‘Ready with those tolley ropes, Weelum,’ Cirrus Gladehawk called across from the helm. ‘Squall to the fore deck. Slip to the stern.’
‘Aye aye, Cap’n!’ they both shouted back.
The Archemax ascended past the widest part of the rock. Nate held his breath. In the lea of the wind caused by the rock itself, the air fell abruptly still. The next moment, as they rose steadily up above the level of the great wooden West Landing, Cirrus Gladehawk dextrously shut off the flight levers, one by one, and realigned the hull weights. The phraxship swung round, until its starboard bow was parallel to the jutting mooring platform.
‘Now!’ he bellowed.
At his command, Slip and Squall Razortooth jumped onto the landing. Weelum threw first one tolley rope across, then, hurrying back along the deck, the second, which they secured to the stanchion cleats of the West Landing. With a low sigh, the phraxchamber ceased its hum and the Archemax came to rest beside the broad landing.
‘Just like putting in at the Midwood Decks,’ said Cirrus nonchalantly, securing the rudder lock and stepping down from the helm.
But his crew were too preoccupied to notice their captain showing off. They had followed Slip and Squall over the side, and now stood on the polished planks of the great West Landing of Sanctaphrax, their faces glazed with disbelief.
Only Weelum the banderbear stayed on board the Archemax, refusing to budge from the helm, his eyes wide with fear, nostrils flared and small ears quivering.
‘Wuh-wargh! Wuh-wargh!’ he grunted, his paws flying in all directions.
‘He says he won’t set foot in the city,’ said Nate to the others. ‘He says it smells of death …’
‘You lot go ahead,’ said Squall. ‘I’ll stay here with my friend, Weelum. We’ll be waiting for you on your return.’
‘The city appears to be deserted,’ said the Professor, drawing his phraxpistol and setting off along the landing, ‘but I suggest we proceed with caution nonetheless.’
Following him, Nate, Eudoxia and Cirrus drew phraxpistols of their own, while Slip unhooked the hunting bow from his shoulder and inserted an arrow from the quiver at his belt. Behind them, Galston Prade twisted the carved fromp head of his cane and unsheathed the sword it encased.
At the end of the landing, they passed between two tall pitch-roofed buildings and, beneath their feet on the other side, the heavy boards abruptly gave way to a broad avenue set with red, white and black tiles laid out in complicated patterns. On either side of them, lining the great thoroughfare, were tall buildings, most of which were constructed from stone. Every one seemed more magnificent than the one before, the ornate decorations and intricate embellishments that adorned them sparkling in the sunlight.
‘Look at that sundial,’ said Eudoxia, pointing towards a huge circular disc, etched with lines and numbers, which had been mounted on the side of a lofty lattice-walled tower to her right. The elegant gnomon at its centre cast a long blade-like shadow that crossed midway between the numbers three and four.
‘Beautiful,’ Nate murmured.
To their right was a circular building, its undulating roof rising to a point; far to their left, beyond a line of low towers, was a tall rotund building with a great bowl on its roof, from which water cascaded down.
‘The Fountain House School,’ said the Professor, marvelling at the sight. ‘It’s where the offspring of the academics began their education. Look at it! Perfectly preserved, after all this time …’
‘And those?’ asked Nate, pointing with his pistol to two vast spheres of wire at the top of impossibly tall and elegant twin towers.
Mist swirled round the curious spheres, seemingly weaving in and out of the twisted wires and giving out a soft tuneful humming.
‘They’re the towers of the mistsifters, one of the oldest academies in Sanctaphrax,’ said the Professor, clearly enthralled by everything he saw about them.
There were so many wonderful buildings. Some had onion-shaped towers, some had needle-like spires; some were domed and inlaid with intricate mosaics of mirrors and semi-precious stones. Some, like the tower Eudoxia had seen, were decorated with sundials, some with clocks, heavy weights hanging down the walls beneath their burnished faces, while others had campaniles, huge bronze bells dangling down between the sets of elegant white arches. One crenellated building had small round windows glazed with thousands of tiny panels; its grand neighbour had broader windows, with curling sills and huge single panes of glass that reflected the buildings opposite.
Nate knew that the academics back in the First Age had been obsessed with the weather – as obsessed as today’s academics of Hive’s Sumpwood Bridge were with sumpwood, and those in the Cloud Quarter of Great Glade with the properties of phrax – and that the individual architecture of the academies and schools around them must reflect a particular field of interest. Fog. Rain. Wind. Snow …
Arcane pieces of paraphernalia graced each wall and every rooftop. Propellor-shaped twists of burnished metal and arced nets made of fine silver mesh; forged plumb weights and calibrated dials, weathervanes and wind socks and, dangling down the side of a tall round building from a jutting gantry, a hundred or more blue bottles, attached one beneath the other to a length of plaited cable and jutting out at different angles.
As to which building went with which academic discipline, though, Nate could only guess.
They continued through the deserted city. Vast walkways spanning the air soared over them; twisting flights of stairs and curved passageways led from one broad terrace to the next, and a lofty viaduct, fringed with steps, stretched off into the distance.
The Professor gazed up, his eyes gleaming with excitement through the lenses of his spectacles. He removed his crushed funnel hat with one hand and raked his hair with the other, before replacing the hat and shaking his head.
‘This is incredible,’ he said, slowly and earnestly. ‘No sign of storm damage, no lightning strikes, hail-pitting or frost blight.’ He swept his arm round in a wide arc. ‘It’s as magnificent as all the history scrolls I’ve read told me it was, and yet …’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, for a moment uncharacteristically at a loss for words. ‘How can this be?’
‘The city has clearly been maintained to an astonishing degree,’ agreed Galston Prade, though we have yet to encounter a single inhabitant.’
‘This city is beautiful, to be sure,’ said Slip softly from by Nate’s side. ‘But Slip doesn’t like it …’
As they walked on, their footsteps echoed down the immaculately paved streets and across the broad open squares that opened up before them. And when they spoke, they kept their voices down, as though the city was somehow sleeping and not to be disturbed. Their hushed whispers faded into the deep shadows, or bounced back from the glittering walls – reinforcing the notion that, although perfectly preserved, the ancient floating city had apparently returned to the Edge without a single soul in it.
They walked across an airy square, a fountain at its centre. The water looked like liquid silver in the afternoon dazzle as it gushed up out of the embossed rose at the top of the fountain and streamed out through lateral spouts.
‘How does it do that?’ Nate wondered out loud. ‘I mean, how does it flow? Up here, in the floating city …’
‘The floating rock is porous, with reservoirs of water deep inside it,’ the Professor told him. ‘As the rock expands, it forces the water up into springs and wells all over the city.’
Nate nodded, his thoughts returning once again to Zelphyius Dax, who had yearned for the times before the power of phraxcrystals had ushered in the Third Age of Flight. Now, standing at the centre of this extraordinary city from the First Age, Nate considered that the old librarian scholar might have had a point. Yes, in recent times they had expanded far into the once seemingly endless Deepwoods, sailing their phraxvessels to the furthest corners of the Edge – but despite everything that had been gained, so much had clearly been lost …
Craning
their necks as they passed a tall tower, Nate looked up at the pointed roof at its top and, set below it, the circle of windows with views off in all directions. It looked like some kind of observatory. A brace of white ravens perched on a jutting lightning rod, looking down at them askance and cawing malevolently. At the far side, the magnificent viaduct stretched out before them upon a series of towering arches, each one mounted with small towers, and with tall staircases set between them at the bottom.
Spotting something, Eudoxia suddenly broke away from the others and ran up the steps. Nate followed close on her heels a moment later, phraxpistol at the ready. He caught up with her at the top of the viaduct steps, to find Eudoxia staring down at the large quadrangle on the other side. The wide square was decorated with an intricate circular mosaic, with jagged bolts of lightning extending out from its centre, giving it the appearance of an intricately constructed cartwheel.
‘I thought I saw someone,’ she said, her face flushed.
They walked slowly down the steps to the quadrangle, which had low benches set out in rows all round it.
‘Perhaps this is where the welcome feast takes place,’ said Eudoxia. She turned to Nate. ‘The one the guide told the fettle-leggers about.’
Behind them, the silhouetted figures of the others appeared at the top of the staircase and began to descend, their footsteps echoing round the quadrangle. Nate turned and his eyes fell on the huge building at the far end of the viaduct. It had narrow windows, high flying buttresses and was crowned with a vast dome. The footsteps grew louder as the Professor, followed closely by the others, approached.
‘Well, well,’ said the Professor, his fingertips playing absentmindedly with his side-whiskers. ‘Someone is expecting visitors by the look of it.’ He stared around the quadrangle. ‘Yet the city is deserted.’ He shook his head. ‘The mystery deepens.’ He raised his phraxpistol and fired it into the air. The sound of the shot was deafening, echoing through the bright deserted streets like a thunderclap.
Suddenly a low arched door with curlicue hinges and set into the wall of the domed building opened, and a tall robed figure stepped out. Bathed in shadow, he seemed almost to be glowing, his long flowing robes shimmering as he strode towards them.
He was tall and lean, with dark hair, a small beard and a thick black moustache, twisted into points. The ankle-length gown he was wearing was embroidered with pearls that gleamed like hailstones. Over it was a fur-lined cape with a curious interlocking spiral design stitched into the heavy cloth, and with a broad chequerboard collar resting on his shoulders. Various brass and copper instruments hung from his belt; some round, some perforated, and some with long calibrated shafts. Upon his head rested a tall four-cornered black and white hat, while in his hand he clutched a carved blackwood staff, its top set with a gold disc of the same design as the quadrangle mosaic.
‘Put away your weapons, friends,’ he said, a benevolent smile spreading across his handsome face as he approached. ‘You’ll find no need of them here in the city of shining spires.’
The Professor stepped back, holstering his pistol, a strange look of shock and disbelief on his face. Galston Prade stepped forward, sheathing his swordstick and holding out his hand.
‘So you must be the guide we’ve heard so much about,’ he said, smiling.
The academic nodded, but ignored Galston’s outstretched hand. ‘One of many,’ he said simply.
Tearing his eyes away from the academic’s radiant face, Nate suddenly realized that the quadrangle was fringed with other figures, dressed in robes of every colour and design.
There were academics from the School of Light and Darkness, their robes in numerous shades of grey, from slate-flecked white to storm-cloud black; cloudwatchers in white, red and brown, robed academics from the College of Rain and white and yellow hooded academics from the Academy of Squall; there were the deep orange robes of the Academy of Dawn, and the patterned cloaks of the Academies of Breeze, Hailstones and Gust, along with the bright blue robes of the academics from the Viaduct Schools. The academics stood silently watching, smiles on their broad even-featured faces.
‘We were awaiting the arrival of friends from the Northern Reaches,’ the academic explained, ‘but we are always happy to receive visitors to our beautiful city and share its wonders with them. What would you like to see? The Great Hall? The Palace of Shadows? Or the Knights Academy perhaps, where the great Quintinius Verginix studied in his youth?’
Nate gave a gasp of surprise at the mention of the name, and the academic smiled warmly at him.
‘Ah, the Knights Academy it is, then. Please follow me.’
The academic turned and made his way across the quadrangle and up the viaduct steps. And as they followed, Nate was surprised to note that the watching academics had melted back into the shadows of the surrounding streets and doorways, as silently as they’d emerged.
As Eudoxia, Slip, Cirrus and Galston Prade climbed the steps behind the academic, Nate whispered to the Professor.
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ he said, ‘about the Garden of Life. That academic mentioned Quintinius Verginix and—’ Nate turned. ‘Professor? Professor?’
But the Professor was gone.
• CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX •
The Professor emerged from the shadows of a tall pillar in the corner of the quadrangle and, glancing round him warily, headed back through the city. When the academics had stepped back into the shadows, he’d followed, only for them to disappear from view the moment they had turned the first corner. The Professor had retraced his steps, but hesitated when he saw the academic talking to Nate.
Knights Academy, he’d said, the Professor noted. Well, if he was quick, he could skirt round the Loftus Observatory and past the School of Mist, then cross by the West Landing and make it to the Knights Academy from the opposite direction before they got there.
But first, he had one stop to make.
He hurried along the side of the viaduct, past the observatory tower and, checking that the coast was clear, went round the back of the tall angular building with its perforated walls and two elegant sphere-crowned towers. Then, as he turned the corner at the far end, a strange building loomed up before him.
It was circular and, unlike so many of the other buildings, constructed from wood. The few windows it possessed were small and high up, while its fanned roof, rising up to a sharp point at the centre, resembled nothing so much as a huge umbrella. It was unmistakeable. The Professor recognized it at once.
The Great Library of Sanctaphrax.
Hurrying up to the building, the Professor turned the handle, pushed the door and, having glanced round cautiously over his shoulders one last time, stepped inside. Instantly, the hallowed atmosphere of the cavernous library wrapped itself around him. It was cool and dry, smelled faintly of pinesap, and had an air of fusty bookishness about it that the passing centuries had done nothing to dispel.
Stepping across the hard-packed earthen floor, his footsteps echoing softly round the vaulted ceiling, the Professor’s gaze fell upon the forest of square pillars. He took in the plaques at their base, words etched into them in an old-fashioned floral script; the climbing pegs, which jutted out from the sides of the wooden pillars; and the clusters of barkscrolls dangling in the shadow-filled air between the pulley ropes and hanging baskets far above his head like bunches of sapgrapes.
The Professor took a sharp intake of breath. Like everything else in the city, the Great Library was in pristine condition. There was not a trace of dust, no hint of damp; there were no fallen barkscrolls lying on the floor. It was, the Professor thought, his gaze fixed above his head as he wove in and out of the great pillars, almost too good to be true …
But he didn’t have much time. Hurrying over to the circular walls, he ran his eyes over the ancient portraits of the Most High Academes hanging there. They were all present from down the centuries, their names inscribed below their portraits in ancient curling lettering:
Marborinus Quelt. Philbus Xant. Quelve Fundinix … The names, like the stiff formal faces staring back at him, began to blur.
Suddenly, the Professor stopped, his eyes fixed on the portrait in front of him.
‘There you are,’ he murmured as he gazed at the likeness of the academic they had just met in the mosaic quadrangle, then read the inscription below. ‘Linius Pallitax. So it is you, just as I thought,’ he mused to himself. ‘Linius Pallitax, Most High Academe of Old Sanctaphrax who, if memory serves me right, died after a short illness following the fire that destroyed the Palace of Shadows …’
The next moment, from behind him, a hand shot out and closed round his mouth. He felt the chill of a cold blade as a dagger was pressed to his throat.
‘So, you’re real!’ a hoarse croaking voice sounded in the Professor’s ear.
• CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN •
‘Ifflix,’ gasped the Professor. ‘Is it really you?’ He reached up and seized his brother by both arms and pulled him closer.
‘I was asking myself the very same question, Ambris,’ said Ifflix. ‘In this city of phantasmal visions, I’ve learned not to trust anything or anybody.’
He pulled away and, resheathing his knife at his belt, glanced around the deserted library suspiciously. The Professor looked his brother up and down, appraising the battered clothes of a descender that he wore – the thick double-breasted jacket, pitted and grazed by cliff rock, the padded breeches and heavy boots with their buttoned covers, now threadbare and scuffed. He smiled and reached forward, and ruffled his brother’s long unkempt hair.
‘I never thought I’d find you,’ he said, shaking his head incredulously. ‘Yet I had to try.’
Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals Page 51