The Curse of the Gloamglozer (12 page)

The short, stocky dean leaned forwards and took it from his hand. He opened it up. The senior reader peered over his shoulder, twiddling his moustache as he scanned the words on the parchment.

‘Upon my spirit!’ he exclaimed.

‘Sacred Sky!’ gasped the dean.

The apprentices broke off mid-gossip and looked round.

‘It's
his
writing,’ the dean was saying. ‘Definitely. In
my position, I get to see it enough.’ He turned to Runnet. ‘Who gave you this?’

‘I … I found it,’ said Runnet, his cheeks reddening.

‘But how
could
he?’ the senior reader broke in. He shook his head. ‘Seftus Leprix isn't going to be happy.’

‘About what?’ the apprentices chorused as they clustered round, each one trying to see for himself what was written on the piece of parchment.

‘Yes,’ came a voice. ‘What exactly is it that I won't be happy about?’

‘Leprix old fellow,’ said the dean. ‘We were just…’ He frowned, and handed him the sheet of paper. ‘You'd better read this.’

As the others watched, the expression on the face of Seftus Leprix went through various changes – from bemusement, through horror, to utter outrage. ‘I … I don't know what to say,’ he spluttered.

‘Don't you worry,’ said the senior reader. ‘We won't allow it to happen.’

‘What? What? What?’ the apprentices and sub-acolytes were clamouring. ‘What's
happened
?’

The dean puffed out his chest, pulled himself up to his full height and turned to address them. ‘According to this letter – written by the Most High Academe himself – he is proposing to make the Sub-Dean of the School of Light and Darkness
our
new sub-dean.’ He shook his head darkly. ‘It's the thin end of the wedge, you mark my words.’

‘And what of Seftus Leprix?’ asked Runnet, just as he had been instructed to do by the character with the silver nose-piece. ‘We won't stand idly by while he's dismissed.’

A murmur of rebellious agreement rumbled round the group of apprentices and junior readers.

‘He is to become …’ the dean paused and shuddered, ‘a sub-
librarian
.’

‘Can you believe it?’ said the senior reader, his moustache trembling with indignation. ‘Our so-called Most High Academe is planning on reviving the Great Library.’

There was a gasp of amazement. The Great Library, with its dusty scrolls full of mumbo-jumbo, belonged to the past; it had no place in Sanctaphrax these days.

Runnet spoke for them all when he cried out indignantly, ‘What's the world coming to when earth-studies is preferred to sky-scholarship?’

Another ripple of anger went round the group of apprentices, and before long all of them were demanding that justice be done and action be taken.

‘Before he gets rid of our sub-dean, perhaps
we
ought to get rid of
him
,’ said one – half seriously, half tongue-in-cheek.

‘Yeah,’ said another, warming to the theme. ‘After all, what use is he to any of us now?’

‘No use at all,’ another chipped in. ‘In fact quite the opposite. Actual harm, he's doing the School of Mist.’

‘And not just the School of Mist,’ said another. ‘Every sky-scholar of Sanctaphrax will suffer if his half-baked plans should go ahead.’

‘Earth-studies scum!’ grumbled someone else. ‘We've got to stop him.’

‘Yeah, well, if he was ever to suffer from an unfortunate
accident
,’ said a young sub-acolyte with spiky red hair, ‘I know just where it would be.’

‘That precious low-sky cage of his,’ said an apprentice.

‘Precisely,’ said the sub-acolyte, with a smirk. ‘Bars can buckle. Chains can snap…’

Runnet looked round at his fellow mistsifters gratefully. The character on the twelfth staircase had promised him the examination answers if he could stir up trouble amongst the mistsifters. It had been easier than he'd hoped. These academics were a treacherous lot, he thought with a smile.

His task complete, Runnet turned and made his way down the Steps. Now all he had to do was pick up the examination answers from the mysterious professor, and learn them. Up in the sky, the East Star began to twinkle. And as a following breeze began to blow, he caught a whiff of something familiar – woodcamphor. And tallow…

· CHAPTER SIX ·

THE LOW-SKY CAGE

I
t was approaching midnight yet, tired as he was, Quint couldn't sleep. He was up and pacing back and forth, his head spinning with question after unanswered question.

‘Why
does
Maris hate me?’ he muttered as he approached the door. ‘What exactly does the Most High Academe want from me? What is so important about that barkscroll I fetched for him?’ He twisted round on his heels and marched back to the window. ‘Who
was
it that broke my fall and saved me from certain death in the Great Library?’

So many questions! He shook his head. Once life had seemed so simple.

Outside, small clouds drifted across the face of the waning moon. Small clouds and … Quint paused and squinted. ‘A sky ship,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, Father, why did you leave me here in Sanctaphrax with its horrible schools of Gossip, Rumour and Treachery, surrounded by shiftless academics – not to mention Miss High-and-Mighty Maris? Why can't I be with you, Father? Far away. With the moon in my eyes and the wind in my hair…’

He sighed, and was closing the window when there was a sharp rap at the door. ‘It's not locked,’ Quint called, and turned to see the handle moving. ‘You again,’ he said, surprised to see the spindlebug standing there so late.

‘Indeed,’ said Tweezel, nodding dolefully. ‘I'd turned in for the night, only to be summoned by his lordship's bell the moment my head touched the block.’ He sniffed. ‘He wants to see you again.’

‘Me?’ said Quint.

‘At once,’ said Tweezel, his antennae quivering with agitation. ‘If not sooner. And take your cape,’ he added.

‘My cape …’ said Quint, scanning the room for it. ‘Will we be going outside then?’ he asked.

‘I wouldn't know,’ said Tweezel. ‘I'm just passing on his lordship's instructions.’ He spotted Quint's cape in a heap beside the desk and picked it up with one set of long, glinting pincers. ‘Here,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ said Quint. He slipped it over his shoulders and made his way towards the door. As he passed Tweezel, he paused. A row of round black objects were moving steadily along the internal tubes and pipes which led to the spindlebug's huge, transparent stomach. ‘A late supper?’ he said.

‘The young mistress baked them specially for me,’ said Tweezel proudly.

‘That was kind of her…’

‘Spiced scones,’ he explained. ‘A trifle over-done, but delicious nevertheless.’

Quint smiled. ‘Rather you than me,’ he muttered.

‘Yes, well, the young mistress appreciates my work around …’ Tweezel began. But Quint had already gone. ‘… the palace.’ He shook his head. ‘Unlike some,’ he grumbled.

Linius Pallitax, the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, was already pacing the landing by the time Quint reached the floor with the master-study on it. As well as his stave, the professor was holding an unlit tallow-lantern in his hand.

‘
There
you are, lad!’ he exclaimed and, seizing him by his arm, dragged him back along the corridor. ‘Come, come, come,’ he said. ‘We have urgent work to do.’

‘Is this to be another task?’ asked Quint eagerly.

‘It is,’ said Linius. ‘But let us wait until we are outside before we discuss the details. I'm all too aware that there is a whispering campaign against me. The last thing I want to do is fuel it with any ill-chosen remarks that might be overheard.’

‘Even here?’ said Quint surprised.

‘Even here,’ Linius confirmed darkly.

They continued along the corridor, down the stairs and across the hallway in silence. Outside, they went down the marble staircase and, having checked there
was no-one lurking in the shadows, Linius turned left. Far in front of them stood the gleaming winch-towers of the West Landing.

Quint shivered.

‘It's cold,’ he said. ‘The cloudwatchers are forecasting snow,’ came the gloomy reply. Linius increased his stride. ‘Which is why we must act as soon as possible.’

‘I … I don't understand,’ said Quint, wrapping his cape around him as he trotted to keep up with the professor.

‘The cages are difficult enough to operate at the best of times,’ Linius explained, ‘but with snow and ice in the air, they can be positively perilous.’

‘The cages?’ said Quint. ‘We're going down in one of the low-sky cages? I didn't think anyone used them any more.’

‘I do,’ said the Most High Academe simply, and added, ‘I take it your father, Wind Jackal, has instructed you in the rudiments of skysailing.’

‘Yes,’ said Quint, a little confused. ‘Yes, he has.’

‘Good,’ said Linius. ‘For there is a similarity between skysailing and the operating of the cages. These days, of course, the trainee Knights Academic use training ships in Undertown, but once upon a time they learnt the basics of sky-flight in the cages.’

Quint nodded, but did not comment. Since he had no intention of staying in Sanctaphrax a moment longer than necessary, he was unwilling to discuss the Knights' Academy. Linius did not seem to notice his silence.

‘I love Sanctaphrax by night,’ he was saying, ‘without
all the hustle and bustle of the daytime activity. The baskets, arriving and departing; the constant noise.’ He turned to Quint. ‘I mean, I know that we academics depend on the good creatures of Undertown for our survival but, oh my, how loud they can be! Squabbling, shouting, touting for trade. Every day, I long for midnight, when the last of them go back to their Undertown homes and Sanctaphrax returns to what it should always be – a place of peace, quiet and academic reflection…’

Just then, from a building to their left, came a piercing howl of surprise followed by a roar of scornful laughter. A chant rose up. ‘
Down the bung-hole! Down the bung-hole! Down the bung-hole!
’

Quint turned to Linius questioningly. The professor sighed.

‘Some of us are perhaps better at academic reflection than others,’ he said.

‘Who are they?’ asked Quint.

‘Stormwatchers,’ said Linius, raising his eyes impatiently. ‘In the middle of one of their ridiculous initiation ceremonies by the sound of it.’ He frowned. ‘Stormwatchers can be as unpredictable as the weather conditions they record.’

As he and Quint continued on their way, the sounds of carousing faded away behind them. The silence returned; heavy, impenetrable. The Most High Academe might have loved it, but Quint did not. It felt eerie to him; unnatural – and perhaps because he found it hard to believe that the place he'd always seen thronging with people could be so empty, Quint started imagining faces
in the shadows, eyes peeking out from every nook and cranny. When he looked closer, there was never anyone there – yet he couldn't shake off the feeling of being observed.

On the approach to the great landing now, with the wooden boards groaning beneath their feet, the professor steered Quint towards an ancient-looking cage which creaked gently in the breeze. It was suspended in mid-air from a winch near the end of the stage. The professor strode over to it, released the cotter-pin lock and brought the cage up on its chain with a rusty
clang
till it was at the same level as the landing-stage itself. Then he unlatched the barred door. It creaked open.

‘After you,’ he said.

Quint stared at the dangling contraption with some trepidation. Unlike the hanging-baskets which carried passengers up and down between Sanctaphrax and Undertown, the low-sky cage was ancient. With its spindly frame, its caged buoyant-rock and the tarnished funnels and pipes, it looked so fragile, so rickety …

‘It's safer than it looks,’ Linius assured him as he climbed into his seat in the cage. Inside, he lit both his own lantern and the lamp hanging from the frame by his head before turning back to Quint. ‘But then, as I said, there's always an element of danger in cage-riding – especially with ice in the air.’

Quint swallowed. Above his head, a snowbird soared across the sky, mewling like a babe-in-arms. With his teeth clenched, and trying hard to be brave, Quint gripped the frame of the door and stepped into the cage. It swung wildly to and fro. The professor leant across him and secured the door.