Gareth and th Lost Island (2 page)

“I dug through nearly every storage room in the
library’s basement. I must have sifted through several tons of
parchments before I found the collected works of Dravis. They were
in an unlabeled box in the back of an alcove that was set aside for
cleaning spells and rituals,” Gareth complained. “Dravis might have
had the appetites of a Dwarf, but he was nothing if not thorough in
the documentations of the techniques he had either learned, or
developed on his own. Volume 3 is well… let’s just say that I had
to take a series of cold showers while I translated it,” he said,
blushing slightly.

Gareth was interrupted when a thin hand was placed on
his shoulder. The hand was brown with a wood grain pattern unique
to the Dryad species. He turned to look up at her, and nearly fell
off the bench. His lack of balance was partly due to how beautiful
the Dryad was, but mostly due to Gareth being well and truly drunk.
The Dryad had long, dark green moss that served as her hair, and
eyes the color of forest soil. She was dressed in a gown that
appeared to be made of small, green leaves which covered just
enough to leave some things to the imagination. Like most of her
species, the Dryad was shorter than an average human, and her head
would barely come up to his chin if he were standing. Her small
stature gave everyone the impression that her rather full breasts
were even larger than they really were, placing them well in the
spectacular range.

“Excuse me for interrupting, Scholar, but the Issians
were friends of my people before the Second Great Apocalypse and
Dravis is very much revered by us,” she stated. Knowing that Dryads
were a very hedonistic society (second only to the Dwarves), this
didn’t surprise either Gareth or Tralnis very much. “Have you truly
discovered the lost texts?” she implored. Gareth’s deep blush gave
her the answer she was looking for. The Dryad tightened her grip on
Gareth’s shoulder, and lifted him off of the bench with surprising
strength. “I’ve rented a room upstairs. Let’s see how much of
Dravis’ teaching you were able to retain,” she offered.

Tralnis held out his arm, blocking Gareth’s path
temporarily. With his other hand, he reached into an inner pocket
of his jacket, and pulled out a small vial full of a brown fluid
that seemed to be constantly in motion. “Here, take this. You’ll
want to be sober to fully appreciate all that a Dryad can offer.
Also, I think the pretty sapling here would appreciate you at the
top of your game, so to speak,” he offered.

The Dryad smiled in thanks while Gareth uncorked the
vial with his thumb and downed the whole thing in one swallow.
“Good gods, Tralnis! That tastes worse than your cooking!” he
moaned. After a moment, the room stopped spinning, and Gareth’s
smile matched the Dryad’s. “You perfected the formula,” he stated,
pointing out the obvious. Tralnis nodded, and then jerked his head
towards the stairs with a proud smile. “Right, don’t wait up for
me,” Gareth joked before letting the Dryad lead him out of the
taproom.

Tralnis waited for Gareth to leave the taproom before
he stood on the bench and raised his mug. His deep voice could be
heard from one end of the room to another as he spoke. “Tonight, my
son has done that which many, including myself, never thought
possible. He managed to attract a beautiful young woman who
approached
him,
and nearly dragged him off to her
bedchambers,” he stated. His comment was met with good natured
laughter. “Fellow scholars, that was not the impossible deed of
which I speak. My son is a handsome man, and several woman have
hoped to ensnare him. No, the seemingly impossible feat was that
she was insistent he bed her, not despite him being a language
scholar,
but
because of it!” he boasted proudly.

The room became quiet as his words sunk in. “Are you
serious?!” a voice questioned from the crowd eventually.

Tralnis held his mug high. “I swear on this
delightful ale that what I say is the truth. I witnessed it just a
moment ago,” he replied. This was met with impressed murmurs. “To
Gareth Mintel, may he continue to do the impossible!” he toasted,
and then sat down.

All of the students, and a few of the professors
stood, raised their glasses or mugs, and replied loudly, “To
Professor Mintel!”

Tralnis chuckled to himself, and shifted down the
bench to chat with an attractive couple of students who wore the
gold sleeve stripes of the School of Mechanical Sciences. As he
moved closer, he couldn’t decide if the young man, or the young
woman was the better looking of the pair. Either way, he was sure
he was going to have an enjoyable evening.

Gareth allowed himself to be dragged along the
hallway to the Dryad’s rented room. She opened the door, and
gestured for him to step inside. The room was comfortably furnished
with a large pine bedframe, and a dresser made of the same wood.
The far wall had a large open window with the tan curtains pulled
back to let in the night air. After he crossed the threshold, the
Dryad shut the door, and slid the lock into place.

While the light filtering in through the window from
the twin moons wasn’t quite enough to read by, Gareth found it was
more than enough to see the beautiful woman standing in the room
with him. His mouth went dry in nervousness as she closed the
distance between them with two quick steps. The Dryad paused for a
moment as she stared into his eyes. “You have the most beautiful,
violet eyes I have ever seen. They remind me of lilacs in summer,”
she told him softly. Before Gareth knew what was happening, the
Dryad was kissing him, forcing entry into his mouth with her
tongue.

Gareth broke the kiss, and took a half step back.
“This is wonderful and all, but I don’t even know your name,” he
protested slightly.

The Dryad reached forward and ran her finger along
Gareth’s jaw. “Do we need names to do what our bodies crave?” she
inquired, her voice husky with desire.

Gareth thought for a moment and then shrugged his
shoulders. “No, I don’t suppose we do,” he answered.

“I didn’t think so,” the Dryad said as she raised her
other hand, and slid Gareth’s jacket off of his shoulders. What
followed next was her forcefully removing each piece of Gareth’s
clothing, and tossing them around the room in between passionate
snogs. At one point, she had pressed him into the front of the
dresser while she undid his belt. Most of Gareth’s mind found what
she was doing to be quite arousing. The remainder however, wondered
if the handle on the dresser drawer was going to leave as big of a
bruise on his back as he thought it would.

Eventually, all of Gareth’s clothes laid strewn
around the room, and he was left standing naked at the foot of the
bed. The Dryad kissed him soundly, and then she took a step back.
Smiling seductively at him, she slid the shoulder straps of her
dress off, and let the garment slide to the floor. Unlike Gareth,
she had only the one article of clothing, and stood before him in
all of her nude glory.

The Dryad reveled in the appreciate stares Gareth was
giving her, and she turned around to let him see her from all
sides. Her smiled grew even more when Gareth let out a whispered,
but heartfelt, “
You are truly beautiful, child of Hadronus
.”
It took the Dryad a moment to realize that not only had the
handsome young man just referred to her using the correct form of
address for a Dryad one had just met, but that he had done it in
the Language of the Forest. The way he spoke with perfect
pronunciation and cadence brought back flashes of memories from
when she ran wild and free in the Great Forest. The fond memories
he drew forth drove her already high level of need over the edge,
causing the Dryad to shove Gareth onto the bed.

Gareth worried that he had done something wrong until
the Dryad climbed onto the bed with a hungry look in her eyes that
any warm blooded (and quite a few cold blooded) males would
recognize. She slowly crawled up towards the headboard letting her
long moss like hair just barely brush his body. The Dryad paused
every so often to kiss whatever bit of flesh was below her mouth at
the time. When their hips were even on the bed, the Dryad sat up
and readied herself for their joining. Right before she was about
to lower herself onto him, the door to the rented room boomed as
someone pounded on it loudly.

“Melinda?! Melinda, I know you’re in there my love.
Open up, my little shrub!” a nasally voice yelled through the
door.

The Dryad let out a weary sigh and let her shoulders
slump before she climbed off of Gareth without consummating their
evening. “
Woodrot!”
Melinda swore in the Language of the
Forest. Without thinking, she switched back to the Trade language
and muttered, “Bastard wasn’t supposed to be back until next
week.”

With all of the stress he was suddenly under, Gareth
was glad she had reverted back to the language developed after the
Second Great Apocalypse to allow the remaining intelligent species
to communicate with each other. Humans grew up learning Trade as
their primary language, while all of the others learned it as a
second language. Everyone learned it to the point where they could
at least understand Trade, even if their mouth and vocal cord
arraignment kept them from speaking it properly.

Gareth sat up quickly in the bed and looked from the
door to the woman he now guessed was called Melinda. “Who’s at the
door?” he asked her quickly.

Melinda gave Gareth an apologetic smile before she
answered him. “My husband,” she admitted.

“Your husband?!” Gareth echoed, before falling out of
the bed in shock.

The pounding on the door grew more insistent as the
man behind it inquired, “Melinda dear, are you alright?” When he
didn’t receive a response, he order, “Break it down!”

Melinda crawled to the edge of the bed and looked
down at Gareth. “You probably want to get dressed,” she
suggested.

“Right,” Gareth agreed, and sprung to his feet. He
forced his mind to focus on first retrieving, and then putting on
his clothes despite the loud banging and yelling coming from the
door which looked like it would give way at any moment. After
putting on his trousers, and tightening his belt, Gareth threw on
his shirt, and didn’t bother to button it. His right boot was near
the foot of the bed, and he was able to put it on quickly. He spied
his left boot by the window, and hurried over to it. His attempt at
haste was thwarted when he fell over putting on the left boot.

Mostly dressed, Gareth carefully crawled out of the
window onto the ledge that ran around the second floor of the inn.
Just under the ledge was a sloping roof that led to the open
courtyard of the stables. Gareth was about to crawl to freedom when
he realized he wasn’t fully dressed for a proper member of the
University Arcanum. He stuck his head back in the window. “My
jacket!” he mouthed, as he pointed to the burgundy wool sticking
out from under the bed. Melinda nodded and grabbed the jacket.

As Melinda tossed the jacket to Gareth, the door
finally gave way. Standing in the doorway was a pudgy man with a
long, pointed nose flanked by two very, large men with clubs. For a
brief instant, Gareth thought Melinda’s husband looked vaguely
familiar before the jacket hit him in the face, causing him to lose
his grip on the window sill. “Oh bugger!” he moaned as he lost his
balance, and fell onto the gray slate tiles of the stable roof. His
screams of “Ahhhhhh!” were cut off, and replaced by a loud splash
when Gareth rolled off the roof and landed in a horse trough full
of water. Luckily for him, this trough was built large enough to
slake the thirst of a score of horses, and was nearly three feet
high.

Tralnis was in the middle of having a literal roll in
the hay with the adventurous couple he had met earlier, when he
heard something fall onto the stable roof above him. He stopped
snogging the young man as he recognized Gareth’s scream, before his
son slid off the roof into the horse trough not five feet from the
amorous trio. Since they had only just started their evening's
entertainment, Tralnis only needed to tuck his shirt back into his
trousers, and latch his belt to be presentable again. “This is
probably not going to go well,” he told the couple before giving
them each a kiss, starting with the young woman, after all three of
them stood up from the hay. The students raced out of the stables,
while Tralnis dipped his arm into the cold water. He was forced to
feel around with his hand, since he wasn’t quite tall enough to see
into the oversized trough. When his fingers found the lapel of
Gareth’s jacket, Tralnis pulled him out of the water.

After coughing, and spitting out a large quantity of
water, Gareth looked over at his father. “Thanks,” he coughed.

“My pleasure, or least it was going to be before you
landed on the roof,” Tralnis joked. He glanced up at the roof and
then asked, “Did you fall or were you pushed?”

“I fell,” Gareth replied sullenly. Tralnis raised one
eyebrow in a questioning gesture. Gareth replied with only one
word, “Husband.”

Tralnis nodded his head in commiseration while he
stated, “Yep, that’ll do it every time.” He thumped the sturdy
trough with his fist. “You know, I think that might be the real
reason for this oversized bucket,” he chuckled. This caused Gareth
to also chuckle slightly, and Tralnis slapped him on the back good
naturedly. Their laughter was cut short when four men who were
wearing tight, leather trousers, and blood stained, linen shirts
stormed into the stables. They were carrying large sticks with iron
bands encircling the ends.

Tralnis helped Gareth stand up, and glared at the
newcomers. For their part, the brutes were smiling back in
anticipation of violence. “Just the four of you? You might want to
go get some reinforcements,” Tralnis taunted.