Chapter 1:

 

While the crew worked on repairing the ship, Helena studied. In less than a day they did a wonderful job of putting the Legend back together. Gin and Rock worked over time, heating, and bending the metal back to its original form, or as close as it could be bent. Holes were patched with spare panels, and even Helena’s favorite safety net was hung under the replaced bowsprit.

The fires of that consumed the German airship smoldered overnight, and by morning had finally died out. Captain Cox sent two crewmen to search for survivors but found none. Helena wasn’t surprised, the Hydrogen in the lift bags exploded on impact, no human could have lived through that.

Alexei and the Russian ship should be refueling now. If they were lucky, the Legend would be repaired soon, and they could all leave east as soon as they returned. The dryness of the desert depressed Helena. It made her homesick for the green hills that surrounded San Francisco.

Helena learned that some Legendary Creatures could… her mother, Colleen, called it walking with the wind. They could near instantaneously move themselves and others through space. The idea seemed preposterous, she would need to discuss it with Mister Wizard and Rosa at the first opportunity. Her mother described her search for a spell that could take her when and where she needed to go. The quest took her to Napa and many questionable mages around the Bay Area, in her search for an answer. Perhaps that was how and why she disappeared from the study with no witness.

It struck Helena more in the heart, the way Colleen described the spell, it sounded like what Helena did to travel to the Land of the Immortals. Perhaps by accident Helena found the secret her mother searched for.

Unfortunately, Colleen’s journal did indicate both her mother and father may not have been completely stable, possibly insane. Her mother feared her father lost control of reality when they discovered the end of the world had been predicted for January first, 1900. Helena was concerned she might lose her grip on reality if she believed the end was near. She needed to maintain her hope or fall into a deep despair.

Her mother’s investigations into the ancient’s arcane spells likely caused her sanity to suffer. However, it became clear to Helena they both believed the world would end in less than two months. How could a person live with that knowledge? Who could Helena share with?

If her parents already escaped into the past, Helena doubted she would ever find them. Searching the world sounded dauntless, searching all of time… she hated to use the word, but insane came to mind. She needed a parent compass, to point her in the correct direction.

If her parents traveled to the past and saved the future could Helena even know it before Jan 1900, would a sign come to her from prehistory? Time travel made her headache, worse than magic. Her stitches in her scaip still throbbed.

The only chance was if they traveled to some remote location and still struggled to build the time machine and gather the power needed to make it work. Helena might be able to join them or try to stop them. Her mother had a constant fear that Helena’s father Aiden somehow traveled back in time and caused the whole destruction of the world through his meddling. Again, time travel made her head pound more.

Two of the four Tears of the Dragon had been located and safely stored with the fairies above, more through chance than any skill. They had no leads on the remaining two. They would never find them if they didn’t repair the ship and leave this desolate place. As Doyle liked to remind her time was short.

While Helena took notes in her own journal, her concentration was interrupted by a soft knock at her door. She closed her books and stashed her glowing pendant back safe around her neck.

“Come in.” She called softly to the door.

The Russian Countess Ludmila Stroganov entered shutting the door behind her. “Something is wrong, I need you to come with me.”

Cryptic as normal. She had lost the veil and looked radiant as she once did. Her night must have been spent repairing the portrait that kept her and her brother Alexei young. She told Helena they were both born in the late 1700s if she was to believe the woman that made them over one hundred years old.

Helena moved her arm over the work table covered with books. “I sorry I’m in the middle of something, can you just tell me?”

Ludmila’s impatient grew as she spoke. “It would be easier to show you… I have been working for many hours to repair the portrait, but no matter what I do to fix Alexi new damage appears. He is getting old before my eyes.”

Helena stood and moved toward Ludmila. “I’m sorry my mind was elsewhere, come show me the problem, and we will decide how to fix it.”

Ludmila led the way, with Helena on her heels. The young American had never seen how the magic of the painting worked and grew interested in its finer details.

The Russian’s room was only a few doors from Helena’s making the trip a short one. Inside the picture in question stood on an easel with paints on a pallet next to it. A nearby oil lamp gave light to the scene. The dimly lit tableau looked like a still life painted by one of the masters.

“Look at his face.” Ludmila moved closer and pointed to her brother’s likeness.

“He looks old… gray and sunburnt. Can you keep him alive?” Helena was shocked at the difference between the two siblings. Brother and sister both over one hundred years old, the sister appeared in her early twenties, the brother late fifties and grew older before her eyes.

“I will do my best if the sun is causing the damage it should lesson when it goes down, if it is something else…”

Ludmila didn’t need to finish the sentence, Helena knew if he’d somehow been captured or worse there was no telling how long the damage might continue. Alexei might never die if Ludmila kept repairing the damage to the painting.

“I will get Doyle and a few others. We will set out immediately.” Helena marched to the door. She had little time to waste.

Gertrude would need to stay behind and watch over Deirdre. Helena’s aunt had not recovered from the shock of touching the shadows that guarded the catacombs under Acre. She feared her aunt might never regain conscious the trauma was so great to her body. Remembering the flies gave Helena a shiver that was one time the price of magic was higher than she expected.

Now she needed to focus on finding Alexei. Helena wasn’t sure what might have happened. The Russian airship was to go ahead and refuel in the port of Aqaba. The route should have clear with no obstacles to reaching the port… unless the Germans somehow learned what happened. If word got out about the airship battle, they might be in great danger. It would be bad enough to have the Germans trying the kill the Legend, if the Ottoman’s were now involved, they might never clear their country alive.

Too many of the crew was needed for repairs if not for this excursion all hands would keep working. That left Helena, Doyle, and Phoebe as the search party. Krushna could have come as well, but she refused to leave her dragon egg. Helena was surprised she left her stateroom in Acre. She didn’t think that would happen again until they reached Mysore.

Neither the Steam-cycle or Bessie were made for off-road trips. The seventy-five miles to Aqaba would take a few hours by airship might take a day by land. Hopefully, they would not need to journey so far.

Unsure of the situation they would encounter and the length of the trip the back of Bessie was loaded out with water and food. Each person carried a modified long gun, armed with pellets that held concentrated fairy farts. Back in Placerville Helena had witnessed what the gas could do to a mind, now Rosa and distilled the vapor down to a liquid and created ampules that fired from a low powered long gun. The effects had not been fully tested, but the weapons gave the group a nonlethal alternative.

Helena still mourned the loss of her mother’s sword, it wasn’t her only connect to Colleen, but as the first gift from Sigmund, the cane represented everything she’d lost. The training in the Land of the Immortals increased her skill while wielding the twin cutlasses like Sigmund had taught her to use. All three rescuers carried more weapons than they should probably need, but Helena learned people rarely wanted to discuss the differences rationally. It was more likely they would shoot before talking.

Hours of daylight left the trio left the Legend and slowly worked their way south. Doyle took the lead on the Steam-cycle, more maneuverable he could search for the best route to take south. The first order of business was to work the way out of the dry river bed the Legend plowed deep into.

Helena studied the ribbons of color that decorated the red sandstone walls. She spotted little vegetation save brush and even less animal life. This was a desolate place to live in, she was certain that any peoples that survived here had to be hardy in the extreme.

Less than a mile from the Legend Doyle returned on the cycle. She pulled Bessie to a stop.

He stopped alongside her. “Up ahead is a road, it runs North-South. It looks well used and old.”

“We will risk it, take the cycle and forge ahead, we will follow the road once we reach it.”

His hands full of bike controls he couldn’t salute, but nodded his agreement, before taking off, the cycle kicking up stones.

Helena knew the Russian Kampfhund didn’t need...