Manquer pulled at a rope fiercely, watched the sails fall, and nodded awkwardly as the ship lifted ever so slightly out of the water. Turning, I saw a ship, a huge ship, a colossal ship – the size of which I could never have even imagined - appear on the horizon. Even at a distance, one could tell that this was a truly tremendous ship. All one had to do was count the number of sails. There were scores of them; scores upon scores of white sheets billowing as the ship of the elves flew down the river towards us.

Our ship – so small and delicate by comparison – seemed to have summoned some hitherto unknown speed and was racing towards the opposite horizon.

Handeln stood at the side of the boat, gripping the bannister tightly in his strong hands. I watched him gulp uneasily as another gust of wind came to fill our sails.

“What are you doing?” Handeln cried.

“What does it look like?” Manquer replied - her voice still calmly melodic. “Fleeing the elves, now tighten that rope. Little one,” she said to me, “grip that rope, Scheren help your child.”

I followed Manquer’s orders unquestioningly and gripped the rope in my hands. I felt my mother reach around me and take hold of the ropes as well. “Hold tight darling,” she whispered – and hearing her words, I felt a flash of bravery flare up within my soul.

“You can’t outrun the elves,” Handeln roared at Manquer, who ignored him and continued to squint at the horizon. “We haven’t a hope of outrunning the elves.”

Manquer didn’t turn to him – in fact to look at Manquer, one would have no idea that she’d even heard him. Her words floated through the air, “Dwarf, when did I say anything about outrunning the elves? And when are you going to hold that rope?”

Confused at Manquer’s words, I looked up to see where she was heading and was surprised to see the horizon was now no more than perhaps two hundred feet away. I was suddenly away of a strange burbling noise – faint at first but growing stronger all the time, as though a solitary chick chirping for its mother had been joined by hundreds upon hundreds of other lost chicks all searching for their mothers.

Quickly, the burbling grew to the roar of a lion as we came closer still to the horizon. First one lion, then two then dozens all roaring ferociously at us. The water had started to bubble ominously around us. And the horizon couldn’t be further than twenty feet away. The water – the river – ended - abruptly. Our ship sailed out into the air and seemed to float strangely in the air. It was as if time had frozen – as if Manquer had frozen time. I saw Handeln’s knuckles whiten as he gripped the rope; I felt my mother simultaneously hold me and the rope; I saw Manquer move impossibly fast. I saw the sun flash on her knife swishing through the air as she cut rope after rope. First one rope, then another. She seemed to cut every rope on that ship until suddenly time regained control.

Suddenly, I realised what Manquer had been doing, she’d been cutting the sail free from the ship. The ship plummeted down alongside the water that raced down into an unruly cauldron of foam and danger far below. Manquer, Handeln, Mother and I on the other hand floated gently in the breeze as air filled our boatless sail. The sail blew one way and then the other and we dangled from it like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind.

As we floated there - three goblins and a dwarf suspended in the air – I looked back at the river. It looked as if it had run to the edge of the world and simply fallen over the edge and was pouring violently down the side of a cliff into the beginning of a new world far below. The water, once still and blacky-blue was now a raging torrent of white violence roaring ferociously at the world.

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