‘Interesting. Yes, it is theoretically possible to —’
Whatever Scamandros was going to say was lost as a cannonball struck the Moth’s side just behind and below the wheel, smashing the heavy timber into a spray of deadly foot-long splinters that went whistling across the quarterdeck.
Seven
THE NEXT THING Arthur knew, he was lying on the deck, right up against the rail, with his good leg hanging overboard. He could hear screaming all around him, and shouting. For a moment he thought he’d suffered a sudden asthma attack and had passed out from lack of air. But his breathing was fine, or so his mind reported before it suddenly switched back to the current situation. The splinters flying through the air —
Arthur pulled his leg in, sat up, and stared around him. He was vaguely aware that his broken leg hurt, but that was nothing new. There was blood on his dressing gown, but it was bright blue. A pain in his left hand made him lift it up. There was blood there too — red blood, but not much of it. Arthur focused on his middle finger, and pulled out a needle-shaped splinter that had sliced across a knuckle and was still hanging there.
‘Will you look at that?! Ruined!’ said a voice next to Arthur. The boy slowly turned to look. There was a large hole on the far side of the deck. The planking was gouged all around and there was blue blood splattered all over the place, amid shattered wood and splinters.
Ichabod was pointing at his waistcoat. A splinter as long as Arthur’s forearm was sticking out of the Denizen’s stomach. Blue blood was trickling out of the wound and into his waistcoat pocket.
‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ asked Arthur. He was in shock and part of his mind was telling him to check himself over again. He knew the Denizens could recover even from a beheading, but that didn’t help. It also didn’t apply to him. A wound like Ichabod’s would kill him for sure.
‘It certainly does hurt,’ replied Ichabod with a grimace. ‘But just look at my favourite waistcoat!’
Arthur looked along his own arms and legs. They were fine. He gingerly felt his stomach and head. They seemed fine too. Only his finger had been touched.
The Denizens around the wheel had not been so lucky. Arthur could hardly bear to look at them, they were so pierced by splinters. At least the blue blood didn’t look so serious as real human blood would. And they were still standing, and complaining about their bad luck.
‘Seriously wounded to the Captain’s quarters!’ instructed Doctor Scamandros. He didn’t appear to be injured, but blue fluid dripped from the sleeve of his yellow greatcoat. ‘You too, mortal! You could be killed up here! Get below at once. Ichabod, take charge of our valuable passenger!’
Arthur struggled to his feet and hesitantly walked to the gangway, Ichabod at his side.
‘Are you going to do something, Doctor?’ asked Captain Catapillow plaintively, as he stared down at the spot where his foot and one of his third-best boots used to be. ‘I think that cannonball was coated in Nothing.’
‘You’d feel a lot worse if it was, Captain,’ said Doctor Scamandros. ‘As I was saying, it is theoretically possible to accelerate the transfer by bringing the portal to the traveller, rather than the other way around. It is of course exceedingly difficult and dangerous.’
Everyone looked at the pirate vessel astern. It fired again, a great gout of water exploding out of the sea a little ahead and to the port side of the Moth.
‘What could happen that would be worse than eternal slavery or a slow and torturous death by Nothing-based sorceries at the hands of Feverfew?’ asked Concort. He didn’t sound like he really wanted to know.
‘If I fail, we shall transfer not into that Secondary Realm, but into the Void of Nothing, and be immediately expunged from existence.’
‘My collection too?’ asked Captain Catapillow.
‘The ship and everything on it or connected with it,’ said Scamandros. ‘Including all your stamps, sir. So what are your orders?’
Arthur hesitated on the steps, waiting to hear Catapillow’s commands. Surely there was some other way? Perhaps he could escape via the Infinite Stair . . . no . . . not in his current state. He probably didn’t have the power anymore . . .
‘I can’t have the collection fall into Feverfew’s hands,’ said Captain Catapillow in a small voice. ‘All or . . . or Nothing!’
Arthur saw Scamandros open his yellow greatcoat. The inside was lined with dozens of pockets and loops for magical implements and apparatus. Scamandros selected two lengths of bronze rod with curved-back hooks set near their pointed ends. Though they were in miniature under his coat, only a few inches long, they expanded as he dragged them out, till they were at least a yard in length.
‘Fire irons,’ said Ichabod. ‘Matching set. Very nice. Come along!’
Arthur started to follow Ichabod down the port-side ladder to the waist, where Sunscorch and the crew had finally succeeded in cutting away the last of the broken yard and its accompanying debris. But Arthur stopped on the companionway to look back. He saw Scamandros reaching out with a fire iron in each hand, the bronze rods continuing to extend till they became shafts of curdled sunlight that reached up into the sky, and to each side of the ship.
Only a few seconds later, the transformed fire irons reached all the way to the vast gilt-framed portal to the Secondary Realm. The hooks on the end were now easily thirty feet long. The irons wavered outside the edges of the frame, then Scamandros brought them in and seated them. As sun bronze met magical gilt, there was a horrendous metallic noise, like an angle grinder suddenly cutting into steel, magnified a hundred times.
Everyone on the ship stared up at the portal and the Doctor’s two levers. Ichabod didn’t protest or try to make Arthur go below. Like everyone else, he wanted to see what would happen next.
Scamandros shouted something, a word that passed through Arthur like a hot wire, causing him to cry out and clap his hands to his ears. The doctor shouted again, and Arthur, suddenly stripped of strength, fell down the ladder onto the deck, taking a surprised Ichabod with him.
Then Scamandros yanked the fire irons back towards himself. This action was magnified all along their sun-curdled length. With the squeal of ten thousand fingers on a giant blackboard, the entire vast doorway to Forlorn Island shuddered towards the Moth.
At first, it looked like all was going well. The portal rapidly grew closer, and the Moth continued to sail straight at it.
Then, when it was only yards away, the portal began to totter and shake, and the top edge started to lean forward. Behind it, in place of the normal sky, was a dark mass that glittered like some volcanic stone.
The Void of Nothing.
‘Faster!’ shouted Scamandros, fear in his voice. ‘Make the ship go faster!’
Denizens who had been frozen in awe sprang into action, goaded again by the now unbelievably loud voice of Sunscorch. Yards were trimmed, ropes hauled, sails hoisted where sails were hardly ever seen.
‘Faster!’ screamed Scamandros. The portal was falling towards them now, and instead of dragging it with the fire irons, the Doctor was trying to hold it up. Darkness rippled behind it. ‘We must get through before it drops!’
The portal fell farther, and the bowsprit of the Moth pierced its shining jigsaw-crazed surface. Then the bow passed through, and the rest of the ship followed. The light changed to a softer, golden tone, and the breeze around Arthur became instantly warm.
As the sternpost of the Moth passed the portal, Scamandros fell to the deck, his fire irons clattering at his side, no longer anything more than lengths of bronze. The portal, its work done, collapsed in on itself. The threat of Nothing was gone.
But there were other troubles for the Moth.
‘Splashdown! Brace!’ roared Sunscorch. ‘Take hold!’
Arthur instantly shuffled back and wound his arms through the port-side ladder. He knew from the volume of Sunscorch’s order that this was serious.
The Moth had come through the portal all right, but because of the angle of entry, they had not come through at the same level. The ship had entered this new world thirty feet above the water.
Now it was crashing down into the sea.
Before the echo of Sunscorch’s shout had gone, the ship tilted precipitously forward. Arthur saw Ichabod slide past, till the Denizen managed to grab hold of a grating. Other Denizens tumbled along farther down the deck and some fell or jumped from the rigging, though as far as Arthur could tell they went into the violet sea.
Then the ship struck. Arthur’s legs went up in the air but he managed to keep hold of the ladder. His good foot kicked desperately for a hold as he tried to avoid sliding down the deck to the bow, which went completely underwater. For a dreadful second it looked to Arthur like the whole ship was going to nosedive straight into the deeps. But though the forward twenty feet or so were completely covered in foaming water, the Moth somehow came back up with a violent rolling action that spilled more Denizens into the sea.
Arthur was covered in spray, but he kept his grip. Gradually, the Moth’s roll slowed. Ichabod got up, dusted himself off with a tsk-ing noise, and walked back to Arthur. The splinter that had been in his stomach was gone, but the waistcoat was still sodden with blue blood.
‘Come down below,’ said Ichabod. ‘I’ve stopped bleeding but I have to help the Doctor if there’s anyone really seriously wounded.’
‘Is it safe to stand up?’ asked Arthur. He didn’t want to even guess what really seriously wounded might mean.
Ichabod looked around.
‘I trust that is the case,’ he replied. ‘We have made it clear through the Transfer Portal. The sea here is quite placid, at least at present.’
Arthur climbed wearily to his feet, grimacing as pain shot through his leg. When that subsided a little, he looked around. Sunscorch was giving orders, but not very loudly. Denizens were climbing back up the rigging and the ones that hadn’t fallen off were already inching their way out across the yards, getting ready to furl the sails.
It all looked surprisingly calm, until a Denizen stuck his head out of a forward hatch and shouted, ‘Mister Sunscorch! She’s cracked a dozen strakes or more! There’s four foot of water in the well!’
Arthur looked at Ichabod.
‘I believe that means we are sinking,’ Ichabod said calmly. ‘Doubtless we shall hear more in a moment. Allow me to remove some flecks of wood from your coat.’
Without waiting for permission, Ichabod started to remove tiny pieces of wood from Arthur’s shoulders, reminding the boy how easily they could have been larger splinters that would have killed him.
He had to get out of the way as Sunscorch ran back to the quarterdeck, jumping halfway up the steps. There was a confused milling about going on around the wheel. As far as Arthur could tell, Doctor Scamandros was barely conscious, but he had all the maps. They needed the maps to work out what to do before the ship sank, which was going to happen within the next thirty minutes at the rate they were taking in water through the cracked hull.
Though Captain Catapillow and First Mate Concort were both there, once again it was Sunscorch who really took charge.
‘I’m guessing you’ll want us to beach her dead ahead on Counter-Crab Beach, Captain?’ Sunscorch asked, quite calmly. He pointed at Forlorn Island, which was only a mile or so away. ‘I’ve been here before, more than once. Good deep sand, quite steep. Once we’re aground we can warp her about and careen her.’
‘Um, yes, very good, carry on, Mister Sunscorch,’ said Catapillow. ‘I’m just going to . . . ah . . . see to the situation belowdecks. Counter-Crab Beach, eh? Excellent. Excellent. Mister Concort, I believe we may leave the ship to Mister Sunscorch.’
‘Pardon?’ asked Concort. The back of his coat was peppered with many holes, some of them stained with his own blue blood. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
They both left the quarterdeck, trooping down past Arthur and Ichabod. Neither looked at the boy and they seemed in a hurry to get back to the Captain’s cabin. Catapillow was muttering something about humidity, gum Arabic, and perforated edges.
‘Exciting times,’ said Ichabod. ‘We don’t normally have these sorts of goings-on going on. Not for a hundred years or more, we haven’t. Come on.’
‘Can’t we stay on deck?’ asked Arthur as they walked away. He was still feeling very shaky after the shock of the cannon blast and, as he had expected, was already having a little trouble breathing now they had left the House. He also had little inclination to see the ‘really seriously wounded’ and had a strong inclination to stay out in the open air. If he went below he thought he might throw up from reaction to shock. He needed fresh air and distraction.
‘I suppose we might,’ said Ichabod. ‘The Captain and Mister Concort will be checking over the collection. They won’t notice anything else. And Doctor Scamandros will call if he needs me. We shall ask permission to join Mister Sunscorch on the quarterdeck.’
Ichabod called up, and after a moment Sunscorch nodded and waved them both up. The original two helmsmen had gone below to have their wounds treated, accompanied by Doctor Scamandros. They had been replaced by two of the Denizens who had brought Arthur in from the buoy.
‘A fine bit of sailing and no mistake,’ said Sunscorch as Arthur rejoined him. The Denizen seemed very cheerful. ‘There’s not many as can say they showed the Shiver a clean pair of heels.’
‘But aren’t we sinking?’ asked Arthur.
‘We’re taking water, that’s certain,’ said Sunscorch. ‘But we’ll be on the beach afore she drowns. And just as well, for there’s at least a week’s worth of repairs to be done.’