166. The Treasure Chamber Ghosts

166. The Treasure Chamber Ghosts

And there I was in Sherbananawood, wearing the wondrous mask of Falguniben.

The first feat I performed with it on was to crack the huge vault-like safe that was Petey’s treasure chamber. It was as big as a large apartment. Alpin had assured me the sheriff was in there, though he couldn’t see how the man could be of help to us. The apple wouldn’t say why not. Alpin insisted I would know when I saw for myself.

There were no guards or alarms or anything similar protecting the treasure room. No monsters of any kind to defeat before one could reach the treasure. The problem of the toxic air solved, Apple Alpin and I could have walked through the shut door or the walls, but Falguniben’s helmet was not made to be able to pass through them. So we wasted some of our precious time making like human thieves and were finally lucky and detected the combination, which was plain zero, and managed to enter the room. Guessing the combination was relatively easy. Petey had such a philia for poverty that I had a hunch it could only be that.  

Aside from mountains of gold bars and hills of gold coins, and assorted pieces of jewelry and platinum tableware, the first thing I saw was there was a sparsely hairy ball near the floor that turned out to be the Greed King’s detached head crunching on one of the sheriff’s ankles.

The sheriff himself emerged from behind a pile of solid gold bars and the minute he saw us cried out, “Who are you? Are you plain darned thieves or has the cavalry come to the rescue?”

He could see us because he was as dead as was the Greed King. I had made myself invisible to mortals, not to ghosts. But the sheriff had never seen me before, so he could not recognize me, for I had made myself just as invisible during all of our first adventure at Sherbananawood. And he wasn’t seeing my face now either, for I was wearing that heavy mask. As for Alpin, there was no recognizing the weird young man with the wondrous powers in the helpless little red apple with the sinister eye that sat perilously on my shoulder. But it was Alpin who explained to the sheriff who we were, shouting through the annoying little trumpet on the crown of the helmet.

The sheriff expressed his satisfaction when he heard Alpin was back and meant to control Petey just as he had the defunct Greed King before him.

“Is there anything we can do to get that head off you?” I asked. “I mean, the ex king’s, not yours of course.”

There was a really mean, mad dog look in the decapitated king’s blood-shot eyes that made me want to put his head in a sack, just like the faux gorgon’s.

“He can’t really mangle me,” explained the Sheriff of Bananawood, raising a leg to display the biting head. “You see, we are both dead. He looks vicious, but he can’t wound me, only hound me. He can’t cause pain, only some annoyance. But he can keep me from being able to do anything to help these people. Not that a ghost can do much to control the living. Scare them some and that’s it. So, nah, no! Ignore the head. You might get bitten if you come near it. Of course he’d have to let go of me to attack you, but I would have to release you from him next, and, oh, well, it would all be one endless tangle. I’ve been trying to kick him off me, but I have to admit the man is tenacious. I suppose I’ll have to live with this through all eternity. He doesn’t seem to have anything better to do than hound me.”

The Greed King said nothing. He would have had to surrender his hold on the sheriff’s leg to be able to voice a word.

“I really think you should start thinking what to do about Petey. That is the real problem, and much worse than my predicament. There’s a lot less treasure in this room than there was,” commented the sheriff, “despite all Petey’s confiscating. That whacko has used it to decorate the palace and himself. It’s all over the place. And his woman... Are you aware she exists? Viruta Meagrebrain Pocuscocus, a worthy specimen of the genus mean scientist.”

“I’ve seen her on a wanted poster,” I said. I pulled the said poster out of my pocket, unfolded it and showed it to the sheriff.

“Yep,” said the sheriff, “that’s the mean she doggie herself. Unlike Petey,  she don’t care much for jewels or new rich interior decorating, this malevolent slob don’t. She’s most comfortable in a worn T-shirt and raggedy slacks and her stained white doctor’s coat over them. However, and Petey doesn’t know this, she’s been lifting loads of gold and hiding them in her own safes, way off in tax paradises. By the way, who are the Lady Falguniben and her daddy?”

The little trumpet had been cheering for Falguniben all throughout our conversation. I couldn’t understand why, for there didn’t seem to be a draft in this room of heavy, thick and unwholesome air. In fact, it was uncomfortably hot in there.

“Is she your boss? Or your girlfriend?”

It was Alpin who answered for me.

“No. Neither. She’s got nothing to do with him. Forget her. She’s got nothing to do with what we want to do here either. Have you any idea how we can destroy this Petey monster thing?” said Alpin.

“If he doesn’t listen to reason when I try to get him to reason, of course,” I said. “And we’d rather take him alive.”

The sheriff guffawed.

“We’re speaking of a madman here. He’s totally lost his reason, supposing he ever did reason at all. I should have chosen better when I substituted Bill. It all happened so fast.”

“What’s done is done,” I said. How my voice thundered when I spoke through the trumpet! It made me sound fifty times larger than I am at my tallest. “What matters is what we can do now to change things.”

“I should have cut his head right off when the cutting was good,” said the sheriff. “I don’t think he’ll spend eternity biting you for it if you do that. Petey’s nothing but a whimp with a mean wife. She is the problem here. Turn her into a ghost and this will be over.”

“Actually, I was thinking of slipping into her lab and wrecking it,” I said. “But I could do more harm than good. I might destroy something that could bring the people out in the sunflower fields back to life.”

Again the sheriff laughed.

“It’s yourself and not those people you should be worried about. Not one of them has really ever been alive. Still, it’s nice of you to want to help them return to their more conscious but still miserable lives. But don’t try to do it entering that lab. It’s how she got me. If I hadn’t had time to jump out a window and fall into the moat, I’d be marching with the sunflower squad. I drowned in that stinking water and she was too lazy to pull my body out. She left it there for the piranhas. I’ll tell you what. You come up sneaking behind her and conk her out before she sees you. Then throw her to those fish before she wakes. Once dead, I will make her talk. Ghost her and she’ll tell us how to do away with some of her creatures and how to revive others. I can’t wait to get my hands round her stringy neck. Once I do, she’ll sing like a bird. She hasn't got my kind of patience,” he said, shaking his leg and the king´s head. “She’ll be wanting to be free of me at once. Of us.” And he shook his leg again and pointed at the king.

“No way he is going to do that,” said Alpin. “He should. You know you should, Arley. But no, he won’t hit a lady. Not him. Not even his sisters, like we all have when we were kids. So that’s out of the question.”

“Well, then maybe you can starve the pipnoshers to death destroying the sunflower fields. No food, no army.”

“Though it does sound like a good solution,” I said, “we fay don’t destroy plants. And even if I  were to burn up the plantations, what would become of the bodies standing there in rows? There are so many I don’t think it would be easy to evacuate them before I light the fields without anyone noticing. I don’t think they will listen to me and follow me out of there even when feeling the heat of the flames. Supposing they can feel it. They are like spellbound and therefore bound to remain there and perish in the fire. I don’t want that at all. It would defeat my purpose. Can they be brought back to normal life?”

“Dead they are not. Or they would be among us. Ghost her and we’ll find out.”  

But of course, I couldn’t do any of these things. And much less from behind. I would have to go speak with Petey. Face to face.