The Stone Giant (15 page)

‘One or the other,’ said Escargot.

‘Hah! Neither. Shark belly steeped in seawater and dried scrapings from the underside of beach rocks. Clever, these deepwater chefs. And that broth that you consumed by the bowlful—that was bisque of feather crab, the most delicate creature that ever scuttled across the sea bottom. And the bread. Two days ago it swam in the shadows of the great southern shelf, until I caught it in a dragnet and extracted by chemical processes the natural fibre of its skeleton, which, when pulverized, yields a flour so fine that even the most meticulous dwarf baker would blather over it. And do you know who baked it? I did; that’s who, just as another man, if he was inclined, might wash the feet of a stranger. Humility is my very nature. Humility and regret, my good fellow. Do you know regret?’

Escargot nodded. He looked across at the porthole windows where a great long fish peered in at them. The seawater had lightened. It was morning, apparently, and the ocean was awakening. Leafy strands of kelp wisped past, and a school of silvery fish hovered for a moment without, catching the rays of the watery sunlight, then turning and slipping away astern.

Escargot found himself wishing it was him who had been playing deep and sonorous tunes on the organ, that it was
his
submarine that plied the seas, sounding to black depths, angling up through kelp forests toward the shimmering surface. He looked at Captain Perry, who paced up and down, wringing his hands, still thinking of regrets. It seemed to be a good time to revive the issue of the survivors of the
Flying Scud
, but Escargot hesitated lest he set the captain off again. And if they
were
forty leagues from the island, it would be futile to think that he could sway the captain to such a degree that he would turn the boat around.

Escargot patted his chest. There lay his truth charm in its bag. It had profited him nothing so far. It was time, perhaps, to put it to use. He plucked it out and held it in his hand.

Captain Perry shuddered, as if he’d been struck by a heavy wind. Escargot clamped his teeth shut and waited. The elf staggered, clutching his head and knuckling his brow, moaning like a man tormented by devils. He turned toward the great eye of the narwhal and reeled back shrinking from thing’s horrible gaze. ‘I’m a tormented soul!’ he cried suddenly. ‘A murderer. There’s no crime I haven’t committed. It’s greed is what it is. Miserable greed. Look at this!’

Captain Perry tore open the lid of a seachest that lay on the floor against the wall. In it was a salad of gold coins and jewels. Upended seashells lay among them, heaped with pearls and gemstones. ‘Watch this!’ cried the captain, and he ran his hands through the treasure, letting rubies and emeralds and pearls slide through his fingers, his eyes glowing with satisfaction and horror, as if a great battle were raging behind them.

Escargot wanted to bait him, to fuel the remorse, but he knew that if he opened his mouth to speak he’d say something about the treasure—admit that he wished it were his own. So he jammed his mouth shut and held on.

Captain Perry stopped suddenly and cast the lid down. He stood up and gasped as if a devil had clutched his throat. ‘Those poor sods on the mast,’ he said, tearing at his hair and looking around wildly. ‘I surfaced under them. That’s what I did. I smashed their puny mizzenmast to splinters. They cried out. It was horrible, horrible.’ He collapsed into the chair he’d been using as a ladder. ‘The mate was right. Sharks ate them, every one. And I, my good, good fellow, am doomed by it. More than any of them, I’m doomed. You think me an elf, don’t you?’

Escargot nodded.

‘I thought so once too. But now I believe myself to be a man like yourself, shrunken by years of wickedness. Not another living soul knows that. My diet of fish and weeds has kept my body alive, but my soul has withered like the dried carcass of a sea squirt. I’m a horrible wretch.’

Escargot nodded again. He’d have to act. The truth charm had softened the villain up. There’s hope,’ said Escargot, surprised at himself for saying it, then doubly surprised by its apparent truth. ‘Abandon this ship. Lead yourself out of its bondage. It’s this infernal machine, which I’d very much like to own, that has led to your troubles.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Captain Perry, looking at him shrewdly.

‘An island, I’d guess,’ said Escargot, pointing toward the portholes and changing the direction of the discussion.

Captain Perry looked too. There, passing along by them, was a steep wall of rock across which grew a garden of pink and blue sea fans and water grasses. ‘You’re right. It is an island. Dry land is what it is. I’ve longed for solid earth beneath my feet for years. All the rest of that was a pose. I cut foolish capers in order to blow myself up. To inflate myself. Have you ever done that?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Escargot. ‘I believe that you should put ashore here. On this island. You and the rest of your crew. How many crewmembers does it take to operate this vessel?’

‘One,’ said the captain, beginning to weep. ‘Do you suppose I might? What will the rest think of me? All my philosophies will seem like so much sand, so much dust.’

‘There’s the thin chance they’ll respect you,’ Escargot replied, choosing his words well. There
was
a thin chance, anyway—frightfully thin. ‘Then a man could pilot such a craft alone?’

‘Easily. The ship almost runs itself. It was built by elves, light elves. A child could navigate her in a tub.’ He gripped his forehead again, bent over, and yanked open the door of a cupboard. He plucked out a cork vest and hauled it over his head. ‘I’m going to swim for it!’

‘Take your men with you, Captain!’ cried Escargot, clamping his mouth shut afterward.

‘They deserve better than me, sir. They’re renegades and pirates, both of them, but it’s been me who’s led them down the spiraling path of decay. They’ll follow me no longer.’

‘Oh, but they must. They too are the victims of this undersea boat. Aboard her they’ll pursue the evil ways. On land, at least, they’ll be forced to turn to more honest work. They’ll be woodcutters and glassblowers and chimney sweeps. The world will envy them the grime beneath their fingernails, the smudge on their foreheads.’

‘And me,’ cried Perry. ‘What of me? My forehead is indelibly smudged, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a different sort of smudge, my man. The smudge I’m talking about is honest, hardworking smudge. The sort that brings a smile to the face of the old vicar.’

‘Church! I’ll pay a visit there, build a shrine. My crew is my congregation. Shall I keep my organ?’

‘We can’t get it out through the hatch.’

‘You’re right, of course. But the treasure. That I’ll give as a gift. To an orphanage. That’s it. To the Maritime League. Compensation is what it is, and nothing less. A man can buy back at least a fraction of his soul.’

‘I’m not certain ...’ began Escargot, but Captain Perry was caught up in the idea, and had begun to drag the chest across the floor toward the companionway.

‘I’m as greedy as he is,’ said Escargot, thinking aloud.

‘Of course you are. This treasure would mean the end of you.’

‘But I want it very badly.’

‘There’s a home for widowed missionaires in the Isles that wants it more. I’m going to take it there. Now.’ He pulled the chest through the door, then stood still as a heron, a look of puzzlement on his face.

Escargot leaped across waving the truth charm and pushed the chest entirely into the companionway. The look of resolve washed over Captain Perry’s pinched face again. There was a fervid, committed light in his eyes. Escargot determined to stay by his side until he was off the ship. If it cost him the treasure, so what? He’d always insisted that he had his code; well here was a chance to exercise it.

The captain pushed his way into the navigation room at the front of the ship. The dwarf with the striped hat sat before the window, piloting the submarine past the island. ‘Surface!’ cried the captain, nodding toward Escargot as if to call attention to the solidity of his resolve.

‘Yes, sir,’ said the pilot while pushing against a short lever that protruded from a panel before him. The vessel canted up, sailing into the growing sunlight, until with a great swishing and splashing it nosed from the sea, then settled once again with a sigh.

‘The sun!’ shouted Captain Perry, as if he were seeing it for the first time in a twelvemonth. The light of it shone through the water-washed windows. ‘Enough, by heaven, enough!’ he cried, and with that last confession of remorse clutched the pilot on the back of the shirt and endeavored to haul him from his seat.
‘Follow
me, man!’

‘I don’t at all know that I want to,’ came the reply. Then the dwarf stood up and cast an eye at the treasure on the floor.

‘You can’t speak in those tones to your captain,’ Perry blustered. ‘I’ll have you keelhauled.’

‘Aye,’ said the man agreeably. ‘Where goes that there chest?’

‘Ashore, man. And you with it. Where’s Spinks?’

‘Aft,’ came the reply.

‘Fetch him up then. We go ashore now. At once.’

‘Aye, aye. Yes, sir. With the treasure, sir?’

‘That’s the case entirely. Now fetch Spinks. Roundly!’

The sailor disappeared down the companionway, hollering for Spinks.

‘Can’t reveal too much of this, can I?’ asked the captain, grinning at Escargot. ‘Already I feel relieved. And the men, I’m certain, will see the truth of it in time.’

‘They surely will,’ said Escargot.

The two returned almost at once. It was a crew of three, including the captain. ‘I want some of that gold,’ said Spinks instantly.

‘Hold your trap shut, man,’ cried Perry. ‘There’s more than gold I’m a-going to give you. Out the hatch now. Hop to it, lads.’

Escargot followed them up, a step behind the pigtailed Spinks. The sun shined over the ocean like midsummer, and off the starboard bow lay a low island, wooded and with a broad stream cutting the beach and a single, high, smoking cone of a volcano rising out of the middle of the forest. The captain probed with a foot midway down the deck of the vessel, and, to Escargot’s astonishment, a little trap slid open to reveal a rowboat. ‘Hoist it over, lads,’ said the captain, standing by his treasure. The boat, in an instant, floated on the calm sea. Spinks climbed aboard, followed by the dwarf. Captain Perry went over next, telling Escargot to hand the treasure down to them before getting aboard himself.

‘I’m not going,’ said Escargot, the words slipping out before he could get a grip on them.

‘What?’ Captain Perry looked at him in puzzlement. ‘You’ve saved us, man. Save yourself too. Follow me into salvation. These men have.’ And he nodded at his two companions.

‘We didn’t do nothing of the sort,’ said Spinks with a malicious grin. ‘We’re a-going to fetch you ashore and bang your head in, then share this here treasure.’

‘I’m setting in to kill you both,’ cried the dwarf.

‘Animals!’ shouted the captain, grappling with Spinks, who attempted to haul himself back up onto the deck of the submarine.

Escargot cast a glance at the island and another at the treasure. He put a foot into Spinks’ face and shoved, toppling the pirate over backward into the sea. Then he grabbed the leather handles on either side of the chest, heaved it into the air, and dropped it onto the rowboat. It punched through the bottom like a stone through rice paper, and vanished into the depths. The rowboat foundered, spinning away from the submarine and sinking almost at once beneath the water, where it floated, submerged and useless.

‘You can swim to shore easily enough,’ shouted Escargot at the sputtering trio in the water.

‘It’s what we deserve!’ hollered Captain Perry. But as the submarine drifted seaward and the gap between them grew, the look of intensity on the captain’s face played itself out. He peered suddenly at Spinks, as if he’d just then taken off a pair of shaded glasses that had been obscuring his vision. ‘What the devil?’ he said, casting a meaningful glance at Escargot, who had climbed by then halfway through the hatch. As it banged shut above him he heard an impressive string of curses, and caught a brief glimpse of Captain Perry, retired owner of the submarine
Omen
, tearing at his hair as he floated upon the sea, yanking and shrieking as if he would pull himself to fragments.

A dozen maps and charts lay scattered around the floor of the pilothouse. Escargot regarded them darkly. Navigating the submarine wasn’t so very difficult. As Captain Perry had promised, a man by himself could do it, if that man had any earthly idea where he was bound. Reading a compass was easy enough. There was north; here was south; over that way lay north by northwest. But so what? He had needed no destination when he stood on a street corner in Seaside, watching a man spear up sausages with a fork. There was food and drink in either direction, and a man might wander as far as he was inclined, out of the city and into open country; there’d always be a bit of ground for him to sleep on at night. The open sea was a different matter entirely.

By plunging a lever forward he’d descend sharply. By easing off, the submarine would level itself. Another level activated the rudder, and yet another altered the vessel’s speed. There was nothing to it, really, save that one had to be always on the watch for smashing up against a cliffside or for tearing into the rubbery foliage of a kelp forest. One couldn’t be map reading or napping or cooking up dinner.

In the first giddy hour following his successful marooning of Captain Perry and his crew, Escargot had sailed back and forth beneath the waves, now surfacing, now diving, chasing schools of fish, and generally learning his new trade in open water. When he stopped to have a look around he was off the same island, some few miles to windward. A breeze seemed to be blowing up, and scattered clouds bumped across the sky. The sea was chopped with little wind waves that tossed to and fro.

The truth charm lay once more beneath his shirt. He could understand at last why Uncle Helstrom had given it up. It was nothing for a villain to own, not unless he’d become so fearfully evil that the truth about himself could no longer make him flinch. It was certainly no wonder that the dwarf had warned him against hauling it out of its bag that night on the meadow. Heaven knew what he would have had to say about his devious plans. All in all, despite the charm having gotten round Captain Perry successfully enough, it wasn’t worth much. If there was one thing that a man didn’t want to be continually reminded of, it was the truth about himself. It might, however, fetch a considerable sum on shore. And in a pinch a man might set up as a spiritualist of sorts with it, and have moderate success working a carnival crowd or a church meeting.