Stormchaser (31 page)

‘Sanctaphrax.’

The next moment, he fell to the ground, dead.

Twig climbed shakily to his feet. He stared at the motionless body. ‘I’ve killed somebody,’ he murmured as he closed Screed's eyes with his trembling finger-tips.

He looked at peace now and, as in those last moments of life, oddly majestic. A lump rose in Twig's throat. What had happened to turn him into so loathsome a creature? His gaze fell on the bag strung around the dead guide's shoulders. Might his personal belongings offer a clue? Twig leaned forwards, loosened the drawstrings and looked inside.

‘Whoooaargh!’ He retched emptily. Tears filled his eyes, but the sight of the cluster of toes lingered. He tossed the bag away, bent over double and took long deep breaths. ‘Why?’ he gasped at last and stared at Screed in horror. ‘What kind of a monster were you?’

But he had no answers left to give. Twig pulled himself to his feet. As he turned away, the white ravens were already gathering. It was only then that he looked at the gauntlet.

• CHAPTER NINETEEN •
S
CREED'S
L
OOTY-
B
OOTY

W
ith his sword cutting a swathe through the growing flock of scavenging birds, Twig hurried towards the Stone Pilot's body. The inside of the glass eye-panels set into the hood were misted up. Did this mean the Stone Pilot was still breathing? Could he still be alive after the savage blow that Screed had dealt him?

‘If only I could get these things off,’ Twig muttered as he tugged in vain at the set of bolts which held the hood and gloves in place. He knelt down and pressed his ear against the heavy coat, searching for a trace of a heartbeat. A broad grin spread over his face, for there it was – faint, but regular – the Stone Pilot's beating heart.

‘Now, don’t you worry,’ Twig said as he leapt to his feet. ‘I’ll soon have you back at the shipwreck. It's cool there.’ He slipped his hands under the Stone Pilot's arms and round his chest. ‘You’re going to be …
wheeoo!
…’
he groaned as he lifted the shoulders off the ground, ‘…just fine!’

With every gruelling step, Twig's body cried out for rest – yet he did not ease up, not even for a moment. If the Stone Pilot died, then Twig would have lost his entire crew and that was something he would not allow to happen.

‘Almost there,’ he muttered breathlessly. ‘Not long now.’

The Stone Pilot made neither a sound nor a movement, but Twig knew that his heart must still be beating, for the white ravens were leaving them alone. The moment it stopped, they would attack in an instant.

At last, he found himself bathed once again in the long shadow cast by the shipwreck. Twig gazed up at the merciless white sky and offered silent thanks.

‘Professor,’ he called, looking about him. ‘Professor?’

‘In here,’ came a weary voice from inside the shipwreck. Twig turned. To his left was a large hole in the
side of the hull. ‘In here,’ the professor said again, his voice little more than a whisper.

As Twig dragged the Stone Pilot through the broken entrance, he was struck by the breathtaking smell of decay. He laid the Stone Pilot down beside the far wall and found the professor propped up against a fallen beam on the opposite side. The branch at his back was still keeping his neck poker-straight. He was alive – yet even in the gloom, it was clear that he was in a bad way.

‘He killed him,’ the professor was groaning. ‘He murdered him.’

‘No,’ said Twig. ‘He's injured – and perhaps badly, but he's still alive.’

The professor sighed weakly. ‘Not the Stone Pilot,’ he wheezed and swept his arm round. ‘This ship,’ he said. ‘I found the name plate. It's the
Windcutter
. It was captained by Screedius Tollinix. Screedius Tollinix!’ he wailed. ‘A fine and valiant knight.’ His eyes burned with rage. ‘Until that loathsome guide got his hands on him, that is,’ he added and collapsed in a fit of coughing.

Twig stared back at the professor. Of course! When the professor called out, Screed had recognized his own name. That was why he’d paused … And Twig had killed him. He hadn’t the heart to tell the professor that Screedius Tollinix and their guide were one and the same.

He crouched down beside him. ‘Try to get some sleep,’ he said.

‘No, no,’ the professor said agitatedly. ‘There will be time for sleep soon enough. There are things we must elucidate, explain: things we must discuss…’ For a
second his eyes went blank. When they focused again, they looked bewildered, frightened. ‘Twig, my boy,’ he said, his voice low and breathy. ‘You must listen. And listen well. I must tell you about stormphrax.’

‘But…’ Twig began.

‘After all, that is why I am here,’ the professor went on. ‘That is why your father insisted I travel with you all. For I know everything there is to know about the sacred crystals. Their value. Their properties. Their power.’ He paused. ‘Since stormphrax is too heavy to move when in darkness and too volatile in direct sunlight, we must …
you
must engineer a constant but dim light to accompany it until it has reached its resting place at the heart of the floating rock of Sanctaphrax. And when
that
happens…’

‘But what's the point of all this?’ Twig blurted out. ‘We haven’t got any stormphrax. We weren’t able to retrieve any from the Twilight Woods. Or had you forgotten, Professor? We failed.’

‘Twig, be quiet!’ the professor insisted. He raised his arm and pointed to the far end of the hull. ‘Over there,’ he wheezed.

Twig turned. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness by now and, as he stared into the shadows, he saw a large chest half sunk in the mud. ‘W…what is it?’ he asked.

‘Go and see,’ said the professor.

As Twig crossed the oozing floor towards the chest, the smell of rotting flesh grew stronger. ‘Woaagh!’ he gasped, and gagged at the sight of the thousand miniature
trophies nailed to the wooden walls. ‘Bwwwoorrgh!’ he heaved again, as the huge sloping pile in the corner revealed itself to be countless thousands more of the amputated toes.

‘What in Sky's name?’ he muttered, and looked back at the professor for some explanation.

The professor waved him on impatiently.

Twig stopped next to the glass and ironwood chest and looked down. The top was closed, but not locked. He hesitated. What if it was full of more body parts? What if Screed also had a thing for eyeballs, or tongues?

‘Open it!’ he heard the professor insist.

Twig leaned forwards, took a deep breath, and threw the lid open. A silvery light gleamed from within. Twig stared down and trembled with awe at the sight of the multitude of flashing, sparking crystals. ‘Stormphrax!’ he gasped.

‘And more than enough for all our needs,’ said the Professor of Light.

‘But how?’ said Twig. ‘I…’ He cut himself short. ‘The toes!’ he exclaimed.

‘Precisely,’ said the professor. ‘As the hapless goblins, trolls, trogs or what have you set off from the Deepwoods for Undertown, their journey took them through the Twilight Woods. There, particles of stormphrax collected under their toenails and claws, do you see? Then, when they reached the Mire, they encountered Screed – that most foul of individuals – who stole their money, slit their throats and took their toes.’ He sighed wearily. ‘Though why?’ he moaned. ‘That is the question. What use could such a degenerate soul have had for so wonderful a substance?’

The words of the sepia knight popped back into Twig's head.
A quest is a quest for ever.
And he shuddered with horror as he realized what must have happened.

Even though Screedius Tollinix had wrecked his ship, he had not been able to abandon his quest. After all, like Garlinius Gernix and Petronius Metrax before him and Quintinius Verginix after, he would have pledged to dedicate his life to the finding of stormphrax and sworn never to return to Sanctaphrax until and unless he had completed that sacred quest.

Unable to return to Sanctaphrax empty-handed, Screedius Tollinix had single-mindedly pursued his goal no matter what that involved. The noble Knight Academic, whom Twig had glimpsed at the moment of death, must have been driven insane by his desire to
fulfil the promises he had made at the Inauguration Ceremony – no matter how much he amassed, it could never be enough.

‘And I wouldn’t like to guess how many had perished to satisfy the wicked creature's hideous lust,’ the professor was saying.

Twig stared down at the glittering crystals. Each one, he now knew, had been paid for in blood. Trembling almost uncontrollably, he reached forwards, seized the lid and slammed it shut.

‘It's not fair!’ he stormed. ‘I dreamed of returning – successful and victorious – with enough stormphrax to stabilize the floating city of Sanctaphrax for a thousand years.’

‘But you still can,’ the professor wheezed.

Twig rounded on him furiously. ‘Not like this!’ he shouted. Behind him, the Stone Pilot muttered drowsily. ‘I wanted to discover new stormphrax, pure stormphrax,’ he continued. ‘Fresh from a Great Storm. In the Twilight Woods. Not this … this evil treasure-trove scraped from the toes of the dead.’

‘Ah, Twig,’ the professor groaned. ‘Twig, my boy …’ He began coughing again, a low rasping sound that rattled in the back of his throat. ‘Ends and means,’ he wheezed. ‘Ends and…’ The racking cough returned, more heart-rending than ever.

‘Professor!’ Twig ran towards him. His face had turned a pale shade of yellowy-grey. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow. Every breath was an effort. Twig took his hand. ‘Professor, are you all right?’

The professor stared at Twig's gauntleted hand. Weakly, he drew his finger across the metal knuckles. Sepia dust clung to his fingertip. ‘Of course,’ he whispered, barely audibly. ‘Phraxdust…’ He paused.

‘Yes,’ said Twig, ‘when Screed's blood touched it, it turned to pure water.’ He bent down until his ear was all but pressing against the professor's quivering lips. The warm breath in his face smelt of decay.

‘The secret…’ the professor whispered. ‘I know how to produce phraxdust. Safely.’ He gasped and brought his hands to his throat. ‘The Twilight Woods were telling us all the time.’

‘Go on,’ said Twig, and swallowed away his tears. ‘In your own time, Professor.’

A smile played over the professor's lips. ‘Time!’ he croaked. ‘Time…’ His eyes rolled in his head. ‘Stormphrax breaks down in the twilight of the woods. The twilight, Twig! Not darkness, not light – but twilight. Slowly it crumbles over the centuries, ground down by the pressure of twilight. Ground down, Twig, for hundreds upon hundreds of years, into dust. Phraxdust. The phraxdust that coats the armour of those poor lost knights – that coats the glove you wear.’

Twig looked down at the gauntlet and the fine layer of sepia dust. ‘But the secret?’ he whispered. ‘I don’t understand.’

The professor sighed and summoned up the last of his strength.

‘Don’t you see, Twig? What it takes hundreds of years for the Twilight Woods to do naturally, we can do with a
single crushing blow. But that blow can only,
must
only, fall at the very moment of…’

‘Twilight!’ gasped Twig.

The professor let out a long, pitiful sigh. ‘Tell … Professor of Darkness,’ he whispered. ‘You can … trust … him…’

He fell silent. The warm breath ceased. Twig straightened up and looked down at the wise old face.

The Professor of Light was dead. Already, the white ravens were screeching noisily outside. Twig heard them scrabbling overhead, scraping at the wood; he saw the boldest of them poking their heads through the hole in the side of the hull and peering round with their beady scavenging eyes.

‘Be gone with you!’ he cried.

The birds retreated, but only for a moment and not very far. Twig knew he would have to bury the professor's body at once. As he dragged it outside, the white ravens flocked round him, screeching with rage.

‘You shan’t have him!’ Twig screeched back.

With the sun now low in the sky, he followed his lengthening shadows across the path, towards a circular patch of quickmud. There, at its edge, he lay the professor down. The white ravens flapped and fluttered in a frenzy of excitement. Twig tried hard to think of some words to mark the solemn occasion.