The Elfin Ship by James P. Blaylock

tapped him on the shoulder, then nodded pleasantly, smacked his lips, and toppled off his perch, crashing to the ground, stool and all.
‘What! What! What!’
he shouted in a flurry of bewilderment. The Cheeser felt responsible and hoisted the man to his feet apologetically. None of the several people in the pub, aside from the Professor and his companion, took any notice of the misfortune. The collapsed chair was righted, with no damage, finally, seeming to have occurred. The be-tumbled man stared bleary-eyed at Jonathan, smiled idiotically, and clambered back onto his stool. He closed his eyes and nodded off again.
    ‘Just draw one for yourself,’ said the overcoated man who, it turned out, was named Lonny Gosset. ‘Put five pennies in the can and draw it yourself.’
    Jonathan did and as soon as he tasted the ale he was sorry he’d ever undertaken the venture, for it was flat, tasteless liquid related more closely to the swampy pools upriver than to anything drinkable.
    ‘This is Mr Lonny Gosset,’ the Professor told Jonathan as the Cheeser sat down. ‘He’s a milliner, a hat maker, and he was telling me that business isn’t worth a peach hereabouts.’
    ‘Not a peach,’ assented Lonny Gosset, shaking his head in a befuddled way. ‘Not since that cursed Selznak arrived with his toads and such. Bloody awful beasts abroad on th-the highroad. People moving off downriver.’
    ‘Who is this Selznak?’ asked Jonathan, gazing into his glass of ale and wondering what sort of a fiendish thing Gosset had encountered. He offered some of his ale to the Professor, who looked at it then shook his head. ‘He’s not an altogether nice chap, I gather.’
    ‘Nice chap!’ Gosset almost shouted. ‘A curse is what. A dwarf of some sort from the Forest. Came upriver six months back through Willowood. You heard about Willowood?’
    ‘Yes,’ said the Professor.
    ‘And Stooton-on-River?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘All gone by the boards. Empty! Things are … abroad in the land,’ Gosset said darkly.
    ‘I don’t like things abroad in the land,’ said Jonathan in a practical tone of voice. ‘Not by half.’
    ‘I’m afraid,’ responded the Professor, ‘that things abroad in the land might not care for you or me much either. Now you know me as a man of science. And you know that I hold with fact. Observation and deduction are man’s most useful tools, Master Cheeser, but I’d have to say, if pressed, that they’re sometimes overshadowed by premonition.’
    ‘I don’t go much for premonitions either. Let’s get the supplies and see what mischief Dooly and old Ahab are up to, shall we?’
    ‘Like a shot,’ said the Professor. The two shook Gosset’s hand and left him muttering darkly beneath his breath about silk hats and things abroad and wretched little beasts.
    They popped into Hobbs’ General Merchandise where they were scrutinized by the owner, old Hobbs, who was whiskered and stuffy-looking and all bound up in buttons and collars and tight fitting, starchy clothes. Jonathan muttered to the Professor that Hobbs’ tailor had the same sense of humor as had the sleeping pub man’s dentist. Although the Professor had to agree, he replied that it was good to see such a staunch and solid member of the community.
    ‘Someone, at least, is bearing up,’ the Professor observed.
    Quick as you please, the two were loaded up and heading raftward, back past the abandoned tack-and-feed store where the party of mice overseen by the blinking toad were still gnawing away at the wall. Jonathan waved his arms and cut a caper or two as if preparing to lunge at them, but Professor Wurzle indicated that it might not be a good idea to go stirring up the local forest denizens. In light of their conversation with Lonny Gosset, the Cheeser had to agree. Both men made away down the road to the harbor where, in the late evening gloom, no raft was to be seen.
    Jonathan’s first thought was that they somehow reached the wrong harbor. Then it