The Elfin Ship

by James P. Blaylock

  ‘As Selznak the Dwarf?’ asked Jonathan.

  Gosset seemed to be stricken by the very mention of the name. He began dancing about and flailing away with the coiled rope at the sides of the well. He lurched across and stomped on a soiled cap that lay on the lawn, dropped by the goblins. The rafters watched in amazement until Gosset’s furious capering played itself out. Finally spent, he wandered in a small circle in the middle of the yard, seeming to have lost his bearings. Jonathan and the Professor latched onto him and led him along toward the house, neither of them wanting to say much lest they set him going afresh. The door shut behind them as Escargot followed them in.

  The downstairs was a ruin of broken glass. One great chair was slashed to bits, and huge wads of stuffing were stuck to what had been a very noble marble bust atop a stand in one corner. The thing wore an impossible beard of cotton wad and had another pile of the stuff atop his head. Under any other circumstances it would have been funny. A small deal table was jammed into the fireplace and had been set afire several times but had smoldered out. Leaves and brush and a piece of tree stump lay heaped about amid the upset furniture.

  Gosset, recovering, waved a hand at the mess. ‘Three nights ago they came,’ he said tiredly. ‘Twenty or thirty there were. Set the place to ruin. I bolted myself in upstairs. What could I do against so many?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Escargot unwisely.

  Gosset paused for a moment in wide-eyed horror before asking in a hoarse whisper, ‘Who said that?’

  The Professor decided to be truthful. Our friend here, ’he said, gesturing toward the seemingly empty space beside him.

  Not waiting for any further explanation, Gosset shoved past Jonathan and ran howling up the stairs in a single mad rush. Jonathan looked at the Professor and shrugged. ‘That was an ill-chosen moment to speak,’ he said to Escargot.

  ‘True,’ said Escargot. ‘It was stupid of me. I forgot about this bloody cloak. We better go after him.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Jonathan. ‘If we all go he’ll likely run amok.’

  At the top of the stairs a hallway wandered away toward either end of the house. Goblins had quite apparently had as high a time upstairs as they had below, for scattered about the landing and down the hallway were odd pieces of clothing and the tattered remains of lace curtains. Two of the legs had been kicked out from under a carved sideboard, and it lay on its face in the disarray. Fish skeletons were tossed helter-skelter.

  Some six doors opened onto the hallway. Two were ajar, but the other four were shut. There was nothing to be done other than to try the doors and seek out Gosset.

  ‘Mr Gosset?’ said Jonathan tentatively. ‘Oh, Mr Gosset?’ There was no reply.

  Jonathan tried the first of the closed doors and found it unlocked. He swung it open and peered into the room. It was empty. The second door was locked, but appeared to be nothing more than the door to a linen cupboard or coat closet. He wiggled the knob on the third door. Like the first, it turned and the door swung in on its hinges. ‘Mr Gosset?’ said Jonathan, peeping into the dim interior through a foot-wide opening. ‘We’re friends, sir. We’re here to drive this Dwarf away. Rid the woods of goblins.’

  There was no response from within the room. Jonathan poked his head in just a bit – just to the point where he could make out a four-poster bed and a massive frame and panel sideboard. Next to the bed was an endiable with a lamp atop. Below was a scatter of books and a coffee cup. He decided to check the final room, not wanting to go prying through Gosset’s home unnecessarily. As he backed out into the hallway, however, he heard the whoosh of a breath being let out followed by a wild and ill-controlled shout. On the wall to Jonathan’s right was Gosset’s moving shadow, the arms upraised and hands gripping a wooden kitchen chair. The chair came smashing down, cracking into the edge and back of the door. The door slammed shut, shoving Jonathan over backward into the hallway. He rolled smack up against the rail that ran along the edge of the hallway and separated it from the open mouth of the stairwell, giving the thing a solid push. For one wild moment he thought he felt the railing give way, and grabbed wildly about him for a handhold. The railing wobbled and tilted and snapped and cracked, but in the end it held.

  The Professor and Dooly and Ahab and, likely, Escargot clattered up the stairs toward the upper landing, but Jonathan motioned them back down. He rolled forward onto his knees, then leaped to his feet. Clearly had he shoved any farther into the room Gosset would have smashed him on the top of the head with the chair instead of just wildly pummeling the door. He waited in case Gosset should come lunging out. When nothing happened, Jonathan crept forward and knocked lightly. He could hear sobbing of a sort within.

  ‘Mr Gosset?’ said Jonathan. ‘The invisible man downstairs is an elf warrior in a magic cloak. He’s on his way to Hightower to have a word with Selznak the Dwarf.’

  The door inched open, and Gosset’s nose appeared, the rest of him remaining in the shadow of the room. ‘What?’ asked Gosset. ‘Elves?’

  ‘That’s right, Mr Gosset,’ said Jonathan in a friendly way. ‘We have major elf magic here. Selznak’s end is near. By Friday there won’t be a goblin outside the Wood.’

  The door opened a bit more, and Gosset squinted out. He seemed to ponder for a moment; then he swung the door open and waved Jonathan in. The remains of the crumpled chair lay on the floor behind the door, but other than that the room was in fairly good order. It was a large room that opened onto another room through a pair of French doors. The second room was apparently a library or study that contained a couple of easy chairs, a comfortable-looking couch, and an old, dark library table. A door, the fourth of the six upstairs doors, led from the library back out onto the hallway above the stairs. From the look of it Gosset was a man who loved books. The titles seemed to Jonathan to indicate that he was an intelligent sort, driven toward desperation and lunacy by the goblin doings.

  Gosset picked up the two rear legs which had been broken from the chair. He pushed open a window and tossed them out onto the lawn, throwing the rest of the smashed chair after them. He stood unsteadily by the window and ran his hands through his hair as if to cool himself down. The effort seemed to have a calming effect, but it made his hair stand on end and he looked as if he’d just staggered in out of a tornado.

  A decanter of spirits and several glasses lay on the library table in the adjoining room. Although it would have been poor manners under normal circumstances, Jonathan pointed in their general direction. ‘Perhaps a drink would be in order.’ Gosset nodded.

  Jonathan pushed open the french doors and walked into the library. He pulled the glass stopper out of the bottle and gave it a sniff, then tippled some of the brandy into one of the glasses. He handed it across to Gosset, who poured the liquid straight down his throat, coughing and hacking over it for a moment thereafter.

  It occurred to Jonathan that it was perhaps not a good thing that Gosset knew of Escargot’s existence. They had taken great pains on their upriver voyage to keep his presence an absolute secret. Then, after sailing smack into the enemy’s camp, so to speak, they had blundered into the first lunatic they could find and alerted him to the wild fact that not only was there an invisible man among them, but that he wore a magical elf cloak. In fact, there could have been no profit at all in approaching Gosset in the first place. They weren’t, after all, going to lead a wild assault on Hightower or come raging through the town with an army. They were simply going to slide in secretly and wait about while Escargot stole the pocketwatch, or something like that. If it came to it, Jonathan supposed, they could tie Gosset to a chair until it was too late for him to reveal any secrets. But then if something went wrong and they didn’t come back, Gosset would spend the rest of his life tied to a chair, and that wouldn’t do.

  The Professor looked in through the door about then, and Gosset sat down on the bed in a rumpled heap. Dooly and Ahab crept in last, or so it appeared. Gosset poured himself another glass of brandy and sippe
d thoughtfully at it. After a moment he sighed, messed his hair some more, and spoke in a comparatively calm voice.

  ‘The boggers want caps,’ he said, musing over his glass. ‘All I can make. If I stop sewing caps I’d best find another home. That’s what he said. His goblins must have caps. It’s been terrible. They try to wear three at a time, and they tear each other’s to bits. I could make a million a week and it wouldn’t keep them in caps. Not for more than a moment. They do it for sport. What does a goblin care about a cap?

  ‘And the blasted creatures of his. The toads and ‘possums and such. Gone mad they have. He’s seen to it. Has a spell on ’em. I come upon ’em chewing through the back door. They had a vine strung up over the garden wall and was climbin’ up and down the blasted thing like apes. Exactly like apes!’ Gosset took a sip of brandy, shook his head resignedly, and continued.

  ‘I was putting out lettuce and onions for the winter garden. Had six lines of snow peas and cucumbers. All gone now. Not ate up, mind you, just dug to bits one night. Beat the stuffing out of the scarecrow and lit him afire. Danced around it, they did, six wolves and about two hundred toads. Rode about on the wolves’ backs, croaking like devils!

  ‘And two nights ago. In this very room. I opened up that wardrobe and there was a ghastly sight. There was moths. A dozen of ’em, and they had my sweater on the floor. Knives and forks, they had. The whole lot of ’em, and they were sawing the bloody sleeve off. Moths the size of golf balls with little arms and hands. It was ghastly. A positive horror.’ Gosset drained the glass and tipped another drop or two into the bottom.

  The Professor looked at Jonathan and rolled his eyes. He tapped a forefinger against his temple. Jonathan nodded just a hair to show that he understood, but Dooly was wide-eyed with terror. Gosset offered Jonathan a spot of brandy, and Jonathan began to refuse, then decided that if he didn’t take a turn at the big decanter, Gosset would likely be seeing more fork-wielding moths before the day was out. So he accepted a glass of the stuff and winked at the Professor, who himself took a glass. Neither thought to offer Escargot any. Jonathan wasn’t sure he was even in the room and hesitated to bring the subject up. As the bottle was being replaced on the table, however, a throat was cleared somewhere in the vicinity of the open french doors, and it had an instantaneous effect on Gosset, who began to tremble violently.

  Jonathan feared that Gosset would cut and run again. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Mr Theophile Escargot.’ He waved a hand in Escargot’s general direction.

  ‘Delighted,’ said Escargot.

  Gosset looked about him wildly. The Professor, thinking quickly, plucked a cap from a hook on a hatrack alongside the wardrobe and waved it toward Escargot, who took it from him and put it on. Gosset seemed relieved, finding a floating cap less threatening than a floating voice. ‘Glass of the best?’ Gosset asked Escargot.

  ‘Aye, mate,’ said Escargot, plucking the glass from Gosset’s outstretched hand. ‘Just the thing on a day like this.’

  ‘Warms me up,’ Gosset agreed. ‘I can’t stand a chill. Never could.’ He slumped back as if exhausted and lay there for a moment. The silence was awkward, but it didn’t last long. Gosset leaped up with a hand to his ear as if straining to hear something faint and far away. He tiptoed to the window and in a hushed voice said, almost to himself, ‘Fog!’ then fell to his knees, staring trancelike out toward the river road. The four rafters stepped up behind him, and, sure enough, swirling along on a late morning breeze were billows of fog, very slow and languid fog – fog that seemed to know what it was about. Faintly, from the direction of town, there sounded a muffled tapping, as if someone were knocking against a hollow log with a stick. Gosset fell forward and pressed his face and hands against the window.

  From out of the whirling mists below a Dwarf in a slouch hat appeared, tap tap tapping along the cobbles of Gosset’s drive. He wore a dark cloak, almost black, but not quite – rather a deep shade of purple like the sky at night. A patch covered one of his eyes, and his nose was crooked and long, giving him the appearance of being very very old. His staff was a good six feet high, nearly twice as high as the Dwarf. Below his flowing cloak could be seen pointy-toed shoes which were silent on the stones below. All that could be heard was the insistent tap tap tap of the walking staff. In his mouth was a long pipe, the bowl of which glowed red and orange through the mists. From the burning pipe billowed white smoke, and it seemed as if the Dwarf alone were responsible for the fog that floated roundabout.

  When he stood directly below the window, the Dwarf stopped and looked up toward the gaping Gosset and the rafters clustered behind him. It was useless to attempt to hide, although Escargot was quick-witted enough to jerk off his cap and toss it onto the bed. There wasn’t the slightest doubt that Selznak was paying Gosset a visit in their honor. He stood for a moment as if fondly contemplating Gosset’s wild face. He nodded very slowly, and idly touched two fingers to the brim of his hat as if wishing them all a good day. Then he removed the pipe from his mouth and puffed forth three bluish smoke rings that floated up toward the window, slowly widening and undulating on the breeze. When they drew even with Gosset’s face they seemed to burst like bubbles and disappear into the fog.

  Gosset groaned and slumped as if he’d been hit. He shook his head and wiped cold sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his sweater. ‘You curse!’ he whispered under his breath, then repeated it more loudly, pressing once more against the window. Then, in a wild flailing swing, he smashed his fist through one of the panes and shouted through into the foggy morning, shards of glass clattering and tinkling against the floor of the porch below. But the Dwarf was almost lost to sight in the mist, and the tap tap tap of his stick was fading with him, out toward the river road.

  23

  What Was in the Wardrobe

  The brandy bottle rose into the air and hovered there momentarily. Then it dipped over Gosset’s glass and an amber stream of the stuff trickled out. A glass floated up and was similarly treated, then floated higher to a position an inch or so below the brim of Escargot’s cap which was once again hovering about. Escargot must have been peering through the brandy, studying its color.

  There was a good bit of silence for a time, but it was broken when Escargot’s glass was drained. ‘Aaah!’ he said, as if the brandy were entirely satisfactory. Then he put the glass down onto the table. ‘Conceited bloke, ain’t he?’ Escargot asked. ‘Pretty confident, parading up and down.’

  ‘He is that,’ said Jonathan, who couldn’t remember having seen anyone more confident.

  ‘He’ll sing another tune tomorrow,’ said Escargot. ‘It couldn’t be more perfect. He’ll go along and find the raft, but it won’t tell him a thing. He’ll know you’re here, but he won’t know why. Won’t he throw a fit when we play the trump card, when he finds out.’

  ‘The Dwarf isn’t the only one who’s confident,’ the Professor observed. ‘We hope we have a trump card. I’m beginning to wonder just what he knows and what he doesn’t.’

  ‘I’m in,’ said Gosset, pressing a pillowcase against a long shallow cut on the top of his wrist.

  ‘Pardon me?’ asked Escargot.

  ‘I’m in. I’ll do my part. I’ve made my last goblin cap. I’m a-going to get some pay for them.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Escargot abruptly. ‘It’s not in the plan.’

  ‘What plan?’ asked Jonathan, who didn’t relish the idea of having Gosset along, but thought it was time that all of them shared in the plan-making. He was tired of being coerced, and he didn’t altogether like the idea of being a diversion.

  Escargot didn’t reply to Jonathan’s question, possibly because there wasn’t any plan. He whirled his glass in a small circle near his head, perhaps intending to indicate that he hadn’t much faith in poor Gosset and that Jonathan should admit to the plan if only in pretense.

  ‘Secrecy,’ said Escargot, ‘that’s the word. If we haven’t got secrecy, we haven’t got a thing.’

&nbs
p; ‘Secret it is,’ said Gosset agreeably. ‘Secret as a mole, that’s Lonny Gosset. Not a word about it from me.’

  ‘The point, mates,’ Escargot said, ‘is that the more of us who go pushing in up at Hightower, the less chance there is we’ll get out again. No, sir. We can’t risk it. Mr Gosset and Dooly and the dog will stay here. There’ll be plenty for them to do. There’s liable to be monkeyshines played on that raft, especially after nightfall. And we might need it bad later on. We might have to push off and run for it with who knows what behind us, and so we don’t want a bunch of goblins having a barbeque on board. There’ll be three that go and three that stay.’

  Jonathan thought about it for a moment. The Professor lit his pipe and smoked over the idea. Gosset wasn’t upset in the least. He nodded, in fact. ‘Mum’s the word. Lonny Mum Gosset they used to call me. Just let me have a go at those goblins. I’ll take that tower down stone by stone.’ And he clutched at the air once or twice as if taking apart an imaginary tower stone by stone.

  ‘I agree with the plan,’ said Jonathan. ‘It couldn’t be better except that it won’t take two of us to make a diversion. I’ll do for that. The Professor can stay here and see to things on this end. If we aren’t back in twenty-four hours, they spring full sail for Twombly Town and raise an army.’

  Professor Wurzle took his pipe out of his mouth and grinned at Jonathan. ‘Not at all likely,’ he said. ‘Not within a half mile of being near the target. If anyone goes,’ he said, ‘it’ll be me. I’m going to see the inside of that tower if I have to get inside posing as a brush salesman. But I agree with Jonathan otherwise. It’s a good plan. We’ll entrust the safety of the raft to Mr Gosset here. What do you say to that, sir?’

  Gosset had a foolish grin on his face and was staring away in some undiscoverable direction. He snapped out of it for a moment, then turned to the Professor. ‘Huh? What? No. It was what?’ He paused in expectation as if awaiting an answer. The Professor didn’t press the issue. He said, ‘Quite, quite,’ and nodded his head. Gosset nodded his head too. Escargot filled Gosset’s empty glass.