The Island of Destiny (21 page)

‘But there's only one tunnel,' Ruby frowned.

‘Not necessarily,' Whisker said, examining the right side of the passage. ‘There's a small gap between the boulder and the wall. I can see two larger rocks wedged in the gap. I think they're preventing the boulder from moving any further, but there appears to be hollow space on the other side of the wall.'

Rat Bait walked into the passage carrying a lit lantern and held it up to the gap.

‘Ye be right,' he said. ‘There's another passage b'yond.'

‘Give me a hand with these rocks,' Whisker said.

Rat Bait put down the lantern and helped Whisker remove the first rock from the gap. No sooner had they pulled it free than the boulder jerked forward of its own accord. It stopped when it reached the second rock.

‘Yikes!' Whisker cried, jumping back. ‘Who's turning the wheel?'

Mr Tribble and Emmie held their empty paws in the air.

‘It could be built-up tension,' Whisker considered. ‘A direct result of the boulder straining against the rubble. By removing the obstacles, the tension is being released, turning the door.'

‘Ey?' Rat Bait said, scratching his chin.

Ruby rolled her eye. ‘Aren't you the engineering expert, Whisker? Leverage, levers and all the rest … It pays to have an inventor for a father.'

‘I, err, guess so,' Whisker said humbly. ‘Circus inventions are far less complex than rotating boulders, but the principle's the same.'

‘So can we release the tension by turning the wheel in the opposite direction?' Ruby asked.

‘Trying – it – now,' Mr Tribble groaned. ‘Sword – won't – budge.' He quickly gave up trying and slumped to the ground. ‘I think this is a one-way-only kind of door.'

Whisker ran his paw over the boulder.

‘The door is actually a carved piece of rock,' he said. ‘From what I can see, it has three sides like a triangle. Two of them are flat and the third is curved. The curved side is currently facing us.'

‘So from above it would look roughly like a slice of pie?' Ruby surmised.

‘Exactly,' Whisker said, stepping outside the passage. He scratched a rough diagram on the ground with his sword.

‘Only one passage is accessible at a time,' he explained. ‘As soon as the rubble is removed, the left passage will close and the right passage will open.'

‘And there's no way of knowing if the left passage can be reopened,' Mr Tribble added. ‘Or if it leads anywhere at all.'

‘But the only way to remove the rocks is from inside,' Ruby said, ‘and that would mean …'

‘Saying goodbye to a scoundrel,' Rat Bait called from the passage.

Whisker looked up to see Rat Bait grabbing hold of the second rock.

‘I never expected to leave this island alive,' Rat Bait muttered. ‘Tell the Capt'n – tell ‘im I did it for his crew.'

He lifted the rock. The mountain rumbled and the boulder spun on its axis.

‘NO!' Whisker shouted, leaping forward in desperation.

Ruby grabbed Whisker's arm and pulled him back as the wedge of rock scraped past like an oversized millstone. Whisker watched helplessly as Rat Bait disappeared behind a wall of stone, his final words drifting through the narrowing gap. ‘It's a fittin' destiny to be trapped in a treasure mountain, don't ye thi …'

THUD!
With the echoing sound of stone hitting stone, the boulder came to a standstill. Rat Bait was gone and the right passage was wide open.

Whisker grasped the wheel and frantically tried to turn it – clockwise, anticlockwise, up and down. He beat it with his paws. He kicked it with his toes. It was no use. The wheel held fast.

He slumped to his knees in defeat, staring helplessly up at the wedge of rock blocking the left passage. Rat Bait was right in front of him, close enough to touch, yet trapped behind countless tons of immovable stone.

Whisker couldn't bring himself to look at the open passage. It didn't feel right. Despite all of Rat Bait's lies and deceit, Whisker knew he had ultimately made the biggest sacrifice: he had put the crew first, forsaking his own chance of survival. His actions were those of a noble captain, not a selfish scoundrel.

Loyalty before all else …
Whisker thought.
There was good in Rat Bait after all.

Finding the strength, Whisker rose to his feet and gave the wheel a futile heave. He knew it was pointless, but there was nothing else he could do.

‘Let it go,' Ruby said quietly. ‘He made a choice.'

‘A forced choice!' Whisker snapped, his frustration turning to anger. ‘The Captain treated him like he was already dead.'

‘How dare you judge my uncle,' Ruby hissed, prodding a finger into Whisker's chest. ‘Rat Bait ruined his life and the life of my family. The Captain has a right to feel the way he does, don't you forget it.'

Whisker lowered his head. ‘But it's not the way it's supposed to be. This island is for second chances.'

‘Rat Bait got his second chance,' Ruby said firmly. ‘And he did something good with it. Leave it at that.'

‘I can't,' Whisker said, setting his jaw. ‘I just can't.'

Ruby stared back at him and shook her head. ‘Why must you insist on fixing everyone else's lives, Whisker?'

Whisker felt his anger boiling over.

‘Because I can't fix my own,' he yelled.

He grabbed the remaining lantern and rushed into the tunnel before Ruby could see the tears filling his eyes.

The Right Turn

Ruby and the mice joined Whisker in the dark passage. There was no more talk of Rat Bait – or of Eaton. Their sole focus was the treasure and the twisting path that would lead them to it.

The passage appeared to be a continuous rock cave, its walls lined with long, hexagonal shaped rocks expanding upwards to form a jagged roof high above the silent party.

The strange block-like structure consisted mostly of basalt, a black volcanic rock with an occasional dark-green tinge. Whisker wondered if the entire island had once been a raging volcano with the circular ridge of the Treacherous Sea forming a giant volcanic mouth.

Many of the walls had images scratched into the rock with white, chalky stone. Some of the images resembled animals; others looked like primates or two-legged creatures called humans. There was no doubt they were drawn long before the treasure arrived on the island.

‘I believe our mysterious mapmaker made use of pre-existing passages,' Mr Tribble said, studying the images. ‘Inhabitants must have lived here long ago.'

‘Let's hope they're not still around,' Ruby said warily. ‘I've heard humans hate rodents more than cats.'

The companions pressed on uneasily until they reached a point where the tunnel split in two. Both passages rose steadily upwards. Steps were intermittently carved into the rocky ground.

‘The symbol sheet says
left
,' Mr Tribble said. ‘So we need to take the reverse passage, which of course is on the
right
.'

‘Obviously,' Ruby muttered, already disappearing up the right stairs. ‘Hurry up with that lantern.'

Obediently, Whisker followed after her.

The passage seemed to be an endless climb. It continued up and up and up with no sign of levelling off. Whisker began to wonder if they were suddenly going to pop out of the very top of the mountain.

The stairs finally opened out into a small chamber. Its walls were covered with small drawings of fish and bears. Three tunnels extended from the longest side of the musty space. Mr Tribble pointed to the central tunnel and the others followed him through.

The air grew damp as they continued, the heavy humidity making it difficult to breathe. Water droplets clung to the walls and the companions' clothes were cold and wet when they arrived at a rough set of stairs branching off from the left side of the tunnel.

Mr Tribble checked the symbols.

‘Up we go,' he said.

They began to climb once again. Whisker knew that if Horace was with them, he'd be counting every step. But Horace wasn't with them, and the four companions had enough to concentrate on without idle chatter.

The stones beneath them became more perilously slippery with every step. The moss-covered walls provided no handholds, and it was a struggle just to stay on two feet. The rodents reverted to a
four paws on the ground
approach, with Whisker carrying the lantern between his teeth.

Without warning, the stairs came to an abrupt end. Water seeped from a large rock in front of them, pooling at the top step and trickling over their toes.

‘It's a dead-end,' Emmie squeaked.

‘Mmmmmm,' Whisker responded.

Emmie screwed up her face in confusion. Whisker removed the lantern from his mouth and tried again.

‘Up there,' he said. ‘Between the rock and the ceiling. It looks like a narrow gap.'

‘
Over the rock
,' Mr Tribble read from the sheet. ‘The tunnel must continue through the gap.' He raised his head and added. ‘If we can ever reach it …'

‘Of course we can reach it,' Ruby said confidently. ‘We've climbed Silver Falls, and that was three times as high.'

‘But we only got halfway up,' Mr Tribble muttered.

Whisker tried not to think of their previous misadventure and hooked his tail around the handle of his lantern.

‘Avoid the slimy, green patches,' he said, moving to the corner of the passage. ‘I'd recommend climbing up the side of the rock where it joins the wall. There's a double set of paw-holds and far less water.'

Placing one foot on the wall and the other on the rock, Whisker began to scale the slippery surface. He concentrated as hard as he could on finding the right holds. It wasn't the fear of embarrassment that kept him from falling; it was the fear of breaking the only lantern and sending the passage into pitch-darkness.

After several tense minutes of calculated climbing, Whisker pushed off the last slippery foothold and reached the small gap above the rock. He dangled the lantern over the side so the others could see their way up to him.

Mr Tribble came next, his glasses fogging up. Emmie followed a safe distance behind, with Ruby gently coaxing her along. Ruby and Emmie had been cabin mates for several weeks and, although Ruby would never admit it, she seemed to enjoy being a big sister to the little mouse – when no one was watching.

Ruby joined the others at the top of the rock, flicking green spots of slime from her outfit. Slime was one thing Ruby did not enjoy.

‘I'm afraid you're wasting your time, my dear,' Mr Tribble said politely. ‘The next passage is riddled with moss and mould. It appears we're close to an underground water source.'

‘A welcome bath,' Ruby groaned.

She got down on her paws and knees and crawled after Whisker through the low, wet passage. The sound of running water gurgled up ahead.

Whisker slid from the passage into a wide cavern. A shallow stream crossed the rocky floor, splitting the chamber in two. The occasional stalactite dangled from the ceiling like a giant out-of-place ice cream cone. The cavern had none of the grandeur of the thieves' cave on the Island of Kings, but the rushing water brought the entire chamber to life.

The golden rays of the lantern bounced off the rippling surface of the stream, scattering light over the broad roof of the cavern. The water flowed from right to left, gushing out of one wall and disappearing through a wide hole on the opposite side of the subterranean space. A narrow bank of rock on the far side of the cavern followed the stream in either direction.

‘Where do we go from here?' Whisker asked.

‘The next symbols stand for
water
and a
left passage
,' Mr Tribble said. ‘It is my understanding that we need to cross the water and follow the passage upstream to the right.'

‘I'm ready for my ice bath,' Ruby said, removing her swords. She held them above her head. ‘The water looks shallow enough. Let's hope it's not strong enough to sweep us away.'