The Elfin Ship

by James P. Blaylock

  Thirty or forty villagers along the dock caught sight of them when they rounded the millhouse and the great wheel which turned as methodically as the river ran. A shout went up, hands clapped, and old Beezle’s grandson began tooting away, oompah oompah, on a caved in tuba. The sun was burning through the mists, and the raft looked like something a king would sail about in. All in all, the sight was fairly spectacular. Jonathan waved at the townspeople, and Ahab began to prance about sideways like a crazed parade horse.

  The villagers had apparently never seen the like, and they continued cheering mightily. Ahab capered across the green, first tilting his head this way and then that way and drawing the admiration of the townspeople. Jonathan thought of making a speech and tried to think of something really fine to say. But he was only sailing away for a few weeks, and there was, after all, no real danger involved. As someone had said, he was a stout enough lad for the journey. So, tramping across the dock, Jonathan helped Ahab aboard and with a final nod toward his neighbors, set about casting off.

  A great shout from the direction of town brought cries of ‘Here comes the Professor!’ and ‘Horray for old Wurzle!’ Jonathan, pausing, could see that Professor Wurzle, dressed in a pair of very businesslike shorts and wearing a visored cap, was indeed hurrying along toward them. He drew up, puffing like a teakettle on the boil, threw a suitcase and bedroll over the low bulwark, and climbed aboard. His face was red as a rock cod and his spectacles were fogged over.

  ‘Whoosh?’ was all he could say. Between whooshes he managed to smile at the onlookers and nod seriously at an astounded Jonathan. He didn’t stand around idle though – not Professor Wurzle. He liked to consider himself ‘an old hand’ and that’s what he told Jonathan. ‘I’m an old hand at this, Cheeser,’ he said with a sharp nod of his head. ‘An old hand,’ and with Ahab sniffing along behind him, the Professor puffed across to the port bow and, to the echo of a rousing cheer, untied the final mooring line and threw it back up onto the dock.

  Jonathan was astounded. The intent of the Professor’s actions was clear; his ‘old hand’ attitude seemed to indicate that arguing or gasps of surprise were unnecessary. The Professor obviously was going along. Jonathan poled the raft across the calm waters of the tiny boat harbor. Both men waved slowly toward the wharf where Mayor Bastable stood with both hands atop the crown of his hat, and they drifted out into the leisurely current of the River Oriel.

  Pushing the tiller hard to starboard, Jonathan veered out away from shore to deep midstream. They floated past the log on which Jonathan had rested that morning and rounded the long bend where the frogs had faded from view. Jonathan half expected to see all of them collected there along the bank in some great amphibian convention, but, of course, the bank was silent and green and empty of visible life aside from a pointy-nosed hedgehog down from the fringe of the woods for a drink. Once out on the river, the two finally relaxed, and Ahab, tired of keeping forever vigilant, fell asleep amid the cheese kegs and empty casks in the hold.

  ‘Well, Master Cheeser,’ said the Professor, tamping a great wad of chocolaty smelling tobacco into his pipe. ‘Here we are, then! Stap me for a lubber if we’re not!’

  Jonathan, not used to such seawise talk, mistook his meaning, supposing him to have said blubber instead of lubber and feared, just for the moment, that the Professor was talking like a lunatic. Long curly strands of tobacco poked out of the bowl of Wurzle’s pipe like the overhanging branches of a hemlock. The Professor stabbed away at them with his fingertip, but they insisted on springing up afresh. Finally he struck a long match and lit the bowl, the fragments burning away and dropping roundabout. ‘Yes indeed,’ he muttered shrewdly, ‘here we are.’

  ‘I should say,’ said Jonathan in response to the Professor’s comments which were as truthful as anyone could wish. ‘I didn’t know that you’d be coming along, Professor. Gilroy Bastable didn’t mention a word of it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Professor, ‘Gilroy didn’t know. He’s not your man for research and scientific investigation. I suppose I should have told him, though. He might have laid in another barrel or two of salt beef. But I’ve brought my arms and money to buy supplies at Hightower when we get there, so I suppose it doesn’t matter, really.’

  Jonathan again was puzzled at this mention of arms. Why had the Professor thought it necessary to mention having brought his arms? Had he a choice in the matter? Jonathan thought about the blubber business and gave the Professor what is commonly called the fish-eye.

  The matter soon cleared itself up, however. There, tied to the Professor’s bedroll was a weird-looking weapon. It was a sort of blunderbuss mixed up with an oboe and a tiny millwheel. To Jonathan it was a very formidable-looking thing. ‘You did come armed!’ he shouted, pointing toward the oboe gun.

  ‘So I said just a moment back. I don’t suppose you’ve seen one of these before?’

  ‘No indeed,’ replied Jonathan. ‘What sort of a thing is it? A very grand thing, for sure.’

  ‘Oh my yes.’ The Professor tamped his pipe slowly, looked at it once, then tamped it again. The pipe seemed to lend such an air of authority to him that Jonathan decided to light up one of his own. ‘Very old design, that,’ the Professor continued. ‘I found it when old Flutesnoot and I came upon the gems and the bit of mast from the pirate craft. There’s a good lot of mechanical know-how in here, Cheeser. Mechanics is the glory of the sciences – the crowning bud of the cosmos. Don’t you agree?’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘I never stop saying so. Can’t we load this gun up and have a go at it. Just shoot into the air. Looks complicated. What are those little arms at the side there with the spots on them? They look squidish.’

  ‘I suppose they do,’ Wurzle agreed, looking puzzled. ‘I hadn’t much thought of squids when I acquainted myself with the design, but yes, I can see something of the squid in it. Actually, they’re velocitudes – whirl-gatherers.’

  This meant nothing to Jonathan, but he decided to pretend it did. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘whirl-gatherers. Couldn’t we just pop away at a rock once with it? I’d like to see the whirl-gatherers spin. And that crank affair, what’s that?’

  ‘A twist-about, I call it. Sort of a gyro, I believe, although I’m not sure.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘Not entirely. I haven’t actually utilized the thing yet. Some of the hieroglyphs on the mast itself seemed to refer to it, but they were difficult to understand. I believe I got the gist of it though. Mechanics, Master Cheeser, is a fundamental to the designer.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘And when one knows the laws of mechanics, Cheeser, one can make certain deductions, come to conclusions. Construct entire assemblies from imperfect knowledge by these deductions.’

  Jonathan peered wisely at Professor Wurzle and glanced at the gun. The more he looked at it, the more it resembled anything but a weapon. It was more like a great mechanical squid with a funnel mouth and a crank nose. Jonathan longed to wind the thing up and let it whirl about. What could be more awesome, he thought, than an elf weapon?

  But the Professor seemed to have an aversion to popping away at rocks, so Jonathan let the matter slide. He’d likely have ample opportunity to see the thing work.

  The morning was cool and a very slight breeze blew now and again, rippling the water. But as morning slid away into afternoon, the sun grew hotter, and the breeze fell off. Jonathan began to wonder why he’d been so worried about the journey. He leaned back against the wall of the hold and watched the trees sailing slowly by along the banks. Here and there wide clumps of lilies spread out toward midstream. About lunchtime, they floated through a section of river where the lily pads with their huge eerie flowers of violet and pink and yellow were so thick they almost stretched from shore to shore.

  In the occasional shallows, egrets strode back and forth on legs like stilts. Every now and again one would plunge his head below the surface of the water and come up with a fish in its beak. All in all, Jonat
han decided, the river was something of a wonder. Had he not been so hungry, he would have dozed off to sleep and let the raft take its course. They would not reach Hightower until the next afternoon but one, and until docking at Hightower wharf, a mile or so below the old ruin of a tower, they had nothing to do but wait.

  Jonathan tapped his pipe out against his shoe, thrust it into his trouser pocket, and gathered energy for the tenstep walk into the hold. He fancied a strip or two of jerked beef and a wedge of cheddar cheese. They had best eat a loaf of bread also, since the dozen loaves Jonathan had thought to bring wouldn’t be worth much after a few days.

  On the point of rising, Jonathan heard, or thought he heard, a phantom voice mumbling from somewhere far away. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly where the sound had come from, but it mumbled along in such low, whispering tones that it seemed the very voice of dread itself. Jonathan sat up very quickly and listened. The voice was still. He determined that somehow the breeze in the rushes had caused the sound, but it was a moment before he thought about being hungry again. Then just as he did, he heard the sound again. It was clearly a voice, somehow muffled. He woke Professor Wurzle, who sat up with a shout, reaching in haste for his awesome weapon. A moment passed before his eyes cleared and he saw that he was on the river adventuring to the sea. Jonathan winked six or eight times meaningfully and pressed his forefinger to his mouth.

  Professor Wurzle was quick to catch on, and the two sat as still as a pair of croquet wickets for the space of a long minute. Just as the Professor began to open his mouth the mysterious sound came again, the MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE that seemed to come from nowhere and yet everywhere, as if it were the spirit of the river or the voices of the lost frogs whispering their dire secrets. Wurzle squinted his eyes and stared away at the tip of Jonathan’s nose for a moment before shoving his ear up against the wooden wall of the hold.

  ‘It’s the bloody dog!’ he cried, leaping to his feet. ‘I swear it!’

  Jonathan was unconvinced, knowing from long experience that Ahab – although he seemed to have the most wonderful sorts of dreams – couldn’t speak. Both men jumped up at the same time and, though the voice had hushed, went creeping around either side of the hold and booted open the door which hung ajar. There on the floor in among the kegs, lay the peaceful Ahab.

  ‘Hello, old Ahab,’ said Jonathan.

  Ahab stood up and, stretching, wandered over. ‘He looks completely innocent,’ Jonathan stated, giving the Professor a look.

  ‘Of course he does, of course he does,’ the Professor replied. ‘It was a little joke of mine. Dogs speaking like men and such. Bit of a joke. Ha-ha! Eh? Rather funny, what?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jonathan agreed, ‘But we did hear the voice. You don’t suppose, do you … No, I guess not. No,’ continued the Cheeser, ‘that wouldn’t do.’

  ‘What?’ cried the Professor, anxious to hear Jonathan’s explanation and secretly hoping it would be as foolish as his own.

  ‘Do you suppose that a dog might talk in his sleep?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Professor, giving Jonathan a look in turn. ‘No, I don’t suppose he could. At least I can’t see how. I saw a dwarf up in Little Beddlington who had an ape which could shout a poem. But it had to be mesmerized first. Then it would rise up, straight as a mainmast and pipe out “The Madman’s Lament” just as you or I might. Now as a man of science, I never believed such a tale. And yet I’m sure, Cheeser, that in this world of ours, science doesn’t hold the only key; it only unlocks one of the doors – and perhaps the side door at that.’ The Professor looked shrewdly at Jonathan, then philosophically lit his pipe. Jonathan, however, brought the subject back around to his sleep-talking dog theory.

  ‘But I was thinking, Professor, that if a dog had a dream about a man, mightn’t that man say a few words now and again, like men do? And so, if a dog were to talk in his sleep it mightn’t all be dog talk; perhaps the people in his dreams might get a word in now and again.’

  ‘This ape up in Little Beddlington …’ began the Professor. But before old Wurzle could get well into the story of the Beddlington Ape, Jonathan had bolted past the puffing Professor and out the cabin door. The raft had, somehow, worked its way over toward the starboard bank, thick with trees, and with a lurch and a scrape had run aground on a sandbar. Just like that. There they sat, in the middle of the quiet river with their bow run up a third of the length of the raft onto the sand.

  The two struggled for an hour, vainly attempting to work the bow of the raft out into the deeper channel that ran along the edge of the bar. Too much of the raft was aground, however, for this maneuver to prove of much use. The long, stiff wooden poles could find nothing solid in the sandy river bottom to pry against, and simply gouged along through the sand and accomplished nothing.

  The Professor, finally, paused and sat down on an empty cask. ‘I think I see it, Cheeser.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jonathan, not knowing exactly what it was the Professor saw. ‘Do you now?’

  ‘That I do. We can’t, you’ll agree, pole this craft off the bar. Not the two of us.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘And we can’t sit and wait for the river to rise.’

  ‘True again. It may drop before it rises. And a rise would mean a storm, and we don’t want to weather a storm while aground in midriver.’

  ‘Just so,’ said the Professor, ‘just so. As I see it, we’re men of science.’

  ‘I believe you’re right.’

  ‘And men of science use their heads, you’ll agree again. Now my head tells me that there are three ways to get off this bar. Muscle is the first, and that, apparently, doesn’t work. That leaves us two options. One of those is to rig the mizzenmast and take advantage of the crosswind to help swing the stern out into deep water. With the current to help, we could then pole the bow free.’

  ‘That’s a good plan, Professor, a good plan. But we’d be the better part of the day accomplishing the task. And who’s to say that we wouldn’t spin round and beach the whole larboard side?’

  ‘And if we do, are we much the worse off?’

  ‘No,’ said Jonathan, ‘I suppose not. But you mentioned a third option. What is that?’

  ‘It would be possible to row across to the far shore in the coracle. Then by looping a line round one of the great alders, we could drag the raft free by use of a block and tackle.’

  Jonathan pondered for a moment. ‘I’m afraid it’s too great a distance for such a thing. The weight of the wet rope alone would make it an impossible chore for one man to accomplish. And one of us would, of course, have to stay aboard the raft. And think of the pressure on a rope of that length once the raft is free in the current. We’d likely lose the rope, block and tackle, and all.’

  ‘Well we could cut the rope as soon as the raft was free. Clearly the one on the raft would have to tack upstream so as not to outdistance the coracle anyway. So those fears shouldn’t much interfere with the scheme.’

  The two sat there puffing on their pipes during this interchange, and both realized at the same instant that the lunch they had considered eating an hour and a half before hadn’t been eaten.

  ‘Are you hungry, Professor?’ asked Jonathan.

  ‘Ravenous.’

  ‘Shall we eat then?’

  ‘I suppose we shall.’

  As they rose and reached for the door of the hold, both men paused. From within, unmistakably, came the murmur of a voice, droning along as if engaged in earnest conversation. Jonathan, stealthily, bent an ear to the door and caught the words, ‘hairy thing’ and ‘goblin’ and ‘buckets of ice cream.’ He was sure of it. The door swung to, and both Jonathan and Professor Wurzle peeked in half expecting almost anything. What they saw was Ahab, round as a tub, hunched over a half-eaten dill pickle. The top of the pickle keg was ajar. The whole mystery was peculiar to the utmost.

  The Professor was the first to speak. ‘It looks as if your beast has been having a go at the pickles.’

  �
��I should say.’

  ‘Abominably odd.’

  ‘Yes indeed. How could he have purloined a pickle? Even if he had been able to reach the top of the keg, he couldn’t have popped the top loose.’

  ‘A good deduction, Cheeser,’ the Professor whispered. ‘Odd things are afoot.’ The two stealthily crept into the hold although it was clear from the outset that there was no one in the room aside from them and the dog Ahab. Kegs of odd sizes sat about, and ropes and sailcloth and buckets and various sorts of stores and tools lay heaped here and there. No mysterious whisperers were to be seen. It was all a puzzle.

  Jonathan removed his cap and scratched the top of his head. Both men shrugged then said, almost simultaneously, ‘The kegs. The empty kegs!’ There were a round dozen of the large kegs, and Jonathan, as if to surprise something that might be hiding within, tiptoed toward the closest and reached for the lid.

  The Professor made a noise like an ape might make if his mouth were taped shut and gestured at Jonathan to wait. He rushed out and was back in a flash with the oboe gun, squid arm whirl-gatherers flapping roundabout. He squinted one eye and nodded to Jonathan to continue.

  The Cheeser snatched the first lid up, then the second and third, but nothing save air lay within. He approached the fourth, reached for the lid as Professor Wurzle stood guard, and the lid, as if on command, popped off and clattered down onto the deck.