Marisa nodded. “Three days south. No problem.”
Peary looked at her and smiled. “I’m so glad you’re alive, Marisa.”
“Thank him,” she said, pointing at Reggie, who smiled and bounced his eyebrows for effect.
Peary narrowed his eyes. “Not yet. We’ll see about him.” Then he walked over to where the Poet had resurfaced.
“A rousing show of support,” Reggie said, with a laugh.
“Shut up, Reggie,” Marisa said.
***
“You sail the pirate sarfer off to the east,” Peary said to the Poet. “At least a couple of miles. I’ll follow you and pick you up, and then we’ll come back and do it again with the second sarfer.”
“You do everything the long slow way, diver,” the Poet said. “We have four people who can sail—at least enough to get us a few miles. We could drop the Legion sarfers and head straight south from there.”
“The sandal hop isn’t strong enough to sail, which means I’d have to leave him here unwatched, which isn’t going to happen. So Marisa has to stay here too and keep an eye on him.”
The Poet shook his head. “Your way will take hours.”
“You’re right, it will,” Peary answered. “But not long after that, we’ll be rich.”
“Have you thought about what’ll happen if someone sees us in a Legion sarfer?” the Poet asked. He jerked his head at the red sails: the signs of the Low-Pub Legion.
“Listen, Poet,” Peary said, “That’s a problem in either case if we’re seen, but we can leave the sarfers here for all I care. But if we do, you can surely kiss your riches goodbye. Someone will dive here just to find out what happened.”
The Poet shrugged. “It looks like I’m destined to lose my life savings.” He held up a closed fist. “Over three hundred coin.”
Peary sighed deeply and tried his best to understand things from the Poet’s point of view.
“I realize it will take a monumental amount of faith and trust for you to believe I’m going to cut you in on the coin from the Danvar salvage,” Peary said. “But you can trust me. If I didn’t want you around, I could have left you in that sand box.”
The Poet nodded, and Peary continued.
“But if you can do it, if you can trust me, you’ll soon realize that what you have down there, however much it is, is only a drop in the bucket. We don’t need it.”
“A bird in the hand,” the Poet said. “All these nonsense sayings we have. I don’t even know where we get them.”
Peary shrugged. “From the before, most likely. From the time of the old world, when Danvar was a populous city-state, gods walked the earth, and water fell from the sky.”
The old man looked at Peary and narrowed his eyes. Now who’s being poetic? “We leave the Legion sarfers, then,” the Poet said. “Be easier and faster that way.”
“Yep,” Peary said.
“There’s another problem buried down there, diver.”
“What’s that?”
“Men have been killed by sand used as a weapon,” the Poet said. “Leaving the sarfers here is a sign. It’s plain what happened once you look at it, and using the sand for that kind of thing is a killing offense.”
“I’ve seen men die in all sorts of ways,” Peary said, “just in the last few days.” He looked off to the west, toward the mountaintops in the distance. “Something tells me the rules have changed, old man. Be a lot of dyin’ before this all gets sifted.”
***
Six days later, the four of them looked down from a high dune onto the trader village, a mobile tent town that had sprung up like a sand fern from the depths. It had taken twice as long as Marisa had thought it would to find her uncle’s trading camp out here, south and west of Low-Pub. Hauling a wounded man really did slow things down.
Peary noticed that there were fewer sarfers flowing in and out than there ought to be—most of the divers and salvage teams must still be out and on the hunt for Danvar, he guessed. Still, commerce continued, and here and there sarfers and smaller sand-skidders moved through the valley or were staked out with ties while the owners visited the coin-changers, the merchants, the pub tent, or the camp whores.
Peary liked the feel of Marisa’s hand in his, even through his sailing gloves, and he wanted more than anything else in the world for the two of them to be free of this world of sand. Perhaps out there—out west—they’d find a place where they could live without the constant danger and darkness that pervaded their lives. Like the sand fern, they just wanted to poke their heads up somewhere—someplace where poverty and oppression weren’t in the very air they had to breathe. Maybe there really are oceans out there, he thought, or wide-open spaces where the sand hasn’t covered everything like a blanket. Maybe there’s a heaven.
He looked down at the sand and kicked it with his boot. Only a devil would tell me that this is all there is.
“I’m a little sore,” Peary heard Reggie say.
“You’ve been shot,” said the Poet. “That doesn’t just go away after a handful of days. I was wounded in the head only a little more than a week ago, and you don’t hear me whimpering. Do you have a fever?”
“It’s hard to say,” Reggie said. “Does a fever include hunger for roasted lizard and the desire for enormous quantities of beer?”
The Poet waved a hand at the sandal hop. “You’re doing fine. Shut up.”
Reggie gave the Poet a dismissive look. “When I’m rich, no lizard for you, old man.”
Peary pointed down at the camp. “Marisa and I will go in to see her uncle with the Danvar goods.” He lowered his hand and then stretched his back and neck, trying to relieve the stress. “Hopefully we won’t attract much attention. We’ll make a good deal, get paid, and then meet you all back up here as soon as we’re able.”
“What about the beer and the lizard?” Reggie asked.
“We’ll pick you up some meds and bandages, and some caravan staples for the trip,” Peary said without looking at the wounded man.
“Caravan staples?”
“Jerky, cured fat. Berries. Some protein crumbles for a soup.”
“Damn,” Reggie said. “Being rich sucks.”
The old man put up his hand to speak, and Peary looked over at him and nodded. “What say you, Poet?”
“I think you should leave the salvage here. Make your deal, and when you’ve agreed with Marisa’s uncle, come get the cases.”
Peary glared at the old man. “So you can steal them again?”
“I think I’ve earned your trust by now, diver.”
“Your standard for earning trust is too low.”
The old man looked at Peary and blinked his eyes slowly. “Then you do whatever you think you need to do. I’m just saying that there are brigands down there, too. That kind of wealth would be tempting for any man to steal.”
“We can trust my uncle,” Marisa said.
“I don’t doubt that,” the Poet answered, even though he did. “But there are men who work for him, and other pirates and scofflaws who dig into every tent like sand fleas. Ears opened. Waiting to hear news of Danvar.”
Peary exhaled deeply. “We’ll work it out, Poet. Your concern is noted.”
“Don’t get killed, is all I say,” the Poet said.
Peary nodded. He was weary of the constant warnings. “That’s definitely a priority.”
***
Marisa and Peary approached her uncle’s tent, trying to act like regular traders coming to buy goods or sell salvage. Just outside the door, a man reclined on a makeshift chair, spinning a dive knife in one hand. He didn’t move as Peary and Marisa approached, but he looked at them through narrowed eyes—an implied threat—and spun the knife again.
“What’s your business, divers?” the man said in a low, threatening rattle when the two had gotten close enough to hear him. The spinning knife dropped perfectly into the man’s hand, speaking its own language of blade and blood.
“Our business is none of yours,�
�� Peary said.
When the man moved to stand, Peary met him halfway and got directly in his face. “This is family business,” Peary said coolly, “not for the ears of two-coin haulers or hired hands, got it?” He looked the man in the eyes, seemingly unaffected by the fact that the man was holding a dive knife.
The man halted for a moment, halfway between standing and sitting, but met Peary’s stare. When he finally stood, he looked over at Marisa. “I recognize you,” he said. “You’re Joel’s niece, right?”
Marisa smiled. “I am. We’re just returning some gear he lent us, and letting him know we also borrowed his sarfer from the Sand-Hawk Marina.” She shrugged. “We’re out looking for Danvar, like everyone else.”
The guard looked back at Peary and smiled. “All right, then. Tell Joel I went to get a beer.” He put the knife back in its sheath and fastened the snap. “Wouldn’t want to overhear family business, right?”
“Right,” Peary said.
Just then, the tent flap opened and a man beckoned for them to enter. Marisa smiled at the man, and Peary realized that this was her uncle. Nodding a greeting to the man she and Peary walked into the cool and shade of the trader’s business.
“Threatening my helper?” Joel said to Peary.
Peary shrugged. “You’ll want to keep what we have to tell you just between us, I think.” He held up the cases and watched as Joel’s eyes focused on them.
“All right, then,” Joel said. “No more words unless they’re needed, and then only whispers.”
Peary walked over to a counter and placed the cases on it. He popped open the latches and stood back as Joel opened the cases and examined the contents. The trader’s eyes widened, then darted from the goods in the cases to Marisa and Peary and back again. He reached under the counter and pulled up a bag full of coin. He dropped the bag on the counter to emphasize its heft—maybe a thousand coin—and then opened it for Peary to see the contents.
Peary shook his head, his eyes drooping lazily. No.
Joel smiled, then dumped the two cases of salvage into an empty box and began to fill both cases with coin. Almost four times as much coin as he’d offered in the bag. When he was done and both cases were completely full, he looked at Peary and opened his hands as if to say, “That’s all I have.”
Peary leaned forward and whispered. “Twice that and you get the location.”
Joel leaned forward now, too. He didn’t say anything at first, but after a moment of looking at the salvaged goods from Danvar, he whispered back. “You can’t carry that much. And I’ll need a map.”
Peary nodded.
“A very specific map,” Joel added.
Peary nodded again, still whispering. “We’ll pull up in two sarfers. One of them used to be yours, but now it’s mine. We’ll load up and be gone.”
Joel scowled, but there was a smile on his face. “My sarfer, too?”
Peary smiled back and whispered, “It’ll be a really specific map.”
North, and then West
Chapter Eighteen
As Peary, Marisa, and the old man loaded the two sarfers, Joel’s hired man reappeared, hanging around like a shadow near the tents, watching the others work. Peary gave him a “mind your own business” stare—a wordless threat—but otherwise went about securing the gear and readying for the trip. Only Reggie wasn’t busy: he remained strapped into the carry rack on Peary’s sarfer, except when the Poet helped him to relieve himself in the toilet tent.
Once the sarfers were loaded, Peary gave Marisa some coin from his dive pocket and asked her to go to a supply trader to get food and several skins of water for the journey. While she was gone, he made a show of cleaning his gun as Joel’s man watched and smiled.
“You have a wounded man there, diver,” the man said when the silence became heavy enough that everyone could feel it solid and weighty on their backs. “Been wounded a while, too. I’d say a week at least.”
Peary glared at the man.
“If the man was wounded a week ago, and you were up near Low-Pub… you’d have taken him there and left him.”
“I can see why Joel hired you,” Peary replied sarcastically. “Quite observant… really.”
“Oh, I see all sorts of things,” the man said. “But most of ’em I keep to myself.”
Peary glared at the man again. “What’s your name, brigand, or should I just make one up that fits you?”
The man smiled and spun the knife in his hand. “Most of ’em call me Cord, but I don’t much care what I’m called. Maybe what you come up with will be better.”
“Well, Cord, I suppose if you stay out of the wrong people’s business, then it won’t much matter to me what you’re called either.”
“Your injured man could get treatment over at the pub tent,” Cord said, pointing over his shoulder with the knife. He then began cleaning his fingernails with the tip of the blade. “Strange you wouldn’t try to get him some help if all you’re doing is a little thing like looking for Danvar. I mean… not in Low-Pub and not here, neither.”
“Looking for Danvar isn’t a little thing, but it’s all we’re doing,” Peary said. “Most of the world is out searching for salvage from the lost city right now, so we don’t have time to sit around here waiting for a gear hauler to heal.” He motioned to Reggie with the pistol. “Marisa can handle what he’s got, so don’t you worry your ugly little head about it.”
“You show up this far south this late, with a wounded man? Strange is all I’m sayin’. Some people say Danvar has already been found,” Cord said. His eyes darted up to meet Peary’s.
“Is that what they say?” Peary asked. “Well, whoever found it—if it’s been found—is probably living the high life by now. Probably over in Low-Pub buying drinks for low-lifes like you. Maybe you should go check it out?”
There was a burdensome silence for a while, and then the Poet started up with some lines of poetry that just made Cord laugh. At the end of one sonnet, a sand hawk screeched and landed on Joel’s tent, then took off again to the north on some errand or another.
“Even the sand hawk is heading north looking for Danvar,” Cord said. “Which way are you people heading?”
“Sand hawk can’t be wrong,” Peary said. “Danvar must be up that way somewhere. I reckon we’re all going north.”
“Most of the big Legions headed that way a week ago, diver,” Cord said. “Most of them.”
Peary nodded. “I’m sure we’ll find a place to dive somewhere. We’re late, but Danvar was a big city, and it’s a big world out there north of the Thousand Dunes. You should try it sometime, instead of skulking around a tent city like a stray dog looking for a scrap.”
“You hear about Springston?” Cord asked, ignoring the insult. He still had a menacing smile on his face, so his attempts at small talk only continued to rub Peary the wrong way.
“We’ve heard rumors,” Peary said. “Don’t know anything that you don’t know. But I’m done with the small talk. Why don’t you go find somewhere else to hover before you stretch my patience too thin?”
“Me?” Cord shrugged. “I’m just passing the time.”
Peary thumbed off the safety again and brought the pistol to rest on his thigh. “Find somewhere else to pass it, Cord. I’ve been polite, but I’m done with that now.”
Cord grinned, put the knife into its sheath, and snapped it closed. “We’ll see, diver. We’ll see.” He slowly walked away toward the pub tent, but looked over his shoulder one more time and laughed.
***
They headed north out of the Thousand Dunes, stopping every few hours to check Reggie’s wound. At each stop, Marisa would take the time to look at the Poet’s head too, but that injury seemed to be on its way to healing up just fine. As she worked, Peary would pass around some dried fat that he cut into chunks with his dive knife, or a hunk of jerky and a handful of berries, and they’d each take a long drink from the canteens. The water was rank and smelled faintly of rotted wood, but they kne
w it had been boiled, so it should be safe enough. On the fifth day northward, Marisa asked Peary when they were going to turn west.
“We’ll keep up through the northward swells until we find a good path westward,” Peary said. “That’ll make our trail look right in case anyone is following us.”
“They’re following us,” the Poet said. “Sure enough they are.”
After so many days on the sand, they were getting used to the Poet’s dark comments. Marisa swallowed some berries and caught the Poet’s eyes. “You’re a pessimist.”
“I’m a realist. Been on this sand long enough to know what’s what, too.”
Peary didn’t speak, but he walked back up the southern dune and looked out as far as he could, something he’d done at every stop over the past few days. He didn’t make out any sails moving their way, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Walking back down the dune, he indicated with his hand that they needed to load up. “We need to keep moving,” he said. “Maybe the Poet is right. Maybe he’s wrong. But sitting in one place too long isn’t a great idea.”
“When do we split the loot?” Reggie said with a laugh.
“We’ll wait to see if you live, sandal hop,” Peary said. Marisa had told him that Reggie’s temperature had started to climb over the last few days, and she was worried that infection might be setting in. “Splitting it now would be like dumping it in the sand. You have nowhere and no way to go, so we’re stuck with you.”
“Yeah, but if we split it now, I can die rich.”
“Or I can leave you here and you can die sand-poor.”
“That’s the thanks I get for saving your lady?” Reggie was still laughing. His voice was weak, but he was always in good spirits.
Against his will, Peary was beginning to like Reggie. In a way the sandal hop was like a benevolent version of Cord, just passing the time. Reggie seemed to Peary to be mostly harmless. Still hard to tell, but mostly.
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