by Paul Stewart
Danton turned from the window. ‘Enough!’ he barked. ‘Take your sketches and studies, and finish the work in your studio,’ he told the portrait painter as he marched past him and out of the hall.
Gripping the banister, Danton climbed the stairway to his sumptuous apartments on the upper floor of the Knights Academy – or rather the Tallow Hall, as it had been renamed. Knights of the Tallow, in their crisp black tunics and gleaming helmets with side candles, saluted as Danton passed quickly by. Most were former academics who had taken the Oath and renounced their robes of Sanctaphrax blue. Some, though, were former tallow-hats. No longer dandified sky pirates, they had become harder and smarter, and with a new sense of purpose.
Danton Clore’s purpose.
That had been hard, Danton acknowledged as he stepped inside his chambers: dealing with those difficult tallow-hats who had not shared his vision. Some of them had been unable to see the advantages of seizing control of the floating city; others were reluctant to abandon their old ways – while a significant few were actively resentful that Danton Clore himself had become so powerful. None of them guessed that his takeover of New Sanctaphrax was only the beginning …
As he entered his high chamber, two black-robed Companions bowed low before him, obsequious smiles on their faces. Danton washed his face and hands in the copperwood bowl of scented water that one of them held out, then dried them with the soft linen towel offered by the other. Once High Professors of the School of Mistsifters, the two of them were now his personal servants.
The thought pleased Danton.
He unbuttoned his black topcoat and let it drop to the floor. One of the servants snatched it up and hurried off to hang it in the wardrobe, while the other held up a loose black robe with a chequerboard collar; Danton slipped it on.
‘Leave me now,’ he told the two Companions as he crossed the chamber.
When they had gone, Danton pulled a key on a gold chain from inside his tunic, unlocked the door in front of him and stepped into the room beyond. It was immense, with a great domed ceiling of leadwood struts and panes of crystal above, and a broad curved floor of polished lufwood below.
Danton stood on one of the elegant balconies and looked up into the space in the centre of the dome. There, sitting at a sumpwood lectern, surrounded by other floating lecterns, was Eudoxia Prade.
This, the old Hall of High Cloud in the former Knights Academy, was where renowned professors had once lectured their students. Now it acted as Eudoxia’s prison cell.
Danton pulled a lectern down towards the balcony, climbed on to it and allowed it to float back up to where Eudoxia was sitting. Above his head, clouds billowed up and scudded past the glass, which was etched with ancient cloudwatching calculations.
Eudoxia put down the barkscroll she’d been reading and looked up at him.
This was the hardest part, thought Danton as he looked back into those clear green eyes and saw the rage and resentment in them. She was furious with him for abusing her trust – and even more furious with herself for having trusted him in the first place.
It had started when Danton had put the first part of his plan into action, just after the battle. The tallow-hat captains had wanted to be paid off, happy to take flight rocks, phrax concessions and mire pearls, and return to the wilderness of the Edgeland’s margins. But Danton couldn’t allow that; not if his dream of being Knight-General was to become reality. So he had dealt with the leading captains – the would-be troublemakers – in the Stone Gardens one moonless night.
Those tallow-hats who had helped him, though, Danton promoted, making them Knights of the Tallow. Then, with these loyal reinforcements at his side, he’d moved against the Sanctaphrax Academy itself. He imprisoned Eudoxia and, with their acting High Academe gone, it wasn’t long before the academics caved in and took the Oath.
All, that is, except for the skymarshals.
The majority of them had been killed defending New Sanctaphrax, but a stubborn few had fled into the sewers beneath Undergarden. And while the rest of the academics became black-tunicked knights if they supported Danton Clore, Knight-General, or were forced to join the Company of the Willing and exchange their blue-grey robes for sombre black, this small group of skymarshals watched and waited.
Swiftly and ruthlessly, Danton took over the Knights Academy and plundered the Armoury for its secrets. Then the work had begun. Although not easy, with co-operation from the new ‘knights’, it hadn’t taken long to construct first a phraxengine, and then flight-rock coils like those used in the now infamous nightship the Linius Pallitax.
And throughout all this, as he was systematically taking absolute control, Danton had had to suffer the silent fury and growing contempt of Eudoxia Prade. It was like a dagger to his heart, but Danton would not give up.
With the skies free of Great Glade phraxships for the time being, and New Sanctaphrax now in his grip, Danton intended to re-equip his cloudcruisers and build a fleet, the like of which had never been seen before – and which would travel to the furthest corners of the Edgelands …
There had remained, however, one possible scenario that threatened to scupper his plans. The return of Nate Quarter. If the High Academe himself were to rally the skymarshals still loyal to the old order of the floating city, then everything might still fall apart.
Then, like a gift from the sky itself, the Linius Pallitax had returned.
The crew was arrested. And so simply. It had been like spearing fish in a barrel. Danton couldn’t help but smile as he recalled the looks on their faces – so bewildered and helpless – as the cry had rung out to ‘seize them!’
‘What is this?’ Nate Quarter had demanded, reaching for the phraxpistol at his belt – only to have it snatched from his hand and turned against him by the tallow-hat at his back.
‘Celestia!’ the youth beside him had cried out, turning and shielding a dark-haired girl protectively. But another of the tallow-hats had prodded him viciously in the side with a long lance and dragged her away.
The nameless one hadn’t liked that. With a ferocious roar, he’d barrelled through three more of the tallow-hats standing in his way, sending them sprawling, and struck Celestia’s captor hard with the flat of his hand. The tallow-hat had stumbled backwards and crashed to the ground, and the nameless one had reached out for Celestia …
‘Be careful, Tug!’ she’d cried out – but too late, as a large net came down over him, and he was wrestled roughly to the ground.
The banderbear had suffered the same fate. Except it took even more of the tallow-hats to pin her down. Time and again, one, then another of her attackers was sent flying as the furious, snarling creature lashed out through the netting with her taloned paws. But with an ever-increasing number of tallow-hats joining in to overpower her, slowly, inevitably, the net was tightened and her struggle came to an end.
Meanwhile, the trog and the waif had tried – and failed – to make a run for it. And when the little goblin armourer put his hands up, it was all over.
Disarmed, exhausted after their time in the depths and completely outnumbered, there was nothing any of them could have done. As the last member of the crew was taken prisoner, a loud cheer had gone up from the Viaduct Steps, the crowd of tallow-hats roaring their approval. Any there among them who were uneasy at seeing their brave High Academe and his Descender friends being treated so shamefully remained silent.
Danton Clore had stepped forward and issued commands.
Seftis Bule and his banderbear were put to work in the Armoury, where, against their will, they immediately helped to speed up the work on the new tallow-hat fleet. Demora and Sentafuce were confined to a laboratory and forced to reveal everything they knew about phrax technology. Nate’s nephew and his Deepwoods friends, meanwhile, were taken to Undergarden and locked up in a prison where they would remain until they could be persuaded to take the Oath of Loyalty. As for Nate Quarter, former High Academe of New Sanctaphrax … well, he was going to be the most useful one of all.
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‘Have you thought about my offer?’ Danton asked, meeting Eudoxia’s gaze. ‘I think it is a generous one.’ He smiled. ‘The launch is three days away. If you become my partner in Sky and Earth, then I shall release Nate Quarter and his nephew to live out their days in exile, anywhere they choose. So long as it is away from the great cities,’ he added. ‘And if you refuse …’
The look came into Eudoxia’s eyes that always made Danton flinch. Hatred. Pure hatred. But he was helpless. Just as he had been when he first laid eyes on her. She would be his, even if he had to destroy everything she held dear to keep her with him.
If he couldn’t have her love, then he’d settle for her hate. But she would be his.
‘… I will sell them to Quove Lentis.’
· CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ·
Brocktinius Rolnix looked up at the great floating city, far above his head. It was ten weeks since Quove Lentis’s phraxfleet had come so close to defeating its defenders. Brock knew he should have been happy with the way events turned out – but even back then he’d been uneasy.
By rights, of course, he shouldn’t be here now. During the sky battle, his phraxcraft, the Rock Demon, had taken a direct hit, sending Brock himself hurtling to the ground; his fall broken by the thick wind-chime netting strung out between two low towers of the School of Squalls in the old quarter. But since he had survived, Brock vowed to serve and defend New Sanctaphrax until his last breath.
After all, he thought, reliving that heroic last-ditch charge of the skymarshals, it was as though he’d been given a second chance.
When he had finally come to his senses after the crash-landing, the first thing Brock noticed was how silent it had become. The battle was over. The Great Glade phraxfleet of Quove Lentis had been routed by the tallow-hats he’d seen speeding in from the far horizon, and his heart soared – until he saw the number of sharp-prowed cloudcruisers already docked at the twin landings of New Sanctaphrax.
Not that anyone else seemed that bothered.
Brock’s misgivings, however, had proved well founded. Rumours began to spread through the floating city like wildfire: the water had been poisoned, the Professor of Glister Studies had been arrested, Quove Lentis was planning another strike … And, with the city in disarray, the tallow-hats had made their move.
Brock himself went to ground in Undergarden to await developments. Holed up in the overgrown ruins of an ancient foundry, he bided his time, hoping and praying that something might thwart the tallow-hats’ complete takeover of the floating city.
What remained of the skymarshals – about forty or so – soon abandoned the sewers and returned to New Sanctaphrax to join the so-called Company of the Willing. But, although they’d put on the black robes with the bloodoak insignia, they remained loyal to Brock, becoming his eyes and ears in the stricken city …
Danton Clore. This was the name that Brock would hear increasingly often from his spies. He was, it was said, driven. He was cold and calculating. Vain. He would brook no dissent; stop at nothing. He was utterly, utterly ruthless …
As for Brock, although he was learning much about the self-appointed Knight-General from his spies, he himself had had no direct contact with Danton Clore since that brief glimpse of him when the tallow-hats first arrived. But then came that moonless night in the Stone Gardens.
Brock would never forget it.
He’d been out scouting near the Edgewater Falls, half hoping to pick up signs that the nightship with Nate Quarter, High Academe Elect, on board was returning. Brock found the Descender post deserted, and was about to return to his hideout when he heard raised voices. He ducked behind a stone stack, its topmost boulder crowded with roosting white ravens.
Close by, standing near the jutting lip of the Edge cliff, was Danton Clore. Brock had recognized him at once. The leader of the tallow-hats was wearing a splendid black topcoat edged in silver braid, and on his head a gleaming helmet with two tallow candles, burning blood red, attached to its sides. Danton was not alone. Flanking him on either side was a phalanx of black-uniformed figures. Their phraxpistols were aimed at a small group standing on the cliff edge.
Brock couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
The group were tallow-hat captains, twenty at least, dressed in gaudy waistcoats and crushed funnel hats – the leaders of the tallow-hat armada that had ‘rescued’ New Sanctaphrax. Danton Clore hadn’t wasted any time grabbing power, though this latest twist puzzled Brock.
Then one of the tallow-hat captains stepped forward.
‘Danton, please,’ he said, ‘you stay here if you must, but we just want to take our crews and head back to the wilderness. Old Thane Two-Blades here has always had your back, you know that, but you’ve changed, Danton. This place has got to you … She has got to you …’
Behind the tallow-hat captain, the other captains bristled, their fists clenched and narrowed eyes glaring at Danton Clore. He smiled back at them, the scar on his cheek flexing in the light of the tallow candles like a rivulet of blood.
‘Take one pace back,’ he said coolly as the black-uniformed guards beside him cocked their phraxmuskets. ‘And another … And another …’
Staring grimly back at him, the tallow-hat captains disappeared in a rippling wave as they stepped back into the void. Their despairing oaths rang out as they fell.
‘Sky curse you, Clore …’
And, just like that, Danton Clore had taken absolute control. He was now ruler of New Sanctaphrax.
Shaken by what he’d just witnessed, Brock returned to his secret hideout in Undergarden. Everything he’d heard about Danton Clore was true – and it strengthened his resolve to rid the floating city of this tyrannical usurper, once and for all.
His infiltrators in the Company of the Willing kept him informed of the latest events up in New Sanctaphrax, while Brock, for his part, continued to bide his time in Undergarden. But it hadn’t been easy. Especially when, almost four weeks after it had descended, word reached him that the nightship finally had returned.
That was when Brock and the resistance to the Knights of the Tallow began to get truly organized. There would, though, be no acts of sabotage; no eye-catching stunts or demonstrations. Instead, Brock chose to remain hidden and concentrate his energy on spreading his contacts throughout the Company of the Willing. Quietly. Covertly. Danton Clore must have no idea of the resistance until Brock was ready to strike.
Now, that moment was close. Prompted by three, superficially unconnected, incidents, Brocktinius Rolnix was making final plans …
The first was news he’d received from one of his undercover skymarshals about a curious meeting that had taken place between Danton Clore and Nate Quarter, up in the Loftus Observatory, where Nate was being held captive. The Knight-General, it was reported, had made the former High Academe an offer. According to Brock’s sources, he’d wheedled, cajoled, threatened and shouted abuse, but Nate Quarter had refused to be bullied. In fact, he’d refused to utter a single word to his captor.
The second incident occurred several days later. Another of Brock’s spies had intercepted a ratbird that was carrying a message addressed to Quove Lentis in Great Glade. Reluctant to trust anyone else to deliver it, the black-robed ‘Companion’ – a skymarshal by the name of Stark – had brought it to Brock in person.
‘I thought you should see this,’ he said gruffly as he handed over the small creature, its wings held tight against its body.
Brock looked down at the ratbird, and at the rolled-up message secured to its leg. The words High Professor of Flight were clearly visible on the piece of yellow parchment. He undid it and read it through:
Dear Quove,
This is to confirm that, as arranged, Nate Quarter and his nephew, Cade, are about to be dispatched.
Expect delivery in three days.
Yours, Danton C.
Brock nodded grimly. ‘You did well, Stark,’ he said. ‘This changes everything.’
The message, he realized, ti
ed in with the third piece of information that Brock had recently received: that Danton Clore was about to launch the first of his newly upgraded cloudcruisers. Now Brock knew where that maiden voyage was bound.
The weeks of patient watching and waiting were finally over. It was time for Brock to act.
But he couldn’t do it all on his own …
As the moon set and, one by one, the stars flickered and dissolved into the lightening sky, Brocktinius Rolnix crept closer to the rusting hulk. It was the wreck of a phraxship from the Great Glade fleet, brought down in the battle over Undergarden.
Its cavernous upended hull, embedded in the earth, had been turned into a makeshift prison. The entrance was a walkway which led up to the jagged remains of the wheelhouse. The phraxchamber had been removed and replaced with a timber stockade, from which gantries led off to cell doors cut into the port and starboard bows.
Six black-uniformed guards – Knights of the Tallow – were lounging around by the phraxgun emplacement on the foredeck, their faces glowing in the light of a blazing brazier. By the smell of it, they were roasting hammelhorn steaks. Brock recognized quite a few of them: mistsifters, raintasters and fogprobers from the academies of Sky Studies.
His lip curled with contempt as he unclipped his long-barrelled phraxmusket.
These were, and always had been, the most awkward academics at the refectory tables. They had loudly opposed descending and were always out for whatever personal power they could gain. During the sky battle, they had been ready to surrender the floating city to Great Glade – and some of them had even been killed doing just that. Not that the others had learned their lesson. Since the victory of the tallow-hats, they had eagerly joined Danton Clore’s Knights of the Tallow.
Right now, the six of them were concentrating on little else but filling their bellies before the dawn guard came to relieve them. A faint pink glow was already streaking the eastern horizon. Brock didn’t have much time.