by C. Litka
02
Though most of the islands were clustered into five to ten kilometer clumps, often tied together by strings of vines, there were plenty of small, boulder-sized islands floating free to make for slow going - dodging all the little islands, while staying on course, for the still unseen core islands. Life teemed all around us, from the treetops of the big jungle islands to the mossy floating rocks, to the air about us. Like in the Halfway Islands, the larger dragons did not flee, nor did the larger lizards, sunning themselves on the bare rocks, move as the Lora Lakes slowly steamed past. The air around us was alive with the calls of the colorfully plumed birds and lizards. Butterflies and the fist-sized beetles of the Pela flirted and bumbled about the deck finding their way into the engine room through the open skylights. The moist breeze was lushly sweet with the scents of flowers and vegetation. And the deeper we went, the sky grew speckled with all these blue and green islands.
DeArjen stood on the bridge wing deck, confidently calling out orders to the helmsman. He never hesitated as we dodged, over this island, around that one, ever deeper, into the archipelago. He certainly needed to have the talent to have been able to direct the ship through these hundreds of floating rocks towards the vague blue smudge that marked the center of the archipelago.
It must've been exhausting working on the bridge. The engines were controlled from the bridge so that all we had to do was to keep the electric motors of the various propellers, large and small, supplied with electricity. At the speed we were moving, we could have supplied the engines on battery power alone, so we did little more than keep the batteries charged and watch the control panel as the various propellers spun up and down.
We spent the better part of two watches slowly weaving our way through the islands before the blue smudge grew into a large, green, vine-tied cluster of islands. This group, DeArjen assured us, was the home of the red-feathered people, the fabled Dragon-people. We then spent another hour drifting along its shore, searching for the large passageway that DeArjen said existed, that would allow the Lora Lakes to reach the inner hollow where the Dragon-people's village could be found.
BayLi and I, along with most of the off-duty crew stood at the bulwark of the afterdeck staring at the nearly solid jungle drifting by, close at hand. There were dark openings between the islands, but they were laced with vines that tied the islands together. I could see no opening large enough to drive the Lora through.
'Ever seen islands so entwined together with vines?' I asked turning to BayLi next to me.
'In brochures for tourists. They're usually called "floating jungles" But those were civilized places. Not like this,' she replied, staring about.
There were dragons, several of them quite large, drifting over and through the tangle of islands, searching for dinner. Every so often they'd flap their forelimbs to move on. Smaller flying lizards and birds flirted overhead, their calls and squawks filling the air. Familiar enough sights and sounds. And yet.
'Kind of eerie, isn't it?'
She gave me a glance. 'Not a place for tourists, I think.'
That, coming from a small islander, did nothing to ease my unease.