Gareth and th Lost Island (19 page)

The left eyestalk narrowed its one eye, and glared at
Gareth. “Do you mind?! We’re trying to keep our food hole employed,
bub!” it snarled.

Izzy squeezed closer to Teesh, and took her other
hand in hers. “I’m with Sheldon on this,” she informed her sister.
“If you insist on going through with tossing Teesh overboard, I’ll
call for a crew’s vote, and you know how Roehus feel about
children,” she warned. “Besides, it’s not like we can’t put her to
work. Every airship needs a good cabin boy,” she added.

Elizabeth held up two fingers. “Two problems with
that. The first is I have never wanted a cabin boy. The second is
she can’t be a cabin boy… she’s a girl,” she pointed out.

“So are you! That doesn’t seem to keep you from being
a dick!” Teesh shot back, getting over her initial scare. Izzy had
to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the young girl using that
sort of language. The angry red spreading over Elizabeth’s face
only made it that much harder to keep from chuckling.

Three symmetrical gouge marks were left on the crate
next to Elizabeth, as she tightened her mechanical claw in anger…
or at least that’s what she wanted everyone else to think. The
little scamp’s attitude reminded her of herself at that age. There
had been more than one occasion when her father had laughed himself
sick when a young Elizabeth had told off one of their ship captains
for referring to her as “just a little girl.” She pointed her
mechanical hand at Izzy. “Until she pulls her own weight on this
airship, cost of her upkeep comes out of your share of the profits.
You will be expected to feed her, water her, and make sure she gets
plenty of exercise. Any accidents, on or below decks, will be your
responsibility to clean up,” the Captain ordered.

“I’m not some bloody pet!” Teesh shouted.

Elizabeth gave Teesh a smile that was one part
condescension and one part encouragement. “Prove it,” she
challenged.

Teesh was about to say something snarky back, when
her eyes grew wide in shocked amazement. “MR. FUZZY BOTTOM!!!!!”
she shouted, and bolted towards Henry. Before the Chim knew what
was happening, he found a small human had wrapped her arms around
him, and buried her face in his chest. Teesh came back to her
senses, and took a self-conscious step backwards. “I’m… I’m sorry,”
she stuttered. “Before my village was destroyed, and my parents
were killed, I had a stuffed Chim doll that looked just like you. I
would cuddle with it whenever I got frightened,” she tried to
explain. “Sorry,” she muttered, her cheeks red with embarrassment.
Tears she had been holding back for years came rushing out without
her consent.

Henry let out a soft snort, followed by a low hoot.
He reached out one of his long, orange furred arms, and pulled the
small human to him for another comforting hug. Teesh couldn’t
resist, and threw her arms back around her childhood confidant come
to life.

The oppressive heat deep in the jungles of Chimia
forced Gareth to make a difficult decision. While a gentleman
wasn’t truly dressed without his jacket, it was just too damned hot
to wear a wool coat. He ended up wearing the loosest fitting pair
of trousers he owned, his knee high leather boots, and a long
sleeved, button down shirt. He had considered wearing his
sleeveless undershirt as his only shirt until Tralnis reminded him
of the numerous blood thirsty insects that called Chimia home. The
newest piece of clothing he owned was a leather tube like holster
that he strapped to his right thigh. The holster had originally
been made to hold one of the many tools Izzy owned. The strange
black rod Gareth found in the underwater temple fit snugly into the
holster and at a comfortable height to grab.

Gareth looked over the railing at the lush green
leaves of the treetops below the airship. They had flown as close
to the coordinates as the jungle would allow, and would have to
walk the rest of the way in. An anchor attached to an extra-long
chain kept the Glorious Dawn from floating off. The lack of a
nearby Leyline meant they were relying on their batteries and
didn’t have energy to spare to keep them in one place.

A bird with plumage in every color of the rainbow
(and some Gareth had never seen before) landed on the railing near
his hand to investigate the new source of shade above the trees.
Satisfied that the giant, ugly, wooden bird wasn’t a threat, the
jungle bird started to hop around the deck looking for food. It
spied a bit of sandwich Tralnis had dropped the night before, and
gave out a happy squawk. The bird quickly snatched up the tasty
morsel, and flew off to its nest hidden somewhere in the immense
juggle.

After a few minutes, the rest of the crew, minus
Sheldon who had gone back into hibernation, assembled on deck.
Tralnis was decked out much like Gareth, and had his trusty medical
bag slung over one shoulder. Henry was dressed in his usual kilt
and vest, but had added a large brown backpack to his ensemble.
Gareth was surprised to see that Elizabeth was dressed in a pair of
brown cotton trousers and a long sleeved linen tunic. Her hair was
tied back into a ponytail underneath a wide brimmed hat. Her sword
and pistol were slung on her belt. Gareth looked over at Izzy, and
saw she was dressed for the engine room instead of an expedition
into the jungle.

“I thought Izzy was coming with us,” Tralnis
mentioned, noticing the way the sisters were dressed.

“We may be part owners in the Glorious Dawn, but I am
still the Captain. I reserve the right to select which of my crew
participates in away teams,” Elizabeth stated.

Gareth put his hand to his mouth to hide his words
from Elizabeth. “Big sister ground you?” he teased Izzy. For her
part, Izzy replied by playfully kicking him in the shin.

Pretending not to have heard Gareth, Elizabeth pulled
the pin that kept the hinged bit of railing on their port side from
moving. With her mechanical arm, she lifted the railing out of the
way. She bent down to make sure the rope ladder attached to the
hull was still secure and not tangled up. With a quick kick, she
sent the ladder over the side into the treetops. “Who wants to
climb down first?” she asked.

Tralnis and Elizabeth both looked at Henry who hooted
something angrily.

“What did he say?” Tralnis asked.

Gareth was fighting to keep his laughter down. “He
said something along the lines of ‘that’s just racist’,” he
chuckled. Gareth walked over to the edge, sat down with his feet
dangling over the long drop, and then turned around to face the
airship. Careful of his freshly healed shoulder, he started the
long, slow climb to the jungle floor below.

Henry followed Gareth, with Captain Morgana following
close behind. Tralnis went last, since he had to go the slowest due
to his legs being much shorter than the others. When the Dwarf had
his feet safely on the ground, he saw Gareth duck to avoid a rather
large flying insect, and then utter a short word in a foreign
language. “What was that, Gareth?” Tralnis asked.

“It’s a Roehus word that translates into ‘atheist
word to replace taking religious messiah’s name in vain’.
Considering the size of that monster, I thought it was
appropriate,” Gareth explained.

Tralnis laughed at the naivety of his son. “If you
think that wee bug was big, wait until you see a mongquito. Think
mosquito, but ramped up to the size of a robin. A swarm of those
bastards can drain every drop of blood in a person in less than a
minute,” he told him.

Elizabeth quickly walked over to Tralnis after
overhearing their conversation. “What were you saying earlier about
mixing up a bug repellant?” she inquired quickly.

Tralnis motioned for Henry to turn around so he could
get into the backpack. He pulled out four vials of a greenish
yellow liquid. Handing out a vial to each of the others and keeping
one for himself, Tralnis said, “Rub this onto any exposed skin. I
know it smells a little off to us, but to a bug, this stuff smells
like pure poison.”

“Do I want to know what’s in this?” Elizabeth asked
as she uncorked the vial in her hand.

“Probably not,” Tralnis replied as he rubbed the
fluid onto his skin. The others followed suit, and were quickly on
their way through the dense jungle.

Gareth stopped every few minutes to take a reading
with a brass compass he had borrowed from Izzy to make sure they
were going in the right direction. Every so often, he would point
his arm to indicate they had gone slightly off course. After an
hour of difficult hiking, they reached a small hill with a stone
arch set into the middle of it. An ancient spiral staircase than
ran down below the surface could be seen just past the arch.

Henry took one look at the passageway into the bowels
of Hadronus before he bowed to Tralnis, and snarled something in
the Chim language.

Tralnis shook his head, and held up his hand to stop
a laughing Gareth. “Don’t bother to translate that. I’m pretty sure
it was just as racist as saying a Chim likes climbing,” he
muttered.

Gareth walked up behind Henry, and opened up the
backpack. He pulled out four tubes inscribed with the magical runes
necessary for creating light. He twisted the end of his to align
the final runes and light flowed from the other end. The others did
the same, and made their way into the underground complex with
Gareth taking the lead again.

The stairway ended in a long tunnel where the walls
were made of large stone blocks with intricate and lifelike
carvings of various animals, both normal and mystical. The floor
was a seemingly random pattern of different sized paving stones.
Every eight feet or so, there were small gaps in the walls that ran
from floor to ceiling. Of those, every other one had a
perpendicular gap in the middle of the wall. The tunnel itself was
symmetrical with the space between the walls and the space between
the ceiling and floor ten feet apart.

“Some of this stonework looks Dwarvish,” Tralnis
announced after he paused to look at one of the carvings. “Be
careful, my ancestors were a paranoid lot. There’s likely to be all
sort of traps down here,” he warned.

Gareth nodded his head to acknowledge he heard
Tralnis. Everyone looked in his direction when he yelled out, “Hey
look, an Issian 50 Gelt piece!” Gareth simultaneously stepped
forward and bent at the waist to pick up the ancient coin. As soon
as he bent over and stepped on the trigger stone, a spinning blade
swung out of the horizontal gap in the wall next to him. The blade
whizzed harmlessly over his bent over frame, missing him by less
than an inch. Gareth felt a slight breeze, and heard his companions
take in a collective startled breath. He stood up, turned around,
and took a step towards them. A second breeze blew down his shirt
as a spinning blade swung out of the vertical gap in the wall,
slicing through the space he had just vacated.

Henry, Tralnis, and Elizabeth stood rooted in place,
blinking as their brains tried to process how close to death Gareth
had just come. He had somehow managed to avoid being killed twice
in less than three seconds. Gareth cocked his head in confusion at
the astonished expressions on the other three’s faces. “What? Do I
have something on my clothes?” he asked, and turned around in a
circle trying to look at the back of his shirt.

“Do we tell him?” Elizabeth whispered only loud
enough for Tralnis to hear.

The Dwarf shook his head slowly. “No, he would never
believe us anyway,” he replied just as softly. Raising his voice to
a normal level, Tralnis called out, “Gareth lad, how about I take
over, and look for those traps I talked about?”

For slightly less than an hour, they crept slowly
down the tunnel as Tralnis pointed out numerous traps. They all
sighed a breath of relief when they reached a solid set of metal
double doors. Above the door was an airshaft that angled sharply
back the way they had come. The doors were divided into nine panels
per door, with each panel engraved with scenes of people going
about their daily lives. Above the engravings were more runes in
the mysterious language. Aside from the engraving and runes, the
doors were smooth with no sign of any way to open them. Gareth
lifted his hand to the runes, and ran it along them as he
translated out loud, “The key to open this door lies in the center
of cooperation.”

“Well this sucks sweaty Centaur balls. I hate
riddles,” Tralnis complained. Elizabeth raised her non-scarred
eyebrow at his choice of phrase. “They smell and taste awful when
they’re sweaty, trust me,” he assured her.

“Professor, please say
anything
to get that
image out of my mind,” Elizabeth begged.

More than happy to oblige her, Gareth pointed towards
the panels. “The images here must have something to do with the
riddle. Let’s see if there is anything the two center panels have
in common or maybe there is something in the center of each panel
that opens the doors,” he suggested.

While the others looked at the panels, Tralnis
examined the walls of the tunnels to see if maybe the door was just
a simple misdirection. “Gareth, I think I may have found something,
but what it means, or what it has to do with the panels, I’m not
sure,” he announced. Tralnis pointed to three identically shaped
stones set into the walls and ceiling. The first stone was on the
right hand wall about shoulder height for Gareth. The second stone
was on the left hand wall and set only two feet above the floor.
The third stone was on the ceiling next to the airshaft.

Gareth looked at the placement of the stones and then
back at the center panels on the doors. The first showed a young
woman picking some kind of fruit in an orchard. The other panel
showed a cook preparing a meal. He rubbed his chin as he tried to
make sense of the clues. “Ooooh, I get it. The answer is food,” he
finally said.