“They killed them!” Shoal screamed. Her face wet with spray and tears.
“One’s okay!” Ascott almost laughed in relief. The second whale surfaced, its great dark eye rolling past them as it scanned the length of its dying mate.
“I’m sorry,” Ascott said as the great creature passed within an arm’s length of the rocking zip-boat.
The great tail rose and smacked the water. Ascott heard Shoal yell and then the world turned upside down. This is how the fish see the sky, he thought. Then he was plunging into a maelstrom of white noise.
Chapter 23
The Buli Fish proves its worth as a provider to potential mates by making offerings of regurgitated food. They are the only known fish who court by kissing. Male specimens have been observed consuming vast quantities of smaller fish and then vomiting their stomach contents prematurely when they approach a suitable female. This proves to be quite awkward for the male as females display a range of behaviours in response. Most female Buli Fish observed swim away, though a few are impressed by this overt display and vigorous mating ensues.
Hard, sucking kisses trailed their way across Ascott’s chest. He stirred and mumbled Shoal’s name. Opening his eyes, he saw a tentacle waving near his face.
“Shoal?” He sat up. A gentle surf washed over his legs. Warm sand baked under his back. Shoal lay face-down beside him.
“Shoal?” Ascott croaked. On the edge of his blurred vision the arms of an octopus were descending under the crystal blue waters. Shoal stirred and lifted her head.
“What?” she muttered.
Ascott sat up. His head swam and pounded like a storm surge on a reef.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fruity,” Shoal muttered. “What happened?” She groaned and rolled over, shading her eyes against the bright sun.
“I think the octopus saved us,” Ascott said.
“Why in the name of Captain Crab Hands would an octopus do that?” Shoal asked, sitting up and brushing sand off herself.
“Honestly? I think it might have done it so it could have something else to feel smug about.”
“Well, that’s just great.” Shoal stood up and looked around.
“What island is this?” Ascott asked standing next to her.
“I don’t know.” Shoal turned slowly. The beach was pure white sand, like every other beach in the Aardvarks. The sand gave way to a stand of milknut palms and beyond that, dense jungle. “They all look the same from this angle,” she admitted.
“I dropped the map when the whale flipped your boat.”
“It wasn’t really my boat,” Shoal replied.
“I’m sorry I keep ruining everything,” Ascott said.
“You haven’t ruined anything. That Kalim Aari, he’s ruined two whales’ lives, burned your house down, destroyed three boats and is a complete bad-word.”
“A complete bad-word?” Ascott stared at Shoal.
“Yes. You know what a bad-word is, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Ascott chuckled. “I’ve just never heard it put quite like that before.”
Shoal’s eyes flashed fire. “You’re laughing at me.”
“No, absolutely not.” Ascott swallowed hard. “If I had to be stuck on a deserted island with anyone, I’m glad it’s you.”
“We’re not stuck, city boy. It will be a long swim, but I can do it. We could always make a dug-out, or a raft.”
“We should explore,” Ascott suggested.
“Good idea. I’ll catch some fish and get a fire started,” Shoal replied.
Ascott caught himself before he spoke. People here related to time in a different way and very little was ever done with a sense of urgency. He sat down again on the warm sand while Shoal waded into the shallows.
Ascott dozed in the sun. Every part of his body felt warm and content. The topic of his next book, he decided, would be the advantages of an island lifestyle. If everyone knew what this felt like, the world would be a different place. People would abandon the drudgery of cities and spend their days sleeping in the sun. This was an experience that he needed to document.
The smell of burning sea-plant and driftwood caressed his nostrils. He sat up and turned in that direction. Shoal knelt in the sand, a small fire kindling in front of her.
Ascott made his way towards her. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi yourself,” she replied, and laid a fish on a stick across the fire.
“Once Charlotte is okay, I’m coming back here to stay,” Ascott said.
“Sure you will. You’ll go back to your big city and everyone will love your book. They’ll be amazed at all the fish you discovered that no one ever knew about before. You’ll be too busy being clever to remember us.”
“I don’t care about the fish,” Ascott said, sinking to his knees next to her.
“Of course you do. It’s what makes you who you are,” Shoal replied. “To you, each and every one is something new and exciting. It makes you kinda weird to be around.”
Ascott had no answer to that. They ate fish and watched the sun sink towards the horizon until the sky turned the same colour as the embers.
“Well, if we are going to find the treasure, we need to start making a raft,” Shoal said, standing up and dusting the sand off.
Ascott followed her up the sand and into the trees. The jungle seethed with life. It rustled and called. Shrieked and burbled. “It’s noisier here than it is in the city,” Ascott shouted to be heard above the cacophony.
“It’s life,” Shoal replied, grinning at him over her shoulder.
They walked along natural pathways that wound through the trees. In places stones formed natural steps and, unlike the wild island of Saint Amoeba, the undergrowth here was almost civilised.
A waterfall dived from a high cliff and plunged into a pool of water as clear as glass. Ascott and Shoal rinsed the last of the sand and salt from themselves under the pounding deluge. Behind the waterfall the rock curved inwards, forming an alcove which grew into a cave the deeper they went.
“The roof is glowing,” Shoal whispered. The damp rock shimmered with the thread-like tails of glow worms. They were so thick overhead they reduced the pitch dark to a just-penetrable gloom.
Passing under the star-scape of glowing worm bottoms, Shoal and Ascott reached the far end of the tunnel. The path here was more pronounced, winding down a steep valley through dense, humming jungle.
“The stones are different,” Ascott said, barely able to make out Shoal in the dark.
“Different to what?” she replied.
“To the stones on the waterfall side. These ones have been melted by great heat. I didn’t know there were volcanoes in the islands.”
“What’s a volcano?” Shoal asked.
“So that’s a no, then. A volcano is a place where the melted rock inside the planet has spilled out on the surface.”
Ascott heard Shoal stop a few feet ahead of him. “Really?” her voice floated back.
“Yeah, it happens in lots of places. Imagine a mountain with fire and smoke coming out of the top.” Moving forward carefully, Ascott found Shoal by bumping into her.
“I’d like to see a volcano—and horses. I have a few pearls riding on whether they or not those things are real.”
They moved on, through the warm gloom of the jungle. “Lights,” Shoal said a moment later. “Down there. Maybe it’s one of your volcanoes?”
“Maybe.” Ascott took the lead and went down the path as it switchbacked down the steep slope.
The trees closed in overhead, forming a tunnel like the waterfall cave, but without the soft light of the glow worms.
“I can’t see a banjo thing,” Ascott complained as he walked into a tangle of branches.
“Use your feet, city boy, it’s like standing on the pitching deck of
a boat.” Shoal walked past him. “Just follow me.”
He did, and more by luck than footwork he reached the bottom of the winding path without tripping up. Ascott was sure the vines were moving in the gloom.
In the rocky basin at the bottom of the path, attempts had been made to clear the jungle. It seemed a futile effort. Stakes decorated with carvings of wood and stone decorated the trees. To Ascott, the carvings looked like women, if the carver had never seen an actual woman and only had a few vague details to work from.
They moved down the path, towards the source of the flickering lights. Burning torches formed a perimeter around a cluster of wooden huts that made up a small village in the cleared centre of what Ascott now believed to be the crater of a dormant volcano.
Chapter 24
“What kind of people live at the bottom of the crater of a dormant volcano?” Ascott wondered aloud.
“The same kind of people who wear clothes made of bark and never shave,” Shoal replied.
Ascott turned slowly and took in the small crowd forming a circle at the edge of the flickering torchlight.
“Hello,” he said.
“I think they’re pirates,” Shoal whispered. Ascott wanted to laugh, and to say, “There haven’t been pirates in these waters in over a hundred years.” At least until Kalim Aari arrived, he thought.
The men who were watching them wore old-fashioned clothes and hats, albeit fashioned from leaves and vines. More than one sported an eye patch made from woven flax-grass. Their hair and beards would have put Arthurians to shame—thick and long, some matted and rope like. Others wore their beards braided and sculpted into shapes like octopuses, or trees growing from their chins.
“Do you think they can understand us?” Ascott whispered.
“Eh fella, you speakem lingo?” Shoal said loudly.
A mutter rippled through the crowd. Ascott couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“You g’ sta’fish in y’ lug ‘oles aye?” Shoal asked.
The group parted to make way for a man with so much polished wood and stone braided into his beard, he crunched like a gravel path with every step. His grass coat was decorated with stone beads and his hair stood high on his head, wrapped in a towering “do that resembled a beehive.
“G’arn y’ holes!” he barked. The others shuffled backwards into the shadows. “Y’n all. Y’kin us. Y’ gin’ die noo.”
“He said we’ve seen them so they are going to kill us now.” Shoal translated.
“What? Why?” Ascott stepped forward, jostling for position with Shoal, who was quite ready to get the fight started right away.
“Listen,” Ascott said. “We’ve come a long way, and been through quite a lot. I’m sorry if we’ve upset you. But we’re not going to just let you kill us for stumbling around in the dark.”
“Oo’sidas!” the man in front of him shouted. “Keel ‘aul t’ sc’bby dogs!”
The night air filled with the sound of weapons of stone and wood being drawn from palm-front belts.
“Aye cap’n,” the men chorused.
“Run,” Shoal whispered, raising her fists.
“You first,” Ascott replied, wishing he had a weapon at hand.
A rainbow of plumage burst out of the darkness. It beat the air with iridescent wings and ruined an otherwise perfect entrance by landing on the towering beehive of the captain’s hair and nearly knocking him down.
“Bithcuith!” Tacus squawked.
“G’n ye’ dramin bayd!” The captain’s hands beat about his head. Tacus flapped his wings and tried to unhook his claws from the captain’s hair, which had started to buzz ominously.
“Tacus!” Ascott yelled and darted forward to snatch up the flailing parrot.
A ring of swords, spears and stone clubs levelled around Ascott. He froze, arms outstretched.
“Leave him alone!” Shoal yelled. “Tacus, come here, birdy!”
Tacus snapped his beak at the tiny buzzing things Ascott could see emerging from the depths of the captain’s hair. Then the parrot took flight. Flapping his bright wings hard, he made the short hop from the captain’s hair to collide with Ascott at chest height.
“Bithcuith!” Tacus squawked.
“Tacus,” Ascott stroked the bird’s plumage and let him nibble his fingertips.
“Ho’ ye ken mae bayd?” the captain demanded.
“This is Tacus, he’s my bird. At least he was until we went to the Island of Saint Amoeba and he got his feathers back. Then he flew off.” Ascott felt sure he wasn’t explaining things very well, but the stone point spears jabbing at him were distracting.
“Tacus ‘ere bin firs’ mate o’ Cap’n Aarrgh sin’ e’ were an egg,” the captain growled.
“Well, he showed up at my place one morning demanding to be fed. I figured the storm the night before had blown him in. I fed him and he decided to stay.”
“Day’mn bayd, dun deser’ed ‘is pos’. Ang ‘im wit’ tha’ twain.” The encircling pirates rumbled their approval at the captain’s order.
“You can’t hang him, or us!” Ascott shouted. “If it wasn’t for Tacus we would have never found out the secret of the island of Saint Amoeba, or the mystery of Dentine Tubule and the Pisces of Fate.”
In the sudden silence even the bees buzzing around Captain Aarrgh’s head went still.
“W’ ye know o’ t’ Pysces o’ Fayte?” The captain leaned in close and regarded Ascott with a cold and calculating eye.
“We know that it is an important treasure. We know that it was discovered by Captain Aarrgh and his crew over a hundred years ago. They stole it from She, the goddess of the sea.”
“They took it,” Shoal spoke up, “from the secret pool where she watched over it on the Island of Saint Amoeba.”
“Their ship was then sunk in a storm,” Ascott picked up and carried on. “Dentine Tubule, the ship’s doctor, was the only one to survive and he kept a chart of where the treasure was hidden.”
The captain gave a grunt and stepped back, his hands resting on his hips. To Ascott’s surprise he startled to chuckle. The sniggering spread through the crew until they threw their heads back and laughed and laughed. Weapons slipped from numb fingers as they laughed until tears left tracks in the grime and glistened like dew in their beards. They rolled on the ground, gasping and clutching their ribs, all shrieking with hysterical humour.
Ascott felt a burning sense of humiliation, made worse because he had no idea what was so funny.
“Was it something I said?” he asked Shoal as she grabbed his hand and started to drag him away.
“It’s not always about you, city boy. Let’s get out of here.”
“Why are they laughing?” Ascott asked again as they pushed into the thick jungle. Tacus squawked as a low-hanging branch threatened to sweep him off Ascott’s shoulder. With a beat of his wings he vanished into the canopy.
“They are summoning Heeheehee, the Laughing God,” Shoal explained.
“Why would they want to do that?”
Shoal stopped long enough to stare into Ascott’s face so he could see her incredulous expression. “They are summoning Hee because they want Him to kill us.”
“It seems like an over-reaction.”
“You can always write a letter of complaint later,” Shoal said.
The path they came in on had vanished in the darkness. Shoal blazed a trail through the thick undergrowth and took the ground rising underfoot as an indication they were going in the right direction.
“More lights,” Ascott hissed. He and Shoal ducked behind a tree as a moving line of torch beams came stumbling down the switchback trail a few feet away.
“A rescue party?” he whispered to Shoal.
“We don’t need rescuing. Besides, no one knows we’re lost,” Shoal said firmly.
“
We can follow the trail they are on and head back to the shore,” Ascott suggested.
Stepping out of cover once the group passed, they started picking their way up the steep hill. Five steps later, the sudden beam of a torch pinned them like a bug on a card.
“Mister Pudding, Miss Smith,” a familiar voice announced.
“Kalim Aari.” Ascott said the name like it was a curse. Shoal simply growled.
“What in Arthur’s name are you doing here?” Ascott demanded.
“Well, after we saw your—sorry, my—zip-boat get capsized by that savage fish, I insisted that the crew conduct a search and rescue operation.”
“You’d better hope you never fall overboard. Your crew are mud at search and rescue,” Shoal snapped.
“We felt sure you were lost. I shed tears. It was a beautiful moment. We did, however, find this,” Kalim lifted the rolled-up sea chart into the light. “By a wonderful coincidence, it led us to this very island.”
“You killed a whale.” Shoal’s tone raised the hairs on the back of Ascott’s neck.
“Possibly,” Kalim shrugged. “The ugly things seem to be everywhere.”
“Whoa!” Ascott caught Shoal around the waist as she lunged at Kalim, screaming in fury with her hands clawing at his face.
“Tie them up, her especially,” Kalim said over their heads.
The Citronella twins and Kalim’s crew appeared to have come prepared for all contingencies. They carried rope, picks, shovels, and machetes.
Shoal and Ascott were bound hand and foot. Each twin lifted their share of the extra burden and the descent began again.
Kalim brought up the rear, pausing only to stuff a clean handkerchief in Shoal’s snarling mouth.
The sound of laughter guided them to the circle of burning torches. The pirates were sounding a bit strained. Many of them subsided into wheezing giggles, until they made eye contact with each other, and that set them off again. Kalim’s gang looked on in confusion.
“All right! I’m Kalim Aari. Descended from Captain Fencer Aarrgh! I’m here to claim my treasure!”
Pisces of Fate Page 16