The Elfin Ship (40 page)

There was the crash of breaking glass and wood and the clatter of white bones on the stone floor, followed by the wild ululations of mad goblins. The second skeleton wandered aimlessly, and
whooshes
of green flame from the fire heralded the issuance of others. Jonathan hefted his club and threatened the first goblin that hopped across to the shattered window toward him. The thing had no fear, however, and waving taloned claws and gnashing its teeth, it raced at him. So Jonathan smashed it across the side of its silly head and sent the thing sprawling through the rubble. The rest of the goblins went wild at the sight and raced about, working themselves up. Selznak seemed to think the whole thing monstrously funny, for he looked on gleefully, whacking away with his staff. The second skeleton completed one last turn about the hall, stopped, seemed to see Jonathan for the first time, and stepped jerkily along toward him.

The Professor, meanwhile, cranked away at the seeker. The whirl-gatherers twirled and the thing shook as if in the grip of some great force. As the Professor struggled to hold it, it burst from his hands and buzzed off through the open window, into the hall. Goblins fled shrieking in every direction, and even the grim skeleton hesitated and took a step back. Another bony image, wavering above the fire, rattled together and fell in a heap in the embers, the fire roaring up about it. It was as if everything within the hall had sensed that some nature of elf magic had penetrated the mist of evil and gloom.

Selznak stopped his thumping as the thing tore out of the Professor’s hands, more because of the change of atmosphere than because he knew what thing it was that was flying toward him like some squid-spawned bird. The seeker shot straight across the hall as if it had been called home at last and slammed smack into the forehead of the odious Selznak, pitching him over backward onto the ground. The seeker spun away, not played out by half, and angled across the hall in the general direction of the skeleton which reached out with one halting arm and clutched at it. The seeker sailed right on along, instigating a rain of finger bones, and left the skeleton waving a bony stump.

Selznak clambered to his feet, tangled in his robes and furious as the devil. He was reaching for his staff when the seeker buzzed down on him again, bonking him on the nose. He was astonished, no doubt, that such a marvelous and persistent weapon was, overall, so ineffectual, and when the seeker raced his way the third time he beat it to bits with his staff and kicked it against the wall. Two goblins rushed for the weapon, but when they grabbed it they fell back as if burned and let it lie there in a heap.

The Dwarf shook out a fold in his robe and when he did, the vial of powder he’d been sprinkling into the fire fell out and broke on the floor, the fine dust within blowing on the breeze that came through the open window into the heart of the flames.
Whooshes
of green sparks burst up the chimney, and first one, then another skull appeared, bobbing in the flames. Selznak tried, at first, to save some of the dust, but left off the effort, slammed his staff onto the floor, and shouted gobbled orders at the goblins standing roundabout and setting the whole lot of them into an uproar.

As he swung his club for the second time, it occurred to Jonathan that Selznak hadn’t much of a sense of humor when it was he who was appearing ridiculous. But Jonathan hadn’t time to think about it much, because before he could recover from his second, very effective swing, he was borne down by slavering, scratching goblins.

He fought and kicked and tossed goblins to and fro, but the things seemed to be made of rubber. Each time one would spin away against a wall or rebound from a
thwack
on the head, it simply sprung to its former wild state and sailed back in. It went well, all in all, for Jonathan and the Professor at first. Once the struggle was underway, it began to seem that about twice as many goblins as there were would be needed to accomplish the job. But just when Jonathan was taking heart, he heard a violent floor thumping. The struggling mass of them was quickly overshadowed by a tremendous bulking, hairy beast – nearly the size of a troll – a stooped thing, with arms half again as long as they should be; its knuckles nearly scraped along the ground. Aside from its tremendous size, it was a foolish-looking thing – a monster that looked as if it weren’t altogether sure it was one. As it stood there looking down at them, Jonathan heard the Professor whisper, as if in amazement, ‘The Beddlington Ape!’

It reached down and wrenched Jonathan’s club from his hand, scattering goblins in the process, and after a bit of hasty thought, Jonathan decided it best to just relax and play along. There seemed to be little use in struggling with the thing. A batch of goblins swarmed round again, and Jonathan and the Professor soon found themselves lifted bodily and borne among goblins into the interior of the hall.

Jonathan hoped that they’d created the diversion Escargot needed, because they’d accomplished little else beside mayhem. When he thought about it, he hoped Escargot was still involved in the caper. But the more he considered it, the less sure he was that Escargot hadn’t given the venture up and slid away toward the river, expecting that he and the Professor, once involved, would have no choice but attempt to finish the job. Who could say?

After subduing Jonathan and Professor Wurzle, the goblins turned their attention on Ahab, who proved to be no easy beast to capture. He raced about the hall barking and nipping and managed to latch onto the pants of one goblin and drag him off bodily. Having no fear of bones of any sort, he bowled through the handless skeleton and knocked the befuddled thing into scrap, its grinning skull bouncing with a hollow thud to the floor. The goblin managed finally to pull himself loose and roll away shrieking.

Ahab, no doubt feeling outnumbered and finding himself pursued by the ape thing, dashed away up the stairway toward the upper reaches of the tower. A half dozen goblins set out after him, but Selznak whacked away at the floor with his stick, shouted strangely. Instead of pursuing Ahab, the goblins then dashed in a clump through the smashed window and set out around the tower toward the swamp. The Beddlington Ape watched them race away, poked a long finger into its ear for a moment, then shambled off after them. There was no way to say for sure, but it looked as if they were after Dooly. Following the skeleton incident, there was little doubt that Selznak knew all along of their approach to the castle, and so would, of course, want to account for Dooly. Jonathan hoped, when the goblins disappeared through the window, that it was only Dooly they went out after.

The Professor, Jonathan could see, was in a state. He was glaring roundabout himself as if itching to run mad and teach these filthy goblins a lesson. He was probably at an advantage over Jonathan, for he had a smaller regard for magic, evil or otherwise, than Jonathan, and so hadn’t quite as much fear of the Dwarf and his staff.

Perhaps the goblins made the error of supposing the Professor old and tired, for although six of the things held onto Jonathan, only three guarded him. He seemed to relax and grow cooperative for a moment – right before thrashing out with his right foot and kicking the leg-clutching goblin across the floor. He pitched the other two to the stones before the first could scramble back into the fray, and leaped across to clout one of the mob that was holding onto Jonathan. The lot of them seemed surprised and rather more anxious to race off howling than to hang onto Jonathan and let Professor Wurzle knock on their heads.

Selznak still stood by the fire watching the fray. He hadn’t said a word. After his first effort to save the green powder, he gave up doing anything at all save pounding on the flags of the floor and shouting cryptic orders. He seemed strangely unperturbed, as if he were watching a stage play and were getting ready to call down the curtain. Behind him, roaring up in the great fireplace, orange flames raged and heaved and green sparking flashes erupted about every other minute. Twitching and dangling above the flames were a chorus line of dancing skeletons, a new one bobbing up each time the green dust set off another uproar. Now and then, when Selznak pounded his staff, one or another of them would lurch out onto the hearth and clatter away into the hall. Some of the skeletons danced briefly over the flames, only to collapse in a heap when the poof of green set another one afloat. Once a yellow skull shot out of the fire like popcorn and rolled off across the floor. The skeletons in mounting numbers traipsed back and forth in a dazed state. Selznak paid them little heed once it was clear that he could do nothing to stop the green flame, and a half dozen or so lurched finally toward the open window and made off into the night.

By the time the Professor kicked his way loose and set upon the six goblins, the hall was a roaring tumult of green and orange spark and flame and of stumbling skeletons and wild goblins all surging to and fro in a frenzy of activity. Through it all Selznak stood placidly. He watched as Jonathan tore himself free from the last and most stalwart of his goblins and, along with the Professor, turned to face him. It seemed as if it were time for a showdown.

Jonathan wasn’t at all sure what to do, but he
was
sure he’d better do it before the Beddlington Ape got back or before Selznak decided to activate a few of the skeletons that were still creeping out of the fire.

If Snood’s device was, as Twickenham had insisted, in perfect order, then Selznak had it somewhere in his cloak; perhaps around his neck on a chain. Just as Jonathan and the Professor turned and set their sights on him – just as Jonathan thought about Snood’s device and that the watch might well be on a chain around Selznak’s neck, he found out that, in part, he was mistaken. The watch wasn’t on a chain around his neck; it was on the end of a chain and shoved into a vest pocket – a vest that the Dwarf wore beneath his cloak.

Selznak, in fact, held the watch in his hand. Jonathan couldn’t get much of a glimpse of it. He could just see that it shined gold in the Dwarf’s palm. Whether it had any hands on it and whether they pointed toward the correct time, he couldn’t say, but he intended to find out. He lunged toward the Dwarf only to see, out of the corner of his eye, a befuddled skeleton emerge from the green flame and stumble toward him. Jonathan realized as soon as he went for the watch the skeleton would trip him up. He was right. The two of them collided, the skeleton shivered into bits, and Jonathan shot head-foremost into the pile of bones against the wall, rolling up into a sitting position before coming to a stop.

He continued to sit there. The Professor stood half poised to spring on Selznak himself, but he didn’t spring. He just stood ready like a piece of odd statuary with a very determined look on its face. Jonathan wondered what the Professor’s problem was. Then he wondered what his own problem was – why he sat there in a heap of bones while the Dwarf walked about leering at them. The answer, of course, was the watch in the Dwarf’s hand, now on its way back to his vest pocket. Jonathan commanded himself to stand up. He focused all of his attention on his legs and, with all the mental energy he could muster, he thought, ‘Arise, legs,’ but they didn’t. Hopeless! After pondering for a bit he found it curious that he could still see and think and hear, and he wondered whether that phenomenon was due to the Dwarf’s control, or to the Dwarf’s lack of control of the watch. He wondered, too, whether being able to see and hear and think was an advantage of any sort. Given the nature of his captor, it might not be.

Around the hall stood random, frozen skeletons, and over at the foot of the stairs were two frozen goblins, one leg in the air as if they’d been stopped in the midst of a good lively run. Across the windowsill was the hunched form of a skeleton that had been attempting to drag itself out over the casement and escape. The room was glowing with firelight, but the fire in the hearth seemed to Jonathan to be suspended, waiting there as if expecting orders of some nature. The topmost flames licking up toward the chimney were tinged with the emerald glow of the magical powder. Waiting and hovering in the green flame was the last of the grinning skeletons, fully formed, but seemingly condemned to linger there, buoyed up by the flame.

All around Jonathan was silence, and he was conscious only of the sound of the blood in his veins and of the grim laughter that filtered into his mind and sounded as if it were an echo that had traveled a great distance to find him. It was Selznak, who was laughing; and evil grin crept across his face. He stopped grinning for a moment and reached up to pull his hat off its peg, clapping the thing down on top of his head.

Outside all was still dark, and in the frozen fire the skeleton still waited. Jonathan sat like a pudding there on the bones. He hoped, among other things, that he wouldn’t start to drool and that his hair, which had been tousled in the collision with the skeleton, wasn’t pushed up into any ludicrous tangle. It was bad enough being sprawled out helplessly in the midst of a bone pile without adding further indignities.

Two goblins appeared briefly at the window, one of them wearing one of Lonny Gosset’s hats. They peered in momentarily then dashed off again in a flurry of gobbling and gesticulating. Close on their heels came a third goblin, and running like Billy-O; behind him, surprisingly, was the wild and unlikely Lonny Gosset, an upraised cudgel in his right hand and a shout on his lips. Gosset didn’t even bother to look into the hall; he was after goblins, and, from the look of him, he was meeting with a certain amount of success. Jonathan wondered just how extensive the Dwarf’s power was – whether there were frozen goblins, maybe even a frozen Theophile Escargot outside in the night. Clearly there were limits, inasmuch as Gosset was anything but slowed down. There was little Jonathan could do, however, but sit and think about it.