by Paul Stewart
The ball of light grew larger and larger, and larger still. Twig winced. He couldn’t tear his eyes away yet neither could he look without blinking. And when he did blink, he noticed something small and dark at the centre of the pinky-green afterglow.
‘The Stormchaser,’ he gasped.
He blinked again. There was no doubt. The sky ship was in the middle of the lightning ball which was, itself, in the middle of the Great Storm. And there at the very centre of it all, was his father, Cloud Wolf: Quintinius Verginix the finest scholar ever to have passed out from the Knights’ Academy still valiantly holding his beloved Stormchaser on course. Twig’s heart swelled with pride.
The humming noise grew louder and higher. The light grew more intense. The charged air itself seemed to tremble with foreboding.
What was going to happen?
Behind him, Twig felt sudden turbulence that heralded the rear of the Great Storm. It buffeted at his back and set him dipping and diving. His parawings creaked and strained, and Twig could do nothing but hold on and pray that they would not be torn from his shoulders.
Above him, the dazzling streaks of lightning were gradually fading as the electrical force was drained from the clouds. Twig’s hair abruptly lay flat. All the energy of the storm was now encapsulated in that single ball of lightning. It hovered in mid-air, throbbing with energy, pulsing with light, roaring with life.
Twig held his breath as he continued to glide slowly downwards. His heart was pounding, his palms were wet. ‘Sky protect me,’ he murmured anxiously.
Then, all at once and without any warning at all BOOM!!! the lightning ball exploded with an almighty crash and a flash of blinding light.
Shock waves rippled outwards across the sky. Twig quaked with terror. The next instant he was thrown backwards by the ferocious blast, and tossed into the oncoming bank of cloud.
‘Aaaaggh!’ he screamed, as the roaring, swirling wind tossed him around. He kicked out desperately and tried to flap his arms but in vain. The wind was too powerful. It was trying or so it seemed to Twig to rip him limb from limb. All he could do was abandon himself to the overwhelming force of the turbulent air.
Over and over he tumbled. The silken pockets of the parawings were blown inside out, and he cried out in alarm as he found himself spinning round and down through the rolling purple clouds.
‘NOOO!’ he screamed.
Further and further he dropped, arms limp and legs akimbo, too frightened to try realigning the parawings in case the wind caught them awkwardly and snapped them in half. His neck was twisted. His back was bent double.
‘No more!’ Twig whimpered. ‘Let it be over.’
And, at that moment, it was over. Finally reaching the back of the cloud, Twig was spat out of the wild and thrashing frenzy of the Great Storm like a woodsap pip. In all, the entire terrifying ordeal couldn’t have lasted for more than a few seconds. To Twig, it might have been a hundred years.
‘Thank Sky,’ he whispered gratefully.
An eerie stillness fell. It was as if the very air had been exhausted by the passing maelstrom. Twig shifted round and, as his parawings righted themselves once more, he continued his slow gliding descent. Ahead of him, he saw the Great Storm retreating. It slipped across the clear blue sky, beautiful and majestic, and glowing like a massive purple paper-lantern.
‘Is that it?’ Twig murmured. ‘Have I missed the bolt of stormphrax itself?’
He hung his head in disappointment and was looking down at the Twilight Woods when all at once he heard another noise. It sounded like paper tearing, like hands clapping. Twig raised his head sharply and stared ahead. Protruding from the base of the purple storm was a point of brightness.
‘Here it is!’ he exclaimed. ‘The bolt of lightning. The stormphrax itself!’
Longer and longer the jagged shaft grew, yet impossibly slowly as if the clouds themselves were holding it back. Twig was starting to wonder whether it would ever be released when, all of a sudden, a resounding CRACK! echoed through the air. The bolt of lightning had broken free.
Like an arrow, it sped down through the sky, scorching the air as it passed. It crackled. It sparked. It wailed and whistled. A smell like toasted almonds filled Twig’s nostrils, setting them quivering.
‘It’s … It’s wonderful,’ he sighed.
Down, down the lightning bolt hurtled. Zigger-zagger,zigger-zagger. Through the upper canopy of leaves hissing and splintering as it passed and on to the ground below. Then, with a crackle, a thud and a cloud of steam, it plunged into the soft earth. Twig stared at the shaft of lightning standing tall amongst the trees below him, and trembled with awe and wonder.
‘Stormphrax,’ he whispered. ‘And I saw it being formed.’
The Great Storm was by now nothing more than a distant blur of purple, low on the horizon and speeding out of sight. Now it was gone, Twig could hardly recall what it had been like trapped inside, tossed and thrown by the violent winds.
The air was sluggish, moist, heavy. It clung like damp cloth.
For Twig, still so high up, this was not good.
With a little breeze behind them, the parawings were wonderfully manoeuvrable. When the air was as still as it now was, however, parawinging was perilous. Steering was quite impossible. It took every ounce of skill to ensure that the silken wing-pockets remained filled with air. One awkward movement, and the wings would collapse and he would plummet to the ground below.
‘It’s like sailing a sky ship,’ he recalled his father once saying. ‘You have to maintain an even keel at all times.’
‘Father!’ he gasped. How could he have forgotten? he asked himself guiltily. Surely the Stormchaser could never have survived so great a blast. ‘And yet, perhaps …’ he murmured, hoping against hope. ‘After all, I saw no sign of wreckage, no falling debris …’
Lower and lower Twig drifted; closer and closer came the stormphrax. Unable to dive down, he’d hoped that good fortune might bring him in to land near the precious substance. But it was not to be. Twig was still high up in the sky when he glided over the glistening bolt of solid lightning. He sighed with disappointment as it slipped back between his feet and disappeared behind him.
Too frightened to swoop, or even to look, round, Twig could do nothing but hang on, hold tight and remain as still as he possibly could. The patchwork of treetops, drenched in golden half-light, was coming nearer with every passing second. Sooner or later, he would have to land. He fingered the various talismans and amulets around his neck.
‘Into the Twilight Woods’ he whispered, scarcely daring to guess what he might find there.
The further he descended, the more sluggish the air became. It grew warmer, heavier almost suffocating. Droplets of water sparkled from every inch of his body. Faster and faster he dropped. The parawings fluttered ominously. Suddenly, and to his horror, Twig realized that he was no longer gliding at all … He was falling.
‘No’ he cried out. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not after everything he’d been through. ‘NO!’
His voice echoed forlornly as down, down, down, he went. Tumbling round in the golden light. Crashing through the upper canopy. Bouncing against the branches and … THUD!
He landed heavily, awkwardly, and cracked the side of his head against the roots of a tree. The soft twilight glow instantly went out. Twig found himself in absolute darkness.
How long he remained unconscious, Twig never discovered. Time has no meaning in the Twilight Woods.
‘Hold steady’ he heard. ‘Nearly there.’
Twig opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground beside a tall, angular tree, gnarled with age. He looked round, and everything seemed to swim before him. Rubbing his eyes made no difference. It was the air itself –thick and treacly – that was distorting his vision.
He climbed groggily to his feet, and gasped. There in front of him was a knight on a prowlgrin charger, caught up in a tangle of leather harness straps, dangling a few feet from the forest floor.
Twig’s eyes travelled from the rusting figure, up the snarl of twisted ropes, to the great skeletal hulk of a wrecked sky ship, speared on a jagged treetop. Ancient winding gear poked out from the ship’s side like an angry metal fist. The knight swayed in the torpid air.
‘Wh … who are you?’ asked Twig tentatively.
From deep within the knight’s visor, the voice came again.
‘Hold steady, Vinchix,’ it said. ‘Nearly there. Hold steady, now.’
The white bones of the prowlgrin protruded from its papery, mummified skin, its empty eye-sockets stared out from the metal helmet bridle on which, in gold letters, the word Vinchix could just be picked out. It whinnied pitifully.
Twig swallowed hard. ‘Can you hear me?’ he asked the knight, his voice thin and quavery.
‘Hold steady, Vinchix,’ came the words again.
Twig stretched out a hand and touched the visor. Flakes of red rust fell away. Gently, scarcely daring to breathe, Twig raised the knight’s visor.
Twig screamed in horror and recoiled. He spun round and, driven by blind panic, sped off into the heavy, golden depths of the Twilight Woods. No matter how fast or far he ran, however, the vision of the knight decomposing, yet not dead remained seared into his brain. The parchment skin shrunk tight on the grinning skull; the lifeless staring eyes; and, worst of all, the thin bloodless lips of the knight, still moving. ‘Nearly there, hold steady, now.’
On and on Twig went, alone and lonely, searching for the bolt of stormphrax, hoping and praying that his fellow crew-members were doing the same.
The half-light of the Twilight Woods confused his eyes. One moment it glowed a rich golden yellow, the next it shimmered in black and white. Deep shadows, pools of brightness. Charcoal and chalk. The chiaroscuro of darkness and light which confused everything it fell upon.
Ancient trees, with their gnarled trunks and twisted branches, seemed to writhe in the liquid air, taking on shapes of goblins and ogres and gruesome giants.
‘They’re just trees,’ Twig reminded himself. ‘Just trees is all they are.’ The words sounded musical, and oddly reassuring as he repeated them. ‘Just treesy-weesy trees. That’s all, just…’
‘Twig!’ he shouted, and shook his head from side to side. He must pay attention, he must remain in control.
He continued over the soft mattress of fallen leaves, staring down at his feet. The ground was covered with tiny sparkling crystals, like a sprinkling of salt, like a skyful of stars. Twig smiled to himself. ‘See how they glitter,’ he whispered. ‘See how they glisten. See how they glimmer. See how they gleam …’
‘TWIG!’ he bellowed once again. ‘Stop it!’ And he slapped his face on both sides, once, twice, three-four-five times. He slapped it until it was pink and smarting. ‘Keep your mind on the task at hand,’ he said firmly. ‘Don’t let it wander.’
But this was easier said than done for the Twilight Woods were enchanting and seductive. They whispered, they echoed they enticed. And as Twig made his way deeper and deeper into the woods, he was terrified to discover just how simple it was for his mind to drift away… to wander off… to disappear on distant flights of fancy …
‘You are Twig, son of Cloud Wolf the sky pirate captain,’ he reminded himself sharply. ‘You are in the Twilight Woods, brought here by the Great Storm. You are searching for stormphrax, for the crew of the Stormchaser for a way out.’
So long as he could hold on to these truths, he would be all right. But with every step, it was becoming harder. The woods seemed to be closing in around him, impinging on his senses. They filled his eyes with their liquid distortion, his ears with their echoing whispers, his nose and mouth with lushness and decay.
As he stumbled on, he thought he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye. He looked furtively over his shoulder, then frowned with confusion. There was nothing there.
‘But I could have sworn …’ Twig muttered anxiously.
Time after time, it happened. Something was there. He was sure of it. Yet no matter how fast he spun round, he never caught sight of whatever it was.
‘don’t like this,’ he shuddered. ‘I don’t like it at all.’
Behind him he heard a faint clip-clop sound. It caught him unawares and, before he knew it, Twig was back in the woodtroll cabin of his childhood. Spelda Snatchwood - the woodtroll who had raised him as her own was busying herself around the cabin, her bark sandals clipping and clopping on the wooden floor. The memories were so clear, so vibrant. He saw lufwood burning in the stove and smelt the pickled tripweed on Spelda’s breath. ‘You are my mother-mine,’ he whispered. ‘And you are Twig, my beautiful boy,’ she whispered back.
Twig started at the sound of his name. He stared ahead, unable for a moment to make sense of the shimmering gloom. Were those eyes staring at him whenever he turned his head away? Were those claws and teeth glinting just out of sight?
‘You are Twig, son of Cloud Wolf,’ he told himself. ‘You are in the Twilight Woods. You are searching for your crew-mates for a way out.’ He sighed. ‘A way out of this nightmare.’
A soft squeaking-squealing sound filled his head. Metal on unoiled metal. Twig smiled. It was supper-time on board the Stormchaser, and the sky pirates were all seated round a long bench tucking into a meal of baked snowbird and earthapple mash. It was silent apart from the regular squeak squeak squeak of Stope Boltjaw’s iron-wood jaw as he chewed. ‘Sounds like We’ve got a woodrat in our midst’ Tem Barkwater noted and laughed. ‘Eh, Twig? I said, it sounds like …’
Twig grimaced. It had happened again. How long before the treacherous woods robbed him of his mind completely? ‘You are Twig’ he said, uncertainly. ‘You are in the Twilight Woods. You are searching for … for …’
Just then, from his right, there came the unmistakable sound of a prowlgrin whinnying. Twig groaned. He must have been going in a huge circle. All that walking all that concentrating only to find that he had come right back to the same spot.
He scoured the tops of the trees for any sign of the wreck of the sky ship but found none. Puzzled and uneasy, Twig chewed at the end of his scarf. Perhaps I imagined it, he thought. Perhaps …
Panic rose in Twig’s throat.
‘St … stay calm’ he told himself. ‘Concentrate on what’s ahead. Don’t look round. You’ll be fine.’
‘Steady, Bolnix, you’ll be just fine’ wheezed an ancient voice.
Twig looked up sharply. His eyes focused and his heart missed a beat.
•C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N•
THE SEPIA KNIGHT
In front of him was a second knight. He was encased, from top to toe, in rusting armour, and seated upon a prowlgrin. As he moved round in the saddle, the heavy metal plates clanked and rattled; the gauges clicked, the pipes whistled softly.
‘Hold steady now, Bolnix,’ said the knight, his cracked voice reedy, sibilant.
Twig saw two eyes glinting from behind the helmet visor. He shivered apprehensively, and looked away. The prowlgrin, old and weak, shifted from foot to foot agitatedly.
‘Steady, Bolnix,’ said the knight again. ‘Not too close, now.’
Wheezing with effort, the knight pulled off a gauntlet. Twig stared at the hand which was revealed. It was as gnarled as the branches of the ancient trees. Clunking and clanking, the knight raised his arm and began fumbling with the visor.
‘Steady now’ he said.
Twig froze as the visor creaked rustily, and slowly swung open. He found himself staring into a pair of startlingly blue eyes, sunk, like half-excavated jewels, deep into an ancient, craggy face.
‘Is that you, Garlinius? I have searched for so long’ The voice was as ancient as the face and twice as melancholy.
‘No’ said Twig, approaching the figure. ‘Please sir, I’ve been shipwrecked. The Stormchaser…’
The knight recoiled, the pipes and gauges on his armour rattling alarmingly. The prowlgrin snorted with unease. ‘You speak to me of stormchasing, G
arlinius! You, who robbed me of the Storm Queen, and never returned. Oh, Garlinius, I searched for you so long. If you only knew.’
‘Please,’ said Twig, taking a step closer. ‘I am not Garlinius. I’m Twig, and I …’
‘Garlinius!’ cried the knight, his mood suddenly improved. Returning the gauntlet to his hand, he leaped from the prowlgrin and grabbed Twig by the shoulder. ‘It’s so good to see you!’ he said. ‘We parted on bad terms. We knights should never do that. Oh, but Garlinius, I have suffered since. I’ve wandered these woods, searching and searching.’
The knight was staring into Twig’s face, his eyes burning an iridescent blue. The metal gauntlet tightened its grip.
Twig winced, and tried to pull away. ‘But I’m not Garlinius,’ he insisted. ‘I’m Twig. I am searching for my crew-mates, my …’
‘Lost and searching,’ the knight howled. ‘I too. I too. But it matters, now, not a jot. For we are reunited once more. You and me, Garlinius,’ he said, gripping Twig’s shoulder still more tightly. ‘Me and you.’
‘Look at me!’ Twig cried desperately. ‘Listen to what I am telling you. I am not Garlinius.’
‘If you only knew how long I searched,’ the knight sighed. ‘Searching, always searching.’
‘Leave me alone!’ Twig shouted. ‘Let me go!’
But the knight would not let go. And no matter how much Twig squirmed or wriggled, he could not break free from the pincer grip of the heavy gauntlet.
Instead, and to his intense horror, he found himself being drawn closer and closer to the knight until he could feel the ancient creature’s warm, fetid breath in his face. The knight raised his other hand, and Twig shivered with revulsion as he felt the bony, crepey fingers exploring every inch of his head.
