The Tides of Avarice (57 page)

“Nope,” said Jasper, not taking the proffered paw. “Can't say as I have.”

“This place smells of blood,” said Sylvester interrupting an exchange that seemed destined to become nothing but pricklier. “Let's get out of here.”

“You forget something, my small friend,” said Rustbane, drawing his attention away from Jasper as if out of treacle. “A small matter of the treasure chest of the Zindars. It's what we all came here for through stormy oceans and tempestuous climes, you may remember.” He looked down at one of the silver pistols nestling in his belt, as if debating with himself whether to put a bullet through someone's brain now or later, then squinted at Sylvester with a brightly glinting eye.

“It's not here,” said Sylvester, spreading his paws.

Viola, beside him, gave a little murmur of confirmation.

Cap'n Rustbane put his paws to his sides, tilted back his head and gave a mighty guffaw. His peals of laughter seemed to go on for an unconscionably long time, yet Sylvester couldn't detect any humor in them whatsoever.

Finally, Rustbane sobered himself, rubbing his eyes to wipe the mirth from them.

“Oh, dearie me,” he said. “I could have sworn you just said that—”

“It's true,” interposed Jasper. “The Zindars didn't leave their treasure here. They buried it … elsewhere.”

Another peal of laughter from Rustbane, this one even more artificial than the last. Standing behind him, Cheesefang joined in. The sea rat's attempt at laughter sounded like someone trying to swallow a bag of forks. Next to Cheesefang, Sylvester noticed, Pimplebrains stood silent.

“But what of old Throatsplitter's map?” Rustbane said at last.

Jasper looked blank.

Sylvester hurriedly explained to his father about Cap'n Josiah “Throatsplitter” Adamite and his treasure map. As he did so, he saw Jasper's face relax.

“Oh, that,” said the older lemming at last. “Yes,” he added to Rustbane, “there's treasure of a sort here. Perhaps that's what the map's referring to.”

“Treasure?” said Rustbane eagerly. “It's good to know at least one generation of Lemmingtons can talk about the stuff that's important. Treasure, you say? So just tell me, old hamst—fellow, where is it?”

Jasper bowed mockingly, imitating Rustbane's own grandiloquence of gesture. “Right here alongside us.”

“It is? Where? Show me or I'll—show me, please.”

Again Jasper bowed, this time extending a paw out to one side and pointing.

Rustbane gazed in the direction of Jasper's extended claw. “I can't see nothing.”

Sylvester began to laugh. “Yes, you can.”

The gray fox shot him an angry glance, eyes narrowing.

“It's the biggest thing you can see,” Sylvester explained.

Realization dawned slowly on the fox's face.

Surrounded by its aura of inconceivable antiquity, the hulk of the Zindar vessel loomed toward the distant cavern ceiling.

Everyone fell silent as the implications sank in. Here, indeed, was a treasure of inestimable worth. The lemmings and Pimplebrains already knew that somewhere within it was an element capable of improving the way people could think, of making them cleverer than they could naturally be. There were also those cunning machines, like the ones that invisibly tended the crops of fruit and vegetables. Jasper had mentioned in passing a couple of others he'd discovered during his years dwelling within the Zindar ship, but Sylvester hadn't had the time to quiz him further. Who knew how many other machines there might be, still silently running after all these centuries, and what they might be capable of doing?

Miracles, perhaps.

They would certainly seem like miracles to the people of Sagaria.

The person who owned the Zindar ship could be monarch of the world.

There was one problem.

“How,” breathed Rustbane, “are we going to take it with us?”

They couldn't, of course, take it with them. Sylvester, Cheesefang, Pimplebrains, Viola and Jasper all took turns trying to explain this as sympathetically as possible to Rustbane. It wasn't so much that the pirate skipper was inconsolable (although he was that too) as that he was incapable of conceiving that any treasure, and most particularly a treasure of this unique magnitude, couldn't be hauled away and spent.

“Perhaps we could just live here?” said the fox hopefully. Before he had been gray, now he was positively ashen.

“We've driven off the cannibals for now,” Sylvester pointed out, “but how long do you think their fear's going to last? A week? A day? An hour?”

“Between us we could—”

“No,” said everyone.

“Not even if—”

“No!”

“It's not as if,” said Jasper eventually, “the Zindar vessel's going to go away, is it? I can trick it so the Vendrosians can't see it any longer. They'll not interfere with it. You'll be able to come back any time you want with a whole army of pirates and—”

“But I want the treasure now!” howled Rustbane.

Through all of this, Sylvester was relieved that his companions had better sense than to mention the location of the chest of the Zindars, the trove after which Rustbane had been searching. The idea of another horde of pirates descending upon Foxglove, this time with no reason to curb their savagery, was one that Sylvester dared not countenance.

On the subject of companions …

“Here's a question for you,” he said to Rustbane, changing the subject so abruptly that the gray fox didn't have time to notice it was happening. “Where's Mrs. Pickleberry? You know, Three Pins. And where's Rasco?”

The gray fox brushed what looked suspiciously like a large, globular tear from the corner of his eye. “On the Shadeblaze.”

With many a stop and start, Cap'n Rustbane related how he'd been saved from a watery grave by Viola's mother and the chirpy little mouse acting in tandem.

“They was braver than any of my cullies aboard the old Shadeblaze,” confessed Rustbane, his voice becoming hoarse with emotion. “I can tell ye that. Braver by far. My Jack o' Cups, he was a vicious brute when his temper was aroused, for all he was a darling boy.” Rustbane looked at the heap of dirty yellowish fur that had once been Jeopord. “If he'd known what they were up to, they'd have been kebabed, cooked and eaten before they were given a chance to die.”

Viola's forehead furrowed. “How did they manage it?”

“What? Being keb—”

“No, rescuing you. Saving your life.”

Rustbane grunted, annoyed that the center of attention was shifting away from himself. “Let them tell you themselves.”

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

It took a few more hours before they were able to persuade the gray fox to leave the Cavern of the Zindars, but finally the little party half-escorted, half-dragged him down to the shore where Jeopord and his men had left the longboats. Through fear or prudence, the cannibals didn't trouble them, although Sylvester thought once or twice he could hear the sounds of distant drumming and chanting. The sun was low in the sky, painting the tips of the waves with blood, as they maneuvered three of the boats down over the sand and into the water. Of course, Rustbane refused to row, such menial tasks being beneath him, but Cheesefang and Pimplebrains took an oar apiece and soon the leading craft bearing the gray fox, his new lieutenants and the three lemmings, was slicing through the choppy water of the bay. In the dusk, the Shadeblaze was a hulk of darkness lit only by yellow lamps hung at bow and stern. As the longboat came closer, a few further lamps were lit. It seemed that Rasco and Mrs. Pickleberry were preparing the ship to welcome the weary travelers.

Soon, Sylvester could hear the two aboard the ship, their voices drifting across the darkling waters of the bay.

“I must most humbly beseech you—”

“Wotcher bleating about now, yer daft oaf?”

“Please, oh treble-pinned one, you're—”

“Out with it!”

“Ma'am, it is a matter of circumstance that—”

“You got my rolling pin?”

“I fear not. However, ma chérie, although I hesitate to trouble you—”

“I got a itch.”

“Mrs. Pickleberry.”

“Yes?”

“You are standing on my—”

“Why's that daughter o' mine takin' so long gettin' here? I bet she's canoodlin' with that scoundrel Syl—”

“You're standing on my tail!”

“I am? Why didn't yer say so in the first place?”

Sylvester smiled. All seemed well aboard the good ship Shadeblaze.

A few minutes later, the longboat was heaving to under the wall of the Shadeblaze's side. A rope ladder dropped from somewhere invisible above and Pimplebrains scampered agilely up it. Watching, Sylvester couldn't make out how the old beaver manipulated his hooks in order to climb so nimbly. Next up was Rustbane, still morose, and then Viola, Jasper, Sylvester and, finally, Cheesefang. Just before he clambered onto the ladder, the sea rat fastened lines to metal rings at the two ends of the longboat, so that the boat itself could be hauled up behind them. Then it was the turn of the next longboat.

Soon, everyone was back aboard the ship.

There seemed to be miserably few of them. Only a couple of days ago the Shadeblaze had been crowded and bustling. Now, the creaking of her timbers as she rocked gently in the swell seemed to inhibit people from talking louder than a murmur.

Rustbane, without saying a word to anyone, made his way to the captain's quarters, those quarters that, of course, Jeopord had inhabited during the fox's absence. The hushed crew could hear Rustbane swearing sturdily, then there was a crash as the first of the usurper's possessions was hurled up the wooden steps and onto the deck. It was followed by more. Wordlessly, Cheesefang and Pimplebrains moved over and began pitching the articles over the side into the blackness where the ocean hid.

Nobody said very much. Viola engaged her mother in a long hug. Sylvester realized that, during the past few days, Viola must have become resigned to never seeing her mother again much as Sylvester had long ago had to face the fact that he'd probably never see his father again. Now Sylvester was reunited with his father and Viola was reunited with her mother. It should have felt more like a happy ending.

The company remained mute while Bladderbulge, who to, Sylvester's unreasonable joy, was among the survivors, waddled off to the galley and began throwing together some vittles for their belated supper. Rasco, who'd earlier been calling high-pitched greetings from the crow's nest, scrambled down the rigging to rejoin his friends.

“So, tell me,” said Sylvester a long while later as the four lemmings and the mouse gathered around a brazier on the poop deck, “just how was it you managed to save our vulpine friend?”

What never occurred to Sylvester was that of course his father and Daphne Pickleberry had known each other as adults, way back in the long ago. The two had recognized each other at once, and were soon laughing and joshing the way that old, albeit not particularly close, family friends are wont to do.

The subject of Mrs. Pickleberry thinking that Mayor Hairbell might be a suitable spouse for her young daughter had come up and she hotly denied ever favoring the notion. “It was all me 'usband's idea, the daft old bat.”

Nothing would suit her better, Three Pins insisted, than that Viola should marry a swashbuckling hero of the seas like Sylvester Lemmington had proven himself to be. Indeed, she spoke so unexpectedly fondly of him that Sylvester was concerned Viola's sentiments might turn against him, but luckily this seemed not to be the case. Mrs. Pickleberry also spoke very fondly of Hortensia, Sylvester's mother. He'd never known the two were particularly close friends, but perhaps Mrs. Pickleberry's admiration was born of the fact that the lemmings were half a world away from home, and from Hortensia.

Sylvester wasn't sure if he liked the new, mellower Mrs. Pickleberry. After a while, he decided he didn't, but he could tolerate her as a mother-in-law if that was the price he had to pay for having Viola by his side for the rest of his life.

Probably.

“Wot I did was—” began Mrs. Pickleberry.

“What we did,” Rasco corrected politely.

Mrs. Pickleberry drew an impossibly deep sigh. “What we did was, well, we felt we 'ad to save the life of that scoundrelly skipper o' yourn.”

“Rustbane?”

“Ye catch on fast. See, spratling, I had a fair ol' hunch the mangy fox'd make sure we got home, one way or the other, just so long's we didn't get too far up his nose. After all, 'e'd harf a dozen times told us he was going to kill us or have us flogged, and none o' the times had he actually done so. Seemed as obvious as the 'air on an old man's bottom to me that Rustbane had reasons of his own for keepin' us alive. Jeopord, on the other paw, he was somethin' different. There was a mean streak down his back that was 'arf a yard wide. Obvious he'd kill us jus' as soon as he could think up a nasty enough way.”

Sylvester was pretty sure he followed her reasoning.

“So, you and Rasco?” he prompted.

“Rasco and me,” said Mrs. Pickleberry firmly, “we decided that we had to save the skipper, which involved givin' him a life raft o' sorts.”

“Unfortunately, we could find only a cork,” Rascoe said.

“A cork?”

“Yes.” The mouse shrugged. “It was the only thing close at paw.”

“So, when you said the cork could be used as a life raft,” he continued, groping his way forward, “you didn't actually mean it was used as a raft.”

“Not in so many words, no. It was wodjer might call a metaphoricule life raft.”

“Something he could hang on to in a spiritual way?”

“Yes.”

“Something that would give him faith in the future when the dark curtains of pessimism sank down all around barring him from the sunbeams of hope?”

“You do go on a bit, doncher, Sylvester?”

For a second, Sylvester couldn't think of an appropriate response. Mrs. Pickleberry was accusing him of going on a bit?

“Tell it your own way,” he said at last, yielding the point.

Mrs. Pickleberry drew a whistling breath. She might have mellowed toward her prospective son-in-law, but that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy her moments of triumph over him. Sylvester made a mental note to make sure he and Viola enjoyed their marital life together as far from his in-laws as he could manage.

“It was lucky for us and our plans,” she said, “that the pirate wot the mutinous ocelot deputed to tie up Rustbane was a pal of yers, Bladderbulge, none uvver.”

Aha! thought Sylvester, comprehension dawning. That explains a lot. The portly badger had been one of the gray fox's closest allies. Sylvester recalled that odd moment when Bladderbulge had been tying Rustbane up after the mutiny, and the reluctance he had seen in Bladderbulge's eyes.

“There was so much rope wrapped around that scurrilous fox,” Mrs. Pickleberry was saying, “you couldn't hardly see where rope ended and fox began. 'E looked like someone had been making a sausage and forgotten to cover the two ends. No one could tell there was more underneath them bonds than just fox.”

“More underneath?” Sylvester asked.

Mrs. Pickleberry rolled her eyes. “Sylvester?”

“Yes?”

“What is Bladderbulge's job?”

“Er, he is the cook.”

“Very good. What kitchen utensils do cooks usually have at their disposal?”

“Well, er, pots, frying pans, that sort of thing.”

“My, ye're the fast guesser ain't ye?” She turned to Viola. “Are ye sure ye want to spend yer life with this dumbskull for a lemming?”

“Mom!”

“Anyways, with the speed of Sylvester's mind 'ere, we would'a played this guessing game for a week. What Bladderbulge used was a . . . knife!”

“Yes, well, that would've been my third guess,” Sylvester said, silently cursing himself for not thinking of the most logical tool to cut a rope with.

“Sure ye would,” said Mrs. Pickleberry heavy with sarcasm. “Now that we got that cleared up . . . The badger laid the knife against the fox's spine, sharp side outermost, runnin' from the base of Rustbane's tail up the middle of his back. Then he – Bladderbulge, that is – began winding around fox and knife alike with his ropes. By the time he'd done you couldn' tell there was the means of Rustbane's releasing built into the very bonds that held him, like.”

Sylvester was still having a hard time figuring out the details.

“But what good would that be to Rustbane?” he said. “He couldn't reach the knife to do anything with it .”

“Yes, Mom,” Viola chipped in. “How would the knife being there help the cap'n?”

Mrs. Pickleberry raised an eyebrow. “Them that say pirates can't swim – that it's part of the job description, like – that ain't strictly true. Not when ye're Cap'n Terrigan Rustbane, it ain't. Cap'n Terrigan Rustbane ain't come across a rule in his life that he ain't broken as a matter of principle, and this one ain't no exception. He can swim like a fish, like two fishes.”

“Even when he's trussed from neck to toe?” said Viola.

“Sure. 'E can still wiggle, can't 'e?”

“I suppose so,” murmured Sylvester thoughtfully. “That's how eels get around in the water. And sea snakes. And otters too, I think. And leeches. And—”

“Soooo.” With a glare, Mrs. Pickleberry overrode him. “So, as I was sayin', Cap'n Rustbane can swim like an eel when he has to, and this was one o' the times he was goin' to be 'avin' to, if you gets me drift.”

“Even when he's trussed up like a birthday gift?” said Viola, drawing some of her mother's irritation away from Sylvester.