Gareth and th Lost Island

by Patrick Mallard

  “What?! How… why?!” Gareth sputtered.

  Tralnis gave him another lopsided grin. “What do you remember from the party we threw when you got your Language Mastership?” he asked.

  Gareth frowned as he tried to recall that night. “I remember there were quite a few of my students, lots of drinking, and… that’s about it actually,” he admitted.

  Tralnis nodded, since that was the answer he expected. “Once you were well into your cups, you somehow got it into your head that it would be great idea to streak nude across the campus. Henry and I chased you from building to building, while you quoted obscure poetry in several different languages,” he explained.

  Henry’s nod confirmed Tralnis’ story. Gareth blushed a bit before he picked up the clay tablet, and looked at it again. All he could see was scribbles that made no sense, definitely not the stylized rune for the word “language” that had been tattooed on his rear end sometime when he was a toddler. Gareth had no memories whatsoever of his life before being found on the white sandy beaches of the Island Republic of Draconia 16 years ago. He had already received the tattoo before he was found. It was even more improbable that the clay tablet had the same rune, since his rune tattoo was in a language that only Gareth could read.

  Henry shook his head, and snatched the tablet out of Gareth’s hands. He lifted the tablet to the level of Gareth’s eyes and tilted it so Gareth would be looking across it, rather than directly at it. Gareth slowly lifted his hands, and took over control of the tablet again as he muttered, “Will you look at that?” He tilted the tablet to look straight at it again, and the image of the rune disappeared. Titling it back so it was parallel with his eyes brought the rune back into view. Gareth turned the clay slab over in his hands so he was looking across the opposite side of the tablet. He was forced to read the new inscription three times before he believed that he was reading it correctly.

  “What does it say?” Tralnis asked in a hushed tone.

  Without warning, Gareth slammed the clay tablet onto his desk hard enough to break it. The sudden act of vandalism caused Henry and Tralnis to both flinch in startled surprise. Gareth looked at his friends sheepishly before pointing at the tablet. “Sorry, the runes on the back side were instructions that said ‘Break to Open’,” he told them. Henry reached over the table with one of his orange furred hands, and brushed a piece of the broken clay tablet aside. Underneath the clay was a shiny, silver colored tablet covered in more runes.

  Gareth helped pick away the rest of the clay to completely uncover a metal tablet that was hidden inside. He sighed slightly in relief when the runes on the new tablet were printed normally, and easy to read. Focusing on the tablet, Gareth pulled out one of the blank journals from his satchel and a fountain pen.

  “Don’t keep us in suspense, Gareth, what does it say?” Tralnis pleaded.

  Gareth looked quickly from the tablet to his journal as he translated the runes. “It doesn’t actually say anything, or at least not in a way I understand. The runes are just groups of numbers with the occasional letter thrown in,” he explained. After he had transposed all the number groups, he stared at the journal. He was sure he had seen something similar to the third set of numbers before. Closing his eyes, he retreated into his memories to locate when, and where, he had seen the similar numbers before. He eventually came across the right memory, and snapped his eyes open. “Henry, I need you to climb on to the top of that bookcase over there in the corner, and grab whatever maps you find,” he ordered while he pointed at a bookcase on the far wall. “Tralnis, I need you to help me get to the bottom box of this stack,” he said as he gestured to the nearest stack of boxes.

  Tralnis smirked, and pushed the carefully balanced stack of boxes over. The only box remaining upright was the one Gareth said they needed. “Done,” he said smugly. He noticed Gareth’s look of shock and dismay so he added, “Come on, it’s not like you’re the one who will have to clean the mess up!”

  “Good point,” Gareth conceded and tore the top off the box they needed. “We’re looking for a book bound in light brown leather, with a Kraunish star and circle on the front,” he informed Tralnis as he searched through the box.

  After a moment, Tralnis pulled out an ancient book, and showed it to Gareth. “This one?” he asked.

  “That’s the one!” Gareth said excitedly. He took the offered book, and went back to his desk. With his free hand, Gareth swept everything that was left on the desktop off onto the floor. Henry returned, and put four ancient looking maps, along with one recent one, on the desk. “We need these two,” Gareth declared as he picked up one of the ancient maps and the most recent one. Both maps were atlases of Hadronus, just 13,000 years apart. Gareth carefully unrolled the ancient map, and held down one edge with the book Tralnis had found and the other edge with his journal.

  Gareth opened up the Kraunish book, and flipped to the page he was looking for. He ran his finger down a table of numbers and matched them up with points on the map. When he was sure he understood the way the ancient Krauns wrote map coordinates, he used the set of numbers from the tablet and located a small town on the coast of the Northern Continent. Gareth flipped through the book again, and found a table that showed how to translate Issian coordinates to Kraunish ones. The numbers used by the Issians matched the second group of numbers on the metal tablet. Gareth double checked the numbers, and found the Issian coordinates pinpointed the same town. “There!” Gareth shouted as he put his finger on the town.

  Henry and Tralnis shared excited looks. This was the first time since they had been given this seemingly impossible quest that they thought they might actually have a chance of pulling it off. Their happy looks slipped however when Gareth added, “… and that’s going to make things difficult.”

  “Why? All we need to do is charter an airship and we’ll be there in a week, maybe two,” Tralnis said optimistically.

  Gareth pointed to the ancient map, “This map was made before the Second Great Apocalypse. During the cataclysm, one of the ancient races released weapons that caused tremendous earthquakes,” he said before rolling out the newer map. “This is what the coastline looks like now and here…” he put his finger down in an expanse of blue next to the coastline, “is where that town is now. It’s at least 50 miles off of the coast.”

  Tralnis stepped back from the desk, and ran his fingers through his long beard in a sign of nervousness. “A great big bloody ocean… why did the town have to be in the middle of tons and tons of liquid death,” he moaned.

  “What’s wrong?” Gareth asked, concerned since he had never seen this side of his father before.

  Tralnis closed his eyes, and took in a few deep breaths to calm himself. “One of the things Dwarves are most scared of is drowning when a cave suddenly fills up with water. Large bodies of water scare us silly,” he admitted.

  Creasing his brows in confusion, Gareth pointed out, “Tralnis, you live on an island in the middle of the Narrow Sea.”

  Tralnis met Gareth’s eyes with steel in his own. “Yes, and you’ve not once seen me at the beach the whole time we’ve known each other,” he countered.

  “Alright, since Chims can’t swim, I’ll just have to make the dive myself. At least, as soon as I figure out how to get my hands on a diving suit that is,” Gareth muttered.

  “No, you better make it two suits. I’ll not let my son go into a dark, watery hell alone,” Tralnis corrected him. “And while we’re on the subject, any ideas where to find a pair of diving suits? It’s not like we can ask the Dean to loan us some from the School of Nautical Sciences,” he pointed out.

  Henry snarled, and blew air past his lips and followed up with an opened lipped smile that showed his sharp teeth.

  “What did he say?” Tralnis asked Gareth.

  “He said we just won’t ask before we take them. It’s easier that way,” Gareth replied. Tralnis matched Henry’s feral smile with one of his own.

  Chapter 6

  Tralnis c
hecked over Gareth’s black clothes, making sure that only the young scholar’s face was visible. They were both wearing black trousers, black sweaters, and knee length black overcoats. Black watch caps purchased on the dock earlier that evening finished out their ensembles. Tralnis finished the inspection by smearing soot under Gareth’s eyes.

  “Where’s Henry?” Tralnis asked, realizing his butler (and the instigator for the night’s adventure) was absent.

  “He said he would meet us in the park near the Sea Labs,” Gareth replied.

  Tralnis held up a long black trench coat that would cover Henry from his shoulders to his ankles. “I bought this for him. I know he hates pants and it was the only thing I could think of that would cover his orange fur,” he stated.

  Gareth started to chuckle when he realized that Henry never had the opportunity to demonstrate to Tralnis the skills that had been passed down in his family for generations. Growing up with the Chim as his best friend, Gareth had seen what Henry was capable of. “Leave it. I promise you’ll be impressed,” he assured Tralnis.

  Tralnis gave Gareth a very skeptical look, but put the trench coat down on the table. “I hope you’re right,” he muttered as they made their way out the front door and down the street that led to the park where they were to meet Henry.

  The sun had gone down, and the park was apparently empty except for Gareth and Tralnis. Seeing no sign of Henry, Tralnis huffed in annoyance. “You would think that with the watch I got him for his last birthday, the blasted Chim could show up on time,” he groused. Looking up at Gareth, he saw his son biting his lip in an attempt not to laugh. “Just let it out, Gareth. You’ll probably rupture something if you don’t,” Tralnis warned, rolling his eyes. Gareth let out a guffaw, and pointed to a large tree a few yards away.

  At first, Tralnis couldn’t make out what Gareth was pointing at, but as he crept closer, he saw that part of the tree was moving. A few steps more, and he was able to distinguish a shape shaking rhythmically in the branches. When Tralnis was right next to the tree, he could make out a shape that looked disturbingly like a Chim’s backside covered in mud and leaves shaking in his direction. “What is that?” he asked.

  “That would be a Chim’s ass. I thought as a doctor you would be able to identify one when you saw it,” Gareth joked.

  The muddy monster jumped out of the tree, and landed in front of Tralnis. The only things not covered in mud and leaves were two intelligent brown eyes, and a wide smile full of sharp teeth. Henry made kissing noises, and then snorted to greet his employer. Tralnis admitted to himself that he really was impressed, and looked to Gareth for some sort of explanation.

  “For as long as they can remember, Henry’s family were the hunters of their Clan. They were responsible for feeding a whole village. Over the centuries, his family learned that ambushing their prey was much easier than chasing after it. Even after they immigrated to the IRD, Henry’s parents taught him how to camouflage himself in case he needed to do something without being seen,” Gareth said, filling in some of the empty blanks in Tralnis’ knowledge of the Chimmian Woohaa Clan. Gareth gestured towards the hazy outline of the Sea Labs in the distance. “Gentlemen, we have some thievery to get to,” he announced.

  The three would be burglars made their way to the southernmost edge of the University Arcanum where it met the warm waters of the Narrow Sea. The School of Nautical Sciences was surrounded on three sides by a seven foot high stone wall left over from when the buildings had been an outpost for the IRD Navy. Two large guns that had been silent for decades overlooked the sea, protecting the tiny harbor from nautical threats.

  Gareth had visited the School of Nautical Sciences on several occasions. Professor Rand had made him get certified in the various diving equipment used by the University for the rare occasion when they worked on a site that was underwater. He chose a place along the wall that he knew was close to the outbuilding where the equipment was stored.

  Carefully looking around to make sure no one else was near, Gareth bent over slightly, while cupping his hands together. Tralnis gave a running start, and planted a foot in the offered hands as Gareth jerked upwards. The Dwarf hit the top of the wall just below his armpits, letting him get a firm hold on the stone. After two unsuccessful tries, Tralnis managed to kick a leg over, and was soon dropping over the other side of the wall. A string of softly spoken Dwarvish curse words let them know Tralnis had landed without too much injury.

  Henry took Gareth’s place, and did the same thing with his hands. Gareth underestimated Henry’s strength, and Henry underestimated how hard his friend was planning on jumping. The result was Gareth sailing up and over the wall without a chance for him to grab anything. His attempt at snagging the top of the wall on the way past only managed to flip Gareth over. He landed flat on his back with a wince inducing thud.

  “Ouch. That looks like it hurts and probably smells something awful. What is it with you landing in piles of horse shit lately?” Tralnis commented dryly while trying to pick flower petals off of his coat. The Dwarf had managed to land in a bush famous for the quantities of blooms it produced. Flowers that were not only beautiful, but devilishly hard to get off of clothes due to them being covered in tiny stiff hairs.

  Gareth would have said something snarky back to Tralnis, if he hadn’t just had the wind completely knocked out of him. Eventually, Gareth was able to get his lungs working again, and he smelled the pile he had landed on. While he had missed the flower bush, Gareth had managed to land in the fresh manure used to fertilize said bush. When he was sure nothing was broken, Gareth sat up, coughed, and held his nose with one hand. He crawled a few feet away to give Henry a clear landing place.

  A minute passed with absolutely no sign of Henry. Both Tralnis and Gareth gave a sudden start when a gate not 10 feet away swung open towards them. Henry casually walked in, and closed the gate behind him. He saw his friends, and gave them a cheerful wave of his hand.

  “Let’s agree to never speak of this again,” Gareth whispered to Tralnis.

  “My lips are sealed,” Tralnis agreed. He offered Gareth his hand, and helped pull the young man back to his feet. Once Gareth was upright, the three of them scurried across the manicured lawn. They hoped to reach the side of the main building to seek concealment under its eaves. The second moon had risen, making the trio feel naked on the empty lawn. When they finally reached the building, they placed their backs to buildings and scooted towards the equipment shed.

  The bright light of a handheld lantern blinded them as a guard stepped out from around the corner of the building. The three friends froze in the sudden pool of light, not knowing if they should flee or fight. Almost as quickly as he appeared, the guard darted back behind the corner of the building. They heard a second guard ask, “Did you find what was making all of that noise?”

  “Yeah … just a Human and a Dwarf dressed all in black with a Chim covered head to toe in mud. I’d think they were up to no good if the Dwarf wasn’t covered in flowers, while the human was covered in what smells like horse shit. They must have some kind of nature fetish or something,” the first guard replied.

  “Do you want to hang around and watch?” the second guard asked in a tone that said he would be fine with whatever his friend suggested.

  After a short pause to contemplate things, the first guard eventually answered, “Nah. The last time we watched a Dwarf led Ménage a Trois, I was distracted for a week trying to figure out how they managed to get into some of the positions they did. All though, thinking back to that week does give me some ideas. Let’s give these blokes some privacy and head back to the guard shack for some quality time ourselves.”

  “I thought you would never ask,” the second guard said, his voice husky with eagerness.

  When the three thieves could no longer hear the retreating footsteps of the guards, Gareth and Henry looked down at Tralnis and his coat of multicolored blossoms. Tralnis held up his hands, and shrugged his shoulders. The last thing he wanted
was to look a gift horse (or giant mole in the case of the Dwarves) in the mouth.

  Gareth walked ahead of the other two, and cautiously peeked around the corner. Once he was assured the guards, who were partners in more ways than one, really had gone to their shack to experience some carnal rest and relaxation, he waved the others forward. “Henry, the equipment shack is usually locked. My original plan was just to break the lock, but I have a better idea now,” he announced. Gareth pointed towards the guard shack at the end of a row of large trees. “Why don’t you use those trees for cover and go get the keys for us. I’m pretty sure those gents will be fairly distracted for a while,” he suggested.

  Henry nodded his head, and ran off to the first large tree he could find. This time, Tralnis got to watch as Henry quickly climbed up the tree, and swung from branch to branch with his long arms. Less than 20 seconds later, Henry was completely out sight.

  Several tense minutes passed while Tralnis and Gareth could do nothing but wait. After what felt like an eternity, they heard the metallic clinking sounds of keys being rattled from the canopy of the nearest tree. Henry seemed to fade into existence out of the branches above them. He was spinning a brass key ring full of iron keys around his finger. With a flick of his wrist, Henry tossed the spinning keys to Gareth.

  The lock on the equipment shed opened easily once they figured out which of the dozen or so keys fit it. Gareth held the door open for Tralnis, who rushed inside as fast as his short legs could carry him. They were far too close to the sea for the Dwarf’s peace of mind. After Henry trotted inside, Gareth shut the door and locked it from the inside.

  Tralnis sighed in relief now that he had sturdy stone walls around him. “Alright, we’re inside, so now what? I haven’t the foggiest idea of what we’re looking for,” he announced.

  Gareth walked over to a row of lockers, and started opening the doors. “We’re looking for these,” he replied as he pointed to two large suits made of brass, rubber, and oiled leather. On shelves above the suits sat large domed shaped metal helmets with thick glass viewports braced with more brass. On top of the helmets were short brass tubes with fittings to mate them with air hoses.