The Stone Pilot

The Stone Pilot (2006) is a short novella in the Edge Chronicles series, created by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.

Like the novella Cloud Wolf, The Stone Pilot was specially written and published for World Book Day.

This book follows the character of Maugin, "the Stone Pilot"; a Termagant Trog who never turned termagant. She is of twelve seasons of the Bloodoak at the start of the book where she leaves the safety of the trog caverns where she lived and is captured by slavers. The Stone Pilot tells how Maugin is sold by slavers and saved by Quint (Cloud Wolf, The Curse of the Gloamglozer, Winter Knights and The Clash of the Sky Galleons) and taken onto a sky ship where she meets and befriends Maris. During a sky battle, the sky ship's Stone Pilot is killed, and Maugin takes the Stone Pilot's hood and gloves and operates the levers, ensuring the ship's safety from the League Ship who Quint had rescued Maugin from. Maugin later becomes the best Stone Pilot of the skies, and as the book ends, it explains how Maugin is waiting for Twig, and even though she was present at his birth, how she loves him; this is implied but not stated fully.

It is of note that there is some debate over where the novella is placed in the chronology of the overall Edge Chronicles series, as although the story takes place at one point in time (between The Winter Knights and Clash of the Sky Galleons), it is narrated from the viewpoint of a later point in time, as the older Maugin reminisces. It could perhaps be placed in between the Twig and Rook Barkwater sequences. Quint brings Maugin aboard The Galerider, which is captained by Wind Jackal. In Clash of the Sky Galleons, she is described as the newest member of the crew.