Disclaimer: Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell are the owners of the Edge, including characters, places, and other related material. Any new characters introduced are my own invention.

Chapter One

'Promise you'll come back to me…'

'I promise.'

The memory of his final words to Eudoxia Prade, his friend and companion through such a long and arduous journey, echoed around Nate Quarter's head as he followed the Professor, step by gradual step, down the glittering rock face of the Edge cliff. He looked up, just once, as he descended, and thought he saw, just for an instant, the sun gleaming of a golden head on the very tip of the Edge.

'Eudoxia,' he murmured softly to himself. He knew that she could not understand why he had to go – on a journey so many others had attempted – and failed – and that he was causing her great suffering by his determination. But the words of Quintinius Verginix, who had appeared so briefly in the mosaic quadrangle of Sanctaphrax, had taken on a special significance when he had come down from the reborn rock.

'The story of your life, Nate Quarter, is just beginning.'

Nate knew that life back in Great Glade, or in Sanctaphrax, was not for him – at least not yet. He shared with the Professor the ardent desire for discovery that was present in every member of the Society of Descenders, and he had to follow it. A life half lived would not be a life at all: Nate knew that he had to make this journey; he had to find out what was beneath the Edge, to succeed where so many had failed. Perhaps, after his return, he would have a life up in the sunlight. Perhaps even with Eudoxia.

'Nate! What are you waiting for?' came a cry several feet below him. Nate came to, looking around wildly, and realised that in his reverie he had stopped climbing. He was clinging, crab-like, to the face of the cliff, buffeted by the howling winds, and already struggling to see in the dimness that would all too soon turn into the impenetrable darkness that Ifflix had described to the Professor before his death. His companion was now staring up at him in confusion, and Nate realised that he could not afford to keep thinking about what he had left behind. The only way was down…down into the depths, to find out what was beneath the great fluted decline.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I was just thinking whether this was the right thing to be doing, whether we should be risking this after all the horrors that your brother described.'

'Of course we should,' the Professor shouted up from below, struggling to make himself heard above the howl of the wind. 'Can't you feel it, Nate? The desire to climb down, to find out just what is beneath this jutting rock of ours. It burns within me, and I can do nothing but answer it. If anything, Ifflix' description of what is down there only makes me more determined.'

Hearing this, Nate felt his brief weakening of resolve gradually disappear. Feeling with his foot for a safe footing, he resumed the climb down, clinging onto the rope as hard as he could. As much as he desired to know what lay below the Edge, he had no desire to find out at speed.

The Professor too resumed his descent, focussing on the rhythm of a descender – first place the foot, then the hand, the foot, the hand… Down and down the two tiny figures went, leaving behind the light and warmth of the sunlit regions, down into the dark abyss, with the phantasms and creatures that were the stuff of nightmares…down, where every expedition before them had failed. But now, they had new hope – they knew what to expect, they had the line left by Ifflix, and, perhaps most importantly of all, they knew that up above them, the Edge was on the cusp of an entirely new part of its history. Thus, perhaps their descent was part of this rebirth – for centuries, sky pirates, the leaguesmen of Old Undertown, the librarian knights, and now the phraxships of the Third Age of Flight had explored the skies above the Edge. Now, with the dawning of this new age, it was finally time to discover what lay below the Edge.