The Last of the Sky Pirates (3 page)

‘Stop wobbling about, you stupid thing,’ Rook told the lectern sternly. He shifted his position on the bench. The violent lurching eased. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now, just hold still while I …’

Squinting into the bright spherical light above the
lectern, Rook reached up and pulled a large, bound volume from the uppermost shelf of the floating lectern. It was the one about banderbears. As he laid the treatise out on the desk before him, he felt a familiar surge of excitement, tinged with just a hint of fear. He opened it up at random.

His head bowed forwards. His eyes narrowed in concentration. No longer was he sitting at a floating lectern, in a vaulted chamber, deep down underground …

Instead, Rook was
up there
– in the open, in the vast, mysterious Deepwoods, with no walls, no tunnels and no ceiling but the sky itself. The air was cool and filled with the sound of bird-cry and rodent-screech …

He turned his attention to the treatise.
The yodelled communication cry
, he read,
is meant for one specific banderbear alone. None, not even those who may be nearer, will answer a call intended for another. In this respect it is as if a name had been used. However, because, throughout my treatise-voyage, I never managed to get close enough to one to fully decipher the language, it is impossible to know for sure
.

Rook looked up. He could hear in his head the banderbear yodel, almost as if he had once heard one for himself …

One matter appears certain. It seems to be impossible for any banderbear to deceive any other about his/her identity. It is perhaps this fact that makes banderbears such solitary animals. Since their individuality cannot come from anonymity
in
a crowd, it must come from isolation
from
that crowd
.

The further my travels take me …

Rook looked up from the neat script for a second time and stared into mid air.
‘The further my travels take me …’
The words thrilled him. How he would love to explore the endless Deepwoods for himself, to spend time with banderbears, to hear their plaintive yodelling by the light of the full moon …

And then it struck him.

Of course! he thought, and smiled bitterly. Today wasn’t just any old day. It was the day of the Announcement Ceremony, when three apprentice librarians would be selected to complete their education far off in the Deepwoods, at Lake Landing.

Rook wanted so, so much to be selected himself – but he knew that, despite Alquix Venvax’s encouraging words, this would never happen. He was a foundling, a nobody. He’d been discovered, lost and alone, wandering through the Deepwoods, by the great Varis Lodd – or so he’d been told. Varis, daughter of the High Librarian, Fenbrus Lodd, was the author of the treatise Rook now held in his hands.

If she hadn’t been out in the Deepwoods studying banderbears, she would never have stumbled across the abandoned child with no real memories – apart from his
name, and a recurring nightmare of slave-takers and wolves and …

Yes, Rook Barkwater did indeed owe his life to this particular bound treatise.

Varis Lodd had brought him back to the sewers of Undertown along with her treatise on banderbears, and left him here to be raised by the librarian-scholars. The old librarian professor, Alquix Venvax, had befriended the sad, lonely little boy and done what he could, but Rook was well aware that an orphan with no family connections would never be more than an under-librarian. His lot was to remain down in the great library chamber, tending the buoyant lecterns and serving the professors and their apprentices.

Unlike Felix. Rook smiled to himself. If
he
couldn’t go to Lake Landing, then at least Felix could.

Felix Lodd was Varis Lodd’s baby brother – though he wasn’t much of a baby any more. He was tall for his age, powerfully-built and athletic. Quick to smile and slow to anger, what he lacked in brains, he made up for in the size of his heart.

Felix was an apprentice and had made up his mind to look after the small orphan his sister had found. Rook sometimes thought Felix felt guilty that his beloved sister, whom he idolized, had simply left Rook with the librarian-scholars to fend for himself. It didn’t matter. They were friends, best friends. Felix fought the apprentices who tried to bully Rook, and Rook helped Felix with those studies the older boy found difficult. Together they made a strong team. And now all the hard
work was about to pay off, for Felix was one of the favourites to be picked to go to Lake Landing and complete his education. Rook felt so proud. One day, he might even be sitting at this lectern with Felix’s treatise in his hand.

He picked up the volume and was just reaching up to return it to the high shelf when a bellowing voice echoed angrily round the great chamber.

‘You, there!’

Rook froze. Surely he couldn’t have been spotted. Not today. Whoever it was must be shouting at that lugtroll on the Lufwood Bridge.

‘Rook Barkwater!’

Rook groaned. Steadying himself, he slid the treatise back into place and turned slowly round. That was when he first realized how high up he was. With all the violent dipping and swaying of the lectern when he’d first boarded, the brake-lever must have shifted, for the chain securing the lectern had completely unwound. Now he was trapped, far up in the air on the buoyant lectern, which was floating higher from the Blackwood Bridge than any of the others. It was no wonder he’d been spotted. Rook peered down and swallowed unhappily. Why did it have to be Ledmus Squinx who had done the spotting?

A fastidious, flabby individual with small pink eyes and bushy side-whiskers, Squinx was one of the library’s various under-professors. He was unpopular, and with good reason – for Ledmus Squinx was both overbearing and vain. He liked order, and he liked comfort and – as he’d grown older – he’d also discovered a distinct aptitude for throwing his (increasing) weight around.

‘Will you get down here, now!’ he bellowed. Rook stared down at the portly, red-faced individual. His hands were on his hips; his lips were sneering. They both knew that Rook couldn’t get down without the under-professor’s help.

‘I – I can’t, sir.’

‘Then you shouldn’t be up there in the first place, should you?’ said Squinx triumphantly. Rook hung his head. ‘Should you?’ he rasped.

‘N-no, sir,’ said Rook.

‘No, sir!’ Squinx barked back. ‘You should not. Do you know how many rules and regulations you have broken, Rook?’ He raised his left hand and began counting off the fingers. ‘One, the buoyant lecterns are not to be used in the hours between lights-out and the tilderhorn call. Two, the buoyant lecterns are not to be used unless another is present to operate the winch.
Three, under no circumstances whatsoever,’
he hissed, speaking each word slowly and clearly,
‘is an under-librarian ever to board a buoyant lectern.’
He smiled unpleasantly. ‘Do I need to go on?’

‘No, sir,’ said Rook. ‘Sorry sir, but—’

‘Be still,’ Squinx snapped. He turned his attention
to the winch-wheel, which he turned round and round – puffing noisily as he did so – until the buoyant lectern was once again level with the mounting platform. ‘Now, get out,’ he ordered.

Rook stepped onto the Blackwood Bridge. Squinx seized him by both arms and pushed his face so close that their noses were almost touching.

‘I will not tolerate such disobedience,’ he thundered. ‘Such insubordination. Such a flagrant disregard for the rules.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Your behaviour, Rook, has been totally unacceptable. How dare you even
think
of reading the library treatises! They are not for the likes of you.’ He spat out the words with contempt. ‘You! A mere under-librarian!’

‘But … but, sir—’

‘Silence!’ Squinx shrieked. ‘First I catch you flouting the library’s most serious rules, and now you have the bare-faced cheek to answer back! Is there no end to your audacity? I’ll have you sent to a punishment cell. I’ll have you clapped in irons and flogged. I’ll—’

‘Is there some problem, Squinx?’ a frail yet imperious voice interjected.

The under-professor turned. Rook looked up. It was Alquix Venvax, the ageing librarian professor. He pushed his glasses up his nose with a bony finger and peered at the under-professor.

‘Problem, Squinx?’ he repeated.

‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ said Squinx, puffing out his chest.

Alquix nodded. ‘I’m glad to hear it, Squinx. Very
glad.’ He paused. ‘Though something troubles me.’

‘Sir?’ said Squinx.

‘Yes, something I thought I overheard,’ said Alquix. ‘Something about imprisonment cells and being clapped in irons. And … what was it? Ah, yes, being flogged!’

Squinx’s flabby face turned from red to purple and beads of sweat began oozing from every pore. ‘I … I … I …’ he blustered.

The professor smiled. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, Squinx that, as an
under
-professor, you are in no position to hand out punishments.’ He scratched at his right ear thoughtfully. ‘Indeed, I believe that attempting to do so is itself a punishable offence …’

‘I … I … that is, I didn’t intend …’ Squinx mumbled feverishly, and Rook had to bite into his lower lip to prevent himself from smiling. It was wonderful to see the bullying under-professor squirm.

‘But, sir,’ Squinx protested indignantly as he gathered his thoughts. ‘He has broken rule after rule after rule.’ His voice grew more confident. ‘I caught him up on a buoyant lectern, reading, no less. He was reading an academic treatise. He—’

Alquix turned on Rook. ‘You were doing
what?’
he said. ‘Well, this puts a totally different complexion on the matter, doesn’t it? Reading indeed!’ He turned back to the now smugly beaming under-professor. ‘I’ll deal with this, Squinx. You may go.’

As the portly Ledmus Squinx waddled off, Rook waited nervously for Alquix to return his attention to him. The professor had seemed genuinely angry. This
was unusual and Rook wondered whether, this time, he had gone too far. When the professor did finally turn to face him, however, his eyes were twinkling.

‘Rook! Rook!’ he said. ‘Reading treatises again, eh? What are we going to do with you?’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Rook. ‘It’s just that—’

‘I know, Rook, I know,’ the professor interrupted. ‘The thirst for knowledge is a powerful force. But in future …’ He paused and shook his head earnestly. Rook held his breath. ‘In future,’ he repeated, ‘just don’t get caught!’

He chuckled. Rook laughed too. The next moment the professor’s face grew serious once more.

‘You shouldn’t be here anyway,’ he said. ‘The buoyant lecterns are closed. Had you forgotten that the Announcement Ceremony is to take place today?’

Just then the tilderhorns echoed round the cavernous chamber. It was seven hours.

‘Oh, no,’ Rook groaned. ‘It’s Felix’s big day, and I promised to help him get ready. I mustn’t let him down.’

‘Calm down, Rook,’ the professor said. ‘If I know Felix Lodd, he’ll still be fast asleep in his hammock.’

‘Precisely!’ said Rook. ‘I said I’d wake him!’

‘Did you now?’ said the professor, smiling kindly. ‘Go, then,’ he said. ‘If you hurry, you should both make it back here in time.’