Quintinius Verginix
- "For Sky's sake, save yourself, Maris..."
- —Quint
Quintinius "Quint" Verginix, also known by his sky pirate name as Cloud Wolf, was the protagonist of the Quint Trilogy and the father of Twig.
Preceding the Quint Trilogy
Quint was born in 0 ᴇ.ʏ. to Orlis and Hirmina Verginix. He was the youngest in a family of six boys; his brothers were Lucius, Centix, Murix, Pellius, and Martilius. He grew up in a large comfortable home in the Western Quays district of Undertown. However, this was destroyed by a terrible fire started by his father's power-hungry quartermaster, Turbot Smeal. Quint managed to escape by climbing to the rooftops, but his mother and brothers were all killed. Since then, Quint suffered a great fear of open flames. He spent a great deal of time aboard his father's sky ship, the Galerider.
Role in Cloud Wolf
At a young age, Quint was involved in the Battle of the Great Sky Whale between the sky pirates and the Leaguesmasters. He boarded with the second wave of pirates with Steg Jambles and stole High Leaguesmaster Marl Mankroyd's precious black diamond cargo. Then he and the pirates liberated the slaves, who were keeping the ship's four flight-rocks warm, causing the Great Sky Whale to "turn turvy" and hurtle into Open Sky. Here, Wind Jackal gave Quint his Sky Pirate name, "Cloud Wolf", a name he kept secret until he became a captain himself.
Role in The Curse of the Gloamglozer
At age fourteen, Quint was sent to Sanctaphrax to be apprenticed to the Most High Academe, Linius Pallitax. He and Pallitax's daughter, Maris, initially didn't get along very well, but the two of them eventually became great friends, drawn together by a desire to learn the truth of Pallitax's sinister experiments in the Sanctaphrax Stonecomb. They discovered that Linius Pallitax accidentally created the Gloamglozer in the Ancient Laboratory, and had to stop the monster. Quint managed to use chine to banish the Gloamglozer from Sanctaphrax.
Role in The Winter Knights
Shortly after the ordeal with the Gloamglozer, Linius Pallitax died of wounds, both physical and mental, inflicted upon him by his creation. The Professors of Light and Darkness became joint Most High Academes after his death, and the Professor of Light sponsored Quint through the Knights Academy, while Maris was fostered with family in Undertown. Quint was trained as a squire, and showed great skill in all four of the Lower Halls, particularly model sky ship construction and prowlgrin husbandry. He attempted to befriend the Professor of Darkness' protégé Vilnix Pompolnius, but Vilnix was disgusted by his pity and the two became mortal enemies.
Later, Quint was
promoted to the position of Upper Hall Knight's Squire, with hopes of someday becoming a Knight Academic. He and his friend Phin, the Upper Hall squire Raffix Emilius, the forge hand Stope formed the "Winter Knights". Together with Maris, they were able to successfully cure the Endless Winter threatening Sanctaphrax by travelling out into Open Sky and using stormphrax to free a trapped cloudeater.
Role in Clash of the Sky Galleons
After the events of The Winter Knights, Quint accompanied his father on a quest to find and kill Turbot Smeal, while the League of Free Merchants secretly created a powerful weapon to exterminate the sky pirates once and for all. Along the quest, Wind Jackal was killed, and Quint took his place as captain of the Galerider. Quint, along with his friends from the Knights Academy, fought in a massive battle between the sky Pirates and the leagues. The leagues' weapon, a colossal sky ship known as the Bringer of Doom, initially devastated the fleet of sky pirate ships, but crashed when its flight-rock malfunctioned. Once the battle was over, Quint returned to the Knights Academy to complete his training.
After the Quint Trilogy
Quint returned to the Knights' Academy and became a Knight Academic-in-waiting. Just as he was about to be knighted and sent on his own stormchasing voyage, Vilnix Pompolnius seized power as Most High Academe and banned all future stormchasing. His dream taken from him, Quint became a sky pirate, using the name Cloud Wolf (which his father had given him years before). Before he set off, he and Maris were married.
After some initial setbacks in sky piracy, Quint and Maris were forced to take up positions on a sky ship captained by a leaguesman, Multinius Gobtrax. Maris gave birth to Twig aboard Gobtrax's ship. The ship later crashed in the Deepwoods, and Quint and Maris, knowing Twig would not survive the journey back to Undertown, were forced to abandon him in a woodtroll village. Maris and Quint returned to Undertown, living in the Bloodoak Tavern, and Quint started making expeditions to the Deepwoods in search of their lost child. After many failed expeditions, Quint was consumed by guilt and self-hatred, and could no longer bear to see his wife knowing he had failed to save their son. He left her in the Bloodoak Tavern and took up sky piracy alone.
Twig was raised by the woodtrolls and eventually reunited with his father by chance after fourteen years. Quint was still emotionally tormented but took him on as a crew member. When Cloud Wolf went on a stormchasing voyage, he intended to leave Twig behind with Mother Horsefeather, but Slyvo Spleethe sneaked him aboard for use in his mutinous plan. Quint managed to defeat Spleethe, but his sky ship, Stormchaser, was being battered to pieces in the Great Storm over the Twilight Woods, and he had his crew abandon ship. Piloting the Stormchaser alone, Quint and his sky ship were blown out into Open Sky. During the events of Midnight Over Sanctaphrax, Twig came to rescue him aboard the Edgedancer. They were briefly reunited before the Mother Storm claimed Quint; Cloud Wolf and the Stormchaser faded away to nothing.
Distant Future
Hundreds of years after Quint vanished into the Mother Storm, Nate Quarter and his friends journeyed to the ruined city of Old Undertown, to find that the long-lost Sanctaphrax Rock had been blown back to the Edge. At first, the city seemed perfectly preserved and even inhabited by ancient academics, but Nate soon discovered that it had actually become a breeding ground for gloamglozers, and its pristine condition was merely an illusion. Just when all seemed lost, Quint, along with Twig and Rook, appeared out of the storm as an echo of his youth, and the three Immortals battled the gloamglozers. Quint reached into the folds of the original Gloamglozer's cloak and pulled out the the glister within, destroying the beast once and for all. After the battle, Twig, Quint, and Rook transformed into glisters to begin life anew.
Personality
- "Whoever he was, he looked like someone young trying to be older than his years; more experienced, more confident .... The impression was confirmed by the armour he wore. It was like a costume, the over sized breastplate with its pipes and dials exaggerating the slight build of its wearer."
- —Nate Quarter, considering Quint's portrait miniature[1]
As with the other two Immortals, Twig and Rook, Quint possessed an extremely noble heart, often laying his life on the line for the sake of those who mattered to him. In particular, he was always loyal to his father, Wind Jackal, and his wife, Maris, but he also did everything in his power to ensure the total safety of his crew. He would also lay down his life for his friends. He was very forgiving, trying to see the best in people, even Vilnix. He was also ruthless, as his attitude to the slightest bit of dissent appeared to be to kill them brutally (sky-fired).
Cloud Wolf had 'The Touch', an instinct that allowed a sky pirate captain to deftly maneuver his sky ship through all conditions. [2]
Trivia
In a Facebook post[3], Paul Stewart revealed that Quint's name means "fifth", from the Latin word for "five". However, Quint is the sixth and not the fifth child of the Verginix family. This was because Murix was a foundling, and so Quint was named by Orlis to show he was his fifth, not his sixth "birth son".
References
- ↑ The Immortals, Chapter 13
- ↑ Clash of the Sky Galleons, Chapter 8: Galerider
- ↑ Paul Stewart on the Edge Chronicles facebook account on the 17th of August 2020, https://www.facebook.com/EdgeChronicles/posts/1788956561247287?__tn__=-R