Freeglader (13 page)

‘Sky above and Earth below,’ Xanth groaned miserably, the palms of his hands rubbing over his rough, stubbly scalp. ‘What
am
I to do?’

‘Now, now,’ came a voice, and Xanth felt a bony hand clapping him on the shoulder. ‘What are you doing down here on the ground, eh? You should be up in the trees, getting yourself ready for the long night ahead.’

Xanth looked up to see Cowlquape Pentephraxis smiling down at him kindly.

‘Cheer up, lad,’ said Cowlquape. ‘Things are never quite so bad as they seem.’

Xanth winced. He knew the old professor meant well, but the words stung. ‘Aren't they?’ he said glumly.

Cowlquape's gaunt face creased with concern. ‘The Edgeland mists can cause madness, Xanth,’ he said. ‘You can't be blamed for that. And besides,’ he added, nodding towards the concealed nest, ‘you did a brave thing carrying young Rook to safety.’

Xanth's eyes welled with tears. ‘Try telling
him
that,’ he said. ‘There's something wrong. The storm's changed him. He hardly seems to know me. He called me a spy … a traitor…’

Cowlquape squeezed Xanth's shoulder reassuringly, and sat himself down next to the youth. ‘Give him time,’ he said. ‘He needs to rest.’

‘But his eyes …’ Xanth blurted out. ‘They were dazzling, and such a strangely piercing blue … And his skin; his whole body – it was
glowing
…’

‘I know, I know,’ said Cowlquape. ‘The treetops are buzzing with talk of it. Caught in a sepia storm, I believe you said?’

Xanth nodded.

‘I myself once saw something similar,’ the High Academe mused.

‘You did?’ said Xanth.

Cowlquape nodded. ‘The ways of the Sky are strange indeed,’ he said. ‘I was a young apprentice in old Sanctaphrax, when I met a young sky pirate captain who'd been caught by a great storm. He was found in the Stone Gardens, glowing every bit as brightly as young Rook there.’

‘What happened? Did he recover?’ Xanth asked.

‘The glow died away after a few days,’ said Cowlquape reassuringly. ‘His strength returned and, eventually, one stormy night high on a balustrade in old Sanctaphrax, he got his memory back.’ He shook his head. ‘We can only hope that the same is true for Rook.’

Xanth gasped. ‘You mean he might
never
properly remember who I am?’ he said anxiously.

‘What the Sky inflicts,’ said Cowlquape, spreading his arms wide as he climbed to his feet, to indicate the Deepwoods around them, ‘the Earth can often heal.’ He smiled. ‘Come on, now. You can't spend the night down here on the ground. It's far too dangerous…’

Xanth shrugged miserably.

‘I've got my hanging-stove going,’ Cowlquape continued. ‘We could share a spot of supper together. What do you say?’

Xanth glanced round at the banderbear nest, then back at Cowlquape. He smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I'd like that very much.’

The Ironwood Stands – where the vast multitude of fleeing Undertowners had set up camp – stood out from the surrounding trees, their angular tops plunging through the rest of the forest canopy like arrowheads.

Once, the stands had been a familiar landmark both to league ship masters and sky pirate captains. These days, following the arrival of stone-sickness and the subsequent scuppering of all those old vessels, it had become just as familiar a sight to the brave young librarian knights who had mastered flight in their small, wooden skycraft – which was why it was the obvious place for the Undertowners to wait for the return of the librarian knight squadrons.

The ragtag army of Undertowners, librarians, sky pirates and ghosts could then proceed to the Free Glades, with the librarian knights flying protectively overhead.

‘Keep up,’ Cowlquape said urgently as he and Xanth made their way across the bouncy forest floor to the base of a huge ironwood tree. ‘Night is falling, and it's not safe for us down here on the ground.’

They passed a herd of hammelhorn, clustered in a large circle – tails touching, horns facing outwards – to form an impregnable wall. They were sound asleep. Cowlquape reached for a dangling rope-ladder that was secured to a huge branch above and began to climb. Xanth quickly followed him.

Covered lamps and hanging-lanterns were attached to the trees all around them, illuminating the broad, sweeping branches. The air was filled with shouts and whistles. Ropes and pulleys were being used to hoist the boxes, bags and chests up from the ground. Hammocks and cooking-braziers swung from overhead hooks; and the huge branches bristled with sleeping bodies, four, five, sometimes six abreast.

As he continued up the tree after Cowlquape, Xanth was a little dismayed to find that he was surrounded by librarians. Earth and Sky forgive him, but he would have preferred to be in one of the neighbouring trees where others were setting up camp. Families of amiable mobgnomes, gnokgoblins and woodtrolls; gangs of rowdy cloddertrogs, parties of good-natured slaughterers – all of them taking help and instruction from the gruff sky pirates and the energetic ghosts, who were leaping between them from branch to branch, tree to tree, their rope lassoes and grappling-hooks never still.

Xanth could feel accusing glares boring into his back, and hear hateful whispers. And when they arrived at the Most High Academe's hanging-stove, Xanth's heart sank.

‘How's it coming along, Garulus?’ said Cowlquape.

The under-librarian looked up. ‘Almost done, sir,’ he said. He stirred the stew, raised the wooden spoon to his lips and sipped. ‘
Mmm
,’ he murmured thoughtfully, ‘tad more salt, perhaps.’ He held the spoon out to Cowlquape. ‘What do
you
think, sir?’

‘I'm sure it's marvellous,’ said Cowlquape. He ushered Xanth forward. ‘Let the lad try a bit.’

Garulus's eyes narrowed. He dipped the spoon into the bubbling stew, filled it and held it out. Then, just as Xanth was about to take a sip, Garulus tipped the spoon forward, spilling the stew all down Xanth's tunic.

‘Oh, dear. How
clumsy
of me,’ Garulus muttered.

‘Why, you …’ Xanth stormed, his eyes blazing, his fists clenched. This was the final insult.

Garulus trembled and leaped behind Cowlquape. ‘High Academe! You saw, it was an accident!’ he appealed from behind Cowlquape's back.

Xanth glared back at Garulus, his teeth bared, his dark eyes black.

‘Look at him, High Academe. He's an animal – a wild animal!’ Garulus's voice was high-pitched and quavery.

‘Now, now,’ said Cowlquape calmly, laying a restraining hand on Xanth's shoulder and dabbing at his tunic with a handkerchief. ‘You've had a hard day, Xanth. You're tired. And look, no harm done.’

‘Once a Guardian of Night, always a Guardian,’ hissed Garulus, growing bolder. ‘It'll all come out at the Reckoning, you wait and see.’

‘That'll be all, thank you, Garulus,’ said Cowlquape, fixing the under-librarian with a cold stare.

Garulus tutted and shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you wish, High Academe, but I'd be careful if I was you…’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Cowlquape, waving him away to a rope ladder. ‘Don't you worry, Garulus. Xanth and I are old friends, aren't we, Xanth?’

Glancing over his shoulder, the under-librarian left them, and Cowlquape crossed to the hanging-stove and dished up two bowls of steaming stew.

‘Old friends?’ said Xanth, when they were seated cross-legged on blankets beside the warm hanging-stove, eating. ‘You mean I was your jailer in the Tower of Night.’

Cowlquape smiled. ‘You might have been a Guardian, Xanth, but even back then in that terrible prison, I could tell you had a good heart. You visited me, took the trouble to talk to me, to learn all you could of the Deepwoods and the knowledge they contain…’

‘But I was still your jailer,’ said Xanth bitterly, putting down the bowl, his stew untouched. ‘
And
I spied for the High Guardian of Night. The librarians know that, and will never accept me.’

‘You must wait for the Reckoning,’ said Cowlquape, ‘in the Free Glades.’

‘The Reckoning?’ said Xanth, his dark eyes troubled.

‘At the Reckoning, someone must speak up for you,’

said Cowlquape, finishing his stew and placing the bowl aside. ‘I only wish that “someone” could be me,’ he added, ‘but even though I know you have a good heart, I only knew you as a Guardian, so my testimony would do you more harm than good, I'm afraid. No, you need someone who has witnessed you doing good…’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Now, finish your stew. Look, you've hardly touched it.’

‘I'm not hungry,’ said Xanth. It was true. At the mention of the Reckoning awaiting him at the Free Glades, his appetite had left him.

‘Then get to your hammock, lad,’ Cowlquape told him. ‘You look exhausted.’

‘I am,’ said Xanth, turning to go.

‘And don't worry,’ Cowlquape called after him. ‘Everything will look brighter after a night's sleep.’

Xanth nodded, but made no reply. That was easy for the Most High Academe to say. And as he lay in his hammock, staring up through the branches above his head at the marker-beacons blazing at the tops of the trees, he couldn't help worrying. What if Rook never regained his memory? And where
was
Magda? He turned over and pulled the blankets round him. Perhaps the Most High Academe was right, he thought as he drifted off to sleep; things
would
look better in the morning.

Xanth slept lightly through the night, his dreams punctuated by the night-noises of the Deepwoods. The shriek of razorflits, the squeal of quarms, the distant yodelling of banderbears communicating with those nesting below
him on the forest floor. At sun-up, he was roused by the raucous chattering of a flock of bloodsucking hacker-bats, vicious creatures with large, violet eyes and tube-like proboscises, roosting upside down in a nearby tree – along with the cries of the cloddertrogs and flat-heads who were beating sticks and shouting in an attempt to scare them off …

Xanth rolled over in his hammock, and looked round at the curious tree-encampment, strung out in the high branches of the ironwood pines. The sun, dappled against the rough bark and pine-needles, was bright and warm after the previous day's overcast gloom. Xanth smiled. Tomorrow had indeed turned out to be a brighter day, just as Cowlquape had said it would. Perhaps it would also be a better day…

‘Skycraft approaching from the east!’ bellowed a voice high above him, as one of the look-outs spotted an incoming squadron.

All about him, as Xanth climbed from the hammock, the Ironwood Stands abruptly exploded into activity, with all eyes turning to inspect the sky.

‘They're coming from the Twilight Woods,’ someone shouted.

‘It must be the Professor of Darkness,’ bellowed someone else.

On a branch some way above Xanth, Fenbrus Lodd passed Cowlquape his telescope. ‘They're right,’ Xanth overheard him saying. ‘It's Tallus all right. Let's hope he brings good news.’

Shielding his eyes against the sun, Xanth watched the
distant rash of dots grow larger. Closer they came, the light blazing on their bulging sails and swinging weights, turning expertly as they swooped down through the air, preparing to land. Soon, across the entire Ironwood Stands, the uppermost branches filled with skycraft – sending the hackerbats flitting off at last, screeching with fear and indignation.

‘Over here!’ Fenbrus called across to the Professor of Darkness, who had manoeuvred his own skycraft down low amongst the trees and was looking for a place to land. ‘And welcome back, Tallus! What news do you bring?’