The Wind Merchant

by Ryan Dunlap

  “I was curious what you knew about the city surrounding Solaria,” Callie said.

  “Oh, yes. Bogues is it? Quaint little village,” Dr. O said.

  “Did you know about the battle here during The Clockwork War?” Callie asked.

  Dr. O wiped his mouth with his napkin, leaving a grimace. “Such things do not make for polite dinner conversations, young miss.”

  Callie’s eyes flared with life. “You’re the first person I’ve met that has ever acknowledged something happened here.”

  “Well, being the epicenter of the Great Overload doesn’t leave many left to tell the tale,” Dr. O said, “But, Bartholemew is sensitive to violence, and I do not wish to damage his innocence.”

  “He’s a rabbit,” Callie said, frustration mounting.

  “Excuse me?” Dr. O asked, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “What did you call him?”

  “Callie,” Ras said, trying to calm the situation.

  “A rabbit. Floppy ears, long legs, eats carrots,” Callie said as she pointed a hand across the table to the animal, who looked back at her, sniffing the air. “They’re called rabbits.”

  Dr. O turned his attention to the animal. “Bartholemew…is it true? Is that what land dwellers called you? Rabbit,” he said, wrapping his mouth around the word for the first time. “That’s quite fun to say. Rabbit. Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.” He clapped his hands twice. “Four! Take Bartholemew and place him with the other Bartholemews…Rabbits,” he said, nodding a thanks to Callie. “Learn something new every day, don’t we?”

  Minion Four stepped in, extracted Bartholemew and left the room post haste.

  “Now that innocent ears are absent,” Dr. O said, “Let us talk of Bogues.” He placed his utensils carefully upon his plate. “My father fought in the war in the First Airship Brigade, commanded by Halcyon Napier himself. Seeing as we’re so close to The Wild, Bogues was the first city subjugated by the Elders, and the last one for them to leave.”

  “Every book I’ve read said Treding was the last battle,” Callie said.

  “As far as proper give-and-take battles go, that’s entirely accurate,” Dr. O said. “Bogues was a massacre. Napier led the First in an aerial attack on the Elder’s makeshift base, but those clockwork detonated a weapon of some sort, creating the first Convergence and destroying themselves in the process. The rest is history.”

  “That’s not how it happened,” Carter said, his voice echoing through the room as the rest of the diners turned their attention his way.

  Dr. O laughed a little too loudly. “Are you calling my father a liar?”

  “Perhaps not an intentional liar,” Carter said, “but that’s not the whole story.”

  “Then what is?” Callie asked.

  “The Elders didn’t have a weapon that made a Convergence,” Carter said, pressing his napkin nervously in his lap, “Hal Napier used Energy-filled cannon balls—”

  “Nonsense!” Dr. O shouted, “You go one lower than a liar and accuse my father of being an accessory to apocalypse. If you continue with these idiotic notions, I won’t care if Rastiban brings in a dozen dreadnaughts, I’ll have you rot in the belly of Solaria long after we’re skybound.”

  The room fell silent, and Carter showed no further interest in speaking.

  “There we are, settled,” Dr. O said. “All this shouting has wearied me.” He looked over to Ras. “Minion Number Thirty-Eight?” Dr. O asked, prompting a man in uniform to step up to Dr. O’s side. “Put out a message that we have a Mister…”

  “Erasmus Veir,” Ras said.

  “I like Rastiban better,” Dr. O said. “Put out a message that we have a Mr. Erasmus Veir in our possession and would very much like to offer our assistance to The Collective.”

  “Yes, sir,” the minion said, nodding and exiting the room.

  “Now, Mr. Erasmus,” Dr. O said, “you will wait in what I hope you’ll find to be more agreeable quarters until we have confirmation that The Collective indeed holds an interest in you.”

  “I thought you said we could go,” Ras said.

  “You wanted the brute’s freedom, and you wanted to personally ensure I upheld my part of the bargain,” Dr. O said. “I don’t see how you could do the latter if you left immediately.”

  Ras looked over to Carter, who gave a weak smile. Wife and kid, Ras reminded himself.

  A set of guards whose numbers Ras could only guess escorted him, Callie, Dixie, and Carter into a room that Ras presumed had been decorated by a doting grandfather with a five-year-old girl in mind. The expanse of pink was only occasionally interrupted by various colors of dust-laden plush pillows and googly-eyed stuffed animals.

  As soon as the door shut behind them, Dixie addressed the three sternly with a more familiar tone and rate. “One, if any of you breathe a word about this room, I will end you. End you. You too, hulk,” she said, wagging a finger at Carter, then looked at the intercom by the door and placed a palm over the speaker. “Two, you’re taking me with you, and I don’t care how it happens.”

  “But your family—” Callie said.

  “That madman is not my grandfather, and amending my first-two points, you will also meet your end if I ever hear any of you say Astrid again.”

  Ras failed to suppress a laugh, collapsing into a pink bed half covered in pillows. It was the most comfortable thing he had ever experienced. “C’mon, this place isn’t all that bad. Comfy bed, creepy green goggled minions, crazy old man that needs to keep up a fantasy that his granddaughter is alive—is this down? It feels like down.” Ras patted the comforter. The oddness of the whole situation was well mitigated by his need for rest.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t slept on it,” Dixie said dismissively.

  “Whatever it is,” Ras said with a yawn, “I’m getting one. I don’t care if it only comes in pink.” He closed his eyes. “Oh, Dixie, Callie…this is Carter. Carter? Dixie and Callie.”

  “Where did you hear that story about Hal Napier starting the Great Overload?” Callie asked.

  “My father,” Carter said.

  “Where did he hear it?”

  “His father.”

  “You’re not the most forthcoming fella, are you?” Dixie asked.

  Carter pointed to the intercom box by the door, then tapped his ear. “I just want to get home.”

  “The doctor mentioned you were from Illoria,” Callie said. “Where is that?”

  “It was wiped off most maps many years ago.”

  “Oh,” Callie said, “Does that make you…a Remnant?”

  “No, he has a ship,” Ras said groggily. The wear and tear on his body combined with the exquisite bed made a nearly insurmountable case for sleep. He tried to say something else, then quickly forgot it as his exhaustion excused him from the conversation.

  Something heavy landed squarely on Ras’ midsection, jerking him awake. He craned his neck up from the sea of dusty pillows and wrapped his hands around his father’s grapple gun on his stomach. Dixie stood at the entrance, once more in her regular clothing. “That’s for stealing my bed.”

  Callie sat in a lavish chair next to the bed, also having changed out of her dress. “I mentioned you probably left it behind.”

  Ras’ body protested when he sat up. Two falls in one day made a tie for his record, and his body begrudged him both. “I’m surprised it wasn’t crushed by the elevator,” Ras said, inspecting the device. The magnetic slide down the shaft gave its top a shiny yet worn appearance. Ras noticed a full spool of cable and new magnetic charges.

  “Oh, it was,” Dixie said. “The old man is a tinkerer…and I suppose bored when there aren’t new pilots to terrorize.”

  “How long was I out?” Ras asked.

  “Almost fifteen hours,” said Callie. “You needed it.”

  “What did I miss?”

  “Callie told me all of your embarrassing childhood stories,” said Dixie.

  Ras shot a betrayed looked over at Callie, who wrinkled her nose and sh
ook her head in an amused denial of Dixie’s accusation. “Carter told us Illorian folklore. It was fun.”

  A knock prompted Dixie to open the door, revealing the scarred visage of Minion Number Four. “It’s time. The Collective is on their way.”

  They reached the top of the dead city as the diffused moonlight brightened the cloud cover. Dixie sweet-talked Number Four into letting her say goodbye to her friends, and only after much protest and the threat of playing the maligned granddaughter card was she permitted into the skiff. Another minion, Number Thirty, joined to fill the vehicle to capacity with six riders.

  Four pressed a button on the dash, and the skiff shot down the streets of Solaria until it ramped off the last airship dock. “Hang on.”

  The skiff fell sharply, its repulsion system not kicking on until the moment before they would have collided with the cracked streets of Bogues. They eventually gained enough altitude to fly over the obelisk gate and back into the foggy forest as per Ras’ guidance. After a quick stop to collect his jetcycle, Ras led the skiff to The Brass Fox, which waited unmolested in the midst of the forest.

  “You came from Verdant in that?” Four asked.

  Ras muttered something uncharitable under his breath and parked the jetcycle within the ship. After lowering the gangplank, he asked Callie to man the helm and start the engine when prompted.

  Four pulled out Dr. O’s ‘pistol’ and pointed it at the engine to reverse the jammed intake.

  “Can this also do the jamming?” Ras asked.

  “You want to gum up your intake again?” Four asked, laughing, “Yeah, it’ll work both ways.” He tucked the gun in his belt behind him.

  Ras called up for Callie to try to start the Windstrider. A moment passed and the engine chuffed in protest, then roared to life. Ras ran up to the deck, followed by Four and Thirty.

  “All right, Carter, where to?” Ras asked with more energy than he had felt in quite a while. The sleep, coupled with captaining a ship again, made him feel almost like a new man. It was either that or knowing The Collective was once again on his heels.

  “East. Just don’t fly over the town,” Carter said.

  The Brass Fox limped back into the sky on one engine. The wind blew on Ras’ face again, offering a stark contrast to the stale air in the belly of Solaria.

  Within ten minutes, Carter navigated them to his ship, which looked unmistakably familiar. A sister ship to The Kingfisher if ever there was one.

  “Is that…” Callie began to ask.

  “I know,” Ras said. “Carter…is that a typical design for an Illorian ship?”

  “Nothing quite like them, is there?” Carter said proudly. “I’m surprised you’ve seen one before. Like I said, it’s Tropo-capable, so most people don’t spot them.”

  “Tropo…Troposphere capable.” Ras smacked his forehead. Now it made sense why Hal managed to stay hidden for so long. “Do…do all Illorians stay up there? The Troposphere, I mean.”

  “Not necessarily, but most do,” Carter said. “There aren’t many of them left.”

  The Brass Fox landed next to Carter’s ship. “You hug that wife and baby for me,” Callie said. “They sound so sweet.”

  Carter nodded and extended a hand to Ras. “I’m glad you tripped over me.”

  “I’m glad I met a wrecking ball.” Ras’ hand disappeared into Carter’s mitt. Carter, Four, and Thirty disembarked and shortly got his ship’s engines back in working order.

  Ras watched the minions return to The Brass Fox, and then Carter’s ship took off.

  “So, why is it called the boneyard?” Ras asked.

  Further south, Ras found his answer. Despite the dense fog, Ras could see at least fifty ships in various states of disassembly.

  “What happened to their crews?” Ras asked, turning to Four.

  “They didn’t deliver granddaughters,” he said matter-of-factly. “Find something suitable and land. You don’t have all night.”

  Ras surveyed the field, which consisted of transports, tankers, and a few ships emblazoned with pirate insignias.

  “How about that ship?” Dixie said, pointing to port. “Looks a lot like this one.”

  Ras pulled the wheel to port and glided over to the ship she was pointing out. As he did so, a knot of dread began to twist in his stomach, but he forced himself to ignore it and continue.

  The moon came out from behind a rare break in the clouds, illuminating the decrepit vessel, and Ras could no longer ignore his gut. “No,” he whispered. He began shaking ever so slightly. “Not like this.”

  “What’s wrong?” Callie asked.

  Ras dropped the gangplank while The Brass Fox still glided along low to the ground. He abandoned the helm, forcing Dixie to take the wheel. Callie chased after him.

  “Ras!” Callie shouted, “What’s going on?”

  He leapt off the gangplank, fell five feet and rolled. Callie stopped at the deck railing, her shouts nothing but an echo to him as his heart pounded faster. Dashing past a small transport, he arrived at the rusted shell of the vessel his mother faithfully used to take him to see off and welcome home.

  The Silver Fox lay ruined.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Lost Fox

  Even with its bow crushed and partially buried, its tail lifted off the ground, and its partially deflated balloon draped over the starboard side, Ras would have recognized the ship of his childhood anywhere.

  He collapsed to his knees, holding back rage and sadness, but his will to fight the two-fronted battle eroded.

  The Brass Fox came to a stop and Callie stepped off the gangplank, hitting the ground running. When she approached Ras, he had already made it back to his feet and was manically talking to himself.

  “No. He came back from worse. Disabled engines wouldn’t have stopped him,” he said methodically, walking toward the back of his father’s ship.

  “Who are you talking about?” Callie asked, running after him.

  Ras stopped in his tracks and turned back to Callie with tears in his eyes. “He made it all this way and they knocked him out of the sky.” He shoved a shaking, accusatory finger toward Solaria.

  “What?”

  Ras turned again and walked around the aft of the ship to the other side. “Maybe he left me something…a message, note…anything that might tell me where he was going, a—” The sight of a crumpled and black figure in the distance halted him.

  Callie almost ran into Ras as she rounded the corner. “Ras, I—” She lost the words when she spotted the body.

  Ras stood, paralyzed with fear. It was dark enough to allow him to doubt what he knew deep down to be true. He was staring at the corpse of his father. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” Callie said, placing a hand gently on his shoulder.

  “No, I can’t walk away from this,” he said. Each step closer offered more information as he recognized the bits of jacket that weren’t charred. The body looked to have Elias’ frame even though it lie in a fetal position.

  Ras’ heart plummeted when he saw the leather boots. He remembered the day his father had brought them home, retiring the oft-repaired hand-me-downs from grandpa Veir, which Ras currently wore.

  Carefully kneeling beside the body with fear and reverence felt like the right thing to do.

  After ten years out in the elements, the body was badly burned and withered. Ras slowly peeled off his jacket and placed it over the charred head and torso, allowing himself to imagine the face of his father without having to look at the blackened and grotesque visage staring at the clouds above. The visage he was certain that would turn dream to nightmare for the rest of his life.

  Ras let out a scream he didn’t know he had in him. “No! No! This is not how you die!” The tension released from his chest, then tightened again with another heaving intake of air. “I was supposed to find you and you were supposed to save Verdant, not me.” He didn’t care that Callie stood behind him. �
��I can’t do this! Not like you could have. If you only made it this far, then how am I supposed to stand a chance?”

  Callie kneeled down next to Ras.

  “He wasn’t supposed to die,” Ras said.

  “I know.”

  “He was so strong, and smart…he always knew what to do.”

  “I know.”

  “And I have no clue what I’m doing or where I’m going.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes it is!” Ras turned to look into Callie’s beautiful, calming eyes. He took a breath to catch himself, then spoke softly. “If he couldn’t save Verdant, then what hope does his failure of a son have?”

  Callie looked at him sympathetically, remaining silent.

  “I just…I wanted him back so badly for so long. I knew,” he said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, “I knew that he’d come through like he always did.” Ras stared at the ground, then back up to The Silver Fox. “What do you do when the man you’ve looked up to all your life is gone? What do you do when your hero dies?”

  Callie wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight.

  “He knew I didn’t have what it takes to be a wind merchant.” Ras looked over at the body. “He just wouldn’t tell me until it was too late. A mechanic couldn’t destroy a Convergence.”

  “Verdant doesn’t need a wind merchant, Ras. It needs you,” Callie said. “How many times would a Knack have died where you’ve gone? You haven’t let me down, all right? I still believe in you. I just need you to believe in yourself too. You’ve made it all the way this far without your father, and I’m sure he’d be so proud of his boy right now.” She moved to hold him at arm’s length, not speaking until he met her gaze. “You are a good man, Erasmus Veir. Don’t you forget it.” Tears glistened in her blue eyes. “Take however long you need.”

  Ras looked at the wise girl from next door for a moment. “Thank you.”

  “Any time.” She hugged him for a good while, then gracefully stood and walked back toward The Brass Fox.