The Winter Knights (38 page)

They arrived outside Embertine's room to find the corridor deserted except for the slumped body of a gatekeeper, a crossbow bolt embedded in his chest.

‘It's one of the guards,’ said Phin, stepping over the dead cloddertrog and pushing the door slowly open. He peered through the narrow crack into the shadowy room, a single candle beside the bed, low and sputtering. The soft, yellow light fell on the pinched and drawn face of the old hall master, who lay propped up against grubby pillows, his breath coming in snatched, wheezing gasps.

‘Hall Master Embertine,’ Phin whispered, striding into the room. ‘It's me …’

All at once, there was a noise from behind the door and a brawny individual leaped out, grabbed Phin by the shirt and shoved him back against the wall, the blade of a long thin knife held to his neck.

‘Who are you?’ he growled. ‘Speak up, before I slit your scurvy throat from ear to ear.’

Stepping silently into the room, Quint drew his own knife and pressed the point into the back of Phin's assailant.

‘Drop the knife,’ he hissed. ‘Now.’ There was a clatter as the knife fell to the floor. ‘Now turn round and tell us who you are,’ Quint demanded.

As the young guard turned, it was clear from his uniform that he was an academic-at-arms – a rock-guardian, judging from his half-armour and the twin crossbows strapped to his belt.

‘I … I'm sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought … I thought …’ He motioned towards the door. ‘I thought you were gatekeepers,’ he said. ‘Like that evil guard out there.’

Quint nodded.

‘They starved and beat the hall master, you know,’ the young academic-at-arms said. He shook his head. ‘And on Hax Vostillix's orders. Sky curse his soul!’

Raffix's eyebrows shot upwards. ‘Hax Vostillix is dead?’

‘Ay,’ came the reply ‘Murdered in his chamber by earth-scholars - at least that's what some reckon. Poisoned by woodwasp larvae. Ate him, inside out. That's why the gatekeepers attacked us - it was the excuse they were looking for …’

Just then, from the bed, a faint voice could be heard. ‘Someone … someone's there,’ it said. ‘Let me see your face.’

Quint turned and crossed the room to the bed. He placed his hands on Philius's shoulder, and was shocked to feel how thin and bony it had become. The old hall master stretched out a gnarled hand and clasped Quint's forearm, his fingers closing round the metal armour.

‘Screedius?’ the old professor wheezed. ‘Screedius, is that you?’

Beside him, Phin reached into his jacket, pulled out the ancient barkscroll and handed it to Quint.

‘We … we voyaged to Open Sky,’ Quint said gently. ‘Just as Quanx-Querix did,’ he added, waving the yellowed parchment in front of the old professor's face. ‘And we took the stormphrax with us.’

‘Oh, Screedius, Screedius.’ Philius's weary eyes suddenly sparkled with life. He leaned forward and gripped Quint by his hand. ‘Screedius, you gave the sacred stormphrax back to the sky, just as Quanx-Querix did before you? And did it work?’ His frail voice rattled querulously. ‘Did you heal the sky?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Quint assured him. ‘Just as Quanx-Querix once did, we healed the sky and winter has passed …’

‘Winter has passed,’ the old professor repeated serenely, his face suddenly suffused with a beatific smile. ‘Thank Sky for that. My old friend, Linius Pallitax, would be so happy to know that the sky has been healed. So happy to know that the evil he caused by opening the Great Laboratory has been undone … But you must promise me one thing, Screedius, for the sake of Linius Pallitax!’

The hall master's grip on Quint's arm tightened as he pulled Quint closer towards his own unseeing eyes.

‘For the sake of the greatest, most honourable, the truest Most High Academe there ever was …’

Behind him, Quint heard Maris stifle a sob.

‘Anything,’ he whispered to Philius. ‘Just name it.’

‘You must never speak of your voyage again,’ came the reply, ‘to anyone. The Ancient Laboratory is locked, the stonecomb sealed. If Sanctaphrax ever learned that Linius was responsible for the terrible winter, his reputation would be ruined and his statue would be pulled from the viaduct and smashed to a thousand pieces … Hax's thugs beat me and starved me, but I refused to tell them about the scroll and the stormphrax. And you, Screedius, have rewarded me … Now promise never to speak of it again!’

‘I promise,’ said Quint softly.

Philius Embertine smiled and let go of Quint's arm. ‘Thank you, Screedius Tollinix, Knight Academic,’ he breathed. ‘Now I can begin
my
voyage to Open Sky …’

And with that, his eyelids flickered heavily and closed. Then, the same serene smile on his face, he breathed out – long and rasping – and fell still.

Quint reached forwards and pulled the old professor's sheet slowly up over his face.

‘He's at peace now,’ the academic-at-arms said softly. ‘They can't hurt him any more …’

He turned and looked at the two knights academic, one in armour as bright and shiny as if it had just been forged; the other's, battered and ancient-looking. And their three companions – a little grey goblin, a serious-faced girl with tears streaming down her cheeks, and an academic-at-arms who he seemed to vaguely recognize from the barracks; a swordmaster apprentice.

‘What was he babbling about at the end?’ he asked. ‘Voyages and ancient laboratories … and Open Sky?’

The small group exchanged looks, and then the knight in battered armour spoke.

‘Nothing,’ he said. A trace of a smile crossed his lips as he glanced at the girl. ‘Nothing at all.’

*

Over the next few days life returned to normal in the Knights Academy. Little by little, bit by bit, the stains and scars of both the terrible winter and the bloody battle were removed.

The dead were dealt with as tradition decreed. Gnokgoblins, woodtrolls and mobgnomes were burned on floating funeral-pyres that their spirits might be released and ascend to Open Sky. Cloddertrogs were buried in the Mire outside Undertown, and the few waifs from amongst the hall servants who had died in the Battle of the Central Staircase were sent floating down the Edgewater on small coracles decorated with flowers.

Philius Embertine and Fabius Dydex were accorded different rituals, as their status demanded. Carried down to the Stone Gardens on raised biers, their bodies were laid out amongst the growing stacks and devoured by the flocks of white ravens. It was the first such ceremony since the funeral of Linius Pallitax himself.

As for the living, they too ensured that life would return to the way it had been before the momentous upheavals. The great ironwood wheels and the log burners they had shifted up and down the stricken rock were dismantled, and the giant fromps were returned to the Deepwoods and, on Fenviel Vendix's instructions, set free. The Hall of Grey Cloud had been stocked with prowlgrins once more. And the Knights Academic mounts, Tash included, were back on their perches on the central roost. The academics-at-arms   —   though diminished in number – assumed many of the roles of the erstwhile gatekeepers, the hated red-logworm insignias giving way to simple black tunics with numerous duelling patches.

The Winter Knights returned to their duties as if nothing had happened; Stope to the Forge, Phin to the Academy Barracks, and Quint and Raffix to the Upper Halls. Quint gave up his study dormitory to Maris and moved in with Raffix, just while the high professors set about re-organizing the ravaged Upper Halls – but they both knew that this arrangement couldn't last.

‘You must go and see the twin Most High Academes as soon as the Grand Inquiry has finished,’ Quint told her three days after their voyage to Open Sky. ‘And I'll send Nibblick with word to my father. I'll ask him what he thinks you should do.’

‘And what about Vilnix Pompolnius?’ Maris asked.

‘You leave him to me,’ Quint said. ‘He's hiding out somewhere in the academy, but he can't hide for ever. In the meantime, I've got an inquiry of my own to finish …’

He patted the miniature painting set into the handle of his sword – but when Maris pressed him, he wouldn't say any more.

The following day, the Professors of Light and Darkness convened a Grand Inquiry to report on the death of Hax Vostillix. As the sun rose high in the sky, academics from all parts of Sanctaphrax began streaming into the glistening Lecture Dome of the Hall of High Cloud, the windows that had been broken in the aborted uprising now mended.

The two professors – dressed respectively in their new white and black robes – had already taken their places on the ornate buoyant lectern before the first arrivals appeared at the doors. And, as the professors and under-professors, apprentices and acolytes took their places in the bench-tiers and balconies, the twin Most High Academes viewed them sternly, their two bearded faces revealing not a trace of emotion. Only when everyone was seated did the Professor of Darkness climb to his feet.

For a moment, the whispering grew louder, echoing round the great domed chamber like a mass of hissing hover worms. The Professor of Light raised his staff, and the hall fell still.

‘As twin Most High Academes of Sanctaphrax,’ he began, in his thin reedy voice, ‘it is our sad duty to report on the untimely death of Hax Vostillix, Hall Master of High Cloud.’

‘We have examined the circumstances and nature of this unfortunate occurrence,’ continued the Professor of Darkness, his voice deep and rumbling, ‘and have come to an inevitable conclusion …’

‘Hax Vostillix was murdered!’ the Professor of Light announced in ringing tones.

The Lecture Dome was absolutely silent. Everyone knew that Hax Vostillix had been murdered, and everyone had their own theory as to who had murdered him. After all, from the gossip-rich Viaduct Steps to the rumour-filled benches of the Great Refectory, talk was of little else. But, as tradition demanded, the Most High Academes were to have the final word.

‘Many had good reason to hate the late Hall Master of High Cloud,’ rumbled the Professor of Darkness. ‘The other hall masters, unjustly thrown out of the academy.’

‘Fenviel Vendix, Arboretum Sicklebough and the late Philius Embertine …’ intoned the Professor of Light, reedily.

‘We find them innocent of all charges!’ announced the Professor of Darkness.

‘On the evening of the murder, a young Upper Hall squire was taking a tray of food to Hax Vostillix's chamber when he was stopped by the Captain of the Gatekeepers, Daxiel Xaxis,’ said the Professor of Light.

‘This squire states that Daxiel Xaxis took the tray from him and placed a bowl of bonbons upon it, before entering the hall master's chamber alone,’ rumbled the Professor of Darkness.

‘The eggs of the woodwasp dipped in honey and rolled in hyleberry sugar would resemble the sweetest of bonbons,’ the Professor of Light trilled, ‘until …’

‘They hatch in the belly of one who consumes them and begin to sting their way out!’ boomed the Professor of Darkness.

His voice was drowned by the rising tide of anger and revulsion that echoed round the hall as the gathered academics made their feelings known. The Professor of Light raised his staff for silence.

‘It is the finding of this Grand Inquiry that Daxiel Xaxis, Captain of the Gatekeepers, believing that his master's increasingly erratic behaviour threatened his position, did murder Hax Vostillix, Hall Master of High Cloud, by woodwasp poison!’

The Professors of Light and Darkness's voices mingled as they announced their verdict in unison.

‘Order has been restored to the Knights Academy, and the terrible winter has come to an end, Sky be praised!’

Cries of ‘Sky be praised!’ echoed round the gantries and balconies of the great Lecture Dome.

‘Now let us put this matter behind us,’ said the Professor of Light.

‘And return to our studies,’ said the Professor of Darkness.

At a signal from the Professor of Light, the buoyant lectern was hauled back down to the jetty, and the twin Most High Academes made their way to the entrance, where a thin-faced Upper Hall squire with shifty-looking eyes was waiting. His eyes darted nervously back and forth over the crowd, as if he was afraid of being spotted at any moment.

‘If that'll be all,’ said the squire in a wheedling tone as the twin academes approached, ‘I really must be getting back to
my
studies, too.’