Midnight Over Sanctaphrax Read online

  ‘No!’ said Twig. ‘I shan't let you go!’ He shifted round onto his knees and tried to sweep his father up in his arms. But it was like cradling light. ‘Father!’ he cried out.

  ‘Be still, Twig,’ said his father. ‘You must know one last thing … when the Mother Storm will strike …’

  ‘When, Father?’ said Twig. ‘When?’

  Cloud Wolf's glittering mouth moved, but not a sound left his lips.

  ‘Father?’ Twig shouted desperately. ‘When?’

  Tethered together the two sky pirate ships circled each other slowly. Twig left the fading Stormchaser and swung back across the yawning void to the Edgedancer -brought lower in the sky by the Stone Pilot. He landed with a heavy thud on the deck. Behind him, the rope went limp. The Stormchaser had finally disappeared completely.

  The Stone Pilot stared into Twig's ashen face. ‘What happened?’

  Twig struggled to clear his head. ‘It … it was so strange,’ he whispered. ‘Unearthly …’

  ‘Captain Twig,’ said the Stone Pilot, shaking him by the shoulders. ‘Snap out of it! Tell me what happened on the Stormchaser. Cloud Wolf, your father? Did you find him?’

  Twig looked up as though hearing the words for the first time. Tears welled in his eyes. He nodded. ‘Yes, but … Oh, I don't know what to think …’

  Without saying a word, the Stone Pilot reached up and unfastened the internal bolts which secured the glass eye-panelled hood to the shoulders of the greatcoat. The catches opened and the Stone Pilot removed the hood to reveal the slight figure within. Her red hair fell down over her pale cheeks and slender neck.

  Twig, it's me, Maugin,’ she said gently. ‘Remember? You once saved my life.’ She paused. ‘Now calm yourself and tell me what happened over there.’ She rolled the heavy Stone Pilot suit down off her shoulders and took him by the hand.

  Twig shook his head. ‘I did see my father,’ he said, ‘but he is gone now. For ever.’ He sniffed and tried in vain to swallow the painful lump in his throat. ‘Before he disappeared, he told me what I have to do. Sanctaphrax must be destroyed.’

  ‘Sanctaphrax destroyed?’ Maugin gasped. ‘Why?’

  Twig silenced her with his hand. ‘We must return to Sanctaphrax so that I can warn the Most High Academe.’

  ‘But, Twig,’ said Maugin. ‘We are becalmed in the middle of open sky’

  Twig clutched his head in his hands and rocked from side to side.

  ‘Twig, you must tell me what you know,’ Maugin persisted. ‘Sky willing, at least one of us will survive to pass on your father's message.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Twig, pulling himself together. ‘You are right.’

  Maugin's eyes grew wider and wider as Twig began telling her what Cloud Wolf had told him.

  ‘The Mother Storm,’ she murmured. ‘Riverrise … I had always thought such matters were merely the subject of legends.’

  T, too,’ said Twig. ‘I …’ His jaw dropped. ‘Sky above!’ he exclaimed. ‘What's happening now?’

  The pair of them looked round. The glistening air seemed to be coalescing, and rushing in towards them.

  ‘Quickly Twig,’ said Maugin urgently. ‘Tell me everything. Before it is too late.’

  As the whiteness closed in, the air pressure increased. The pain in Twig's ears became intolerable.

  ‘He told me … He said …’

  All round him, the light intensified. His ears whistled. His head throbbed. Despite the intensity of his memories, the words of explanation wouldn't come.

  ‘When, Twig?’ said Maugin. ‘When will the Mother Storm strike? Did he tell you or not?’

  Twig clutched his head. The air grew denser, heavier. ‘I … he …’ he murmured. His eyes filled with bewilderment. ‘When the water stops flowing …’

  He fell silent and winced with pain as he struggled to remember his father's last fateful words. His eyes throbbed. His head felt as though it had been clamped in a vice.

  ‘When … when the very last drop falls, she will arrive. Dawn over Riverrise,’ he whispered faintly. ‘Midnight over Sanctaphrax …’

  But Twig could not know whether Maugin had heard him or not, for a wind whisked his words away, whiteness filled his vision and a high-pitched whine whistled in his ears.

  ‘Put … your hood on,’ he shouted to Maugin, and stepped forwards to help her back into the heavy suit.

  The air grew even whiter. Bright white. Dazzling white. It filled his eyes, shutting out everything else till he was utterly blind. The sky ship trembled. He fell away from Maugin and stumbled backwards - slowly, impossibly slowly - through the viscous air.

  ‘Maugin!’ he cried out - or rather, tried to cry out - for his voice could no longer escape his mouth.

  He landed on the deck. Muffled noises echoed round him: splintering, cracking, crashing. The whiteness intensified. The high-pitched whine grew to a scream. Twig screwed his eyes shut, clamped his hands over his ears and rolled himself up into a tight ball.

  But it was no use. He couldn't keep it out. The terrifying whiteness was inside him, as blinding and deafening within as without. It blunted his senses. It gnawed at his memory.

  ‘Maugin,’ Twig mouthed. ‘My crew …’

  Whooooopff!

  Unable to withhold the mounting pressure a moment longer, the white storm imploded in on itself. For an instant there was stillness. Then, with a cataclysmic thunderclap, the dazzling sphere - with the Edgedancer at its centre - exploded outwards with such force that the very sky juddered.

  • CHAPTER THREE •

  THE LOFTUS OBSERVATORY

  Far away, the floating city of Sanctaphrax keeled and bucked in a fearsome storm. The Anchor Chain which moored it to solid ground was being tested to the limit. Inside the sumptuous buildings, its citizens - the academics and apprentices, the servants and guards -huddled together in silent groups of their own kind, terrified at the thought that the chain could snap.

  Only the Professor of Darkness remained alone. As Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, it was his duty to continue working while the others sought refuge. When the violent storm had first broken, he had hurried up the winding staircase to the top of the Lof tus Observatory as fast as his frail, old legs would take him. The various pieces of measuring equipment which represented every academic discipline in Sanctaphrax awaited his inspection. He arrived to find them all going wild.

  ‘Sky above!’ he exclaimed as he entered the airy room. He scratched his bushy beard and pushed his steel-rimmed spectacles up his nose as he took a closer look at the instruments. ‘But such readings are unheard of,’ He glanced out of the window of the high tower. ‘And little wonder.’

  The storm that night was greater than any he had ever witnessed before. Hurricane-force winds and driving rain were sweeping in from beyond the Edge, battering the jutting spur of land with unprecedented violence.

  ‘Come on, now,’ the professor muttered to himself. ‘Readings must be taken. Calculations calibrated. Facts and figures logged,’ He gripped his staff tightly as he crossed stiffly from one side of the swaying observatory to the other. ‘But where should I begin?’

  The brass anemometer was spinning furiously, registering wind speeds far in excess of any previously recorded. The rain-gauge was overflowing and bleeping loud the concentrated presence of anti-magnetic sour-mist particles.

  The professor shook his head. ‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered. ‘Quite un…’ He paused. ‘But never mind the anemometer or the rain-gauge!’ he cried. ‘What in Sky's name is the sense-sifter doing?’

  The object of the professor's sudden feverish interest was a small, silver box which stood, at an angle, on a tripod. Each of its six sides was inlaid with a small square panel made of a soft, glimmering material derived from the wings of woodmoths. Like the creatures themselves, the material was sensitive to emotions, changing its colour according to the mood surrounding it. Anger would cause it to turn red; sadness, blue; fear, yellow, and so forth.

  There were
two sense-sifters in Sanctaphrax: one, here, in the Loftus Tower, the other in the rundown Department of Psycho-Climatic studies. Normally, the weather-sensitive apparatus glowed a neutral white. A particularly depressing downpour might tinge it with pale blue; a long stretch of balmy breezes and sunny skies might turn it a delicate shade of pink. But always pastels. Nothing extreme was ever registered. Certainly no more than would cause a slight sense of disappointment or an increased tendency to smile. For though the weather undoubtedly affected all the creatures of the Edge, its effects were always mild.

  Until now!

  As the professor stared at the sense-sifter, his jaw dropped and his heart pounded. The apparatus was pulsing with multi-coloured intensity. Flashing, sparking, fizzing. Now dazzling red, now ultramarine, now gleaming emerald green. And purple - deep, dark, crazy purple.

  ‘A mind storm,’ he gasped. He had read of such phenomena in the dusty tomes of The Elemental Treatise. ‘No wonder my own mind has been in such turmoil.’

  At that moment a bolt of lightning zigzagged down out of the swirling sky to the north. For a moment, night became day. The needle on the light-meter shot off the scale and jammed, while the sound-recorder shattered completely in the thunderclap that followed immediately after.

  The professor stared at the broken instruments. ‘What frauds we are, pretending to understand the weather,’ he murmured, then checked furtively over his shoulders, in case someone was listening. There were many in Sanctaphrax, twisted with ambition, who would leap at the chance to exploit the Most High Academe's deepest misgivings. Thankfully, no-one was there to hear his blasphemous words.

  With a sigh, the Professor of Darkness hitched up his black gown and climbed the ladder which led into the glass-domed attic. He pressed his eye to the viewfinder of the great telescope in the centre of the floor.

  As he adjusted the focus, the professor found himself staring deeper and deeper into the dark void beyond the Edge. If he could just see that little bit further …

  ‘What mysteries lie out there?’ he wondered out loud. ‘Wh … what in Sky's name is that?’ A small dark fuzz had crossed his field of vision.

  With trembling fingers, he readjusted the focus. The blurred object became solid. It looked like a sky ship. But what was a sky ship doing out there, untethered and so far away from land? Scarcely able to believe what he was witnessing, the professor pulled away, removed his pocket handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ he muttered feverishly. Tt was a sky ship. I know it was. Unless …’

  He glanced round at the sense-sifter. It was pulsing a deep shade of purple.

  ‘No,’ he shuddered. ‘I can't have imagined it. I'm not mad.’

  He spun back, grasped the telescope and peered back down the sight anxiously. There was nothing there in the swirling depths. With trembling fingers he played with the focus. Still nothing. And then … The professor gasped. From the point where the sky ship had been - at least, where he thought it had been - several bright balls of light were spinning off into the dark sky.

  Perplexed, he let go of the telescope and hurried to the window.

  ‘Shooting stars!’ he cried.

  One after the other, the dots of light flew up and hurtled across the night sky towards the Edge in wide flaring arcs. Seven in all there were, the professor noted. No, eight; two were flying close together. Apart from this pair, each of them was heading in its own direction, at its own speed and describing its own unique parabola.

  The professor sighed. The characteristics of light were outside his field of expertise, yet he would like to have one of the shooting stars for himself to examine its makeup; to prove, once and for all, that it was darkness that lay at the heart of all light. The trouble would be in finding one where it landed.

  Already the shooting stars were falling; some, quite near. Others continued over the Mire and on to the Deepwoods beyond. While one - shining more brightly than the rest - went on further than the professor could even see.

  ‘Curious,’ he whispered. The wind howled and the tower creaked. ‘Very curious.’

  Far below the battered floating city, the streets of Undertown had turned to a quagmire. Its hapless inhabitants squelched about the sucking mud, trying desperately to salvage something from the trail of destruction the maelstrom was causing.

  ‘Sky above, what is to become of us all,’ the frightened voice of a mobgnome cried out as a bright flash lit up the sky. ‘Why were we not told about the arrival of so fearsome a storm?’

  The wind screeched. The roof rattled. A shooting star hissed across the night sky above her head. Glancing up too late to see it clearly, she wiped the hair from her eyes and peered through the sheets of driving rain at the floating city. Her face twisted with rage.

  ‘Why didn't the academics warn us?’ she demanded.

  ‘Academics? Don't make me laugh, Glim,’ her companion shouted down angrily as he struggled to rope their flapping roof into place. ‘Barkslugs, the lot of them! Slow, slimy and full of stinking …’

  CRASH!

  ‘TOG?’ Glim shouted in alarm. ‘Are you all right?’

  There was no reply. Heart pumping with anticipation, Glim gathered up her skirt and climbed the ladder. The roof was empty. There was a gaping, jagged hole in the corrugated ironwood panels.

  ‘TOG!’ she cried again.

  ‘I'm down here,’ came a muffled voice.

  Clutching tightly with trembling fingers, Glim pulled herself forwards across the roof and peered down into the hole. The sight which greeted her made no sense. A huge piece of wood lay in the middle of the floor. Beneath it lay Tog.

  ‘Help me,’ he whispered. ‘Can't move. C … can't breathe.’

  ‘Just hang on,’ Glim shouted back. ‘I'll be right with you.’

  Shakily, she eased herself back down the roof and felt for the top rung of the ladder with her feet. The wind tugged at her fingers. The rain lashed at her face. Slowly, carefully, she descended the ladder and ran inside.

  ‘Oh, good gracious!’ she exclaimed, and her fingers flew to the lucky amulets around her neck.

  Close to, the piece of wood looked even bigger. It was curved and varnished, and along its side, gold letters gleamed in the lamplight, EDGEDA … The word ended abruptly in a jagged mass of splinters.

  It looks like a bit of a sky ship,’ said Glim. Though why anyone would want to go skysailing in this weather …’

  ‘Never mind all that,’ Tog wheezed. ‘Just get it off me!’

  Glim started back guiltily. ‘Yes, Tog. Sorry, Tog,’ she said.

  Brow taut with concentration, she tugged at the wood with all her might. It was heavy - much heavier than it looked. Despite all her efforts, it hardly moved. Yet move it did. And just enough for Tog to release his trapped legs and scramble backwards.

  ‘Yes!’ he cried.

  ‘Unrikhl’ Glim gasped, and the wood fell to the floor with a bang. ‘Oh, Tog,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

  The mobgnome inspected his body carefully, up and down. ‘I think so,’ he said finally. ‘Leastways, no bones broken.’ He nodded towards the section of broken sky ship. ‘Which is more than can be said for the crew of this thing, I dare say.’

  ‘Do you think they were leaguesmen or sky pirates?’ said Glim.

  Tog ran his fingers over the fine wood and gold lettering. ‘Hard to say, really,’ he replied at last. ‘But I'll tell you this for nothing. This sky ship must have been a real beauty when she was all in one piece.’

  Glim shuddered. ‘Oh, Tog,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine what it must be like being up in the sky when so terrible a storm strikes? Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide …’ She looked up at the hole in the roof. ‘Puts our problems into perspective, don't it?’ she said.

  ‘Certainly does,’ said Tog thoughtfully. ‘I'd best get it repaired before the whole place floods.’

  It wasn't only the mobgnomes who suffered damage. There were others, in various parts of Underto
wn, who lost their homes, their property, even their lives, to the falling debris.

  In the main commercial centre, a broad section of hull flattened one side of the aviary run by Flabsweat the pet shop owner, killing half the captive birds outright and leaving the rest dazed but free to escape. The bowsprit flew down through the air like a spear, skewering an unsuspecting hammelhorn - penned up and ready for the following morning's sale - as it landed. The heavy main mast crushed a row of market stalls where it fell.

  The west side of the town fared no better. A volley of falling hull-weights brought considerable damage to the opulent dwellings of several prominent leaguesmen. And the rudder-wheel - a great circular slab of rock which keeps a sky ship on an even keel - smashed through the roof of the Leagues’ Chamber itself. It broke the ceremonial ring-shaped table in two, and killed three leaguesmen in the process.

  The three unfortunates were later identified as Simenon Xintax, the current Leaguesmaster, Farquhar Armwright, a slight, nervous individual who represented the League of Gluesloppers and Ropeteasers, and Ulbus Pentephraxis - a bull of a leaguesman known more for his ferocity in battle with the sky pirates than for any business acumen: none of them had stood a chance.

  Even Sanctaphrax itself suffered damage from the wreck of the sky ship. First, a large section of poop-deck completely destroyed all the intricate apparatus on the high balcony of the Cloudwatchers’ College. A moment later, a heavy fore-harpoon speared the side of the dilapidated - and thankfully abandoned - Raintasters’ Tower and remained there, swaying precariously, halfway up the crumbling wall.

  The noise from the blow was tremendous. It echoed round the entire city and juddered through the floating rock itself.