“Go on,” Izzy suggested, riveted by his story.
“I was with Henry when they skulked out from the alley. I knew Henry wouldn’t fight back, so I stepped in front of him and told the bullies they would have to go through me first,” Gareth stated.
“What happened then?” Izzy asked.
Gareth gave her a crooked smile. “We got our asses well and truly kicked is what happened,” he told her. “Lucky for us, one of the city guard saw the beating, and stepped in before it got too bad. I got sent to the clinic, and the bullies spent a weekend in jail,” he said. “For the next five years, the odd band of bullies would wander into our neighborhood, and try to pick a fight with Henry. With each passing year, their insults became worse and worse. I knew what it was doing to Henry to not fight back, so I stepped in every time. Like every time before it, we got beat up. At least we got beat up standing side by side. Henry is the hairy brother I never had,” Gareth stated.
“That’s both the most horrible, and yet beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” Izzy said, her voice full of emotion. The Morgana sisters placed a lot of value on family sticking together. Wanting to change the subject to something she hoped would be more cheerful, she asked, “So how did you meet Tralnis?”
Gareth chuckled again. “Remember how I said we kept getting beat up?” he asked. Izzy nodded her head. “Tralnis worked part time at the clinic in the ghetto, donating his time. After patching me up for five years, he said he might as well just get guardianship of me considering how often we saw each other. Imagine my surprise when the orphanage matron pulled me out of class the next day to tell me a Doctor Tralnis Granitestaff had convinced the local magistrate to grant him custody of me,” Gareth said with a fond smile.
Izzy found it impossible not to smile along with Gareth when his violet eyes twinkled like that. “Even though Tralnis lived on the other side the city, I still managed to make it to our park a few times a week to see Henry. A couple of years later, Henry’s parents died in an accident. True to form, Tralnis took in Henry as well. He sponsored both of us for the schools of our choice. Henry went to the culinary school, and I went to the University Arcanum. I became the youngest professor in the University’s history, and Henry became the only Chim to not only be accepted to the school, but to be the head of his class. Henry could have worked at any restaurant he wanted to. Instead, he moved back home. Henry informed Tralnis that he was going to be the Dwarf’s butler, whether he wanted one or not,” he said, laughing at the memory.
“So the three of you aren’t just friends, you’re more of a family,” Izzy paraphrased.
This caused Gareth to chuckle even more. “I guess so. Well as much as a kinky Dwarf, a Chim with a questionable sense of humor, and an orphaned muta… er, human could be a family,” he said, catching himself near the end. His verbal slip made the smile Izzy was getting addicted to fade away.
In Izzy’s opinion, a change of topics was needed once more. “I recognize the white stripe of a doctor on Tralnis’ jacket and the black vest of a butler for Henry. What do the stripes on your jacket mean? What exactly does Professor Mintel do at the University Arcanum” she asked in a teasing voice.
Gareth chuckled at her playful tone. He pointed to each stripe on his jacket in turn. “The wide blue one means I’m a professor for the School of Languages. The brown ones shows that I’m an adjunct professor for the Archeology Department, and the narrow green one indicates that I’m a researcher with the Department of Applied Magics. Up until recently, I mostly taught classes in the School of Languages, and a few in the Archeology Department when they were short staffed due to other professors being out on expeditions. All of my duties have been suspended until I finish this expedition,” he replied.
Izzy nodded her head, impressed. “Applied Magics… does that mean you’re a wizard?” she inquired. Wizards were an insular lot, and she had always wanted to meet someone who didn’t need runes to perform magic.
Gareth outright laughed this time at her question. When he saw her hurt expression he quickly said, “I’m the farthest thing from a Wizard you can find, literally. Have you heard of the extremely rare wizards known as mages?” he asked.
“Those are the blokes who don’t even need a focus object to perform magic, right?” she asked for clarification.
“Yes, and they’re extremely rare. At any one time, there might only be 20 to 30 of them on Hadronus. People like me are just as rare. I have no magic what so ever, not even the slight glimmer that most of the population has,” he told her.
Izzy frowned in confusion. “What do you do for Applied Magics if you don’t have any magic? I would think you would need to be at least an Adept to be of any use,” she commented.
“Each of the major universities around Hadronus have at least one person like me working in their Applied Magics department. Since we don’t radiate any magic, we are able to calibrate divining equipment to a much finer degree than anyone else can. We are also the only ones who can sketch out experimental runes without the danger of them getting energized before they’re ready,” Gareth told her with a smile. He wanted to get to know Izzy better before telling her about his more secretive work on combining runes with mechanical objects.
“I never thought about that before. I can see why they would want you to work with them. You said you’re primary job was with the languages department. How many languages do you know?” she inquired.
Gareth paused and looked slightly self-conscious. “18,” he answered.
Izzy stopped and stared at Gareth. “You’re kidding?!” she blurted out. He shook his head no. “Wow!” was all she could say. As they entered the trading bazaar, the buzz of conversations being held in several different languages filled her ears. Not for the first time, she wondered what they were all talking about. Izzy grabbed Gareth’s arm, and dragged him deeper into the bazaar. She stopped near a pair of blue skinned Gutree who hailed from the ice cap at Hadronus’ North Pole. “What are they talking about?” she whispered to Gareth.
Gareth closed his eyes so he could focus on his hearing better. After a minute, he opened them and looked at Izzy. “Nothing really exciting, the one closest to us was telling the other about a new whale blubber restaurant he found,” he relayed.
Like a kid with a new toy, Izzy spun around gleefully, and pointed at a lone Roehus female who was pacing back and forth talking to herself. “How about her?” Izzy asked pointing to the red skinned woman.
Gareth listened for a moment, and then blushed slightly. “She’s… uh… she’s been gone from home for quite a while. Currently, she is planning out in graphic detail what she and her husbands are going to do once she gets all three of them in their mating chamber,” he translated.
Izzy nodded her head in approval. “Good for her!” she stated. A loud argument from behind them drew her attention. Two slightly potbellied Centaurs were yelling at each other using large, rapid hand motions. “What’s up with those two? Are they fighting over a female or something?” she wondered aloud.
Again Gareth closed his eyes, and focused on listening. As the Centaurs started to get louder, Gareth laughed, and shouted something to them in their own language. Hearing this comment coming from a human stunned them for a moment before they joined in on his laughter. As the Centaurs walked past, one of them reached over and ruffled Gareth’s hair.
Izzy put her hands on her hips impatiently waiting for Gareth to let her in on the joke. Gareth pointed towards the Centaurs. “They were arguing over which deathball team they supported would end up taking this year’s championship. I told them to ‘cheer up, at least they weren’t Houlton Tramplers fans.’ The Tramplers are so bad, they’ve become something of national joke,” he explained. Izzy rolled her eyes, and started to lead Gareth to the merchant she hoped to buy cargo from. “Just out of curiosity, what kind of cargo are we looking to buy?” he asked her.
“Well, since Consus is pretty far up north, I thought we would try to get as many crates of pignuts as we
can get our hands on,” Izzy told him.
Gareth stopped walking as his brain tried to process what she had said. While he had never been to Consus before, he had read travel guides about the city and the surrounding countryside. None of the literature about the area mentioned the population viewed pig testicles as a delicacy. He also wondered how the demand for them could outstrip the local supply. “Why don’t the local farmers just raise more pigs? I would think that would be a much more economical option than importing them,” he observed.
It was Izzy’s turn to stop in her tracks, and try to figure out what Gareth was talking about. When she realized he was taking her literally, she blushed and laughed at the same time. “Sorry, I forget you’re from this island. Just like the names for your cities, you lot probably have a different name for pignuts,” she apologized. “What do you call those small, brown fruits with the hairy outer rind? You know, the ones with the green insides that only grow here?” she asked for clarification.
“You mean dragontears?” he asked for clarification.
Izzy nodded her head yes. “You have to admit our name for them makes more sense,” she pointed out. Gareth did agree with her when he visualized the small fruit in his mind. Now that he thought about it, the sign hanging outside of their local fruit seller shop showing a banana hanging between two dragontears must have been why Tralnis always insisted they get their fruit there.
Chapter 11
Elizabeth Morgana stood behind Pilot as he navigated the magical currents along the Leyline they were flying above. The rest of the crew were at different parts of the ship doing their duties, leaving Pilot and her alone above deck. She used this quiet time to think about the three people that in the short span of one week had gone from passengers to crew members themselves. While Henry and Tralnis had both agreed to be crew members as part of their deal, Gareth was under no such constraints. Despite this, the young professor had bounced from area to area observing, and asking what he could do to help.
The only bad thing about Professor Mintel that Elizabeth could think of was how he looked at her sister, and how Izzy looked at him in return. Even though Izzy was an adult now, Elizabeth still thought of her as her baby sister. From experience, Elizabeth knew that the long distance romances their lifestyle dictated very rarely worked out. Her disastrous relationship with her last girlfriend was proof enough of that. For her part, Izzy had her fair share of relationships that hadn’t ended well. Elizabeth assumed that a relationship between Izzy and Professor Mintel would end up like all of the others.
The Captain’s thoughts were sent off track as she was thrown against the railing when the ship came to sudden stop. She cursed loudly as the door to the lower decks flew open. Tralnis, Henry, and Gareth ran out to see what was going on.
“Captain, what’s happening? Why did we stop so suddenly?” Tralnis asked as he ran up to where she was. Ignoring them, Elizabeth grabbed a spyglass hanging by a leather strap from a hook on the railing. She extended the brass tube and scanned the sky around them. “Captain, what are you doing?” Tralnis demanded.
Elizabeth swore again when she couldn’t find what she was searching for, even when she knew they had to be there. “Pirates!” she responded tersely.
“I’m not a student of airship tactics, but wouldn’t it be better to me moving if we are being chased by pirates?” Tralnis asked sarcastically.
“Yes, Doctor. Moving would be a really good idea right about now, but we can’t. Somehow, the pirates managed to slip a Leysapper under us without us seeing them,” Elizabeth replied tersely.
“What the hells is a Leysapper?” Tralnis demanded. Elizabeth ignored his question, and leaned over the side, trying to find the ship that was keeping them from escaping.
Seeing his captain was busy, Pilot answered for her. “Short passenger who is also our doctor, a Leysapper is a small dirigible pirates use when attacking Leyships. They are equipped with special divining rods that disrupt the magic flowing from a Leyline. Without the flow from the Leyline, a Leyship has to rely on its magic batteries to stay aloft. The batteries aren’t powerful enough to provide the magic needed to move forward as well. When the Leyship is fully disabled, the main pirate ship moves in for the kill,” he explained.
“There!” Elizabeth yelled as she found what she was looking for. “Bastards painted their gas sack and hull the same blue as the sea!” she swore, pointing to an irregular blue patch a couple hundred feet below them.
Tralnis pointed towards the lone cannon at the bow of the Glorious Dawn. “What about that thing? Can’t we shoot the sapper below us, or the main pirate ship when it gets here?” he asked.
Pilot shook his head no, causing his head quills to rattle. “The Leysapper is directly below us. There’s no way we can depress the barrel of the canon low enough to get a shot. As for the larger dirigible the pirates are most likely using, they will send out a swarm of two man ‘minnows’ to take control and neutralize any defenses before they risk their ship,” he explained. Pilot gave a distasteful look at their single canon. “The only thing our canon is actually good for is scaring away the occasional dragon,” he added.
Elizabeth had the spyglass to her eye again and scanned the clouds now that she knew the pirates used camouflage to hide their ships. “There they are!” she announced and pointed with her mechanical arm to starboard. “I count 12 minnows coming in fast. They’ll be on us in less than ten minutes,” she estimated. “Professor, go see if you can help Izzy eek out any more power from the batteries. Doctor… Henry, we’ll need you on deck to help out when we’re boarded,” she stated.
Tralnis turned to look at Henry. “You heard the captain, go fetch my fighting gloves,” he ordered. Henry didn’t bother to acknowledge Tralnis, and just ran to the crew quarters. After a minute, Henry returned looking slightly ridiculous wearing a pot on his head as a helmet. In one hand he held the large iron frying pan he had dubbed “Mr. Smashy”, and in the other a pair of boxing gloves. What didn’t look so ridiculous were the two single shot pistols tucked into the waistband of Henry’s kilt.
Tralnis rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. “No, not those gloves… the real fighting gloves!” he complained. “Never mind, I’ll get them myself!” he snorted, and stormed down the stairs to the crew quarters.
Precious minutes passed by while the minnows drew ever closer. Henry first impression of the tiny two man airship was that they must have been the result of a drunken one night stand between a dirigible and a bicycle. The pilot who sat at the back of the contraption not only steered, but powered the ship via pedals linked by gears to a propeller at the back. What the passenger of the minnow did in the fight shaped how the front end of the tiny dirigibles looked. Seven of the minnows had low slung platforms were pirates stood waiting until they got close enough to their prey to jump onto the enemy deck. The remaining two minnows had the front passenger strapped in tight to their seat. The straps were necessary because they needed both hands free to operate the long barreled rifles they were armed with.
The snipers took as good of aim as they were able to considering they were bobbing along with the air currents. The first two shots sailed harmlessly under the Glorious Dawn. The second set of rounds managed to strike the wooden deck, causing the crew to seek cover. This was perfectly acceptable for the “snipers”. Their main job was to force the enemy to keep their heads down to allow their fellow pirates easy approach routes.
Letting his hunting instincts take over, Henry ran to the main mast. He waved his hand to grab Elizabeth’s attention after she had taken cover by a barrel near the ship’s wheelhouse. When she looked his way, Henry patted the two pistols tucked into his kilt, and then pointed to the crow’s nest. Elizabeth nodded with a feral grin, and then drew her attention back to the approaching minnows. Henry tied the leather strap hanging off of his frying pan to a fastener on his kilt, and climbed the mast like only a Chim could.
After reaching the crow’s nest, Henry drew his first pisto
l, and took careful aim. A slow and easy pull of the trigger resulted in a thunderous boom with the sniper on the closest minnow dropping his rifle to clutch his chest. Blood welled from beneath the pirate’s fingers, and he soon slumped over in his seat. Henry was pleasantly surprised at his shot, considering he had been aiming for the sack of combustible gas suspended above the pirate. He adjusted his aim, and fired his second pistol. The gas sack above the second sniper manned minnow erupted in a spectacular fireball as his bullet found its target.
The loud explosion of one of their minnows caused the first member of the boarding party to mistime his jump. Instead of landing on the deck, he slammed into the side, and scrambled to get a handhold. The other nine pirates learned from his mistake, and managed to land on the deck safely. With their passengers gone, the remaining minnows spun around, and sped away as fast as they could pedal. Their pilots were desperate to get out of range of whatever had shot their cohorts.
Elizabeth snarled as she stood to face the invading pirates. With a practiced motion, she drew her pistol, and took quick aim at the first pirate she saw. Another pirate slammed into her from behind, causing her shot to go wide. The bullet dug a trough in the wooden railing across the deck from where she stood. Her pistol fell out her hand, and skittered out of reach. Furious, Elizabeth spun in place, and drove the end of her mechanical arm into the pirate’s jaw with all of her weight. Blood and teeth flew from the pirate’s ruined mouth. She followed up quickly by drawing her sword, and running it through the pirate’s gut.
Gareth and th Lost Island Page 9
