‘No!’
Lob and Lummel looked at one another and grinned. It was a start. A good start.
iii New Undertown
As darkness fell, Mother Bluegizzard – fresh from her afternoon nap – flapped round the tavern, a long flaming taper in her claws, lighting the lamps and greeting her faithful old regulars as she went. It was only when she got to the far corner that she realized one of them was missing.
She nodded towards the empty table. ‘No Mire Pirate again tonight?’ she asked.
Zett shrugged. ‘Doesn't look like it,’ he said.
‘Haven't seen him all week,’ added Grome, scratching his great hairy chest with all fingers as he spoke.
Mother Bluegizzard frowned, her neck ruff trembling. ‘Most peculiar,’ she commented. ‘I wonder where he's got to.’
Meggutt, Beggutt and Deg poked their heads up out of their drinking trough, one after the other.
‘We ain't seen him, neither,’ they said. ‘Not hide nor hair.’
The old bird-creature lit the last lantern and blew out the taper. ‘I hope he's all right,’ she said. ‘Place doesn't seem the same without him.’
The others all nodded. None of them had ever heard the old Mire Pirate utter so much as a word, yet his empty table seemed to make the tavern even quieter than usual. Even Fevercule had no idea. They returned to their drinks.
In fact, if any of the regulars had bothered to look, they'd have discovered that the Mire Pirate wasn't far from the Bloodoak Tavern at all. The dishevelled old sky pirate, with his great bushy beard and haunted eyes, was standing on a small hill screened by lufwood trees, but with a clear view of the North Lake jetty below. He'd been coming to this exact same spot for a week now, standing and staring, as silent as a statue, through the long moonless nights until dawn broke above Lullabee Island. Then, each morning, he'd turn and trudge silently away, only to return the next night.
This night was no exception. The Mire Pirate stood on the secluded hill top and stared over at the island in the lake and waited. He waited as the moon rose, clouds drifted across the sky and the hawkowls hooted. He waited as the moon sank and another dawn broke. He was just about to turn away and trudge back to New Undertown once more, when a distant splash made him hesitate.
As he watched, a small coracle bobbing on the water made its way from the island to the jetty. He raised a hand to his mouth, as if stifling a cry, and was about to descend the hill when he noticed a small group hurrying towards the North Lake jetty below.
The Mire Pirate checked himself and waited.
‘There he is!’ shouted a youth in a bleached muglump-skin jacket, and the three banderbears beside him yodelled out across the water.
The splash-splash of the paddles increased as the coracle approached the shore. With the help of its crew of turquoise-clad oakelves, a librarian climbed from the little boat and onto the jetty.
‘Rook!’ Felix exclaimed. ‘At last! There you are!’
‘Good morning, Felix!’ Rook smiled, clasping his friend's hand and shaking it vigorously.
The banderbears yodelled and gesticulated in delight. The oakelves smiled and, without saying a word, pushed off from the jetty and began the journey back to Lullabee Island.
‘All week, we've been waiting,’ said Felix. ‘All week! I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to return! But, my word!’ He let go of Rook's hand and stared into his face. ‘It seems to have done you the power of good, by the look of you, Rook!’
‘A week?’ said Rook, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I've been asleep in the caterbird cocoon for a whole week!’
‘Caterbird cocoon?’ said Felix. It was his turn to look amazed. ‘So that was the miracle cure, was it? Why, those clever old oakelves. We were right to trust them after all, weren't we, fellas?’
The banderbears yodelled their agreement.
‘Now, we're wanted at Lake Landing, Rook,’ said Felix, clapping him on the back. ‘Absolute hive of activity it is. But you'll see what I mean when we get there.’ He laughed and pulled Rook after him. ‘Come, it's a fine morning for a stroll and you can tell us all about the dreams you had in this caterbird nest of yours – a whole week's worth!’
As the small group made off, the old sky pirate emerged from behind the lufwood trees. He watched them for a moment, his pale eyes misted with tears. His lips moved and in a voice deep and gravelly from lack of use, he whispered one word.
‘Barkwater.’
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN •
TEA WITH A SPINDLEBUG
Despite the early hour, the Gardens of Light were far from still. Spindlebug gardeners with long rakes and stubby hoes patrolled the walkways between the fungus fields, tending to the pink, glowing toadstools. Milchgrubs, their huge udder-sacs sloshing and slewing with pink liquid, grazed contentedly. Slime-moles snuffled round their pits, trying to find any uneaten scraps from their last feed; while all round the illuminated caverns, crystal spiders and venomous firemoths strove to keep out of one another's way.
Up above, in the Ironwood Glade, there was no moon and the sun had not yet risen. Apart from the occasional snorts and cries of the prowlgrins roosting in the branches of the tall trees, the place was silent. The fromps and quarms were sleeping, and the predatory razorflits had not yet returned from a night of hunting.
Suddenly, breaking the stillness and illuminating a patch of dark forest floor with light, a column of several dozen gyle goblins appeared. They were fresh from a successful foraging trip collecting moon-mangoes – large, pink-blushed fruits that ripened at night and had to be picked immediately if their succulent flesh was not to turn sour. Walking in single file, the gyle goblins made their way to the centre of the Ironwood Glade where a well-like hole in the ground was situated. They stopped, swung the baskets down and, one after the other, tipped their contents down the hole.
‘That's the gardens fed. Now let's fill our milch-pails and take them back to the colony,’ one of them commented.
‘Honey for breakfast, deeeelicious!’ said another, her heavy eyelids fluttering.
Far underground, as the first load of moon-mangoes landed on the giant compost heap below, a gaunt youth glanced over from the raised ledge he was ambling along. The glowing light played on his short cropped hair. A second load tumbled down through the air, followed by a third and a fourth. The youth looked up and focused wistfully on the long tube they were emerging from, high up and inaccessible in the domed ceiling, far above his head. As he watched, half a dozen firemoths fluttered round the bottom of the tube, and disappeared in, heading for the forest outside.
‘I wish I could leave,’ he murmured.
But that was not possible. There was only one way in and out of the Gardens of Light large enough for those who dwelt underground – and that was guarded at all times. He had no choice but to remain under the ground, roaming the paths and ledges, always bathed in the same unchanging pink light. Close to three weeks he had spent down there already, yet he'd only seen a fraction of the sprawling Gardens of Light, with their winding labyrinth of walkways and glowing tunnels, stalagmites and stalactites, fungus beds and drop-ponds.
Crossing a small bridge of opalescent rock, he heard the sound of steady chomping and looked down to see a brace of slime-moles in a steep-sided pit below him, chewing contentedly on fan-shaped fungi. A couple of glassy spindlebugs – heavy trugs swaying from their fore-arms – were passing along the walkways, dropping food down into the pits. One of them paused for a moment.
‘That's right. Tuck in, my beauty!’ it said, as one of the slime-moles below wobbled over and began devouring the fungus. ‘Will you look at that.’ The spindlebug nudged his companion. ‘Her slime-ducts are bulging!’
‘Just as well,’ replied its neighbour. ‘The rate those young apprentices get through mole-glue! Filling their varnish pots every few minutes …’
‘I know, I know,’ said the first one, tutting. ‘It's not as though we're made of the stuff.’
‘No, but they are!’ said the second one – and the pair of them looked down at the slime-moles as they squirmed about, leaving trails of gleaming, sticky goo in their wake, and trilled with amusement.
The youth walked on. A herd of huge, lumbering milchgrubs being herded down to the great honey-pits for milking crossed his path. Shortly after that, a librarian apprentice – his eyelids puffy with lack of sleep – came hurrying towards him, an empty bucket clutched in his hand.
‘Run out of mole-glue, eh?’ the youth asked.
‘Uh-huh,’ came the gruff reply, and the librarian knight scurried past, his head down and eyes averted.
The youth sighed. Everyone knew who he was and why he was there – and no one, it seemed, wanted to be caught talking to him.
He climbed higher, up a bumpy ramp and onto a narrow ledge which hugged the arched wall. There were caves leading off it. Some were empty, some were being used for storage; from one, there came the soft murmur of voices.
Scratching his stubbly head, the youth paused for a moment and looked in. Half a dozen young librarian knights were sitting on low stools, each one bent over a pot balanced on a small burner, stirring vigorously. There was a familiar smell, like singed feathers and burnt treacle. One of them noticed him, looked up, frowned and looked away.
The youth turned, and headed sadly off. No one wanted anything to do with him.
Then, just as he was rounding a jutting rock, he caught sight of an old spindlebug tap-tap-tapping its way along a broad ledge on an upper level. The creature was huge – far bigger than any of those who were tending to the fungus beds or slime-moles. In one of its front arms it carried a tray. In the other, a walking stick to help support its immense weight. Both the size and the yellow tinge to the outer casing indicated that the spindlebug was ancient.
As the two walkways converged, the creature came closer, the glasses and tea-urn on the tray clinking together softly. ‘Up so early,’ it said as it approached, its voice high and quavery.
The youth shrugged and pulled a face. ‘I can't sleep well down here,’ he said. ‘It's always so light. I never know whether it's day or night …’ He sighed miserably. ‘I miss the sky, the clouds, the wind on my face…’
The spindlebug stopped before him, and nodded. ‘You're here to prepare for your Reckoning,’ it said. ‘Use this time to reflect on your life, to contemplate your deeds and …’ It coughed lightly. ‘And your mis deeds. The time to leave will come all too soon.’
‘Not soon enough for me,’ the youth snorted. ‘Stuck down here in this prison…’
‘Prison, Xanth?’ the great, transparent creature interrupted. ‘You, of all people, speak of prisons!’
Xanth visibly shrank at the spindlebug's words, and when he spoke, his voice had lost its arrogant bravado. ‘You're right,’ he said quietly. ‘And I'm sorry. I know I can't compare this place to the Tower of Night…’ He shook his head miserably. ‘Oh, Tweezel, when I think of the years I spent serving the Guardians of Night; the evil I did, the misery I caused…’
Tweezel nodded. ‘Come now,’ he said gently. ‘Let us go and share a spot of tea together, you and I. Just like we used to do. Remember?’
Xanth's looked up into the spindlebug's face and saw his own reflected in the creature's huge eyes. Yes, he remembered the times he'd spent drinking tea and listening to the spindlebug's stories as a librarian knight apprentice. How he'd loved those quiet moments they'd shared, but his memories of them were poisoned by the knowledge that even as he'd smiled and sipped the fragrant brew, he'd been an imposter.
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
‘Certainly I'm sure,’ said Tweezel, his antennae trilling. ‘Follow me.’
Keeping close to the ancient spindlebug, and ignoring the muttered comments and angry glares from the apprentices they passed, Xanth followed him down the ledge and in through a narrow opening in the wall. Beyond the doorway, the space opened up to reveal a cosy, if rather cramped, chamber, furnished with a squat table and low benches. Tweezel ushered Xanth to sit down and placed the tray down on the table in front of him, knocking his arms and elbows on the walls as he did so.
‘My, my,’ the ancient creature commented. ‘I swear this place gets smaller every day.’
Xanth smiled. Clearly it was Tweezel who had grown rather than the tea-chamber which had shrunk, and Xanth found himself wondering just how old the spindlebug actually was.
Quietly, methodically, the spindlebug placed one of the glasses under the spigot of the ornate wooden teaurn and turned the tap. Hot, steaming, amber liquid poured out, filling first one, then the other glass. Next, he added crystals of honey with a set of silver tongs, and a sprig of hyleberry blossom. As Xanth watched the familiar ritual, remorse and guilt welled up within him.
Tweezel noticed his tortured expression. ‘You are not the first to have felt guilt,’ he said. ‘And you certainly will not be the last.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Xanth, fighting back the tears. ‘It's just that…’
‘You wish you could undo the things you have done?’ said Tweezel as, with a slight incline of his head, he handed Xanth the glass of tea. ‘Change the decisions of the past? Put things right? Lift the heavy weight of guilt that is pressing down on your chest?’ He fell still. ‘Try your tea, Master Xanth,’ he said.
Xanth sipped at the tea, and as the warm, sweet, aromatic liquid slipped down his throat, he began to feel a little better. He set the glass aside.
‘Guilt is a terrible thing if you hide from it,’ the spindlebug said. ‘But if you face it, Xanth, accept it, then perhaps you can start to ease the pain you are in.’
‘But how, Tweezel?’ said Xanth despairingly. ‘How can I face up to the terrible things I've done?’
The spindlebug crouched down on his hind quarters, and sipped at his own tea. He didn't speak for a long time, and when at last he did, his voice was croaky with emotion. ‘Once, a long, long time ago,’ he said, ‘there was a couple – a lovely young couple – who were very close to me. They had to do a terrible thing…’
Xanth listened closely.
The spindlebug's eyes were half-closed, and he rocked backwards and forwards very slightly as he remembered a distant time.
‘It all began in old Sanctaphrax, when I was a butler in the Palace of Shadows to the Most High Academe himself. Linius Pallitax was his name, and he had a daughter, Maris. Delightful young thing she was,’ he said, his eyes staring dreamily into the middle distance. ‘Heavy plaits, green eyes, turned-up nose, and the most serious of expressions you ever did see on the face of a young'un…’
He paused and sipped at his own tea. ‘Hmm, a touch more honey, I think,’ he murmured. ‘What do you think, Xanth?’
‘It's delicious,’ said Xanth, and drank a little more.
Tweezel frowned. ‘One day, a sky pirate ship arrived,’ he said. ‘The Galerider, it was called, captained by a fine, if somewhat unpredictable, sky pirate by the name of Wind Jackal. I remember coming to inform my master of his imminent arrival, only to discover that he – and his son – were already there.’
‘His son?’ said Xanth, who was beginning to wonder where exactly the story was going.
‘Aye, his son,’ said Tweezel. ‘Quint was his name. I remember the very first time I clapped eyes on him.’ He frowned again and fixed Xanth with a long, steady gaze. ‘In some ways, he was not unlike you,’ he said. ‘The same guilty tics plucking at his face; the same haunted look in his eyes…’
Xanth hung on his every word.
‘Of course,’ Tweezel went on, ‘it all came out later. He told me the whole story,’ he added, and smiled. ‘I've a good ear for listening.’
‘So what happened?’ said Xanth.
‘What happened?’ Tweezel repeated. ‘Oh, how cruel life can be. It transpired that, apart from his father who had been away at the time, the poor lad had lost all his family in a great and terrible fire. His mother, his five brothers, even his nanny – they had all perished in the fla
mes. Somehow, being the youngest and smallest, he had managed to squeeze through a tight hole and had fled across the rooftops to safety.’ He paused. ‘He was full of guilt for being the only one to survive.’
‘But he'd done nothing wrong!’ Xanth blurted out.
‘That's exactly what I told him,’ said Tweezel. ‘But I don't think he was ever able to accept it – which possibly explains what happened later…’
‘What?’ said Xanth.
‘I'm coming to that,’ said Tweezel calmly. ‘Time passed, and Quint and Maris became friends.’ He smiled. ‘Close friends. Inseparable, they were. Maris nursed her father when he became ill and Quint took up a place in the Knights' Academy. They were happy times, exciting times! I often think about old Sanctaphrax, and that long cold winter …’ The spindle-bug's eyes closed completely, and he seemed to have fallen asleep.
‘Tweezel?’ said Xanth. ‘Tweezel? Maris and Quint … What happened to them?’
The spindlebug opened his eyes and shook his huge, glassy head. ‘Many, many things,’ he said. ‘They got married, they set sail on a sky ship captained by a brutal rogue by the name of Multinius Gobtrax …’ He shuddered.
‘And?’ said Xanth, struggling to contain himself.
‘They were shipwrecked,’ said Tweezel simply. He took Xanth's glass and topped it up with tea. ‘I never quite got to the bottom of exactly what took place out there in the skies above the Deepwoods. Quint wouldn't talk about it, and poor Maris couldn't talk about it. There was a storm, that much I know. And, in the tumultuous wind and rain, Maris gave birth to a son on board the sky ship. Then …’ The great creature's eyes misted over. ‘Oh, my poor mistress,’ he said, his voice quavering with emotion. ‘Even now I find it hard to think about what happened.’
‘What?’ said Xanth.
‘They had to make a terrible decision,’ said Tweezel. ‘They were stranded in the middle of the Deepwoods with a new-born baby, and Gobtrax and the rest of the crew refused to take it with them. Quint and Maris both knew the young'un would never survive the journey on foot back to Undertown.’