As the sound of the running water became louder, the ground beneath his feet grew marshy. The going was increasingly difficult, and more than once Nate stumbled forward as the sucking mud tried to hold him back. Behind him, the gabtrolls were having an even harder time of it, their aged bodies battling to keep going. He heard them stumble and trip repeatedly, their breath coming in short wheezy gasps as they staggered on, trying hard to keep up with Nate and Felderforth.
‘Oh, Gomber!’ Gilmora cried out, her cry followed by a soft splash, and Nate turned to see the hapless gabtroll matron sprawling in the mud, Gomber behind her, struggling hopelessly to help her to her feet.
‘Take this,’ he said to Felderforth, handing him the rope tether for Eudoxia’s stretcher.
Though close to exhaustion himself, Nate reached down, seized the stout gabtroll matron beneath her arms and, using reserves of strength he didn’t even know he possessed, hoisted her up to her feet. She stood there unsteadily, her eyestalks trembling.
‘Oh … slurp … thank you so much,’ she said as her eyes slowly focused on the youth standing before her. ‘These tired old bones of mine …’
‘Let me take your backpack,’ said Nate, holding out a hand. ‘And yours,’ he added, turning to Gomber.
The two gabtrolls put up no resistance as he helped them pull the straps from their shoulders, and he returned to the stretcher, the two sumpwood packs under his arms. With Eudoxia curled up in a ball beneath the military topcoats, there was more than enough space for the backpacks, and he secured them at the base of the carved headboard.
They set off once more, with the gabtrolls walking along beside him, their gait less unsteady now and their breathing more even.
‘This is indeed … slurp … a kindness,’ said Gilmora, her long tongue flicking out over her eyeballs. ‘A great kindness …’ She hesitated, her eyestalks swinging round and looking at him quizzically. ‘I don’t believe you told us your … slurp … name.’
‘Nate,’ said Nate. ‘Nate Quarter.’
‘Well, thank you, Nate Quarter,’ she told him.
‘Yes, thank you,’ added Gomber as he squelched along beside them, using his lampstaff to negotiate the spongy mud.
‘And what is the name of your companion here?’ Gilmora continued.
‘Eudoxia Prade,’ said Nate, and shook his head, suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness. ‘She’s … she’s been a true and loyal friend and …’ He swallowed hard. ‘I just hope that I can find the help she needs in the City of Night.’
‘Oh, to be sure, you’re doing the right thing,’ said Gilmora, nodding enthusiastically. ‘As I … slurp … told you … slurp … before, Nate Quarter, the city is full of highly skilled physicians and the most inventive of apothecaries in all the Edge. Isn’t that right, Gomber?’ she said, turning to her companion.
‘Indeed it is,’ he replied.
‘The City of Night is a truly wonderful place,’ Gilmora went on, waving an arm expansively, ‘where many find cures for what ails them.’ Her eyeballs contracted on the stalks. ‘Though it is not without its troubles …’
Alerted by the gruff sound of Gomber clearing his throat, Gilmora fell silent. Nate looked at first one gabtroll, then the other. His brow furrowed.
‘Troubles?’ he said.
‘I think I should … slurp … tell him,’ said Gilmora, talking across Nate to her companion.
‘It isn’t wise,’ he said, his leathery face crumpling with concern as he continued to stride down the trail alongside Nate.
‘But he’s been so kind to us,’ Gilmora hissed back, careful to keep up. ‘It’s … slurp … the least we can do.’
The gabtroll old’un shrugged, and looked round over his shoulders furtively. Gilmora turned to Nate, her eyes misty with sympathy.
‘I can trust you, Nate Quarter,’ she said, and slurped, ‘can’t I?’
‘Y … yes,’ said Nate, puzzled. ‘Of course.’
‘We are the personal servants of the Custodian General,’ Gilmora said, her voice low and hushed. ‘We prepare his meals, clean … slurp … his living chambers, wash his clothes …’ She slurped twice in succession. ‘Golderayce One-Eye, his name is, and …’
‘He’s a wonderful leader. Slurp … Riverrise’s finest!’ said Gomber loudly and enthusiastically. ‘Venerable and wise, and … slurp … generous to a fault. And he certainly appreciates all that we do for him.’
‘He is an evil tyrant,’ Gilmora whispered in Nate’s ear, ‘He rules …’
This is very dangerous, Felderforth whispered urgently inside all their heads. For all of us …
Gilmora turned to him and nodded. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but Nate Quarter should hear this …’ She turned back to Nate. ‘He has ruled Riverrise for … slurp … hundreds of years,’ she whispered. ‘Sky love him,’ she added loudly, her eyestalks peering wildly around her.
Nate frowned. ‘Hundreds of years?’ he whispered back.
Beside him, Gomber nodded, his trembling eyestalks betraying the agitation he was feeling.
‘While … slurp … the city of Riverrise has to rely on the meagre trickle of water that falls into the great aqueduct below the Riverrise spring … slurp … for its medicines and cures,’ she explained, her voice hushed and urgent, ‘Golderayce the Custodian General has access to … slurp … the pure life-giving water at the spring’s source.’ She leaned in still closer to Nate. ‘Pure Riverrise spring water from the source is the most powerful cure in the entire City of Night,’ she said, ‘but Golderayce guards it jealously and keeps it only for himself …’
‘Enough!’ Felderforth’s voice sounded in all their heads.
The waif guide, who had been trying his best to mask the seditious thoughts of his travelling companions with prattling thoughts of his own, turned to them now. His wide eyes were sparkling and the barbels at the corners of his mouth trembled with anger. He raised his lampstaff and pointed ahead.
‘The end of our long journey is near,’ he said. ‘Take care as we descend.’ He turned to the gabtrolls. And in future, you should take care what you think.
‘Waifs aren’t the only ones who can underthink,’ Gilmora told him. ‘How else do you think Gomber and I have remained in the Custodian General’s employ for so many years?’
Nate looked round the dark forest, scarcely able to believe that their destination was approaching. For hours now, it had been like walking through a dream, the air like treacle and his head constantly playing tricks. Now the Waif Trail had started to descend, with the track becoming both narrower and steeper, and Nate found himself continuing downhill in a series of zigzags as the track made its way down a long and precipitous drop of shifting gravel and treacherous scree.
Nate moved to the front of the stretcher, gripping on tightly to the rope tether while Felderforth steadied it from behind. The two gabtrolls slipped and skidded down the track behind them, arm in arm, clutching onto one another for support. The sound of trickling water that Nate had heard for several hours – sometimes aware of it, sometimes not – became louder now, impossible to ignore as it splashed down into some unseen pool close by. And as the column of travellers went deeper down into the great gulley, a thin swirling mist spiralled up from the cold wet ground, wrapping itself around their ankles, then their legs, then coiling slowly up around their bodies.
‘Not far now,’ Felderforth whispered encouragingly.
‘Soon be there, Eudoxia,’ Nate said, hardly able to believe it himself as he glanced down at her pale face peeking out of the swaddling topcoats.
All at once, having struggled down a particularly treacherous stretch of path, loose jagged rocks threatening to send him sprawling with every tentative step, Nate looked up to see something ahead. He blinked, once, twice; he rubbed his eyes. There was no doubt. This was no dream, no figment of his imagination brought on by lack of sleep. No, before him lay the most extraordinary city he had yet seen.
‘We have reached our destination,’ Felderforth whispe
red inside his head. ‘Riverrise, the City of Night.’
• CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX •
‘In the sixth quadrant there are four clusters made up of …’ Klug Junkers squinted down the lens of the light magnifier, counting softly under his breath. ‘Six … no, seven glisters,’ he said.
‘Four clusters,’ Togtuft Hegg repeated, making a note in the barkscroll ledger with a scratchy snowbird quill. ‘Seven glisters in each cluster.’ He looked round. ‘Seven, eh?’ he said. ‘So they’re fused together to form a larger entity … Fascinating.’
The pair of them were working in the small laboratory they had set up in their academic cloister. Togtuft was perched on a high stool, the barkscroll ledger in which he was recording their findings laid out on the tall sumpwood bench before them. Klug stood beside him at the light magnifier, the sleeves of his brown robes rolled up, his body stooped forward and dust dancing in the shaft of light around his face.
‘If our theory is correct,’ mused Klug, ‘then these glisters, fossilized in the cliff rock, were once seeds of life, blown in from Open Sky.’
‘In a Mother Storm,’ Togtuft added. ‘Perhaps the very storm that first seeded the Edgelands with life at Riverrise.’
‘This tiny piece of Edge cliff rock has yielded so much,’ Klug said, his eyes pressed to the light magnifier. ‘But just think, Togtuft, what we could discover with more samples – larger, and from further down the cliff face …’
‘Before we get too carried away with thoughts of better samples, Klug, my friend,’ said his companion, ‘let us continue the examination of the sample we do possess …’
Togtuft had fashioned a grid from fine wire, which they’d placed over the tiny rock sample, dividing it up into twenty-four separate squares which Klug was now systematically examining, one by one.
‘Seventh quadrant,’ said Togtuft. His pen, freshly dipped in the pot of blackwood ink, was poised. He frowned and turned to his colleague. ‘Seventh quadrant?’ he repeated.
‘Yes … I …’ Klug paused. ‘There’s something strange here, Togtuft,’ he said, readjusting the focus of the light magnifier. ‘I think I’ve found a new type of glister,’ he said, his voice hushed with excitement. ‘A red glister …’
‘A red glister?’ Togtuft said.
‘Take a look,’ said Klug, straightening up and groaning as the bones in his spine softly cracked. ‘In the bottom right-hand corner of the quadrant. Dark and misshapen …’
Togtuft slid down from the stool and put his eye to the lens. For a moment he was silent. Then, a broad grin spreading over his hairy features, he looked round.
‘You’re right,’ he said breathlessly. ‘It is a red glister.’ He frowned. ‘If these are seeds of life, then what in Sky’s name might this red glister have become … ?’
Just then, there was a loud clattering in the room behind them and the sound of familiar voices talking animatedly.
‘Squall and Weelum are back,’ said Togtuft to Klug, who nodded. ‘Perhaps they have news.’
The pair of them hurried across the cluttered laboratory and out through the door. Weelum the banderbear had just entered the cloister, lowering the hood of his heavy oiled leather cape and struggling to unfasten the clasp at the neck. Squall Razortooth had removed his ochre topcoat and was hanging it on a hook by the front door.
‘And did you hear anything of friend Nate or Mistress Eudoxia?’ Slip the grey goblin scuttler was asking them, his huge black eyes darting optimistically from the banderbear to the sky pirate, and back again.
‘Wuh-wuh,’ said Weelum, shaking his head, the claws of his left hand touching his chest and fluttering away. We spoke to many, but found no answers.
‘All too true, I’m afraid, old friend,’ said Squall. ‘We tried the Low Town markets, and Mid Town in both East and West Ridge, just like yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that … The city is full of returning militia, and everywhere there is talk of rebellion …’
‘I don’t blame them. They feel let down by the Clan Council – and Kulltuft Warhammer especially,’ said Klug, his mottled features creasing with concern.
Squall shrugged and nodded towards the light grey topcoat hanging from a hook between Weelum’s cloak and his own embroidered topcoat. It was the militia coat that the Professor had disguised himself in when he, Nate and Eudoxia had rescued Galston Prade from the Gyle Palace.
‘We spoke to as many of the greycoats as we could find, but no one could tell us anything of our brave young friends. But one thing they all agreed on,’ the old sky pirate said darkly, ‘is that the whole of the Hive Militia took a terrible mauling at the battle of the Midwood marshes.’
From the shadows, there came a low despairing groan, followed by a hollow cough. Wisps of vapour twisted up into the air from the buoyant leather-bound chair.
‘I’m sorry, Galston,’ said Squall, turning to the mine owner and trying hard to look optimistic. ‘But we’ll keep asking. There are more militia arriving back with every day that passes …’
‘Ten days,’ the old man wheezed. ‘Ten days since the battle, and not a word …’
‘We mustn’t give up hope,’ said Squall. ‘Nate and Eudoxia disappeared wearing the grey topcoats, but who’s to say they didn’t find a way to escape the militia and, even now, are making their own way back to Hive?’
Suddenly, there was a loud and insistent pounding at the door. Klug and Togtuft exchanged anxious glances.
‘The School of Archivists seldom has visitors,’ murmured Togtuft.
‘Who is it?’ Klug called out.
‘The High Academe,’ came an urgent voice. ‘Let me in …’
Klug strode forward and opened the door. Before him stood a gaunt-looking tufted goblin in the thick green velvet gown and black silk nightcap of the Sumpwood Bridge Academy.
‘Arch-Professor Ignum Spave,’ said Klug, his eyebrow raised in surprise. ‘It’s been a long time since you graced our humble school with your presence.’
‘For which I’m most heartily sorry,’ the professor blustered. ‘Matters of high politics, Archivist Junkers.’ He glanced round furtively. ‘Can I come inside?’
Klug Junkers stepped aside, and the harassed-looking High Academe hurried into the high, narrow cloister hall, his gown flapping behind him and the sumpwood soles of his sandals clattering on the floorboards. Klug closed the door behind him and pushed the bolt securely into place.
‘To what do we owe the honour?’ asked Togtuft, his voice laced with disdain.
‘Ah, Archivist Hegg, good morning,’ the professor said, nodding at the long-hair goblin. He looked round uncertainly at the others in the room, his gaze resting for a moment on the faces of the banderbear, the grey goblin and the craggy sky pirate. He frowned, and turned back to Klug. ‘I wasn’t aware you had visitors …’
‘These are our friends,’ said Klug. ‘Anything you wish to say to us, you can say in front of them.’
The High Academe nodded earnestly and took a deep breath. ‘I realize now that I’ve treated you archivists in the School of Restoration badly,’ he said, his words tripping over one another, ‘ignoring your field of study, starving your school of funds and resources.’ He shook his head. ‘I confess, I was seduced by the wealth and prestige that the clan chiefs promised me,’ he said, searching the two archivists’ faces for a glimmer of forgiveness. ‘Which is why I devoted all the academy’s energies to the development of phraxcannon and sumpwood limbers …’
‘And you said nothing when the Bloody Blades arrested our colleague, Magnus Spool, for speaking out against the Clan Council?’ said Klug, his eyes flashing defiantly.
The third name on the small copper plaque screwed to the wall beside the School of Archivists’ door bore witness to this fact, the ornate lettering crudely scored through with the tip of a razor-sharp battleaxe.
The High Academe nodded sorrowfully. ‘That was my greatest shame,’ he conceded. ‘When they came for the High Professors on the Academy Bridge
, I did nothing. When they came for the under-professors, I did nothing. Then, when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out …’
‘They came for you?’ said Klug, frowning. ‘When?’
‘You didn’t know?’ said the High Academe. ‘But then, why should you? You archivists keep yourselves to yourselves. It was when the first news of the disastrous defeat began coming back from the Midwood Decks. Firemane Clawhand, the High Clan Chief’s henchman, and half a dozen hand-picked guards of his broke into the High Cloister, ransacking our libraries and laboratories. They burned our books and barkscrolls. They smashed our scientific apparatus against the walls.’ He scowled angrily. ‘Apparently, our great Clan Chief had decided that the sumpwood limbers we’d designed for his precious phraxcannon were faulty, and that we at the academy were somehow to blame for the Hive Militia’s defeat …’
He shook his head, his gaze fixed on the floor.
‘In the course of ten minutes,’ he said gravely, ‘the accumulated knowledge of more than a hundred years of research was destroyed.’ He looked up. ‘I’ve spent the last few days going through the wreckage, trying to salvage what I can, but it is proving a hopeless task – which brings me to the reason for my visit …’
‘You need our archives,’ said Togtuft and Klug together.
Arch-Professor Ignum Spave nodded. ‘Working together, we can recover what has been lost, and restore this great academy of ours to its former glory.’
‘We have made copies and catalogued the work of the academy as best we could – with no encouragement or help from you,’ Klug replied. ‘And much of your work in the High Cloister can be recovered,’ he confirmed. ‘But what is to stop you going back to your old ways, doing the Clan Council’s bidding?’
‘The days of Kulltuft Warhammer and his Clan Council are coming to an end,’ said the High Academe fiercely. ‘Already, by all reports, his henchman Firemane Clawhand has received his comeuppance. He was drinking in the Winesap Tavern and started berating the members of the Hive Militia he saw there, calling them traitors and cowards. But without the Bloody Blades backing him up, Firemane soon found out that no one was afraid of him or his master any more.’
Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals Page 38