Chenda and the Airship Brofman Read Online Free Page A

I think you may want to put those back in the bag, and keep them there. I'm not sure you'd want anyone to find out you have those.”
    “What do you mean?” she asked, covering the stones.
    Candice turned to her desk and picked up a dog-eared notebook. Leafing through the pages, she began to talk. “Truth be told, I've had an interest in Tugrulian Geology since I began my studies, but with the war and all, that line of inquiry just couldn't be pursued. My interest began when I saw my first pedradurite. One appeared here at the university several years before I became a student, when trade first opened with the Tugrulians. You see, Kotal trade goods were exceptionally desirable here for a time. Fashionably exotic, you could say.” Candice sniffed in a disapproving manner, but kept talking.
    “A merchant by the name of John Hunkapiller brought a stone here for the professors to examine, a tiny blue one. He said he bought it from a shady priest in the capitol city, Kotal. Let's just say, the amount he claimed he spent on that stone could keep me smashing diamonds all day. Anyway, the priest told Hunkapiller these stones were used somehow in a sacred ceremony in the Temple of the Dia Orella . That's the home of the One God of the Tugrulians.”
    Chenda nodded, willing Candice to go on.
    “Hunkapiller left the stone at the University for further examination while he made another trip to the Empire. I guess he was bitten by the geology bug, because he vowed to acquire a full set, that's one red, one blue and one yellow, and he promised to bring them here for more study. Unfortunately, he died soon thereafter in the Kotal Massacre at the start of the War. However, he wasn't the only merchant to pick up a 'Singing Stone', and I saw a few of those stones early in my studies. I haven't seen one recently, though, and Hunkapiller's stone vanished from the University vaults about nine years ago. I assumed it was a faculty member with sticky fingers, but now, I am not so sure.”
    Candice looked through her notebook again. “I think,” she said slowly checking her notes, “everyone who was known to have a Tugrulian Singing Stone is now dead... The question is why?”
    Candice glanced at Chenda. “I wonder if anyone knew Edison had these three.” She paused, dreading to continue. "I hate to be the one to tell you, Mrs. Frost, but this may be reason your husband was murdered.”
    The younger woman shook her head, her eyes haunted and confused. Candice went on. “Like I said before, what you have here is trouble.” Then, silence lay between the women.
    Candice needed to make a decision about the young lady across from her. Chenda's firm decision to go abroad was made in the madness of grief, it seemed. Perhaps it was the first and only life choice the girl had ever made. Even if she died trying, Chenda was committed to fulfilling Edison's instructions. In a small sort of way, the professor appreciated that kind of loyalty.
    But what was she to Candice? When Edison left for the War, Candice hid her heart from romantic love, and fed her spirit with the excitement of discovery and knowledge. As a woman capable of great powers of concentration, she focused years ago on science, and never came up for air. For close to 20 years she courted wisdom. Her theories and ideas became like children to her. Was a chance at following these rare stones enough to make her risk her life and follow this mere child to a violent land half a world away? The mystery hung before her. She looked at Edison's widow again. Some unnoticed maternal instinct took over as she assessed this young, confused woman, and she left good sense behind.
    “Mrs. Frost,” Candice whispered. “I think this quest may just get you killed. You may be in well over your head already, but, for the sake of the discovery of new knowledge, I think I would never forgive myself if I didn't come along.”
    Chenda leaped from her chair. With eyes full of hope, she grasped the