* * *
The Ship
The chief led us over swaying scaffolds and along narrow bridges as we crossed to the far side of the goblin village. Along the way he told us about his tribe’s origins in the western world. Hearing of riches and vast tracts of untamed land, Nudd’s father, Ludd, had sought to establish a goblin empire on the shores of the new continent, but he needed money. The goblins were resourceful, but wits and grit would not build a vessel or stock it with rations or supplies, so Ludd struck a deal to gain in one single night all the capital they would need. Their financier would never see the goblins again. He would, in fact, be hanged within the week.
“So that’s how the Bold Deceiver managed it,” I said, ducking under a spiderweb of brass pipes as I kept after the chief. “Fleming never set foot in America. Your father set up all the challenges. He drew the map, and he buried the treasure at the end of it.”
“Aye, and on an island only one o’ our own ships could reach. Tha’ rock is on a . . . what’sit? Thrash hold.”
“A threshold?”
“Aye, t’win this world an’ the Annwyn. Humans kinna find it withou’ help. Don’t y’ fret. Goblin craft have more’n a little goblin in ’em. She’ll get y’ there.”
We rounded a bend and I could see several vessels moored in a crowded dock. The ships bobbed in the choppy breakers, looking about as reliable and seaworthy as a pair of worn-out old boots. “We aren’t traveling in one of those, are we?” I asked, nervously.
“Nae! Those’d na’er get ye where ye’re goin’.”
I relaxed a fraction, and then Nudd chuckled and pointed upward.
“Ye’ll be needin’ her.”
Forty feet up, tethered to a rocky outcropping, hung a huge, oblong balloon, roughly the shape of a massive, lumpy pickle. It was a patchwork of canvas and leather scraps held together with jagged stitches. Suspended beneath it by a series of thick ropes was a basket, roughly the size and shape of the rotted rowboat where we had landed several quests back. Brass fittings lent a regal air to the goblin dirigible, in much the same way a bit of gold trim might lend a sense of dignity to a pile of horse droppings.
“Splendid!” Jackaby clasped his hands together, beaming like a schoolboy at Christmas. “We’ll have her back to you by morning!”
The airship sagged and creaked in protest under our feet. We were barely on board when Nudd snapped the tether with a flick of a crooked dagger, and we drifted away from the rocks.
With Jackaby at the helm, the vessel swayed wildly with every gust of wind, and within a few minutes of our departure, one of the ropes securing the basket to the balloon simply slid away, twisting like a snake as it plummeted into the waves below. “Are you quite certain this is safe?” I called over the rush of wind.
Jackaby gave me a wink from the helm. “I am quite certain this is an adventure! Come hold the wheel steady for a moment while I check on the engines.”
I crawled warily toward him as the basket leaned and creaked in response to my slightest motion. The dirigible was controlled by a wide ship’s wheel, such as I had seen many times before, and if I held my gaze very carefully above the horizon, I could just imagine that we were in a quiet boat, drifting along the surface of the ocean.
Once I had a firm grip on the wheel, Jackaby swung himself up on a low rope and hopped into the back of the basket with a thud. “Oh, Rook, look at this! Marvelous tinkering. It’s been retrofitted with a compact boiler to run on coal and steam rather than the usual goblin fuel.”
“What’s the usual goblin fuel?” I asked.
“Smaller, less popular goblins, generally.”
“You have interesting friends, sir.”
Jackaby fiddled with a few compartments, tapping gauges and dials behind me. After a minute he mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like “Oh, dear.”
“What?” I called. “What is it?”
“Nothing! Nothing, just admiring the steamworks.”
We rode on for several hours, Jackaby and I taking turns at the helm. The sun crept toward the horizon behind us, its light brushing the clouds ahead with golds and oranges, reflected brilliantly in the calm ocean waves below. At times a low cloud would drift beneath us, and our own shadow would ripple and dance across its billowy surface as we passed. It was quietly breathtaking.
“We may have a small problem.” Jackaby’s voice shook me out of my serenity.
“What is it?”
He flipped open a little iron grate, revealing the last, dying lumps of coal in an ashy heap. He flipped it shut again with a clink.
“We’re out of fuel?”
“I was hopeful that it might last long enough to manage the trip out, and then we could use this for the return journey.” He pointed to the single cherry-red party cracker in his bandolier. “But the engine burned through our stores faster than I had anticipated. It seems increasingly unlikely that we will reach our destination.” As if to confirm my employer’s doubts, the boiler sputtered and the airship shuddered and rocked. “Such a shame. This is closer than anyone’s come in three hundred years—which is something, I suppose.”
“What? No!” I said. “I know you want to do the thing properly, but we’ve hit every point on the map—surely you can’t object to using that cracker to finish the trip?”
Jackaby pursed his lips. “Nudd knows the magic of his people. He said that the island rests on a pocket between our Earth and the Annwyn. We need the dirigible. Think of it as our compass. Even a carefully aimed transapparative hop without it would likely leave us on this side of the veil, dropped in the middle of the Atlantic without a rock to cling to. I don’t know about you, but I doubt I could manage the swim back to shore.”
The mechanism behind him hissed, and with another rumble, the airship began to sink and lose altitude. Jackaby sighed and glanced at the approaching waves. He walked toward me and held out the lonesome red tube. “Even if we could manage it, this is the last popper. I’m afraid it’s over. You finally get your birthday wish, Miss Rook. We’re going home. I’ll let you do the honors. Just think of where you’d like to be, and our destination will appear.”
“But . . . but we’re so close!” I said. I peered out over the waters. On the horizon I could just make out the shimmering silhouette of a patch of land creeping into view. It wasn’t fair.
“I am sorry, Miss Rook.” Jackaby held out the tube. “But it really is the last one.” The patchwork balloon deflated rapidly above us, flapping wildly in the rushing wind. My feet lifted off the floor and my stomach lurched as the airship completely fell from the sky. I gripped the rickety basket with one hand and clasped the cracker with the other. Just as the sparkling waves threw themselves at the plummeting dirigible, I tugged.