Sargasso Skies (4 page)

“You bet we will!” said Esmeralda.

“You can count on us,” added Trundle.

“Admirable!” said the commander. “Our plans are almost complete.” He leaned forward and frowned at them. “You do have to understand one thing,” he growled. “I'm in command here. We can't have people muddying the waters by making half-baked escape attempts on their own. We don't want the count put on the alert, you know.”

“Fair enough,” said Esmeralda. “By the way, have you thought of asking the steam moles for their help?”

“Impossible!” blustered the commander. “A chap can't trust them—not with those beady little eyes. Besides, they're in the count's pay. No, we prisoners must do this on our own!”

“So, what is your plan?” asked Trundle.

“Top secret!” growled the Commander. “Absolute security imperative!” He stood up again. “Good to meet you both. Know we can rely on you! Go back to your dorm now, and get a good night's sleep.”

Esmeralda stared at him. “You brought us all the way here and now you won't even tell us your escape plan?” she exclaimed. “Are you crazy or what?”

“We'll meet again in the morning,” said the commander, as though he hadn't even heard her. “All will be revealed then.” He saluted. “Good work! Fine fellows! Ought to be in uniform! Don't know what you're missing!”

Before Esmeralda and Trundle had the chance to say anything else, they were bundled back down through the trapdoor.

Lieutenant Snouter's head popped through the hole. “You can find your own way back, can't you?” he barked. “Important military briefing taking place. Cheerio.” The trapdoor crashed shut, and Trundle heard bolts being shot.

Esmeralda looked at him. “You know something?” she said as they made their way back to their own dormitory hulk. “I think it's a toss-up between the commander and Count Leopold which one's the barmiest!”

I
t was not until Trundle and Esmeralda were led out the next morning at the head of a long column of miserable-looking captives that they became aware of the size and scope of Count Leopold's opera house.

The air was moist and clammy and the sun was just a blur through the thick hazy clouds, but there was enough light now to see the astonishing building in all its glory. Founded on a wooden platform supported by the hulls of several dozen windships, the great domed structure rose majestically out of the slimy swamps of the Sargasso Skies.

Externally, at least, they could see that it was all but complete. It was adorned with towers and columns and flying buttresses, and from its upper pinnacles, white flags flapped in the breeze. A host of powerstone baskets—presumably looted from crashed windships—were attached to the dome and to the highest towers, ready for the time when the Opera House would be lifted out of the mire and towed off by the steam moles to begin its grand tour of the Sundered Lands. Thick ropes and hawsers stretched down from the wooden platform, anchoring the opera house in place.

“Jack said we'd be impressed,” said Trundle. “And he was right!”

From all the surrounding hulks, similar lines of round-shouldered and tatty-clothed workers were making their way toward the opera house.

“Steam moles ahoy,” murmured Esmeralda, pointing to an iron windship moored to one side of the huge building. Trundle nodded. Yes, that was definitely a steam mole vessel, with its dull iron pilot house and its great sooty funnel.

“And here comes the nutty commander,” Esmeralda added. From another of the hulks, a troop of uniformed dogs marched smartly along behind their bemedaled leader.

Trundle gave him a wave, and the old bulldog snapped off a brisk salute.

“At least they don't look as downtrodden and pathetic as everyone else,” Trundle whispered to Esmeralda.

“Hmmm,” grunted Esmeralda, clearly not much impressed.

The lines of workers converged on the opera house. Groups of albino animals stood at the various entrances, ushering the workers through and handing out sheets of paper. Trundle assumed they were instructions for the day's work.

Much to his surprise, as his column of workers plodded in through a side entrance, an albino bear pressed a sheet of paper into his paw.

“Er, I'm not the team leader,” Trundle explained, trying to hand the paper back.

“They don't care,” said Hopper. “Just read the instructions and we'll get busy.” His voice lowered. “For all the good it'll do.”

As they passed along a corridor, Trundle peered at the document. The instructions were very simple, and he read them aloud.

 

Work Team Seven

Lay Carpets in the Orchestra

 

Hopper began to laugh like a blocked drain after a thunderstorm. “I might have guessed!” he croaked, gulping in breath.

“What's so comical?” asked Esmeralda. “It sounds perfectly reasonable to me.”

“It would,” gurgled Hopper. “Until you realize that we spent all day yesterday fitting the seats in the orchestra—and now we're going to have to rip 'em all out again to lay the carpet.” He shook his head, wiping a tear from his bulging eye. “What did I tell ya? Nobody knows what they're adoin' around here. We'll all be dead and gorn afore this here opera house gets finished, and that's a fact!”

“There's nothing especially hilarious about that,” said Trundle. “What a total waste of time!”

“I know,” chortled Hopper. “But you gotta larf, ain't ya?”

A few moments later, they emerged into the main auditorium of the opera house. It was chaos in there! Work teams were already hard at it, and the huge open space was full of shouting and yelling and banging and hammering and sawing and thudding and thumping. Ladders led up. Scaffolding teetered. Ropes dangled. Winches squealed. In one place, a bunch of workers were moving a great hunk of scenery while a second bunch ran after them, clutching ladders on top of which stood painters attempting to daub at the scenery as it was being moved.

Another group of creatures was hauling on ropes to lift a mighty chandelier up to the roof, while on the other side of the auditorium, a second group was hauling on ropes trying to bring it down again so they could insert candles. The chandelier jerked up and down, raining unlit candles.

Half of Trundle and Esmeralda's group ran forward and began to rip out the seats from the orchestra, while the rest got under their feet, attempting to unroll the carpet before there was enough space to do it. Hopper vanished under a great swath of carpet and work ground to a halt while they located him and cut a hole in the carpet to let him out.

As if this pandemonium wasn't enough, there was some very discordant music coming from the orchestra pit while a chinchilla on a podium, dressed in white tie and tails, clutched a baton and yelled furiously over the general hubbub.

“Tempo, gentlemen! Tempo!”

“This . . . is . . . crazy . . . ,” Esmeralda intoned, shaking her head.

“It is a trifle disorganized,” Trundle agreed. “Hopper was right—at this rate, the place will never get finished.”

“There goes Sheila again!” came a voice from above, as a stoat fell screaming from a high gallery. She was only saved from serious injury because she landed on a big pile of curtains. Wiping her forehead and puffing out her cheeks, she scrambled off the heap and raced to a trembling ladder and began to climb again.

“Madness,” said Esmeralda. “Utter madness.”

“There's Jack,” said Trundle, pointing to the orchestra pit, where their friend sat among many others, some albino, some not, peering at an open music score and sawing away at his rebec with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth.

“He seems to be having fun,” commented Esmeralda. “But those are the fellows we want to meet!” She pointed to the stage. There was a hole in the floorboards there, through which clanking and clonking and spouts of steam were rising. And standing at the front of the hole was Count Leopold, who was looming in a gangly way over a small, stout, important-looking steam mole in a floor-length black leather coat buttoned up tight to the collar.

“That must be Alphonse Burrows,” said Esmeralda, pulling Trundle aside as a contingent of Hernswick Hounds went by at the trot, carrying a roll of carpet at shoulder height. They chanted in rhythm to their stamping feet.

 

“We don't know but we've been told—

This carpet needs to be unrolled.

We'll work when the commander calls

And lay this carpet in the stalls.”

 

Trundle winced as the dogs crashed into Hopper's carpet-layers and a serious argument broke out. It ended when Sheila the shrieking stoat came plummeting down from the gallery again and bounced off the carpet roll.

“Let's go see what Moley and the Count are talking about,” suggested Esmeralda as the reckless stoat raced by on her way back to the ladder again.

Skirting all the mayhem, Esmeralda and Trundle made their way up to the side of the stage. They stood half hidden in the wings, close enough to hear the two animals speaking.

“So far you have fallen three months behind schedule!” Alphonse Burrows was complaining, tapping at the blueprint spread out in front of them. “Our contract was for the maintenance of your steam organ, Count, not to mention the construction of a steam engine under your stage and the loan of a steam tug. We cannot make a return on our investment until work on this edifice is complete and the opera is ready to perform.”

“Progress we are making!” insisted the count. “See you all the work that going on is!”

“Work?” grunted Alphonse Burrows. “All I see is uncoordinated muddle and confusion, Count. The opera house should have been completed by now. And what of your grand opera? You promised me a finished score last week, but so far I have seen nothing and heard only dreadful caterwauling from your orchestra!”

“Caterwauling?” gasped the Count. “I'll you have know—”

But whatever he had been planning to say next was cut short when a large chunk of freshly painted scenery came crashing down, inches away from where the two animals were standing.

“What going on here is?” bellowed the count, hammering his stick down on the stage and glaring wrathfully around him. “Let us some organization here have!”

Animals invaded the stage from all directions, tripping over one another and occasionally plunging into the hole as they fought to try and move the fallen scenery.

“Ahem!” A growly voice sounded from close behind Trundle and Esmeralda. They turned and saw the commander standing in the shadows at their backs. He moved away, gesticulating for them to follow. “Can't be too careful,” he whispered loudly from the corner of his mouth. “Spies everywhere. Must keep the eyes peeled. Not a word. Keep close. Top secret!”

They came to a flight of steep wooden steps. The commander mounted the steps, moving ponderously and slowly, and puffing and blowing a great deal. Averting their eyes, Esmeralda and Trundle climbed up behind his rotund and tightly trousered rear end.

Up and up they went, high into the dusty and echoing vault above the stage, following narrow gantries and climbing tottering ladders until they were among the hanging and swinging scenery.

At last the commander pushed up through a trapdoor, and they found themselves directly under the opera house dome.

It was a few moments before the commander was in a state to do any more than sit down and suck in air and mop his face with a khaki handkerchief.

“Well I never,” said Esmeralda. “Now that is
something
!”

Trundle had to agree that she was right. Almost the whole of the space under the dome was taken up by a fully rigged windship.

“How did you get it up here?” gasped Trundle.

“Been working on it for months,” gasped the commander. “My hounds have been carrying it up in small pieces. Top secret! Hush-hush! All done undercover. Sound of construction drowned out by the noise from down below.” He seemed to have gotten his breath back now. He stood up, pocketing his handkerchief, and marched Trundle and Esmeralda proudly around the windship.