A Fist Full of Sand

by A. J. Galelyn

  exclaimed Voice.

  As the crowd cleared, I shyly approached the counter.

  “Yes?” asked the lady. “What’ll it be, fifteen gold or twenty?”

  “Umm.” I said. “I’m, uh, dressed2kill.”

  She nodded slyly at this, giving me a smile and a wink. “In that case, it’ll be one copper.”

  I gave her my silver, which she changed for nine coppers, and gestured to the rainbow on the counter. “Any one you please.”

  I peered at the bottles in amazement. The reds had been the most popular by far, and there weren’t many left. I continued down the line. I wasn’t sure about the oranges, though the yellows caught my eye, and I definitely wasn’t going green. Maybe blue. I had been quite taken by the leather lady. But I liked the richness of the purples, especially in scarlet, or maybe one of the rosy pinks.

  stated Voice.

  “Oh, I dunno.” I teased back. “At least it’s original…”

 

  And then I saw it, down at the end, next to the silvers and the platinum.

  “That one.” I told the saleswoman.

  She handed it to me, and I held it a moment at arm’s length, admiring the sheen, and then pulled the cork stopper with a flourish. A dozen tiny fairies boiled over and went for my head. My ears began to ring with their buzzing and indecipherable, excited chattering as they pulled at my hair and stung my scalp. The buzzing rose to a crescendo, and then, snap! they were gone in a twinkle of fairy dust. I rushed over to the mirror.

  I stared in admiration at my new, gold hair. Not blonde, but actual, metallic gold. I shook my head, and it shimmered and glinted in the shop lights.

 

  Sarah was staring at me like she wasn’t sure if I was the same halfling she started off with this morning. “How did you..? You know, nevermind. Sam, you are so weird.”

  “You want one too?” I asked.

  “No.” Sarah touched her own dark, lustrous locks. “I like my hair just fine.”

  “Cummon, I want to see what it looks like in the sun!”

  The weather outside was still overcast, but it didn’t dim my spirits, or my hair. I was making faces in the shop window, while Sarah pretended she didn’t know me, when I saw a familiar face, not my own, on the street behind me.

  Ramsey was shaking the hand of some human guy. “…glad it worked out, then. Just don’t tell the Harbormaster I was the one that tipped you off, and you should get a great price for them down in Fishmarket.”

  The human strode off. Ramsey turned, saw me, and his eyes went wide and round.

  “Sam! You’re awake! Your hair! Nice, uhh, clothes. Dang, you’ve been busy since...” yawn… “midnight.”

  Perhaps concluding that she wasn’t getting any more respectability out of me for the day, Sarah waved farewell at us and strode off herself.

  I grinned at Ramsey, who grinned back at me.

  “Ok,” he finally said, “I’ve heard every possible rumor about what happened down by Stack Street yesterday, but you’ve got to fill me in. You didn’t really ride a giant beetle up the inside of a six story chimney, did you?”

  “Umm, it wasn’t a beetle, it was one of those centipedes, only bigger, and we only went up the side of the building. Eventually. There were some streets and a beer cart and this cake, first.”

  Ramsey’s eyes got, if possible, wider at this statement.

  “And I wasn’t really riding it. Not on purpose, anyway. See, there was this bus…”

  We walked as I related yesterday’s events. Ramsey sprung for some chicharrones, and munched on them as he listened, alternately laughing and calling me a liar, but in an awed, rather than accusatory tone.

  “…so the last thing I remember was falling off the building, onto, what was it, Stack Street?”

  “Stacks Alley, just off Stacks Street. That’s where Minnow found you, anyway.” Ramsey offered me a chicharron, which turned out to be a piece of pork fried in pork fat with some extra essence-of-fried. It tasted like everything I never knew I was craving. “Lucky she remembered you. She doesn’t like most people.”

  “I guess I am lucky. I figured I was probably dead.” I kicked at an acorn, bouncing it along the street. “I suppose, next to that, my daggers are a small price to pay. And my boots. Oh, Ramsey, you should have seen these boots! You could jump as high as you wanted in them, like, like, every time you stepped, you were stepping on the end of lever, with a huge boulder coming down on the other side. Like it didn’t matter how small your legs are, you jumped like, like a jumping mouse.”

  Ramsey looked thoughtful at this. “The same punks who took your daggers took these magic boots as well?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Hmm.” He finished the last chicharron and wiped his hands on a monogrammed handkerchief he mysteriously had in his pocket. It said SSM. “I used to live in the Stacks. Come with me. I think I know where to start asking questions.”

  Our entrance to the bricked apartment neighborhood was far less dramatic than last time. A few people stared at my hair, but none of them seemed to recognize me.

  We came eventually to another alley, this one behind a building which more people seemed to be coming and going from. I edged away from the trash bins, which smelled like old blood and antiseptic herbs.

  “This is where we wait.” Ramsey informed me, and I settled in on top of what had once been some kind of stoop, but the doorway it served was long since bricked up. I nodded. I knew how to wait.

  Ramsey, it turned out, was terrible at waiting. He started out by acting like he was going to sit beside me, all casual, but jumped back up when our arms brushed. Then he did a few stretches, then fidgeted, and then leaned against the wall, and then stood back up and brushed at his shoulders.

  “So.” he finally said, rocking on his heels and staring up at the sky. “This is some crazy weather we’ve been having, right?”

  “Is it?”

  "Well, no, not really.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to this, so I said nothing. After a bit, he tried again.

  “You get many clouds out in the Elkylar?”

  “Storms.” I replied. “But mostly it’s clear and hot.”

  Ramsey nodded, put his hands in his pockets, and stared at some point kind of off above my right shoulder.

  “So I guess you don’t need much in the way of houses, then. Without much rain. You know, no need for roofs and stuff. I mean, maybe you need roofs when it storms. You just don’t seem like an indoor kind of girl, much. With your tan and all. Which is a nice tan.” he stammered. “It makes the… it’s almost the same color as, I mean, not metallic…” he blurted, “Uhm, I like your hair.”

  “Thanks.” I did smile at this, and he seemed tremendously relieved.

  “So is there, I mean, did you… I mean, do you have a, you know, boyfriend?”

  “A what?” I knew the word, vaguely, I just wasn’t sure how it applied to me.

  “Or, uh, a girlfriend?” His face fell at this one. “I mean, that’s cool too. I mean….”

  His babbling was interrupted by the doorway across the alley opening, revealing a dwarf carrying a loaded rubbish bin.

  “Richie!” I couldn’t tell if Ramsey was annoyed or relieved.

  The dwarf came up next to us and upended the trash into one of the larger bins. I was surprised to see that up close, he was quite young, with his beard defiantly trimmed into something short and edged. I had basically thought dwarves were sort of born middle aged, or maybe just built, like the clockwork men.

  “Pockets, my man, how’s it going?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Looks like you found someone.” The dwarf stood back and crossed his arms, giving me a measuring look.

  “Oh yeah, Sam, this is Richie, he’s a nurse. Sort o
f. Richie, Sam. She was the one that saved Tower Eleven from the giant centipede yesterday.”

  “Oh? I heard it was a spider.” The measuring look grew marginally friendlier, though.

  “Nope, way too many legs.” Ramsey waggled his fingers, for emphasis. “Still, no good deed goes unpunished, eh? We’re looking for a couple of thieves, probably with recent head injuries, or maybe broken bones. Like maybe they were playing see-saw with a rockslide.”

  “Haven’t seen ‘em.” he said flatly.

  “Richie, you owe me one. Remember?”

  “Cummon man, you know this outfit only gets by if we don’t snitch on our patients.”

  “And you know that no one around here messes with me and mine.” Ramsey growled. “Anyway, I’m not going to hand them over to the City Guard. I’m just going to set them straight about how things work around here.”

  Now it was Richie’s turn to stare at the wall instead of at Ramsey.

  “Also, they took something what might be dangerous. If you don’t want to be stitching up more busted scalps than you need to, it’s best if we find them sooner rather than later.”

  Richie was silent for a minute, and then finally uncrossed his arms.

  “Might have been a couple of guys fitting your description. One bruised noggin, one dislocated shoulder. Don’t know their names, though. New in town. Newish, anyway. I hear they hang out over at the Lonely Lobster.”

  “Good enough for me.” Back up came the jaunty grin. “Keep up the good work, eh?”

  Richie snorted. “Yeah, and you stay outta trouble.”

  Ramsey paused long enough to give the dwarf a look of mock offence. “Who, me?”

  Richie just shook his head. “All I’m sayin’ is, you show back up here with another busted collarbone, you’d better have an real good story ready about why you felt the need to play kickball with a couple of horks.”

  “Horks?” I quizzed Ramsey as we set off again, towards the waterfront.

  “A, uh, not so nice name for half-orks. They can call each other that, but all gods help you if you say it to them.”

  “So, what’s kickball?”

  “A game where you really don’t want to be the ball.” Ramsey rubbed his neck in remembrance.

  We turned out of the Stacks and onto Harborview Boulevard, and I stopped in my tracks like a dropped stone. The street in front of us fell away in a gradual, stepped slopes down into the bay, and beyond it spread the Miaha Sea, huge and flat, slate blue under the silver sky. A light wind smudged the surface, giving it a brushed, metallic look without kicking up waves. Several tall-masted ships rocked gently in the harbor, and smaller fishing boats gave dizzying perspective to a horizon that really made you believe the world just ended there, on the grey and white edge between water and sky.

  Ramsey just watched me watching the view, until I collected myself enough to remember to walk. I kept looking out, though, instead of where I was going.

  “Never seen the sea before, huh?”

  I shook my head. “They call the desert the Great Sand Sea, out beyond the wandering dunes. I guess I see the resemblance. But…” I stopped to stare again. “…it’s just so much water. Where does it all come from?”

  Ramsey shrugged. “Beats me. They say there’s a goddess for it, maybe she knows.”

  Down by the docks, the water became the color of agate and sloshed and shlupped against the sides of the ships, which were even bigger up close. A rolling wave loomed the whole barnacled bulk of one at me, and I jumped back reflexively at the forces that could move so much mass so very easily, but the ship just nudged the buoys and settled back into its restless sleep. A few dock workers paused in their gossip to laugh at me, but were soon back at it. The air was thick with the smell of salt and brine and the occasional rotting jellyfish.

  “Have you ever been on a ship?” I asked Ramsey.

  “Yeah, I came here on one. From Beach Bay, down south. It’s a lot smaller than Triport.”

  “Yeaaah, Bitch Bay!” heckled one of the gossiping dock workers, who didn’t seem to have much in the way of work to do.

  Another one whistled suggestively.

  I turned to stare at the men. I didn’t like their tone.

  “Bay o’ the bitches!” chortled the one, in case we hadn’t gotten it the first time. “Home o’ the whores! That whole town’s one big brothel! A real nice place to unload, if you know what I mean.”

  Ramsey stepped in front of me as I started at the men. “Sam, chill! It’s just a couple of drunk dock rats.”

  “I don’t like them.” I growled, trying to glare at them over his shoulder.

  Ramsey looked for a moment like he was holding in a laugh, but didn’t want to encourage me. “Just don’t worry about it. You gotta get a thicker skin in this city, or else you’ll be fighting your way through every idiot in town every time you step outside, and believe me, you’ll never run out of idiots.”

  “You a brothel boy, kid? Was your mamma a whore?”

  Ramsey’s face set and he began to walk away, his own advice suddenly hard to swallow, refusing to hunch his shoulders against the taunting men. I scanned the ground, looking for what my nose told me was there.

  “Hey there, halfling boy! Hey, do you know what halflings are exactly the right height for?”

  “Go suck your own dick, bigfoot.” Ramsey spat back them, starting to lose his temper.

  The dock rat began to say something else, and I reached own, grabbed a handful of dead jellyfish, and flung it right into his open mouth.

  His whistling friend, previously content to let things take their course, now stood up. Ramsey was not able to keep his laugh in this time, and it came out in snorts and hoots as he pointed at the beslimed man, who was making gacking noises as he tried to wipe it out of his eyes.

  I grabbed Ramsey with my non-jellied hand, and by unspoken agreement we ran off along the waterline, but the dock rats were too drunk to give much of a chase. We ran a bit further for the fun of it, until Ramsey slowed to a walk, still chuckling.

  “What’s a whore?” I asked, looking for something to wipe my hand on. Streaks of red across my palm were beginning to really burn, even though I swear the jellyfish had been quite dead.

  Ramsey gave me a funny look. “You don’t know…? No, I guess you don’t.” He handed me his handkerchief. “A whore is someone who sells sex for money.”

  I thought of Sarah and her lecture on self-respect. “I’m sure your mother isn’t one.” I added hurriedly.

  “Actually, she is.” He gave me another bemused look.

  I wiped my hand off as best I could, and spared a moment to hope the rude dock rat accidentally swallowed the rest of the stinging mess.

  “There’s not much else to sell in Beach Bay.” Ramsey shrugged. “That’s why I jumped on the first ship that would take me, and came here. And then jumped off. I’d thought to travel the world, but… I get seasick. It’s no fun.”

  “Where would you travel to?” The docks seemed a strange enough world to me, with its ramshackle mix of jumbled stone buildings, and wooden shacks filling every crevice in between. Rats ran unashamed in the daylight over planked walkways, and massive coils of rope made impromptu parapets that looked as if they hadn’t moved in years.

  “Oh, everywhere. Have a cup of coffee in a treehouse in Okonia. Carve my initials on the Siren Stone. Maybe I’d skip Leon, where those two jerks were from. They’re all stuffy and pompous and have some weird ideas about all the things women can’t do. But Southwind is supposed to be beautiful. All rolling wheat fields and sweet orchards, and palaces made of brick. They say they ride chariots pulled by ostriches and even the slaves eat beef for dinner every night. And their ships go everywhere, of course. And speaking of ships,” Ramsey waved at the strange brass and wood edifice blocking our path. “I present to you, the Lonely Lobster.”

  It was a ship, a huge one, or at least it had been at one time. Now it lay high on the docks, away from the waterline, on its side. The
masts had been cut away and a pair of double doors added to what used to be the deck, but was now a wall. A small flight of rickety steps led up to the doors.

  “The Lobster washed up here during the Harvester Hurricane, maybe a decade ago. The owner, some clever Southwind elf, managed to sell it to some entrepreneur who fixed it up as a bar and sold it again, and that owner lost it in a game of dice to Captain Benni, who runs it now. Everyone calls him Captain, anyway, though if he’s ever owned a ship besides the Lobster, it’s news to me. He claims he used to be a pirate. I almost believe that part, even though I know the eyepatch he wears on Masquerade Day is fake. He really does have a peg leg, though.”

  Inside, the Lonely Lobster was furnished as advertised, even if the walls had a bit of curve to them. Oil lamps supplemented the portholes-turned-skylights, and the remains of last night’s fire smoldered in an actual stone fireplace rising up out of the back wall. Besides the bar off to our right, tables of various sizes and heights were scattered around, except for a path at the narrow end, which had a couple of targets hung up on the wall.

  corrected Voice.

  Whatever.

  Even though it was only midafternoon, the Lobster was popular, and several people were working their way through what was obviously not their first tankard of ale. One halfling was doing somersaults and flips off the tables, to the chairs, and back again, trying not to touch the floor.

  Ramsey climbed up one of the tall stools serving the bar. I climbed the one next to him. There was a bowl of stale pretzels on the polished counter in front of me. Experimentally, I tried one.

  “Good morning, Benni. How’s your day going?”

  “Dunno yet. Just woke up.”

  The pretzel was salty and crunchy. I wasn’t sure about it, so I had another.

  “Maybe I should ask, how was your night?”

  The dwarf behind the bar yawned. “For a Sunday, it was crazy. Everyone was up till dawn cryin’ in their beer and speculatin’ conspiracies over the news of the shipwreck.”