The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay (22 page)

“After a goodly amount of finagling, Mr. Scathe infiltrated a flock of younger puffins. He did this by staging a tarantulafish attack on the flock and arriving just in time to pummel the spider with the end of an old oar. The young puffins were so grateful to be saved, none of them thought to wonder why this man, whom they’d seen trying to get close many times before, suddenly appeared at the edge of their cliff, miles up the steep side of Mount Violaceous, with a sawed-off oar.

“Mr. Scathe was particularly happy when he was in the company of a flighty little hatchling called Fluffness. The poor young puffin, in a moment of friendliness, let it slip that the treasure was not on the Beach of Bewilderment. Fluffness was boasting to Scathe, who pretended not to be convinced, about how clever the Yondersaay puffins were, even the baby ones.

“‘It’s true,’ Fluff said. ‘The gulls try to catch us when we’re small and eat us up, but we’re much too clever for them. We hear them coming or catch sight of them and fly like the wind.’

“‘Yes, that is very smart,’ Scathe conceded. ‘But I’m sure no puffin was ever considered smart enough to have been taken into Odin’s confidence. I bet Odin never confided in a puffin,’ he said, arching an evil eyebrow and waiting.

“‘Oh, no, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. For it was the puffins who alerted Lord Odin to the folly of burying his treasure beneath the sands of the Beach of Bewilderment.’

“‘Is that so?’

“‘It is so,’ Fluffness said through his bright orange beak while waddling about on his bright orange webbed feet. ‘And the reason for that, which was figured out by the puffins, the cleverest birds on the island, is, the tarantulafish are thieving scavengers. If there was ever anything shiny to be found on or under the sands of the beach, they would dig it up from underneath the ground and take it out to sea to line their burrows.’

“‘I see,’ Scathe said. ‘Yes, young Fluffness, you have convinced me. The puffins are without doubt literally the smartest birds on the island.’

“Fluffness nodded his beak back and forward and strutted about a bit. He flapped his wee black wings over his stocky white body. He was delighted with himself. Mr. Scathe wasn’t slow about establishing that this was the full extent of the information to be gotten out of the puffins; they knew nothing more. He made the steep climb to their cliff-top home less and less and less.

“Mr. Scathe played the sycophant all over the island. He found it difficult, however, to make friends in other places in the same way that he had done with the puffins. It is quite a task to make yourself useful to a stream of water, you know, or to rescue a rock from anything “Eventually, Mr. Scathe came across a clinically depressed boulder and decided he would be a shoulder for him to cry on, a friendly ear.

“He discovered that the rock in question, Fritjof Flat-Top, just liked to be listened to. He had terrible daddy issues, and although Mr. Scathe couldn’t bring about a reconciliation between father rock and son rock—the father having been eroded into sand by the waters of the River Gargle decades before—he could in some way become the father little Fritjof never had. Mr. Scathe praised the rock’s appearance and told him how grand and how powerful he looked on the bank of the river. He told him he was proud of his ability to stand fast and remain firm even when dogs lifted their legs to him. How he admired his ability to provide shade for those wishing to rest propped up against him.

“Mr. Scathe went on like this with the boulder even though, for many months, the rock spoke only of himself and the insecurities he felt as a result of his overbearing father. After asserting many fine things about the rock, Mr. Scathe’s lying brought out the compliment he was sure would get him the information he wanted.

“‘You are literally the best and most solid and imposing rock I have ever seen,’ Mr. Scathe said to him. ‘I am positively certain that any man would trust you and confide in you. Any man, any man at all.’

“‘Do you think so?’ the rock asked.

“‘I’m certain,’ Scathe replied. ‘I’m sure even Odin himself, if he ever passed by here, would have wanted to bury his treasure under you or near you, so that you could protect it.’

“‘He did, as a matter of fact,’ the boulder began.

“Mr. Scathe’s heart thundered in his chest. Maybe this was it! Barely drawing breath, Mr. Scathe nudged Fritjof Flat-Top to continue. ‘He did? He buried the treasure here, in your care?’

“‘No, he didn’t,’ Fritjof said. ‘But he did want to. He spent many an hour evaluating this spot or that. But in the end …’

“‘Yes … in the end?’ Mr. Scathe said.

“‘In the end, he decided against it,’ Fritjof said.

“Mr. Scathe was dejected. ‘And where did he go instead?’ he asked.

“‘That I could not tell you, for he did not tell me. He did not tell anyone here. I can just tell you that the treasure is not buried within my sight lines. Or if it is, then it was all buried without me noticing. And I think that hardly likely.”

“‘You do? Why?’ Scathe asked.

“‘It is unlikely, isn’t it?’ the boulder said, looking like he was about to start sobbing. ‘You yourself said I was the bravest, proudest, and most respected rock along this riverbank. How could the bravest, proudest, and most respected rock fail to notice a huge haul of treasure being buried right beneath his nose?’

“‘Of course, of course,’ Mr. Scathe said. ‘Literally impossible!’ But deep down, he didn’t think it at all impossible. So although Mr. Scathe considered it probable the treasure was not buried under the water or on the banks of the river or behind the waterfall, and although he came by there less and less, he didn’t stop going completely. He still carried out the odd evening digging session. Because you just never know.

“Mr. Scathe figured out all on his ownsome the unlikelihood of the treasure being within one of the caves on Mount Violaceous. And, happily, it was in the most painful of manners that this certainty dawned on him,” Rarelief said, grinning the widest grin possible on a wooden face.

“Late one night, long after dark, Scathe was digging holes in one of the cave tunnels beneath the mountain. He thought he heard a rumbling sound. He paused in his digging and looked up. He sniffed. He could hear something,
and
he could smell something—an ashy type of smell. Scathe put both the sound and the smell out of his head and returned to his digging, but the smell and the sound kept coming at him. He stopped once more to look up and think about what could be happening when he saw a bright light in the volcano end of the tunnel. Now, he was digging in the dead of night with only a small torch, so the light that was coming toward him now was startling to say the very least of it. It was blindingly bright. It was warm too; no, not warm—
hot.

“Mr. Scathe was overcome with a sudden realization. He dropped his shovel and scrambled to the exit of the cave. He sprinted as fast as he could, not stopping to pick up his torch or any of his digging materials. The volcano was erupting. It was shooting pent-up, fiery-hot bolts of lava from the belly of the mountain through the cave tunnels to the night beyond.

“Mr. Scathe was very fast. He ran at a glacial pace that would have broken many land speed records had anyone been timing him. But he was not fast enough. A flicker of hot lava caught him right on the backside as he jumped out of the cave and swan dived down the side of the mountain. He landed in a heap of rubble at the bottom of a particularly rocky hill, which covered him in millions of cuts, scratches, and bruises. And he had a burned arse. He limped home covering his bare backside, for the lava had blazed through the back of his clothing. Luckily for him, it was nighttime and no one could see him. Happily for us, he was in a lot of pain.

“Laid up for weeks, Mr. Scathe had plenty of time to have another think. By a process of elimination, he thought it likely that the treasure was not buried in the caves nor in the River Gargle nor on the Beach of Bewilderment. It
could
be buried in the Crimson Forest. But he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure. He couldn’t be sure, for example, that the treasure wasn’t buried
near
the River Gargle or in the hillocks
behind
the Beach of Bewilderment or buried deep underground in one of the caves of Mount Violaceous, out of reach of the burning lava. So he couldn’t stop looking in those places altogether.

“But from that moment on, Silas Scathe devoted the majority of his treasure-finding attention to the area in and around the Crimson Forest.

“There was a problem, however. Or to be more precise and specific, there were thousands of problems. So many trees grew all around here that it was nigh on impossible to search efficiently. It was going to take
years
of nighttime digging to find the treasure.

“He eventually hit on a plan. Unfortunately, it was the trees themselves that aided Mr. Scathe in their undoing.

“Mr. Scathe, rather than starting in straight away on a digging schedule in the Crimson Forest, decided a better way than blasting in with a shovel and an ax might present itself. He began taking long, leisurely strolls in the forest—he got used to the haunting. He picnicked here. He tried to befriend some of us in the way he had befriended the puffins and Fritjof Flat-Top—he talked to the trees, told us how powerful and beautiful and strong we were.

“He soon realized it was not the trees but the shrubberies who were the real chatterboxes. They were all quite lively; some of them positively giddy. They talked and talked. They talked so much that it would have been a hard task indeed to keep them quiet
if
Mr. Scathe had wanted to keep them quiet. In fact, Mr. Scathe wanted nothing more than to have a million shrubberies shooting their mouths off all hours of the night, telling him everything he wanted to know.

“Mr. Scathe cursed himself for not starting his search here. He had wasted years on the mountain and on the beach and by the river. The shrubberies told him a lot about the island. Some of what he learned was not new to him; he had heard it from his puffin friends and his boulder friends, or had picked it up from overheard banter in the settlement. But he did not let on; he pretended that all he heard was new information and that it was all very interesting.

“Eventually, he started to hear things he hadn’t heard before. Scathe had known, of course, that there was treasure on the island, but in point of fact, he didn’t know what the treasure consisted of. He just assumed it was a great and wondrous haul of the most beautiful and valuable jewels and weapons the Viking world had ever seen. And of course he was right but not wholly right.

“The shrubberies were able to talk in detail about some of the most fantastical and sought-after components of the treasury and about the traditions of the island and some of the other properties and powers Odin had bestowed upon it.

“For instance, it wasn’t long before he discovered, and this was a big surprise for him, that the Gifts of Odin were not actually buried with the rest of the treasure. They had living purposes and would not be buried until the lord and master of the island no longer had a use for them or until it was certain that the final battle in Valhalla was about to begin.

“Mr. Scathe desperately tried to find out more about these items, their secrets and properties. Of course, he wanted to find out where they were. The shrubberies knew the whereabouts of only one of the Gifts of Odin: the Black Heart, or as it’s now known, the Black Heart of the Dragon’s Eye, which has the ability to alter time. They knew where that was. It was the eye of the cycloptic dragon.

“‘There’s a dragon?’ Mr. Scathe asked.

“‘Yes. Have you not seen it?’ the shrubberies asked.

“‘No!’ Mr. Scathe said.

“‘You surely must have.’

“‘I am sure I would have noticed a dragon. How can one miss a
dragon
?’

“‘It usually sits on a plinth at the top of the harbor,’ said a little shrubbery from the back.

“‘In the harbor? There’s a dragon in the harbor? Literally? In this harbor here, in Yondersaay? Are you certain? A
dragon
?’ Mr. Scathe was stunned.

“‘Yes. It’s the dragon that King Dudo gifted to Jarl Olaf Barelegs the Balding on Top upon his wedding to Queen Ursula,’ the first shrubbery said.

“‘Oh,
that
dragon!’ Mr. Scathe groaned.

“‘You know the one we mean?’ asked the little shrubbery.

“‘Yeah, I know the one you mean,’ Mr. Scathe said.

“‘Well, its eye is the Black Heart,’ the larger shrubbery continued.

“‘And, em, how does it work, if one were to use it?’ Mr. Scathe asked.”

“Wait a minute,” Dani interrupted. “There’s a dragon in this story? Really? A
dragon
?”

“Yes, you’ll have seen it, of course,” said Rarelief.

“Nuh-uh, I’ve never in my life seen a dragon—I thought they didn’t exist,” Dani said.

“You can’t be serious. You’ve never seen a dragon?” Rarelief asked. Dani shook her head. “How did you get here then?” Rarelief asked.

“What do you mean, ‘how did we get here’?” Dani asked.

“Didn’t you get here on a dragon?” Rarelief wanted to know.

“No,” Dani said. “We came on the early Yonder Air flight in a Yonder Air plane.”

“So you didn’t come by boat then?” Rarelief said.

“No,” Granny and Dani said together.

“Wait a minute,” Dani said.

“Yes?” said Rarelief.

“Is a dragon a type of boat?” asked Dani.

“Of course. What else?” said Rarelief.

“Ah, I see,” said Dani. “You mean
that
dragon. The one on the plinth in the harbor.”

“What else could I possibly have meant?” Rarelief asked. “You didn’t think I meant a massive animal that flies about on wings and breathes out fire, did you?” And Rarelief burst out laughing.

“No! Of course not,” Dani muttered. “I knew you didn’t mean that. Obviously. I just didn’t know you meant a Viking longship. Why do they call them dragons?”

But Rarelief was laughing too hard to answer straight away. “If I could ROFL, I’d be ROFLing so hard right now. A
dragon
!” A smattering of leaves was shaken loose by Rarelief’s hearty laughter and wafted down on top of Granny and a stone-faced Dani.