The Last of the Sky Pirates

by Paul Stewart

  The two apprentices rose to go. ‘Fare you well, Rook,’ they said softly.

  Rook’s eyelids flickered. He felt a light kiss brush his fevered brow, the lips cool and dry, and smelled the pine-like scent of Magda’s thick hair. His body was impossibly heavy.

  There was a click of the catch as the door closed. Rook was alone again.

  Night followed day followed night. Time after time, as evening fell and the milky light from outside grew dim, the spindlebug came to light the oil lantern. He bathed Rook and tucked him in; he put droplets of potent medicine under his tongue and applied oily herbal unguents to the angry wound, and bandaged it up with fresh strips of gauzy cloth.

  Sometimes Rook would wake to find Tweezel fussing about him attentively; mostly, he would sleep through the spindlebug’s tender ministrations.

  ‘Rook, can you hear me?’ Rook opened his eyes. He knew that voice. ‘It’s me, Rook. Xanth.’

  ‘Xanth?’ he murmured, and winced as the searing pain in his shoulder shot down his arm.

  Xanth winced with him. His face was pale and drawn, and his dark sunken eyes looked more haunted than ever. He pushed his hair off his forehead and took a step closer to the bed. The lantern in his hand swung to and fro. ‘I came to say goodbye, Rook,’ he told him.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Rook dully. ‘You as well? Magda and Stob …’

  Xanth laughed bitterly. ‘Magda and Stob! How I envy them,’ he said. He put his head in his hands. ‘There’ll be no treatise-voyage for me, Rook. My path leads away from the Deepwoods and back to New Sanctaphrax.’

  ‘New Sanctaphrax?’ Rook struggled to clear his head. Was this really happening – or was it all just a fever-induced dream? ‘But why, Xanth?’ he murmured.

  The apprentice turned away, and Rook could just make out his hunched-up shoulders in the shadows. When he spoke, his voice was low and thick with emotion. ‘You have been a good friend to me, Rook Barkwater,’ he said. ‘When others ignored me or made fun of me, you were there, defending me, encouraging me …’ He hesitated. ‘And I have repaid your friendship with lies and treachery.’

  ‘But … but how?’ asked Rook. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I am a spy, Rook,’ said Xanth. ‘I serve Orbix Xaxis, the Most High Guardian of Night. The librarian knights are my enemies.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Why do you suppose no groups of apprentices have reached Lake Landing since I arrived? Because I betrayed them, Rook. And how did the goblins at the Foundry Glade know that Varis Lodd was going to pay them a visit, eh? Because I set the trap, that’s how. Oh, but Rook …’ Xanth turned and kneeled beside the bed-shelf. He clasped Rook’s hand, his own hands trembling with emotion. ‘If I’d known that you – one of only two people I have ever called friend – were going to be on that raid, I would have warned you, Rook. You’ve got to believe me!’

  Rook pulled his hand away. ‘You? You betrayed us?’ he said weakly. ‘After all we’ve been through together … Oh, Xanth, how could you?’

  ‘Because I belong to the Guardians of Night,’ said Xanth bitterly. ‘They own me, body and soul. Try as I might, there is nothing I can do to get away from them. Don’t you think I’d rather stay out here in the beautiful Deepwoods if I could?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not possible, Rook. I have gone too far. I have done too much damage. I cannot stay.’ He sighed. ‘I am as much a prisoner of the Tower of Night as my friend Cowlquape, to whom I must now return.’

  Rook stared at Xanth through lowered lids. His temples pounded, his vision was blurred.

  ‘It was Cowlquape who first filled my head with stories of the Deepwoods, and his adventures with Twig the sky pirate,’ Xanth continued. ‘Because of him, I had to come out here and see it all for myself – even if the only way I could do so was by becoming a spy.’ He looked down miserably. ‘I suppose I have betrayed you both.’

  Rook turned away. The fever was returning with a savage intensity. Xanth? A traitor? He didn’t want it to be true. Xanth was his friend. A deep sorrow mingled with the pain of his wound, and the shadows grew darker round his bed-shelf. Rook closed his eyes and let the fever wash over him.

  Xanth looked down at the sleeping youth, and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders. ‘Farewell, Rook,’ he said. ‘I doubt our paths will cross again.’

  He stepped back, turned and crossed the floor to the circular doorway. He did not look back.

  Fingers shaking with excitement, Rook dressed himself in the stiff, green leather flight-suit, secured the belt with its dagger and axe, and Felix’s sword round his waist, swung the small backpack of provisions onto his shoulder and set off down the tower staircase. Although he was still a little weak, and his face was pale and drawn, with Tweezel’s help he had managed to beat the goblin’s poison. Now – two weeks after Stob and Magda had set forth – it was his turn to set off on his treatise-voyage.

  Varis Lodd was at the foot of the tower to greet him. ‘There were occasions,’ she confessed, ‘when I wondered if this day would ever come. But you made it, Rook. I’m so proud of you. And now, Librarian Knight,’ she said, nodding towards the tethered Stormhornet which bobbed about at the back of the stage, ‘your skycraft awaits.’

  Rook stepped forward, wrapped his arms round the smooth wooden neck of the delicate creature and rubbed his cheek against its head. ‘Stormhornet,’ he whispered. ‘At last.’

  Just then, from behind Rook, there came the sound of footsteps. He turned to see two figures approaching. One was Parsimmon, his tattered gown flapping. The other – tall, bearded and dressed in a black tunic – raised his hand in greeting. Rook’s gaze fell upon the white crescent moon emblazoned across his chest.

  ‘The Professor of Darkness!’ he said, surprised.

  ‘He arrived while you were ill, Rook, bearing news of Xanth’s treachery,’ said Varis. ‘A bad business all round.’

  Rook nodded sadly. The two figures drew close. The professor took Rook’s hand and shook it firmly.

  ‘Can this truly be the callow youth who once tended the buoyant lecterns on the Blackwood Bridge?’ he said. His eyes twinkled. ‘I can scarce believe it. Here you are, about to embark upon your treatise-voyage. We have groomed and trained you. Now it is your chance to contribute to the great canon of work already stored in the Storm Chamber Library. You have done well, Rook. Very well.’ His expression clouded over. ‘Though you have hardly been helped by a certain friend, I believe.’

  ‘Xanth?’ Rook faltered. It all seemed like a dream to him now, Xanth’s confession and departure. He had tried to put it out of his mind.

  ‘Xanth Filatine,’ the professor said, ‘is a traitor!’

  ‘A traitor,’ Rook whispered softly. ‘He … he came to my cabin when I was ill, just before he … disappeared.’

  ‘Fled back to his evil master, the Most High Guardian of Night,’ said the professor, shaking his head.

  ‘Many good apprentices and their loyal guides have been lost because of that young wood-viper,’ said Parsimmon sadly. ‘But come, we are not here to talk of such things. Xanth Filatine will pay for his treachery soon enough. Now we shall celebrate the beginning of your great adventure, Master Rook.’

  Rook nodded, but said nothing. He couldn’t think of his former friend without a heavy ache of sadness forming in his chest. He tried to push the feelings away. Today was a day for celebration, not sadness, he told himself.

  Varis stepped forwards. ‘Rook, it is time for you to leave,’ she said softly. As she spoke, the low sun rose up above the trees. She shielded her eyes with her hand. ‘May your treatise-voyage be safe and fruitful.’

  Rook looked up. He saw the professor, Parsimmon and Varis all smiling at him kindly. He smiled back. Beside him, the sails of the waiting Stormhornet fluttered in the light breeze.

  Parsimmon nodded towards it. ‘She’s raring to go,’ he said.

  ‘And so am I!’ said Rook, hardly daring to believe that the moment of his departure had finally arrived.

  Checking his laden fl
ight-suit and tightening the straps of his backpack, he turned away. He untethered the small craft and leaped into its saddle. The skittish Stormhornet bucked and lurched.

  ‘Good luck, Rook!’ said Varis.

  Rook adjusted his goggles, took hold of the upper sail-rope and raised the loft-sail.

  ‘Earth and Sky be with you, lad,’ said the Professor of Darkness solemnly The nether-sail billowed out beneath him. The Stormhornet juddered upwards and hovered impatiently.

  ‘And may you return successful from your treatise-voyage!’ cried Parsimmon. ‘Fare you well, Master Rook.’

  ‘Fare you well!’ shouted the others.

  Rook pulled down sharply on the pinner-rope. The sails filled. The flight-weights swung. And Rook’s heart soared as the skycraft flew steeply up into the cool, bright morning air.

  ‘Farewell!’ he shouted back.

  Below him, Lake Landing quickly became smaller and smaller, and the three figures standing upon it – their arms waving and their faces turned up to the sky – grew so tiny, he could no longer see which was which.

  ‘This is it,’ Rook murmured happily, the fluttering back in the pit of his stomach as he skimmed the tops of the trees fringing the far side of the lake. Before him lay the vast, mysterious Deepwoods, rippling in the wind like an endless ocean.

  As the leaves rushed past him in a blur of greens and blues, he imagined his completed treatise nestling beside Varis Lodd’s masterpiece, on the seventeenth buoyant lectern of the Blackwood Bridge, deep down in the Great Storm Chamber Library. He could see the bound leather volume with its gold lettering: An Eyewitness Account of the Mythical Great Convocation of Banderbears …

  Far off in the distance a flock of snowbirds wheeled up from the trees below and soared into the air, their white wings flashing brightly in the rising sun. Farther still, a rotsucker flapped across the hazy sky. Beneath it, clutched in its claws, the egg-shaped silhouette of a great caterbird cocoon swung back and forth.

  Rook frowned as the immensity of the Deepwoods – and his task – struck him. He pushed all thoughts of the completed treatise from his head; this was no time for daydreaming. He had come a long way since that morning when Fenbrus Lodd, the High Librarian, had announced that he, Rook Barkwater, had been selected as a librarian knight elect. He had journeyed to Lake Landing. He had built the Stormhornet with his very own hands and learned to fly. Now, finally, he was setting forth on his treatise-voyage.

  ‘At last,’ he whispered, as he swooped down low over the leafy canopy. ‘Now it all begins.’

  ain was falling as Rook stirred from his sleep. He was high up on a colossal branch of an ironwood tree. The canopy he’d rigged up in the branches above his head, before turning in the night before, had kept the worst of it off him. But his hammock and sleeping bag were damp, and would have to be aired later if they were not to end up mildewy and rank.

  Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Rook got up. He yawned. He stretched. His breath came in wispy twists of mist. Shivering with cold, he lit the hanging copper stove, placed a small saucepan of water on its flickering, blue flame and went to check on the Stormhornet, tethered securely to one of the huge branch’s offshoots.

  ‘I trust you are well rested,’ he whispered to the little skycraft. ‘And not too wet to fly.’

  He ran his fingers over its smooth, varnished prow, over each and every knotted rope and tethered sail. A shower of tiny raindrops glistened as they fell from the silky material. He tightened the flight-weights. He greased the levers … Everything seemed to be in order.

  Behind him, the water started to bubble.

  Rook hurriedly rolled up his hammock and sleeping bag, folded away the waterproof canopy, and secured all three behind the Stormhornet’s saddle. Then, back at the hanging-stove, he removed the saucepan from the heat, carefully capped the flame and poured the boiling water into a mug. He stirred in three spoonfuls of dried charlock leaves and wrapped his hands around the piping-hot mug.

  He looked out from his vantage point on the ironwood branch. The rain had all but stopped and the forest was beginning to fill with birdsong as the sheltering cheepwits and songteals emerged from their shadowy perches and leafy hollows. He heard a rustle of leaves, and looked down to see a family of woodfowl foraging for food far below.

  Rook sighed. He, too, should eat – yet all he had left from the previous evening was a thick slice of baked loafsap, wrapped up neatly in a broad, waxy leaf.

  As he opened the small green package, the musty odour of the pappy fruit filled his nostrils and, although his stomach rumbled hungrily, his appetite completely disappeared. ‘Stop being so fussy,’ he told himself, biting off a large chunk and chewing gamely.

  He knew from Varis Lodd’s woodlore lessons that the edible loafsap was both nutritious and filling. He knew also that it was unwise to set out on an empty stomach … But the fruit was so unpalatable! Rook took a sip of the charlock tea and swallowed the whole mouthful of claggy pulp in one go. He grimaced. ‘That’ll do,’ he said, tossing the half-eaten slice away. It landed with a soft thud. The woodfowl darted off in all directions, squawking with alarm.

  Rook climbed to his feet, packed up the precious stove and untethered the Stormhornet. The sunlight pierced the thinning clouds and, shining down through the gaps in the trees, gleamed on the burnished green leather of his flight-suit. In the weeks that had passed since he’d first set off from Lake Landing the stiffness of the leather had gone, and the flight-suit had moulded itself to the shape of his body, fitting him now like an extra layer of skin.

  Rook glanced round one last time to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. Then, shifting the sails and weights, and tugging on the pinner-rope, he launched the Stormhornet into the dappled, forest air. ‘Perhaps today,’ he whispered, just as he whispered every morning. His breath came in soft, puffy clouds. ‘Perhaps today will be the day’

  Three months Rook had been journeying; three long, tiring months. By day, when not foraging for food and water, he would scour the Deepwoods for any tell-tale signs of a banderbear – a woven sleeping nest, branches newly stripped of fruit, or heavy footprints in the soft, boggy places beside woodland springs. By night, he would rest up in the tall branches of the great trees, lying in his hammock and listening out for the curious yodelling of the creatures.

  So far, he had heard them on three occasions. Each time, when he had risen the following morning, he had set off in the direction of their calls, his heart beating with anticipation. He still recalled the intense thrill he had felt in the Foundry Glade, when he saw those first banderbears. Now, he couldn’t wait to see more – free, healthy banderbears in their own habitat – but as the sun had moved across the sky and the shadows had lengthened, Rook had, each time, been forced to concede defeat. The elusive creatures were proving far more difficult to locate than he could ever have imagined.

  Yet his journey had not consisted only of disappointments. There had been triumphs, too, along the way; achievements, discoveries – each one faithfully recorded in his treatise-log in his small, neat handwriting, and illustrated with detailed pictures and diagrams.

  Today I came across deep, tell-tale scratches in the bark of an ancient lufwood tree where a banderbear had sharpened its claws. Some scratches looked fresh, others were covered with green moss, suggesting that the tree is a regular scratching-post. I am greatly encouraged.

  Four days he had camped high up at the top of a neighbouring lufwood, keeping constant watch. No banderbear had appeared. On the morning of the fifth day he had packed up and, with a heavy heart, set off once more. That evening, having set up his hanging-stove and hammock, the Stormhornet tethered safely to a branch, he sharpened his stub of leadwood and recorded a new entry.

  After abandoning the scratching-post, I flew all day. Just before midnight I spotted a small mound of oakgourd-peel beneath one of the tall, bell-shaped trees – surely the sign of a recently passing banderbear. My hopes were confirmed by the presence of a bander
bear footprint. I sat up most of the night in a nearby ironwood tree, hoping the creature might return for the few fruits remaining.

  But again, the creature let him down. His journey continued bright and early the following morning.

  The days began to blur into one another, with weeks turning to months, and still no sight of the shy, retiring creatures. Rook grew lean, yet strong; his senses razor-sharp. He got to know the Deepwoods increasingly well. Its changing moods. Its shifting character. The plants and trees and creatures that dwelt in its dark, mysterious shadows. What to eat and what to shun. Its sounds. Its smells. And at night, he would record the fauna and flora he encountered.

  Today I discovered a woodbee hive. I was successful in smoking the swarm out with a branch of smouldering lullabee wood. The honey was delicious in the charlock tea, turning it a surprising blue colour, like the sky before a storm …

  I have just witnessed a halitoad stunning a fromp with a blast of its noxious breath, seizing the creature in its long, sticky tongue and swallowing it whole. The hideous beast then swelled to twice its size, before letting go a revolting belch. I stayed well hidden for an hour …

  It has been a week of violent thunderstorms. Once, while I was taking shelter, an ironwood close by was struck by lightning and burst into flames. I heard an odd ‘popping’ sound, which turned out to be the tree’s seedpods bursting open, and scattering their seeds far and wide. ‘In death there is life,’ as Tweezel would say. By Earth and Sky, the Deepwoods is a strange and wonderful place …

  Today I witnessed something truly horrendous. Drawn towards it by the sound of desperate screeching and squealing, I came down in the air to see the unexpected spectacle of a hammelhorn, apparently in flight! Around its middle, gripping tightly, was a tarry-vine – the long, green, parasitic sidekick of the terrible bloodoak. The creature struggled, wriggled and writhed, but the tarry-vine was too strong for it. And when a second vine came to its aid, coiling round the hapless hammelhorn’s neck, the struggle was over. The vines pulled the creature through the forest towards the gaping maw at the top of the bloodoak’s thick, rubbery trunk. The ring of razor-sharp mandibles clattered loudly. With a sudden flick, the two vines released the hammelhorn, which dropped headfirst down inside the great flesh-eating tree. The creature’s muffled cries fell still. The vines turned red …