Page 7 of Fateless

I nodded. “I have to report to Vahn.”

“Doing anything afterward?”

“Probably not.” Not unless the Circle wanted me to go on another solo heist. I hoped not. After stealing the tapestry, I dreaded what they might ask me to do next. Sneak into the king’s palace to “procure” the nose ring from his favorite concubine? “Why?” I asked Jeran.

He shrugged. “There’s a firedancer circus set to perform in Highmarket this evening,” he replied. “Dahveen and I were planning to attend. You’re welcome to join us.”

I cocked my head. “And how will we be attending this performance?” I asked in an innocent voice. Performances like that meant large distractions and a lot of people packed into one place, paying little attention to their surroundings or their belongings. Easy pickings if you went for that reason, but it also meant you couldn’t really enjoy the show. “Are we going as civilians or workers?”

“Purely civilians,” Jeran assured me, and smiled. “Unless an opportunity too good to pass up presents itself.”

“Obviously.” I thought about it, then shrugged. “Sure, it sounds fun. If Vahn doesn’t want me to do anything tonight, count me in.”

He nodded, and we continued through the district, weavingaround beggars, sailors, workmen, and everyone else who had returned to life now that Demon Hour was over. Leaving the main street, we entered Warehouse Row, where blocky structures of stone and wood lined the roads, towering over us. The air changed, turning musty, dry, and somehow old. A haze hung in the air, not white or smoky, but amber colored, like the sky before a sandstorm. A fine powder coated every surface and clung to everything, including the people moving through the streets. Men and women passed us, their faces wrapped in cloth to filter out the dust, only their eyes visible through the fabric. I pulled my scarf over my nose, tugged my hood lower over my face, and took shallow breaths as dust began accumulating on my clothes and seeping into every seam

“I hate this part of town,” Jeran muttered, his voice muffled by the cloth over his nose and jaw. “The dust is really bad after Demon Hour. I wish Vahn would move the base somewhere else.”

“Stop complaining,” I said. “You know he keeps it here on purpose. No one likes venturing into this part of the district unless they have to.”

“Including me,” Jeran mumbled, as the road we were on ended abruptly at a series of piers, wharves, and stone docks.

I shivered in the hot, dry air. Beyond the pier, the Dust Sea stretched out before us, an endless expanse of roiling waves and shifting sands, rising, falling, continuing on to the horizon. Sand eddies danced across the surface; miniature tornados stirred by the wind. Waves crashed against the pier, sending sprays of golden dust into the air to disperse on the breeze. According to legend, eons ago this had been a vast ocean of water filled withlife and plants and fish so large they could swallow you whole. I couldn’t even imagine such a thing.

A pair of rough-looking sailors, their heads wrapped in cloth, stalked down the road with a barrel over each shoulder, causing me and Jeran to scuttle aside. Per normal, the docks were bustling even this soon after Demon Hour. Sand skiffs bobbed in the waves close to the piers, sails fluttering in the wind. A sand strider crouched near the wharf like an enormous beetle, its four jointed legs hissing steam into the air.

The sand striders fascinated me. The wood-and-sail skiffs peppering the docks were fast and agile, but they never ventured more than a day’s journey from the city. Out on the Dust Sea, the winds were fierce and unpredictable, with deadly sandstorms cropping up out of nowhere. Regular wooden ships could get blown around like leaves in the wind and smash on the rocks, or have their sails torn to shreds. Driving sand could scour paint from hulls and flesh from bones, and the twin suns were relentless on the open sea. It was dangerous to sail far from shore.

But the massive sand striders didn’t have to worry about wind. They didn’t sail across the ocean—they walked. Their jointed legs were long enough to reach the bottom of the dust bowl, which, on the most common routes across the Dust Sea, was only twenty or thirty feet deep. Enough to drown and suffocate a person, but shallow enough for the striders to find solid footing. There were, according to most sailors, places in the Dust Sea that were far deeper, but the striders stuck to the well-traveled routes and didn’t venture into the unknown. Few who did ever came back.

I paused, shielding my eyes as I gazed at the inert sand strider, wondering what it was like on the inside. The strider’s oval body was made mostly of wood, as I imagined that if it were metal, the twin suns would turn it into an oven, especially during Demon Hour. But its legs were made of copper and iron, with huge pistons that moved them up and down, forward and back. The steam that powered them came from massive boilers tucked into the belly of the strider and a complex tangle of pipes that pumped water where it needed to go.

I didn’t pretend to understand any of it, but deep down—so deep I couldn’t even voice it out loud—my secret dream was to someday take a strider all the way across the Dust Sea, to visit whatever lands lay beyond. It was a dangerous fantasy; if you were a guild member, you were in for life. Vahn, the guild, and the Circle would never let me go—unless I scraped together enough of a fortune to buy my way out. To offer the guild and the Circle enough money that they couldn’t refuse the offer. Obviously, that dream was a long ways away, but under my floorboards, I kept a secret chest filled with the most interesting items I had stolen, in the hopes that someday, it would be enough.

“Sparrow.” Jeran stepped up beside me, a slight frown on his face as he glanced at the strider, then back to me. “Come on, the sailors are starting to look at us funny.”

I shook myself. “Yeah. Sorry,” I muttered. Jeran was aware of my fascination with the striders, but he didn’t understand it. For him, Kovass was home and the only place he ever wanted to be. He had no aspirations to see anything beyond the city walls, and he didn’t get why I would want to go to unfamiliar places just tosee unfamiliar things. In fact, the very idea of it terrified him.

Turning from the docks, we continued farther into the district, the persistent haze of the Dust Sea clinging to us as we went.

On the very end of Warehouse Row, flanked by the Dust Sea on one side and a skiff repair shop on the other, sat a final warehouse. For all intents and purposes, it looked abandoned. The large front doors had been chained shut, the windows were boarded, and a debris field of broken crates, barrels, and boxes lay scattered throughout the yard. A wooden fence, gray and weathered, surrounded the plot, half its boards missing or lying in the sand. Dust coated every surface inside the fence and out.

Jeran and I slipped through a gap in the fence, crossed the yard, and walked around to the back of the warehouse. Our passing left footsteps in the coating of dust across the ground, but the prints would remain for only a few minutes before the wind and haze scoured them clean once more.

We came to a heavy door set into the stone wall at the back of the building. Stepping beneath the arched doorframe, Jeran knocked twice on the wood, paused, knocked twice again, and then once more. There was a click, and then the door swung back, revealing a heavily muscled brute of a man on the other side. He was bald, with a neck like a bull ox and numerous scars across his arms and chest. How he’d gotten so many was a mystery within the guild and an ongoing bet among younger members, including me. Jeran said he must have battled a great sand cat and won. I maintained that with as many fights as he had probably been in, his winning strategy was blocking knife strikes with his arms.

“Bassig,” Jeran greeted him as we ducked through the opening. The scarred man grunted at us, closing the door as soon as we were through. Bassig rarely spoke, preferring to loom or glower imposingly from a corner. He knew his job, and he was good at it. Whenever the guild needed someone to help “persuade” a stubborn client or informant, Bassig was the one they called on.

Inside, the warehouse belied its abandoned facade; it was open and well maintained, a haven in which guild members could congregate, relax, and plan their next heist. It was fairly empty now, with most members returning to “work” once Demon Hour was over.

“Sparrow,” Bassig said as I followed Jeran across the floor. Surprised, I glanced over my shoulder. “Vahn wants you,” he said shortly. “Told me to let you know as soon as you came in. He’s waiting in his office.”

I nodded. “I’m going there now,” I told Bassig, who shrugged and returned to his usual pose, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

I wondered what Vahn would say when I showed him the item the Circle had had me “procure.” Would he be relieved? Shocked? Or would he smile and nod like he used to, his eyes showing the pride he rarely spoke out loud?

I turned to Jeran, who smirked and held up his arms, taking a step back. “I know,” he said. “I can’t come with you. Common, petty thieves aren’t allowed to step into the Guildmaster’s office. You have to be his special favorite to be allowed past the doorframe.”

“Don’t be a sand ass,” I said.

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