The Winter Knights (5 page)

‘It's this way,’ said Quint, leading his father over a finely wrought curved bridge to his right.

They passed between a tall palace with elongated diamond-shaped windows and a curved wall, with honeyed light pouring out of the narrow slits along its length. The sound of muted rustling came from somewhere high up above them, and there was a hint of mildew in the air. Then, at the end of the wall, where a high-pitched squeaking noise seemed almost to be keeping time with a dull and distant throb, Quint turned sharp left, and the pair of them entered a narrow, unlit alley. Wind Jackal stumbled on the irregular cobblestones.

‘Whooah! Slow down a bit,’ he protested, and grabbed hold of his son's arm for support. ‘Quite the Sanctaphrax academic, aren't you?’ he said a moment later. ‘You seem to know this place like the back of your hand. Even by night.’

Quint nodded, and felt a warm glow of pride. His father was right. What with the sights and sounds and smells of Sanctaphrax around him, he would always be able to find his way around. It was as if, without his ever having to learn it, his senses had absorbed the essence of the great floating city.

‘We're nearly there,’ he said.

Sure enough, a moment later, they emerged onto a large square. Before them stood the palatial School of Light and Darkness, bathed in light – and surrounded by a vast crowd of baying academics.

Constructed on a framework of narrow pillars and flying buttresses, the great school seemed almost to be floating; an illusion enhanced by the ornamental lake which ran the length of its front wall. Soaring up gracefully, storey after storey, each one designed to combine light-filled promontories with darkness-defined alcoves which pitched and shifted with the passing of the sun and phases of the moon, the School of Light and Darkness had been designed to illuminate and reflect. There were countless blazing lanterns fixed to its outer walls, at once lightening the façade and casting dark shadows; while its windows – that great mosaic of crystal-glazed openings which lanced every wall – were divided into those through which you could see into the opulent interior, and those which reflected back what was outside.

Wind Jackal and Quint approached the front entrance, where the crowd was at its thickest and most agitated. Elbows were flying and voices were raised as the academics jostled and scuffled with one another. In front of them, a line of impassive flat-head goblins of the Sanctaphrax Guard blocked their way, their arms folded and weapons stayed.

Representatives of every school were gathered there, Quint realized. Raintasters, cloudwatchers, mistsifters; scholars of gloom, of gust, of drizzle, dawn and dusk, all jockeying for position and vying with one another for attention. They were waving their staffs of office and barkscroll petitions in the air, each one desperate to be granted an audience with the new Most High Academes as soon as possible - and, more importantly, ahead of their rivals.

‘Behold the falling snow!’ a gaunt under-professor from the Institute of Ice and Snow was bellowing. ‘I must see them at once!’

‘And I,’ screeched the Professor of Balm, his rose-coloured robes flapping wildly, ‘must insist that I be allowed to address the venerable Most High Academes about this unseasonable weather …’

As Quint and Wind Jackal approached, a huge flat-head goblin, his tattoos and rings gleaming in the lamplight, stepped forward from the ranks of the guard and raised his sword.

‘Academics of Sanctaphrax,’ he bellowed. ‘You shall all be heard tomorrow when the announcement of who is to succeed the late Linius Pallitax as
I
Most High Academe is formally made …’

‘But we know who's succeeded him!’ pro-
I
tested the under-professor from the Institute of Ice and Snow, ‘and I must see them this instant, Captain Sigbord, or …’ ‘Or what, Palvius Quale?’ Sigbord bared his teeth in a grim smile and grasped the under-professor's white hood in one massive fist. In the other, he raised his curved sword.

‘You … you … wouldn't dare,’ trembled the under-professor.

‘Just you try me,’ snarled the captain as, behind him, the guards took a step forward and began slowly beating their shields with their swords.

With mutters and curses, the crowd began to disperse. Pushing through them, Wind Jackal and Quint approached the entrance to the School of Light and Darkness where Sigbord was standing, still clutching the under-professor by the throat.

‘Haven't lost your touch, I see, Sigbord, you old hive-hut skulker!’ laughed Wind Jackal, sticking out his hand.

The goblin let go of the under-professor, who quickly scurried off after his companions, and shook Wind Jackal's hand warmly.

‘Captain Wind Jackal, you old sky fox. It's good to see you. The professors … or should I say, Most High Academes are expecting you. Please, follow me.’

He turned, raised his fist and hammered at the heavy leadwood door. It swung open at once, and Quint and his father followed the brawny flat-head inside. The three of them strode across the echoing hallway of black and white marble flags, past a vast curved staircase and on towards the tall, pointed archway at the far end.

On many occasions, Quint had peered into the venerable school from the doorway, but never before had he actually set foot inside. This was the grandest and most prestigious Sanctaphrax institution of them all, and there were few academics who did not wear the sombre grey robes of the School of Light and Darkness who had ever managed to get past the Treasury Guard; and fewer still who had been allowed to proceed beyond this entrance hall.

Quint gasped as he followed the others through the pointed archway and found himself in a cavernous atrium, so vast that a whole flotilla of sky ships could have comfortably moored there. Gallery after ascending gallery ringed the atrium, each one supported upon a forest of slender, fluted pillars. They rose up as far the eye could see, a broad, encircling staircase linking one with the other, and were crowned at the top by a vast dome, painted on its concave face with intricate scenes of light and darkness.

This same theme – light and darkness – was repeated throughout the great school. There were chambers so brightly lit that they were blinding, with marble walls and crystal chandeliers; there were also dark rooms, lined with black leadwood and wreathed in sombre shadows. And everywhere, like grey wraiths, the academics of the School of Light and Darkness moved about on soundless feet, absorbed in their various tasks, calculations or hushed discussions.

They went from chamber to chamber, muttering under their breath, or clustered together in twos, threes or small whispering groups. Some would hurry off in this direction, that direction, as if engaged in the most pressing work; while others sauntered – even stopped completely – their eyes staring and brows furrowed.

Apart from the grey robes they wore, they could be identified by the distinctive carved staffs they clutched, each one with a lens or spyglass attachment set into its ornate hilt. Those, and the spectacles they wore. All but a few wore several pairs at the same time – on their noses, on the tops of their heads, with more of different strengths hanging from chains and thongs around their necks, so that, with the minimum of fuss, they could easily replace those they were wearing with ones more suited to their needs in the chambers they entered.

How different they seemed, thought Quint, to the noisy, scheming academics in the other schools of Sanctaphrax. Indeed, not only was the School of Light and Darkness the grandest in the floating city, but its academics were also the most secretive, seldom involving themselves in matters beyond its walls.

Yet with the Professors of Light and Darkness becoming the new Most High Academes, Quint mused, surely that would all have to change.

They had reached the upper chambers, near the great dome, when Sigbord abruptly turned down a long corridor. At the end of it were two huge doors; one black, one white. Sigbord turned to Wind Jackal.

‘The Most High Academes will see you now,’ he said, opening a door and ushering Quint's father inside.

Quint was about to follow when he felt the flat-head goblin's hand on his shoulder.

‘Not you, young sir,’ he growled. ‘Take a seat over there until you're called.’

Glancing round at where Sigbord was pointing, Quint saw a gangly youth in a faded tunic and patched breeches. He was sitting, hunched over, on a bench to the right of the door. Quint crossed the floor and sat beside him while Sigbord marched off down the stairs. When the flat-head's footsteps had faded away, Quint broke the heavy silence that descended.

‘My name's Quintinius Verginix, apprentice to …’ He paused. ‘Well, former apprentice to Linius Pallitax.’

Quint held out his hand. The youth eyed it suspiciously, then looked down.

‘Sanctaphrax born and bred, no doubt,’ he said with an unpleasant sneer. ‘Surprised you can be bothered to talk to the likes of me, a humble Undertown knife-grinder.’

‘Actually,’ said Quint, a little stiffly, ‘my father's a sky pirate, and I was born in Undertown myself.’

The youth looked up at him, his eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.

‘So what are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘I was sent for,’ said Quint. He certainly didn't like the youth's unfriendly tone. ‘But I could well ask you the same question.’

‘I am the protégé of the Professor of Darkness,’ said the youth, sitting up and puffing out his chest. ‘Plain old Vil Spatweed, I was – 'til I found the professor's telescope half-buried in the mud of Anchor Chain Square.’ He smiled, his lower jaw jutting forward with pride. ‘Cleaned it up, polished the lens, made a few improvements of my own and then returned it to him. And mighty impressed he was, too. Invited me up here himself, he did. Said I had a rare talent which could be put to good use.’

The youth stood up and smoothed down his tattered tunic.

‘And now,’ he announced, a grin of smug satisfaction spreading across his features. ‘You see before you none other than Vilnix Pompolnius, soon to be a squire of the Knights Academy -and with the Most High Academe, no less, as my mentor!’

‘One of the
two
Most High Academes, Vilnix, my lad,’ came a deep rumbling voice. ‘And must I remind you again not to boast?’

Quint spun round. There, emerging from the black and white doors, was the owner of the voice, the Professor of Darkness, in a robe of deepest black, together with the white-robed Professor of Light and Quint's father, Wind Jackal.

Quint bowed his head in respectful greeting, but not before he glimpsed the scowl on the youth's face.

‘Ah, making friends already?’ the Professor of Light said, smiling benevolently at Quint and Vilnix. ‘Excellent, excellent.’

Vilnix stepped forward and inclined his head respectfully. ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied.

‘We have an announcement to make,’ the Professor of Darkness said, looking from Vilnix to Quint, and back again. ‘An important announcement.’

‘This is indeed a day for the breaking of traditions,’ the Professor of Light said, his voice high-pitched and reedy. ‘Not only are there now two Most High Academes where before there was only one. But there will also be two Undertowners amongst the twenty-two apprentices from the Sanctaphrax schools chosen to enter the Knights Academy this year.’

‘You mean …’ Quint began.

‘We would like to invite both of you,’ said the Professor of Darkness, nodding. ‘Vilnix, you shall be my protégé.’

‘And you, Quint, shall be my protégé,’ said the Professor of Light. ‘It is what I had intended all along. You served our dear friend Linius well and would have made him an excellent protégé. Now you shall make
me
proud. The pair of you will carry the honour of the School of Light and Darkness into the Knights Academy.’

‘
If
you choose to accept,’ the Professor of Darkness added.

‘Oh, I accept, all right,’ said Vilnix eagerly, seizing the professor's hand and shaking it vigorously.

Quint glanced round at his father, his brow furrowed. Wind Jackal stepped forwards and embraced him warmly.

‘It's up to you, Quint, what you decide to do,’ he said.

‘Oh, Father,’ said Quint, looking up into Wind Jackal's concerned face. ‘I'm part of Sanctaphrax now – and it's a part of me.’