Runelight by Joanne Harris

Author:Joanne Harris
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781446452059
Publisher: Doubleday Childrens
Published: 2011-12-01T10:16:55+00:00

FOUR WHOLE DAYS had already passed since Maddy and Jorgi arrived in World’s End. In that time she had come to realize that her task was far from straightforward. The Universal City was much larger than any town she had imagined or dreamed. It stretched out like a patchwork quilt of squares and streets and alleyways; of arches, cobbled courtyards, minarets, walled gardens and little fountains. There were shops and markets, traders and thieves, street performers and animal shows and off-duty sailors with money to burn. There were colleges and cathedrals, which, though never as huge as Nat Parson claimed, nevertheless managed to rise twice as high as the tallest tree, scraping the sky with their gilded glass spires. There were statues of ancient dignitaries, long since stripped of their gilding and streaked with soot and bird-lime. There were canals with rows of houseboats crowded in their moorings; there were filthy slums standing alongside gracious houses surrounded by trees. In one square was a marble plinth on which stood a giant warlord of the Sea riding on a serpent, both intricately carved in stone and surrounded by little jets of water that rose and fell at intervals. Looking more closely, Maddy was almost sure that she recognized Njörd’s features in the marble, though Perth assured her that this was one of the great kings of old – a king of the Elder Age called Knut, whose power had been so great that he could hold back the waves of the One Sea and raise its beasts at his command.

Perth was full of stories. Maddy had no way of knowing whether any of them were true, but all the same she was very aware of how much she needed his guidance in this city of perilous wonders. She had not been there above an hour before she realized that finding her sister would not be the simple task she had assumed; with the truesight, it soon became clear that the city was filled with signatures – some bright, some dim, all shuttling ceaselessly like threads in an intricate tapestry. It might take weeks to find Maggie Rede – if, indeed, she found her at all.

‘Ah – why do you need to look for her?’ Perth had been asking the same questions over the course of the past four days. ‘Can’t we just do business here? With your skills and mine, we could reach for the sky.’

Even in such a short time, Perth had proved himself a very apt pupil in the use of the runes, picking up the fingerings with the same effortless ease that he brought to picking pockets and palming coins. His own glam was almost as bright as Maddy’s own, which led her to think that the rune he bore must be one of the New Script. She named it simply Perth, and hoped that maybe Ethel could help identify it more clearly, if ever she managed to bring the two of them together.

But teaching Perth the runes took time.

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