The Winter Knights (3 page)

Quint looked more closely at the turret. It seemed neglected. The windows were shuttered, the roof had missing tiles, while the walls were cracked and in need of serious repair. He wondered what viaduct school it might be. Maybe the clue lay with the dried corpse of the vulpoon – an ungainly bird of prey with straggly plumage, a viciously serrated beak and razor-sharp talons – suspended from a jutting hook above the door.

‘What do they study there?’ Quint asked Gleet, nodding down at the strange tower.

The portraitist followed Quint's gaze and shook his head. ‘A fine young squire of the Knights Academy doesn't need to concern himself with such schools.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Or the services they offer.’

He held up the disc of wood and Quint could see, in the background, the two Mistsifting Towers of the School of Mist.

‘Once it is dry,’ said the academic, gathering up his brushes and paints, ‘you can get it fixed to the handle of your sword. You do have a sword, I take it?’

‘Of course,’ Quint nodded, unsheathing the long, curved sky-pirate sword his father had given him.

Gleet laughed unpleasantly as he eyed the sword with disdain. ‘Yes, well,’ he sniffed. ‘There won't be many squires at the Knights Academy with swords like
that
, I can tell you.’

Quint's face fell.

‘Just as well you're the protégé of the Most High Academe is all I can say …’

Just then, as Ferule was turning to go, the loud sonorous tones of a tolling bell filled the air. Quint looked up to see the huge bell of the Great Hall swinging back and forth. As if in answer, rising up from the Stone Gardens and filling the sky above Sanctaphrax like a mighty swirling snowstorm, there appeared a vast flock of white ravens. They wheeled through the sky, a great halo high above the Viaduct Towers, looping round at the Great Hall and the Loftus Observatory. And as their numbers grew, so the raucous cawing became a deafening cacophony that drowned out the sound of the ringing bell that seemed to have summoned them all in the first place.

Quint gripped the balustrade, his face ashen white. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘It can't be! Not now, after everything …’

Ferule Gleet turned and shook his head, his yellow eyes glinting and a malicious smile on his thin lips.

‘The tolling bell; the white ravens … It can mean only one thing.’ He handed Quint the miniature portrait. ‘Your mentor, the Most High Academe … is dead.’

•CHAPTER TWO•
THE CHORUS OF THE
DEAD

T
he gnokgoblins and mobgnomes in charge of the hanging-baskets had been busy since daybreak, lowering load after load of academics from the East and West Landings down to Undertown below. They'd had all types coming their way and using their services that chilly morning. Old and young, venerable and callow: professors, apprentices, squires and knights-in-waiting – academics from every institute, college and school in the great floating city and representing every department and discipline of Sanctaphrax life.

There were solemn mistsifters, their chequerboard hoods pulled down over their faces so that only their metal nose-pieces were visible, poking out like vulpoon beaks. There were under-professors from the School of Light and Darkness in robes of every shade of grey, from slate-flecked white to stormcloud black; and cloudwatchers who, despite the occasion, were looking decidedly crumpled.

Then there were the academics from the College of Rain, sticking close together and carrying parasols and umbrellas of every shape and size, from huge spiky canopies to tiny delicate funnels. And apprentices from the different faculties of the Academy of Wind, who were walking in step, ten abreast. Behind them, the flimsy black kites they were pulling fluttered like a flock of excited ratbirds.

Following the representatives of the seven major schools of Sanctaphrax, there came the scholars from the fourteen minor academies. Less formal than those preceding them, they were chattering and jostling each other, their robes of bright colours merging and mingling.

In one place, the white and yellow hoods of the Academy of Squall surrounded the deep orange robes of the Academy of Dawn, creating a pattern that, from above, resembled the early morning sun itself. Some way back – behind a group of excited whirlwind apprentices – the patterned cloaks of the Academies of Breeze, Hailstones and Gust intermingled like the clouds of a gathering storm. And at the back, like a river breaking its banks, the blue robes of all those from the viaduct schools stood out in the stark, early-morning light.

With lanterns, lamps and flaming torches held high, the procession of academics wound its way through the streets of Undertown and along the narrow tracks to the furthest tip of the Edge. Those too old or infirm to manage the journey on foot were transported in barrows and hand-wagons by lugtrolls and cloddertrogs, and in golden carriages drawn by teams of prowlgrins in spangled livery and feathered head-dresses.

Ever since the break of dawn, the procession had been streaming along the road from Undertown to the Stone Gardens. Hundreds of the Sanctaphrax academics had already gathered, yet still they were coming, each one keen to be seen paying their last respects to the former Most High Academe - and even more eager to learn of his successor.

Quint himself had got up and left his small room in the School of Mist well before dawn. He'd paused outside the High Academe's chamber below and listened to

Maris's anguished sobs, uncertain what to do for the best.

Then, before he had a chance to make up his mind, he'd felt a glassy claw on his shouder and, looking round, had found Tweezel standing behind him.

‘We've been expecting it for some while now,’ the spindlebug had trilled mournfully, ‘but it has still come as a terrible shock. Give her time, Quint, to come to terms with her loss.’

Quint had nodded, but inside, he was in turmoil. He wanted to comfort his friend, to be with her at this, her hour of need. Yet he knew that, as the daughter of the late Most High Academe, Maris Pallitax also had official duties to perform. Reluctantly, he'd agreed that they should meet later, to talk and share memories and console one another.

In the meantime, Quint had duties of his own to see to. Leaving the mistsifting school behind him, he had hurried off towards the baskets on the West Landing. He'd found Sanctaphrax bustling. Word of the Most High Academe's passing had spread quickly, and even at that early hour, there were scores of academics outside in the streets, milling about, gathering in groups, and the air buzzed with rumour and supposition.

By the time the sun had risen over the horizon, Quint was standing by the entrance to the Stone Gardens, peering back anxiously in the direction of Sanctaphrax. He blew on his hands and stamped his feet, for despite the pink-tinged dawn, it was icy cold and a bitter wind was blowing in from beyond the Edge.

The place was filling rapidly. Groups of Undertowners mingled with the academics all round him, too superstitious to enter the Stone Gardens, yet eager not to miss the funeral procession. Suddenly, coming through the crowd, Quint caught sight of a tall, upright individual in the long coat and tricorn hat of a sky pirate. His heart missed a beat.

‘Father!’ he cried. ‘Father! Over here!’

As the figure of Wind Jackal approached, Quint threw himself into his outstretched arms.

‘I said sun-up, and here I am,’ Wind Jackal smiled, hugging his son. ‘I only wish we could have met under happier circumstances.’

‘Oh, Father!’ Quint cried, burying himself in Wind Jackal's coat. ‘So much has happened since you left me at the Palace of Shadows.’

‘I know, son,’ said Wind Jackal. ‘I was raiding league ships beyond the Great Shryke Slave Market when I received word from the Professors of Light and Darkness. I came immediately.’ He put an arm around Quint's shoulders. ‘You have been very brave, my boy.’

Around them, the gathering of academics was growing larger by the minute. The sky pirate urged his son forward.

‘Come, Quint,’ he said, ‘we'll have time enough to talk of the past, and the future, but first we must pay our respects to my friend and your mentor.’

Quint nodded and, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, walked with his father through the Stone Gardens towards the great stone stacks in the distance. It wasn't long before they approached the highest of these stacks, a towering pillar of rocks, each one larger than the one beneath, and capped with a broad flattened slab. Around it, in concentric circles organized strictly by rank, the vast procession of academics was congregating.

There were murmurs and grunts of disapproval as Wind Jackal pushed through the throng, but no-one challenged him, for all of Sanctaphrax knew of the late Most High Academe's boyhood friend, the sky pirate. He and Quint stopped and took their place in the front rank, among the under-professors of the School of Light and Darkness, who moved aside with stiff nods of the head.

‘Not long now,’ whispered Wind Jackal, glancing back.

Quint followed his gaze back towards the Sanctaphrax rock, silhouetted against the sky. And there in the distance, just visible above the towering Loftus Observatory, was a magnificent sky ship with billowing, black sails.