by C. Vandyke
“Well, if that ain’t the sail calling the jib torn,” Arlan huffed. “Fuddy criminal I am when you’re just a con artist with a voice of gold.”
Melody smiled. “Voice of gold, huh?”
Arlan tittered as he glanced at the crowd forming around them. Heads swiveled in their direction and at The Hub’s Constabulary balloon circling above them. Melody hazarded a glance skyward, her heart catching as three more small skyships approached from over The White Whale’s marbled façade.
“Melody Taft!” the constable called from above, peering over his perch. “Surprise seeing you in the company of yet another ongoing Cog felony. Not so easy feigning innocence when you’re caught canoodling with a wanted man.”
“Canoodling?” Melody shouted over the whirring of the ballooned ship. “Constable Bydell, I have just met this…” She looked over to Arlan. “Felon, is it?” At his silence, she turned back to the constable. “I just met this felon. I have no idea what business deali—”
“You can’t talk your way out of this one, Taft. Petty thievery happens all the time. Mutiny—”
“Mutiny?” Melody echoed, eyes widening at Arlan.
“And arson—”
“Arson?!” she echoed again, the word coming out more of a hiss than a question.
“An accident!” Arlan implored, his posture suddenly shrunken and bowed.
The constable continued, “So it is in your best intere—”
“Accidental arson? Seriously?” Melody cocked an eyebrow to Arlan who had begun fidgeting with his belt. “Accidental mutiny too, then, I suppose?”
Arlan gave a half-hearted shrug. “Not exactly.”
“Great,” she said. “Thanks for dragging me into it.”
“You stole my money.”
“You mutinied a ship and set it on fire.”
“Accidentally!” Arlan grabbed his hat as a gust of wind threatened to knock it off his head. The Hub’s security fleet had mobilized above them, their brass propellers stirring the air into miniature whirlwinds as they closed in.
Melody watched as Arlan’s eyes scanned the possible avenues of escape. “Sweet Braddock’s ghost,” she groaned. “Come on.” Grabbing his hand, she sped between the nearest set of gawkers. As expected, the small groups of onlookers congealed into one another, forming a blank-faced mob… and the perfect camouflage. Once satisfied they were obscured, Melody dragged Arlan down a tight alleyway before leaning her weight into him and shoving him down a narrow alcove between Drifter’s Inn and Sails, Sails, and Co. Melody pressed into him, her chest against his, as shouts from above filled the air. The space was barely big enough for the two of them.
Arlan attempted to shift his position, but Melody held him firm. “What’re you doing?” he whispered.
“Trying to not get arrested,” she deadpanned, looking up at him. “You go down, I go down. And I’m not spending the rest of my days working down in The Soot to pay off my sentence. All for a fuddy bag of coin.”
“So you did steal my money!”
“Of course I stole your money. You sure are dense, aren’t ya?” Melody leaned back and peered around the edge of the alcove. “Okay. We’re clear enough. What’s the move?”
“Excuse me?”
“What’s. Your. Move?” she asked, each word a slow drip. She rolled her eyes at the lack of a quick answer from the criminal mastermind she had pinned to the wall. “What was your plan? Turn a ship into raining ashes and hide out in one of the most heavily policed areas this side of Kimichula?”
“I, uh…”
“Where’s your ship?”
“My ship?”
Melody sighed, stepping back into the alleyway. “You don’t have a ship?” She combed her hands through her hair, twisted the ends up, and tied the strands into a curly knot. Distant thrumming of metallic propellers and whooshing air caused her stomach to mimic the knot on the top of her head. “We have to move. Follow me and keep your head down.” Melody whipped her overcoat off and draped it over her arm before turning back to Arlan. “Keep up. And try not to stand out.”
With that, she sped forward, expertly weaving between the people filtering in and out of the shops. She crossed a wooden slat bridge, temporarily strung between the central platform of The Cog and a stationary airship, and disappeared below deck. Arlan followed suit, coming to a stop in front of a well-decorated cabin.
“You don’t have a ship. Do you have any personal items from your room?” Melody asked, as she bent over a wooden chest and shoveled its contents into a worn leather knapsack.
Arlan hummed, rocking back and forth on his heels. “About the room.”
Hanging her head, Melody grumbled to the floor, “It wasn’t yours, was it?”
“Not necessarily.”
She stood, tossed the knapsack over her shoulder, and threw her head back in exasperation. “I should have just gone with Gavin. You never choose the nice ones, do you Mel? No, Gavin was only traveling to the end of the fuddy world. Too much adventure, you said. You’d end up having to take care of his strange black cat with its cute little goggles. But no, you chose Chip McArson over here. Look where that’s got you.”
“The arson was an accident,” Arlan muttered. “And I don’t know why you’re mad when you clearly planned to rob me from the get-go. Over here acting like you’re some innocent bystander.”
“Fine,” Melody huffed. “Point taken. And you’re welcome, by the way, for getting you out from under the fleet’s nose.”
Arlan licked his lips and bit at the skin of his bottom lip. “Thank you. For that.”
Melody nodded. “You’re welcome. Now…” She crossed over to a small box tucked behind her pillow. “We’re going to need to blend in.” Inside the box were several small vials of different colored liquids. Melody delicately pulled one out and held it up in front of Arlan. She considered the shimmering gray liquid for a moment before tutting, filing it back in place, and replacing it with one filled with a deep burgundy liquid. “This’ll do. Come ‘ere.”
Arlan cautiously stepped in front of her. His gaze bounced between the vial in her hand and the myriad of others still lined up in the box.
Melody pointed to the bed. “Sit.” As he took a seat next to her, she unplugged the vial.
“Smells like that shit they use to varnish the decks. What is that?”
“Hat off.”
“Not without an explan—”
Before he could finish, Melody plucked the hat off Arlan’s head. “Oh… wow.” She took a step back to take him in. His midnight black hair was coiled into a series of tightly braided buns that extended down the middle of his head. Along either side was a cascade of small silver and gold gears interwoven with brown strips of leather. “Well… guess I won’t need this,” she said, sliding the vial back into the box. “Last night, you…”
Arlan lifted his eyes to hers as she trailed off. “What?”
Melody blinked. Flecks of gold shimmered in his eyes as he looked at her, the adornments in his hair bringing out the color. “Nothing. It’s just… it’s beautiful.” She wondered how she hadn’t noticed the details of his hair or face last night. The soft whirring of nearby airships above deck snapped her attention back to the room. “Right, well… here.” She pulled a swath of black silk from her bag and expertly folded and tucked it over the top of Arlan’s head. She tilted her head to the right and paused, contemplating. “It’ll have to do.”
Melody’s fingers danced over the vials until she settled on one filled with an onyx liquid. With one hand, she released the knot in her hair and let it fall below her shoulders, and with the other, unstoppered the vial and upended it over her head. She tousled her hair, running her fingers through it as the crimson slowly disappeared.
“Wow,” Arlan breathed from the edge of the bed next to her.
Melody flipped her hair behind her, now jet black but with the same lustrous waves. Her fingers combed along her scalp until each strand fell perfectly along her shoulders and back.
She stopped and smiled, noticing Arlan staring at her. “I know a woman in Highcliff. A few vials of these to change my look when needed in exchange for… well, let’s just say it’s a trade I’m happy to make. Most of the time it’s just to feel a bit different, but also good when you need to work with a makeshift disguise. You know, with the constables on our tail and all.” Melody snapped the box shut and slid it into her knapsack. The toe of her leather boot tapped along the wooden floor. “So, Arlan Kalbrunner of the whatever-ship-you-overthrew, before I risk my neck helping yours any more than I have, I need some answers.”
Arlan sighed and leaned back on his elbows. “You want the long one or the short one?”
Melody smirked. “Dealer’s choice.”
“A solid mix then,” he said, getting comfortable. “To start, I used to be the captain of an exploration ship. The Ruddy Nimbus. Wanted to be in the Cartographer’s Fleet—go storm chasin’ and solve the great mysteries of the sky. That didn’t quite work out. Turns out I’m not great at sciencin’. But I’m fuddy good at sailing. So, I got myself a job on the Iron Cutlass as a first-mate. Long and short of it, the captain was fixin’ to put me and the crew in a heap of danger. Had us headed straight to The Whispering Isle.”
“The Whispering Isle?” Melody sat on the edge of the bed, mouth agape. “That’s a death sentence flying into those storms.”
“I know. And he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Obsessed with all that tall-tale talk of livin’ forever after drinking from that well.”
“So… that’s when you mutinied?”
Arlan nodded.
“And the arson?”
“Accidental arson,” Arlan corrected. “He already set course by the time I got the crew on my side. Waited too long. I tried to get us out, turn us around. Ended up crashing into the edge of a fog-coated island. Next thing I knew, the Cutlass was up in flames, the crew were bailing, and I was goin’ down with her.”
“Braddock’s ghost,” Melody swore under her breath. “What happened?”
“Got about as close to death as I ever care to be. The Cutlass drifted too close and got swept up into a twister. All those rumors about the storms cloakin’ The Whispering Isle? Not a lick of a lie to ‘em. Not sure how, but I ended up in Rustowne’s infirmary—banged up, bruised, and not a memory of how I got there. That’s where I’m fixin’ to get back to.”
“Why would you want to go back?”
Arlan sat up, his knees knocking into Melody’s. He stared at his feet for several moments with just the sound of their breathing between them. “The whispers,” he said, barely audible.
“Oh, cog’s grease!” Melody laughed, shoving his thigh. “Don’t tell me you’re fuddy mad on top of being a wanted felon?”
“I’m not mad,” Arlan snapped as he stood up. “I heard them. The whispers in the storms. Their secrets.”
“And here you had me listenin’ to you spinning this tale of heroics and valor.”
“It’s true. Look.” He lifted his hat off the bed and reached his hand inside before sitting back down next to her. His fingers worked nimbly as he peeled a piece of tattered paper from the lining. He carefully unfolded it and held it flat in his lap. A series of scribbles: drawings of clouds, fragmented sentences, and mathematical equations peppered the parchment. “Some of this is what I heard; some is what I’ve figured out. You can’t understand unless you’ve been in the storm. At least that’s what Gyl says.”
Melody looked from the paper to Arlan. “Gyl?”
“Captain Gyl. The Captain Gyl.”
“They’re an enigma. A rumor. Just some kid taking advantage of people like you. People wanting to find answers.”
“I know it’s easy to think that. I thought that too when I first met them. But they know things no one else would know. Especially not someone their age… or at least the age they look. They were there, Melody. When it happened. The waterspout that started it all.”
“And you what, want to drink from the well? Find immortality?”
“I don’t know what I want. But I know I need to find out. And look, you don’t need to get involved. I’m going with or without you… aside from the money you took. I need it to charter a ship.”
Melody regarded him a moment before she scooped her overcoat off the wooden chest, slipped her hand inside, and withdrew the silk money pouch she pilfered from him that morning. She opened it and counted the coins inside. With a sigh, she pulled the drawstring closed and tossed it into his lap. “Why charter when you can captain your own?”
They heard the storms long before they could see them. Deep rumblings shook the thick canvas of the balloon and rattled the rigging as flashes of light illuminated the clouds around them.
“I thought you said you were a good sailor!” Melody yelled over a loud bang of thunder. The ropes stretching from the cramped deck to the thick canvas balloon, keeping them aloft, pulled taut as a gust of wind nearly knocked Arlan out of the crow’s nest.
“Feel free to step in at any time!” he called down to her.
She was certain she could hear the smirk in his voice. Melody watched as his hair, now in loose braids down to his shoulders, flicked every which way with the wind. Even after several weeks of sailing the skies together, she continued to be taken aback by him. It didn’t help that the sense of adventure fueled her adrenaline, or that she knew that for the first time in many years she wasn’t the one in control. But ending up on the wrong side of the law made it an easy choice. It didn’t take more than a passionate kiss to make up her mind, though the subsequent raid of her quarters and a mad dash out the porthole didn’t hurt either.
They had purchased a small airship—single-ballooned and single-cabined—from an unsavory ex-acquaintance of Melody’s. She guaranteed dark registration, no paper trail, and had said the ship was small enough to avoid Skyfleet’s checkpoints. The perfect deal… save for the fact it cost both Melody’s savings and Arlan’s stash combined. It had held up, though. They were but a few hours away from The Whispering Isle and the bustling adjacent city of Rustowne, the apparent home of the famed, immortal Captain Gyl.
The entire trip all Arlan talked about was breaking the code to immortality. Melody teased him every time he got going, at least for the first week. After that, they began planning the great adventures they would have if they could live forever on their perfect little ship. Melody even named her. The Mutinous Flame. They spent several days arguing the name, but Melody won out after explaining The Mutinous Accidental Flame was too long a name to repeat time and time again over the eternity of living forever. If they were to drink from the well and become immortal, it’d have to be a simple name—and one without a constant need for Arlan’s validation and explanation.
“Almost there,” Arlan said as his boots hit the deck behind Melody. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him until she could feel his heart beating against her back. He reached his other arm out in front of her and pointed past the stern.
Melody flinched against him as another crack of thunder reverberated in the air around them. The clouds lit up in rolling waves before giving way to a whirling torrent of rain. Arlan removed his hand from her waist and tugged on a rope which extended up into an intricate webbing around the balloon. The ship sailed down, breaking through the clouds to reveal the most magnificent sight Melody had ever witnessed.
An enormous waterspout burst from an unseen ocean below and upward into a mass of swirling vortexes. Dark clouds joined together and broke apart, moving to an undetectable rhythm as they circled around a massive floating island in the sky. Lightning rippled within the clouds, making them dance with flashes of white. And though she knew it had to be her imagination, Melody swore she could hear whispers on the wind. Her eyes focused on a small bridge, held together with nothing but chain and rusted metal as it stretched out of the clouds and to a smaller floating city with reddish-hued buildings made of sheets of steel and gears. Arlan’s deep voice cut through the gusts, causing g
oosebumps to rise along Melody’s skin.
“Welcome to The Whispering Isle.”
Arlan tucked his braids into his top hat as he stepped into The Crimson Cog with Melody on his arm. She changed her hair again before they disembarked, opting for a gentle lilac—a color of her own creation. Arlan had spoken at great length of this tavern in Rustowne. Melody’s eyes traveled to a giant cog attached to the wall behind the taproom.
“That has to be at least fifteen feet high,” she breathed, letting her arm slip from Arlan’s as she wandered closer.
“Twenty, to be exact.” Melody looked to her right to see a person no older than thirty leaning up against the bar. Chestnut hair fell in gentle waves around a young face with soft features. “It’s from the old factory. Used to churn out the best ship mechanics in the whole hemisphere. Granted, that was over fifty years ago. It’s a wonder it’s still in one piece.”
“Local historian?” Melody asked, facing the stranger.
“You could say that,” they said, cracking a smile. “I haven’t seen you here before.”
She smirked at the thought of things not being as different from The Hub as Arlan made them out to be. “First time.”
Arlan appeared next to her as if a flash of lightning himself. “Gyl! You look well!”
The stranger’s chest shook with a chuckle. “I look the same as I have for the last…” They held their hand out and mocked counting fingers. “Well, what’re years? It’s great to see you back. You brought quite the fetching companion with you.” Gyl’s eyes met Melody’s and held her gaze.
Arlan placed his hand on the small of Melody’s back. “Melody, this is Gyl. Gyl, Melody.”
“We were just getting acquainted,” they responded without breaking eye contact, and smiled as Melody cocked an eyebrow. “You’re skeptical of my identity.” They perched their elbows onto the bar, leaning back with a grin. “You’re not the first.”
“I don’t believe in immortality.”
“Most don’t.”