Freeglader (27 page)

They set off again down the hill. Ahead of them, the three banderbears – who had out-paced them – were waiting patiently for their two friends to catch up. They seemed distracted, Rook noticed, their small ears quivering and their noses twitching as they cast longing glances at the Deepwoods' treeline far in the distance.

‘Wuh-woolah, weeg wullaah!’ Rook called as he approached.
Forgive me, friends, my feet are slow, but my heart is light!

‘Wella-goleema. Weg-wuh,’ Wumeru replied, turning from looking into the distance and falling into step.
It's good you are recovered
. ‘Wug-wurra-wuh. Wuh-leera,’ she yodelled softly in his ear.
We will wait for you as long as you need us, friend.

Ahead of them, to the east, the impenetrable wall of thorn-oaks that surrounded the mysterious Waif Glen stood out, dark blue and black against the bright cloud-flecked sky. They continued past fields of gladewheat and blue barley swaying in the breeze before, once more, coming to a halt. Before them, the lake shimmered in the morning sun, the huge silhouette of the Ironwood Glade on its far shore mirrored in its glassy surface.

‘It takes my breath away,’ said Rook. ‘It always did.’

‘It's spectacular,’ replied Felix, ‘I'll give you that.’

To the east, the woodtroll villages in their clumps of lufwood trees were stirring. A long line of hammelhorn carts, laden with logs, was already snaking out from the timber yards in their midst and making for the near shore of the Great Lake and the tall tower on the large wooden jetty which jutted out into its waters.

‘Lake Landing,’ breathed Rook as he gazed down at the Librarian Knights' Academy, where he had learned about the secrets of sky-flight so long ago – or so it seemed to him. ‘It's hardly changed …’ he began. ‘But what's that?’

Felix followed his friend's gaze and smiled. ‘I was wondering when you'd notice,’ he said. ‘
That
is my
father's pride and joy. The new Great Library of the Free Glades – or rather, it will be when it's finished.’

Rook stared at the massive construction, wondering how on earth he had failed to see it immediately. It was tall and round and had been built on the end of a wooden pier directly opposite Lake Landing. Although clearly, as Felix had pointed out, there was still work to be done, with scaffolding enclosing its upper reaches, the library was already an impressive building. What was more, it looked familiar.

‘But I've seen this somewhere before,’ said Rook.

‘Not another of your cocoon dreams, Rook,’ said Felix, with a smile.

Rook shook his head. He'd told Felix about the strange dreams he'd had on Lullabee Island as they'd walked, but this wasn't one of them.

‘No,’ he said. ‘This building is an exact copy of the Great Library of old Sanctaphrax! I remember seeing drawings of it on barkscrolls…’

‘Barkscrolls, eh?’ said Felix. ‘Once a librarian, always a librarian, eh?’ He nudged his friend. ‘Well, come on if you're coming. My father's waiting to see you.’

As Rook and the banderbears followed Felix down the track leading to the Great Lake, the already massive building grew larger. The main circular wall stood some eighty strides or so tall. Above it, the roof soared up into the air like a vast pleated cone, with flying buttresses and jutting gantries sticking out from it on all sides, their horizontal platforms constructed as landing-decks for the skycraft which buzzed all round.

At first sight, with the noise and the bustle, the whole area looked like one of utter chaos. But as Rook stared, he could see that there was an order to everything taking place, with everyone working together, all under the bellowed commands of the goblin foremen and librarian overseers.

From the south-east, the long line of hammelhorn carts, driven by woodtrolls and laden with felled trees, came trundling down the dirt track from the timber yards to the lakeside, where they deposited their loads in huge piles. Cloddertrogs and flat-head goblins were stripping the branches and bark from them and sawing the logs into broad planks. Gnokgoblin tilers crawled over the great wooden roof, hammering lufwood and leadwood shingles into place in neat lines and intricate patterns. Slaughterers and mobgnomes with cranes were tying ropes round the bundles of prepared timber and winching them up to the top, where joiners and carpenters were constructing the gantries.

‘It's amazing,’ Rook gasped, as he strode closer. ‘There's so many of them, and they're working so quickly.’

‘Yes, when these Freegladers set about building something, they don't waste any time,’ said Felix, obviously impressed. ‘You should see my father, Rook. I've never seen the old barkworm happier! Talking of whom…’

They were approaching the huge ironwood doors of the new library, and the din of hammering, sawing and shouted commands up above was almost deafening. The entrance was full of Undertowners, laughing and
joking and congratulating one another.

‘You made it, Hodluff!’ exclaimed a gnokgoblin, clapping a cloddertrog on the back. ‘I lost sight of you at the lufwood mount. Are your young'uns safe?’

‘Yes, Sky be praised,’ said the cloddertrog. ‘We've all settled in a beautiful cave, and we've come to hand over our barkscrolls.’

‘Me, too!’ laughed the gnokgoblin joyfully.

In the midst of the throng stood the portly figure of Fenbrus Lodd himself, the High Librarian, a huge smile on his heavily bearded face.

‘Friends, friends!’ he was booming. ‘Welcome to the new Great Library. Find a librarian and hand over your barkscrolls for cataloguing, and may Earth and Sky bless you all!’

Rook approached him and gave a short, respectful bow. ‘Rook Barkwater,
librarian knight,’ he said. ‘Reporting for duty.’

‘Ah, Rook, my boy,’ said Fenbrus, his eyes lighting up. ‘So it is, so it is – and looking so much better, I'm pleased to see.’

‘Oh, I am better, sir,’ said Rook. ‘Fully recovered.’

‘Excellent,’ said Fenbrus. ‘Then you can begin straight away. As you can see, we have a steady stream of barkscrolls returning to us, all needing to be catalogued…’

‘But,’ began Rook, ‘I was hoping to return to sky-flight, with the librarian knights…’

Fenbrus frowned. ‘But I understood that you lost your skycraft in old Undertown,’ he said.

Rook nodded, a lump coming to his throat as he remembered the
Stormhornet
lying smashed in the rubble of Screetown.

‘Then you'll have to speak to Oakley Gruffbark the woodmaster about carving a new one. He's busy carving a likeness of yours truly up above the main entrance as we speak … In the meantime, you can be of use here in the library.’ He beamed happily. ‘Isn't it magnificent?’

Rook nodded.

‘Speaking of which, Rook,’ said Fenbrus Lodd. ‘I hope the barkscroll
you
were entrusted with is safe.’

Rook reached inside his shirt, and pulled out the leather pouch into which he'd pushed the roll of parchment. He held it out.

‘Excellent,’ said Fenbrus, giving it a loving examination. ‘
Customs and Practices Encountered in Deepwoods Villages.
Perhaps you'd like to start by cataloguing it
yourself,’ he said. ‘It'll give you a chance to appreciate what we've built here.’

Rook nodded a little reluctantly. Library cataloguing was not what he'd had in mind when he left Undertown for the Free Glades – though he was, it was true, intrigued to see the building beyond the entrance he was standing in.

As he entered the cavernous, vaulted chamber of the new Great Library, Rook's heart missed a beat. It was even more impressive from within than without. Tall tree-pillars stood in lines, hundreds in total and each one with a little plaque at its base. Rook looked up into the shadowy roof space, where the tree-pillars divided and sub-divided into branchlike sections, each one housing a different category. This was where the scrolls were stored, high up in the well-ventilated, pest-free upper reaches.

The whole place was a hive of activity. At ground level, and up on raised platforms around the walls, research was already in progress, with bent-backed academics poring over treatises and scrolls and labouring over work of their own. In the central areas, the activity was more frenetic, with innumerable librarians scaling the tree-pillars, winching themselves along the branches in their hanging-baskets and loading up the clusters of leather tubes where the individual barkscrolls were stored.

Taking his cue from the signposts dotted about at the junctions, Rook hurried to the far side of the library where, in the Deepwoods' section, he found a tree-pillar
with a plaque marked
SocialBehaviour
. He started climbing, taking the rungs two at a time, right up to where the first fork occurred. Already, he was high above the library floor. He forced himself not to look down.

Historical/Legendary
were the words on each of the forks. He took the former.
Past
and
Present
were the next choices. He dithered for a moment, before taking
Present
. Then
Societal
and
Individual
. Then
Nocturnal
and
Diurnal
… And so it went on, defining and redefining the treatise in his hand increasingly specifically. When the forking branches became too thin and weak to support his weight, he climbed into one of the hanging-baskets and, grabbing a rope, winched himself across.

He was now high in the upper rafters of the huge domed roof and could feel a gentle, modulated breeze on his face. All around him, the barkscrolls in their holders rustled like leaves in a forest. Finally, he arrived at the woodgrape-like bunch of leather tubes.

Most were still empty, though a couple had already been stuffed full with scrolls. Just to make certain he had found the right place, Rook pulled one out and inspected it. ‘
Practices and Customs in Deepwood Village Life
,’ he read. The subject matter was almost identical.

He had done it!

Pushing his own scroll into the adjacent tube, he began the long descent to the ground. To his surprise, he had found the whole process exhilarating, and when he reached the floor, his heart was racing.

‘My word, lad, that was quick,’ said Fenbrus Lodd as he arrived back. ‘I can see you're going to make a first-rate scroll-seeker!’

Rook smiled. ‘I suppose so,’ he said quietly. ‘Until I can fly again.’

‘Yes, well, go and find Garulus Lexis,’ Fenbrus went on. ‘He'll assign you a sleeping-cabin in the upper gantries. They've just been completed. Quite spectacular views and you'll be able to watch your knight friends on sky patrol.’ He paused and gazed over Rook's shoulder. ‘Are those banderbears with
you
?’

‘Yes,’ said Rook, looking across at his three shaggy friends standing waiting for him, their ears fluttering as they listened to what was being said. ‘They've been with me ever since I became a librarian knight…’

‘That's as may be,’ said Fenbrus sternly. ‘But bander-bears are creatures of the forest. They certainly don't belong in a library. Surely you can see that?’

Rook noticed the banderbears' eyes light up. Wumeru stepped towards them, her great clawed arm raised.
‘Wulla-weera. Wuh,’ she yodelled.
We hear the Deepwoods calling us, yet for you we would stay, friend
.

Rook trembled. ‘You brought me here,’ he said to Wumeru. ‘I am indebted to you – to
all
of you. You've done so much for me. Now it is plain that I must do something for you … Let you leave … Oh, Wumeru!’ he cried, and fell into the great creature's warm, mossy embrace.

‘Loomah-weera, wuh,’ the banderbear replied, scratching his back gently with her claws. ‘Wurramoolah-wuh.’
Farewell, my friend. The moon will shine on our friendship for ever.

‘Wuh. Uralowa, wuh-wuh!’ the others chorused.
You shall sleep in the nest of our hearts, he who took the poison-stick. Farewell!

Tears in his eyes, Rook watched as the three great shambling banderbears left the library behind them. Weeg, with the great scar across his shoulder; Wuralo, with her curious facial markings, whom he had once rescued from the Foundry Glades, and Wumeru – dear Wumeru; the banderbear he had first befriended all that time ago in the Deepwoods. How he loved all of them. Now they were going. Rook swallowed away the painful lump in his throat and waved.