The Wind Merchant (8 page)

“Yeah, that’s great, let’s just pretend a Convergence won’t come flying by and kill us all. Or maybe you’d like to get torn apart by Remnants!” Guy said, picking up his tray and slamming it on the table before storming off from the bench.

“Don’t mind him,” Finn said. “He likes you.”

“Really?” Ras asked.

“No. I was just trying to be nice.”

The rest of the afternoon, Ras made a point of avoiding Guy even though Billie placed him on Guy’s maintenance crew. His duty consisted of running any errand for the twenty men and women assigned to the well-being of Engine Eight. When not being sent out, he observed the crew’s personal sign language to overcome communication barriers while working around the large, droning beast of an engine that stood at least sixty feet high.

Some signs were easy to understand, like ‘
wrench
,’ and ‘
break
.’ Other’s like ‘
I want you to go to Engine Three and ask for a three-quarters inch thick lead pipe
,’ took a lot more work and usually broke down to scribbling on a piece of paper Ras had begged for from Billie during one of his trips. After his fifth trip request to retrieve a specific tool from halfway across
Verdant
, it became apparent his job was to get out of the way for long stretches of time.

Upon returning from his seventh trek, he found an entirely different crew working on Engine Eight. He looked down to his watch and saw his shift had ended twenty minutes prior.

The main office was filled with staff when Ras found it, and he spotted Billie, a handful of curly hair clenched in her hand as she stared at the documents on her desk. Ras stood silent for a few moments, then coughed politely.

“I see you,” Billie said, still reading.

“Do I need to sign anything to check out?” Ras asked.

She looked up. The hair she had been holding stuck up at an odd angle. “No, I got you.”

Ras nodded and began to turn around, but stopped. “Can I ask why you put me on Guy’s team? All I did this afternoon was run around.”

“They’re just getting you acquainted with the city in their own way,” she said, giving a tired smile. “It’ll probably be the same tomorrow.”

“What does Guy have against me?” Ras asked. “Besides the usual?”

“That’s something you’ll have to talk with him about.” She waved her hand in a dismissive motion. “Shoo. I’ve got an engine to run. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.”

With his blue jumpsuit doffed and slung over his arm, Ras leaned his weight on the heavy metal door leading back to
Verdant
’s streets. The door creaked open, revealing a streetlamp lit square populated with one inhabitant: Callie.

He didn’t want her to see him like this, but those feelings couldn’t override the grin she brought to his face. She even looked cute engulfed by her father’s overstuffed brown coat.
 

“Walk me home?” she asked as if she needed to.

Ras offered his arm before remembering he probably smelled of engine grease and sweat, and hoped Callie wouldn’t notice. She graciously accepted and they began their trek to the residential district.

“What brings you out this way?” he asked. He noticed the streetlights were dimmer than usual, which allowed for the stars to make a more prominent appearance in the sky.

“I thought you could use a friend.” She walked along the sidewalk in an uneven pace as though following the rhythm of some song in her head. “How was it?”

“Made a few friends, I think,” Ras said. “How are things up here?”

Callie shrugged. “Fine if you don’t listen to the news reports. Everybody keeps talking about what happened when the city of
Worick
lost their Energy source just after
The Winnower
started up.”

“
Worick
sank?” Ras asked.

“No, they bought Helios engines, but it didn’t stop the people from panicking and throwing people over the edge hoping they’d overload and make a Convergence,” she said.

Ras could feel her shiver and hug his arm tighter. “How sky pirate of them,” he said. “I thought Convergences strong enough to support a city were made from tens of thousands of people from The Great Overload.”

“Logic wasn’t their strongest suit,” she said. “At least that’s not happening here yet.”

He tried not to imagine the citizens of
Verdant
panicking and throwing wind merchants and Engine workers overboard as a last ditch effort. “Does your dad know you’re here?”

Her laughter cut through the chill of the night. “I might have mentioned it.”

“Might have?”

“I’d give it a five percent chance,” Callie said.

“You’re trying to get me killed, I hope you know that,” Ras said as they turned a corner to walk along one of the main avenues. He took note of a man with a dark, wide-brimmed hat watching them silently from underneath a drugstore stoop.

She slipped her arm out from his crook and stepped up to a raised walkway, playfully balancing with arms extended and keeping pace with Ras. “You still haven’t told me what the Convergence was like.”

Every time Ras looked back to check on the man with the hat, he was met with a stare. “Ah, how about you tell me about your book first?” he asked. He didn’t want his distracted explanation of a Convergence alerting her to the man interested in them.

“You’re still going to read it, right?”

“Of course, I’d read it even if it’s about an untalented wind merchant named Russ that accidentally crashed his city.”

“Oh, come on, you’re not untalented,” she said, shooting him an accusatory look.

“I’m talking about Russ. Did you think I meant me?” Ras asked, feigning hurt feelings. “Seriously though, I know it’s about the train from your dreams, but what’s the story?” He looked back to see the man with the hat now walking on the sidewalk twenty feet behind them. He picked up his pace, and was relieved when Callie instinctively quickened her step to match his.

“Well, I’m having to do a lot of research to make sure it’s as accurate as possible,” she said.

“History piece?”

“Set during The Clockwork War.”

“I’m already interested,” Ras said, distraction creeping into his voice.

“There’s nobody named Russ in it, but I can fix that if you like,” she said, hopping down from the ledge. “Anyway, the train is carrying children away from cities that The Elders are bombarding.”

“Uh huh,” Ras said, checking over his shoulder once more. The man wasn’t there. “So where do they go?”

“You’ll have to read it,” Callie said.

They rounded the corner to the entrance of the residential zone and almost bowled into the man with the hat.  

A gray mustache accentuated his gaunt face, and he bore the haughty look of a man accustomed to having authority. His disquietingly blue eyes looked down a long nose at Ras. “Erasmus Veir?”

Ras paused for a moment and gently reached out for Callie’s arm.  “Can I help you?”

“Yes, yes you can.” His tone held a roughness to it. He wrinkled his nose as though Ras offered an offensive odor. “If I could borrow you for a word.”

Ras glanced over to Callie and said, “I’m afraid I promised to get her home. Perhaps another time.” Ras couldn’t imagine a stranger having good news for him and thought it more likely the man would lead him to a waiting lynch mob.

The tall man narrowed his eyes. “I am a patient man, Mr. Veir. I can wait.” He stepped aside to let the pair pass.

Ras and Callie took their cue and continued walking, remaining silent until they were well past the man.

“Who—” Callie began.

“I have absolutely no idea.”

“Creepy,” she said.

“All right, maybe we should take a skiff,” Ras said.

“Can’t. The city is cracking down on Energy usage. It’s not much further.” She hugged herself for warmth. “It’s kind of thrilling, isn’t it? Being followed.”

One thing Ras always admired about Callie was her incredibly romantic imagination. The few days Ras had spent cooped up inside his own house led to pure boredom, but somehow Callie never got bored. She read and she wrote, and Ras imagined this moment being an addition to whatever book she was planning on writing next.

“I suppose thrilling could describe it. What happens next, oh worker of fiction?” he asked.

“Well, the couple unsuspectingly—”

“Couple?” Ras blurted, wishing desperately to pull the word back.

“…yes, couple. Two people makes a couple. Three makes a few. What does four make?” She hid well whatever embarrassment Ras caused.

“A crowd, I think.”

“Or death, classically.”

“Then let’s hope Mr. Hat hasn’t brought a friend,” Ras said.

They glanced over their shoulders to see the man keeping pace with them, not caring about being detected. “Nope, still a few.” She resumed walking, “Where was I? Ah, so the couple doesn’t suspect that the reason they’re being followed is because he has a secret mission for one of them that the other can’t know about.” She narrowed her wild eyes, reveling in her storytelling.

“You doing spy work on the side?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Hah, I knew it.”

“What?”

“All your books. They’re just secret cyphers you’re sending out to The Elders or The Clockworks.”

“Same thing,” she corrected.

“Hmm…that’s something a spy would know.”

“Or someone who didn’t sleep through history classes,” she said.

“Or that,” he said, “So what sort of spy job are you getting this time?”

“No clue. I’m not the one he wanted to talk to, remember?”

He did remember, and began to wonder about the old man’s reason for pursuing him. They were only a block away from Callie’s house and the man still followed them. “Hey, if I’m missing in the morning…”

“I’ll put it in my story that you put up a heroic fight, but in the end were no match for an old man.”

“Thanks, that’s exactly what I was hoping for. Just give me more muscles in the story.”

“Your muscles are fine.” An awkward moment. “I mean, unless of course you wanted to further the irony,” she said.

They made it up to her porch, and Ras turned to see the man across the street, staring. “Maybe if I get to be a spy, your books will start making more sense to me.”

She crinkled her nose. “Now you’re just being mean,” she said, opening the front door. “See you tomorrow?” She rested her head on the door and gazed at him with blue eyes that sparkled in the porch light.

“Wouldn’t miss it. You’ll have to show me the secret spy handshake.” He smiled. “Goodnight, Calista,” he said. He usually called her Callie for the familiarity of it, but he liked the way Calista rolled off the tongue.

“Good night, Erasmus,” she said, and gently closed the door.

Ras would have savored the moment more if he hadn’t felt the bore of the man’s stare on the back of his neck. He turned around to address his stalker only to see an empty sidewalk.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Engine

Clutching his sack lunch, Ras closed the front door to his home. He eyed the horizon for any men with wide-brimmed hats, but failed to find anyone walking along the streets.

Checking his watch, Ras saw he had a very small margin to stop at his favorite basement window before the morning shift began. He stepped off his porch step toward the Tourbillon home, and a deep voice from the neighboring front porch made him jump.

“The Engine’s the other way, if I recall,” Mr. Tourbillon said, setting a newspaper neatly in his lap as he continued to rock in his chair.

Ras looked over his shoulder as an excuse to not have to talk over the rush of his thumping heart. “So it is. I just thought—”

“While I’ve appreciated that you’ve finally begun thinking, I’d recommend none of those thoughts correlate with my daughter,” he said before pulling up a mug of coffee and taking a long sip.

Ras glanced toward the window. He saw a bit of motion, but nothing he could focus on without earning further ire from Mr. Tourbillon. “I was trying to help
Verdant
.”

“I remember you saying so during the trial,” he said, unblinking. The infrequency with which the man blinked disquieted Ras. “It’s a shame intention didn’t stack up with reality.”

The front door opened, and Mrs. Tourbillon stepped out with an unmarked wooden box. She stared at Ras as she set the box on the chair next to her husband. “Erasmus.”

“Ma’am,” Ras said. Mrs. Tourbillon usually treated Ras with more warmth than her husband, but not today.

She turned to Mr. Tourbillon. “We’re going to need at least a dozen more of these for the odds and ends.”

“I’ll see what’s left at the office today,” Mr. Tourbillon said, “We’ll probably have to unload the boxes we have on the ship and reuse them.”

“You’re moving?” Ras blurted.

Mr. Tourbillon sighed, otherwise leaving Ras’ inquest unaddressed. “I’ll be in to help in a moment.” He watched his wife collect his empty coffee mug and return into their home.

“But you can’t leave,” Ras said. He opened his mouth again but couldn’t come up with any particular reason for them to stay.

“The other cities are going to grow rather crowded with
Verdant
refugees. I intend to not embarrass my family by being one of the last ones to realize help isn’t coming.”

“But the University—”

“My daughter will have her pick of Universities that remain above the clouds.” Mr. Tourbillon stood and looked at his watch. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” he said, opening the door and crossing the threshold. “I’ll make sure Calista says goodbye.”

Ras jerked slightly at the sound of the closing door. He knew the arranged good-bye was primarily for Mr. Tourbillon’s sake. Picking up into a jog toward the Engine, he lost himself in considering which words were appropriate when seeing someone for the last time. The circumstances of every other person previously snatched away from him didn’t allow for such planning, which felt merciful now with the dull ache growing in the pit of his stomach.

Would telling her how I feel about her be selfish?
He couldn’t offer her anything but a sinking city, and wasn’t even certain what would happen to his mother if the city ran out of its reserve Energy.