Madorn did as he promised to do. The scientist did not cause any trouble. Rather, he was solving existing ones in his solitude. What little Ted could see of his notes was the culmination of all so called hard sciences, and just watching the mad genius write and solve problems was somehow elating. It was such a pleasure to watch someone act out a truly intellectual passion.
Ted didn't even know if Mad actually needed those calculating machines he spoke of so fondly. Of course, Ted accepted the fact that his own knowledge was limited. It might have been so that one man could only delegate certain difficult things, but it did take a special kind of intellect to be able to construct something that was, in a way, smarter than its inventor.
For a man with no explicit scientific ambitions, Ted considered himself knowledgeable. He had no reason to think otherwise – after all, he would have been able to hold a conversation with Mad about anything. Just because he was not dusty and bookish enough to devote his entire life to research, it didn't mean that he would have to abstain from thinking of himself as the smartest person in any room. His time with the art of occult had given him both academic wisdom and street smarts. The latter was what most scientist types seemed to lack.
Madorn kind of shook that idea to its core, though. As they were gliding near the ground on steady, mellow winds, trying to get higher, Madorn spit out a mighty piece of chewing tobacco and laughed.
"There are many highwaymen in these areas. Blood is being spilled somewhere below us as we speak. Stability…it's always an illusion. And to think that some people desire it, well, that's their madness."
Ted shook his head.
"Tell me, are you saying those things just to get in my good books?" he asked.
"I am already there. Now…we have practically no reason to entertain the charade of just some random philanthropic gentlemen. I wasn't named Mad for my reasonable plans for my life."
Ted agreed that the concept of an insane scientist was based on solid facts.
He had, at times, thought about how it would feel like to be a different type of murderer, perched behind a tree for hours or scouting for clues about treasure shipments in shady taverns. He knew how to hold a gun, a sword or a knife. Sometimes he did long for a wilder life, freedom from social obligations and freedom for relationships with other humans altogether, but his tool of trade was manipulation. It was impossible to manipulate birds or trees.
He drew in lungful after lungful of fresh air that was slowly getting cooler as they flew away from the tropical warmth of the northern parts of the world. The Bridge was not too far away. However, Ted was worried. No mercenary had come up to him to complain about the dead hag. This was worrying for many reasons, the most pressing of them being that if there were no requests for corpse money, and it was known that Ted had been the one with the branthen bottle in his belongings, then the widower considered this a crime that couldn't be paid with gold. Perhaps it would have to be paid with blood.
Ted didn't just deal his own blood out to anyone who asked. It would have to be the blood of the mercenary being spilled, that much was for certain.
He decided to avoid sleeping at all costs.
He had orchestrated this, but this was not good at all.
Ted couldn't hate himself for being so deliciously out of control. He lived this way. Occasionally, it meant that he could not touch the pillow with his head, and he just had to cope with it, walking around on the deck as tender darkness enveloped him entirely, comforting him in the only way he would ever accept being touched by another entity.
Darkness was a friend to him. Eknie, Mad, none of those living beings could compete. True love existed between immaterial and eternal entities. Ted intended to become one. For that reason, he just couldn't afford to get attached to anything that could crumble and succumb to decay.
Some men climbed mountains, but even mountains had to bend to the passing of time and fall into the sea – and everyone knew that water belonged to the dead. Eventually, everyone who was an actual human being would have to yield to that force, become food for worms or vultures, and give up all their wealth. Love couldn't save anyone from death, and neither could the mountains circulating the valley ahead of them, not if a man conquered them, not if a man wrote a poem about the way the steep rise met the zone of snowfall.
Ted had an ache inside his chest. He wanted to be immortal.
The wind was getting stronger. The course they were on would take them safely around the mountains and the valley that was sure to hide some perilous winds, but for whatever reason the airship was straying away from the expected invisible line through the air.
It looked a bit threatening, the mountaintops coming closer and closer, and Ted decided to wait for the thrill in his stomach to rise a bit higher.
The wind was now strong enough that any attempts to wear hats were futile.
For a man with a plan to become immortal, Ted sure loved to be reminded of his mortality.
He walked up to the captain, who said there was nothing wrong, just a little dip in altitude, surprisingly unsurprising mountain winds, nothing more, not anything worth losing sleep over.
Ted wanted to say he had nothing to lose due to his self-imposed insomnia, but the captain seemed so certain of the safety of his intended course that even cor Ted Tobias had to trust the expert.
It was getting harder and harder to stay awake. Ted looked for any stimulation, any danger that he could use to keep himself up and running.
All gods knew that he would not be slaughtered in his sleep.