Chenda and the Airship Brofman (3 page)

“What! Go with you to... How -- Why? Ridiculous! DO YOU KNOW WHERE KOTAL IS???!!!”

Candice began to reconsider her opinion on Edison's decision making. He must have lost his poor mind! Chenda sat quietly in her corner seat, looking calm and composed.

“Of course I know where it is,” she said, staring back into Candice's wide eyes. Breaking the gaze, Chenda started, “I don't really have a good plan for our departure yet, but I think-”

“Hold on a second,” Candice cut her off again. “You can't be serious. What Edison suggests is pure insanity. Asking you, and I guess me as well, to go to Tugrulia is impossible. It's just not allowed - by either side. Everyone knows that foreigners are killed on sight over there. Even if you
can
get into the Empire and manage to stay alive for five minutes, what are you going to do then? Hunt some mystic? To what end? What does that have to do with you? or Edison for that matter?"

Softly, but with conviction, Chenda said, “Edison wanted me to go. So, I'll go.”

Candice, prepared fully to continue on her rant, stopped short. She evaluated the young woman opposite her. Candice rejected her first instinct, that Edison was being cruel, asking his child bride to blunder into certain death. Her next thought was equally unlikely, that Old Eddie, in the end, simply lost his marbles. Uncertain, Candice read through the letter once more, tisking at the bold folly of it.

“Hmm...” she said. “What's this bit about the bag?”

Ah...she's curious!
thought Chenda. She pulled the velvet bag from her pocket and spilled the necklace and stones onto the table.

Candice sucked air in between clenched teeth. “Oh... my.” She picked up the blue stone and turned it over in her hands. Her voice rose to a breathy squawk, “Oh, MY!”

“You know what these are?” Chenda asked.

Candice blinked a few times, agog at what lay on the table before her. “Mercy, Matilda! Would you put those things away!” She brushed the stones back toward Chenda and the velvet bag.

“What was Edison doing with THOSE?” Candice whispered as she looked around, checking to see if anyone had noticed what the two women had between them. No one seemed to have taken any note of the pair, so she focused her attention back on Chenda, who calmly slipped the letter and the bag of stones back into her pockets.

Chenda leaned toward the professor and smiled slightly. “I guess you can help me then,” she said. “What
do
I have here?”

Candice scooted her chair closer to Chenda and placed the back of her hand up to her lips. “What you have, is trouble,” Candice whispered conspiratorially. “Come on. We've got to get out of here.”

Candice dropped a few coins on the table, took her companion by the hand and pulled her out of the front doors of the Terminal Tearoom. Chenda, doing her best to keep up, shuffled down the sidewalk behind Candice, waving a hand to her driver Daniel, indicating that he should follow them.

“Where are we going?” she shouted.

“Back to my office at the university,” Candice said. “I have something to show you.”

Candice burst through the door of her small office, flipping on the lights with one hand and dragging Chenda along with the other. She flapped her arms at the girl, directing her to the empty chair nearest her cluttered desk. “Sit,” Candice ordered. “Stay.”

Chenda, suddenly feeling a bit like a naughty Pekinese, watched as the professor darted back and forth across her office, collecting books and maps from the shelves, several bits of stone from a specimen cabinet, a small anvil, a hammer and a tiny rubber mallet. All of these, she plopped onto the heavy wood paneled desk in front of Chenda.  The professor darted to the window, snapping shut the gauzy, moth-eaten curtains and closing out the last rays of the afternoon sun. Little wisps of dust curled slowly down to the floor. Candice glanced around the room one last time, and stepped to the door again, closing it firmly and sliding the draw bolt. She turned to face Chenda.

“Bring those stones out again,” Candice said as she handed Chenda a small felt lined specimen tray. She settled on a corner of her desk while Chenda obliged, placing the tray near the professor.

“These stones,” Candice began, running her finger across each one, “are extraordinarily rare.” She looked at the stones, not one bigger than the last joint of her thumb. “I'd never imagined I see ones this big.” Candice sat for a moment with one hand under her chin, thinking about what to say next. Chenda held perfectly still, anticipating, not wanting to disturb the professor's thoughts.

Suddenly, Candice jumped to her feet and grabbed a jagged purple rock from the pile on her desk.

“Lepidolite,” she said, placing the stone on a small anvil. Grabbing the hammer, she smashed the stone into powder with one strike. “That's a plus two on the hardness scale.”

“Malachite,” she said, smashing a green stone into a hundred fragments. “Plus four.”

“Hematite - plus six” Smash. Slivers of stone slid off the anvil.

“Spinel - plus eight” - Smash.

“Diamond - plus ten” Candice swung the hammer toward the clear stone and stopped at the last second. “Um,” she glanced at Chenda, “That one is expensive, but I promise you, it would have shattered.”

Puzzled, Chenda asked, “What's your point?”

Without answering, Candice grabbed Chenda's blue stone from the specimen tray, slapped it onto the anvil and brought the hammer down with great gusto.

There was a thunderous crack. Chenda let out a small yelp, and watched as bits of the hammer's broken head fell to the floor. The small blue stone sat on the anvil, unharmed.

Chenda trembled, shocked that the professor would take such liberties with specimens that did not belong to her.

“This is
a
zul pedradurite
.” Candice explained. “It's remarkable stuff. Can't smash it for anything, but watch this.”

Dropping the now useless hammer handle, Candice picked up the small anvil in one hand and tilted it sideways. Chenda watched, expecting to see the stone falling to the floor, but nothing happened.

“Magnetic," she said. Scooping the stone off the anvil, Candice reached for the small rubber mallet. Holding the azul pedradurite by the tips of her thumb and forefinger, she gently tapped the stone. The room filled with a rich, clear, musical note, and the stone glowed from within.

Chenda covered her ears. How could a gentle tap create such a loud noise? The professor let the note ring out, pure and strong, for a few seconds more, then closed her fingers around it, choking off the sound.

“The crystalline structure is perfect, you see, and the sound waves simply amplify themselves. It would just about ring forever, if you let it.”

Candice opened her hand to reveal the stone, quiet and dull blue once again. She dropped it back into the tray. Picking up the yellow stone, she said, “
Geel pedradurite
,” and with the red necklace, "
Kokivos pedradurite
.” Candice thought a minute and said with a smile, “I'd have those stones sing for you, too, but I'm sure the fillings in my teeth would pop out from the vibration if I did. Tingles a bit, no?"

Chenda, still with her hands over her ears, nodded in stunned agreement.

“These stones are Tugrulian,” she said while passing the tray back to Chenda. “Please, I think you may want to put those back in the bag, and keep them there. I'm not sure you'd want anyone to find out you have those.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, covering the stones.

Candice turned to her desk and picked up a dog-eared notebook. Leafing through the pages, she began to talk. “Truth be told, I've had an interest in Tugrulian Geology since I began my studies, but with the war and all, that line of inquiry just couldn't be pursued. My interest began when I saw my first pedradurite. One appeared here at the university several years before I became a student, when trade first opened with the Tugrulians. You see, Kotal trade goods were exceptionally desirable here for a time. Fashionably exotic, you could say.” Candice sniffed in a disapproving manner, but kept talking.

“A merchant by the name of John Hunkapiller brought a stone here for the professors to examine, a tiny blue one. He said he bought it from a shady priest in the capitol city, Kotal. Let's just say, the amount he
claimed
he spent on that stone could keep me smashing diamonds all day. Anyway, the priest told Hunkapiller these stones were used somehow in a sacred ceremony in the Temple of the Dia
Orella
. That's the home of the One God of the Tugrulians.”

Chenda nodded, willing Candice to go on.

“Hunkapiller left the stone at the University for further examination while he made another trip to the Empire. I guess he was bitten by the geology bug, because he vowed to acquire a full set, that's one red, one blue and one yellow, and he promised to bring them here for more study. Unfortunately, he died soon thereafter in the Kotal Massacre at the start of the War. However, he wasn't the only merchant to pick up a 'Singing Stone', and I saw a few of those stones early in my studies. I haven't seen one recently, though, and Hunkapiller's stone vanished from the University vaults about nine years ago. I assumed it was a faculty member with sticky fingers, but now, I am not so sure.”

Candice looked through her notebook again. “I think,” she said slowly checking her notes, “everyone who was known to have a Tugrulian Singing Stone is now dead... The question is why?”

Candice glanced at Chenda. “I wonder if anyone knew Edison had these three.” She paused, dreading to continue. "I hate to be the one to tell you, Mrs. Frost, but this may be reason your husband was murdered.”

The younger woman shook her head, her eyes haunted and confused. Candice went on. “Like I said before, what you have here is trouble.” Then, silence lay between the women.

Candice needed to make a decision about the young lady across from her. Chenda's firm decision to go abroad was made in the madness of grief, it seemed. Perhaps it was the first and only life choice the girl had ever made. Even if she died trying, Chenda was committed to fulfilling Edison's instructions. In a small sort of way, the professor appreciated that kind of loyalty.

But what was she to Candice? When Edison left for the War, Candice hid her heart from romantic love, and fed her spirit with the excitement of discovery and knowledge.
As a woman capable of great powers of concentration, she focused years ago on science, and never came up for air.
For close to 20 years she courted wisdom. Her theories and ideas became like children to her. Was a chance at following these rare stones enough to make her risk her life and follow this mere child to a violent land half a world away? The mystery hung before her. She looked at Edison's widow again. Some unnoticed maternal instinct took over as she assessed this young, confused woman, and she left good sense behind.

“Mrs. Frost,” Candice whispered. “I think this quest may just get you killed. You may be in well over your head already, but, for the sake of the discovery of new knowledge, I think I would never forgive myself if I didn't come along.”

Chenda leaped from her chair. With eyes full of hope, she grasped the professor's hand and started pumping it vigorously, crying “Oh, thank you, Professor Mortimer. Thank you. This is what Edison wanted.”

Slightly embarrassed and already considering with whom she would leave her last will and testament, Candice pulled her hand back from the young woman. “Fine, dear, yes. And enough with the 'Professor Mortimer' business. I guess you can go ahead and call me Candice, as we are now traveling companions.”

No longer knowing what to do with her hands, Chenda crossed them over her heart, saying “Thank you, Candice.”

A sudden knock on the door made both ladies jump.

“Candice! Candice, dear, open up!” a voice came through the door, followed by a squeaky hiccup. “
Meeep...”

With a smile, Candice swept her office door open, revealing a short, pleasant-looking woman with a full face set with sparkling eyes. “Ah, Professor Hoppingood, your timing is perfection!” Candice gushed. Sniffing the air, she added, “Have you been drinking with your father again?”

“Never you mind, Professor Mortimer,” the woman tisked as she entered. “
Meeep....”

“I saw your light on from outside as I was heading to diner, and thought...” her voice trailed off as she noticed Chenda for the first time. “I'm sorry. I must be interrupting.”