Untitled Starfell #2 (Starfell #2) - Dominique Valente Page 0,17

under, to the merworld.’

‘Merworld?’ Willow breathed.

‘Yew don’ wanna go there, trust me,’ hissed Oswin, his shaggy head popping out of the bag. ‘Still got the scars.’

Willow blinked, looking at the kobold in surprise.

‘Long story,’ he muttered. ‘Almost found meself married, like I don’ have enough troubles being the last kobold anyhow. They got teef like nails …’ He shuddered.

Willow started to grin, not sure what to make of that, but, when the sound grew louder, she clamped her hands over her ears to block out the knotweed. Shifting the carpetbag to the crook of her arm, she waded deeper into the river until she was standing up to her thighs, her shoes soaked through and her teeth chattering from the cold. Still they kept going, their feet slipping on mud, which left them dirty and tired. At last Holloway led them to something large and bulky that was obscured by a small mountain of foliage, which he started to remove.

‘Me boat,’ he explained, his sea-green eye gleaming. ‘Had to camouflage it, in case someone tried to pinch it.’ He cleared the last of the debris, and Willow blinked in shock. It didn’t look like a boat.

It looked like an ENORMOUS copper bathtub with silver feet. The bridge, though, appeared to be made from several large, round cauldrons held together somehow by magic to form, quite frankly, the weirdest boat Willow had ever clapped eyes on. The copper glinted and gleamed in the sunlight. Jutting skyward was a copper weathervane topped by a large figure of a whale that had turned a blueish green over time. Willow forgot for a moment that she was bone-cold or covered in mud as she gaped at it.

‘It’s not traditional,’ said Holloway, clearing his throat at her silence.

‘It’s brilliant!’ said Willow.

The tops of the old wizard’s cheeks turned rosy with pride. ‘Made it meself,’ he said, beaming.

Holloway offered her a gloved hand so that she could get aboard, using a set of steps that had been buried in the marshland too. Then he untied what looked like a collection of old handkerchiefs knotted together, with a massive blue-green copper kettle attached to it, which had acted as an anchor, and climbed aboard himself.

As soon as he did so, a wind from nowhere began to stir, and a set of similar yet tiny copper kettles threaded above the helm lit up like a string of fairy lights.

Willow looked around in amazement. The bath-boat reminded her a bit of her brief experience in the Ditchwater district in the city of Beady Hill where home-made houseboats had lined the waterways, though she hadn’t seen any quite like this.

‘Welcome aboard the Sudsfarer.’

Faint music began to play from an old harmonica that was sitting on a battered wooden drum. It sounded a little tired as it gave a feeble sort of hoot.

‘Got rusted,’ said Holloway, picking it up sadly. Then, after pulling off one of his gloves, he touched it. It immediately turned to bright, shining copper and began to play in a livelier way that made Willow’s foot tap in response, despite the fact that she was wet and cold.

‘That’ll do,’ he said to the harmonica, and the instrument fell silent with a slight duh-dum for Willow, who grinned widely.

While Willow was still marvelling at this, the wizard laid a hand on the large copper wheel inside the helm and said, ‘Up the Knotweed River, Sudsfarer, all the way to the Cloud Mountains.’ Then he winked, and put his glove back on.

There was a giant lurch and the bath-boat began to scuttle forward like a giant copper hippopotamus as it made its way towards deeper water.

‘Oh NOOOO, oh, me greedy aunt!’ moaned Oswin, a paw covering his eyes as he turned a sickly shade of green like cabbage soup.

Willow gasped. ‘The legs move!’ She stood by the lip of the bath-boat and peered down, watching them in fascination as they trundled in the water, and the bath-boat started to swim against the gentle current the deeper it went. Holloway cast a sail made of several patchwork quilts, which gusted to life, and they began to hurtle up the river at breakneck speed.

Holloway grinned like a proud parent as the wind blew back his straggly hair. ‘Traded Rubix Grimoire for the charm that brought it to life – turning it from a simple bathtub-boat into this. Wasn’t cheap!’ he shouted, pointing at his glass eye.

Willow paled, clutching the side of the bath-boat for safety as it hurtled across the water.