Gareth and th Lost Island (17 page)

Izzy watched Gareth glance over his shoulder at the
thief and continue running so he would be ahead of him. In the
short time she had known Gareth, Izzy had learned he sometimes did
things that no sane person would even consider. Her gut was telling
her she was about to witness another one of those events. Seeing
that Gareth was increasing his speed, rather than slowing down, as
he approached the edge of the rooftop, Izzy put her fingers to her
mouth and gave an ear splitting whistle in hopes of distracting the
thief.

The thief only spared a split second to look back in
the direction of the whistle, and was very surprised to see the
woman from whom he had liberated the sack from. Motion from above
the thief drew their eyes upwards, and he stopped in astonishment.
The sandy haired man who had been with the woman was not only above
him, but he was now diving head first from a second story roof to
the ground below. The thief watched as the obviously insane man
tucked his shoulder in, and rolled when he struck the ground. The
somersault bled off momentum and the man continued his roll so that
he was in a position to stand up right away.

Izzy took advantage of the thief being distracted,
and tackled him from behind. She heard a much higher pitched yelp
of pain come from the Dwarf than what she would have expected. The
thief was also much, much thinner than any dwarf Izzy had
encountered.

“Get off me!” the high pitched voice demanded.

Gareth stepped forward, and yanked the fake beard
made of horsehair from the thief’s face. Underneath the beard were
the sunken cheeks of an underfed girl who looked no older than
eleven years old. He grabbed a hold of the young girl’s upper arm
as Izzy untangled herself from the thief.

When they were standing, Izzy snatched the bag back
from the girl’s hand. “I think we need to go have a chat with your
parents, child!” Izzy snarled.

“Hard to do, seeing I don’t have none!” the girl
yelled back, glaring at Izzy.

Izzy recognized the hurt and anger in the little
girl’s eyes from her own childhood, and took a closer look at their
captive. Her robe was threadbare, and her leather sandals worn
through. “What should we do with her?” she asked Gareth softly. The
thief was surprised to hear the woman she had stolen from sounding
like she was concerned for her.

“We’ll take her somewhere she deserves to go,” Gareth
replied, trusting his instincts. He tightened his grip on her arm,
and nearly dragged the girl out of the alleyway. While the girl was
focused on trying to get out of Gareth’s grip, he gave Izzy a quick
wink. When they approached the group of Cyclops again, one of them
blinked his one eye rapidly while staring at Gareth. He shook his
mighty head, muttered something under his breath, and handed over a
large coin to one of his friends. Gareth said something to the
Cyclops that seemed to surprise them even more than him still being
in one piece. The Cyclops that had lost the bet pointed down a
street to their left.

The thief was confused when she found herself
standing in front of an inn, instead of the district guard post.
The man waved to the innkeeper, and ordered three lunch specials.
He turned his violet eyes towards her once again, and then changed
the order to four lunches. With a nod of his head, he gestured
towards a wooden booth at the back of the taproom, far away from
any doors or windows. The woman slid in first, and the thief found
herself sandwiched between the two strangers.

“If I let go of your arm, will you promise to stay
long enough to have lunch?” Gareth asked softly. The thief nodded
her dumbstruck head. Gareth let go of her arm, and used the now
free hand to rub his opposite shoulder. “Good, because my shoulder
is absolutely killing me. Henry always made that look so easy when
he was teaching me how to do it,” he stated pleasantly. When the
food arrived, he pushed two plates in front of the girl. As soon as
the girl was sure the man wasn’t going to suddenly pull the food
away, she started eating like the starving child she was.

“My name is Gareth, by the way, and the woman you
stole from is my friend Izzy,” Gareth said.

“Teesh,” the girl said around a mouthful of food.
When she saw Izzy giving her a confused look, she swallowed what
was in her mouth and said, “That’s my name… Teesh.”

Izzy shifted in her seat so she could get a better
look at the young thief. “I’ve only visited St. Mareen a few times,
but on each visit I was asked to donate to the local orphanage
fund. Why are you living on the street if they have several
orphanages in town?” she asked softly.

Gareth saw how Teesh flinched at the mere mention of
orphanages. “It’s not always that black and white,” he stated,
answering for Teesh. “Even in the good orphanages, like the one I
grew up in, things can get pretty bad. The staff can only be so
many places at one time, and some of the older kids exploit that
fact. In the bad orphanages, it’s usually better to live on the
street so you don’t have to worry about both the older kids
and
the adults who are supposed to be protecting you. Places
like St. Mareen, which have a high number of parentless refugees,
usually end up with more of the bad types than the good,” he tried
to explain.

Teesh nodded her head in weary agreement. “Gareth’s
right. Most of the orphanages in St. Mareen are not so secretly run
by the Scaled Ones. The strong children are taken away to be sold
as slaves, while the pretty ones are sold closer to home to local
brothels. Miss H’jarth had negotiated a contract to sell me to a
brothel that specialized in young girls. When I got too old to
attract the sick bastards they call customers, I was to be resold
to one of the Aetherium mines the Scaled Ones run,” Teesh told her
as she carefully watched Izzy and Gareth’s reactions.

Teesh wanted to believe that they really were just
nice people, but she had heard stories from the older kids on the
street about nice folk who were really just slavers in disguise.
Gareth’s expression was one of simmering anger, but not surprise.
Izzy’s on the other hand, was rapidly shifting from horror to a
blazing, white hot anger that would rival the sun for its burning
power.

“Where is that bitch?!” Izzy demanded, rising from
her seat with her fists clenched at her sides.

Teesh gave Izzy a genuine smile, while she pulled on
the older girl’s arm to get her to sit down. “I’ve made some very
good friends since I escaped. Miss H’jarth died in a horrible
not-accident involving a rabid camel and a barrel full of
fireworks,” she told her.

While Gareth tried to imagine how that particular
scenario would play out, Izzy raised her eyebrow and repeated,
“…not-accident?”

Teesh gave them a playful smile, and shrugged her
shoulders. “What else would do call something that was totally on
purpose?” she replied.

After finishing off two lunch plates and three
desserts, Teesh was finally full. It was a feeling she hadn’t had
since her village had been destroyed in the religious wars of her
country several years ago. She followed Gareth and Izzy out of the
inn and back onto the street. “Since I promise not to try and steal
your bag again, can you tell me what’s in it? It must be something
pretty valuable if Gareth is willing to sacrifice his body to get
it back,” she inquired. Teesh had noticed Gareth rubbing his
shoulder again when he thought no one looking.

Izzy motioned Teesh and Gareth to step under an
unused awning across the street. When they were all huddled in the
shade and free of prying eyes, Izzy opened the sack, and took out
one of the figurines. This small statue looked like it was wearing
some sort of form fitting bodysuit. A tiny metal cape that was
crafted so it looked like it was blowing in the wind was attached
at the figure’s shoulders.

With her opinion of Gareth’s intelligence dropping
rapidly, Teesh asked, “You risked snapping your neck over a bag of
metal dolls?”

“Metal doll made out of something that looks like
silver but isn’t, and were made before the Second Great
Apocalypse,” Gareth corrected her.

Teesh’s eyes grew wide as she took a closer look at
the figurine. Perhaps Gareth wasn’t an idiot after all. “Where were
you planning on offloading a haul like that?” she asked.

“Well, before you interrupted us, we were headed to
the market to find a merchant who sells similar stuff and offer to
sell these to them,” Izzy replied. She wasn’t prepared for Teesh to
roll her eyes dramatically. “What? What’s wrong with my plan?” she
asked, slightly offended.

“Nothing, except for the fact that the market is for
regular people, not the fat pockets who collect rare, ancient junk.
Not to mention that some other thief would swipe the bag after the
second time you told some merchant what you had,” Teesh replied.
She gave Gareth a dirty look as if to say she expected more from a
fellow orphanage survivor.

Gareth interpreted her look correctly and said in his
defense, “I was about to explain why her plan wouldn’t work when a
short thief, who likes to dress up like a dwarf, complicated
things.”

Teesh put her little hands on her hips. “I just
haven’t hit a growth spurt yet!” she countered.

Putting her hand on his shoulder, Izzy pushed so
Gareth would face her. She felt a little guilty when he winced and
she realized she had just pushed on his injured shoulder. “Alright
Professor, if my plan was such rubbish, how about you tell me
yours?” she ordered.

“I was just going to go to the local university, and
talk to some of the archeologists. Since they usually get paid for
digs by a small share of the items recovered, they would know which
wealthy citizen would be interested in acquiring what we found,” he
explained.

Teesh nodded her head, happy that at least one of her
new friends had thought things through at least a little. “Not bad,
but you probably won’t get a very good price trying to sell the
metal dolls…” she said.

“Metal hero figures,” Gareth corrected.

Teesh rolled her eyes again, making Izzy laugh. “Like
I said, metal
dolls.
If you try to sell all of them to the
same buyer, they will think they can get a bulk discount. If you
take the time to sell them to multiple buyers, they will know that
what they are getting isn’t unique, and they won’t offer you as
much money,” she explained further.

To put things mildly, Izzy was impressed. “We should
hire you to do all of our cargo negotiations,” she said half in
jest. “I take it you have a third option?” she inquired.

“Of course. You just need a good fence who will buy
your loot, and then string along the deep pockets until they pay
four times what he gave you,” Teesh replied. “Follow me. I’ll
introduce you to the fence I usually use. He has always been fair
to me,” she offered.

“Your call, Izzy. You and Elizabeth have the larger
share, so you have more at stake,” Gareth said, deferring to
her.

It was times like this that made Izzy glad Elizabeth
was the captain and not her. While Elizabeth usually attacked every
problem with cold calculating reason, Izzy tended to follow her
heart. It was a heart that was at the moment telling her to trust
the girl who had stolen from her just a few hours ago. Izzy could
almost hear Elizabeth’s voice in her head reminding her of the
string of failed relationships she had been involved with, and that
perhaps her heart wasn’t the most reliable judge of character. A
second voice that sounded like their mother’s reminded Izzy that
following her heart was the key to happiness, and that she should
trust it this time.

Decision made, Izzy knelt so she would be eye level
with Teesh. “We’re trusting you, Teesh. Please don’t make us regret
that,” she implored.

Impulsively, Teesh hugged Izzy, and then stepped
back. It had been a long time since she had female grown up trust
her. “You won’t!” Teesh promised. Without thinking about it, she
slid her hand into Izzy’s, and started to lead her to where they
needed to go.

Teesh led them past the central market place to an
old church that had been boarded up. The side door to the church
opened inward, showing the boards across it had been nailed into
the walls rather than the door. Teesh waited impatiently while Izzy
and then Gareth squeezed their much larger frames past the boards.
Once they were inside, Teesh jumped up to grab the base of a metal
torch sconce. The sconce slid down the wall a couple of inches, and
was followed by a loud click coming from the plain stone altar at
the rear of the church. Teesh gave the altar a small push, and the
stone that weighed at least 50 times what she did slid to the side.
Under the altar stone was a hole in the floor with a ladder leading
down.

Gareth walked next to the hole, and looked over the
side. The bottom was cloaked in darkness. Teesh stepped around him,
and started to climb down the ladder. She stopped only a few feet
down, and fumbled for something on the stone wall in front of her.
She twisted a knob, and gas torches placed evenly at 20 feet
intervals sprang to life, lighting the way down. With the light,
Gareth was able to estimate the ladder stretched at least 10
stories underground. “Try not to fall on me. You’re kinda heavy,”
Teesh teased Izzy who replied by sticking her tongue out at
her.

By the time they reached the bottom, Gareth’s hands
were cramping, and his knees were shaking from over use. “I’m not
looking forward to going back up that way,” he commented.

“As long as we make a good deal with my fence, he
should let us use his back door to get back to the surface,” Teesh
told him.

“If that’s not an incentive to make some bargaining
concessions, I don’t know what is,” Izzy chuckled dryly, while she
rubbed the cramps out of her calves.

Teesh gave them a few more minutes to recover before
she led them through a series of tunnels carved into the rock. They
stopped when they came to a set of metal doors that blocked the
passageway. Teesh knocked on the doors and waited. When she didn’t
get a response, she plopped down on the floor, and made herself
comfortable. “Yanlith must be out on an errand. We’ll just wait
until he gets back,” she said.