The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [52]
“Are you crazy?” Bert shouted back. “It’s what’s keeping us aloft! It won’t do any good to save Aven if we crash and die right after!”
“No one’s going to die today,” said Jack. “John! Take the wheel!”
John staggered forward and clutched at the wheel, while Jack leaped over his friend and grabbed Aven’s sword from its place above the cabin door. Wrapping one of the guy lines around his wrist, he jumped into the air and the line snapped taut, holding him parallel to the rearmost part of the balloon.
With one long stroke, Jack split the center seam on the back of the balloon, and the gases inside escaped with a roar.
In an instant, the airship had become an air rocket, and it was hurtling even faster toward the water.
“I see her!” John shouted, pointing.
Below them, now free of the line and the stair bracing that had trapped her, Aven was attempting to slow her descent by spreading her arms and legs. It was working—between her push against the wind and the plummeting speed of the ship, they would overtake her in moments.
And moments later they would hit the sea with the force of an explosion.
The fauns took hold of the wheel and maneuvered the ship until it was angled to fall below Aven. With excruciating slowness, they met, matched, and exceeded her speed, and the airship came up underneath her. Aven slammed roughly into the now-deflated balloon, and Jack caught her with his legs and free arm.
“Now!” he shouted to the fauns, who had anticipated his order and had already redirected the propellers. The force of the sudden shift slowed their speed, but ripped off one of the guide wings with a strangled screeching of torn wood and metal.
John threw himself against the wheel and turned it to compensate for the lost wing. The wind roared in their ears, and the water stretched across the horizon. The second wing ripped away, and suddenly their speed increased, but the Dragon at the prow acted as a natural rudder, and suddenly they also had direction—still down, but also forward.
But it wasn’t enough.
The ship hit the water at tremendous speed. It had pulled up just enough to avoid a straight-on impact, but it bounced off the surface of the water so violently that the rudder and both propellers were thrown off, and it hit thrice more before slowing down to a skimming glide, finally settling into the sea, and at last, stopping.
It was only by sheer luck that none of the companions had been ripped away in the barely controlled fall. They sat on the deck, too stunned to speak, as the perspicacious fauns began to clean up what still remained of the Indigo Dragon.
Aven, still breathing hard, looked at Jack and laughed. “The good old Indigo Dragon,” she said. “I knew she wouldn’t let me go.”
“I helped too, you know,” said Jack.
“I know,” said Aven. “I knew you would. That’s why I told you to cut the line.”
“That was exhilarating,” John commented from the foredeck. “And I never, ever, want to do it again.”
“Incredible,” said Bert, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it.”
“Neither can I,” added Charles, standing up and looking around. “The Indigo Dragon is a boat again.”
It had been a miraculous rescue, but the damage to the Indigo Dragon was nearly total. There was no way to steer, no motive power, and the balloon had a twenty-foot-long gash in it.
“I don’t mean to be a sour apple,” said Charles, “but did you realize we’re in the middle of the Chamenos Liber?”
“That’s exactly where we wanted to be, isn’t it?” said Jack.
“Yes,” Charles replied. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s awfully hot, and it seems to be getting hotter.”
He was right. The cloying smell and thickened air were the result not of fog, but of steam rising from the volcano below.
“We still don’t know how to open the portal,” said Charles, “and I don’t think we can afford to sit here for very long.”
“If we can repair the balloon,” said Aven, “we may be able to reinflate it. Then we could at least move a safe distance away to reassess our situation.”
“Our situation may become a catastrophe,