Free The Curse of the Gloamglozer by Paul Stewart, Chris Riddell

and she didn't want to be found – but to the balcony-chamber. Across the wooden floor she sped, behind the lacy curtains and out through the glass doors.
    Panting with exertion, she stepped to the edge of the balcony and breathed in the warm, sticky air. To her right was the West Landing with its octagonal turrets; to her left, the Loftus Observatory, and below it – just visible through a narrow gap between the buildings – the Viaduct Steps, teeming with life.
    ‘Sanctaphrax academics,’ she murmured scornfully as she watched them. ‘Like insects, scurrying here, scuttling there. Making alliances, breaking promises; plotting, scheming …’ She sniffed and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. ‘My father, Linius Pallitax, the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, is better than the whole lot of you put together.’

· CHAPTER FIVE ·
    THE VIADUCT STEPS
    i
West Side: 18th Staircase
    A s the wind increased, a ridge of ribbed cloud sped in from beyond the Edge. The sky darkened. The air chilled. The lone academic with the wispy hair and wild eyes paused mid-sentence and wrapped his flapping gown around him. He straightened up and scanned his scanty audience with a dark, penetrating gaze.
    ‘And worse than all that,’ he repeated, ‘is the food in the refectory. What exactly is being served from those great stew-pipes every day?’
    ‘I dunno, but I'm sure you're going to tell us,’ shouted a voice from the back of the small crowd and a group of mobgnomes began sniggering.
    ‘They tell us it's tilder,’ the academic continued undaunted. ‘They tell us it's hammelhorn. They tell us it's snowbird. But I have it on the highest authority that it is none of these.’ He paused for effect. ‘I can tell you

    now, that what we are being served daily is piebald rat, fresh from the sewers of Undertown.’
    As one, the audience groaned. They'd heard it all before! If it wasn't piebald rats, it was muglumps from the Mire, or white ravens from the Stone Gardens – or some other creature considered equally inedible by all but the most barbaric citizens of Sanctaphrax. Once there had been rumours that even the recently deceased academics were ending up in the stew-pot. Disappointed that the speaker's revelations hadn't been more original, individuals in his audience began to drift away until only the heckling mobgnomes were left.
    ‘I work in the kitchens,’ one called out. ‘I see the sides of meat coming in. Huge they are …’
    ‘Have you seen the size of the piebald rats these days?’ the academic countered.
    ‘Rats don't have wings, neither,’ shouted another.
    ‘Down in the sewers, they come in all shapes and sizes,’ the academic shouted back. ‘Some have got two heads. Some have got lungs and live underwater. And some,’ he announced triumphantly, ‘have got wings.’
    The mobgnomes looked at one another and shrugged. One of them screwed his finger into his temple. ‘Sky-touched,’ he muttered.
    ‘As crazy as a square circle,’ another added. ‘The quality of speakers you get on the Viaduct Steps these days is really going downhill.’
    They turned as one and trooped off together, ignoring the cries of the academic. ‘Stop! Wait a minute!’ he called after them. ‘I haven't yet told you about the scandal ofthe Moon Observatory, or how the disappearance of seven fogprobing apprentices was hushed up – or what really goes on at the Convocation of Professors on Grey Thursdays …’

ii
East Side: 18th Staircase
    Cursing the ranting buffoon behind him, Seftus Leprix moved away from the top of the Steps and headed down towards the raucous crowd. He needed to hear the odds and the form being called before finally placing a bet on one of the four fighting fromps.
    ‘… and in the east corner, Bruto the Brave,’ the fight-master – a swarthy lugtroll with a withered arm – was announcing as he scribbled on a blackboard. ‘4–1. In the west corner, Smarg the Mighty. 6–1. And finally, in the