The Last of the Sky Pirates

by Paul Stewart

  ‘With my heart and my head, I do.’

  The Most High Guardian of Night, Orbix Xaxis, was standing on one of the uppermost gantries of the Tower of Night. A tall, imposing figure, he was wearing the heavy black robes of public office – and the dark glasses and metal mask of his own private fears. The glasses, he hoped, would repel any who would try to curse him with the evil eye, while the mask – which had a filter of phraxdust behind the muzzle – purified the germ-laden air he breathed.

  From below him there came the clanking and clunking of the mounted swivel telescopes turning this way and that as the Guardians scanned the early morning sky for any sign of illicit skycraft in flight. Sky flight, both in Sanctaphrax and Undertown, was strictly forbidden.

  Xaxis stared out into open sky. The high winds and driving rain which had been forecast only the day before had, once again, failed to materialize. ‘Surely a storm must come soon,’ he muttered to himself. He looked up at Midnight’s Spike, the tall, elegant lightning conductor which pointed up to the sky from the top of the tower, and shook his head. ‘Fifty years, and nothing. But soon. Soon a storm is bound to come,’ he hissed, ‘and when it does, the great Sanctaphrax rock will be healed, cured, restored …’ His eyes glinted unpleasantly behind the dark glasses. ‘And when that happens—’

  Just then there was a knock at the door. Xaxis turned and, with a flourish of his cape, stepped back through the open window and into his reception chamber.

  ‘Enter,’ he called, his imperious voice muffled somewhat by the mask.

  The door opened, and a youth dressed in the black robes of the Guardians of Night walked in. He was pallid, angular, with shadowy rings beneath his violet eyes and his hair shorn to a dark stubble.

  ‘Ah, Xanth,’ said Orbix, recognizing the youth at once. ‘What brings you here? Has the execution taken place already?’

  ‘It has, sir – but that is not the reason for my visit.’ He paused. There was something deeply disturbing about never being able to see the Most High Guardian’s eyes. It was only his rasping voice that gave any clue as to what he was thinking.

  ‘Well?’ Orbix demanded.

  ‘I have information,’ said Xanth simply.

  Orbix nodded. Xanth Filatine was, without doubt, the most promising apprentice to have come his way in many years. Now that Orbix had prised him away from that obese fop, Vox Verlix, the youth was shaping up well. ‘Information?’ he said. ‘What information?’

  ‘It concerns the librarian knights,’ he said, and spat on the floor. ‘A recently captured prisoner has just revealed some interesting facts about them under interrogation.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Orbix, rubbing his gloved hands together.

  ‘They are about to send three more apprentice treatise scholars off to the Deepwoods. Tomorrow morning, when—’

  ‘Then we must seize them.’ Orbix smiled behind the metal mask. ‘Three more traitors to add to the hanging gantries.’

  ‘If you please, sir,’ said Xanth, his nasal voice little more than a whisper, ‘I think I may have a better idea.’

  Orbix glowered at the youth. He didn’t like his plans being questioned. ‘A better idea?’ he growled.

  ‘Well, not better, as such,’ said Xanth, back-tracking. ‘But an alternative that you might like to consider.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Orbix.

  ‘Sir, if the renegades were followed, in secret, this could be the chance we have been waiting for to uncover the entire network of traitors. We could expose each and every enemy of the Tower of Night operating between Undertown and the so-called Free Glades.’

  ‘But—’ Orbix began.

  ‘As I see it, the choice is this,’ Xanth went on hurriedly. ‘The three apprentices now. Or the whole treacherous set-up tomorrow.’

  Orbix raised an eyebrow. ‘And who might be the spy to carry out such a task?’ he asked.

  Xanth lowered his head modestly.

  ‘I see,’ said Orbix. He tapped thoughtfully on the muzzle of the mask with the tips of his bony fingers.

  The proposal was interesting, very interesting. For so long now, he had dreamed of capturing those two turncoats, Ulbus Vespius and Tallus Penitax, the treacherous Professors of Light and Darkness – and torturing them until they repented for going over to the other side and begged for his forgiveness. He would forgive them, of course. He would forgive all those who fell into his clutches – even Fenbrus Lodd.

  And then he would have them executed.

  ‘Very well, Xanth,’ he said at last. ‘I give you my permission to go.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you,’ said Xanth, emotion sounding in his voice for the first time since their meeting had begun. ‘You won’t regret your decision, sir. I give my word.’

  ‘I hope not, Xanth,’ came the icy response. ‘Indeed, I make you this promise. If you should let me down, then it is you who will live to regret my decision.’

  With Orbix Xaxis’s doomladen words echoing round his head, Xanth left the chamber and headed back down the flights of stairs. Hood raised and gown wrapped close about him, he kept to the shadows and out of sight. Past the look-out gantries he went; past the guards’ quarters and great halls, the laboratories and kitchens, and on down into the dark, dismal dungeons in the lower reaches of the sinister Tower of Night.

  All round him he heard the low, whimpering moan of the prisoners. Hundreds of them, there were – earth-scholars, sky pirates, suspected spies and traitors, even Guardians who had fallen from favour. Each one had been locked up, pending a trial which would take years to come – and almost certainly end up with an execution. In the meantime, they had to remain in their cells – if cell was the right word for the precarious ledges which jutted out into the vast atrium at the centre of the tower.

  Xanth stopped on a half-landing, where one of the descending flights of stairs became two, and turned to the door facing him. He slid the round spy-hole cover to one side and peered through. The prisoner was still sitting in exactly the same position as when Xanth had left him, nearly two hours earlier.

  ‘It’s me,’ he hissed. ‘I’m back.’

  The hunched figure did not move.

  ‘You were right,’ said Xanth, louder now. ‘It worked.’ Still the prisoner did not stir. Xanth frowned. ‘I thought you might be interested in my good news,’ he said peevishly.

  The figure turned and stared back at the spy-hole. He was old. His eyes were sunken; his cheeks hollow. His thick, grey beard and thinning hair were dark with years of filth. He raised one shaggy eyebrow. ‘Interested?’ he said. ‘Aye, Xanth, I suppose I am.’ He looked round his cell and shook his head wearily. The small ledge, sticking out into the cavernous, echoing atrium, had no walls, yet escape was impossible. Apart from the door, which was kept securely bolted from the outside, the only way out was down – down to certain death on the ground, far below. He turned back to the spy-hole. ‘But I am also envious beyond words.’

  Xanth swallowed with embarrassment. Here, deep down in the stinking bowels of the atrium, the cell was about as bad as it could be. There was a table where, being an academic, the prisoner was forced to do work for the Guardians, and a filthy straw mattress. And that was it. For as long as Xanth had been alive, and many, many long years before that, the cell had been the prisoner’s entire world. ‘I … I’m so sorry,’ said Xanth. ‘I didn’t think.’ ‘You didn’t think,’ he murmured. ‘How ironic that is, Xanth, for I do little else but think. I think of everything that has happened – of what I have lost, of what has been taken from me …’ He paused, and when he looked up again he was smiling. ‘You will enjoy the Deepwoods, Xanth. I know you will. It is dangerous there, of course, with more perils than you could imagine. Yet it is a wondrous place – exciting, beautiful …’

  Xanth nodded enthusiastically. It was, after all, their long conversations about the endless forest which had triggered his interest in the Deepwoods in the first place. They’d talked about woodtroll paths and reed-eel beds, about waif countr
y and (Xanth’s favourite) about sacred Riverrise, high up in the distant mountains. Yet it was a place the prisoner would only ever visit again in his memory, for Xanth knew that the Most High Guardian of Night considered him too important ever to be released – and no-one had ever escaped from the dungeons of the Tower of Night. Just then a pair of soiled ratbirds landed on the corner of the prisoner’s sleeping ledge.

  He flapped his thin, grimy hands at them, sending them screeching back into the air. ‘And stay gone!’ he shouted after them.

  ‘I’m not dead yet.’ He snorted. ‘There’ll be time enough to pick my bones clean when I am. Eh, Xanth?’

  The young apprentice Guardian winced uneasily. ‘Please don’t talk like that,’ he said. ‘Something’ll turn up. I know it will …’

  ‘Hush now, Xanth,’ the prisoner cautioned. ‘Such words are treason. If you do not wish to end up on your own dungeon ledge, you’d better be careful.’ He returned his attention to the barkscroll. ‘I will be thinking of you,’ he said.

  The following morning Rook Barkwater stood in the cold, damp dormitory, stuffing all his belongings – which were few – into a backpack. He untied and reknotted the black scarf around his neck. He inspected the talisman. He rubbed the two sky-crystals together and watched the sparks tumble down to the floor, where they fizzed and disappeared.

  ‘Where is Felix?’ he wondered. He hadn’t laid eyes on him since the moment his own name had been announced from the Lufwood Bridge. He had found his sleeping chamber empty, the hammock unslept in – and none of the other senior apprentices seemed to have seen him. Rook was confused. Surely, desperately disappointed as he was, Felix wouldn’t let him leave without saying goodbye.

  Would he?

  As he pushed the last of his meagre belongings into the backpack and tightened the drawstring, Rook sighed unhappily. Just then there came a noise from the end of the long thin room, and the door burst open. Rook spun round.

  ‘Felix,’ he said as a figure appeared. ‘At last! I was beginning to think …’ He fell still. It was not Felix at all.

  ‘Come on, Rook,’ said Stob Lummus impatiently. ‘Aren’t you ready yet?’

  ‘We’ve been waiting for simply ages,’ added Magda Burlix, and pursed her lips primly. ‘There’s still a lot to be done before we can depart.’

  Rook pulled the backpack shut and swung it up onto his shoulder. As he did so, he noticed something shiny which had been lying on the hammock beneath his backpack. Rook gasped. It was Felix’s ceremonial sword.

  ‘Thank you, Felix,’ he whispered, as he belted it round his waist and trotted after the others. ‘And fare you well, wherever you may be.’

  t was late afternoon before the three young librarian knights elect were ready. First, they had to be fitted with their respective outfits. A long, flowing cape for Magda Burlix, with little bundles of bright materials hanging in bunches amidst clusters of shiny pins and thimbles of all sizes.

  ‘Finest silks from the workshops of Undertown,’ she smiled, turning to look at herself in the mirror. ‘Something to suit every shryke-matron. How about you, madam? Can I interest you in twenty rolls of this very fine spider-silk?’

  Rook smiled, but Stob Lummus, the other librarian, turned away. ‘It won’t be so funny when you’re on the Mire road surrounded by shryke guards, Magda,’ he said sharply. Stob adjusted the tall, conical hat of a timber trader, and pulled the rather moth-eaten tilder coat on over the heavy sample-laden waistcoat he wore.

  ‘As for you!’ He turned to Rook, contempt plain in his dark brown eyes and curling upper lip. ‘Don’t encourage her, under-librarian!’

  Rook turned away, his face burning, and fumbled with the straps of his tool harness.

  ‘What a natural knife-sharpener you make,’ sneered Stob. ‘Must run in the family’

  Rook didn’t rise to the bait. As Felix had so often told him, ‘You’re equal to any and better than most.’ Good old Felix!

  Rook sighed as he thought of his old friend. He wouldn’t like to guess how many times Felix had come to his aid over the years, defending him against overbearing professors and aggressive apprentices – for bullies came in all shapes and sizes.

  ‘Ready?’ It was the Professor of Darkness. He looked strained and tired. ‘Here are your papers. Stob, you are a timber merchant from the Foundry Glade. Magda, you are a silk trader carrying samples to the Eastern Roost. And you, my boy,’ said the professor, laying a hand on Rook’s shoulder, ‘you are a lowly knife-sharpener and tool-mender. Slip away quietly now – and look out for the bloodoak pendants. Those who wear them are friends to the librarian knights and will protect and guide you. The first of your contacts will make themselves known to you at the tollgate to the Great Mire Road. Sky speed, and may Earth protect you.’

  Stob stepped forwards.

  ‘No,’ said the professor. ‘Rook, you lead the way. You know the tunnels better than anyone.’

  Stob shot Rook a black look.

  ‘It’s this way,’ Rook told the others some time later as he led them through the labyrinth of underground sewage tunnels. He was heading for an overflow pipe in the boom-docks which, in times of heavy rain, emptied directly into the Edgewater River. It was not the closest to the Great Mire Road tollgate but, being so well concealed by the overhead jetties, it was considered by the Professor of Darkness to be the safest.

  One after the other, the three of them emerged into the eerie half-light of shadows and setting sun. The air was cold, and took Rook by surprised. He swallowed it in great greedy lungfuls. Compared with the stale, tepid atmosphere of the sewers they had left behind, it tasted wonderfully fresh – even here, on the muddy shoreline of the sluggish river.

  To their right stood a tall pillar. A single piece of cloth, nailed to its side, fluttered in the rising breeze.

  ‘Look at that,’ Rook murmured.

  Stob frowned. ‘I believe it’s a posting-pole,’ he said. ‘I’ve read about them somewhere. Before the Edge was blighted with stone-sickness, sky ship captains with berths to spare would advertise—’

  ‘Not that,’ Rook interrupted. He nodded past the pillar at the huge sun, deep crimson and pulsating. ‘That,’ he murmured in awe. ‘It’s been so long …’

  Magda, who had herself been standing with her mouth open, shook her head. ‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I mean, I knew the sun was up there above us the whole time, but actually to see it – to feel it—’

  ‘But you mustn’t look at it directly,’ Stob interrupted stiffly ‘Ever. I read that it can blind you if you stare for too long, even when it’s this low in the sky …’

  ‘The colour of the clouds,’ Rook whispered reverently ‘And the way they glow! They’re so beautiful.’

  ‘They make my spider-silk samples look dull in comparison,’ said Magda, nodding.

  ‘What nonsense,’ said Stob. ‘Sunsets are just dust particles in upper sky …’

  ‘Read that somewhere, did you?’ said Magda, lightly.

  Stob nodded. ‘If you must know, it was in an old sky-scholar scroll I uncovered in—’ He heard Magda’s sigh of irritation and stopped himself. ‘We should be making tracks,’ he said. He strode off, not looking back.

  Magda followed. ‘Come on, Rook,’ she called back gently. ‘We mustn’t get separated.’

  ‘Coming,’ said Rook. Reluctantly, he dragged himself away from the dazzling evening sky.

  Rook’s senses were on fire and, as he followed the other two up a rotting wooden flight of stairs to the quayside promenade, along a winding alleyway and onto the main thorough fare which led to the beginning of the Great Mire Road, he was bombarded with sights, sounds, smells – and distant memories which tugged at his feelings. The cool caress of night air coming in from open sky. The smudge and twinkle of the first emerging stars. The smells of roast meats and strange spices from the ramshackle stalls they passed. Goblins shouting down to passing cloddertrogs, timber wagons creaking along narrow alleys and boots clatte
ring on the cobbled streets. By the time the massive lamplit towers of the Great Mire Road gateway came into view, Stob, Magda and Rook were walking in the midst of a large and growing crowd, streaming both to and from the road’s great entrance.

  ‘Busy ’ere this evening, innit, Maz?’ said a voice behind them.

  ‘You can say that again,’ came the reply.

  ‘I said, it’s busy here this evening …’

  ‘Oh, Sisal, you are a one!’

  Rook glanced round to see two grinning mobgnomes with a bundle of costumes, robes and frock coats on hangers draped over their left arms, hurrying past them. To their left was a gnokgoblin sitting astride a prowlgrin which was pulling a low cart, laden with boxes labelled FINEST PEWTER CUTLERY. Behind him an officious-looking lugtroll was shouting out orders at half a dozen cloddertrogs who were staggering along beneath the weight of a long, heavy roll of red and purple tapestry. And following them, a contingent of gyle goblins bearing pallets of gleaming flagons, goblets and urns above their heads …

  Nobody paid any heed to the sullen timber merchant, the young silk-seller or the lowly knife-sharpener who followed close on their footsteps. Rook felt overwhelmed yet exhilarated to be a part of all this great activity. From every corner of Undertown, merchants and dealers were converging on the Great Mire Road. For though some of the more heavy industry had shifted to the Foundry Glade, where wood-fuel was cheap – and labour cheaper still – the majority of manufactured goods were still produced in the traditional workshops and factories of Undertown. On the other side they would barter and sell their wares in the Eastern Roost.

  ‘Mind your backs!’ roared a rough voice from near the gateway. ‘Coming through.’

  Ahead of him, Rook saw the crowds part as an approaching hammelhorn-drawn wagon rolled into view. It was long and flat – and followed by two others. On the bench at the front of each one were two seated leaguesmen and a swarthy flat-head goblin, who stood on the driving platform, holding a knot of reins with one hand and cracking a whip with the other. Rook craned his neck to see what load was being carried beneath the huge tarpaulins. Raw materials of some kind, that much was certain, for everything manufactured in Undertown – from bracelets to bricks – was made from materials brought in from outside.