Quickly, they were inside, and they softly closed the door after. Pipper found a candle and a striker, and he lit the taper, its soft light barely illuminating the parlor. There were three other rooms within: one a little-used kitchen, as evidenced by the dust on everything but a table and chairs, on which sat a deck of cards; and two bedrooms, one larger than the other, but none held their flame-painted chest.
“Barn rats!” spat Binkton.
Pipper sighed. “I couldn’t have said it better. Even so, if they hide the money they took from the merchants, well. .”
“Say no more, Pip.”
They went into the largest bedroom. Clothes fit for a burly man hung in the freestanding wardrobe against one wall.
“This has to be Tark’s room,” said Binkton.
“Then it’s more likely to have the coin,” said Pipper.
But a thorough search turned up nothing.
The same was true of Queeker’s room.
And they found nought in the parlor.
Finally, in desperation, they went to the kitchen.
As they searched this chamber, Pipper frowned and glanced at the hooked rug under the table. “I say, Bink, what with the dust over everything but this-”
“Right!” said Binkton.
The two Warrows moved the table, and under the circular rug they found a loose floorboard, and under that-“Aha!” Binkton exclaimed-were sixteen pouches altogether, each holding five silvers.
“How many stores did they rob today?” asked Pipper.
“I would say sixteen,” replied Binkton, grinning in the wavering light of the candle.
“Let’s hie out of here,” said Pipper, taking up half the pouches, while Binkton took up the other half.
They carefully replaced the floorboard, and then the rug, and finally the table. Pipper blew out the candle and put it back where he had found it. Moments later they were outside in the darkness, with the front door relocked, and off toward their own room they went.
On that night they had become burglars, though they made no profit from their deed, all monies being anonymously returned by urchins to the merchants who had been robbed.
32
ELVENSHIP
MID SPRING, 6E7,
TO MID SPRING, 6E8
Over the next year, as was Aravan’s wont, the Eroean made several stops along isolated shores, where, again, Aravan and Aylis and Lissa and the warband, as well as various members of the crew, went exploring, or made forays inland for water and fruit and other comestibles. Yet little else did they find.
But nigh the far edge of the Weston Ocean, as they passed a small atoll lying in tropical waters, they espied on one of the islands a tattered flag of Gelen tied to a tree and flying upside down.
“ ’Tis a distress flag,” said Aravan, and then he called, “Heave to.” As soon as the ship came to a gentle drifting, Aravan and Dokan and four of the crew rowed a skiff to the isle, where they found an old campsite and what appeared to be the remains of seven men. Weathered water casks sat at hand. Dokan tapped each of them and said, “All empty. Likely the crew died of thirst.” On the lagoon-side shore, a heavily damaged pair of dinghies lay abandoned.
“Kapitan,” asked Nikolai, “flag from Gelen; be Gray Petrel crew?”
“I know not, Nikolai,” said Aravan. He turned to Noddy, now second bosun of the Eroean . “Fetch Aylis.”
Noddy and two others rowed back to the ship, and within moments Aylis and Lissa and Vex boarded the skiff. The sailors turned the craft and began rowing back, with Vex in the prow and peering down into the crystalline waters as they approached the isle.
Aylis and the others disembarked, even as Aravan picked a lengthy bone out from the long-cold ashes of the fire.
Vex whined and postured, and Lissa said, “All right. All right.” She looked up at Aravan, even as he squatted and examined the bone. “Captain, Vex says the atoll itself is lifeless: no birds whatsoever; and even the reef fish so plentiful in these waters were absent as we rowed over. And look at the plant life. It is nought but scrub and stunted trees. Vex thinks we’d better get back on the ship and leave.”
At these words, Aravan realized his blue stone amulet dangled outside his jerkin. He pressed his palms against the token and said, “ ’Tis slightly chill to my touch.” He stood and looked about, adding, “Somewhere a distant peril lies.”
Dokan unslung his war axe from his back and eyed the surround, even as others of the crew laid hands on the hilts of their falchions.
Aylis yet peered askance at the bone. “Let me do a ‹seeing›.” She murmured an arcane word and looked upon the bone and then the remains of the castaways. Tears sprang into her eyes, even as a horrified gasp escaped her lips. “Oh, my.”
“What is it? What is it?” asked Lissa.
“They turned to cannibalism, drawing lots to see who would be the next ‘provider,’ ” said Aylis.
Now Lissa’s face blanched, and she turned to Vex and buried her face in the vixen’s fur.
“Be it Petrel ?” asked Nikolai.
Aylis shook her head.
Aravan glanced at Aylis and Lissa and Vex. He touched the stone once more. “The amulet grows more chill. Noddy, return Aylis and Lissa to the Eroean .”
Even as Noddy moved to comply, “No, Captain Aravan,” protested Lissa, “you will need my arrows.”
“And my ‹sight›,” said Aylis.
Aravan sighed. “Then we shall all return to the ship.”
They stepped to the skiff and rowed back to the Eroean . Even as they clambered aboard, the mainmast lookout called down, “Cap’n, you ought to come up and see this.”
“What is it, Finn?”
“I don’t rightly know, Cap’n. A darkness is all I can say.”
Aravan scrambled up the ratlines to the crow’s nest. “Where away, Finn?”
“Yon,” said the lookout, pointing to waters central to the atoll.
In the center of the lagoon the sea changed from a pale crystalline green to a wide circle of deep blue.
“Make ready to get under way!” called Aravan down to Long Tom. “All sails! We might need to run as fast as the Eroean will fly!”
Even as James piped the orders, Long Tom cried up, “What be it, Cap’n?”
“A blue hole,” Aravan replied.
“Oh, lor,” breathed Long Tom, and he began barking commands as the ship heeled about and took up the wind and slowly gained speed.
“What is it? What is it?” asked Lissa. “What’s a blue hole?”
“No one knows exactly,” said Tarley, standing by the helm in case Fat Jim needed help with the wheel. “Though seldom sighted, ’tis said there be many. Each be a great hole, circular round as if driven by a giant auger. And deep, oh, deep. . bottomless, some say, and almost always in a ring of islands. And there be things said to live down in-things dire deadly.”
“Well, why didn’t Finn know to call out a warning earlier?” asked the Pysk.
“This be Finn’s first voyage, taking him on as we did earlier this year when Bri left. He bain’t likely to know
