Sargasso Skies (2 page)

“Run for it!” yelled Esmeralda.

Trundle zoomed across the deck as though he had been shot from a cannon. Yelling and screaming, the lizards swarmed after him.

“Jump!” shouted Jack.

Without any time for thought, the three friends threw themselves over the side of the windship. It wasn't a long fall, and they landed unhurt in a soft, boggy mire of rotten wood and oozy slime. Keeping close together, they waded through the stinking mess until they came to firmer ground.

“Now what?” gasped Trundle. The shrieking and calling of the lizards seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

“That way!” said Jack, pointing to a thick bank of fog some way off. “They won't be able to see us in that!”

Nor we them, thought Trundle.

All the same, Trundle and Esmeralda chased the fleeing squirrel across the cheerless landscape of rotting hulks and quagmires. They raced over precarious planks that spanned great black holes—holes, Trundle guessed, that would send you plummeting down and down forever. They scrambled over uneven decking that crumbled at the touch of paw or boot. They leaped fallen masts and floundered through pools of stagnant oily water.

There was vegetation, Trundle noticed—plants that must have arrived here aboard stricken windships, plants strong enough and hungry enough to survive in all this desolation. Creepers and blobby mushroomlike things, and greeny-gray funguses and lichens, and odd-looking, evil-looking growths with ugly flowers and whip-thin tendrils that snatched at your legs as you ran past.

As they headed into the fog, they could hear the lizards pursuing them, their long, clawed feet slapping and flapping as they swarmed smoothly over the debris, their eyes green as poison, their high calls echoing back and forth.

But then a different sound came to Trundle's ears. Not yelling and yowling. It was music! Distant organ music, echoing eerily through the mist.

“Do they seem like the type to play keyboard instruments?” gasped Esmeralda.

“No,” exclaimed Trundle. “They seem like the type to bash you over the head and eat you!”

“Maybe there are survivors of the shipwrecks!” said Jack. “Maybe there's a camp or a town or something. Maybe that's where the music is coming from!”

This seemed to Trundle to be a whole lot of maybes, but he swerved as Jack swerved and the three of them ran full tilt toward the music.

They raced like mad things over the jagged and precarious terrain, but the music seemed to get no closer. Trundle began to wonder if they were imagining it.

“I recognize that tune,” Jack said. “Whoever is playing, they're really good!”

“That's a comfort,” gasped Esmeralda. “It'll be nice to listen to some well-played music.” Her voice rose to a shriek. “While we're being
eaten alive!
”

Suddenly they came bursting out of the fog and found that they had stumbled into a deep valley with high, sheer slopes on three sides.

“It's a dead end!” wailed Jack. “Quick! Let's double back before they close in on us!”

But it was too late for that. Loping, spindle-legged shapes came looming out of the mists behind them. Green eyes flashed. Spiked cudgels lifted in long sinewy hands. White teeth snapped.

The three friends backed away from the approaching lizards.

There was no escape!

T
rundle drew his sword and stepped forward, his knees knocking and his stomach in knots.

“Keep off!” he shouted, gesticulating with the sword. “Go back if you value your lives!”

Hissing and spitting, the lizards came to a wavering halt.

“Way to go, Trundle!” breathed Esmeralda.

“Oh, well done, my lad!” added Jack.

Green eyes blinked and shifted as the lizards watched them, their backs bent, their arms hanging, their expressions uncertain.

“Advance on them, Trun!” urged Esmeralda. “Send 'em packing!”

Trundle wasn't so sure about that. He had just about used up all his reserves of courage. Those spiked cudgels looked nasty—not to mention the long, sharp teeth.

A particularly hefty lizard came barging up from behind the others, whacking a few of them over the head with his club as he did so. He glared at the three friends.

“
Spshhhspshhh?
” he roared, pointing at them.

“
Hiiissssssss!
” replied the lizards in chorus.

“Uh-oh!” said Esmeralda. “This doesn't look good.”

“Shrrrrraaaasssshhhh!” bellowed the boss lizard.

“Leg it!” yelled Trundle as the whole mass of lizards came surging forward, teeth bared and clubs raised.

Trundle and Esmeralda and Jack spun on their heels and ran for it.

But it was hopeless—even if they could outdistance the long-legged lizards, how were they to climb the sheer walls of the canyon?

Doomed! thought Trundle. After everything we've been through! I hope they're quick eaters!

They came to the far end of the valley. Using all four paws, they tried to scramble up the steep slope, but the ground was loose under them and they kept sliding down again toward the advancing lizards.

With a sinking heart, Trundle realized he had to perform another courageous act before it was too late.

He turned toward the lizards with his sword in his paw. “You two try to get away,” he said resolutely to his friends. “I'll hold them off as long as possible. If you manage to find all the crowns and fulfill the prophecy, name a park bench after me or something!”

“Trundle, no!” gasped Esmeralda as he stepped forward to meet the marauding lizards.

The first of the lizards were only a few feet away when the air was suddenly filled with a weird, high-pitched wailing. It was a chorus of voices, singing as shrilly as birds, but with strange, unsettling harmonies and counter-melodies. And it seemed to be coming out of the sky.

The effect on the lizards was extraordinary. The foremost of them came to a skidding halt, jabbering and screeching among themselves and clearly disturbed by the eerie singing. Even the big boss lizard came to a stop and stared around uneasily.

“Lawks a-mussy!” gasped Jack. “Look!
Look!”
He was pointing up at the cliff tops that surrounded them.

The lofty ridges were filled with ghostly white shapes clad in white robes, and it was from the open mouths of these spectral creatures that the singing was coming.

And even as Trundle and Esmeralda and Jack gazed up in astonishment at the spectral choir, the singing changed tone, and the melody rose to new heights.

That did it for the lizards. Throwing their hands up to the sides of their heads, they turned tail and fled, many of them dropping their cudgels and falling over one another in their rush to get away.

In a few hectic moments all the lizards were gone, swallowed up in the mist. And no sooner were the lizards routed than the piercing singing came to a halt, and a strange silence descended over the valley.

“Well now,” breathed Jack. “That was curious, but I've never been so glad of a song in my entire life!”

“Who are they?” wondered Trundle. “
What
are they? Do you see their eyes?”

“I do,” said Esmeralda. “Bright red eyes, every one of them.” She frowned. “Jack, you've traveled all over the Sundered Lands. Have you ever seen the like before?”

“I have not,” said Jack. “Very uncanny they are. Like phantoms.”

“You think they're ghosts?” gasped Trundle. “I mean, I'm glad they frightened the lizards off . . . but I'm not keen on the idea of
ghosts
.”

“We're about to find out what they are,” said Esmeralda. “Here they come.”

She was right. Many of the pale animals were making their way down the hillside toward them. Trundle stood his ground as the odd assortment of gliding creatures thronged around them. There were foxes and rabbits and pigs and sheep and cats and weasels and badgers and bears, all staring at them with their glowing eyes, all silent and all with perfectly white fur. They seemed especially fascinated by Jack's rebec, and many of them stared at it or touched it with cautious fingertips.

“Albinos,” murmured Jack. “Well, I never! A whole tribe of albino animals.”

“Hello there,” Esmeralda said brightly. “You fellows just saved our lives with your singing. Thanks very much!”

The crowd of animals whispered among themselves, shifting and rustling restlessly, as though ill at ease.

Pleased as he was that these pale animals had come to their rescue, Trundle couldn't help but find them a little bit creepy.

“You sing very well,” Jack said in a friendly voice. “I'm a musician myself, you know.” He bowed low. “Jack Nimble, travelling troubadour at your service.” He gestured to the others. “And this is Princess Esmeralda of the Roamany folk, along with Trundle Boldoak, a great hero.” He smiled his widest smile. “And might I have your names, my good and worthy friends?” He looked from one to another. “Do you have names at all? Anyone?”

“Apparently not,” murmured Esmeralda under her breath. “Do you think they even understand what we're saying to them?”

Suddenly, all the white animals turned to face the cliff at the end of the valley.

“Hello,” breathed Jack. “Who's this now?”

A solitary figure stood atop the cliff, white against the brooding sky. Very tall and imposing he looked, with a mass of white hair and a great billowing white cloak drawn up to his face so that only the piercing red eyes were visible over it.

He held a long white stick in one hand, and he pounded it three times on the ground. The albinos gazed up at him with silent, reverential faces.

A deep, booming voice rolled down the hillside. “Ahhh! More able-bodied souls with the Great Endeavor to help!” The lordly shape turned and strode away. “Bring them!” he called.

A white rabbit turned to the three friends. “You must come with us,” the creature whispered.

“Um . . . we're jolly grateful for the rescue and everything,” Esmeralda began. “But unless you tell us exactly who you are and what's going on here, we're not going anywhere with you weirdos, excuse my bluntness.” She fixed the pale rabbit with a glittering and determined eye. “You'd have to chain us up first, matey!”

 

“Nice going with that comment about the chains, Esmeralda!” said Trundle, rattling his manacles.

“Oh, shut up!” Esmeralda retorted. “How was I to know they'd take me literally?”

The two hedgehogs were sitting together in a gloomy and grimy little room with curved wooden walls. They guessed they were aboard a wrecked windship. Somewhere deep below the decks, somewhere slimy and smelly.

No sooner had Esmeralda made her remark about chains than all the albinos had turned and fallen upon them. Before he knew it, Trundle's sword had been wrenched out of his hand and an old sack drawn down over his head. Then he was upended and the bag was pulled tight around his knees and he was lifted onto bony shoulders and carried off, with only Esmeralda's muffled cries of protest to be heard.

He had been jogged along for some time before he got the impression of being lifted up and then carried down to somewhere dank and stinky. The sack was taken off and the manacles were put on his wrists and ankles, and the gray shapes wafted away. A door clanged shut. In the deep gloom, he could see Esmeralda . . . but . . .

“What do you think has happened to Jack?” he asked.

“How should I know?” grumbled Esmeralda. “I've been inside a sack for a while, in case you didn't realize!”

She tugged at the chains, but they were attached to a big iron staple that had been driven deep into the windship's timbers. “I could do with some food,” she said. “Hey!” she yelled. “Jailers! Weirdos! Whatever you are! How about something to eat and drink around here?”

Trundle was just about able to make out their surroundings from the weak light that filtered in through the cracked and broken planks of the walls.

“Do you think they might have killed Jack?” Trundle asked.

“Possibly,” said Esmeralda. “Or they might have just left him there to be eaten by those lizards. Who knows?”

“Or he could be chained up somewhere else aboard this old hulk!” Trundle groaned. “Being taunted and tormented by those dreadful creatures.”

“I wouldn't be at all surprised!”

“Oh dear,” moaned Trundle. “Oh, my!”

He was about to add, “Oh, calamity!” when he heard the clinking of a key in a lock.

“Here they come again,” growled Esmeralda. “Leave this to me, Trundle. I'll tell 'em what's what!”

Trundle looked unhappily at her. Telling them what's what had gotten them into this pickle in the first place. He dreaded to think what trouble more of Esmeralda's plain speaking might get them into.

The door swung wide.

“Hello there, you two!” said a familiar voice as Jack came into their prison bearing a food-laden tray in his paws. “I thought you might be a bit peckish!”

“Jack!” gasped Trundle in delight. “We thought
you
might be dead!”

“No,” beamed Jack, grinning from ear to ear. “I'm not dead at all! In fact, I'm in the pink, my friends! I'm in the very pinkest of the pink!”