Chapter XX: Where “Weasels” Dare
It didn’t take the Fieretka much more than an hour to find the airship docks right where Djidou had said they would be. But it would take them all, especially Sansonis, much longer to forget Ifaut’s little confession. Stefi was hardly surprised, but Cédes’s bumbled reaction in her own tongue had caused her to worry. Once the pale Furosan had finished, looking quite out of breath, Stefi said to Ifaut, “Does that mean she approves?”
“You know what?” Ifaut whispered back, “I could barely understand her myself. She said something about it not being right, though she doesn’t really care.” She smiled broadly. “It doesn’t matter to me!”
“And Sansonis? You okay?” Stefi asked with a wink.
The Kalkic shrugged and didn’t respond. Such behavior was hardly surprising from Ifaut, but to admit love? And even then, what sort of love? Friendship? Romantic? Obsessive? He would have bet on the last one. Even if the others knew better.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
They carried on in silence trying to find Djidou’s ship. Before them lay yet another level like the ones they had already passed through, only it was swept clean of the shops and crowds. With only one more level above them before the city settled out and sprawled inland, the sky somehow seemed more open. Its welcoming expanse spread out ready to accept large objects that looked as if they could never even get off the ground, let alone stay up there. Far above the sea and away from the crowds the very air seemed clearer, not choked by the smoke and smells of the lower city.
Four ships sat on the bare ground liked beached whales, their hulking forms lounging in the sun. But they looked like distant relatives to those that went by sea. While the basic designs were the same, the contraptions looked strange and foreign. Like ships of the sea they had wooden hulls, only the bottoms were flat with long skids incorporating leaf springs–one at the bow, two at the stern–to allow them to land upon the ground. And they were somewhat smaller, with all unnecessary weight removed to aid in flight. While they had masts and sails, collapsible stabilizing wings of wood and heavy fabric swept back from port and starboard, and large engines perched on the stern, each wielding long, dangerous looking propellers that could easily decapitate the unwary.
“Just how do these things stay in the air?” Stefi mused.
“Because they’re so damn ugly that the ground doesn’t want ’em back,” a soft voice answered from behind.
Stefi turned to find herself face to freckled-face with a Kalkic girl whose gray eyes were framed by thick-rimmed glasses. Her hair, the blue of the evening sky, fell in twin fountain-like pigtails to just below her shoulders.
“That makes sense.” Stefi shrugged. She eyed up the Kalkic girl as she emanated a sense of familiarity, a familiarity she couldn’t quite place. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
The girl also shrugged. “Probably.” She cocked her head at Stefi and studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “Ah well, it’ll come to me. You’re the one’s Djidou sent, right? Come aboard,” she said and motioned towards a ship that was smaller than the rest. It was much smaller than the other ships, about the same size as Elian’s vessel that they’d left far below, something that looked like it could zip with ease through the sky and dive through the clouds. The strange name Viva was emblazoned on the side, painted to resemble flames. An odd touch, Stefi thought.
“Djidou will be here in a moment,” the Kalkic girl continued as she approached a ladder leaning against the smaller airship. “Right, everyone up after me,” she said and scurried up out of sight.
Ifaut watched her go then turned to Stefi. “Sansonis should go first,” she said and let go of his hand, “because Stefi and me are both wearing skirts.”
Sansonis sighed and climbed up, where he was soon joined by the others, and Ifaut once more caught his hand in her possessive grip. Her act was quickly noticed by the Kalkic girl, who flashed her a smile.
“It’s good to see there’re more Kalkic and human couples. I thought me and Djidou were the only one.”
“N-n-no,” Ifaut stammered, “I’m not-” But before she could finish, Sansonis stomped on her foot. Even she realized that it meant to shut up.
“Yeah, because I’m the Kalkic.” Sansonis forced a laugh as his heart thumped at the near miss.
The girl smiled. “And just between you and me, I think other humans are a bit strange. Maybe that’s why we like them, eh?”
Again Ifaut made to point out that she wasn’t human and again Sansonis silenced her with a gentle elbow.
“Oh yeah,” the Kalkic girl continued as she looked about, “I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Lisé Adnamis, but most everyone just calls me Adnamis. I guess you could also call me Djidou’s girlfriend.”
Everyone else introduced themselves, except for Rhaka and Cédes, who were introduced as Sansonis’s dog and Stefi’s elderly grandmother respectively.
“And judging by your getup, you’re tourists, yeah?” Adnamis continued.
“Yes,” Stefi said. She looked over herself. “But what’s wrong with our clothes, anyway?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing!” Adnamis shook her hands dismissively. “The style’s just different, that’s all.” Indeed, compared with the Kalkic girl, the others were dressed quite modestly. Her clothing, shorts and a shirt cut off just above her pierced navel, reflected the warmer Sol-Acriman climate. “That, and your accents stand out a little, especially Sansonis’s girlfriend’s.”
“I-I’m not his girlfriend,” Ifaut stammered as her eyes darted about nervously, seeking something to change the present course of the conversation.
“Oh, sorry,” Adnamis said, “I just assumed…”
“Don’t worry,” Stefi cut in, “it’s complicated. For what it’s worth she might as well be.”
“Yeah, I know how it is. People still don’t accept me and Djidou but I don’t really care anymore. It can be difficult, living here of all places, but you can’t beat the lifestyle. And when the airship technology improves we’re going to set out and find the others.”
“Others?” Stefi echoed.
“Kalkics. Not all of us stayed behind when the church first kicked us out.” She turned her vacant gaze out over the sea and sadness crept into her voice. “Most of us headed north to new lands, but what happened to them… I don’t know. Do you, Sansonis?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head. “No idea, but I have Ifaut and the others, if that’s any consolation.”
“Yeah, I have Djidou and I suppose that’s all that really matters. I’m still curious, though, and he promised me we’ll go searching once he can make these things run longer.”
Stefi saw her chance to find out more about Fairun and seized it with both hands, thankfully leaving her “charm” behind. “How do these fly?” she asked in what she hoped was an innocent voice. “I mean technically.”
“For that you’ll have to ask Djidou. After all, he had a hand in perfecting the current technology.”
“Too true.” Djidou’s voice mounted the airship’s deck railing a second before he leapt aboard. “Our guests getting curious, are they?”
Adnamis nodded. “Maybe you can explain how this flies.”
“All right,” Djidou said absently, his eyes skimming over the Fieretka before landing back on the Kalkic girl. “Come with me for a minute.” He led Adnamis out of earshot, where the two spoke in hushed tones. All the while they kept casting glances over their shoulders.
“I don’t like this,” Stefi said as a heavy weight fell into her stomach. “I don’t like this at all.”
“Neither do I. I feel most uncomfortable,” Cédes said. “They seemed trustworthy but perhaps we are again mistaken.”
They watched intently, or in Cédes’s case waited, as the two continued to talk. Then, before they could react, Djidou shot towards the helm in the middle of the airship and slammed a button on the console there. Immediately a shudder ran through the ship as the engines ro
ared to life and whatever was taken from Fairun freed it from the bonds of gravity. The airship jerked a little, testing its freedom before lurching into the air with such force that the Fieretka were thrown from their feet. Within seconds the ship was heading out to open air and away from the city. Even if they had been foolish enough to jump there hadn’t been enough time. They were trapped. Again.
Once the Fieretka regained their footing, Ifaut drew her sword and Sansonis a knife, while Stefi gripped her staff in preparation for a fight. It wouldn’t come.
“I’m really sorry about that,” Adnamis said as she approached, hands held out to show she was unarmed. “We know exactly who you are and probably why you’re asking how these fly.”
“Then you must know,” Stefi said, “that we aren’t afraid to fight.”
Adnamis just laughed. It was a reaction that took all the strength from Stefi’s hands. “We are afraid to fight, you know. Stefi, my childhood friend, we need you and your friends’ help.”
“Childhood friend? Help?” Stefi gasped and dropped her staff as realization took hold. “Of course! You’re Lisé who used to live in Sumarana. You and your mum just up and left when we were little and everyone said you had to leave your farm. I didn’t recognize you!” she blurted out. She stumbled forward and embraced the Kalkic girl. “I always wondered what happened to you…”
“Dad’s land title was always tenuous, and when he died we came here. But mum… she died shortly after. Then I met Djidou. The rest can wait. We need your help.”
“Help?” Stefi said again and released her. She picked up her staff.
“Yes, your help,” Djidou said. “We know what you did in Valraines. We know what you’re capable of.”
Stefi, her suspicions increasing, quickly leapt back on the defensive. “How do we know we can trust you? If you know what we did in Valraines, then you must know why we did it.”
“The papers said you were a rogue human siding with a Kalkic and Furosan terrorist group, that you just wanted to kill people,” Djidou said. He stared into the slightly clouded sky that reflected in his blue eyes. “Frankly, I think it’s crap.”
“Crap?” Ifaut and Cédes both piped up simultaneously.
“Nonsense,” Sansonis hissed.
Djidou turned to them with a smile. “See? That’s what made it so easy to recognize you guys. That, and your clothes.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Ifaut shouted. “If anything, you look weird.” She pouted at his singlet and narrowed her eyes.
“Nothing’s wrong, little kitty. They’re just different…”
“Kitty?” Ifaut roared, her face growing a different kind of red than it normally did. “Kitty?” She leapt forward only for Sansonis to grab the tip of her tail as it slipped from her shirt and pull her back as if she was on a leash. The force knocked the hat from her head, revealing her Furosan ears.
“See these?” she shouted, still straining at Sansonis’s grasp until her tail was pulled taught. “Do these look like the ears of a firiksa kitty?”
“Oh, definitely!” Djidou laughed, only fanning the flames.
Ifaut leapt forward again, now tugging even harder, her claws stretched towards the airship pilot’s throat.
“Ifaut, stop,” Sansonis said.
She paid no heed.
Sansonis sighed and let go. Free from his hand, she lurched forward, tripped over her own feet, and landed on her stomach, her limbs splayed in imitation of one of the starfish on Valraines’s beaches. She didn’t move.
“Is… is she going to be okay?” Djidou said and stifled a laugh.
“No,” Sansonis said, his face dead straight. “This is what she’s always like. But it makes her interesting.” He hauled her to her feet and she collapsed, embarrassed, into his arms.
“As you were saying about needing our help,” Stefi said impatiently.
“As I was saying, we know you, or at least one of you, are capable of great destruction. We need to use that to blow up something big. Very big.”
“Another airship?” Stefi asked.
“Close. Bigger.”
“Your ugly face?” Ifaut hissed.
Djidou grinned. “Even bigger, little kitty.”
“Let me guess,” Sansonis grunted as he restrained Ifaut again, “an airship factory?”
“Bingo.”
Then Cédes spoke. Her eyes smoldered like two embers in the darkness of her hood, and her voice was heavy and threatening anger much like a storm cloud threatens a deluge. “Even if I were to believe this remarkable coincidence, Mister Djidou, I shall not use my… capabilities… for any more loss of life. There must be an alternative to ‘blowing up’ a factory. And yet I must caution you that, even if I should be inclined towards destroying something so big, I find it doubtful that a human has the same goals as us.”
Djidou laughed bitterly and Adnamis shot him a worried look. “Believe me, fiery kitty, I want to destroy that place as much as you guys, if not more. It’s that damn stone.”
“Do you mean the stone from which you humans drain the power to make these horrible machines fly?” Cédes said.
“That stone. I was the one who started all this. Now I have to stop it somehow.”
A laugh of disbelief forced its way from Cédes’s throat. “Ha! If you are the wretched excuse for a living being who started this… this terrible deed, why seek now to stop it?”
“The dreams,” Djidou said. The smile was gone from his face that was now shadowed ominously beneath his cap. “That stone, whatever it really is, is dying. At first I thought it was some long lost Furosan technology. Until it started screaming in pain in my dreams and begging to be released.”
Cédes clenched her fists. “You have got what you deserve, miserable human. We seek to save the stone for Fairun’s own good, yet you seek to destroy it to unburden your own selfish being. I refuse to help you.” Cédes turned her back to the human voice that so enraged her and fueled her anger, growing increasingly livid that the one responsible for Fairun’s pain now stood near enough to spit upon. She said no more, fearing that if she did the flames now arcing between her fingers would grow in ferocity; the flames that now had nothing to do with the stone safely packed in her pocket. But they were nothing compared to the tears of conflict that marred her face.
‘If my anger is so great that even it wishes to cause destruction, by Feregana,’ she thought, ‘what have I become? My unbridled rage might yet be that which takes two of us to the Bridge.’
“Doesn’t like humans much, does she?” Djidou said.
“No, she loves humans,” Stefi said coldly. “How could you tell?”
She almost expected Cédes’s clear voice to pipe in “sarcasm”. Nothing came. She suddenly felt very alone despite the presence of her friends.
“Then we need another plan,” Djidou said. “I think I understand, even if we did blow the crap out of that factory, it would end its suffering in the wrong way. You guys need it whole, don’t you? For something a tad more important than making flying ships, that is. That’s why you’re here.”
Stefi nodded. “We can’t tell you everything, at least not yet, but it’s very important that we save her. Can you at least go in and grab the stone first?”
Djidou shook his head. “Sorry, no can do. Not just anyone can walk in there and take it. Besides, I quit working there over a week ago. Thought it might stop the dreams. It hasn’t. Maybe it means I’m supposed to do something about it.”
“You can start by telling us what they’re doing with her,” Stefi said as Djidou settled the ship onto a steady course above the open ocean. She was so worked up she didn’t even register how high up they were.
As the Fieretka sat down to listen, Cédes still retained her distance, though more out of fear than anger. One ear twitched occasionally, snatching words from the crisp air.
“This stone, this Fairun as you call it, is hooked up to a machine that drains its energy. We found that the stone itself had the power to mak
e things float on air. Leave it on a table long enough, and soon enough its power leaks out and the table starts to rise. Then we found out how to drain its power into ordinary stones that could act like miniature versions of it. They were smaller, but they were strong enough to lift ships, so we made a few adjustments and bam! You get this thing. And by regulating the energy output we can change altitude and even power those propellers. But like a sea ship we still need the sail to conserve energy.”
“That’s terrible,” Stefi said while shaking her head. “Do you think you can keep draining her power forever?”
“No, and that’s precisely why I hear those damn screams whenever I try to sleep, isn’t it? I tried to tell the other researchers. Those idiots just laughed. So I quit and started out offering tours on my own to make a living. It’s not like I was needed once the technology was pretty well perfected, anyway.”
“Look, we’re running out of time,” Stefi said. “Can you get us the stone somehow?”
“I know damn well we’re running out of time.” Djidou punched the wheel and shook his sore fist. “The nightly screams are getting worse, and when I left the stone seemed… sick.” He looked up for the first time in ages, finally making contact with Stefi’s coldly intimidating eyes. He glanced at the ferrets on either shoulder, then back at Stefi’s eyes, then back at the ferrets again. “Wait, weasels are little thieves, aren’t they?” His voice wavered under Stefi’s glare.
“I don’t know, but ferrets are,” she said warily. “Why?”
“Then we have another way.”
Tell me again, Maya muttered the next morning as he scuttled through a narrow metal tunnel, how we got talked into this.
Because the humans and Furosans are all too big, Gemmie said, her voice quivering with excitement. Her tiny nose zoomed along millimeters from the dust carpeting their confines. She sneezed and her head jerked violently.
And why do I have to wear this itchy thing? he complained as the leather contraption he was wearing left tracks in the dust like a sled might in snow.
Because you’re twice the size of me. Gemmie sighed. Now shut up and look for the keys.
The itchy thing, as Maya called it, was his old walking harness that Djidou had reinforced and modified in a few minutes to carry a tough drawstring pouch. Stefi, remembering with a smile the “keys” episode in Valraines’s prison, had insisted that the ferrets have an easier way to retrieve Fairun’s stone once they’d found it. And despite Maya’s protracted protestations, the harness and pouch had been fitted to him since, as the bigger of the two, he was better able to get it out again.
A few minutes after Stefi’s hesitant hands had slipped them into a ventilation duct, the two ferrets came to a crossroads of sorts. The narrow tunnels that provided fresh air to the immense facility riddled its walls like rabbit warrens, the perfect size for the ferrets’ tubular bodies. In fact, were it not for the stark, unnatural nature of the surroundings, one could almost believe that the little creatures had been custom-designed for such an infiltration.
What way do we go? Gemmie asked. Three separate tunnels branched out before them, illuminated by the cold light that seeped through a grate to their left.
I don’t know. You’d think Mr. Weasel could have told us the way.
Do we split up? Gemmie asked. She was nervous at the prospect yet still excited at the many paths waiting before her.
No way! We’ll have to try them all. I remember the last time we all split up. Maya’s nose sifted the air with loud snorts, filtering the dust to find hidden traces that might reveal the stone’s position. The middle one!
And would that be because it smells like food?
If ferrets could blush then Maya would have turned redder than Cédes’s eyes. As it was his gaze darted across the floor as it often did when Stefi or Gemmie poked his thoughts.
Yes. Where there’s food there’s people, too.
No, Gemmie said, taking charge of the situation. We have to stay focused on the keys. But… we do have to pick a way to search first. It might as well be the one that smells good.
The two ferrets scurried off down the center tunnel, skimming and bobbing across the metal floor like stones across a lake. One minute they fought for traction as they scrabbled up rises and the next they slid out of control down slopes, reveling in the new piped playground. And the scent of food grew ever stronger in their noses, a trail of breadcrumbs leading the way.
There it is! Maya said as a grate suddenly broke up the monotony of the floor. The alluring smell of cooked food wafted up through its bars. And from somewhere in the room came a low, constant hum, like the heartbeat of some otherworldly beast.
Yes, Gemmie said, but we’re supposed to be looking for the keys, remember?
Oh yeah, the bigger ferret said as he came out of his daze. But look! People! Maybe we can follow them.
They both moved onto the grate to get a better look, careful not to let their feet slip through the gaps. They were perhaps too careful. They didn’t notice the creaking beneath them.
“Listen up,” one of the vague forms beneath their feet said in a deep voice that demanded respect. “As you all know, the Furosan stone has begun to show severe signs of instability. And with our head researcher gone, the re-stabilization process has run into a wall. However, at the behest of His Holiness Karick IV, we are to rectify the situation immediately despite the risks posed to the stone. The Alzandian assault preparations must continue regardless of our safety. And the stone’s.”
Oh no… Maya muttered. That name. He couldn’t be behind this… just couldn’t. His usually confident voice wavered and dissipated like smoke. Ki… la… ra.
Maya… Gemmie licked his face comfortingly with her scratchy tongue. It’s okay.
More than any of the Fieretka the male ferret had reason to truly fear and detest the name of Karick, the earthly connection to the human god of Kardin. Karick IV, head of the church and instigator of the attack against Gemmie and Maya’s hometown of Farān. A monster that had felled both the human and animal resistance, all in the name of a so-called God. The very resistance composed of Farān’s animal occupants and forged in the fires that razed their home. The resistance led by Maya.
Before the man beneath them could continue, the grate beneath the ferrets’ feet gave way with a terrible clang.