Freeglader (8 page)

Rook shuddered. All eyes were glued to Fenbrus.

‘On the other hand, if the wind changes and blows in from the Twilight Woods, then the madness of that place will infect the Edgelands and, most likely, will infect us too.’

‘And if that happens?’ asked Garulus.

‘Hopefully,’ said Fenbrus, ‘it will not last long, but our only defence is to rope ourselves together in pairs, and to
talk to each other. For the great danger is to sink into a waking dream without even realizing it. If your partner falls silent, you must wake him instantly, or the phantasms will take hold and he will be lost for ever.’ He paused. ‘I intend to partner my son, Felix, here.’

He coughed again, and Felix smiled.

‘And I was hoping,’ said Cowlquape, ‘that you, Garulus, would do me the honour …?’

Garulus nodded. Rook felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Would you, Rook … ?’ Xanth mumbled as the other librarians left to spread the news.

‘I'd be honoured,’ said Rook, smiling.

‘And then, Xanth?’ said Rook. ‘What happened then? We've got to keep talking, remember.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Xanth wearily. ‘But I'm so tired.’ He sighed. ‘And then I became his assistant. Me, assistant to the High Guardian of Night himself, Orbix Xaxis! It all seems like a dream to me now…’

No one had slept well that night on the rocky pavement. The ground beneath them was too hard, and it was cold, with the howling wind slicing through the air like ice-scythes. Long before the sun had even risen, everybody in the vast multitude had already packed up their belongings and tethered themselves together in lines, ready for the daunting journey ahead. Felix and the Ghosts of Screetown had ushered them to the five great library carts and, as they'd walked past, each in turn had been handed a barkscroll, a treatise, a tome; one tiny part of the whole library.

Now, as the sun rose slowly – creamy-white behind the dense, swirling mist – they were marching on, their elon-gated shadows stretched out in front of them. A low babble of voices echoed above the clatter of cartwheels as the pairs of Undertowners indulged in feverish conversations, anxious that none of them should fall prey to the Edgelands' phantasms.

In their midst, the librarians marched, with Rook and Xanth still deep in their own conversation.

‘And that metal muzzle he wore,’ said Rook, chuckling. ‘What was all that about?’

Xanth smiled weakly. ‘Orbix Xaxis was a creature of many superstitions,’ he said. ‘He only bathed by the full moon. He never ate tilder if there was an “r” in the month. And he believed that the air was still full of the “vile contagion” which had brought stone-sickness to the Edge.’

‘He blamed the librarians for stone-sickness, didn't he?’ Rook added. ‘Believed we'd brought it back from the Deepwoods. Is that why he killed so many of us?’

‘He was mad, I realize that now,’ said Xanth, his face drawn and tense. He shuddered. ‘Oh, those accursed Purification Ceremonies of his. I dread to think how many Undertowners and librarians were sacrificed to the rock demons. And for what?’ He shook his head, leaving the question hanging in mid air. ‘Orbix Xaxis was mad all right, Sky curse his wicked soul …’

‘Xanth,’ Rook gasped, looking round uneasily, half expecting to see the spirit of the High Guardian himself emerging from the mists. ‘Careful what you say, here of all places.’

The wind that had been howling continuously since they first stepped on to the rocky pavement had now died down, and a heavy swirling fog had descended like a white blanket.

‘This reminds me of when I was a young'un,’ said Rook, still endeavouring to keep talking, despite the cold, suffocating mist that tightened about them. ‘There was this old forgotten cistern in the sewers. I'd lower myself into it, pull the top shut over my head and spend hours there, tucked up and hidden, with only a lantern and a smuggled treatise for company…’ He frowned. ‘Xanth?’ he said, concerned that his friend was letting his mind stray. ‘Are you listening?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Xanth, his voice dull.

Behind them, Ambris Loppix's voice could clearly
be heard. ‘They say he hand-picked the captured librarians for that master of his.’

‘I heard that he actually enjoyed listening to their screams. Called it “singing”, he did,’ replied his partner.

‘Do you know how they celebrate Wodgiss Night in a woodtroll village?’ said Rook, trying to drown out the sound of the librarians' conversation. ‘It's in my barkscroll,
Customs and Practices Encountered in Deepwoods Villages
.’ Rook patted his knapsack, where the barkscroll he'd been entrusted with was safely packed.

Xanth made no response.

‘First of all, there's this huge procession,’ said Rook, ‘with drums and trumpets, and everyone wears these fantastic exotic head-dresses…’

‘And then he became a spy …’ Ambris was saying.

‘And the young'uns all get their faces painted,’ said Rook. ‘Like animals. Some are fromps, some are lemkins, and there is even one done up like a vulpoon, in a feathered suit and a strap-on beak…’

‘Betrayed
hundreds
of apprentice librarians on their way to the Free Glades, apparently…’

Rook turned and glowered at the librarians – though tethered as he was, there was little he could do to shut them up.

‘Execution's too good for him, that's what I say,’ replied Ambris's partner.

‘They'll know what to do with him in the Free Glades, the stinking traitor…’

‘Don't listen to them, Xanth. They don't know what
they're talking about,’ said Rook, still glowering at the librarians.

‘I'm sorry, Rook, I just can't stand it any more,’ Xanth said tremulously. ‘They're right. I'm no good. I'm rotten…’ His voice trailed away.

Rook turned back to his friend. ‘You're
not
rotten, Xanth. You're … Xanth? What are you doing? Xanth!
Xanth!
’

His friend had vanished, the rope that bound him hanging limply from the main tether.

‘No, Xanth,’ Rook shouted, struggling to loosen his own binding. The rope fell away behind him as he dashed off after his friend. ‘Xanth. Xanth, wait! Come back!’

Behind him, Rook heard the banderbears yodelling in alarm, and the librarians bellowing at him to come back. But he couldn't abandon his friend. He just couldn't.

Up ahead, he caught a glimpse of a misty figure through the thickening fog – but almost at once, it was gone again. Like a snowbird in an ice-storm, the shaven-headed youth had disappeared.

‘XANTH!’ Rook roared.

But there was no reply save his own muffled echo.

‘XAAAAANTH!!’

As the desperate cry faded away, Rook realized that he could hear nothing. Nothing at all. It was as if the vast multitude of Undertowners, librarians, ghosts and sky pirates had simply vanished along with his friend. Suddenly, he was alone, lost in the swirling mists of the Edgelands, the treacherous Twilight Woods on
one side, the Edge on the other – and no one to talk to.

The wind began to pick up again, but it had changed. Now, instead of lifting the fog, it swirled into eddies and ripples. And as Rook stumbled on over the greasy stone, trying his best not to twist his ankles in the cracks and fissures, he began to hear voices.

Lots of voices. Wailing and keening and whispering softly.

‘Sweet dreams, Master Rook,’ they seemed be saying, the innocent words belied by the cold, menacing hiss. ‘Sweet dreams…’

• CHAPTER FIVE •
THE SEPIA STORM

R
ook stumbled on, sweaty and scared, trying hard to shut out the whispering voices – but it wasn't easy. No matter how hard he pressed his hands to his ears, how loudly he hummed, how vigorously he tried to engage in conversation with himself, they would not be silenced. They would not be still.

‘Xanth!’ he cried out, his own voice carried off on the warm wind sweeping in from the Twilight Woods. ‘Xanth, where
are
you?’ He paused, removed his hands from his ears and cocked his head to one side, hoping against hope that this time his friend would reply. The air echoed with a thousand voices; high, low, angry and sad – every voice in the world it seemed but the one he longed to hear.

‘Oh, Xanth,’ he murmured. ‘Not all librarians are like Ambris Loppix. Why did you listen to him?’

‘Once a Guardian, always a Guardian!’ the voices seemed to hiss back at him. ‘He betrayed others. Now he's betrayed you.’

‘It's not true!’ Rook shouted back at the swirling, sparkling air. ‘Xanth's changed. He's one of us now!’

‘One of us, one of us,’ taunted the chorus of voices, and Rook glimpsed a black shape out of the corner of his eye. He spun round, to be confronted by a tall figure in a black gown and a metal muzzle.

‘Orbix? Orbix Xaxis?’ Rook gasped, his conversation with Xanth flooding back to him. ‘No, it can't be, I must be…’

‘Dreaming?’ a cold, cruel voice hissed through the muzzle. The white gloamglozer emblazoned on the black gown fluttered in front of him.

‘You're not real,’ said Rook, backing away, his feet slipping on the greasy rock.

‘Aren't we, young librarian knight?’ hissed the
voice. ‘Are you quite certain of that?’ The gowned figure cackled with laughter, and waved a bony claw-like hand.

As if in response, spectres and phantasms loomed out of the shadows, each one with a gloamglozer of its own emblazoned across its chest. They doubled in number, and doubled again, and again and again, until all around him, everywhere he looked, they were all Rook could see. It was as if he'd wandered into a mighty army of Guardians of Night.

‘We are real enough,’ the voices sounded about him, mocking, jeering. ‘As real as your blackest thoughts!’

‘As real as your darkest fears!’

‘As your deepest nightmares!’

The countless images of the gloamglozers smiled as one, their great fangs glinting savagely, their eyes flashing. The muzzled figure raised his clawed hand and beckoned slowly.

Rook felt a terrible, numbing fear welling up deep inside him. It spread out from his chest, along his arms and into his fingertips; it coursed down his legs, making his knees tremble, and sinking to his toes. He tried hard to fight it, but it was no good. Like a lemkin, held by the murderous stare of a predatory halitoad, he was paralysed. There was nothing he could do. Even his face seemed frozen as the fear travelled up his spine, over his scalp…

‘No, no, no,’ Rook muttered, unable even to blink. ‘Remember what Fenbrus said. This is one of those waking dreams. But that's all it is. A dream, that's all…’

‘That's all! That's all! That's all!’ jeered a thousand cackling voices.

Rook could bear it no longer. He threw back his head and screamed like a wounded animal.

‘Xanth! Xanth!
Xanth!
’

His cries drowned out the jeering voices and, for an instant, the black figures seemed to shrink back into the swirling mists. At the same moment, the fear that held him released its grip and, without a second's thought, Rook was up and running across the slippery pavement as fast as his legs could carry him.

‘I've got to get out of here! I've got to get out of here!’ he shouted, as he ran blindly through the swirling mist.