“The biggest weapons factory in the country. And by extension, the world.”
“The world?” I’d never known that. It didn’t seem possible.
“It’s not hard when you can’t build something half the size of it anywhere else without it getting torn down by First Beings.”
My head was feeling light from the alcohol, and in the dark of the bar I was struggling to put his words together. “What do you mean, torn down?”
Jin paused, drink halfway to his mouth. “Come on, desert girl. How long had it been since you’d seen a First Being before the Buraqi came into town? Magic and metal don’t mix well. We’re killing it. But it’s fighting back.” The Buraqi’s screams lit up my memories. “Most other countries can make anything on a small scale, including weapons. But a few tried to build factories just like yours hundreds of years ago. The living earth itself rebelled. There’s a valley in Xicha that’s called Fool’s Grave. It used to be a town. They’d built a cannery there. Legend says they were open about a month before the First Beings who lived in the earth had enough and tore apart the ground under the town and flooded the ruins. The same thing happened everywhere. So after a while folks stopped building factories. Except in Miraji. Your First Beings are the only ones who seem to put up with it.”
“And what makes us so special?”
Jin shrugged. “Maybe it’s because the desert’s magic already comes out of fire and smoke instead of growing, living things. Or because the earth here is already dead. But the fact is, your country is at the crossroads between the East, where guns were born, and the West, where they’re waging a war of empires. And it’s the only one in the world that can build weapons on a massive scale. This desert is valuable. Why do you think the Gallan are here?”
“So we’re just one giant weapons factory to them?” The notion was unsettling.
Jin poured himself another drink. “And there are a lot of countries who aren’t very pleased by your Sultan providing the Gallan with weapons to invade them if they got it into their heads to try.”
“So which one of those countries are you blowing up factories for?” I prodded the sun on his chest. The Xichian symbol.
Jin raised his glass in a mock toast. “Maybe I’m just a pacifist.”
I clinked my glass to his. “You have an awful lot of guns for a pacifist.”
The words were met by a wry turn of his mouth. “And you’re too smart for someone who doesn’t know nearly enough about her own country.”
We drank. As my empty glass hit the table, something crashed in the corner of the room. I jumped. A chair had knocked to the ground. Its owner, a man in a dirty green sheema, was on his feet, facing another man who was lounging back, both feet propped up, a game of cards spread out on the table. A pretty girl was between them, molding herself up against the standing man, whispering in his ear until he folded back into his chair. The sitar player started up again in his corner, and someone laughed high and clear, breaking the tension.
The thought hit me all of a sudden. “Did you blow up the mines, too?”
If Xicha wanted to cut off our weapons, then it made sense to cut off the supply of metal, too. Factories could be rebuilt. Collapsed mines were harder. “Here?” He actually looked surprised. “No. I heard it was an accident.”
“Why should I believe you? Is Jin even your real name?”
“Well, around here they call me the Eastern Snake. But you know that”—he looked up at me from under the brim of his hat—“Blue-Eyed Bandit.” The shock made me pull back. Jin’s face split into a grin at my surprise.
“You knew who I was?” I asked, sounding a little breathless. “In Dustwalk?”
“Your eyes aren’t exactly inconspicuous,” Jin said.
“You knew who I was and you wouldn’t take me with you?” The frightened, humiliated feeling of returning to the empty store rushed back in. “Why?”
“Because you shouldn’t go to Izman.” He settled back in his chair. “No matter how well you can take care of yourself with a gun out here, the city’ll tear you apart.”
“I wouldn’t be alone,” I said. “My mother’s sister lives in Izman. That’s where I’m headed.”
“Do you even know how to get there?”
I shrugged. “How are you getting there?”
“I’m not,” he said simply, catching me by surprise. I reached back, trying to remember if he’d ever said he was. It just seemed like he must’ve been.
There was another crash and I reached for a gun that wasn’t there as Jin turned around, already tensing for a fight. The card table across the room was overturned, and the man in the green sheema was on the ground, clutching a bloody nose.
I had a moment of distraction to decide.
If I stayed with Jin, I wasn’t getting to Izman. He’d left me behind once already and he could just as easily do it again.
Besides, we only had one Buraqi.
I fished out the bottle Tamid had given me. The pills crushed up easily in my fingers and I put them straight into Jin’s drink. My fingers were back around my own glass by the time the fight got broken up and Jin faced me again.
I watched him drain his drink.
eight
I’d never seen so many people in my whole life as there were outside the train station in Juniper City. On my left, a man with a gray beard shouted through the steam rising from his stall as he shoved more skewers of meat into the fire; on the other side, a woman dressed in gold and bells sang with every step. The sound of someone preaching carried over the ruckus. A Holy Father stood on a small platform, his hands raised, the twin circular tattoos on each palm facing the crowd. The rise and fall of his voice as he preached reminded me of Tamid. A shot of guilt went through me thinking of my friend. I’d left him bleeding in the sand to keep myself alive.
The Holy Father dipped his hands at the end of each prayer, blessing the crowd huddled around his feet. Forgiving us our sins.
The stream of bodies pushed me past him through the tail end of the souk, under the soot-stained archway. Women carrying bundles on their heads slipped by me; men dragging trunks twice their size crowded me forward.
I moved with the crush of bodies into the shade of the station, stumbling as I took in the sight before me. I’d heard about trains, but I hadn’t imagined this. The huge black-and-gold beast stretched out across the station like some monster out of the old stories, breathing black smoke into the dirty glass dome. The crowd jostled toward it.
“Ticket?” A man in a pale yellow vest and cap reached out his hand, looking bored.
I tried to keep my fingers from clinging to the ticket as I handed it over. It had taken me two days to get from Sazi to Juniper City, even on the Buraqi. It hadn’t exactly helped that the compass I’d stolen from Jin while he was unconscious, along with half his supplies, was broken and steered me the wrong way, making me wait for sunrise to find my way again.
I’d reached the city in time to get ripped off selling the Buraqi for half of what it was worth. But half was better than nothing. And more importantly, it was enough to buy a ticket straight to Izman. Seeing the name printed in black ink on yellow paper made it seem like just another story in my fingers, ready to slip away at any second. I’d hidden the ticket under the mattress of the room I’d rented and checked it over and over again until I decided it was easier to just keep it against my skin.
The ticket man frowned at me, and I ran my palms over my new clothes self-consciously. I didn’t pass for a boy quite so easily in daylight, but I had to try anyhow. The ugly bruise on my cheek had gone down to a yellow-green that just peeked over the red sheema, and my new clothes were loose in the right places—what was left of my money and some spare Xichian coins and the battered compass that Jin had left jangling around the saddlebags were stuffed into the wraps around my middle that hid my waist. All it’d take was someone looking f
or too long to see through my disguise. But even a poor imitation of a boy was better than a girl traveling on her own.
I tugged the edge of the shirt where it covered the new gun I’d bought with the Buraqi money. I wouldn’t be able to fight my way onto the train, but I might be able to outrun men in yellow caps if I needed to.
I could be about to find out.
“This ticket is first class.” He shook it at me like a mother wagging a finger.
“Oh,” I said, because I didn’t know what he was talking about. I made my fingers go still. “Yes?”
For a second I was sure he was going to accuse me of stealing the ticket. Whatever first class was, I was guessing I didn’t look it. Especially with my busted-up cheek and the cut above my eyebrow. “You need to head to the front of the train for first class.” He shoved the ticket back at me and pointed farther up the metal beast, somewhere past the churning crowds.
“Oh,” I said again. I took the ticket back and pressed through the crush of people, narrowly dodging a man wheeling a covered cage from which I could hear squawking, even over the din.
The man who’d sold me the ticket had asked if I wanted a compartment to myself and I’d said yes. It’d seemed safer, and I didn’t think anything of handing over the money he asked. Now I wondered if I might have more than twenty fouza to my name if I’d been smarter.
I saw a roped-off area where folks in fine-spun khalats and colorful sheemas waited, holding yellow tickets like mine. My own clothes were new, but they were just desert clothes. My whole life was in a bag slung over my shoulder. Not even much of a life. Extra bullets, a change of clothes. More like survival. Everybody else looked like they could be carrying a dozen lives in their heavily loaded trunks.
I caught a man with a braided beard giving me a once-over out of the corner of his eye and I got the feeling I knew what the pair of girls behind me were stifling laughs over. I wasn’t sure if the man who took my ticket was raising his eyebrows at my appearance or if that was just where they sat on his forehead. He took the ticket all the same, tearing it neatly before handing it back. My neck burning, I climbed the metal steps as fast as I could manage without looking like I was getting away with something.
I’d never seen anything like the inside of the train either. A long corridor with carpets the color of new blood shot in a straight line through the carriage, polished metal doors opening off it, each with glass windows hung with red curtains.
And I thought Tamid’s family had money.
The giggling girls pushed past me with a huff of air through their muslin veils. The man trailing behind them spat a sharp-tongued “Excuse me” that made me think he wasn’t excusing anyone at all. I ducked my head and wound up looking at the colorful hems of their khalats sweeping across the thick carpet and down the hall.
I stayed a few feet behind the group until I found a compartment whose number matched the one inked onto my ticket. I opened the door as carefully as the time I got dared to find out if the snake behind the school was dead or just sleeping. Turned out my mother knew how to get out snake poison. But this, this wasn’t something she would’ve known anything about.
I locked the compartment door safely shut and folded myself into the bed, pulling off my sheema. I reached a hand out to run across the impossibly clean pillow, but my fingers curled back without my meaning them to. I’d bathed that morning. At proper baths, too. I’d poured oil into my hair and dragged a comb through it with my head under water until it wasn’t matted anymore. The steam had wound its way around the swirling tiled patterns of the bath, making my hair curl out. But I still felt like I was going to track the whole desert in with me, like the sand was too deep in my skin after nearly seventeen years.
A whistle split my ears. An alarm? I scrambled to my feet and backed to the other side of the room, gun already in my hand, pointing at the door. I waited for it to fly open.
For two long heartbeats nothing happened, though there was a lot of commotion outside. And then the whole room lurched sideways. I pitched so hard to the right that I sat down hard on the bed, narrowly keeping my finger from hitting the trigger. I clutched the bed while the train stammered a few more times and then started to move, smoother now.
I hadn’t really thought about what riding a train would feel like—the same as riding a horse, I’d figured. I was sure wrong on that count. I sat on the bed, feeling the train pick up speed for a few moments before I got to my feet. All I could see out of the window was black smoke filling the station.
Then, in a violent heave, we broke free. Smoke rushed up, sucked toward the desert sky. My window cleared.
I rested my forehead against the glass. For once the desert didn’t seem like it went on forever. The horizon was racing up. A grin stretched the bruise on my cheek painfully.
I was on my way to Izman.
• • •
I LAY ON the soft bed, being rocked pleasantly by the motion of the train. The room darkened as the sun made its way from one side of the carriage to the other. Eventually my stomach started to growl hungrily.
I ignored it as long as I could. But it was a week’s journey to Izman. I’d have to leave my compartment sooner or later.
The train was bustling when I stepped outside. Women in fine clothes brushed by me in the corridors and men stood laughing and slapping one another on the back with hands so heavy with rings, it was a wonder they could hold them up. I caught myself dragging my hand across the thick red wallpaper as I made my way down the train. I shoved my hand in my pocket. That wasn’t the gesture of someone who belonged in first class.
I passed out of the sleeping area and into a carriage that seemed to be a bar. Nothing like the dark dusty one in Sazi, this one was blazing with light, the ceiling stained dark with thick pipe smoke. Laughter exploded among a group of men over a card table as I passed. Beyond it was a dining carriage. I hovered uncertainly in the doorway for a moment before a man in a uniform came and ushered me to a table.
Dark leather gave way under my back as I settled uneasily in a chair by the window. The chair squeaked below me every time I shifted. A woman at the next table looked up at the noise as I tried to make myself comfortable, sitting as still as I could. Being by myself, surrounded by strangers instead of the folks I’d known my whole life—I was still getting used to it. Best not to draw attention. If anyone looked my way they might wonder why there was a scruffy boy still wrapped in his sheema eating among their glittering clothes.
Colorfully painted plates piled high with food were laid out for me. I eased my sheema away from my mouth, keeping an eye on anyone who might be watching too closely. But everybody else was looking at their own food. I kept my head down as I shoveled a forkful into my mouth. I almost gagged with surprise on the huge bite. Spices like these were worth a month’s wages in Dustwalk. I chewed and swallowed before downing the glass of arak that’d been set out for me.
The second, smaller bite was better, since I was expecting it. Soon I was shoveling mouthfuls in fast. I was scraping the fork along the pattern of the plate when they came and took it away.
One plate followed another. By the time I licked the last of the honey from the baklava off my fingers, I was full to bursting. And tired.
Sleeping away the afternoon heat wasn’t a luxury we could afford in Dustwalk. But I’d seen it done in Sazi, when the streets emptied of the wealthy, who drew in behind their cool walls. It looked like they honored the tradition here. Folks were slipping back to their own compartments or settling back on the cushions in the dining carriage to close their eyes.
I retreated to my own compartment, kicking the door shut behind me. I tugged off my boots and collapsed on top of the clean linens. In a week we’d be in Izman. By then, I’d have to figure out how to eat and dress and act like I was supposed to in the big city. Until then, though, I could do whatever the hell I wanted.
nine
> I woke in the dark. The thin light that still lingered outside the curtains of my compartment told me the sun had only just set. The full weight of the desert night hadn’t descended yet. Folks would just be waking up again to eat dinner.
The meal was still resting heavy in my stomach, and the jolting of the train wasn’t helping. The compartment felt close and hot, even after the sun set. I needed clean air. I tried the window but it was sealed shut, as best I could figure from scrabbling at the edges.
I’d bought a few changes of clothes in Juniper City. I pulled on a fresh shirt, reveling in the cool against my skin, before venturing out into the hall. It was quiet, the carriage still heavy with the afternoon’s sleep. Though some of the stifled noises through doors suggested a few folks doing something other than resting. I pulled the nearest window open as far as it would give and let the cooling desert air rush in.
Since the hallway was empty, I pulled my sheema free so my face was exposed as I leaned my forehead against the glass pane. I stayed there, taking deep breaths, settling the rich food in my stomach. The rush of the air, like I was running toward Izman, toward adventure, faster than ever, made me feel that I was finally moving.
A door clattered open behind me. My hand was halfway to pulling my sheema up when I caught sight of a familiar face.
I froze like a fox caught in the henhouse.
Stepping through the door, head tipped forward as she fastened the top button of a new pink-and-yellow khalat, tousled black hair tumbling over her shoulders, was Shira. The sight of her was so familiar that it stuck out like a rusty barb here in this new place.
She didn’t see me. She took another step without looking, expecting the world to get out of her way as usual. Her step took her nearly straight into me. Only then did she look up. She was close enough that I could see the biting comment shaping in her mouth. Her lips parted in a surprised O and then split into a jackal’s smile.
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