Alistair Grim's Odd Aquaticum (19 page)

“You better think of something quick, sir,” Nigel said over the talkback. “I don’t know how much more of this the old girl can take.”

“I beg your pardon!” cried Mrs. Pinch.

“I meant the Odditorium, mum,” Nigel replied, and Cleona giggled.

“That banshee sounds a bit too cheery for my taste,” said Professor Bricklewick, and Lord Dreary put a hand on his shoulder. For once, the old man seemed calmer than anyone.

“Chin up, Oscar,” he said with a smile. “Everything’s going to be all right. Were Alistair or his son in mortal danger, that banshee would be wailing up a storm right now.”

“Might I remind you that the future can be altered by even the most insignificant decisions made in the present,” Father said, irritated. “Just one wrong move could—”

As if on cue Cleona started wailing—her anguished cries echoing so loudly throughout the Odditorium that the walls themselves seemed to be screaming.

“AAA­III­EEE­EEE­EEE­EEA­AAA­AAA­AAA­HHH­HH!”

Father shot Lord Dreary a look of
I told you so
, and the old man’s face turned completely white.

“Please, Uncle!” Cleona managed to say through her cries. “Do something—
anything
—that might alter our impending doom!”

“I’m trying to think, love,” Father said into the talkback. “But the serpent has wrapped itself around the Odditorium in such a manner that the samurai can’t touch it. What if I sent out the wasps? They might be able to get through the bubble and—”

“AAA­III­EEE­EEE­EEE­EEA­AAA­AAA­AAA­HHH­HH!”
Cleona replied.

“All right, then. How about we just fire the Sky Ripper and take our chances with the serpent on board?”

“AAA­III­EEE­EE­EE­EEE­EAA­AAA­AAA­AAH­HH­HH!
”

“How about the demon buggy? A magic spell, perhaps?”

“AAA­III­EEE­EEE­EEE­EEA­AAA­AAA­AAA­HH­HHH!”

With every course of action that Father suggested Cleona’s wailing only got louder and more frantic. I pressed my hands to my ears—even from down here her cries were deafening—and yet somehow, beneath it all, I could still hear the Odditorium creaking and groaning under the serpent’s grip.

Finally, Father threw up his hands in exasperation and said, “Well, what shall I do then, nothing?”

Cleona’s wailing instantly stopped—in fact,
everything
stopped—and once again the Odditorium breathed a sigh of relief, as if the sea monster had stopped crushing us. “So that’s the plan, then?” Father asked. “Do nothing?”

“I don’t know, Uncle,” Cleona sniffled from the talkback. “But I
have
stopped wailing.”

“The monster’s released us, sir,” said Mrs. Pinch. “I can turn the gunnery again. Or what’s left of it.”

“Well, what do you know,” Nigel said. “Sir, do you see what I’m seeing?”

Gazing down through the energy shield, we could just make out the sea serpent as it sank deeper and deeper into the murky depths below—its body limp, its head streaming with blood and bands of torn flesh. Indeed, from where I stood, it appeared as if nearly half of the creature’s head had been completely blown off.

“Great poppycock!” cried Lord Dreary. “What happened?”

“Could it have been Cleona’s wailing that killed it?” asked Professor Bricklewick.

“Impossible,” Father said. “A banshee’s wailing, like the spirit who produces it, cannot travel through water.”

“Then what killed that sea serpent?” Lord Dreary asked. Father shrugged, entirely stumped, and then Nigel’s voice crackled over the talkback.

“Oh dear,” he said. “We’ve got more of those baddies at two o’clock.”

I gasped. Nigel was right. In the milky-green distance I could see the outlines of three giant serpents heading straight for us.

“Well, let it remain a mystery for now,” Father said. He flicked some switches and began to play his organ. The Odditorium creaked and groaned a bit, but then, much to my relief, we began to move forward. “Blast it,” Father muttered. “The portside damper is jammed.” He flicked on the talkback. “Cleona, are you in the Sky Ripper? Are you feeling strong enough for the space jump?”

“Pshaw, it’ll take more than a little wailing to wear me out.”

“The steering mechanism is damaged and more monsters are approaching. We won’t have time to come round for another shot should the first one miss.”

“I understand, Uncle.”

My heart sank with worry for my friend. Shooting the Sky Ripper really took a toll on poor Cleona. Unlike the rest of the Odditorium, which ran on the animus stored in the power reserves, the Sky Ripper drew its power directly from her spirit body. And thus, given how drained she was after our space jump from London, I couldn’t imagine Cleona would have enough energy left for a second one even if we weren’t being chased by a load of sea serpents.

“Very well, then, Cleona,” Father said into the talkback. “Stand by to fire the Sky Ripper upon my command.”

“They’re getting closer, sir,” Mrs. Pinch replied instead.

“I can see that, thank you very much.” Father turned on the searchlight, and once again the water came alive in shimmering sheets of luminous orange. Thankfully, the three sea serpents were farther away than they first appeared. However, there was no sign of the Gates of Avalon anywhere.

“But how can you be certain you’ll fire the Sky Ripper at the proper location?” asked Lord Dreary. “All I can see out there are more sea serpents!”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to rely on Merlin’s compass to see us through.”

The serpents were closer now, their teeth clearly visible in the searchlight, but Father kept his eyes fixed constantly on the magical compass. At the same time he picked up his tune a bit, changing our course ever so slightly so that the Odditorium began heading straight for the approaching monsters.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Alistair,” Lord Dreary said weakly.

“According to my calculations, we should reach the Gates of Avalon before the monsters do. If I’m wrong, then they’ll block our path and we won’t be able to get through.”

“That is, if the gates are still there,” the professor mumbled.

“Stand by, Cleona,” Father said into the talkback, his eyes never leaving his compass. “Get ready to fire the Sky Ripper in five…four…three…two…
NOW!
”

A thick bolt of blue lightning shot out from the Odditorium directly above our heads. It traveled only a short distance, obscuring our view of the sea serpents, and then burst apart in the form of two colossal iron gates, the bars of which flashed and sparkled as if painted with billions of twinkling stars.

“The Gates of Avalon!” cried Lord Dreary. “You found them, Alistair!”

“Excellent shot, Cleona!” Father said. “Now get back into your charging bed. Who knows how the space jump will affect the animus reserves this time.”

Professor Bricklewick steadied himself on the pipe organ. “They’re even more magnificent than I imagined,” he said, his voice tight with emotion.

Father pulled a lever and sped up his playing, but as we drew closer, the Gates of Avalon suddenly vanished before our eyes, leaving only the sea serpents closing the distance ahead of us.

“Great poppycock!” cried Lord Dreary. “The gates are gone!”

“Not gone, but open,” Father said. “A temporary rip in the fabric between our two worlds that is invisible to the naked eye.”

“But the monsters are approaching the gates from the other side. Won’t they—”

“If my theory is correct, the Gates of Avalon, like any other interdimensional portal, only open one way. Thus, we should be able to pass through from our side without the monsters following us from theirs. Not to mention that, once we’re through, the portal shall immediately close behind us as it did in London.”

“And if your theory is wrong, as with your bubbly lightning cannons?”

Father smiled fondly at his friend. “Then let’s just say I’m sorry we never got to finish that game of chess.”

Lord Dreary gulped and tugged at his collar, and as Father played on, my ears began to pound with fright. The sea serpents were coming quickly—their bulging eyes like fiery lanterns as Alistair Grim kept us on a course straight for them.

“Almost there,” he muttered, his gaze locked again on Merlin’s compass, and I watched in horror as the largest of the three serpents wound its way in front of the others. Its jaws were twice the size of the monster that had attacked us earlier.

“Shall I try to lay down some strafing fire just in case, sir?” Nigel asked from the talkback, but Father ignored him.

“Almost there,” he muttered again. The lead serpent was only about thirty yards away from us now—just beyond where I’d last seen the gates, I thought. But then again, as there was nothing but open water from which to get my bearings, I couldn’t be sure.

“Hang on, everybody,” Father said. “Here we
gooooo
!”

The gentlemen and I steadied ourselves where we stood as the sea serpent, nearly upon us, opened its mouth wide—a mouth so enormous that it appeared capable of swallowing the Odditorium whole. I winced, bracing myself for the creature’s bite, but then its mouth, along with the rest of it, simply…
dissolved
before our eyes. There was no sign of the other sea serpents either—only the water, crystal clear and bright, and what looked like the ruins of an ancient city on the ocean floor beneath us.

“What happened?” Lord Dreary asked. “Did we make the space jump?”

Puzzled, Father yanked the old man’s pocket watch out from his waistcoat and checked the time. I understood why. Our first space jump knocked us out for five hours. It knocked out all our power reserves too. But from the looks of things back in the library, all of the Odditorium’s mechanical functions appeared to be working properly.

“No loss of time,” Father said. He returned Lord Dreary’s pocket watch to his waistcoat and checked in with the others over the talkback. When everyone, including Gwendolyn, replied that they were all right, he ordered the samurai back to their posts and began playing his organ. The Odditorium spun in place, and a section of an incredibly wide carved stone column passed before our eyes.

“Is that what I think it is?” muttered Professor Bricklewick. As the Odditorium continued to turn round, farther off I saw another column—the bottom of which looked like a foot, and the top, at least what I could see of it, like a knee.

“Great poppycock!” Lord Dreary gasped. “We seemed to have passed through a giant pair of underwater legs!”

“The Gates of Avalon,” said Professor Bricklewick. Father pressed some buttons, and immediately the water outside the balcony became a wall of frothy bubbles—the vertical thrusters again, I knew. Father was taking the Odditorium upward.

“So we’re in Avalon, then?” Lord Dreary asked.

“We’re definitely somewhere,” Father said. “But I needn’t tell you how surprised I am that it took so little effort.”

“If you call nearly being crushed to death by gigantic sea serpents
little effort
,” said Professor Bricklewick, and Father raised his hand in forfeit.

“Point taken, old friend. However, compared to our last space jump, you’ll need to trust me when I say this time we got off light.”

I had to agree with Father. I’d take a bit of damage to the Odditorium over an animus drain any day, for surely the wasps could fix us up in no time.

The Odditorium continued to rise higher and higher until finally it burst up through the surface with a loud
whoosh!
In an instant everything became nearly white with sunlight, the dust bubble a solid wall of glare, but once the Odditorium was well above the water, Father turned off the bubble and our vision cleared.

What we saw made us gasp.

There before the balcony was a giant stone eye. Father immediately backed the Odditorium away from it, whereupon we discovered that the eye belonged to a colossal statue of a warrior that appeared to be standing waist-deep in the middle of the ocean. One hand held a spear, while the other was raised as if to say,
Halt!

“The Guardian of the Gates,” Father said, and spun us away from the statue.

In the distance, across a calm blue sea, we spied a harbor bordered on one side by a rocky coastline, and on the other by a massive breakwater. Countless flights of stone stairs rose up from it in every direction, leading to a sprawling, shining city of domes and columns and towers. Many of the buildings were adorned with colorful banners, while others were obscured almost entirely by lush hanging gardens and flowering trees. Farther still, in the forest-covered distance beyond the city, stood a gleaming, gold-domed castle on a hill.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Father said, “I give you the Isle of Avalon.”

We stood there in stunned silence, and I couldn’t help noticing Professor Bricklewick as he wiped a tear from beneath his spectacles. How he must have felt seeing for the first time the city of his dreams. Even for me, who by now was no stranger to such things, this odd Aquaticum of Alistair Grim’s was almost beyond belief. And yet here we were, arriving safe in Avalon.

Little did we know that
someone else
had arrived along with us.

A
s we began our approach toward the harbor, Nigel and Mrs. Pinch joined us on the balcony. Cleona, exhausted from firing the Sky Ripper, had fallen asleep in her quarters, while Gwendolyn, who insisted that she wasn’t tired at all, took time out from the flight sphere for a chocolate break in the engine room. All of the Odditorium’s energy systems were functioning normally, and other than the smashed upper cannon and the jammed steering damper, the damage we sustained as a result of our battle with the sea serpent appeared to be minimal.