The Tides of Avarice

by John Dahlgren

  “That’s—” Sylvester began.

  “Not impossible,” said Viola. “Never say impossible. It’s impossible, Sylvester Lemmington, that you left Foxglove and came halfway around the world to find yourself hiding from cannibals inside an ancient vessel left behind by an almost forgotten people – yet it’s happened. So, don’t say it’s impossible for people to be incapable of seeing something that’s directly in front of their noses.” She wrinkled her own nose prettily, as if she’d found a secondary meaning in what she’d just said and added something in a mumble.

  “Eh?” said Sylvester.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Pimplebrains gave a heavy sigh, as if to express to the world at large that it wasn’t his fault he’d been lumbered with a couple of morons. “So, this trick of yours,” he said to the old lemming, “’ow d’you do it then?”

  “I’m not so sure I should tell you. Not until I’m a bit more certain of who you are. Just because I know you’re not going to make me into a casserole—”

  “Or a fricassee,” said Pimplebrains.

  “Quite right. Or a fricassée. Just because I know you’re not of a cannibal inclination doesn’t mean I know you’re my friends. So, are you?”

  “Like I said,” Pimplebrains rumbled, “we mean you no harm.”

  “But anyone can say that.”

  Sylvester put his hands on his waist. “We’re lemmings,” he expostulated. “We’re lemmings like you are. Doesn’t that tell you enough about us? Lemmings don’t harm each other, everyone knows that.”

  The stranger raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Where I came from there was a lemming who—”

  “Where did you come from?” said Sylvester, a certain suspicion suddenly popping into his mind.

  “Why, from Foxglove, of course.” The stranger continued speaking despite gasps from Viola and Sylvester. “That’s the only place you’re likely to find any lemmings these days, apart from solitary stragglers like me, of course. Even those poor Lhaeminguas-forsaken wretches out there in Kabalore’s tribe” – he jerked his head in the general direction of the Larder – “even they’re originally from Foxglove.”

  “How long ago did you leave Foxglove?” said Sylvester, fixing the stranger with a stare.

  The older lemming spread his paws. “I don’t know. I’ve no way of telling. I’ve spent what seems like a hundred years living inside this Zindar ship, where there’s neither day nor night to be seen, so I can hardly count the time. There are strange gardens in here where vegetables grow, so I’m never short of food. It’s not the worst of prisons, I can tell you, but it’s a prison all the same. Whenever I leave it I have to be cautious because even though the cannibals can’t reach this cavern from the Larder, they know the way in from the beach entrance, and sometimes they stray in to have a look around. I try to stay out of their sight. I fight them only if I really have to, because one of these days, Kabalore or one of his lieutenants is going to wonder why every now and then one of their number disappears.”

  Sylvester was impatient with all these details. “What’s your name?” he said, trying a different tack.

  “What’s yours?” the older lemming countered.

  Sylvester paused before answering. Did he really want to give away his name to a complete stranger, to someone who might prove to be his enemy? But there was a growing certainty within him that he knew who this other lemming was, that he’d reached the end of the personal quest that had taken him out of his settled existence in Foxglove and brought him all the way here. His heart was ready to explode with his joy.

  In the end he didn’t say his name. He just said, “Hello, Dad.”

  The other lemming blinked once, twice. “I was beginning to wonder if it might, might just possibly, against all the multifarious odds be you, Sylvester. But I didn’t dare hope it could be. Welcome, my son.”

  They flew into each other’s arms and for a long while everything else, even Viola, was completely forgotten.

  ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

  Much later, the four friends were in a different part of the ship, sharing a meal of cabbages, carrots and various unrecognizable vegetables whose colors Sylvester would never before have associated with vegetables. Jasper – Dad – had taken them to one of the Zindar gardens he’d mentioned. It was really more like a large cultivated field than a garden, with vegetables growing in long neat rows under a strangely alien light, the source of which seemed to be the empty air overhead. It was as if the sun were shining on them through a thin green haze.

  As they ate, Jasper told them a story that Sylvester had long suspected was the truth.

  “Once upon a time,” he said, “a very long time ago, before lemmings settled down and learned to behave like civilized beings, our ancestors were foragers who lived in herds.” He grinned. “We were ferocious fighters too, if all the legends are true, but we usually didn’t fight – except amongst ourselves over, ahem, mates. Most of the time the herds lived peaceably enough, settling down in one place and eating whatever fruits, vegetables and berries we could find there. So long as the weather was favorable and the plants flourished we stayed where we were but, of course, it couldn’t always be like that. If there were a harsh winter or poor summer, the food supplies would run low and the herd would migrate in search of better living conditions.

  “The trouble was – no one ever said our ancestors were terribly clever – the herd would migrate in a straight line, swarming over fields and through forests until it found a better home. Even when it came to a river or lake, our ancestors would keep on going, swimming through the water in search of the land beyond. Which was perfectly doable, of course, assuming the river wasn’t too wide and didn’t have too strong a current, or the lake wasn’t too big. The real trouble came when it wasn’t a river or a lake at all, but the sea. Our ancestors didn’t know this when they came to the edge of the water, how could they? So they just struck out into the waves expecting to reach the other side, same as they’d done a hundred times before. Only for them, there wouldn’t be another side, because they’d be drowned long before they got there.

  “It was a tragic occasion any time a lemming herd was wiped out this way, but there were always other herds so our people didn’t die out. As ruthless as it might sound, there were enough lemmings in the world that losing a herd here or a herd there didn’t matter very much.”

  Sylvester felt Viola, sitting alongside him, cringe as she thought of those long-ago mass drownings, the shrieks in the air of the exhausted, struggling lemmings growing weaker as they succumbed to the surge of the waters.

  “But as time went on,” Jasper continued, “we learned better. There are some that say it was the Zindars that taught us, but I think it was more likely that we had to learn. You see, the lemming species was almost wiped out entirely by the wars that raged the length and breadth of Sagaria when the enemies of the Zindars came. There weren’t enough lemmings left after the Zindars and their foes had fled back into space to be able to risk losing a herd – there were hardly even enough left to form a herd. It was change their ways or die out altogether, so far as our ancestors were concerned, and luckily for us, they chose to change their ways.

  “They settled down in Foxglove, where they learned how to plant the vegetables they wanted, and how to store food in the good times so they wouldn’t be starving in the bad times.

  “And they all lived happily ever … except they didn’t.

  “They would have lived happily ever after, if it hadn’t been for the fact that we lemmings, well, we’re not nearly as stupid these days as our ancestors were – in fact, we’ve become one of the more intelligent species of Sagaria – but—”

  Jasper caught sight of Pimplebrains’s wrathful glower and gulped noisily. “Along with beavers,” he said hastily. “Mighty intelligent animals beavers are too. Certainly more intelligent than lemmings. Especially the ones th
at have hooks for hands.”

  Pimplebrains’ glower subsided and Jasper resumed his account.

  “Our big problem, as lemmings, is that we’re gullible. When we settled down, leaving behind our existence as wild foragers, we discovered the great advantages of sharing information with each other. In a way, it was a part of our learning to discover that the best way toward a new source of food isn’t necessarily in a dead straight line. Today, if ever we did need to move to richer pastures, we’d send out scouts in all directions, and when they got back and told us what they’d found we’d believe their accounts. That’s the sensible way to do it. That’s the intelligent way to do it, as I’m sure our beaver friend would agree.”

  “Harrumph,” conceded Pimplebrains.

  “But,” Jasper went on smoothly, “our natural acceptance of what other people tell us is also a great vulnerability. We’re instinctively truthful and, while we know we ought to scrutinize every statement for possible falsity, in practice we tend to believe whatever we’re told.”

  Sylvester groaned. He remembered how, half a world away, he’d been hoodwinked thoroughly by a gray fox who called himself Robin Fourfeathers, even though it’d have been obvious to the most simple-minded of lemming newborns that the fox was lying through his teeth – and he had far too many teeth to lie through. Sylvester had believed Cap’n Terrigan Rustbane because lemmings did believe what they were told.

  His father was grinning at him. “It’s been far too many years since last we were together, young fellow, but I can bet I’m reading the thoughts that’re going through your mind.”

  Somehow, Sylvester felt, it didn’t seem as bad confessing to your father what a fathead you’d been as it was confessing to anyone else, or maybe it felt worse – he couldn’t decide which, but he confessed anyway. He was still in the midst of the warm glow that had begun to envelop him when he’d figured out that the strange, shabbily clad lemming was his long-lost father.

  And he was still swathed in the wonder he’d felt when Jasper had explained how he, Jasper, was still alive.

  Wonder, yes, but fury also.

  There were treacheries so deep they could never be forgiven, and not all of them were piratical ones. Indeed, the villainies of rogues and murderers like Cap’n Josiah Adamite and Cap’n Terrigan Rustbane, may Lhaeminguas in an especially forgiving moment rest their souls, seemed almost negligible alongside what had been done to the citizens of Foxglove by the successive generations of—

  “The Hairbell family,” said his father. “They were the first to realize how we lemmings could be exploited, and they didn’t wait so much as an indrawn breath before they started doing just that.”

  “The Hairbell family?” asked Viola, perplexed.

  “What makes you think your present Mayor Hairbell’s the first of his lineage?” said Jasper.

  “He may be the last,” snarled Pimplebrains, who was clearly moved by Jasper’s account. Sylvester had a fleeting notion that Pimplebrains might be a lemming in exceptionally ambitious disguise, but dismissed it. It was easy to see, though, that the big beaver was infuriated by Hairbell’s actions and rooting on behalf of the lemmings of Foxglove.

  “There’ve been others?” Viola said.

  “Right back to the very first days,” said Jasper. “Some of them have been called Hairbell, most have given themselves other names, but they’ve all had this thing in common. They all seem to spring up out of nowhere. What they say is that they’re long and loyal citizens of Foxglove. The truth is that they hide in Mugwort Forest behind Foxglove and raise families there, and whenever one of the old mayors looks like he’s just about to die there’s someone new that comes along and starts jockeying for that office.”

  Sylvester blinked rapidly. This was all becoming too much to take in in a single sitting.

  “You mean we’ve been subjected to a long conspiracy by the Hairbell family?” he said.

  “Exactly,” said Jasper.

  “Why would they exploit us?”

  “Because they were greedy.”

  Pimplebrains looked confused. “They was?”

  Jasper started tapping deliberately on the floor with the claws of his right forepaw, as if he were trying not just to say his words but write them down.

  “Just because lemmings are small, and just because they’re gullible, doesn’t mean they’re without resources.”

  “I bin learning that.” Pimplebrains looked at Sylvester, then at Viola.

  “Foxglove is perhaps the richest community in the whole of Sagaria,” said Jasper, leaning forward.

  Pimplebrains’s jaw dropped. So did Sylvester’s.

  “It’s not something the lemmings advertise a lot,” said Jasper.

  “I imagine not,” Sylvester said, once he’d cleared the dryness from his mouth. He imagined the scrolls at the Library might be worth a little, but surely not so very much?

  “It’s Mugwort Forest that holds the secret,” said Jasper.

  “It has a secret?” Every now and then Sylvester thought he should venture into Mugwort Forest but, as he approached it, the ominous darkness between the tall trees and the creaking of the trunks as the wind blew them against each other would make the stiff hair stand up all over his body and he’d turn around and pretend he’d never really intended to go there in the first place. “What’s in Mugwort Forest?” he said.

  “What’s in Mugwort Forest,” said Jasper, “is the treasure chest of the Zindars.”

  “But that’s impossible!” cried Viola.

  Jasper smiled at her. “Why do you think so?”

  “Because the treasure chest of the Zindars is here!”

  “What makes you believe that?”

  “The diary of Throatsplitter Adamite,” she said, looking to Sylvester for support. “What we were told by Cap’n Rustbane. The reason we’re here.” She waved her forepaws. “Jeopord’s obsession.”

  Jasper’s eyes narrowed. “Jeopord?”

  “We’ve not quite told you everything,” interposed Pimplebrains ponderously.

  There was another long explanation.

  “You mean they’re out there?” said Jasper at last.

  “Yes,” Sylvester replied, “but we can deal with them later. You were telling us about Mugwort Forest, Dad.”

  And, he thought, a very long time ago you were supposed to be watching me in my swing and you forgot about it. I love you very much, Dad, I could hardly help but do so, yet you’re not the best father there’s ever been.

  Of course, he said nothing of this.

  He just smiled.

  The way lemmings do.

  “After the last battle between the Zindars and their interstellar foes,” said Jasper wearily, as if this were a tale he might have told too many times before, “the only thing the Zindars wanted to do was flee – flee as far and as fast as they possibly could if it’d preserve their leathery hides. We think of them as gallant heroes, but it wasn’t quite like that. They weren’t the bravest of folk, the Zindars. They came to Sagaria because they thought it’d offer them a safe refuge. They didn’t much care about the fates of the people who were already here. They must have been running since long before the first lemming took its first steps under the gaze of Sagaria’s sun, and they weren’t going to stop running any time soon. In a way, they were like lemmings, only their flights were on a vastly huger scale.

  “They fled across interstellar space. Our ancestors fled across land and water. There’s no real difference.” Jasper waved his paw at the unnaturally greenish light, the tidy rows of plants and the metal walls of the Zindar vessel. “Just technology, which is only a matter of convenience.”

  “Mugwort Forest?” said Pimplebrains. “You were goin’ to tell us about it.”

  “The Zindars recognized their spiritual kin,” said Jasper.

  Sylvester stared at him. “Lemmi
ngs?”

  “But of course.”

  “So they gave their treasure chest to the lemmings?”

  “You’re almost as bright as I was, back in the day,” said Jasper.

  “And the lemmings hid it in Mugwort Forest?”

  “Not immediately.”

  “When?”

  “After a few centuries had passed. After our ancestors had realized the funny-looking box they’d been given might hold something of value. After they’d broken about a million teeth trying to bite through the pretty brass lock on the outside of the chest. It was then that it dawned on them that this was an object that would probably be more valuable preserved than violated.”

  “So they hid it in Mugwort Forest to keep it safe?” said Viola.

  “That’s about the long and the short of it,” Jasper said.

  “And it’s been lying there ever since?” While the two younger lemmings marveled over ancient mysteries and their spiritual implications, Pimplebrains was of a more pragmatic bent. “So we could just go there and dig it up if we knew where to look?”

  “But you wouldn’t know where to look,” said Jasper. He smiled at Sylvester, then at Viola and finally at Pimplebrains. “It’s like the cleft at the back of the cave the cannibals call their Larder. You could think you were looking right at it when, in actual fact, you’d be looking right past it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Pimplebrains said.

  “Nor me,” added Sylvester.

  Jasper sighed. “It’s something the Zindars learned how to do,” he began. “Why do you think they were able to live on Sagaria for so long before their enemies found them?”

  An idea was beginning to form in Sylvester’s mind. “Was it because this world of Sagaria is like a tiny island in an enormous ocean where there are countless thousands of other tiny islands, and all of them are a very long way apart?” His mouth went dry as he thought of the immensity of an ocean in which Sagaria was just a minute speck of land. “Going from one island to the next searching for the one that sheltered the Zindars could take thousands of years, maybe longer even than that.”