Free The Tides of Avarice by John Dahlgren

quiet and hoarse as to be almost indistinguishable from the wind moving through the riverside trees. “Beware of … appearances. He will seem yer … best friend. And he will come.”
    His head fell back onto the stretcher. His arm dangled limply.
    â€œWhat was all that about?” said Viola as they stared after Doc Nettletree, who was scuttling in the stretcher party’s wake.
    â€œI’m not really sure,” Sylvester said slowly. He seemed to be in some kind of trance.
    â€œAre you all right?”
    â€œI guess so.” He twitched his head as if to shake away cobwebs. “A bit shaken. You were a while fetching the doc.”
    â€œHe was fast asleep. His wife had a devil of a job wakening him.”
    â€œI thought it must be something like that. Let’s follow them to the clinic to see if the ferret pulls through.”
    She looked down at her soggy clothes, then at his. “We ought to get into something dry and warm. I’m freezing.”
    â€œOkay, let’s get you home then. I’ll go to Doc Nettletree’s after.”
    More than once, as they walked back to Foxglove, Sylvester started to tell her about the strange conversation he’d had with Keelhaul Levantes. Each time the words seem to die in his throat. So much had happened in such a short space of time, more than had happened in all the rest of his life, it seemed. He needed to get it sorted out in his own head before talking about it with someone else, even Viola, or perhaps especially Viola. Seemingly unaware of the dark, confused thoughts racing through his mind, she spent the trip prattling away about such inconsequentialities he wondered if she might be trying consciously to forget all that had occurred.
    But there was another reason Sylvester was eager to get Viola to the safety of her home.
    Soon after Doc Nettletree and his two nurses had left them alone on the riverbank, the sense had begun creeping through Sylvester that there was someone watching them from the darkness, and that sense had grown until he could no longer ignore it.
    Although he could see and hear nothing, he was certain that someone was following them.
    âœ¿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.
    â€œSylvester,” said a voice.
    Sylvester stirred. He was flying smoothly and aerobatically in great, long loops from one little white cloud to the next as he made his slow descent toward the welcoming surface of his friend, the Great Wet Without End. Viola was to his left, flying as gracefully as he. Between them, they had solved the mystery of the Mighty Enormous Cliff, and he was proud in the knowledge they’d done this – even though he couldn’t remember what the solution actually was.
    Now this damned intrusive voice was disrupting his bliss. “Sylvester.”
    â€œPush off.”
    â€œSylvester, wake up. It’s me, Doctor Nettletree.”
    The bright light wasn’t the sky, he realized. It was the inside of Doc Nettletree’s little clinic in the center of Foxglove. He must have stretched himself out along a row of three or four of the hard upright chairs in the waiting room and, despite the discomfort, dozed off.
    â€œWhaaa—?”
    â€œIt’s about your friend.”
    â€œHe’s not my friend.” Except maybe he is. Those warnings he gave me; that was the act of a friend. “What about him?”
    Doctor Nettletree lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but . . .” the portly lemming took a deep breath and looked Sylvester in the eye, “he didn’t make it.”
    â€œDied?”
    â€œYes. I did everything I could, but …” The doctor shrugged.
    â€œDid he die of that hole in his shoulder?”
    â€œYes. If it’d been treated right away, he’d have nothing left but a scar to show for it by now. He must have suffered it days ago, perhaps a week or more, and the wound had festered. He had the black rot, and it was reaching