The Wind Merchant Read online

  It was difficult for Ras not to show his exuberance at the idea of finally owning his own pair of KnackVisions, even if they were old, even if they didn’t work half the time, and even if they smelled like Tibbs lost them in his ship’s septic system for a month.

  “They don’t keep a charge well, but if you want them…” Tibbs said, wiggling them in his hand as if the wavy motion could make them more appealing.

  “I don’t know what to say, I—” Ras stopped as Tibbs lobbed the goggles across the chasm between the two ships. Whether due to a gust of wind or Tibbs’ lack of effort, it looked like the KnackVisions would come up short. Ras jumped up to the rope rigging and reached as far as he could before he noticed a rare clearing in the clouds, showing him exactly how far he had to drop if he fell. Instinctively, he pulled back to steady himself on the ropes. The goggles plummeted, vanishing into the great below. Ras involuntarily imagined himself in their place.

  “Really?” Tibbs shouted at Ras, who clung the rigging for dear life with eyes squeezed shut. “Those were practically heirloom.”

  Ras hung there for a moment as waves of vertigo swept over him. “I would consider it a personal favor if you didn’t tell anyone about this,” said Ras, slowly opening his eyes and shakily lowering himself from the ropes. A flood of relief overwhelmed him at the feel of the creaky wood underfoot.

  “The wind merchant afraid of heights? It’s not exactly a secret,” Tibbs said. “Listen, Ras…I know it’s tough to hear, but maybe being just a mechanic would be a good life. You’d be the go-to guy instead of—”

  “Instead of what?” Ras asked. He could feel the warmth filling his cheeks.

  Tibbs changed the subject out of what Ras assumed to be pity. “Hey, I gotta go drop off my haul back at The Collective’s station. You might check inside Framer’s Valley…there was more in there than I could collect myself. Probably want to catch it before it gets drained.”

  “Son of a Remnant,” Ras said, “Framer’s? Are you insane?”

  “Oh, c’mon, the old sky pirate nest has been empty for months,” Tibbs said. “I’m sure Bravo Company probably moved on or got blown up.”

  “So you saw their base?”

  Tibbs laughed. “Like I’m going to fly through the sky mines to look at it. I just went to the Valley. Pulled a Fiver.”

  “Seriously? I haven’t scooped more than a Two in…I don’t know how long. Port authority says The Bowl might be running dry.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe the Diver Team conspiracies,” Tibbs said. “Nobody’s down there destroying our livelihood. Who could even get that close to potent Energy? Besides, if there’s a Fiver in Framer’s, Verdant should have plenty to run on.”

  Ras nodded and paused. “Hey, Tibbs?”

  “Yeah buddy?”

  “Is it true the guys started calling me a Lack?” The question held a hint of desperation, begging Tibbs to lie, and he knew it. The wind merchants back on Verdant had a leader board—irreverently called The Knack List—of who brought in the largest hauls, and the unfortunate soul holding the bottom spot unofficially received the title of Lack. More often than not, Ras found himself at the bottom of the list for long enough stretches that he feared the nickname had stuck.

  “Framer’s Valley. Only trying to help,” said Tibbs. “See you back on Verdant?”

  “If India Bravo doesn’t get me first,” Ras said.

  “What’s she going to do, gum you to death?” Tibbs asked, flapping his jaw for effect. “She’s like, what, one-hundred?”

  “I don’t know. Still young enough to run Bravo Company,” Ras said. He knew she was only fifty years old, but wasn’t interested in yet another conversation devolving into stories about how his father marshaled Verdant’s forces to route the sky pirate assault. “See you later, Tibbs.”

  The ships drifted apart and Ras watched the shiny new airship shrink in the distance before he set his course for Framer’s Valley.

  Even factoring out sky pirates, the valley held a reputation for claiming more than its fair share of wind merchants. The steep cliffs jutting above the clouds made it more a canyon than a valley and the further down one traveled, the narrower and more twisted it became. If one ventured too far, a strong gust could damage a ship enough that even an incredibly potent haul would only pay for repairs.

  Ras had grown up with warnings from his father that only an idiot looking to prove his flying abilities would dare risk a ship in Framer’s, but the only person he knew who had successfully navigated it was both incredibly handsome and talented. Ras’ mother usually threw something at Elias after the advice and amended that her husband was only right about the idiot part.

  Elias never disagreed on the point.

  But today Ras would have to brave Framer’s to make up for his lost morning.

  Returning to the bridge, he opened the throttle and set the course he would travel for the next hour. Word of where to find the best collection points spread quickly among non-guild wind merchants, and Ras hoped Tibbs hadn’t shared his info with anyone else yet.

  Nearing the maw of Framer’s, the roiling clouds beneath The Copper Fox turned an ugly gray. The cliffs jutted too high for ships to fly above them, and Ras wondered how impressive they must have looked from the ground, disappearing into the clouds above.

  He slowed his ship to a crawl at the entrance. Off in the distance, specks in the sky indicated the active sky mines surrounding the cliff-side base of Bravo Company. There wasn’t another ship in sight, which both encouraged and concerned Ras. Nobody would be around to tow him out if his ship careened into one of the walls. The entrance was wide enough for half a dozen airships to share, and he would be safe as long as he didn’t venture in too far.

  Tibbs said the collection point was inside Framer’s, so inside he went. The storm beneath sent strong winds whipping around, and Ras only relented his death grip on the wheel to pull the lever lowering the collection tube.

  The trolling sensor took a moment to scan the area, then blipped at him. Level 4.

  “Yes!” Ras exclaimed. Only once had he ever stumbled upon a Level 4 haul, and it had not only placed him halfway up the The Knack List for about a month, but also had given his mother a well-deserved break from working herself ragged to compensate for her son’s flagging ability to provide. She had sold too many of her possessions already to make ends meet, but to her credit she never brought it to her son’s attention even when he noticed the items absences in the house.

  Making a mental note to thank Tibbs later, Ras smacked the collection button on the console, prompting the vacuum to begin filling the tank. The Copper Fox drifted further into the canyon, but Ras didn’t want to pull back in case he lost the current. Filling his tank usually took ten minutes, and he felt reasonably certain his choke hold on the controls would keep him out of trouble for that long.

  However, halfway through collecting his Level 4 haul, the trolling sensor blipped out another spike.

  Level 5.

  It would be a personal record, but it would also mean dumping his current haul and starting over so as not to dilute the Fiver. He would need to fly into the canyon a bit further to chase the higher potency, but a Level 5 collection would surely erase the Lack title for at least a couple months, and if he could come back tomorrow and pull back to back Fives, he could afford a used pair of KnackVisions. He pressed the button, jettisoning the Level 4 air.

  Beep. Level 6. The canyon narrowed.

  He chuckled nervously as he restarted the collection process again. It had been years since anybody in Verdant pulled in a Level 6 haul and Ras noted Tibbs probably only pulled a Fiver because he wasn’t willing to risk a few scrapes on his shiny ship.

  A loud shriek of wood scraping rock made Ras’ skin crawl as a gust pushed The Copper Fox against the cliff to port. Ras told himself the damage was still worth pulling in a 6, and rationalized how he would point to the scrape as part of a war story from “Framer’s.” Granted, he would need to say, “No
, not that one” several times, but it would still be worth it.

  The wind’s howl began resembling a wailing chorus. Ras decided it was time to turn the ship back toward the entrance and wrap up the rest of his collection process before the valley became too narrow to maneuver.

  As he spun the wooden wheel to bring The Copper Fox about, the indicator beeped Level 7. Seven could buy a new airship, but Seven would most likely get him killed.

  The high readings raised the question of what lay in the heart of the canyon, giving off such concentrated amounts of Energy. Before Ras could give it more thought, he spotted a large gash in one of the cliff faces and imagined the size of the vessel that had collided with it. Thinking about the ship wedged somewhere deep in the dark below unsettled him.

  The momentary lapse in attention caused Ras to overcompensate his turn, setting him perpendicular to the canyon’s path while the wind pushed him deeper into the valley. The nose of The Copper Fox careened off one of the cliff faces, jarring the ship and spinning it the remaining ninety degrees until it was flying backwards down Framer’s Valley.

  Ras threw the throttle forward to battle his way out of the wind tunnel, but the engines failed to respond.

  The canyon began to curve to starboard and Ras frantically tried to remap his mind to steer the ship counter-intuitively as the force of the wind pushed him deeper into the canyon. Having the right gut reaction when flying forward often proved difficult enough, but this orientation forced him into an outright panic. He attempted to rely on his often incorrect judgment, which briefly brought success, then panicked when he second guessed which gut-reaction to mistrust.

  An incorrect spin of the wheel slammed the ship into an outcropping, knocking Ras into the wheel and pushing his ship down into an unexpected dive toward the clouds. He righted the ship just before dipping into their midst, but finding equilibrium proved to be impossible. With the ship in a terrible tailspin, all Ras could think about was how his father would never have been greedy enough to place himself in a bind like this.

  After another half-turn, the bow and stern of The Copper Fox lodged against each cliff face of the narrowing canyon, throwing Ras to the deck. He struggled to his feet and clambered down the stairs from the bridge toward his quarters. The ship shuddered and scraped a little further down the canyon with each gust. He threw open the door and dashed into the upheaved room. Sliding down beside his bed, he reached underneath to pull out an arm brace that ran from wrist to shoulder. Spools of wire and metal blocks attached all along its forearm exterior.

  His grapple gun.

  Ras had modified the ‘gun’ so it could be loaded with either magnetic or traditional spiked grapple cartridges that dragged a cable behind them once fired. The gun could also connect with a surface and then shoot the opposite end into something else if there was enough cabling left.

  Ras heard rocks crumble from one of the cliff faces. The Copper Fox lurched from its lodging and Ras scrambled out of his quarters. He hastily secured the grapple gun’s straps around his left arm and torso, then loaded two spike cartridges.

  He aimed the device at the deck and squeezed the palm-activated trigger. The cartridge fired and the spike lodged into the deck of his ship. He lifted his arm, spooling a bit of cabling with the movement, and lined up a second shot into the cliff to port. Before the ship could swing into that wall, Ras repeated the process on the starboard cliff, anchoring his ship.

  This isn’t going to hold, he thought. He ran over and slid down the ladder into the hold to inspect the engines. One was making a horrible grinding noise while the other spewed steam, heating the cramped room.

  Flipping the switches on the wall to shut them both down, he noticed a piece of metal debris lodged in the gear-work of the grinding engine. Ras tried to heft the piece free to no avail. The wind above deck howled louder as the ship bucked against its tethers.

  He grabbed a heavy wrench hanging on the wall nearby and returned, giving the offending debris a stern whack to send it clattering to the floor. The engine grumbled back to life after a cycle, but before he could plug the leak on the other engine, a cacophonous screech gave way to a concussive blast, and the decking above him sheared away to reveal the bouncing balloon.

  Ras wished he had questioned the wisdom of placing the two grapples so close together.

  Freed from its moorings, The Copper Fox bounded forward, sending Ras tumbling in a small room full of sharp and hard machinery, earning him a collection of small cuts and a myriad of bruises to come—if he were to survive this. One engine was better than none, and Ras regained his footing enough to stand for a moment before a series of strong gusts flung the ship from port to starboard, then dove. He watched his feet leave the flooring of the engine room as the ship dropped out from underneath him. He shot through the newly created hole in the deck until his back hit something soft: the balloon.

  Bouncing backwards, he saw The Copper Fox leaving him behind. Ras instinctively pointed his left arm at his ship and squeezed the palm trigger to fire off a spike at the hull. The line pulled taut, straining the strap around his midsection with a jerk, and Ras tumbled behind his ship like a lead kite as they fell toward the cloud level.

  A powerful updraft ended the nosedive of The Copper Fox, stopping Ras just short of dragging his legs through the dark clouds before swinging him back up toward his ship. He pulled himself into a ball before colliding with the underbelly, almost knocking him unconscious. The pendulum motion left him dangling helplessly, watching his ship careen along unmanned.

  His eye caught some light ahead…the end of the canyon. Ras watched his ship scrape against a cliff wall one last time for good measure before bouncing into the open area.

  He entered a large, circular arena walled in by a grove of mountaintops. The wind swirled around The Copper Fox, gently spinning the vessel. Ras took a moment to collect himself until he realized his ship was slowly losing altitude, bringing him dangerously closer to the hissing and crackling clouds. Light flashed and skittered beneath his feet, followed by a deafening boom which echoed throughout the canyon, scaring him witless.

  “No, no, no!” Ras said as he began climbing the cable up to his ship. His ungloved hands were raw from holding onto the cable so tight, and each hoist shot bursts of pain through his arms. He looked up and spotted a ship hanging high above the canyon walls, higher than he’d ever seen a ship fly. It had a familiarity to it, but one that was difficult to place when he was busy climbing for his life.

  “Help!” Ras shouted to the ship, his voice straining. He knew they probably wouldn’t hear him, but he had to try. He climbed faster, barely staying a foot above the black swirl.

  The young man’s arms burned with exhaustion until he finally slipped, falling into the clouds. The Copper Fox drifted in after him, erasing any evidence of Framer’s Valley’s latest victim.

  Ras closed his eyes and hoped the process would be quick.

  Sensation flooded his body and Ras cried out until he realized he wasn’t disintegrating…he was getting soaked from head to toe. Having fallen beneath the cloud layer, he looked up and shielded his eyes from the droplets of water cascading onto him. The sensation reminded him of a dew bath on Verdant, only the water here was extravagant. He knew people used to have a name for water falling from clouds, but the joy of not dying overrode any memory of his history lessons.

  A jubilant laugh erupted from him, but a flashing streak of bright white light stopped his outburst and illuminated the area below in a brilliant momentary flash.

  Beneath him lay a circular field of something green waving back and forth with the wind. Nestled in the green laid the remains of a derelict airship, grown over with some sort of vegetation.

  Just beyond the ship where the cliff met the field, a green glow emanated from the dark maw bored into the rock.

  In a matter of minutes he floated down and landed with a gentle thud in the wavy substance, too tired to do anything but just lay in the soft stuff. It reminded
him of the pictures from before man took to the skies, but he never learned the name of it.

  The strangeness of being on land finally caught up with Ras. There was a stability he appreciated, and for the first time in a long while he felt at peace.

  Is this what my great-grandfather felt like? He wondered if he was the first person from Atmo to touch the ground in eighty years. But why am I still alive?

  He didn’t want to watch his ship crash but there was little he could do to stop it. He just lay enveloped by the green, wondering how many ships had fallen prey to Framer’s, and how the ship he saw earlier could fly higher than the canyon—

  “The Kingfisher!” It finally dawned on him where he recognized the mystery ship from. It fit the exact description of the ghost ship wind merchants told tales about. The stories about the ship hadn’t begun as ghost tales, but since sightings were still reported one-hundred years after The Kingfisher and its crew ended The Clockwork War, the tales evolved.

  Some said The Kingfisher’s captain, Halcyon Napier, was the first wind merchant because he discovered The Origin of All Energy. No two versions concurred about where the man was from, but they all agreed he was single-handedly responsible for turning the tide against the clockwork automatons known as The Elders.

  The grapple gun tugged on his arm and Ras realized he hadn’t heard a crashing noise yet, but before he could move, the tugging evolved to dragging, and soon he began parting the sea of green. Ras’ fumbling fingers worked the release latch on the device and the cable whipped away, leaving him lying in the field.

  Picking himself up, Ras glanced over to see what had become of The Copper Fox and found it drifting lazily a hundred yards away, bobbing in the breeze and bumping gently into a cliff wall.

  Ras waded through the tall undergrowth after deciding water falling on him was a unique but tiresome sensation. He headed toward the decaying airship, wondering what fate had befallen the crew until his attention was ripped away by what lay inside the rock.