The Tides of Avarice (39 page)

“Sylvester?”

“Yes, Viola?”

“Shut up.”

Within a few minutes they'd been joined by Mrs. Pickleberry, huffing and puffing and swearing with sufficient skill that, Sylvester thought, even Cap'n Rustbane might have murmured a few words of congratulation. Apparently it was not at all easy climbing a rope ladder when you were encumbered by a rolling pin. She was followed almost immediately by Rasco, to whom the climb was clearly a matter of no consequence. He and Gasbag threw themselves into each other's arms.

Sylvester scratched his head. Not long ago the two mice had been trading dire insults and now they were the best of friends.

“Is Grandma Zahnia in?” said Rasco after the mutual welcomes were largely over.

“Sure is.”

“Then lead the way, little brother of mine.”

Walking along the branches and, from time to time, along the vine bridges between them was, Sylvester discovered, rather like trying to retain dignity while trampolining. Thank goodness Viola and Mrs. Pickleberry were quite clearly in the same quandary.

While the two mice cavorted around them emitting squeaks and whoops of encouragement, the lemmings made an unsteady and distinctly unstately procession towards the big house belonging to Madame Zahnia.

When they reached it, Rasco reached out a small fist and rapped on the gnarled wooden door. As the little group waited, Sylvester noticed uneasily that there was the skull of a shrew nailed to the lintel.

“Come in, Rasco,” said a voice that seemed to be centuries old – murky centuries that had seen more than their fair share of evil-doings and treachery. “And you too, Gasbag, and bring your lemming friends with you.”

“How did she—?” began Viola, still somewhat out of breath from their scramble across the branches.

“My grandma always knows,” said Rasco. He tapped the side of his nose and looked mysterious as he pushed the creaking door open.

“Don't you pay him no mind,” whispered Gasbag. “As soon as I saw you lot in the distance I ran an' told Madame Zahnia. That Rasco, he's all full o' bullshine.”

The inside of the room was so gloomy that for a moment Sylvester could see nothing of it at all. As his eyes slowly accustomed themselves to the dimness, he was able to make out that the place was jam-packed with stuff, just like the inside of “Mother Brisket's Antiques & Curios from Around the World” back in Foxglove. An emporium that, despite the grandiosity of its name and the splendor with which the proprietress always presented herself, was actually a junk shop. Lanterns made from dried-out blowfishes with candles stuck in them hung from the ceiling. Wherever the walls weren't lined with shelves they were covered in decorations of all sorts, all crammed together as close as they would go with no apparent concern for artistry: seastars, glass balls, knotted driftwood, shells … The shelves themselves were at higgledy-piggledy angles, as if the carpenter who'd built them had been doing so in high seas and in a terrific hurry. The gadgets and trinkets littering the shelves seemed to be clinging to them rather than just sitting there.

Sylvester was reminded yet again of Cap'n Rustbane's cabin, back on the Shadeblaze. Although the two rooms had very different contents and, he realized, wrinkling his nose, very different smells, they nevertheless had a lot in common.

At the far end of the room was a wildly overstuffed plush armchair and sitting on it, with a plump red cushion at her side, was a large brown mouse. Also wildly overstuffed, Sylvester couldn't stop himself from thinking. Even in the half-dark, the dress Madame Zahnia wore was almost dazzling in the swirl and clash of its colors, and the cloth wrapped around her head was as anarchic. She had massive brass earrings and, on her arms, bore bracelets and bangles galore. As she raised her arm in greeting to Rasco, the bracelets jangled together to make a noise like an orchestra tuning up.

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 take 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.