The Storm Tower Thief

by Anne Cameron

  Millicent Nichols and Georgina Fox both nodded solemnly. Angus had read it through three times in a row, and it had scared the living daylights out of him. The first chapter explained how blizzards formed and contained long descriptions of all twelve different types of snow, including the ones they’d already seen in the snow dome. But there were others he’d never heard of before, such as magnetic snow, sneaky snow, and snow swarms. Chapter two set out a complete inventory of essential survival equipment for any lightning catcher venturing out into frozen landscapes, including crinkleproof maps, emergency food supplies, spare weather watches, and weather flares. And as for chapter three . . . Angus swallowed. Isadora Sleet had personally traveled to Newfoundland to interview the famous world champion iceberg hopper Winifred Wulf for some detailed instructions on how to tackle the tricky activity. Indigo had read it aloud one evening in the Pigsty, leaving Dougal in a state of near nervous collapse.

  “So let’s see how much you’ve remembered,” Jeremius said. “Indigo Midnight.”

  Indigo jumped anxiously.

  “How does Isadora Sleet define a blizzard?”

  “She—she says a blizzard is a severe snowstorm, sir, with extremely low temperatures, high wind speeds, and considerable snowfall,” Indigo said.

  “Correct. Three things must be present for a blizzard to form. The first is cold air, at ground level and in the cloud where the snow develops. If the temperature near the ground is too warm, the snow will melt on its way down, and you’ll suddenly find yourself standing in a rainstorm instead,” Jeremius told them. “The second thing required is lots of moisture. Clouds and snow both need it to take shape. Snow is formed high up in the atmosphere when water vapor changes directly to ice without becoming a liquid first. The third thing needed is lift, generated when warm air rises over cold air, forming a weather front. As lightning catchers, you will come into regular contact with all types of blizzards. And those of you who have already consulted your storm timetables will know that at precisely ten o’clock this morning, a fierce blizzard will strike.”

  Jeremius pointed toward the far end of the Rotundra, where the first signs of the storm were already gathering. Angus checked his weather watch. The surface was now covered in a frosted sheen of ice crystals that clearly warned of dangerous weather to come. The temperature was also dropping by the second.

  “In the wild, blizzards can occur without warning. They can obliterate the horizon in seconds, causing massive disorientation. You could be standing three feet from your own campsite and there’s a strong chance you wouldn’t be able to find it. One of the first things you need to learn about surviving in any cold-weather situation therefore is how to find shelter, quickly. Which is why you must always carry one of these with you.” He took a small oblong object from his coat pocket. It was no bigger than a matchbox and had the letters IEWS printed across it in large black letters.

  “Well, that’s not going to be much use in a raging blizzard, is it?” Dougal mumbled. “It wouldn’t keep a fog mite dry in a storm.”

  “IEWS stands for ‘instant emergency weather shelter,’” Jeremius continued, holding up the box so they all could see it. “It was developed by our very own experimental division after an expedition of lightning catchers got badly bruised in a sudden blizzard containing giant Hungarian hailstones. Watch closely, and I’ll demonstrate how it works.”

  Angus took several steps backward. Standing between Dougal and Nigel Ridgely, he watched as Jeremius snapped the small box in two to break the outer casing. He placed it carefully on the ground. Then—

  “Wow!” Angus gasped.

  Something large and orange sprang up before their eyes at an alarming rate, with sharp spines and rods poking out at odd angles like knees and elbows. Angus jumped out of the way. Jeremius ran round the shelter, staking it down with tent pegs.

  “The trick is to secure the tent before it has a chance to deflate or get caught by the wind. It just takes a bit of practice and . . . there.” Jeremius stood back so they all could admire his work.

  The emergency weather shelter was dome shaped and just big enough for two people to sit in. Angus stared at it, amazed, wondering how one small box could contain a whole tent.

  “In less than a minute, you can take cover from any blizzard, icicle storm, or monsoon. Reinforced with toughened reindeer fur fibers, the shelter comes fully equipped with sleeping bags, emergency food rations, and a pack of cards in case you’re snowed in for the night. Right, now it’s your turn.” Jeremius pointed to a box behind him containing dozens of IEWS. “You’ll be working in pairs. Find yourselves a space; you’ve got ten minutes to get your shelters up before the blizzard hits.”

  “Ten minutes?” Dougal said, inspecting the tiny box as he and Angus made their way to an empty spot in the snow. “We’ll be wrapped up in blankets drinking cups of cocoa before that thing gets anywhere near us.”

  Six minutes later, however, all they’d managed to do was create several small craters. Angus needed all his arms and legs just to stop the stupid contraption from snapping itself shut again. It was like wrestling with a giant bowl of Jell-O.

  “How are you supposed to keep this thing still long enough to peg it down?” Dougal said, looking hot faced and angry, his arms and legs splayed. The orange fabric twitched and jerked beneath him like a wild animal trying to break free.

  “Just hold it still for one . . . more . . . minute,” Angus said through gritted teeth. He’d already smacked himself in the forehead twice with one of the tent pegs, which stubbornly refused to be beaten into the snow. But this time he was determined . . .

  “There! Done!” He stood back, marveling at their triumph.

  The shelter was leaning to the left at quite a precarious angle. It also had a small hole in the top where Dougal had accidentally ripped it on a sharp rock, but it was still better than a number of the other attempts around it.

  Some of the shelters had snapped themselves shut again, like gigantic carnivorous plants, swallowing several struggling trainees. Jonathon Hake and Nigel Ridgely were chasing after theirs as it sailed across the Rotundra on the wind. Other shelters were simply lying on the ground, flat and deflated like punctured balloons. Only Indigo and Georgina Fox had managed to put theirs up in the correct manner. Angus couldn’t help thinking that when the blizzard struck in a few minutes’ time, everyone else would be in big trouble.

  “Not bad for a first attempt,” Jeremius said as he wandered around inspecting their efforts. “You might want to fix that hole, though.” He took a repair kit from his pocket and chucked it at Angus. “Sleeping in a drafty tent is no fun, trust me.”

  “S-sleeping? We’re not sleeping out here, are we?” Dougal asked, horrified, as Jeremius moved on to help Millicent Nichols and Violet Quinn, who had somehow managed to put their tent up inside out.

  “Personally, I wouldn’t spend five minutes in that dismal excuse for a shelter, never mind a whole night.”

  Angus spun around to find Pixie and Percival Vellum looming over them, like a pair of sniggering yetis. Pixie nudged a tent peg with her boot, and the whole structure lurched even farther to the left.

  “Hey, get away from that!” Dougal said. “We’ve only just finished it.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve still got someone to share a tent with, Dewsnap. I thought Dark-Angel might throw Munchfungus out again. Especially as . . .”

  “Especially as what?” Angus asked, clenching his fists tightly.

  Percival smirked. “Never mind, it’ll keep for another time.” And he turned and walked back to his own tent, with Pixie following behind.

  “Those two know something.”

  Dougal frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Percival keeps dropping hints, making snide remarks like he knows something he isn’t telling us.”

  “If that idiot knows how to tie his own shoelaces without help, I’ll eat my boots. Just ignore him,” Dougal said.

  Angus glared after the vile twin
s.

  “What’s Vellum talking about, anyway?” asked Dougal. “When did Dark-Angel almost chuck you out again?”

  Angus hesitated. Dougal would spot a lie in seconds. He’d have to break his promise now, whether he wanted to or not.

  “Let’s get this tent pegged down again and fix that hole before the blizzard hits,” he said, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the approaching storm. It was now so close he could feel the first flurries of snow in the air. “Then I’ll tell you.”

  Inside, the shelter was surprisingly warm and dry, with cushions, blankets, and sleeping bags all ready to be used. When the blizzard finally hit, it shook the shelter violently from side to side. The wind roared around it, trying to rip the orange canvas apart. Angus stared anxiously at the repair in the ceiling, but it held firm.

  “So come on, then. What was Vellum talking about?” Dougal asked, snuggling down inside one of the sleeping bags.

  Angus told him everything that had happened from the moment Percival Vellum had delivered the message from Gudgeon. He pointed out exactly which of the testing tunnels he’d been in on the map that Gudgeon had given him, which he still had in the pocket of his pants.

  “I wanted to tell you and Indigo,” Angus added hastily, seeing the surprised look on Dougal’s face. “Only Dark-Angel made me swear to keep it a secret, in front of Rogwood and Gudgeon. But if Vellum’s going around poking his big nose in . . .”

  “I can’t believe they’ve got all those testing tunnels hidden away down there.” Dougal shook his head, looking stunned. “But why did they want to test you in the first place? I mean, Dark-Angel already knows you can predict when lightning’s going to strike. What else is there to know?”

  Angus shrugged. “I wish I knew. She kept going on about how I’m the first storm prophet at Perilous for centuries and how it would be a shame not to do some investigations.” He felt an unpleasant squirming in his stomach as he thought of the spiky measuring device and the fact that his performance was going to be judged.

  The blizzard continued to rage outside. After thirty minutes, Angus and Dougal had finally exhausted the subject of storm prophets and testing tunnels. They found a board game tucked into a handy pocket in the side of the shelter, along with a packet of freeze-dried cookies. They played three rounds of ScumbleChunk! before the conversation came around to the Farew’s qube.

  “Well, we definitely won’t find a list of passwords just lying around in the library,” Dougal said as the howling wind shook the tent.

  “We could ask Catcher Grimble for some ideas, the next time we’re in the research department,” Angus suggested. “But I don’t know what kind of an answer we’d get.”

  “Grimble . . . Hey, you’ve just reminded me of something!” Dougal sat bolt upright, his head skimming the top of the shelter. “There’s a whole shelf full of books on cracking passwords in the research department.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I found it the other day by accident. Grimble sent me to fetch the latest copy of the Weathervane, and I took a short detour through the weather words, puzzles, and games section, and there it was! But some doddery old lightning catcher was half asleep in a chair, right in front of it, so I couldn’t grab anything.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Angus asked.

  “I was going to, but when I got back to the map room, Catcher Grimble started telling spooky stories about fog phantoms and I forgot. Sorry,” Dougal added sheepishly.

  But Angus didn’t care. “We’ve got to get up there and have a look!”

  Half an hour later, the blizzard finally blew itself out. They emerged from their shelter to find a scene of utter devastation before them. Some shelters, which had been poorly put up in the first place, had been ripped to shreds by the gale-force winds and scattered across the Rotundra. Others had been crushed under the weight of snow. Angus couldn’t help grinning as Percival Vellum trudged past them with icicles dangling from his earlobes.

  Indigo and Georgina Fox were the only other trainees to come through the storm completely unscathed, with their shelter still intact. Jeremius set each team to work immediately, however, helping to retrieve the debris that had been scattered far and wide. It was another full hour before he allowed anyone to return to the Exploratorium, where a dinner of hot stew and dumplings was waiting for them in the kitchens. Angus quickly filled Indigo in on everything he’d already told Dougal about Doctor Obsidian and the storm prophet tests. There was no point hiding anything from her, now that Dougal knew the details. And Dougal told her about his discovery in the research department. Strangely, though, Indigo hurried off to her room as soon as she’d finished her dessert, claiming she was far too tired to hunt for books. So Angus and Dougal headed up the stairs to the research department, full to bursting with apple pie and custard, to search for password-cracking books without her.

  “Maybe Indigo’s right, we should do this in the m-m-morning?” Dougal yawned. “We’ll be in the map room all day tomorrow.”

  Angus was also looking forward to crawling into his nice warm bed; he was almost positive he could hear it calling to him from the trainees’ living quarters. A long walk through the research department, which was in completely the opposite direction, was the last thing he wanted to do right now. But he was also convinced that he wouldn’t be able to sleep until they’d found something that might point them to the right password at last.

  They entered the door in the Octagon and made their way through the familiar cramped maze of shelves. Dougal stopped in his tracks when they reached the main hall. Angus stared around at the deserted aisles. Not a single dangling chair was occupied now. Most of the light fissures had already been dimmed. Only a small group of lightning catchers, huddled under blankets, remained at the far end of the department. At night, it seemed, the research department was not a warm and comforting place to linger.

  “Are we even allowed in here after dark?” Dougal whispered, glancing over his shoulder.

  “I dunno.” Angus shivered. “I’m not planning on hanging around long enough to find out.”

  Dougal ran up a short set of spiral stairs and disappeared behind a row of shelves, leaving Angus standing guard alone. It wasn’t just that the research department was creepy after dark, he decided, staring into the depths of the deserted hall. It was more that there was an odd chill in the air that he’d never noticed before. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck and sent small shivers running up and down his spine.

  “This will do for a start!” Dougal reappeared and handed a dusty book to Angus. There was no title on the cover, just a series of mysterious squiggles and symbols. “Now can we please get out of here? This place is creepier than a bat-filled graveyard at midnight.”

  They had almost reached the inner door that would take them back to the Octagon again when they heard it. A muffled thump came from behind them. The noise reverberated like a shock wave, causing cascades of dust to fall from the highest shelves like a sprinkling of gray snow.

  “What on earth was that?” Angus turned. An unnatural breeze was blowing from the far end of the department. It carried a new sound with it. He was almost certain he could hear . . . that it sounded exactly like . . . people running.

  He saw them a second later, a stampede of frail and elderly lightning catchers heading swiftly in their direction.

  “Look out!” Dougal dragged him to one side as the lightning catchers charged past, hobbling on walking sticks, gray hair and hearing aids flapping behind them.

  “Dewsnap, McFangus!” A stern voice cut through the commotion, and Catcher Sparks emerged from the group now heading for the door. “Don’t just stand there like a pair of lemons! Run!”

  “But— What’s going on, miss?”

  Before Catcher Sparks could answer, however, an icy breeze brushed his face, and Angus caught a brief glimpse of a sinister cloud rising above the shelves in the distance. It started rolling toward them with menace.

/>   “Come on!” Dougal gripped Angus’s arm and pulled him through the familiar maze of dusty books. They tumbled out into the Octagon a few moments later, gasping for breath. Someone slammed the thick wooden door shut.

  “And what, might I ask, were you two doing in the research department at this time of night?” Catcher Sparks was already standing over them, a fierce glare on her face.

  “I—I wanted to find a book, miss,” Angus explained. He scrambled to his feet and backed away from her before flames burst out of her nostrils. He realized almost immediately, however, that he was no longer holding the book. “Oh no! I must have dropped it!”

  “Well, the next time, McFangus, you will restrict your book browsing to daylight hours. Do I make myself clear?”

  Angus nodded silently.

  “It is extremely fortunate that you did not decide to go wandering off among the shelves. When I think what could have happened when that cloud went off . . .” Catcher Sparks gulped, her voice trailing away. She looked uncharacteristically white. “Any lightning catcher or cub who did not escape the research department in time . . .” She stopped short again, trying to compose herself.

  Angus and Dougal exchanged puzzled glances.

  “I must inform Principal Dark-Angel immediately. And you two will return to your rooms and stay there until you are told otherwise.”

  With a single sniff, she strode toward the stairs, leaving a heap of panting lightning catchers in her wake.

  “But, miss—” Angus chased after her. “What was that cloud?”

  Catcher Sparks stopped and stared down at him. “That, McFangus, was an ice diamond storm, one of the most deadly and unnatural weather forms known to man. It was invented by Scabious Dankhart with just one purpose—to kill anyone in its path.”

  News of the ice diamond storm spread like wildfire through the stone tunnels and passageways of Perilous. By the time Angus went up to the kitchens the following morning for breakfast, the whole Exploratorium was buzzing with details of the strange and dangerous incident. The fact that Angus and Dougal had been in the research department at the time, however, did not appear to be common knowledge, and Angus ate his sausage and bacon in relative peace, discussing the events quietly with Indigo.