The Lost Compass

by Joel Ross

  23

  “I HEARD ALL about you,” Perry said in my ear, his arms like leather straps around my chest. “You and your eye.”

  The cold wind whipped past and numbed my cheeks. My stomach throbbed from his punch, and my mind reeled with fear and failure.

  “Maybe Kodoc’ll take it from you.” Perry’s grip tightened, squeezing me painfully. “Maybe he’ll scoop that eye out with a spoon.”

  Bitterness rose in my throat, and I barely heard the roar of cannons over my gasping breaths. The night sky was a blur of dread.

  “Maybe he’ll s-s-set the rats on you,” Perry whispered.

  His slight stammer stopped me cold. My mind cleared, and the night sky was just the night sky. Because that stutter told me that Perry was scared. Swinging high above the Fog on a tether, he was more than scared. The height and motion were nothing for me, but for him, they must’ve been a clawing terror.

  My fear turned to anger. We’d left the junkyard, we’d fled from Perry and the bosses—and now they’d come after us. They’d plucked me from Port Oro like I couldn’t ever escape them, like I’d never break free of my past.

  “Or maybe,” I said, squirming in his arms, “I’ll drop us into the Fog.”

  “What’re you doing?” he squeaked.

  My fingertips scrabbled at a buckle on his harness. “This.”

  “Stop!” He held me with one arm and punched me with the other. “No, you crudnugget!”

  I tugged the strap free, and the cold wind suddenly felt wild and exhilarating. “You’re going down, Perry. You’re going to fall. You’re going splat.”

  “Stop it!” he shrieked, flailing at me. “Stopstopstop!”

  I hunched against his smacks and popped another buckle.

  “You’ll die, too!” he squealed. “You’ll die, too!”

  “You heard all about me,” I said, throwing his words back at him. “Me and my eye. Maybe I drift through the Fog like a feather.”

  The half-unbuckled harness shifted, throwing us sideways, and our weight dropped onto the remaining straps. We spun crazily in the air, and Perry started weeping, loud, gasping sobs.

  “No! Please, Chess—don’t!” He squeezed me as he pleaded. “Don’t, no . . .”

  I stretched for the straps on his other side. I couldn’t reach the buckles, so I jerked at his harness and said, “You should’ve left us alone, Perry.”

  “Please,” he begged. “Please, don’t.”

  I wedged my hand into a slot on his harness, flung myself in a wild circle, and grabbed Perry’s other side. He screamed in fear and frustration, and I wrapped my arm around his neck and reached over his head to grab his tether.

  The hinge of his shoulder buckle felt like ice under my fingers. If I popped that one, the rest would tear and he’d fall—but I’d keep my grip on his tether.

  Perry bucked wildly, but I clung tight and said, “This is for Loretta.”

  “Please,” he wept, going limp. “Please don’t kill me.”

  For Loretta. I half loosened the buckle . . . and wondered what Hazel would say. She’d say, “Good riddance, serves him right.” Swedish would say, “Drop him and let them sort him out.” Loretta would stab him a few times before ditching him.

  And Bea? She wouldn’t blame me for dropping Perry—but she’d never understand how the same guy who patched her overalls and told her bedtime stories had killed someone. And she’d never look at me the same again.

  “I’ll help you!” Perry babbled in his high-pitched voice. “I’ll help you against Kodoc. I promise. I swear on my mother’s life! Just don’t drop me!”

  “I’m not going to drop you,” I told him, and in my mind, Bea’s green eyes shone with relief.

  “Thank you!” Perry said, weeping even more. “Thank you. You won’t regret it, I promise. . . .”

  As Perry sniffled, I pulled myself higher on the tether until I was standing on his shoulders. My knees felt stronger, swooping through the air. My vision cleared. The other tetherkid, the skinny boy who’d smashed through the window, swung on his tether in front of us, toward a dark fleet in the night sky. Fifty torchships and gunships, a handful of big Rooftop warships, and Kodoc’s personal flagship, the Predator.

  I looked behind me, toward Port Oro. Patches of smoke swallowed the moonlight where roof-trooper attack ships had been shot down. The rest of them, with torn balloons and burning sails, were retreating through the sky toward me.

  They were damaged but successful. Mission accomplished. They’d provided a distraction while Perry had snatched me.

  The tether trembled in my grip in time with the throbbing of the airship engine far above. I turned back and watched the Predator draw closer, a sweeping warship with a steel-banded balloon. Cannons and portholes dotted the hull, and huge propellers gleamed in the starlight. Underneath her, a massive scaffolding supported a dozen tethers and winches: a salvage rig so big that a dozen tetherkids could dive at once.

  As the Predator grew larger, my blood ran colder. Without my goggles, I felt the wind bring tears to my eyes, and I blinked at the airsoldiers crowding the Predator’s main deck, armed with swords and steam-bows. On the upper deck, a man in a fancy uniform watched me through a spyglass.

  Lord Kodoc.

  Even from this far away, his gaze raised goose bumps on my arms. The stealth ship swept me downward. The wind whipped, and finally the skinny tetherkid’s boot scraped the Predator’s deck. A moment later, Perry collapsed in front of the steps to the upper deck.

  I landed a few feet away. I stumbled, my legs unsteady, then peered through my hair at the Roof-trooper soldiers flanking me. Nowhere to run. Good thing I’d already given the cogs the map. Maybe Jada and Mochi could find the Compass.

  Except they couldn’t. Only a fog-eyed diver could find the Compass, and now Kodoc had kidnapped the only one. What would Port Oro do? What would the crew do? Well, at least Kodoc didn’t have the map. No matter what happened, I could never tell him about the map.

  I chewed the inside of my cheek—and my neck jerked backward. Pain flared between my shoulders, and a punch knocked me to my hands and knees.

  “You’re going to pay for that,” Perry snarled at me in his high voice. “First I’ll break your thumbs.”

  I blinked tears from my eyes. So much for “I’ll help you against Kodoc, I promise. I swear on my mother’s life!”

  “Then I’ll break your knees.” Perry booted me in the ribs, and I fell onto my side. “And you know what I’ll do after that?”

  “Rub my feet?” I gasped, curling into a tight ball.

  He raised his boot to stomp my head. “Break your face.”

  “Enough,” Kodoc’s silky voice said.

  Perry’s boot hovered over me. “He almost killed me, m’lord.”

  “If you disobey me,” Kodoc told Perry, strolling down the steps toward me, “it won’t be almost.”

  Perry shifted uneasily. “Yes, m’lord.”

  “Tetherboy.” Kodoc looked down at me. “This time there is no escape.”

  I wanted to say something sharp and unafraid, but it’s hard to sound sharp and unafraid when you’re curled in a ball on the floor. And even harder when you’re feeling dull and terrified.

  “Stand up,” Kodoc said.

  “Go fog yourself,” I mumbled.

  “Watch your mouth, cockroach,” Perry said, kicking my neck.

  Pain slashed from my skull to my shoulders. I crossed my arms over my head, trying to lose myself in a dark cocoon before the beating started. Muffled voices sounded. The deck rolled, the rigging snapped . . . and nobody hit me. Seconds crawled past inside my fearful bubble until eventually, I lifted my head.

  I heard Kodoc politely asking, “I said ‘enough,’ did I not?”

  “Y-yes, m’lord,” Perry said in a small voice. “I’m sorry.”

  “And when I say ‘enough,’ what do you think I mean?”

  “You m-mean you don’t w-want no more, m’lord.”

  “Yet
you still kicked him.” Kodoc turned to his soldiers. “Escort the young man to the railing.”

  “I’m sorry!” Perry squawked. “I’m so sorry, m’lord!”

  Peering through my hair, I watched two soldiers grab Perry’s arms and drag him toward the rail at the edge of the deck.

  “I won’t do it again!” Perry’s boot heels scraped across the floorboards. “Please, please, my lord!”

  “You’ll never disobey me again?”

  “Not ever!” Perry’s yellow hair fell around his desperate, teary face. “I promise! Never!”

  The soldiers shoved Perry against the railing. He flailed his arms, but they pinned him there.

  Kodoc rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Shall I help you keep that promise?”

  “Yes! Please, whatever you want! Please, I’m begging you, please—”

  “Very well.” Kodoc looked to his soldiers. “Help the lad.”

  Perry’s eyes widened in terror—then the soldiers shoved him over the railing, and he fell from sight.

  His scream hung in the air a long time.

  “There,” Kodoc said, turning to me. “Now he’ll never disobey me again.”

  24

  CAPTAIN’S LOG. START-8 9231.8

  BLOOD TRICKLED DOWN my cheek and pooled under my chin. Glimmers of lamplight reflected in the spreading puddle, and I watched them for what felt like a long time.

  Then Bea knelt beside me, pale and trembling. “Hazy? Hazy!” Her green eyes filled with horror, and she shouted, “Help! We need a doctor!”

  She brushed the braids from my face, and footsteps scuffed closer. Legs blocked my vision, doctors bandaged my head, then silence fell. A coldness spread to my fingers and toes. My dizziness smeared into darkness, and I lost consciousness . . . until a hand clamped my shoulder and shook me awake.

  “Hazel?” Swedish’s voice said from far away. “Hazel!”

  “Leave her alone,” a doctor said. “She needs rest.”

  “I don’t care,” Swedish growled.

  “She’s hurt.”

  “She’s the captain,” Bea said, and Swedish shook me harder.

  The dizziness faded. The world snapped into place, and a sledgehammer pounded behind my forehead. When I saw Swede’s frantic face through my tears, I whispered, “Tell me.”

  “Kodoc snatched Chess,” he said. “Three hours ago. He’s on the Predator.”

  Right. Of course. I knew that already. Kodoc had Chess. The thought punched a hole in my heart, but I didn’t have time to waste being stupid, so I forced myself to think. “Is the battle still going?”

  “No,” Swede told me. “The Rooftop ran off after they got Chess.”

  “What do the mutineers say?”

  “That they can’t do anything.”

  Loretta slouched beside my bed. “Stupid muties. They can attack.”

  “Now you sound like Vidious,” Swedish told her.

  “Captain Vidious wants to blitz Kodoc,” Bea told me, and I saw from her eyes that she’d been crying. “Except he knows he can’t beat the armada.”

  Loretta grunted. “The muties have been waiting for days to kick Kodoc’s bony butt.”

  “Holding him off at the Port is one thing,” Bea told her. “But out there, in open skies? They’d get slaughtered.”

  My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat. “We’re going to sneak onto the Predator.”

  “We can’t get close enough,” Swedish told me. “Kodoc will spot any ships coming at him above the Fog.” He glowered toward the window. “Even at night.”

  “He’s got torchships in a big circle,” Bea explained, “shining lights in every direction, so nothing can slip past. And the sound of approaching engines is a giveaway.”

  Loretta frowned. “They can’t hear other engines above their own ships.”

  “Engines all sound different,” Bea told her.

  “If you’re you.”

  “I am me!”

  Loretta glared. “I mean, other people don’t talk to engines.”

  “Any gearslinger can hear the difference,” Bea said. “Well, unless a ship’s using glide-wings or something, and flying silent. But they’d still see it.”

  The flicker of an idea sparked in my mind. Torchships? No. Spotting ships above the Fog? Engine noise? No. I scanned the room as I thought. The wheeze of infirmary machinery mixed with the ticking of the skyscraper. The lanterns flickered against the rows of bottles and flasks. Six beds lined the wall. Mine. Chess’s, now empty. And—

  “Where’s Mrs. E?” I asked.

  “Down the hall,” Bea told me. “The doctors say she doesn’t need—”

  “Above the Fog!” I said as the spark caught fire in my imagination. “Above the Fog.”

  Swedish grunted in satisfaction. “There we go.”

  “Where we go?” Loretta asked.

  “Wherever Hazel says,” he told her.

  “She’s got a plan,” Bea explained.

  “A bad plan,” I told her. “Maybe the worst ever.”

  “Well, Kodoc grabbed Chess,” Loretta said, scratching the burn scar on her arm. “We need a bad plan.”

  “The badder the better,” Swedish told her.

  I shook my head. That didn’t make a lick of sense. We need a bad plan? I turned toward Chess to share my amusement—then a hole opened in my chest, a sudden pang of loss.

  “Kodoc can see anyone coming above the Fog, right?” I asked.

  “Right,” Swedish said.

  “So we’re going to need . . .” I frowned at Bea. “A tether strong enough to hold an entire raft.”

  She chewed her lower lip. “Like . . . like that crane at the fishing pier?”

  “Exactly. And glide-wings like the ones in the workshop, and an engine we can start from a hundred feet away by yanking on a cord.”

  “Like a—a pull start?”

  “At least a hundred feet,” I said, then turned to Swedish. “Find Captain Osho. We need his navigation tools.”

  “Why?” Loretta asked. “What’re we doing?”

  “We’re flying blind,” I told her. “And getting Chess.”

  Two of Kodoc’s airsoldiers dragged me down a corridor into the belly of the Predator. A third soldier unlocked a metal door, which opened with a squeal like a rusty cat. A rough hand shoved me, and I stumbled into the darkness of what felt like a cell.

  Breathing sounded in the gloom as the door locked behind me.

  “Perry got off easy, boy,” a soldier called from outside. “Do what you’re told, or you’re next.”

  I heard sniffling, so I turned and blinked into the darkness. A few shapes huddled against one wall, and I thought I saw the gleam of watchful eyes.

  “Who—” My voice cracked. “Who’s there?”

  “Nobody,” a tiny whisper said.

  “Just us,” an even littler voice added.

  A handful of skinny kids huddled together in the corner. Seven or eight years old. Definitely not tetherkids-in-training. Mrs. E once told me that tetherkids looked like feral cats after they’d caught the scent of a dog, but these kids looked like animals who lived in a cage.

  I sat against the opposite wall and rubbed my bruises. Moving slowly, trying to calm my fears and give the kids a chance to look me over. The second part was easier than the first. Locked in a cell on the Predator, still hearing the echo of Perry’s scream, didn’t really calm my fears. And that was before I started to think about what Kodoc wanted from me. And what he’d do to get it.

  At least my fingers trembled only a little as I tightened my bootlaces. I frowned at the floor. What would Hazel do? I tried to imagine what she’d tell me, but all I heard was the frightened whispers of the kids across the cell.

  “I’m Chess,” I told them.

  The kids fell silent. With my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw them more clearly. Skinny and flinch eyed, wearing rags and hairnets, with dark smudges on their faces.

  Except those weren’t smudges. They were indentations from
breathing masks.

  “You work in a refinery,” I said. A factory where stinking machines refined the Fog into foggium. The bosses bought kids from the junkyard, then made them wear masks when they worked so they’d survive the Fog for longer.

  A kid with missing teeth—I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl—nodded.

  “I’m a tetherboy,” I said. “With a salvage crew.”

  The kid nodded again, and they all seemed to relax a little. They knew a tetherboy wasn’t a threat.

  “Kodoc snatched me,” I told them.

  “He bought us,” the kid said. “From the ’finery.”

  “Why?”

  The first kid rubbed his—her?—sniffling nose with a grimy hand. “Don’t know. Soldiers took us and locked us in here is all.”

  “They didn’t tell us a story or nothing,” another kid scoffed.

  “Is that right?” I rubbed my sore arm. “Do you want to hear one? A story, I mean.”

  The kid with missing teeth stared at me with hope and wariness. Something about the expression reminded me of Bea, so maybe she was a girl. And maybe I should wait to tell them a story until they got used to me.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Quancita,” she said.

  “That’s a nice name,” I said, then shut up, afraid of pushing her.

  The silence gave me time to think. Which was bad. If Kodoc got the Compass, he’d wipe out anyone who disobeyed him. Did he know I’d found the map? Was he going to force me to draw a copy? Or did he just plan to dangle me in the Fog until I stumbled across the Compass?

  I needed to get away. I needed to stop Kodoc from burying Port Oro. From killing the mutineers, the fisherfolk, that guy who’d given us a cucumber. Families, children, old people, babies . . . Mrs. E and the crew.

  When the refinery kids started chatting about home, I stretched out on the floor. The girl named Sally promised that she’d never make trouble again if they lived through this. The boy called Radiz pretended to think that they’d been sold to Kodoc for a job on his warship, while Perla kept talking about a “picnic,” when they’d snuck a few handfuls of blueberries.