The Tides of Avarice (28 page)

“I'm a-getting to that,” said the other haughtily. “All in good time, my friend.” He sounded to me as if he didn't know whether to throw a tantrum or burst into tears.

To be honest, his fellow wasn't the only one who was tiring of accounts of proverbial wonders. Ancient flying machines and their like are all very well, but they aren't exactly the sort o' things you can go out and spend, are they?

“Beyond all of these marvels what I have recounted to your ungrateful ears,” the chap restarted, “there was one more marvelouser than any other feat the Zindars had accomplished. It was splendider than e'en the Mountains of Molgarvid or the Waterfalls of Helgioratha. It was tremendouser than the crystals of purest diamond that make up the coronet worn by—”

“Oh, by the unseen fourth breast of the goddess,” muttered his listener in disgust. “Can't we just take it for granted that the Zindars were pretty damned fine in all directions? What was it that they put in their chest?”

“Ah, if only the answer were that simple, my callow buddy. If only I could—ow!”

“You see this dagger?”

“Er, yes.”

“You see the tip of it?”

“Er, no.”

“That's because it's under your chin. Could you possibly get to the point?”

“Er, I'll try.”

You'll understand that by this time I was, as it were, silently cheering on the beezer with the dagger.

“What was it that the Zindars put in their magical chest?”

“Well, that's the trouble, you see.”

“Eh?”

“Nobody actually knows for certain.”

“They don't? Then why in the name of the triple-breasted goddess's gauzy lingerie are you wasting my time with—”

“But what we do know,” began the other in the tone of voice of someone who's staring Death in the eyes and not much liking what he sees, “what we do know is that . . .”

“Yes?”

“Is that the Zindars themselves thought it was the most precious thing their civilization had ever produced or ever would produce, for that matter.”

“Oh, blasted heck!
[2]
For all we know it could be some blasted
[3]
sonnet! ‘Hello sweet flutt'ry bluebirds that do flit among the glades' sort of thing.”

“I think that's most improbable.”

“You do? What makes you say that?”

“Because later historians, while being coy about the precise nature of the treasure itself, did specify that the Zindars had wrapped it up, before hiding it in the chest, in layers of gold, rubies and diamonds.”

“Ahhhhh, now yer talkin', me bucko.”

“I cannot imagine anyone doing that for a sonnet,” said the other, his voice beginning to fill with relief. Clearly his confederate had lowered the dagger a few inches.

“Who cares if the Zindar treasure is a sonnet? Ol' Chainfist Garth here'll be contented with the wrappings, that he will.”

So, at last I had a name for one of them: Chainfist Garth.

“My thoughts exactly,” the other agreed, reluctantly, it seemed to me. “While, without a doubt the cultural treasures of the Zindars must be of immeasurable value, it is true there is something to be said for artifacts of a rather more worldly value, if you know what I mean.”

“Jools,” assented Chainfist Garth with a cackle.

“Assuming their settings have been crafted with a certain modicum of artistry, yes.”

“An' gold! I can feel the gold running through me fingers already. Can't you?”

“Not really, old boy. You see, there's one difficulty about witnessing the glories of the magical chest of the Zindars.”

“And that is?” said Chainfist Garth, suddenly reverting once again to a threateningly aggressive tone.

“Finding it.”

“Why, I'll—”

There was that distinctive swishing noise a dagger makes when it's being brought speeding through the air to within less than a hairsbreadth of someone's gizzard. Rather like a cobra striking, only infinitely more menacing.

The individual whose gizzard was the focus of the said dagger's attention, so to speak, gulped audibly.

A hazardous thing to do, under the circumstances, but it was, after all, his gizzard to hazard.

Then he spoke, which must have taken a steely courage as well.

“But there is a map.”

“A what?”

“A chart. A map of how to find where the magical chest of the Zindars was buried out of the world's sight.”

“A treasure map, you mean?”

“Nothing other.”

“And I suppose the location of this treasure map is as enigwhatsit as the location of the treasure itself, is it?”

“Not at all, Chainfist.”

There was a long pause, during which you could just hear the far quieter sound of a dagger being slightly retracted from a gizzard.

“Then where the flipping Matilda is this map?”

“You have it.”

“I have it?”

Chainfist Garth started to laugh, always a foolish thing to do when you're holding a dagger close to the throat of someone who possesses knowledge you rather wish you possessed yourself. Either their gizzard's a goner, in which case you feel mighty stupid, or—

“What's this?” said Chainfist Garth, his voice becoming suddenly a deal more solemn.

“It's your dagger,” said the other.

“And it's pointing at my—”

“Your gizzard, yes.”

“And from very close up, I'll be certain.”

“Wisely so.”

“Ah.”

There was another of those long silences. Quite clearly both of them had forgotten the drunk who'd come stumbling out into the courtyard and then made such a malodorous exhibition of himself. This was a good piece of amnesia, so far as I was concerned. What did worry me was that some other drunk might come charging out here on a similar mission. I had reasons of my own for wishing that Chainfist Garth's nameless informant would speed things along a trifle.

“So, ah, so where is this map of theirs?” said the supposedly chainfisted one with a nervous would-be laugh.

“Earlier today, you bought yourself a new coat from a beggar down by the docks, did you not?”

“Well, er, ‘bought' is perhaps not the best word.”

“I euphemized. You obtained it, shall we say?”

“Yes, ‘obtained' is a good word,” Chainfist Garth hurriedly agreed. “In context.”

“You obtained this beggar's coat, and no wonder. Your old one was, well, how to put this tactfully?”

Chainfist Garth mumbled something.

“I'm sorry,” his companion said. “You're going to have to speak louder than that. I couldn't hear you.”

“I got a job in a fish-gutting factory and was wearing me work clothes. No shame in that, I say!”

“No shame in that at all, if it were true. I find it hard to credit that you've ever had an honest job in your life, Chainfist.”

“Wot's so special about this beggar's coat anyway?”

In the gloom I could make out the shape I'd identified as Chainfist Garth spreading its arms and looking down on itself as if the map might be printed on its front.

“Something the beggar himself didn't know.”

“Poor ignorant beggar.”

“That coat had previously belonged to a buccaneer groundhog named Barterley Smitt. Barterley Smitt was the first person in the modern era to discover the location of the magical chest of the Zindars. He did this after he'd been marooned on a desert island for showing an undue interest in the daughter of the captain of the vessel aboard which he was second mate. Are you following this?”

“In bits.”

“Good. On this nameless island in the Sea of Misery, Barterley Smitt, who was reduced to digging up worms and eating them in order to keep his body and soul together, was one day having to dig deeper than usual for his supper (the worms were getting wise to his game), oh yes – when he came across a piece of shale upon whose flaky surface someone had long ago scratched a map. On this map were five islands shown, and one of these was marked with a big arrowhead.”

“Arrowhead Island.”

“Eh?”

“Arrowhead Island. I know it well. Just off the coast of Dumbalaia.”

“No, fool! It was marked with a big arrowhead to show it was the important one on the map.”

“So? Doesn't mean it couldn't also have been Arrowhead Island. It stands to reason.”

“Chainfist, my mindrottingly literalist friend, let me ask you one question.”

“Ask away.”

“Why is Arrowhead Island called Arrowhead Island?”

“I have not the first idea. Why is Arrowhead Island called Arrowhead Island?”

“Because it's shaped like an arrowhead.”

“I knew that.”

“And this particular island, the one marked with an arrowhead on the map on the piece of shale what Barterley Smitt dug up, wasn't shaped like an arrowhead at all. It was shaped like a ripe cheese with a wedge cut out of it, as a matter of fact. It certainly wasn't Arrowhead Island.”

“The tide could have been in?”

It was apparent to me, even at my distance from the pair, that Chainfist Garth was becoming forgetful of the proximity of his companion's daggerpoint to his gizzard. This must have occurred to his companion too, because his arm gave a small twitch and there was a cry of pain from Chainfist Garth.

“Okay, okay, have it your way. It wasn't Arrowhead Island!”

“Good.”

“So, when this Barterley Smitt got off the island where he'd been marooned, he knew where the magical treasure chest of the Zindars was, did he? How did he know the arrowhead referred to the chest of the Zindars?”

“Because whoever had scratched the map had also scratched the words ‘Chest of the Zindars Lieth Here' alongside the arrowhead.”

“Barterley Smitt could read?”

“Many people can.”

“Blimey.”

“Yes.”

“So,” said Chainfist Garth eventually, “why didn't Barterley Smitt go and dig up the treasure and live happily ever after then?”

“Because there were only five islands shown on the map.”

I could have sworn I heard the sound of brows furrowing in puzzlement. “That was four more islands than he needed to know about, wasn't it?”

There was a long sigh from the taller shadow. “His problem was, dear Chainfist, that he didn't know where the five islands were. They could have been anywhere in all the broad seas of Sagaria.”

The sound of furrowing brows was replaced by that of fog clearing.

“Ah, I see. He had to sort of narrow it down, like.”

“Quite so. After eighteen years he was rescued from the island by a passing merchant ship, whose entire complement he ate simply because they weren't worms. It's surprising the extremes to which eighteen years of a monotonous diet can push a man. He then sailed the ship to the first port he could find, which happened, luckily for him, to be Malmesduke, seat of one of the foremost universities in the world. In the library there, he laboriously compared the five islands of the shale map with every sea chart he could lay hands on, until—”

“Until he found the ones he wanted!”

“Yes. Making sure that no one was watching him, he folded up the relevant sea chart and smuggled it from the library. Once home – if a hotly fought-for portion of a ditch on the outskirts of Malmesduke can be called home – he was able to indicate the relevant island with a big, bold ‘X.'”

“Not an arrowhead?”

“He might have done that, but he didn't.”

“Why not? Ouch!”

“He'd hardly finished drawing the ‘X' when he realized the map was a potentially explosive piece of property, and that anyone known to possess it might consider himself a marked man. Up and down the corridors of history, people had talked in hushed voices of the magical chest of the Zindars. If it were rumored that Barterley Smitt owned a chart that might lead its bearer to . . . well, need I go on?”

“He'd have found a bayonet up to the hilt in his guts before he could say lickety-split.”

“Just one bayonet? Ha! Within seconds of the news getting out, Barterley Smitt would have resembled a porcupine. So, with some difficulty – needles and thread being in somewhat short supply in ditches, even the upper-crust ditches of Malmesduke – our good fellow, Barterley, sewed the map into the lining of his coat.”

“And to think I thought he was just a beggar,” said Chainfist Garth.

His companion laughed. “Oh, no, dear Chainfist. That wasn't Barterley Smitt. The beggar whose overcoat you requisitioned this morning was just an ordinary beggar. Well, not quite ordinary. A rather murderous beggar, if truth be told. It never crossed the mind of Barterley Smitt, who had a somewhat sheltered childhood for one who would turn out to be a pirate, that he might very well be murdered for the sake of not the map but the coat. Yet, that was precisely what your beggar did a few years ago, and then today, of course, history repeated itself when you killed the beggar so you might replace the disgustingly fishgut-smeared monstrosity you'd been wearing.”

“It's called ‘recycling,'” said Chainfist Garth defensively. “A very responsible thing to be doing, so the nobs keeps telling me.”

“How virtuous of you.” His associate's voice was dryer than talcum powder. “And now, I must display comparable virtue.”

For a long moment Chainfist Garth, not the quickest-witted of fellows, even for habitues of The Moldy Claw, didn't cotton on to the implications of this final cold statement, and by the time he did do, it was too late for him.

The Moldy Claw's courtyard had witnessed a succession of distinctive noises within the past few minutes: a brow furrowing, a fog clearing, but now there was a sound clearly recognizable to any pirate from one end of the ocean to the other.

I refer, of course, to the gurgling rustle of a gizzard being slit.