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