The (Phantasmagorical) Astrarium Compendium by Mark Roland Langdale

Author:Mark Roland Langdale
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784628925
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2015-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

A Snow Job of the Wizarding Variety

The Golden Hind now journeyed south towards the Artic, passing what Gulliver knew as Japan and Drake knew as the Land of the Rising Sun, here they must be careful not to run into the mythical sea dragon or they would be sunk. Drake showed Gulliver the old map, or at least it looked old to Gulliver’s eyes, though according to Drake it was the most up-to-date chart available to him. Drawn upon this map Gulliver could quite clearly sea a large, coiled sea dragon breathing fire, swimming just off the coast of Japan. If they ran into the giant sea monster they really were sunk! It was here that the Golden Hind passed a giant oriental candle clock encased inside what looked like the glass of a lantern clock which had been converted into a lighthouse. It was also here that the ship got caught in a freak lightning storm and having left the safety of the ship\canoe in the bottle, and not yet being under the protection of the glass snow dome in the North Pole, it seemed to the crew that all hell was breaking loose. Drake wrote in his ship’s log: More fun and games – maybe the gods have deserted us for a desert island in the cosmological oceans, but the devil has obviously stayed and is having fun at our expense! Having said that, the devil normally works down below stoking the furnace, although as they were not a million miles from New Holland (Australia), which Drake knew as the Land of the Giant Kangaroo, perhaps this was the work of the Tasmanian devil. In this upside down, topsy-turvy world, that was more than likely!

The main mast was damaged, as were several sails, Old Father Time’s beard was partly singed and Hamish, otherwise known as ‘the big man’, caught a lightning bolt in his hand and threw it back in the direction from whence it came. Drake may have been talking metaphorically on that last one, although if you had ever stood in Hamish’s shadow you would probably think not.

Gulliver and Alice had somehow managed to sleep through the whole thing, although they both had similar nightmares of the gods taking lightning bolts from their quivers, placing them in their bows and firing them in the direction of the Golden Hind. Gulliver saw several bolts of lightning shooting through the air ablaze, which struck the water all about the ship, causing huge plumes of steam to rise like geezers. In Alice’s nightmare a lightning bolt hit a small island setting the whole thing into a blazing inferno in seconds.

After this little incident, the Golden Hind found a deserted desert island and stayed in the relative safety of the sheltered harbour. Here they repaired the damage to the masts and sails, gathering some more bread fruit and coconuts before continuing on with their voyage into the unknown. At some unknown time later, they were to run into a steamer, literally, although this steamer was broken down.

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