by Paul Stewart
It wasn’t until late afternoon on the second day that they stumbled across the next crew-member in a seedy inn. At first he looked the least likely of them all, a stocky red-faced slaughterer, drunk at the bar and weeping into his woodale. But Woodfish was adamant. ‘There is sorrow in his head, but his heart is good. What’s more, he understands the rudiments of skysailing. Go and speak with him, captain’
In the conversation that followed Twig discovered that the slaughterer’s name was Tarp - Tarp Hammelherd - and that he had come to Undertown in search of his brother, Tendon, who had run a small lucky-charm business. That evening, not two hours since, he’d learned that Tendon was dead, blown up in some stupid accident with stormphrax because he was thirsty.
‘And it’s not right,’ he wailed.
Woodfish was correct. Tarp Hammelherd’s heart was good and, having calmed him down, Twig offered him ten gold pieces and a place on the Edgedancer. Tarp accepted.
‘Forgive me,’ came a strident voice from behind them. ‘But am I correct in understanding that you are looking for crew-members. If that is the case, then look no further.’
Twig turned round. The person before him was thin yet wiry, with a pinched and pointed face, a hooked nose and small, sticking-out ears. ‘And you are?’ he asked.
‘Wingnut Sleet’ he replied. ‘The finest quartermaster this side of the sky’
Twig glanced at Woodfish, but the scaly eavesdropper merely shrugged.
‘I have a head for heights, a mind for numbers and an eye for a bargain’ he announced, his restless blue eyes glinting behind steel glasses.
‘I … I … Wait a moment’ said Twig, and took Woodfish aside. ‘Well?’ he whispered.
‘I’m not sure, captain. Certainly, every word he spoke was the truth. And yet. I don’t know … there is something. Something pent-up about him. Something that might snap at any moment or never at all.’
Twig sighed, exasperated. ‘We could go on searching like this for ever’ he complained. ‘And this Sleet character sounds good. If we take him on then We’ve got ourselves a complete crew.’ He glanced out of the window. ‘We could go to Mother Horsefeather at once.’ He tipped the final ten pieces of gold from the pouch and turned to Woodfish. ‘I’m going to take a chance on him.’
Woodfish nodded. ‘Your decision, captain’ he said. ‘Your decision.’
‘The Edgedancer is ready and awaits you somewhere safe’ Mother Horsefeather said. ‘But first, the secret.’
‘Ah, yes’ said Twig. ‘The secret.’ Mother Horsefeather drew closer as Twig pulled a crystal of stormphrax from his pocket and placed it on the table before him. ‘I mortar and pestle, if you please’ he said.
‘But … but…’ Mother Horsefeather clucked anxiously. ‘This is what everyone tries and you know what happens.’
Twig drummed his fingers impatiently. Mother Horsefeather fetched the mortar and pestle.
‘Thank you’ he said. ‘Now, observe. I place the crystal in the bottom, so. I raise the pestle and I wait.’
Feathers rustling, Mother Horsefeather stared at the youth as he whispered strange words under his breath.
‘What are you saying?’ she demanded. ‘Is it some kind of incantation?’
Far above them, the sonorous bell of the Great Hall tolled. Twig brought the pestle down. The stormphrax turned to phraxdust with no more than a fizz and a glimmer.
‘Yes, oh, yes!’ Mother Horsefeather exclaimed and wrapped her huge padded wings warmly around Twig. ‘Excellent. Excellent. But what were the words. You must tell me’
Twig laughed. ‘I was counting off the seconds’ he explained. ‘The secret is that stormphrax can only be turned safely to dust at the exact moment of true twilight. Not a moment before. Not a moment after’
‘Twilight is twilight as far as I’m concerned’ said Mother Horsefeather. ‘And it lasts a whole sight longer than a moment’
Twig smiled. ‘To you and me’ he said. ‘And yet to the Professor of Darkness, that fragment of time which separates light from darkness is as plain as … as the beak upon your face’
Mother Horsefeather clacked with irritation. ‘And how am I to determine that fragment of time?’
‘The Professor of Darkness will sound a bell every evening at the precise moment,’ he explained. ‘All you have to do is be ready’
The bird-woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘The Professor of Darkness?’ she said, suspiciously.
‘It’s not what you think,’ said Twig hurriedly. ‘He is doing it in celebration of my return from the Twilight Woods. He …’
‘If you have breathed a word of this to him, then our deal is off,’ Mother Horsefeather snapped. Her eyes glinted. ‘In fact,’ she said, ‘since you have already told me so much …’
Twig stood up abruptly from the table. ‘Consider how awful it would be if, one day, the bell rang either a moment too early or a moment too late,’ he said coldly. ‘I have kept my side of the bargain, Mother Horsefeather. My crew are waiting outside. Now I want my gold and my sky ship.’
Mother Horsefeather pulled a key from her apron and tossed it down on the table. ‘The boom-docks,’ she said. ‘Wharf 3. The gold is on board.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Twig. ‘Remember the bell.’
Mother Horsefeather clucked miserably. ‘It will be by the time you get there,’ she said.
The new crew fell in love with the Edgedancer the moment they clapped eyes on it.
‘She’s a beauty,’ Tarp Hammelherd gasped, ‘and no mistake.’
‘A diamond,’ murmured Sleet.
Twig beamed proudly as he stared up at the broad, white sails and criss-cross of spotless rigging. Together, they pulled the sky ship down the ramp-rollers, out of the ramshackle building and into the night. A full moon gleamed down on the polished masts and hull, on the silver lamps, on the burnished instruments and bone-handled levers.
‘All aboard,’ cried Twig, as he had heard his father cry so many times before. ‘Take to your posts.’
The sky pirates leaped to obey. Twig went to the bridge, gripped the helm and waited for the Stone Pilot to signal that the flight-rock was ready.
The signal came.
‘Unhitch the tolley-ropes,’ Twig shouted. ‘Raise the mainsail. Steady on the boom.’ The Edgedancer began to rise. Gently, Twig realigned the stern- and prow-weights. The bow rose and the sky ship soared up into the air.
Twig laughed for joy. The sky ship handled like a dream. Unlike the Windcutter. He lowered the port hull-weights and adjusted the mainsail a fraction. And yet, he thought as the sky ship glided obediently round to the left, had it not been for that perilous journey across the Mire and over the Edge in the crumbling sky ship, he would never have learnt to master the controls. Now, with the experience of the Windcutter behind him, flying the Edgedancer was a piece of pie.
As they swooped down low over the Bloodoak tavern, Twig saw Mother Horsefeather peering up at him from the doorway. ‘Tarp,’ he called. ‘Spooler. Start emptying the sacks.’
‘Aye aye, captain!’ they called back and, leaning over the back of the aft-deck, began throwing handful after handful of the envelopes to the air, where they fluttered, flapped and floated down to Undertown below. The sky pirates watched as the Undertowners ran this way and that in the oily, yellow lamplight, seizing up the curious folds of paper which had appeared as if from nowhere.
‘Begging your pardon, captain,’ said Tarp, as they circled the town for a second time. ‘But what exactly are we doing?’
Twig grinned as the Bloodoak tavern came back into view. ‘We are ending a monopoly’
‘Captain?’
‘Each envelope contains a crystal of stormphrax and instructions for the safe production of phraxdust. It was the only way I could make sure that everyone would have access to pure, clean water once again.’
‘Oh, I like that, captain,’ Tarp cried. ‘I like that a lot. That’s fair, that is. My brother, Tendon, would most definitely have approved.’
‘Which is more than can be said for Mother Horsefeather,’ Sleet observed. ‘She looks fit to explode.’
Twig laughed and replied to her clenched and shaking fists with a wave. ‘It was high time for that avaricious bird-woman to get her come-uppance,’ he said. ‘She’s ruled the Undertown roost for far too long.’ He glanced round. ‘How are those sacks coming along?’
‘Nearly done, captain,’ came the reply.
Twig smiled. He too was nearly done. With the stormphrax in place, the chain-building would cease, the pollution would stop and the Edgewater River would, once again, run clean enough to drink. The vicious circle gripping Sanctaphrax and Undertown was almost at an end.
As the last envelopes fluttered down, Twig turned the helm to port. It was time to sail away from Sanctaphrax, from Undertown. He raised the sails and lowered the stern-weights. The Edgedancer leapt forwards. And, with the wind gathering strength and singing in the rigging, Twig closed his eyes and threw back his head, giddy with elation.
He had done it! He had achieved what his father, Quintinius Verginix, had set out to do all those years earlier. Perhaps that was the way it was always meant to be … Who could tell?
Whatever, Twig had chased a Great Storm to the Twilight Woods in search of stormphrax and, although he had ultimately come by the sacred substance in a different place, come by it he certainly had. Having departed as a stowaway, he had returned as a captain victorious and triumphant. A hero.
The wind caressed his face and tousled his hair. Could there be anything more exhilarating than soaring across the endless expanse of blue? A broad grin spread across his face. No, nothing, he realized. Nothing in the world. After all, he had been born to it.
And at that moment Twig felt himself to be the most fortunate person who had ever lived.
‘Skysailing in my own sky ship’ he murmured, his chest bursting with pride. ‘The Edgedancer.’
All at once, the air around him became loud with a great wheezing and flapping of wings. He heard the sky pirates cry out in fear and alarm. Twig opened his eyes.
‘You!’ he exclaimed.
‘Indeed’ the caterbird replied, as it shifted round on the balustrade and thrust its beak forwards.
‘Are you all right, captain?’ came a voice. It was Tarp Hammelherd. ‘Or should I sink an arrow in the creature’s scraggy neck now.’
Twig spun round to see Tarp’s crossbow lowered and pulled. ‘Avast!’ he screamed. ‘All weapons down.’
The caterbird’s eyes swivelled round. ‘I fine welcome, Master Twig,’ it sniffed. ‘Yet perhaps it is in order, for I bring bad news.’
‘News? What news?’ Twig asked uneasily.
‘It is Cloud Wolf,’ it said. ‘Your father is in grave danger.’
‘Danger?’ said Twig anxiously.
‘The Great Storm never released him from its terrible grip,’ the caterbird explained. ‘When I last saw him, he was being carried off. I followed as far as I dared …’
‘Where to?’ said Twig.
‘Far from here. Too far.’
‘Not…’
The caterbird nodded. ‘Over the Edge, Twig. Farther than anyone has ever been before, deep deep into uncharted sky’
Twig stared ahead, heart thumping wildly. His father, out there, lost in the monstrous, misty wasteland beyond the Edge it was too appalling even to consider.
‘I must try to rescue him,’ he said resolutely.
‘It will be a perilous undertaking, Master Twig …’ the caterbird began.
‘Captain Twig,’ Twig interrupted stiffly. ‘And there are no perils great enough to keep me away. The Edgedancer is ready. The crew are ready. And so am I.’
‘Then we will set forth at once,’ said the caterbird.
Twig started with surprise. ‘We?’ he said. ‘Do you intend to travel with us?’
‘You were at my hatching’ the caterbird reminded him. ‘I am bound to watch over you always’ It sighed. ‘Sometimes I wish it were not so … But enough of all this. We must make haste. Find a rope. Tether one end to the bowsprit, the other round my belly. I will track your father across open sky’ It paused and shuddered. ‘It will mean flying further than even I have been before but I will lead you to him. Sky willing we will not be too late’
‘Sky willing’ Twig repeated softly. Then, without another word, he lowered the starboard hull-weights and shifted the rudder-wheel.
‘All set,’ cried the caterbird. It leapt up from the balustrade and flapped off ahead. As the tether grew tighter Twig pulled down hard on the helm. The Edgedancer leapt forwards.
With the caterbird in front, the sky ship sailed closer and closer to the Edge. Below it, the water of the Edgewater River fell abruptly away and cascaded down for ever through dark sky. The wind blew, the sails billowed and the Edgedancer soared out over the Edge and beyond.
‘Sky protect us’ Twig whispered. ‘Sky protect us all!’
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
PAUL STEWART is a well-established author of books for young readers — everything from picture books to football stories, fantasy and horror. Several of his books are published by Transworld, including The Wakening, which was selected as a Pick of the Year by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups.
CHRIS RIDDELL is an accomplished graphic artist who has illustrated many acclaimed books for children, including Something Else by Kathryn Cave (Viking), which was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Smarties Prize and won the Unesco Award. The Swan’s Stories by Brian Alderson (Walker) was shortlisted for the 1997 Kurt Maschler Award and, in 2000, Castle Diary (Walker Books) was also shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc., New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text and illustrations copyright © 1999 by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Originally published in Great Britain by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address David Fickling Books.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:
Stewart, Paul.
Stormchaser / by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.
p. cm. — (The edge chronicles)
Summary: In his continuing adventures, Twig, now sixteen years old, joins the crew of his father’s sky pirate ship and embarks on a dangerous mission to collect the powerful stormphrax, a substance that purifies water and also prevents the city of Sanctaphrax from floating away.
eISBN: 978-0-307-52248-1
[1. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 2. Fantasy.] I. Riddell, Chris. II. Title. III. Series.
PZ7.S84975St2004
[Fic]—dc22
2004005170
v3.0