Jack rose to the surface with an amazed expression on his face. “Well, I never,” he said, beaming at Trundle. “So that’s what Ishmael feels like most of the time! I must say, I quite enjoyed it—although I can see how it gets in the way of normal life.”
“But did you notice?” said Trundle. “The pollen has made Ishmael sane.”
“Well, three cheers for that, I say,” said Jack, paddling over to Trundle. “Life is going to be far easier if he stays that way.”
“Get your paws off me, you jug-headed jackrabbit!” raved a well-known voice. “Just let me get to my feet and we’ll settle this once and for all.”
Ishmael emerged from the trees shortly afterward, dragging Esmeralda by one foot while she kicked and writhed and fought to get free.
“You’ll thank me for this when you’re feeling better,” gasped the exhausted hare, hauling her to the bank of the swamp.
“I’ll kick your cottontail up the back of your neck, that’s what I’ll do!” yelled Esmeralda. “Do you know who you’re dealing with, you flop-eared fool? I’m a Roamany princess, I am!”
“Yes,” groaned Ishmael. “A Roamany princess who’s entirely off her pie crust! Now then, don’t make a fuss and this’ll all be over before you know it.”
He released Esmeralda’s foot and leaned over to try and grab her. But she was too quick for him. She scrambled to her feet in an instant, her face furious. But before she could deliver a roundhouse punch to his snout, he ducked, grabbed her around the waist, and propelled her to the very brink of the swamp.
She teetered, her feet slipping on the wet grass. “Nooooooo!” she hooted, losing balance.
“Sorry!” puffed Ishmael, letting go and giving her a good shove.
At the very last moment, she managed to get a grip on his shirt front.
“Whoop!” she exclaimed as she fell.
“Yoop!” he gasped as she dragged him after her.
SPLASH!
For a few seconds the world vanished in a great fountain of brown swamp water. A wave washed Trundle to the bank, and he clambered out. Jack pulled himself out a moment or two later and stood shivering on the bank, wringing his tail. The swamp was seething like a cauldron of simmering soup, and bobbing up and down in the swell were the faces of Esmeralda and Ishmael.
“Good gracious me!” said Esmeralda. “Whatever was I thinking with all that running round and round?” She swam strongly to the bank, and Trundle helped her out. “That dark lotus pollen is tricky stuff, and no mistake,” she said, wiping water from her eyes. “What a good thing Ishmael was turned sane! Who knows what would have become of us otherwise?”
“My thinking exactly,” said Jack. “Three cheers for Ishmael! Hip! Hip! Hoo—”
“Hold on a minute,” Trundle said. “Why isn’t he trying to get out?”
Sure enough, the old hare was making no effort to get to the bank. Instead he was lying on his back, splashing his feet and sending up spouts of water from his mouth.
“Ishmael!” called Jack. “Are you all right?”
“It’s winkles at dawn, Sir Godfrey!” warbled the happy hare. “Come on in! The custard is lovely!”
There was a telling silence between the three friends.
“Drat!” said Esmeralda. “Barmy again!” She looked from Jack to Trundle. “So?” she said. “Who’s volunteering to go in and get him?”
The sun had risen in a bright and warm morning, and the four companions were drying out nicely around a merry little campfire, over which were roasting fresh-caught fish and green bananas on a spit.
Esmeralda had laid the fire while Jack had caught the fish and Trundle had found the bananas, making sure to avoid going anywhere near the grove of dark lotus plants. He had seen quite enough of them for one lifetime.
Ishmael, meanwhile, sat happily by the fire, humming contentedly to himself and counting his fingers, toes, ears, and whiskers. It seemed to keep him happy, although Trundle thought it was a great shame that his brain had gone to pieces again.
“That was a very strange experience,” said Jack, looking up from a half-eaten fish. “Do you know, at one point I’d swear I saw a stone windship in the jungle! Isn’t that the craziest thing?”
Esmeralda stopped chewing and stared at him, swallowing hard. “Me too,” she said. “A huge stone windship. It looked as if it had gone prow first into the side of a rocky hill.”
“With full sails and everything,” added Trundle. He pointed away into the trees. “It was over there somewhere.”
“We can’t all have imagined the same thing, surely?” said Jack. He turned to the humming hare. “Ishmael? Did you see a stone windship earlier on, old chap?”
“Never leave your granny in the rain,” chortled the hare. “The poor old girl may slither down the drain.”
“I swear he’s gotten worse,” sighed Esmeralda. She turned to the others. “I’m not so sure that was an imaginary windship at all,” she said. “What say we go check it out?”
“I’m with you,” said Jack. “A stone windship in the middle of the jungle. Well, if that isn’t a mystery, then I don’t know what is. What do you say, Trundle?”
Trundle swallowed a final piece of fish and licked the juices off his fingers. “What are we waiting for?” he asked, feeling quite adventurous now he knew that no pirates or evil aunties were likely to be involved.
Having kicked out the fire, they gathered up Ishmael and headed off into the jungle. They were very careful to give the dark lotus plants a wide berth—and they also kept a keen eye out for any fearsome beasties or low-flying vampire bats that might have been up and about. Trundle led the way. He had a pretty good idea where he thought he had seen the windship—the non-existent pirates had come streaming out of it.
He was right! They had not gone very far at all before they saw a huge gray shape through the trees. Pressing on, they pushed lianas and ferns aside with a growing sense of excitement as they approached the curious windship.
At last they found themselves in a clearing among the long-fallen trunks of ancient trees, gazing up spellbound at the huge hulk of a great stone windship. It was of an old-fashioned, highly decorated design that Trundle had previously seen only in history books: fully rigged, with its sail belling and its powerstone clearly visible between the bars of the mast-top cage. Without the strange and uncanny attributes of powerstone, no windship could fly the skies of the Sundered Lands, but why that particular detail needed to be so exquisitely picked out on a vessel carved from solid stone was anyone’s guess.
The windship had obviously been there for some time, as the jungle had moved in on it. Tendrils and creepers laced the tall sides of the hull, threading in and out of the scrollwork rails and festooning the vessel in lush greenery and exotic and colorful blooms. Thriving plant life could even be seen higher up, twining in leafy green loops around the masts and the rigging.
“It’s like a windship from the old days,” Trundle breathed, goggling up at the towering hull. “The really old days, I mean.”
“I know,” said Jack in awe. “It’s the sculpture of a windgalleon from the very dawn of time.”
Esmeralda looked at them. “But who could have carved it?” she asked. “And how did it get here, in the middle of nowhere?”
Those seemed to Trundle to be very good questions indeed.
Something about the massive sculpture of the windgalleon puzzled Trundle enormously. “Why did the sculptor carve it with a broken front end?” he asked.
It was a good point, as everyone admitted.
The stone windgalleon looked as if it had come crashing down from the sky, coming to a sudden stop when its prow struck the solid rock wall of a steep hillside. But the damage to the prow wasn’t what they would have expected from one stone thing hitting another. There were no lumps and chunks of stone strewn about. In fact, the split stone planks and boards and rails of the bashed-in prow had been carved to resemble broken and splintered timbers.
“It’s as if
…” Esmeralda began hesitantly. “As if the sculptor wanted the windgalleon to look like it had crashed into the rock face.”
“Except that doesn’t make any sense,” said Jack.
“And there’s no point putting a statue in the middle of the jungle,” Trundle added. “No one comes here—it said so in the guide.”
“Why spend months and months on such an amazingly detailed sculpture if no one’s going to see it?” Esmeralda agreed.
“I see it!” said Ishmael. He rubbed his bulging eyes and stared up at the windgalleon. “Clear as day, it is! Don’t you see it?”
“Yes, we all see it,” said Jack. “That’s not the point. The point is—what’s it doing here?”
“I don’t see it doing anything at all,” said Ishmael.
Trundle pointed at the buckled prow. “Is that a name plate I see up there?”
The crawling tendrils had half hidden the name, but now, as they all looked, they were just about able to make it out.
The Gallant Four of Six.
“Well, that’s an odd thing to call a windgalleon, I must say,” said Jack. “I wonder what it means?”
“Who’s for going aboard to find out?” asked Esmeralda. She pointed to a stone rope ladder hanging from the windgalleon’s side. “There might be a plaque or something to tell us who made it and why.”
“Mince me giblets and call me Petunia!” said Ishmael. “You’ll not get me aboard that thing!”
“Then wait here for us like a good loony,” said Esmeralda. “We won’t be long. Trun? You coming?”
“You bet,” said Trundle, his curiosity well and truly piqued.
Jack went up the stone ladder in no time, but it took the two hedgehogs a good deal of puffing and blowing before they finally made it up to the windgalleon’s rail.
Jack was perched there, his eyes like saucers.
He had good reason to look stunned and amazed.
The deck and rigging of the windgalleon swarmed with a stone crew, all of them hedgehogs, and most of them carved as though going about their ordinary duties: climbing up the stone rigging, sewing canvas sheets, swabbing decks, polishing the masts, and undertaking every other kind of windship endeavor that could be imagined. A few were even gathered around a stone musician playing a stone concertina, singing along.
“They’re all wearing very old-fashioned clothes,” Trundle said, stepping gingerly among the bizarre statues. “I suppose that’s so they look right to be on board such an old windgalleon.” He peered into the face of one of the sailor hedgehog statues. “Life-sized,” he murmured. “And so detailed! Every prickle, every whisker …” He shook his head. “It’s almost as if …”
“As if they aren’t statues at all,” finished Esmeralda, walking toward a raised rostrum amidships. She glanced over her shoulder at them. “I was thinking the same thing. And have you noticed? Some of them look frightened.”
She was right. Although many of the hedgehog sky sailors had normal expressions, a few looked terrified, and now that Trundle looked more closely, some were cowering on the decks with their arms over their faces. A few were even sprawled on the deck as if they’d been knocked clean off their feet by some terrific impact.
“Just the way you’d look if you were about to crash prow first into a hillside,” commented Jack. “Is it just me, or is there something very creepy about all of this?”
“Creepy’s the word,” said Esmeralda, climbing the three steps up to the rostrum. “Hmm. There’s something up here you’ll want to see.”
Trundle and Jack joined her on the small rostrum. It contained a lectern, over which leaned the statue of an elderly hedgehog with a furrowed brow and a quill in his paw. He had been carved as though in the middle of writing in a large open book. At his feet, under the lectern, was the carving of a box with its lid open.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” muttered Jack as the three of them leaned in to see what had been written in the book.
“It’s a windship’s log,” said Esmeralda, brushing dirt and dead leaves off the stone pages. “Hmm. Interesting …”
They all rose on tiptoe to read the first entry, way up in the top left-hand corner.
16th of Greengrow
The Spell of Unbinding has unleashed terrible supernatural storms that have caused us to run aground at the wrong end of this benighted rock. We must somehow strive to get our precious cargo up to the snow pinnacle before the midsummer melt is over and the Ice Gate freezes again. That means reaching the Ice Gate by sunset on the 21st of Greengrow. A daunting endeavor!
“What does it mean?” Trundle asked uneasily.
“The Spell of Unbinding,” murmured Jack. “Lawks! That was the spell the Badger Lords of Old were attempting when the whole world blew up in their faces.”
Esmeralda nodded solemnly. “The spell that went horribly wrong and caused the creation of the Sundered Lands—thousands of years ago.”
Trundle’s mouth fell open. “So … this sculpture was put here to commemorate the creation of the Sundered Lands?” he ventured.
Esmeralda looked at him. “Read on,” she said.
17th of Greengrow
Terrible tidings to relate! Originally we thought only a few of our crew had been affected when we crashed. But it has become clear that the magic is leaking from our powerstone into the surrounding rocks and—oh, the horror!—there is a mystical feedback that is turning the Gallant Fourth of Six and everyone aboard into stone!
“Not a sculpture at all,” gasped Trundle. “Real people … turned to stone … oh, my! Oh, dear! Oh, no, no, no!” He put his paws up over his eyes, not wanting to look into the dreadful stone faces anymore.
“Stout heart, Trundle, my lad!” said Jack. “All this happened thousands of years ago. And that explains the windgalleon’s name: the Gallant Fourth of Six. D’ you see? This must have been one of the six legendary windgalleons that carried the Crowns of the Badger Lords to the far-flung corners of their blown-up world. Uncover your eyes, Trundle. Take a look at what was written next.”
18th of Greengrow
I, Ramalama, make this last entry. So few of us are left alive now. I hold the precious Crown of Ice between my mortal hooves! As the Keeper of the Crown, it is for me to make my way alone up to the snowy peaks while the Ice Gate remains open. I have only three days to reach the summit! The Gate of Ice is only melted between the 19th and 21st of Greengrow each year. I go now, leaving only faithful old Buffer Trug here to keep a final record of our doomed voyage. Farewell!
There was only one entry after that—and Trundle could hardly bear to read it.
19 Gr’grow
All is stone now. I can barely lift my arm to write. Must trust that R succeeds. Our only hope now is
And that was it. The stone quill rested still on the stone book, the bent figure of Buffer Trug stooping forever, staring down with his blind stone eyes on an entry he would never ever finish.
Trundle shuddered from snout to toe.
“My guess is that the Crown of Ice was kept in this box,” said Jack, tapping the stone box under the lectern with his foot. He frowned, scanning the book again. “There’s something strange about the entry made by the keeper, though.”
“Different writing, that’s obvious,” said Esmeralda.
“But that’s not all,” said Jack. “Look. He writes: ‘I hold the precious Crown of Ice between my mortal hooves!’ Do you see? Hooves!”
Trundle wrinkled his brow. “Hedgehogs don’t have hooves,” he said. “Paws, yes—hooves, definitely not.” His eyes widened. “So Ramalama, the Keeper of the Crown, wasn’t a hedgehog like everyone else here. But what was he, then?”
“Plenty of people have hooves,” said Esmeralda. “My guess he was someone high up in the Badger Lords’ court. A horse, maybe? A goat, or a pig, even? Who knows? Anyway, I think we’ve seen all we need to see up here. Who’s for getting off this horrible windgalleon before we all die of the terminal creepies?”
“Count me i
n!” said Jack.
Trundle was as glad as the others to clamber down the stone rope ladder and leave the stone vessel and its forlorn, frozen crew to be slowly engulfed by the jungle. Theirs was a fate that was altogether too sad even to think about.
But Trundle was thinking as he came down to ground level again. He was thinking quite hard.
“Cast off, my merry mates!” said Ishmael. “Did ye find grollikins and dandoes galore in the scuppers?”
“Not now, Ishmael, if it’s all the same to you.” Esmeralda sighed. “We’re feeling a bit gloomy at the moment.”
“It’s always darkest before the prawns,” Ishmael said comfortingly.
“And we have learned some useful information about the Crown of Ice,” said Jack. “It’s monstrous sad up there, to be sure, but we ought to look on the bright side of things.”
“I know,” said Esmeralda. “But I can’t help feeling sorry for all those people. I mean, what a ghastly way to go.”
“Excuse me,” Trundle asked. “What day did we arrive at Tenterwold?” He had cast his mind back to their adventure before last.
“The twelfth of Greengrow,” said Esmeralda.
“I thought so.” Trundle did some rapid calculations on his fingers. He looked up, grinning from ear to ear. “Well, isn’t that interesting! By my reckoning that makes today the twenty-first of Greengrow.”
Jack’s eyes lit up. “And according to the records up there,” he began, “the Ice Gate melts annually between the nineteenth and the twenty-first. Suffering smerks! If that Ramalama chap fulfilled his task and hid the Crown of Ice behind the Ice Gate, we’ve arrived here quite by chance on the very last possible day to get up there and grab it.”
“Quite by chance?” hooted Esmeralda. “Are you kidding me? This isn’t chance, Jack, this is the Fates working flat out in our favor!”
“I rather think it must be,” said Trundle, looking up into the blue sky. The sun was already climbing over the jungle trees, and the morning was wearing away. “But I wish your dratted Fates had gotten us here a day or two sooner. We only have till sunset today to get to the Ice Gate—then it’ll be frozen again for another year.”