Gareth and th Lost Island (9 page)

“Providing that you don’t mind if we load up on other
cargo to sell along the way, and Tralnis would be willing to offer
his services free of charge to the crew, I think we can make a
deal,” Izzy told them cheerfully.

Henry idly flipped through the pages of one of the
ancient books Tralnis had liberated from Gareth’s old office. This
particular book had several erotic pictures of Chims from before
the Second Great Apocalypse. While he greatly appreciated the
beauty of the male and female Chims presented, he was more
intrigued by the grooming styles his ancient ancestors had
employed. Judging from the expressions on their faces, both sexes
were enjoying themselves tremendously. Henry looked up from the
book just in time to see Gareth, Tralnis, and a human female who
had hair even redder than his.

Even from far away, Henry could see his childhood
friend was infatuated with the young woman. Gareth kept his eyes on
the young woman’s face. He nearly tripped when he didn’t see the
single step down to the path that led to where the wagons were
parked. Henry decided this was this was a golden opportunity to
tease Gareth. When they neared the wagon, Henry hopped out, and was
thankful his kilt hid the obvious signs of his enjoyment of the
book.

“Izzy Morgana, I would like to introduce you to my
good friend, and Tralnis’ butler, Henry of the Woohaa Clan,” Gareth
said. Henry gave Izzy a deep bow, with an elaborate flourish of his
long arm.

Izzy laughed at the display, and gave Henry a much
smaller bow. “Well met, Master Chim,” she stated. Henry waited for
Tralnis to climb onto the driver’s bench, and then offered his hand
to Izzy to assist her in climbing up. “Why thank you, good sir,”
she chuckled as she climbed on board.

Knowing the driver’s bench could only seat three,
Henry swung himself up and onto the bench before Gareth could
react. He turned his head so that Izzy couldn’t see his face, and
winked at Gareth while making kissing noises with his lips. With a
jerk of his head, Henry indicated that Gareth should climb in the
back.

Gareth glared at Henry, and then made his way to the
back of the wagon. He softly blew out his breath, snorted, and
growled so softly that only Henry could hear him. Henry laughed at
the playful insult, and shook the reins of the horses. The wagon
lurched forward before Gareth could find a seat.

They approached the eight story high wall of the
airship port, and were stopped by a pair of guards dressed in the
blue and white of the Shipping Guild. Both guards had rifles slung
on their backs, and swords belted at their waists. The shorter of
the guards was balding, and had a slight paunch. He stepped
forward, carefully looking over each occupant of the wagon.
“Identification papers, please,” he asked politely.

Izzy stood up for a moment, and dug her papers out of
the cargo pocket on her left shin before handing them to the guard.
He looked from the photo on the document, to Izzy, and back to the
document again. “I didn’t like how my hair looked in that
photograph, so I had it cut shorter right after it was taken,” Izzy
explained in a tone that said this wasn’t the first time a guard
had questioned the validity of her identification papers.

The guard folded the paper back up, and handed it
back to Izzy with a curt, “Move along.” Izzy put her identification
back in her shin pocket, and sat down on the bench. The guard
nodded to his partner, who opened the swinging gate wide enough for
the wagon to enter the tunnel. The first guard turned around to
challenge the next group of people wanting to enter the airship
port.

Everyone but Izzy was astonished at how thick the
walls were that surrounded the airship port. They could have fit
four of their wagons end to end in the tunnel with ease. Izzy
noticed their expressions, and decided to play tour guide on their
way to the Glorious Dawn. “Any of you lot ever flown by airship
before?” she inquired.

Tralnis and Henry shook their heads no. “My clan
lives under the mountains near Dragonheart. I’ve never had the need
to leave this island,” Tralnis admitted.

Henry hooted and snorted his reply.

“He says that his parents were from Chimia, but he
was born here in the IRD,” Gareth translated.

“How about you?” Izzy asked, looking at Gareth.

“I’ve been on a few expeditions for the Archeology
Department, but we always flew out of Dragonwing on the north end
of the island. Their port doesn’t have anything like this wall,” he
replied.

Izzy snickered at the names given to the cities on
the island. “You gents do know that only citizens of the IRD
actually refer to your cities as Dragon-this and Dragon-that,
right?” she asked. To Izzy’s relief, Gareth laughed with her,
instead of being insulted. For their part, Henry and Tralnis looked
confused.

“While the first explorers thought the map of the
island looked like a majestic dragon, pretty much everyone else
sees a flying pig. They replace the Dragon with Pig when they speak
about any of our towns. Dragonheart becomes Pigheart, Dragonwing
becomes Pigwing, and Dragonstrength is called Ham,” Gareth
explained.

“At least it’s better than what they call University
City,” Izzy pointed out.

“Do I even want to know?” Tralnis asked
rhetorically.

Gareth’s smile told Tralnis that no, he probably
didn’t want to know but Gareth was going to tell him anyway. “On a
map, the University peninsula looks like a blob coming out of the
southwest end of a northeast facing pig. For some odd reason,
knowing the rest of the world refers to the city housing the
University Arcanum as the city of Pigshit makes me feel a little
better about things,” he stated.

Izzy wondered what would make a professor talk that
way about his employer, but decided to ask him about it later. “The
reason the Pigshit airship port has walls this thick, and this
high, is to protect the airships from the occasional brutal storms
that hit here. Those storms bring winds that would toss the
airships around like toys in a toddler’s tantrum. By the time the
storm makes landfall, and reaches Pigwing, it has just a small
fraction of the strength it started at. Their airship port doesn’t
need the protective walls,” she explained.

The gate in front of them was opened, and they rode
back into sunlight, making them all blink a few times to let their
eyes adjust from the darkness of the tunnel. When they could see
properly, Henry and Tralnis gasped in wonder. Airships of all sizes
and makes surrounded them. The ships either floated by, or were
held in place to their berths in some fashion.

The vast majority of the airships they could see were
of the dirigible style, with some sort of bag full of lighter than
air gasses suspended over a wooden ship that contained the crew and
cargo. The only other thing all the dirigibles had in common were
the propellers mounted at the rear to move them through the sky.
Aside from that, the airships seemed to be as individual as the
people who crewed them. To the right of their wagon was a dirigible
with two gas sacks held apart with a rigid set of ribs that ran up
from the center of the deck, and branched out into a “Y” shape. On
their left, was a larger airship with a rigid gas sack that had
exterior ribs which ran from the midline of the gas compartment to
the railing of the main hull.

They rode on farther into the airship port, and the
dirigibles were gradually replaced by ships of a radically
different design. These ships had masts similar to a sailing ship
instead of inflatable gas sacks, and their hulls were devoid of any
propellers. Instead, the ships possessed large outriggers on either
side of their hulls. The center of each of the outriggers was a
clear crystal tube filled with a glowing green gas. Wooden
protective shields were set up on the top and bottom of the tubes,
and were held on by brass bands engraved with various runes.

Tralnis turned on the bench so he could see one of
the dirigibles. He turned back to the front to look at one of the
other ships. “Alright, I have to ask. Why are there two totally
different types of airships here?” he inquired.

“Two designs for two different type of flights,” Izzy
replied. She pointed to a three masted ship on their left. “That is
a Leyline ship. They are used for long distance hauling between the
major shipping ports. Like their name implies, they draw their
power from the Leylines that crisscross Hadronus. They use the
magic coming from the planet to levitate and propel themselves.
Each Leyline ship has some sort of magical battery that they can
use to levitate if they leave one of the Leylines. The batteries
aren’t powerful enough to provide thrust as well, so the ships rely
on wind power to move them when they are away from a Leyline,” she
explained.

Izzy pointed to a dirigible that was passing
overhead. “Those are Mech ships. They burn coal to power their
steam engines. They aren’t able to travel far without refueling,
but they aren’t tied to the Leylines in any way,” she told him.

Gareth gave Tralnis a questioning look. “I would have
thought that as a Dwarf you would know this stuff already,” he
commented.

Tralnis turned on the bench to glare at Gareth.
“Dammit Gareth, I’m a doctor not an engineer!” he swore. At the
instant Tralnis was done speaking, an airman wearing a red linen
tunic fell off of the passing dirigible when the railing he was
leaning on gave way. The railing had been a design flaw the crew
had complained about frequently to their engineer. The airman’s
scream as he fell cut off abruptly when he hit the ground. Gareth
started to rise from the back of the wagon, but Tralnis put a hand
on the young man’s shoulder and pushed him back down. “He’s dead,
Gareth,” Tralnis told him in a somber tone. Gareth and Tralnis
stared at each other as a sudden odd feeling swept over them. Once
the feeling passed, they relaxed, and continued their trip deeper
into the airship port.

Tralnis turned back around so he could see Izzy.
“Forgive this ignorant Dwarf for asking a stupid question, but why
don’t they have steam engines on Leyline ships? I would think it
would be much more efficient,” he asked.

Gareth jumped into the conversation. “Same reason as
why there were two types of diving rigs. There will always be
religious fanatics willing to destroy anything that might combine
magic with mechanical,” he stated.

“That’s right,” Izzy agreed while nodding her head.
She gave a mental sigh of relief. On occasion, the Glorious Dawn
had flown with devout followers of one religion or another. Keeping
their mouths shut about their own views was always taxing on the
crew. “The only exceptions to the rule are the Aetherium pumps and
Aetherium ore furnaces in a Leyship’s engine room. The Wizards said
that the Aetherium machines were allowed because they had been part
of the Leyships since before the Second Great Apocalypse. Even with
the exception, a Leyship has to submit to an inspection by a priest
once a year to make sure the Aetherium machines are the only mixing
of magic and machines on the ship,” she explained.

“Sounds like hypocritical moleshit to me. There’s
nothing wrong with combining two proven techniques to make an even
better one,” Tralnis groused.

Izzy tapped Henry on the shoulder, and indicated they
should turn right at the next set of berths. Henry did so, and
stopped the wagon when they reached the end of the dock. Once the
wagon stopped, they all hopped out. The three males smiled as they
looked at a ship that truly earned the name, Glorious Dawn. It was
a huge airship with four masts that towered high into the sky. The
hull was at least 250 feet long, and was 75 feet from the bottom of
the hull to the top deck. The outriggers were 175 feet long with
the rune bands polished to a mirror like shine. Four sets of two
guns each were set up at intervals along the top deck.

“She’s quite the beauty,” Tralnis said in
admiration.

Izzy stepped close to Gareth, and nodded her head to
the ship in front of them. “That’s the Retribution, a pirate
hunter,” she said. Izzy put her hands on Gareth’s shoulders and
turned him around to look at a different ship. “
This
is the
Glorious Dawn,” she told him.

Sensing the movement, Tralnis and Henry turned around
as well. Their smiles faded as they looked at the airship they were
trying to hire. It was a mere 140 feet long, and only 35 feet tall,
not including the two weather beaten masts. The outriggers were 75
feet long, and the rune bands looked like they hadn’t been polished
since the runes had been engraved onto them many years ago.
Different colored wood showed where the ship had been patched up
from serious damage. The number of different colored wooden patches
was staggering. Gareth wondered if there was any wood from the
original hull still there. The front loading ramp, which comprised
the most of the leading edge of the ship, was down like a
drawbridge on an ancient castle. The open ramp made the airship
look like a beached whale about to vomit.

Scampering sounds from near their feet made Tralnis
and Gareth look down. A large rat had walked up, and stopped next
to the two University professors. It stared at the Glorious Dawn,
and twitched its nose in agitation. With a dismissive sounding
squeak, the rat turned around, and left to find nicer
accommodations.

Tralnis watched the rat until it was out of sight. He
looked up at Gareth, and muttered, “Well, that can’t be a good
sign.”

Izzy stepped forward, and then turned around to face
Gareth. She held out her hand, and put her palm on his chest. “Wait
here while I go get my sister, Elizabeth. She’s the captain of the
Glorious Dawn and the other part owner,” she stated. He nodded that
he understood. Izzy ran up the loading ramp, and was quickly out of
sight.