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 farther, 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 farther down the deck and some fell or jumped from the rigging, though as far as Arthur could tell they went into the violet sea.
Then the ship struck. Arthur’s legs went up in the air but he managed to keep hold of the ladder. His good foot kicked desperately for a hold as he tried to avoid sliding down the deck to the bow, which went completely underwater. For a dreadful second it looked to Arthur like the whole ship was going to nosedive straight into the deeps. But though the forward twenty feet or so were completely covered in foaming water, the Moth somehow came back up with a violent rolling action that spilled more Denizens into the sea.
Arthur was covered in spray, but he kept his grip. Gradually, the Moth’s roll slowed. Ichabod got up, dusted himself off with a tsk-ing noise, and walked back to Arthur. The splinter that had been in his stomach was gone, but the waistcoat was still sodden with blue blood.
‘Come down below,’ said Ichabod. ‘I’ve stopped bleeding but I have to help the Doctor if there’s anyone really seriously wounded.’
‘Is it safe to stand up?’ asked Arthur. He didn’t want to even guess what really seriously wounded might mean.
Ichabod looked around.
‘I trust that is the case,’ he replied. ‘We have made it clear through the Transfer Portal. The sea here is quite placid, at least at present.’
Arthur climbed wearily to his feet, grimacing as pain shot through his leg. When that subsided a little, he looked around. Sunscorch was giving orders, but not very loudly. Denizens were climbing back up the rigging and the ones that hadn’t fallen off were already inching their way out across the yards, getting ready to furl the sails.
It all looked surprisingly calm, until a Denizen stuck his head out of a forward hatch and shouted, ‘Mister Sunscorch! She’s cracked a dozen strakes or more! There’s four foot of water in the well!’
Arthur looked at Ichabod.
‘I believe that means we are sinking,’ Ichabod said calmly. ‘Doubtless we shall hear more in a moment. Allow me to remove some flecks of wood from your coat.’
Without waiting for permission, Ichabod started to remove tiny pieces of wood from Arthur’s shoulders, reminding the boy how easily they could have been larger splinters that would have killed him.
He had to get out of the way as Sunscorch ran back to the quarterdeck, jumping halfway up the steps. There was a confused milling about going on around the wheel. As far as Arthur could tell, Doctor Scamandros was barely conscious, but he had all the maps. They needed the maps to work out what to do before the ship sank, which was going to happen within the next thirty minutes at the rate they were taking in water through the cracked hull.