Midnight Over Sanctaphrax Read Online Free PDF Page B

window.
    ‘Shooting stars!’ he cried.
    One after the other, the dots of light flew up and hurtled across the night sky towards the Edge in wide flaring arcs. Seven in all there were, the professor noted. No, eight; two were flying close together. Apart from this pair, each of them was heading in its own direction, at its own speed and describing its own unique parabola.
    The professor sighed. The characteristics of light were outside his field of expertise, yet he would like to have one of the shooting stars for himself to examine its makeup; to prove, once and for all, that it was darkness that lay at the heart of all light. The trouble would be in finding one where it landed.
    Already the shooting stars were falling; some, quite near. Others continued over the Mire and on to the Deepwoods beyond. While one - shining more brightly than the rest - went on further than the professor could even see.
    ‘Curious,’ he whispered. The wind howled and the tower creaked. ‘Very curious.’
    Far below the battered floating city, the streets of Undertown had turned to a quagmire. Its hapless inhabitants squelched about the sucking mud, trying desperately to salvage something from the trail of destruction the maelstrom was causing.
    ‘Sky above, what is to become of us all,’ the frightened voice of a mobgnome cried out as a bright flash lit up thesky. ‘Why were we not told about the arrival of so fearsome a storm?’
    The wind screeched. The roof rattled. A shooting star hissed across the night sky above her head. Glancing up too late to see it clearly, she wiped the hair from her eyes and peered through the sheets of driving rain at the floating city. Her face twisted with rage.
    ‘Why didn't the academics warn us?’ she demanded.
    ‘Academics? Don't make me laugh, Glim,’ her companion shouted down angrily as he struggled to rope their flapping roof into place. ‘Barkslugs, the lot of them! Slow, slimy and full of stinking …’
    CRASH !
    ‘ TOG ?’ Glim shouted in alarm. ‘Are you all right?’
    There was no reply. Heart pumping with anticipation, Glim gathered up her skirt and climbed the ladder. The roof was empty. There was a gaping, jagged hole in the corrugated ironwood panels.
    ‘ TOG !’ she cried again.
    ‘I'm down here,’ came a muffled voice.
    Clutching tightly with trembling fingers, Glim pulled herself forwards across the roof and peered down into the hole. The sight which greeted her made no sense. A huge piece of wood lay in the middle of the floor. Beneath it lay Tog.
    ‘Help me,’ he whispered. ‘Can't move. C … can't breathe.’
    ‘Just hang on,’ Glim shouted back. ‘I'll be right with you.’
    Shakily, she eased herself back down the roof and feltfor the top rung of the ladder with her feet. The wind tugged at her fingers. The rain lashed at her face. Slowly, carefully, she descended the ladder and ran inside.
    ‘Oh, good gracious!’ she exclaimed, and her fingers flew to the lucky amulets around her neck.
    Close to, the piece of wood looked even bigger. It was curved and varnished, and along its side, gold letters gleamed in the lamplight, EDGEDA … The word ended abruptly in a jagged mass of splinters.

    It looks like a bit of a sky ship,’ said Glim. Though why anyone would want to go skysailing in this weather …’
    ‘Never mind all that,’ Tog wheezed. ‘Just get it off me!’
    Glim started back guiltily. ‘Yes, Tog. Sorry, Tog,’ she said.
    Brow taut with concentration, she tugged at the wood with all her might. It was heavy - much heavier than it looked. Despite all her efforts, it hardly moved. Yet move it did. And just enough for Tog to release his trapped legs and scramble backwards.
    ‘Yes!’ he cried.
    ‘Unrikhl’ Glim gasped, and the wood fell to the floor with a bang. ‘Oh, Tog,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’
    The mobgnome inspected his body carefully, up anddown. ‘I think so,’ he said finally. ‘Leastways, no bones broken.’ He nodded