The Curse of the Gloamglozer (30 page)

‘I told the assembled crowd of academics as much in my Inauguration Speech, but the fools were not listening to me. Or rather,’ he added, ‘they heard only what they wanted to hear. Even when I moved into the Palace of Shadows – both to show my independence from any and all of the Sanctaphrax schools, and to revive the tradition first started by the Ancient Scholars all those centuries ago – my motives were misunderstood.

‘In fact, it seemed that each time I attempted to bring harmony to Sanctaphrax, I ended up causing greater discord. My own hopes were fast turning to despair.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘Yet for all that,’ he added, his face brightening a little, ‘I do not regret my decision to move into the Palace of Shadows one jot. How could I? For if I had not done so, I would never have met its curator, my faithful old retainer, Tweezel. And if I hadn't met him…’

Just then there was a light knock at the door, followed by the creaky sound of the handle being tested.

‘Ignore it,’ said Bungus. ‘Keep on with the story.‘

But before the Most High Academe could utter so much as a single word more, there was a soft click and the door swung open. Tweezel stood there, a tray
gripped firmly in his claws. Upon it was a plate of herb wafers, an empty glass and a jug of bright red cordial. The old spindlebug looked up.

‘Did I hear my name?’ he enquired.

The Most High Academe smiled. ‘Yes, Tweezel, you did,’ he said. ‘Come in. Come in. I was about to describe our first meeting.‘ He turned to the others. ‘As its long-time curator, Tweezel knows every inch of the Palace of Shadows. It was he who showed me the Blackwood Chamber.’

‘The what?’ said Maris. ‘I thought
I
knew every inch of the palace too, and I've never heard of it.’

Linius looked up at Bungus. ‘But I suspect
you
have,’ he said.

‘True,’ said Bungus. ‘Although before this moment I did not know whether it was real or mythical.’

‘Oh, it's real enough,’ said Linius. ‘Is that not so, Tweezel?’

‘Indeed it is,’ Tweezel replied. ‘The master loves the palace as much as I do. Over the years, I showed him all its secret nooks and crannies. But it is the Blackwood Chamber that has always fascinated him most.’

‘What
is
it?’ said Maris. ‘Why is it so special?’

Linius's eyelids fluttered and then closed. ‘
You
tell her
its purpose, Bungus,’ he whispered, ‘for I am feeling weary.’ He shivered. ‘And a little feverish.’

‘Then I have just the thing, master,’ said Tweezel. He placed the tray down on the sideboard. ‘Ferment of fruit-and-root cordial,’ he said, ‘made to a special Deepwoods recipe and guaranteed to perk you up in no time.’ He poured some of the red liquid from the jug to the glass. It bubbled white and frothed up. ‘And I've brought some wafers, too,’ he added as he grasped both glass and plate. ‘To help revive you.’

He turned and walked towards the bed. Linius opened his eyes and pulled himself up.

‘Very thoughtful, Tweezel,’ he said wheezily.

‘Yes, very thoughtful indeed,’ said Bungus stepping forwards and taking the refreshments off the spindlebug, ‘but I think I have something a little more efficacious.’

‘Upon my word!’ said Tweezel indignantly.

‘Oh, Bungus,’ Linius smiled weakly. ‘A remedy for everything in that little bag of yours. But I fear not even you can help me this time.’

Bungus paid neither of them any heed. He placed the glass and plate back on the tray and began rummaging in his satchel, muttering to himself all the time.

‘Weary, feverish, overwrought …’ He selected a phial of amber liquid and splashed twenty-four drops into a small bottle of pure water. The muttering started up again. ‘Septic sores on fingers, scratches on cheek and an ear lesion. Skin-tone, pebble- to ash-grey. Eye-glint, down in the twenties – maybe lower…’

Maris watched, entranced. She noted how, with each
of his observations about her father's condition, Bungus would add to the liquid a pinch of powder from sachet after sachet that he pulled from the bag. Finally, he stoppered the bottle, shook it vigorously and held it up to the light. The liquid glittered and sparkled so brightly that it was as if, instead of herbs and powdered root, he had stirred in a spoonful of black-diamond dust.

He stepped towards the bed. ‘Drink this, Linius,’ he said.

The Most High Academe pulled a face. ‘The cordial looked nicer,’ he muttered.

‘That cordial is without doubt the stuff that Deepwooders sell to gullible academics,’ said Bungus, ‘harmless enough, but completely useless. Whereas this …’ He uncorked the fizzing bottle and held it out. ‘This will heal you, Linius. In body and spirit, it will make you well – it will make you whole.’

Linius raised the bottle to his lips and took the minutest of sips, ready to spit it out if it tasted foul. But the concoction tasted good, very good. A contented smile spread over his face and he glugged the sweet herbal liquid down to the very bottom of the bottle. ‘Excellent, Bungus,’ he said. ‘And do you know what? I can feel it working already.’ He sat up, scratching gently at his ear through the bandages. ‘It's itching,’ he said.

‘Which means it's healing,’ said Bungus. ‘And your eyes are clearer, too. Are you ready to continue with your story?’

‘My story,’ said Linius with a sigh. ‘Ah, yes. My story. I can hardly bear to tell it, yet I fear I must …’ He looked
at Maris. ‘I only hope my daughter will not think any the worse of me when that story is done.’

‘There is nothing you could say, Father, that would make me love you less,’ said Maris earnestly. ‘I promise you.’ She smiled. ‘You were telling us about the Blackwood Chamber.’

Linius nodded seriously. ‘Oh, Maris, my darling daughter, the Blackwood Chamber is one of the oldest treasures of the palace. The oldest and the most secret. Why, Tweezel didn't even tell me of its existence until he decided he could trust me. A detailed history of Sanctaphrax is cut into its wooden walls in the form of carvings. And such carvings! Countless wooden pictures, set in a raised, patterned framework. Ornate, intricate, exquisitely detailed…’

‘And an absolute nightmare to dust,’ Tweezel muttered as, abandoning the tray of refreshments, he made his way back across the floor and left the room.
He
couldn't stand around chatting all day; he had important things to do. No-one noticed him go.

‘It is a marvel,’ Linius went on eagerly. ‘The carvings seem almost to be alive. Oh, and the stories they tell, Maris.
The Blessing of the Floating Rock
, for instance;
The Tale of Brother Ructus and the Banderbear
.
The Legend of the Naming Tower
.
The Great Sky-Dragon Siege
… And later, when I studied them more closely, I discovered that each scene was surrounded by swirling interlaced designs, like a tangle of Deepwood thorns. At first I thought they were mere decorative patterns, but nothing those ancient carvers created in that fabulous room was merely

decorative. Many visits to the Great Library and countless hours of study over dusty scrolls revealed them to be the angular script of the Ancient Tongue. It was the actual voice of those First Scholars – more ancient than the oldest scroll in the Great Library – there, carved into the walls.’ His eyes gleamed with childlike enthusiasm. ‘Absolutely fascinating,’ he said excitedly. ‘A celebration of the genius of those who came before us.’

Maris smiled. She hadn't seen her father this animated in so, so long.

‘Think of it, Maris!’ he exclaimed. ‘The Blackwood Chamber contains an almost complete record of the history of Sanctaphrax, from the day the ancient
academics first secured the great floating rock in place with the Anchor Chain, down centuries of harmony and learning, through the Great Schism when the ancient academics split into earth- and sky-scholars, and on to the First Purges …’ He paused for breath. ‘And there it stops, halfway down the seventh wall. Presumably, the carvers – being
earth-studies
carvers – were cast out of Sanctaphrax.’ He shook his head. ‘It is all such a terrible shame…’

Outside, the bell at the top of the Great Hall chimed. Maris flinched nervously. Quint had been down in the stonecomb on his own now for far too long.

‘And the Ancient Laboratory?’ she prompted her father. ‘Was that also recorded in the blackwood carvings?’

‘Yes,’ said Linius, his face lighting up once again. ‘Yes, it was. The changing face of Sanctaphrax was recorded down the ages. The construction of buildings, the raising of the Central Viaduct, the tunnelling and excavating of the Treasury… I mean, the Great Laboratory,’ he corrected himself as Bungus grumbled under his breath. ‘And the digging of the Great West Tunnel,’ he said, turning back to Maris. ‘Accessible only by sky cage, the tunnel led to the second laboratory: the
Ancient
Laboratory.

‘Well, you can imagine my excitement at stumbling across this lost centre of learning. Here was a place established by some of the finest minds Sanctaphrax has ever known, and I could hardly wait to see it for myself.’ He frowned. ‘Yet there were practical problems. From later
carvings, I knew that the laboratory had been abandoned and that the tunnel leading to it had been blocked off. In the most recent carvings, neither the tunnel nor the laboratory is marked at all.’ He looked down guiltily. ‘I suppose I should have given up there and then,’ he said. There was a pause. ‘And yet I could not!’

‘No,’ said Maris, unable to keep a sharp edge from her voice.

Linius looked at her sympathetically. ‘Yes, I know I neglected you,’ her father said. ‘And I'm sorry. I neglected
all
my duties … But I couldn't help myself! It was all far, far too fascinating to ignore. And the more I discovered, the more I wanted … the more I
needed
to discover. I am an academic, Maris, for my sins. You do understand, don't you?’

‘I … I suppose so,’ said Maris reluctantly.

‘I was this great explorer unravelling the forgotten secrets of a whole lost world,’ said Linius, his eyes burning with enthusiasm. ‘At first, progress was slow. The ancient script was difficult to read and, since it was in an archaic dialect, even harder to translate. Time after time, I had to visit the Great Library to uncover yet more scrolls to help me with my difficult task…’

He paused again, and Maris watched him turn towards the old librarian. Linius's face glowed with gratitude.

‘I owe so much to you, Bungus,’ he said. ‘It was you who first showed me the old dictionaries and lexicons. You who taught me the rudiments of the Ancient Tongue. And you who instructed me in how to use the
library – which tree to climb to locate information, which branch to take …’ He shook his head. ‘If only I'd realized that you were there.’

‘Yes, perhaps I should have made myself known, after all,’ said Bungus. ‘I could have knocked some sense into that head of yours and nipped this foolhardy nonsense in the bud…’

But Linius was shaking his head vigorously. ‘Nothing could have stopped me by that stage,’ he said. ‘I was obsessed, Bungus. Intoxicated. Something incredible had taken place down in the Ancient Laboratory, of that I was convinced. I had no choice but to carry on until I had discovered for myself exactly what it was. Finally, after many long weeks, I had found out all I could from research. It was time for me to get first-hand knowledge of the Ancient Laboratory itself.’

‘But I thought it had been sealed up,’ said Maris.

‘And so it was,’ said Linius. ‘Yet my curiosity was at fever pitch. I couldn't resist going to see for myself. That was the first time I went down in the sky cage.’ He leaned forwards and his voice dropped conspiratorially. ‘I had to be so careful,’ he said. ‘Quite apart from the difficulties I had manoeuvring the cage itself, I also needed to keep my destination concealed from my fellow academics. They considered it bad enough that their Most High Academe should sink to the levels of low-sky study, but if any of them had suspected I was dabbling in matters of earth-study …’ He paused dramatically, and fixed Maris with an intense stare. ‘My life would not have been worth living.’

Wide-eyed, Maris hung on her father's every word as he described his descent in the sky cage. It brought back memories of her own recent trip down to the stonecomb with Quint – and how terrified she'd been when the chain had been cut and the cage had sliced down through the cold night air.