Midnight Over Sanctaphrax Read online

  Without giving the command a second thought, Twig's hands danced over the levers once more, raising the prow-weight, lowering the stern-weight and realigning the stud and staysails.

  ‘That's it,’ the caterbird shouted back. ‘Now hold this course. So long as we remain at the centre of the weather vortex, we stand a chance.’

  An icy shiver of unease ran the length of Twig's spine.

  The swirling vortex roared closer.

  ‘Five thousand strides,’ Spooler cried.

  Hurricane-force winds battered the Edgedancer with immense power, threatening at any moment to send the sky ship into a fatal spin. The charged air smelt of sulphur and toasted almonds; it made the hair of the sky pirates stand on end.

  ‘A thousand strides!’

  The ship trembled and creaked. The crew grabbed onto anything they could. They held on desperately.

  All at once, the frayed edge of the spinning vortex was swirling round the sky ship. It was like staring down a monstrous throat. There was no turning back now.

  ‘Five hundred strides!’ cried the oakelf. ‘Four. Three. Two. One …’

  ‘Brace yourselves!’ Twig cried. ‘We are entering the weather vortex … now!’

  • CHAPTER TWO •

  THE WEATHER VORTEX

  It was a world of red they were plunged into. There was a blast of furnace-hot air, and a terrible screaming which filled Twig's ears. His stomach knotted, his breath came in gasps and, when he managed to half-open an eye, the wind caused scalding tears to course down his cheeks.

  ‘Sky above!’ he exclaimed.

  They were inside the raging red gullet of the monstrous weather vortex. All round them, the swirling currents wailed and screeched. Yet here, at the central still point, there was a clammy, eerie calm.

  ‘Heavy on the mainsail, Tarp,’ Twig bellowed above the roaring air. ‘And double-check that the tolley-ropes are secure.’

  ‘Aye aye, cap'n,’ he shouted back.

  The weather vortex was vast beyond imagination. It was as if the sky itself had turned into a great voracious beast. And the Edgedancer was inside it: swallowed up, consumed.

  ‘Hold fast!’ Twig roared. ‘Goom, chain yourself to the helm and keep us steady.’

  The banderbear leapt to obey. Twig concentrated on the sail and hull-weight levers. With the wind spinning faster and faster - an angry red wall that surrounded them, constantly threatening to draw the sky ship off course and into its terrible turmoil - it was vital to maintain balance as they were sucked in deeper and deeper.

  ‘What now?’ Twig called out to the caterbird.

  ‘There is no going back,’ the bird boomed. ‘We are entering the turbulent heart of the Mother Storm, the birthplace of tempests and tornadoes - a place of terrible madness. Yet at its very centre, there is ultimate calm and …’

  ‘And?’ Twig called back. The air had turned icy blue, and tiny vicious hailstones stung his face.

  ‘And?’ boomed the caterbird, half lost in a bank of swirling fog far ahead, ‘it is there we shall find your father - if any of us survive.’

  All of a sudden, Twig was gripped by a feeling of intense sadness. He fell to his knees, great sobs racking his body. Woodfish screamed with high, piercing sorrow. Sleet lay curled in a ball at the feet of a weeping Bogwitt. The tiny hailstones beat out a terrible rhythm on the decks.

  What was happening? Twig wondered. What was this all-consuming sorrow? He hauled himself to his feet. It was almost too much to bear.

  Tarp Hammelherd knelt on the ground, his head hung low, and bellowed like a wounded tilder. ‘Why?’ he howled, and his body convulsed with grief. ‘Why did you have to die?’

  Spooler swung down the mast and crouched down beside him. ‘Tarp, my friend!’ he implored.

  But Tarp couldn't hear him. And when he looked up, his unseeing eyes stared past the oakelf.

  ‘Oh, Tendon. My brother!’ he cried. ‘My poor, poor brother …’ He collapsed on the deck, shielding his head from the hailstones.

  Twig gripped the helm. Behind him, Goom the banderbear's loud howls drowned out all other sounds. Then the swirling green fog broke silently over the bow. Thick and evil, it coiled round the deck, cloaking the crew from sight. With the abrupt change in the weather, the sobs of the crew turned to howls of fear.

  Twig shuddered as the green fog hit him. It pierced his skin, chilling him to the very marrow in his bones. Blind panic gripped him.

  ‘We're doomed!’ he screamed. ‘We'll never escape. We're all going to die here in this terrible place. We …’

  ‘After sorrow, fear,’ the voice of the caterbird floated back. ‘This too will pass. Be brave, Captain Twig.’

  Twig shook his head. The fog thinned and the terror began to release its hold. A light drizzle was now falling, the raindrops glittering and shimmering like tiny jewels. Wingnut Sleet threw back his head and roared with laughter. Twig drank in the rain. His head swam. It was all so wonderful, so beautiful, so unutterably …

  ‘Aaaaarghl’ screamed Sleet.

  Below him, Twig could see the quartermaster staggering back from the balustrade, clawing desperately at his face. Encasing his head and shoulders was a ball of lightning, with worm-like tendrils of light squirming over his terrified features. Woodfish screamed and dived for cover as more sparking twists of lightning crackled across the deck.

  ‘Get down!’ yelled Twig, all feelings of elation abruptly gone.

  Wingnut Sleet, seemingly lifeless, was slumped on the deck next to the body of Tarp Hammelherd.

  ‘Save us! Save us!’ screamed Woodfish, his voice high and sibilant.

  ‘We must go on!’ Twig shouted back.

  And then the red mist descended.

  Thick, penetrating and acrid with the stench of wood-smoke, the mist blurred Twig's vision. He found himself consumed with rage. His eyes blazed. His nostrils flared. His teeth ground together.

  ‘No going back!’ he roared, pounding at the helm.

  The Edgedancer bucked and juddered alarmingly. Twig hit out at the bone-handled levers, scattering them this way and that. The sky shij seemed to gasp as its weights and levers pulled in opposite directions. Beside him, even Goom was i unable to resist the effects of the red mist.

  ‘Wuh!’ he bellowed as, gripped by a frenzy of rage, he tore at the balustrades and punched holes in the sides of the sky ship, ‘WUUUUH!’

  Twig's inner fury intensified. It was all the caterbird's fault, this turmoil, this madness: the fact that they had set off into open sky in the first place.

  ‘Curse you!’ he bellowed. ‘May you rot in open sky!’

  Behind him, the banderbear roared fiercely as he ripped at the doorways and battened-down hatches and tossed each wrenched-off piece of splintered wood over the side. Creaking and cracking, the Edgedancer was now out of control. At any minute the swirling vortex would tear it to pieces.

  Twig raced down to the main deck and over to the bowsprit. The red mist filled his mouth, stained his eyes and filled his muscles with a wild and unfamiliar strength. The madness grew; his senses closed in. He became blind to what his eyes were trying to show him, deaf to what his ears could hear. With his sword in his hand, he was cutting, hacking, stabbing and all the while, the terrible roars of the banderbear screamed in his head.

  Then everything went black.

  Twig opened his eyes to find a milky whiteness all around him. The Edgedancer hung in space at a crazy angle, perfectly still.

  ‘We made it,’ he said quietly to himself. He looked about in astonishment. Everything suddenly seemed clearer and sharper than ever before.

  Tarp Hammelherd lay in a heap, still softly sobbing. Wingnut Sleet, hands clasped to his face, didn't move. Bogwitt was unconscious, a section of mast pinning his right leg to the deck. Beside him, and utterly exhausted, the banderbear's great hairy form lay in the wreckage of mast and rigging, heavy rasping breaths showing that he lived still. One great paw rested against Spooler the oakelf. His whimpers rev
ealed that he, too, was clinging to life. Woodfish sat in the bows, shaking his head from side to side.

  ‘I can't hear a thing.’ he repeated monotonously.

  The Stone Pilot appeared at the top of the bridge staircase.

  Twig smiled weakly. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I'm fine. Are you all right?’

  From deep inside the hood came a muffled voice. ‘Oh, captain,’ it said softly.

  ‘What?’ said Twig. ‘I…’ He followed the line of the Stone Pilot's pointing finger. It led to his own hands. He looked down, to see a piece of limp rope in one hand, his sword in the other. ‘What have I done?’ he murmured.

  Slowly, fearfully, he pulled the rope-tether towards him. It offered no resistance. All at once, the end flicked over the balustrade and landed on the deck at his feet. It had been severed neatly.

  ‘Caterbird!’ Twig screamed. ‘Caterbird, where are you?’

  There was no reply. The caterbird - his guide and protector - was gone. Horrified, Twig turned to the Stone Pilot.

  ‘What has happened?’ he whispered.

  ‘I … I tried to stop you,’ the Stone Pilot said. ‘But you were too strong for me. Swearing and cursing, you were. You seized the rope and tugged it towards you. The caterbird cried out as its wings clipped the bowsprit. Then you raised your sword and thrust forwards …’

  Twig gasped. ‘Did I kill it?’ he asked.

  ‘I don't know,’ the Stone Pilot replied. ‘The last thing I remember is Goom knocking me to the floor.’

  ‘My crew, my crew,’ said Twig, shaking his head. ‘What is to become of them now?’

  The great heavy hood of the Stone Pilot turned from side to side. Out of the corner of his eye, Twig saw something black and white sliding across the sloping deck. He looked round, just in time to see one of the caterbird's tail feathers sliding under the balustrade and slipping over the jutting ledge. As it fluttered away into the glistening void, Twig shuddered at the enormity of what he had done. The great caterbird, who had watched over him since its hatching, was gone, perhaps dead - and by his own hand. Twig was on his own now.

  ‘What do I do?’ he said miserably. He pulled out his telescope and looked all round him. The milky whiteness now glittered with all the colours of the rainbow: intoxicating, mesmerizing - red and orange and yellow and …

  The Stone Pilot seized him by the elbow and cried out urgently. ‘Look there!’

  Twig pulled the telescope from his eye and squinted into the white light. ‘What? I…’ And then he saw it. There, looming from the mist, was a shadowy shape suspended in mid-air. It was almost upended; its mast was broken, the sails hanging limply like broken wood-fly wings. Twig's skin tingled; his heart thumped.

  ‘Oh, caterbird,’ he murmured. ‘You did not fail me, after all. You led me to the Stormchaser.’

  With his heart in his mouth, Twig leaned over the balustrade. He cupped his hands to his mouth.

  ‘Father!’ he bellowed. ‘Father, if you're there, answer me!’

  But no sound came from the floating shipwreck save the creaking of its cracked hull and the tap-tap-tap of a loose tolley-rope knocking against the broken mast. The Edgedancer drifted closer to the wreck of the once-proud Stormchaser. Twig peered at the sky ship. It shimmered with a brilliance that hurt his eyes.

  ‘I must know if my father is on board,’ he said.

  He seized one of the fore-deck grappling-hooks, swung the rope round his head and launched the heavy hook down through the air at the other sky ship. It seemed almost to pass through the Stormchaser until, with a shudder and the sound of splintering wood, it struck something solid - and held. The Stone Pilot secured the end of the rope to the bowsprit. Twig climbed up, placed a length of broken wood over the rope, and clutched it with both hands.

  ‘Wish me good fortune,’ said Twig, and with that he was gone - sliding off down the rope before the Stone Pilot could answer.

  The descent was steep and fast, and Twig's arms felt as if they were being wrenched out of their sockets. Below him the gaping void blurred past as he gathered speed and - crash -thumped down onto the deck of the Stormchaser.

  For a moment Twig remained still, scarcely believing he had made it in one piece. He looked about. The sky ship was battered almost beyond recognition. The wood and rigging seemed drained of colour. With a jolt, Twig realized that they were almost transparent, and he could see down deep inside the ship. Then he heard a voice.

  Twig? Twig is that really you?’

  Twig swung round. A gaunt, pale figure sat beside the shattered helm. ‘Father!’ he cried.

  Cloud Wolf looked older. His fine clothes hung in rags, his hair was white and his eyes were bluer than Twig remembered - unnaturally blue. Across his right shoulder were the raw scars from a recent wound. Twig ran towards him, his heart clamouring inside his chest, and fell at his side. ‘Oh, Father,’ he said tearfully. ‘I have found you.’

  ‘I have waited so long, my boy,’ Cloud Wolf whispered wearily He pulled Twig closer to him. ‘You have come far to reach this place,’ he said. The caterbird who found me said you would. He was right. No father has ever been prouder of his son than I am of you.’

  Twig lowered his head modestly. Tears splashed onto his leather breastplate.

  ‘So much emotion,’ said Cloud Wolf gently. ‘I know, I know,’ His voice grew harder. ‘Twig,’ he said urgently. ‘You must listen closely, for I shall say this but once. This is a dangerous place I have drawn you to,’ He sighed. ‘If I had known beforehand, I would never have asked the caterbird to enlist your help.’

  ‘But, Father, I wanted to …’

  ‘Don't interrupt, Twig,’ said Cloud Wolf. His body glistened from head to toe. ‘I don't have much time left. The perilous vortex has brought me - us - here to the very heart of the Mother Storm. It is a place of calmness, of enlightenment - yet there is a terrible price to pay for the knowledge she imparts.’

  ‘Price to pay?’ said Twig anxiously.

  ‘Those who arrive here slowly become one with the Mother Storm, Twig,’ his father continued gently. ‘She enters through the eyes, the ears, the pores of the skin. She fills you with knowledge of the weather itself -knowledge which the academics of Sanctaphrax have, for centuries, been striving to attain - but she claims you for herself in the process.’

  Twig gasped. ‘You mean … ?’

  ‘I have been becalmed here too long, my boy. I can't hold on to my thoughts for much longer …’ Cloud Wolf waved a pale, almost translucent hand in front of Twig's face.

  ‘Oh, Father,’ Twig murmured. ‘What is …?’

  ‘I am disappearing, Twig - becoming one with the Mother Storm. My greatest sorrow is leaving you when we have only just been reunited. But before I do, there is something I must tell you - something I have learnt here. The Mother Storm will soon return.’

  ‘To the Edge?’ Twig gasped.

  ‘Aye, Twig,’ said Cloud Wolf. ‘This mighty storm which first seeded the land with life is coming back, as she has done every several thousand years since the beginning of time itself. She will sweep in from open sky, pass over the Mire, the Twilight Woods and on to the highest point of the Deepwoods. Riverrise.’

  ‘Riverrise?’ said Twig. ‘But surely the place is only a myth…’

  ‘Riverrise exists,’ said Cloud Wolf firmly. ‘When she reaches it, the Mother Storm will rejuvenate its waters, the Edgewater River will flow vigorous and strong once more, and her energy will spread out all across the Edge, bringing new life, new hope - a fresh beginning.’ He paused, and Twig looked down to see the pain in his father's eyes. ‘At least,’ he murmured, ‘that is what should happen. But all is not well.’

  Twig frowned. ‘I don't understand,’ he said.

  Cloud Wolf nodded patiently. ‘That last time the Mother Storm visited the Edge her journey to Riverrise was clear,’ he explained. ‘Now, there is something which stands in her way …’

  Twig gasped. ‘Sanctaphrax!’ he said.

  ‘Sanctap
hrax,’ whispered Cloud Wolf, his eyes misting over. ‘Our floating city, with its shining spires and venerable institutions - once, long ago, when it was truly great, my home …’ He cleared his throat. ‘It lies directly in the path of the storm. It will be destroyed by the energy of the Mother Storm when they meet.’

  ‘But…’ Twig began.

  ‘Hush,’ said Cloud Wolf wearily, ‘for there is worse to come. If the Mother Storm is blocked by Sanctaphrax, then she will never reach Riverrise to seed it with new life. The waters of the Edgewater River will dry up completely. And with their going, the darkness at the black heart of the Deepwoods will spread out like a vast fungus, until it has engulfed every inch of the Edge.’ He looked up at his son. ‘Twig,’ he said. ‘Sanctaphrax must not block the path of the Mother Storm.’

  ‘But what can I do?’ said Twig, searching his father's ghostly face for some clue.

  ‘The Anchor Chain … it holds the floating city in place … it must be … severed,’ Cloud Wolf told him, every word an effort.

  ‘Cut the Anchor Chain?’ said Twig, astonished. ‘But … but…’

  ‘Sanctaphrax will soar away and the Mother Storm will sweep on unhindered to Riverrise. The Edge will be saved, but…’ His voice grew fainter. ‘… Sanctaphrax will be lost.’

  As he spoke, his entire body began to glisten and sparkle.

  Twig gasped, and started back. ‘Wh … what's happening?’ he stammered.

  Cloud Wolf held up his hands and looked, bemused, as they shimmered like countless million dancing atoms. ‘Finally, she has come for me,’ he sighed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Twig. ‘What's going on?’

  ‘I told you, Twig. I have been here for too long,’ his father whispered barely audibly. ‘The Mother Storm has filled me with herself. That is how I know what is soon to take place. But with that knowledge, I have lost myself, Twig. The brighter I glisten, the fainter I get.’ As he spoke, the glittering grew more intense, and the form of Cloud Wolf the sky pirate captain became more difficult to make out. ‘She has claimed me for herself. I must leave you, Twig.’