sounded from the city clocktower. Jim stood up, made a ceremonious bow of goodbye with his palm on his heart and walked out into the street.
He dropped in on a jewellery shop. Two men in rich black camisoles were admiringly surveying showcases with sparkling platinum necklaces and gold rings on dark-blue velvet cushions.
"Would you exchange it for cash?" Jim put an emerald onto the counter.
"Oh!" the goldsmith, an imposing bearded Dwarf in a dark-grey suit, examined the precious stone through a magnifying glass, nodded and readily gave him a dozen of gold coins. "Excellent! Very pure! Do you have more?"
"I'll use them later. But right now you can deal with master Huges."
"Has he come back, at last?! Nice!" the goldsmith exclaimed gladly. "What could possibly delay him?"
"A horde of trolls and some greedy troll-like humans," Jim explained to the shocked goldsmith, the two customers listening to the news agape. "These days are not propitious for voyages."
"We should adjourn our evening departure!" one man said to the other.
After that Jim left the jewellery shop and went to the port. Workers kept on fussing, loading or unloading boxes and packages, doing repairs. Despite all those crowds he noticed the same three knights standing on the embankment and viewing the ships in the harbour. He stealthily came closer and hid behind a heap of some huge grey sacks to overhear the talk.
"All the Dwarfs and all the yachts are as like as two peas," the uncultured knight grumbled through gritted teeth, "how can we possibly find that very captain?"
"One more vessel has arrived lately, but it's full of Elves," his mate folded his arms haughtily, "not what we are looking for."
"We sold only two airships to trolls, let's take the last one," the third fellow uttered in a not less supercilious manner. "We shall intercept anyone who will sail towards the island!"
The knights strode away from the docks. Jim waited till their dark cloaks got out of sight, then he hurried to his yacht.
The Elves had mounted a tremendous arbalest on the deck, a construction on a wooden stand. A wide bow, a big lever of the straining mechanism, a steel trigger. There was a stack of missiles for that construction, long lances with feathering at ends. Bunches of usual small arrows had been brought and piled up too.
"Three humans co-operate with trolls," Jim worriedly informed them, "they are going to pursue us in some airship, as I heard…"
"An airship? A gigantic flying bean-pod they call a zeppelin? Well, we'll see…" the reply expressed no particular disquiet of the Elves, they looked ready for any trouble.
But all of them were quite attentive when passing the gateway channel between the watchtowers, leaving the fortified lagoon and going out into the open sea.
The troll flotilla had been awaiting for them within an easy reach from the coast line. This time the hostile boats flocked together and rushed to attack as a united pack, far outnumbering the yacht defenders.
Having deviated from several hurled javelins which flew over them and stuck into the deck, the Elves met the approaching enemies with a shower of arrows, shooting uninterruptedly and not missing.
The quivers getting empty quickly, Jim helped the archers to unbind the additional bunches of missiles.
In a minute the fight was over, hoarse snarling and screaming of monsters changed into silence, and the unruled boats drifted away without crews.
Then an increasing low rumble became heard. A grey sinister silhouette, a titanic zeppelin was moving towards them flying not very high above the sea, throwing a long shadow onto the water surface.
"The airship," Jim muttered when the apparatus lowered to them, and the bulky balloon covered seemingly a half of the blue late afternoon sky, two large propellers thundering.
The three knights leant out of the wooden gondola, their physiognomies grinning viciously, and threw a long thick rope with a massive iron hook at its end. That piece of metal thudded onto the deck, scratched the planks and caught hold on the board at the prow, near the bowsprit. The rope stretched tight, and the airship started tugging the yacht towards the shore.
"They want to smash us against the coastal rocks!" Jim took his battle-axe and dashed to hew the rope, but it turned out to be too thick and firm to be cut quickly.
Two Elves pulled the straining mechanism lever, another two loaded one of the huge arrows onto the enormous crossbow and, rotating that weapon on its stand, aimed it at the zeppelin.
The immense missile launched with a swish and pierced the balloon through.
Quickly reloading the arbalest, the Elves went on shooting over and over again, making more and more new holes.
The hot gas which had been keeping the apparatus in the air now was leaking, gushing out of gaps with torrents of steam. The zeppelin began to lose height.
The tension of the rope weakened, the Dwarf finally separated it from the yacht and flung the hook overboard.
The airship plopped down into the water and started to sink gurgling loudly.
"In an hour or two we shall be at the island!" Jim declared cheerfully, taking the steering-wheel and regaining the control over the yacht, making a turn and heading to the golden setting sun. "Maybe, Iven is already there."
"According to the plan," Sebastian pronounced, "we are gathering at the old portal."
"Can the enemy possibly get to the Dryads?" the Dwarf asked. "My friends went there without any key…"
"Who knows," the Elf replied, "usually only good-natured people are able to activate the transmission to our settlements, but we cannot be sure completely. Trolls are very perfidious."
"I don't quite understand that system of worlds," curiosity sounded in Jim's intonation, "are they different planets?"
"Some of them are, such as the human world and El Dorado," Sebastian explained, "but many of them are just isolated regions of one planet. For example, the constellations and the Moon at our Elvish realm and at the Dryad town are the same as here. Though, time zones don't coincide…"
"Isn't it miraculous!" the Dwarf admired, "even if you don't call it magic."
"It deals with special crystals which accumulate the solar energy and influence the space around the chosen land," Sebastian shrugged, "I'm not an expert, queen Veronica knows how it functions…"
"Well, travelling between planets and stars has been carried out through portals," Jim continued wondering. "Then, why do humans construct rockets and spaceships?"
"Actually, rockets are needed to launch satellites only," the Elf answered. "However, with few exceptions, humans are not aware of dimensions and portals…"
"With few exceptions?" the Dwarfdoubted. "But hundreds of human families live all over the Ariadna continent! How could they get there?"
"Some people manage to learn the truth and emigrate," Sebastian replied a little sadly, "but the majority believes in the deliberately false human science."
The peaceful evening shaded into a night. Stars sparkled in the cloudless sky, the Moon shone brighter. The Elves hung a couple of lanterns onto the crossbow to
