Eventually they came to the ocean and had to stop. Nicola had heard of the vast stretches of water covering much of the world, but seeing it with her own eyes sent her into a frenzy of excitement. Only the fact that they had been walking every day from sunrise to just before sunset for more than a week now and were both physically drained overcame the girl’s high spirits and allowed either of them any sleep.

The next morning they went south at a slightly slower pace than Ethan would have liked. It was a clear day and Nicola simply couldn’t take her eyes off the sea, she was captivated by the sight and smell of this newly discovered wonder. Even her almost constant questioning stopped as she drank in this view.

By evening they reached Jasontown. It was a fair-sized settlement built near the mouth of a relatively small river. When first sighting it, Nicola stopped so quickly that Ethan nearly walked into her. She was staring down at the hodgepodge of buildings that were this town.

It was a strange sight. Most of the buildings were built from logs and were not unlike the buildings of her home village, but the sea front was dominated by huge low steel and concrete buildings and warehouses. There was a wind farm the other side of the river; huge three bladed turbines were spinning incredibly fast in wind coming from the sea.

In the middle of the town was a tall building the likes of which Nicola had only ever heard about, it was a metal lattice framework supporting a glass outer shell. The overall design was like that of a clamshell placed on its end, its curved edge pointing towards the sky. It was fifty storeys tall and just as long.

“Wh… What is that? What are those spinning things? What are those buildings by the sea? Is that a sea ship? What–”

“Whoa! Time out! One thing at a time, ok?” Ethan cut into Nicola’s stream of questions. “Let’s start by going into town shall we? I’ll answer all your questions on the way down.”

So down they went. Ethan explained the various things about the town that Nicola didn’t understand. The wind farm produced electricity, which was another thing Nicola had heard of but never seen. Jasontown was a fishing town and the buildings by the sea were places where caught fish were stored and prepared for transport to other places. When they had fish back in her home village of Ranora, this was where they came from. The huge building in the centre of the town was a modern building with electricity, heating and running water that the townspeople had built as a place to live and accommodate visitors.

Lastly, yes, that huge thing floating off shore was a sailing ship called the Warrior, it was very, very old and served the dragons. They would be travelling on it to the southern continent.

Nicola was beside herself with excitement at that thought.

Even excited as she was, Nicola was very quiet as they entered the town, she had never seen so many people in one place before in all her life and was a little overwhelmed. Ethan calmly steered her through the crowds and towards the central clamshell building that looked even bigger up close. Nicola could see into the lower levels from the ground and could make out people working and reading there, she thought she could see a library inside as well. A moment later they entered through large glass doors that slid aside as Ethan and Nicola approached.

Nicola was quite startled when she stepped through what could only be described as a curtain of air. They were in a large foyer, it was light and airy and everywhere Nicola looked she saw crystal clear glass and gleaming silver-grey metalwork. Ethan guided her to a stylised metal desk at the back wall of the building that was styled to look like part of the building itself.

“Hello there, can I help you?” asked a young woman from behind the desk.

“Hi, could you tell me if the captain of the Warrior is staying here at all?” Ethan asked.

“Of course sir, one moment please.” The woman looked down at something just below the top of the desk and a slight tapping sound came to Nicola’s ears.

“Yes sir,” she said after a moment. “Would you like me to call his room to see if he’s in?”

“Yes please, if you’d tell him Ethan’s here to see him I’d appreciate it.”

The woman nodded to him and picked up a device that she held to her face, there was the sound of more tapping and a moment later she spoke into the device.

“Hello, Is that Captain Lewis? – This is reception sir, I have a Mr. Ethan to see you? – Yes sir, I will. Thank you sir.” She put the device down and turned to Ethan. “If you’ll make your way to the forty-eighth floor, room 4812 please.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said to the woman.

“Thank you,” Nicola echoed, earning her a smile from the receptionist.

Nicola followed Ethan into a small metal room with large windows in the walls and the two doors that slid closed after them. To the right of the doors there was a small panel of fourteen keys, ten of them had numbers engraved into them from 0 to 9, which Nicola could read, and the others had symbols on them she did not understand. Ethan pressed three of them, each one making a small ‘blip’ as it was pressed. The number 48 appeared in glowing white on the metal above the panel and a moment later the entire room started to move smoothly and swiftly upwards.

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“If your ears feel strange just swallow and the feeling will go away,” Ethan said to a startled Nicola whose attention was on the rapidly receding ground beneath them. She did swallow a few times after they passed the 40th floor however.

“What’s it called?” Nicola asked.

“Some people call it a lift, some call it an elevator.”

“Why do people use different words?” Nicola asked curiously as the elevator slowed its ascent smoothly.

“Actually I don’t know! It’s just one of those things I suppose.”

A moment later the elevator came to a gentle halt, the doors opened silently and they stepped out. Ethan looked at the numbers engraved onto brass door plaques identifying the rooms on this level. After a moment he turned right and led Nicola down the hallway until they reached the one marked 4812, there he knocked.

“Enter!” came a booming voice from within, Ethan turned the handle and led Nicola into the room.

The room itself was a marvel. It was open and light, decorated in plush carpets that were the same colour as the pine furniture and fittings. The wall was painted the same colour below a pine rail that ran the circumference of the room and a light cream above that rail. The ceiling was white and covered in simple but stylish swirling plasterwork.

Nicola thought that the side of the room opposite the doors was open to the air until she realised that it was one enormous glass window that looked out over the town and countryside beyond. Near this window there were several deep leather chairs and a few sofas. Standing near these, having obviously just stood up, were two uniformed men.

They could not have been more different from each other; one was meticulously groomed and clean-shaven, he was tall, but not as tall as Ethan and where Nicola’s guide somehow projected an aura of pleasant companionship, this man looked cold, almost cruel. The other man, though not huge, was very large. He was obviously heavily muscled under his uniform. This larger man had a thick, bristling black beard streaked with grey and his slightly scruffy hair had a definite bald patch.

Their uniforms were equally impeccable however, both were black with white trim and showed markings of rank on the sleeves and coloured strips of fabric on the left breast.

The bearded man said something to the thin one who nodded, put a flat-topped uniform hat on his head, nodded to Ethan and Nicola and left the room.

“Ethan come over here,” said the remaining man in his huge voice. Ethan pushed Nicola gently in the back, indicating she should walk with him towards the other man.

“You are nothing but trouble, making me wait here with nothing to do but listen to Ranon’s incessant moaning about the delay.”

“Ranon?” Ethan asked.

“Hmm? Oh I thought you’d met him before,” said the man, Ethan shook his head. “He’s my new first officer, not the nicest man and not easy to get along with but a fine officer nonetheless. And you are?”

Suddenly the bearded man was looking straight at Nicola and she felt very self-conscious in her scruffy travelling clothes in front of this finely uniformed man.

“I’m Nicola sir, Ethan’s taking me to Dragon Valley,” she said in the way children everywhere seem to have of offering slightly more than necessary information to someone they want to impress. The man grinned hugely at her, showing even white teeth through his beard.

“Is he now?” The man knelt down. “Well I’m Captain Lewis and I’ll be honoured to have such a pretty little one aboard my ship,” he said, tweaking her nose. His entire manner and bearing, along with that little tweak, conspired to make Nicola giggle behind raised hands. He crossed his eyes at her and Nicola collapsed in guffaws of laughter.

“I think I can let you off this time Ethan,” said the captain, standing up again. His tone of voice was deadly serious, but Nicola saw that he was still grinning at Ethan and a moment later they shook hands warmly. “But only because this little one’s such a treasure.”

They spent the night in the guest suites of the central building of Jasontown and made their way to the Warrior the next morning. Ethan couldn’t help being nervous when they boarded the boat to take them out to the ship, this was mostly due to the fact that Nicola was so excited by the whole thing she kept moving around and rocking the boat. Despite Captain Lewis’ assurances that there wasn’t any danger of them getting wet, Ethan couldn’t seem to convince himself that the little girl wasn’t going to capsize them.

Eventually they got to the Warrior and were helped aboard by sailors who smiled at Nicola and grinned at Ethan’s slightly green face. Within only a few moments the little boat had been brought aboard and was secured. Captain Lewis ordered all hands on deck and a few moments later the anchor was raised.

Nicola stared up into the rigging to watch the crew work as they set sail. Then there seemed to be a moment between the sails being rigged and when they caught the wind, Ethan couldn’t tell when the moment began or when it ended, but the wind seemed to fill the sails both slowly and all at once. The captain called out a course heading to his helmsman and a moment later the ship itself seemed to come alive, tilting over slightly in the water and racing over the waves.

Ethan marvelled at the whole experience, he had been aboard the Warrior before; as he remembered it, the first time he came aboard he threw up everything he had eaten over the previous three days. Still, every time he came aboard he was impressed that a ship this large could attain such speed through sail power alone.

They were bound for the city of Ehleria on the southern continent. Ethan was a little worried about Nicola, now that they weren’t walking every day she had more time to herself and she was obviously missing her father. However, she seemed determined to enjoy the wonders of the ship to their fullest. After the first few days at sea she started to find little jobs to do to help out the crew as best she could, after the first week it was far from unusual to see her up in the rigging. She learned fairly swiftly however that it was not a good idea to let the ship’s tyrannical first officer find her up there, whenever he did he always set her the most unpleasant jobs he could find.