Freeglader by Paul Stewart, Chris Riddell Read Free Book Online

stock-pots bubbling. Food was bartered; meat for bread, woodale for water. Young'uns were settled down for the night. And while they slept, their elders worked on, preparing themselves for an early start the following morning – and postponing the moment when they too would have to turn in for the night.
    It was reassuring working together; safety in numbers, so to speak. They all knew that when asleep, every single one of them would be alone. That was when the Edgelands was at its most dangerous, when the misty phantasms filtered into their dreams and nightmares…
    The fires were stoked and restoked, and the brazier-cages were filled to the brim with their supplies of lufwood. Hammelhorns were fed and watered. The mud-clogged runners were removed from the sledges and the wheels returned to their axles. And amidst it all, Rook noticed, a brisk trade in good-luck charms was establishing itself, with the trolls, trogs and goblins vying for business.
    ‘Amulets! Get your bloodoak amulets here!’ a stocky woodtroll was calling, a bunch of carved red medallionson thongs clasped in his stubby fingers. ‘Guaranteed to repel every dark-spirit and empty-soul!’

    ‘Leather charms!’ shouted a slaughterer. ‘Bone talismans. Ward off wraiths and spectres. Keep the gloamglozer himself at bay.’
    ‘Bristleweed and … slurp , slurp … charlock pomanders,’ cried a gabtroll, her long tongue lapping at her swaying eyeballs. ‘Bristleweed … slurp , slurp … and charlock pomanders.’
    ‘I don't think we'd have made it without your friends here,’ said a sprightly-looking under-librarian by the name of Garulus Lexis, clapping Rook on the back.
    Rook smiled and passed on the librarian's thanks.
    ‘Wug-weeghla, loora-weela-wuh,’ said Wumeru. His words warm my heart, but my stomach remains empty .
    ‘Well, we'll soon see to that,’ laughed Garulus when Rook had translated, and he bustled off, returning a few moments later with a sack of hyleberries and a large pot of oak-honey. ‘Enjoy!’ he said, as the banderbears tucked delightedly into their feast.
    Xanth sat down quietly next to Rook and drew his cloak about him.
    ‘Does your … er … friend need anything?’ said Garulus, nodding at Xanth, a look of mild contempt on his face.
    ‘Nothing, thank you,’ said Xanth.
    The other librarians round the brazier exchanged glances.
    Rook gave Xanth his bowl. ‘Here, finish this, Xanth,’ he said. ‘I've had my fill. Go on, it's good.’
    Xanth accepted the bowl with a thin smile and drained its contents. The librarians ignored him.
    ‘Well, now what are we to do?’ Ambris Loppix, an assistant lectern-tender asked. ‘Without the prowlgrins, the library carts are all but useless.’
    ‘I don't know about you,’ said Queltus Petrix, an under-librarian, ‘but I just about broke my back pulling the blasted thing through the Mire even with the help of young Rook's friends here.’
    They all nodded.
    ‘We can't take it with us, and we can't leave it behind,’ said Garulus, shaking his head sadly. ‘After all, what are librarians without a library?’
    ‘There is something you could do,’ said Xanth quietly. The librarians all looked at him. ‘A way to get every barkscroll across the Edgelands and to the Free Glades,’ he went on.
    Ambris snorted and Queltus turned away. Garulus pushed his half-moon spectacles back onto the bridge of his long nose. ‘And what, pray, is that?’ he said,contempt dripping from every word.
    ‘Every Undertowner could carry a scroll. There are thirty thousand scrolls, aren't there?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Garulus uncertainly.
    ‘And there are at least thirty thousand of us – Undertowners, ghosts, sky pirates, librarians…’
    ‘And one Guardian of Night,’ said Garulus, fixing Xanth with an icy stare.
    ‘No, listen …’ Rook began, jumping to his feet. But before he could speak further, the gaunt figure of Cowlquape, Most High Academe, stepped into the brazier light, flanked by