by Paul Stewart
‘Wait!’ The matron’s raucous cry rang out.
Rook froze. The spectacles rattled on the bridge of his beak. The matron rose from her seat and adjusted her skirts. Rook scarcely dared breathe. Behind him, the other two were rooted to the spot. The matron approached and Rook shut his eyes tight.
‘May blessings attend your nest-building,’ said the shryke-matron, and bowed. Rook inclined his head gingerly in response, praying the spectacles would stay in place. The matron turned and her talons clicked on the wooden boards as she and her companions walked away.
‘Quickly now.’ Hekkle’s voice sounded urgently in his ear. ‘Before they return!’
They hurried on in a nightmare of tension and un certainty, Rook catching glimpses of evil shryke faces as they made their way to the Deepwoods Gate, all the time in terror of his spectacles falling from his mask. The acrid smell of shryke droppings gave way to the warm, musty smell of prowlgrins. Rook could hear their soft, throaty purrs as they neared the corrals. It sounded strangely reassuring.
Hekkle guided them down a gangplank, and Rook could feel the heat given off by the roosting prowlgrins. He peered out of the side of his spectacles. The creatures were all round them, perching on broad branches and looking down on the newcomers with their sad, doleful eyes. Hekkle reached up and untied one of them. He passed the tether to Magda.
‘Climb up,’ he said. ‘And take the reins. She won’t move until you kick her.’
With Hekkle’s help, Magda tentatively pulled herself up onto the prowlgrin’s back, taking care not to let the shryke-mask slip. She reached round the harness for the reins and gripped them tightly. On either side, Rook and Stob did the same. Finally, Hekkle jumped up onto his own prowlgrin and pulled the great beast round.
‘Kick!’ he cried.
All four of them jabbed their heels into the prowlgrins’ sides. The prowlgrins moved off, thrusting away from the broad perch with their hind-legs and clinging onto the one ahead with their fore-claws. Following the lead of Hekkle’s prowlgrin, they clambered down onto a walkway. Rook glimpsed a large gateway up ahead.
‘We’re approaching the guard tower,’ said Hekkle, reining in his prowlgrin. The others did the same. All four prowlgrins slowed to a sedate lope, placing their fore-paws down and swinging their hind-legs forward.
At the end of the long walkway, the guard tower came closer.
‘What are we going to do?’ said Magda.
‘Nothing,’ said Hekkle. ‘Remember, you are sooth-sisters. You do not need to talk to mere guards. I shall speak for you.’
As they reached the guard tower, a tawny shryke with a rusty lance stepped forwards. Hekkle approached her. Rook, Magda and Stob stood apart and aloof, their heads raised imperiously, blind behind their spectacles.
‘You heard me,’ Rook heard Hekkle saying sternly a moment later. ‘We seek nesting materials for the Golden Nest.’ His voice dropped. ‘Do you dare to stand in the sooth-sisters’ way?’
‘No, no,’ the shryke guard said. ‘Pass through.’ She put her lance to her side, clicked her heels and bowed her head. Hekkle led his prowlgrin past. The others – keeping as rigid as possible as their prowlgrins lurched – followed close behind. Rook held his breath. He could only pray that the guard would neither see behind the spectacles nor hear the noisy hammering of his heart.
Step by faltering step, they left the Eastern Roost and entered the Deepwoods. The moment the last of them had crossed the boundary separating the two, Hekkle kicked his prowlgrin into action. The others followed suit, and all four of them hurtled off into the great forest, leaping from branch to branch.
‘Wahoo!’ Rook screeched, with a mixture of elation and relief. ‘Waahoooo!’
Hekkle laughed. ‘Well done, brave friends,’ he said. ‘You have done well.’
‘You are a brave guide,’ said Rook. He glanced back over his shoulder. The guard tower had disappeared from view. ‘We made it!’ he gasped, and he tore off his shryke-mask, glasses and heavy robes and tossed them to the air.
Magda did the same. ‘At last,’ she sighed, tears of relief welling up in her eyes.
Stob pulled off his own mask and held it before him. ‘I think I made a pretty convincing sooth-sister,’ he said. ‘Even if I do say so myself—Whoooah!’ he cried out as his prowlgrin stumbled, and he almost lost his grip.
He gripped the reins tightly with both hands. The shryke-mask slipped from his fingers and bounced through the branches, down to the forest floor below. He noticed the others staring at him. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What?’
Back at the guard tower the shryke guard was receiving a second visitor, a callow youth with a dark stubble covering his scalp sitting astride a prowlgrin.
He had pulled back his hood and thrust a pass under the guard’s beak.
‘See here,’ he said quietly. ‘The gloamglozer seal of the Most High Guardian of Night. And here. The thumbprint of Vox Verlix. And here, the crossed-feather stamp of the Shryke Sisterhood. I trust that is authority enough for you. Well, is it?’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,’ the guard said, scraping her feet furiously. It was not proving to be her day. ‘What was it you wanted to know?’
Xanth ran his fingertips lightly over his shaven skull. ‘I asked whether any had recently passed this way?’
‘Three sooth-sisters, sir,’ said the guard, ‘and an accompanying shryke-mate.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ said the youth. ‘And did they say where they were bound?’
‘On a nesting expedition,’ said the guard promptly.
Xanth snorted. ‘An expedition to the Free Glades more like,’ he said.
The guard cocked her head in puzzlement. ‘But shrykes don’t go to the Free Glades,’ she said.
‘Precisely,’ said Xanth. He turned away and tugged at the reins. The prowlgrin grunted, sniffed the air and was off, leaping from branch to branch.
Xanth held on tightly. He didn’t look back.
he four riders rode on hard into the Deepwoods, leaving the Eastern Roost far behind them. With the wind in their hair and their stomachs in their mouths, Stob, Magda and Rook clung desperately onto the reins as their prowlgrins – sure-footed, yet breathtakingly swift – hurtled on from branch to branch through the trees. For more than an hour they continued like this, neither pausing for breath nor descending to the forest floor. It was late afternoon by the time Hekkle finally signalled that he considered it safe to leave the trees.
‘Are you sure?’ Stob called back uneasily. ‘What about the wig-wigs?’
‘They seldom stray this far from the roosts,’ Hekkle reassured him. ‘Besides, you must be getting tired. It’s much easier riding on the ground.’
Neither Magda nor Rook needed telling twice. The lurching, jolting ride had left the pair of them exhausted.
With a sharp kick and a downward tug on the reins, they began the long descent to the forest floor below. Hekkle followed them. Seeing that no harm had befallen his companions, and not wishing to be left behind, Stob came down close behind him.
Rook soon got into the rhythm of moving with his prowlgrin as it loped steadily forwards. ‘I can hardly believe it,’ he called across to Magda. ‘All those long years spent down under the ground. You know, I must have dreamed about the Deepwoods almost every single night. And now, here I am.’ He sighed. ‘It’s even more wonderful than I imagined.’
Massive, ancient trees rose up out of the forest floor like great pillars. Some were ridged, some were fluted, some were covered in great bulbous lumps and nodules – all of them were tall, reaching up through the green, shadowy air to find light above the dense canopy of leaves. Occasionally, the trees would thin out, allowing dazzling shafts of sunlight to slice down through the air and encouraging shrubs and bushes to grow below. There were combbushes humming in the soft breeze, clamshrubs snapping their shell-like flowers, and hairy-ivy, spiralling up round the thick tree-trunks and glittering like tinsel. And, as they pounded on, Rook saw the alluring turquoise glow
of a lullabee glade far to his left.
‘It’s all so beautiful!’ he cried out.
‘… so beautiful!’ his echo cried back.
There was a feverish rustling in a nearby bush and Rook caught a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of his eye. He looked round to see a small furry creature with deep blue fur and wide, startled eyes bounding across the leafy forest floor to a tall lufwood tree, and scurrying up into its branches.
‘A wild lemkin!’ said Magda. ‘Oh, how sweet.’
Oakbells and tinkleberries filled the air with soft, jangling music. A scentball fungus exploded, sending its spores flying and filling the air with a sweet, flowery perfume. A flock of cheepwits flew up into the air in a loud explosion of flapping, and fluttered away.
‘Wonderful!’ bellowed Rook. ‘It’s all wonderful!’
‘… wonderful… derful …. ful…’
‘Yes, wonderful, brave master,’ came Hekkle’s voice by his side. ‘But the Deepwoods is also treacherous. More treacherous than you could believe. It is unwise to draw attention to ourselves. We must travel discreetly, silently, and remain vigilant at all times …’
Rook nodded absent-mindedly. They were passing through a dappled glade of smaller trees – dewdrop trees, their pearl-like leaves glistening in the yellowing sunlight; weeping-willoaks and brackenpines. And there, scurrying across the ground before him, a comical family of weezits in a long line, largest at the front down to smallest at the back, each one clutching the tail of the one in front in its mouth.
‘… And never become separated from the others,’ he heard Hekkle saying. Rook looked round. ‘On no account are you ever to wander off on your own, do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Rook. ‘Yes, I do.’
Hekkle shook his head. ‘I hope for your sake, brave master, that you truly do.’ He reined in his prowlgrin and stopped beside an aged and ailing tree with sparse foliage, crumbling bark and the scars of many storms and lightning bolts. ‘Hold my prowlgrin steady,’ he told Rook.
Rook did so. Magda and Stob caught up, and the three of them watched Hekkle remove his backpack, climb onto the prowlgrin’s back and reach up towards a rotten knot-hole high up on the trunk. He dangled a single talon down inside.
No-one spoke. No-one moved. Throughout their journey through the Deepwoods, Hekkle had stopped innumerable times just like this, and they had learned not to disturb him.
Sometimes he had stopped by fallen logs and broken branches and, having listened intently – head cocked and feathers quivering – had torn into the bark to reveal plump, pale grubs wriggling beneath. Once he had paused and scraped at the leaves beneath his feet – and discovered a nestful of squirming red worms. Another time he had thrust his beak into the soft, powdery wood of a rotting lullabee tree, and emerged with a fat caterpillar skewered on the end. Each new addition had ended up with the others in Hekkle’s forage sack.
Stob leaned forwards. ‘What’s he doing now?’ he whispered into Magda’s ear.
Magda shrugged.
Since taking up his position on the prowlgrin’s back, Hekkle had remained completely still – apart from the one talon. Scritch scritch scritch. The needle-sharp point of the claw scraped lightly at the swollen bark around the edge of the hole. Scritch scritch scritch.
Stob shook his head impatiently. Rook craned his neck to see better.
Scritch scritch …
All at once there was a loud scrabbling sound from inside the tree, a flash of pale orange from the entrance to the hole and Rook gasped as a set of vicious, glinting mandibles snapped shut around the curving talon. Hekkle did not flinch. Rook held the prowlgrin harness tight and watched intently as the shryke-mate slowly and smoothly drew his hooked talon away from the hole.
The creature came with it. It was sleek, with varnished armour, and multi-segmented like a string of mire-pearls. A pair of delicate white legs waved from each segment. Suddenly, perhaps sensing that it was exposed and wishing to return to the darkness, the creature squirmed and released its hold. But Hekkle was too quick for it. Stabbing into the hole with its beak it dragged the entire creature out – all stride and a half of it – and shook it until it fell still. Then, jumping down and loosening the drawstring to his forage sack, he dropped it in on top of the rest.
‘A skewbald thousandfoot,’ said Hekkle. ‘Delicious …’
‘Delicious?’ said Stob. ‘You mean you eat them?’
‘Of course, brave master,’ said Hekkle. ‘The forest is full of food. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look.’
Rook blanched. He’d assumed that Hekkle was simply collecting interesting specimens, perhaps to sell to the scholars in the Free Glades. ‘Are you intending to eat all the stuff you’ve collected in that sack?’ he asked.
‘Of course, brave master,’ said Hekkle and chuckled throatily He swung the backpack over his shoulders and mounted his prowlgrin. ‘The sun’s getting low,’ he said. ‘We must make camp before darkness falls. Stay close, and keep your eyes peeled. We need to find a specially sturdy tree to rest up for the night. Then we can see about that meal.’
‘I can’t wait,’ muttered Rook weakly.
‘You first,’ said Stob meanly, thrusting the skewer with the gimpelgrub on it into Rook’s face.
Rook shuddered queasily. He was sure he’d just seen it wriggle.
‘He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to,’ said Magda. ‘Oh, but I’m so hungry!’
‘Eat!’ chuckled Hekkle. ‘Eat! I prefer them raw, but they’re equally good cooked. Go on, it won’t bite!’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Rook, holding up the bright red fleshy grub. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and bit down hard …
‘I never thought I’d say it,’ Rook said, ‘but that was delicious.’
‘Even the thousandfoot?’ said Hekkle.
‘Especially the thousandfoot,’ said Rook, licking his fingers. ‘In fact, is there any more?’
Hekkle poked about inside the hanging-stove. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘It’s all gone. Everything’s gone.’
‘Pity,’ said Rook and Stob together, and laughed.
They’d come across the tree just as the last rays of the sinking sun were being extinguished from the forest floor. It was a huge, spreading leadwood, with a gnarled grey trunk and broad, horizontal branches. As the prowlgrins had carried them up into the tree – leaping and grasping, leaping and grasping – so the sun had reappeared, treacly yellow and comfortingly warm.
High up in the tree, they had dismounted and Hekkle had tethered the prowlgrins to the stout branch they were perching on. Having travelled all day, the weary creatures were soon asleep. Hekkle had led the others up to the broad branches above the roosting prowlgrins and given the three young librarians the tasks which, as they journeyed further, were to become a daily routine.
Magda and Rook collected kindling and logs. Hekkle secured the hanging metal stove he had been carrying on his back to an overhanging branch. Stob tied up their three hammocks. Then, when they returned, Rook laid a fire inside the round stove, which Magda lit, using her sky-crystals. Meanwhile, Hekkle prepared the contents of his forage sack for cooking – washing, slicing, spicing and finally, when the fire was hot enough, placing them on skewers which he slid into the glowing stove.
The flames had died down now, and the embers of the various pieces of wood that Rook and Magda had collected flickered with colour – now red, now purple, now turquoise – and gave off both sweet aromatic smells and the sound of soothing lullabies.
Magda yawned. ‘I’m going to sleep well tonight,’ she said.
‘It’s time you all got some sleep,’ said Hekkle. ‘Get into your hammocks, brave masters and mistress. I shall roost in the branches above your heads and sleep with one eye open. We shall be making an early start in the morning.’
Stob, Magda and Rook pulled themselves up and laid their weary bodies down in the swinging hammocks. The heat from the glowing stove warmed the
chill air.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ Hekkle said, as he looked down from his perch. ‘The Covers of Darkness will keep you safe from prying eyes.’
As one, the three librarian knights elect remembered the gift they had received from the Professor of Darkness. They sat up and untied the scarves from around their necks. Rook watched Stob and Magda unfold the flimsy material, wrap it around themselves and their hammocks – and disappear. With fumbling fingers, he opened up his own scarf. The nightspider-silk was as soft and fine as gossamer, and almost weightless. As he went to drape it over himself, the wind caught it, making it dance in the air like a shadow.
‘Secure it to the rope by your head,’ Hekkle instructed him. ‘That’s it.’
Rook lay back in the soft hammock, arms behind his head and looked upwards. Though concealing him totally, the cover was see-through, and Rook stared up into the canopy of angular leaves far above his head, silhouetted against the milky moonlit sky beyond. All round him, curious sounds filled the air. The screech of woodowls and razorflits. The coughing of fromps and squealing of quarms. And far, far away in the distance, the sound of a banderbear yodelling to another. Feeling warm, safe and secure, Rook smiled happily. ‘I know that Hekkle said the forest can be treacherous,’ he said quietly, ‘but to me the Deepwoods still seems a wonderful, magical place …’
‘Particularly after the horrors of the terrible Eastern Roost,’ said Magda drowsily.
‘Just think,’ said Rook. ‘One day, when we’ve completed our studies and set out on our treatise-voyages, we’ll fly over these woods.’
Magda stifled a tired yawn. ‘I’m thinking of looking at the life-cycle of the woodmoth,’ she murmured.
‘Woodmoths?’ said Rook. ‘I’m going to study banderbears.’ The curious yodelling sound repeated, fainter and farther away. ‘I can’t wait …’
‘Go to sleep,’ said Stob.
‘Well said, Master Stob,’ said Hekkle. ‘We’ve got a long day ahead of us.’ He fluffed up his feathers against the rising wind. ‘Good night, brave masters, good night brave mistress,’ he said. ‘And sleep well.’