Freeglader: Third Book of Rook

by Paul Stewart

  ‘The mist-sifting towers of the School of Mist,’ breathed Rook.

  There was no doubt about it. He'd seen them in the ancient barkscrolls. Somehow, he was standing looking out over old Sanctaphrax…

  Rook shivered again, this time violently. It was suddenly icy cold, and he was in a great circular space, buildings towering above him on all sides. Snow was falling. It fluttered down in large feathery flakes, covering every walkway, every rooftop, every road. Giant icicles hung from the eaves and sills. Looking up, Rook saw the youth again, at the top of what seemed to be the tallest tower of them all, so high above the ground it made Rook reel with dizziness just to watch him.

  With one hand he gripped the balustrade; with the other, the hand of a girl as she dangled precariously over the edge. Clouds of condensation billowed from her lips, as she screamed and Rook could see her mouth forming three little words, over and over.

  ‘Save yourself, Quint!’

  But the snow got thicker and heavier, a great white blinding blizzard, until all at once it obliterated everything from sight…

  Then Rook heard sobbing. Quiet, muffled sobbing. The dappled sunlight dazzled him for a moment but, as he shielded his eyes and looked around him, Rook realized that he was in the Deepwoods, and that the sobbing was coming from a stooped figure on a path, just ahead of him.

  His instinct was to approach and ask what the matter was. But something made him hang back. The figure seemed so distraught, so inconsolable as it hugged a small bundle and swayed backwards and forwards, its heavy hooded cloak flapping. Just then, a tall sky pirate brushed past him and approached the figure. Rook heard sharp words and urgent whispers, and the sobbing grew louder.

  Suddenly, the sobbing figure knelt down, and placed the bundle gently at the foot of a tree, before straightening up. Its hood fell back and Rook glimpsed a gaunt, dark-eyed face. The sobbing stopped. The sky pirate held out a hand and the cloaked figure took it and, as Rook watched, they walked silently away, not once looking back. Curious, Rook approached the foot of the tree and looked down at the bundle. He gasped.

  It was a baby! A small baby, wrapped up in square of cloth, intricately embroidered with the picture of a lullabee tree. Its dark eyes stared back at him.

  A sound made Rook look up, and with a jolt of surprise, he noticed a wooden cabin nestling in the branches of the tree above. Its circular door was opening. In the trees all around him, other small, rounded cabins were secured to the upper branches, purple smoke coiling from pipe-chimneys, and lights appearing at windows.

  A stocky woodtroll-matron emerged from the door and climbed down the lufwood tree, huffing and puffing. Reaching the ground, she let out a shriek of surprise, before picking the bundle up. Rook felt a warm surge of love replace the icy chill in his chest. Before him, the woodtroll mother cradled the foundling, whispering sweet lullabies and tickling him under his chin. The baby cooed with delight…

  The light faded and Rook was in the depths of the Deepwoods once more, tramping on through the night, his legs aching and his feet hurting. He was alone and without hope.

  Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he found himself looking up into a kind, gentle face. It was the cloaked figure, but instead of the sky pirate with her, she was surrounded by young'uns of every description. Mobgnomes, cloddertrogs and red-haired individuals who hadn't yet turned termagant; woodtrolls, lugtrolls, gabtrolls and goblin young'uns from each major tribe; hammerhead and long-haired, lop-eared and tusked.

  They were happy, and so was she, her eyes burning with joy. Rook found himself laughing and dancing in the sunlight in the midst of the throng of young'uns. They were beside a lake – one of three, stretched out in a line – with a towering cave-studded cliff behind them and a tall, imposing ironwood glade far to their left. And as they danced in a big circle – laughing and singing – the cloaked figure looked on, a huge spindlebug by her side…

  The sounds of laughter faded and were replaced by beautiful music and turquoise light.

  He was in a lullabee grove, not in a cocoon high in the branches, but on the forest floor. Suddenly, all round him, he could hear thrashing and tearing and muffled cries. And he looked up to see a majestic bird standing on one of the branches, high above his head. Beside it, the cocoon from which it had just hatched swayed emptily in the gentle breeze.

  It was a caterbird.

  It preened its violet-black feathers and scratched at its snowy white chest with long, jagged talons for a moment. Then, turning its head to one side, it looked down, and fixed him with a long, unblinking stare.

  Rook stared back at it and felt his head begin to spin under its hypnotic gaze…

  The next moment, Rook became conscious of beating wings, and the air whistling past. To his right and left, huge black wings pumped up and down, up and down, driving him on through the air. Below him, the forest canopy flashed past – greens, blues, yellows – an ocean of foliage.

  He was a caterbird! It was his wings beating; his beak open wide and his strange echoing cry.

  Looking back over his shoulder, he saw a sky ship, with its billowing sails and sparkling varnished masts and hull soaring through the air behind him. And no wonder, he realized a moment later, for it was attached to a rope tied around his middle.

  He was pulling the magnificent sky ship across the sky!

  He opened his beak and gave another triumphant cry. The young sky pirate captain at the helm waved and shouted in reply. Rook turned back and flapped his wings, soaring ahead, resplendent against the sparkling sky.

  But wait! What was that up ahead? A vast, swirling vortex of cloud and wind was hurtling towards him, and there was nothing he could do. He and the sky ship were heading straight for it.

  The next instant, the vortex enfolded them and Rook felt himself falling, no longer a bird, but a librarian knight once more, his arms flapping uselessly in the rushing air. Down, down he fell; down into inky darkness…

  Flames flickered around him. Lamps gleamed. He was sitting at a long table, spiky, red-haired slaughterers jostling him from either side, and a huge brazier of burning leadwood in front of him. The table groaned with tilder sausages, hammelhorn steaks, latticed tarts and huge, dripping pies. Tankards of woodale were raised and toasts loudly proposed. The warm air was full of delicious smells and hearty laughter. A sky pirate was getting married to a pretty slaughterer lass, and this was their wedding feast.

  Rook slapped the table delightedly and joined in the singing. The woodale was delicious and the brazier fire wonderfully warm, and Rook felt his head begin to swim…

  The sounds of merry-making faded. It was quiet in the slaughterer village, the hammocks overhead bulging with sleeping bodies. On the other side of the clearing, Rook could see the sky pirate captain pacing outside one of the leadwood cabins.

  All at once, the thick hammelhornskin which hung across the doorway was swept apart, and a slaughterer matron emerged, her shock of red hair damp and sticking to her forehead. In her arms, she held a small baby, which she handed gently to the waiting captain.

  ‘Your daughter, Captain,’ she said, smiling.

  And as the sky pirate captain raised the child high up in the air, waves of joy flooded Rook's heart.

  He wanted to shout and dance and jump in the air! But the village was so quiet, he was afraid he'd wake the sleepers overhead. He was about to get up to run over to the captain – but the trees abruptly faded and the light turned from the crisp blue of dawn to the golden glow of dusk…

  Rook was back in the Free Glades, on the edge of New Undertown, the Lufwood Tower dark against the glowing sky. A young couple with a young'un beside them were seated at the front of a prowlgrin-drawn cart, their belongings at the back, secured beneath a bulging tarpaulin.

  A sky pirate stood beside them; a tall, heavily-built individual with a thick beard and dark, doleful eyes. Clearly agitated, the pirate was waving his arms around, remonstrating with the young couple, trying to stop them from leaving the
Free Glades and setting out on their journey. He seemed desperate.

  ‘It isn't safe,’ he kept saying. ‘The slavers are out.’

  But they wouldn't listen. Instead, the young couple smiled indulgently, bounced the young'un on their knees and told him to ‘kiss goodbye to Great Uncle Tem'.

  As they rode away into the sunset, the sky pirate stared after them, tears streaming down his face – a face Rook was sure he'd seen somewhere before.

  The sun set and the moon rose, and Rook felt his stomach give a sickening lurch…

  It was the old dream, the nightmare that had recurred all through his childhood from as long ago as he could remember. Now, it was back again – and with all its familiar horror.

  First came the wolves – always the wolves. White-collared, bristling and baying, their terrible yellow eyes flashing in the dark forest.

  His father was shouting for him to hide; his mother was screaming. Rook didn't know what to do. He was running this way, that way. Everywhere were flashing yellow eyes and the sharp, barked commands of the slave-takers.

  Rook whimpered. He knew what came next, and it was worse – far worse.

  He was alone in the dark woods. The howling of the slavers' wolf-packs was receding into the distance. Alone in the vastness of the Deepwoods – and something was coming towards him. Something huge…

  Suddenly Rook felt the panic and terror leave him, to be replaced by a feeling of peace. He was in the huge, soft, moss-scented arms of a great banderbear, who hugged him to herself and yodelled gently in his ear…

  Rook opened his eyes, the warm, safe feeling of the banderbear's enfolding arms lingering. He was inside the caterbird cocoon, the soft woven fibres holding him as securely as the rescuing creature of his dreams.

  Sitting up, he felt wonderful. His head was clear and, for the first time in weeks, he felt fully rested; charged with a strength and energy he could feel coursing through his body. As he crawled towards the opening in the cocoon and stuck his head out, the images were already fading away, like water slipping between his fingers. He struggled to make sense of them as he looked around.

  An early morning mist hung over the grove as Rook climbed down the gnarled trunk of the lullabee tree. On the ground, he stretched luxuriantly.

  ‘I trust you slept well, Rook Barkwater,’ Grailsooth's voice sounded beside him.

  ‘Better,’ said Rook, smiling back at the oakelf, his eyes no longer glowing unnaturally blue, ‘than I have ever slept before!’

  • CHAPTER TWELEVE •

  PASSWORDS

  i

  The Foundry Glades

  As the sun sank low in the sky, a ragged band of sky pirates struggled to the crest of yet another densely forested ridge. Their leader, a weasel-faced quartermaster in a torn and muddied greatcoat, unhooked a telescope from his belt and put it to his eye. In front of him, the endless Deepwoods stretched away to the golden, cloud-flecked horizon.

  You might as well put your telescope away, Quillet Pleeme, a quiet, sibilant voice sounded in the quartermaster's head. It might have served you well in the Mire, but it is almost useless here in the Deepwoods.

  The quartermaster turned, anger plain on his thin, sharp features. Beside him, gasping for breath, stood a huge matron – a cloddertrog – with a small, frail-looking ghost-waif strapped to her back. The waif's barbels quivered as he fixed the quartermaster with an unblinking stare.

  ‘If you have something to say, Amberfuce,’ said Quillet Pleeme, ‘then say it out loud, instead of sneaking into my head.’ Ever since he and his sky pirates had hooked up with the sickly waif and his huge nurse back in the throng of Undertowners in the Mire, the odious creature had been listening in to his thoughts.

  ‘Apologies,’ whispered Amberfuce meekly. ‘But I simply wanted to point out that sight is less important than the other senses here in the Deepwoods.’

  The other sky pirates joined them on the ridge, sweating profusely and blowing hard from the long climb. There was a heavily tattooed flat-head goblin, three thin, ill-looking gnokgoblins, a long-haired goblin and a couple of mobgnomes, all of them wearing heavy sky pirate coats festooned with weapons, canteens and grappling-irons. Together they had formed the crew of the Fogscythe before they had deserted their captain – a cloddertrog in a muglumpskin coat – and followed Quillet Pleeme.

  Amberfuce, the waif, had promised them all riches beyond their wildest dreams, for they – every last one of them – were going to be Furnace Masters in the Foundry Glades. Amberfuce had promised them, and he would deliver on his promise because he knew someone; a very important someone.

  That someone was Hemuel Spume, the head of the whole Foundry Glades. All they had to do, Amberfuce had explained, his eyes twinkling, was to escort him and his nurse to the Foundry Glades and then sit back and reap the rewards from a grateful Hemuel Spume.

  How difficult could that be?

  The sky pirates had soon found out. Sneaking away from the multitude of Undertowners as they trudged through the Mire had been easy. Even with Flambusia Flodfox, Amberfuce's nurse, carrying the ghostwaif on her back, complaining loudly and slowing them down, they'd made good progress. They were used to the Mire and mud-marching, and once they'd crossed back over the shattered Mire Road, they'd arrived at the southern Edgelands in less than a day.

  The Edgelands had been unpleasant, and all of them were plagued with visions and nightmarish apparitions – especially the ghostwaif, before Flambusia had given him some of her special medicine. But again they'd made good progress, and the journey really did seem to be as straightforward as Amberfuce had said it would be. And then they had entered the Deepwoods.

  They'd lost Brazerigg to a logworm almost at once, and the gnokgoblins had come down with pond-fever soon after, forcing them to pitch camp for a week. Now their provisions were running out, and the way ahead lay over endless forest ridges which stretched off as far as the eye could see.

  ‘There must be an easier route,’ Myzewell the flat-head had moaned on the third day of hard climbing and bone-jolting descents.

  The way to riches is never easy, my friend, Amberfuce's sibilant whisper had sounded in his head.

  Now, on the fourth day, here they all stood, tired and hungry, at the top of yet another ridge with the Foundry Glades still nowhere in sight.

  ‘Where now?’ Quillet Pleeme snarled, snapping his telescope shut.

  The ghostwaif closed his eyes and sniffed the air, his huge, paper-thin ears quivering. ‘I can hear clinking and clanking,’ he whispered. ‘Grinding and hissing, hammering and howling. I smell molten metal and furnace smoke.’ He stretched out a long thin finger. ‘Over there, just beyond the next ridge, my friends…’ His hand trembled, and a harsh cough racked his tiny body.

  ‘That's what you said two days ago,’ snarled Myzewell the flat-head.

  ‘There, there, Amby, dear,’ fussed Flambusia, throwing a blanket over her shoulder. ‘You wrap up warm, and don't go getting into a bother.’

  Quillet shrugged and turned to the other sky pirates. ‘We've come this far. What's another hill or two, between friends? Come on, you scurvy curs! Look lively!’

  Cursing beneath their breath, the sky pirates began the long descent into the growing dusk. As Myzewell started after them, Quillet pulled him back and, glancing up ahead at the figure of Flambusia disappearing down the slope, whispered in his ear.

  ‘I've had enough of this. I, for one, think the waif's lost. One more ridge. If we get to the top and we don't see furnace chimneys, then we cut our losses and return to the Mire.’

  ‘But what about the waif and his nurse?’ growled Myzewell.

  ‘We ditch them. We'll travel more quickly, and there'll be two less mouths to feed.’ The quartermaster drew a hand across his throat in a cutting motion. ‘Wait for me to give the word,’ he whispered. ‘And mind you keep your thoughts clear, or the waif'll suspect something.’

  ‘And the word?’ said Myzewell, giving a sharp-toothed grin.


  ‘“Goodbye”,’ said Quillet quietly.

  Five, hard, scrambling, bone-jarring hours later, the sky pirates wearily approached the crest of the next ridge. The slope had been heavily forested, with sharp thickets of razorthorns amid dense stands of greyoaks and flametrees. Several times, as the thorns ripped their coats and the branches scratched their faces, Quillet and Myzewell exchanged dark looks. At last they reached the top, and Quillet's mouth dropped open.

  It was the smell that hit them first. Thick, acrid and choking smoke, mixed with a sulphurous metallic stench. Then the low insistent roar of the furnaces and the sound of thousands of hammers on metal. Looking down, Quillet could see the glowing fires of the Foundry Glades twinkling through the drifting wreaths of smoke.

  Amberfuce turned to the open-mouthed quartermaster, a slyly knowing look on his face. You have something to say, perhaps? he asked, his sibilant voice hissing in Quillet's head. No? Well then, let us make our way to my good friend Hemuel Spume's palace without delay.

  As they made their way down the hill towards the glades below, the noise and smell and choking smoke grew more and more intense. Ahead of them, the trees thinned until they found themselves picking their way through a forest of tree-stumps. The air grew hot and sooty, and instead of tall forest trees, the glowing metal foundry chimneys towered over them, belching out smoke.

  Amberfuce pulled his scarf up over his mouth. His breath was coming fast and wheezy. Flambusia fussed with him anxiously, reaching up every few steps to pop a cough-lozenge into his mouth.

  They approached the first furnace they came to, and Quillet's beady eyes narrowed. A long line of workers snaked from the huge timber stacks on one side of the furnace to its open fiery mouth on the other. With heavy groans of exertion, they fed the flames with an endless supply of logs passed by hand down the line, while overseers patrolled, cracking heavy tilderleather whips. The sky pirates looked at one another.