The Wind Merchant (26 page)

Ras grunted in frustration. “How. Here.”

“Oh, that’s a horribly long story. It started about eighteen years ago when my father…”

Ras rolled his eyes, sending stars into his vision.

“Not that far back, no, of course not. What girl doesn’t want her backstory skipped over? You
are
a captive audience in most senses of the word, you know.”

He lolled his head to the left to see Dixie sitting on the floor in the next cell over, hugging her knees. She wore a plain gray jumpsuit. She cocked her head and wiggled her fingers at him.

“Hello!” she said. “Boy, they must have run you through the wringer back there. You look like death warmed over.”

“What…they…do?” Ras asked.

“I have no idea. They’re testing us for something. I thought The Collective just sold fuel. Silly me. Oh! How I got here…my escape attempt at
Derailleur
didn’t go like I’d hoped, go figure. Police caught me and The Collective bought me.” She stood and walked up to the bars, resting her forehead between two of them.

“Bought?” Ras was able to flex his arms slightly.

“Well, they bought the police, and I guess The Collective needs test subjects, so what if a prisoner with no family goes missing.” She sighed. “Look at me, accidentally giving you details of my backstory. You’ll care about me yet, Erasmus Veir.”

Ras tried moving his leg and successfully swung it off the metal cot, inadvertently causing the rest of his body to awkwardly follow it to the floor. He crumpled on his side, his body awash with tingles.

“Up and at ‘em, flyboy.” Dixie cocked her head. “Did you really talk to Hal Napier? I overheard the guards making a bet and I’d love to get a piece of that action with some inside info.”

“Where’s Callie?” Ras said as he began to sit up slowly. The sensation started to subside.

“Probably still wherever they tested us, and if you wait long enough, she’ll probably wind up in the cell next to you,” she said, pointing to the empty cell behind Ras. “So, Napier. He’d have to be like
five-hundred
years old now, right?”

Ras eyed her. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” He carefully reached an arm out to the metal bar to steady himself. “I take it you’ve already tried escaping.”

Dixie laughed. “One doesn’t escape
The Halifax
. I just wish I had a porthole…we won a battle while you were out, but I think they’re at it again.”

“We?”

“I count anyone not a sky pirate as ‘we.’ It doesn’t mean I like The Collective,” she said, idly running her fingers along the metal bars of her cell. “You know, they aren’t the only ones fighting those sons of Lacks. Some of us wage our own private little wars.”

“Why do you hate them so much?” Ras hauled himself off the deck and sat on the cot.

“Backstory! I knew you’d come around,” she said, perking up considerably. “Well, I grew up with a bunch of wind merchants that built a city over a Convergence.”

“
Crispin
?”

“No, but close. Same story
,
same pirates. Anyway, about nine years ago—” She stopped suddenly. “Aww, c’mon!”

Six armed guards approached from down the hallway and stopped in front of Ras’ cell. They slid open the part of the door for Ras to put his hands through to be cuffed. “Foster Helios requests your presence.”

“Requests?” He stood and offered his hands. The restraints ratcheted tight, digging into his wrists.

The door slid open and Ras looked over to Dixie. “Tell him I say hi!” she said as Ras fell into formation with the six men. He wondered how much trouble people went through to have an audience with arguably the most powerful man in Atmo.

After several long corridors and one trip up a stairwell, the burning sensation wore off, leaving Ras feeling oddly refreshed.

They reached a set of guarded double doors that swung open upon Ras’ arrival to reveal a room roughly twice the size of
The Brass Fox
’s deck. An octagonal window running from ceiling to floor flooded the room with daylight and displayed the battle raging on outside. Ras wondered how long he had been unconscious in his cell.

From the ceiling and walls hung artifacts that would have made even the richest museum curator envious: original parts of an Elder airship, prototype sketches of blueprints for the Atmo Project, and trinkets of all sorts from history lost. Ras wondered if there was anything in the room that didn’t have ‘the first’ in its description.

Foster Helios III stood from the desk in the middle of the ornate room. With outstretched arms and a broad smile he said, “Now, now, this is not how we treat our guests. Restraints weren’t necessary.” One of the men behind Ras removed the cuffs before all but two of the guards exited the room.

“I couldn’t help but see you’ve noticed my grandfather’s collection,” Foster said, motioning for Ras to have a seat in front of his desk. “Inspiring, isn’t it? I guess when you create Atmo, you get to keep the nice things for yourself.”

Ras remained still. “You torture me and my friend and you want me to sit at your desk?”

“Torture?” Foster lifted an eyebrow. “Hardly. The Knack testing process is unpleasant, I’ll concede the point, but I assure you it leaves no permanent damage.” He smiled. “You’ll even find your wounds will heal once the effects have worn off. Marvelous process.”

“Why put us through it?”

“I can’t have a Knack ignorant of his—or her—ability accidentally blowing up half of
The Halifax
, now can I? A lot of Energy gets thrown around in battle,” Foster said.

“I noticed. New feature?” Ras asked.

“New war.”

“My friend and I aren’t Knacks.”

“Your concern for Miss Tourbillon is noted, but I didn’t make the rules.”

Ras scoffed. “Why did you bring me up here?”

“Erasmus, I’ll be upfront with you,” Foster said, leaning against the front of his desk. “You have done what my father spent the latter half of his life failing to achieve.”

“Cause a city to start sinking? Maybe he and I have more in common than you think,” Ras said.

“No, Erasmus,” Foster said, clearly annoyed, “you have met with Halcyon Napier and tasted the air that keeps him alive.”

The Halifax
shook slightly as its weapons fired on the sky pirate fleet.

“Shouldn’t you be out on the bridge, winning the war?” Ras asked.

“This is more important, I assure you,” Foster said, walking back to Ras. “Who is the first wind merchant, and why?”

“A history quiz?”

“Humor me, and I’ll end Miss Tourbillon’s tests early upon your word that she isn’t a Knack.”

Ras narrowed his eyes. “Hal Napier, because he discovered the Origin of all Energy.”

“Exactly,” Foster said. He pressed a button on his desk. “Yeardley, end the girl’s testing.” An affirmative crackled from his unit. “Better?”

Ras nodded.

“What if I told you that you could be the most famous wind merchant of all? Even more so than Napier.”

“I can’t exactly go and discover another Origin,” Ras said.

“Can’t you?” Foster asked playfully. “You’ve already met someone eight times older than you and you’re discounting what’s possible?”

“What exactly are you proposing, Mr. Helios?” Ras asked.

“That you take the same deal my father offered your father.”

“Excuse me?”

“It doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t tell you. Publicly he was so outspoken against The Collective.”

“You’re lying.”

“He actually came to my father, telling of Hal Napier’s need for wind merchants to retrieve tankfuls of air from The Wild, then offered us the location of the source of this…fountain of youth in return for…something,” Foster said, sliding into his desk chair.

Ras finally sat. “Which was?”

“Such things were never shared with me, but I do know what I can offer.”

The battle raged on outside. Ras was amazed at how Foster didn’t even take note of it. “Do you now?”

“Yes. If you lead us into The Wild, and I’m talking about just crossing the mountains, not even trying to find the fountain of youth, or Origin, or whatever it is; I will do three things: one, I will credit you as the wind merchant that discovered the new Origin.”

“But I wouldn’t have,” Ras said.

“History has a selective memory,” Foster said, gesturing dismissively. “Two, I will install Helios engines on
Verdant
with a lifetime supply of fuel.”

Ras thought the offer oddly familiar. “Whose lifetime?”

“The Collective’s,” Foster said. “And three, I’ll commission a new ship for you…how does that sound?”

“What happened to my ship?”

“You’d prefer to keep that old thing?” Foster asked. A distasteful look played across his face.

“So it wasn’t destroyed?” Ras asked.

“Goodness, no. I ensured a team extracted it before
New Crispin
fell.”

Ras heart sank. “I…how did it fall?”

“Sky pirates, of course.”

“You led them here.”

“And you led us here,” Foster said, folding his hands politely. “I hope this underscores the importance of what I’m after, and how willing I am to compensate those who aid me in finding it.”

Ras closed his eyes and couldn’t escape the faces of Pop, Joey, Krantz, and everyone else his father had worked so hard to save. “Then it must be incredibly, incredibly important,” he said slowly.

“I assure you, it is.”

“You’re looking for the fountain of youth?” Ras asked. He could feel himself shaking, but hoped it wasn’t visible.

“My father was. He obsessed over it later in life,” Foster said with a sigh. “I do suppose when nearing the end, one finds ways to distract oneself from the inevitable.”

“What do you think is in The Wild?”

“Well, something is keeping Napier alive, is it not?” Foster asked. “But let’s just say that from what I’ve learned, stopping at immortality is a touch…shortsighted.” He smiled a devious smile. “Ras, you have an opportunity to surpass your father. You would even travel with the safety of our numbers.” He slid open the drawer of his desk, and delicately pulled Callie’s brass orb out, placing it on the table. “My grandfather invented this.” He pointed a finger at some of the scrollwork. “It has his initials worked into the engraving here. I can only imagine it still works.”

Ras fought his instinct to swat Foster’s hand away from touching the orb. If Hal was right, Callie’s tool for completing their mission was compromised.
 

“After a thorough searching of your ship and your person, the only coordinates found were well on the other side of the mountains,” Foster said, “Hal wouldn’t have been so careless as to simply leave instructions into what is presumably the only backdoor into The Wild in the hands of someone so…you.” He picked up the orb, hefting it. “Hence this.”

“So that’s why I’m here,” Ras said. “Nobody can make it work, so you need a guide.”

“I don’t
need
anything,” Foster said, his temper flaring. “I’m offering you a fleeting opportunity. I have other methods of getting what I want.”

“I’m thinking,” Ras said.

“You misunderstand me. I’m not offering options, Erasmus, and ‘thinking’ tells me you’re coming up with some excuse. Show me how it works, now, or I’ll resume the tests on Miss Tourbillon,” said Foster.

Ras reached for the orb a little too eagerly, and placed his fingers in the device like he had seen Callie do before. Several moments passed.

Nothing.

Foster’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just the pilot. It’s the girl I need, isn’t it?” He grabbed the orb from Ras’s fingertips and motioned to the guards.

“No, no, I can use it. It just takes a moment to warm up,” Ras said, backpedaling.

“Then why did you bring the girl with you?”

“She’s…” Ras said, thinking, “entertainment.”

The battle outside intensified as another sky pirate ship erupted in green flame and disintegrated.

“It’s obvious you care more about her than that,” Foster said. “She’ll guide me and maybe provide me some entertainment as well.” He addressed the guards, “Take him somewhere he won’t stain anything.”

The guards were almost upon Ras as he dove forward across the desk and grabbed the brass ball from Foster’s grasp. He slid to the floor, orb in hand.

A clicking mechanism from underneath Foster’s desk placed a pistol in Foster’s hand, which he shoved point blank toward Ras’ face. He pulled back the hammer on the flintlock to a full cock.

“Lack,” Foster hissed, pulling the trigger with a spark of flame and expulsion of smoke.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Lack

The wind merchant lay motionless on Foster’s carpet, brass orb clutched to his chest. “I’m sorry, Callie,” he whispered, and then it dawned on him that there was no possible way he could have spoken the words in the space of the bullet’s flight. A misfire! His eyes shot open, but he was not prepared for what they were to see.

A small metal ball floated motionless halfway between Ras’ nose and the gun, while a frozen plume of flame and smoke hung as if frozen from the barrel of the pistol. The disdainful expression on Foster’s face had stuck like a molded mask.

Ras scurried backward out of the path of the bullet and stood to his feet. His heart was pounding in his ears, and as the rush of adrenaline overcame his caution, he reflexively crouched, bracing himself for the two guards. Only an instant before leaping, he realized that something was wrong and caught himself. The guards had stopped mid-stride, their rifles mounted and pointing at the ground.

The room sat completely still except for Ras’ riotous heart, and as he began to walk, he struggled to hear his own footsteps for the stagnant quiet that had befallen the area.

He turned his head to the window and saw that contrary to the testimony of his ears, the battle was still raging on outside. A sky pirate ship lined up its broadside with
The Halifax
and fired its salvo directly at the bridge of the flagship. Ras dove to the floor with his hands over his ears.

A moment passed, then another as Ras’ chest tightened with a wave of panic over his complete lack of understanding. The room should have been a picture of carnage by now. He hauled himself back to his feet and peered through the window. Twenty cannon balls hung in the air a few dozen yards away.