by Paul Stewart
The world of academic study, not war.
‘Welcome to the Sumpwood Bridge Archives of Earth Studies,’ Durldew’s voice sounded again. The archivist was standing right in front of Grent, his green-blue robes shimmering with light. ‘Please step inside.’
‘Grent?’ Fenda called. ‘Grent, are you all right?’
Grent did not reply, and for a moment Fenda was concerned. But then she heard the soft voice calling her name once again, and her concerns melted away.
‘Just wait a second, Grent,’ Fenda told her friend, her voice soft and dreamy. ‘Someone wants me. I’ll be right back …’
‘Fenda, darling, are you ready? We’re about to set off.’
Fenda Fulefane stretched out her legs, flexing the muscles and warming her joints as she prepared to run.
‘Coming, Mother,’ she said softly.
Fettle-leggers were good at running. Their legs were powerful, their stride was long; they were sure-footed and agile. Every year, when spring arrived, everyone in the nine villages – old and young – would run together from the high forest, down to the loom huts on Weavers Lake.
It was a joyful occasion. As they ran, each family would trail banners, intricately patterned and finely woven, to show off their weaving skills. Down the forest trails, fringed by brooding ferns and dark gorse, they would run, then nine times around the lake, leaping from white stone to white stone. It felt so good to stretch your legs after a winter spent weaving at the great looms.
Merchants from far and wide used to come to view the banners the fettle-leggers trailed. Then they would bid high prices for those materials they thought the fine folks in the great cities would buy.
But Fenda remembered how the hard times had come. The steam factories of Great Glade copied the fettle-leggers’ designs on their phraxlooms, mimicking the basket-cable and henchpike-bone stitches they had perfected, and producing the finished products for a fraction of the cost. Fewer and fewer merchants made the long journey to the fettle-leggers’ part of the Deepwoods.
And then the forest fires had struck …
No one knew how they started, though there were plenty of rumours. What was not in doubt was the high number of loom huts that were burned to the ground, causing the fettle-leggers to abandon their white stone cottages and return to a wild existence foraging in the forests.
The Deepwoods were dark and dangerous, but also full of wonders. Fenda’s mother taught her about the plants around them, how even the humblest, most insignificant among them could contain hidden wonders.
‘Just like you, my little sapling,’ her mother told her, her voice tear-soaked but urgent. ‘You have such potential, Fenda. When we get to the floating city, you’ll see … But first we must cross the grasslands.’ She frowned. ‘Take off your bonnet, Fenda.’
Fenda undid the bonnet. It was heavy and stifling, and it felt good to take it off.
Around her the grasslands rippled with iridescent light. Her mother stood in front of her, and Fenda felt as if her heart was about to explode. Fenda reached out towards her, but her mother had already begun to run, taking great powerful strides as she raced off across the shimmering grasslands.
Her voice floated back to her. ‘Run! Fenda, run!’
‘Grent? Are you still there?’ Fenda asked.
‘I’m still here,’ he said, though his voice sounded distant. ‘But we really must go now. Leave your bonnet. You won’t need it. Just as I don’t need my helmet any more. Not where we’re going …’
‘Where are we going?’ said Fenda.
‘It’s a secret,’ he said. ‘But there’s still something I want to show you.’
Fenda laughed. ‘There’s something I want to show you, Grent.’
She took his hand, and together they set off. Neither of them looked back …
Down on the descent deck a cry went up.
‘Seftis!’ It was Nate, his voice cutting through the shimmering lights. ‘On my order …’
Outside, the glister storm seemed to be fading now, the lights glowing more faintly above them as the nightship hurtled down into the endless darkness. Cade’s head began to clear.
He was still strapped into his seat; still wearing his protective glister helmet. They all were. Celestia and Tug were on either side of him. Seftis and Theegum were across the deck, their hands poised over the controls to the phraxchamber and stone-band. And there were four empty seats …
Cade frowned, puzzled. But then, as his thoughts continued to come back to him, he nodded. Of course. Sentafuce and Demora were back at Denizens Keep, being tended to by Ulnix Tollinix, while Grent and Fenda were asleep in their hammocks.
As for Nate, Cade saw that his uncle was slumped forward over the flight levers, his eyes fixed on the blackness below.
‘There!’ Nate turned to the others. ‘Can you see it?’
Cade peered down through the glass. Far, far below, specks of blue light had begun to appear, and were rapidly growing larger as the nightship hurtled towards them.
‘That’s the place where I left the Professor,’ Nate said excitedly. ‘I’m sure of it …’ He twisted round. ‘Seftis?’
‘I’m ready, Captain.’ The wiry armourer tensed in his seat.
‘Now we’ll see what the Linius Pallitax is really made of,’ Nate muttered through gritted teeth. His hand hovered over the flight levers. ‘Fire up the phraxchamber!’ he ordered. ‘Cool the stone-band!’
Seftis pulled back the chamber levers, and powerful steam jets shot out of the funnels as the phraxchamber thrummed. The glow of the stone-band began to fade and, as it did so, an immense force pushed all of them back in their seats.
Cade felt as though an iron fist had closed around his chest and was steadily squeezing all the air out of his lungs. Inside his glister helmet, he gulped at the air like a beached oozefish. Only when the nightship’s freefall came under control did the pressure ease off, and Cade was able to breathe freely again. He looked down through the panels of glass.
The nightship, he saw, was hovering above a vast sloping landscape of huge boulders that descended into the darkness below. In the distance were the patches of glowing blue light which, unlike the treacherous glister storm they had gone through, were pale and constant.
Slowly and carefully, Nate guided the nightship down the scree slope towards the blue light. He was navigating his way through a narrow gulch studded with outsized boulders when they saw them.
Two bodies.
Their arms were entwined and their heads thrown back, as if they were reclining on a bed rather than draped over the hard surface of a scree boulder. A long-haired goblin and a fettle-legger, the two of them kitted out in descending armour – but without their glister helmets. Their necks and backs were broken, and their eyes stared up into the blackness, unseeing.
Swallowing hard, Cade unbuckled his harness and climbed the steps to the upper deck. The roof hatch was wide open, and there they were, the two glister helmets that had been removed and discarded, lying on the floor beneath it.
Coming up behind him, Celestia began to sob gently. ‘Grent,’ she murmured. ‘Fenda …’
· CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE ·
The crew of the Linius Pallitax stood on the lip of the giant scree boulder, the nightship moored above them. Heads bowed, they looked down at the two hammocks that lay, stitched shut, at their feet.
Theegum and Seftis had dismantled two of the sumpwood seats, painfully aware that they were no longer necessary, and used the panels to construct a pallet. Then they had laid the sealed hammocks containing the bodies of Grent One-Tusk and Fenda Fulefane upon it.
The air was still and cold; the inky blackness beyond the lamps of the nightship silent and impenetrable. It was like staring into nothing.
Nate Quarter knelt down and lit the buoyant sumpwood with a pine-resin match. The flames flared bright green, and the pallet trembled and lurched, then ascended smoothly into the blackness above.
‘We commit our comrades Grent
and Fenda to Open Sky,’ said Nate solemnly, ‘that they might return to the clouds from which all life comes.’
‘Sky take their spirits,’ the others replied in unison.
As they watched, the flaming sumpwood became a twinkling green star far in the distance. Then it disappeared.
Cade looked away. He heard Celestia sniff and, turning, saw her wipe away a tear. Tug reached out and took her hand in his, while Theegum – still staring up into the darkness – moved her arm in a graceful rising spiral, her long claws seeming to caress the air as she bade a silent farewell to her fallen companions.
No one spoke as they returned to the nightship and resumed the slow downward journey over the scree fields. Cade looked around the descent deck, his heart heavy. They had begun their voyage with a crew of ten: ten comrades united in their commitment to descending. Four crew members had been lost already – and there appeared to be no end in sight.
The scree fields sloped down into the blackness, lit only by the occasional cluster of blue moss-covered rocks. And as the nightship descended ever further, the phraxchamber thrumming and the stone-band glowing bright and fading in turn, Cade, Tug and Celestia took it in shifts to search the rocky landscape for the Professor, while Nate, Seftis and Theegum flew the vessel.
The time was measured out by the chimed bells; the nights, indistinguishable from the days, spent sleeping fitfully inside their glister helmets. Meal times became the highlight of the day, a chance to huddle around the phraxstove eating the nutrient-rich gruel and sharing stories from their past. After the experience of the glister storm, it seemed important that they should hear each other’s memories, spoken out loud and shared.
Cade and Celestia talked of Farrow Lake and their adventures there, while Seftis spoke of rescuing Theegum, and their twinned careers; first in Great Glade and later in the floating city. For his part, Nate told them all about his childhood in the phraxmines of the Eastern Woods, and how, later, he and Eudoxia had met for the first time in Great Glade.
One memorable meal time, Nate even spoke of the astonishing events that had occurred at the return of the Sanctaphrax rock. As Cade and the others sat spellbound, he described the appearance from the heart of a great storm of three legendary Edge figures – Quintinius Verginix and his son Twig, and Twig’s grandson, Rook Barkwater, the famous Freeglade Lancer.
The Immortals, he called them.
‘The barkscrolls recount how Quint witnessed Linius Pallitax create – or rather, resurrect – the shapeshifting gloamglozer out of glisters,’ Nate went on. ‘And I once stood in the very same laboratory he worked in, right at the heart of the Sanctaphrax rock. More than that …’ He paused, enjoying the rapt attention of his listeners. ‘I myself came face to face with one such evil creation.’
‘You saw a gloamglozer?’ Cade breathed. He remembered what Eudoxia had told him back at the Farrow Lake, but hearing the events direct from his uncle’s mouth was so much more intense.
Nate nodded. ‘A whole army of them,’ he said, his voice low and hushed. ‘They were infesting the floating rock that had just returned. The Immortals defeated them, of course, and Sanctaphrax was restored. But ever since then I’ve known that I cannot rest until I discover just how Earth and Sky are connected.’
Nate looked away, lost in his memories. And as the others watched him, his unfocused gaze staring into the mid-distance, they saw how that strange, otherworldly shade of blue had returned to his eyes.
‘Glisters from the Edge cliff,’ he murmured. ‘The Immortals appearing from the storm. Stormphrax and flight rocks … The Deepwoods and Open Sky …’ Nate turned and stared into the glowing stove. ‘I’m certain that the answer to it all lies at the bottom of the Edge cliff itself,’ he told them. ‘At groundfall.’
Cade nodded, enthused by his uncle’s words – but Celestia had gone silent. Though no one else seemed to have noticed, she had been all too aware of the name of that ancient academic who had unleashed the power of the gloamglozer. Linius Pallitax. The same name that had been given to the nightship.
She hoped it wasn’t an omen.
Time passed. The crew continued to search the scree fields. They discovered more islands of blue moss, which they harvested, to supplement their meals with the edible lichens and glowing fronds. Tug, Cade and Celestia became accomplished scree explorers. Wearing phraxpacks, boots and full armour, they clambered over the boulders in search of any sign of the missing Professor, while the Linius Pallitax hovered overhead, lighting their path with its powerful phraxlamps.
It seemed a hopeless task, looking for one lone Descender in this endless sloping desolation. But then, one day at four bells, as yet another glowing blue scree island came into view, Nate’s hands tightened around the flight levers.
‘I really do feel I know this place,’ he said slowly, and Cade could have sworn his uncle’s eyes looked even bluer than they had done moments before; the bluest he had ever seen them.
‘Seftis, take over the flight levers,’ Nate ordered. ‘I’m suiting up and going down with Cade, Tug and Celestia.’
‘We’ll hold her nice and steady, won’t we, Theegum?’ the armourer reassured him.
The four Descenders climbed through the hatch and down the side of the nightship before stepping onto the glowing, moss-covered scree. As they did so, Cade straightened up, then took a step back.
There was something approaching, floating towards them out of the darkness. Up the rock-strewn slope it came, heading for the island of moss where they were standing. It was huge, twice the size of the nightship at least; white and translucent – almost transparent – and there were small, glister-like pulses running across its surface. It was dome-shaped, fringed below by thousands of feathery tendrils, and with a tangled mass of what appeared to be eyestalks sprouting from the top.
Nate held up a gloved hand, indicating that they should fall back behind the cover of the blue moss fronds. Cade and the others crouched low as the creature moved closer. Above them, the nightship dimmed its lamps and climbed higher – though as a precaution, the tolley-rope harpoons swivelled round and took aim.
The creature reached the scree island and moved slowly over the surface of the moss, the glowing tendrils below it sending flickering pulses radiating over its surface. The eyestalks swayed in the night air, lighting up in turns and emitting beams of cold throbbing light that illuminated the surrounding blackness. Ethereal and diaphanous, it looked so beautiful …
As the creature moved on, Cade saw that behind it the scree boulder had been stripped of every trace of moss. It turned its attention to another boulder in the cluster, then another; moving with seeming purpose over one island of light after the other, until the entire archipelago had been reduced to a single clump of glowing blue moss – the place where Cade and the others were crouching.
Nate stood up, phraxharpoon in hand. Above him, the Linius Pallitax switched on its phraxlamps full beam. The creature instantly went dark, reacting in what must have been shock. It shrank back, then quickly retreated, the eyestalks disappearing into its dome-like surface and the tendrils beneath shooting out to an incredible length, propelling the creature high into the blackness above, where it disappeared from view.
‘What was that?’ said Celestia.
Nate was looking thoughtful. ‘I’ve seen creatures like it clinging to the logbaits let down into the clouds by skytaverns,’ he said. ‘Though they were no bigger than an oak-apple …’
Cade peered down at one of the stripped boulders in front of them. ‘Uncle Nate,’ he said, ‘are these what I think they are?’
Nate followed his gaze. The surface of the freshly revealed rock was covered in a pattern of intricately chiselled symbols. He nodded.
‘Descenders’ marks,’ he said.
· CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ·
The Linius Pallitax hung in the air overhead, the yellow beams of light from its phraxlamps illuminating the scoured rock below. Nate knelt down and ran his hand over the marks carved in
to the bare surface. Cade and Celestia crouched down beside him.
Cade knew all about Descenders’ marks, though these were the first he’d seen up close. This was how Descenders on different descents communicated with each other. A combination of lines and dots chiselled into the rock, they logged times and distance, creatures encountered, routes taken; they warned of dangers and advised on courses of action.
No one, though, apart from his uncle and his companion, had ever been this far down in the depths before. Cade knew that it could mean only one thing.
‘The Professor made these marks,’ Nate breathed.
Cade nodded. ‘What do they say?’
Nate pointed to a series of thin arrows underscored with spiky symbols and bisected by curved waves. ‘This is a record of air currents cross-referenced with a timeline, but—’ He took a sharp breath and shook his head in disbelief. ‘It looks like the work of many years. Thousands of meticulous observations. See here …’
He pointed again, this time to a complex series of interconnecting circles and parallel lines.
‘Quite remarkable,’ he said, his face rapt with excitement. ‘Based on his observations, the Professor has worked out a route down through the maze of air currents.’
Nate ran his fingers along a furrowed groove.
‘Still air here,’ he continued. ‘Then evacuation points, here, here and here, where updraughts erupt.’ He looked up, his eyes shining. ‘This is invaluable information. It tells the Descenders when they should descend and when they should anchor themselves to the scree.’
He pulled out a leadwood pencil and a notebook, and started to copy the markings carefully down.
‘This is the way the Professor intended to continue his descent,’ he said, tracing a finger along a chiselled line. His brow furrowed. ‘The trouble is, we have no way of knowing how far he got, or even whether he’s still alive. And yet …’ He looked around, his otherworldly blue eyes glowing intensely. ‘You are here, aren’t you?’ he whispered softly. ‘Somewhere …’
