Cloudwalkers

by Mark Wayne McGinnis

  Conn cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “Fire! Don’t you see it? Fire!” Dramatically, he pointed toward what seemed to be a fully-ablaze Empire State Building.

  More groupings of patrolling Dorcha Poileas were now visible on the illuminated cloudbank. Momentarily mesmerized by the fiery spectacle, they soon went scrambling toward the blaze. Misty heard them shouting orders, and watched as brave rescuers charged forward, prepared to risk their lives to save hundreds of trapped inhabitants.

  Misty stared upward at the magnificent, beautiful, display of glittering light. Refocusing her gaze back on Conn’s face, she saw a look of pride there—pride of workmanship. “You did that? You made all that happen at just the perfect moment?”

  “We need to go. That spectacle won’t last too much longer.” Smiling, he held out his hands. “Shall we?” Maggie took one hand as Misty took the other. Together, laughing, they ran north into the darkness.

  Now a mile away, the three slowed down, out of breath from running so far. Misty asked, between panting, huffed breaths, “So are you going to tell us? How you arranged all that? That was amazing!”

  “Toag helped me. Took us most of the afternoon to set things up.”

  Maggie said, “That was chemistry in action. Conn loves chemistry.”

  “Among other sciences,” Conn said. “But yeah, chemistry is pretty awesome.”

  “But the sparks! Why didn’t it call down God’s Rampage? You could have destroyed your home.”

  Conn shook his head. “They’re not electrically-based. They’re made from ChemBurn, which comes in part from the cloudbank itself. They don’t incite the lightning.”

  “How would you even know how—”

  “For almost ten years, Conn was Professor Dob’s apprentice,” Maggie told her.

  “Dob called them rainmakers. Like sparkler cannons. In the past, we’d set them up for big outdoor summer celebrations, and such forth. Kind of like fireworks but not that complicated, if you know the recipe: a special mixture of ChemBurn and other combustible elements. Toag helped me set up fifty rainmakers as individual blast cannons. We placed them in various open windows, on both the northern and western-facing sides of the building, all the way to the top floor. Once he heard my whistle, Toag had to scramble to light the various sets of rainmakers on various floor levels.”

  Misty looked away from him. When she realized he was still holding her hand but not Maggie’s, she freed her hand from his, shoving it into her pocket. She no longer felt exhilarated. Misty found it hard to fathom the level of education it took to do what Conn accomplished tonight. Her own education, little more than homeschooling, had mostly consisted of Purgeforth Scripture. Sure, she’d found many old books she wasn’t supposed to read, but they didn’t provide her with a real education. Not even close. God, he must think I’m a cretin—a stupid peasant girl. She wondered if the reason he was always so nice to her was just because he felt sorry for her. She hated the idea of him pitying her. What could possibly be worse than that?

  Brig was waiting for them outside the 432 Park Avenue building—the Drummond Clan tower. Misty craned her head way back to better glimpse the top of the building. But it was so tall, so perfectly flat on each of its surfaces, it was difficult to even differentiate the building from the dark sky above it. Unlike the Empire State or Chrysler building, with their progressive, stepped architecture that felt more like art than a building, the Drummond tower possessed little if any real character. All its windows seemed to be tightly affixed in place. None could be opened to let in the fresh air.

  “You got inside there?” Conn asked the boy.

  Brig nodded hesitantly. “It took a while. There’s a guard posted inside the lobby.”

  Misty could tell something was bothering Brig. Gesturing toward the facing side of the tower, she asked, “So where exactly are the Drummonds hiding in there?”

  “Well, the entire building houses the Drummond Clan and its followers,” Maggie said. “But the actual Drummond family members are situated on the top few floors. Remember, Adaira is my cousin. We used to visit them pretty often, up until I was about fourteen. Adaira would have been around fifteen.”

  “So what happened?” Conn asked.

  Maggie said, “I told you. We were no longer invited over. They sort of just disappeared. Only my uncle, CloudMaster Gunther Drummond, is ever seen out and about anymore, though even that is still a rare event.”

  “What was his excuse for his family being so unsociable?” Misty asked.

  “I don’t really remember. I don’t think he talked about them much. People just figured they were a bunch of shut-ins,” Maggie said. “Too scared to venture out into the world. Anyway, I remember many other noble families live here, below theirs. And sept families too, down on the lower floors, as well as on floors within the cloudbank.”

  Conn turned his attention back to Brig. “So, what else? Did you go all the way up to the top? See the Drummonds?”

  Brig nodded, looking uneasy.

  “What’s wrong with you? What’s with the stupid moping?” Conn asked.

  “I’m not moping. I just think we should leave them alone.”

  “What’s really wrong?” Misty asked.

  The boy shrugged. “I guess you should see for yourselves.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we’re here,” Conn said. “How do we get past the guard?”

  “He gets up to take a piss break every hour or so,” Brig said, glancing over his shoulder. I’ve been keeping an eye on him, it’s been well over an hour now.”

  “Okay, go on over there and watch him. Let us know when he leaves again.”

  Brig nodded and headed away.

  “Do you have to be so mean to him?” Misty asked.

  “Brig? I’m not mean to him.”

  “Sure you are. You talk down to him.”

  “He’s half my height, I have to talk down to him.”

  “It’s not funny! You’re going to give him issues.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You’re going to make him feel unworthy, like he’s inferior, or something.”

  “That’s ridiculous! Brig’s used to me; that’s just how I treat him.”

  Maggie watched their back-and-forth bickering in silence.

  “Hey!” came Brig’s hushed voice from the building’s entrance doors. “Guard’s gone.”

  Once inside, they moved quickly through the lobby, past where the guard sat keeping his evening vigil, and began their vertical trek up the winding stairwell. It took them about forty minutes. As it was well past one o’clock in the morning, they passed no one else along the way.

  Someone had freshly painted the words Level 94 on the wall, with the clan name, Drummond, in fancy cursive lettering beneath it. The four intruders, panting, stood still, trying to catch their breath. Misty noticed, unlike the other stairwell doors on the floors below, the original door up here had been replaced with a formidable, dark timber-planked door. The big, ironwork handle reminded Misty of a drawing she’d once seen of a castle keep.

  Both Conn and Maggie said, “Wait!” but Brig was already reaching out and thumbing down the handle mechanism.

  “Relax. Been here, done this, remember?” Brig needed to use both hands to get the door open wide enough for Maggie, Misty, and Conn to file through first. He followed, making sure the door didn’t slam shut behind him. With dim lantern light flickering all around them, they stood within a large marble foyer. Another door, this one even larger than the stairwell door, rose high before them.

  “How are we supposed to get inside without waking the household?” Conn asked, eyeing the door.

  “Not through there,” Brig said, spinning around. He pointed to a smaller door at the far end of the foyer. Small and painted white, it was probably intended to blend in with the surrounding white walls. Brig added, “Utility access.”

  Brig, hurrying over, pushed through it. The hinges squeaked. “Come on, I found a way inside through here.”


  Once they were all inside the utility space, Brig closed the door. Total darkness engulfed them. Misty heard Brig whisper, “Keep walking forward. The room is narrow and winds around to the left up ahead.”

  Doing as he asked, Misty walked right into Conn’s back. “Oops, sorry.”

  Continuing on, she had to waive away errant spider webs hanging down from above. Reaching out with her hands, she found both side walls had metal, electrical breaker cabinets, plus an assortment of thick vertical pipes. It reminded her of home. Misty heard, then felt something scamper atop her left foot—probably just a mouse.

  “There’s a rung ladder coming up on our left,” whispered Brig. “You can’t see it, but trust me, it’s right there. We’re going to climb it, one at a time, with me going first. Trap door’s up top; we go through that and we’ll be on the 95th floor, right inside the residence.”

  Five minutes later, they found themselves standing within the confines of a spacious walk-in closet. Some light filtered in through the narrow space beneath the door.

  Conn whispered, “You made it this far earlier?”

  Brig nodded. Pointing toward the door, he whispered, “That’s Adaira’s room.”

  Slowly, Brig reached out a hand in preparation to open the door. It suddenly swung open on its own, and Adaira Drummond stood there before them.

  Or what was left of her.

  Chapter 48

  She held a wooden rolling pin up high in both hands. In the dim light, it was clear her bare arms resembled narrow tree branches—knobby and gray and skeletal. Her flesh hung loosely, like saggy drapes upon a window rod. “I’ll scream. Help will come. Stay back; I swear, I’ll scream!”

  “Adaira?” Maggie inquired, staring intently at the young woman. Entranced by the very sight of her, she exclaimed, “Oh my God, it is you. What has happened to you, dear cousin?”

  Adaira’s fleeting recognition of Maggie soon turned to something else. Perhaps embarrassment. Perhaps shame. She lowered the rolling pin and turned her head away, her dull, auburn hair hanging lank over her face. “Why have you come here this night, Maggie? To mock me?”

  “Mock you? I would never—”

  “You must leave. Leave now.” Her voice was but a whisper.

  Conn’s eyes went to the girl’s bedroom window, which was massive in size compared to those within the Empire State. And this room, with its high ceiling, was far more spacious than any bedroom he knew of within the realm. This high up, the view from the window must be spectacular during the day, he thought. He tried to make out just what was he was seeing so far below.

  Adaira followed his gaze and said, “It’s Central Park. There are a thousand Ragoon trees below the cloudbank, tended by the Grounders. Their branches are just now starting to peek through it.”

  Sitting down on her bed, her body half-turned away, Adaira asked, “One of you was here earlier? I knew I heard someone skulking around.”

  Brig lowered his head. “Aye, that was me. I’m sorry, really, I am.”

  “So, I suppose this is some kind of shakedown? Is it money you seek? Or perhaps favor with my father? You all must know he is a powerful CloudMaster.”

  “We have no need for your money, or for your father’s influence,” Conn said.

  Like she hadn’t heard him, she added, “I don’t know, maybe it’s time for the Drummond secret to be exposed, and all of us marched to a nearby quickfall patch, as would befit the family’s Fall From Grace—”

  “Stop it, Adaira!” Maggie interrupted, carefully sitting beside her cousin. She raised her hands up, as if to embrace her, then stopped short. Adaira looked so frail, the boniness of each rib visible beneath her nightgown. Her hollowed cheeks were sunken, her face deathly pale beneath sallow, droopy skin. “Tell me, what on earth happened to you?”

  Adaira slowly shook her head. “It is a secret we all pledged to keep, never to speak of to anyone outside of the family. Not that I ever go anywhere.” Her voice was bitter. “I can never leave these quarters.”

  “I am family, cousin,” said Maggie. “And I would trust Conn and Misty with my life.”

  Adaira glanced toward Brig. “And the boy?”

  Maggie shrugged, a crooked grin on her face. “Two out of three ain’t bad, aye?”

  Adaira smiled. Conn realized the girl must have been pretty, perhaps even beautiful, once upon a time.

  “It’s a shameful, genetic disease that affects our Celtic aristocracy, called The Gaunt. It destroys muscle mass. None of us knew we had it until I got it, when I was fifteen. My mother got it late in life, a year later than me.”

  “Why shameful?” Misty asked. “You can’t control it.”

  Adaira lowered her eyes. “Familial interbreeding,” she said quietly. “We’re paying for the crimes committed by my great-great-great grandmother on my mother’s side. She was . . . with her brother. Similarly, it happened twice before that, going even farther back in history. With this disease, three-times is the charm. Shows up in offspring a century later.”

  No one said anything, but something about her story sounded familiar to Conn.

  “It’s not contagious or anything. But it’s still a crime, ye ken, having The Gaunt,” Adaira continued. “One that demands anyone infected, or even possibly infected, be executed via Fall From Grace. My father, fortunately, is not of the same bloodline. He married my mother unknowing of what lurked within her genetic disposition. That’s at least something, I guess. He’s safe, as long as the secret . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Did she know? Your mother—my aunt? What was lurking in her bloodline?” Maggie asked.

  Adaira shrugged. “Does it matter? Now?”

  Conn looked at Maggie, concerned. She must have noticed his expression for she said, “I’m related to Adaira, but on her father’s side.”

  Conn knelt down and looked at Adaira. “I remember something about this, though the Drummond name was never mentioned to me.”

  Adaira said, “That’s impossible. As I said before, we were all forbidden to speak to anyone of our plight.”

  “Even to Professor Claremont Dob?” Conn asked.

  She stared back at Conn close to a minute, then said, “He was looking for ways to help all of us. At the very least, he was trying to halt the disease’s progression.”

  “I was his apprentice,” explained Conn. “I too worked on that treatment. And yes, Dob kept his word. I never knew who was sick.”

  “Help all of you,” Maggie repeated. “How many ill are there?”

  Adaira, taking a deep breath in, let it out slowly. She closed her eyes, then quickly opened them, as if she had come to some kind of decision. “Come with me.”

  She rose to her feet and led them out through her bedroom door. Her nightgown billowed about her, floating weightlessly on the air like a ghost, her waif-thin body practically nonexistent beneath it. She padded forward to the next door within the wide, marble-clad hallway. Extending out her boney toes, she used her foot to push the door open a little wider, providing enough of a gap for them to peer within.

  Conn saw three beds. Upon each one rested a small boy, each clearly wasting away in the same manner as Adaira. Bathed in the flickering light of the hallway lanterns, he could see them sleeping. Their small faces appeared skull-like. The middle boy’s eyes suddenly popped open, brown and huge compared to the rest of his drawn, small face. Like the face of a cartoon caricature.

  “Adaira?” came his small, weak voice.

  “It’s just me, Peanut. Go back to sleep.” She closed the door and padded over to the next door. Already opened wide enough to see inside, Conn could clearly see the room held another three beds with three small bodies lying upon them. Young girls, all fast asleep. Adaira whispered, “They too have the early stages of The Gaunt. I won’t show you my mother. Too horrible.” She led them back to her bedroom and, retaking a seat on the bed, said, “So now you know.” Eventually she looked over at Maggie, tears in her eyes.

  “We’
re not here to make life any worse for you, I promise,” Maggie said.

  Adaira shrugged, as if resigned to the fact her life would only get worse. “Our days are already numbered,” she said. “My father’s aides have told him about the oncoming war. I’m a Cloudwalker, and know I’ll be expected to report. What will my family do then?”

  “I may be able to help you with that,” Maggie said.

  Adaira glanced up, her interest piqued.

  Maggie said, “This is Misty Casper.” Misty, smiling, nodded to her. “A few days back we helped her escape from a life she no longer wanted to live. She’s a Grounder.”

  “That’s a serious crime,” Adaira said, not looking the least bit sympathetic.

  Misty raised a hand up to stop Maggie from speaking further. “A week ago, my father hung himself. I’m not sure why; perhaps due to shame. Or maybe from the loss of his wife.”

  Adaira asked, “So your mother died too?”

  Misty shook her head. “She ran off with Deacon Terrence Lasher to become his third wife.”

  “I know of him. A miserable man.”

  “One of the last things my mother told me was that I didn’t belong with her. That she didn’t love me, not like a real mother should.”

  Now Adaira stared at Misty with genuine sorrow in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Misty nodded.

  “So what is it you want from me?” Adaira asked, sounding tired.

  “I want to be you,” Misty said.

  The skeletal girl stared up at her, her brows knitted. Then a wide smile broadened out her thin lips. “Ah, I think I understand now.”

  “As I said,” Maggie interjected, “I’m embarrassed to ask, cousin. Misty cannot return below the bank. The deacon would make her another of his wives.”

  Adaira offered a disgusted grimace.

  “But if she’s found up here, posing as a Skylander . . .” Conn and Maggie exchanged a quick glance.

  Adaira said, “She will be imprisoned; or even worse, executed.” She stood and stepped closer to Misty. Slowly raising her skeletal arms, she placed them around Misty’s neck, drawing her in close. Misty wrapped her own arms carefully about Adaira. The Drummond girl began to weep, then sobbed; quietly at first, then louder.