Midnight Over Sanctaphrax (10 page)

‘Y … yes,’ said Cowlquape softly.

The professor looked at him warily ‘What's your name, lad?’ he asked.

‘Cowlquape, if it pleases you,’ came the reply ‘Junior sub-acolyte of Sanctaphrax.’

‘Junior sub-acolyte of Sanctaphrax,’ the professor repeated, his eyes narrowing. ‘An Undertowner, by the look of you. Rich father in the leagues, I'll be bound.’

They had almost reached the entrance to the school.

Cowlquape nodded. ‘Yes, sir. My father is …’ He checked himself. ‘Was a leaguesman, sir.’

‘Very good, very good,’ said the professor absent-mindedly.

They arrived at the studded door of the School of Light and Darkness - for Cowlquape, all too soon.

‘Thank you, my lad,’ the professor said, as he bustled the stumbling figure inside the school. The great studded door slammed shut.

Cowlquape stood alone in the avenue, feeling lost. What now? He turned and wandered back the way they'd come. How long did he have? A day? A week? Probably no more than that, and then he'd be out, his few possessions in a bundle under his arm as he stepped into the basket to return to Undertown for ever.

‘Well, Cowlquape,’ he said to himself. ‘Until then I'll find the darkest, dustiest corner of the Great Library and, who knows?’ He smiled bravely. ‘Just like all those barkscrolls, they may forget all about me!’

• CHAPTER SIX •
INSIDE AND OUT

T
he huge dinner gong clanged mechanically from the L Refectory Tower. As one, the doors of the schools and colleges of Sanctaphrax burst open and a great throng of chattering professors, apprentices and acolytes streamed hungrily towards it. Head down and heart pounding, Cowlquape joined them. He slunk into the bustling refectory, took a brass bowl and platter from the racks and mingled with the seething crowd of those waiting for lunch.

Ten days had passed since the Professor of Darkness had asked for his help. In that time, Cowlquape had spent his time hiding, curled up in a dusty corner of the Great Library with his beloved barkscrolls, lost in the fantastic tales and legends they held. Nobody had disturbed him, and he had ventured out only to forage for food - a latrine cleaner's pie, an apprentice's tilder sausage dropped absentmindedly.

But it had been at least a day since he'd last eaten anything. When he had heard the dinner gong, his hunger had got the better of him. He was so ravenous that he was prepared to risk being caught by those in the College of Cloud and expelled from Sanctaphrax for ever for the sake of a hot bowl of delicious, spicy tilder stew.

At the long high tables, the senior professors were being waited upon. In the galleries lining the walls, academics and senior apprentices jostled noisily over large communal stew-pots. Whilst in the ‘pit’ below, a great clamour of acolytes jostled and shouted round the stew-pipes that snaked down from a huge central cauldron. As he made his way through the clamouring throng Cowlquape couldn't help but catch snatches of conversation.

‘The Department of Psycho-Climatic Studies confirmed that it definitely was a mind storm the other night,’ an apprentice was saying. ‘And we're still feeling its after-effects.’

His colleague nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I'm beginning to wonder if the skies will ever clear again.’

In the continuing gloom that had followed that fateful night, more treacherous weather had been blown in from beyond the Edge. Rain - registering deepest indigo on the sense-sifters both up in the Loftus Tower and in the garret of the Department of Psycho-Climatic Studies -had prompted an outpouring of communal grief across the region. A thick and oily mist had rendered the residents of some northern districts of Undertown temporarily deaf and dumb. While, the previous night, a

heavy downpour led to outbreaks of terrible violence amongst the cloddertrogs in the boom-docks.

The abrupt change in the character of the weather was bringing the hitherto insignificant Department of Psycho-Climatic Studies into the limelight. Its dean, a rotund pen-pusher by the name of Lud Squeamix, now sat self-importantly at the highest of the long tables, slurping stew up through his teeth, pausing only to belch loudly.

‘I'm thinking of going for a place in the Department,’ a third apprentice was saying. ‘That's where the action is these days.’ He looked round furtively. ‘I hear that the windtouchers and cloudwatchers are forming an alliance.’

‘Pfff!
Fat lot of good it'll do them,’ snorted his companion. ‘Has-beens, the lot of them.’

All around the refectory the feverish conversations were the same. Plots and counterplots had become rife. And as if this wasn't enough, there were other rumours going round that even the most level-headed of academics could not ignore.

Up in the College of Rain gallery, a senior apprentice turned to his neighbour. ‘And
I've
heard he's up to something,’ he said. ‘Something suspicious!’

Cowlquape's ears pricked up.

‘Something suspicious?’ said his companion. ‘What, the Most High Academe?’

‘That's the one,’ the first senior apprentice replied. “Cording to my sources in the School of Light and Darkness, he's got someone locked up in there. They
say he was found in the Stone Gardens, and I can well believe it. He looks like a vagrant, and never speaks - though he can freeze your blood with one icy stare.’

‘Absolute madman, by the sound of him,’ an apprentice cloudwatcher in an upper gallery called down. ‘He howls!’

‘Howls?’ said the apprentice raintasters as one.

‘Like a wood wolf,’ the cloudwatcher continued. ‘Every night. ‘Course, you wouldn't hear it from your faculty, but it echoes all round the College of Cloud. Spooky, it is.’

Cowlquape frowned. He, too, had heard the curious night-time howling from his hiding place in the library, but hadn't made the connection between that and the staring-eyed character he had encountered with the Professor of Darkness that blustery morning.

As he inched his way forwards to the stew-pipes, his thoughts stayed with the stranger.

Gossip had it that the mysterious individual was none other than Twig, the young sky pirate captain who had returned to a hero's welcome in Sanctaphrax only weeks earlier. It was said that he had done what no-one had ever done before - set out into open sky, untethered. Something must have happened to him out there, the stories maintained. Something unearthly, inexplicable; something that had left him both dumb and distracted. It was curious then that, according to the rumours, the Most High Academe had conferred upon him the title of Sub-Professor of Light.

The crowd shuffled towards the pipes. Behind
Cowlquape, two sub-apprentice windtouchers were bemoaning their lot.

‘Windgrading, windgrading and more windgrading,’ one of them complained. ‘And the professor's such a tyrant!’

‘The worst type,’ came the reply.

Cowlquape sighed. At least your futures are secure, he thought bitterly. Unlike my own. He shuddered, and the brass platter slipped from his grip and clattered to the stone floor.

The raintasters and cloudwatchers around him looked at the thin, tousle-haired boy with amusement.

‘Then again, at least we're not sub-acolytes,’ one of the windtouchers commented sniffily

‘Undertowner!’ said the other scornfully.

‘Sky above!’ a voice bellowed from the highest of the long tables, and all heads turned. It was Lud Squeamix and he was almost choking on his stew. ‘Who'd have thought it?’ he spluttered.

A flagon was dropped in surprise.

‘Upon my word,’ someone else exclaimed, ‘it is him.’

Every eye looked towards the highest long table. There, where the most prominent academics were eating, the Professor of Darkness was to be seen ushering the mysterious, wild-eyed individual to an empty seat.

The apprentices forgot all about the junior sub-acolyte in their midst.

‘I can't believe that's Twig,’ Cowlquape heard one of them say. ‘I mean, look at him!’

‘Like a crazy one,’ another agreed.

‘And he's meant to be the new Sub-Professor of Light!’ said a third. ‘I wouldn't fancy being
his
apprentice.’

‘Yeah,’ laughed the first apprentice raintaster. ‘Definitely a couple of raindrops short of a shower.’ And they all burst out laughing.

All, that is, except for Cowlquape. While the apprentices were too empty-headed to see anything beyond his outward appearance, Cowlquape looked again. There was something about the young sub-professor - a fierce intelligence ablaze in those bright, staring eyes. Perhaps Twig hadn't lost his mind at all, Cowlquape thought with a sudden jolt. Perhaps he had simply turned his gaze inwards.

Beneath the stew-pipe at last, he pulled the lever, taking care that none of the steaming tilder stew missed his bowl. He grabbed a hunk of oak-bread from the basket beneath the pipes, soggy from stew others had let fall, and pushed his way towards the mass of low stools that sprouted like mushrooms beneath the galleries. Looking up, he could see Twig clearly.

The newly appointed sub-professor was staring into mid-air, oblivious to his surroundings. Occasionally, prompted by the nudging elbow of the Professor of Darkness, he would start picking at his food like a bird. But only for a brief moment - and never long enough actually to eat anything.

As Cowlquape continued to watch the twitchy young individual - only a few years older than himself - he asked himself what horrors Twig must have endured when the
Edgedancer
received the full brunt of the mind storm. After all, if a passing rain cloud could lead to the cloddertrogs attacking each other, then what must it have done to the sky pirate captain who had seen his ship destroyed?

Just then, a blanket of blackest cloud swept in across the sky and plunged the refectory into darkness. The Professor of Darkness - for whom the sudden gloom was of particular interest - pulled a light-meter from the folds of his gown. Concentrating intently, he failed to notice his young sub-professor get up from his seat and make his way down the wooden steps.

‘Curious,’ muttered Cowlquape.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder almost knocking him off his stool. ‘Well, well, well,’ came a familiar mocking voice. ‘If it isn't our favourite little Undertowner!’

‘Vox!’ gasped Cowlquape, looking up into the arrogant face of the tall cloudwatcher apprentice.

‘I hear somebody hasn't been paying his fees,’ he said.
‘Tut, tut.
That won't do at all.’

Cowlquape trembled. ‘Please!’ he begged. It's just that my father, he …’

‘Save it for the Professor of Cloudwatching, bark-worm!’ Vox's voice was hard, his grip vice-like on Cowlquape's shoulder.

Outside, a dismal angry drizzle began to fall. Rage at the unfairness of it all flared in Cowlquape's eyes. It wasn't his fault that his father had been killed!

‘Professor of Cloudwatching?’ he said. ‘Professor of Cloudwatching?’ His voice rose to a shout. Vox stared in amazement. ‘You can give this to your Professor of Cloudwatching in place of payment!’ And with that Cowlquape hurled the bowl of steaming stew into the tall apprentice's face.

‘Aaaarghl’
Vox shrieked, falling into a gaggle of mistsifters and sending bowls and stew flying everywhere.

Cowlquape took to his heels, ducking and dodging as he made for the door, and bowling a couple of indignant latecomers off their feet as he dashed from the refectory