Driftmetal

by J. C. Staudt

  I exchanged a look with Vilaris. He was thinking all the same things I was.

  “Blaylocke,” I said, standing. “I want you to circle the ship and double-check all the mooring lines. The wind’s picking up, and it’s looking like we’re gonna be here a while.”

  “Don’t order me around,” he said. “I’m the one with the crackler, remember? Why don’t you check the lines while I sit here and have a rest?” He showed it to me, the gray plastic remote whose activation could turn me into a temporary colleague of Chaz’s again. He was grinning.

  I considered making a lunge for the remote, but Blaylocke was far enough away to press the button before I got there. “I was on my way inside to find a bandage for a buddy of mine who hit his head,” I said. “But yeah, you just sit there and take a load off. And when we get off this floater, you can sit there on your keister as long as you want. What am I, your mom? Get on your feet and take some blasted responsibility for yourself.”

  I stormed inside, through the roughshod hole in the port side of our vessel. When I emerged with the medical supplies I’d found, Chaz was lying on his back in the grass. Vilaris and Blaylocke were crouched at one of the stakes near the ship.

  “Come take a look at this,” Vilaris said, motioning.

  I stared at them, frowning in disbelief. “You guys left Chaz by himself.”

  “Because of this, yeah,” said Blaylocke.

  I ignored them and rushed to Chaz. He lay with his eyes wide open, staring up at the sky, midday sunlight painting him in shades of gold. The floater was no bigger than a skating rink, with room enough for the airship and a wide grassy border around it. There weren’t many floaters this large so close to the surface. It was close enough to the nearflow that I could hear the winds howling if I listened. That meant the stream was much higher still, and we’d be lucky if we saw signs of life more than once every few days.

  With his head wrapped in thick white gauze, Chaz looked like the refugee of some war zone. He had started to mumble to himself while I dressed his wound, his voice taking on a faint singsong quality at times. I wrapped the bandages around his head several more times than I needed to so the blood wouldn’t show through, and left him to join the others only after I was satisfied the bleeding had stopped altogether.

  “Bout time,” Blaylocke said as I approached.

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “Look at this rigging line.” Vilaris held up the end. “This is the first one that broke, while we were still in the nearflow. These ropes are thick. This is not the kind of thing that just snaps in half from a sharp rock in the wind. Look at the fraying around the edges. The breaking point is right in the middle, at the very top of the lift bag. Someone didn’t want us making it out of there. Someone sabotaged the Clarity, and it’s only thanks to you that we’re still alive.”

  I ignored his thanks. I didn’t have time to take recognition for good deeds done with selfish intentions. “Isn’t Yingler the obvious choice?” I said. “Someone who secretly wants to oversee the downfall of Pyras so he can be the only living techsoul with access to all its wealth?”

  “That sounds like a more fitting description of yourself,” said Blaylocke. “You’re the wild card—the stranger with a shady past and devious plans. Councilor Yingler has lived in Pyras for going on six years now.”

  I would’ve thrown Blaylocke off the edge then and there if I hadn’t been so worried about Chaz wandering over it himself. Over my shoulder, he was still sitting in the grass where I’d left him. “You say ‘six years’ like it’s a long time,” I said. “I’ve left stains I liked better than you more recently than six years ago.”

  “There’s one major difference between you and Yingler,” said Blaylocke. “Yingler is a trustworthy man. You’re nothing but a petty criminal.”

  “Bloody right I am, and it takes one to know one, isn’t that what they say? If you think a guy won’t go to interminable lengths to hide himself in plain sight, or to paint himself as an altruist when he’s really a scheming traitor, then your head is even further up your keister than I thought it was.”

  Blaylocke yanked the remote from his pocket and stood, backed away a few steps.

  “Hide behind your little bug zapper again,” I said. “What a brave man.”

  Blaylocke hit the button. A thousand needles pricked every inch of my skin, crawling over me like a swarm of metallic spiders. My whole body stiffened and I fell over, racked with pain. Solenoids and eyelights and wrist spikes flicked in and out, on and off. My vision was trembling, my body screwed up tight, a high-pitched whine ringing in my ears. I was erupting like some human alarm gone haywire. When the crackler stopped, I lay like a discarded toy, breathing.

  “That’s for emergency situations only, not just anytime you feel like torturing him,” I heard Vilaris say.

  Blaylocke’s face blotted out the sky. “Just making sure it works,” he said, amused.

  I’d been all talk when they put the device in me. It was much worse than I remembered the wristbands being. Chaz knew the cipher, the way to open the seal around it. Addled as he was, I didn’t see much hope in getting it out of him. It seemed the only way I’d ever be rid of this thing was if I underwent major surgery or took my arm off at the elbow. I could get a replacement, but those were expensive.

  When I’d recovered some, I sat up on my elbows. “Don’t fall asleep tonight,” I said.

  Blaylocke brandished the remote. “You want some more?”

  “I want you to shut your yap and listen. Vilaris, you said Yingler was the guy who used to trade with Gilfoyle on the city’s behalf. Why was that? Because he’s a techsoul? Don’t you find it a little strange that Gilfoyle decides to break your contract and relocate his mining operation, and then the Council sends me to fix the problem? That makes no sense, unless Yingler had a reason not to go fix it himself. If he knows Gilfoyle and he’s on good terms with the guy, why wouldn’t he at least make an effort? Does he want the city to go bankrupt? Because sending a group of expendables and sabotaging their mission seems like a good way to make sure it does. I’ll bet you all the chips I have, Yingler and Gilfoyle were in league before I ever came into the picture. My theft didn’t scare Gilfoyle off; it gave him the excuse he needed to leave. I think Gilfoyle and Yingler are conspiring against Pyras.”

  Vilaris was thoughtful.

  Blaylocke was sneering at me. “That sounds like a convenient ploy to clear yourself of guilt,” he said, “and it’s a very convoluted way of arriving at a theory that isn’t plausible. No one predicted you were going to fall into our lap like you did. Coming across your bluewave beacon in the Churn was a stroke of luck for us. Councilor Yingler is a shrewd man, and he saw that stroke of luck for what it was: an opportunity to fix what you’d broken without risking the lives of any of Pyras’s citizens. That is, until you dragged us along with you. Now Chaz is half-dead and we’re stuck on this rock ‘til someone floats by.”

  “I’ve been working on airships all my life. I can get us airborne again, it’s just going to take some time to flight-check all the systems. If I had Chaz to show me where all his tools are and give me a rundown of the schematics, it would be easier, but let’s be honest—Chaz ain’t exactly in a helpful mood.” I checked over my shoulder again.

  Chaz had gotten to his feet and was wandering around near the edge.

  “Dangit, Chaz.” I sprinted toward him and seized the back of his coat just as he was thrusting a foot out over the abyss. “Not that way, ol’ buddy. Over here.” I turned him around and walked him back to the ship.

  “I guess we ought to chain him to the ground,” said Blaylocke. “Anybody bring a dog collar?”

  I was deciding whether to laugh or punch Blaylocke in the throat when Vilaris pointed. “Look, another floater. Just above those clouds, there. Something’s built on it.”

  The small island was a few hundred feet higher than we were, riding a strong headwind. It was far enough behind us that I could just make out the shape
of an ornate building beyond the parting clouds. My eye whirred as I zoomed in for a better look.

  “Holy mother,” said Blaylocke. “There’s a symbol on the dome, there.”

  Vilaris was nodding. “Holy is right. It’s a Skytemple of Leridote.”

  I grimaced. “Temples are for law-lovers,” I said. “Screw law-lovers.” Then I said something mean about law-lovers.

  “Despite how you may feel, that temple is our best chance of getting help,” said Vilaris. “Fixing the ship could take days. That’s time we don’t have if we want to catch up with that floater.”

  “You still want to go through with this whole endeavor? Even if Yingler and Gilfoyle are in cahoots?”

  “Even if they are, Pyras will starve without income. We produce our own crops and livestock, but there’s plenty more we don’t produce that the money from our gravstone buys. If Yingler wants us to fail, the best thing we can do is succeed.”

  “Fine. You’re right,” I said. “Just don’t expect me to be pals with any of those Leri-dolts up there. Help me mend the rigging lines. We’re gonna get the Clarity back in the air so we can chase down that temple.”

  5

  Our little floater slipped away beneath us as I took the Clarity airborne. Wind whipped into the cabin through the yawning wound in our hull, filling the control capsule with cold, thin air. Vilaris and Blaylocke had strapped Chaz into his seat with a few lengths of rope to be sure he didn’t fall or wiggle out while no one was watching. I felt bad about it, but something was wrong with the guy. We needed to get him to a place where he could get help.

  It had taken us the better part of an hour to secure the lines and get the undercarriage balanced under the balloon again. In that time, the Skytemple had drifted past us and disappeared into the clouds overhead. I’d had to do some heavy convincing to get Blaylocke back on board. He was afraid the ship wouldn’t make it more than a few feet off the floater. I was just as afraid as he was, only I wasn’t a gutless wimp.

  The prop engines sputtered to life, and I thanked myself in retrospect for shutting them off when I had. There hadn’t been time to flight-check every last component, so I did a quick visual scan of my instruments to make sure there was pressure in the bag and clean air in the ballonets. I set the engines to slow speed and opened both valves. We lifted off, staying level. I didn’t want to risk nosing up too steeply like I had in the nearflow. Too much pressure on any of the rigging could put us back in a similar predicament.

  “There it is,” Vilaris said, leaning forward in his seat. “The back of it is poking out through that cloud.”

  “Alright, I see it,” I said. “Never thought I’d be in such a hurry to get to church.”

  Our little floater slipped out of view in the bottom windows. I pushed the engines to half speed, making sure I was rising faster than I was accelerating. We rose until we were at altitude with the Skytemple. I closed the ballonet valves and headed for the cluster of pillowy white clouds where our destination was hiding. Soon we were engulfed in a blinding cloak. I cut the engines to slow as wisps of cumulus licked the interior of the ship like white flames, dissipating in the crisp air of the cabin.

  Something thudded against the hull.

  “Not again,” I sighed, thinking another line had snapped.

  We came into clear sky, and the island temple spread out before us. It was a large floater, a tenth of a mile long at least, with dense forests and a mountain waterfall at its head. The temple foundations were of lavish gray stone, its wings and courtyards set on multi-layered terraces whose steps flowed over the contour of the land like rivers. There were towers and steeples topped by concave roof trusses, with porcelain shingles of a deep watery purple. Like most inhabited floaters, this one had a small airfield. There was a hover and two air barges, which the inhabitants must’ve used to transport goods and passengers. The airfield wasn’t large enough for a runway, but there were empty spaces for other ships to land. The whole thing looked welcoming enough, except that there were monks streaming out of doors and onto balconies, aiming crossbows and ballistae in our direction.

  Vilaris swore.

  “I told you I had a bad feeling about this,” I said.

  “No, you said you hated law-lovers,” said Blaylocke.

  “Was I wrong?”

  Blaylocke didn’t answer. Chaz was mumbling gibberish to himself.

  “Well, I don’t see any reason to stick around, do you? The Clarity is airworthy; that much we know. Might as well stay that way while we still can, or they’ll turn this thing into a pincushion.” I was twisting open both ballast valves and reversing the engines as I spoke.

  We began to rise while crossbow bolts punched the hull, quivering. Others careened off the windows, while still more rose toward us and lost momentum before plummeting back down. The monks were dressed in purple robes that matched the color of the roofing tiles. They scurried around like ants, getting smaller and less menacing as we faded up and back into the clouds.

  “Isn’t Leridote supposed to be a peaceful god?” I said.

  “Men have been fighting in the name of peaceful gods for as long as there’ve been gods,” said Vilaris.

  “They ought to know we didn’t come here to continue the tradition,” I said.

  “Anything on the bluewave?” asked Vilaris. “Maybe you can tell them yourself.”

  I looked at the comm. “Not a thing. They didn’t even send us a warning.”

  “Uh, are you watching this pressure gauge here?” Blaylocke asked, rising from his seat and tapping the glass.

  The needle wiggled. The pressure in the balloon was dropping.

  I swore.

  “Did we get hit in the bag?” asked Vilaris.

  “Don’t know what else it could be, unless a woodpecker got frisky with the ship while we weren’t looking.”

  I opened the valves as wide as they could go and rotated the prop engines until they were vertical. We jerked upward, rising like a puff of smoke. I didn’t care if we hit something; I was taking us as high as I could before we lost the ability to rise altogether. The pressure gauge was inching to the left, moving so slow it was hard to tell.

  “We gotta find someplace to land this thing,” Vilaris said. “I’m going above to take a look around.”

  “Send Blaylocke,” I said. “I’m gonna need you down here in a minute.”

  A few seconds passed before I heard Blaylocke’s spyglass whisk open and his boots clunk up the stairs.

  “What do you need me for?” asked Vilaris. “It’s not looking too good, is it?” He was shivering. Whether it was from cold or fear, I didn’t know.

  “No, it’s not looking good,” I admitted. “Good thing Chaz here is a prodigy. Ain’t it, pal?”

  When I glanced over my shoulder, Chaz gave me the response I expected: a warm, vacant smile.

  “Find something sharp and start chopping up the floor. We’re building a fire.”

  Vilaris frowned. “What?”

  “We need wood. Make a pile and I’ll tell you what to do next.”

  “I don’t understand…” Vilaris was anxious, on the verge of breaking down.

  I wanted to scream at him. I talked fast instead. “These ballast pipes vent through a furnace in the aft cabin of the ship. Build a fire, and the ballonets will fill with hot air instead of cold. It’s gonna be a chore to fly this thing without ballast tanks, but at least we’ll stay afloat if the main bag loses pressure. That enough of an explanation to get you moving?”

  Vilaris sprang into action without another word. He snatched up the boarding axe hanging over the doorway and began hacking the planks to splinters. A moment later, Blaylocke stumbled down the steps into the cabin. He saw what Vilaris was doing and gave him a puzzled look.

  “There’s a floater up ahead,” Blaylocke said, “about two o’clock. We’re too far down and I can’t see what’s on it. We need to get higher.”

  “Doing the best I can,” I said. “Help Vilaris with that firewo
od.”

  “Firewood?”

  Vilaris filled him in with a five-second physics lesson.

  I sized up the pile of wood he’d gathered. “Okay, that’s plenty. There should be lots of unlit coal in the furnace room. Get a few shovelfuls in there and burn what you can. The wood will start faster and burn quicker until the coals get going. Now move it.”

  The two men left the command capsule with their arms full of firewood, leaving me to coax every inch of altitude I could get from the Clarity before it turned to stone. The needle on the pressure gauge was still sinking. Even with the prop engines pushing us vertical, we were creeping upward at a disheartening pace. Chaz was speaking softly to himself, still tied to his chair. I leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the floater Blaylocke had mentioned, but all I could see past the balloon’s bulk were clouds and the open blue of the sky. There were folds and creases inching across the balloon’s surface, visible signs of the loss in pressure.

  I should’ve told them to let me know when they got the furnace going, I realized. “How you doing, buddy?” I said, giving Chaz a smile.

  He didn’t smile back this time. His brow wrinkled. He licked his lips. “I… I don’t… know,” he said.

  “Chaz? Chaz. It’s me, Mull. Do you understand me?”

  Silence, and another confused look.

  “Chester,” I said. “Chester Wheatley. Is that your name?”

  Chaz sighed. His head lolled to one side. He blinked, raised his eyebrows, closed his eyes as if enduring a bad headache. “Without a doubt.”

  “Chester,” I repeated, turning to face forward again. “If you can understand what I’m saying, I need you to talk to me. It’s very important.”

  “What…” he said, trailing off into another sigh.

  I wanted to go to him, but I didn’t dare leave the pilot’s seat now. “You’re tied to your chair. Can you find the knots and start untying yourself?”