Voyage to the Volcano

by Tom Banks

  ‘Hello, slowcoach,’ she said. At this, Able Skyman Abel looked up at Stanley and frowned.

  ‘Ah, Sidney,’ he said. ‘I imagine you’ve come to tell us of this young lady’s mishap. But fear not – I … er … we had the situation in hand throughout. Kindly run along and report to Ms Huntley that our little escapee is safely back onboard, and that the bells can cease to clang. The Captain is trying to concentrate. Best tell Her Grace the Countess as well, so she can start getting young madam ready for the ball. Hurry up, lad, no time for slouching and gawping.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rasmussen, stuffing crumpet into her mouth and swinging her feet up onto the table. ‘Hurry along, Sidney, there’s a good chap.’

  Back on deck a short while later, Stanley was trying to stay out of the way as he watched the loose conglomeration of people that made up the crew of the Great Galloon working together as only they could. Having not grown up onboard, Stanley still didn’t take for granted the fact that everyone on the Galloon was there of their own free will, under no obligation, and free to do as they pleased.

  The fact that what it pleased them all to do was to work together for the Galloon’s greater good was testament to the loyalty that Captain Anstruther inspired in all who knew him.

  Stanley was huddled in his scarf and gloves, tucked in beside the Galloon’s main funnel. At this hour the funnel was warm with the smoke coming up from the great furnace, and so this was the prime spot on deck. He watched as a gang of wiry old hands erected netting all around the Galloon, to minimise any damage from future cannonballs. He heard a far-off clatter, which he knew to be the anchor crews lowering the mighty ice anchors, and he felt that familiar glow of satisfaction that came with being part of such a magnificent thing as the Galloon.

  As Stanley sat watching the hustle and bustle all around him, he heard a noise – a whistle and a whoosh together, like a firework. Beyond the netting, in the snow-burgeoning sky, a flare of some sort exploded, and a shower of dark grey ash spread out across the clouds. Stanley was interested but not shocked, until the cloud of ash began to form itself into recognisable words. In a firm Teutonic hand, the firework writing relayed its message to the Captain, and by extension all aboard the Great Galloon:

  My birthday ball is cancelled due to too much interest. Please leave. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Eisberg.

  And then the ashen words fell apart and drifted to earth. Stanley was confused.

  ‘Too much interest?’ he said to himself, and jumped when a voice beside him responded.

  ‘Poppycock!’ said Clamdigger, who had appeared, to warm his long fingers on the funnel. ‘The Captain will have something to say about that.’

  And indeed he did – far behind them on the quarterdeck, his great hat framed against the white sky, his mouth to the huge brass speaking trumpet, rigged up to tubes around the ship for just such moments as these, the Captain spoke to his crew.

  ‘Poppycock!’ he said. ‘We’ve come for a ball, and by hook or by crook a ball we shall have. It is imperative. Gallooniers, prepare a landing party – Ms Peele and Her Grace the Countess, in the first instance, I think.’

  A ragged cheer sprung up in the rigging, and was then taken up across the ship. Stanley was surprised at the force of the Captain’s words. He didn’t cheer, being lost in thought as he so often was.

  Corks, he thought. Perhaps this is the start of that adventure we’ve been waiting for …

  And with that thought on his mind, he scratched his horn, blew on his hands, and strode off to find his best friend Rasmussen.

  A short while later, Cloudier Peele was carefully piloting her weather balloon, bringing it alongside the Galloon amidships, where the boatswain’s chair was hanging from its derrick. The weather balloon was a tiny, simple craft, one small basket hung beneath one small balloon.

  Cloudier had only been given full use of it relatively recently, and manoeuvres like this were new to her. She had in one gloved hand a light rope attached to a leather flap in the top curve of the balloon, which could be used to let air out, and in the other a brass knob, which controlled the flame of a small burner. Right hand down, left hand up. Simple.

  But Cloudier was a poet at heart, not a navigator like her mother. She couldn’t help thinking of the poetic possibilities – a young girl drifting off into the sky, out of control in her tiny craft, to wander the world alone. Or plummeting to earth in a desperate fireball, having time only to scribble a line or two in her charred notebook before icy waters claimed her. Having a poet’s mind was a pain sometimes. She dragged her attention back to the more prosaic situation at hand.

  At the moment, a squat Galloonier called Tamp was fending her off from the side of the Galloon with a long boathook, while stopping her drifting away by means of a stout length of rope wrapped round his waist. Every once in a while he shouted things like ‘Easy now!’ or ‘Bring her along!’, but Cloudier just did her best to stay level, and he seemed happy enough with this. She was waiting for the shore party to board, when it would be her job to take them down to Castle Eisberg, in an attempt to find out what was going on. In the meantime, she was standing braced against the edge of the basket, trying not to show the effort involved in piloting the balloon, and squinting at the coffee table by her feet, on which a small poetry anthology was held open with stones.

  Cloudier had, in the last few weeks, made an astounding discovery. She loved poetry. Not just the idea of it, she genuinely loved it. Her favourite book, once well thumbed but never read, had finally been devoured, and then studied, and then memorised, and now it was little more than a loose collection of leaves held together with string. She couldn’t get enough, from tumpty-tumpty doggerel to epic verse, from limericks to haikus to sonnets and back again. She was still writing her own poems, and planned to give a recital as part of the ball, if the Count was amenable, so she was very much hoping the landing party could persuade him to get over his last-minute jitters and declare the ball back on. Something about the mountains, she thought. An homage to their majesty, their steadfastness, their kindly eyes and stripy jumper.

  ‘What?’ she said aloud, confused by her own train of thought, and then realised that Clamdigger was speaking to her. He was standing at the rail of the Galloon, with a small two-note whistle in his hand.

  ‘I said, prepare for boarding, weather balloon there!’ said Clamdigger, and he blew a little fanfare on his whistle.

  Cloudier laughed awkwardly, then stopped. She accidentally let the rope slip through her right hand for a moment, and so Clamdigger seemed from her viewpoint to fly quickly up into the air. She regained control, and used the burner to float gracefully back into his eye line. She cleared her throat, and called back.

  ‘T—’ she said, at the exact same moment that he began to speak, so she missed what he said. He stared at her, and spoke again. So did she.

  ‘Pr—’ they said together. Cloudier coloured up, but managed another little laugh.

  Giving up on speech, Clamdigger blew his whistle again, a complicated two-note trill, which meant ‘landing party preparing to leave the Galloon’, although only he and Abel would know that. He then spoke quietly to Tamp, who braced himself hard against the rail, putting most of his weight into holding the weather balloon steady alongside. Unseen hands must then have brought a long gang plank into place, for Cloudier saw one rise up behind Clamdigger, swing high over his head, then float precariously out into space, before coming to rest on the edge of the weather balloon.

  Gritting her teeth with concentration, Cloudier kept the balloon dead level as two lithe crew members leapt over the rail and began to erect a rope handrail along the edge of the gangplank, setting banister posts into sockets along its edge, and slinging yet another rope between them, for all the world as if they weren’t standing in the icy clouds, with nothing but a bowing plank and the untried skills of a teenage girl between them and the long drop.

  Job done, they saluted her unnecessarily, and slipped back over t
he rail onto the Galloon itself. Two more toots on the whistle, and into Cloudier’s view hove a vision of elegance – the Dowager Countess of Hammerstein in full sail, tiara aloft, jewels glinting despite the fog, beshawled and muffed, with a steely look in her beautiful eyes as she stepped undaunted onto the gangplank.

  ‘Hello, Cloudier,’ she said as she came into the balloon, for all the world as if she was strolling through the park on a Sunday afternoon.

  ‘Hello, Your Grace,’ said Cloudier, who had known the Countess for many years.

  ‘It seems that the Captain is very keen indeed to attend the Eisberg winter ball,’ said the Countess, almost to herself. ‘And for some reason, he believes that I am the person to persuade the Count to go ahead with it. So let us descend and see what can be done.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Cloudier.

  The Countess deftly untied the knot connecting the gangplank to the basket’s edge, and with one gloved finger in her mouth, whistled so loudly that Cloudier’s ears rang. An answering whistle came from beyond the rail, and hands once again unseen began to haul in the plank.

  Craning only slightly to see whether Clamdigger was still watching, Cloudier let some air out of the balloon in a controlled fashion, and they began their descent through the swirls of mist, to the mysterious castle.

  A short while later down below, Stanley was still looking for Rasmussen. He had checked back in the map room, and not finding her there, had tried Rasmussen’s own chambers, where she lived with the Dowager Countess. A neighbour had told him they were both out, so he had tried some friends’ cabins, and the toyshop, but with no sign of her. The for’ard games room, the starboard library, the ballroom and the top bakery had all felt like good ideas at the time, but to no avail. So he had hitched a ride on a passing dog cart, and taken in the long gallery, Dobson’s folly, the town-hall steps, and all along Conduit Way. These were all their usual haunts, but she was nowhere to be found.

  Clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes, he had ridden a dumb waiter up to the refectory, but Snivens the butler hadn’t seen her all day. Beginning to get cross, he had even tried the school room, where Rasmussen was barely known, but of course she wasn’t there. So here he was, almost out of ideas, standing outside the Captain’s cabin once again. He raised a fist, and was just about to knock, when he heard voices inside.

  ‘I’ve never known you so worked up about a party before, Captain,’ said a voice that Stanley recognised as that of Ms Huntley, the navigator.

  ‘Blast the party to Easter and back,’ said the Captain. ‘I couldn’t care a hoot for the party.’

  ‘Well, I think the Gallooniers could do with blowing off a bit of steam after recent events,’ said Ms Huntley, apparently unbowed by his snappy tone.

  ‘Recent events?’ asked the Captain.

  ‘I’m referring to our almost being eaten alive by monster moths, just a few weeks back. Not to mention the subsequent attack by the Berbers of Seveell, and that incident with the escaped chimera.’ Ms Huntley sounded concerned, but firm. ‘The crew needs a rest. And so do you.’

  ‘I won’t be mollycoddled, Ms Huntley,’ said the Captain firmly. ‘Thank you for your kindness, but I’m not some stray lamb that needs warming by the fire.’

  ‘Far be it from me to suggest otherwise,’ said Ms Huntley, with what sounded to Stanley like the merest hint of impatience in her voice. ‘But if you couldn’t give a hoot for the Count’s birthday party, why have you sent Her Grace the Dowager Countess of Hammerstein, of all people, to persuade the Count not to cancel it?

  ‘He won’t see me, not while he’s all worked up,’ said the Captain. ‘We have history, the Count and I. We’ve been friends since we were boys, shared a dorm at school, and then went through service together. But we’ve had our fallings out of late.’

  ‘What kind of fallings out?’ said Stanley to himself, outside the door, just as Ms Huntley said the same thing inside.

  ‘It may be – just may be, you understand – that my darling Isabella, love of my life, was once sworn unto him.’

  Stanley heard Ms Huntley gasp.

  ‘One o’ these family matches you understand – the way the nobility will make a match without either party knowing the other. Organised by their parents, with no input from the Count or Isabella.’

  ‘So you … stole her away from him?’ said Ms H, in a measured tone.

  ‘No,’ said the Captain firmly. ‘Neither of them wanted it – but still, when Isabella and I met and fell in love, it wasn’t quite seen as the done thing.’

  ‘But … surely, you saved them both from a life of unhappiness?’ said Ms Huntley sympathetically.

  ‘Perhaps. But whether he sees it that way, I’ve never stuck around to find out.’

  ‘I need Birgit to persuade the Count to have that party. Our fates depend on it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Ms Huntley, and Stanley was alarmed to hear she was approaching the door. ‘If anyone can persuade him, Birgit can.’

  Stanley was confused by all this, but he just had enough of his wits about him to jump out of the way as the door opened and Ms Huntley came out.

  ‘Let’s hope so …’ called the Captain from inside. ‘For all our sakes.’

  Ms Huntley closed the door behind her and looked inquisitively at Stanley, who was now standing in the corridor with his hands over his eyes.

  ‘Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine … one hundred!’ he said, and took his hands away from his face. ‘Coming, ready or not!’ he called, and then pretended to notice Ms Huntley.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ he said. ‘I’m just playing backgammon.’

  And with that he ran away.

  In a wood-panelled room, a face looked out of a mirror. It was a plain face, male, of indeterminate age. The kind of face that went with the phrase ‘no distinguishing features’. The owner of the face had no strong feelings about it, but knew it was the perfect face for his trade.

  Arranged between the face and the mirror was an array of little objects that would have looked to an observer like children’s playthings. A wig, some glue, a rubber nose, some make-up. The face’s owner didn’t think of them as playthings. He thought of them as tools. Metaphorically, he picked up a hammer and chisel, and began to chip away at the featureless marble block of his face. He knew, as he always did, that something astounding would emerge …

  Cloudier’s heart was still racing from the excitement of the journey down to Castle Eisberg, but she was doing her best not to show it. She had struggled to keep on course through the thick fog, but at least the air had been still, and the castle was quite a big target.

  It seemed that the inhabitants had either run out of ammunition, or hadn’t seen them coming, because they had landed uncontested in a messy courtyard, slap in the middle of the castle. The courtyard, and indeed the hillside all around the castle, was filled with vehicles, animals and entourages of all sorts. From lowly pony carts to huge ornate coaches, from sedan chairs to steamcars, all forms of transport were there. Footmen lounged, chauffeurs chatted, cabbies snoozed under their great furry cloaks – it was clear to Cloudier that the Galloon was not the only vessel that had not been put off by the Count’s automated messages.

  She was secretly pleased with her piloting skills – she’d never taken the weather balloon away from the Galloon before, but she and the Countess had managed the journey and the difficult landing with no more damage than a bent weathervane and a startled sheep to show for it. They climbed out of the balloon – the Countess managing to maintain her graceful demeanour even while clambering over the side of the basket, which impressed Cloudier not a little. The drivers, grooms and chairpeople standing around in the courtyard were clearly impressed as well. A hush descended as the Countess made her stately way across the courtyard to the nearest door, while Cloudier trotted to keep up. The Countess took all this in her stride, as she always did, offering a cheery wave or a polite ‘hello’ to anyone they passed.

  ‘Hello, Charlie,’ she said
to a smart, rosy-cheeked man in a peaked cap and a black suit. ‘How are your chilblains?’

  ‘Murder, ma’am, thanks for asking. Absolute ruddy murder,’ said the man with a smile.

  ‘Here, this may help,’ said the Countess, handing Charlie a small bottle of lotion from her clutch bag. ‘Keep it, keep it, I have more.’

  ‘Th’ky, m’m,’ mumbled Charlie, colouring up as the Countess folded his fingers over the tiny bottle. But the Countess had moved on.

  ‘Carozza, how lovely to see you again. Chancellor Urquell is well, I presume?’ She was now talking to a tall woman sitting on the running board of a sleek red carriage. ‘Oh gosh, don’t stand up!’

  ‘You’ll see for yourself, Miss Birgit,’ said the tall woman pleasantly. ‘She’s inside, a-waiting on the Count to make himself known.’

  ‘Aha. He is keeping a low profile, then?’ said the Countess, and Cloudier noticed a lot of eyebrow raising in the people nearby.

  ‘I should say so, ma’am,’ said a bright-eyed lad on a shaggy pony. ‘Sounds from out here like he’s gone to ground. Not exactly the party of the century, shall we say!’

  Ragged laughter broke out around Cloudier and the Countess, but it soon died down when the Countess did not join in.

  ‘Hmmm. Poor Heinz. Shall we see if we can offer any help, Cloudier? I’m sure the situation just needs looking at a different way,’ said the Countess, moving on again, towards a postern door set in the base of a crumbling tower nearby.

  ‘The Count needs his brain looking at a different way more like it!’ said a raucous voice from across the courtyard.

  The wag broke into croaking laughter at his own joke, until he realised that no one else was laughing, and that the Countess was watching him with interest, one perfect eyebrow raised. He turned his laugh into a cough, and his cough into an apology. Then he sat down heavily in the mud, gazing adoringly back at her. Cloudier stifled a chuckle, which she managed to turn into a tut, before rolling her eyes resignedly and following the Countess to the door.