by Paul Stewart
As the winch turned, the chain chinked and the cage sank down below the landing-stage, a hulking great figure with a deep scar down one side of his face stepped out of the shadows. It was Bagswill, a flat-head goblin guard who had been observing the Most High Academe and his new young apprentice with growing interest ever since they'd arrived.
As the low-sky cage disappeared from view, Bagswill pulled a length of thick twine from his side pocket. This was his remembering-rope. In his head, he went over everything he had seen and heard. Linius Pallitax. The apprentice. He noted the time, the place, the weather … and with each detail he committed to memory, so he tied a knot in the remembering-rope. Later on, the knots would help him recall everything that had taken place. The information would be sold to the highest bidder.
At first, with the length of chain so short, there was little Quint could do to steer the cage. As it descended, however, and the unwinding winch-chain above them grew longer, the buoyant-rock came into its own and Quint was able to make use of the intricate controls. With nimble fingers he responded to Linius's instructions to go lower, or further to the right, or closer to the rock with no difficulty at all.
‘Admirable, Quint!’ he exclaimed. ‘Sky above, lad, it would have taken me half an hour to perform that little manoeuvre.’
‘It's just a matter of developing the touch,’ said Quint modestly. ‘Leastways, that's what my father says.’ He turned to the professor. ‘I don't suppose he has sent word since dropping me off in Sanctaphrax, has he?’ he said.
‘Your father?’ said Linius Pallitax absentmindedly, as the cage swung round and the pitted surface of the floating rock loomed up before him. ‘No. No, he hasn't. And I don't expect…’
All at once, he lunged forwards and wrenched at the brake-lever. The low-sky cage came to a juddering halt, and keeled over ominously to one side. Quint clung on to the bars for dear life.
‘What did you do that for?’ he yelled, forgetting for a moment whom he was talking to. His hands darted feverishly over the levers – raising this one, lowering that – until the cage was upright and stable once more. ‘I'm sorry, Professor, but this cage is old and delicate. It must be treated gently.’ He paused. ‘Shall we continue?’
Linius shook his head. ‘This is as far as we go,’ he said.
Quint was confused. The cage was hanging beside the great rock itself.
Just this week at the Fountain House school, Quint had been learning all about the sky around Sanctaphrax. It was, for academic purposes, divided into three areas.Low Sky was the area which lay between Sanctaphrax and Undertown; the cages were used to study it. High Sky was the area above the top of the floating rock; the tall towers of the sky-scholars probed this expanse. And then there was the sky around the rock itself, neither low nor high. He wasn't sure who studied here.
‘This is Middle Sky, isn't it?’ he said.
‘Indeed it is,’ said Linius. ‘And Middle Sky is an area of especial interest, my lad, if my esteemed colleagues did but know it. Oh, I know it's not fashionable these days, but here in Middle Sky, the air flows through this immense rock of ours.’ The professor had a faraway look in his eyes. ‘There are great mysteries to be answered here,’ he said. ‘The old earth-scholars knew that.’ He pointed to a semi-circular patch to his right, darker than the rest of the pitted surface. ‘Can you steer the cage closer to that?’
‘I'll try,’ said Quint.
He raised the winch-chain and realigned the weight-levers. The cage swung gently several strides to the right. As the patch of darkness got closer, Quint saw that there was a small hole in the side of the rock. When they were parallel with it, the professor abruptly reached through the bars and grabbed hold of a jutting outcrop of rock beside the hole and, with expert hands, used it to secure the cage with a tolley-rope. Clearly he'd done this many times before. He turned to Quint.
‘Right,’ he said, climbing from his seat and unhooking the lantern. ‘There is something I must now do. Alone. You will wait for me until I return. You will not move from here. Is that clear?’
‘Yes,’ said Quint, ‘but…’
‘There is no time for questions now,’ the professor said, opening the door of the cage and scrambling out onto a ledge of rock at the entrance to what Quint could now see was a tunnel running into the great rock itself. ‘I shall be back as quickly as possible.’ With that, he ducked down and disappeared into the inky blackness.
Quint watched the yellow light and listened to the professor's scurrying feet and tapping stave as he hurried along the tunnel. The light faded and vanished. A moment later, the sound of footsteps was also gone.
If it hadn't been for the bell chiming the hour at the top of the Great Hall, Quint would have had no idea of the time. As it was, shortly after the professor had disappeared, a single muffled chime echoed through the air. It was one hour. By the time it chimed two Quint had had enough.
For a start, he was bitterly cold. As forecasted by the cloudwatchers, the temperature had dropped and a light, granular snow had begun to fall. Despite his cape, Quint was chilled to the bone. He tried flapping his arms around, hugging himself, kicking his legs up and down – but no amount of movement in the restricted space of the sky cage could warm his body or stop his teeth from chattering. And as he trembled, tiny vibrations amplified themselves through the cage and up the chain until the whole lot rippled with movement. Quint peered down below him uneasily.
Having grown up on a sky pirate ship he was used to heights, but this was different. On board the Galerider he had always had complete faith in the flight-rock which, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, would maintain lift in even the most serious emergency. The buoyant-rock of the low-sky cage, on the other hand, seemed to be little more than a steering aid – certainly it was nowhere near large enough to keep the cage air-borne. That task was left to the chain – and a very ancient chain it was! The way it clanked and creaked as the cage swayed was making Quint increasingly anxious.
‘Don't break,’ he muttered miserably. ‘D … don't even c… c… consid … der it!’ he stuttered, with cold and with fear. To take his mind off the old rusty chain to which he'd entrusted himself, he tried thinking about his old life…
He imagined his father, Wind Jackal, sinking a glass of woodgrog and turning in for the night. He remembered his own hammock – how soft it was, how warm…
‘I'm so cold!’ he grumbled.
He turned his attention to the pitted rockface in front of him. It was the first time he'd been this close. In essence, the great floating rock was exactly the same as the flight-rocks which kept the fleets of sky ships aloft, and even the small buoyant-rock of the cage. Except for its immense size.
Wilken Wordspool's lesson at the Fountain House school came back to him. What was it he'd said? Ah, yes. The outer rock was not as solid as it seemed, but was hollow, translucent. At its centre was the hard rock. Red. Glowing … What had Wordspool called it? Quint frowned.
‘Heartrock,’ he murmured. That was it. Solid, permanent, and home to the treasury – the safest, most secret place in all of Sanctaphrax. Around it was … Quint shivered as the word came to him. There was the stonecomb.
The stonecomb – a vast network of cavities like wood-bee honeycomb – surrounded the heartrock. Alive, growing all the time, ever-changing, it was this stonecomb that gave the rock its buoyancy. But it was a terrible place, the old sky-scholar had warned the class. A place of terrors. A maze that changed behind you each time you took a step forward. Sky-scholars don't go there, Wilken had intoned solemnly.
And why would one want to? Quint had thought at the time. Yet, here he was, freezing cold and staring glumly at an entrance into what must be the dreaded stonecomb. Was he mad? He stamped his feet. The chain gave an ominous clang. More to the point, was the Most High Academe mad?
‘If only I could go back to bed,’ he whispered, his thick breath pouring from his lips. But the professor had been clear in his instructions. Quint was to wait for
him to return. He was not to move.
The Great Hall bell chimed three hours.
The snow had by now stopped falling. Quint's hands and feet were numb. His temples throbbed. If it hadn't been for the burning lamp, he might have frozen solid. His thoughts had wandered so far, he was no longer thinking of anything at all. It was as if – like some of the hibernating creatures from the least hospitable depths of the Deepwoods – his body and mind had been switched off.
Quint didn't notice the bell chime four hours. He didn't register the flickering light in the tunnel, or hear the sound of approaching footsteps. It was only when the professor appeared before him, kicking the drifted snow away from the ledge as he emerged, that Quint stirred. He blinked once, twice. His long cold wait was finally over.
‘Professor,’ he said. ‘Am I glad to see you. I was beginning to worry that …’ He paused. Even by the flickering shadowy light cast by his failing lamp, it was clear that something was wrong. Ashen-faced and trembling, Linius looked dazed, drained. ‘Professor?’ Quint asked gently.
‘Over … it's all over,’ Linius Pallitax rasped. His voice, like his face, seemed to have aged during the time he'd been gone.
Quint unlatched the door and helped the professor back inside the cage. As the light from the cage-lamp fell across his face, Quint gasped and recoiled with horror. Linius's mouth was pinched, his expression desperate and his skin bore the waxy pallor of the dead. His eyes – usually so animated – stared straight ahead, dull and unseeing. They registered nothing – neither his surroundings, nor Quint's helpless concern.
Quint knew he had to get the professor back to the Palace of Shadows as quickly as possible and get help. Tweezel would know what to do. Welma would have potions and medicines, he was sure. And Maris would …Quint winced. Maris! What would Maris say? He could only hope that she did not blame him, Quint, for her father's condition.
Quint tried to think clearly. He must move fast, but carefully. He knew he could not simply turn the winch handle once the hook and tolley-ropes had been released. It could jam or even sever the chain. No, before he went up, he would have to go down further, to dislodge any frozen blockage around the pulley wheels. With the buoyant-rock ice cold and straining to rise, that would be difficult.
‘You can do it,’ he muttered to himself through clenched teeth as he slipped the knots of the tolley-rope. ‘We can do it,’ he added, as he used the rope to lash the professor into his seat – just in case. Linius Pallitax neither struggled nor spoke. ‘That's it,’ said Quint. ‘Now, if I can just untie us and at the same time …’
All at once, the low-sky cage gave a violent lurch as it tried to soar upwards. The professor clung on tightly. Quint spun round and lowered the entire fore-set of levers with a sweep of his arm. It was a brutal way to treat the delicate balancing mechanism – but it worked. Instead of rising, the cage fell sharply as it swung back away from the rock face. A flurry of snow and a clatter of ice tumbled down around them.
Quint wanted to yell for joy, but he fought to remain calm. He had to concentrate. With the winding-winch now free, he seized the pulley-wheel and turned it and turned it, as fast as he could. The cage rose. The rock receded. The landing-stage drew closer…
If Quint had been too cold before, now he was too hot. However, he waited until he had untied the professor and secured the low-sky cage to its moorings before wiping the sweat from his eyes.
‘Come on, then, Professor,’ he said, helping Linius from the cage and onto the relatively solid ground of Sanctaphrax. He pushed the traumatized professor's almost rigid arm over his own shoulder and supported his weight, and the pair of them made their way back along the wooden boards of the landing-stage. ‘Not far to go,’ Quint whispered. ‘Soon be there.’
But what could possibly have happened down there in the stonecomb to leave the professor in such a terrible state?
Quint wasn't the only one wondering what was wrong with Linius Pallitax, the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax. For, as the pair of them stumbled past, Bagswill once again stepped out of the shadows. ‘The Most High Academe in obvious distress,’ he murmured, and tied a knot in the remembering-rope. ‘Pale. Dazed. Assisted by apprentice…’
He tied another knot, and looked up to see Linius leaning heavily against the young apprentice. A smile spread across his heavy features.
‘Investigate apprentice!’
· CHAPTER SEVEN ·
THE FOUNTAIN
HOUSE
In the event, neither Maris nor Welma appeared when Quint and the professor made it back to the Palace of Shadows. Only Tweezel – whose acute hearing woke him up the moment they stepped into the hallway – came down to greet them.
‘Oh, master,’ he trilled when he clapped eyes on Linius. His antennae waved wildly. ‘You look dreadful! What in Sky's name has happened to you this time?’
Quint frowned. ‘You mean this has happened before?’ ‘I've never seen him looking this bad,’ said Tweezel. ‘But, yes.’ He nodded his huge, angular head. ‘Yes, he has returned from his night-time jaunts in a sorry state on more than one occasion.’ He tutted. ‘Accursed sky cages,’ he complained. ‘He's going to kill himself one of these nights. I keep telling him to take a low-cage puller with him but he won't listen…’
Quint said nothing. Perhaps it was better if Tweezel thought that the professor's condition was in some way connected to the sky cage. It spared him all sorts of awkward questions, like why an apprentice had allowed his professor to go into the stonecomb, of all places, on his own – and then stood for hours in the freezing night without going in to look for him.
The spindlebug tutted sympathetically as he inspected the professor's trembling body. ‘Curious,’ he observed, and turned back to Quint. ‘What do you know about this?’
‘Nothing,’ said Quint, truthfully enough. ‘I…’
Linius stirred. ‘Over,’ he murmured. ‘And it's all my fault…’
‘Aye, well,’ said Tweezel, turning to the professor. ‘I'll have to get one of my most efficacious cordials out of the larder. Hyleberry perhaps. Or healwort … And then get him to bed. He looks totally exhausted.’ The spindle-bug's eyes narrowed. ‘As do you, Quint.’
‘I am,’ said Quint. ‘Shattered!’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘What is the time?’
‘Approaching five hours,’ said Tweezel.
Quint groaned. ‘And school at six,’ he said wearily.
‘Look, I'll take care of the master now,’ said the spindlebug considerately. ‘You go and grab yourself a bit of shut-eye. After all, one hour's sleep is better than none.’
‘True,’ said Quint wearily. What with the night in the Great Library and the night in the low-sky cage, snatched naps were all the sleep he was getting. He turned to go. As he did so, the spindlebug reached out and grasped him by the shoulder.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘not a word of this to anyone outside the Palace of Shadows. Is that understood?’
Quint nodded. He'd been in Sanctaphrax long enough by now to know the importance of minding what one said. Rumours, however unfounded, could and often did prove perilous – even fatal. As Welma had so neatly put it, One loose tongue can still many a beating heart.
‘My lips shall remain sealed,’ he promised.
Still fully dressed, Quint collapsed onto his bed and fell into a deep yet troubled sleep the moment his head touched the pillow. Time and again, he dreamt he was falling – from the top of the Central Viaduct; from the ladder-ways high up in the vaulted ceiling of the Great Library; off bridges, out of baskets, from the low-sky cage – arms flailing, legs pedalling. Yet not once did he land. Every time, just before the moment of impact, the dream would shift to a new location as if, even in his sleep, Quint knew that once he struck the ground, his heart would stop.
It was during the fall from the West Landing that Quint realized – as dreamers sometimes do – that he was in the middle of a recurring nightmare. He'd been peering into the shadows, convinced that someone was t
here, when all of a sudden and without any warning a white-collar woodwolf had sprung at him. Its yellow eyes glinted. Its yellow teeth sparkled.
‘No,’ he groaned as he stepped back, lost his footing and began the long, tumbled fall to the ground far, far below him. ‘It's not happening,’ he gasped. ‘Wake up, Quint. Wake up!’
He opened his eyes.
A grey light was streaming through the unshuttered windows. The bell at the top of the Great Hall was chiming. Quint looked round. It was seven hours, and he was late for school. Wilken Wordspool would be furious.
‘Oh, Maris!’ he exclaimed, as he leapt out of bed. ‘Why didn't you wake me?’
Having quickly splashed his face with water from the wash-bowl and run his fingers through his hair, Quint dashed off. He skidded down the flights of stairs, across the marble hallway and out through the front door. To his surprise, the weather had changed completely. The temperature had risen, and the snowfall had given way to torrential rain.
Collar up and head down, Quint barrelled past the Faculty of Moisture and on towards the school building. And as he rounded the Patriot's Plinth, there it was standing before him: the Fountain House.
Quint gasped in amazement. It was the first time since he'd arrived in Sanctaphrax that he had seen the Fountain House in all its glory. Now, at last, he could see why all the other apprentice-students in his class called it the Holey Bucket, for in the heavy downpour that was exactly what it looked like – a huge bucket full of holes out of which flowed streams of water.
‘It's incredible,’ he murmured.
At the very top of the building was a huge bowl-shaped structure which all but sheltered the entire dome below it. It was in this bowl that the rain collected. If the rainfall was light, the bowl served as a makeshift bird-bath to the white ravens that lived in the Stone Gardens. When the rainfall was heavy, as it was today, the bowl filled and a valve in its base sprang open. Then the collected water would flow down inside the dome itself, along a series of pipes and out through gushing spouts which sent mighty cascades of water thundering down into the ornamental moat, complete with its collection of pink and green birdfish, which surrounded the building. It was truly a magnificent sight.