Gareth and th Lost Island (26 page)

“Hey Lizard Breath, how about you leave the
engineering stuff to me.  I already have some burning. Pilot
can stop us whenever you want,” Izzy replied tersely.  Pilot
didn’t need the actual order, and pulled the lever that shifted how
the Aetherium gasses moved through their propulsion tubes.
 They all felt a jolt as the Glorious Dawn came to a rapid and
complete stop.

The pirates on board the other vessels began to get
worried when their fellow airship started to accelerate, instead of
air braking like was proper during a docking procedure.
 Several curses were shouted when the rogue ship pushed into
the middle of their formation, causing their decks to rock with the
sliding impact.  Those pirates standing on deck closest to the
ramming ship had a moment to wonder why there were barrels lined up
along the deck.  A moment was all they got as the burning fuse
finally reached the powder magazine.  The expanding explosive
shock wave ripped through the barrels, spraying a sticky mixture of
tree sap and naphtha in every direction.  While part of the
mixture made it onto the other ships’ hulls, most of it sprayed
across the gas sacks keeping them aloft.  A split second
later, burning shrapnel from the powder magazine set the mixture
alight.  In less than a minute, the only airship aloft was the
Glorious Dawn.  

Pirates from across the compound, including all of
the slave pen guards but one, came running with water buckets to
try to fight the strange, sticky fire.  This was done more out
of self-preservation than anything else.  The burning wrecks
had landed atop of the camp’s munitions stores.

Elizabeth and Pilot sprung up from where they were
hiding, while Sheldon ran up from the cargo hold.  He quickly
manned their single cannon.  One eyestalk sighted along the
barrel, while the other gave directions on muzzle elevation.
 The first cannon shot slammed through the roof of the largest
building.  Sheldon reloaded the cannon, and took aim at
another building as far away from the slave pens as possible.
 

“And that would be our cue,” Gareth said, impressed
by Izzy’s pyrotechnic display.  “Get Teesh, I’ll watch your
back,” he ordered as they sprinted across the open ground to the
slave cages.  

The lone guard left to keep watch on the slaves was
knocked to the ground by an orange ball of anger and muscle.
 A furry hand shot over the guard’s mouth and nose to keep him
from calling out.  The same hand bounced the guard’s head off
of the ground twice to make sure he wouldn’t being saying anything
anytime soon.  Henry patted down the unconscious guard, and
came away with a set of iron keys.

Henry and Gareth ran past several empty cages before
they found one that was occupied by recently acquired slaves.
 Like the captured pirate captain had said, the slavers had
just made a shipment, and were just starting to replenish their
stock.  The single occupied cage had young girls of various
species crammed together.  All five of the girls were wearing
far too revealing clothing for kids their age.

Henry softly hooted and waved his arms to get the
attention of the girls.  Not a single one of them looked over
at the soft noise, the spectacle of the pirate ships and the
munitions stores going up like a Dwarven firework display was so
much more interesting.  After trying increasingly loud hoots,
Henry put two fingers in his mouth, and gave out an ear splitting
whistle. This time, all of the girls turned to look at him in fear,
not knowing what their captors might want now.

“Mr. Fuzzy Bottom?!” Teesh asked, afraid she was
hallucinating. When Henry didn’t fade away and nodded instead,
Teesh ran to the cage door. “I knew you guys would come!” she cried
out as she recognized Gareth’s form from the back. To her
astonishment, the rod Gareth carried shifted in his hand, and
became a six foot long staff. Henry finished unlocking the cage
door, and turned around to see what Gareth was doing. He saw
flashes of purple surround his friend’s hand. Looking beyond
Gareth, Henry saw a score of pirates running towards them. Wanting
to spare Teesh from seeing what came next as the pirates
overwhelmed Gareth, he put his furry hand over her eyes. The child
who had spent over half of her life on the street, rolled said eyes
and pulled Henry’s hand down so she could see what was going
on.

Gareth took one look at how the pirates had dressed
Teesh, and he had to turn away before he fully lost control of his
anger. He didn’t even turn around when Henry whistled loudly. From
where he was standing, Gareth had a perfect view of the 20 pirates
who filed out of the barracks, and started running towards the
cages. A smile, the likes of which Death himself would be proud of,
slipped across Gareth’s face as outlets for his rage presented
themselves. Letting the righteous anger wash over and through him,
he sensed his Void Rod become a staff once again. Recognizing the
feeling of the strange magic he shared with the Void Rod, Gareth
opened himself fully to the seductive strength it offered.

The pirate leading the pack slid in the mud as he
tried to stop from running into what to his mind could only be a
demon straight out of one of the scarier hells. The demon wore the
flesh of a man, but had purple flames were his eyes should have
been. The terror was quickly extinguished as the press of bodies
behind him forced him into the demon’s reach. A staff, blacker than
the stormy night sky above them, slammed into his neck, dislocating
his second and third vertebrae. The pirate was dead moments after
hitting the ground.

The black staff whistled through the air, and ended
the life of two more pirates in the same amount of seconds. A
cannon blast slammed into the rear ranks of the pirates, sending
bodies and shrapnel flying. One of the pirates watched in terror as
a piece of shrapnel tore a long gouge in the cheek of his brutal
opponent. Instead of blood, purple fire poured from the wound. As
he watched, the fire extinguished itself, leaving no trace of the
wound that had caused it. The pirate turned around where he stood,
and ran back towards his barracks. He would much rather face cannon
fire than the demon slaughtering his bunk mates.

Henry could only stop and stare at what his best
friend was doing. Instead of being run over by the pirate troops,
Gareth had utterly destroyed them with the help of the Glorious
Dawn’s cannon. Henry was in so much shock, he forgot to keep his
hand in front of Teesh’s eyes. For her part, the young street girl
admired how thoroughly, and systematically, Gareth was taking apart
his opponents. The same men who had less than a day before reviled
her with stories about what the rich men were going to do to her,
were now lying dead at her protector’s feet. She made a solemn vow
to herself that she would stick with Gareth and learn everything
that she could from him.

The final pirate facing Gareth sat on the ground, and
tried to scoot back from his executioner using his arms and his one
good leg. The other leg had its knee shattered by the merciless
demon released in their midst. The pirate's sword lay forgotten
underneath a pile of his dead cohorts. He shrieked in absolute
terror as the purple flames meant to be eyes searched across the
grounds looking for an opponent, and ended up resting on him.

Gareth strode through the bloody mud with a singular
purpose, kill all those who threatened the people he cared about.
He took two large steps forward towards the fool who was trying to
scoot away from him. The fact that he was injured and unarmed
didn’t even enter the equation of whether or not the man’s
existence should be snuffed out like a candle. Gareth raised his
arm to strike a killing blow with his staff, when he felt a hand
placed gently on his shoulder. He spun around, ready to destroy
this new threat, and stopped his arm just in time from bringing his
staff down on his best friend’s head.

Henry jumped back in fear from what Gareth looked
like. His oldest friend’s eyes were gone, and in their place were
twin pools of purple, churning fire. The fire faded away to reveal
Gareth's real eyes as he wrested control of himself away from the
power of his Void Rod. Eventually, Gareth broke the magical
connection he had with the weapon, and sagged in exhaustion. Gareth
was able to mutter a quick, “Hi, Henry,” before his restored eyes
rolled back in his head as he passed out.

Teesh ran up to hold a trembling Henry’s hand. She
looked at the devastation around her, and asked, “Do you think I
can get Gareth to teach me how to do that?”

Tralnis looked at his son in concern. After Gareth’s
battle with the pirates, he had slipped into a deep coma. That had
been over a week ago. Everything Tralnis tried to help his son
return to the land of the living failed to have any effect
whatsoever. At least Gareth had managed to translate the tablet
from the jungle ruins before they fought the pirates. When the
young man did eventually wake up (and Tralnis refused to believe he
would do otherwise,) Gareth would find them well on their way to
find the fourth tablet.

Muttering in a language Tralnis only heard when
Gareth was having nightmares brought the Dwarf to the only occupied
bed in the sickbay. Tralnis gently shook Gareth’s shoulder, and was
relieved beyond words when his patient’s eyes opened.

“Gods, my mouth tastes horrible. Did I go and get far
too drunk for my own good again?” Gareth asked weakly.

Tralnis chuckled, letting a week’s worth of tension
drain out of him. “No lad, what you’re tasting was my last attempt
at using an elixir to get you to wake up. That was two days ago,”
he answered. Gareth had a very confused look on his face. “What is
the last thing you remember?” Tralnis inquired.

Gareth closed his eyes and tried to get his memory
working again. When things fell back into place, Gareth lunged out
of bed, and emptied the contents of his stomach into a bucket
Tralnis had placed nearby for just such an occurrence. When he
finished, he gratefully took the cup of water Tralnis offered and
rinsed his mouth out.

“I’ll take that as you remember the fight at the
pirate camp,” Tralnis remarked dryly. “Now before you start
berating yourself for what happened back there, I would like to
point out the men you killed were trying to sell young Teesh into a
children’s brothel. As you well know, we Dwarves have a huge soft
spot for orphans. For what it’s worth, I think you let those
arseholes off easy,” he stated, trying to head off Gareth’s
guilt.

“Thanks for helping put things in the right
perspective,” Gareth said softly. After a moment he frowned in
thought. “You said you gave me the elixir two days ago. How long
have I been out?” he asked.

“Eight days, and let me tell you that you had me
stumped as to why,” Tralnis replied. “In medical school, we were
taught about the healing comas Wizards can slip into when they
become magically exhausted. You had all of the symptoms of being
magically exhausted, but we both know you haven’t even the smallest
spark of magic in you. You can’t exhaust something you never had to
begin with,” he explained. Tralnis put on a silk lined glove, and
picked up a large white crystal from a nearby table. The silk
lining was used to insulate the crystal from Tralnis’ magical
signature to ensure an accurate reading. After running the crystal
up and down Gareth’s body, Tralnis pronounced, “Nothing, no magical
readings at all. Just like normal.”

“I have magic,” Gareth almost whispered.

“What?” Tralnis asked, thinking he had misheard
Gareth.

“I do have magic. I can feel it replenishing as we
speak,” Gareth replied. Every time he used the Void Rod, Gareth
became more in tune with his unique brand of magic. A magic, which
for some reason, couldn’t be detected by any normal means.

Tralnis shrugged his shoulders. “That would explain
the coma and the whole flaming eyes thing,” he admitted.

“The what?!” Gareth asked, not sure he wanted to
know.

“Um… I think I’ll let Henry explain that one,”
Tralnis said, evading the question.

The door to the sickbay swung open and Teesh poked
her head in. “Any change in Gareth?” she asked, barely hoping there
would be a different answer from the last fifty times she had
asked.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Tralnis replied
with a huge smile.

Gareth barely managed to see a blur of motion before
he was tackled in a tight hug from Teesh. After a minute, Teesh
backed off, and lightly kicked Gareth in the shin. “Owe! What did I
do to deserve that?” he asked.

“You scared the hells out of me!” Teesh replied,
putting her tiny hands on her hips.

Gareth looked away, and the cloud of guilt settled
over his face again. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry you had to see what I
did…” he started say, apologizing to her.

“Not that dummy! That stuff with the staff was
awesome. You scared me when you wouldn’t wake up. Izzy even tried
to kiss you to get you to wake up. You know… like in the old
stories where the princess finds the prince in a magical sleep,”
Teesh corrected him.

Tralnis gently pulled Teesh away from Gareth. “Lass,
I think we should give Gareth a chance to freshen up and take care
of some things. He hasn’t used the loo in over a week,” he pointed
out. Gareth realized he was right, and hurried to the sickbay’s
water closet. Tralnis leaned close to Teesh’s ear, and whispered,
“I can think of two other people who would really like to know
Gareth is feeling better.” Teesh’s face lit up, and she dashed out
the room to go talk with Henry and Izzy.

Tralnis spent the next hour running Gareth through
every test he could think of. Gareth did draw the line at having a
large, magic sensing crystal shoved up somewhere it wasn’t meant to
go. The doctor’s arguments was that perhaps a reading closer to
Gareth’s core would give them some insight into his new found
magic. Tempting as the answers might be, Gareth still said no.