that the desert were my dwelling place (petra) "I am not a child," Sharaf said in annoyance.
"When you stop whining," ob replied, that grin unbearably broad on his face. "I will stop also, boy."
His father was a pest.
There had been little enough time for drinking or fighting. Anyway, once he was at work, he found those sorts of things only interfered with his ability to get the job done. So the jasmine watered had been splashed on his face. Somehow cool despite every window being open. Water had been set to boil, for the last cup of tea he expected to enjoy in some time. Sharaf never needed to pack his belongings. In fact, the vast majority of them had never been unpacked. There they sat in the massive pack that was his across the desert or the city. All that remained was waiting until he'd picked out the appropriate course based on the position of the sun. And, of course, had his last cup of tea.
There was no desert sun, only the same unblinking eye that gazed upon all of the world. It was the desert, with a mind of its own both possessive and propulsive, that knocked him about on his feet. Hard winds and hot sands were the rule. There were no exceptions. Rather than cursing his lot the tracker was staring through the haze with determination. There was still time before night fell. From there he could chart his course and plant his flag for the next day. Gasping when the veil was free, Sharaf wrenched one of his feet free and advanced. Midday was the worst time to depart. And one of his favorites, for the pure exhaustion that it enforced in him.
And while he walked, of course, he turned things over in his mind.
Glittering bursts of sand erupted in midair before him; showers that caught the sun's light and threw it ecstatic into the air. Heat haze, Sharaf thought, and bursts of wind that carved wide swaths out of the dunes. Yet they were beautiful. Even through the goggles they made him stop and smile. Goggles. Petra's goggles, or goggles that she'd given him. His goggles. She was the reason he was doing this alone. Might have recruited a friend, but he didn't want to be cornered by her in his residence without a chance of escape. Petra was quite persistent. And generally speaking she was terrible at desert travel. This was a lighter day by any standard. She might have been fine in it, but he wasn't going to take the chance that she would slow him down.
ob's fingers trailed across the surface of the jasmine water. He laughed, as though there were some grand joke, but as usual the old man did not share it. Sharaf was forced to stand staring hard, at the foot of his own stair. The stair his father had given him. It still irked the tracker that there could be some reason for his father to keep appearing like this. Without warning or invitation. Checking on the gift, was ob's excuse. If Sharaf sold the damned house then he could be under his own power, and off, with nobody to bother him and no one to tell where he lived. Of course someone would tell. His fellow trackers enjoyed tweaking him when they could, in good fun, and this was one of the few ways they could do it.
"Rath told me you took another job," ob was still looking into the bowl. "The day after Mahragan? I thought you would want time to recover."
"Actually," Sharaf corrected stubbornly. "I took the job on Mahragan. Just didn't get to it until today."
"Aha," ob replied. "I stand corrected, short stack."
"Asshole," Sharaf muttered as he vanished up the stairs.
Near as he could figure, the hellcat to whom he'd unfortunately surrendered some good months of his life had made herself an enemy or ten. It wasn't unheard of as an alchemist. Just very uncommon. Trackers were more likely to have problems than alchemists, for the simple fact that alchemists facilitated so many good things in this society. Trackers could get you from city to city, which was of use to farmers, but the old men complained that this would be the first generation in which some Perubs had lived and died in one place. Sharaf had been everywhere but San ip Tal Qoris, and that for good reason. No one in qa Yvutha Pharath wanted to spend any time in a fortress.
They existed only to kill.
Yet there was something stale about the alchemists, something those old-timers did not like. They would never steal, nor would they harm one, but they grumbled all the same over tea. Sharaf pretended to listen to their troubles with a kind ear because they were old and had seen much. What did progress matter? A spirit of adventure was always required to brave the desert, even before the other great cities were built, and it was needed now. If there was no spirit, that was not the fault of alchemy. They had no stomach for war after the Breaking. Knowing what it had done in the west sent a shiver down many spines. That spirit of adventure was replaced by calm caution, and a constant vigilance, lest the Black Earth begin to make itself known in the desert.
They'd survived heatstroke and many other maladies. If the black lands came, they would survive those, too.
"I love your peppers," ob observed, while he was still chewing one. "Sal won't let me grow one. Your brother-"
"Half."
"-ate one without thinking, and... gods damn it, Adward. What the hell is the matter with you?"
It would have been easy to explain his dream. Laughing, embracing his half-sister, loving his step-mother, even putting aside quarrels with his half-brother. Spending a happy Mahragan together. Yet that would not have encompassed all of it. And all of it was precisely what Sharaf wanted to encompass. They thought he was prickly. They thought he was difficult by design, that no one could trust him or befriend him because that was precisely how Sharaf wanted it. Yet there was something else that he wanted. It wouldn't do him any good to explain the dream to ob. The old man would not understand, and even if he did, it would be pointless understanding.
"I'm sorry," Sharaf was not sincere. "Do you want more tea, father?"
"I apologize, also," and ob was equally insincere. "Yes, son. I would like more tea."
It wasn't until he'd found his place to rest that he noticed. Heat was leaving the sands. Wind was dying down. And through it all he had his cloak around him, keeping his skin as sand-free as it could. The goggles were beginning to show him only white-hot land against dark-blue sky. So the Immortal peeled them away from his eyes, and sighed gustily. His vision in this landscape was better than the goggles could do for him, and accurate at range enough for him to avoid being taken by surprise. It was better to travel alone. At least, that was what he thought he was doing. Then he heard the whisper of sand at his back.
The tracker's head snapped around. Someone was hiding on the opposite side of the dune, and doing a poor job of it.
"Come out!" he shouted loudly. "Come out, or when I find you, I'll keep your teeth!"