Gareth and th Lost Island (14 page)

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
heard 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.

“On the count of three?” she asked, keeping her eyes
pinned on beast in front of her.

“On three,” Gareth agreed. “One… two…,” he started to
say before the giant fish suddenly swam off.

“THREE!” Izzy yelled as the fish turned around, and
swam straight at them with its mouth full of razor sharp teeth open
to bite the odd looking prey. They spun their valves, and flooded
their ballast pouches. The aquatic predator snapped its jaws on
nothing but bubbles as Gareth and Izzy sank quickly out of its
way.

Knowing the monster would probably figure out where
they had moved too, Gareth reoriented his body so his head was
pointed towards the top of the ziggurat. Izzy had the same idea,
and they both swam as fast as their kicking legs could propel them.
A small stone room at the top of the pyramid seemed to be the best
place to be at the moment. As they swam into it, they realized the
room was situated at the top of a flight of stairs. Gareth pushed
Izzy down the stairs, and covered her body with his own as the
stone ceiling above them was shattered by the huge fishing ramming
into it.

The dazed creature swam off at an odd angle as it
tried to get its eyes to uncross after hitting the stone building
head on. Gareth waited a few minutes, and then popped his head
above the ruined stone walls of the stairway’s rooftop access. He
looked in every direction, including above them, before he rejoined
Izzy in the stairway. “It looks like that thing left for now,” he
relayed to her.

Izzy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had
been holding. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Professor, this is
definitely the least boring first date I’ve ever been on,” she
muttered to herself.

“Sorry, I think my helmet got hit by a rock. I’m
getting some feedback on my end of the cable. What did you say?” he
asked.

Izzy was eternally grateful the suit’s helmet kept
Gareth from seeing her blush. “Nothing, you must be hearing
things,” she lied. Before he could press the issue farther, Izzy
led the way down the flooded staircase. Their decent halted as the
staircase opened up onto a long hallway with rooms on either side.
Another stairway leading deeper into the core of the pyramid could
just barely be seen at the opposite end of the hallway.

The glint of reflected light caught Gareth’s eyes as
they passed by one of the rooms. “Hold on a minute,” he requested.
When Izzy stopped as well, he flipped his legs towards the ground,
and grabbed the stone doorframe, the wooden door having rotted away
eons ago. As he pulled himself into the flooded room, his light was
reflected back at him from numerous objects lining the shelves that
ran from floor to ceiling. He swam closer to the one of the
shelves, and gave out a long, low whistle. “What do you think these
are?” he muttered as he picked up one of the objects in his gloved
hand.

Izzy followed Gareth into the room and looked around.
The shelves were full of tiny incredibly detailed metal statues.
Each statue was of a person or dangerous creature. The one in
Gareth’s hand was a warrior holding a tiny sword that could be
removed, and put back in the statue’s hand. The arms and legs of
the statue could be moved to display the tiny warrior in different
poses. Neither Gareth, nor Izzy, had any idea that they had
stumbled across the head priest’s action figure collection. Just as
the long dead priest had no idea that the toys he had been
collecting since childhood would someday become a major
archeological find worth a fortune.

Izzy pulled out a small sack from her belt, and
started putting the tiny statues in it. Gareth dropped the one he
was holding into the sack as well. Before long, the small sack was
as full as it could be, and they had barely made a dent in the
volume of figures lining the walls.

“Ready to head back up?” Izzy inquired as she tied
the sack firmly to her belt.

“Not yet. I want to see what’s at the heart of this
pyramid,” Gareth replied.

“Lead on,” Izzy insisted, as they swam towards the
stairway leading down.

Four floors below the priest’s quarters, they found a
large room than spanned the width of the building. In the very
center of the room was an altar made of stone that was so black it
seemed to absorb all light that struck it. Life sized stone statues
of men and women lined the perimeter of the room. Skeletons of
those who had died thousands of years prior were lying on the floor
with their weapons still in their hands.

Izzy started to swim towards the altar, but stopped
when the communication cable went taught. She looked back and saw
Gareth was standing eerily still, staring at one of the statues.
She swam back, and looked at the statue that had him so fascinated.
The statue was of a man dressed in an odd sort of plate armor that
seemed molded to fit his body. A slender helmet was held in the
crook of the statue’s left arm. In his right hand he held a rod
that was about two feet long and made of the same light devouring
substance as the altar.

Following Gareth’s gaze Izzy saw he was staring at
the statute’s head. The statue had been carved so that its hair
looked like it was pulled back in a tight ponytail. After a moment,
she realized that instead of the normal human ears she expected to
see, the statue ear’s came to a point at the top. As far as she
knew, the Elves were the only one of the 12 sentient races to have
pointy ears. The difference between the statue’s ears and an Elf’s
ear was obvious, since the ears of an Elf were twice as long with
the point facing to the rear instead of up.

Gareth felt Izzy shake his shoulder, and he came back
to the here and now. He was slightly embarrassed when he realized
that she had been repeating his name to get his attention. “Gareth…
Gareth! Are you alright?” she asked worriedly.

Gareth gave his head a slight shake to clear mind,
not an easy action in a helmet. “What? Um… yes, I’m fine. Sorry,”
he apologized.

Izzy sighed, and slid the black rod out of the
statue’s hand. “Here, you can keep this as a remembrance of your
time together,” she said sarcastically, as she handed him the rod.
To her surprise, Gareth didn’t say anything, and just tucked the
rod into the dive suit’s belt. “Come on, let’s go check out that
altar,” she suggested. Gareth nodded, and they used the base of the
statue as a platform to kick off from.