Dunes over Danvar

^Relics Chapter Nine

Circling around from the north took time, but with a priceless case of salvage from Danvar one can never be too careful. Peary brought the sarfer in toward Low-Pub from the Thousand Dunes, instead of from the north, from the direction of what used to be Springston. This was the long way around, but once word got out that there really was salvage hitting the market from Danvar, every single detail would be analyzed. Every action leading up to Danvar relics appearing in Low-Pub or anywhere else would be sifted; connections would be made. Every diver and merchant and pirate would start trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The location of Danvar was a riddle that everyone in every hovel and shanty would be working to solve.

Peary was relatively certain Marisa’s uncle Joel had the right connections. He should be able to get the stuff into the black market without dragging Marisa and Peary into it, but that privilege was going to cost plenty, and until the stuff was out of his hands, Peary knew to be on his guard. The life of a diver—or of anyone else, for that matter—meant nothing to those who wanted to capitalize on the greatest discovery ever in all the land of the sand.

Twenty miles out, Peary pulled up in an area where he used to practice diving with Marisa. No sense trying to make it in tonight. Be dark soon. People might notice. They might wonder if he had a reason to press so hard, and when relics from Danvar show up in the black market soon after, maybe someone remembers. Hard to tell what might happen then.

To Peary, fame wasn’t as alluring as it once was. He’d seen dead men gripping riches, but with no life left to spend. What’s fame to those men? Men who had reached for it, who were now forgotten by time and everyone in the land of sand.

As a young diver, regaled with stories of diver-gods who became legends, Peary had been captivated by the possibility of being a great discoverer. Of being the first to find Danvar. Free drinks at every pub, they’d say, just so dreamers can hear stories and losers can breathe the same air as the living gods. But in the last year, Peary had learned differently. A diver newly rich and famous could be safe only if the location of his find instantly became common knowledge. It was that window between nobody knowing and everyone knowing that was the danger. The trap that could kill as surely as coffining in stonesand.

And the word was already out that someone else had found Danvar. Confusion and competing claims didn’t bode well for anyone’s safety. Now there was word that Springston was gone. No one knew what to think of that. The only reason he’d be trusting Joel was because, for all intents and purposes, Joel was family. Blood and water and all that nonsense. Although whoever came up with that blood being thicker than water thing probably wrote it down in something other than blood. No man could be trusted when Danvar was involved, but Joel was the best Peary was going to get.

And then there was this: in a month, or maybe three months, the goods he’d gotten from Danvar would still be valuable, but a whole lot less so. Right now they were priceless—because they were part of the trail, and as far as he knew, they were likely to be the first to ever hit the market. The information that Peary held in his brain—the precise location of where he found the goods—was information a whole lot of people in the salvage business would kill for. And killing is the easiest transaction in all the land of sand, because not even a grieving momma sifts the dunes looking for a dead diver. The Lords don’t care and neither does the sand.

As Peary tied down the sarfer, the old man in the haul rack groaned but didn’t fully wake. This man who called himself “the Poet” had been in and out of consciousness for the entirety of the last day’s sail. Maybe he was just healing, or maybe an infection had him. Peary felt the man’s forehead and couldn’t discern any fever, but he didn’t look too good, either. He carried the old man from the sarfer and laid him down in the shadow of a dune.

Good thing the wind isn’t blowing. Another night in the dunes was going to be bad enough, but it would be miserable if the sift was up and stinging like needles. Thankfully the evening was still and the temperature was pleasant. And after tomorrow, he’d have enough coin to never again spend another night out in the dunes unless he wanted to.

Maybe he’d even head west with Marisa. Top the mountains and keep on until they hit the sea. That’d be something. If oceans really existed. The old joke was that it was hard to imagine diving in something like water when the most you’d ever seen at one time was in a canteen cap, taken one sip at a time. Enough water to be immersed in it? To dive in it? Unthinkable.

He put up the small tent, and as he built a pyrinte[1] fire his mind rehearsed the things he would tell Marisa, and how together they would approach her uncle in order to get the goods dealt with quickly. When the fire was established, Peary put a small pan of water on to boil, then he crushed two squares of dried goat meat and a dozen dehydrated berries with the heel of his dive knife before scraping them into the water.

The old man stirred, and with some struggle sat up on the sand and glared at the diver who worked over his pot. “Why won’t you let me die?”

Peary didn’t turn around or make an attempt to catch the Poet’s eye. “Why don’t you shut up, old man?”

“I didn’t mean to disturb your meal… I’m sorry.”

Now Peary turned and gave the man an intense look before turning back to his stirring. “This is not my meal, Poet, it’s yours. I’ve had my meal. A hunk of dried fat chewed while we sailed and you slept. We’ll be in Low-Pub tomorrow, and then we’ll have a proper meal with Marisa. You’ll like it, trust me.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” the Poet said.

“You haven’t asked one worth answering again. And it would be ‘again,’ since you asked it when you first gained consciousness and the answer hasn’t changed.”

The Poet dug his heels into the sand and pulled himself forward until he was closer to the small fire, though it provided him with no warmth. “Why keep me with you?” The old man pointed to the wrap around his head. “I can only hurt you. I know where I was when you picked me up; I can describe you, your sarfer. That’s info some folks would like to know. With what I know, people can figure out who are, find you. And hurt you. Or they can just figure out where you must’ve been diving when you pulled up that salvage.” The Poet looked back at the small fire and paused for a moment before continuing. “I know too much. You should have let me die. In fact, you should kill me now.”

Peary stopped stirring the pot and reached into his tool bag. He eyed the old man, who looked on closely as the diver’s hand came back out of the bag. Peary wondered if the old man thought he was going for a dive knife. He pulled out a small spoon, put it into the pot, then walked the three steps over to where the Poet sat and placed the pot in front him. “Eat that, and shut up.”

^Adrift Chapter Ten

The old Poet finished his bowl and lay back against the sand. He didn’t feel well, what with the blow to his head and the resulting crack in his scalp, but he wasn’t as sick as he was showing. He wasn’t sick at all. He was still trying to see all the angles.

Don’t let on and show strangers your strengths or your weaknesses, boy. That’s what his daddy would say. Keep somethin’ extra. Give ’em less or more than what they expect, dependin’ on what you need to say to maximize the situation.

He still didn’t know what to think about this diver. This Peary. This hero. His savior. The surface story didn’t add up. No diver went to such extremes to save a tinker. Especially no diver with a secret the whole world of the sand would kill to know. At first, when he still had the spins and wasn’t all that right in the head, he’d felt something for this diver. What was it? Thankfulness? Maybe. But no man acted in another man’s best interests unless those interests wedded with his own. That’s what the Poet’s daddy used to tell him.

Besides, what did this diver gain from heroics? Had to be something. There was an angle here. He just needed to get his fingernail under the edge somewhere. Something. Pick at it until it all made sense. The Poet just didn’t know what it was yet, what made this diver tick. And who needed that much money? Surely not some low-life sand fish, probably living in a shanty a meter deep in drift and sinking fast. What did this Peary have to spend coin on? Whores and liquor? Had a diver ever spent his salvage coin on anything more than whores and liquor? What a waste.

“We’ll need to push on in the morning, old man,” Peary said.

The Poet didn’t rise. Didn’t lift his head. “I can’t go no more,” he said. “Won’t make the night, for certain. Think I got the sickness in me from the wound. I feel my blood running hot.”

He could hear Peary exhale sharply.

“Your skin’s not even warm,” Peary said. “I’ve checked you every half hour for two days.”

“I’m an old man and I know my ways. I’ve seen the sickness take a man looked full healthy to a diver like you. Back when you were still digging grit out of the ker your momma used for a diaper.”

Peary hit the sand with his open palm. A flash of anger. “You just want to die, and I’m not going to let you.”

There was silence again for the space of a half hour. The Poet had his back turned, but he heard the diver scratch at the sand with his dive knife, and then relieve his bowels.

The diver whistled for a bit, then stopped, and somewhere in the distance the Poet heard a sand-hawk call. If he were in his home, the old man thought, he’d pull out his skrendl[2] and play a tune to the night. But he didn’t have his skrendl, so instead he spoke…

“That’s why they call you the Poet?” Peary asked.

“A long time ago, diver. A long time ago they did. Maybe you just heard my last poem, writ just now in my dyin’ head.”

“Tell me another one over a meal tomorrow in Low-Pub.”

“Just leave me here and move on. Go sell your salvage and take that woman and go to the west. Leave an old man to die.”

“You’re not going to die,” Peary said. “You’re not even sick.”

“I can’t be moved again,” the old Poet said. “I’m already losing feeling in my feet and hands. Sickness has me.”

“Then we’ll go in tonight.”

“I can’t go. I’m finished. Just leave me here,” the Poet said.

“Not gonna happen, Poet.”

“You and your lady gonna die tryin’ to sell Danvar goods in Low-Pub. Can’t you see it?”

Peary cursed, then snatched up the old man again and carried him to the sarfer. He placed him in the craft and piled the haul packs on and around him, then went through the steps of readying the sarfer and raising the sail. After attaching the wind generator and plugging in his suit and visor batteries, he shook the Poet, whose eyes were closed. “I’ll grab the pyrinte ring and the pot, and we’ll be on our way. We’ll be in Low-Pub in an hour and a half, and Marisa will tend to your wound.”

The old man didn’t respond. He looked through Peary, as if his mind was somewhere else. Maybe deeper in the Thousand Dunes, or on some woman he used to call wife.

“You got that, Poet? I’ll be right back.”

No answer, and now the old man’s eyes were closed.

Peary dashed over the dune to grab the ring and the pot, then searched around to make sure he’d left nothing that might be used as a clue, or that could be traced back to him. When he was satisfied that he’d left no trail, he turned to head back to the sarfer. That’s when he heard the telltale ring of the rigging hitting the mast, and a pop as the sail filled, and the crunch of sand. He ran back toward the sarfer, and as he topped the dune he could just see the top of the mast as the sarfer disappeared from view.

^Low-Pub Chapter Eleven

Peary had not seen Marisa since he hit Low-Pub. It was morning now, and the cool gray was starting to give way to the sun and heat. He was too angry to see her, yet. Too embarrassed to tell her he’d lost everything because he’d chosen to help an injured old tinker half-dead. And he’d also have to tell her that the money she’d staked him for the trip was all lost… not to mention his sarfer, his dive suit and visor, and all of his gear. How could she love a man who let a pirate take everything from him? A thieving pirate, old and sick… was the old bastard even sick? Peary kicked at the sand and muttered under his breath. Marisa always told him that his kindness to strangers, more often than not, tended to hurt him. She said she loved him for that, but still she said it.

So he walked the town, from alley to alley, up and down the sandy rows of shops and sheds, looking for the Poet. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the old bastard. Wanting to kill him. His hands shook as he thought of the prospect of taking a man’s life. Then he squeezed his hand into a fist and struck his thigh. I’ll do it, though.

That’s when he saw it. The solitary piece of sand he was searching for in all the dunes of Low-Pub. He saw his sarfer, half hidden behind a shed structure that itself was mostly buried. One that used to be some kind of shop. The roof had collapsed, and someone had already begun to salvage the materials but hadn’t quite finished. The sarfer was tied down, but the haul rack was empty and the gear was gone.

He banged on a door and shouted, and eventually a woman, worn down by sand and life, hobbled to the door and glared out at him without saying a word. He felt his feet sink into the mush, probably wet from the drained wash, or the piss pot being dumped.

“I’m looking for the old man who came in that sarfer.”

“Look at the bar around the corner. Don’t know nothin’ here. Look down at the pub.”

The pub was thick at that hour with the regular kinds, the sand-stained refuse of life in the dunes. Morning drinkers and souls left over from the night before. A diver here and there, but not many of that kind, since most were up north or west looking for Danvar. The inevitable coin-changers were here though, and the clerks were too, drinking early after a yesterday with little trade. Up on the balcony were whores and their clientele, and here and there a seamstress or sandal hop plied the customers for work. There was a raising of voices, and then a clatter as a man who’d been playing cards was kicked backward and he and his chair toppled and slid across the spill and spit. This was met with laughter, and then the embarrassed man smacked a sandal hop for not moving fast enough to get out of his way, and everything reverted to type: shit flowing downhill.

Peary kept his head down, but his eyes worked the crowd, looking for the telltale sign of the old poet’s bandage. He’d walked the room several times before he realized he was starting to get some notice. A card player looked at him and then snarled. “You gonna walk, drink, or what?”

Peary met the man’s glare. “I’m lookin’ for a man calls himself ‘the Poet.’”

There was some laughter, then most everyone went back to whatever they’d been doing. Drinking. Forgetting. Dying. Sometimes all three. The card player sneered again. “Ain’t nobody wants or needs a poet, friend,” and then he turned back to his game.

Peary went to the bar and ordered a beer. He was thirsty, but he couldn’t afford water, and he knew he’d need to save coin. Even bad water, bean soak, or runoff could be used in the making of beer. Fermentation killed all pathogens. But pure water was precious.

The sandal hop who’d gotten a smack for being too slow pulled up a stool next to Peary and sat down. He was still rubbing his beard, and looked sideways at the diver. “If you’ve got coin and you’re needin’ a poem, then I’m your man.”

Peary took a sip from the flat, sand-temperature beer and then sat the glass down on the bar before looking over at the man. “Haven’t you been smacked enough for one day?”

“Day’s early, diver. Besides, I don’t sleep ’til I’ve been knocked around at least twenty times.”

“You’ll get there,” Peary said with a smirk. “At least you’re off to a good start.”

“I appreciate your confidence.”

“When it comes to motivating a good smack, you’re an inspiration.”

The sandal hop pretended to put his arms out for a hug, “Mum? Is that you?”

Peary sighed and turned to the sandal hop. “I’m not looking for a poem. I’m looking for an old man calls himself the Poet.”

“And again we come to the topic of coin,” the man said with a smile.

Peary rubbed his hand across his dive pocket. “I have coin, and a dive knife. One is for the exact location of the Poet. The other is for any man who even thinks about taking advantage of me.”

“Are you sure you aren’t my mum? You do sound just like her.”

“Do you know where the Poet is or don’t you?” Peary asked.

The sandal hop screwed up his face like he was considering his options. Then he exhaled and slapped the bar. “Okay, I’ve chosen to trust you, diver. Upstairs. Center room. Whore came out immediately so apparently he was only interested in the furnishings. But don’t tell him of our arrangement. Tinkers smack harder than coin-changers.”

“You had to know I’d find you.”

Peary took a threatening step into the room and closed the door behind him. He slowly drew his dive knife and held it up for the Poet to see.

The old man slid off the other side of the bed, stood, and then held his hands up before him, clasped in a sort of prayer. “I guess I misjudged your sentimentality, diver.”

“I’m going to take this knife, and I’m going to use it to carve the information I need from your soul. Then I’m going to cut you up and carry you out of here in the sheets and bury you in the dunes,” Peary said.

“I told you to kill me back when you were cooking my supper last night. It would have saved us all of this unpleasantness.”

“I’ll atone for my mistake right now, Poet. Where are my packs? Where’s the salvage from… the place?”

The Poet didn’t speak immediately, and when he didn’t, Peary stepped up onto the bed—which nearly caved under his weight—and put the knife to the old man’s throat. He held the blade firmly against the man’s carotid artery as he stepped back down on the far side of the bed.

“I was trying to save your lives—yours and your lady’s too,” the Poet said. He was sweating now, but his eyes didn’t flash with fear or indignation. They showed only resignation and defeat. As if whatever happened was only to be expected.

Peary lowered the knife and gave the Poet a stare through narrowed eyes. Then he head-butted the old man across the bridge of the nose. The Poet dropped like sand-cake from a slammed window, and crumpling to the ground, he began to laugh. Peary, enraged, kicked the old man in the ribs, which only elicited more laughs, interspersed with heavy, pain-drenched sighs.

“Where are the packs with the salvage, Poet?”

The poet pulled his arm up to support his bruised rips, then flipped over onto his back. He stared up at Peary and his old rheumy eyes were blurry from the crack across the nose. He blinked them to try to clear his vision. “I buried them in the sand so you wouldn’t be tempted to commit suicide by trying to sell them.”

Peary held the knife up again and turned it in his hands, anticipating its use. “And I suppose I’m supposed to believe that you stole my sarfer and my salvage, left me in the dunes to walk home, and were hiding out here in a whore’s workroom all for my sake. To save my life?”

“And your lady’s,” the Poet said.

“And my lady’s.”

The Poet nodded. “That’s correct.”

The two men stared at one another before the Poet continued. “Hard time for me to choose to be heroic. Damn hard. And now you broke my nose for it.”

“Okay,” Peary said. “Enough chit-chat. It’s time for answers.” He pulled the old man up by his hair until he was standing, then pushed him against the far wall. He held the knife with one hand and with the other he began to untie his ker. “I’m going to use this to muzzle you so you don’t scream like a wounded dog when I start to cut parts off of you.”

The Poet held his hands up, meekly imploring, but he didn’t struggle or fight. “I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “I buried the stuff in the sand fifty meters down. Just out in the dunes. I could take you to it, but I won’t. If I wanted to steal from you I’d have already sold the sarfer, and I’d have sold the information I know, too. I’d be rich and gone already. I was hoping to hide out until you gave up looking for me.”

Peary worked at the knot in the ker, but remained silent.

“I’m telling the truth,” the Poet said.

Peary finished untying the ker and stepped closer to the old man.

“I’m not lying. I just needed time to figure out what to do. I would have gotten the sarfer back to you, I swear. I wasn’t going to sell it, or it would be gone already, scrapped for parts in some dive shop. You know it, too.”

Peary grabbed the old man’s face and held the knife up to his throat. “Where are the packs, old man?”

“I won’t take you to them, because if I do you’ll try to sell that stuff, and your life won’t be worth the coin you spent to buy the beer on your breath.”

Peary heard the door open behind him, and when he turned, he saw Marisa standing there. She had a worried look on her face, and when she saw him holding a knife on an old man, her alarm multiplied.

“Marisa!” Peary said. “What—?”

“I… I… a friend saw you come in here. A coin-changer my father used to use. He—he sent word to me. I’ve been worried sick.”

^Transactions Chapter Twelve

Between his own story and corroboration from the old Poet, Peary was able to fill Marisa in on what had happened during his absence. She eyed the old man nervously, even as she tried to convince Peary to abandon his efforts to make the man talk.

“Let’s just go, Peary. We can start again. You have the sarfer. If this old man won’t at least tell you where to get your dive gear, we can scrape enough coin to buy more. You know where Danvar is, and he says he hasn’t told anyone.”

Peary laughed. “This old man is nothing but a liar and a thief. He’d sell us out in a heartbeat, and I’d never surface from another dive to Danvar. Every pirate and brigand for a thousand miles would descend on that place.”

Marisa pulled at Peary’s arm, trying to turn him from his intentions. “Then let’s just forget it all. We still have our lives. Let’s just go.”

Peary pulled his arm free from Marisa’s grasp. “I’m not letting anything go. This old man is going to tell me where he buried my salvage, or I’m going to bury him. That’s the only way the story about Danvar stays secret long enough for us to cash out. That’s the only way I can pay you back the money you loaned me.”

“I don’t care about that. I don’t want the money back. I just want us to get out of here without you doing something stupid… or wrong.”

Peary turned to Marisa. “I hear you. Really I do. I’m doing the best I can.” He turned his attention back to the Poet and held the knife back up to the old man’s throat. “If there was any other way to make this come out right, I’d do it.”

An explosion shook the room, and Marisa ducked down as gunfire echoed in the distance. “What—?”

Peary lowered the knife. Unconsciously he lowered his head until he was nearly in a crouch. He glanced at the Poet. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” the old man said. “Rebels, maybe?”

After a few moments of eerie silence, there was a knock at the door, and the sandal hop from downstairs poked his head in. He wasn’t smiling or clowning around now. “You should probably either accelerate or terminate your transaction,” he said. “Something’s going on out there. People hearing explosions around town. Rumor is that whatever happened to Springston is about to happen here. Panic coming, by the looks of things.”

“What all did you hear?” Peary said.

The man shook his head. “Me? I don’t hear things. Deaf when it comes to other men’s business.”

The Poet pushed Peary out of the way and headed for the door, and for some reason—perhaps a combination of confusion and a reflexive reaction to the Poet’s immediate projection of authority and single-mindedness—Peary didn’t try to stop him. “Follow me,” the Poet said. “We’ll finish this other business once we’ve gotten someplace safe.”

There were more sharp cracks of gunfire and shouting coming from the pub and out in the streets. Peary, Marisa, and the sandal hop all looked at one another for a few beats before the hop broke the silence with a smile. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m following the old man. He seems to know what he’s doing.”

Outside the pub, bodies lay here and there, their faces splattered with gore and surprise. Everywhere blood soaked into the sand, sanctifying it. The market area had almost magically been cleared of living men and women, and looking over his shoulder, Peary noticed that some sort of confrontation was happening in the market center. The smell of burning flesh filled the air—meat from the stalls whose grills were now unmanned, or perhaps it was the stench of bodies charred by explosions. A group of divers and brigands were in the market center, and in their midst, a column of sand held aloft a shiny sphere. Some kind of religious ceremony? Or perhaps rebels had taken the town. His thoughts raced as he recalled all the messages and whispers about Springston.

Peary saw a pistol lying near one of the bodies. A young coin-changer had been shot in the gut. Apparently he’d dragged himself several meters before he finally bled out. Peary picked up the weapon and checked it; it was loaded and ready to fire. He knew little about guns, but he was certain he knew enough to shoot it if he needed to. He hoped that just having it would be enough for most of the things he might need it for. He tugged at Marisa to get her attention. “We need to get out of here, Mar. Something’s happening.” She probably didn’t know about Springston, and he didn’t want to scare her.

Marisa looked at the gun and then back up to Peary. She nodded her head.

The Poet was waiting for them near the dilapidated stall where he’d failed in his attempt to hide Peary’s sarfer. He was tying a ker he’d snagged from a drying line around the wound on his head when the others ran up to him. He grabbed a couple more kers from the line and stuffed them into his tunic. “Can you get your hands on a second sarfer?” he asked Peary. “With four of us it’ll go faster and better if we have two.”

Peary shook his head. “No.” He wrapped his own ker around his face and tied it in the back. Then he pointed at the sandal hop. “And why are we taking him with us?”

The Poet glared at Peary. “Because he’s a man, diver. Have you forgotten all of a sudden?” He waved out at the town with his hand. “Looks like everyone out there could be dying.”

“I can get another sarfer,” Marisa said. “My family has one we almost never use at the Sand-Hawk Marina. My uncle pays good coin to keep it there and ready.”

The Poet pointed at Peary. “You run with her and get the other sarfer. Me and—” He pointed at the sandal hop and snapped his fingers. None of them knew the man’s name.

“Reginald,” the scruffy man said. He shrugged and rubbed his hands together. “Reggie… for my new friends.”

The Poet clapped Reggie on the back. “Reggie and I will push this sarfer back out of town. We’ll get it rigged up and meet you just southwest of the marina.”

“None of that is going to happen,” Peary said, “because I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He nodded at the Poet, emphasizing his steadfast intention to get his property back. “We stay together.”

The Poet grimaced, clenching his teeth. “It’ll be faster the other way.”

“We stay together.”

“Well, we’ll need to stop by a place I know and get food and water.” The old man sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “It would be much faster if we could just meet you—”

“We stay together, Poet.”

^Poetry Chapter Thirteen

It took the rest of the morning to retrieve and load the sarfers, and Peary spent every minute of it pressing the Poet to lead them to where he’d buried the salvage from Danvar. So much so that Peary was shocked when the old man finally caved. But with Springston gone, and Low-Pub maybe falling too, the Poet recognized that the ground had shifted, and an old man should take allies, however tenuous and temporary, where he could find them.

Now Peary sailed the first craft with the Poet riding in the haul rack. On the second sarfer, Marisa drove with Reggie napping in the stretched net of the rack. The two craft cruised to the spot, gliding in from the northeast, and when they were down between the dunes they lowered the masts and began tying down the sarfers.

The sun was high as they pulled on ropes and Reggie drove dragnels[3] into the dune face. The Poet covered the sun with his hand, then measured finger lengths with his other hand until the bottom of his fist was on a line where an imaginary horizon would be if they were in flat land. “One on the clock,” he said. “I put the cases fifty meters down, but you can’t miss ’em.”

Before leaving Low-Pub, they’d grabbed extra air tanks and another dive suit and visor from the old man’s house. Together they now had enough gear for them all to dive if they needed to. Once Reggie finished tying down the sarfers, he began pulling some of the gear off of Marisa’s sarfer, intending to put on a dive suit. But Peary stopped him with a wave of the hand. The diver made it clear he was going down alone, and Reggie didn’t argue. The old man just watched and didn’t react. For now, he was an observer.

Ain’t nothin’ but folly this way. That’s what his old daddy would have told him, the Poet thought. Nothin’ but folly and death. Ain’t no coin in sentimentality, boy. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind. Too late now. He’d already thrown in his lot with this crew. He’d probably doomed himself when he’d tried to save their pitiable lives, but now he was in it. If Low-Pub went the way of Springston, there’d be greater safety in numbers anyway. Maybe they’d come up on an independent diver camp or a trading shanty town. He’d beg out then, if that time came, and let these three go their way. For now, though, he was stuck.

Peary handed the gun to Marisa, then began to prepare himself for the dive. “Can you work that?” he asked.

By way of reply, Marisa deftly ejected the ammunition cartridge, then cleared the weapon with trained proficiency. When she was done, she popped the cartridge back in and chambered a round. “Yep,” she said. “My father taught us all how to shoot.”

Peary smiled. “So I guess the next question is, ‘would you shoot these two if you had to?’”

Marisa nodded. “The world’s gone sand-side up. I suppose we have to do what we have to do.”

“Good,” Peary said. “If they act up, punch their tickets and we’ll bury ’em when I get back up.”

“Ain’t gonna be no problems from Reggie!” Reggie said, raising his hands in mock surrender.

The old man looked on as Peary pulled on his goggles and visor and checked the air in his tanks. He admired the young man, even if he didn’t understand him. Maybe things’ll be better this way, he thought. The other way—me on my own—maybe I don’t make it. Maybe I’d’ve been killed in the streets in Low-Pub, or left there to get vaporized if the brigands blow the town. Or speared on pikes of sand in the town center. This old world is changing. That’s what his daddy would be telling him. Danvar found. Springston gone. Low-Pub maybe blown into sand too. His daddy would say, better to find a new way to get by, boy. Things are going to change.

His hand unconsciously rubbed the wound on his head through the ker. It seemed like the injury was beginning to heal. He still felt no heat or signs of infection. The crack across his nose was more of a discomfort than a worry. He’d had his nose broken before. Didn’t care, so long as he could breathe.

Peary set his beacon, smacked the button on his chest, and disappeared into the sand. The Poet looked at Marisa and she calmly steadied the weapon in his direction. No trust there. He couldn’t blame her. Trust was something he’d earned from thieves, divers, brigands, and men running crews, not from regular folk. She was wary. He was everything she’d been taught her whole life to distrust. And from the looks of her, she knew how to handle the pistol, too. Finger off the trigger, resting alongside, pointed at him with an unspoken accusation. Not that he’d try anything. He was old and tired, but not dumb.

Marisa was a pretty girl, beautiful really, and smart. Could handle herself right well, the Poet saw. The sandal hop Reggie was a different matter altogether. Not much to read there. Clever. An opportunist with a quick wit and a searching eye. Stayed alive fixing sandals and running errands. Traded in secrets or anything else that would bring coin without peril. Didn’t usually deal in dangerous things, and probably was just glad to have a few sponsors with coin to make sure he had something to eat.

“What’s your name again, boy?” the Poet asked. “I’m old and I get forgetful.”

The sandal hop smiled. “You could call me Springston, since that name is no longer in use. Or is it too soon?”

The Poet shrugged. “What does your mother call you?”

“Bastard, mostly,” the man replied, “back when she was alive. Before the sift filled her lungs and took her.”

“Sorry to hear that,” the Poet said. “That’s the way my wife went. Now give me a name to call you, or I’ll give you a smack and leave it at that.”

The sandal hop winked at the Poet. “A Poet’s smack now. Angry fact for sandy friends. Trading force for tact.”

The Poet rubbed his wound through the ker. “Haiku. And a poor one.”

“Everyone’s a critic in the dunes,” the sandal hop said, laughing.

The Poet produced a dive knife and pointed it at the sandal hop, then grinned.

“Reginald,” the hop said. “As I said before.” He thrust his hands up into the air and smiled innocently. “You can call me Reggie.”

The Poet returned the dive knife to its sheath. “Good to know. Now we can be friends.” He turned to look at Marisa as he snapped the cover on the sheath. Stoic was the right word for her. She’d not so much as flinched when his knife came out. Still the pistol was pointed at his heart. Earnestly.

^{Diving for Treasure} Chapter Fourteen

Down below, Peary was moving toward the salvage cases. Almost from the surface he could see them. Not quite, but almost. At first they were just a shimmer of opacity in a sea of orange, but when the deeper colors appeared, the deep blues and greens, the cases took form by relief, red in his visor amid the darker colors in the distance. He moved slowly, enjoying the cool of the sand after the heat up on top, and felt his tensions ease after the pressures and fears brought on by the loss of his salvage. He was in no hurry.

Escaping Low-Pub and the death and carnage taking place there had powerfully focused his thoughts. Like the sand, his days were numbered. Everyone’s were. And as with the sand, he couldn’t know what that number was. This was a tenuous life for certain, and every moment of it needed to be valued. The salvage from Danvar was now more than a ticket to riches or fame. It was a new life somewhere with Marisa. Maybe they’d find a village somewhere in the Dunes. Maybe he’d hire workers with haul-poles and dig a well, and sell water to the natives. Some kind of change was in the offing, he knew that. Maybe out west, over the mountains and toward the sea.

Peary had no idea what had led to the demise of Springston and the events in Low-Pub, but he knew that things were changing. This was one of those moments in life when the old order was being overthrown and something new was coming to be. Like the first time diving, when he’d first moved the sand. That moment of revelation. He remembered now how that had felt. How his whole world had shifted, and how he’d known immediately that from then on his existence would be different.

Like the first time he’d kissed Marisa. Changed.

The sand flowed cleanly by his mask and visor, and he concentrated on the flow, sipping sparingly from his oxygen as he glided downward.

Now his consciousness moved to his hands, and he formed the sand around and under them into grips, like handholds in stone. This was the kind of practice a good diver did in the shallows to improve skills and master the sand. He’d heard talk of a woman who could dive down eight hundred meters—half a mile. Even the thought of it unnerved him. But she hadn’t learned to do that while down deep. No amateur made that kind of dive. She’d learned her skills in the shallows. Mastering the sand. Working on techniques, and breathing, and the little tricks that only the best could perfect. Step by step she’d learned the workings of the sand at each strata, until the silica operated as a part of her—an extension of her consciousness. This is how she’d become the best, working down the column so that at each depth she knew exactly how the sand would react to her thoughts, and how to keep breathing. That was the hardest part. How to mitigate panic. How to avoid coffining, which was the biggest threat at those depths.

Peary formed little shelves above his feet and pushed off of them. He moved the sand around his chest. Slowed his breathing. Felt the life moving through the apparatus. Studied the deep red of the cases in his visor, and concentrated to make the sand loosen around them.

Then, without thinking too long about it, he moved them.

He formed the sand up under the cases into a platform, stabilizing the chaotic with his thoughts. He lifted them a meter, but then could go no more. His thoughts stumbled. The sand didn’t care. It had to be moved, because it had no life of its own. Every grain had to work in unison with the others, but if you thought of the sand as grains you’d lose everything. The body is made of cells, but you can’t think of it that way or it loses all meaning. Life works when you think in wholes and not only in parts. The body was held together by something that managed and directed the space between the cells. And that something—whether it was incorporeal, or fluid, or some other unknown force like electricity that no man in the sand age had ever seen—forced the cells to work in unison.

He closed his eyes and focused again, and once more the cases began to move upward. He’d never even tried this before, moving salvage with the sand. By doing so he was playing with fire. This was the kind of power that could be used to kill others. Using the sand as a weapon was the unforgivable sin in the land of the dunes. So using the sand like this was an action that was at once both thrilling and perilous. However innocent, it was still the possible prelude to the inconceivable. Some divers could do it well, and they were feared for it.

It was one thing to soften the sand under a playmate and then trap them by the ankles in the stonesand as a joke. It was frowned upon—technically it was criminal, actually—but every diver had done it at least once. It was quite another to form the sand and use it against another human. Like the person who had speared the brigands back in Low-Pub had done. That kind of power was frightening to behold. Even for good divers. Even when used against criminals and murderers. It was for this reason that using the sand in that way was the ultimate crime, punishable by immediate death—at the hands of any diver anywhere.

Peary opened his eyes again and saw that the cases were still floating upward. He tweaked the rise with his mind, slowing it, then speeding it up again. Watching with amazement as the sand below the cases responded to his thoughts.

When the cases broke the surface, he realized that he’d not been breathing, and he took a deep tug on his tank before flipping up his visor and pulling the mouthpiece out. He was still half-submerged, but he stopped and wiped his teeth with his tongue and spat out the sand that was lodged there. Then he moved the sand again and was soon seated on top of it, watching as the sandal hop and the old man moved together to drag the cases over to the sarfers.

Peary sat back and watched as the Poet helped load the cases. The old man was moving well for someone who’d been feigning sickness nigh on to death not too many hours ago. The old man walked back to where Peary was resting in the sand. He tied on a second ker and then pointed at the sand.

“How was it in the under?” the Poet asked.

“Nice.”

“Well, you aren’t done. I have two more cases down there. Down at one fifty.” The Poet’s hand came up and he pressed the ker tighter against his face. As if he were trying to block his voice from being overheard by the sandal hop, or by the dune hawks, or anyone other than Peary. “Valuables. Coin. Riches. If we’re going to try to move your salvage, we might as well get it all, because we’re going to be on the run awhile.”

Peary looked into the old man’s eyes, studying him. “Okay. But if I’m going back down there then you’re going with me.”

“But—”

“We have extra tanks,” Peary said.

The old man’s hand moved up to where his wound was, but then it faltered. As if he realized his protestations would not be heard. “All right. We’ll go together then.”

^{The Old Man and the Sea of Sand} Chapter Fifteen

The two men passed fifty and pushed on deeper. The Poet rarely dove deep, and never with another diver. He looked back and saw Peary, an orange-ish form against the backdrop of purple and magenta. He could see the white flash of the beacon on the surface, and looking at the indicator on his visor he watched the meters tick by.

He slowed for a moment to watch Peary move the sand and he was awed. He’d had no idea the young man was so good. As for himself, he struggled—at least in comparison. Diving… that he’d done plenty of, but never any real salvage work, and almost never going this deep. He’d dropped his riches down here in the first place, but going down with packs was an entirely different prospect than going up with them. A part of him had even believed that he’d probably die topside without ever having the opportunity to retrieve his hidden wealth. One fifty would definitely be a limit for him. He had no desire to go deeper.

He thought about diving out in the sand with the woman who’d been his wife. How she’d stay up top, breathing in the sift without a ker, and she’d always quiz him when he returned about how deep he’d gone. He’d lie and tell her some number sure to elicit a proud response, but going deep had never been his thing. Let the divers go deep, boy, his daddy would say. They got nothing up top to live for.

Quit daydreaming, old man. He heard the voice almost in the back of his throat, the vibrations moving up from his jawline and entering his brain—without, it seemed, passing through his ears. It was Peary, speaking to him through his communicator. We’re not down here sightseeing. Save the oxygen, Poet. Let’s get down and back up, okay?

The Poet nodded his head, then realized that Peary probably couldn’t make out such a tiny motion. Got it, he said and pushed deeper. The sand didn’t move so easily for him, and he felt awkward as he kicked, the aged muscles never quite responding as he’d hoped; and if the body struggled, then the sand was always worse.

One hundred meters.

He thought of a thousand poems he’d written in his mind, and that helped him move with a little more fluidity. In the distance he could see the red glow of his cases in his visor and he forced his mind to concentrate on them. He reached for them with gloved hands, and that was when he felt something on his ankle. He looked back and saw Peary, who had grabbed him and was now slowing to a stop. The ghostly figure of the young diver, orange with greens shimmering on the edges, pointed with his hand, and the Poet heard the man speak.

There.

He looked in the direction Peary had pointed—mostly up and a little to the south—and he could see two forms moving through the sand. Humans. Divers. The Poet’s heart jumped, and immediately he could feel the chill of the sand and the pressure of depth, things he’d just begun to tune out. The attackers picked up speed, and the Poet’s own hand, almost disembodied but still under his control, reached for his dive knife.

Up top, Reggie saw them first. The tips of sarfer masts and sails moving toward them through the dunes. He shouted at Marisa, who—though she became alert and looked in the direction he pointed—kept the gun trained on the sandal hop.

“Trouble,” Reggie said.

“Stay calm,” Marisa replied. “Maybe they’re going on by. Maybe they won’t see us.”

“I need a gun.”

“Stay calm, Reggie.” Marisa turned in a full three-sixty to see if there were sarfers coming from any other direction. She didn’t see any, but it was hard to tell. “Probably just heading north to look for Danvar. Besides, we’re too close to Low-Pub for pirate work. There’s nothing out here to steal.”

“There’re always things to steal,” Reggie said, “even if it’s just sarfers or lives.”

“Shut up for a minute,” Marisa said. Her thumb flipped up the safety, just in case.

The sarfer sails grew larger, and one of the sand ships crested a dune and headed straight for them. There were three men on the craft, eyes covered with dark goggles, kers tied fast around their faces. Their kers and their red sails marked them as part of the Low-Pub Legion, but Marisa couldn’t imagine what they’d be doing this far south when everyone was out looking for Danvar.

“Uh-oh,” she heard Reggie say, and then she felt a sharp crack across her wrist and she almost dropped the gun. She turned just as Reggie swung at her with all of his might. She ducked—just barely—and the blow glanced off the top of her head. She pulled her gun hand free and brought the weapon up as the sandal hop pounced on her. She squeezed and felt the pistol kick just as Reggie landed on top of her with all of his weight and crushed her into the sand.

The two attacking divers reached Peary at about the same time. One grabbed at his regulator, yanking out his mouthpiece, as the other stabbed at him with a dive knife. The sand whipped around, confused by commands and pressures from competing sources. Peary felt a sharp pain in the upper part of his left shoulder, and instinctively he kicked backward to put some sand between himself and his attackers. Then everything seemed to slow down, as if his life had been switched into slow motion by some unseen hand working up top in the dunes, or perhaps way up in the heavens.

The two orange figures, outlined in green and shimmering from the sand moving around them, jumped toward him again, but just as they did so they were struck from behind by another figure. From Peary’s point of view, the three orange shapes grappled in a confused blend of colors and shapes, and it took him a moment to realize that the old man had attacked the invaders from the rear. In that moment one of the strangers kicked at the Poet, and then used the sand to push him deeper. And then Peary saw something that chilled his blood like nothing he’d ever witnessed. He saw a cube of sand harden and then glow the brightest of yellows, the unmistakable sign of stonesand trapping the Old Poet as if he’d been frozen in a block of ice.

Without any conscious application of his will, Peary seized the moment—that slowed-down, crawling window of time—and let his outrage flow out from him like a windstorm whipping the sand into tiny knives out in the Thousand Dunes. He thrust his fists forward, focusing his wrath in an explosive outpouring toward every wrong and every crime he’d ever heard of or witnessed in his life. The environment obeyed him, and a razor-thin shelf of sand sliced outward from his hands, splitting the ocean of silica like a knife through hardened fat. He watched as the shelf cut through the two brigands without slowing in the slightest, and he could see the orange and then green show through in the place where the two men had been sawn in twain by his rage.

He didn’t pause to gape at what he’d done. He flowed the sand around himself and reached out toward the glowing yellow cube that encased the old Poet. When he reached the impossible block of yellow, his hands struck the stonesand as if punching rock. Solid, impermeable rock. A tomb that had no intention of releasing its hold on the Poet. A glowing grave that, like the whole world of the sand, didn’t care.