The Curse of the Gloamglozer (10 page)

‘QUINT!’

There it was a third time. What had he done
now
?

He leaned over the balustrade and strained to hear what was being said. But it was impossible. He could just make out that she was talking to Welma – but the shouting was over now and their conversation no more than a murmured buzz.

Quint turned away, left the kitchen gallery and made his way back to his room. The anger and exasperation in Maris's voice when she had shouted his name had been unmistakable. ‘She hates me,’ he told himself flatly. ‘It's the only answer. She hates me.’

He kicked the door to his bed-chamber shut and threw himself on the bed. ‘Stuck-up little prig!’

‘The thing is,’ Welma was saying, ‘as a Deepwooder, I must say that I'm all in favour of what your father is trying to do in Sanctaphrax. Those sky-scholars have got too big for their boots – what with their mistsifting and raintasting and big towers everywhere. Why, to listen to them you'd think the Deepwoods didn't exist. But they do, and there was a time when earth-studies mattered. The old librarians knew that, and so does your father…’

Maris listened, surprised, as she licked the whisk slowly clean. It was unlike Welma to mention the politics of Sanctaphrax, but ever since the trays had gone into the oven, she had talked non-stop.

‘Oh, I accept that it can be handy to know when it's going to rain, but as a Deepwooder I know how important it is to understand the properties of the creatures and plants of the Deepwoods,’ she went on. ‘To know what is and isn't edible, what should and shouldn't be
worn, what can and cannot be used for medicinal purposes … The librarians knew all about these things in the old days.
Someone
has to prevent all the information that has been accumulated over the centuries from simply being lost.’

Maris nodded. She pulled the wooden whisk from her mouth. ‘I just wish that that
someone
wasn't my father,’ she said.

‘I know, my treasure,’ said Welma. ‘He's taken a great burden upon himself, that's for sure. And he's so determined to succeed that I fear for him.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Maris.

Welma frowned. ‘Do you remember that old story I used to tell you?’ she asked. ‘
The Tree That Said It Could Fly
.’

A smile spread across Maris's face. ‘I think so,’ she said.

‘Tell it to me, then,’ said Welma.

Maris laid the whisk down on the table. ‘Well, it's about a lufwood tree and a leadwood tree,’ she said. ‘The lufwood tree keeps saying, “I shall fly, I shall fly, if it's the last thing I do.” And the leadwood tree keeps saying, “Prove it!” '

Welma smiled and nodded encouragingly.

‘The lufwood flaps its branches but it does not fly. It spins its leaves but does not fly. It jiggles its roots but
still
it doesn't fly,’ said Maris. ‘Then, just as the leadwood tree is about to lose its temper with its boastful neighbour, the lufwood is struck by a bolt of lightning. It bursts into flames and, being lufwood and buoyant when on fire, it tears itself from the ground and rises up into the sky.

‘ “I said I would fly,” the lufwood calls down.

‘ “Yes, my friend,” the leadwood calls back. “You said you would fly if it was the last thing you did. And it is!”' Maris looked up and smiled weakly. ‘When I was small, I used to think it had a happy ending,’ she said. ‘But it does-n't, does it?’

‘It depends how you look at it,’ said Welma. ‘The lufwood's wish did finally come true.’

‘Yes, but it was burning away to nothing,’ said Maris.

‘That's right,’ said Welma. ‘And do you remember the moral of the story?
For in success can lie destruction
.’

Maris flinched. ‘And you think my father is like that lufwood. You think that he…’

At that moment, the heavy double doors to the kitchen flew back on their hinges and crashed against the walls behind them. Maris and Welma spun round to see Linius Pallitax standing in the doorway.

His robes were dishevelled. His hair was matted. His face was pale, drawn, puffy-eyed – and unmistakably angry. ‘Why did no-one wake me?’ he demanded. ‘I've already missed most of the day.’

‘B … but you were up all night,’ said Maris nervously. ‘You needed to sleep.’

‘Even if it does mean turning nocturnal,’ Welma added wryly.

‘When I want advice about when to sleep, I shall ask for it,’ he snapped. He looked round. ‘Have either of you seen Quint?’

‘No,’ said Maris. ‘Not since…’

‘Oh, for Sky's sake!’ he roared. ‘Do I have to do
everything
myself? I send him on an important, not to say
urgent, errand – and what happens? He disappears!’

Maris frowned. ‘Urgent?’ she said. She fumbled in her side pocket for the rolled-up barkscroll.

‘Is this what you need?’

Her father limped across the kitchen, snatched the barkscroll from her hands and opened it up. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘
Yes!
’ He turned on his daughter, eyes blazing. ‘But why didn't Quint bring it straight to me?’

‘Because … because I told him not to …’ Maris stammered. Her face smarted, her eyes stung. ‘You … you were asleep. I didn't want him to disturb you …’

‘When did he arrive back?’

Maris hung her head. ‘This morning,’ she said, and swallowed. ‘At about six hours.’

‘Six hours!’ he roared. ‘Maris, this is absolutely intolerable! You must not interfere in matters you know nothing about…’

‘But I only meant to …’

‘Stop meddling in my affairs. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Y … yes, Father,’ said Maris, her voice breaking.

Without another word, Linius Pallitax turned on his heels and left. The double doors slammed shut behind him.

‘You see?’ Maris shouted, the moment he had gone. ‘It's always the same. In his eyes,
everything
I do is wrong.’

‘Oh, he didn't mean it, my sugar-dumpling,’ said Welma. ‘You could see how tired he looked. How out of sorts …’

‘It's all that Quint's fault,’ Maris went on bitterly. ‘Bringing Father that wretched barkscroll. That's what upset him. That's what made him sh … sh … shou…’ She burst into racking tears. ‘… shout at me.’

‘Come now, Maris,’ said Welma softly.

But Maris was inconsolable. She pushed Welma aside and buried her head in her hands. With a slight shrug, Welma trotted over to the oven and opened the door. Maris heard her gasp, and looked up. Thick, black smoke was billowing from inside.

‘We make a fine pair, we do,’ said Welma. ‘What with all this fuss and to-do, I forgot all about the scones.’

‘They're ruined!’ Maris howled.

‘I could try scraping them,’ Welma suggested. ‘Throw them away!’ said Maris. ‘Quint doesn't deserve them anyway!’

Tears stinging her eyes, she ran from the kitchen and up the stairs. Tweezel was coming towards her, a tray held firmly in his translucent pincer-grip – but Maris ignored his respectful bow and brushed him roughly aside.

‘Young mistress?’ the spindlebug's creaky voice echoed round the stairwell.

Without hesitating, Maris rushed on – not to her bedroom –
that would be the first place Welma would come looking for her, and she didn't want to be found – but to the balcony-chamber. Across the wooden floor she sped, behind the lacy curtains and out through the glass doors.

Panting with exertion, she stepped to the edge of the balcony and breathed in the warm, sticky air. To her right was the West Landing with its octagonal turrets; to her left, the Loftus Observatory, and below it – just visible through a narrow gap between the buildings – the Viaduct Steps, teeming with life.

‘Sanctaphrax academics,’ she murmured scornfully as she watched them. ‘Like insects, scurrying here, scuttling there. Making alliances, breaking promises; plotting, scheming …’ She sniffed and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. ‘My father, Linius Pallitax, the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, is better than the whole lot of you put together.’

· CHAPTER FIVE ·

THE VIADUCT STEPS

i
West Side: 18th Staircase

A
s the wind increased, a ridge of ribbed cloud sped in from beyond the Edge. The sky darkened. The air chilled. The lone academic with the wispy hair and wild eyes paused mid-sentence and wrapped his flapping gown around him. He straightened up and scanned his scanty audience with a dark, penetrating gaze.

‘And worse than all that,’ he repeated, ‘is the food in the refectory. What exactly
is
being served from those great stew-pipes every day?’

‘I dunno, but I'm sure you're going to tell us,’ shouted a voice from the back of the small crowd and a group of mobgnomes began sniggering.

‘They tell us it's tilder,’ the academic continued undaunted. ‘They tell us it's hammelhorn. They tell us it's snowbird. But I have it on the highest authority that it is none of these.’ He paused for effect. ‘I can tell you

now, that what we are being served daily is piebald rat, fresh from the sewers of Undertown.’

As one, the audience groaned. They'd heard it all before! If it wasn't piebald rats, it was muglumps from the Mire, or white ravens from the Stone Gardens – or some other creature considered equally inedible by all but the most barbaric citizens of Sanctaphrax. Once there had been rumours that even the recently deceased academics were ending up in the stew-pot. Disappointed that the speaker's revelations hadn't been more original, individuals in his audience began to drift away until only the heckling mobgnomes were left.

‘I work in the kitchens,’ one called out. ‘I see the sides of meat coming in. Huge they are …’

‘Have you seen the
size
of the piebald rats these days?’ the academic countered.

‘Rats don't have wings, neither,’ shouted another.

‘Down in the sewers, they come in all shapes and sizes,’ the academic shouted back. ‘Some have got two heads. Some have got lungs and live underwater. And some,’ he announced triumphantly, ‘have got wings.’

The mobgnomes looked at one another and shrugged. One of them screwed his finger into his temple. ‘Sky-touched,’ he muttered.

‘As crazy as a square circle,’ another added. ‘The quality of speakers you get on the Viaduct Steps these days is really going downhill.’

They turned as one and trooped off together, ignoring the cries of the academic. ‘Stop! Wait a minute!’ he called after them. ‘I haven't yet told you about the scandal of
the Moon Observatory, or how the disappearance of seven fogprobing apprentices was hushed up – or what
really
goes on at the Convocation of Professors on Grey Thursdays …’

ii
East Side: 18th Staircase

Cursing the ranting buffoon behind him, Seftus Leprix moved away from the top of the Steps and headed down towards the raucous crowd. He needed to hear the odds and the form being called before finally placing a bet on one of the four fighting fromps.

‘… and in the east corner, Bruto the Brave,’ the fight-master – a swarthy lugtroll with a withered arm – was announcing as he scribbled on a blackboard. ‘4–1. In the west corner, Smarg the Mighty. 6–1. And finally, in the south corner, the current favourite, Magno the Claw. 3–1.’