Gareth and th Lost Island (15 page)

As they floated towards the center of the room,
Gareth looked closely at the other statues. All of the ones who had
their ears exposed showed pointy ears like the first one. He
glanced down, and wondered if the skeleton they floated over had
similar ears when it was alive. They all had the same type of ears
Gareth had hid under his long hair for as long as he could
remember.

The two divers coasted to stop in front of the altar.
“Well that’s underwhelming. Nothing here but a stupid clay tablet,”
Izzy complained.

Gareth casually looked around the room before
responding. “I don’t think so, Izzy. First off, that clay tablet
looks just like the one that housed the metal tablet I showed you.
Secondly, why would someone go to such great lengths to set up a
trap over something worthless,” Gareth countered.

“Trap?! What trap?!” Izzy demanded.

Gareth opened the sack at his waist, and slid the
clay tablet into it. “The one we set off by coming in here,” he
replied, trying hard to keep his voice calm. “Turn around slowly,”
he told her. They both turned at the same time, and looked out
across the room. Everything looked the same to Izzy. She saw lots
of water, statues, and skeletons on the floor. “How many skeletons
do you count?” Gareth asked.

Izzy slowly turned her head, and counted the
skeletons. Her stomach fell slightly when the skeleton they had
floated over seemed a lot closer than it had been just a minute
ago. “Five,” she replied.

Not in the least bit happy that she came up with the
same number he had, Gareth balled up his gloved hands into fists.
“There were only three when we came in,” he said, his voice barely
above a whisper.

Through the powers of magic, the skeleton closest to
them managed to hear what Gareth had said. With a smooth motion,
the skeleton rose to its feet. It shook its head in frustration at
being caught, and motioned to the other skeletons. As one, the rest
of the undead rose to their feet.

Showing a fighting spirit that had kept her, and her
sister, alive on more than one occasion, Izzy threw a punch with
all of her might. The bulky suit and addition of water resistance
slowed her punch down considerably. Her fist connected with the
skeleton’s jaw, and only managed to unhinge it on the left side.
The skeleton turned its bony face towards her, and Izzy was certain
that if it still had eyes, it would be rolling them at her. It
lifted one bony hand, and put the jaw back in place. With no flesh
to offer resistance to the water, the skeleton moved faster than
Izzy, and swung its sword at her shoulder.

The sword stopped suddenly as it struck the jet black
rod Gareth had acquired. The rod skipped along the blade, and
struck the skeleton’s wrist. To everybody’s surprise, especially
the skeleton’s, the bones in its wrist floated away, taking the
sword hand with it. Izzy snatched the sword, and pried the bony
fingers from the hilt. The lead skeleton was still staring at where
his hand had been just a moment ago, and didn’t see the black rod
strike it between its first and second vertebrae. The head
separated from the body, and started to float away. Gareth reached
out and grabbed the skull by sticking his gloved fingers in its
empty eye sockets. Careful to avoid the snapping teeth, Gareth
shoved the skull into the sack that held the tablet.

The remaining skeletons launched forward in anger.
Sure their boss had been a royal dick when he was alive (and had
only gotten worse after death,) but no one fingered one of their
skulls and got away with it. They launched themselves at the
intruders with the intent of adding the enemy’s bones to their
ranks.

Izzy grabbed one of the downed skeleton’s femurs, and
held it in her off hand. She moved to face the skeleton coming from
behind them. With a practiced flick of her wrist, and a clumsy
lunge, Izzy tried to mimic what Gareth had done. The sword pushed
the wrist bones aside, only to have them reconnect after the sword
has passed. The skeleton opened its jaw wide in a soundless, but
still obviously mocking laugh. Izzy took the opportunity to jam the
borrowed femur through the open mouth, and into the fragile bone of
the sinuses. The skeleton dropped its sword, fell back, and tried
to pull the visiting bone out of its skull without pulling its own
head off.

Gareth managed to land a glancing blow against the
ribcage of the skeleton in front of him. Wherever the rod touched,
the bones separated from their owner. Gareth followed up with a
thrust at what would have been the stomach area. The spine
separated in two, leaving a skeleton madly flapping its arms in an
attempt at swimming.

The fourth skeleton took advantage of Gareth focusing
on his comrade, and went for a blow guaranteed to end a fight
quickly. It shoved its sword into the area where it thought
Gareth’s femoral artery would be, a quarter of the way between his
hip and knee along the inside of his thigh. Gareth was saved from
bleeding out quickly by the bulkiness of his suit. The sword passed
harmlessly through the fabric, missing his flesh. Gareth responded
in kind, and used an underhand swing to slam the mysterious rod
into the skeleton’s pubic bone. The impact lifted the skeleton off
the floor and the magic caused all 206 bones to lose their
connection with each other.

Even though he hadn’t been cut, Izzy heard rapid
breathing and then a painful yelp from Gareth. “Gareth! Are you
hurt?” she demanded.

“Desiccated Dwarf Danglies! This water is COLD!”
Gareth swore. His previous yelp was caused by the reaction all
males get when ice cold water hits a certain part of their anatomy.
The suit had a rubber gasket at the waist that kept the water from
filling up the top half of his suit.

The remaining skeleton looked around the room. The
intruders had managed to take the skull of their leader, separate
another from its lower half, and utterly destroy a third. The
remaining standing skeleton had managed to pull off its own skull,
and was currently standing on said skull trying to pull a femur out
of it. Showing intelligence rarely seen in the deceased, the
skeleton fell down and pretended to be deader than it already
was.

Deciding not to look a dead gift horse in the mouth,
Gareth motioned for Izzy to head to the stairs. He tried to follow,
but his legs were so cold, they were refusing to operate. Izzy saw
this, and wrapped her arms around him from behind. She kicked
furiously and managed to propel them out of the room. When they
reached the top of the ziggurat, “Turn the valve!” she shouted, as
she pointed to Gareth’s emergency valve. Gareth was shivering so
much, he couldn’t get a grip on the valve.

Grabbing a firm hold of his belt, Izzy spun first his
emergency valve and then her own, forcing air into their ballast
pouches. As they rose quickly, she held her recently acquired sword
ready in case their fishy friend had gotten over its headache, and
decided to make another appearance. Izzy was tremendously relieved
when the giant fish stayed away. As they rose to the surface, Izzy
saw a rectangular shape blocking out the light above them. She had
never been so happy to see the cargo ramp in her life.

Elizabeth turned the clay tablet Izzy and Gareth had
recovered from the sunken temple over in her good hand. “You were
nearly killed a couple of times for this?!” she shouted in disgust
to those whom she had ordered to meet her in her ready room.
Gareth, Izzy, and Tralnis had answered her summons.

“Well, yes, but we also got these,” Izzy countered
and gestured to the dozen small metal figurines scattered across
the table.

“At least we should be able to get a decent price for
those,” Elizabeth conceded. She tossed the clay tablet to Gareth.
“The only people interested in something like this would be
scholars, and no offense Professor, but your kind aren’t known for
their large fortunes,” she pointed out.

Tralnis looked up at Gareth and gave him a wry smile.
“Does this one say the same thing as the last one?” he asked in
anticipation.

“Yep, ‘break to open’,” Gareth answered. Without
warning, he smashed the clay tablet onto the edge of the desk,
breaking the clay into several pieces. He brushed the broken pieces
aside to reveal another shiny metal tablet hidden inside.

“What in the hells is that?” Elizabeth snarled.

“Directions to the next dig site,” Tralnis replied
smugly. Izzy stepped closer to Gareth to get a better look at the
metal tablet. “Where are we taking the ship next?” Tralnis
inquired.

Gareth walked over to a map of Hadronus hanging on
the wall next to him. He pulled out the small notebook he always
kept with him and referenced the conversion chart he used to
translate the coordinates. When he was done, Gareth tapped his
finger on the center of the largest island in the Western Ocean.
“It looks like we’ll be going to Chimia,” he announced.

“We’ll need to pick up some supplies so I can whip up
some bug repellent. From what I hear, the jungles of Chimia are
home to more species of the little blighters than anywhere else on
the planet,” Tralnis chimed in.

Elizabeth held up her good hand for everyone to stop.
“Wait just one blasted minute! Who said anything about taking you
lot anywhere?!” Elizabeth demanded. Before anyone could answer, she
ranted on, “You paid us to take you to the archeology site and
stand by while you did whatever you did. We never agreed to join
you on some bloody scavenger hunt across Hadronus that puts my crew
in danger!”

“Elizabeth…” Izzy started to say, trying to calm her
sister down.

“No, Izzy! You almost got eaten by a giant fish,
crushed by falling debris, and skewered by a group of skeletons!
After that, you had to risk your own safety to literally drag the
Professor, someone who supposedly knew what he was doing, to
safety,” Elizabeth reminded her.

Izzy rounded on her sister, her jaw clenched in
anger. “Gareth saved my life down there as well. I’m an adult now.
You had better start treating me like one!” she shot back.

Elizabeth slammed her artificial hand onto the table
making the figurines bounce. “You might be an adult, but I’m
captain of this airship and your older sister. I would be failing
in both duties if I let you get killed!” she yelled.

Tralnis squeezed Gareth’s leg when he sensed the
young man was going to say something they might all regret. “Lad,
why don’t you take the young missy here out onto the main deck for
some fresh air? As the financial officer of this expedition, I’ll
negotiate new terms with the captain,” Tralnis suggested.

Izzy nodded her head, her cheeks flush with anger.
“That sounds like a very good idea. As part owner of the Glorious
Dawn, I’ll back whatever you offer, Tralnis. If Elizabeth
disagrees, we’ll put it to a vote amongst the other crew members,”
she told Tralnis. Without looking at her, Izzy snarled, “If you
need me, Lizard Breath, I’ll be up on deck.”

Izzy stormed up to the bow of the ship where she
tossed a burlap sack over the canon to keep rust off of her clothes
as she sat on it. Gareth followed her and leaned against the
railing. He watched the reflected images of the moons play across
the sea for a moment before talking to Izzy. “You know, I think
seeing you stand up to Elizabeth is more impressive than what you
did on our dive. I don’t mind telling you that she scares me,” he
said, only half joking.

“It’s the arm. It scares most people,” Izzy said
dryly.

Gareth shook his head no. “That’s not it, at least
not all of it. What’s scary is how she glares at me. I get the
impression she wants to ram that brass contraption somewhere I
would rather it not go,” he stated. Izzy’s chuckle lightened his
mood. “What was that you called Elizabeth before we left?” he
inquired.

Izzy chuckled again and gave Gareth a genuine smile.
“I called her Lizard Breath,” she replied. “When I was very young,
my parents always referred to my sister as Liz. One day, I heard
them use her full name when she had gotten in some serious trouble.
You know, the type of trouble when your parent uses your first,
middle,
and
last name,” she stated. Gareth’s posture changed
slightly and Izzy mentally kicked herself. He had told her he had
lived in an orphanage from a very early age. “I’m sorry, I didn’t
mean…” she floundered.

“It’s okay. Go on with your story,” he said with a
gentle smile.

“The point of the story is that I misheard what my
mother said. I thought she had said ‘Lizard Breath’ instead of
Elizabeth. In my defense, Liz could just as easily be a shortened
version of Lizard as Elizabeth,” she said. “The next time I got mad
at Liz, I used the same tone as my mother and called her Lizard
Breath. Both Mum and Dad thought it was the funniest thing they had
ever heard and used the new name whenever they wanted to tease her.
I only use it now when I want her to know I’m really angry with
her,” she explained.

“Your parents sound like people I would like to get
to know,” Gareth commented.

Izzy looked down at the deck, her shoulders slumped.
“I think they would have liked you too,” she muttered. She looked
up and saw Gareth had an awkward look on his face. He had obviously
noted the use of the past tense in her sentence. “My parents ran a
moderate sized shipping business that they had grown from a single
ship into a small fleet. They met when my father was the pilot and
my mother the engineer on the same airship. They died when I was
12. A group of merchants who operated on the wrong side of the law
took offense at how my parents refused to do business with them or
pay them protection money. In one night, the bastards set fire to
every ship on our business dock as well as our home,” she
stated.

Her eyes lost focus slightly as she remembered back
to that horrible night. “The fire spread so fast, we never had a
chance to get out of our rooms. Smoke was coming from under my door
so I opened up the secret door Father had installed between my room
and Elizabeth’s to see if she was alright. Her room was already on
fire and I found her trapped under a burning piece of wall that had
fallen on her. Her spare blanket was on the floor so I used it to
smother the flames on her body. After wrapping her up in the
blanket, I somehow managed to pull her into my room and shut the
secret door behind us. I opened my bedroom window and saw the
grounds had been put to the torch as well. I went back to where I
had left Elizabeth and held her burned face in my lap while I tried
to prepare myself to die,” she told him.