The sky had turned into a surging sea of darkness. Lightning flashed in the mountains of clouds, which moved like living beings. Eva was standing at the helm – one foot bare, the other in a wool stocking – and felt the planks of Rex Ventorum bending under her, as if the airship itself were afraid of the gusts of wind. ‘Keep it steady!’ Nora shouted, pulling on a lever that adjusted the sails. “You’re funny,” Eva called back. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time?” She glanced over at Finn, who was standing at the railing, the map open in his hands. The small telescope was stuck in his eye and the spherical compass dangled from his wrist, another important navigational tool that could indicate the current position in the air. Eva had agreed with him before the crossing that he would navigate her acoustically rather than by hand signals. ‘In stormy conditions, anything based on sight is doomed to fail,’ Finn had said. So Eva listened carefully to the shrill whistles, which meant different manoeuvres at different heights and lengths: a single, high whistle made her pull the rudder slightly to port, while a low, short tone meant that they were heading straight for an updraft. Two consecutive high tones were the signal for a sharp turn that made the ship slide almost vertically into the next gust.
Eva gritted her teeth as the rudder began to creak under her grip. The wood cracked and the wind tugged at the sails as if it wanted to rip the ship apart. Two degrees to starboard. Finn’s next whistle made her react immediately, yanking the levers sharply to the right and bringing the bow into an almost impossible sloping position. Rex tilted and Eva felt the forces of the air currents almost pushing too hard against the wooden vessel. But then the ship stabilised and shot like an arrow through the turbulent zone, right between two colliding vortices.
A sharp descending tone meant that they had to start their descent. Eva pulled down on the rudder and gave Nora a hand signal to open a valve and release ballast. Rex plunged through the next layer of clouds and suddenly glided along calmly, like on a still lake. The two girls audibly gasped, and Eva closed her eyes briefly. They had entered an eye of the storm, and she knew that this deceptive calm only heralded the next test. ‘Over there!’ Nora’s voice almost cracked as she pointed through the glass front window. A whirlwind the size of a cathedral had opened up out of nowhere in front of them. The storm howled like a wild beast, and the ship began to rock violently. The electricity in the air was palpable, the lamps on board flickered ominously, and Nora’s hair stood on end even more than it already was.
‘We have to go through it!’ Eve’s eyes flashed with determination as she took the rudder with a practised hand and released it at just the right moment so that it wouldn’t be shredded by the wind resistance. ‘Through?!’ Nora gasped. “The thing is going to swallow us up!” The ship tilted dangerously as a gust hit it, and Eva had to cling to her steering wheel to avoid being hurled across the room. She glanced over at Finn, but the navigator was standing firm as a tree. For a moment, it seemed as if the world would consist only of chaos and storm – and then the rain began.
And what a downpour! Drops like pebbles pelted the deck so hard that it felt as if the sky itself was shattering into a thousand splinters. The world around the ship blurred into a grey wall of water, visibility was limited to a few metres. Lightning tore bright wounds into the darkness, its arcs reflected on the wet planks and the rumble of thunder followed so quickly that their ears rang.
‘Into the wheelhouse, everyone!’ Eva shouted against the roar of the storm. Nora didn’t need to be asked twice. With one arm protectively over her head and quick steps, she fought her way across the slippery deck. A bolt of lightning flashed so close that it bathed the ship in a glistening light and blinded her for a moment. Nora screamed, stumbled and slipped before she could just about grab hold of the railing.
Without hesitation, Eva sprinted across the swaying deck to her friend. Hold on to me!’ She pulled her up and pushed her in the direction of the wheelhouse. Then she turned to Finn. The navigator was just a blur. ‘Finn!’ she called, ‘You’ll get struck by lightning! Come in!’ In reply, she heard a trilling whistle. ‘What do you mean, “Back to your post”?’ she replied, and then it dawned on her. Finn would hold his position until they reached Stormspire. So she had to do the same.
When the door of the wheelhouse slammed shut behind her, Eva stood for a moment, breathing heavily, her back against the creaking wood. ‘And Finn? What is he doing out there?’ Nora’s voice was a mixture of concern and anger as she trembled and took off her wet jacket. Eva glanced through the steamy window. Finn was still standing firm at the railing, unperturbed. His silhouette looked like a statue, unwavering, while the storm raged around him. ‘He knows what he’s doing,’ said Eva, without taking her eyes off him. ‘Storm zone navigators are not like us. The storm is their home,’ she added, more to herself than to Nora.
A shrill whistle called her to work. Eva gritted her teeth and clung to the wheel again. The winds whipped around her, and the light from the lightning was now so bright that it made the sky look like a broken glass. She had no sense of direction, and didn’t know whether they were sailing up, down, forward or back. Then she closed her eyes and suddenly a world opened up before her. Where she had previously felt only damp wood, she now sensed the alignment of the rudder, the position of the rudders and the tension of the rigging. In her mind’s eye, she saw her ship lying in the air – and the navigator’s whistles were a golden thread that she just had to steer along. Eva’s breathing became calm, and she forgot the wet, the cold, the rumbling of the thunder.
And after a while – almost unexpectedly – the storm subsided. It was as if an invisible hand had suddenly stopped the world. The rain was still there, but it now fell evenly, calmly, like the steady ticking of a clock. The ship groaned one last time as a gust hit it. ‘We’ve made it!’ Nora’s voice was half a scream, half a laugh, as she looked out of the window. Eva opened her eyes and stepped out of the steamed-up wheelhouse. Mighty mountains of clouds lay before the ship and a gentle rain fell. And then a shadow emerged from the fog. Stormspire Castle.