by Paul Stewart
‘SLURP!’
Twig shuddered. Each time the long yellow tongue flipped out to lick and moisten one or other of the unblinking green eyes, he forgot what he was going to say. The eye-stalks extended towards him. The eyeballs stared at both sides of his face at the same time. ‘What you need, m'dear,’ said the gabtroll finally, ‘is a nice cup of … SLURP… oakapple tea. While we're waiting.’
As they walked side by side in the fading orange light, the gabtroll talked. And talked and talked and talked. And as she went on, in her soft lilting voice, Twig no longer noticed her ears or her eyes or even that long slurping tongue. ‘I ain't never fitted in, you understand,’ she was explaining.
Twig understood only too well.
‘Course, gabtrolls have been purveyors of fruit and vegetables for generations,’ she went on. ‘Growing produce and selling it at the various market-clearings. Yet I knew…’ She paused. ‘I said to myself, Gabba, I said, you just b'ain't cut out for a life of hoeing and haggling. And that's a fact.’
They emerged in a glade bathed in the deep red glow of the setting sun. The light gleamed on something round and metallic. Twig squinted into the shadows. A small covered wagon was standing beneath the hanging fronds of a sallowdrop tree. The gabtroll waddled towards it. Twig watched as she unhooked a lantern and set it swinging from a branch.
‘Throw a little light on the matter,’ she chuckled, and proceeded to pull the wagon out from its hiding place.
Twig looked it over. For a moment, it seemed to disappear. He shook his head. It returned again.
‘Clever, eh?’ said the gabtroll. ‘I spent ages mixing the paints.’
Twig nodded. From the wheels beneath the wooden frame to the animal skin which had been stretched over hoops to make a waterproof covering, every inch of the wagon had been daubed with various shades of green and brown. It was perfectly camouflaged for the forest. Twig's eyes focused on some writing on the side: curious curling letters that looked like twisted leaves.
‘Yes, that's me,’ said the gabtroll, with a lick of her eyeballs. “‘Gabmora Gabtroll. Apothecaress and Wise One”. Now let's see about that tea, shall we?’
She bustled up the wooden steps and disappeared inside the wagon. Twig watched her from the outside as she placed a kettle on the stove, and spooned some orange flakes into a pot.
‘I'd ask you in…’ she said, looking up. ‘But, well…’ She flapped her hand round at the chaos within the wagon.
There were stoppered jars and bottles swilling with amber liquid and the innards of small beasts, there were boxes and crates full of seeds and leaves, and sackfuls of nuts spilling onto the floor. There were tweezers and scalpels, and chunks of crystal, and a pair of scales, and sheaves of paper, and rolls of bark. Herbs and dried flowers hung in bunches from hooks, alongside strings of desiccated slugs, and a selection of dead animals: woodrats, oakvoles, weezits, all swaying gently as the gabtroll busied herself with the tea.
Twig waited patiently. The moon rose, and promptly vanished behind a bank of black cloud. The lamplight glowed brighter than ever. Beside a stubby log Twig noticed a heart shape had been scratched into the dirt. A stick lay across it.
‘Here we are, m'dear,’ said the gabtroll as she emerged, a steaming mug in each hand and a tin under her arm. She set everything down on the log. ‘Help yourself to a seedrusk,’ she said. ‘I'll just get us something to park our behinds on.’
She unhooked two more of the logs from the underside of the wagon. Like everything else, they were so well camouflaged that Twig hadn't noticed them. She plonked herself down.
‘But enough of me,’ she said. ‘I could go on for ever about my life in the Deepwoods, travelling from here to there, constantly on the move, mixing my potions and poultices and helping out wherever I can … How's the tea?’
Twig sipped and prepared to wince. ‘It's … lovely,’ he said, surprised.
‘Oakapple peel,’ she said. ‘Good for the nails, good for the heart, and excellent for…’ She coughed, and her eyes went in and out on their stalks. ‘For keeping you regular, if you take my meaning. And taken with honey – as this is – it's an unbeatable cure for vertigo.’ She leaned towards Twig and lowered her voice. ‘Far be it for me to boast,’ she said, ‘but I know much more than most about the things which live and grow in the forest.’
Twig said nothing. He was thinking about the banderbear.
‘I understand their properties,’ she added, and sighed. ‘For my pains.’ She sipped her tea. Her eye-stalks looked round. One of them focused in on the stick lying across the heart shape. Take this for instance. What do you think it is?’
‘A stick?’
‘It's a heartcharmer,’ she said. ‘It shows me the path I have to follow.’ She peered round into the forest. ‘We still have time … Let me give you a little demonstration.’
She stood the stick in the centre of the heart with one finger holding it upright. She closed her eyes, whispered ‘Heart lead me where you will’, and lifted her finger. The stick dropped.
‘But it's landed in exactly the same position as before,’ said Twig.
‘Naturally,’ said the gabtroll. ‘For that is the way my destiny leads.’
Twig jumped to his feet. He seized the stick. ‘Can I have a go?’ he said excitedly.
The gabtroll shook her head, and her eyes swung dolefully to and fro. ‘You must find your own stick…’
Twig darted off towards the trees. The first one he came to was too high; the second too tough. The third was perfect. He climbed up and broke off a small branch, stripped the leaves and bark until it looked just right, and jumped down again.
‘Aaaargh!’ he screamed, as something – some ferocious, slavering black beast – seized him, slammed him to the ground and pinned him down. The silhouette of its massive shoulders flickered in the lamp-light. Its yellow eyes glinted. Its jaws opened and…
It yowled with pain.
‘Karg!’ the gabtroll screamed, as she brought the stick down on the beast's nose for a second time. ‘How many times have I got to tell you? Only carrion! Now take your food and get to the wagon this instant. And hurry up about it. You're late!’
Reluctantly, the beast released Twig's shoulders. It turned, sunk its teeth into the corpse of a tilder lying next to the tree, and dragged it obediently back towards the glade.
The gabtroll helped Twig to his feet. ‘Nothing damaged,’ she said, looking him over. She nodded towards his attacker. ‘A much underrated beast, the prowlgrin. Loyal – generally. Intelligent – very. And stronger than any ox. What's more, as its owner, you don't have to worry about food. It takes care of itself. If I could just get it to stick to animals that have already died.’ Her eyes bounced about as she laughed. ‘Can't have it eating my customers. Bad for business!’
Back at the clearing, the prowlgrin was crouched down between the shafts of the wagon, tearing into the remains of the dead tilder. The gabtroll slipped a harness over its head, tied a girth around its middle and fastened the straps.
Twig stood to one side, watching, stick in hand. ‘You're not going, are you?’ he said, as she slung the logs and tea things into the back of the wagon. ‘I thought…’
‘I was just waiting for Karg to get himself fed and watered,’ she explained, climbing up into the front seat. She took up the reins. ‘Now, I'm afraid … Places to go, people to heal…’
‘But what about me?’ said Twig.
‘I always travel alone,’ said the gabtroll firmly. She tugged on the reins and set off.
Twig watched the lamp swaying back and forth as the wagon clattered away. Before he was plunged once again into darkness, he stood his stick in the centre of the heart. His fingers trembled as he held it in place. He closed his eyes and whispered softly, ‘Heart lead me where you will.’ He lifted his finger. Opened his eyes. The stick was still standing.
He tried again. Finger on. ‘Heart lead me…’ Finger off. Still the stick did not fall.
‘Hey!
’ Twig cried out. ‘The stick's just standing there.’ The gabtroll peered round the side of the wagon, her eye-stalks gleaming in the lamplight. ‘Why won't it fall down?’
‘Haven't a clue, m'dear,’ she replied, and with that she was gone.
‘Some wise one!’ Twig muttered angrily, and kicked the stick far away into the undergrowth.
The flickering lamplight disappeared. Twig turned and stumbled off into the darkness in the opposite direction, cursing his luck. No-one stays. No-one cares. And it's all my fault. I should never, ever have strayed from the path.
· CHAPTER TWELVE ·
THE SKY PIRATES
Far above Twig's head, the clouds thinned. They swirled and squirmed around the moon like a bucketful of maggots.
Twig stared upwards, spellbound, horrified: so much skybound activity while, down on the forest floor, it was all so still. Not a leaf stirred. The heavy air felt charged.
All at once, a flash of blue-white light splashed across the far reaches of the sky. Twig counted. When he got to eleven, a booming roll of thunder rumbled. Again the sky lit up, brighter than before; again the thunder sounded. This time Twig only counted to eight. The storm was getting closer.
He began to run. Slipping, stumbling, sometimes falling, he hurried across the treacherous forest floor – now bright as day, now black as pitch. A wind had got up, dry, electric. It tousled his hair and set the fleece of his hammelhornskin waistcoat bristling.
With his eyes full of the pinky after-dazzle of each lightning bolt, the darkness that followed was all the darker. Twig staggered on blindly. The wind gusted at his back. There was a crackle in the sky directly above his head and a jagged fork of absolute brilliance tore the sky apart. The thunder struck at once with a CR-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-ASH! The air trembled. The earth shook. Twig fell to the ground and wrapped his arms around his head. ‘It's f… falling,’ he stammered. ‘The open sky is falling.’
A second eye-blinding ear-splitting mix of thunder and lightning battered the forest. Then a third. And a fourth. Yet all the time, that space between the two was growing. Twig climbed shakily to his feet. The forest, one moment brightly lit like a tribe of dancing skeletons, the next plunged into darkness, was still around him; the sky still above.
He climbed one of the trees, a tall and ancient lufwood to watch the storm receding. Up and up, he went. The swirling wind plucked at his hands and feet. At the top, he rested in a swaying fork, panting for breath. The air smelled of rain, but no rain fell. The lightning stabbed, the sky glowed, the thunder rumbled. Abruptly, the wind dropped.
Twig wiped his eyes and, with his fingers, combed away the last remaining beads and bows. He watched them bounce and flutter out of sight below him. He looked up, and there, just for a second, silhouetted against the lightning sky…
Twig's heart missed a beat. ‘A sky ship,’ he whispered.
The lightning faded. The ship disappeared. Another flash, and the sky lit up again.
‘But now it's facing the other way,’ Twig said. More lightning, and the sky grew brighter still. ‘It's spinning,’ he gasped. ‘It's caught in a whirlwind.’
Round and round the sky ship went, faster and faster; so fast that even Twig felt dizzy. The mainsail flapped wildly; the rigging lashed the air. Powerless, out of control, the sky ship was being dragged towards the swirling vortex at the centre of the storm.
Suddenly, a single solitary finger of lightning zigzagged down out of the cloud. It hurtled towards the spinning sky ship – and struck. The ship rolled to one side. Something small and round and twinkling like a star fell away from the side, and tumbled down towards the forest below. The sky ship spiralled down after it.
Twig gasped. The sky ship was dropping out of the sky like a stone.
It went dark again. Twig chewed his hair, his scarf, his nails. It remained dark. ‘One more flash,’ Twig pleaded. ‘Just so I can see what's…’
The flash came, illuminating a long stretch across the distant horizon. In the dim light, Twig saw three bat-like creatures hovering above the falling ship. And, as he watched, two … three more joined them, each one leaping from the decks and fluttering away on the ebbing wind. The sky pirates were abandoning ship. An eighth figure leaped to safety just seconds before the sky ship crashed down into the forest canopy.
Twig flinched. Had the whole crew managed to escape in time? Had the sky ship been smashed to bits? Had the flying figures he'd seen landed safely?
He fairly flew back down the tree and raced off through the woods as fast as his legs would carry him. The moon was shining bright and clear, and the night animals were all in full voice. The trees, shot with their own shadows, looked as if they'd been draped in long nets. Apart from the occasional fallen branch, and whiff of smouldering greenwood, there was no sign that the storm had passed that way. Twig ran till he could run no more.
He stood doubled over, a stitch in his side, and gulped for breath. Moonbirds twittered loudly from their perches above his head. Then Twig heard another noise. A hissing. A spitting. He walked forwards. It seemed to be coming from a combbush just up ahead. He pushed the branches aside, and was immediately struck by a blast of intense heat.
Lying half-buried in the ground was a rock. It was enormous and round, and glowed white-hot. The grass around it had shrivelled, the overhanging bush was charred. Twig squinted at the rock, sheltering his eyes from the heat and dazzle. Could this be the star he'd seen falling from the sky ship. He looked round. The ship and its crew couldn't be far away.
The moonbirds were squawking irritably over something or other. Twig clapped his hands, and they flew off. Out of the silence that followed, Twig heard the low murmur of voices.
He crept forwards. The voices grew louder. He caught sight of a tall, heavy-set red-faced man with a thick knotted beard, and ducked down behind a fallen branch. It was a sky pirate.
‘We'd best find the others,’ he was saying, his voice deep and chewy. He chuckled. ‘The look on Slyvo's face when he jumped. White as codflesh he was, and green at the gills.’
‘He was up to something,’ a reedy voice replied matter-of-factly. ‘Up to no good.’
Twig stretched up to see who was speaking.
‘You're not wrong there, Spiker,’ said the bearded pirate gruffly. ‘He's not been happy since that business with the ironwood. That ‘lectric storm was a blessing in disguise, or my name's not Tem Barkwater.’ He paused. ‘I just hope the cap'n's all right.’
‘Sky willing,’ came the reply.
Twig stretched up again, but could still see only the one pirate. He stepped up onto the branch for a better look and – CRACK – the wood gave under his foot.
‘What was that?’ bellowed Tem Barkwater. He spun round and scoured the silvery shadows.
‘Probably just an animal,’ the second sky pirate said.
‘I'm not so sure,’ said Tem Barkwater slowly.
Twig cowered down. The whispering sound of tip-toe footsteps approached. Twig looked up. He found himself staring into the delicate yet broad face of someone little older than himself – an oakelf by the look of him. It must be Spiker.
The oakelf stared at Twig, a puzzled frown playing over his features. Finally, ‘Do I know you?’ he said.
‘You find anything?’ Tem Barkwater called.
Spiker continued to stare. His tufted ears twitched. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.
‘What's that?’
‘I said yes!’ he shouted back, and seized Twig by the shoulder. The hammelhornskin fleece turned at once to needles, and stabbed the oakelf's hand. He yelped, pulled away and sucked his fingers tenderly, all the while staring suspiciously at Twig. ‘Follow me,’ he instructed.
‘What have we here, then?’ said Tem Barkwater, as Spiker and Twig emerged before him. ‘Lanky little so'n'so, ain't he?’ he said, and squeezed Twig's upper arm with a bulging finger and thumb. ‘Who are you, lad?’
‘Twig, sir,’ said Twig.
‘Extra hand on board, eh?’ he said,
and winked at Spiker.
Twig felt a thrill of excitement shudder through his body.
‘If there's still an “on board” left,’ the oakelf commented.
‘Course there is!’ said Tem Barkwater. He laughed throatily. ‘Just a matter of finding out where it's got to.’
Twig cleared his throat. ‘I think it's over there,’ he said, pointing to his right.
Tem Barkwater turned and stooped and pressed his large, red hairy face into Twig's. ‘And how would you know that?’
‘I … I saw it crash,’ he said uncertainly.
‘You saw it,’ he bellowed.
‘I was up a tree. Watching the storm. I saw the sky ship get trapped in the whirlwind.’
‘You saw it,’ Tem Barkwater repeated, more softly now. He clapped his hands together. ‘Then you'd better lead us there, Twig, me-old-mucker.’
It was a mixture of luck and guesswork that got him there, but get there he did. They hadn't gone more than a hundred steps before Tem Barkwater spied the hull ahead of them, glinting in the moonlight high up in the branches. ‘There she is,’ he murmured. ‘The Stormchaser, herself. Well done, lad,’ he said to Twig, and slapped him heartily on the shoulder.
‘Sssh!’ hissed Spiker. ‘We're not the first ones back.’
Tem cocked his head to one side. ‘It's that rogue of a quartermaster, Slyvo Spleethe,’ he muttered.
Spiker raised a finger to his lips, and the three of them stood stock-still, straining to hear the murmured conversation.
‘It would seem, my dear Mugbutt, that our captain has over-reached himself,’ Slyvo was saying. His voice was nasal and precise, with every d and t being spat out like something distasteful.
‘Over-reached himself!’ came a low gruff echo.
Tem Barkwater shifted about restlessly. His face grew thunderously dark. He craned his neck. ‘The Stone Pilot's with them, too,’ he whispered.
Twig stole a glance through a gap in the leaves. There were three pirates there. Mugbutt was a flat-head goblin. With his broad flat skull and wide ears, he was typical of his kind, yet fiercer by far than the flat-head who had helped Twig out of the swamp. Behind him stood a squat creature dressed in a heavy overcoat and heavier boots. His head was hidden beneath a large pointed hood which extended down over his chest. Two round glass panels allowed him to see out. He did not speak. The third pirate was Slyvo Spleethe himself; a tall yet stooped figure, all angles and points. His nose was long, his chin sharp, and behind his steel-rimmed spectacles his shifty eyes were constantly on the move.