Midnight Over Sanctaphrax (24 page)

‘This is a fine place for me to discover about your head for heights, Cowlquape,’ he said. ‘The whole market's strung up in the trees.’

‘Just give me a moment … I'll be all right,’ said Cowlquape bravely, climbing shakily to his feet. He followed Twig along the landing-stage. ‘It was just that gangplank. No sides.’ He shuddered. ‘Nothing to hold on to …’

At that moment, an ear-piercing squeal ripped through the air, followed by a torrent of curses. Twig, Cowlquape and Spooler ran across to the wooden rail and looked down. Cowlquape gulped nervously.

The noise was coming from a small platform with a red and white striped canopy some way below them. A bandy-legged goblin was leaping around and brandishing a massive fist at the air below him. Beside him was a blazing stove suspended on chains from the branch above.

‘Blast you to open sky for wriggling free like that!’ he was screaming. ‘You've ruined me! Ruined me, do you hear?’

Cowlquape squinted below. There was something there - silent now - bouncing from branch to branch down to the ground. He turned to Twig. ‘What is it?’ he said.

Twig shrugged.

‘A woodhog, probably,’ said Spooler. He nodded towards the goblin, still jumping up and down on the platform in uncontrollable fury. ‘There are hundreds of vendors like him all over the slave market, living from hand to mouth …’

Suddenly, there was a sharp creak and, with a splintering of wood, the platform broke away from the tree-trunk it was anchored to. The goblin screamed and clutched wildly at the hanging stove. For a moment he swung wildly. Then - his fingers hissing and smoking with the intense heat - he let go.

Cowlquape stared in horror, appalled, yet unable to tear his gaze away as the second creature tumbled down
after the first. Screaming with terror, the goblin struck a thick branch with a thud, the body - limp now and twisted, with arms and legs akimbo - continued down, down, down …

‘Sky above!’ Cowlquape cried out. ‘What are
they?’
He pointed down at the ground, where dozens of fluffy orange creatures were gathering, their bear-trap jaws agape.

Twig and Spooler peered down. ‘Wig-wigs,’ they said in unison.

Twig shuddered. ‘Terrible creatures. They hunt in packs and devour their victims, dead or alive.’

‘Here, they don't even need to hunt,’ said Spooler. ‘They live well enough off the discarded waste from the slave market…’ The body of the goblin crashed down onto the ground and was immediately pounced upon by the ferocious wig-wigs. ‘And anything else that drops down. Accidentally or otherwise,’ he added.

‘And when they've finished, there's nothing left,’ said Twig. ‘Not a scrap of fur or a splinter of bone.’

Cowlquape blanched. ‘They … they can't climb trees, though,’ he said anxiously. ‘Can they?’

Twig shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, they can't.’ And from the look which came into his eyes, Cowlquape
guessed that the young captain was speaking from experience.

‘Come,’ said Spooler urgently. ‘We must find a tally-hen and buy our white cockades at once. Without them we could be seized by a slave-trader and put on sale at any moment.’ His huge black eyes darted round the shadows. ‘I heard that there's usually one near the end of each landing-stage,’ he said. ‘Yes, look.’ He pointed to a tall, narrow hut secured to a tree. ‘There's a tally-lodge.’

Twig looked. It was one of the turret-like constructions he'd seen earlier. ‘What are we waiting for then?’ he said.

Together, the three of them crossed the gently swaying hanging walkway. Too terrified to look either left or right, Cowlquape kept his gaze fixed on the hut as he shuffled across. They approached the door.

Close up, the building was a small triumph of Deepwoods architecture. Constructed from buoyant lufwood, it was sturdy yet almost weightless, and artfully curved to minimize wind resistance. A lantern above the door illuminated a gold-lettered plaque:
Tally-Hen Mossfeather.
Twig raised his fist and knocked.

‘Enter,’ came a raucous voice.

As Twig went to lift the latch, Spooler stayed his hand. ‘Be sure to wait for her to speak first,’ he hissed. ‘It is the way here.’

Twig nodded and opened the door, and the three of them walked into the dark room. Acrid smoke from the tilder-oil lamps around the walls immediately caught in their throats and made their eyes water. A swarthy
shryke with metallic grey-green feathers and ivory-white talons stood before them, her back turned, busily moving coloured discs around a numbered tally-board.

Twig stepped forward and waited.

‘Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, plus time-penalties,’ the shryke muttered to herself. ‘Can't you see I'm busy?’ she snapped.

‘We wish to buy white cockades,’ Twig replied boldly.

The shryke paused.
‘Buy,
did you say? Not beg, borrow or barter?’ She spun round. ‘And what do you intend buying them with? We don't take tokens or vouchers. It's two gold pieces per person.’

Twig reached inside his jacket, undid the leather pouch and counted out six gold pieces. He handed them over. Without saying a word, the shryke took one of the coins and bit into it with her savage-looking hooked beak. She looked up.

‘Three cockades, you say?’

‘One for each of us,’ said Twig.

The shryke nodded sullenly and turned towards a locked door in the back wall, which she opened to reveal a dark safe carved into the living tree itself. She lifted the lid of the box inside and removed three woodthistle-shaped white rosettes.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘The cockades ensure free right of passage for three days and three nights. After that, the material rots away. If you are caught without cockades you will be seized and sold as slaves.’

‘Three days in this place will be more than enough,’ said Twig.

The shryke snorted unpleasantly. ‘That's what they all say. But I'm warning you,’ she said, ‘the days and nights bleed into one another in the Great Shryke Slave Market. Our visitors are always complaining about the uncommon haste with which time passes …’

‘Which is why we must thank you and bid you farewell,’ said Twig promptly. ‘We have much to do.’ With that, he spun round and left the room, the others following after. The door slammed shut.

‘Surly creature,’ Cowlquape commented.

‘Shrykes aren't exactly known for their graciousness,’ Spooler scowled. ‘Yet those who are made tally-hens generally act with more integrity than most.’ He frowned. ‘Attach your cockade to the front of your jacket where you can keep an eye on it. The slave market is full of light-fingered individuals, and hats with cockades upon them have a horrible habit of going missing.’

With the white cockades positioned and secured to
Spooler's satisfaction, the oakelf turned and set off into the slave market. The others followed.

‘And keep close,’ Spooler instructed. ‘Even as cockaded free citizens you risk being picked off by some unscrupulous merchant who would lock you away till the cockade rots and then claim you as his - or her -own.’

Twig's top lip curled with contempt. ‘Is there no honour at all amongst slave-traders?’ he said.

‘You can't buy and sell honour, captain,’ said Spooler. He smiled ruefully. ‘And money is the only thing that matters here.’

Twig frowned. If any of the crew they were searching for
had
ended up in the slave market, what chance would they have stood in so mercenary a place?

‘There is an auction in the slave market,’ Spooler was saying. ‘The Grand Central Auction. I thought we might try there first.’

Twig nodded. ‘Come on, then,’ he said wearily. ‘But let's keep ourselves to ourselves - and our eyes and ears open.’

Back in Sanctaphrax, a ferocious storm was raging. High winds and driving hail battered the floating city. Above it, the sky was a cauldron of seething, swirling clouds tipping down bolt after bolt of jagged lightning. Up in Twig's study in the opulent School of Light and Darkness, the purple glow from the stove played on the fidgety faces of three sky pirates.

‘It's all this waiting around that I can't stand,’ Wingnut Sleet complained as he paced up and down the small room.

Bogwitt, who was sprawled out in a chair trying to dislodge some meat from his teeth with a fingernail, looked up. ‘It's all them academics ever seem to do,’ he growled. ‘Idle bunch of slackers the lot of them.’

‘Mind you,’ said Sleet, wincing uncomfortably with every flash of lightning, ‘I wouldn't fancy being out on a night like this. You know, I swear the weather's getting worse.’

Tarp Hammelherd shivered and crossed the room to warm his hands at the stove. ‘Goodness knows what it must be like in the Deepwoods,’ he said. ‘I hope Captain Twig's safe.’

Sleet turned to him, his scarred flesh quivering. ‘And what if he never returns?’ he said. ‘Are we to be expected to spend the rest of our lives in this poky little room?’

‘The captain looked after us,’ said Tarp. ‘The least we can do is wait for him.’

‘Yes, but for how long?’ Sleet persisted.

‘As long as it takes,’ said Tarp firmly. A volley of hailstones drummed against the pane of glass, drowning him out. Tarp shuddered and looked out through the window. ‘Sky protect you, Captain Twig,’ he murmured. ‘May you be successful on your quest to find those other crew-members less fortunate than ourselves

‘And get back here as quickly as you can!’ added Wingnut Sleet.

The Great Shryke Slave Market was like nothing either Twig or Cowlquape had ever experienced before: a sprawling labyrinth that extended further than any creature could walk in a day and a night - not that such terms had much meaning in a place lit by glowing lamps
and sputtering torches, where the sunlight never penetrated.

Over aerial bridges, up rope-ladders and down, they hurried. This way and that. Onwards and inwards. It was as though they had been swallowed up by a huge and monstrous beast, and were now lost within its cavernous innards. Above, below and on every side, there was feverish activity as life coursed through its veins. The air was stale, orange-red, and throbbed like a beating heart. Chaotic, it had seemed at first, yet a closer look revealed that underlying it all was order, purpose.

They passed business after small business - shops, stalls, makeshift trestle-tables - each one with its owner shouting out never-to-be-repeated bargains, trying to catch their eye. One that did was up on a platform just above their heads - a solitary lugtroll, her white cockade pinned to a tall plumed hat, hawking glittering jewellery.

‘Look,’ Cowlquape gasped. ‘It's
aliveY

Twig looked closely. The lad was right. Each of the necklaces, bracelets and brooches was sparkling, not with precious stones, but with live firebugs which had been fixed into position with filaments of wire twisted round their glowing abdomens.

Spooler nodded at their own bodies, glowing ever so faintly in the dimly-lit gloom. ‘Best get out of here before she decides to use us two!’ he said.

And on they went. Past hanging cages laden with huddled birds, crates of reptiles and insects, and dying hollowed trees with bars at the gaping holes, forming