asked Captain Catapillow plaintively, as he stared down at the spot where his foot and one of his third-best boots used to be. “I think that cannonball was coated in Nothing.”
“You’d feel a lot worse if it was, Captain,” said Dr Scamandros. “As I was saying, it is theoretically possible to accelerate the transfer by bringing the portal to the traveller, rather than the other way around. It is of course exceedingly difficult and dangerous.”
Everyone looked at the pirate vessel astern. It fired again, a great gout of water exploding out of the sea a little ahead and to the port side of the Moth.
“What could happen that would be worse than eternal slavery or a slow and torturous death by Nothing-based sorceries at the hands of Feverfew?” asked Concort. He didn’t sound like he really wanted to know.
“If I fail, we shall transfer not into that Secondary Realm, but into the Void of Nothing, and be immediately expunged from existence.”
“My collection too?” asked Captain Catapillow.
“The ship and everything on it or connected with it,” said Scamandros. “Including all your stamps, sir. So what are your orders?”
Arthur hesitated on the steps, waiting to hear Catapillow’s commands. Surely there was some other way? Perhaps he could escape via the Infinite Stair … no … not in his current state. He probably didn’t have the power any more…
“I can’t have the collection fall into Feverfew’s hands,” said Captain Catapillow in a small voice. “All or … or Nothing!”
Arthur saw Scamandros open his yellow greatcoat. The inside was lined with dozens of pockets and loops for magical implements and apparatus. Scamandros selected two lengths of bronze rod with curved-back hooks set near their pointed ends. Though they were in miniature under his coat, only a few inches long, they expanded as he dragged them out, till they were at least a yard in length.
“Fire irons,” said Ichabod. “Matching set. Very nice. Come along!”
Arthur started to follow Ichabod down the port-side ladder to the waist, where Sunscorch and the crew had finally succeeded in cutting away the last of the broken yard and its accompanying debris. But Arthur stopped on the companionway to look back. He saw Scamandros reaching out with a fire iron in each hand, the bronze rods continuing to extend till they became shafts of curdled sunlight that reached up into the sky and to each side of the ship.
Only a few seconds later, the transformed fire irons reached all the way to the vast gilt-framed portal to the Secondary Realm. The hooks on the end were now easily thirty feet long. The irons wavered outside the edges of the frame, then Scamandros brought them in and seated them. As sun bronze met magical gilt, there was a horrendous metallic noise, like an angle grinder suddenly cutting into steel, magnified a hundred times.
Everyone on the ship stared up at the portal and the doctor’s two levers. Ichabod didn’t protest or try to make Arthur go below. Like everyone else, he wanted to see what would happen next.
Scamandros shouted something, a word that passed through Arthur like a hot wire, causing him to cry out and clap his hands to his ears. The doctor shouted again and Arthur, suddenly stripped of strength, fell down the ladder on to the deck, taking a surprised Ichabod with him.
Then Scamandros yanked the fire irons back towards himself. This action was magnified all along their sun-curdled length. With the squeal of ten thousand fingers on a giant blackboard, the entire vast doorway to Forlorn Island shuddered towards the Moth.
At first, it looked like all was going well. The portal rapidly grew closer and the Moth continued to sail straight at it.
Then, when it was only yards away, the portal began to totter and shake, and the top edge started to lean forward. Behind it, in place of the normal sky, was a dark mass that glittered like some volcanic stone.
The Void of Nothing.
“Faster!” shouted Scamandros, fear in his voice. “Make the ship go faster!”
Denizens who had been frozen in awe sprang into action, goaded again by the now unbelievably loud voice of Sunscorch. Yards were trimmed, ropes hauled, sails hoisted where sails were hardly ever seen.
“Faster!” screamed Scamandros. The portal was falling towards them now, and instead of dragging it with the fire irons, the doctor was trying to hold it up. Darkness rippled behind it. “We must get through before it drops!”
The portal fell further and the bowsprit of the Moth pierced its shining jigsaw-crazed surface. Then the bow passed through and the rest of the ship followed. The light changed to a softer, golden tone and the breeze around Arthur became instantly warm.
As the sternpost of the Moth passed the portal, Scamandros fell to the deck, his fire irons clattering at his side, no longer anything more than lengths of bronze. The portal, its work done, collapsed in on itself. The threat of Nothing was gone.
But there were other troubles for the Moth.
“Splashdown! Brace!” roared Sunscorch. “Take hold!”
Arthur instantly shuffled back and wound his arms through the port-side ladder. He knew from the volume of Sunscorch’s order that this was serious.
The Moth had come through the portal all right, but because of the angle of entry, they had not come through at the same level. The ship had entered this new world thirty feet above the water.
Now it was crashing down into the sea.
Before the echo of Sunscorch’s shout had gone, the ship tilted precipitously forward. Arthur saw Ichabod slide past, till the Denizen managed to grab hold of a grating. Other Denizens tumbled along further down the deck and some fell or jumped from the rigging, though as far as Arthur could tell they went into the violet sea.
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