Gareth and th Lost Island

by Patrick Mallard

  Elizabeth glanced up at the ship’s wheel, and saw Pilot standing serenely behind it. He was waiting for Izzy to perform some sort of miracle yo get them the power the ship needed to escape. “Pilot, behind you!” Elizabeth screamed as a pirate carrying a curved sword tried to sneak up behind him. The pirate wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the fact that his sneak attack on the Roehus had been ruined, or the handful of long black quills that were suddenly, and quite painfully, embedded in his face. His eyes rolled back in his head as the fast acting neuro-toxin on the tips of the Roehus’ quills worked its way into his bloodstream.

  Pilot’s remaining quills rattled as he shook his head to get them to fall back in place. “Thank you, captain of the Glorious Dawn,” Pilot called back before resuming his post.

  A different pirate flew past her, and slammed into the mast with the sickening snap of ribs breaking. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix those ribs up later if you want,” Tralnis yelled to the pirate who was lying in a heap. A second pirate followed the first, his arms hanging useless from his shoulders. “Don’t worry, I can fix those too!” Tralnis yelled.

  Elizabeth looked back along the pirates’ flight trajectory, and was very glad their usually peaceful doctor was on their side. The Dwarf was wearing a set of mechanical fists which connected to a metal exoskeleton that ran up his arms and across his shoulders. Hydraulic pistons ran the entire length of his forearms, and ended in black rubber hoses that ran to a pair of cylindrical tanks he wore on his back. “Why are you offering to help this scum?!” Elizabeth demanded.

  Tralnis shrugged his shoulders apologetically, a gesture magnified by the exoskeleton. “It’s the only way I can get around my oath as a healer to do no harm. As long as I offer to fix what I broke, it all equals out in the end,” he told her.

  Elizabeth shook her head in disgust. “Whatever helps you sleeps at night, Doctor. I just hope you can kill one of these assholes if you need to,” she spat.

  Tralnis looked slightly comical as he put his oversized, mechanical fists on his hips in defiance. “Dammit Captain, I’m a doctor, not an executioner!” he shouted back. At that very moment, a pirate wearing a shirt made of billowy red cotton accidently stepped in between Tralnis and another pirate who had managed to pick up Elizabeth’s revolver. Blood poured out of the red cotton clad pirate’s mouth an instant after the bullet smashed through his spine on its way to his heart.

  The angry howl of a Chim warrior came from above them. An orange and black blur swung down from a rope attached to one of the mast arms. Henry struck the deck a few feet in front of the pirate who had taken a shot at Tralnis. The Chim’s momentum made him slide along the deck between the feet of the pirate who had taken a wide firing stance. On his way past, Henry slammed Mr. Smashy squarely into the pirate’s family jewels. Every male on deck paused to take in sharp breaths, wincing in imagined agony at the horrible sound made when a cast iron frying pan meets a pirate’s privates.

  “Henry! The actions of one’s manservant reflect directly upon the gentleman who employs him, and a gentleman does NOT scramble scrotums with a skillet!” Tralnis chided his butler.

  Below the fight raging on deck, Gareth stood in the overheating engine room, wishing there was more that he could do to help. He knew nothing about the levers Izzy flipped, or the valves she would open and then shut a moment later. He couldn’t even offer her words of encouragement. They were both wearing earmuffs to block out the shrill screeching noise created by the magical feedback. Along with the horrible noise, the magical feedback was causing the Aetherium pumping engine to dangerously overheat.

  Gareth took off his jacket in the ever growing heat, and saw sweat pouring from Izzy’s brow as she ran around the engine room. She was making sure the magical feedback wouldn’t permanently damage any of the equipment that kept them flying. A cup and a jug sitting on a crate in the corner drew Gareth’s attention. He quickly poured whatever was in the jug into the cup. While holding the cup in one hand, he tapped Izzy on the shoulder with the other.

  Izzy took the cup thankfully, and poured the contents of the cup into her mouth. As soon as the liquid touched her tongue, Izzy spat it back out. Using her sleeve, she tried to wipe the taste off of her tongue. Gareth frowned, and picked up the jug. He held it to his nose, and took a deep whiff. It took a mighty effort on his part not to retch at the smell. The only way he could describe the smell would be to say that if coffee could die, and then somehow be brought back as zombie, this is what its ass would smell like. He had no idea that the jug had been put down there and forgotten about before Egite had left the ship.

  Gareth stumbled towards the window, his senses revolting. He undid the latch on the shutter that held it closed from the inside, and swung the shutter wide open, letting in some fresh air. After taking a deep breath of the salty sea air, Gareth stormed back into the engine room, and grabbed the cup out of Izzy’s hand. Without looking, he tossed the contents of both the jug and cup out the open window.

  Relief filled the pirate who had been clinging to the side of the Leyship since the beginning of the battle. Just as he began to wonder if he could hold on any longer, a window was suddenly thrown open. With determination, he clawed his way over to the window. As he pulled his head up to the open window, the pirate briefly met the eyes of a woman he assumed was the ship’s engineer. He saw her eyes widen before a black liquid that smelled like it had been siphoned from one of the dankest hells’ latrines was splashed in the pirate’s face. A combination of revulsion and instinct made the pirate let go of his handholds to wipe the evil substance from his eyes. The pirate instantly realized his mistake as fell backwards to his death far below.

  Gareth was looking at Izzy’s face as he tossed the eldritch horror masquerading as coffee out the window. Her eyes widened as if she saw something that frightened her. Gareth spun around, and looked out the window at the beautiful horizon where blue sky met the even deeper blue sea. He even went so far as to stick his head out the window, and looked first right and then left. Seeing nothing, he brought his head back into the engine room to see Izzy moving her eyes from him, to the open window, and then back to him again.

  Thoughts of the window fled as the Glorious Dawn rocked back and forth from multiple impacts. Izzy pointed up the stairs towards the upper decks. Gareth nodded, and hurried up the steps, taking them two at a time. He reached the top of the stairs in record time, and threw open the door to the main deck. His earmuffs blocked out the crunch of cartilage as he unknowingly smashed the door into a pirate’s nose. The pirate stumbled backwards with both hands on his bleeding nose. He tripped over one of his fallen comrades, and fell over the railing.

  Gareth stood holding the door open as he looked around at the carnage that had been going on while he was below decks. He rightly assumed that the large harpoons embedded in the deck were the source of the impacts he and Izzy had felt. Each harpoon was attached to a thick sturdy rope. Gareth followed the ropes upwards with his eyes, and saw they led to a dirigible painted white to blend in with the clouds. The dirigible was easily twice the size the Glorious Dawn. He could see pirates queuing up at their end of the ropes, ready to slide down and change the tide of the battle raging on the Glorious Dawn’s deck.

  Inspiration struck Gareth, and he ran back down the stairs. The only thing he had recognized in the engine room was a rune engraved on a large switch set aside from everything else in the engine room. It was the Dwarvish rune for power. As soon as he was in the engine room, Gareth dashed towards the main power switch. Ignoring Izzy’s panicked look, he grabbed the switch, and cut off the magical energy being fed to the Aetherium tubes from the batteries.

  Several things happened before Gareth managed to flip the switch, and restore magic to the Aetherium tubes. As the Glorious Dawn fell like a rock, the sturdy ropes attached to the harpoons pulled on the hull of the pirate dirigible with a force no one had expected. The fact that all of this force was focused on one half of the hull caused the support cables running
up to the gas sack to snap. Pirates fell to their death as their ship now hung sideways a half mile above the sea. Further strain from the falling Glorious Dawn ripped the harpoon guns from their moorings, severing the connection between the two airships.

  The fall of the Glorious Dawn was paused momentarily as it struck the blue painted air sack of the Leysapper directly below them. The gas sack shifted into odd shapes as it tried to compensate for the sudden extra pressure. Eventually, the pressure was too much, and the gas sack popped like a child’s balloon. The popping action shattered the crystal divining rods, ending the magical feedback. The Leysapper continued to fall as the Glorious Dawn slowed, and then stopped its decent after the now freely flowing Ley energy filled its magical engines.

  Izzy blinked rapidly as she tried to process the fact that not only were they not dead, but the comforting low hum from the magic engines meant that the sapper ship had somehow been dealt with. “Gareth, I can’t decide if I want to kiss you, or kill you!” she swore. Before he could argue which option he favored, Izzy dashed up the stairs to see what was going on. Gareth followed quickly on her heels.

  They found Elizabeth and Henry leaning over the railing looking at the sea which was now only a mere 200 feet below them. Tralnis undid fasteners on the metal exoskeleton as he slipped out of his mechanical fists. Gareth and Izzy joined Elizabeth and Henry at the railing. Below them, they could see the broken hull of the Leysapper and the figures of pirates swimming around. The crew of the Glorious Dawn didn’t notice a falling body from the capsized pirate ship above them until it made a huge splash when it struck the water.

  Tralnis fought back his fear of large bodies of water, and joined the others at the railing, gripping the wooden railing with such force that his knuckles turned white. He was the first to notice the large black shape in the water headed towards the Leysapper. The shape disappeared as it dove deep into the ocean before it reached the fallen ship. A moment later, the Leysapper rocketed upwards, caught in the jaws of a massive beast. The jaws snapped shut, and shattered the Leysapper, sending shards of wood flying in every direction. As quickly as it appeared, the leviathan slipped back under the water, taking the Leysapper with it.

  Tralnis stepped away from the railing until his back was firmly against the wood of the wheelhouse. “Gareth, you know how I said I would make the dive with you when we reached the dig site?” he inquired. Gareth nodded once, still staring at where the huge monster had been a moment ago. “I’ve changed my mind!” the Dwarf announced.

  Chapter 12

  The crew’s stopover in Consus was just long enough to sell most of their cargo of Pignuts, and turn the surviving pirates over to the local authorities. During that time, Henry and Tralnis hit the local markets to replenish the stores of the galley and infirmary. When they were done, the Glorious Dawn headed due east to the coordinates found on the metal tablet. Since the location was not near any Leylines, Pilot was forced to draw power from the magic batteries to stay aloft and rely on wind for propulsion. The journey from Pigshit to Consus had only taken a little over a week. When forced to rely on wind power for movement, the much shorter distance from Conus to the dig site took them five days.

  Pilot double checked the magical and mechanical instruments set in a panel in front of the ship’s wheel. Satisfied they were above the coordinates “the passenger who almost got them killed in an undergarment soiling fall” had given him, the Roehus reduced power to the Aetherium tubes, and lowered their altitude softly. He stopped just high enough above the sea that only the tip of the loading ramp was touching the water.

  Henry helped Sheldon move the crates that held the diving equipment into the middle of the cargo hold where Izzy and Gareth were waiting. Izzy had volunteered to take Tralnis’ place after the Dwarf swore he would never purposefully surround himself with that much wet death. Gareth had been pleasantly surprised to find out that Izzy had been trained in both the magical and mechanical forms of diving.

  Izzy pried open the lid of the crate in front of her, and examined the gear Gareth had brought. The crate held a deep water diving suit of the highest quality. The smaller crate next to it held breathing rods of similar quality. Henry pulled out two small black adapter rings from one of the numerous pockets on his vest. Izzy relaxed since using the adapter rings made diving a whole lot easier. The only thing she didn’t recognize right away was a long, thin cable that Gareth attached first to his helmet and then Izzy’s. She assumed it was just a way to make sure they didn’t go too far away from each other in the murky depths.

  Henry helped Gareth into his suit while Elizabeth did the same for Izzy. After they put on their helmets, the helpers clipped on short rods covered in light emitting runes. Using the adapter rings Henry provided, Tralnis and Elizabeth attached the magical breathing tubes to the air intake port at the top of the domed helmets. They quickly tightened the bolts that attached the helmets to the suits, since the breathing tubes only worked when submerged in water. Gareth and Izzy shambled down the cargo ramp and into the ocean. Twin thumbs up signs sticking out of the water told the others the suits were working perfectly.

  Izzy flinched in surprise when she heard Gareth’s voice in her helmet. “Can you hear me okay?” he asked.

  She started to nod her head, and then remembered Gareth wouldn’t be able to see it. “Yes, I can hear you. You sound a bit muffled though,” she responded.

  “They were still working out the kinks in the sound cable when we uh… borrowed the suits. It sort of works along the same principle as running a string between two tin cans,” he told her.

  When they were young girls, Izzy and Elizabeth had played that game, and knew you had to keep the string taught or sound wouldn’t travel along it. The cable that linked their helmets had plenty of slack. “How does this work? I thought the string, or cable in this case, had to be strung tight between the two ends,” she inquired.

  Even though he knew she couldn’t see his face, Gareth gave Izzy a mischievous smile. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing there weren’t any priest to inspect our gear and unscrew the housing to the connector fittings. If they had, I would have had to explain why there were small energy converting runes engraved into the ends of the cable,” he told her.

  Izzy thought about his answer and smiled herself. “There are two cables bundled together, aren’t there? You would need one in each direction with reversed runes at the opposite ends for it to work right,” she surmised.

  “Very good, Izzy. I’m impressed. You’re right, we use two cables. When I left, the Applied Magics gents and I were experimenting with which runes worked the best. That’s why our voices sound muffled. We haven’t quite found the right combination of runes and cable material,” Gareth explained.

  As they sunk even deeper towards the ocean floor below, Gareth kept turning rapidly, startling Izzy. “Gareth, if you keep turning like that, you’re going to wrap yourself up in the cable,” she chided him.

  “Sorry. I keep seeing something out of the corner of my eye. A large something, with far too many teeth for my liking. Whenever I turn to get a better look at it, it darts away,” he explained. “It looks like our lights are keeping it away, so I don’t think we have to worry too much about it,” he said.

  After seeing the leviathan eat the Leysapper ship, Izzy wasn’t nearly as confident as Gareth sounded. She shifted so her back was towards Gareth, giving their lights a larger field of coverage. Wanting to get her mind off of a scaled killer hiding just outside the reach of their lights, she sked, “Other than a city that was submerged in a terrible earthquake, what exactly are we looking for?”

  “To be perfectly honest, I’m not really sure,” he admitted. “The first tablet was found in a ruined temple deep in the plains of the Southern Continent. I’m hoping we can find a similar building and start our search from there,” he said.

  “You mean something like a stepped pyramid?” Izzy asked.

  “Yes, something like that,” Gareth confirmed. He hea
rd her sigh over the cable connection, and felt her hand on his shoulder, gently turning him to face the same direction as she was. Looking into the murky depths, he saw the four sided stone ziggurat Izzy was talking about.

  Izzy was about to tease Gareth about not seeing the ziggurat first, but realized both of their lights were facing forward, leaving their backs exposed. Contrary to her earlier remarks to Gareth, she spun around as fast as she could to shine her suit’s light behind them. Izzy gasped as the light played off the dark green scales of a fish whose head was larger than she was. A dinner plate sized eye blinked rapidly in the sudden light.

  “Gareth, remember that thing you were trying to see, but it kept swimming away?” she inquired softly.

  “Yes. Why?” he asked, focused on the rapidly approaching pyramid below them.

  Had Izzy wanted to, she could have reached out, and touched the monster fish that had narrowed its eye in displeasure at being blinded. “Now would be a good time to speed up our decent,” she replied.

  Gareth stiffened as he caught on to what Izzy was saying. He slowly turned around, and saw how close the monster was. Part of his mind was very proud of Izzy for facing such a terror and remaining calm. Another part of his mind suggested he scream, void his bladder, and curl up into a frightened ball. Luckily, the majority of his brain was working on ideas to get him and Izzy out of there alive. “There is an emergency valve on the right side of your belt. If we turn them all the way counterclockwise, it will flood our ballast pouches, and we’ll sink like rocks. We just need to make sure we turn the valves at the same time so we don’t get separated and snap the communication cable,” he whispered as if he thought the monster fish could both hear and understand him.