The Key to El Dorado (chapter 4)

The balloon shrivelled, steaming hot air hissed out, and the airship with whining monsters collapsed into the sea."

The Key to El Dorado
by Andy Polyak

Chapter Four

 

The morning sun shone the veranda and woke up Andreas who had been sleeping under a green blanket on a sofa not taking his clothes off. He put on the jacket and the high-boots.

Lynette came in, she was dressed in the same caftan, the same shirt and trousers as before visiting the Dryads.

"Already going?" Andreas buckled the belt of the sheath.

"I don't want any trolls to get to this place hunting for me," she sighed, "better to wait for Jim and Iven at the island."

They walked through the blooming town towards the portal. Lynette touched the marble arch with her palm, the radiance flared up, and they stepped into that light cautiously.

Moonlight flooded the ancient road, the colonnades and the half-sunk staircase with blue silver. The arbour where they had lunched could be seen clearly. Dark silhouettes of prowling monsters were also sharply defined against the cyan night landscape, throwing long shadows onto the footpath slabs, even the iron blades of their halberds looked black.

Lynette and Andreas quickly hid into the bushes growing between columns and kept on watching the brutes from behind branches.

The trolls didn't notice them, loitered near the arbour, hoarsely snorting and shuffled away along the bay shore.

Andreas went out of the shrubbery, gazing around intently. Lynette joined him, peering into the blue darkness too. They slowly walked along the road and then dipped into the thicket, following the enemy stealthily. In a while they saw lights shimmering from behind the leafage ahead. Having slunk through bushes, they squatted behind the last vegetation cluster at the overgrowth edge and looked out.

Crackling bonfires shone the beach sand, trolls walking about or sitting and drinking something from kegs, slurping loudly. Two giant zeppelins stood out above the surf like two oblong light-grey hills. One of them had been tied to stakes just two dozens footsteps away.

"Ah!" Lynette gave a gasp of astonishment at the sight of the imposing airships.

"Shhh!" Andreas warningly put his palm onto her shoulder as three monsters started a talk at the nearest bonfire.

"Have you found them?" the chieftain barked rudely, he had a black tassel on his helmet top and that distinguished him from the others.

"Not yet," one brute, an ugly creature with a long nose, replied in a strident voice but with a fearful subservient intonation.

"Idiots!!" the chieftain roared, "loafers!"

"Don't worry, lord Stetsko!" another menial, stocky and bulky, tried to pacify the fury of their ruler, "they cannot escape now! Our flotilla keeps an eye on the yacht, we will not let the Dwarf take them away!"

"Yes, really!" the first monster gave a series of nods in a fit of a servile ardour, "our boats will come here in the morning to surround the island!"

"Find them!" the chieftain uttered arrogantly, "I sense the key, it must be somewhere close at hand!"

The two menials minced away, the chieftain imperiously strode to one more group of his soldiers to order them about, only growling indistinct commands could be heard.

Lynette and Andreas wordlessly exchanged glances. He pointed at the near-by zeppelin with an expressive look, she nodded.

The gondola was designed like a marine ship deck, wooden planking and parapets. The balloon had a vast hole at its bottom with a black sooty burner fixed under it, resembling a large oil-stove, a weak flickering flame illuminating a heap of numerous barrels and kegs.

Having sneaked up, Lynette and Andreas got onto the gondola deck through the open wicket in the parapet, he helped her to climb aboard. Then they unsheathed their swords and simultaneously cut the two thick ropes the airship had been moored to the beach with. The unleashed apparatus swayed and slowly moved upwards.

"Add some hot air to the balloon, and I'll get rid of the superfluous ballast!" he asked her quietly, grabbed a keg and threw it overboard.

Lynette reached out her hand and turned the burner faucet on. The flame glared and rumbled triumphantly.

The trolls bawled and rushed to the launching zeppelin. One snarling monster jumped up, his paws clutched at the wooden banisters, but Andreas dropped another keg onto his head and knocked him down.

"Stop them!!!" the chieftain screamed somewhat hysterically and trotted towards a big long boat. His two obsequious assistants hastily followed him and bustled awkwardly putting a sail on, hampering each other in a tangle.

The bonfires, the scurrying enemies, the shore, everything was getting away becoming smaller and smaller.

"What a lumber! A kerosene engine!" Andreas came up to a ridiculous aggregate of cranks, cylinders, gear-boxes and pistons at the stern and tugged at a lever. The device sneezed, puffed with smoke, rattled but did begin to work rotating a pair of huge propellers.

Then they saw the second airship chasing them, rising and approaching to them rather quickly, ferociously howling trolls brandishing lances in its gondola.

Lynette and Andreas resumed throwing the ballast out, and that let them gain height. The hostile zeppelin appeared to be straight below. A big barrel fell onto it, fractured it and made a hole in its shell. The balloon shrivelled, steaming hot air hissed out, and the airship with whining monsters collapsed into the sea.

"Oohhh!" Lynette passed her hand over her forehead, giving a sigh of relief, "what now?"

"To the University Lighthouse, I suppose," Andreas looked around at the night sky, then clicked with a couple of switches on the engine control panel, and the zeppelin made a slow turn, "that bright constellation indicates the North."

"What if we get lost?"

"We shall not! Watch attentively!" he diminished the burner flame and led her to the gondola prow, they stood there holding at the parapet.

The stars, the sea glimmering with the moonlight, nothing more in the night expanse.

But one star gleamed somewhere far away at the very horizon line, gradually getting brighter.

"What's that?" she wondered.

"The Lighthouse!" his calm tone was reassuring.

"You must have been involved in such adventures many times," she gave him a look.

"Not considering this our trouble," he replied a little musingly, "my life is rather boring."

"Really?" she queried, "but hired guardians travel a lot and fight a lot?"

"At the sight of a Grey Knight," no pride but an ironical pity in his intonation, "robbers usually think twice before attacking. Thus, I don't have to use my sword very often. I take part in commercial trips mostly to see the world."

The aquarelle azure was insensibly lightening, and in the early morning twilight the two travellers saw a distant coast. A colossal lighthouse towered above a town of geometrically immaculate streets, rectangular buildings of white stone, even dark tiles of roofs seemed to be precisely adjusted to one another. There were no fortification walls, but a massive breakwater protected the harbour.

"We should not park our transport here, it's too large to be imperceptible," Andreas tugged at a rigging rope, a valve at the balloon top let some hot hissing air out, and the zeppelin lowered to the beach, nearly touching the water.

Hand in hand they easily jumped off onto the sand, the surf waves washed their high-boots. The empty airship rose again drifting away, and they headed for the town shone with the pink dawn.

A flagstone embankment, a long house with a dark wooden entrance door, a parquet in a corridor with high windows.

"Isn't it Andreas, one of our brilliant graduates?! together with a young lass!" a middle-aged man in a long dark-purple mantle wondered. His short brown hair wasn't turning grey yet, and his face had no particular wrinkles, but he made an impression of an intelligent and sophisticated person.

"How do you do, professor McClellan!" Andreas greeted him.

"When shall you settle down, get married and busy yourself with science, at last?" the professor shook his head, pretending a disapproval, but his eyes were benevolent.

"We have an interesting heirloom, would you take a look at it?"

"Let's talk in my study!" professor McClellan showed them the way to a vast hall with a vaulted ceiling. Lacquered wooden desks were swamped with things from different worlds and times. Rolls of antique manuscripts, a grey portable computer with some rich multicoloured text on the flat display, figured bronze candlesticks, piles of paper near a white printer. Ancient voluminous books with golden titles, digital compact disks in transparent plastic boxes on the shelves of bookcases.

"Amazing!" the professor exclaimed when Lynette gave him the key, after a short but attentive surveying he returned it to her and began to rummage on a shelf, "I have seen it, but where?.. A-ha!"

He chose a large book in a dark cover, opened it and put it onto a table, turning pages. Drawings of archers, knights, castles... and a picture of the key.

"Dryads and Elves left El Dorado and locked all its portals," Lynette read the ornate italic text, "not to fight multifarious invaders any splendid land always attracts... They descended from the Malachite Plateau and created a realm near the Ariadna City..."

"The Malachite Plateau? Very interesting!" professor McClellan came up to the globe, gently rotated the big sphere and found the necessary spot on a greenish continent. "As a rule, chronicles make no mention of such desolate places."

"Still, it's a vestige," Andreas leafed through the book, "how far is it from here?"

"It would be faster if you had a ship..."

"We do have a ship!" Lynette exclaimed after throwing an occasional glance at the sea behind the windows, "look, Andreas!"

The yacht was sprightly approaching to the lighthouse, the morning breeze filling the mainsail.

Lynette and Andreas hurried outdoors, nearly running to meet Jim and Iven at the wharf, waving their hands.

"We remembered that you had been talking about this town!" the Dwarf smiled alighting onto the embankment, the Elf following him, evidently also glad of the rejoining.

"I'll acquaint you with one of my teachers," Andreas led them to the building, they entered the study. "Professor McClellan, let me introduce Iven the Elf and Jim the Dwarf to you... eh... What are you doing?"

"Packing up to go with you," the professor had taken three big black rucksacks and now was pulling wrapped things, pocket books and pencils into them, "I hope, you don't mind?"

"But it will be dangerous!" Lynette warned, "trolls have been chasing us!"

"My grown-up children forgot about me, my wife left me, so, why should I immure myself in the library?" the professor took his mantle off and remained in dark trousers, high-boots, a white shirt and a brown waistcoat. "Am I not a researcher?"

"And what's our new destination?" Jim asked.

"The Malachite City," professor McClellan bent over a map spread on a table, his finger traced a route, "then we shall go up the Northern River to the Plateau."

They helped the professor to finish the packing, took navigation tools, a quadrant, a bronze compass.

Lynette carried only long but weightless rolls of furled maps, the others were loaded with rucksacks and bags when returning to the ship. The professor brought even folding armchairs resembling chaise-longues made of orange cloth to install on the deck.

"We are entering the Warm Current," Jim said when they left the University town, the sea scintillating around, "it will deliver us to the North faster than the Eastern wind."

McClellan participated in taking the sails away with an obvious pleasure. They coped with the rigging together, and the yacht proceeded with the advance adrift, the gigantic lighthouse moving away and getting smaller.

"Jim, you and Iven must be tired," Andreas offered, "have a rest, I'll be on watch!"

"Oh, no, allow me to enjoy my first standing on guard!" the professor exclaimed with enthusiasm, going up the staircase to the stern and taking a compact dark-green telescope.

Stifling a yawn, the Elf disappeared behind the lower deck door, the Dwarf followed him not arguing either.

"Andreas, will you help me to cook breakfast?" Lynette looked at the Grey Knight.

He nodded. They walked down too, but stopped in the bar hall not going farther to the corridor with cabins.

"More and more people get involved in this," she opened a built-in cupboard and began to take big bowls with fruit, pouches, bunches of lettuce out, putting those ingredients onto the counter. "Do they really have to risk? The burden of this mission is mine..."

"Who knows!" he examined a small bronze oil-stove, lit it with a match and put a silvery kettle onto the fire, "maybe, not only yours, and you have to pass this way together with friends. I will surely go with you to the end."

"Do you think trolls will catch up with us quickly?" she looked down cutting the lettuce.

"Searching for some new transport will delay them, I hope," he started peeling the fruit.

In a short while they brought silver plates and cups to the upper deck and put them onto a wooden folding table.

"What about the others?" the professor asked making himself comfortable in one of the chaise-longues and taking a plate.

"They will have their portions when they sleep enough," Lynette answered and sat down.

"Professor, can we screen the key?" Andreas inquired. "It magically radiates and serves as a beacon for the enemies."

"Vital energy is not scientifically explained yet," McClellan shrugged, "besides, who can possibly screen love, devotion, mercy and kindness? Many things remain miraculous."

"Well, it means only that we should not linger on one place," Andreas pronounced optimistically, "let's enjoy the sunny day while having a respite."

"I wish I could close my eyes," Lynette reclined in the chaise-longue, "and imagine this tranquillity has come forever."

The placid time elapsed transiently. Jim and Iven appeared on the deck when the noon came. They set sails and changed the route. Soon a mountainous shore became visible.

High castles with turrets were standing on cliffs, roads winding on the terraces of hills, stony arches of bridges above narrow dells. The river estuary water reflected not only the citadels towering in the sky but also the wharf and the densely built-up lower part of the city where houses had a less expressive fortification style.

Long and sturdy wooden barges were slowly floating fully laden with huge lumps of marble, granite and other minerals of different tints.

Soldiers in hauberks, merchants in florid garbs, workers, Dwarfs, a usual fuss in the port. Nobody paid attention to the arriving yacht.

"We need equipment for mountain climbing," Jim watched Iven showing McClellan how to put the ladder out after the mooring, "and find some guard to look after our ship."

"Then, let's do it!" Lynette was the first to come ashore. She made a few steps on the embankment and, watching the towers, nearly collided with some sailor in black trousers and a striped vest, but she stopped and shrank back in time, not touching him.

"Watch out!!" the sailor roared impudently, malice distorted his red physiognomy. He stretched his paw out to grab Lynette, but he didn't manage to do that.

Andreas swiftly intercepted the paw, caught and twisted the thick fingers sharply. The boorish sailor whined in pain, dropped onto his knees and crawled away.

But his six or seven mates, people of the same kind, started to approach growling, threateningly holding sticks and chains.

Lynette and Andreas unsheathed their swords, Iven flicked an arrow out of the quiver and strained his bow, Jim raised his battle-axe, McClellan pulled out a long dagger.

"Shame on you! You are so ill-mannered!" a strong voice sounded unexpectedly.

The spiteful sailors shrivelled in fear, cowardly retreated and disappeared at the sight of five young men with swords. Unpretentious dark suits and jackets, rather long hair, the new-comers looked reserved but confident.

"Who are they?" Lynette asked in an undertone.

"Grey Knights, just as I am," Andreas replied and made a gesture for Iven to lower the bow.

"Hello!" the men unhurriedly came up, "how are you getting on, Andreas? Any troubles?"

"Mere trifles! We have got a key to El Dorado, trolls are hunting for us..."

"El Dorado? It can be our dreamland!" the Grey Knights exchanged astonished glances, "we must help you!"

"Just hide our yacht!" Andreas pointed at the ship, "keep it for us till we come back from the Plateau. The local people inspire no trust, as you saw..."

"No problem!" one of the men answered eagerly, the others nodded, "we shall deliver it up the river to the Rock Town!"

"Feel free to use our food supplies!" Jim said with a friendly smile, "we don't need hungry guardians!"

The travellers went to their cabins to take their bags, the professor also put a brown jacket on, and they left the ship.

The Grey Knights departed without delay, coping with the steer and the sails easily.

"Pickaxes, chisels, hammers," Jim viewed the shopwindows on their way, "no camping outfit."

"It means," Iven conjectured, "that they work their marble quarries and never go sightseeing."

"And the highland is not overcrowded, I hope," Lynette added.

The city ended, the cobble-paved street had its continuation as a macadam road flanked with stunted fir-trees, twining around a rocky hillside, gradually rising above the river level. It seemed that the water assumed the colours of the pale sky, blue-green forests and the daylight, added its own transparent aquamarine and mixed all those tinges creating a new bluish aquarelle, a twinkling liquid azure.

Having passed a massive cliff, the five friends saw an arch of a grey stony bridge across a wild affluent foaming at a narrow canyon bottom. They stopped at a road fork.

"Which way now?" Lynette asked viewing the magnificent panorama of high mountains.

"The Malachite Plateau is in the North," McClellan pointed at an old neglected footpath leading along the canyon edge.

They veered from the main road and walked towards distant cascades of waterfalls, monotonous but resonant murmuring of impetuous streams.

Fir-trees changed into rare shrubbery and grass clusters growing between cracked boulders. They kept on ascending, higher and higher, entering a more barren landscape where only gravel was crunching underfoot.

"These are not green hills of the South," the Dwarf noted, "did Elves really dwell in this place?"

"Probably, they just made a stop here for some time," McClellan supposed, "then they found a suitable area near the Ariadna City. What do you think, Iven?"

"Yes, most likely!" the Elf agreed. "We arranged our kingdom after a long journey many centuries ago."

Having passed a rift in a rock, they came up to a majestic tower built of huge dark-grey granite blocks. Slightly crannied wind-lashed merlons, no windows at the lower half, embrasures high above the ground. Some fragments crumbled, but the whole stronghold still looked firm and reliable.

They came in through the gateway, a vaulted corridor in an exceedingly thick wall. The dim hall turned out to be devastated, swamped with smashed barrels, collapsed banisters of the staircase, tarnished broken swords and lances.

Lynette, Andreas and Iven went upstairs, to the apartments the sunlight was seeping from, and surveyed the tower. Narrow embrasures served as windows for deserted storeys. Armchairs and tables, cupboards and shelves, the ramshackle furniture seemed to be cracked of dryness.

The Dwarf and the professor stayed near the gates, trying to repair an immense winch having a steel chain on its reel. Jim adjusted a pawl, they pulled the levers hard, and the mechanism rasped loudly. A massive iron lattice moved down and blocked the entrance.

"Nobody upstairs!" the Elf informed returning to the hall together with Lynette and Andreas.

"What's this?" Jim noticed a big metal ring and hauled it, a heavy hatch lid screeched open uncovering a dark rectangular aperture, "an underground tunnel?"

"Let's check it!" Iven took an Elvish lantern out of his bag and plunged into the darkness, climbing down steep stony stairs, the Dwarf followed him.

"Well?" Lynette called bending over the hatch and peering into the glimmering of the lantern.

"It leads to a brook!" the clear voice of the Elf resounded in the tunnel before he appeared in the aperture, Jim going after him.

The friends closed the lid accurately.

After that all of them went to the roof platform encircled with merlons. The highland was splendid in the light of the amber-pink sunset.

"Look, one more fortress!" Lynette noticed a distant silhouette.

"Yes, watchtowers were built in a succession of mutually visible neighbours," McClellan took his compass out of the waistcoat pocket and defined the direction, "tomorrow we shall try to find some vestige there."

They came down to one of the apartments. Andreas fetched an armful of crooked planks from broken barrels, Jim lit a mantelpiece using those bits as firewood.

The others took darkened draperies from the walls and spread them on the floor near the fire, making beddings not to sleep on bare granite, satchels instead of pillows.

"What's you specialization, professor?" Iven asked with curiosity when they wearily sat down onto the folded fabric.

"A real, not falsified history."

"But who needs to forge history?" Lynette wondered.

"Imagine that some king needs cannon fodder to unleash a war," the professor started lecturing inspiredly, "his menials write fake history books to convince people that wars and cruelty are normal and even honourable. And the people become eager to murder and die."

"That's awful!" Jim shook his head indignantly.

"That ruler," McClellan went on, "doesn't want his people to know about noble Elves who never commit crimes, never betray, never swindle. Or about industrious Dwarfs, tender Dryads..."

"But he cannot possibly erase all the information!" Iven doubted.

"But he can state that Elves are just a legend. Who ever believes in legends? If you come to the human dimension and say that you saw an Elf, you will be considered insane."

"I'm beginning to comprehend," Lynette pronounced thoughtfully, "if people knew about Elves, at least some part of them would adopt the Elvish morality. Just as Grey Knights do."

"Precisely!" the professor nodded.

"Well," Andreas stood up and concluded cheerfully, going out, "as far as not all the creatures want to be good, somebody has to stand on watch. I'll be the first."


Copyright © Andy Polyak




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