The Tides of Avarice (63 page)

Her brow wrinkled. “Ours are having the most tremendous fight.”

“So I heard.”

“So the whole of Foxglove's heard, I should imagine. Mom isn't the most restrained of lemmings when she loses her temper, and she's really lost it with Dad tonight.”

“What did the poor fellow do?” said Sylvester, settling down on his haunches next to her. She and Bullrich had already devastated a soup course, he could see.

“Told her he thought you were an unsuitable suitor for his daughter.”

Sylvester's mouth went dry. “And she—”

Viola nodded, her lips pursed in a grin. There was a crumb of bread caught in the fold at the corner of her mouth. Sylvester thought it was the most beautiful crumb of bread he'd ever seen in his life. “Mom seems to have taken a real liking to you.”

Sylvester recalled how, back aboard the Shadeblaze, she'd mellowed toward him a bit. It hadn't lasted.

“But that's only,” Viola said when he mentioned this, “because Mom'd never, ever let someone know if she'd begun to like and respect him a lot.”

“She respects me? I find that hard to believe!”

“Me too, but she does.”

Bullrich chortled.

“Shut up,” Viola said to him across the table, then resumed what she was telling Sylvester.

“Anyway, Dad started off with this rant about how we'd all been instrumental in expelling Hairbell from Foxglove, and how Hairbell was the best husband I was likely to get, and now look at the second-rater I'd got my heart set on, and—”

“You've got your heart set on me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Really, Sylvester Lemmington, how dense can one lemming possibly be? I must have told you a thousand—no,” she added, fending him off. “Not in front of Bullrich.”

“Bullrich could be persuaded to go and, oh, I don't know, jump off the Mighty Enormous Cliff or something.”

“A very good idea, but no. Not in front of Mr. Snowbanks then.”

Unnoticed by Sylvester, Mr. Snowbanks had approached the little party and was standing over them, notebook in hand. They exchanged a few words about the scene out on the plateau and the expulsion of Hairbell and Spurge. Finally, Mr. Snowbanks cast a significant glance at his open notebook and said, “What would you like, Sylvester?”

Despite his mother's cooking, Sylvester had never eaten here before.

“Is there a menu?”

“No.”

“Ah, then what would you suggest?”

“Well, you can either have all the dinner or just some of it.”

“Not a huge amount of choice then?”

“As you might say, no.”

Sylvester thought for barely a moment. “I'd like the complete dinner, please.”

“With beer, mead or wine?”

Sylvester quickly checked what the other two were drinking. “Mead, please.”

“Your meal will be with you in a moment.”

Mr. Snowbanks shuffled off toward the kitchens.

Sylvester looked around him. Aside from themselves, the dining room was empty. There were a few more customers in the bar, where Flossie Grapedangle (whom the gossips whispered might soon be the second Mrs. Snowbanks if the first didn't abjure her poetic inclinations a bit sharpish) was serving up drinks with a will.

“Where is everybody?” he said quietly.

“At home, I suspect.” If Viola was miffed that the conversation had switched from matters of romance, she didn't show it. Bullrich looked disappointed. “Like your parents, like my parents, Foxglove has taken a heck of a jolt to its system today, you know.”

“I'd expected them to be throwing a party in the town square.”

“Not everyone's pleased to see the back of Hairbell and Spurge. It's asking a lot to expect people to abandon their beliefs just like that. Those are the things they've thought were true the whole of their lives, and so did their parents and grandparents before them. They might not have liked the world being the way they were told it was, but at least they were comfortable with that explanation. They knew where they were.”

“I suppose so.”

At that moment, Mr. Snowbanks arrived with Sylvester's soup. “Acorn and squash, with a bit of basil,” said the innkeeper, dumping the big wooden bowl in front of Sylvester.

He dug in.

“That big gray fox,” said Bullrich, “is he a friend of yours?”

Viola giggled. “I suppose he is. We've spent weeks thinking exactly the opposite, though.”

“He could have killed us if he'd wanted to,” observed Sylvester mid-slurp.

“But he didn't.”

“No, he didn't.”

“You finished that soup yet?” said Mr. Snowbanks, materializing at Sylvester's side again.

“Why, yes, thank you, I have,” said Sylvester, staring down in surprise at his bowl.

“Next you got the nut loaf with gravy.”

“I do? That sounds good.”

“Better believe it.”

“You don't happen to know where, ah—”

“An' here's yer mead.”

Snowbanks thumped a large wooden goblet down on the bench in front of Sylvester. The goblet was full of a liquid that seemed to be wondering if it were alive or dead.

“Thanks,” said Sylvester weakly.

“Me,” said Viola, “I think our friend Rustbane is right here in the Snowbanks Inn.”

“You say?”

“Listen.”

From upstairs, now that he cocked his ear toward the inn ceiling, Sylvester heard the sound of snoring.

“Our friend.”

“Mr. Snowbanks accepts anyone who can pay his bill.”

“And Rustbane is …”

“Sleeping.”

“So if we had any sense we'd—”

“But we're not going to do that, are we, Sylvester? Tomorrow we're going to head off to Mugwort Forest with your dad in the lead and Cap'n Rustbane in the rear. Do you think Cap'n Rustbane is the ideal person to discover the Zindar chest?”

“No. Of course I don't.”

“Here's yer nut loaf with gravy,” said Mr. Snowbanks. “It'll make yer very regular, this will.”

“Thanks,” said Sylvester. He peered at what the innkeeper had put in front of him. Some of the nuts in his nut loaf looked as if they might sprout at any moment. The gravy was, well, gravid. Unfortunately, Mrs. Snowbanks had been the culinary half of the Snowbanks partnership. Still, the meal looked edible, especially to someone in Sylvester's state of starvation.

“Them friends of yours, they liked it well enough,” said Mr. Snowbanks, seeing the doubtful expression on Sylvester's face.

“Friends of mine?”

Snowbanks jerked his head toward the ceiling, which, on cue, creaked. “That fox. 'Eaven knows how we got him into his room and it's the Honeymoon Suite, the biggest we 'ave. Even so, he's got one paw stuck out the window and his tail up the chimney. Pity he didn't have the good sense of that nice beaver, the one with the hooks. He's sleeping in the back yard. Got all the room he needs to spread out and be comfy. And we got the mouse in the attic room, the one with the sm—the one conveniently close to the lavs, I mean.”

“And they all liked the nut loaf, did they?”

“That they did, young Sylvester.”

Mr. Snowbanks slouched off, whistling tunelessly.

Sylvester, fork in paw, returned to an earlier theme. “What I can't get over is how normally everyone's taking things. A couple of hours ago, Mr. Snowbanks there was facing down the two most powerful people in Foxglove. Now he's just the same as he always was, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.”

“It's because it's just too big,” said Viola. “Bullrich, stop picking your nose with the mustard spoon.”

“Too big?” said Sylvester.

“Too much to react to right away. Their whole world's been turned over. Same as my dad and your mom, really. If we'd stayed out three hours late without telling them where we were, we'd have been the focus of attention for quite a while, more's the pity. But we've been away for weeks and your dad, even longer than that, and they probably thought we were all dead, whatever the brave face they put on it. Everyone's just taking a little while to get over the shock, is all,” said Viola.

“I suppose everyone's in shock, us included,” agreed Sylvester. “Oh look, my nut loaf's disappeared. I'm sure I've had only a couple of mouthfuls. I must have been more ravenous than I thought.”

“Wasn't me,” said Bullrich in what Sylvester didn't until later realize was probably not a non sequitur.

There wasn't frost on the ground the following morning, but the air was crisp enough that Sylvester felt there ought to be. He and Viola had left the Snowbanks Inn later than he liked to think about, herding between them Bullrich, who'd been barely awake. Sylvester had fallen over twice on the way upstairs to his bedroom, but that had been all right. He lay awake a while listening to the reassuring sound of his father snoring in his parents' room. It was a sound that reminded him of his childhood, when everything had seemed so much easier somehow. His mother had left him a pie on the kitchen table for when he got home. He was almost tempted to eat it, just to quieten the rumblings of his stomach. Strange he should still be hungry after all that nut loaf, but wisdom had conquered mead at the last moment and he'd put the pie under his bed with the others.

His final thought last night had been, I must work out a way of getting rid of …

After that, darkness, until Mom had woken him in the morning, bustling cheerfully around his room. “I was going to bring you breakfast in bed, but your father said the two of you had urgent business to conduct with the fox this morning. He's already out in the garden talking away to himself about how his flowers have been neglected.”

Once she'd gone, he hauled himself out of bed and looked at his face in the mirror. Not a pretty sight. How can the Snowbanks Inn's mead taste so innocuous when it's going down, yet do this to a poor lemming in the morning?

Turning back toward his bed, he discovered he'd picked up a scarecrow on his way home. He wondered where.

He also wondered why Mom hadn't noticed or, perhaps, why she hadn't liked to say anything.

He found Jasper in the garden, as Hortensia had indicated.

“Before I left on the Great Exodus, son, I had the best radish patch in the whole of Foxglove,” said Jasper as Sylvester approached, “and now?” He gestured. “You can't even tell that part of the garden was ever cultivated. Looks like an untamed jungle, it does.”

“No, it doesn't,” said Sylvester.

“You'd think that—what?”

“It doesn't look like an untamed jungle. I've been in an untamed jungle, Dad. I almost didn't come back out of it again. I know what I'm talking about.”

Jasper absorbed this in silence.

Eventually he harrumphed. “Well, it's still a pity about my radishes, that's all I can say.”

“Um, Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“Not so much of a pity as you might think. I don't know if you remember, it was so long ago, but Mom really hates radishes.”

“She does?”

“And I was just little. Every time you made me eat one of your radishes, I upchucked.”

“You did?”

Sylvester nodded. “I've never been able to look a radish in the eye since.”

“You haven't?”

“No.”

“Son, you're trying to tell me about something more than just radishes, aren't you?”

“Yes, Dad.”

Jasper thought this over, scuffing his feet on the lawn.

“I've got a lot to learn, haven't I?” he said. “A lot to learn about what's happened since I've been gone. I can't just expect to walk back into the house and think everything's going to be the same as it was with you and your mother. The two of you, you've both changed over the years. I don't mean just in the obvious ways, like you've gotten bigger and your mom's gotten prettier, but in ways that aren't so visible but are maybe more important. You're different people, really, not the same folks I left behind when I went over the Mighty Enormous Cliff, thinking I was on my way to the Land of Destiny. And if I don't accept that fact and work along with it rather than against it, then this might not turn out to be the happy family I dreamed about those lonely nights in the Zindar ship, is it?”

“Something like that, Dad. Mom and I love you. You should have heard all the times she'd talk on and on about you as if you were the finest lemming the world ever knew, or the times she wept herself to sleep at night. We love you and it's fantastic we've got you back again, but there's a lot of adapting to be done.”

“You're right.” Jasper sounded almost sad as he said it. He cleared his throat. “These are weighty subjects to be talking about so early in the morning. Especially since we'd better not tarry too long here before picking up Rustbane and Pimplebrains from the inn.”

“And Rasco. He'll be wanting to come with us.”

“He's got a mighty big heart for a mouse so small, hasn't he, that one?”

“He has indeed.”

“You've had breakfast?”

“I grabbed some berries Mom gave me.”

“Same here. Her cooking hasn't improved by any chance, has it?”

“No.”

“I thought it might not have. Still, there's not too much damage she can do to fresh berries, is there?”

“Don't say things you might regret, Dad.”

“I see you're wearing that cutlass the pirate gave you.”

“Yes. I see you've got a sword too.”

“Never hurts to take precautions.”

“That's what I thought as well, Dad.”

By tacit agreement, father and son talked about inconsequentialities as they strolled to the Snowbanks Inn. There, they found the two pirates and Rasco were up and about.

“We was just getting ready to come and fetch you,” said Pimplebrains, who looked not at all the worse for having slept the night in the open. “We done finished our breakfasts a time ago, wonderful nut loaf, by the way, and Mr. Snowbanks has a lot of it.”

“I've no doubt,” said Sylvester, pleased despite himself to see the gruff old beaver again.

“Now,” said Rustbane, appearing around the side of the inn rubbing his paws together, “it's time to go off on our treasure hunt, isn't it?”

Sylvester grinned back at the fox. “Yes.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?”

Pimplebrains had managed to get hold of a spade from somewhere. Presumably it was a gift, either voluntary or involuntary, from Mr. Snowbanks. Having been made with lemmings in mind, it looked almost like a child's toy as he held it with surprising adroitness in the hook where his right forepaw should have been.

The three smaller animals had to almost run to keep up with Rustbane and Pimplebrains.

“Slow down a bit, you two,” called Sylvester for the dozenth time as the gap between the leaders and the stragglers began opening up yet again. They were just passing Doctor Nettletree's cottage at the time, and the doctor was leaning on his gate watching the morning sunlight.

“Where are you off to?”

“Mugwort Forest.”

“Mind if I come along?” Doc Nettletree addressed the question to Jasper, but it was Sylvester who answered.

“If you'd like.”

“Good. I'll do that. Oh, I seem to be carrying my poker. I'll just bring it with me rather than leave it here in the garden where it might get rained on.”

“That seems a good idea.”

Sylvester and Nettletree grinned conspiratorially at each other.

“And along the way,” said the physician, “I can catch up on news with your father. There's really a lot of news for him and me to catch up on, after all this time, isn't there, Jasper?”

Sylvester let out a piercing whistle. Pimplebrains and Rustbane had almost rounded the next bend. They paused, looking back.

“You're going the wrong way,” Sylvester shouted.

Once he and the rest had caught up with the two pirates, he added, puffing, “In fact, you're not, but if you'd carried on going the way you were, you soon would have been. Getting into Mugwort Forest isn't as easy as you think. There are some places the trees just won't let you in, where they'll raise thorns and tangles to keep you out. You have to use one of the gates.”

“Fighting trees, eh?” said Rustbane, giving the beaver a sidelong glance. “Not sure that I ever came across such a thing before.”

“They don't fight,” said Sylvester, suddenly close to losing his patience. The sun wasn't yet fully clear of the horizon and already it felt like it had been a long day. “They just obstruct. Willfully.”

“Hmmf,” said Rustbane.

“It's true,” Doctor Nettletree chipped in. “If you don't believe us, just go ahead and try barging into the forest on your own.”

“Better listen to what they tell you, Skip,” said Pimplebrains. “Them's locals, after all. We could get ourselves killed if we don't heed their telling.”

Cap'n Rustbane's yellow eyes narrowed. “All right,” he said after a second or two. “But if this is some trick …”

Sylvester snorted. “After all this time you think I'd try to trick you? I just want you to find the blasted treasure and clear off out of Foxglove and leave us all in peace just as quick as it can possibly be managed. Got that?”

The gray fox splayed out a paw on his heart and assumed a grieving tone. “Oh, my dear, aching soul. And to think I'd begun to look on you as a friend.”

“You don't have friends. You're a pirate, remember? Now, about fifty yards round the next bend you'll find a stile on the left. If you two have to keep charging ahead of us, wait there and I'll tell you where next to go.”

Moments later, the pirates were once more in the lead.

“What was all that about?” said Doctor Nettletree.

“Yes,” Jasper said. “What was this stuff about intelligent trees?”

“It seemed a good idea to start getting them unsettled. They're far bigger than we are and far stronger. I don't think Pimplebrains has a mean bone in his body, but at the same time, he's likely to do whatever Rustbane tells him to. And Rustbane … well, let's just say I wouldn't put it past him to decide we're surplus to requirements, as soon as he's got his treasure,. So I also wanted to suggest subtly to them who's boss. If they're going to find the Zindar chest, it's going to be because of Dad here. They know that much. But let 'em keep thinking they'd be lost without the help of folk with local knowledge and we'll be the safer for it, and so will Foxglove.”

“You've got a wise head on your shoulders, son,” said Jasper with a chuckle. “I wonder where you got it from? Must've been from your mother, I reckon.”

A while later, Sylvester made a great palaver of deciding that one of the gaps in the forest edge was a gateway through which it'd be safe for the treasure-seekers to venture, and in under the cool shadow of the trees they trooped. He couldn't help remembering, as they tramped forward on a mulchy path, what it had been like in the jungle on Blighter Island. The two places could hardly have been more different. There, every step he'd taken had seemed full of menace, as if he were stepping closer and closer to some hideous, amorphous peril. The shrieks and cries of the jungle animals had been like claws and beaks tearing at his soft flesh. Here, the sounds of the wild creatures were oddly reassuring, even though he was certain some of them could present danger to someone so small as a lemming. The shade of the forest was calming and tranquil. This was home to him, or could very easily become so.

He imagined Rasco, riding on Pimplebrains's shoulder ahead of him, must feel exactly the opposite.

The pirates came to a halt in a clearing where the morning sunshine formed curtains of watery gold. It was still too early in the day and cool for there to be many insects around, but the few that were buzzed petulantly at the intrusion.

“Time for you to start doing your mystic stuff, Mr. Lemmington,” said the gray fox with a mocking nod to Jasper. He reached his arms out to either side and fluttered them. “Ooo-eee-ooo-eee-ooo.”

Jasper gave an angry little grunt. “Want a demonstration of the spooky stuff?”

Rustbane cackled. “Go ahead.”

As Sylvester watched, Jasper walked coolly across to the gray fox, grabbed a couple of pawfuls of the long, soft white fur on Rustbane's chest, and pulled himself up until he could deliver the pirate a mighty smack on the nose.

Then he climbed down again. Only as Jasper returned to where he'd been standing did Rustbane react.

“Yarrowwwww!”

Sylvester couldn't understand why no one, especially Rustbane, had done anything to stop his father, and then understanding flowed into him.

No one else here spent long on the Zindar vessel except Pimplebrains, and maybe this sort of stuff doesn't work on beavers. Maybe the reason the Zindars gave such a boost to lemming civilization was that there was some kind of psychic similarity between Zindars and lemmings. Who knows? But Dad was using one of the Zindar talents he's gained, and I was the only one who saw him do it because I'm lucky enough to have been similarly endowed.

I reckon that Dad really might be able to lead us directly to the treasure chest.

“What happened?” bellowed Rustbane. Both he and Pimplebrains had their swords drawn and were glancing around the clearing in taut little jerks of the head as if expecting a hostile horde to leap from the pools of forest gloom at any moment.

“I haven't the slightest idea,” said Jasper airily.

Doctor Nettletree just looked befuddled.

“That was you!” shouted Rustbane to Jasper, his cry causing birds to start up squawking from the treetops around.

“Was it? But that'd have involved spooky stuff, wouldn't it?”

Rustbane growled, and took a step toward Jasper, sword hissing in the air as he pulled it back over his shoulder. His eyes had gone from yellow-green to the ominous dark red of molten lava.

He was stopped only by Pimplebrains's hook on his shoulder.

“Don't do it, Skip, you'll regret it if you do. That threadbare little fart's the only one that'll allow us to find the treasure. Without him we might as well just pack up and go home.”

Rustbane gave one snarl of frustration then another before he gave up fighting against Pimplebrains's restraint.