The Silken Key

Chapter 10

They found Maddy dancing happily when they ran back to the middle of the deck.

"Did you see it?" he sang. "I told you I could do it!"

"We have a problem," Detlef said. "Everyone needs to stay completely still and be totally silent."

Maddy's face fell and he folded his arms. "Right...completely still and totally silent. That's what you needed to come running noisily over to say, is it? You can't just let me have my moment of success."

"It's serious!" Rudiger hissed. "There's a sea monster just under the boat that's got a fresh taste for chicken. If we don't make any noise, hopefully, it will lose interest and swim away."

Tariq was awake again and was already following the advice, lying with his back against a wooden crate and looking around, listening. Maddy looked unhappy but nevertheless kept silence.

The creaking of the boat and the wind in the sails were deceptively calming. A minute passed and Detlef started to feel that luck had favoured them and the danger was gone.

CRASH.

Detlef and Maddy staggered as the hull of the boat rocked. Tabitha grabbed Rudiger's shoulder to stay upright.

"How big is this creature?" Tariq said, keeping himself low on the floor.

"Big," Rudiger said. "And it's trying to rock the boat to see if it can knock any more chickens off."

"So let's just throw the rest of the chickens overboard!" Tariq suggested.

"How will the monster know we've given it all the chickens?" Maddy said.

Detlef shook his head grimly. "It will know it's had all the chickens once it has sunk the boat. We have to do something. We can't just wait."

The whole ship lurched again to the sound of a very large object colliding with the hull. The sky seemed to roll away. Detlef's legs felt like jelly, but he knew that now was not the time to be overcome by fear.

"This is a fishing ship, right?" he said, looking at Rudiger. "Do you have some harpoons or something?"

"Yes of course, but they're designed for catching big fish, like tuna or sunfish, not monsters!"

"We have to try," Detlef spoke firmly. "Show Tariq where they are and bring them back here."

Tariq was willing to go with the gnome. Detlef looked at Tabitha and Maddy. "Either of you have any special tricks that might be useful here? Tabitha, can your invisible servants do something?"

"Like what?" Tabitha gasped. "Dive into the water and fight giant sea creatures? No! They can't do that!"

Maddy put a hand on his head and rubbed it, as though to stimulate a thought. "Uh...I could...I could create some sort of poison to throw into the water. Yes! Being a sea animal it could not avoid consuming it!"

"Okay! That sounds good!" Detlef nodded enthusiastically. "How long will that take?"

"About four hours."

Tabitha whacked Maddy's leg with her staff. "Gods you're useless!"

"Stay calm!" Detlef yelled. "We'll have to try something simpler."

There was another crash and the three of them had to grab each other to avoid falling over. This time, Detlef definitely thought he heard the crunching of wood. If the boat took too many more strikes, it would surely start to break up and take on water.

Rudiger and Tariq reappeared next to them. Tariq was carrying an armful of three steel harpoons with hooked ends. They certainly looked like formidable weapons.