The Curse of the Gloamglozer (37 page)

With a shake of her head, Maris straightened up and strode back to the door. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We must get back as soon as we can.’

‘But what about Bungus?’ said Quint. ‘And the glister?’

‘Dear brave Bungus,’ said Maris. ‘He fought the glister so that I could escape and find you. We must go back to him. Hurry, Quint!’

Maris left the laboratory first, with Quint following close behind her. Being bigger than her, he was not able to slip through without touching the door, and as he did so, there was a sudden splintering sound as the pipe wedged in the gap began to break.

‘The pipe!’ Quint cried.

Maris spun round, grabbed Quint by his outstretched hand and tugged. The pair of them tumbled backwards and fell to the ground. Behind them, the door of the Ancient Laboratory slammed to.

‘Shut for ever,’ Maris whispered.

‘But too late,’ said Quint, his voice sombre. He picked himself up and helped Maris to her feet. ‘Let's get out of here.‘

Back through the narrow gap between the fallen rocks and the wall they squeezed, and along the tunnel on the other side. When they reached the four-way junction, Maris looked around, surprised.

‘Bungus was here,’ she said. ‘The glister came from that way. I heard them fighting…’

‘We'll keep looking,’ said Quint. ‘Perhaps Bungus gave it the slip.’

They tip-toed on along the gloomy tunnel. Maris led the way, the lantern raised high in her shaking hand. All at once, flickering light fell across a small figure lying on the ground up ahead, its bony arms outstretched.

‘Bungus?’ breathed Quint.

They approached anxiously. The body was face-down on the ground. Maris looked at the familiar papery clothes, and at the stave with its carved lullabee-tree pommel clasped in the skeletal hand.

‘Oh, Bungus,’ she groaned.

Quint crouched down. ‘I recognize this place,’ he said. ‘We're at the entrance of the tunnel which leads to the glister-lair.’

Maris looked up, puzzled. There was no hole to be seen.

‘There's been a rockfall,’ said Quint. ‘Yes, look.’ He pointed to a length of carved wood jammed into a crack in the rock. ‘It‘s the end of Bungus's stave. He
must have broken it dislodging that great slab of rock.’

Just then, a soft, hissing sigh emerged from the folds of the baggy jerkin. Quint shifted forwards and tried to tilt the old librarian's head back. As his fingers made contact, a sudden spasm shot through the scholar's body, twisting it right round. His head shook, his arms and legs jerked, and his back slammed down hard against the ground. Quint cried out and fell back. Bungus looked up, as if surprised.

Quint gasped and Maris let out a small, horrified shriek – for the face before them was not the face they had known before. The cheeks were hollow and the jaw-line gaunt, the skin stretched tightly over the bones. The lips – once full and expressive – had become tight, narrow bands, so shrivelled that they had been pulled back to reveal the yellowed teeth behind, now fixed in a sinister grimace. Worst of all by far, however, were the eyes. Creamy-white, with trace of neither pupil nor iris, they stared up blindly, sending icy shivers shooting up and down Maris and Quint's spines.

‘Rogue-glister. Blood-red fiend …’ Bungus murmured, his voice choked and rasping, every word a struggle. ‘Must stop creature. Must save daughter of Linius…’

Tears welled up in Maris's eyes. ‘You
did
save me,’ she sobbed. ‘Don't try to talk any more.‘

But Bungus paid her no attention. ‘Upon me…’ he croaked. ‘The fear, the terror… Tentacles gripping…’ His right arm twitched. ‘Must fight … Chine. Need chine… Where is it? Where has it gone?
Where is the chine?
’

All at once, his back arched as if an electric charge had surged through his body. His fingers flexed, his hair stood on end. The next moment it was over. Bungus slumped back, his tongue lolling from his mouth, and a dry, rasping last breath rattling at the back of his throat.

‘No!’ Maris howled. ‘Oh, Bungus! Bungus! I'm so sorry. I'm to blame for this…’

Quint wrapped his arm around Maris's shoulder and squeezed her tightly. ‘It's my fault, too,’ he said. ‘Bungus gave his life protecting both of us.‘ He leant forwards and closed Bungus's eyes. ‘His last act was to imprison the glister in its terrible lair. Although he didn't kill it, he'd be so proud to know that he sealed it up for ever.’

‘I know,’ Maris sniffed. ‘Oh, he was so loyal. And so brave …’ She turned to Quint, her face racked with remorse. ‘But we set the gloamglozer free! What are we going to do, Quint?’

‘We must tell the professor,’ said Quint. ‘He'll know what to do.’

Maris shook her head woefully. Her father was too weak even to walk. When she'd left him, he'd been fast
asleep in his bed. He'd seemed so frail, so exhausted. Would he really know what to do? For the first time in her life, Maris was having doubts about her father, the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax. What could
he
do against the gloamglozer? Yet she mustn't let Quint know her fears; she had to be strong.

‘Yes, Quint,’ she said bravely. ‘He‘ll know what to do.‘

· CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ·

THE CURSE OF THE
GLOAMGLOZER

T
he late afternoon sun was low in the sky. It shone lazily on the floating city of Sanctaphrax, turning its grand stately buildings to gold and casting long dark shadows down its alleyways and avenues. The air was perfectly still, yet in all the great schools and colleges across the city, the sky-scholars – be they mistsifters or raintasters, cloudwatchers or windtouchers – were all drawing the same conclusion from the readings they were taking. This was the lull before the storm. Every dial and every gauge of every measuring instrument in the city confirmed it.

High up at the top of the Loftus Observatory, the Professor of Light looked up from his stationary anemometer. ‘We didn't complete that Inauguration Ceremony a moment too soon,’ he said. ‘The Great Storm will be passing over Sanctaphrax in less than an hour.’

His colleague, the Professor of Darkness, nodded
solemnly. ‘Sky willing, Garlinius Gernix will manage to chase the storm and return to Sanctaphrax with the precious stormphrax she bears.’

‘Sky willing,’ the Professor of Light repeated. He turned and looked out through the windows. Being at the highest point in Sanctaphrax, the professor had a view of the entire floating city – of the School of Light and Darkness, of the Great Hall, of the Central Viaduct and the East and West Landings … ‘Sanctaphrax,’ he breathed, his voice quavering with awe. ‘The finest city in all creation.’

The Professor of Darkness joined him at the window.

‘It is truly magnificent,’ he agreed, then added softly, ‘yet a city must be well ruled.’

‘Indeed,’ said the Professor of Light, and the pair of them found themselves staring down towards the Palace of Shadows.

With the ancient building crouched in the shadows behind the ostentatious College of Cloud, even from their vantage point, high up in the observatory tower, only the top of the highest palace turret was visible.

‘I'm worried about our old friend Linius,’ said the Professor of Darkness. ‘He has been looking so dreadful recently.’

‘Worse and worse every time I see him,’ said the Professor of Light, and shook his head. ‘Sanctaphrax deserves better from its Most High Academe.’

The bed-chamber of Linius Pallitax, Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, was swaddled in darkness. Night came early to the rooms within the Palace of Shadows.

Linius himself was curled up in a ball beneath the bed-covers, fast asleep. His face looked at peace; his breath came in soft, rasping sighs. He hadn't noticed when, at lunch-time, Welma had entered the room to check on him. Nor had he stirred when Tweezel – still anxious about his master's state of mind – had returned to the room at sundown to close the shutters and light the bedside candles. Even now, as the door handle shifted and the door creaked open for a third time, his heavy, dreamless sleep continued.

The newcomer crossed the floor silently and leant
down over the sleeping professor. ‘Wake up,’ he whispered and, when there was no response, he reached forwards and shook Linius gently by the shoulder. ‘Professor,’ he said. ‘I'm back.’

Linius's eyelids flickered for a moment, then snapped open. ‘Quint,’ he said, his voice drowsy from the sleeping-draught Bungus had given him. ‘You're safe.’

‘I came as quickly as I could,’ said Quint.

‘And thank Sky for that, Quint,’ said Linius. He looked round the room and his brow furrowed with concern. ‘But … but where's Maris? And Bungus? Didn't he find you?’

Quint's nostrils quivered. His tongue darted round his lips. ‘Maris and Bungus?’ he said. ‘Oh, yes, they found me all right.’

Linius sat up. ‘Maris went too? So where are they?’ he said, his voice shrill and anxious. ‘Are they all right? Tell me, Quint, please.’

‘I don't know how to say this,’ said Quint, staring at the floor. ‘Maris woke me. Bungus ministered to my wounds. We left the laboratory, and then …’ He paused and, in the flickering candlelight, Linius saw the expression on his face. ‘Then something
terrible
happened,’ he said.

‘Tell me,’ Linius gasped.

Quint turned away. His tongue flicked out and tasted the air. ‘There was nothing anyone could do…’ He stopped. ‘It happened so quickly.’

‘What?’ Linius demanded, his heart thumping
furiously. He pulled himself up and climbed out of bed. ‘You
must
tell me.’ He stepped towards the youth, his limbs aching, his gait unsteady. ‘Quint, please,’ he implored. ‘This is all my fault, I know it is. Why did Maris go too? Why wasn't I strong enough to stay awake and stop her? What sort of father am I…?’ He slumped back onto the bed, his face twisted up with misery. ‘Don't tell me the blood-red glister got her.’

Quint turned and smiled. ‘It appeared out of nowhere,’ he said softly.

‘No!’ Linius exclaimed. ‘Oh, Maris!
Maris!
’ He stepped closer to Quint, stumbling weakly as he moved. ‘What happened to her?
Tell me!
’

‘The creature grasped her,’ came the reply.

Linius shuddered fearfully.

‘By the throat.’

Linius hugged himself tightly. His head was swimming, his heart thumping louder and faster than ever.

‘Her face turned red. Her eyes bulged…’

‘No! No!’ Linius cried out in dismay.

Once again, Quint's tongue
flicked out and licked at the air. Looking up, Linius met his apprentice's gaze. There was a barely disguised look of contempt on Quint's face. Linius recoiled as a terrible thought occurred to him. ‘Quint,’ he said. ‘Is it really you?’

Quint frowned. ‘How could you doubt it?’ he said. ‘Of course it is.’ He smiled slyly and opened his cape. ‘Look,’ he said as the Great Seal of High Office around his neck came into view.

‘My seal!’ said Linius, relieved. It
must
be Quint. He scratched his head. ‘And Maris?’ he whispered.

‘That's what I'm trying to tell you,’ said Quint. He shook his head. ‘Maris was in a bad way. I feared that it was all over for her. But I did not give up. I … I fought back and managed to beat the creature – the blood-red glister – off her. I drove it away.’