Chenda and the Airship Brofman (18 page)

“I guess he's been carrying me for a while?” Chenda said.

“About a mile and a half, counting the elevator. Shall I put you down? Can you stand?”

“Won't know till we try.”

Fenimore lowered her legs to the deck, but held her around the shoulders to make sure she didn't collapse. Although she felt an ache in her body from the balls of her feet on up, every part of her seemed to still be working. “I think I'll live,” she said at last.

“That's a relief. I wasn't looking forward to pitching your dead body over the side.” He laughed, and attached a bitter-end to his belt. He reached over and handed a line to Chenda as well.”

“Up here, these belts and lines are supposed to save us, but tonight, yours almost did you in,” he said as they slowly walked toward the stern of the airship.

“What do you mean?”

“Your bitter-end belt. One of the rings got hooked on some debris in the reef when you got knocked in. That's how you got stuck. I guess you didn't realize it. Getting you un-stuck was simple: all I had to do was push you down a little and up you floated.”

Chenda realized then that she hadn't thought to thank either man for helping her. The dream about Edison distracted her totally.

“I'm sorry.” She turned to Fenimore. “You really saved my life, you and Verdu both, and I don't know how to say thank you. My thoughts are just so overwhelming.” She sat with Fenimore on a long crate for a while and chewed on her fingernail.

“What's wrong?” Fenimore said, wrapping one arm around Chenda again.

“I'm going to Kotal in Tugrulia,” she said. “That's my destination.”

“Ah, I see now. You're insane.”

Chenda snorted, which really made the inside of her face hurt. “No, I'm just being honest with you. See, after all that's happened tonight, I know now that I can trust you. You and Verdu both, because you could have let me drown, and you didn't.  I know that
you
aren't trying to kill me.”

“Reasonable assumption given the evidence,” Fenimore said. “But since I went through all that trouble to keep you alive, why let the Tugrulians kill you? What can you possibly be thinking?”

 “I started this journey because Edison told me to. I keep going because I need to find out who I am, what I'm made of. I can feel myself changing. I thought I needed to grow up and take care of my own life, learn about my own character. But in light of what's happening to me lately, I think that I need to draw on my strengths and my youth. These are the gifts the gods have given me. I need to use them, and be grateful.”

“Get over yourself. Go take a class. Learn to paint. Traveling to Kotal is not finding yourself. It's getting yourself killed. The captain is never going to take you there. That's for sure.”

“He's going to get us close. That's our agreement. I think tonight he's found us a way to get me and Candice the rest of the way there. Be open minded about this for a second, okay? I think maybe I had a vision tonight. I think after I drowned a little, I got a message.” Chenda looked up, searching the stars shining above them for some sign to keep talking. She focused on the dark outline of a few small clouds drifting along and, feeling the need for real contact, reached out for Fenimore's hand.

“I saw my husband, Edison. He told me that I am doing well, and I need to get on a ship called the
Tjalk
. And I need to take you. He was very firm on that.” She searched his eyes to see if he was hearing her.

Fenimore's expression spoke for him. His eyes said Chenda had lost her mind. When he finally spoke, it was in a tone one would use to coax a frightened puppy out from under the porch. “OK... come on... let's just go see our old buddy Kingston. He'll take a little look-see. We'll just make sure we haven't hit our wee heads. OK?”

Chenda rolled her eyes. “You go. I'm fine. I'm just happy to sit right here until it's time to go.” She let go of his hand. “I am serious. I want you to go with me.”  She judged what she knew about him and went out on a limb. “You know who I am and how much money I have. Name your price.”

He scoffed at her. “Can't pay me if you’re dead,” he said with a shrug. “And I can't spend it if I'm dead. An offer of dead plus dead is not a compelling payoff.”

He stood up and walked away, then turned back to her. “Chenda, you're putting faith into a fantasy here. You were unconscious. You had a dream. I can't begin to imagine how much you miss your husband. Your grief must have dragged this 'vision' out of you.”

“I've already purged my grief. It was too heavy to carry around with me. He let me go tonight. He showed me something to live for, and I am ready to search for it. I know that my path leads me to Kotal, and back out again. You need to take the path with me. Don't say 'no' yet. Think it through.”

Fenimore saw clearly; the woman before him would not be moved.

It was then that Lincoln and Stanley stumbled up the ramp onto the airship. Stanley walked shakily across the deck and, making two attempts at it, found the stairs leading belowdecks. He sat down on the top step and slowly started making his way down, pulling himself forward and letting his rump fall to the next lower step, giggling like a maniac, high as a kite.

Lincoln seemed slightly less drunk, but Fenimore guessed that whoever had given the boy a black eye also acted as a sobering agent. Lincoln saluted crudely. “Dulal! We have returned within our pripper, um popper, er, proper curfew. No problems.”

“It won't be a problem if you all are ready to work in four hours when we depart. Sober up, son, and I will see you at four bells.”

“Yes, shir.” Lincoln said as he stumbled below deck.

Fenimore pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “The world's gone mad.” he said.

“Ahoy,
Brofman,
” a reedy voice floated up from the pier.

“Ahoy,” Fenimore replied. Germer appeared from the bow of the airship.

“How can we help you?” Germer asked the small man standing at the end of the ramp.

“Letters for Captain Maxwell Endicott from Mr. Jason Belles. Permission to come aboard?”

“Please do.” Germer said. The messenger brought the letters to Fenimore, who stood with his hand out. His job now done, the boy dashed back off the ship and away.

Fenimore looked at the first envelope; it was addressed to Captain Maxwell Endicott. He flipped to the second letter, of which the envelope read:

Letter of introduction
for Airship Captain Maxwell Endicott
to Captain Taboda
of the Sailing Ship Tjalk

He stared at the envelopes for several seconds and then handed them to Germer. “The captain will want these the moment he returns. If you will excuse me.” He turned without waiting for a reply.

Fenimore strode to where Chenda sat in the stern and knelt down in front of her.

“I think there is a lot more we need to talk about. I'm starting to believe your Edison may really have spoken, because it looks like the
Brofman
will be making a rendezvous with the
Tjalk
.”

Chapter 11

KEEP TALKING TILL THEY HEAR YOU

Chenda smiled at Fenimore. She put one of her wet bandaged hands on the side of his face. “Edison told me I just needed to talk to you, to tell you more, and you would understand.”

Fenimore's face contorted with unease and confusion. “I'm unnerved right now, it's too bizarre for me, and I don't think I understand any of this. People talking to you from beyond the veil of death? How does that happen?”

“I don't really know. But I fully believe Edison did; he knew how to make this happen. But I don't think it will happen again.” Chenda dropped her hand and patted the space on the crate next to her, signaling that he should sit beside her again.

“Start at the beginning,” he said. “I want to hear everything Edison said to you, everything that you saw and felt.”

“I'll try, but some of it was so... intimate...” She blushed. “Maybe I should just stick to what's relevant. At least to you, that is.”

“Fair enough.” he replied. “Talk.”

Chenda took a deep breath. “He said his soul was holding on to this world so he could tell me that you and Verdu need to come with me aboard the
Tjalk
, and then onward to the Tugrulian Empire. He said that what you know is necessary to my journey. He insisted I'll need you -- both of you. He said that Pranav Erato will be able to help me understand what happened, and why Edison had the stones. He's the key to what I am supposed to be or do, I think. The rest of his message was... um, mostly personal.”

Fenimore gave her a sly look. “I guess that explains the yummy noises.”

Chenda blushed.

“Mostly, he was letting me go, and saying goodbye.” Chenda wrapped her arms around herself. “I felt him leave. He gave me a wonderful gift, being there one last time. He was different, weightless and light. Free from all that agony that he carried through life. And yet he was my Edison. He said he put himself into the stones to stay here, with me, and he had to come out to give me his message. When his soul wasn't bound anymore, he just faded away...”

Fenimore wrapped his arms around Chenda and rubbed his hands on her back soothingly. “I'm sorry,” he said. “It must be so difficult to lose someone you loved so very much.”

They sat in silence, each mulling over his or her own thoughts.

Fenimore spoke first. “You lost me on the part about him putting himself in the stones.” Fenimore looked at Chenda “What stones?”

Chenda shifted, wiggling free from Fenimore's comforting arms. She reached down the front of her shirt and pulled out the black velvet bag. She opened it carefully and poured the contents onto her lap. Edison's letter, now wet from Chenda's spill into the sea, lay limply under the three stones. Chenda handed the stones to Fenimore.

He held each up to the dim light that shone out of the center of the dock tower. Fenimore looked unimpressed, handing them back. “These dim pebbles?” he said doubtfully.

Chenda held the two loose stones between her thumb and forefinger on each hand. She clacked them together, and they began to sing out two beautiful, harmonizing notes. Fenimore's eyes opened wide with shock at the loud rich sound. Chenda let them ring for almost a minute then muffled them with her hands.

“Edison left these stones for me, along with this letter. I found them on the day of his funeral. Candice explained to me that these pedradurite stones, called Singing Stones, come from Tugrulia, and every stone of this kind that appeared in the West has gone missing, and the owners have ended up dead. Edison was murdered because he had these stones. The night Daniel burned my house, these are what he was looking for. He was prepared to kill me to get them. I think that someone tried to kill Candice, too, because she knows all about the stones.”

Chenda frowned and looked at the heavens. “Edison said that if I keep talking, you would come with me. I'm listening to my own story and I think maybe you are better off keeping far from me and these stones. They attract death, it seems. In the few days I've been holding them close, I've been stabbed, choked, beaten, burned and nearly drowned. A smarter woman than me would throw these over the side and go home. But...”

“...you can't.” Fenimore finished. “It doesn't make sense, and yet you keep going. I know that feeling. We all have our demons that drive us. I guess I shouldn't be one to judge the motivations of another. If you need to follow your vision, your path that Edison has challenged you to follow, then maybe you should.”

Chenda brightened slightly. “Come with me, Fen.” She looked into his face, a face shaped by doubt. “I feel like my life is finally begun, and you are a big part of that. You, and this airship and Verdu, Candice. It's remarkable that I've only known you all for a short time, but I can't remember my life very well before you. Besides Edison, there wasn't much to my life worth committing to memory. I could try to go back to my life in Coal City, but I would
not
be fine. Not when I know that there is a bigger world out there. Not when I know there is something calling me.”

Chenda slid off her seat and onto her knees in front of Fenimore. “Come.”

“You ask too much,” he whispered. The silence lay between them. Chenda leaned her head forward and rested it on Fenimore's knee. Fenimore closed his eyes, and turned his face away from her.

“Fen, come with me.” She said again. “Tell yourself whatever you need to, but come. I promise it's the right path. Please, come with-”

“Enough,” he whispered. “Let me sleep on it.” He stood and pulled Chenda up, too. “You're sopping wet, and so am I. Let's go below and get cleaned up.” He leaned over and picked up the velvet bag and letter.  He handed them back to Chenda, who tucked the stones back inside her shirt.

As they went down the steps to the narrow passage, Fenimore spoke. “So, I'll let you go ahead into the crew quarters and get changed first, so you can have at least a little privacy. The other lads in there should be dead asleep, and I'll make sure nobody's awake or walks in on you. OK?”

Chenda closed her eyes and said something she had never said before in her life. “Crap!” She slapped both of her hands over her mouth in surprise. Her outburst cracked a smile on Fenimore's face.

“What's wrong?”