The Magical Key. Martie Florence

many times," she gave him a look.

      "Not considering this our trouble," he replied a little musingly, "my life is rather boring."

      "Really?" she queried, "but hired guardians travel a lot and fight a lot?"

      "At the sight of a Grey Knight," no pride but an ironical pity in his intonation, "robbers usually think twice before attacking. Thus, I don't have to use my sword very often. I take part in commercial trips mostly to see the world."

      The aquarelle azure was insensibly lightening, and in the early morning twilight the two travellers saw a distant coast. A colossal lighthouse towered above a town of geometrically immaculate streets, rectangular buildings of white stone, even dark tiles of roofs seemed to be precisely adjusted to one another. There were no fortification walls, but a massive breakwater protected the harbour.

      "We should not park our transport here, it's too large to be imperceptible," Andreas tugged at a rigging rope, a valve at the balloon top let some hot hissing air out, and the zeppelin lowered to the beach, nearly touching the water.

      Hand in hand they easily jumped off onto the sand, the surf waves washed their high-boots. The empty airship rose again drifting away, and they headed for the town shone with the pink dawn.

      A flagstone embankment, a long house with a dark wooden entrance door, a parquet in a corridor with high windows.

      "Isn't it Andreas, one of our brilliant graduates?! together with a young lass!" a middle-aged man in a long dark-purple mantle wondered. His short brown hair wasn't turning grey yet, and his face had no particular wrinkles, but he made an impression of an intelligent and sophisticated person.

      "How do you do, professor McClellan!" Andreas greeted him.

      "When shall you settle down, get married and busy yourself with science, at last?" the professor shook his head, pretending a disapproval, but his eyes were benevolent.

      "We have an interesting heirloom, would you take a look at it?"

      "Let's talk in my study!" professor McClellan showed them the way to a vast hall with a vaulted ceiling. Lacquered wooden desks were swamped with things from different worlds and times. Rolls of antique manuscripts, a grey portable computer with some rich multicoloured text on the flat display, figured bronze candlesticks, piles of paper near a white printer. Ancient voluminous books with golden titles, digital compact disks in transparent plastic boxes on the shelves of bookcases.

      "Amazing!" the professor exclaimed when Lynette gave him the key, after a short but attentive surveying he returned it to her and began to rummage on a shelf, "I have seen it, but where?.. A-ha!"

      He chose a large book in a dark cover, opened it and put it onto a table, turning pages. Drawings of archers, knights, castles… and a picture of the key.

      "Dryads and Elves left El Dorado and locked all its portals," Lynette read the ornate italic text, "not to fight multifarious invaders any splendid land always attracts… They descended from the Malachite Plateau and created a realm near the Ariadna City…"

      "The Malachite Plateau? Very interesting!" professor McClellan came up to the globe, gently rotated the big sphere and found the necessary spot on a greenish continent. "As a rule, chronicles make no mention of such desolate places."

      "Still, it's a vestige," Andreas leafed through the book, "how far is it from here?"

      "It would be faster if you had a ship…"

      "We do have a ship!" Lynette exclaimed after throwing an occasional glance at the sea behind the windows, "look, Andreas!"

      The yacht was sprightly approaching to the lighthouse, the morning breeze filling the mainsail.

      Lynette and Andreas hurried outdoors, nearly running to meet Jim and Iven at the wharf, waving their hands.

      "We remembered that you had been talking about this town!" the Dwarf smiled alighting onto the embankment, the Elf following him, evidently also glad of the rejoining.

      "I'll acquaint you with one of my teachers," Andreas led them to the building, they entered the study. "Professor McClellan, let me introduce Iven the Elf and Jim the Dwarf to you… eh… What are you doing?"

      "Packing up to go with you," the professor had taken three big black rucksacks and now was pulling wrapped things, pocket books and pencils into them, "I hope, you don't mind?"

      "But it will be dangerous!" Lynette warned, "trolls have been chasing us!"

      "My grown-up children forgot about me, my wife left me, so, why should I immure myself in the library?" the professor took his mantle off and remained in dark trousers, high-boots, a white shirt and a brown waistcoat. "Am I not a researcher?"

      "And what's our new destination?" Jim asked.

      "The Malachite City," professor McClellan bent over a map spread on a table, his finger traced a route, "then we shall go up the Northern River to the Plateau."

      They helped the professor to finish the packing, took navigation tools, a quadrant, a bronze compass.