Pool looked up as the pump-men, began murmuring then shouting in the local patois. He had never quite learned enough to learn more than a few words. It didn’t matter. They would speak in their broken Brethmanic to him and the baroness.
Two of them jumped down from the boat, holding the lower edge of their skirts up to keep them from getting too wet. It was fruitless in both cases. Their longhis fell into the churned up water as they rushed to help the baroness and her strange diving suit up the rocks.
The baroness held a limp reed aloft in her left hand, threaded through some small object.
Could she have actually found it? Pool was astounded at her luck, finding a needle in a haystack.
One of the pump-men helped her unclasped the latches of the large bronze helmet, lifting it carefully off her head and setting it down on a rock, and revealing a sweaty, cobalt blue mat of hair.
Etelka smiled when she saw Pool looking at her.
He could not help but to smile back; her smile was mesmerizing.
“Quick, Pool. Take it before it slips back in to join Stolison.”
He stepped gingerly across the rocks, trying not to fall in or to drop his notebook, which he still clutched in his hand.
He slipped the 25 millimeter diameter cylinder off the reed. It was covered in green slime and muck. He held it daintily, but securely, trying to avoid soiling his otherwise clean clothing.
“Stolison? You found his body?” Pool quivered at the memory of the Alderman-come-mad scientist, who had…done things to him last year.
“Only his skull, and I’m not even certain that it belonged to him, but it was in the vicinity of our prize,” said Etelka with interspersed grunts as she squeezed out of the mud-drenched diving suit.
Work in progress. Mistakes and misspellings are present. This is a very rough draft. Copyright 2021 Ion Fyr
#scifi #fantasy #science fiction
Ion Fyr 