Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals

by Paul Stewart;Chris Riddell

  He looked up. His face creased with concern. Like closing a curtain to cut out the light, he shut out the thoughts rising up from below.

  ‘The mighty spring flows well.’ A storm is coming. I can feel it in the ancient marrow of my bones, he thought, staring at the water of the Riverrise spring gleaming in the lamplight as it tumbled down from the pinnacle of rock, far above, beyond the clouds. Yet this is no ordinary storm. There is something strange about it …

  Golderayce swallowed hard. Storms were tricky to handle at the best of times in Riverrise. The custodians who tended to the Riverrise spring above the clouds needed also to control the thirsty residents of the city far below.

  ‘The health-giving waters bless us all,’ he thought. We don’t want any more water riots at the viaduct. This time, I shall show no mercy …

  Just then, there was a soft knocking at the door. The waif shut the window and listened.

  ‘Enter!’ His command sounded in the heads of those outside.

  The door opened and a couple of gabtrolls bustled into the room, one carrying a tray, the other a small silver goblet.

  ‘Ah, Gilmora, Gomber,’ thought Golderayce, ‘is it that time already?’ Get on with it, you stalk-eyed imbeciles!

  ‘Indeed, Custodian General,’ the gabtrolls chorused as one, slurping as their tongues flicked over their eyeballs, and immediately began fussing about the room, plumping up cushions, filling the oil lamps, setting a place for the waif’s evening meal …

  The gabtrolls were conscientious servants, if a little awkward and clumsy, and skilled with poultices, tonics and soothing elixirs. Gilmora was dressed in her heavy jacket, every pocket bulging. She wore a pointed bonnet and had so many talismans and charms around her neck it was a wonder she could stand. Gomber, with his eyestalks sticking out of two holes in his funnel hat, waved his lampstick about, directing his wife self-importantly.

  ‘I’ll put your … slurp … supper down over here,’ said Gilmora, showing him the simple tray with a single dish on it. ‘A nice piece of raw fromp heart. Your favourite, Custodian General.’

  ‘Your goblet, Custodian General,’ said Gomber, placing the empty silver cup next to the dish on the tray. His eyes bounced around on the end of their stalks. ‘I’ve polished it … slurp slurp … specially.’

  Golderayce nodded. ‘Thank you, you’re too kind.’ Stop fussing and get out, why can’t you?

  He closed the shutters and turned to see Gilmora and Gomber scraping and bowing as they backed awkwardly away.

  ‘Was there anything else?’ asked Gilmora, her slurping voice breaking into his thoughts.

  ‘No, that will be all.’ Get out! Get out!

  The gabtrolls scuttled towards the door and left. The catch clicked softly into place. Golderayce crossed to the buoyant tray hovering in front of the sumpwood chair and lifted the cover from the platter. The smell of the raw fromp heart filled the room, sweet and musty. Golderayce’s eyes widened as he looked down at the glistening offal.

  ‘Delicious! My favourite,’ he thought. I’m not hungry at all. The very sight of it turns my stomach. I know what I need …

  Picking up the goblet, he crossed the chamber to a vast cabinet in the corner of the room. He pulled a small key on a chain from around his neck and pushed it into the lock. He turned the key, opened the doors and reached inside.

  The cabinet was full of priceless objects – vases, carvings, statuettes and figurines; tiny boxes inlaid with blackwood and clam nacre, and huge pieces of jewellery encrusted with black diamonds, marsh gems and mire pearls. There was a gilded telescope, a tasselled scarf of finely embroidered silk, a crystal looking-glass, a pendulum clock – all of them gifts from the various dignitaries and leaders of Great Glade and Hive who had come and gone over the centuries.

  Golderayce was interested in none of them. So far as the waif was concerned, their only use was that they made the most valuable object of all look so insignificant. His gnarled fingers closed round the battered ironwood flask. He pulled it out and, having removed the stopper with his teeth, tipped it up above his goblet.

  Carefully, he allowed a trickle of the sparkling, crystal-clear liquid to splash down into the bottom of the goblet, before stoppering the flask and placing it back in the cabinet.

  ‘A simple drink,’ he thought. The water of life, direct from the source!

  The ancient waif raised the goblet to his lips and drained its contents. He crossed the room and slumped down into the sumpwood chair. His eyes closed, his huge ears quivered, the barbels at the corners of his wrinkled mouth writhed and curled as a contented smile spread across his ancient face.

  Golderayce opened his eyes and looked down at the quivering fromp heart before him.

  ‘Delicious!’ he thought. Delicious!

  • CHAPTER TWELVE •

  ‘Your name?’

  The soft, gentle voice sounded in his ear, making the dusty, battered figure in the bedraggled tilderfur jacket and intricate harness stir and raise his head from the ground. He lifted a gauntleted hand to shield his eyes from the bright glare.

  It had been so long since he’d glimpsed daylight. He’d feared he might never see it again.

  ‘Your name?’ the voice asked again.

  He sat up slowly, his bulky backpack tugging at his shoulders, the phraxglobes mounted onto it gently steaming in the warm air. On either side of him stood rows of buildings. Wonderful buildings! A broad-winged academy with minarets and a vast circular window; a crenellated college with a mirrored dome; clock towers and belfries, pillars and porticos, and countless gleaming statues.

  ‘Your name?’

  The figure looking down at him was dressed in long robes, pointed shoes and an elaborate four-pronged headpiece – the clothes of an academic from the First Age of Flight.

  ‘My name,’ the bedraggled figure answered, climbing unsteadily to his feet, ‘is Ifflix Hentadile of the School of Edge Cliff Studies.’

  • CHAPTER THIRTEEN •

  At the sound of the low mournful boom of the steam klaxon, Nate looked up. Down in the ever-bustling windowless Depths, it was impossible to tell what time it was. With the klaxon call, he knew that night was fast approaching.

  Outside, the booming cry sent the roosting snowbirds scattering. Great flocks of the graceful, white birds swirled across the evening sky like a winter snow flurry, their honking calls filling the air. The klaxon boomed a second time as the silhouette of a mighty vessel, dark against the golden sunset, loomed on the horizon.

  High above the jagged spear points of the forest canopy, the huge ship sailed out across the sky. From its great snub-nosed prow to the high rudder stanchion at its stern, the skyship was over two ironwood pines long, and deep-bellied, both fore and aft. Its great timbered aft hull was lined with row after row of shuttered cabin holes, from the ornately carved windows of its upper level, down to the simple openings in the depths, five decks below.

  At its middle, the vessel was girded in forged iron, a great wheelhouse with jutting gantries and ladders rising up from the deck. Above that, supported by a metal scaffold of girders and crossbeams, sat a huge metal chamber, its circular surface consisting of moving metal plates attached to levers and gears. From deep within the chamber came a low rumble, like the sound of muffled thunder, while at the plates on its outer surface, the brittle, snapping sound of icicles breaking could be heard. A jet of bright white light, like a blowtorch, hissed from the chamber’s propulsion duct. Above – from a low broad funnel – great clouds of ice-cold steam billowed up into the evening sky.

  As darkness spread out across the Deepwoods, the lamps of the mighty skyship twinkled like a thousand stars, turning the dark vessel into a glittering jewel. They blazed from every part of the ship – in the crystal globes that lined the balustrades of the upper decks and crowned the jutting rudder; at the windows and cabin holes, and at the hanging gantries that clung like sky limpets to the sides of the hull. At the prow, a string of glowing lamps picked out the
ornate letters hammered into the armour plating.

  Deadbolt Vulpoon.

  This was the oldest and grandest of the great skytaverns, and one of the wonders of the Third Age of Flight. Named after a legendary sky pirate from the First Age, the mighty phraxship had been ferrying passengers and cargo from the Eastern Woods to the city of Great Glade and back again for over a hundred and fifty years. Now, as the moon rose above the Deepwoods, and the snowbirds wheeled overhead, the Deadbolt Vulpoon continued on her way, bound for Great Glade.

  Bright against the dark night, a solitary snowbird – separated from the rest of the flock – landed beside one of the galley chimneys at the stern of the ship, then fluttered down to a window ledge below. Head tilted, it looked in through the circular windows at the Grand Salon, at the dancing revellers, and at the tables full of hungry travellers in the dining cabins. It tapped against the glass with its pointed yellow beak for a moment, before flying down to a lower deck, where it perched on the rail of the balustrade, its head cocked to one side.

  ‘Snowbird,’ whispered an elegant young fourthling in the very latest Great Glade fashion as she stopped her evening deck stroll and grabbed her partner’s arm.

  ‘Well, whatever Papa says,’ he said, ignoring her and waving an expensive-looking cane towards the forest behind, ‘I, for one, don’t intend to set foot in those rough, uncivilized mining towns ever again. Can’t wait to get back to New Lake …’ He frowned. ‘What’s that, my dear?’

  ‘Snowbird,’ she said, pointing. ‘There.’

  Her companion nodded as he spotted the white bird. ‘Make a fine trophy,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, darling!’ she said. ‘How could you? They’re such beautiful creatures …’

  ‘Look perfect stuffed and mounted in a glass case on the dining-hall mantelpiece.’ He chuckled. ‘If only I had my phraxpistol on me …’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you haven’t. Don’t you know it’s bad luck to kill a snowbird?’

  The pair of them turned their backs on the white bird, linked arms and continued their promenade. As they retreated, the bird hopped down onto the deck and began pecking at the wooden boards hopefully. Just then, a noisy family of pink-eye young’uns, each one clutching a stick, came careering along the deck in pursuit of a rolling hoop. The bird flapped up into the air, over the copperwood rail and down the steep side of the port bow. It came to rest on a jutting sill beside a half-open cabin hole.

  From the other side of the small grimy window, a gnokgoblin matron grinned toothlessly. She slipped out of her hammock and hobbled towards the window.

  ‘What have we here?’ she croaked as she watched the snowbird looking back at her, its head cocked to one side. ‘Ain’t you a bold one, and no mistake!’

  She paused and gripped the charms which hung at her neck.

  ‘A safe voyage and a cosy fireside at the end of it,’ she whispered. ‘That’s all I ask …’

  ‘Who’s there, Gramma Pleat?’ came a small voice from behind her.

  The gnokgoblin turned and smiled down at her little grandson. She leaned forward, let him wrap his arms around her neck, then stood up straight and folded her own arms beneath his legs. She turned back to the window.

  ‘See?’ she showed him. ‘It’s a snowbird. That’s good luck, that is.’

  ‘Good luck?’ repeated the young’un, his voice light with curiosity.

  ‘Oh, yes, Tag,’ came the reply. ‘It’s good luck just seeing a snowbird, but to have one landing on the window just next to your hammock, well, that’s just about the luckiest thing of all.’ She stroked her grandson’s hair softly. ‘The Eastern Woods are behind us now. We’re going to find somewhere lovely to live in Great Glade, you and I,’ she said. ‘We’ll have warm water and soft sheets, and food upon the table three times a day. You’ll see …’

  ‘And will Momma and Papa and the rest of the family join us there?’ he asked.

  The words sent dark shivers through the gnokgoblin’s old bones. She remembered the morning, several weeks earlier, when she and Tag had returned from picking mushrooms in the forest to find their small village deserted. The stockade gates had been left open and the huts inside were all empty. There were bowls of broth, half-eaten, on the tables; there were cauldrons of bristleweed tea still bubbling over the fires. As for the villagers that dwelled there, not a trace. It was as though they had all simply vanished into thin air …

  ‘Sky willing, Tag,’ she cooed, and squeezed him warmly. ‘Sky willing.’

  The snowbird flapped its wings and flew off. The young’un peered after it.

  ‘Gone,’ he said.

  ‘Gone,’ said Gramma Pleat.

  The snowbird wheeled up high over the great skyship, past the rumbling phraxchamber, coated in tinkling icicles, round the huge funnel belching out ice-cold steam, then down in a graceful diving arc as its bright yellow eyes spotted a tempting morsel far below. Down it swooped, beneath the hull, its feet spread wide to catch the tasty-looking translucent barkgrub seemingly hanging in mid-air. The snowbird gave out a honking call of triumph as its talons closed on the prize – only to give a squawk of dismay moments later when it discovered that this particular tempting morsel was in fact a glue-coated logfloat attached to a silken line, and that its feet were stuck fast.

  The next instant, the line jerked and the startled snowbird found itself upended and being hauled towards a hanging gantry jutting out from the ship’s fore hull. A trapdoor opened and, with another squawk of alarm, the snowbird disappeared inside.

  Down in the depths of the Deadbolt Vulpoon – below the decks with airy cabin holes, where there were no cabins, just ship’s beams with hammocks strung between them – Nate Quarter turned up his lamp. In front of him, in the narrow hammock, was his knapsack, his lightbox and his open ironwood chest. He turned the gilt-framed medallion over in his hand.

  The tiny portrait of the ancient character, so like his father in appearance, stared up at him. There was something vulnerable about the expression on his face – the half-smile, the slightly raised left eyebrow … Whoever he was, he looked like someone young trying to be older than his years; more experienced, more confident … The impression was confirmed by the armour he wore. It was like a costume, the oversized breastplate with its pipes and dials exaggerating the slight build of its wearer.

  ‘Showing the world a brave face,’ Nate whispered, staring at the medallion in the lamplight, ‘when inside, you don’t feel brave at all.’ He smiled. ‘Just like me …’

  • CHAPTER FOURTEEN •

  Two days earlier, Nate and Slip the scuttler had left the mining camp at dawn on board the phraxbarge, to the sound of the blockhouse crashing to the ground and taking the mine sergeant’s ill-gotten gains with it. The exhilaration of that moment hadn’t lasted long. As the phraxbarge rose higher into the early-morning cloud banks, the feeling had disappeared, to be replaced by a dull, gnawing anxiety.

  Beside him, on the deck of the small barge, Nate was painfully aware of Slip looking up into his face, seeking reassurance. Yet what should he say? His father was dead, his best friend had been murdered and now, with mine sergeant Grint Grayle and his henchmen after him, he had been forced to leave the only place he had ever known as home. The pair of them were adrift in a dangerous bewildering world, and Nate felt as small and frightened as Slip obviously was.

  Nate forced himself to smile. ‘We’re at the start of an adventure,’ he said to the scuttler by his side, trying to sound convincing. ‘A wonderful adventure!’

  As the morning passed, a thick cloud had swept in from the west. Nate reached out across the balustrade to the twisting swirls of mist that wrapped themselves round his arm but evaded his grip. He breathed in the clean moist air, juicy with the tang of the dripping foliage that rose up from the canopy beneath. Suddenly, out of the greyness, there came a loud booming call from up ahead. The phraxbarge replied, its own whistle high-pitched and reedy as it soared upwards. A moment later, Nate and Slip saw the dark outline o
f the imposing skytavern looming out of the cloud and hovering before them.

  The phraxbarge flew higher, closer. The cloud thinned. The vast skytavern sounded her steam klaxon again.

  Every week, the Deadbolt Vulpoon would come to the same spot in the Deepwoods – at a point the ship’s engineer deemed more or less the same distance from all the mining stockades. The great vessel would hover motionless, high above the forest canopy for half a day, waiting for the phraxbarges to arrive so that the precious crates of stormphrax could be transferred.

  As the skybarge emerged from the last scraps of cloud, Nate saw that they were not the first to arrive. Half a dozen phraxbarges from the other mines had already tied up, with gangplanks from the skytavern jutting out along the length of her bow, each plank bouncing up and down as teams of luggers and loaders – their backs bowed – transferred the precious cargo from the phraxbarges to the skytavern.

  Their phraxbarge slowed, the barge hands running forward to tie up under the supervision of the bargemaster. As they came alongside, a gangplank was lowered from the skytavern down to the barge and secured. Nate and Slip stepped aside as the crew hurried past towards the rear of their vessel.

  The first of the heavy crates of stormphrax – knotted ropes holding it steady as it was hoisted from the lamplit hold – was shifted to the skytavern. With the creak of winches and a loud cry from the neighbouring vessel, the crate emerged from below deck and swung in the air. Reaching hands brought the crate gently down onto the deck of the barge, where it was untied and then carried by the luggers and loaders across the gangplank to the armoured hold at the prow of the skytavern. Nate gripped the knapsack containing both his lightbox and his box of memories.

  ‘Come on, Slip,’ he said. ‘Time we were leaving too.’