Gareth and th Lost Island by Patrick Mallard Page A

expeditions for the Archeology
Department, but we always flew out of Dragonwing on the north end
of the island. Their port doesn’t have anything like this wall,” he
replied.
    Izzy snickered at the names given to the cities on
the island. “You gents do know that only citizens of the IRD
actually refer to your cities as Dragon-this and Dragon-that,
right?” she asked. To Izzy’s relief, Gareth laughed with her,
instead of being insulted. For their part, Henry and Tralnis looked
confused.
    “While the first explorers thought the map of the
island looked like a majestic dragon, pretty much everyone else
sees a flying pig. They replace the Dragon with Pig when they speak
about any of our towns. Dragonheart becomes Pigheart, Dragonwing
becomes Pigwing, and Dragonstrength is called Ham,” Gareth
explained.
    “At least it’s better than what they call University
City,” Izzy pointed out.
    “Do I even want to know?” Tralnis asked
rhetorically.
    Gareth’s smile told Tralnis that no, he probably
didn’t want to know but Gareth was going to tell him anyway. “On a
map, the University peninsula looks like a blob coming out of the
southwest end of a northeast facing pig. For some odd reason,
knowing the rest of the world refers to the city housing the
University Arcanum as the city of Pigshit makes me feel a little
better about things,” he stated.
    Izzy wondered what would make a professor talk that
way about his employer, but decided to ask him about it later. “The
reason the Pigshit airship port has walls this thick, and this
high, is to protect the airships from the occasional brutal storms
that hit here. Those storms bring winds that would toss the
airships around like toys in a toddler’s tantrum. By the time the
storm makes landfall, and reaches Pigwing, it has just a small
fraction of the strength it started at. Their airship port doesn’t
need the protective walls,” she explained.
    The gate in front of them was opened, and they rode
back into sunlight, making them all blink a few times to let their
eyes adjust from the darkness of the tunnel. When they could see
properly, Henry and Tralnis gasped in wonder. Airships of all sizes
and makes surrounded them. The ships either floated by, or were
held in place to their berths in some fashion.
    The vast majority of the airships they could see were
of the dirigible style, with some sort of bag full of lighter than
air gasses suspended over a wooden ship that contained the crew and
cargo. The only other thing all the dirigibles had in common were
the propellers mounted at the rear to move them through the sky.
Aside from that, the airships seemed to be as individual as the
people who crewed them. To the right of their wagon was a dirigible
with two gas sacks held apart with a rigid set of ribs that ran up
from the center of the deck, and branched out into a “Y” shape. On
their left, was a larger airship with a rigid gas sack that had
exterior ribs which ran from the midline of the gas compartment to
the railing of the main hull.
    They rode on farther into the airship port, and the
dirigibles were gradually replaced by ships of a radically
different design. These ships had masts similar to a sailing ship
instead of inflatable gas sacks, and their hulls were devoid of any
propellers. Instead, the ships possessed large outriggers on either
side of their hulls. The center of each of the outriggers was a
clear crystal tube filled with a glowing green gas. Wooden
protective shields were set up on the top and bottom of the tubes,
and were held on by brass bands engraved with various runes.
    Tralnis turned on the bench so he could see one of
the dirigibles. He turned back to the front to look at one of the
other ships. “Alright, I have to ask. Why are there two totally
different types of airships here?” he inquired.
    “Two designs for two different type of flights,” Izzy
replied. She pointed to a three masted ship on their left. “That is
a Leyline ship. They