A very bad orchestra.
Just behind her head, its feet screwed to the back of the armchair, was a stuffed mantis which had once upon a time been green but was now primarily dust-colored. Sylvester wasn’t certain, but it seemed to him as if the mantis moved its head in time to Madame Zahnia’s, regarding the visitors through eyes the color of spiderwebs.
Rasco bowed deeply in front of her. She might be his grandma, but obviously the little mouse held her in awe. “At your service, Madame Zahnia.”
She held up her arm again and once more there was that tuneless clangor. “Welcome home, Rasco,” Madame Zhania said, “and welcome to you too, dear lemmings.”
“Er, thank you, Madame Zhania,” said Sylvester, still mystified how the round mouse could know they were coming. He decided not to ask.
“Is there something I can be of assistance with?” Madame Zhania said.
“Yes, Madame Zhania,” Rasco said. “We—I mean them are in quite a fix.”
Madame Zhania darted him a glare. “Please mind your tongue, young Rasco.”
Rasco shot a glance back over his shoulder at the three lemmings, crammed into a room that had been designed for mice. “Forgive me, Madame Zahnia.”
The old mouse’s brightly painted lips twitched slightly in a polite imitation of a smile. “It’s of no matter. Tell me why you are here.”
So, with some help from Sylvester and Viola, Rasco told her.
✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.
“The short and the long of it, grandmère,” he said at the conclusion of his story, “is that they need to get off the island and far away before they’re captured by Deathflash and his crew and put to the most hideous of deaths.”
“I can see that,” Madame Zahnia murmured. For a long moment she sat in complete silence, her face creased in thought.
When at last she spoke, it was directly to the lemmings.
“I have heard that Deathflash, or Rustbane or whatever it is you wish to call him, has returned to these unfortunate shores. The monkeys told me about it. Wherever Deathflash goes, evil deeds and dire happenings must surely follow. He is one of the accursed and his presence is like an onslaught of the plague.”
Sylvester shrugged mentally. They knew that. If this was all Madame Zahnia was going to tell them …
“Don’t be so impatient,” the old mouse told him. “All will be revealed in good time.”
He gulped.
“What should we do, Madame Zahnia?” Viola’s voice was filled with courtesy.
“I think the time has come for me to consult my Revealer.”
“Your Revealer?”
“Yes,” said Rasco. “That’s the best of ideas, grandmère.”
What Madame Zahnia did next would feature occasionally in Sylvester’s nightmares for the rest of his life.
Turning swiftly around in her seat, she grabbed the head of the mantis with a firm paw and twisted it right round backwards.
There was a loud squeak, as if of agony.
Sylvester squinted at the mantis. It can only have been an illusion that it was alive, he told himself but he felt his heart thumping heavily at the back of his throat. It was stuffed, after all. Oh, please let that insect have been already dead.
“Thank you, Nero,” said Madame Zahnia.
In the gloomy depths of the room behind her there was another noise, a slow creaking, like that of a door being opened that had been kept firmly shut for a thousand years. Sylvester gripped Viola’s hand tightly.
“Come with me,” said Madame Zahnia, pulling herself ponderously to her feet. “Rasco, give me your arm, will you? You’re a strong young fellow and your grandmother is old and frail.”
She reached out her hand and leaned against Rasco, who staggered but nobly tried to conceal it.
Slowly, the two mice shuffled toward the rear of the room, the lemmings behind them. Gasbag, who’d said not a word since they’d arrived at Madame Zahnia’s house, was at Mrs. Pickleberry’s side. He seemed to have taken an unaccountable liking to her.
On the far side of the hidden doorway they found themselves in another room, almost as big as the first, but this time circular and significantly less cluttered. In the center of the floor was a large round table, with chairs tucked under it. What caught the eye immediately, however, was the object in the middle of the table, a crystal ball about the size of Madame Zahnia’s head. Unlike virtually everything else in this house, the ball was free from a surface layer of scummy dust. There was an opening in the roof directly above the table, allowing a column of sunlight to descend straight down onto the crystal ball which, in response, seemed to glow with all the colors of time.
Madam Zahnia went straight to the nearest chair and, releasing poor Rasco at last, plopped her ample rear end down onto it. Rasco took the chair next to her on the left and, slipping past the lemmings, Gasbag sat down to her right. Sylvester eyed the chairs, but there was no way they were big enough for the likes of a lemming. He and Viola settled down on the floor to the right of Gasbag, which meant they could still see comfortably all that took place on the table. Mrs. Pickleberry moved to Rasco’s left-hand side but chose to remain standing, her shoulders humped over under the low ceiling.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Madame Zahnia. “Me and my Revealer won’t hurt you.”
Once everyone had assured her they weren’t frightened, really they weren’t, she continued, “Now, I want each of you to hold the hands of the person to either side of you.”
With a certain amount of difficulty, people rearranged themselves to obey, with Rasco and Gasbag straining to reach each other’s outstretched paws behind Madame Zahnia’s broad back.
“Now,” Madame Zahnia muttered, “jus’ let me concentrate.”
She began humming in a thin whine that Sylvester found almost intolerably spooky. Risking a nervous glance at her face, he saw that her eyes had taken on an uncanny luster, as if there was an extra layer of something masking them from the outside world.
He shuddered.
Madame Zahnia reached out both her paws to start stroking the big crystal ball in front of her, caressing it as if it were a pet or a beloved small child.
“There now, my little one. Your grandma is here beside you. You’re in friendly company, Now, tell me what you see.”
For what seemed like a long time there was no sound except her resumed high humming and the faint scrape of her rough paws on the smooth crystal surface.
“Oh, I see,” she murmured at last.
“See what?” Sylvester whispered, leaning across to try to get a better look at the ball.
“Sh!” hissed Rasco.
“That’s why Deathflash is here,” said Madame Zahnia contemplatively. “Oh, the poor sorry fool that he is. He’s always been prey to his greed, but now he’s letting it devour him entirely.”
“What’s he doing?” said Rasco. The prohibition against interrupting the flow of Madame Zahnia’s thoughts apparently didn’t apply to him.
She didn’t seem to mind.
“He’s going after it.”
“It?”
“The magical chest of the Zindars.”
“I knew that,” said Sylvester. Once again, Rasco silenced him.
“The magical chest of the Zindars,” Madame Zahnia repeated. “Discovery of the chest could bring the greatest boon Sagaria has known for many a long millennium, or it could bring the final doom of the world. Who’s to tell what the outcome could be? Best to leave the chest, and its contents, well alone forever.”
Sylvester felt something stirring inside him. That was the attitude of far too many of the lemmings back in Foxglove. Indeed, it had been his own attitude until impetuosity had led him into the series of adventures that might all too easily kill him. Leave well alone. Things are all right just as they are, so don’t rock the boat. What you don’t tak
e a risk on can’t hurt you. The ways of our fathers are good enough for us. Who cares what lies around the next bend in the road?
He was in a bizarre and unusually terrifying jungle tree hut halfway around the world, and a pack of bloodthirsty pirates wanted to put him to the slowest and most agonizing death. Every now and then when he was having difficulty getting to sleep, he did – yes, he admitted, he did – think that possibly, just possibly, all this while he could have been safely tucked up in his own bed back home with his mother snoring gently in the room next to his. All of that was true. But, even if Rustbane never had showed up, think of all the excitement and joy he’d have missed out on.
Being seasick, just for starters.
Okay, maybe not that.
Seeing Viola’s eyes sparkle when he told her something that made her laugh, or performed some feat of derring-do of which neither would ever have thought him capable.
Yes, that was something worth taking all the risks in the world for.
Madame Zahnia thought the magical chest of the Zindars should be left alone because its discovery might bring great risk with it, even though that self-same discovery might be the very best thing that had ever happened to Sagaria and all who lived there.
A little knot inside Sylvester rebelled against the old mouse’s caution. If the magical chest of the Zindars was out there to be discovered, and if finding it could make the world a better place then he, Sylvester, was going to make every effort to find it before a murderous villain like Cap’n Rustbane did, even if he died trying.
He realized he was squeezing the paws of Viola and Gasbag far tighter than he should be, and grunted apologies to each of his two neighbors at the table.
“What are you trying to tell me?” Madame Zahnia was asking the crystal ball, her Revealer, still running her paws over its surface. “Speak to me, my old friend.”
Suddenly, her arms stiffened.
“What? What?”
“What is it, Grandma?” Once again, it was Rasco who dared to speak.
“A voice, child. I hear a voice.”
Gasbag rolled his eyes at Sylvester. It was clear Gasbag wasn’t as completely convinced of Madame Zahnia’s occult powers as his brother.
“I hear a voice,” the old mouse repeated. “Speak louder to me,” she commanded the air directly in front of her.
Sylvester strained his ears but could hear nothing. Madame Zahnia evidently did, though, because she nodded her head and then looked appalled, much of the color draining from her flabby face.
“A curse,” she breathed. “There is a terrible curse upon all of this, unless …”
Once more there was a short silence. The air itself seemed to grow heavy with dread.
“Ancient forces that should have been left alone are starting to move once more,” said Madame Zahnia, her voice trailing off into the dusty air. “Ancient forces …”
“Yes? Yes?” said Sylvester.
She looked at him with eyes that seemed sightless. When next she spoke he had the impression she was talking to someone a long way behind him and in a different world that only she could detect.
“The course of events has already been set,” she whispered. “It must be followed or catastrophe will be the inevitable consequence. The island that sleeps among the mists of misplaced time must be awoken, whether mortal beings think this is right or wrong. It is too late for the future to be changed. Too late! Aaaaaahhhhhh …”
With a final long sigh she subsided into her chair, her hands slipping off the surface of the Revealer. The crystal ball’s glow faded.
For several long moments there was no sound except the breathing of those in the room and a flurry of squeaks from outside as two mice children argued about something.
“What did you see?” said Sylvester at last.
Madame Zahnia shook her head as if emerging from a confusing dream.
“I can’t tell you too many things,” she said softly. “Just enough, perhaps. If I told you too much, that would alter your actions and, in turn, that would affect the route of the future. What’s going to happen must happen, I tell you!”
“Yes, but what is going to happen?” said Viola pointedly.
“And who were these blasted Zindars?” growled Mrs. Pickleberry.
Madame Zahnia chose to answer the latter question. She signaled to her guests that they could release each other’s paws, and everyone made themselves comfortable as she settled into her tale.
“The Zindars, or the People of the Stars as many of the older people used to call them, were an ancient race who inhabited these islands thousands of years ago. They had knowledge that far surpassed anything we know today. Because they knew so much, they called the most arcane and powerful of all their secret magics, tech-know-logy. Nobody now remembers anything of this techknowlogy or what it could do, but folk say that, if only that secret magic could be rediscovered, the world could be a far, far better place … or could meet its fiery doom.
“Yet, few remember the Zindars now. Untold centuries ago they suddenly left Sagaria under circumstances shrouded in mystery, and they have never been seen again. Even the legend of the magical chest of the Zindars is known to a bare few, of whom your friend Deathflash – Rustbane – is unfortunately one and Cap’n Adamite, as bad a rogue as Deathflash if such a thing were possible, was another. It is a tragedy that two villainous pirates could have learned of this lore.
“The Zindars were respected as great teachers, and they were much loved by the peoples of Sagaria. However, what no one knew at the time, except the Zindars themselves, was that they had come to this world in flight from powerful malignant forces which had hunted them through many worlds far beyond this one.”
Sylvester’s jaw dropped. Not long ago his world had extended little farther than the environs of Foxglove. Then it had dramatically grown to include the whole of the realm of Sagaria. Now, here was Madame Zahnia talking of other worlds beyond Sagaria! He wasn’t certain there was room enough in his brain for all these sudden leaps in the scale of the universe.
Madame Zahnia, oblivious to his racing thoughts, carried on speaking in that same slow, sepulchral voice. “The secret of their hiding place could not last forever, of course. At last, the enemies of the Zindars discovered their whereabouts, and they arrived in the skies of our world in a thousand great flying ships. They too had infinite reserves of techknowlogy, but it was evil techknowlogy. For long years, the evil techknowlogy of the invaders did battle with the benevolent techknowlogy of the Zindars, so that the surface of this world was rent and torn. Mountains were leveled to become desert plains, and seas boiled to float above the clouds. Somehow, the Zindars managed to spare the native Sagarians the worst effects of this great war, but even so, the death tolls were appalling.
“Then, at last, it just suddenly stopped. No one knows why. No one knows how. All we can guess is that the Zindars played one final techknowlogical trick that whisked them out of Sagaria and off somewhere else, far away beyond the curtain of the stars in the wink of an eye, and that they took the evil invaders with them.
“But, just before the warring races disappeared, something happened that will, the Revealer tells me, change the course of our world’s future entirely … if everything happens over the next few days and weeks in the way it has been preordained.”
She paused again, as if trying to catch her breath. Sylvester, giving her a sidelong look, realized the old mouse was simply playing upon the dramatic expectations of her audience.
He cleared his throat.
Madame Zahnia took the hint.
“What happened,” she continued, “was that a squadron of the evil invaders managed to trap the King of the Zindars and his closest guard of honor in a remote craggy valley high in the icy mountains of Carvenia. One by one the members of the guard of honor were cut down by lethal enemy fire, until none were left, save the kin
g himself. He was putting up a brave battle against his attackers, but all knew it could be only a matter of time before he went to his final resting place, to where his guard of honor had loyally preceded him.
“It was then that a lowly human intervened to alter the course of Zindar history. There are more humans in Carvenia than you commonly find elsewhere in Sagaria. They’re surprisingly good at eking out an existence among the hostile, infertile terrain of that forsaken part of the world. This man, barely more than a boy, really, a shepherd in search of a lost sheep, was drawn by the hissing sound of the techknowlogical weaponry being fired. He strayed into the valley where the combat was continuing. It didn’t take him more than a moment to see how the wind was blowing, and it didn’t take him more than another moment to snatch up a weapon that one of the dead honor guard had dropped and to run to the side of the King of the Zindars. Side by side and back to back these two fought off the attackers the rest of the day, and by the time the last rays of the sun were extinguished on the horizon they were the only two left standing.
“But the human lad was mortally wounded. He knew this, and the King of the Zindars could tell just by looking at him. The very last of their foes, with its very last gasp of this life, had let fire one final bolt of that blue-green techknowlogical fire they had which could cut through the thickest armor and even great city walls. The fire had burned away the shepherd boy’s arm, leaving just a stump from which the blood showered like rain.
“The King of the Zindars cradled his savior’s head on his lap and watched the last of the life light ebb from the lad’s eyes. Then, as the boy went to that place from which there is no return, the King of the Zindars resolved that, even as his people fled back among the stars, they would leave behind them a gift for this world of Sagaria that had for so long treated them so generously.
“The gift the king decided they would leave was that, sometime in Sagaria’s future, there would be the granting to a single mortal of a single wish.”
Madame Zahnia raised a paw as if to fend off an interruption from her listeners. In truth, they were all too enthralled by her tale to be capable of breathing a word. All except Gasbag, who was snoring gently, his head face down on the table in front of him.
The Tides of Avarice Page 35
