Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals

by Paul Stewart;Chris Riddell

  ‘And did she ever find out what happened to her father?’

  ‘Alas, no,’ said the librarian scholar with a shake of his head. ‘But her son, Rook Barkwater, did …’

  ‘Rook Barkwater,’ breathed Nate, reaching up and feeling through the material of the high-buttoned jacket to the oval-shaped portrait that hung round his neck.

  ‘Yes, at the beginning of the Second Age,’ said Zelphyius. ‘Rook Barkwater met Twig and the pair of them sailed the last of the sky galleons together to old Undertown. Twig was mortally wounded and was last seen being carried away by a great caterbird over the horizon …’

  ‘To Riverrise?’ said Nate.

  ‘So the legend goes,’ said Zelphyius. ‘Certainly Rook always thought so, which is why he travelled to Riverrise many years later, only to disappear himself …’

  ‘I’d love to read that barkscroll,’ said Nate. ‘It sounds amazing.’

  ‘One day, Nate, I’ll show you round the Great Library,’ said Zelphyius. ‘But for now, we must make our descent to the Thorn Gate.’

  He turned back to the tiller, his face set in a mask of concentration that Nate had seen many times on their voyage. As the lakes came closer, Nate peered down from the sumpwood deck at the approaching settlements of Four Lakes. He could see the various inhabitants going about their business. There were groups of tusked webfoots mending their nets on the northern shores of the Shimmerer; seated white webfoots sharpening their harpoons beside the Lake of Cloud, while on the still waters of the Mirror of the Sky, three small coracles bobbed about the eel corrals – the great circular cork and rope enclosures which held the giant lake eels that the crested webfoots farmed. To their left were the huts they lived in, with their reed-thatched roofs and tall stilted platforms, which jutted out over the water.

  Behind the main settlement, and looking out of place in the lakeside setting, were the docking cradles – towering wooden structures with tall cranes, pivoting gantries and aerial jetties, each one with a phraxbarge moored to it. At the tiller, Zelphyius pulled hard on the sail ropes, which unfurled and collapsed as the skycraft suddenly rose steeply in the sky.

  Soon, the four great lakes were behind them. Riding the powerful air currents, the Varis Lodd sped across the sky, forest ridges and grassy plains passing below them in a blur of brown and green. The sun had by now passed its zenith and was dropping down through the sky before them. From the cabin at the stern, Nate heard the sound of Eudoxia moaning softly, and he was about to return to check on her once more – and see if he could get her to drink a little water – when Zelphyius Dax turned towards him, his face drawn and tense.

  ‘Secure the sails tightly, Nate,’ he said urgently, ‘and as quickly as you can. Then hold on fast and keep your head down. The skies over the thorn forests are unforgiving.’

  Nate hurried to do as the librarian scholar had instructed, before returning to the narrow deck, as the Varis Lodd began to buck and sway more violently than ever.

  Ahead of them, in the distance, the horizon was black, as if a curtain had fallen across the sky, and all around the skycraft there was the crackle of lightning and deep rumbles of thunder. At the tiller, his feet set wide apart, Zelphyius stared ahead, giving the movement of his skycraft his full attention as it swayed from side to side and rose and fell in dipping swoops. And, as he brought the vessel down lower, the air turned dark and oppressive. Nate looked ahead, to see that the sky above the thorn forest and beyond was curdled and churning. Borne on a maelstrom of high, turbulent winds, writhing columns of black and purple cloud tumbled over each other, dazzling jagged spikes of fork lightning leaping between them as they did so.

  Suddenly, Nate understood all too well why Riverrise itself could never be reached by air.

  The black curtain grew closer, and dark rain-tinged clouds closed in around them like a clammy shroud. Flexing his legs from the knees, Zelphyius pushed up on the tiller and, with his stomach giving a sickening lurch, Nate felt the Varis Lodd drop down out of the sky in a spiralling dive.

  Seconds that felt like hours passed as the skycraft fell through the dense grey cloud, the masts bending and sumpwood timbers straining – until, all at once, they were clear, and swooping down towards the most astonishing sight Nate had ever seen.

  • CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR •

  Nate stood, head down, clutching the sumpwood struts of the mast cradle for a moment, waiting for his stomach to settle and his head to stop spinning. The hair-raising descent out of the gloomy sky had left him breathless and shaken up, his legs like jelly.

  ‘Come on, Nate,’ he heard Zelphyius Dax saying, and he looked up to see the librarian scholar standing before him, beaming. ‘Nothing like coming in to Thorn Harbour to get the pulse racing,’ he said.

  ‘That … was … terrifying!’ Nate gasped.

  Zelphyius patted the smooth sumpwood figurehead. ‘We were in safe hands, Nate. The Varis Lodd has never let me down yet,’ he said proudly, and frowned as he noticed one of the sail tethers dangling limply from the slender mast. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘she could probably do with a few running repairs before the return journey.’

  Zelphyius quickly secured the nether sails and clicked the rudder lock into place. Then, leaving the skycraft bobbing in the air, he jumped onto the platform, tolley rope in hand, and tied the Varis Lodd to the mooring ring beside them.

  Nate looked around, still clutching the mast cradle. All about them, moored to the neighbouring platforms, were phraxbarges, with heavily built brogtrolls and diminutive waifs engaged in loading and unloading – the brogtrolls bellowing to one another while the slightly-built waifs moved among them in silence. Below and behind the docks were dozens of simple wooden cabins with pitched roofs and gable lamps. Some were windowless warehouses, clearly used to store merchandise and cargo; others had balconied windows that blazed with light, where the captains and their crews could rest the night before embarking on the long, difficult voyage back to the great cities of Hive and Great Glade.

  ‘Welcome to the settlement of Thorn Harbour, Nate,’ Zelphyius said, reaching out a hand to steady the trembling youth. ‘What we need now are the services of a waif guide. There should be one hereabouts.’

  Nate grabbed his arm and stepped onto the boards of the mooring platform. After so long up in the air, balancing as the skycraft pitched and swayed, it felt strange standing on something that didn’t move, and he teetered about unsteadily, arms outstretched and head down watching his feet.

  Zelphyius smiled. ‘It’ll take a few moments for those skylegs of yours to wear off.’ Holding Nate by the arm, he set off towards the broad staircase at the back of the platform. As he went, Nate’s legs gradually stopped wobbling and Zelphyius let go of his arm. Nate looked up – and stopped in his tracks. There it was. The extraordinary sight of the thorn forests he’d glimpsed as they’d come in to land.

  Towering high above the settlement of Thorn Harbour, ‘forest’ was not a sufficiently impressive word to convey the sheer immensity of the impenetrable-looking wall of thorns that stood before him. There were great gnarled trunks and branches, intertwined one with the other and bristling with immense dagger-like thorns that stuck out in all directions, like the spiked bars of a savage cage. At the tip of each thorn were droplets of dew, each one glinting menacingly despite the gathering gloom, and making it appear as though the great thorn bush had constellations of stars trapped within its depths.

  ‘It’s one of the most spectacular sights of the Edgelands, Nate,’ said Zelphyius. ‘And for thousands of years it separated the Waiflands and the Nightwoods from the rest of the Edge. Century after century, waifs attempted to escape from their dark home, but for every one who got through, hundreds died in the attempt, and to this day their bones are strewn throughout the forests of thorn. Now, in the Third Age,’ he said, turning and pointing to his right, ‘we have the Thorn Gate.’

  Nate stared at the tall arched opening in the impenetrable wall of thorns, black against the glitterin
g brown of the thorn forests themselves. The Thorn Gate disappeared into the heart of the tangled mass of glistening thorns like the dark maw of a logworm, swallowing up the long column of travellers entering it. From his vantage point on the mooring platform, Nate saw that there were denizens from every part of the Deepwoods – trogs, goblins, trolls and fourthlings of every type, some with sumpwood backpacks, others with sumpwood sleds, all heavily laden with boxes, crates and huge misshapen bundles.

  ‘The beginning of the Waif Trail,’ said Zelphyius. ‘The only way to get to and from Riverrise …’

  ‘You are looking for a waif guide,’ a sibilant voice sounded in Nate’s head.

  He spun round to see a small waif with huge eyes, long fluttering ears and a pale grey complexion climbing the staircase towards him. He wore simple grey robes, with a hooded cloak of a dark shimmering material over his narrow shoulders. In his left hand, he carried a staff, on top of which was a glowing lamp. He tilted his head to one side, his large eyes wide with concern.

  ‘My apologies,’ Nate heard him say, his thin lips unmoving. ‘I did not wish to startle you. My name is Felderforth, and I hear you’re looking for a guide …’ He blinked twice as he probed Zelphyius and Nate’s thoughts. ‘Your companion is very sick,’ he said, ‘and you need to travel swiftly to the City of Night.’

  He turned to Zelphyius and nodded, the barbels at the corners of his mouth trembling as they agreed terms wordlessly with their thoughts.

  ‘How much?’ Nate asked Zelphyius.

  ‘Sixty gladers,’ the waif’s sibilant voice sounded in his head, ‘for the three of you. The journey along the Waif Trail will take three days if we don’t stop.’

  Nate looked into the waif’s large unblinking eyes. The only other waif he’d ever encountered was the tavern waif back at the Hulks in the Eastern Woods – a tiny timid creature with sickly yellowish skin and frightened-looking eyes who kept his thoughts to himself. Nate hadn’t really noticed him, but now it occurred to him that the tavern waif had probably wanted it that way, and had listened in on Nate’s thoughts – and those of the other miners – for any information that he might sell to the mine sergeant.

  Felderforth seemed different. His posture was upright and his bearing confident – and there was something about the understanding look in his eyes that made Nate feel he could trust him.

  The waif smiled. ‘I shall go and fetch a sumpwood stretcher for your companion,’ he said, the words clear in both Zelphyius and Nate’s heads. ‘And we shall set off without delay.’

  As the grey waif turned and descended the stairs, his cloak flapping and lampstaff held high, Zelphyius Dax turned to Nate, nodding.

  ‘I think we’ve found a trustworthy guide in Felderforth,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nate, ‘that’s what I was thinking …’

  ‘Come, Nate, we’d better prepare Eudoxia for the journey ahead.’

  Zelphyius and Nate retraced their steps to the skycraft and, climbing on board, made their way to the little cabin at the stern where Eudoxia lay sleeping. Nate gathered the waterflask, spare topcoat and sumpwood medical box from the cabin struts, while Zelphyius picked up the feverish Eudoxia in his arms and carried her out to the mooring platform. Nate joined him.

  ‘Zelphyius,’ he began, ‘I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for Eudoxia and me. I don’t know what would have become of us if you hadn’t found us on the battlefield …’

  ‘Don’t mention it, Nate,’ said Zelphyius, his face colouring as he held the sleeping Eudoxia in his arms. ‘It is the duty of every librarian scholar to help those in need.’

  ‘But now I must ask you to do something else for us, Zelphyius,’ said Nate. ‘Something of the utmost importance.’

  ‘Anything,’ said Zelphyius. ‘Just name it.’

  ‘I want you to leave us here …’

  ‘Leave?’ said Zelphyius, puzzled.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nate, ‘and set sail for Hive. There, I want you to go to the archivists’ cloister of the Sumpwood Bridge Academy, where you’ll find Eudoxia’s father, Galston Prade, and tell him what has become of us.’

  ‘Galston Prade?’ the librarian scholar said, taken aback. ‘The owner of the largest phraxmine in the Eastern Woods?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nate hesitantly, as it dawned on him that Zelphyius Dax had made his hatred of phraxcrystals clear to him on a number of occasions.

  The librarian scholar looked down at the injured girl in his arms, and then back at Nate. He held Nate’s gaze for a second, then he nodded.

  ‘Consider it done, Nate,’ he said solemnly.

  ‘You mean it?’ said Nate. ‘Oh, thank you, Zelphyius, thank you. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us. Never.’

  Zelphyius handed Eudoxia to Nate. ‘You look after her, you hear,’ he said. ‘You’ll be in safe hands with Felderforth.’ He smiled. ‘Here he comes now.’

  Nate looked round to see the grey waif walking towards them, the lampstaff raised in one hand and, in the other, the leading rope of a broad sumpwood sled, which had a curved headboard at one end and was loaded with two sumpwood backpacks and a second lampstaff.

  ‘My apologies for the delay,’ Felderforth’s voice sounded in Nate and Zelphyius’s heads.

  In Nate’s arms, Eudoxia moaned softly and grimaced. The waif looked down at her. He winced.

  ‘Oh, she is indeed in need of the sort of help only the City of Night can provide,’ he said. ‘We must travel the Waif Trail with the utmost speed.’ He turned to the others. ‘Let us get her on the stretcher.’

  Nate carefully lowered Eudoxia onto the buoyant sumpwood stretcher. She didn’t stir.

  ‘There has been a slight change of plan,’ Zelphyius said.

  ‘I understand completely,’ said the waif, nodding.

  The librarian scholar turned back to Nate. ‘Take care, Nate,’ he said. ‘And maybe one day we’ll meet again, you and I. I can show you around the Great Library, and we can find that barkscroll I mentioned about the young fourthling from the slaughterer village, Keris Verginix …’

  Nate nodded, smiling. ‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘I’d like that very much.’

  ‘Until that time,’ he said, ‘fare you well.’ He gripped Nate’s hand with both of his own, and pumped it up and down, then looked back down at Eudoxia, tucked up on the sumpwood stretcher beneath the grey topcoats. ‘Earth and Sky be with you both!’

  With that, he turned away. Nate watched him stride back to the Varis Lodd and climb on board – then pause thoughtfully before turning to inspect the sail ropes, one by one.

  ‘Are you ready to depart, Nate Quarter?’ asked Felderforth, his voice soft and questioning in Nate’s head as he slipped one of the backpacks onto his shoulder and held the other one out.

  Nate turned to him and nodded. ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ he said.

  He pulled the almost weightless sumpwood pack onto his back, then leaned down and seized the thick rope attached to the front of the floating stretcher. He tugged it gently and the buoyant sumpwood glided through the air after him as easily as a feather floating on a breeze. They went to the end of the mooring platform and joined a line of other arrivals with backpacks, lampstaffs and sleds of their own, who were making their way down the broad stairs to the shadow-filled earth below.

  Away from the bright lamps that illuminated the mooring platform, Nate found himself in the eternal gloom of Thorn Harbour’s broad main street, along which the column of travellers was steadily moving. Up ahead loomed the forbidding thorn forests and the cavernous opening of the Thorn Gate.

  They fell in behind other travellers at the back of the line. There was a lugtroll mother, a pale wheezing young’un swaddled up in the sumpwood basket which hung at her side. There was a cloddertrog merchant, barrels of tripweed and sides of salted hammelhorn laid out on his rough-hewn sledge. A family of gnokgoblins clustered together, their own possessions – meagre in comparison to those of the cloddertrog merchant – gathered together o
n a small sled, which was decorated with ornately carved fruits and flowers; and just to Nate’s left was a couple of gabtroll old’uns, both bowed under large backpacks. Each of them was accompanied by a diminutive waif guide.

  As they fell in with the steady rhythm of the marching feet, the Thorn Gate loomed closer, towering far, far above their heads. Nate turned and looked back at the scaffold of mooring platforms. There, her four sails billowing, was the Varis Lodd, rising from the jutting platform of wood and soaring up into the dark, gloomy sky.

  Nate raised his free arm and waved – then looked away, his face troubled. If only there had been more time, he’d have asked the librarian scholar to tell Eudoxia’s father that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, that no matter what, he’d get her the care she needed and watch over her until she got better. If only he’d been able to tell Zelphyius …

  ‘He knows.’ Felderforth’s voice cut through his thoughts.

  Nate shook his head. ‘He doesn’t,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have time to tell him.’

  ‘Believe me, Nate, he does know,’ the waif’s reassuring voice whispered inside his head. ‘I just told him.’

  • CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE •

  As the great opening of the Thorn Gate receded behind them, Nate fell into step with Felderforth the waif guide, while pulling the sumpwood stretcher bearing Eudoxia behind him.

  In front of him were two lugtrolls, bulging sumpwood-framed backpacks on their shoulders, and a slaughterer, his buoyant sled piled high with cured pelts. Half a dozen cloddertrogs marched just ahead of them, each one pulling a huge rough-hewn sumpwood sledge laden with barrels, crates, casks and haunches of salted tilder that peeked out from the waxed tarpaulins stretched over them. As they marched behind these merchants and their waif guides, Nate and Felderforth passed slower-moving groups of the sick and infirm.

  There was the lugtroll mother Nate had seen earlier, her pale wheezing infant now clasped to her chest. She was followed by a pair of pink-eye old’uns, stooped and hobbling. There was a blind woodtroll, a crippled flathead matron, and a mobgnome, paralysed from the neck down, lying stiffly on a sumpwood stretcher that was being pulled by an older brother or friend; there was a shuffling brogtroll, his skin covered with boils and cankers, and a gaggle of webfoot young’uns, clutching to the broad skirts of their spawn mother, each of them racked with hacking coughs …