فصل 08

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 for 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.