The Elfin Ship (41 page)

Selznak disappeared for a time, then appeared once again. The Professor stood staring about himself with the same look of determination, poised to spring. Lonny Gosset appeared at the window once more, himself pursued this time by the Beddlington Ape. But of all the activity that transpired roundabout him, the oddest occurrence by far concerned a coil of rope that very mysteriously floated down the stairway along the wide wooden banister. It descended about halfway, then paused there. Then it began to float upward into the complication of trestle beams that spanned and supported the ceiling of the great hall. It inched its way up a rough pillar and out across a wide hand-hewn joist, black and smooth with age.

Jonathan watched the progress of that coil of rope, understanding as he did that Escargot hadn’t run off at all but was up to some trick. What it was, Jonathan couldn’t say. Perhaps he intended to lasso the watch – snatch it out of the Dwarf’s pocket on the end of a rope. But that seemed, all in all, fairly unlikely. After all, it really didn’t much matter to Jonathan. He couldn’t shove in and lend a hand if he wanted to.

It occurred to Jonathan, as the coil of rope disappeared from his sight, why Escargot had rushed off so hurriedly. Although it was true he’d gone off in search of Dooly, he no doubt also rushed away so as to be beyond the power of Selznak and his pocketwatch. The diversion he wanted Jonathan and the Professor to create was intended to compel Selznak to use the watch. Escargot had somehow managed to slip in upstairs and creep back down again, carrying his coil of rope. If the coil had been about half its size he could have simply shoved it in under his cloak and walked smack in through the open window. That would have been more his style, or so it seemed to Jonathan. But then perhaps Escargot was taking no chances. His fear of the Dwarf and his enchantment and of the powers of the watch had likely made him wary. And Escargot, after all, had an air of confidence about him, but never an air of recklessness.

Jonathan pondered all these things with a certain amount of satisfaction and took heart in the fact that everything was becoming considerably clearer. He hoped Professor Wurzle was alerted to the floating coil of line, but there was no way to tell. It was certain, however, that Selznak was unaware of the phenomenon. He had returned and was busy working some sort of magic over a pair of crossed bones, a toothy-looking skull, and what appeared to Jonathan to be one of those rubbery Halloween snakes. More likely it was a stuffed snake of some vile persuasion. Just what Selznak was cooking up no one but he could know. He seemed to be happiest when playing one of his magical pranks – blowing billows of fog and great undulating smoke rings out of his pipe or creating dancing, skeletons from fire and green dust and bones.

The Dwarf reached into the fire and plucked out a flaming coal which he thrust into the mouth of the skull, setting the thing aglow like a jack-’o-lantern. Then he began to drop bits of dried leaves into the thing’s mouth, and the leaves smoked away like incense, sending dark shadows up into the hall, seeming to be winged like great wavering ghosts of bats that fluttered roundabout, some of them sailing out through the window into the night.

What bothered Jonathan was the thought that the Dwarf’s incantations and snake-wavings and bat shadows were likely intended for something other than show – that they had something unpleasant to do with him and the Professor. And he could only wait and watch and wonder what it was that Escargot with his coil of line was up to.

But he didn’t have to wait for too long. For as Selznak whacked at the floor with his staff and sprinkled his powders and leaves bit by bit into the glowing mouth of the skull, a very neatly and expertly tied noose came dangling along out of the ceiling beams – painfully slowly it seemed to Jonathan – and settled smoothly around Selznak’s neck.

The Dwarf, aware of the noose only after it was already about his neck, threw his right hand out and swept the glowing skull and the snake and the crossed bones off the table where he’d been dealing with them and onto the stone floor. Jonathan watched as a look of rage mingled with amazement came onto the Dwarf’s face. He cast his staff to the ground and clutched with both hands at the tightening noose that threatened to pluck him from the floor and strangle him. Selznak’s mumblings and chantings were replaced by an echoing shriek, and he seemed to be doing a light little dance on tiptoe. His face grew red through his beard, and his eyes seemed likely to shoot out like meteors at any moment. He gasped and danced and danced and gasped, but hadn’t enough wind left in him to do anymore shrieking or cursing.

He quit clutching, finally, at the noose around his neck and groped beneath his cloak to find his vest pocket and the pocketwatch within. When he pulled his hand from his cloak, he held the thing at arm’s length, the chain torn away from the button it was clipped to as if Selznak were wildly attempting to show it off. The rope loosened, the Dwarf dropped down onto his feet, and his eyes seemed to settle back into his head. There was a long moment while he stood thus, waiting.

Escargot gave the rope another tug just to make his point, and Selznak jumped up onto his toes again and made his pop-eyed expression. The rope slackened and Selznak settled again, but he didn’t relax much. He looked to Jonathan, in fact, as if he suspected that whoever was up in the rafters somewhere might well give him a third tug, just for sport. Escargot’s voice, very businesslike, shouted down from overhead:

‘Move and you’re hung!’

The Dwarf made a bit of an attempt to look up toward the ceiling, but that, apparently, took his head farther along in the wrong direction – a rather uncomfortable direction at that. Selznak eyed his staff lying there not three feet from him. He slowly stuck out a tentative foot to try to pull it in, but his foot hadn’t traveled more than two or three inches before the rope tightened and he was jerked upright.

When the rope slackened he made no further effort toward the staff. He stood there as slow minutes passed, contemplating the whole affair. Finally, when it seemed certain that whoever was above him was tolerably able to wait him out, the Dwarf spoke.

‘Do I have the pleasure,’ he asked in a gentlemanly way, ‘of speaking to my old associate, Theophile Escargot?’

‘Aye,’ came the reply from above.

‘I thought as much,’ said Selznak. ‘Your skills haven’t diminished any over the years.’

‘Not a bit,’ agreed Escargot.

‘And the lad? How is the lad?’

‘Tolerably well,’ Escargot replied. ‘Pounding the daylights out of your goblins from the sound of it.’

‘Is he now?’ Selznak winked at Jonathan as if the two of them were in on some privileged information about that very subject. ‘My goblins seem to enjoy that sort of thing. Odd lot, goblins., The more trouble they can stir up, the happier they are. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s they or somebody else who suffers for it. But how is the lad, really? Happy to see the old place again?’

‘As a lark,’ said Escargot.

‘He’d have been happier, I’m sure, if he’d stayed on a few months longer the first time he was here. I could have taught him quite a bit. Perhaps I will yet.’

‘Seems unlikely,’ said Escargot, giving the rope a twitch to two. ‘I’ll be doing most of the teaching around here. All you’re likely to do is dance.’

Selznak shrugged. It seemed possible that Escargot knew what he was talking about. ‘Don’t mind if I have a smoke?’ the Dwarf asked.

‘Not at all,’ said Escargot. ‘I suppose it’s traditional.’

Selznak let out a little, unconvincing chuckle. He returned the watch to his vest pocket, pulled out his pipe and tobacco, and proceeded to have a smoke. Jonathan half-expected to see billows of fog come rolling up out of nowhere, but they didn’t. And after all, all the fog in the world wouldn’t remove the rope from around his neck. Finally, after tamping away for a bit and puffing and relighting and tamping some more, he shoved the tobacco and matches and tamper back into a pocket and once again removed the watch, holding it up in front of himself as if checking the time. ‘What is it, exactly, that you want from me?’ asked the Dwarf, removing the pipe from his mouth. ‘I was led to believe that our score was settled. We made an agreement, after all. Or have you forgotten it? The lad for the watch. Then you saw fit to toss the pig-bird into the bargain without a bit of discussion. And what did I do? Did I turn you into a toad or set the lizards on you? No. I said to myself, it’s just old Theophile up to his pranks. And I turned the other cheek, as they say. I knew you were cowering in the underbrush at Hinkle Creek. But did I light it afire? Not a bit. I’m a philosopher, as you know, and not one to set about revenge or to take umbrage. Not Dr Selznak. And yet, here you come creeping into my home and looping rope about my neck as I go about minding my business. Insufferable, I call it. Quite insufferable.

‘But I’m a philosopher. I’ve pointed that out. And I’m willing to forget this entire matter. However, I’ll expect recompense from these brigands here who found it a good idea to beat out my window. Perhaps we can come to an agreement. They, unfortunately, aren’t in the mood to discuss it right now, so you can act as their counsel. What do you say?’

Escargot remained silent.

‘It’s the sad case,’ said Selznak, ‘that I’m in need of parts. Nothing vital, mind you, no hearts or brains or arms or legs. I need only a liver and a spleen and twenty-odd feet of good vein. They wouldn’t miss it.’ And he winked at Jonathan again, although it wasn’t the friendliest wink.

‘Wake them up,’ said Escargot, in no mood for jolliness. ‘Wake them up and give the watch to the old man. Any hint of a trick and it’s you who’ll be needing a new neck.’

Selznak laughed, puffed on his pipe, pulled it out of his mouth and looked into the bowl as if expecting to see something wonderful in there. ‘You’re always amusing. I’ve always said that when it’s larks that are required, Theophile Escargot is the man to see. You haven’t failed me yet, sir, and apparently you’re still in good form. You’ve traded me this very interesting watch in good faith, and now you expect me to hand it back to you. Are you willing to give me the lad too? And these two nitwits. Can I have them?’

‘You can have this,’ said Escargot, and he gave the rope an incredible tug, sending Selznak’s pipe catapulting out of his mouth onto the floor, a burning wad of tobacco popping out of the bowl. After kicking for a few seconds, the Dwarf’s feet found the floor once again and he recovered a bit. He managed, through it all, to clutch the watch. He had a fierce look about him when the rope slackened, and the air
whooshed
in and out of his lungs. When he recovered he said in a hideously calm voice, ‘If you do that again, Mr Escargot, I’ll make further use of this watch, and you’ll likely join your friends down here on the floor. It would be best, in such a case, that you rather curl into a ball so that when you hit you’ll preserve your vital organs. I can’t tolerate wastefulness.’

‘That would be interestin’, mate,’ said Escargot in his seaworthy way, ‘but I wouldn’t hit the floor. Not hard anyway. This rope is tied around my waist and looped over a beam. If I fall, you’ll be up among the rafters, choked blind.’

‘And you’ll suffer great internal disruption,’ said Selznak. ‘That wouldn’t serve.’

Outside in the darkness was a tumult of activity. On more than one occasion goblins looked in at the window, saw the scatter of skeletons and rafters and fellow goblins, cast a quick look at their trussed master, and dashed away into the night once more. Now and then the howling receded down toward the swamp; then it seemed to work its way back up the road toward the tower. Wolves bayed, goblins shrieked, bats flew in through the window and out again – and, every now and then, a spindle-legged skeleton jerked past, head swiveling this way and that, hollow eye sockets seeming to peer about as if searching in earnest for something to frighten.

It was altogether odd that Dooly and Lonny Gosset were able to keep such a lunatic horde of grim beasts and goblins busy by themselves. Jonathan waited in expectation for the Beddlington Ape to come clambering in with Dooly under one arm and Gosset under the other. Escargot’s plan would run into an undeniable snag in such an event.

The Dwarf appeared to be thinking the same thing. He seemed to be at a loss as to what to do with his hands and looked as if he wished he could reach his pipe. But aside from that he was tolerably calm – waiting about, it seemed, to be rescued by his minions.

The howling and gobbling raged even louder outside, as if a pitched battle were being fought directly in front of the tower. After a few minutes of silence within the hall, Escargot spoke. ‘If the lad comes to harm,’ he warned, ‘it’ll go bad for you. Very bad.’

‘My friend,’ said the Dwarf in a sort of tired way, ‘it’s going to go very badly for a number of people – one of them a celebrated thief. You’ve made a mistake throwing your lot in with these scalawags. We could have accomplished great things, you and I. We still can. You haven’t any idea of the treasures I have, sir. Not an inkling.’

‘I’ll have more than an inkling before the night is through,’ said Escargot.

And so it went for another hour or so until it seemed to Jonathan that he could barely remember a time when he wasn’t sitting there among the bones listening to Selznak and Escargot strike bargains. Finally, through the window, the night turned from black to deep blue to gray. The tumult outside faded and returned and there was a deal of shouting and stomping around the side of the tower.

A wild voice, deep and strangely off key as if it were produced by something trying to imitate a human’s voice, sounded from out of the misty morning air, mouthing the following strange words: ‘Woe unto drunkards!’ came the voice, pronouncing the
kard
in
drunkard
like a person would pronounce
card
in playing
card.
‘Woe unto drunkards!’ it shouted. ‘Woe! woe! woe!’ Then after a pause, ‘Bloated with ale!’ And after that a long, drawn out
‘Wooooo!’
and the Beddlington Ape, torn and deranged, staggered into view outside the window. It had a look of wild fury on its face. When it saw its master there, head in a noose, it growled low in its throat, reached into what it no doubt imagined to be a shirt, and pulled forth nothing less than one of Lonny Gosset’s caps which it jammed down over its squatty head.