The Wind Merchant (43 page)

“You can get them to do that?” Elias asked.

“I’ve had a speech prepared for a long, long while, and I can be quite persuasive,” Hal said, “Plus, I’m the only member of the Council left unfrozen. That should help.”

Once again aboard
The Kingfisher
, Ras watched the ground and
The Brass Fox
shrink beneath him.

“Why didn’t you tell Callie she was Illorian?” Ras asked Hal, who took off his helmet and looked back plainly at him.

“I told her she was a Time Knack,” Hal said. “I assumed she would discover the rest when she saw the train.”

“So you basically didn’t want to tell her she was over a century old?”

“A woman’s age is a sensitive subject, is it not?” Hal asked, then chuckled. “Every Illorian knows about The Children’s Pass, so I sent wind merchants in to collect air, keeping me alive and thinning out the cave—”

“Until one day the train made it through to the other side?”

“Exactly. Dayus took it upon himself to find homes for each child among Atmo parents,” Hal said. “Little did we know being frozen for such a long time had its side effects on young children.”

“The headaches?” Ras asked.

Hal nodded.

“Is that why she was moved to
Verdant
?”

“Dayus thought it wise to keep her as far away from the Time Origin as possible,” Hal said. “It was a fortunate thing that she lived so close to The Reclaimer.”

“
A
Reclaimer,” Ras said. “But go on.”

“The rest of the children weren’t so lucky,” Hal said gravely.

“Did you know my father survived?”

“A decade ago I received his coordinates,” Hal said. “At best, I felt it would bring you closure if he had passed. At worst, I would have received my tank of air and maybe lived long enough to see the world put right.” A slight smile played across his lips. “You’ve gone above and beyond, Erasmus. Above and beyond, indeed.”

The Kingfisher
ascended higher than
The Winnower,
higher than The Collective fleet,
to a dizzying altitude, and Ras fought his old foe as waves of nausea lapped up to the shores of his mind to remind him he wasn’t completely cured.

Dayus returned to the room carrying bundles of ropes and a pair of thick leather gloves and handed them to Ras.

“And how will ropes keep you safe?” Hal asked.

“As long as I can feed it out of my bubble, it anchors in Time and I can lower myself down to her,” Ras said. “After I fall a bit.”

“I don’t envy your trip.”

Ras stepped out of the bay, his shoulders swaddled in rope. He removed one coil and readied it.

A voice over the intercom spoke. “Sir, we are in position.”

Ras donned his goggles and gave a thumbs up. The bay opened and the wind wailed in. “Next time,” Ras shouted, “just tell me my dad is alive.”

“Next time!” Hal said.

Ras shut his eyes and gave in to gravity. The Collective fleet looked like miniatures from this height. Although he saw thin strips of contrails criss-crossing the sky beneath him, he had no way of telling which one was his jetcycle from this altitude.

He knew he had entered Callie’s bubble when the wind no longer moved to meet him. As he flew through trapped sound, it sped up before him and slowed down behind him, coming alive, briefly greeting him upon his arrival, and dying with his departure.

He readied the first coil of rope as he slipped past the highest ships of The Collective fleet.
There.
Only one contrail angled toward the fleet from Caelum. He thought he could almost spot the red speck of Callie’s hair.

Ras let the end of the rope feed out above him by just a little. The top caught the edge of his bubble, jerking him from his fall until it promptly snapped, not capable of supporting his weight at such a speed.
 

He dove past another set of fighters amidst a few green frozen beams aimed at the remainder of the Illorian fleet.

Ras uncoiled more rope, which froze above him and his gloves slid along its surface, heating his hands until he reached the end and the rope slipped from his grasp.

He re-entered free fall; he was approaching Callie far too quickly. The rope trick wasn’t panning out as he had imagined. His fall slowed slightly, but if he didn’t think of something, he would soon reach terminal velocity. He needed something more substantial.

Elias’ jacket.

Ras spun as he tussled with his father’s coat, freeing all but his right arm. He let the long and heavy tail of the coat catch the wind and create drag as it tattered against the fringe of his bubble. The coat began shredding but slowed his descent and even afforded him a stop about fifty feet above her.

He fired his grapple gun into the sky directly above him, anchoring the cable into Time. He released his right arm from the coat, letting the tattered fabric hang above him. Spooling cable out, he lowered himself.

On approach he could see what under normal circumstances would have been the blue of Callie’s eyes. His calculation had been slightly off, and he found himself five feet to her left. He swung himself back and forth until he snapped the cable and landed on the back of the jetcycle.

Wrapping his arms around her, he immediately tightened his grasp around her midsection as the world rocketed back to life and the jetcycle shot forward.

“I’ve been meaning to ask what it’s like to keep getting younger than me,” Ras said.

She started. “What are you doing?”

“Despite your best efforts, I’m keeping a promise.” He reached up, placing his hands over hers on the handlebars.

“You just saved The Collective!” she said.

Ras had the brief thought of Callie throwing herself off of the jetcycle and tightened his grip on the controls. “Short term side effect,” he said. “You remember Dr. O’s gun? We’re going to disable
The Winnower
.”

“If I keep doing this,” Callie said, using her newly freed hands to cradle her head, “It’s going to kill me.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Ras said, turning the jetcycle around and staying well above Caelum.

From behind,
The Brass Fox
zoomed toward them with Elias at the helm. The vessel dodged fire from the capital ships, pulling up parallel with the jetcycle. Ras slid the vehicle into the open bay door of the moving target and cut the engines as the hold swallowed them.

Ras disengaged the jetcycle’s engine. The machine fell to the floor of the hold before sliding into the back wall next to the repaired Windstrider engines. Ras and Callie left the bay and made their way up to the bridge.

Elias flew like a madman, chasing down
The Winnower
. “Glad you both could join us!” Elias said, bobbing and weaving, the ship fully under his command.

The Brass Fox
passed the last of The Collective’s vessels and Ras realized their Helios engines were stunted by the addition of Energy on the wind. Without a cloud layer to keep the element down, the fleet had become reliant on their underpowered backup scoops.

The Winnower
approached the Time Origin, which tinted the sky purple. The crystal structure jutted out from the ground, humming in a low frequency throb.

Ras watched the surrounding ships creep along through the sky. He leaned in to Callie and asked, “Is it just me or are things slowing down even more?”

“You might want to share that with your dad,” Callie said before leading Ras by the hand up to Elias.

After they approached the bridge, Elias stared in surprise. “How did you just run like that?”

Ras placed his hand on his father’s shoulder, bringing Elias into his sphere. “Being a Lack has its privileges.”

The weapons on
The Winnower
roared to life, firing shots at
The Kingfisher
and the last survivors of the Illorian fleet as they swarmed around the station’s many balloons
.
When it became apparent that firing at the close quarters combatants would more likely do the Illorians’ work of puncturing its balloon systems, it focused on the one long-distance target,
The Brass Fox.

With Elias’ heightened reaction time, cannonball trajectories were easy to predict and avoid, but the Energy beams tested Elias’ piloting abilities as the airship closed the gap, moments away from being able to land on
The Winnower
’s surface.

A sickening green light flashed where the front of
The Brass Fox
used to be. The foredeck vaporized as the momentum of the aft carried the remainder on a collision course with the side of
The Winnower
. Elias did all he could to steer half of his son’s ship to no avail.

Ras held tight to Callie and shouted at his father to hold onto him. He fired off the grapple spike into the nearest balloon of
The Winnower
as
The Brass Fox
fell away underneath them, smashing hard into the side of the floating city before falling to the deep below.

The crash resonated deep within Ras as he swung forward. All of the time and love spent on his ship, and she was gone in an instant. He wished he had time to mourn her, but they passed over the main deck of
The Winnower
and struck the large glass dome covering most of the city’s top. He released the cable and the trio slid down the dome’s side until they bowled into the first line of an armed troop of awaiting guards.

The trio spun and Elias fell away from Ras, then Callie. The wind merchant collapsed to the ground, rolling a few times before fully stopping.

“Callie!” Ras called out, but the name hung hollow as all sound once more deadened around him. He looked up to spot Callie, stuck mid-roll and overloaded.

Ras took his cue to begin the process of single-handedly disarming fifty men, one at a time. It took nearly ten minutes to rip away all of the weapons and toss them over the side of the station, where they hung in the air. He then secured half a dozen pistols for Elias and himself.

He returned to Callie and knelt beside her fallen form. He reached out his hand, but stopped just before touching her. This was the calm before the storm. As soon as he broke the spell, they would have to keep moving and he didn’t know if they would ever stop again.

This needed to be her last overload.

With a musket in his right hand, he cradled her head with his left. The sound of the wind returned, and carried on it were the grunts and shouts of confusion from the guards.

Ras waved his pistol at the unarmed men. “Back off!” With a sufficient radius cleared, he looked down to Callie. “You all right?”

“No,” she said and pulled herself to her feet. “We’re so close to the Origin, I can barely think straight.” She tightened her grip on his hand, standing as close as possible to his island of stability.

“Dad?” Ras asked, pulling Callie over and joining the man wielding a pair of pistols with more tucked into his belt. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”

Elias obliged and stared at the field of sluggish guards. “I still don’t get this.”

Ras moved toward a set of stairs that ten more guards were ascending. Armed. He pulled the wrench from his holster. “Follow me as best you can, dad. I’ll be right back.”

With Callie in tow, Ras strode forward with wrench at the ready to confront the new threat. The first guard’s rifle emitted a spark and smoke, alerting Ras to sidestep the musket ball’s trajectory before it entered his bubble.

A swift upswing of the wrench dislodged the rifle from the lead guard’s grasp, bending the barrel. Ras connected the wrench to the man’s side, swatting him out of the way, then dealt with the next guard, who was just reaching the top of the stairs.

Ras threw the wrench, letting it slowly sail away to strike the next man squarely in the sternum. The guard was sent drifting backwards into the eight following men with little to stop their glide until they hit the bottom stair.

Slipping on the KnackVisions, Ras surveyed the glowing engines among the teeming network of pipes and devices vying for his attention.

“Eight engines. Each probably has its own intake,” Ras said. He pulled up the goggles and saw his father aiming both pistols back at the dozens of guards ready to charge.

In a few short strides, Ras once more introduced Elias to equilibrium.

The trio headed back toward the stairs, careful not to entangle themselves with the men still tumbling backwards. Ras reached over to collect the wrench still hanging in the air and holstered it.

Once inside
The Winnower
, Ras increased his pace. The faster he moved, the more of a blur he was to the men in dark blue uniforms.

“I hate to be the spoilsport, but what’s our escape plan?” Elias asked, struggling to keep a hand on his son.

“We could just ride this thing to the ground,” Callie said. “For as much as the Origin slows everyone down here, I can’t imagine the fall would be too bad.”

Ras stopped at an intersection, spotting men in uniform alert to their presence and giving chase as best they could. “We’d starve before it touches ground.” He searched the area. “Anyone let me know if you spot a stairwell.”

“Don’t feel like riding the elevator from now until eternity?” Elias asked.

“Do you?”

“Not particularly.”

They continued forward and Ras traced the courses of Energy with the KnackVisions to a reinforced door with what looked like a dead area behind it.
Stairs?

Ras tugged on the door’s handle. It budged slightly, not fully under his influence. The hinges protested and the guards were closing in.

“Callie, hold on,” Ras said, putting her hand on his neck before he flattened himself against the door. He placed his right hand and foot near the hinges while working the handle with his left hand, then awkwardly pushed off with the remaining foot. The door gave way quickly, swinging open.

“If we make it out of this, can we make sure that part is omitted from the story?” Ras asked.

“I think everyone will love the door hugging part,” Callie said.

Ras made a face, but was thankful she seemed more herself. Taking her hand once more, he took two steps forward into a dimly lit room and almost doubled over the railing of a spiral staircase before Elias' grip on his shoulder kept him from falling.