The Tides of Avarice (42 page)

The odd thing was that, knowing all this, there was a part of him that still agreed with Mrs. Pickleberry. The knife of betrayal was still turning its blade remorselessly in his gut. He wanted to punch someone, and the only suitable candidates seemed to be the three mice.

Except, of course, they were countless miles away in the middle of the jungle, doubtless swinging happily along their rope bridges and sparing not a moment's thought for the three hapless lemmings who'd been delivered into the ruthless paws of the pirate.

“It could be worse,” Viola was saying to her mother. “We're all still in one piece, aren't we?”

But for how long? thought Sylvester despairingly. He remembered all too clearly the promises Cap'n Rustbane had made to put a painful end to his life, and it was unlikely that Cap'n Rustbane's memory on the matter was any worse than Sylvester's own. And Cap'n Rustbane had never struck Sylvester as the kind of individual who failed to follow through on his promises.

“What was that you said?” Viola asked him sharply.

“Nothing, I just gulped.”

“But you gulped very expressively.”

“I did?”

“Is there something you're trying to tell us?”

Yes, there was, but at the same time he couldn't tell them. He couldn't tell them it had been criminal of him to allow them to accompany him on this madcap escapade. Most particularly, he'd been a fat-headed imbecile to let them, when they'd finally escaped from Rustbane's clutches, be captured once again. He tried to draw some reassurance from what Madame Zahnia had told them yesterday when she'd been reading the messages her Revealer showed her: that a successful result depended on all of them following the course of action that had already, somewhere, somehow, sometime, been predetermined and that this course of action might often seem to them to be doomed. If there was ever a situation that seemed doomed, Sylvester reflected sadly, now was it. But this might have been exactly what Madame Zahnia's Revealer was referring to.

Or she might be just a mad old mouse who'd sell her soul to the highest bidder, in which case …

Sylvester gulped again and hoped it wasn't as loud as the last time.

He didn't like to think about that “in which case.”

“She could have poisoned us, you know,” said Viola, sounding as if she were trying to sound cheerful.

“True,” said Sylvester.

“Just about did, that supper they fed us,” mumbled Mrs. Pickleberry. There was still something odd about the way she was speaking.

“Or,” said Viola, “turned us into something. You know, something voodooish.”

“She could,” said Sylvester. “Except it was all mumbo jumbo. She told us so herself.”

“You think it really was?”

“Of course.” Sylvester wasn't at all sure it had been nonsense, but he decided the best way to reassure Viola and Mrs. Pickleberry was to pretend he was. “Always remember that the true path,” he said, his voice warbling in a passable imitation of Madame Zahnia's, “is seldom the most likeable but it most often leads you home.”

“You're bad,” said Viola, beginning to giggle.

“Bloody awful, you ask me,” said Mrs. Pickleberry.

They didn't.

Viola's giggling was infectious and soon, Sylvester found himself rolling around in the fetid bilgewater that covered the floor of this dungeon. With each new whoop of laughter that came out of him, Viola's laughter too became more uncontrollable. He knew there was more than a touch of hysteria in the way they were behaving, but he didn't care. It had been far too long since either of them had just let themselves go like this.

Mrs. Pickleberry was unamused. “Kids!”

When they finally calmed, Viola and Sylvester were leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder. Neither knew how they'd managed to find each other in the dark, but they had. Sylvester thought it must be an omen or something – a sign they were meant to be together, whatever adversities life threw in their path.

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” he said to Viola.

“Quite probably,” she said. “But unfortunately, my mother's here.”

“I'm not deaf, you two!” roared Mrs. Pickleberry.

That set the pair of them off laughing again.

“You know what?” said Viola.

“What?”

“We make a pretty good team, you and me.”

“We do?” said Sylvester, as if this were the most astonishing news in the world.

Mrs. Pickleberry coughed.

“And you too, Mom,” said Viola quickly.

“Right.”

“We're the most fearsome lemmings on all the Seven Seas,” Viola continued.

“I don't think that's a particularly difficult status to achieve,” said Sylvester. “For all we know, we're the only lemmings on the Seven Seas. The rest of our kind are probably still back at home in Foxglove.”

“What about everybody who's thrown themselves over the Mighty Enormous Cliff?” interposed Mrs. Pickleberry. “What about them, eh?”

“True, true,” said Sylvester evasively. Now was not the time to explore his theory that all of those brave lemmings had dived not to glory, but to their deaths.

“Even if they are sailing the Seven Seas somewhere,” said Viola, “we're still the most fearsome, aren't we?”

Sylvester, his arm around her shoulders as she nestled against him, pulled her to him even more tightly.

“It's just that …” he began, then let the words trail away.

“Just that what?”

“Um.”

“What is it with men and words? Spit it out, you idiot.”

“Well, ah …”

“C'mon.”

Sylvester thanked his lucky stars their prison was completely lightless so Viola couldn't see his face. He knew for a fact he was blushing. Blushing badly. Blushing redly. Blushing every which way a fellow could possibly blush.

Oh, there was a dreadful thought.

Was he blushing so luridly she could see him in the dark?

He couldn't hide his face in his paws, not under the circumstances. He'd feel such a fool if she found out what he was doing. Besides, one of his paws was otherwise occupied, being at the far end of the arm he'd placed around Viola's shoulders.

“You see—”

“See what?”

“Let me finish, will you? You're not helping.”

“Oops. Sorry.”

Was she laughing at him?

He took the plunge. “Look, Viola, it's nice of you to have faith in me as one of your ‘most fearsome lemmings,' but I think you may have the wrong lemming. I mean, I may not be who you think I am.”

“I hope you are.”

“You do?”

“If you're not Sylvester Lemmington, then who's been cuddling me in the dark?”

“You're not taking this seriously.”

“No, I'm not. You're starting to sound like a pompous oaf.”

“I am?”

“You are,” rasped Mrs. Pickleberry. “Worse than her father ever was, when he was your age, and believe me—”

“Mo–om!”

Mrs. Pickleberry's voice subsided into a froth of incomprehensible monosyllables.

His first attempt at taking the plunge having been thwarted, Sylvester decided to try again. “It's very kind of you to place such faith in me,” he said solemnly, “but I really don't think I deserve it. I'm not a hero, you see, not anything like a hero at all. I'm just a humble little lemming assistant archivist who's scared stiff because he's strayed so far from home and …”

His voice petered out. The two Pickleberries had started speaking among themselves.

“Lor' love a duck.”

“Where'd yer learn that sort of language, you saucy chit?”

“From you, Mom.”

“Oh, right. Well, that's different.”

“He's a dear but, if ever there's a cliché going by, trust Sylvester to throw a saddle over its back and ride it to extinction.”

“He's still young. Maybe he'll improve. Could hardly get any worse, could he?”

“Mo–om, that's not fair and you know it!”

“Hmmf.”

“Excuse me.”

“Yes, Sylvester?”

“What do you mean about, about me and the clichés?”

“It's the oldest line in the book.”

“What is?”

“The line about not feeling like a hero at all, being just an ordinary, fallible, weak, frightened milksop.”

“That's me.”

“It's what all the heroes say.”

“They do?”

“Yes. They say, ‘Oh, ai am such a pathetic lump of lard, not worth a monkey's cuss,' then they go out and slay a dragon or save the fair maiden, that sort of thing.”

“Oh.”

“Don't ‘oh' me, Sylvester Lemmington. If any more proof was needed that you're a hero, you've just provided it.”

“Out of the mouths of babes and numbnuts,” confirmed Mrs. Pickleberry.

Sylvester wished she hadn't chosen this moment to agree with her daughter.

“So you think I should—” he said.

“Find a dragon? Yes.”

“But it's pitch dark in here!” he said and chuckled.

“If there's a fire-breathing dragon somewhere around, it can't hold its breath indefinitely.”

“What's that got to do with—oh, I see what you mean.”

“Duh.”

“But then we'd be toast.”

“Shaddap!”

The forcefulness of Mrs. Pickleberry's sudden interruption startled both the others into silence.

Then they heard what she'd heard.

Footsteps.

Slow, heavy, dragging footsteps.

There was never good news to be had on the arrival of someone whose approaching footsteps sounded like this.

And approaching they most definitely were. Sylvester didn't notice when the pirates had brought them down here, but he was pretty certain this maritime dungeon they were in was the only possible destination in this particular bowel of the ship.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the footsteps came to a halt just a few feet from him, and there was the sound of someone fighting with a key that didn't want to turn in a rusty lock.

Finally, the newcomer, with a climactic volley of curses, succeeded in getting the lock's tumblers to cooperate.

There was a lot of heavy breathing and a little more swearing, then a dazzling vertical spear of yellow light as the cell's door creaked ajar by a claw's width.

“Cheesefang!” cried Viola.

The door opened fully.

It took longer for Sylvester's eyes to adapt than it had taken Viola's, but soon enough, he recognized the pot-bellied figure of the old sea rat. Cheesefang was fending off Viola, who apparently wanted to give him a big kiss of welcome.

“The Cap'n wants you lot. Up on the deck. Now.”

Sylvester was obediently pulling himself to his feet when he glanced across at Mrs. Pickleberry. What he saw made him suck in his breath.

The damage she'd suffered in the skirmish with the pirates was far beyond anything he'd ever dreamed. No wonder her voice sounded peculiar. Her lips and chin were dark with dried blood and clotted fur. When she grimaced in a moment of silent pain, Sylvester could see gaps between her teeth – far too many gaps, and some of them still seemed to be bleeding.

“I'm sorry,” he said to her quietly. “I hadn't realized.”

She gave him a grin of such ghastliness he knew he'd see it in his dreams for years to come.

“Don't fret yerself, young Sylvester Lemmington, although I think the better of you for havin' thought to say it.”

“Let me help you to your feet.”

“No need. I'm on 'em already. But you could take the arm of an ol' biddy, if you'd like, just to save her from slippin' an' fallin'.”

She stepped carefully across the wet floor to wrap her arm in his.

Viola had given up her attempts to welcome Cheesefang. Turning, she saw for the first time what had happened to her mother's face.

“Mom!”

“It's nothin', I tell you. There's not much you could do to this ol' mug of mine that wouldn't be an improvement, is there? You just ask your father.”

Even Cheesefang seemed horrified. “I'm sure they didn't mean any harm, like,” he muttered.

“Just take us to that pathetic scapegrace you're unlucky enough to have as your skipper,” said Mrs. Pickleberry haughtily. Sylvester could feel the effort it cost her to draw herself up to her full height. “And look snappy about it, hear?”

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

They found Cap'n Rustbane on the poop deck, standing with one foot on the boards and another on a small barrel, as if posing for a portrait. When he saw them approaching, he took off his hat and prepared to bow to Mrs. Pickleberry.

“Aw, stow it, buster,” she told him.

The fox looked rather taken aback by the pre-emptive rebuff and said nothing for several seconds, instead staring out at a sea and sky so gray it was impossible to tell where one met the other.

“Your reaction, Three Pins, has made it easier for me to say to you three what I have to say,” he said, turning back toward them at last.

“And that is?” Mrs. Pickleberry retorted.

“You'll have noticed none of you have yet been flayed alive.”

“True.”

“Hung from the highest yardarm.”

“True again.”

“Boiled in oil.”

“Three out of three ain't bad.”

“Keelhauled. Gutted.”

“Still scorin' one hunnerd per cent.”

“Far from slit, your gizzards are perfectly intact.”

Sylvester felt it was time to contribute to the conversation. “Get on with it, Rustbane.”

“That's Cap'n Rustbane to you, Lemmington.” The pirate blew on the tip of his claws as if they'd suddenly heated up when he'd not been looking. “I'm so very, very disappointed in you.”

“Good.”

The gray fox arched his eyebrows as he shot a bolt of jade fury from those disturbing eyes of his. “Defiant to the last, eh?”