The Wind Merchant (30 page)

The thought of what they might find disturbed Ras. He nodded and trudged back up to the helm to steady the ship’s slow and graceful descent.
 

The sun began to peek over the horizon, lending a bit of light to the world, and Ras could see they were floating high above a dense forest outside of a town built around something chillingly familiar. “I think we found
Solaria
,” Ras said. Aside from some superficial architectural differences, the crashed structure reminded Ras of
Verdant
, giving him a glimpse of his city’s grim future.

“Torches!” Callie said, pointing down. Beneath them, a moving line of two dozen twinkling lights blinked through the dense foliage. “Maybe they’ll help her if she survived!”

“They’re probably Remnants,” Ras said, searching for a clearing big enough to land the ship.

In a matter of minutes,
The Brass Fox
settled neatly into a nearby clearing. Ras lowered the anchor out of habit, as though the ship might somehow take off without them.

Callie packed the leather satchel with provisions while Ras holstered his large wrench and strapped on the grapple gun, thinking it wise to bring even though they had no places from which to fall.

With a general idea of the direction of where they needed to go, Ras stepped off the gangplank and shortly realized he heard only one set of footfalls. He turned and saw Callie standing on the edge of the gangplank, satchel strapped across her body.

“If we’re going to find her before the Remnants do, we’re going to have to hurry,” Ras said.

“It’s just…” Callie began. “I’ve never touched the ground before.” She gently lowered one foot forward to the grass. She tentatively shifted her weight, then took a few experimental steps, unsure of her new sensation. “It…doesn’t move.”

Ras nodded before turning around to head back into the woods. An hour of trudging through the forest only offered up the clue of a scraped chunk of metal that Ras recognized as part of the jetcycle.

“We can’t do this all day. Maybe she made it into town,” Ras said.

“But what if she’s still out here and we gave up on her?” Callie asked. “Dixie!” she shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth.

“Shh! What if Remnants hear you?”

Callie sighed, looked about and continued walking. “Just ten more minutes.”

Ras wanted to protest. He wanted to remind her that
Verdant
was still sinking as they searched; that he had no idea how they were going to avoid Remnants, find Dixie, and fix their engines; and that even if they were to successfully make it into The Wild, they still had Elders to dodge and a return trip filled with most of the same obstacles to navigate.

“Ras?” Callie crouched about fifty feet ahead, inspecting something.
 

He quickly closed the distance and saw what interested her.
 

Blood.
 

Formerly white strands of hair lay matted in the small pool. Nearby, multiple sets of tracks headed off in the direction of the town.

“I don’t know why they’d take a dead body. Maybe this is a good thing?” Ras asked. According to Dixie’s theories, he actually had several gruesome ideas as to why they might take a dead body, but didn’t feel it an opportune time to share.

“We’re too late.” Callie said, looking up at Ras, then past him. “Maybe not…”
 

Ras turned to see what she was looking at. The jetcycle hung lodged high between a couple of close growing trees. Still, it would have been a long way to fall. “There’s no way I’m getting up there without that thing falling on me,” he said.

Twenty minutes later and fifty feet higher, Ras was peeking out between green leaves for the first time in his life. Naturally, some part of his mind had decided that standing on the swaying branches was a sufficiently novel sensation to deserve an attack of the vertigo. He looked down at Callie, who stood near the base of the trees, and immediately regretted it. “I’d stand back. No sense in both of us being crushed if we can help it.”
 

She obliged.

Merely five feet away from the jetcycle, Ras lacked an actual plan on how to get the thing started. He imagined getting the machine to run, only to careen into another tree moments later. On the other hand, if the plan worked, they might have a chance at getting to the town before the torchlight party.

The awkward position of the jetcycle caused Ras to wonder about the merits of trying to start the machine while sideways to let the engine cycle. Letting the bike fall would almost ensure its inoperability, a state that Ras didn’t wish to share by riding it straight down to the forest floor.

Climbing the last five feet, he pulled within grabbing distance of the right handlebar. The key was still in the ignition.

“Will it work?” Callie called up.

Ras looked down to respond and immediately tightened his grip on the branch, shutting his eyes tightly. “Don’t know yet.” Retrieving the wrench from his holster, he used it to press the ignition button. The engine cycled but didn’t start.

He pressed the button again to the same effect. The sound reminded him of whenever
The Fox
’s engine scoop would clog. But with the intake on the bottom of the jetcycle, Ras realized he had climbed the wrong tree to access the guts of the vehicle.

After one last fruitless push of the ignition button to remind him that luck was not usually on his side, he climbed a bit higher than the jetcycle. The other tree offered a few branches to grasp, but none that looked likely to support his weight.

He set a foot lightly down on the side of the jetcycle’s seat. It shifted slightly, but settled. He didn’t know if Dixie could have survived a drop from this height, but if she did, she’d be showing meetings with every branch below, of which there were many.

Ras placed more of his weight onto the jetcycle, which now felt firmly lodged. He took a deep breath and pulled himself toward the opposite tree as the jetcycle rumbled to life beneath him. “No, not now!” Ras scolded the machine, but like a disobedient child, it throttled harder, shooting steam out behind it as Ras lunged for the controls.
 

The jetcycle shot free of its wooden prison and Callie gave a yelp of surprise as it came careening down straight for her. Ras grasped the left handlebar, pulling it back toward himself to alter the jetcycle’s course. This also righted the vehicle, causing Ras to no longer be atop it but to dangle from the handlebar as the jetcycle picked up speed and leveled off just above Callie.

The sudden jerk upward caused Ras to lose his grasp and he spun like a ragdoll until he met the ground. Painfully.

The bike zipped off in the distance.

Callie came rushing to Ras’ side. “Are you all right?” She felt around, looking for any obvious wounds. “Anything broken?”

“I got it out of the tree. Yay,” said Ras flatly. He groaned. “I do entirely too much falling.”

“I was meaning to talk to you about that.” Callie smiled slightly as she brushed some of Ras’ hair out of his eyes, revealing a scrape on his left cheek. Suddenly Ras no longer minded falling so much.

“Where’s the jetcycle?” He tried to look around but the pain persuaded him to leave that to Callie.

Callie surveyed the area. “That’s funny.”

“I could stand to hear something funny.”

“The jetcycle. It stopped.” Callie stood, leaving Ras.

Ras fought to pull himself up to a seated position, but failed. His outfit was covered in leaves and dirt, and the nicks and cuts would soon be accented with bruises. He felt mostly unharmed, but experience taught him it was just the adrenaline. Rolling over to his side, he could see the jetcycle had come to rest mostly unscathed in a nearby clearing.
 

Its engine softly puttered as though inviting them to come play.

Carefully picking himself up, he approached the jetcycle. “Do you remember which way the torches went?” Ras asked as he slowly swung his leg over it, hugging its wide body for a respite.

Callie climbed behind him, pointing slightly to the left before gingerly wrapping her arms around his midsection. “Too tight?”

His head shook a negative although his tender ribs screamed otherwise at him. “Can’t have you falling off.” He gunned the throttle and off they went.

Zipping through the forest on the jetcycle was far more manageable than he had expected, and after only a few close calls with low-hanging branches, Ras gained a feel for flying the persnickety vehicle.

Judging by the speedometer, they were heading at a good clip toward the town. Callie kept an eye out for Dixie or any party of travelers that might have collected her, allowing Ras to focus on not killing them both. Dixie was nowhere to be seen, but keeping an eye on the tracks at that speed was near impossible.

Within twenty minutes they reached the edge of the forest and disembarked, covering the jetcycle with a mix of shrubs and downed branches which did little more than make it obvious that something was hidden underneath.
 

The town itself was surrounded by a dozen giant metal obelisks. The structures towered several hundred feet high.

“Did Remnants build these?” Ras asked.

Callie shook her head. “They’re older than the Atmo Project. Helios invented these pylons to keep the cities safe.” Callie said, nearing the tower and inclining her ear to the hum and crackle emanating from it. “It’s still active.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This was a stop-gap after the Knacks blew,” she said. “Energy can’t pass in or out of these fields. It kept people safe inside from Convergences.”

“How did people travel between cities?” Ras asked.

“They didn’t. The field would detonate a Knack passing through. Nobody wanted to find out if they were a candidate for joining a Convergence,” Callie said.

“Hence the Atmo Project.”

“Exactly,” she said, “I just wish I knew what town this was.”

“So, Remnants won’t be inside, right?” Ras asked.

“Not unless they’re willing to risk blowing up.”

“Suddenly this town seems a lot more appealing.”

“But that means Dixie won’t be inside,” Callie said.

“We’ll cover a lot more ground with a working ship,” he said and walked up to the crackling pillar.

“What if it doesn’t discriminate between Energy and Time Knacks?” Callie asked. “I didn’t bring Hal’s sphere.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t actually need that to move around if you overload,” Ras said. “It’s probably the only useful side effect of being a Lack.” He walked past the pillar casually and turned to see Callie still standing on the other side.

“Don’t call yourself that. You’re special. You’ve always taken my headaches away…I just never told you because I didn’t want you to feel pressured into being near me all the time.” She met his eye. “I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“I promised I’d keep you safe.”

“I made you promise.”

“I could have said no,” Ras said.

“Would you have said no if you knew what we are?”

“What exactly are we?”

“A matched set.”

Ras smiled. “I guess I thought that before we left
Verdant
.” A pause. He walked past the pillar again to Callie and offered his hand.

She placed her small hand in his and stood near him. Inhaling sharply, she began walking forward with her breath held. As they passed through the field together, Ras felt tingles coursing through his body that he hadn’t felt when passing through alone.

A quick expulsion of air from Callie panicked Ras until the laughter tickled his ears. He looked over to her and began laughing heartily, as Callie’s red hair was standing on end in every direction. Ras tried to stop laughing. “I’m sorry, but your hair.”

“My hair?
Your
hair!” she said, trying to smooth her own mane.

Ras patted his head to find that going through the gate with her left him with the same treatment.
 

“It didn’t do that the first time…” The laughing hurt, but oddly enough Ras appreciated the moment of levity more for it.

The laughter died down, and Ras and Callie just smiled at each other. She quirked her mouth and squeezed his hand gently. “I’m sorry I read your letter,” she said.

“It’s all right,” Ras said. He loosened his grip on her hand, but it remained attached to his. He looked down at their clasped hands. “We’re through the field now. You know you don’t have to keep holding my hand.”

“Right, but we’re also closer to The Wild. The headaches start faster if I get too far away from you,” Callie said.

Ras fought disappointment. “Well, squeeze tight if you see anything.”

They continued down the broken road, passing grown-over farms along the way before reaching the wreckage of the crumbled city. Half-fallen buildings lined the path, their debris strewn everywhere. A large sign, faded from time and neglect, welcomed and warned them.

It read:
The Township of Bogues
.

“Now might be a really good time to tell me what was in
The Demons of Bogues
,” Ras said.

“Not Elders. I skimmed it,” Callie said, a smile growing. “I don’t even know where to begin…”

“What now?”

“Ras, the first Convergence was either made here or came here after The Battle of Bogues. Look,” she said, pointing past the decrepit buildings to a more modest set of thatched-roof cottages, “They rebuilt after the Great Overload.”

“But Bogues wasn’t one of Atmo’s twenty-one cities,” Ras said, “So, what happened to the people that stayed inside the pylons?”

Callie stopped, jerking Ras’ arm back. “Then people might be in those cottages.” She held a hand over her mouth. “And they might know what happened.”

“And they might be inbred cannibals.”

“That’s hardly a sustainable system,” Callie said.

“I can’t imagine a flying city falling on them left a sizable population,” Ras said, “How about if we see someone and they don’t look like they want to eat us, we’ll stop and chat?”

As they continued down the path, the fallen city loomed larger, canted at a slight angle.