The Need for Powdered Wind
But speed was not easy. A day later Ratwin perched at the very top of the mast, chittering her teeth. ‘It’s no hopeses!’ she said. ‘A catastrophical disasters! We is becalmed.’
The day had dawned bright and still, with not a breath of wind. Though Christopher pulled close on the mainsheet and Anya had unreefed the sails, Ratwin – by far the most experienced sailor among them – couldn’t coax the boat into movement.
‘Damn,’ said Christopher. The ship bobbed up and down on the waves. Ratwin – who was nothing if not a linguist – jerked her head twice down to the right.
‘What are we going to do?’ said Christopher. He thought of Irian, waiting for them, and felt the panic rise in him. ‘Could we pull the boat, somehow? Can we summon help?’
But Anya’s eyes were on the horizon. Suddenly she ran to the bow of the boat. ‘Look! Out ahead!’
She pointed. There was a blur – a boat! – coming towards them.
‘Bandits?’ said Jacques. He quivered.
‘How is it moving so fast?’ Anya said. ‘Without any wind?’
‘Because it’s the Sailsmans!’ cried Ratwin.
‘Who?’ said Anya.
But Christopher let out a yell of laughter and relief: Mal Arvorian had told him about the Sailsman. ‘Send up a flare!’
‘The Sailmans!’ said Ratwin. ‘A floating shops! Nighthand boughts his glamry knife there. The owner is a crooked-faced under-table-dealer of a mans, but he will haves what we need – a behemoth tusk rudder, pegasan sails, something.’
The Sailsman’s boat came speeding over the waves like a bird until it drew up alongside them and dropped anchor.
The ship was salt-stained, with The Sailsman painted in red flaking letters along its side. It had heft, and a certain rusty glamour.
‘Ahoy there!’ A man leaned over the edge of his ship. ‘Jason, fetch the rope ladder – we have customers to bring aboard!’
The Sailsman’s assistant, a large, surly-looking boy in his late teens, let down a rope ladder over the side, and the Sailsman himself handed them up on deck with a knowing grin.
‘Welcome to my ship of purchasable delights!’ he said.
His skin was deeply wrinkled from a life at sea, but his hands were strong.
‘This is your lucky day!’ He spoke double-quick.
‘These are hard times, my four fine friends, and there is nothing to raise your spirits like an impulse purchase. We just restocked at the last port and let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen – or should I say, lady and gentleman and dragon and ratatoska – our cargo is spectacular. I ordered it all myself and even I was impressed.’
‘What was the news at port?’ said Christopher. He dared not ask about Irian, nor Nighthand, but he was dying to know. ‘Did you hear anything about the Astorians?’
The Sailsman’s face fell. ‘I did. A looting, in Nemea, on the north edge of Edem, and a pride of Nemean lions slaughtered. A family killed in Ceretos, and their herd of Cretan bulls taken.’ Then he shook himself, and turned on the sales-force smile at full wattage.
‘But that’s not talk we need to indulge in.
We’re looking to take our minds off it, not dwell on it like a bunch of sad poets!
What are you looking for? Fancies, bonbons, delights? ’
‘No, we want—’ began Anya, but he spoke over her, gesturing at the shelves that lined the deck of the ship: bottles, packages, shoes, piles of folded cloth.
‘Voulay drops from Antiok!’ he said. ‘Our bestseller! Finest taste in the world! Side effects include vomiting black tar, growing a moustache and speaking in a Belgian accent. Face cream for the lady …’ And he bowed to Anya. ‘Gives you skin so smooth you could use it for tracing paper.’
‘That cream,’ Ratwin said under her breath, ‘gives you boilses inside your nostrils.’
‘Actually, what we want—’ said Christopher.
‘And whatever you want you shall have! But all in good time, all in good time!’ It was like chatting with a streamroller.
‘Look at this – follow me, back here – the most exciting delivery of a lifetime. Fresh stock in from the Studio of Flight, on the Island of Wings! They provided the wings that Icarus flew with!’
‘That’s hardly an advertisement,’ said Christopher, but the Sailsman had taken him by the elbow and was drawing him along the deck to the bow, where goods were ranged on shining oak tables.
‘Seven-league boots!’ said the Sailsman.
‘Broomsticks, flying carpets! We have kites you can catch hold of by the tail! You could fly from island to island on the end of one!’ The Sailsman pointed to a table covered with hats, each fitted with a propeller.
‘Bowler hats, working caps, sun bonnets, each with enough glimourie to get you up as far as the treetops. You wind the propeller yourself. They use materials rich with glimourie: borometz wool, ratatoskan horn, pegasan feathers.’
Anya, fascinated, picked up a top hat. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this. My grandfather never let me go to shops.’ She put on the hat. ‘Oh!’ With a gasp she started rising off the deck.
The Sailsman grabbed her by the ankle – ‘Steady on, miss, no making off with the merchandise’ – and kept talking.
‘If you want a reliable journey, you’ll want wings.
I have a set of these myself.’ He held up two small white wings, barely larger than his outstretched hand, which fluttered wildly in his palm.
‘You fasten them to your ankles, see, with these leather straps. They won’t get you across Glimouria, but they’ll take you short distances fast.’
There were wings that clipped on to your clothes and others that buckled across the chest. Some were small as a coin and lifted you only an inch off the ground (‘Perfect for when your legs get tired while queuing’), while one golden pair was as wide and broad as an angel’s wings.
(‘Tempest wings! They can fly through any storm in the world, those can.’)
The Sailsman was just showing off a flying bedside rug when there was an almighty clattering crash and Jacques came fluttering to Christopher’s side, an expression of exaggerated innocence on his face. ‘Just browsing,’ he said. There were traces of face cream on his scaled cheeks.
Christopher took advantage of the pause. ‘We don’t need any of these,’ he said, though he longed for them all. ‘What we need is something to make our boat go faster. We’re becalmed. It’s urgent.’
‘I’ve got exactly the thing.’ The Sailsman hunted among his goods. ‘Powdered wind! Never fails! I use it myself. Rub it on the sails and you’ll outrun a dragon.’
They looked at it, and at the price. Christopher’s heart sank. He had money, given to him by Irian – the gold bullions, small silver coins the size of a little fingernail called ‘illions’, and copper scullions of the Glimouria Archipelago – but nowhere near enough.
‘We can’t afford it,’ said Christopher. ‘We don’t have much gold with us.’
The Sailsman’s joviality vanished. ‘Then you’ll have to get lost, won’t you.’
But a hard, unfamiliar look had come into Ratwin’s eyes. ‘Waits. What abouts a barter?’
‘What’re you offering?’
‘What woulds you says to a slivers of ratatoskan horn? They is pure glimourie-richness.’
‘A sliver? No.’ The Sailsman licked his lips. ‘It would have to be a whole horn.’
‘Ratwin, don’t! We’ll think of something else!’ said Christopher.
‘No negulating! We must gets to Polytemus!’
‘Would the horn grow back?’ Anya whispered to Jacques.
‘It is possible,’ he said. ‘But a horn is a ratatoska’s pride and joy.’
‘It is for Irians,’ said Ratwin. ‘She is the heart of the Palace of Glimts. Without hers, it is nothing but brickses and emptiness.’
‘Exactly!’ said the Sailsman. His eyes were alight with the gleam of a deal. ‘Here. I’ll throw in a pair of ankle-wings.’ And he threw them to Anya. ‘Can’t say fairer than that. Now come here, little ratatoska.’
Ratwin stood on all fours at the prow of the Neverfear as it took off like a rocket over the waves. Her poor horn was a ragged stump, and she had not allowed Christopher or Anya to touch it.
‘Onwarding!’ she cried. There was a catch in her voice, a quaver. ‘We is hornless but we is dauntless! We is comings to saves you, Irian Guinne!’