The Tides of Avarice

by John Dahlgren

  “Come on!” Sylvester shouted at the mouse. “Come with us!”

  “Sure thing, mon.” Rasco scurried to join the rest.

  Their arms around each other for protection against what had already turned into a full-scale gale, the lemmings and their smaller friend made their way below deck. Following their own footsteps, they soon found themselves back in those same dank cabins where Rustbane’s crew had incarcerated them long ago as the Shadeblaze left Foxglove behind. The last time Sylvester saw the sky before going below, it was an angry gray turmoil. Several tall, thin columns of blacker darkness reached upward from the sea, their tops broadening to become lost in the ashen sky.

  The next few hours were a misery of pitching floors and shrieking timbers as the Shadeblaze did her best to survive the tempest. Soon, Sylvester felt his whole body must be one single mass of bruises from being thrown so often and so hard against the cabin walls. Viola and Rasco were in no better shape. Only Mrs. Pickleberry, perhaps because her center of gravity was so low, seemed able to maintain any measure of stability as the ship bucked and heaved. The worst of it all was that they had to endure the commotion in near darkness, because little or no light crept in through the small portholes and the lemmings dared not keep a lamp lit for fear of scattering burning oil everywhere.

  A long, grating shudder ran up the full length of the ship. Suddenly the heaving and tossing of the vessel lessened and it began a different movement, rocking slowly from side to side.

  “What was that?” shrieked Viola, clinging to Sylvester.

  “I don’t know.”

  The whole ship seemed to be creaking in protest at whatever had just happened.

  “We ran aground,” pronounced Rasco from somewhere in the gloom.

  “Ran aground?” said Sylvester and Viola at the same time.

  “There’s a reef or sandbank somewhere under the water,” explained Rasco, “and the good old Shadeblaze done got itself stuck on it.”

  Sylvester could visualize what must have happened. As if in agreement, the ship pitched once more, sending himself and Viola staggering to crash hard against the end wall of the cabin.

  “Surely,” he said once he’d got his breath back, “that must mean we’re close to land?”

  “Not necessarily,” replied Rasco, whose knowledge of matters maritime seemed profound (as might be expected of one who’d spent much of his life in the dockside taverns of Hangman’s Haven). “Not necessarily,” he repeated more slowly, as if the first time he’d said them the words hadn’t been depressing enough for his taste. “You can find reefs many a long league from the nearest shore. There are whole mountain ranges under water, and their peaks come close enough to the surface to snag an unwary vessel such as ours has been, thanks to this storm.”

  “So we might be stranded here forever?” said Viola in a querulous voice. “Just waiting for the food and drink to run out, with no chance of being able to sail to land?”

  “That’s it in a nutshell.”

  Sylvester wished Rasco would stop sounding as if he relished their predicament quite so much.

  Viola persisted. “Then what?”

  “Well,” said Rasco, “you can predict what’ll happen when the food supplies start getting low, can’t you?”

  “Everyone gets very hungry?” said Sylvester hopefully, knowing it was the wrong answer.

  “That too,” said Rasco, “except pretty soon ‘everyone’ starts to be a smaller and smaller number.”

  The implication was obvious.

  Sylvester gulped.

  “Oh, how exciting.” Viola’s voice had regained a lot of its confidence. “You mean everyone starts eating each other?”

  “You got it in one, mon. It’s happened a thousand times before on the lawless oceans of Sagaria. First to end up on the dinner plates is the smaller and weaker creatures. Creatures like lemmings, in point of fact, ’cause they got a fair amount of good, succulent meat on ’em for an animal their size.”

  “Mice are even smaller,” Mrs. Pickleberry pointed out.

  “But we’re faster,” said Rasco amiably. “And, being as small as we are, we’re better at hiding in places no one else can get to.”

  Still the Shadeblaze rocked from side to side. Although it was hard to be sure over the cacophony of protesting timbers, the storm seemed to have abated a little.

  “We oughta go back up on deck,” said Mrs. Pickleberry. “Find out the worst.”

  The idea made sense. Rasco, whose eyes were better adapted to the dark than the lemmings’, found the cabin door and led the way.

  Lumbering out into the open in the wake of Viola and Mrs. Pickleberry, Sylvester found he’d been right in his impression that the storm had calmed down a little. The sky was still gray, but it was a watery, pale gray rather than the menacing near-night of earlier. There was still a little rain falling, but it was just a gentle shower, the droplets gleaming and sparkling like diamonds as they drifted in what was left of the wind.

  Jeopord was standing a little apart from his crew, who were clustered close to the stairs that led down to the captain’s cabin. Sylvester hadn’t been there since the mutiny, but he somehow doubted that it was still filled with all the books and papers that Cap’n Rustbane had so reveled in. It didn’t strike Sylvester that Jeopord was the reading type.

  The ocelot was at the base of the Shadeblaze’s mainmast, looking up it as if there was the answer to some profound riddle at its top. His lips were moving in what Sylvester did not have to hear to know was a long stream of curses. Sylvester turned toward Viola to say something that he forgot even before he began speaking because, past her shoulder, he could see something that set his heart singing.

  “Land,” he breathed.

  Viola gazed at him blankly. “What?”

  “Look.” Sylvester pointed.

  She turned her head and gave a little squeal of happiness.

  Their experience of Blighter Island was enough to have taught Sylvester of the foolishness of judging an island by its appearance from the sea. Despite this, in any other circumstances, any self-respecting ship would have taken one look at this place and hauled hard on the rudder to turn toward open ocean. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of miles away, yet Sylvester could make out hardly any details of its surface. It was just a gray, hunched mass, poised above the surface of the sea as if waiting to swallow anything or anyone that came too near. There was a sort of menacing, heavy silence surrounding it. Even the breakers crashing against its shore seemed to make no noise, as if the sound had been absorbed by a thick blanket.

  Sylvester felt a cold draft run up his spine, warning him, but he ignored the premonition. Just the sight of land, any land – when minutes before they’d been trying to reconcile themselves to the idea of the Shadeblaze being stuck here for the rest of eternity – was like a drink of cool water after a long day under the desert sun.

  “There’s hope for us after all,” he said quietly.

  Strangely, Jeopord didn’t seem at all interested in their proximity to salvation, and neither did the rest of the crew. Surely the lookout, perched high in the crow’s nest, must have seen the island no matter how thick the sky had become with rain?

  Then Sylvester realized what the captain was staring at so intently.

  Even from this distance, it was obvious the bat who’d served as the Shadeblaze’s lookout was dead. The little creature was slumped backward over the side of the crow’s nest, its head offset from its shoulders at an impossible angle. Even though Sylvester had never met the bat, had never even known its name or if it was a male or a female, he couldn’t help feeling a twinge of grief for its passing. The little creature, known solely through its cries of alarm or exhortation high above, had been one of the Shadeblaze’s fixtures, as if it had been up there in the crow’s nest from the day the ship was first launched. For all Sylvester kn
ew, that might indeed be the case.

  What was Jeopord going to do for a lookout now?

  As if the weatherbeaten ocelot had heard Sylvester’s thoughts, Jeopord slowly turned to look in the direction of the little huddle of captives.

  Lemmings! though Sylvester, his panic rising. We’re small enough to fit into the crow’s nest, but I’ve never had much of a head for heights.

  Jeopord pointed.

  Oh, relief! He’s not pointing at me, he’s pointing at—

  “Me,” said Rasco. He chuckled. “It’s the obvious solution.”

  “He can’t be expecting you to—” started Viola.

  Rasco held up a paw. “I don’t mind. I’m looking forward to it. Being at the top of a mast ain’t going to be much different from getting from one place to another in Ouwinju. I like it, being able to see a long way, and the air seems cleaner up there. ’Sides, it’ll keep me out of the way. Down here, I never know from one moment to the next if one o’ these cutthroats ain’t going to take a fancy to using me as target practice for his cutlass.”

  By this time Jeopord was beside them.

  “A fancy speech, little vermin guy, but it don’t matter all your cogitatin’ of why you’re going to obey me orders because you’d be obeyin’ them anyway, this being my ship an’ all.”

  Rasco grinned up at him. “Don’t you find it better when your crewmen are willing?”

  Jeopord regarded him with a dismissive sneer. “Don’t make much difference to me what they’re thinkin’ so long as they do what I tell ’em.”

  Rasco shrugged. “Well, you’re the boss.”

  “I surely am, and don’t any of you forget it.”

  “Not that it makes no great difference,” interposed Mrs. Pickleberry.

  Sylvester could see the ocelot’s face flush with rage.

  “What do you mean, you old baggage?”

  “This ship ain’t going nowhere, is it?”

  “It’s just a reef, is all,” said Jeopord, his temper already beginning to subside. “This ain’t the first time the good old Shadeblaze’s been stuck on a reef, not by a long road, and I’m sure as all get-out it ain’t going to be the last. We pirates know how to deal with these things.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  Her skeptical grunt brought Jeopord’s anger back again. His paw strayed to the sword at his belt. Sylvester knew Mrs. Pickleberry was treading very close to the line between life and death.

  “So, how you goin’ to be gettin’ us off this pretty little perch then?” she continued, as if oblivious to the danger.

  “Well, first of all,” began Jeopord, as if explaining something elementary to a very young, very stupid child, “what we do is we lighten the load.”

  Mrs. Pickleberry looked around her. “How’d you do that?”

  “By getting rid of excess burden,” said Jeopord.

  “Meanin’?”

  “Unnecessary personnel.”

  “Such as us?”

  “Such as you and three-quarters of the crew, maybe more.”

  Sylvester was appalled. “A massacre, you mean?”

  Jeopord started to laugh. “No, not that, my piggy little friend – although I’d not hesitate if it became necessary. Despatchin’ you four to Davy Jones wouldn’t matter a belch one way or the other, but I need my crew to sail the ship once we’ve floated her free, don’t I? Stands to reason.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, I’m going to fill up the longboats with everyone except a skeleton crew to maneuver the Shadeblaze off this reef, and you’re all going to go across to that there uninhabited island for a day or two” – he jerked a claw back over his shoulder toward the hulking gray mass behind him – “leavin’ the rest of us here to do the work that has to be done.”

  “Um, Cap’n,” said Viola quietly.

  “Quiet, you little chit.”

  Sylvester knew he ought to punch the ocelot in the eye for addressing Viola so rudely. He also knew he wasn’t going to.

  “But, Cap’n—”

  “I said—”

  “Just look, will you, you great oaf!”

  “I’ll be …” said Jeopord, and this time his sword came a few inches out of its scabbard.

  But he turned to look at where Viola stood by the rail, and past her, and he saw what she had seen.

  “Sheesk!” said Sylvester.

  Speeding toward them through the heavy seas from the island were a score or more of long, narrow boats, each of them manned by a dozen oarsmen. From this distance, it was impossible to tell what type of creatures were paddling the boats so industriously, but Sylvester could see the small dark dots of heads rising and falling as the oars swished through the water.

  “I don’t think that island is uninhabited after all,” said Viola sweetly.

  Jeopord stared at her for a long, poisonous moment, then turned on his heel and began barking orders.

  ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

  By the time the boats from the island were alongside the Shadeblaze, everyone aboard the pirate vessel, the captives excluded, was armed to the hilt and ready to repel boarders. Rasco was ensconced in the crow’s nest and, for the past few minutes had been yelling reports on the islanders’ progress to anyone on deck who was prepared to listen to him.

  Sylvester and Viola were leaning against the rail, gazing down at the boats. What they saw was not very reassuring.

  But you should never judge people by appearances, Sylvester chided himself. First impressions are often woefully misleading.

  Even so …

  The people of the island represented as many different species as the crew of the Shadeblaze, probably more, including several that Sylvester didn’t recognize, even from illustrations in scrolls. Only a few of them were wearing any clothes, which Sylvester thought was not unreasonable bearing in mind the heat this close to the equator. It was the other things the people were wearing that offered cause for concern.

  Skulls.

  Big skulls and little skulls, short flattened skulls and long thin ones – there were more types of skulls festooned on ropes and cords around the islanders’ waists and necks than there were kinds of islanders. Sylvester could see whenever a boatsman stood up that these people even wore ankle bracelets made out of the polished carapaces of insects. It seemed as if the islanders must be in the grip of some kind of death cult.

  He gripped Viola’s hand tightly.

  “Just for once,” she said, “it’s reassuring to know there are a hundred fully armed cutthroats on board.”

  Sylvester nodded mutely.

  “Welcome to our land,” called one of the newcomers. He was a black-and-white terrier of ferocious appearance and he had only one ear, the other having been gnawed off at some indeterminate point in the past. “Do you come in peace?”

  “Idiotic question,” said the pirate nearest to Viola and Sylvester, a groundhog who didn’t look too reputable himself. He turned to give them the benefit of a chisel-toothed grin. “What are we supposed to reply, eh?”

  He had a point. The Shadeblaze was firmly aground on an invisible reef and wouldn’t be going anywhere for hours yet, more likely days. Jeopord was hardly likely to tell the islanders he hadn’t come in peace.

  The ocelot didn’t answer the question directly. Removing the dagger he’d been clutching between his teeth, he called back down to the terrier, “Cap’n Jeopord at your service, sir, and this is my fine vessel the Shadeblaze and her sterling complement.”

  The pirates gave a collective growl that Sylvester thought might, at a stretch, be described as friendly.

  It didn’t seem to faze the terrier in any way, though.

  “My name is Kabalore and I am the chieftain of these, the people of Vendros!”

  Sylvester racked his memory but couldn’t recall having seen the name Vendros on Cap�
��n Adamite’s map. The Shadeblaze must have strayed well off her intended course. Either that or, of course, the island had been charted all right but Barterley Smitt hadn’t known a name to give it.

  “Well met, Kabalore!” cried Jeopord.

  “Will you come ashore to enjoy our hospitality?” called Kabalore.

  “Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

  “Excellent. Then let me arrange for your arrival.”

  “But,” said Jeopord.

  Sylvester saw the island chieftain’s face fall in disappointment. “There is a difficulty?”

  “I, myself, and some of my crew must stay here with the Shadeblaze in order to free it from the accursed clutches of this doubly accursed reef.”

  “But then we can welcome you to our feasting?”

  “Then it would be our delight,” replied Jeopord.

  Sylvester looked at him through narrowed eyes. Clearly Kabalore hadn’t noticed the tone of Jeopord’s voice, but anyone who knew the ocelot pirate at all would have recognized the underlying message conveyed. Jeopord wasn’t going to land on Vendros, not if it was the last thing he did.

  Jeopord thinks we might all be going to our deaths, Sylvester realized, but he’s prepared to accept that as the lesser of two evils. The most important task ahead of him is to set the Shadeblaze free. He can worry later about how he’s going to get her to port with only a handful of crew. He’s planning, if worst comes to worst, to let us be distractions to keep the islanders occupied while he and his cronies work on the ship.

  “Them’s cannibals, them is.”

  Sylvester jumped in startlement. He hadn’t heard Cheesefang coming up behind them. Either the sea rat must have been moving with unusual quietness or Sylvester had been more lost in his thoughts than he’d realised.

  Cheesefang grinned. Clearly, he was in one of his better moods.

  “Cannibals,” he repeated.

  “How do you know?” said Viola, gripping Sylvester’s arm so tightly he thought he heard a sinew pop.

  “Seen ’em before,” said the sea rat. If anything, he’d begun looking even scruffier and more disheveled since the departure of Cap’n Rustbane. “’Ere and there on the Seven Seas. Places where ol’ Cheesefang’s bin that few others ’ave – few others ’ave and lived.” He nodded deeply once, then twice, as if he’d just said something of the utmost sagacity. “It’s the skulls that give ’em away. Me, I can’t understand why they keeps ’em. Sort of like hanging on ter the peach stone after yer’ve eaten the peach, if ye ask me, but it’s their custom, like.”