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  [colpse]Chapter Sixty-Three - The Shady Lady

  When I woke up it was to find that Amaryllis was already up and about. She must have taken a shower because her feathers were still drippy and she had a towel ed around her head. “Oh, you finally decided to wake up,” she said.

  The words were biting, but the tone didn’t match at all. She sounded... softer than she would have yesterday. I smiled a little, then hid myself in the ile of bs until only the top of my head stuck out. “I’m not ing out until someone brings breakfast,” I said.

  “You moron,” Amaryllis said. “I didn't take you for the zy sort.”

  “I’m not zy. I’m merely highly unmotivated to leave my warm snuggle co,” I said.

  e, who had slipped uhe bs, poked her head out and gave us both a gre that seemed to say ‘really, at this hour?’

  “e on, we should grab something to eat on the road. There are vendors out all over this city. Or do you want to miss the opportunity Lord Bristlee is giving us?”

  Somewhat relutly (I wasn’t zy, but it was really fy uhere) I pushed the pile of bs until they smothered e and I hopped off the bed. I was only in my blouse and uhings, and all of the rest of my clothes were near my bed. It took a disproportionate amount of effort te over and start getting dressed though.

  “Is Abraham really a Lord?” I asked.

  “He is, teically,” Amaryllis said.

  “How someoeically be a Lord?” I wondered.

  She sighed. “He has something of a reputation. He earhe title through some, shall we call them, exploits. He’s not one of the founders of the Exploration Guild, but he was one of their big names for a long while. There are towns named after him, and ndmarks that he discovered cover most maps. He’s quite famous in some circles.”

  “So going with him is a big deal?” I asked.

  Amaryllis huffed. It was a new huff that I hadn’t heard before. “He’s a bit of a washout. No, that’s not the correct term. He merely grew old, and instead of retiring in grace he still leads the occasional daring mission into the frontier oes on some harebrained advehere are characters in children’s books that bear a striking resembo him. He’s a fossil.”

  “I think he was nice, and maybe a little lonely,” I said. “No one wao hear his stories.”

  “I ’t imagine why,” Amaryllis deadpanned.

  Shaking my head, I slid on my shoes, thehem up. I was still keeping a set of boots in my bags. My Earth shoes were just a whole lot more fortable, though they were starting to show some wear.

  “And I’m ready!” I said as I bouo my feet.

  “Finally,” Amaryllis said.

  We went downstairs after I picked up my backpad cradled e in the crook of my arm where she would at least be snug and warm, or as warm as a spirit cat could be, I guess. Julien wasn’t behind the bar, instead it was manned... grenoiled, by a young dy who waved us goodbye as we went out the front.

  It was still early enough in the m that the streets were mostly bare, the sun hadn’t even fully risehe distant mountain rao the East. The few people around looked like workers rushing to get to their jobs, or people who had just finished a night shift and looked more than ready for bed.

  Amaryllis was right about the vendors though. As soon as we were off the main street and heading towards the docks we ran into a few carts that were still preparing to take off, their owners adding oils and arranging things before their first ts arrived. We both agreed, with no prior discussion, to avoid all of the stands that sold bugs in any shape or form and aimed for the ohat had colourful signs that dispyed drawings of local favourites.

  We ended up with two bowls made of some round loaves of bread with the middle scooped out. The bread was still soft, perhaps owing to the strange sort e they’d been stored in. Hot minced meat, beef if I had to guess, mixed with some beans and a savoury sauce ced in the middle. We didn’t get spoons, but a peek at a grenoil using his too eat out of the bowl showed me how to eat the snack.

  I shrugged. “When in Rome,” I muttered before slurping out the stew. It tasted pretty good. Nothing like the food at the inn, but still hearty and filling, and then I got to eat the bowl too, which was nice.

  “Your face is a mess,” Amaryllis said.

  I looked at her shirt which had a few stains on it that hadn’t been there before. “You’re oo talk,” I said before firing a bit of ing magic at myself. Then, because I was nice, I ed off her shirt too.

  She huffed, but it was her ‘I’m too good to say thank-you huff,’ which was almost as good as if she had said thank-you.

  We aimed for the docks, Amaryllis sometimes taking the lead whe to interses that weren’t yet familiar to me, but otherwise we just aimed for the big, noisy part of town with all of the flying ships around it. It was hard to miss, really.

  “So, do you know what his ship looks like?” I asked.

  “Not a clue,” Amaryllis said. “The Shady Lady is supposed to be quite popur. It was one of the first airships ever built in Mattergrove, some five or ten years after the ing Kingdom started produg their own.”

  “Ah, Mattergrove is a human pce, right?” I had seen it on the map yesterday, it was to the West of Deepmarsh, but that was about all I could remember without looking at the map again.

  “It is. It’s a rge enough nation, but rather impoverished. Their nds don’t lend themselves well to cultivating any useful crops and the Seven Peaks, that is, the mountains around which the kingdom is built, don’t have anything worth mining ihey’re not as advanced as the ing Kingdom or Deepmarsh, so they’re behind there was well.”

  “What do they sell?” I asked.

  “Wine, mostly. They have good vineyards. That and plenty of fish, though other than a few rare species that Harpy nobility enjoy there’s not much of a market for it. Endless Swells, another humarigdom to the North, sell more fish for less.”

  “Ah,” I said. “That kind of sucks for them,” I said. I would have asked a few more questions, but we arrived oopmost deck of the docks. Piers stretched out before us to reach out to various ships that hung over empty air. Seagulls were flog around in big groups, eyeing passersby in case they dropped anything tasty and men and women in overalls and w clothes moved about with a sense ency.

  I could have spent hours at the docks just gazing at the airships taking off and smelling the weird sizzly tang from the magical ehey used, but time wasn’t on my side.

  I spotted a grenoil who looked important, with a tag over one breast that read ‘Dockmasters Association.’ “Excuse me, sir. We’re looking for a particur ship,” I said.

  “Zen I suggest ze registry,” he said a bit dismissively. I walked up alongside him and matched his pace.

  “She’s called the Shady Lady. She belongs to one Abraham Bristlee.”

  The grenoil stopped in his tracks. “Is she leaving?” he asked.

  “Um. I think so? As soon as we get to her, I mean.”

  “Zaars. Ze Shady Lady is over at dock fifty-one.” At my fused look he pointed off to one side. “Two levels down. Look for ze pque at ze base of ze pier.” He then poio a nearby dock where a pque was stamped onto the ground that read ‘Twelve’ in big letters.

  “Thank you sir!” I said before I jogged baaryllis. “Follow me!”

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Amaryllis said.

  “Oh, don’t be a worrywort,” I said. “We’re about to go on another adventure! Just imagine how much fun we’ll have.

  The moment we arrived at pier fifty-one I started to have the same bad feeling that Amaryllis had mentioned. I wondered if it was tagious, or if she just knew something I didn’t.

  The Shady Lady was hard to miss. Mostly because the ship at the end of the pier had her name embzoned on its side in foot-high letters. The fact that the words ran half-way across the length of the ship said much about its size.

  The airship was small. Tiny even. With a long hull made of wood and a bunch ur sails mounted on poles that stuck out every which way from the ship. There was a little at the back, with exhaust pipes stig out of it, and a small area above that with a rge wheel that probably served to direct the ship. The very back of the ship ended abruptly with a huge propeller stuck to a shaft.

  And above it all an oblong balloon whose inal colour I could only guess at. It was covered in so many patches as and bits of tarp that it was impossible to tell what it was supposed to look like.

  Ohing was immediately obvious: the Shady Lady deserved her oo many of her pnks were mismatched to be inal, and there were some nasty scrapes along the bottom. There was even a pole stig out of the bow that I retty sure ear that had stayed lodged in the front of her.

  “I glide,” Amaryllis said. “So when she goes down, ditch that bag of yours and do try to hang on.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I tried to assure her. And myself.

  The door to the ship’s burst open and a spotless Abraham stepped out of it. On his heels was Raynald, who looked just as spiffy now as he did at the guild.

  “Broccoli! And yht your feathery friend!” Abraham said as he raised both arms in ahusiastic greeting. “Wele, e aboard, e aboard. We’re all ready to set sail, to maraude across the clouds and maybe get into a bit of a scrap with some wild drakes riffon or two.”

  I felt a grin tugging at my lips. “Hello, Abraham,” I said. “Mister Raynald. It’s a good m to meet you two!”

  “Ahaha! A good m indeed. e on, the Shady Lady doesn’t bite, not when I’m around at least. Hoh-oh!”

  Laughing, I hopped over from the pier to the ship, and took a few steps to steady myself once aboard. A few steps was all I could take sihe entire vessel was only five meters or so wide at its middle. The entire deck had things on it. Poles for ropes, pulleys, a few seats with fishing rods o them. There were even small ons tucked o the rails where they couldn’t be seen from outside of the ship.

  It looked like the Shady Lady had had parts added and removed and ged all throughout her life as a little airship, ae my reservations I was growing to like her a whole lot. She had personality.

  “ birdy,” Abraham said. “If we want to make it to Greenshade sometime this week we ought to head out sooner rather than ter!”

  Amaryllis hopped over to the ship, then jumped down the rails to o me. “If I die on this death-trap, I’m returning as a ghost to haunt you,” she said. “And my name is Amaryllis, not birdy.”

  “Very well then, Lady Amaryllis,” Abraham said. “Wele aboard the Shady Lady. Let me show you girls around right quick. We’re short handed, so we’ll all have to do our part else we’ll drop out of the sky like a sack full of lead bricks. Why, that reminds me of the time I entered the dread air-pirate Golden Rogers...”

  ***

  RavensDagger

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