The Tides of Avarice

by John Dahlgren

  [3]Here too.

  11 Escape!

  Did he escape?” asked Viola urgently, leaning forward eagerly on the bunk bed. Again her eyes were aglow. “I don’t know,” Sylvester replied, once more tipping the open book in her direction so she could see where the writing stopped. “That’s the end of the old sea dog’s reminiscences. Cap’n Rustbane told me he’d killed Adamite himself, stuck him through the liver with his sword” – Sylvester shuddered graphically – “but I’m becoming less and less certain whether I should believe a single word Rustbane tells me.”

  “Still, it’s the most likely thing, isn’t it?” murmured Viola. She gazed wistfully at the mildewed journal. “He won’t have been able to move very quickly, not if the poison was paining him as much as he says. He can’t have had much of a chance of making it to the longboats undetected. Poor old soul.”

  Sylvester stared at her disbelievingly.

  “Poor old soul?”

  “Why, yes. I mean …”

  “Poor old soul! One of the cruelest hearts the seas of Sagaria have ever seen? A mass murderer? A sadist who took the greatest delight in subjecting his enemies, or anyone who offended him, to the most excruciating agonies as he watched them die? And you call him a poor old soul?”

  Viola shifted uneasily. “Well, yes. I mean, hearing his account of himself, didn’t you rather get to like him? Especially by comparison with that horrid Rustbane?”

  Despite himself, Sylvester was forced to admit she had a point. It was hard to think of any redeeming characteristics old Josiah Adamite might have had, but alongside Cap’n Rustbane he had a certain brutal straightforwardness that one could perhaps learn to appreciate.

  “That was one vital thing the old buzzard be lettin’ slip,” observed Mrs. Pickleberry.

  “It was?” said Sylvester, pleased to change the subject.

  “’Bout him having put his “X” alongside of the wrong island, I mean,” Mrs. Pickleberry explained. “Ten to one that Cap’n Rustbane friend of yours don’t know about it, even after all these years. So we know somethin’ the gray fox don’t know, and that gives us one mighty great wallopin’ advantage, it does.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Sylvester slowly. They could do with any advantage they could get, if they weren’t going to end their days being chewed by the fishes at the bottom of the ocean. Even so, he couldn’t imagine what help it was going to be, aside from a sort of gleeful, vindictive schadenfreude to know that, even if Rustbane did lay his rotten little paws on the third portion of the map, he was going to waste weeks and months and possibly forever digging up the wrong island.

  “So it’s important,” continued Mrs. Pickleberry, “that we keep it a secret from the fox until we escape.”

  Sylvester nodded seriously. “Quite so.”

  How many days now until we reach Hangman’s Haven? he thought. And, once we get there, do we realistically have more than the slightest chance of escaping?

  Very deliberately, he closed Cap’n Josiah Adamite’s book and stuffed it under the mattress of his bunk.

  Whatever you do, Sylvester old fellow, it’s important you put on a brave face when you face the world. If ever Viola and Mrs. Pickleberry realize how utterly terrified you are, they might crack up completely.

  Viola, watching him, could deduce most of his thoughts.

  She glanced across at her mother.

  The two Pickleberries rolled their eyes at each other.

  ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

  A few hours later, the storm had died away and the crew of the Shadeblaze had finished making the myriad minor repairs and adjustments necessary in the wake of the elements’ wrath. There was now a grog-swigging party in full flow on the main deck. The three captives had been invited to join in and Mrs. Pickleberry, in her persona as Three Pins, Scourge of the Sagarian Seas, had accepted the invitation with gusto. Sylvester and Viola had been a little more fastidious (“prissy!” according to Mrs. Pickleberry) and were now standing on the sterncastle, looking out at a moonless night studded with more stars than could ever be counted.

  Every now and then, the rasping sound of Mrs. Pickleberry’s voice, raised in song, floated up to them and Viola shuddered in embarrassment.

  “She gets like this sometimes,” murmured Viola.

  “Don’t they all?” responded Sylvester in an attempt to reassure her, although ,in fact, he couldn’t imagine his own mother ever behaving this way. Hortensia Lemmington had always, he was sure, been demure and ladylike.

  He leaned forward on the rail, acutely conscious that his elbow was barely more than a hairsbreadth away from hers – a very thick hair, to be honest, but it was the principle that counted. An amiable silence descended between them into which even the boisterous carousing of the pirates could penetrate only in a sort of muffled way, as if heard through a couple of layers of cotton wool.

  “Do you really think we’ll be able to manage it?” said Viola softly after a while.

  “Eh? Manage what?”

  “Escaping from these frightful people, I mean.”

  “Of course I do.” He paused to admire the confidence in his voice. “We’re lemmings of Foxglove, after all. There’s nothing we can’t do once we’ve set our hearts on it.”

  “That’s what worries me,” continued Viola, putting a paw on his arm. “We’re lemmings. We’re not foxes or weasels or ferrets. We don’t have the inbuilt viciousness some of the pirates have.”

  Sylvester turned to look her in the eyes. He wished there were some moonlight. As it was, he could barely distinguish her face, let alone the eyes within it. He felt certain the darkness was ruining his intended effect.

  “Trust me.”

  “I do, Sylvester, implicitly. Of course I do, but …”

  He wished she hadn’t added that querulous “but …”

  “Please.”

  “Oh, Sylvester, if ever there was a lemming who could become a hero it would be you.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Oh?”

  “You were comparing lemmings to other creatures and implying we can’t be as vicious as them.”

  He heard rather than saw her shift from foot to foot.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Think of Mayor Hairbell.”

  “Must I?”

  Sylvester gave a snort of laughter.

  Viola joined in. “If I had to choose between Mayor Hairbell and Cap’n Terrigan Rustbane …”

  “You’d choose neither.”

  She hooted. In the darkness, Sylvester grinned. It was good to hear her laugh so freely, as if, for a moment, she’d forgotten the terrible dangers around them, the perilous future that awaited them.

  “But you saw it yourself,” Viola said, sobering. “Back in Foxglove. If there were a fight between Rustbane and Hairbell, there’s no question who’d win. It’d be over in seconds and then Rustbane’d be kicking Hairbell’s head around as a football.”

  “That’s only because Rustbane is bigger and stronger and has sharper teeth and claws. Hairbell is the meaner and viciouser. Well, he’s as mean and as vicious anyway. We lemmings, Viola, we’re not the cuddly creatures people tend to think we are. That’s a big advantage we have. Folk tend to look at us and assume we’re not going to create any trouble, and the next thing they know they’re lying in the gutter counting their broken bones.”

  “Do we have to talk about this?”

  “Yes, Viola, we do have to talk about these things. Our lives might depend upon it, in the days to come. Any one of us might have to hurt someone. We might even have to kill someone.”

  He’d expected her to gasp with revulsion at the possibility. She didn’t.

  “Besides,” he added, “if you’re not overly impressed by the idea of a duel to the death between Cap’n Rustbane and Mayor Hairbell, trying imagining a fi
ght between Rustbane and your mom.”

  “That,” said Viola, “is another matter entirely.”

  Sometime later, she kissed him.

  Suddenly there was a moon in the night sky, after all.

  ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

  Two more days went by.

  Very slowly.

  Almost reluctantly.

  Days are like adolescents.

  It’s not so much what they say as the way they don’t say what they would say if they did say anything.

  These two days didn’t approve of the delay.

  Neither did Viola’s mom.

  Strong stuff, that pirate grog. Got a kick like a mule.

  Worst of all, with every hour the Shadeblaze traveled southward the air got hotter.

  Viola was sharing a cabin with her mom.

  Poor Viola.

  ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

  “Land ho!”

  “Huh?” said Sylvester.

  He breathed in, then recognized the stuff that was filling his mouth wasn’t air but the corner of his pillow.

  He spat it out and pushed himself up on his elbows.

  “Land ho!” repeated the invisible pirate obligingly, somewhere beyond the porthole. Sylvester had opened it last night in the wan hope some cooler air might drift into his cabin. Despite his efforts, the atmosphere in here was so hot it felt like boxing gloves battering against the sides of his head.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Whazza—” he said.

  “Sylvester?”

  Viola’s voice. She sounded dreadfully cheerful. Her mother must have dropped off to sleep.

  “Yeeurgh,” he said.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Land! We’re just about there. The Caraya Islands.”

  “You sure?”

  He wallowed in his bunk. Knowing Viola, she’d probably brushed her teeth on the way to his cabin. His own breath, he felt certain, must smell like a compost heap. That was what hot weather did to you.

  Well, did to you if you weren’t Viola, that was.

  He groaned.

  “Can I come in?” she hissed through the wooden door. “I mean, are you decent?”

  He could have done without the coy, girlish giggle that followed the question.

  “I’m . . . ah . . .” he replied.

  She dropped her voice to a penetrative hiss.

  “The Caraya Islands, Sylvester. Don’t you remember? Hangman’s Haven? Our big chance of escaping?”

  “Ah, yeah.”

  He knew he was being stupid and hated himself for what he must be making her think about him. It was this accursed heat. It seemed to rot away his brains until there was nothing left to think with.

  Pull yourself together, Sylvester! Your life may depend upon it.

  With a conscious effort, he was able to focus his gaze upon the wall on the other side of the cabin. There was a knothole there the shape of a rat’s head.

  “I’m coming,” he said, rolling out of bed. He opened the door to find Viola looking, to his horror, even fresher and more adorable than when he’d last seen her.

  “What’s that word my mother uses? Lummox?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Well, you’re one of those, Sylvester Lemmington.”

  “Thanks.”

  Despite the awful taste in his mouth, the sight of her was making him feel better by the moment.

  “Have you been up on deck yet?” he said.

  “Since they started shouting about land ho, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. I was waiting for you.”

  “How’s Daphne? Three Pins, I mean.”

  “Dead to the world. I was going to wake her, but then …”

  “You didn’t.” Who could blame her? Her mother had been like a thwarted hornet these past two days.

  “I didn’t,” agreed Viola. “You ready?”

  “I suppose so.”

  She grabbed him by the paw and tugged him toward the nearest companionway. A moment or two later, Sylvester still blinking as if daylight was an entirely novel concept to him. They were standing on deck looking out across a stretch of impossibly blue water to a distant gray smudge.

  “That’s land?”

  “Oh, stop being so grumpy, Sylvester.”

  He screwed up his eyes, hoping that somehow the smudge might get bigger and clearer.

  It didn’t.

  “Here,” she said.

  “What?”

  He looked down. She was holding a leather flask in front of his whiskers.

  “Water,” she said.

  He grabbed the flask and took a long pull. The contents were warm and brackish, like all the water seemed to have become aboard the Shadeblaze the farther they got from land. Even so, the liquid refreshed him, made the morning seem somehow more approachable.

  “Thanks.”

  As they watched, the bow of the Shadeblaze slowly turned until it was pointing in the general direction of that distant gray mass. There could be no doubt as to the ship’s intended destination.

  “That must be Blighter Island,” said Sylvester.

  “None other,” Viola replied.

  “Hope it’s better than its name.”

  “Me too.” She took his paw in the pair of hers.

  For the next couple of hours they watched as the island came slowly closer. For some reason none of the pirates thought to disturb them. Sylvester guessed the crew had other things to do in preparation for landfall.

  As the details became more visible, so did the sounds. The first ones Sylvester was able to identify were bird calls, but these were birds and calls the like of which he’d never seen or heard before. There were other shrieks and cries, too. Noises he didn’t believe could be produced by a bird’s throat. Despite the baking heat of the day, those cries made cold flutters of fear run up and down his spine.

  Viola must have been feeling the same, because she shivered and pulled herself closer to him.

  Over the next few hours the Shadeblaze swung slowly around the island until a town came into view, with scores of little houses clustered on the hillsides surrounding a big, semicircular bay. The trees and plants that grew around the houses, pressing up close against them as if attempting a passionate embrace, weren’t at all like those of Foxglove. Their forms were somehow squatter and fleshier, and they were a paler and brighter green than Sylvester had ever seen plants before, as if they weren’t real plants but ones in a picture painted by a very young lemming.

  In the bay were moored a dozen or more sailing ships though none of them, Sylvester was illogically proud to observe, as large or as splendid as the Shadeblaze.

  He wasn’t the only one to notice this. Here and there along the dockside people were pausing in their activities to stare at the new arrival. There were stoats, foxes, weasels and bobcats there, Sylvester saw, as well as a couple of animals he didn’t recognize at all that must be native to these far southerly climes.

  No lemmings, though.

  The fact that there weren’t any other lemmings in sight was an unwelcome reminder of how truly far from home he and the Pickleberries were.

  A large paw fell on his shoulder.

  Cap’n Rustbane.

  Sylvester almost jumped out of his fur.

  How had the gray fox managed to creep up behind him and Viola without either of them having the slightest suspicion of his approach?

  Rustbane chuckled, reading Sylvester’s mind.

  “How are you, me hearties?”

  “Ve-very well, thank you. We were just w-watching—”

  “Blighter Island,” the pirate captain completed for him. “None other, and that’s the pretty little burg of Hangman’s
Haven you can see in front of ye.”

  He settled his elbows on the rail alongside Sylvester’s, ignoring Viola’s hostile glare.

  “The place got its name because it was once said that, if ever a hangman could survive in it more than five minutes without finding a dagger in his back, there wouldn’t be a single person there – male, female, grown-up or whelp – who’d not qualify for his noose. There are no laws down in these parts, see. Leastwise, no laws that anyone can remember to obey. Perhaps it’s because the Caraya Islands are so close to the equator and the heat stifles the growth of laws. I don’t know, I’m just a humble pirate.”

  He chuckled again. The meaning of his chuckle was clear. If there was ever a pirate who was humble, it wasn’t Rustbane.

  The gray fox was dressed in his full piratical finery today, from his black cocked hat to the toes of his highly polished black leather shoes, their brass buckles gleaming in the sunlight. He’d chosen a fiery red tunic and jacket, the seams embroidered in gold thread. A few brightly ribboned medals sparkled on his chest. Medals, thought Sylvester sourly, that the pirate must have stolen from victims of his treachery.

  Topping off the whole dazzling assemblage was Rustbane’s broad grin. There seemed to be even more teeth in his mouth than ever before.

  “Looks pretty enough from here, Blighter Island does, don’t it?” he remarked. “You can’t tell at this distance that yer throat wouldn’t be safe one instant in those cute little streets. Not if anyone thought you might have a wallet to steal or a gold tooth they could prize from its socket and sell for a farthing. Why, you’re safer aboard a pirate ship than you’d be in Hangman’s Haven.”

  The hint was thunderingly obvious. Sylvester pretended to take it at face value.

  “Lucky we won’t have to go ashore then, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t even think about it, if I was you.”

  “How long are we going to be here, with that” – Sylvester offered a histrionic shudder – “hellhole just the thickness of the hull away from us?”

  “Three days.”

  “That long?”

  “We got to pick us up supplies for at least three months, I reckons.”

  “Three months? How far do you think we’re going to be at sea?”