For I Scorn To Do Anyone A Mischief - When It Is Not To My Advantage

[Plink]

Plink pressed her belly to the high ledge overlooking the harbor and watched Ciera Ancora steer her vessel out into the night. She had climbed up to the mole's chimney with the intention of talking to Robert, but a barely-discernible shout from below had diverted her.

"Run, Crue! Run!"

Instead of climbing to the slave quarters, Plink had cowered on the ledge while Tooley was dragged off by guards, and while two shadowy beasts - one of whom was Crue - slipped silently away in a small boat. Now, Ancora was stealing a ship, unnoticed in the wake of Tooley's arrest. Yet even that seemed less important than the disaster Plink felt looming ahead.

If Crue was here, that meant she was going ahead with her plan - and whatever that plan was, it was sure to spell trouble for life inside the Dead Rock. Plink had brooded on the healer's secret for two days, but now the danger was real. Her home was under attack. She had to warn Captain Blade.

Plink scrambled down the rough wall and was about to dart into the tunnel that would take her to Blade's chambers, but a muffled cry stopped her. She drew up short and, with bated breath, peeked around the shelter of the stone doorway.

At the far end of the harbor, The Zephyr bobbed against its moorings. Lanterns had been rigged about the deck, and Plink could pick out the sentries stationed aboard. They stood alert and watchful. All was quiet. For a moment, she thought she must have imagined the sound.

Then, one of the sentries shuttered his lantern twice. From a shadowy tunnel, beasts began emerging. They trotted quietly across to the dock in a sloppy line and began boarding The Zephyr, softening their steps against the gangplank. Behind them, walking at a more dignified pace, came a portly weasel.

Even from across the harbor, Plink could pick out his pale throat and chin by the lanterns' light. Greyjaw climbed the gangplank with his pirates at work all around him, untying the mooring lines and hauling in the anchor and heaving limp shapes overboard.

The sentries. Each body hit the dock with a resonant thump and did not move.

Plink's stomach twisted up and she darted away from the harbor. Greyjaw's crew had killed the real sentries. They were stealing the ship. Suddenly, running to Blade wasn't enough to avert disaster. Plink needed help now.

She sprinted up a stone ramp to the cluster of captains' apartments where she sometimes delivered Captain Blade's messages and skidded to a halt before one door in particular.

"Cap'n Burnet!" she shouted, hammering against the wood. "Cap'n Burnet, there's a problem!"

No light came on within the perfumed chamber beyond, but the door snapped open from under Plink's fist and the wildcat was there, looming out of the dark with a carefully serene expression on her face.

"A problem," Captain Burnet growled or purred. "Do tell."

Under her unblinking stare, Plink had to swallow hard to manage words. "It- It's Greyjaw, ma'am. He's stealin' The Zephyr!"

The wildcat's gaze sharpened at once, and her whiskers twitched. Her tail coiled around her bare footpaw, the tip curling and relaxing repeatedly against the lace hem of her nightgown.

In the moment of silence, Plink took in the delicate white fabric. "Er? Ma'am, should I wake the other cap'ns?"

Burnet seemed not to hear her. She brushed past her, and Plink hesitated only a second before trailing at her heels. Without even bothering to knock, the wildcat opened another door down the corridor. A light burned within, and Plink glimpsed the occupant through the gap under Burnet's arm.

"Greyjaw's making his move," the wildcat said quietly. "Wake the others."

Zorba sat up from where he had been sprawled on a grass mat on the floor. His expressionless eyes flicked to Plink. "Loud warning from a little mouth. Our enemiess ssleep lightly."

"Then best you get a move on, slugabed."

Zorba looked back at Burnet and folded his muscular arms, tipping his head to one side in a gesture that would have seemed obstinate had he not spoken quickly to keep Burnet from leaving. "What about the whelp?"

Plink felt claws close around the back of her coat collar. Burnet smiled down at her. "She's going to help me save the day. Isn't that right, Miss Plink?"

"I- er?"

Before Plink could manage a response, the wildcat shot the monitor a final glance and hauled her down the corridor toward the harbor. She staggered as she was dragged along at Burnet's swift pace.

"Ma'am! Shouldn't I go report to Cap'n Blade?"

"Whatever for? What shall you tell him when he asks whether Greyjaw succeeded in stealing his flagship?"

"I- I don't-"

Burnet spared her a dry glance. "You will have to tell him you don't know, that you ran away before the fight even started. How do you imagine he will like that answer?"

Plink finally got her footpaws under her, but she was no less certain about their destination. "He won't, I guess. But what are we even gonna do? Just me an' you?" She shot the wildcat's nightgown a dubious glance. "Greyjaw's got a whole crew. An' they're probably halfway across the harbor by now?"

"Near enough," Burnet said as they emerged from the tunnel.

Indeed, The Zephyr had made progress across the lagoon, but there wasn't wind enough in the cave to move a ship of its size with any speed. Captain Burnet seemed unsurprised. She didn't even pause to glance at the bodies of the sentries before sprinting past all the docks to where the stone bank narrowed to little more than a walkway.

Plink followed, bewildered. She had not explored this part of the harbor and was surprised to find that the stone ledge ran all the way around the water to very near the gaping hole through which ships passed. Burnet pulled up short where the ledge ended and paused to watch The Zephyr's slow approach.

Plink looked alternately at the wildcat's moon-limned face and the pirates that peered over the gunwale at them. Laughter floated across the dark water.

"This was yer plan?" she sneered. "We run out here an' watch up close while Greyjaw gets away?"

Burnet ignored her in favor of shouting. "Greyjaw! Anchor that ship at once!"

The foremost pirates gave a roar of laughter, then cleared out of the way as a heavy-set figure took their place at the rail. Greyjaw's voice returned, thick with amusement, "Well lookit you, Miss Julia! Might be that's the prettiest little number I ever seen. Did ye wear it just fer me?"

"This is silk, you cretin," she growled, then shrugged, "but I suppose if I'm to ruin it with anybeast's blood, I would choose yours. Where do you think you're going with that ship?"

Greyjaw's jovial tone fell away, leaving only hardness beneath. "Thought I'd take Blade's new toy out an' test 'er cannons before the voyage. Seemed a decent thing t' do."

"A true paragon of decency, you are."

"I give it me level best," Greyjaw sneered. "Good o' ye t' come see me off."

"Yes," Burnet said, taking a step back and absently shoving Plink out of the way. "About that?"

Plink staggered back and watched the wildcat shoulder through what had appeared to be solid stone. It was no more than a stiff curtain, painted and textured with grit to blend with the wall around it. In the shadowy compartment beyond, Burnet gripped a lever as tall as Plink.

"I think you'll find you aren't going anywhere," she said and, with a vicious smile, threw her weight against the lever.

There was a groan and a scream of rusted machinery, then the massive crank beyond the lever began rotating with increasing speed. Burnet paid the wheel no mind and stepped forward with a satisfied smirk. The noise grew to a rumble and Plink backed away. She could feel it shuddering up through her footpaws.

"What is that?" she demanded, but Burnet only grinned up at Greyjaw. The Zephyr was close enough now that Plink could pick out the suspicious, angry look on the other captain's face.

"I warned you about those dice, Greyjaw," Burnet said with cruel glee.

The weasel spat curses and Plink watched, mesmerized, as a giant chain came rising up across the mouth of the harbor. Each slick link was big as a doorway through the center and covered in dripping algae. For a moment, Plink felt a rising tide of relief.

Then Greyjaw shouted some orders and his crew scrambled to lower one of the longboats. Plink licked her lips and turned to Captain Burnet. "They're comin', ma'am."

"So I see." Burnet made no move. Plink took one anxious step.

"Cap'n Burnet, they'll cut us off. We're outnumbered an' we ain't got any weapons."

The wildcat turned her sharp eyes on Plink and settled one heavy, soft paw on her shoulder. "Walk with me, then."

Plink wanted to run, but that paw was so heavy, its grip so strong, all she could do was mechanically walk alongside Burnet. She settled instead for watching the pirates' progress as they finally managed to disengage the longboat and begin rowing for the bank. All the while, Burnet guided her at a leisurely stroll, apparently unperturbed.

"I suppose it can't be considered your fault that you're a coward," she said idly. "It's in a rat's nature to skulk and run away. Even Petre. Everybeast calls him Bloody Bells in deference to his command over his heap of rabble, but if the odds were ever against him, he would scurry off into the shadows. Just as you wish to do right now."

Plink didn't deny it. Her eyes were glued to the pirates crammed aboard the longboat. The steersbeast had set a course to intercept them, and if they didn't hurry, they would be trapped. Plink began chewing her thumbclaw.

"If you had been born a cat, you would be savoring this moment. Just look at them," Burnet purred, her claws digging through the shoulder of Plink's coat. "They think they have us. They think they can haul up the counterweight and escape. Silly little fools puffed up on futile hopes."

"Please, ma'am, let's hurry," Plink whimpered. The longboat had halved the distance to the bank already and the pirates remaining on the ship were readying a second boat. "We can still make it before they cut us off."

"Yes," Burnet said. Plink felt a shock of pain as those hooked claws delved through cloth and fur and flesh. "But we wouldn't really be saving the day if we didn't even get in a fight."

Plink didn't understand, but she nodded hurriedly and kept apace. When the pirates scrambled from the longboat and onto the stone bank, she stifled the frightened moan in her throat. The stoat in front had beady eyes and a sour tilt to his mouth and he drew a notched cutlass as he advanced.

"I'm gonna have me a real ball of a time cuttin' ribbons outta yew an' yer pretty dress."

"Oh, spare me," Burnet sighed, and then shoved Plink directly at the stoat.

Plink took three startled steps, then stopped abruptly at the stabbing impact and slicing pain. The stoat cast her an annoyed glance, then kicked her away. Plink fell against the wall and slid down, clutching her side, just as Burnet surged past her, grabbing the stoat's sword paw and raising it high before raking her claws down his throat.

He made a terrible sound, a gurgling scream, and Plink cringed where she sat. Burnet wrenched the sword from his grip and kicked him off the bank. She faced the other pirates with an open stance, laying her ears flat and hissing like water thrown on a hot pan.

The pirates hesitated. The ledge was only wide enough at this point to accommodate one at a time, or two if they were very coordinated, but they weren't. One by one they approached, and one by one Julia Burnet cut them down.

Plink hugged her side and watched the slaughter. She watched Zorba and a crowd of other beasts arrive in the harbor and begin rowing a galley out to The Zephyr. She watched the second longboat of Greyjaw's pirates unload near the chain and begin hurrying to work the crank, walking slow circles and pushing the big wheel to draw up the counterweight.

Captain Burnet had been right, Plink realized absently. Greyjaw was beaten already.

"My my," the wildcat was saying. "What have we here?"

The fight was over. The few remaining beasts had piled back into the boat and were hurrying to rejoin the main crew. Burnet was crouching to pick something up from the stone. It glittered in her soft paw, big as an eye.

The wildcat's eyes glittered much the same as they came to rest on Plink.

"Now this is interesting."

"Tha- that ain't mine. Must've been one o' these others. I- I'm hurt!"

Burnet shoved Plink's paws away to reveal the slashed-open pocket, the shallow gash where the cutlass had been diverted along her side after striking the diamond. Plink's shirt was torn and lightly spotted with blood, but it was nothing compared to the splatter covering the wildcat's nightgown.

"Lucky little rodent," Burnet murmured. Her eyes shone with something like triumph. "You'll pull through, I think, though I can't speak for what will happen once Captain Blade realizes you've been stealing from him."

"I ain't been stealin'!" Plink would have gone on, but the wildcat settled both paws on her shoulders and leaned in close. Her stare was paralyzing.

"It won't matter what you say. Nobody half-betrays Blade. Greyjaw will be lucky if he dies aboard that ship he tried to steal. But you?"

Plink could feel those claws pressing into her sleeves like the tips of knives. Burnet smiled.

"This secret will most certainly kill you," she said. She held up the gem, then slipped it into the pocket of her nightgown. "And that means you owe me quite a hefty debt for keeping it."

Plink could only stare as the wildcat straightened and loomed over her. She felt an intense urge to run, just bolt for the nearest tunnel and leave this place and this beast and the distant sounds of fighting behind.

Instead, Plink climbed to her own footpaws, glaring at the floor. "What do I have to do?"

Captain Burnet's mouth curled up at the corners. "Nothing special - for now. Go report to Captain Blade that the harbor is secure and The Zephyr is in the process of being recaptured. And don't forget to inform him who it was that saved the day."

Plink nodded at the floor, then hurried away. As she ran and leapt up the stairs toward Blade's quarters, her side stung and her stomach churned nastily.

She had been so stupid. For days, she'd carried the diamond in her pocket, meaning to return it. She could have dropped it anywhere and nobeast would have known it was her that stole it, yet she wasn't satisfied to merely get rid of the evidence. She had to return it to where it belonged.

And now, it was too late to do either.

Plink arrived to a chaotic scene at the outer entrance to Blade's quarters. A big guard had a weasel pinned down while the other guard was rubbing his snout and hefting a cudgel with his off paw. A cutlass lay on the floor nearby, and two more guards - a rat and a fox - were just arriving.

The weasel, Plink swiftly realized, was Tooley. As suddenly as she recognized him, she felt a stab of guilt. She'd forgotten he'd been arrested. He struggled against the bigger stoat, grasping at the fallen cutlass.

"Lemme go! I got ter see Blade!"

The rat was bristling and panting as if he'd just come from a long run. "?dirty rotter? burnt me on soup?"

"We caught him trying to steal a ship," the fox said. "Taking him up to the overseer, but he decided to make trouble."

The stoat with the cudgel took a step closer to Tooley. "Why you witless little-"

"Wait!" Breathless, Plink waved her paws and darted between the other beasts to stand in the guard's way. "He ain't done nothin' wrong! He wasn't stealin' - he was tryin' to stop Ancora!"

The other rat spoke up loudly at the same time as the stoat with the cudgel and Plink didn't understand either of them, but she did hear the door slam open behind her.

"What the devil is goin' on out here?" Captain Blade snapped.

The stoat started talking but Plink spoke over him. "Cap'n! There's trouble in the harbor an' these? cretins arrested the wrong beast!"

Captain Blade waved the stoat off and focused on Plink. "What trouble?"

"Ancora stole one o' the small ships an' got away clean because the guards arrested Tooley instead o' her, then Greyjaw tried to take The Zephyr but - but Cap'n Burnet stopped him, sir. She blocked off the harbor an' fought a bunch o' beasts."

He stroked his chin, eyes darting. "The Zephyr is secured?"

Plink clenched her arm to her wounded side. "They were still fightin' when I left, but Cap'n Zorba had a big crew with him. He's probably won by now."

"Zorba and Burnet," Blade said, frowning. Abruptly, he jabbed a claw at the fox. "You've got your breath. Fetch my crew t' the harbor sharpish. Tell 'em t' be ready for a fight. Miss Plink, Mister Tooley, come with me."

He turned back into the main corridor of his quarters and, after making sure the guard let Tooley go, Plink followed. Captain Blade was in his office already, buckling his sword to his hip. When Plink entered, he cast her a gauging look.

"Morning is still hours off. What were you doing in the harbor so late?"

"I? I just like the harbor? when I can't sleep." Plink hesitated, not liking the growing coolness in his eyes. The sick feeling welled up in her belly, and she remembered another important thing she had forgotten. "Cap'n, Ancora was talkin' to somebeast after the guards took Tooley away. It was that squirrel healer, Crue, an' some mongoose from the village-"

"Plink!"

Startled by his voice behind her, Plink shot Tooley a wary glare and went on. "I think they were plottin' somethin'."

Blade straightened his belt just so, frowning at his paws, then glanced at her anxious expression. "It's nothing t' be concerned about, Miss Plink. Already bein' handled. Come dawn, she'll burn with the Fire God's blessin'."

Sacrificed. Like that hare, who had screamed and screamed. Plink's heart gave a nasty lurch and she hardly had the wits to step out of Blade's way as he made to leave.

"Both of you are t' wait here for my return. I've questions for you both and no time t' go into it now."

"Aye Cap'n," Plink said to his back as he strode away. Even when he passed through the main door and shut it behind him, she didn't want to look away.

Because that would mean she had to look at Tooley. Not that it mattered if she looked at him; her guts were in knots even while she stared past him. When he spoke, she nearly cringed.

"'Ow could ye?" He said it quietly, a tiny, heart-wrenching sound, but as he went on his tone grew angrier. "Crue's tryin' ter 'elp beasts, an' ye just- just threw 'er overboard like she was nothin'!"

"He already knew," Plink snapped. "You heard him, it ain't my fault she's in trouble."

"That ain't th' point! Don't ye know what goes on 'ere, Plink? Th' things they do t' th' slaves? It ain't alright!" Tooley slammed his paw against the doorframe and Plink finally looked directly at him. He looked furious and pained. He looked like it was him she'd revealed rather than Crue. "It ain't enough ter just not be th' one responsible fer what 'appens! Ye gotta do somethin' fer beasts who can't fight back!"

Plink glared at him for a long second as the words sank in, solidified. "I am doin' somethin'. This place ain't perfect, but it's all I've got. I can make it better." She clenched her fists at her sides. "An' I never wanted Crue to get hurt, but I ain't gonna just let her take my home from me, either!"

Tooley stared at her with his sad, angry eyes. "Th' things that've been done 'ere? ye can't redeem this place, Plink. If ye stay, yer just gonna become another one o' them."

"Good!" Plink threw up her paws and immediately winced at the pain in her side, but ground on, "I want to be one of them! I want to be somebeast who belongs somewhere! Not some pathetic outsider thankin' goodbeasts fer their table scraps!" She kicked over one of the guest chairs, but it was so solidly built that it only flipped onto its side on the carpet. Plink kicked it again. "Not some weak coward who could die and nobeast would miss!"

She went on kicking the chair until Tooley grabbed her shoulder. It was still sore from Burnet's claws and Plink reflexively knocked his paw away. Tooley didn't seem to notice.

"An' ye think Blade's gonna miss yer?" he demanded, already shaking his head. "'E don't care 'bout anybeast but 'imself. Yer just another tool t' 'im!"

"At least I'm useful," Plink spat. "At least I ain't some idiot who can't remember things without chewin' on a mangy old hat!"

Tooley's eyes widened and he stared at her as if she'd kicked him. He absently reached a paw up to dab at his bare head, at the sunken spot Plink had never noticed before. The sick feeling in her gut resurged, harder than ever.

Plink turned and ran. She shoved through the nearest door and slammed it behind her, pressing her back against it as if to keep the mere memory of the look on Tooley's face from following. There was no noise from the room behind her, no sound of approaching steps, no words.

Plink gulped back a furious sob and glared at the room around her.

At first, she didn't recognize it, since the only other time she had been here, it had been completely dark. Presently, torches flickered along the catwalk and beside either door, their light barely penetrating into the pit. Cautiously, Plink edged up to the railing of the catwalk and looked down. Shadows trembled along the rocky floor below, but the badger was nowhere to be seen.

Judging by the thick rope and heavy-duty pulley that were rigged up on the catwalk, Plink supposed he must have been removed, perhaps even before the treasure was hauled out. Where he had been taken, though, she couldn't guess.

Plink chafed her arms idly and tried to think of something else, but the huff and crackle of the torches reminded her of other flames. The silence felt wrong, like it missed the screams that were so fresh in Plink's ears. The stoat from the harbor, the hare in the bonfire, Daggle and Murdin and that vole being flogged after he dropped his load of treasure.

And now it was Crue's turn.

Plink clawed at her headfur and scrubbed the tears off her cheeks, but the healer's words kept coming back to her as if two weeks hadn't passed, as if that night by the campfire had been just hours before.

Everybeast makes mistakes, but there's a line. Once you cross it, once the blood of another beast is on your paws, there's no repairing the damage you've done.

It didn't matter that Blade had already known about Crue's plot. It didn't make any difference at all, because Tooley was right. Plink had thrown out Crue's name like it was nothing, like the healer was nothing, just an obstacle between Plink and what she wanted.

It was the truth, though, wasn't it? Crue was no friend of hers; she meant to put an end to the Dead Rock. Exposing her plan was no different from stopping Greyjaw. Plink had watched Captain Burnet claw open throats and bellies like they were no more than ripe fruits - and she had accepted it, because that was the price paid by betrayers.

Plink looked at her own paws. They appeared clean. And yet six pirates had died before her eyes because she had interfered. Her own people. Their deaths should not have meant less to her than Crue's doom.

But they did. Plink cared more about a squirrel she had hardly known than she cared about her own people.

She snarled and kicked out blindly. Her footpaw connected with a steel lever that gave immediately under the pressure. The pulley squeaked as a lock was released and the rope lowered its platform rapidly into the pit. Plink flinched as the wood struck bottom with a crash, but the silence that followed felt no better.

Crue was going to die, and her plan to destroy the Dead Rock and free the slaves would die with her. Plink couldn't stop that from happening, now. But there was one thing she could do, one way to honor the healer who had believed that a little thief could still be an innocent.

The time to act was now.

Plink hastily engaged the lock so that the rope wouldn't shift, then climbed down into the pit. The rubble rasped her footpaws as she landed and darted down the tunnel. Hardly pausing to pick a glowing bloom in the mushroom chamber, she half-crawled half-slid down the long wormhole and finally poked her snout through the hole in the ceiling.

There was nobeast in the chamber below, but Plink could hear beasts coughing and groaning in the next room. If she called out, perhaps she could get one of the woodlanders' attention. She drew breath, but then hesitated. What if the wrong beast came? What if a guard heard her?

For a long time, Plink lingered there, trying to decide what to do and hoping Robert would simply appear. He did not, and if she didn't manage to tell him which tunnel to take and that now was the time to take it, everything she was about to do would be pointless.

Finally, Plink dug the charcoal pencil from her pocket and began drawing carefully on the flattest part of the ceiling she could reach. She drew a mound with a hole through the top, and a round hedgehog poised to climb down the hole. Then, she drew an arrow going down to a simple, triangle-sailed ship.

Plink sat back to assess the drawing and, figuring it was clear enough, she set her mushroom just in the mouth of the tunnel. Hopefully, Robert would spot the signal and know what it meant. If not?

Plink shook off the doubt and turned to climb back up the tunnel in darkness. He would see it. He would understand. He had to.

Back in the mushroom chamber, she broke off a pawful of the glowing fungi and arranged them in a rough circle around the mounded entrance to the mole's chimney. Then, figuring she had done all she could, Plink turned toward the dagger room and drew a final, deep breath.

With a last glowing mushroom to light her way, she went to find the biggest, most distracting force she could think of. The wound was long closed, but as Plink made her way through the tunnels, the severed tip of her tail tingled unpleasantly.