“Religion makes people do really weird things,” Drakeforth said with a shrug.
“He is linked with the treasure, isn’t he?” Ascott asked.
“Yes.” Drakeforth nodded.
“What is the treasure?”
“It is the most valuable thing imaginable. The greatest gift and the most important. The really cool thing about it is that it is real. It is not some prank, or idea, or even a voucher for a seafood restaurant that expired a century ago. The treasure is something you can see and touch and understand. To find the treasure is to be changed forever by it.” Drakeforth managed to sound reverent.
“It drove at least two people mad,” Ascott reminded him.
“Change can take many forms. You have map coordinates and a reasonably dodgy sea chart. Try your luck. See if you can find what you are looking for.” Drakeforth stood up and brushed the front of his trousers with his hands. “Now, go to sleep.”
Ascott opened his mouth to ask further questions and immediately fell asleep.
Chapter 21
To no one’s surprise the next day dawned clear and bright. The sea sparkled as a light breeze caressed its surface, and the horizon misted with the exhaust of hundreds of commuting whales.
Ascott woke to the sound of things frying. It took a moment for his nose to wake up and join the conversation going on between his ears and brain. Fish for breakfast. No surprises there. Slipping out from under the covers he padded barefoot to the bathroom. He stood on the cool tiles, experiencing a sense of relief, when the bathroom door opened behind him and Shoal came storming in.
“Shoal?” Ascott yelped, almost turning around in surprise.
Without saying a word, she reached over the tub and turned the shower on. Ascott stood frozen in place. From behind him he heard the soft rustle of Shoal peeling her t-shirt off and tossing it on the floor. A warm flush rose up the back of his neck as the shower curtain slid back and then closed again. With his gaze fixed firmly on the small window in front of him, Ascott reached out and pulled the chain on the cistern.
Taking a deep breath, he turned on his heel and marched to the door, every sense screaming that right there, on the other side of that flax curtain, a naked woman was washing her hair with what smelled like Coral Rose shampoo.
Ascott left the bathroom and exhaled.
“Morning!” Sandy said, clapping Ascott on the shoulder so he nearly screamed. “You ready for breakfast?” he asked as he passed Ascott and went into the kitchen.
“Ah, sure.” Ascott went and took a seat at the low table. He felt a pang of concern for Tacus. The parrot was out there somewhere, probably cursing other island birds and demanding they feed him.
“Hey, honey,” Palm greeted him and started loading the table with platters of fried fish, fried bananas, fried milknut flesh and a tall pitcher of island tea.
“Morning, Missus Smith,” Ascott said.
“Where’s Shoaly?” Sandy asked, coming into the room and taking a seat at the table.
“In the shower…I think,” Ascott replied, his blush freshening.
“She’s a terror in the mornings. No point in talking to her until she’s had a chance to wake up,” Palm said.
Ascott was puzzled by that. On the two occasions, both in the last week, when he had been nearby when Shoal woke up, she had seemed quite reasonable.
Shoal appeared, looking fresh and slightly damp. “Morning Mum, Dad, Scotty.” She slid her long legs under the table. “Pass the juice.”
Sandy passed the tea. “What are you fellas up to today?” he asked.
“Treasure hunting,” Shoal said, loading a plate with flaking fish fillets.
“Oh aye?” Palm asked, her raised eyebrow moving from Shoal to Ascott.
“Well, not really treasure hunting,” Ascott said hurriedly.
Shoal scowled, “What would you call it then?”
“I—that is…”
“What treasure you looking for?” Sandy asked around a mouthful of fish.
“Captain Aarrgh’s treasure,” Shoal said, her gaze fixed on Ascott.
“You don’t wanna go messing with things like that, aye,” Palm said, reaching out to casually pound Sandy on the back as he started to choke.
“You’re probably right.” Ascott nodded, eyeing Sandy with concern.
“Why not?” Shoal demanded.
“Some things are not meant to be found.” Palm stood up and seized Sandy in a bear hug from behind. With a sharp jerk she cleared Sandy’s throat and he lay back wheezing, tears dripping down his cheeks.
“Yer mother is right,” Sandy gasped. “The Laughing Man wouldn’t like it.”
Shoal and Palm immediately laughed out loud. Ascott looked at them both in bewilderment.
“Why is that funny?” he asked when the noise died down.
“It’s not,” Shoal said and drank more tea.
“Why is it not funny?” Ascott asked carefully.
“When Hee is mentioned, it must be in good humour,” Palm explained.
“Hee? You mean the Lau—?”
Shoal pressed a hand across Ascott’s face to stop him.
“It’s safer to say Hee.”
“Who is Hee?” Ascott asked.
“Hee is the spirit of the islands. The god from which all bounty comes. The one who gives us everything.”
“He sounds like the god of the Export Company,” Ascott said with a wry smile. The three faces around the table turned and looked at him. No one smiled in return.
“I’m sorry?” he ventured.
Palm nodded. “Exco don’t have no gods. It were built to end such nonsense. Mr Tubule, he was never a fan of gods. Laughing or otherwise. They say the Exco was founded as his way of bringing the modern world to the island and banishing the old ones.”
“Did you know this?” Ascott asked Shoal.
“Did you listen to half the things your parents told you when you were little?” she replied.
“Dentine Tubule had a real thing for gods,” Palm said. “They reckon he refused to believe in ‘em and got angry when people went about their business worshipping them.”
“What about Arthur?”
Sandy gave a short laugh. “Arthur, eh? Mostly we just smile and nod at Arthur. We’ve got enough old gods around here to keep happy without fussing with a new fella.”
“Ascott believes in Arthur,” Shoal said with a cheeky grin.
“I don’t,” he replied immediately. “I mean, I’ve met him. So it’s less a belief than a verifiable fact.”
Those around the table nodded. Ascott was relieved to see no judgement in their expressions.
The meal continued in silence. Afterwards, Ascott and Shoal did the dishes.
“We going out today?” she asked, swirling the water out of the kitchen sink.
“If you like,” he replied, hanging up a dish-towel.
“There’s something important going on out there. It’s been going on for a long time. I think…I think the treasure wants to be found,” Shoal said, frowning at the small whirlpool in the drain.
“I don’t think a treasure has an opinion either way. Found or not found. It’s just stuff.”
“We’re all just stuff,” Shoal replied. “Right now, we’re stuff that is walking around and talking and thinking and feeling. When we stop doing that, we just go back to being stuff.”
“Well, yes. But.” Ascott realised he had no response.
Shoal continued. “My Nana, she always said life came from the sea and to the sea it would return. For generations we have always buried our dead at sea. Given them back to the fish, the crabs, the worms, and everything else that doesn’t mind a free feed.”
“It makes sense, there’s not really a lot of room for a cemetery on the island,” Ascott said.
“It’s
more than that,” Shoal gave him a sharp look. “Nana is all around us. She’s in the water, the fish, the soil, the sand. She’s in the food we eat and the waves. When I miss her, I just have to go for a swim. Then I know she is still with me.”
Ascott felt a sharp sliver of grief cut deep inside his chest. When his parents died, what had he done? Had an anxiety attack and fled.
“I don’t even know what happened to my parents after their funeral,” he said. “Charlotte took care of everything. Now she’s dying, and I’m not even there to make arrangements for her.”
“She could come here,” Shoal suggested. “We could give her a great send-off. We’d throw a big party and then return her to the sea.”
“I want to bring her to the island of Saint Amoeba and see if the silver pool can heal her. Though, I’m not sure the sea is Charlotte’s thing. She’s quite fond of her technology. Take her away from computers and empathic machines and she’d get bored.”
“She wouldn’t get bored if she was dead. I don’t think the dead care about that sort of thing,” Shoal mused.
“Drakeforth came to me last night and…among other things…he said that Charlotte could only be healed if she truly desired to keep living.”
“That make sense,” Shoal said.
“He said I have started asking the right questions.”
“It does help in getting the right answers,” Shoal offered.
“He also said we have a map, so we should use it.”
“Would be a shame not to,” Shoal said.
“So, let’s go find this treasure. Then I can get home in time to save my sister.”
“Fruity,” Shoal said.
Chapter 22
Shoal spoke kindly to the outboard motor on her new zip-boat and soon it was purring and ready to go. Ascott loaded the boat with a packed lunch, bottles of Java and SCRAM dive gear. The cats of the island were out in force, lined up on each side of the jetty, watching Ascott carrying each load with inscrutable expressions.
“Give them this,” Shoal said, handing Ascott a two-day-old fish wrapped in green-leaf.
He winced at the smell. “Will it scare them away?”
“No, but an offering to the cats is a good way to bless any enterprise.”
Ascott took the fish and held it as far away from himself as possible. Turning to the cats, he said, “We’re going treasure hunting. Please accept this fish in return for a blessing on the success of our venture.”
He waited. The cats just stared at him.
“Right, well, thanks. Here’s your fish.” He tossed the scaled carcass a few feet down the jetty. The cats pounced, moving in a lithe swarm as they fell on the offering.
“You coming or what?” Shoal called up from the boat.
Ascott climbed down and sat in the bow.
“What did the cats say?” she asked as the boat purred away from the jetty and out into the lagoon.
“Nothing?” Ascott looked surprised. “Do they speak?”
Shoal grinned, “Of course not. They’re cats. City boy.” She rolled her eyes.
Ascott smiled and unrolled the map. It was faded with age and the gaps between the woven slats of dried sea-plant made clear navigation a matter of guess work.
“Fyne Tuthe Com,” Ascott read aloud. “Do you know what that means?”
“Fin Tooth is a reef,” Shoal replied.
“Can we go there?”
“Of course,” Shoal replied, twisting the throttle until the engine hummed and the zip-boat bounced over the gentle swell.
They only slowed when the sea ahead broke into foam, the swirling waves breaking enough to show a low ridge of fan-like coral. “Fin Tooth reef,” Shoal declared.
Ascott nodded, turning his attention back to the map. He traced the weathered ink. “According to the map, from Fyne Tuthe Com the nearest legible coordinates are either seven grid points north-east or two folds of the map due south.”
“Let me have a look,” Shoal took the map from him. Ascott watched as she peered at it, the tip of her tongue emerging to touch her top lip as she concentrated. “This is silly,” she announced a minute later.
“It’s a map. It’s an exact guide to where we want to go,” Ascott replied with a faint sniff in his voice.
“I know it’s a map,” Shoal snapped. “What I mean is that I’ve been all over this,” Shoal waved at the Aardvark Archipelago that surrounded them, “and never once have I needed a map to tell me where I am.” She jabbed at the map with a long finger.
“Well, I need it. The map tells me that Fin Tooth reef is here, so that means that the island over there is…Sawce Stayn, Please Ignoor.” Ascott fell silent for a moment. “Okay, that island over there is Goode F’r Milkenutes. Oh I give up,” he muttered.
“Milknut Island?” Shoal asked.
“I suppose. Good for Milknuts?”
“I know Milknut Island, it’s absolutely covered in milknut palms. They used to put people accused of crimes on that island. If you survived a week without getting your skull crushed by a falling milknut, it meant you were innocent.”
“Were a lot of people found innocent?” Ascott asked.
“Depended on the time of year. Nana always said that hurricane season meant a crime spree.”
Ascott opened his mouth to say something obvious, then closed it again. Staring at the map, he said, “Here’s Fin Tooth reef, here is Milknut Island. See, they’re on the map the same way they are on the ocean.”
Shoal kept staring out to sea. “How long will it take you to find the right spot on that map, so I can find the right spot in the real world?”
“It could be a while. Some of the numbers are faded. You know the islands, but they have different names. So if we find the right ones, we can head in the right direction.”
“You might want to hurry up,” Shoal replied. Ascott stood up. Swaying slightly to hold his balance, he peered out to sea.
“Kalim Aari,” he said.
“That’s his boat,” Shoal agreed. She dropped down and twisted the throttle on the engine. Ascott flailed and fell down, landing hard on the dive gear. He pulled himself into a sitting position and looked at the horizon beyond their wake.
Kalim AarI’s boat was moving slowly across the horizon. “Maybe they haven’t seen us?” Ascott suggested.
“I hope not,” Shoal replied. The boat bounced across the swell, sliding around a reef. Ahead, the sea erupted in the spray of a pair of whales surfacing in perfect synchronicity.
“Whales!” Ascott yelped.
“Breeding spot,” Shoal said, immediately cutting the engine power. The zip-boat drifted, rocking gently on the swell.
“Why have you stopped?” Ascott went from looking for surfacing whales to scanning the horizon for Kalim’s boat.
“The whales are courting. We can’t disturb them,” Shoal said.
“I’m sure they won’t mind. We can be out of their way in a few minutes.” Ascott said.
Shoal gave him a patient look. “City boy. Always in a hurry. Always looking at things, but not seeing them. You wanted to come to the Aadvarks to look at the fish. Well, there they are. But now you’re only interested in treasure.”
“I’m not only interested in treasure!” Ascott snapped back.
“Sure you are. Fish that everyone already knows about. Treasure that everyone knows about but no one cares enough to go looking for. You are so interested in finding things that don’t need to be found you forget about the important things!”
“What things?” Ascott stood up in the boat and waved his arms. “There’s nothing else out here!”
Shoal stood up, her eyes blazing, “Everything is out here!”
The memory of Drakeforth’s warning that it was bigger than fish flashed in Ascott’s brain and choked his tongue before he could speak.
“What?” Shoal said with an edge sharper than any coral.
“Everything is out here. You, the endless cycle of life, and the one chance I have to save Charlotte.”
The whales surfaced again, snorting water out of their blowholes, showering the boat in a drenching spray.
Shoal giggled. “Whale snot,” she said.
“Shoal,” Ascott swallowed hard. “Shoal, I—”
“Fungus!” she shouted, pushing Ascott aside to leap for the engine. Ascott fell back against the rubber pontoon. The dark blue shadow of Kalim AarI’s cruiser was bearing down on them.
“Hang on!” Shoal shouted. She opened the throttle and the zip-boat leaped out of the water. Leaning hard she turned the boat, cutting across the bow of the cruiser and heading for a deeper channel.
“Can we outrun them!?” Ascott yelled.
“Outrun a boat that size in this dinghy? Of course not!” Shoal snarled. “But we can make them work for it.”
The zip-boat scraped over an undersea rock and bounced. Ascott flew up and landed hard. Scrambling for the map, he rolled it up and clutched it to his chest.
Kalim’s boat turned to avoid the hidden reef. Ascott let out a shout.
“No! Look out! The whales!”
The cruiser cut through the water like a knife. The water erupted as the pair of whales surfaced, directly in the path of the larger craft.
Shoal pushed the zip-boat into a sharp turn. Their path would cross the bow of the cruiser again as she tried to get between them and the whales. Too late—the cruiser’s sharp prow struck the whales as they exhaled, the jet of spray turned dark, and pink-stained water rained down.
“No!” Shoal screamed.
The heavy cruiser churned the water, sliding over the stricken whales as it ploughed onwards.
The zip-boat bounced down the side of the cruiser, the red surf breaking over the bow as they headed to the stern.
“Murderers!” Shoal screamed at the gleaming blue sides of the passing boat. The cruiser sailed past, its turning circle much wider than that of the zip-boat.
“Oh no,” Ascott said, his hands running through his hair as a massive, black-grey body rolled in the wake of the passing boat.
Pisces of Fate Page 15