On coming out into the colder air of the night, I stood there motionless awhile, hoping the chill might reduce the befuddlement of my brain.
After I know not how much time, although I’m sure it cannot have been long, I found myself with my arms wrapped around a lantern post, grinning inanely at the full moon above.
It was then, in that dingy, misbegotten light, that I heard the voices.
No, dear reader (should this private journal ever have a reader other than myself), I do not mean I heard those voices that sometimes speak to a body when he’s been oversupping ale! These were genuine voices, not fancies. They came from the opposite corner of the courtyard in which I stood. Either, the speakers had not noticed my emergence from the inn or they’d assumed I was just a harmless drunk in front of whom they could speak as freely and with as little concern for privacy as they might in front of a trunk of wood or a block of stone.
Of course, me being Cap’n Josiah Adamite, the blackest heart of any blackheart that ever sailed the ocean, while drunk I might be – and that I willingly confess – harmless I most certainly was not, nor ever shall be.
“’Tis the greatest treasure that’s ever been known,” said the first of the voices.
My mind honed itself to razor-sharpness the instant I heard that word “treasure,” I can tell you.
“Hist!” said the other voice.
Both of the speakers, whom I could identify only as grayer shapes in the smoggy, cloying, darkness of the Moldy Claw’s back courtyard, froze.
As for me, I did the opposite of freeze. I was just a mud-brained drunk, wasn’t I? What mud-brained drunks generally do is make quite a lot of noise. Besides, I’d come out of the boisterous warmth of the tavern’s interior for a purpose, and it might well behoove me to fulfill that purpose even as I spied upon the locutors.
“He doesn’t half rattle on with this ever-so-posh hoity-toity lingo of his, doesn’t he?” Viola complained.
“Shut yer trap,” said her mother crossly. “This is beginnin’ ter get good.”
Even so, Sylvester decided, in order to spare his companions’ delicate female sensibilities, to skip the short paragraph in which Cap’n Adamite described, in some detail, the satisfaction he gained from “fulfilling his purpose.”
I think it was the fact that I’d drenched my right foot (not, in fact, a deliberate camouflaging effect on my part, but a happy accident of which I took full advantage) that convinced the pair I was no more sinister than I seemed. Just in order to cement this notion in their minds, I gave a hefty moan and leaned against the nearest wall as if my innards were in rebellion. The two strangers hastily retreated a couple of precautionary steps, but then seemed content to leave me to my own devices.
“The greatest treasure of all time,” said the second stranger. “’Tis a marvel such a thing should exist.”
“Beyond gold,” said the first. “Beyond jewels. Beyond the powers of coinage to equal. Beyond life itself.”
“What can this marvel be?” wondered his fellow.
“’Tis just this …”
“Yes?”
“’Tis the magical chest of the Zindars!”
“The magical chest of the … Who was that again?”
“The Zindars.”
“And they were?”
“You know.”
“Um, no.”
“They were the—wait a moment, what was that?”
“What was what?”
“That sound.”
“It was just the old drunk over there by the door.”
Of course, the “old drunk over there by the door” was none other than Captain Josiah Adamite – me, at your service, old Throatsplitter himself – and I was getting rapidly less drunk with every passing moment. I too had heard the sound. It had come from somewhere beyond the courtyard’s wall, somewhere beyond the miasmic shed where drunks more courageous than I might risk relieving their ale-wrought pressures.
“A cat,” said one of the speakers at last, the one who had been about to explain the provenance of the Zindars.
“If you say so,” said the other, sounding not entirely convinced. “Now, about these Zindars of yours …”
The first speaker’s voice dropped even lower than before, so that it became even more difficult for me, trapped by my subterfuge on the far side of the courtyard from where the two strangers conversed, to hear what he was saying. Yet never let it be said that Captain Josiah Adamite is without guile and resource! I gave a louder groan than before, then staggered to where someone had left an empty beer barrel in the midst of the area, presumably in a doomed attempt at capturing “ambience.” I sat myself down on this object and let out a piteous bellow.
It was enough to convince the speakers they had nothing to fear from me.
“No one knows for sure,” said the individual who had initiated this discourse, “precisely who the Zindars were, nor when they walked the world. What is known, however, is that they built a civilization far beyond anything Sagaria has seen. In the arts, the Zindars were paragons. They made music that could conjure the souls of singing birds from the air and weave them into tapestries of harmony which so delighted the ear that even the sound of a lover’s words became drab. Their poetry was so emotive that its words smoldered upon any page which attempted to contain it, while the triple-breasted goddess herself became jealous of their paintings and sculpture, which she rightly saw cast even her own legendary beauty in a shadow of ordinariness. But, if they were prodigies of the arts, the Zindars were yet more than that in their scientific endeavors. They had vessels that could cruise not the seas but the skies and, ’tis said, might go yet farther than this, to sojourn among the stars! They built devices such that a Zindar could talk in one continent and be heard by his fellows in another, and not just heard, but seen as he was speaking. They had wheeled machines that could—”
“What’s a continent?” said Viola, who’d obviously been finding the mental strain of not interrupting difficult to tolerate.
“I think it’s an exceptionally big piece of land,” said Sylvester.
“Sort of like Mugwort Forest, you mean?” she said, referring to the dark, forbidding woodland onto which Foxglove rather tremulously backed.
“A lot bigger than that,” replied Sylvester. “A very, very lot bigger than that.”
Viola’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, my.”
“Where was I now?” said Sylvester, hoping his change of subject was adroit enough. “Ah, yes, here we are …”
“… They had wheeled machines that could travel faster than the fastest horse, bearing not just a single rider but as many as dozens, hundreds even, or so the story goes. They could—”
“Yes, yes,” said his comrade. “This all sounds very wonderful and all, but what about the treasure?”
“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!”
“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 A
rrowhead 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.
The Tides of Avarice Page 24
