Appealingly lush and verdant from above, in the marginally cooler air, though still turbulent, the hellish jungle city of N’Aurelia passed away behind them. Baba Yaga’s Hut, named for a witch of slavic folklore, swooped between and evaded massive thunder heads whose shadows dotted the ground below. The muck-brown river wound its way to the sea.
It was not long—maybe an hour—until they reached the fading edge of the delta beneath them. Brown water and rich jungle turned to islets in grey water, followed by only water.
Pool, for a reason he didn’t fully comprehend or bother to analyze in himself, always enjoyed watching the transition from sea to land and land to sea, along with the topography of the mountainous cumulus clouds around the rocking airship.
He was perched, standing and leaning on the semi-circular cockpit counter. Three seats: the one on the left was exclusively the Captain’s or if remotely necessary, the substitute pilot’s; the one on the right was the special one, belonging to the Baroness (as did the entirety of the airship)—[in a whisper] Baba Yaga’s Hut was also a time machine); and the center one, given to whatever guest needed a view.
The Captain, nearly recumbent and half asleep, lightly guided the airship by means of several brass rods by his right hand. The airship tilted this way and that, slowly navigating the humid airs of this equatorial realm.
Even at altitude, a thousand meters—maybe more—the air was humid. It cooled as they headed out over the open ocean. Pool sweated in his shirt, his linen jacket hooked over a chair in the lounge behind him.
Tiny white and brown surface ships plied the waves below. Pool tried to imagine the grit it would take to risk near-certain death over the edge of the continental shelf; things, big things, lurked beneath the waves of the wine-dark sea.
“Pool? Shall we talk now?” Etelka asked.
Pool was shaken from his daydream, imagining the tiny sailing boats below being swallowed whole by the leviathans of the deep.
“Hmm…yes, Baroness…” he responded.
Work in progress. Mistakes and misspellings are present. This is a very rough draft. Copyright 2021 Ion Fyr
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Ion Fyr 