Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals

by Paul Stewart;Chris Riddell

  The trickle of water grew in volume as the gap between the gates became wider. Nate kept turning. The gates swung further and further back until they were fully opened, and the trickle between them was a surging torrent of frothing water which roared through the gap between, onto the jutting lip of rock, and gushed down towards the dark air far, far below.

  Nate stared at it, his heart racing as he realized that for the first time in centuries, the fabled waterfall of Riverrise was flowing unchecked, restored to its former glory. He had done all he could.

  Turning on his heels, he jumped down from the iron sluice and dashed back round the lake to the carved staircase in the rock, which he started down, taking the stone-cut stairs two at a time. There was one thought in his head now, and one thought only …

  Eudoxia Prade.

  • PART FOUR •

  THE EDGE

  • CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE •

  Eudoxia looked around at the great Thorn Tunnel, her bright green eyes flashing and face flushed with excitement as she took it all in – the tangled mass of thorn trees, the dew-tipped thorns glinting in the glow of the travellers’ lampstaffs, and the endless darkness beyond the tunnel of light carved through the savage forest. She turned to Nate, a smile playing on her lips.

  ‘This is incredible,’ she murmured. ‘Absolutely incredible …’ A frown plucked at the centre of her forehead. ‘To think I travelled through this amazing thorn forest without noticing a thing …’

  ‘You were so ill, Eudoxia,’ Nate said, as the painful memories came flooding back. ‘There were times when I really thought that you weren’t going to make it.’

  ‘But I did, Nate,’ said Eudoxia, running ahead and walking backwards before him, smiling into his troubled face. ‘I did make it. Look at me! I’ve never felt better in my life – and it’s all thanks to you, Nate! You saved my life.’

  Nate nodded, a smile spreading across his face as he looked at Eudoxia. She was the picture of glowing health, and as elegant as ever, despite the old grey topcoat of the Hive Militia that she insisted on wearing over the new underjacket and fine barkfelt breeches she’d purchased on the Market Ledges of Riverrise. She reached out her hands towards Nate, which he grasped and squeezed tightly.

  ‘I couldn’t have done any of it without Zelphyius Dax,’ he said, shifting the sumpwood backpack on his shoulders and striding forward. ‘Or Gomber and Gilmora …’

  Eudoxia fell into step beside him and the two of them strode on through the tunnel towards the Thorn Gate.

  ‘Or Felderforth, our guide,’ added Eudoxia with an infectious giggle.

  ‘You’re too kind,’ came Felderforth’s voice in Nate and Eudoxia’s heads as the waif guide caught up with them, his barbels quivering with exertion. ‘The Riverrise water has certainly put a spring in your step, Miss Eudoxia. At this pace, we’ll be at the Thorn Gate in one and a half tallow candles’ time …’

  Nate and Eudoxia had encountered the waif at the Nightwood Arch some three tallow candles before. Since Nate had opened the sluice gates, and news of Golderayce’s death had spread through the city, highflow and lowflow had been abolished, along with the power of the custodians. Now the citizens of Riverrise met openly in the amphitheatre, there was spring water for all, and the days and nights were once more measured in the burning down of tallow candles.

  ‘I’d know those thoughts anywhere,’ Felderforth had joked when they’d met at the glowing archway. The waif had reached out to Nate and shaken his hand warmly. ‘And you must be Eudoxia,’ he’d said, turning to the girl by Nate’s side. ‘And your eyes are green, I see.’ He’d shaken her hand too. ‘Now the pair of you need a guide on the Waif Trail.’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Nate had said.

  ‘It would be my pleasure to guide you back to Thorn Harbour,’ the waif had replied. ‘After the great service you have done the City of Night, Nate, you will live long in our thoughts.’

  They’d set off almost at once. Earlier that morning, Gomber and Gilmora had packed Nate and Eudoxia’s sumpwood backpacks full of provisions for the journey ahead, and all that had remained was to bid them farewell. Gilmora had sobbed, her eyes at the end of their stalks full of sadness as she’d hugged both Nate and Eudoxia tightly. Gomber had stood to one side, his face betraying little, though the eyestalks that stuck out through the holes in his funnel hat had trembled with emotion.

  ‘You’ve both brought a light into our lives,’ the old gabtroll had said, ‘and given us a brighter future.’

  ‘Take care of each other,’ Gilmora had called out as they’d set off. ‘And come and visit us again …’

  As their voices faded, Nate had glanced back over his shoulders to see the two ancient gabtrolls, their eyes glistening in the light from the lampstaffs they carried, leaning together, their arms wrapped tightly round one another. He raised his cupped hands to his mouth.

  ‘We shall!’ he called back. ‘I promise!’ He turned to Felderforth. ‘Do you think they heard me?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the waif had nodded, and they heard the sound of his laughter in their heads. ‘They are already thinking of the welcome banquet they will give you when you return!’

  The three of them had travelled swiftly through the Nightwoods. For Nate, the journey was quite different from the one he had taken in the opposite direction. Then, every whisper he’d heard, every bloodshot eye he’d seen glinting from the shadows, had filled him with unease. With Eudoxia fit and well by his side, however, his spirits were buoyed up. What was more, the wild waifs in the depths of the Nightwoods all about them had seemed to notice, and left him and Eudoxia alone – giving Felderforth nothing to do but keep up as they strode on through the dark dank forest. By the time they got to the Thorn Tunnel, the waif guide was also in high spirits.

  ‘The Waif Trail shall flourish once again,’ said Felderforth. ‘Now that that senile old tyrant, Golderayce One-Eye, has gone and the Riverrise spring is flowing freely once more.’ He smiled, the barbels at the corners of his mouth trembling with amusement. ‘And how wonderful it is to hear real thoughts on the trail, instead of those false thoughts used to mask underthinking …’ He frowned, his huge black eyes growing larger as he stared along the path, then flapped a bony hand towards a faint patch of arched light, far ahead. ‘There it is,’ he said, ‘the Thorn Gate.’

  Eudoxia couldn’t help herself. With her hands behind her, steadying the backpack on her shoulders, she broke into a run. Nate glanced round at Felderforth and shrugged.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, Nate,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in Thorn Harbour. You go and catch up with the young mistress …’ He chuckled. ‘If you can!’

  Tightening the straps at his shoulder, Nate started after Eudoxia. He sprinted ahead over the springy ground, dodging and weaving through the lines of travellers, his eyes fixed on the flashes of gold ahead as Eudoxia’s hair caught the light from the bobbing lampstaffs. He ran past a group of half a dozen lugtrolls, each one sandwiched between the wooden staves of heavily laden sumpwood sledges and, on the other side of them, the Thorn Gate opened up before him.

  Eudoxia waited for Nate, seizing his hand when he caught up with her. She looked at him and flashed Nate a dazzling smile.

  ‘I wanted us to go through the Thorn Gate together,’ she said.

  Hand in hand, they strode beneath the towering archway and out into the clearing beyond. The whole place was bustling. As well as all those arriving back from Riverrise, there were as many – if not more – about to set out on the Waif Trail. The two groups came together in a great swirling eddy, like two cloud banks converging.

  Those returning from the City of Night looked weary, though happy, the sleds and limbers they were pulling piled high with boxes of salves, crates of ointments and tonics, and great earthenware pots sloshing with the priceless water from the Riverrise spring. In contrast, the expressions on the faces of those about to set off on the Waif Trail were a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. There were trogs, g
oblins, trolls and fourthlings, each with bulging backpacks and heavily laden sleds. Some of them had waif guides, some were still looking, and as Nate followed Eudoxia through the teeming crowds, his head filled with the voices of the waifs plying their trade.

  It was, he thought, like being back in the Market Ledges of Riverrise.

  Just up ahead, a party of waif custodians, no longer carried in curtained bowers but forced to walk, made their way through the hostile crowds. With them trudged a swarm of tiny red and black dwarves.

  ‘Leaving the city?’ Sneering voices from the waif guides sounded in everyone’s heads, triumphant that they could think freely at last. ‘Well, good riddance to you and your slave drivers!’

  ‘Go lose yourselves in the daylight!’

  ‘The waters of Riverrise, free to all in need!’

  Not far off, a great gang of misshapen nameless ones stood surrounded by gabtroll matrons who, as Nate watched, bathed and tenderly dressed the creatures’ many wounds.

  ‘The City of Night can now become a truly great city.’ A familiar voice sounded in Nate and Eudoxia’s heads, and they turned to see Felderforth the waif staring up at them, his huge eyes glistening. ‘Thank you, Nate Quarter, and travel well in the world of daylight.’

  Nate and Eudoxia both shook the waif’s hand, before he slipped away into the teeming crowd.

  ‘They’re waiting for you,’ his voice sounded in their heads as the guide disappeared from view.

  Ahead of them were the buildings of Thorn Harbour, silhouetted against the grey sky beyond. There were windowless warehouses and balconied rest cabins, slope-roofed weigh towers and rows of squat taverns and stores, each one with the bright globelamps crowning their ridge tiles and gable ends – lights that had looked so strange to Nate when he’d first arrived at the settlement but that now, after his time in the City of Night, looked absolutely normal.

  He looked up at the bustling mooring platforms, black against the lamp glow, brogtrolls and waifs busy loading and unloading the phraxbarges docked there. And as he looked, he found his gaze being drawn towards the jetty where the Varis Lodd had been tethered – half expecting to see the curious old-fashioned skyship still moored there, its even more curious old-fashioned captain making final adjustments to the spidersilk sails, the leadwood hull weights and sumpwood rudder …

  But of course, Zelphyius Dax was not there. Nate had seen him departing with his own eyes. Yet the jutting berth, high up at the top of the mooring platform, was not empty. In place of the delicate-looking skycraft from the Second Age of Flight, with its tall masts and billowing white sails, was a vessel from the Third Age.

  It was a magnificent phraxship that looked brand new, shiny varnish coating the curved bows and a burnished phraxchamber gleaming in the lamplight. A twisting ribbon of white steam streamed out from the top of the funnel. Up on board, staring out towards the Thorn Gate, was a tall figure in a short topcoat and crushed funnel hat, a telescope raised to one eye.

  ‘Eudoxia,’ Nate breathed, and pointed. ‘Who does that look like?’

  Eudoxia followed the line of his finger and let out a cry of delight.

  ‘Professor!’ she shouted, and waved at him, both arms raised high above her head as she ran towards the broad staircase that led up onto the mooring platform. ‘Professor! Professor!’

  Whether it was the excited voice he heard, or the sight of the frantically waving figure cutting through the milling crowds, Nate wasn’t sure. But all at once, the Professor looked round and, turning the eyeglass towards them, waved back.

  The pair of them hurried on towards the mooring platforms. By the time they reached the bottom of the staircase, there were others standing at the Professor’s shoulders – Squall Razortooth the sky pirate, wiping his hands on an oily rag, and Cirrus Gladehawk, a fine-looking black funnel hat of brushed quarmskin on his head. Nate and Eudoxia climbed the steps as quickly as they could, pushing against the stream of passengers disembarking from the host of other phraxships moored at the platforms.

  ‘Nate!’

  ‘Eudoxia!’

  The excited voices rang out as they stepped onto the platform, and Nate looked up to see that his friends had left the phraxvessel to come and greet them.

  ‘Here, let me take that for you,’ said Cirrus Gladehawk, easing Eudoxia’s backpack off her shoulders.

  ‘It’s so good to see you both,’ said the Professor, hugging them each in turn.

  ‘And looking so well!’ said Squall, standing looking at them closely, his hands on his hips. ‘From what that librarian scholar fellow was saying, we didn’t know what to expect!’

  ‘ “Gravely ill,” he said,’ the Professor nodded, looking at Eudoxia. ‘“Not certain whether she’ll make it to Riverrise,” he said … Yet look at you!’ He smiled and, spotting Eudoxia’s grey topcoat, shook his head in joyful disbelief. ‘Eudoxia,’ he breathed, his eyes gleaming brightly. ‘Nate. I thought I’d lost you both to the Hive Militia for ever …’

  ‘Friend Nate!’ The excited voice was coming from the far end of the wooden platform. ‘Friend Nate! Mistress Eudoxia!’

  Nate and Eudoxia turned to see Slip the grey goblin scuttler dashing towards them, a large bundle clasped to his chest, which he let drop to the ground as he drew close. He fell upon Nate and hugged him warmly.

  ‘Slip knew he’d see friend Nate again! He knew it!’ he exclaimed delightedly. He pulled away. ‘And Mistress Eudoxia,’ he said. ‘Slip is so happy.’

  He turned to Weelum the banderbear, who was shambling up behind him, his great body bowed beneath the weight of a dozen or more boxes, crates and packages tied up with string.

  ‘Didn’t Slip say we’d see them again?’ the grey goblin demanded. ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘Wuh-wuh,’ said Weelum. A thousand times and more, he confirmed, an indulgent smile on his huge face.

  Nate laughed.

  ‘Wuh-wuh wurra wuh!’ said the banderbear, touching his claws gently to his chest, and extending his arm first to Nate, then to Eudoxia. My heart is filled with joy at our reunion.

  ‘Yes, what he said,’ laughed the Professor, and clapped a hand on Nate and Eudoxia’s shoulder. ‘Come on, the two of you, let’s get you aboard the Archemax.’

  ‘So this is the Archemax!’ Nate exclaimed, turning towards the magnificent phraxship berthed at the platform. ‘But the last I heard, the Archemax was a wreck, skewered at the top of an ironwood pine.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Cirrus Gladehawk told him proudly, tugging at his neatly pressed jacket and readjusting his funnel hat. ‘Now she’s the finest vessel ever to raise steam.’

  ‘A lot has changed since the battle of the Midwood marshes,’ the Professor said as they made their way back to the Archemax, Slip and Weelum carrying the provisions they’d bought from the well-stocked Thorn Harbour stalls below. ‘When the militia returned, there was a revolution and Kulltuft Warhammer and his Clan Council cronies were overthrown. After Zelphyius brought us news of you, we left a very different Hive behind us, I can tell you.’

  ‘And then, when we arrived here in Thorn Harbour,’ Cirrus continued, ‘the place was buzzing with tales of your exploits, Nate …’

  ‘Toppling the Custodian General, opening the sluice gates at the Riverrise spring!’ Squall chuckled delightedly. ‘We’re all proud of you, Nate, lad.’

  ‘We got here as quickly as we could,’ Cirrus said, turning to Eudoxia, ‘in view of your father’s condition, so that he could see you one last time. Your waif guide sent word that you were coming …’

  ‘See me one last time?’ Eudoxia exclaimed. ‘You mean, he’s here?’

  The Professor looked up and nodded towards the Archemax, the phraxship swaying gently in the gathering breeze.

  ‘Your father is dying, Eudoxia …’ he began.

  But Eudoxia had already turned and was running. Nate went with her. They pounded over the boards of the mooring platform towards the phraxship and leaped on board. Eudoxia looked round for a moment,
before hurrying back over the new deck towards the aft cabin.

  ‘Father!’ she cried. ‘Father!’

  She seized the burnished handle of the freshly painted door to the master cabin, pulled it open, stepped inside – and stopped. The cabin was in semi-darkness, a single phraxlamp glowing dimly on the far side. Then, out of the stillness, Eudoxia heard a sound. It was the sound of breathing, low and rasping, though so faint that Eudoxia could have easily mistaken it for the wind outside sighing through the mooring rope – if it hadn’t been for the coils of water vapour she saw twisting in the lamp glow.

  ‘Father?’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘Eu … doxia …’ a frail voice answered from the shadows.

  Eudoxia stepped forward tentatively. And as she did so, she saw her father lying in a sumpwood cot, wrapped up in a thick quilted blanket, his head resting on a snowbird down pillow.

  ‘Oh, Father,’ Eudoxia breathed.

  ‘I … saw you …’ he gasped, the twists of vapour from his diseased lungs spilling out from between his thin blue-tinged lips. He turned his head slightly. ‘From … out of the cabin … window. I … am so happy that …’ His words gave out, and Galston Prade was suddenly seized by a fit of violent coughing. The cold wispy mist filled the air above his head as his emaciated body was racked with wheezing convulsions, and his eyes, dark-ringed and sunken, stared imploringly at his daughter.

  ‘Nate, Nate,’ said Eudoxia desperately, reaching out towards him. ‘The vial. Give me the vial …’

  Nate fumbled with the buttons of his jacket and plunged a hand deep into the inside pocket. His trembling fingers closed round a glass vial, which he pulled out and passed to Eudoxia. The old man’s coughing had stopped, but he was unable to speak, all his concentration devoted on the shallow rasping breaths he snatched at. Eudoxia pulled the cork from the bottle of glistening water and, stepping forward, placed a hand on her father’s creased bony forehead. It was icy cold.