The Desert Rose - 2

Deki hated slow days. Time seemed to slow and stretch, the sun sluggish and lazy overhead as if it had no other lands to light up. It was encroaching on Deki’s shade outside the Opula Bath House and every few minutes, he had to move his stool a little further into the entrance.

There had been a handful of clients, sure, and the money that Deki took off the women at the door was good, and as they signed the register he could keep an eye out for interesting names to tell Crissa. Occasionally, he even heard a snippet of conversation that may end up being useful to them. But that wasn’t Deki’s job. Once or twice, in a pinch, he had done a massage, but talking was not his strong point. Subtlety was not his friend. His real job here at the Opula was security – for Crissa, rather than for the clients. She had real enemies in this city. But there was rarely much for him to do. He had a sneaking suspicion the position had only been created to give him something to do on days he wasn’t needed to bash someone’s head in.

But he hated slow days like this, stuck outside with nothing to do. Deki had had enough of the unforgiving Kalahandra sun.

Even given the slim pickings today, it was now the midday slump. No one would darken their door again for the next few hours, hiding in houses and courtyards until the sun was a little lower. Deki stood, stretched, kicked his shoes off and went inside to find Crissa.

It was blissfully cool inside. The Opula lived up to its name, with the exquisitely carved dome ceiling and the intricate mosaic floors in blue and yellow and white, with specks of gold. The circular atrium and central pool of turquoise water was dotted with tables for tea after people were done with bathing and massage. To the left were the changing rooms, hot room, cold room (the temperatures controlled by box-charms that Noorah had made, a rare skill that delighted their rich clients and afforded them privacy in their bathing, without a low-level magician perched in the corner of the room) and massage room for men, and to the right the same for women. Today they were closed to male customers, in Lux’s and Maliki’s absence.

Maliki’s absence was probably going to be long-term.

Crissa leant against the counter where she sold extras, the heady perfumes of bath salts and massage oils surrounding her. She wore the white dress of a bath attendant, but it clung to Crissa in a way that not even Deki could ignore. “Dangerous,” was the word Deki’s mother used to describe young women who looked like Crissa, and Deki could see why. If you ever laid a hand on her body, you would be trapped in a never-ending cycle of curves.

Not that Deki had ever felt tempted to try.

“I thought Councillor Thanh’s wife was due today,” he said, sauntering over.

“She was. And Michaela Gratz too.” Crissa curled a dark tendril of hair around a finger, bored. “But all of my informants have abandoned me. They must have known I’ve been unfaithful.”

“Is the spymaster-spy relationship typically exclusive?”

“No, but they need to think I’m interested in the details of their boring life, and only theirs.” She turned, leaning her back against the counter instead of her front. “We don’t have much to show for today,” she said with a sigh.

“I don’t know, we turned a pretty profit at the door.”

“Not as pretty a profit as if we could just get this commission done. And if Thanh Lin and Michaela Gratz aren’t going to find out where the key is kept for me, then I don’t know where we go from there.”

“You’ve ten days until the dinner party,” Deki said. “We’ll figure out a way.”

She smiled. Crissa had huge teeth, all white, all present. Deki had lost three teeth. Thankfully they were all near the back, where no one could see when he smiled – if he smiled. But Crissa’s smile was huge, wide, and toothy. “You’re such an optimist. I think we should pay you for optimism.”

“Well, you aren’t really paying me for security.”

“Clearly not,” Crissa said, raising her eyebrows and turning. Deki followed her gaze and there, in the doorway, was a tiny, middle-aged woman, jet black hair threaded with silver. How did Crissa hear her before Deki?

“Mrs Thanh,” Crissa said, with a low bow. “What an utter delight to see you. I didn’t think you would make it.”

The lady took off her shoes and moved inside. “You’ll put me on the register, won’t you, dear?” she said, placing a hand - unnecessarily, he felt - on Deki’s arm.

“Of course.”

She pressed the ten lire required into his hand, without even looking at him. She only had eyes for Crissa, her masseuse and confidante, and the only person around here really contributing to their group efforts.

Deki sighed, pocketed the ten lire, and went back outside to the sun. If he was going to be a guard at a bath house that didn’t need a guard, he may as well be good at it.

*

By the time Thanh Lin was leaving, Crissa’s smile was so wide Deki thought her jaw might split in two. She bent down to give the lady two dainty kisses, one on each cheek, and Thanh Lin left with a new spring in her step.

Deki watched blankly. “Is she in love with you?” he asked.

“Probably,” Crissa replied. “I mean, she just invited me to the dinner party at Councillor Reyes’ house.”

Deki’s jaw would have dropped, except that his jaw was too tense to drop. “No way.”

Crissa rubbed her hands together in glee. “Just wait until Noorah hears about this. She’s never going to believe I pulled this.” She narrowed her eyes at the sky. “Come on. I’m hungry. Let’s close up and get some stew before we head back.”

They counted the day’s earnings, put most of it into the safe, noted it in the ledger. Then they locked the six locks on the door. Which were all for show anyway. The Opula Bath House was encircled in three strong, protective charms. Deki could see them glimmering like finely wrought silver chains. They made it one of the most protected buildings in this suburb - and when you knew exactly who had cast the charms, they only became more intimidating. But not everyone was Sighted. The locks were to deter people like Crissa, who might think that the Bath House would be easy pickings for a thief.

“Should we invite Noorah out with us?” Deki asked.

Crissa snorted. “She’ll only say ‘no’ if Lux isn’t there.”

“I wonder if he had any joy.”

“He’d better find someone soon. We’re short staffed in the bath house, and in the crew. We need him back in action.”

The streets were turning orange with sunset fast approaching. There were children coming outside to enjoy that perfect hour, when it was still light, and cooling down. Deki remembered it from home, emerging from the hidden depths of their houses in the south of the Kalahandra, to play before night enveloped the desert in cold. They were joined, all around, by young couples going to dinner, grandmothers rushing to the temple, and tourists looking baffled and amazed and in love with Moresha.

Deki remembered that - remembered arriving in the city for the first time and feeling unable to comprehend it. The people here were a rainbow - skin from palest ivory to true onyx black, darker even than Deki himself. Their clothes represented every nation in the world, silk and beads and chiffon and things he didn’t even know how to name. The smell of every spice and fruit and meat that you could think of. Moresha was like no other place, a world away from the village where he grew up, a treasure hidden among the sand dunes where he had known nothing but torture at the hands of the war masters.

He and Crissa ducked under the blue canopy of their favourite café, giving a wave to the owner. This was, according to Lux and Crissa, the best lamb stew in the city, and it was close enough to the Nest for them to be regular visitors, but not too close to draw suspicion.

Deki settled into one of the little iron chairs - it was a bit too small, but for the fizz of the orange pots on the counter he would suffer a too-small chair, but before Crissa sat, she hissed, “Lux is here.”

Deki twisted to follow her line of sight. Sure enough, there was Lux, fluffy hair and expressive brows. Sitting across from him was a teenage girl. She looked half-starved. Her hair was cut to above her shoulders, dead straight, and she watched Lux with that wide-eyed gaze that every girl gave Lux when he was talking.

“Recruit or target?” Deki hissed to Crissa.

“Probably both,” said Crissa. “Wouldn’t you have to target someone to recruit them?”

Deki considered it. “No,” he said. “I would just say, ‘how do you feel about joining Moresha’s most infamous crew of criminals?’”

Crissa kicked him under the table. “Don’t say things like that. Either you’ll get us caught, or a Kilruddin or Maacher will be nearby and take offence and then we’ll have trouble.”

Deki snorted. “I’ve never had trouble beating a Kilruddin or a Maacher. Give me both at once. That might be a real fight.”

Crissa sat down, but was still craning her neck to look at Lux and his companion. The café owner brought them both a bowl of stew. It was still bubbling. Deki’s stomach rumbled.

“She doesn’t look like much.”

“Isn’t that what you want in a thief?”

“But she’svery unremarkable.”

“Between you and Lux, we have enough remarkable looking people to draw attention to ourselves.”

Crissa grinned. “Oh, Deki, do you really think I’m remarkable looking?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” The lamb was so tender and juicy that Deki had to close his eyes for a moment.

The truth was, Crissa could flatter herself, if she wanted. Not because she was beautiful, although she was, but because despite being beautiful and fearsome, she was one of the few people Deki felt like speaking to. He could talk to Lux, and he had counted Maliki as a friend, until recently. Even Noorah, though most of the time he had no trouble, sometimes intimidated Deki into silence. But Crissa was easy. Maybe because she didn’t expect anything from him. There were no secrets for him to divulge that she didn’t already know, and flirting with Deki was never a success.

But still, glancing at the girl sitting with Lux made him uneasy. He knew that when Noorah banished Maliki from the house, it would mean bringing someone new in. He knew that that would mean learning to trust someone else, someone else sitting at breakfast in the Nest, someone else to rely on when they were doing jobs, someone else sleeping in their home. Deki didn’t like the idea.

The girl was too skinny. That meant she knew hardship, and hardship made people wary, prickly, angry. They’d all known it, of course, that was what bound them. But what if she were too sharp, too sarcastic, too cruel? Of course, she was looking at Lux with eyes the size of saucers, but that was Lux, and Deki reckoned that by the look of her ragged, filthy clothes and gaunt cheeks that he’d probably just given her her first hot meal in weeks. That adoration would change quickly. Especially when she came to the Nest and felt the way the air fizzed when Lux and Noorah looked at each other.

“She’s definitely indentured to a gang,” Crissa said. “I just hope to Radia it isn’t the Kilruddins.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Someone that thin and that dirty has either been desperate enough at one time or another to indenture themselves, or a parent indentured them when they were a baby. Probably the latter, she looks what - fourteen?”

“Older. Poverty stunts your growth.”

“Only your physical growth.” Crissa tapped her temple. “Up here, it makes you grow up much quicker.”

“Then let’s hope she’s very clever. Should we go and introduce ourselves?”

“Not until we’re sure she’s the one. Don’t want to blow our cover completely. Don’t want some Maacher spy going back and telling them exactly what we look like and where to find us.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call this place ‘where to find us’.”

“No, but we eat here at least twice a week, and I don’t want to have to stop doing that. The food is too good.”

“That’s true.” He popped another piece of lamb into his mouth.

Crissa dug in as well, ignoring the other table. “So we have ten days until the party. We’ll need to start planning tonight.”

“You still reckon it’s our best option?”

Crissa nodded, slowly. “It’s the only way to make it into Councillor Reyes’ house. Even if I hadn’t gotten the invite, it would have been our only chance. His defences will have to be lowered quite considerably to allow all of those important people with their own protective charms in. So it’ll just be physical security.”

“I can take care of that.”

“I’m sure that Noorah has it all thought out in eighteen different ways.” Crissa was always seemed a little bothered by Noorah. They were too similar, and both of them too stubborn to admit it. In a different world, Crissa would have been in charge. But that wasn’t the world they lived in.

Deki could live quite happily never being in charge. It was the soldier in him.

He’d never expected to be a soldier. His father was a goat herd, and his mother washed clothes and sang and told him stories of the Kalahandra, of the red fire demons that hid in the sand dunes and ate little boys, of the ghostly white camels that came to carry the souls of the dead home, of hidden treasure chests in which lay a thousand and one wishes. The war lords came riding through the village every couple of years, looking for indentures, and Deki’s mother held him tight, and his father stood in front of him, and afterwards they promised that they were never selling him, that he would never be a pawn in someone else’s stupid war, over land that no one wanted, land that no one could govern, land that would not be tamed. But still, the war lords argued over it. They came from all over the world, seeking to control the main routes to Moresha. But their soldiers came nearly entirely from villages like Deki’s, on the edge of the Kalahandra, on the edge of survival. His parents paid their tithes, their protection money, they kept their heads down and when the war lords rode back the way they had come, his mother would start singing again.

That was until one day, when Deki was twelve, a village elder found him kissing another boy behind the temple. Nothing would have come of it - except that the village elder’s daughter had, it was known by everybody in the village, always loved Deki’s father, always hated his mother, hated Deki even more. Both he and the other boy were imprisoned in a hut on the edge of the village. The boy’s other name was Olla. He cried and screamed and denounced Deki until his voice grew hoarse, and the first war lord took him anyway.

The next war lord threw Deki on the back of a horse a week later. He remembered his mother, standing stock still, crying silently in the middle of the street. His face bumped against the back of the horse, and he never saw his father.

That was the last he saw of anything of his old life.

He had hated every moment of being a slave soldier. But he grew - tall, taller than any of them, and broader, and his muscles started appearing in angry bulges under his skin, and Deki found that nothing calmed them down quite like throwing a punch, or throwing a spear, and he needed someone to tell him to do that.

When the war lord had eventually died, in an ill-advised and pointless fight five miles from the gates of Moresha, Deki had chosen his moment to escape before new command took place. But after nearly nine years of slavery, he felt lost, confused by every choice he had to make now - what to eat, when to sleep, who to like and who to hate. He saw his life draining from him, dripping from his fingertips like wax melting from a candle, and he thought, I’m going to die in this blessed city.

But then Noorah found him.

And when Noorah found you, everything changed.