"She must be lifting her head up," said Longtayle. "That'll make things easier."
He lifted the voice-pipe.
"Cox'n, prepare a diving party for outside work. Four rats with axes. Damage control, get all pumps going."
"Aye, aye!"
Arthur was watching the crystal globe carefully, so he was the first to notice the water streaming back from inside the whale. At the same time the submersible shook and tilted down at the stern, the water still in the bridge sloshing around everyone's ankles.
"We're in the sea again. Nine fathoms!" called the helmsrat. "But the current has reversed. It's coming out of her now, at six knots."
"Belay that diving party!" called Longtayle. "Full back both engines!"
The vibration of the engines had just begun when there was suddenly a much bigger and more dramatic vibration, a shock wave that shook the whole submersible with a sound like a china cabinet falling over. Arthur held his hands against his ears as he felt his stomach flip-flop and the blood rush to his head.
"What was that?"
"Jaw clash," said Longtayle. "Guess she really didn't like that parrot noise. It might help us get free."
"Or shake us to bits," said Suzy cheerfully.
The shock wave came three more times, each more violently than the last. Arthur was very glad to be sitting down and belted in, as even so he was thrown about in his chair. The teapot and cups were long since smashed to pieces and they combined with various other bits and pieces to fly dangerously around the bridge. Arthur was cut slightly across the cheek before he covered his face with his arms.
"We're backing free!"
Arthur stared at the crystal globe. The wooden wall was receding as the submersible backed out. All the bits of flotsam were still flowing back out of Drowned Wednesday, rather more slowly than they'd streamed in, so it seemed she had stopped moving and lowered her mouth.
"Tail-eye!"
The view changed to show the open sea behind them.
"If she'll just stay still long enough for us to back right out and go through another hole..." muttered Longtayle. "All we need is a minute. One minute..."
No one spoke as they all watched the tail-eye view. It slowly changed, the debris floating more freely and the white walls of bone being left behind.
"Snout-eye."
The globe flashed and there was the immense wall of white bone ahead of them, riddled with holes.
"Do you want to pick a hole, Lord Arthur?" asked Longtayle as they continued to back through the sea.
"No! Just aim for one!"
"Port thirty and take her up," ordered Longtayle.
The submarine rattled and groaned as the engines returned to forward thrust. Ever so slowly the Balaena began to move towards a new hole. Then there was a strange rush of speed, and both white walls and dark hole rushed towards the submersible.
"She's moving forward again!"
"Steady helm, straight at that hole!"
"Let's hope this one's not bunged up," said Suzy.
"The currents would clean them out," said Arthur distractedly. He was trying to watch the crystal globe. They were lined up okay for the new tunnel, but it would only take a slight shift for them to miss it. "It must have been a big ship to get stuck. We were just unlucky to hit that one."
"But very fortunate to come back out again," said Doctor Scamandros nervously.
"Here we go!" cried Suzy. "Straight as an arrow!"
Twenty–three
THERE WAS NO obstruction in the new tunnel. The Balaena passed through it at a steady pace, helped along by the steadily increasing current. Drowned Wednesday was on the move again and seawater, food, and debris were once more rushing into her gullet.
The tunnel through the plate was only a hundred yards long. As they emerged from the far end, Arthur found that he had been holding his breath. He let it out, but didn't gain any real feeling of relief. There were bound to be so many troubles and obstacles ahead. And even if they did manage to get the Will, they'd still have to come back out.
Which is going to be difficult, Arthur thought. I guess we can go faster forward, but if the current is too strong, the Balaena won't be able to get out unless Drowned Wednesday stops for long enough …
Once through the straining plate, the Balaena followed the current into the broad lake that was the inside of Drowned Wednesday's mouth. They crossed that in twenty minutes, the engines straining to maintain steerage way as the current grew swifter, the food-laden waters gathering to pass into Drowned Wednesday's throat.
But this was almost routine work for the submersible, like navigating a tidal estuary. The throat was very wide, and though there was a lot of material being carried along, there was nothing that posed a threat to the Balaena. Much of it was fish and sea creatures of all kinds, mixed in with salvage.
Arthur had even started to relax a little as the pumps cleared the bridge of water and both Longtayle and the helmsrat resumed their usual calm dialogue of orders and information.
Then, about two miles down the throat, without any warning, the Balaena was suddenly picked up and flipped over in a complete somersault. Arthur nearly slid out of his straps, and once again was struck by flying debris, including the lid of the teapot, which gave the ring of pure silver as it hit him on the head.
At the same time, a strange electric tingle passed through Arthur's body and the ends of his fingers burst into smoky green flames that disappeared a moment later, just as he cried out and started shaking his hands.
The whole thing happened so quickly that no one had time to react. It was like being on an unfamiliar fairground ride that had suddenly whipped around and no one was sure whether it was going to do it again.
"We've passed through a sorcerous membrane of some kind," wheezed Doctor Scamandros. His greatcoat had ridden up around his throat and got tangled, and he was having difficulty pulling it back into place.
"Pressure gauges have all reset," reported the helmsrat. "According to this, we're only five fathoms down, and there's air above us. No current to speak of either. Still water, or near enough."
Longtayle scratched his ear.
"Guess we went through some kind of valve. Take us up to top-eye depth."
"Aye, aye, sir."
A few minutes later, the top-eye view in the globe revealed the surface of a sea within Drowned Wednesday, or a large lake. It was illuminated by a pinkish glow from the stomach roof high above, a glow Doctor Scamandros suggested was from the reaction of specks of Nothing with particles of the House, both of them eaten by Wednesday and caked onto her stomach lining.
"Very dangerous," the sorcerer added, staring into the globe with fascination and dread. "Too much Nothing. If enough of it managed to unfix from the House particles and it became concentrated..."
"Can we look for anything like a... well, anything big enough to be Feverfew's worldlet?" asked Arthur.
"Rotate top-eye."
The view in the crystal globe slowly moved around. At first it revealed only more monotonous, greenlit sea. Then there was a sudden flare of colour, bright enough to make Arthur blink.
There, a few miles away, was a shining dome rising out of the sea. A dome easily a thousand yards high and five or six miles in diameter, its rainbow sides shimmering with all the colours of the spectrum, like a giant soap bubble in the sun.
"Immaterial Walls," commented Doctor Scamandros. "Very fine work, particularly on such a scale."
"That's it," said Arthur. "It has to be. Now we need to find the entrance."
"Keep us at top-eye depth," instructed Longtayle. "We'll do a circumnavigation, see if anything is visible. Snout-eye view."