The Disappearing Dwarf
Page 30
Hightower Castle stood lonesome and rocky on the ridge above the fens. As they slid past on the river a mile or two away, Jonathan was struck with the sudden irrational idea that the high valley, somehow, hadn’t seen the last of Selznak the Dwarf, that the pale smoke of enchanted fires would someday tumble up out of that stone tower once again. But that was foolishness. He was sure of it. The Professor said it was anyway. What he was worried about were the creatures that still lurked in the caverns there. It was even possible that in the weeks since the two of them had wandered through those caverns, Selznak had let a few more in through the door. But Jonathan, more out of general tiredness than anything else, was contradictory. He said that he, for one, was willing to let the monsters go on about their business. They were blind, after all, and they lived at the bottom of a pit. He couldn’t imagine blue squids climbing one by one up little iron ladders. As for any other monsters having been let loose, that didn’t seem at all likely. During most of the time they had spent in Balumnia, Selznak was out somewhere in the countryside. He hadn’t reached his castle at Boffin Beach but a day or so ahead of them, hardly time enough to herd monsters from one land to another.
By the time they’d debated the issue there on the river, High tower Castle had fallen steadily behind. And as it shrank in the distance it seemed to grow less threatening until finally it faded and vanished from both sight and mind.
Their journey ended in early morning when they rounded the last long curve of shore, and paddled into the harbor at Twombly Town, surprising Talbot, of all people, who was out checking trout lines. All the lines were empty except one, which had an old canvas shoe covered in water weeds hanging from it. Talbot threw the shoe back in, assuring Jonathan and the Professor that crayfish would use it as a house. Then he plunked his rubber cheeses back into the shady water beneath the dock.
The Professor set off through town toward his laboratory as Jonathan, Ahab, and Talbot struck out across the meadow for home. Talbot hadn’t had any trouble with the cheesing, he said. Nothing to it. A cheese is a cheese, after all. But Jonathan, by then, didn’t entirely agree with him. In fact he was itching to be back at it – to have a go at a couple of cheese ideas – cheeses that involved sage and oranges and brandy; he wasn’t quite sure in what proportions yet. He knew though that he hadn’t much desire to return to being a man of leisure. It struck him, in fact, that it’s not so bad at all having work to do if you know you don’t have to do it. Anyway he could go back to being a man of leisure whenever he wanted – say every other Wednesday – just to keep his hand in. And the same was true, in a sense, of being an adventurer. He’d found both occupations very nice in their way, but as he watched Ahab trotting on ahead toward the Strawberry patch, off to see what his bugs had been up to, he was fairly sure that unlike cheesing, such occupations were easily worn-out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
World Fantasy Award winning author James Blaylock, one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre, has written eighteen novels as well as scores of short stories, essays, and articles. His steampunk novel Homunculus won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and his short story "The Ape-box Affair," published in Unearth magazine, was the first contemporary steampunk story published in the U.S. Recent publications include Knights of the Cornerstone, The Ebb Tide, and The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs. He has recently finished a new steampunk novel titled The Aylesford Skull, to be published by Titan Books.