The Curse of the Gloamglozer (34 page)

“Gloamglozer?” it said, in a small voice. “Gloamglozer. Gloamglozer.”’

‘Tears filled my eyes. “Poor creature,” I whispered, “that you should have ended up with so foolish and arrogant a teacher. Perhaps it is apt that your first word should be a Deepwoods curse.”

‘ “Gloamglozer!” it repeated, and slipped back into the shadows.’

Linius sat back in the bed, his face flushed with exertion. Then he turned to Maris. ‘Could you pour me a glass of Tweezel's cordial?’ he asked her. ‘My throat's as dry as a bone.’

Maris did so and Linius grasped the glass eagerly, but as he raised it to his lips, it suddenly shattered in his anxious vice-like grip. The dark-red cordial poured down, staining the white sheets like blood.

‘Careful, Father,’ said Maris. ‘Shall I fetch you another glass?’

‘No,’ said Bungus urgently. ‘You must finish your story, Linius, for I fear time is running short.’

Linius nodded and cleared his throat. ‘From that moment on, I knew that the tables had been turned,’ he said unhappily. ‘
I
was the one now being watched.
I
was the one being experimented on.’ He mopped his brow, which had broken out in countless beads of glistening sweat. ‘I should have cut my losses and abandoned the experiment,’ he went on. ‘Yet I felt too responsible for the life I'd created. I'd gone wrong somewhere – with its education or its upbringing. Now I wanted to put matters right.

‘I visited the Great Library increasingly often. If I could just find out exactly what type of creature it was, I thought I could do something to make amends.’ He paused. ‘Then I had my fall. It was stupid of me. I must have stepped out of the hanging-baskets onto the trunk-platforms a thousand times before – but on that particular occasion, I slipped and fell.’

Maris gasped. ‘So
that
was how you injured your leg. You told me…’

‘I know what I told you,’ Linius interrupted. ‘I didn't want you involved. That's why I sent for Wind Jackal's son. I needed someone I could trust to help me with those tasks I could no longer manage on my own. I sent him to the library…’

‘You almost sent him to his death,’ said Bungus accusingly. ‘A mere novice, unversed in the use of the ropeways and hanging-baskets. Why, if I hadn't rescued him, he would have perished there and then.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Linius hurriedly, ‘but I was in a panic, Bungus. I'd witnessed something in the laboratory. Something bizarre. Something monstrous…’

Bungus fell still. Maris sat forwards. ‘What was it, Father?’ she said.

Linius shivered, and mopped his dripping brow once more. ‘For several days after my attack on the creature, it refused to emerge from its corner. It built itself a kind of nest there, from an old cloak of mine, the lectern stool and numerous scraps of parchment which it gathered together around it. Half the time, I wouldn't have known it was there at all if it hadn't been for its voice…’

‘It talked to you?’ said Maris.

‘If you could call it that,’ said Linius with a shiver. ‘It repeated everything I said in its small, whispering voice. I tell you, it sent shivers down my spine. So I stopped talking to myself – an irritating habit at the best of times, but now, when repeated back to me, positively alarming. But that didn't stop the creature. It simply began to recite everything I'd ever said in its presence, over and over again.’ He shuddered. ‘And that wasn't the worst part, oh, no…’

‘What, Father?’ said Maris anxiously.

‘It was beginning to mimic my voice, practising over and over until it sounded exactly like me. I was getting frightened now. Just what
had
I created? So far as I was concerned, it hadn't come out of its lair in the shadows for days. But what did it get up to when I wasn't there? Was it safe to leave it unattended in the Ancient Laboratory any longer? Perhaps I should chain it up, or even – I shuddered at the thought – destroy it.’ He paused. ‘I decided to spy on it before I made up my mind what to do.

‘So one evening, I pretended to leave as I usually did, inserting the seal in the door and waiting for it to slide open. Only this time, instead of walking out, I stepped to one side and crouched down behind a cluster of hanging-pipes as the door eased back shut, then waited. The creature in its lair seemed also to be waiting, listening for any sign that I was still there. Then a low cackle erupted from the corner. It made my blood run cold.

‘ “Linius, Linius, you old fool,” came my voice. “What are you thinking of? By Sky, you'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed on.”

‘I put my eye to a gap in the tangle of pipes and tubes and peered into the shadows in the far corner of the laboratory. What I saw made my heart lurch into my throat. The creature emerged from its lair and moved towards the centre of the laboratory. It was wearing that old cloak of mine, the hood masking its features, and it had grown almost to my size. But that wasn't the most
remarkable thing. It was something else which made me gasp and bite down hard on my lip.’ He shook his head as he relived the terrible sight which met his eyes. ‘The creature was hovering at least three feet off the ground. Then it threw back the hood of its cloak and, as I watched – open-mouthed, scarcely daring to breathe – the creature's wide eyes narrowed, its brow furrowed, its ears shortened, until…’

Linius's voice cracked with emotion.

‘It's all right, Father,’ said Maris, tears in her eyes. ‘It's all right.‘

‘But it's
not
all right, Maris, my darling daughter. You see, the creature had changed itself into
me
!’

‘A shape-shifter!’Bungus exclaimed. ‘Oh, Linius, this is worse than I feared.’

‘I hid for hours watching the creature hovering round the laboratory, changing into the various creatures it had seen in the scrolls it had read – but always returning to the shape it liked best. Me!

‘Finally, it seemed to tire and crept back to its bed in the shadows. And I crept out.

‘Immediately I raced back to Sanctaphrax. I summoned my young apprentice. I knew precisely the scroll I needed him to fetch from the Great Library. It was filed far up in the high twigs of
Aerial Creatures
where
Celestial
crosses…’

‘
Legendary
,’ Bungus finished for him. ‘You had created … a gloamglozer!’

Linius nodded. He looked crushed.

‘I read the scroll Quint brought me,’ he went on softly. ‘It chilled my blood. Written in the ancient script I was now fluent in, it was full of folklore and superstition as one would expect and yet, the more I read, the more convinced I became that this was the creature I had created.

‘The Gloamglozer – or Ancient Wanderer – is said to have been created aeons ago at Riverrise. It was an evil time, before the Mother Storm seeded the Edgelands with life as we know it. The gloamglozer was one of the ancient ones that dwelt in the air: one of the ghouls and demons that fought and fed off each other in the Age of Darkness. It lived on, long after the other nameless ones disappeared, because it was a shape-shifter, a beguiler, a seeker after lost souls. It was only with the Age of Light and the coming of Kobold the Wise that the terrible creature finally faded into the mists of the Edgelands – and into myth and folklore: a fireside fable to frighten children with.’

Tears ran down the High Academe's cheeks. ‘And then, after countless centuries, I, Linius Pallitax, decided
to play the great creator. I have brought life into being, far from the waters of Riverrise, in the arid centre of the Sanctaphrax rock. Is it any wonder I brought forth a demon from the very beginning of time?’ He sniffed miserably. ‘But at least now I knew what I must do. I had to return the abomination to the oblivion from whence it had come. And there was only one way to do that.’

‘Chine,’ said Bungus. ‘From the banks of Riverrise.’

‘Yes, my old friend,’ said Linius. ‘I gathered the last ampoule of chine confiscated from the exiled earth-scholars, and, for the first time, Quint took me down in the sky cage.’

‘What went wrong?’ said Maris. ‘Did that evil thing do
this
to you?’ She brushed a hand lightly over her father's bandages.

Linius shook his head. ‘No, my child. This I did to myself. You see, unlike a flat-head goblin or a bander-bear, the gloamglozer has no physical strength to speak of. It is a creature of the air, a demon. It feeds on fear and despair, pain and death. It is a schemer and a trickster.’ He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That is what makes it so deadly.’

‘So what happened? Tell me, Father,’ pleaded Maris.

‘For his own safety, I left Quint behind in the sky cage and proceeded along the tunnel. Then, trembling with anticipation, I entered the laboratory. What appearance had my creation taken on this time? I wondered. I looked round, and there it was – crouched down in the corner.

‘I shut the door and turned to face my tormentor. I was trying not to let the fear that had gripped me show in my voice, but the creature was not tricked even for a moment. I could hear its tongue flicking the air – in, out, in, out – tasting it, relishing it.

‘It skulked in its lair as if sensing I meant it harm. I gripped the chine, easing the lid off the ampoule with my thumb whilst in my other hand I brandished the scroll Quint had fetched. “Look what I've brought you,” I said. “Wouldn't you like to see? Don't you want to know what you are? Your true identity?”

‘I heard a rustle from the shadows, and shook the scroll. “Here,” I said. “It's all here. Come out and read it for yourself.”

‘ “Give it to me,” came the creature's voice. A hand reached out from the shadows.

‘ “Come closer,” I coaxed. “Read it here by the light.”

‘The creature emerged and floated towards me. It resembled a gabtroll. It grasped at the parchment and I let it take it. It scanned the contents of the scroll, cackling and crooning as it did so. Then it paused. I watched as a finger traced the primitive outlandish drawing decorating the margin. It was a folk-drawing of the imagined true shape of a gloamglozer: horns, matted hair, long claws…

‘All at once the creature began to change into the exact likeness of this evil beast. Moments later, hovering in front of me, there was the gloamglozer. Overcoming my horror, I swung my arm in a great arc. The chine rained down on the abomination.