Serpents and Stairways

Chapter IV - Part 1

The airship slowly floated along the mountain range close to Gebal. To bored Pasha, who looked down more often than up, the city reminded some sort of an outgrowth on Earth's body—a scab on a wound; he used to scratch those off in childhood.

He and Georg had dragged the chairs from the common hall onto the deck and spent most of the morning hanging out there; their journey was handled by the stately automaton of eight arms and a mirror in place of a face, rooted in the floor of the captain's bridge.

This was a strange vessel. It looked almost like a dirigible—a slick body; a hull filled with a light gas; a power source; an empennage. All seemed as-if ordinary. But if so, what was that feeling of something being off? Why wasn't there the roar of engines? Why were the familiar proportions violated?

The ship was called "κατάλογος," and Pasha instinctively understood it was probably in Stone, meaning "catalogue." But why would his father have named the ship that?

Although, he always had a unique sense of humour.

They've been up in the air for four days, and the dragon hadn't shown up. The ship had no private cabins—only the carpeted hall with a small stage, which looked like a seashell; utility rooms, the size of monastic cells; a kitchen and a promenade deck—it wasn't made for long trips. But if so, shouldn't it have run out of fuel? Or gas? Georg tried asking Pasha about it, but he only rolled his eyes in response, trying to hide them. He actually had no answers.

"I'll tell you if we need to come down, alright?" he'd say and blow a dozen soap bubbles out his pipe, "Just let your earthly body relax and enjoy the cruise, for the immortal soul is a myth, and we must cherish each fleeting moment."

For some reason, Georg was bad at cherishing. He simply couldn't sit and stare for hours upon hours at mountains, hoping the dragon's silhouette appeared over them sooner or later. In four days, he had swabbed the deck clean, combed the carpet, forced to sparkle each individual little crystal of the chandelier, cooked four different soups, and made several attempts to engage their autopilot in a chat. Lack of a mouth didn't seem to bother him.

"Why are you so tense?" Pasha asked. Even though he believed a man's moral duty was to venerate mankind by deeds, unlike Georg he could easily spend hours on deck, switching between the spyglass tube and the soap bubble pipe. "I mean, it's not like I have anything against. But what did you expect? That the dragon would obediently appear the moment we take off? Had you confused it for a waiter?"

"Well, yeah," admitted Georg, who was currently peeling potatoes, "That's how it usually goes."

"Is that why you're so diselaborate?"

"What a word!"

Pasha leaned back on the chair, and put the pipe onto the silver plate, decorated in the strict fashion of the last century with a single laurel branch. He knew that he looked like an old man, by pure coincidence staring at Georg with brazen youthful eyes. His father told him that he often did—ever since childhood—although rarer than Pasha would've preferred.

"No, but in all seriousness. Let's say—we spot the dragon. What comes next? I hadn't noticed on you a knight's armour, a sword, or a portrait of a fair damsel, who's glory it is respectable to die for."

"When we see the dragon, we'll know what to do."

"Incredible plan."

Georg smiled, rinsed a potato in cold water and took the next one. It was chilly. Pasha was wrapped in a blanket, but his companion seemed as if neither the wind, nor Pasha's remarks could bother him.

"I know how it sounds," he agreed, without extinguishing the smile, "but believe me, that's how it always goes. If we needed, say, an enchanted sickle tempered in the blood of a salamander, or some other nonsense of that sort, then a flyer would've been blown into my face, telling me that exactly on that day the sickle had arrived at a local museum."