The thief was confused when she found herself standing in front of an inn, instead of the district guard post. The man waved to the innkeeper, and ordered three lunch specials. He turned his violet eyes towards her once again, and then changed the order to four lunches. With a nod of his head, he gestured towards a wooden booth at the back of the taproom, far away from any doors or windows. The woman slid in first, and the thief found herself sandwiched between the two strangers.
“If I let go of your arm, will you promise to stay long enough to have lunch?” Gareth asked softly. The thief nodded her dumbstruck head. Gareth let go of her arm, and used the now free hand to rub his opposite shoulder. “Good, because my shoulder is absolutely killing me. Henry always made that look so easy when he was teaching me how to do it,” he stated pleasantly. When the food arrived, he pushed two plates in front of the girl. As soon as the girl was sure the man wasn’t going to suddenly pull the food away, she started eating like the starving child she was.
“My name is Gareth, by the way, and the woman you stole from is my friend Izzy,” Gareth said.
“Teesh,” the girl said around a mouthful of food. When she saw Izzy giving her a confused look, she swallowed what was in her mouth and said, “That’s my name… Teesh.”
Izzy shifted in her seat so she could get a better look at the young thief. “I’ve only visited St. Mareen a few times, but on each visit I was asked to donate to the local orphanage fund. Why are you living on the street if they have several orphanages in town?” she asked softly.
Gareth saw how Teesh flinched at the mere mention of orphanages. “It’s not always that black and white,” he stated, answering for Teesh. “Even in the good orphanages, like the one I grew up in, things can get pretty bad. The staff can only be so many places at one time, and some of the older kids exploit that fact. In the bad orphanages, it’s usually better to live on the street so you don’t have to worry about both the older kids and the adults who are supposed to be protecting you. Places like St. Mareen, which have a high number of parentless refugees, usually end up with more of the bad types than the good,” he tried to explain.
Teesh nodded her head in weary agreement. “Gareth’s right. Most of the orphanages in St. Mareen are not so secretly run by the Scaled Ones. The strong children are taken away to be sold as slaves, while the pretty ones are sold closer to home to local brothels. Miss H’jarth had negotiated a contract to sell me to a brothel that specialized in young girls. When I got too old to attract the sick bastards they call customers, I was to be resold to one of the Aetherium mines the Scaled Ones run,” Teesh told her as she carefully watched Izzy and Gareth’s reactions.
Teesh wanted to believe that they really were just nice people, but she had heard stories from the older kids on the street about nice folk who were really just slavers in disguise. Gareth’s expression was one of simmering anger, but not surprise. Izzy’s on the other hand, was rapidly shifting from horror to a blazing, white hot anger that would rival the sun for its burning power.
“Where is that bitch?!” Izzy demanded, rising from her seat with her fists clenched at her sides.
Teesh gave Izzy a genuine smile, while she pulled on the older girl’s arm to get her to sit down. “I’ve made some very good friends since I escaped. Miss H’jarth died in a horrible not-accident involving a rabid camel and a barrel full of fireworks,” she told her.
While Gareth tried to imagine how that particular scenario would play out, Izzy raised her eyebrow and repeated, “…not-accident?”
Teesh gave them a playful smile, and shrugged her shoulders. “What else would do call something that was totally on purpose?” she replied.
Chapter 15
After finishing off two lunch plates and three desserts, Teesh was finally full. It was a feeling she hadn’t had since her village had been destroyed in the religious wars of her country several years ago. She followed Gareth and Izzy out of the inn and back onto the street. “Since I promise not to try and steal your bag again, can you tell me what’s in it? It must be something pretty valuable if Gareth is willing to sacrifice his body to get it back,” she inquired. Teesh had noticed Gareth rubbing his shoulder again when he thought no one looking.
Izzy motioned Teesh and Gareth to step under an unused awning across the street. When they were all huddled in the shade and free of prying eyes, Izzy opened the sack, and took out one of the figurines. This small statue looked like it was wearing some sort of form fitting bodysuit. A tiny metal cape that was crafted so it looked like it was blowing in the wind was attached at the figure’s shoulders.
With her opinion of Gareth’s intelligence dropping rapidly, Teesh asked, “You risked snapping your neck over a bag of metal dolls?”
“Metal doll made out of something that looks like silver but isn’t, and were made before the Second Great Apocalypse,” Gareth corrected her.
Teesh’s eyes grew wide as she took a closer look at the figurine. Perhaps Gareth wasn’t an idiot after all. “Where were you planning on offloading a haul like that?” she asked.
“Well, before you interrupted us, we were headed to the market to find a merchant who sells similar stuff and offer to sell these to them,” Izzy replied. She wasn’t prepared for Teesh to roll her eyes dramatically. “What? What’s wrong with my plan?” she asked, slightly offended.
“Nothing, except for the fact that the market is for regular people, not the fat pockets who collect rare, ancient junk. Not to mention that some other thief would swipe the bag after the second time you told some merchant what you had,” Teesh replied. She gave Gareth a dirty look as if to say she expected more from a fellow orphanage survivor.
Gareth interpreted her look correctly and said in his defense, “I was about to explain why her plan wouldn’t work when a short thief, who likes to dress up like a dwarf, complicated things.”
Teesh put her little hands on her hips. “I just haven’t hit a growth spurt yet!” she countered.
Putting her hand on his shoulder, Izzy pushed so Gareth would face her. She felt a little guilty when he winced and she realized she had just pushed on his injured shoulder. “Alright Professor, if my plan was such rubbish, how about you tell me yours?” she ordered.
“I was just going to go to the local university, and talk to some of the archeologists. Since they usually get paid for digs by a small share of the items recovered, they would know which wealthy citizen would be interested in acquiring what we found,” he explained.
Teesh nodded her head, happy that at least one of her new friends had thought things through at least a little. “Not bad, but you probably won’t get a very good price trying to sell the metal dolls…” she said.
“Metal hero figures,” Gareth corrected.
Teesh rolled her eyes again, making Izzy laugh. “Like I said, metal dolls. If you try to sell all of them to the same buyer, they will think they can get a bulk discount. If you take the time to sell them to multiple buyers, they will know that what they are getting isn’t unique, and they won’t offer you as much money,” she explained further.
To put things mildly, Izzy was impressed. “We should hire you to do all of our cargo negotiations,” she said half in jest. “I take it you have a third option?” she inquired.
“Of course. You just need a good fence who will buy your loot, and then string along the deep pockets until they pay four times what he gave you,” Teesh replied. “Follow me. I’ll introduce you to the fence I usually use. He has always been fair to me,” she offered.
“Your call, Izzy. You and Elizabeth have the larger share, so you have more at stake,” Gareth said, deferring to her.
It was times like this that made Izzy glad Elizabeth was the captain and not her. While Elizabeth usually attacked every problem with cold calculating reason, Izzy tended to follow her heart. It was a heart that was at the moment telling her to trust the girl who had stolen from her just a few hours ago. Izzy could almost hear Elizabeth’s voice in her head reminding her
of the string of failed relationships she had been involved with, and that perhaps her heart wasn’t the most reliable judge of character. A second voice that sounded like their mother’s reminded Izzy that following her heart was the key to happiness, and that she should trust it this time.
Decision made, Izzy knelt so she would be eye level with Teesh. “We’re trusting you, Teesh. Please don’t make us regret that,” she implored.
Impulsively, Teesh hugged Izzy, and then stepped back. It had been a long time since she had female grown up trust her. “You won’t!” Teesh promised. Without thinking about it, she slid her hand into Izzy’s, and started to lead her to where they needed to go.
Teesh led them past the central market place to an old church that had been boarded up. The side door to the church opened inward, showing the boards across it had been nailed into the walls rather than the door. Teesh waited impatiently while Izzy and then Gareth squeezed their much larger frames past the boards. Once they were inside, Teesh jumped up to grab the base of a metal torch sconce. The sconce slid down the wall a couple of inches, and was followed by a loud click coming from the plain stone altar at the rear of the church. Teesh gave the altar a small push, and the stone that weighed at least 50 times what she did slid to the side. Under the altar stone was a hole in the floor with a ladder leading down.
Gareth walked next to the hole, and looked over the side. The bottom was cloaked in darkness. Teesh stepped around him, and started to climb down the ladder. She stopped only a few feet down, and fumbled for something on the stone wall in front of her. She twisted a knob, and gas torches placed evenly at 20 feet intervals sprang to life, lighting the way down. With the light, Gareth was able to estimate the ladder stretched at least 10 stories underground. “Try not to fall on me. You’re kinda heavy,” Teesh teased Izzy who replied by sticking her tongue out at her.
By the time they reached the bottom, Gareth’s hands were cramping, and his knees were shaking from over use. “I’m not looking forward to going back up that way,” he commented.
“As long as we make a good deal with my fence, he should let us use his back door to get back to the surface,” Teesh told him.
“If that’s not an incentive to make some bargaining concessions, I don’t know what is,” Izzy chuckled dryly, while she rubbed the cramps out of her calves.
Teesh gave them a few more minutes to recover before she led them through a series of tunnels carved into the rock. They stopped when they came to a set of metal doors that blocked the passageway. Teesh knocked on the doors and waited. When she didn’t get a response, she plopped down on the floor, and made herself comfortable. “Yanlith must be out on an errand. We’ll just wait until he gets back,” she said.
“How long should we wait?” Izzy asked.
“Until Yanlith gets back, or you’re ready to climb back up that ladder,” Teesh replied.
Izzy put her back to the wall, and used it to guide her while she slid to the ground next to Teesh. “Wait it is,” she agreed.
Gareth wasn’t paying attention to the girls at all. Next to the doors were Dwarvish runes carved into the wall. He ran his fingers along them, translating in his head. “Based on these runes, I would have to date these tunnels to being built sometime during the Fourth Ironbeard Dynasty,” he announced to no one in particular. Teesh looked at Izzy who shrugged her shoulders. Izzy didn’t know what he was talking about either.
A deep, gravelly voice boomed out from the tunnel they had come from. “I’m impressed lad. Most humans who can read our language aren’t able to see the subtleties in the runes that mark which dynasty they come from,” a Dwarf said, as he stepped into the light. Spectacles hanging from a chain around his neck combined with the brown three piece suit made him look like any other mid-level businessman. The Dwarf looked over at Teesh and smiled. “So, what has my favorite street urchin brought me today? Or should I say who has she brought me?” he wondered aloud.
Gareth held out his hand to the Dwarf. “My name is Professor Gareth Mintel. Teesh has led us to believe that you might be interested in acquiring some pre-Second Great Apocalypse artifacts,” he said.
Yanlith’s smile grew even wider, as he rubbed his hands together greedily. “She did? Smart lass, that one,” he said, clapping Gareth on his bad shoulder causing the young man to draw in a sharp breath from the pain.
“We need to have Tralnis take a look at that shoulder. I’m worried you might have torn something,” Izzy said.
Yanlith cocked his head to the side as he listened to Izzy. “You said Tralnis, lass. You wouldn’t happen to be speaking of Dr. Tralnis Granitestaff would you?” Yanlith inquired.
Gareth nodded his head. “The very same. How do you know him?” he asked.
The Dwarf gave out a long, deep bellied laugh. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Yanlith Granitestaff, Tralnis’ younger, and much better looking cousin,” he stated as he pulled a large brass key put of his waistcoat’s pocket. He put the key into first one of the metal doors, and then other. After two loud clicks, he pushed the doors open and gestured inside. “How is that old saw bones these days?” he inquired as Gareth walked into Yanlith’s cozy home.
“Right now… I would guess he’s drunk, and trying to seduce as many people as he can fit into his rented bed at the inn closest to the airship port,” Gareth replied.
“He’s here in St. Mareen?! Let’s take care of business quickly, so I can go get hammered with family,” Yanlith suggested. He led them to a small table with four chairs designed for Dwarves. After pulling out the chairs for Teesh and Izzy, he motioned for Gareth to sit before he took the last chair. “Tell me, did Tralnis ever get the formula right for that instant sobriety potion he was working on?” he asked. “I could make a fortune selling those on the open market,” he added.
Shuddering at the memory of how the elixir had tasted, Gareth nodded his head. “It works fine, but tastes worse than his cooking,” he replied.
Yanlith’s smile faded slightly. “Lad, I think you might just be exaggerating there a bit. Tralnis and I shared a flat after he left that septet commune he lived in for a while. Technically, what Tralnis did could be called be cooking, but I always thought of it as a crime against nature and all that is good in the world,” he stated, turning slightly green at the memory.
Izzy and Teesh laughed at the twin expressions Gareth and Yanlith had. “Come on, he can’t be that bad,” Izzy insisted.
“Lass, when we shared that flat, Tralnis had a rat terrier as a pet. I swear we had the only dog on Hadronus that didn’t lick its balls just because it could. Ours was trying to get the taste of the table scraps out of its mouth,” Yanlith informed her. He turned his attention back to Gareth. “Does the potion really taste that bad?” he asked. Gareth nodded his head yes. “Damn, maybe I won’t be able to sell it after all,” he muttered.
Changing direction of the conversation, Yanlith leaned back in his chair and said, “I would offer you lot some tea, but my stomach is suddenly off,” he half-joked. “Teesh, I know nothing puts you off of your appetite, the biscuits are where I usually keep them,” told her. Teesh instantly got up from the table, and rushed to where she knew the kitchen was. Shaking his head in amusement, Yanlith gestured with one hand towards Gareth. “Let’s see what you brought me,” he said.
Gareth pulled the three, shiny, metal figurines out of his jacket’s inside pocket. “We recovered twelve of these on a recent dig,” he said, as he passed one of the little statues to Yanlith.
The Dwarf unfolded his glasses, and placed them on his nose. He lifted the figurine to his face, and turned it from side to side. After looking at it from all sides, he tossed it up and down in his hand softly. “This is going to be a tough decision,” he muttered.
“What is?” Izzy asked.
“Who I sell these to of course. There’s no doubt that these are pre-Second Great Apocalypse, and will fetch good prices with collectors, but I also have some metallurgist friends who would pay a pretty
penny to get their hands on these. Perhaps I should let both sides see one of the figurines, so I can start a bidding war,” Yanlith explained happily. “I’ll take the lot of these for a thousand IRD marks apiece,” he offered.
“We’ll take it!” Gareth and Izzy exclaimed at the same time.
“Good! Now let’s go find my cousin, so those of us who are of age can get drunk off our arses!” Yanlith suggested eagerly.
Chapter 16
Gareth leaned on the doorframe leading into the Glorious Dawn’s galley with his good shoulder. His other arm was bound in a cloth sling. Tralnis had laughed his short little ass off over the story of how Gareth hurt his shoulder while he reset the joint. Tralnis told him he would need to wear the sling for at least three weeks. Gareth only had a week left, and was grateful it would come off before they reached Chimia.
Henry was busy preparing the crew’s evening meal, and Gareth thought he had never seen his friend happier. The Chim was even humming a jaunty tune as he used both his hands and feet to chop, stir, and flip the contents of various pans. He managed to use only one hand to chop, thanks to the skull Gareth had brought back from the sunken temple.
When Gareth had examined the still wildly snapping skull, he had found a strange rune carved at the base of the skull. As near as he could put it, the rune looked like a combination of the words “life” and “duty” written in the mysterious language only he could read. Another odd part about the rune was that while it was obviously providing magical power to animate the skull, the equipment in Izzy’s engine room showed the rune had no magical signature what so ever.
Gareth and th Lost Island Page 13
