The Descenders

by Paul Stewart

  ‘Wuh-wuh, wurgh …’

  The banderbear’s growl was soft and deep in the back of her throat. ‘Cade of the far-off lake brings the dust of old learning,’ she said in flowing paw gestures and low growling sounds. ‘But new ideas from Sky and Earth also await.’

  She glanced across at Seftis. Cade followed her gaze.

  ‘The little armourer is not good at collaborating with others,’ Theegum went on, ‘so I, his faithful assistant, have been making arrangements.’ The banderbear gave a tuskless grin. ‘When the great fiery ball in the sky reaches its zenith, they will be here …’

  ‘Midday?’ said Cade.

  ‘Do you mind not talking about me as if I wasn’t here, you infuriating creature,’ Seftis huffed, though Cade could see a twinkle in the old goblin’s eye. ‘And what about “midday”?’

  Cade handed the chief armourer the barkscrolls. ‘If you spoke banderbear, you’d know.’

  ‘Pah,’ said the armourer dismissively. ‘All that grunting and flapping about. I’d sooner stick my head in the forge.’

  Cade laughed. He knew Seftis didn’t really mean it. Ever since he’d first started working in the Armoury, Cade had learned just how close ‘the little armourer’ and the banderbear were.

  ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ said Seftis, hurrying off with the barkscrolls, ‘I need to take a look at these.’

  Seftis Bule might have had no interest, but for his part, Cade loved learning banderbear language. It hadn’t been easy, but Theegum proved to be an excellent teacher. She was patient and encouraging, and never laughed when he made mistakes. It had taken many weeks, but gradually Cade had picked up the rudiments of the eloquent signing and growled cadences, and as he did so, and learned about Theegum’s story, his friendship with her had deepened.

  ‘I was a half-summer cub, newly nested, when the mire-pearlers took me,’ the banderbear had told him one afternoon as they sat in the glow of the forge, toasting gladeoak kernels on a long-handled furnace shovel. ‘They caged me and taught me to dance at the end of their brazier-heated daggers. I travelled with them across half the mighty woods, in a skyship that carried the scent of death and despair in its belly, dancing that jig of pain and fear.’

  Cade had listened with a growing sense of horror.

  ‘But I grew quickly,’ she’d continued, ‘even on stale rations and regular beatings. Then one day, instead of entertaining the captain with a comic dance on the aft deck, I threw the phraxgunner – my chief tormentor – in the air and gored him with my half-grown tusks. I hardly knew what I was doing, driven half mad by that cruel little blade of his; the woodwasp sting that singed my fur.’

  She’d paused, and Cade thought he could hear her heartbeat pounding inside her chest. Then, with low growls and languid body movements, she was off again, narrating the terrible details of her past.

  ‘They beat me till I fell into that blackness that lies beyond sleep, and when I finally found my way back to the realm of light and waking thoughts, I had lost my tusks and was staked to the earth in a mining stockade in the Eastern Woods.

  ‘My new owners were only slightly better than the mire-pearlers, though they sought profit rather than entertainment. I was set to work, hauling heavy lampcrates in their phraxmine …’

  She had hesitated again, overwhelmed by dark emotions. Cade looked up to see her standing perfectly still, silently reliving that awful time. Then her feathery ears had twitched and, once again, she had resumed her grim tale.

  ‘It was in that underground place of perpetual twilight where I learned from the other slave workers that there could be another life for the ill-used and downtrodden. One night I summoned what strength I had and tore my chains from the mineshaft wall.’ Her gestures had become short and choppy. ‘And I began my long journey to the fabled floating city, like so many others before me.

  ‘I took the Trail of Ghosts along the very edge of the world, with the Twilight Woods on one side of the rocky pavement and the drop into the eternal void on the other. Hungry, cold, exhausted, I finally reached the grasslands of the Mire. I gathered meadowgrass and constructed a nest from what memories I could recall of my mother, who had taught me as a half-summer cub. Then I lay down to die.’

  Cade had listened intently, eyes misting and a lump in his throat that he was unable to swallow away.

  ‘I was happy to be free at last, away from the torments of the fourthling world, and ready to go into those Nightwoods from which no one returns.’ She’d looked up, her dark eyes glittering. ‘That’s when Seftis, the little armourer, found me. I was as weak as the cub I had once been, and so thin that even he could pull me easily on a sumpwood sledge.

  ‘He took me back to Great Glade first, then brought me, as he had brought others, to the floating city. And here at the Knights Academy, with my head in the clouds, I came back to life.

  ‘My tusks, of course, are lost for ever and will never grow back, but I felt my spirit return, and with it a thirst for life. The Armoury warms me like a sun-drenched glade, the rafters ripple like wind-filled groves, and I can repay the little armourer for restoring me to this world of light …’

  That conversation had been two months ago or more. And since then, whenever Cade entered or left the Armoury, he had felt himself enveloped in the warmth of a banderbear embrace.

  ‘Well?’ said Seftis Bule, impatiently thumbing through the barkscrolls in his hands. ‘I’m still waiting to hear what is happening at midday.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cade admitted. ‘I think Theegum’s arranged for me to meet someone, though she didn’t say who.’ He turned to her. ‘Theegum?’ he said.

  ‘A long wait produces the sweetest fruit,’ she told him cryptically, and returned her attention to the bellows.

  ‘She says I need to be patient,’ said Cade. ‘I think.’

  Seftis rolled his eyes. ‘Well, in the meantime,’ he said, ‘there’s something I want to show you.’ He took Cade by the arm and steered him back towards his small office. ‘We’ve been making some real progress with the vessel.’ He smiled. ‘Your father’s remarkable working drawings continue to reveal their secrets.’

  As they stepped through the doorway, Cade’s gaze fell on the miniature engine that the armourer had built. There was something different about it.

  ‘You remember how we incorporated the discoveries your friend made, back at the Farrow Lake?’ Seftis said.

  Cade nodded. Like Thorne Lammergyre’s model, this one also had four satellite chambers that endlessly orbited the main phraxchamber in a smooth blur of movement, whirring and thrumming as it did so. There was a small propulsion pipe emitting a tiny jet of white flame, and a miniature funnel, steam streaming out of it in an unbroken line.

  ‘Well, we’ve made a couple of extra modifications,’ said Seftis, pointing to a series of spoke-like rods, each one topped with a glass disc. ‘Mirrors,’ he explained. ‘Convex and concave. They both diffuse the phraxlight and reflect it back on itself, increasing the energy potential – twentyfold so far, but we’re hoping for more.’

  Cade inspected the model closely. ‘And this is my father’s design?’ he asked.

  ‘From the third barkscroll,’ Seftis said, nodding. ‘It’s ingenious. We’re so close now, but there’s still one little problem.’ He patted the barkscrolls Cade had just brought him. ‘Hopefully these will help solve it. Come through to the workshop and I’ll show you how it’ll work on the vessel itself …’

  Just then the door opened and Cade and Seftis turned to see Theegum standing in the doorway. Her head inclined to one side, she waved a paw then gestured back behind her.

  ‘They’re here,’ said Cade.

  ‘Yes, even I could work that one out,’ said Seftis. ‘Go then, Cade. And while you’re having your mysterious meeting,’ he added, ‘I shall continue our work. Your uncle might still be sceptical that a ship can descend beneath the Edge …’ He chuckled. ‘But I’m not.’

  Cade emerged through the heavy ironwood d
oorway of the Armoury to see a phraxlighter hovering in the air above the stairs. He was surprised to see that there was only one academic on board. With his oiled hair, plaited beard and blue-grey robes of New Sanctaphrax, Cade recognized him at once. It was Grent One-Tusk of the Loftus Observatory, the long-hair who had invited him to go stone-spotting. Despite his obvious fear of flying that day, he was piloting the vessel.

  ‘Welcome aboard,’ Grent called from the small wheelhouse as Cade jumped up onto the deck. ‘We’re off to see Tug.’

  Cade nodded, then sat down on the seat opposite him. Grent pushed the flight lever forward and the phraxlighter rose slowly and gently up into the air. Then, once they’d flown clear of the great floating rock, it started its descent towards Undergarden.

  Cade chuckled. ‘Has he found a new statue?’ he asked.

  Grent looked back at him, puzzled.

  ‘Tug,’ said Cade. ‘He’s always adding to his collection in that sculpture garden of his.’

  ‘Oh, Tug isn’t here,’ said the long-hair as he turned the wheel slowly round. ‘He’s in the Stone Gardens.’

  ‘But the Stone Gardens are in the opposite direction,’ said Cade. ‘Back that way,’ he added.

  He looked over the side – which was when he caught sight of Celestia.

  ‘Am I glad to see you,’ he said as Grent brought the phraxlighter to a hover beside her. ‘I heard you’d been injured.’

  ‘It’s just a scratch,’ said Celestia dismissively. ‘Nothing Tug and Fenda couldn’t handle.’

  She turned to the fettle-legger in the green-trimmed robes at her side and smiled, and Cade recognized her as the Earth scholar he’d met the same day he’d first met Grent. Fenda Fulefane, from the School of Moss.

  ‘Actually, we’re on our way to see Tug now,’ Celestia added.

  ‘I know,’ said Cade, and laughed. ‘It seems we’re the ones taking you.’

  Reaching down, he took Celestia by the arm and pulled her up onto the little vessel. He gave her a hug that made her wince. Cade pulled away.

  ‘Oh, Celestia,’ he said apologetically. ‘I’m sorry – it’s just so good to see you!’

  Celestia smiled bravely. ‘It’s good to see you too, Cade,’ she reassured him. ‘Oh, and before I forget, thank you for lending me this.’ She pulled the spyglass from inside her jacket and handed it to him.

  ‘You keep it for me,’ Cade said. ‘It’s brought you luck once, Celestia, and while I’m busy in the Armoury I like to think of you out here making more use of it.’

  The phraxlighter took to the air. Cade and Celestia were sitting next to one another, with Fenda on the bench opposite, her powerful legs tucked back beneath her as, under Grent’s expert hand, they flew back over the lush vegetation of Undergarden, past the great floating city, and on towards the boulder stacks of the Stone Gardens.

  Three days she’d been asleep, according to Fenda Fulefane. That was all. Yet in that time, Celestia was surprised to learn, the situation in New Sanctaphrax had deteriorated still further.

  ‘The Academy of Mistsifters and half the colleges on the Viaduct have all but given up the struggle,’ Cade told her. ‘They’ve had enough of the blockade and want to give in to Great Glade’s demands. Which means—’

  ‘The end of descending,’ Celestia said.

  ‘Worse than that,’ said Cade, his expression grim. ‘Quove Lentis has ordered that any skymarshals they capture be taken to Great Glade for trial.’

  Celestia snorted. ‘Which no doubt means torture,’ she said. ‘From everything I’ve heard about that monster, it seems he will do anything and everything he can to discover how he might destroy New Sanctaphrax.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Cade. ‘Which is why,’ he added, remembering what Nate had told him, ‘my Aunt Eudoxia is away at this very moment. She has a meeting with someone she hopes will ensure that never happens.’

  · CHAPTER FIFTEEN ·

  Outside the light tower, the dense fog swirl was beginning to clear at last. A wind had got up and the jagged pinnacles along the cliff edge were funnelling the air currents. The otherworldly howl it created was music to any tallow-hat’s ears. It kept all but the most intrepid Edgelanders well away from this region of fabled ghosts and demons.

  Danton Clore, the leader of the tallow-hats, took two dark red candles from the box on the shelf. Then, having trimmed the ends, he pushed them into the holders on either side of the broad-brimmed hat he was holding.

  The tallow itself was of the finest quality, carefully extracted and meticulously rendered down from the roots of the bloodoak, the legendary flesh-eating tree found only in the darkest, densest areas of the Deepwoods. When lit, the tallow candles gave off an eerie, misty light and rich, pungent fumes that were believed both to sharpen the reflexes and give courage. But such candles were rare and highly prized, and the tallow-hats only used them for special occasions.

  Clore placed the hat on his head and looked at his reflection in the small copperwood mirror that hung from the cabin wall. The angry scar on his cheek – the result of a dispute with a disreputable shryke trader – was a reminder to Clore to temper courage with caution.

  He’d been younger back then, hot-blooded and impatient to make his way in the world. The stilt factories of Great Glade were not for him, never had been. He’d craved adventure – and had known where to find it.

  In the First Age of Flight, Danton Clore imagined that he would have been a sky pirate, signing up to one of the legendary crews of a skygalleon and exacting a toll from the fat skyships of the Undertown leagues. In the Second Age of Flight, Clore saw himself as a Freeglade Lancer, serving under General Rook Barkwater himself in the wars of the Goblin Nations. And now, here in this Third Age, far from meddlesome busybodies and surrounded by the unearthly howls of those ghosts and demons, Danton Clore was exactly where he wanted to be.

  He looked at his reflection for a moment longer, then, reaching into his topcoat, he took out a pouch of pine-resin matches and struck one on the brim of his hat. He lit the first tallow candle, then the other, and took a long, deep breath.

  Several weeks earlier, something had happened. Something that should not have happened. Time and again, Danton Clore had relived the raid that was meant to be routine, but had ended so tragically in Great Glade, always coming to the same conclusion.

  The tallow-hats had been betrayed.

  But Clore would not be rushed into a hasty decision. He prided himself on his fairness. Pausing for a moment before he left his cabin, he went over the events of that fateful day one last time …

  Skylancer came in low over the treetops, emerging from the eerie golden glow cast by the distant Twilight Woods. On either side of the four-funnel phraxvessel were two more skyships of a similar distinctive design. Rainhawk and Cloudbreaker.

  With their long ‘beaked’ prows, their clustered phraxchambers feeding low, curving propulsion ducts, and twin rudders on either side of armoured sterns, these were cloudcruisers, the fastest phraxships in the Edgelands.

  At the wheel of Skylancer, Danton Clore felt the harness straps bite into his shoulders as he pushed the phraxchambers to full power. Beside him, Rainhawk and Cloudbreaker did the same.

  The slow, cumbersome merchant ship never stood a chance. Not only was it clad with heavy ironwood, but its cargo holds were full of phrax crystals, packed into huge lamp-crates and weighing the vessel down. Phraxguns peppered its open portholes. Each one was spitting out a steady stream of bullets – but they merely clattered harmlessly off the approaching cloudcruisers’ armoured hulls.

  Rainhawk and Cloudbreaker abruptly peeled away, flying high and drawing the merchant ship’s fire as Skylancer dived low for a second time. It was a dangerous manoeuvre, but Danton Clore held his nerve. Gripping the wheel tightly, he braced himself for impact.

  A loud crunch echoed through the air as the cloudcruiser’s beaked prow smashed into the side of the merchant ship’s wheelhouse with pinpoint precision, just below the phraxchamber.
The wheelhouse disintegrated as Skylancer ploughed through it and sped on, then turned in a tight, banking arc and cut its engines. Rainhawk and Cloudbreaker rejoined Skylancer, and the three cloudcruisers closed in on the hapless merchant ship like hungry woodwolves stalking a wounded hammelhorn.

  Along the bow of the merchant vessel, portholes were clattering shut, and the silhouettes of fleeing figures, stark against the glowing sky, could be seen clambering up on deck and climbing into small phraxlighters strapped to the stern. One after the other, the phraxlighters took off and steamed away, watched by the three cloudcruisers but not pursued.

  Lying among the splintered ruins of the wheelhouse of the merchant ship, now abandoned by its top brass, were the expensively brocaded green topcoats of the captain and senior officers of the Great Glade Academy of Flight. Undamaged, the phraxchamber thrummed, keeping the vessel hovering motionless, if somewhat lopsidedly, in the air.

  ‘Prepare the grappling chains,’ Danton Clore called back to his crew in the stern. ‘Looks like Great Glade is going to have to pay the tallow tax …’

  ‘They did what they always do,’ said Danton Clore. ‘As soon as we caught up with them, the officers threw off their fancy uniforms and snuck off in phraxlighters, leaving the crew to fight us.’ He shook his head. ‘Every time … The moment I take out the wheelhouse, they simply abandon ship.’

  He was standing on the balcony of his light tower, a sturdy timber-frame cabin with a lamp glowing at the top of its conical roof. The light tower had been built on a platform that was bolted securely to the side of a floating rock. Two other rocks, each with a light tower of their own, floated close by. Chains connected the three of them, one to the other, and then to an anchor ring which was secured to a pinnacle.

  Every one of these floating rocks was large enough to have supported the stern and prow of a mighty skygalleon in the First Age of Flight. Now, in these days of phrax-powered skyvessels, they served as a berth for the small, sleek cloudcruisers of the tallow-hats. Skylancer, Rainhawk and Cloudbreaker were each tethered to their respective rocks. Further along the cliff edge, as far as the eye could see, other clusters of floating rocks swayed in the swirling winds, the lamps of the light towers clamped to them twinkling like a constellation.