Midnight Over Sanctaphrax Read online

  The ravens moved closer once again. Kraan stabbed at the most inquisitive of the birds and turned to the professor. ‘Go,’ it said. ‘Take shooting star, now!’

  From the urgency in its raucous voice, the professor knew that Kraan would not be able to keep the other white ravens at bay for much longer. Trying hard to ignore the disconcerting confusion in those blindly staring eyes, the professor supported Twig under his arm and heaved him up.

  ‘Now, walk,’ he muttered. ‘Come on. You can do it.’

  The sky lightened to the east as the professor hobbled back through the Stone Gardens, one hand round Twig's shoulder and the other holding his staff.

  ‘That's it, Twig,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Just a little further.’

  • CHAPTER FIVE •

  COWLQUAPE

  ‘A shooting star!’ The solitary figure of a junior sub–lAacolyte, a tousle-haired youth in ill-fitting robes, peered out into the night. ‘How curious,’ he murmured.

  The storm had passed, and the academics were stirring from their numerous hiding places.

  ‘What have we here?’ came a sneering voice from behind the youth. ‘A little runt of a leaguesman's son. Why aren't you in the library with your nose stuck in a scroll, Cowlquape?’

  The voice belonged to a tall apprentice in the fur-lined robes worn by all those in the College of Cloud. Several others stood behind him, dusting off their clothes and sniggering.

  ‘I thought…’ mumbled the youth. ‘I thought I saw something, Vox.’

  ‘Leave sky-watching to those of us who are qualified,’ Vox said nastily. ‘Don't you have a latrine or something to slop out?’

  ’I… I was just going,’ said Cowlquape, all fingers and thumbs as he gathered up his bundle of scrolls. He hurried off down the rubble-strewn walkway.

  ‘Undertown scum!’ Vox's voice floated after him.

  Barely fifteen years old, Cowlquape was small for his age. He was lowest in the pecking order of Sanctaphrax -slopping out the latrines was just one of his jobs. He was at the beck and call of any who had a* menial task that needed performing: running errands for the various sub-professors, mistsifting and windgrading, helping to maintain the spotless and gleaming appearance of the floating city.

  Cowlquape, however, dreamt of better things. Whenever he could, he would seek refuge in the Great Library of Sanctaphrax - now sadly neglected - and immerse himself in the countless dusty old barkscrolls that were housed there.

  The library wasn't fashionable. It had neither the glamour of the College of Cloud or the Academy of Wind, nor the power and influence of the School of Light and Darkness - but then Cowlquape himself wasn't fashionable. His father, a burly, overbearing bully of a leaguesman by the name of Ulbus Pentephraxis, had bought him into Sanctaphrax.

  ‘You'll never make it in the leagues, you frightened little barkworm,’ he had said. ‘Perhaps those pompous weather-watchers up there can make something of you. It's certainly beyond my capabilities!’

  And so he had secured sub-acolyte tenure for his son. At first, Cowlquape had been overjoyed. He was soon to discover though that the floating city could be as harsh a place to live as the streets of Undertown. For although they were undeniably wealthy, the leaguesmen were universally despised by the academics of Sanctaphrax, and those acolytes and apprentices who gained entrance to the floating city with their money were despised all the more.

  As he hurried through the deserted avenues of the majestic floating city, Cowlquape paused to take in every detail of the splendour which surrounded him: the magnificent towers, with their minarets, domes and spires, gleaming pink in the glow of the rising sun, the ornately carved pillars, the statues and fountains, the sweeping staircases and arched walkways. He knew that he could never, ever take it for granted. It was all so elegant. So opulent. So grand.

  Cowlquape sighed. It made him feel even smaller than usual to gaze up at it all. Vox's taunt came back to him. ‘Undertown scum!’

  Would he ever be accepted in this magnificent city, he wondered, or would he never be anything more than a frightened little barkworm?

  One thing was for certain. He could never go back to Undertown. The noise, the filth, the blows and kicks

  from his father - and the look of disappointment in his mother's eyes before she'd died. His life in Undertown had all but crushed him completely. No, come what may, Sanctaphrax was his home now. His father paid good money to the College of Cloud to keep him here. And he, Cowlquape, would earn the respect of those snooty professors!

  ‘Be brave,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Be confident.’

  He was rounding the corner of the Institute of Ice and Snow when he heard a voice from the landing-stage ahead of him.

  ‘Crushed to death by objects falling out of the sky,’ it was saying.

  Cowlquape started, then shrank back into the shadows. A thickset gnokgoblin was talking to a fellow basket-puller on the jutting platform.

  ‘Whatever next?’ said the gnokgoblin's companion.

  ‘I know,’ said the gnokgoblin. ‘I just come up here from Undertown a minute ago. Lucky to escape with my life, I can tell you. I was in the Bloodoak tavern when Mother Horsefeather - the old bird who owns the place - comes bustling in all of a quiver with news that a sky ship had been struck by the full fury of the storm. Smashed to smithereens, it was, with lethal bits of debris dropping down all over Undertown. ‘Parently the giant rudder-wheel came smashing through the ceiling of the Leagues’ Chamber - and flattened three bigwig leaguesmen.’

  ‘No!’ said his companion, wide-eyed with gory interest.

  ‘On my mother's life,’ said the gnokgoblin. He raised his hands and counted off the victims one by one. ‘First, the Leaguesmaster,’ he said. ‘Simon or Simeon something or other. Then whassisname Armwright, the Rope and Glue character. And then …’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Ah, yes. Captain of one of them league patrol boats. Pentephraxis. Ulbus Pentephraxis.’

  Cowlquape felt as if he had been hit by the full weight of the rudder-wheel himself. His father, dead! He could never mourn the loss of so unpleasant a father, yet his breath came in short, anxious gasps as the terrible implications of the news sank in.

  When a leaguesman died, the League took everything. Even now his father's erstwhile colleagues could be stripping the family mansion of everything they could lay their hands on, like ravenous white ravens. And who was to stop them? Certainly not his weedy only son up in Sanctaphrax.

  ‘Sanctaphrax!’ Cowlquape groaned, his head in his hands. Who would pay his fees? The College of Cloud would throw him back on to the streets of Undertown as soon as the money dried up. He was finished, ruined -fit only to be fed to the ravens.

  The journey from the Stone Gardens had taken longer than it should have and the sun was up long before the lugtroll finally made it back to Undertown. For a start, although no bones were actually broken, Twig's experiences in the storm had left him weak and slow. He'd had to stop for several rests as the professor steered him on towards the barrow. And when they arrived there, the lugtroll had insisted that the terms of their deal be renegotiated since there were now two persons returning from the Stone Gardens, rather than the one he had taken there.

  ‘Weigh more, pay more!’ the lugtroll had insisted, and refused to budge until the professor gave way.

  Then, when the amount had at last been settled and they set off, it was soon clear that the lugtroll had taken on a bit more than he could chew. On the flat he had puffed and panted as he crept along at a snail's pace, while on the hills he had wheezed so badly that the professor had wondered at times whether they were ever going to make it at all.

  Twig, for his part, hadn't registered a single thing that was going on. Apart from that one word, he had not spoken. Withdrawn and passive, he had allowed the Professor of Darkness to bundle him into the barrow. And as the trip had got underway, the luminous glow which had drawn the professor to Twig in the first place had faded away.

  ‘Soon be back
,’ the Professor of Darkness said encouragingly.

  Twig gave no indication that he had heard.

  ‘Do you remember how we first met?’ the professor said, trying to stir Twig's memory. ‘When you came to my old study at the top of the old Raintasters’ Tower …’ He chuckled. ‘By Sky, Twig,’ he added. ‘You helped Sanctaphrax in her hour of need then. Now Sanctaphrax will help you. I swear this shall be so.’

  He stared into Twig's troubled face and trembled with helpless sympathy.

  ‘Oh, Twig,’ he continued. ‘What in Sky's name made you venture, untethered, into open sky in the first place? Did you not realize the perils you would have to face?’ He gripped him by the shoulders. ‘What happened out there?’

  But Twig made no reply. The young sky pirate captain's head was clearly in turmoil. If he didn't receive attention soon, there was surely a danger that he could lose his mind completely. The professor looked round him and was gratified to find that they were just reaching the outskirts of Undertown. Five minutes later, the lugtroll lowered the shafts of the barrow to the ground.

  ‘We're here,’ he wheezed, and bent over double, gasping for breath.

  As he climbed out of the barrow, the professor glanced up at the floating city hovering over them. One of the hanging baskets was directly above his head. He raised his arms and cupped his hands to his mouth.

  ‘Anyone up there?’ he shouted.

  Still standing in the blustery shadows, Cowlquape stared up the broad paved avenue, his heart heavy, his eyes misting up. His gaze darted from building to magnificent building, each one designed to suit the school or college it housed.

  ‘And I shall never see any of this again,’ Cowlquape muttered, tears in his eyes. ‘Soon I'll be a beggar on the streets of Undertown.’

  Just then there was a commotion at the end of the platform. The Professor of Darkness stepped out of a basket as it came to rest on the landing-stage. He had someone with him - someone barefoot, bony, with matted hair and tattered clothes. Cowlquape forgot his troubles for an instant. Who was he? he wondered. And wasn't that the Professor of Darkness with him?

  As the gnokgoblin lowered his basket again and disappeared from view, leaving the professor and the stranger on their own, Cowlquape stepped out of the shadows.

  ‘You there, lad!’

  ‘Who me, sir?’ Cowlquape stammered, dropping his bundle of scrolls.

  The Professor of Darkness looked him up and down. ‘Yes, you,’ he said. ‘Help me to get Tw … er, my friend to the School of Light and Darkness and, er …’

  ‘Of course, sir. At once, sir,’ said Cowlquape, hauling the youth up onto his back.

  ‘I take it that you can keep your mouth shut,’ said the professor, leading the way. ‘I don't want a lot of gossiping academics disturbing my friend.’

  ‘Y … yes,’ said Cowlquape softly.

  The professor looked at him warily ‘What's your name, lad?’ he asked.

  ‘Cowlquape, if it pleases you,’ came the reply ‘Junior sub-acolyte of Sanctaphrax.’

  ‘Junior sub-acolyte of Sanctaphrax,’ the professor repeated, his eyes narrowing. ‘An Undertowner, by the look of you. Rich father in the leagues, I'll be bound.’

  They had almost reached the entrance to the school.

  Cowlquape nodded. ‘Yes, sir. My father is …’ He checked himself. ‘Was a leaguesman, sir.’

  ‘Very good, very good,’ said the professor absent-mindedly.

  They arrived at the studded door of the School of Light and Darkness - for Cowlquape, all too soon.

  ‘Thank you, my lad,’ the professor said, as he bustled the stumbling figure inside the school. The great studded door slammed shut.

  Cowlquape stood alone in the avenue, feeling lost. What now? He turned and wandered back the way they'd come. How long did he have? A day? A week? Probably no more than that, and then he'd be out, his few possessions in a bundle under his arm as he stepped into the basket to return to Undertown for ever.

  ‘Well, Cowlquape,’ he said to himself. ‘Until then I'll find the darkest, dustiest corner of the Great Library and, who knows?’ He smiled bravely. ‘Just like all those barkscrolls, they may forget all about me!’

  • CHAPTER SIX •

  INSIDE AND OUT

  The huge dinner gong clanged mechanically from the L Refectory Tower. As one, the doors of the schools and colleges of Sanctaphrax burst open and a great throng of chattering professors, apprentices and acolytes streamed hungrily towards it. Head down and heart pounding, Cowlquape joined them. He slunk into the bustling refectory, took a brass bowl and platter from the racks and mingled with the seething crowd of those waiting for lunch.

  Ten days had passed since the Professor of Darkness had asked for his help. In that time, Cowlquape had spent his time hiding, curled up in a dusty corner of the Great Library with his beloved barkscrolls, lost in the fantastic tales and legends they held. Nobody had disturbed him, and he had ventured out only to forage for food - a latrine cleaner's pie, an apprentice's tilder sausage dropped absentmindedly.

  But it had been at least a day since he'd last eaten anything. When he had heard the dinner gong, his hunger had got the better of him. He was so ravenous that he was prepared to risk being caught by those in the College of Cloud and expelled from Sanctaphrax for ever for the sake of a hot bowl of delicious, spicy tilder stew.

  At the long high tables, the senior professors were being waited upon. In the galleries lining the walls, academics and senior apprentices jostled noisily over large communal stew-pots. Whilst in the ‘pit’ below, a great clamour of acolytes jostled and shouted round the stew-pipes that snaked down from a huge central cauldron. As he made his way through the clamouring throng Cowlquape couldn't help but catch snatches of conversation.

  ‘The Department of Psycho-Climatic Studies confirmed that it definitely was a mind storm the other night,’ an apprentice was saying. ‘And we're still feeling its after-effects.’

  His colleague nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I'm beginning to wonder if the skies will ever clear again.’

  In the continuing gloom that had followed that fateful night, more treacherous weather had been blown in from beyond the Edge. Rain - registering deepest indigo on the sense-sifters both up in the Loftus Tower and in the garret of the Department of Psycho-Climatic Studies -had prompted an outpouring of communal grief across the region. A thick and oily mist had rendered the residents of some northern districts of Undertown temporarily deaf and dumb. While, the previous night, a

  heavy downpour led to outbreaks of terrible violence amongst the cloddertrogs in the boom-docks.

  The abrupt change in the character of the weather was bringing the hitherto insignificant Department of Psycho-Climatic Studies into the limelight. Its dean, a rotund pen-pusher by the name of Lud Squeamix, now sat self-importantly at the highest of the long tables, slurping stew up through his teeth, pausing only to belch loudly.

  ‘I'm thinking of going for a place in the Department,’ a third apprentice was saying. ‘That's where the action is these days.’ He looked round furtively. ‘I hear that the windtouchers and cloudwatchers are forming an alliance.’

  ‘Pfff! Fat lot of good it'll do them,’ snorted his companion. ‘Has-beens, the lot of them.’

  All around the refectory the feverish conversations were the same. Plots and counterplots had become rife. And as if this wasn't enough, there were other rumours going round that even the most level-headed of academics could not ignore.

  Up in the College of Rain gallery, a senior apprentice turned to his neighbour. ‘And I've heard he's up to something,’ he said. ‘Something suspicious!’

  Cowlquape's ears pricked up.

  ‘Something suspicious?’ said his companion. ‘What, the Most High Academe?’

  ‘That's the one,’ the first senior apprentice replied. “Cording to my sources in the School of Light and Darkness, he's got someone locked up in there. They say he was found in the Stone Gardens, and I c
an well believe it. He looks like a vagrant, and never speaks - though he can freeze your blood with one icy stare.’

  ‘Absolute madman, by the sound of him,’ an apprentice cloudwatcher in an upper gallery called down. ‘He howls!’

  ‘Howls?’ said the apprentice raintasters as one.

  ‘Like a wood wolf,’ the cloudwatcher continued. ‘Every night. ‘Course, you wouldn't hear it from your faculty, but it echoes all round the College of Cloud. Spooky, it is.’

  Cowlquape frowned. He, too, had heard the curious night-time howling from his hiding place in the library, but hadn't made the connection between that and the staring-eyed character he had encountered with the Professor of Darkness that blustery morning.

  As he inched his way forwards to the stew-pipes, his thoughts stayed with the stranger.

  Gossip had it that the mysterious individual was none other than Twig, the young sky pirate captain who had returned to a hero's welcome in Sanctaphrax only weeks earlier. It was said that he had done what no-one had ever done before - set out into open sky, untethered. Something must have happened to him out there, the stories maintained. Something unearthly, inexplicable; something that had left him both dumb and distracted. It was curious then that, according to the rumours, the Most High Academe had conferred upon him the title of Sub-Professor of Light.

  The crowd shuffled towards the pipes. Behind Cowlquape, two sub-apprentice windtouchers were bemoaning their lot.

  ‘Windgrading, windgrading and more windgrading,’ one of them complained. ‘And the professor's such a tyrant!’

  ‘The worst type,’ came the reply.

  Cowlquape sighed. At least your futures are secure, he thought bitterly. Unlike my own. He shuddered, and the brass platter slipped from his grip and clattered to the stone floor.

  The raintasters and cloudwatchers around him looked at the thin, tousle-haired boy with amusement.