The Immortals (Stewart and Riddell novel)

The Immortals is the 10th book of the Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. It was released on September 14, 2010 in the United States and Canada. The book introduces the Third Age of Flight and the character Nate Quarter, and serves as a conclusion to the Quint, Twig and Rook sagas.

Story

The story is set approximately 500 years after Freeglader.^[1] The Edge is much different from previous novels, with the advent of the Third Age of Flight, using stormphrax crystals as a source of power (stormphrax is highly volatile, gaining weight when in darkness and becoming unstable when in light. Twilight is the level of light needed for neutrality.). Three main settlements have arisen in the Deepwoods: Great Glade, Hive, and Riverrise.

The protagonist is Nate Quarter, a lowly miner of phraxcrystals. Nate's father was the past mine sergeant before he died in a suspicious accident involving Grint Grayle, the present mine sergeant. Grayle is corrupt and only thinks about lining his own pockets. He doesn't care whether the people in his mine live or die.

Late in the day after a hard day's work, Nate and his friend Rudd, a cloddertrog, leave the mine and go to a tavern which is made out of two skewered sky ships. It is a very friendly establishment. Nate and his friends are enjoying the evening drinking when suddenly the owner of the mine bursts in and tries to kill Nate. He has been trying to do this for three years. He does not succeed; instead Nate's friend Rudd is killed with a phraxpistol. Then some of the mining guards chase Nate into the woods and he hides there for a while.

After this Nate returns to the mine and wakes his friend Slip, a gray goblin who sweeps the mine. Nate asks him to collect a few things from his dormitory while he goes to sort a few things out. While the goblin goes off, Nate sneaks into the mine building. He discovers a secret passage and uncovers a vast amount of wealth which the mine sergeant has built up over the three years. Nate gets discovered by the mine sergeant, secretly adjusts a light and leaves the building. When he meets up with the goblin they hide in a cart and the mine HQ blows up. Nate had planned this. They get on a steamer and buy passage to Great Glade on a ship called the Deadbolt Vulpoon.

About a week later they arrive in Great Glade. Not much happens on the journey except that Nate makes friends with a man called "The Professor" because he calls history out to the people in the boxes in the gaming room for money. When they dock in Great Glade (formerly called the Free Glades but now split into 12 districts) they borrow a prowlgrin and set off to find work, finding the owner of the mine they used to work in. They arrive at the house of the mine owner, Galston Prade, and try to speak to him. Instead they speak to his secretary, the dishonest Felftis Brack, because he refuses to see them. The secretary appears to be shocked at what Nate tells him and says that the mine owner will be told as soon as possible. They leave, still feeling a little anxious.

They proceed to travel to Cloud Quarter which houses the academies. Nate tries to speak to his dead mother's uncle, the High Professor of Flight, to persuade him to lend money or find him a place to work, but he is obnoxious and hostile, so Nate leaves angrily.

They travel to a posting pole (like the ones in old Undertown, but they don't post up places on Sky Ships, they post up work around the 12 districts). They find one in a stilt shop and travel to it. When they are let through the doors a heavily coated figure opens the gate and lets them in. This figure is later revealed to be a banderbear, Weelum. Nate and the grey goblin go up and talk to the secretary of the man who runs the workshop, asking him for work, but because they have no experience working in stilt shops, he turns them away. Disappointed, they turn around, but the owner sees them and asks Nate to fix a lantern on his desk. He obliges, and the owner is pleased and rewards them by offering them both a job, accommodation and 60 gladers each per month, which they both gladly accept.

Six months pass. Nate has become close friends with Galston's daughter, Eudoxia Prade. She was originally friends with Branxford Drew, the son of the stilt shop owner, but she came to dislike him because he stole from his father and was obnoxious and spoiled. She and Nate become good, close friends.

Earlier when Nate was at the Lake Landing Academy, he came across a picture of Rook and made a connection between Rook and himself.

On the evening before the thousand stick match, Nate is called to Friston Drew's office and is given an offer which he finds hard to believe. Friston Drew offers the inheritance of the company to Nate, as well as Nate being his junior partner in the business.

On the day of the thousand stick match, Nate is enjoying the game, when suddenly a noise like thunder ripples across the sky, coming from the Copperwood district. Nate is about to win the game, when Drew's son throws him off the pole after confessing that he set up the plot to kill his father, after hearing the father's offer to him.

Nate wakes up in the grey goblin's garden shed. They are hiding from the city's watch. They determine what happened and decide to leave Great Glade and travel to Hive, where the "Professor's" brother used to attend the Sumpwood Bridge Academy. They travel to the man who is going to take them to Midwood Decks, a settlement where they can charter a ship to Hive. As they leave the Great Glade they are shot down and are forced to continue the journey on foot.

On the journey the Banderbear makes a shelter for them every night, but during their journey they are attacked by Wig Wigs. Nate manages to fight them off by using sky crystals to scare the Wig Wigs away. They then reach Midwood Docks where they meet a pilot that drives a sumpwood vehicle called the Varis Lodd. The vehicle is reminiscent of the flight machines in the second age of flight. They witness a pro hiver murder another citizen and escape as quickly as they can.

When they reach Hive they go to the Sumpwood Academy and stay there, while trying to find Eudoxia's father. In this period they find out that he has been captured by the Gyle goblins and their Gross Mother. To rescue him they steal some military outfits but during the escape they are seen by a drill sergeant and are drafted into the military, where they are trained for the battle with the Great Glade. When they reach Midwood Docks they fight the Great Glade army, while the Hive army is all but wiped out and Eudoxia had been shot above the ear.

After Nate is knocked out at Midwood Decks, he wakes up on a sky ship heading to Riverrise, because it is the only place that can heal Eudoxia's wound as it is slowly killing her. On the journey the ship is described and landmarks are pointed out and Keris, Twig's daughter, is mentioned as they go over the lake where she met the Great Blueshell Clam, as she is the only being other than the Webfoot Goblins to meet with it.

They get to the Thorn Gate and the librarian scholar leaves them to tell Eudoxia's father of her fate. Nate and a waif guide travel to the city of Riverrise where they meet two gabtrolls and travel together. When they get to Riverrise it is revealed that the two gabtrolls work for Golderayce, the absolute ruler of Riverrise. A doctor comes and gets the bullet out of Eudoxia's head but needs to give her medicine which, after a couple of weeks, doesn't work. Nate decides to break into the keep to get pure Riverrise water instead of the less powerful stuff that they have to live with. Nate breaks in with the gabtrolls' help but Goldrayce finds out and pursues him. Just as he is about to kill Nate with a dart, a caterbird knocks the dart back which kills Goldrayce.

Nate reaches the spring where he sees a gravestone for Maugin the stone pilot, and meets up with Twig Verginix and Rook Barkwater. It is revealed that Twig was flown back to Riverrise by the Caterbird after being mortally wounded during the battle with the Tower of Night. Upon his arrival he saw his former Stone Pilot, Maugin - but jealous of his love for her, Golderayce killed her just before they were reunited. He then goaded Twig with the fact that they would never be together again. Years later Rook traveled to Riverrise to see if Twig was waiting for him, and was ambushed. He managed to shoot Golderayce, hence leaving him the way he looks. Twig and Rook lived there for years, waiting for Nate to reach them. When he did, a great storm came that picked up both Twig and Rook and there, waiting for them, was the young Quintinius Verginix. Nate managed to escape, and released the healing waters of Riverrise.

Eudoxia is healed, as well as Galston Prade who was dying of phraxlung, a cough contracted in the phraxmines, where Galston once worked. They return home where they meet their friends, and they travel towards the Edge where Old Undertown used to be. Along the way they meet two Shrykes, which tell them they are heading to a city of shiny spires. It turns out to be Sanctaphrax, which had blown back to where it was after Twig cut the Anchor Chain. It looked exactly as it did before, and the group are eager to explore it.

When they reach the landing, they are greeted by Linius Pallitax the former Most High Academe, which worries the Professor, as he knows that Linius Pallitax had died after the fire in his Palace. The Professor visits the library where he meets his brother. They then discover that all the people on the rock are gloamglozers, created by the original which hunted Twig, and while the Professor's brother describes it, he is killed. The original gloamglozer plans to kill Nate when he realizes that Nate is related to Quint, whom he swore to destroy, and releases him. The gloamglozer reveals his illusion; Sanctaphrax is actually in an advanced state of ruin. The Caterbird saves Nate and takes the old painting of Quint. Shortly afterward, three golden objects fall down which the gloamglozers are attracted to, and it is then that Quint, Twig and Rook emerge. Quint, Rook and Twig kill the gloamglozers. Nate then talks to Quint, Twig and Rook. They explain that none of them had a proper death; Quint disappeared into a storm, Twig and Rook lived as immortals. Gloamglozers were attracted to them because of the years of pain they'd had. Shortly afterward they disappear again, after telling Nate that their stories were over, but his is just beginning.

It is revealed that the Edge has always been seeded with life, by glisters. The first glister became the Sanctaphrax rock. The second became the great Blueshell clam. The third became the Caterbird. All life began this way, except the gloamglozer, and with its creation came the disease affecting flight rocks, known as stone sickness.

Nate and the Professor both decide to go over the Edge. The others stay in the ruins of Sanctaphrax and build the city again as it always should have been. When the city is restored they will bring back its population, and the new Phraxdocks, which are located where Old Undertown used to be.

References