

‘No,’ said Rook. ‘We’ll go right. I know a quicker way’

And he dashed off down the tunnel. ‘Follow me,’ he called back.

Rook skidded round into an abandoned, unlit pipe to his left. Felix followed, close on his heels. The pipe was old and cracked, with pools of water and jagged debris lying all along the floor. Nightspider webs – thick and soggy – wrapped themselves round the two youths’ faces as they splashed and stumbled on.

‘Are you sure this is –
ppttt, ppttt
– the right way?’ said Felix, spitting out the cobwebs as he spoke. ‘I can’t hear the crowds any more.’

‘That’s because they’ve stopped cheering,’ said Rook. ‘Your father’ll already be doing his stuff. Trust me, Felix. Have I ever let you down before?’

‘No,’ said Felix. He shook his head slowly. ‘No, Rook, you haven’t. I’m going to miss you, you know.’

Rook made no reply. He couldn’t. The lump in his throat wouldn’t let him.

‘You’re right!’ Felix exclaimed a moment later as the deep, resonant voice of the High Librarian filtered down into the pipe. ‘I’d know that voice anywhere.’

‘Welcome!’ cried Fenbrus Lodd. ‘Welcome to the Great Storm Chamber Library, librarian academics of every echelon, on this, the occasion of the Announcement …’

‘We sound near,’ said Felix.

‘We
are
near,’ said Rook. ‘A little bit further and … yes, here we are.’ He darted off into a broader pipe which, fifty strides on, abruptly emerged into the Grand Central Tunnel. Rook sighed with relief. They’d made it. The arched entrance to the Great Storm Chamber stood before them.

‘Come on,’ said Felix grimly. ‘There’s probably only standing room left.’

Rook looked ahead at the vast crowds who had gathered to witness the Announcement Ceremony. They were spilling out of the Storm Chamber and jostling for position. ‘We’ll be lucky to get beyond the door,’ he said.

‘No problem,’ said Felix. ‘Mind your backs!’ he shouted good-naturedly. ‘Make way for an apprentice with an appointment at Lake Landing!’

ith so many crammed together in the great chamber – packing the Blackwood Bridge, clinging to the jutting gantries and perched on the skittish buoyant lecterns – the place was warmer than ever. Both Felix and Rook were soon dripping with sweat, and when their wet clothes began to dry they also began to steam.

Having forged their way right to the front of the crowd on the Blackwood Bridge, Rook and Felix stood on the lower rail of the carved balustrade and looked across to the smaller Lufwood Bridge. Below them, the channel of water – sluggish after so long without a decent downpour outside – was covered with rafts, each one weighed down with still more spectators and held in place by the raft-hands’ hooked poles.

‘They’re all there,’ Felix noted, jerking his chin towards the stage on the Lufwood Bridge.

Rook nodded. Seated on high-backed chairs on either side of the High Librarian’s speaking-balcony, from which Fenbrus Lodd was addressing the crowd, were the Professors of Light and Darkness, Ulbus Vespius and Tallus Penitax. Both were former sky-scholars who, appalled by the behaviour of the Guardians of Night, had decided to throw in their lot with the Librarian Academics. Flanking them, six on either side, were the elders of the library.

Fenbrus Lodd’s voice echoed round the hushed chamber. ‘Never has the Council of Three had such a hard task selecting those who are to journey to Lake Landing. Not, I should add, because there was a lack of suitable candidates, but rather the opposite. Each of your library elders put up an excellent contender, and argued well in his or her favour …’

Rook looked at the dozen venerable individuals, one after the other. Their backgrounds were wildly varied. Some were brilliant earth-scholars who had returned from exile to help with the new underground library; others had been eminent sky-scholars who, like the Professors of Darkness and Light themselves, had changed sides when the evil Guardians of Night took over Sanctaphrax – and then there were those whose histories were an absolute secret. His gaze fell on Alquix Venvax. The kindly professor who had taken him under his wing was a case in point. His past was a mystery.

‘As always,’ the High Librarian continued, ‘the shortlist has been whittled down to the three individuals who we, the Council of Three, consider best suited to the task ahead …’

Rook glanced round at Felix. His face was glowing with keen expectation. The pair of them had talked often about what being selected would involve. First the journey, through Undertown, over the Great Mire Road and on into the Deepwoods, aided by those loyal to the librarian-scholars. Then, after a period of intense study (which Felix usually chose to gloss over) the building of his own sky-craft. Finally Felix’s dreams of flying were to come true.

‘… sacred, but also arduous,’ the High Librarian was saying. His voice dropped. ‘And deeply perilous. Those of you who are selected must fight against over-confidence, for that is your worst enemy. You must remain on your guard. The world outside is a dangerous place.’

Just then Rook’s and Alquix Venvax’s eyes met. The professor acknowledged the young under-librarian with
a slight nod. Rook nodded back, and hoped Alquix hadn’t noticed how red his cheeks had become. The professor, he’d heard, was intending to take him on as his permanent personal assistant when he came of age. Rook knew he should be grateful – it was, after all, what most under-librarians dreamed of. But for Rook, the thought of spending the rest of his life down in the airless, sunless underground system of tunnels and chambers was, instead, an absolute nightmare.

‘And so, Edge scholars, one and all,’ Fenbrus Lodd proclaimed, his voice laden with occasion, ‘the time has come for the Announcement.’

The chamber fell still. All that could be heard was a soft, distant dripping which echoed round the vaulted ceiling and, like great wings beating, the flutter of the wind-turners. All eyes fell on the scroll which the High Librarian, Fenbrus Lodd, now unfurled before them.

‘The first Librarian Knight elect shall be Stob Lummus,’ he announced.

The news was greeted with clapping and cheering, and the traditional
whoop-whoop-whooping
of the apprentices, while the professors nodded approvingly. As Stob Lummus was a brilliant scholar, his selection came as no surprise to them – although a couple of the older, wiser academics present noted that he would soon learn that barkscroll-learning alone was not enough to ensure success. Rook and Felix looked down to see a stocky youth with a broad back and a shock of thick, dark hair being hoisted up onto his neighbours’ shoulders.