The Elfin Ship (45 page)

So it went for about three hours, and after lunch it went along so again. The shoreline was beginning to look a bit more familiar, the closer they got to home. The alders were, for the most part, bare of leaves and the forest on either side of the Oriel was dark and quiet. Few animals seemed to be venturing out for any reason at all. Most, likely, were digging an extra room or so in an underground home and counting the acorns, and pinion nuts to decide whether to make one last topside trip. Only the shore grasses and the water weeds were green and moving. An occasional batch of ducks landed on the river to rest up, and they quacked around and shoved their heads under the surface to see what was doing down in the river world below. But they didn’t wait around long before they were off south, on their way to winter in some sunny clime.

It was no time to be out adventuring – no time to be tramping in the woods or sailing on the river. It was a time to be piling logs in the fireplace and putting up storm windows and starting up the wood stove out in the shop a half hour or so before setting in to work. It was a time to sit in front of the fire in the evening and be happy you
weren’t
out sailing on the river or tramping in the woods.

Jonathan wondered what direction Escargot would take, whether he would live out the winter in his submarine at Thrush Haven, or sail away south down the coast in the wake of those flocks of ducks. He was probably on his way at that very moment, invisible beneath his cloak, striding along the twisted paths of the Goblin Wood and making plans.

Late that afternoon they ran up onto a sandbar, but before they were stuck they quit pedaling, and the current pushed them off and back into deeper water. Dooly was the first to point out that they’d had problems with that sandbar once before. Sure enough, it was the very spot at which they’d run up against the trolls. But there were no trolls to be seen now. Aside from a rare snow troll, most of the beasts had dozed off in the deep recesses of a cavern somewhere and wouldn’t awaken until March or April. Even trolls can be depended on for that.

As they swung out around the bar, Jonathan caught a brief glimpse of something moving along within the trees – walking along the river road on his way up the valley. At first Jonathan feared it was Selznak, and he started to whisper to the Professor to push the tiller over and angle the raft across to the far shore. But as he watched, he saw that the figure moving through the trees was clearly no dwarf. It was someone tall and thin – strangely tall, in fact – and wearing fairly colorful robes.

‘I know who that is,’ said Dooly in a loud whisper.

‘So do I,’ said Jonathan. ‘Let’s see if he wants a lift.’ Both of them shouted and waved. The robed figure paused, pushed his way through the branches of the shore trees, and clambered down onto the riverbank, knocking his hat off as he did so. It was Miles the Magician, wearing, or attempting to wear, the necessary props. He seemed happy to see them and waved his arms, so they steered the raft in around the bar and held it steady with poles while Miles climbed aboard.

‘There might be trouble brewing up toward Twombly Town,’ said he. ‘I don’t doubt it a bit. I’m on my way up there now to see what I can do.’

The rafters clambered for an explanation as they poled back out into the Oriel and pedaled furiously to get the paddlewheel going. So Miles continued, setting his cap on the deck, tousling his hair, and collapsing onto a deck chair. ‘I saw him last night,’ he said, ‘the Dwarf with the ape, going along in a little fog up the river road. They had some purpose, mind you, there was no mistaking it. They were intent on mayhem upriver, and they were traveling fast, on some sort of enchantment. And there’s been movements in the forest – parties of goblins heading south toward the Wood and trolls out of their caves and following along in the same direction. I saw two skeletons late last night, but they didn’t seem to know
where
they were going; it was more like they were just out for a stroll. Something’s afoot. Something happened to put Selznak and his brood out of joint.’

The Professor, not normally given over to theatrical behavior, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pull the pocketwatch out of his coat and dangle it by its chain. Miles, startled, jumped up and peered closely at it, turning it over so as to have a look at the face, puffy-cheeked and wearing spectacles, that smiled there, etched into the elf silver.

‘Do you know what this is?’ Miles asked, clapping his hat back onto his head.

‘Sure!’ Dooly almost shouted. ‘We just stole it, or at least old Grandpa did. We whacked the daylights out of the ape, too.’

‘Well I’ll be!’ said Miles, mystified. ‘That’s what the story is, is it? No wonder there’s an uproar. You’ve taken half his power away. All of it, really.’

The three of them then told Miles the Magician about the siege at Hightower Ridge and about the Squire’s heroics at Snopes’ Ferry and then again, when he and Bufo and Gump and Stick-a-bush arrived in the nick of time. Finally all the stories were told and they sat about into the late afternoon, puffing on pipes and taking turns at the pedaling, making as good a time, all in all, as they had at any point on the voyage.

‘What I don’t follow about this whole affair,’ said the Professor, ‘is why Theophile Escargot sold the watch to that fiend in the first place. I’ve never gotten an answer to that question, and by golly I want one. Now I’ll admit that I didn’t have much faith in the man at first – I beg your pardon, Dooly, for saying it – but I see him in a new light now. He didn’t have to do what he did, but he did it.’

The Professor paused and tamped his pipe. ‘Have you heard of the Lumbog Globe, sir?’ he asked Miles.

‘Oh, indeed,’ said Miles, his eyes lighting up. ‘I saw it once, long ago. It does what they say it does. I can vouch for it. It’s one of the seven elf wonders, actually. As valuable, in its way, as anything there is.’

‘And were you aware,’ said the Professor, ‘that the Lumbog Globe was in Hightower, that the Dwarf owned it?’

‘Seems I heard such a rumor,’ said Miles. ‘But then all sorts of things were said about Selznak the Dwarf.’

‘Well, that rumor was true,’ said Professor Wurzle. ‘I saw it myself. Squire Myrkle came upon it during the siege. Found it near the kitchen apparently. Now I could have sworn that Escargot’s interest in Hightower centered around that globe, that he wanted it for himself. But he let the Squire have it. Didn’t bat an eye. Acted as if the Squire was welcome to it. No, gentlemen, I pegged the man wrong, and I’m sorry for it. And that makes it all the more strange. Why in the devil did he sell that watch to Selznak? He would have done better to have thrown it into the river.’

‘The answer is simple, really,’ said Miles, as if astonished at the Professor’s curiosity. ‘He ransomed the lad here. He hadn’t much choice.’

‘Ransom?’ said Jonathan.

‘Kidnap money. Blackmail. What ever it is you’d like to call it.’

‘What lad?’ asked Dooly, looking about. He was the only lad around that he could think of.

‘Why you!’ said Miles looking shrewdly at him. ‘But you don’t remember it. I had a hand in that – something in the way of a spell. Mesmerized you, actually.’

‘To what purpose?’ asked the Professor, puzzled and interested.

‘Well,’ said Miles, ‘I can’t vouch for it, because I’ve never been there. But I’ve heard, and I’m pretty sure it’s true, that some awful things go on inside that tower – things that a chap wouldn’t care to remember, if you follow me.’

Jonathan and the Professor nodded agreement. They followed him pretty well.

‘So when Escargot was forced to make the trade he brought the lad to me, and I wiped it out of his mind. Swept it away like sawdust off a pub floor, so to speak.’

‘Well, I’ll be a herring,’ said the Professor, shaking his head over the affair. ‘Mesmerization is it? And very effective too, clearly.’ He looked at Dooly for a moment as if he were a specimen.

‘Well I don’t know nothing of it,’ said Dooly. ‘And I don’t care to. If a person doesn’t know about nothing, he don’t care about it.’

‘That’s certainly the truth,’ Jonathan agreed. ‘That was well put.’ But he’d barely said it when all of them, almost as one, became aware of a buzzing sound somewhere up in the dim skies. There was no wondering this time about the nature of the sound. It could only be one thing. And sure enough, there it was, a dark speck in the distance, zooming along just below the clouds, following the swerve of the shore, east along the Oriel. In a minute or two the airship drew near, dropped almost to the treetops, and sailed past overhead, Twickenham and his merry elf friends waving out at the four on the raft. The airship circled once then shot along upriver in the direction of Twombly Town.

On the following day, when the raft passed the first outlying farm and sailed within view of the top of the widow’s windmill, the elves were still there. The airship lay upon the grass below the windmill, and a crowd of townspeople – likely everyone in the village – gathered there on the docks.

Gilroy Bastable, wearing an immense and ridiculous fur cap, stood arm in arm with Twickenham. The band struck up ‘The Jolly Huntsman’ and squawked along wonderfully well when the raft came sailing around the last bend. Hats flew, people huzzahed, and there was more or less general revelry all up and down the banks and across the dock.

Jonathan knew Mayor Bastable too well to suppose there was any chance of his not having a speech prepared against the day of the rafters’ return. Professor Wurzle himself was scribbling away furiously on a note pad, a sure indication that yet another speech was going to be tried out on the afternoon crowd. And there, beside the mayor and Twickenham, was old Beezle. There was never an occasion about which Beezle could think of nothing to say. Perhaps, thought Jonathan, it would be possible to pretend to be ill and so oil out of any ceremony. But on the other hand, if the people wanted ceremony, it was the least he could do to oblige them good-naturedly. It was just as well that he felt that way, because there was ceremony aplenty that afternoon.

Everyone, as he predicted, made a speech. Beezle’s was by far the most astonishing, being supplemented by charts and such, and ending with his suggestion that, in view of chicanery along the river, the town be fortified according to a sixteen-point plan over the following ten years. The plan itself was phenomenal and was such an engineering marvel that no one but Professor Wurzle understood even the first of the sixteen points. The Professor, after very patiently listening to Beezle’s plan, whispered to Jonathan that the whole idea was tripe. Everyone clapped, to Beezle’s joy, and then, as usual, forgot entirely about any mention of a sixteen-point plan.

The kegs, finally, were unloaded and hauled on a cart to the Guildhall where the cakes and elfin gifts were to be passed out among the townspeople. Many of the gifts were wrapped, and many were not. Children piled around and shouted when the lid was pried off one of the gift kegs. Inside were all the sorts of things they’d hoped for: brass kaleidoscopes with real jewels inside and yo-yos that threw rainbows of colored sparks when twirled and collapsible sleds that avoided rocks and trees and cliffs without being made to and jack-in-the-boxes that sprang open and released a shower of lavender butterflies and bags and bags and bags of tin soldiers and marbles and other toys less magical, but every bit as wonderful.

Mayor Bastable, overwhelmed, was perhaps as interested in the elfin gifts as were the children. Finally the Professor insisted that the lid of the keg be hammered down, since the mayor seemed intent upon digging down into its depths just to see what else might be there. Mrs Bastable and little baby Gilroy rolled in at about then with a wagon on which sat a monumental tub of mulled cider and enough chocolate chip cookies so that no one had to worry about taking a third or fourth.

The townspeople clambered, finally, for a speech from Jonathan. He gave it a good bit of thought and said, finally, that he was happy to be home. Then he gave Mayor Bastable his hat back. For a moment the mayor didn’t recognize the thing, battered and weedy as it was, but after turning it over and examining the hatband, he said, ‘By gum!’ in a thoroughly pleased sort of way, handed his fur cap to Mrs Bastable, and put the old river cap atop his head. ‘How in the world?’ he began, then paused, took off the cap, and shook his head over it.

‘I haven’t any idea,’ said Jonathan. ‘All I can say is that your hat has had a few owners over the past weeks – trees and rivers and oceans and linkmen and goblins – and here it is back home.’

‘Amazing!’ said Gilroy. Everyone else agreed that it was pretty amazing, and then insisted on riding the rafters up and down in front of the Guildhall, hip-hip-hooraying the whole time. That was just the sort of thing elves approve of, so they joined in and hoorayed right along until everyone had hoorayed as much as they cared to.

Twickenham and Thrimp, after all the speeches and cavorting were done, climbed into the airship and climbed back out again toting a great long clock, taller than both of them, and stout as a tree.

Twickenham presented it to Mayor Bastable, who made another speech involving wonderful elves who give away wonderful clocks. The mayor started the thing up and moved the hands around to the top of the hour. The clock chimed in a deep, resonant way, as if it were a clock the size of a mountain, chiming from the far end of the valley. On the face of the clock was a grinning moon wearing a pair of immense, fishbowl spectacles and looking down over a twilit countryside of cottages, all made, oddly enough, of cheese. When the clock chimed, a caped, pipe-smoking mechanical dwarf issued from the recesses of the clock, pursued close on by a pitching raft. On the deck of the raft sat three men and a dog.