The Curse of the Gloamglozer (42 page)
‘They looked like huge weather-balloons,’ said Maris.
‘But they were making a noise,’ said Quint. ‘They were groaning.’
Maris rushed to the window. By the time she arrived there, however, the massive inflated objects had both been whisked away on the wind.
Maris and Quint weren't the only ones to see the vastly inflated sub-dean and former guard rising up into the sky. From their vantage point at the top of the Loftus Observatory, the Professors of Light and Darkness had witnessed it all.
‘Look there!’ the Professor of Light had cried out. ‘Emerging from that window in the School of Mist. A luminous object. And another…’
‘Upon my soul!’ gasped the Professor of Darkness. ‘What can they be? Fog-clusters?’
‘Or charged hover-mist?’
‘Or cloud-spirits?’
‘Or some curious form of ball-lightning?’
Before either of them could decide, the two mysterious shimmering spheres – each getting larger by the second – soared up into the night sky. They shone like two new stars for a moment, before growing smaller and smaller, and finally being extinguished completely.
‘Remarkable,’ said the Professor of Light.
‘Extraordinary,’ said the Professor of Darkness.
‘We must record every detail at once,’ the Professor of Light said.
‘Indeed,’ agreed the Professor of Darkness. ‘And we must compare our findings with existing records to discover what we have just witnessed.’
Despite all their work, the professors never did learn what it was they had seen that night, although they – and the others who had also witnessed the curious starry spectacle – came up with many wild theories. Subsequently, more wild theories arose as to the curious disappearance of the sub-dean of the mistsifters, Seftus Leprix, and a renegade guard by the name of Bagswill. Countless conspiracies were mooted, and various bits of gossip became gospel. But in all the intricate guesswork and speculation, no-one connected the two events.
Alone among the citizens of Sanctaphrax, only Tweezel and Jervis knew that the brief appearance of the
two new stars and the disappearance of the sub-dean and the guard were linked. And they weren't telling anyone. Ever.
Back at the window of the old nursery in the School of Mist, Quint and Maris gazed out together at the dark night-sky. The stars twinkled above them, as bright as polished black-diamonds.
‘It's so beautiful,’ Maris breathed.
‘It's more beautiful still when you escape the sky-glow of the city lights,’ said Quint. ‘Oh, Maris, I cannot begin to explain to you how wonderful it is to go skysailing across the Deepwoods on a night such as this. Or to drift across the top of a swirling sea of snow-white fog. Or to follow in the slip-stream of passing rainbow-clouds.’ His eyes glazed over. ‘To feel the sun in your face and the wind in your hair …’ He paused and turned to Maris. ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘I have never been stormchasing. If Sanctaphrax is prepared to teach me how to, then perhaps I should take up the Professor of Light's offer.’
‘You mean, you'll stay?’ said Maris.
Quint nodded. ‘For now,’ he said. ‘But not for ever. This place is not for me, Maris. One day I shall leave Sanctaphrax with its plots and intrigues, and never come back.’
‘Quint,’ said Maris, taking hold of his arm. ‘When you do leave, take me with you.’
Quint smiled, but said nothing. He turned and stared back outside into the wide beyond. Far out there were
the sacred Twilight Woods and, beyond them, the dark Deepwoods which stretched out for ever. A warm glow spread through his body. He longed to explore the great wide world out there, a world full of wonders…
The gloamglozer's voice filled his head with no warning. It sent shivers throughout his body.
I curse you, Quint the apprentice…And you shall live with my curse every day of your life. The curse of knowing that you have set me loose on the world!
No, no, he told himself, and shook his head. The gloamglozer was gone. It would never return to Sanctaphrax – and what were the chances of ever running into it again? The Edgeworld was so vast. No, it was all over.
Wasn't it?
‘Well?’ he heard Maris saying. She sounded impatient. ‘Will you take me? Yes or no?’
Quint turned back and, seeing the earnest little face of his friend, burst out laughing. ‘I'll tell you what,’ he said, ‘if I had you with me, the gloamglozer would never dare to come near!’
‘Is that a
yes
, then?’ said Maris.
‘Yes, Maris, it is,’ said Quint. ‘When I leave Sanctaphrax you will come with me. You can stand beside me at the helm of a great sky ship and together we shall sail to the furthest corners of the sky.’
Maris nodded. ‘And perhaps,’ she said dreamily, ‘even further than that.’
A DAVID FICKLING BOOK
Published by David Fickling Books
an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
Text and illustrations copyright © 2001 by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the
written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Originally published in Great Britain by Doubleday,
an imprint of Random House Children's Books, in 2001.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stewart, Paul.
The curse of the gloamglozer / by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.
—1st American ed.
p. cm. — (The edge chronicles)
SUMMARY: Apprenticed to the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, a
floating city of scholars, gossip, and treachery, fourteen-year-old Quint
runs increasingly dangerous errands, which eventually bring him to a
place of gruesome monsters that threaten his life and those of his friends.
eISBN: 978-0-307-52267-2
[1. Fantasy.] I. Riddell, Chris. II. Title. III. Series.
PZ7.S84975 Cu 2005
[Fic]—dc22
2004004403
February 2005
v3.0