Lotus Blue Read online

  Lotus

  Copyright © 2017 by Cat Sparks

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Talos Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Sparks, Cat, author.

  Title: Lotus Blue / Cat Sparks.

  Description: New York : Talos Press, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016017986| ISBN 9781940456706 (hardcover : acid-free

  paper) | ISBN 9781940456737 (ePub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Voyages and travels--Fiction. | Imaginary places--Fiction. |

  BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / General. | FICTION / Science Fiction /

  Adventure. | GSAFD: Science fiction. | Fantasy fiction. | Adventure

  fiction. | Dystopias.

  Classification: LCC PR9619.4.S628 L68 2017 | DDC 823/.92--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017986

  Cover illustration by Lauren Saint-Onge

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell

  Print ISBN: 978-1-94045-670-6

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-94045-673-7

  Printed in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  = One =

  = Two =

  = Three =

  = Four =

  = Five =

  = Six =

  = Seven =

  = Eight =

  = Nine =

  = Ten =

  = Eleven =

  = Twelve =

  = Thirteen =

  = Fourteen =

  = Fifteen =

  = Sixteen =

  = Seventeen =

  = Eighteen =

  = Nineteen =

  = Twenty =

  = Twenty-one =

  = Twenty-two =

  = Twenty-three =

  = Twenty-four =

  = Twenty-five =

  = Twenty-six =

  = Twenty-seven =

  = Twenty-eight =

  = Twenty-nine =

  = Thirty =

  = Thirty-one =

  = Thirty-two =

  = Thirty-three =

  = Thirty-four =

  = Thirty-five =

  = Thirty-six =

  = Thirty-seven =

  = Thirty-eight =

  = Thirty-nine =

  = Forty =

  = Forty-one =

  = Forty-two =

  = Forty-three =

  = Forty-four =

  = Forty-five =

  = Forty-six =

  = Forty-seven =

  = Forty-eight =

  = Forty-nine =

  = Fifty =

  = Fifty-one =

  = Fifty-two =

  = Fifty-three =

  = Fifty-four =

  = Fifty-five =

  = Fifty-six =

  = Fifty-seven =

  = Fifty-eight =

  = Fifty-nine =

  = Sixty =

  = Sixty-one =

  = Sixty-two =

  = Sixty-three =

  = Sixty-four =

  = Sixty-five =

  = Sixty-six =

  = Sixty-seven =

  = Sixty-eight =

  = Sixty-nine =

  = Seventy =

  = Seventy-one =

  = Seventy-two =

  = Seventy-three =

  = Seventy-four =

  = Seventy-five =

  = Seventy-six =

  = Seventy-seven =

  = Seventy-eight =

  = Seventy-nine =

  = About the Author =

  = One =

  The Van was taking the longest time to cross the Summersalt Verge. Thirteen wagons, rolling slow, were ragging on Star’s nerves. The tanker port of Fallow Heel lay a whole two days ahead of them. Three if they didn’t pick up speed.

  The Van first started crawling when the dogs caught scent of danger. Smells like mines, said Remy, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Just Dead Red trash, blown and tumbled across the Verge, tainted with contaminated sand. The dogs were bored and so was Star. Two more days of sun bleached desert, dust and heat and the stink of camel sweat, bumping over rocks and rifts and potholes.

  The wagon tops were overflowing. At Sternpost they’d taken on more tankerjacks than they should have. Wannabes in fancy kit, claiming they’d be striking lucky on the Black: the deadly spit of Obsidian Sea jutting out into the Red from Fallow Heel. A no man’s land beyond all laws and rules. Fat chance.

  Caravan master Benhadeer let anybody travel who could pay. Benhadeer was always broke and owing favours, which meant the Van was dangerously overladen. A slow and obvious, easy target, ripe for the picking if a local warlord or swarm of desperate refugees crossed their path.

  Rumbling unsteadily through the fringes of the outer ‘steads. Ragged children running at their wheels. A rock came hurtling past Star’s ear. The brat who’d thrown it had skinny limbs, bare feet, and matted hair. She looked disappointed to have missed. Star contemplated shifting as the brat scooped up more missiles from the dust, but she’d wrangled hard for her spot on wagon six and she wasn’t going to give it up for nothing. —She’d suffered plenty worse than small stones. Those barefoot kids had older brothers with better aims, larger rocks, and stronger arms.

  On wagon six, Star could avoid her sister Nene, her sun-bleached dreadlocks concealed beneath a scarf. Six was stacked with regulars. A handful of so-called dancers clutching parasols against the sun, their cotton saris billowing like sheets. The camel drover with a busted leg propped up on a recliner rigged by one of Lucius’s point riders. Yeshie, the fat old bone caster, and Mara, her one-eyed friend, snug together gossiping like children. Their laughter blasting in short bursts, joyful against the Road’s stark desolation.

  Star perched with a group of older women checking out the wannabe tankerjacks. Fifteen in all had joined the Van at Sternpost. One amongst them was particularly handsome. He had a golden earring and wore peculiar clothing beneath his galabeya, as did his two companions. She’d caught an accidental glimpse of it when a gust of wind rose, spitting sand in all their faces. The loosely-fitting fabric revealed, for a brief moment, sleek, dark material that fit like snakeskin, black as charcoal, its surface ridged and patterned. Nobody knew how to make such garments any more. Not for several hundred years—not even the fancy tailors of Rusk Harp, nor the merchant princes and professors of Sammarynda. If Golden Earring and his two friends hailed from Sternpost, then Star was a monkey’s aunt. Princes, that was what they were, from the coast or from across the Risen Sea. But what were a trio of Sammaryndan merchant princes doing amongst the Sternpost rabble, atop a Van, so far away from home?

  The Sand Road wound through the back end of nowhere. Thirteen wagons, sucking power from the sun. Star waved as the brat kept up with the old-world butyl wheels, lobbing rocks at the weathered solar strips along the sides, her freckled face all crumpled in concentration. Shouting what homes
teaders always shout at Vans: wards and curses to fend off evil luck.

  Golden Earring peeled a mandarin, its colour bright against the drab weave of his galabeya. He taunted the little rock thrower with it, savouring each juicy segment as she gaped. The brat had probably never seen a mandarin before. Not much grew along the inner Verge but acacia trees and hardy, tasteless melons. Last year date palms had lined the way beside stubs of long dead mango trees, but red sand crept across the Verge and killed them all.

  His two companions cheered as he tossed the brat a curling scrap of rind, perhaps with a couple of segments still attached. She scrabbled after it, falling to her knees, snatching the bright thing and stuffing it into her mouth.

  A year ago this stretch of Verge had been patched with hardy green. No feast of plenty, but enough to keep starvation from the door. Enough for homesteaders to trade surplus with passing Vans. Not now. Now there was nothing but creeping fingers of sickening red, poisoning what little soil remained. Homesteads abandoned, the people gone away, off to the towns to see what fortunes smiled. It would not be long before Star went too, a plan her sister could not catch wind of under any circumstances. Which was why she had to keep in good with Remy—at least for a day or two.

  Remy. Star never should have slept with him. He’d been hanging around her ever since, as if she would ever make the same mistake again.

  A gust of wind blasted her face with fine sand granules. The distant slam of a hatch flipping open. That all-too-familiar voice calling out across the wagon tops.

  “Star? What happened to those willow bark shavings?”

  Nene. Upwind, balancing on number four and yelling out across the heads of weary travellers. Star had hoped her sister was distracted by her notes. When the wagons rolled, Nene knew Star perched as far away as possible from the stink of dried herbs, bitter solvents—and hard work.

  Star pretended she didn’t hear. She edged a little further towards the wagon’s end, for all the good it would do. Nene didn’t believe in down time. There was always something in need of grinding: roots, stems, leaves, or petals. Potent liquids sloshing in vials nailed fast to the wagon walls.

  The wind was definitely picking up. The wannabe tankerjacks adjusted khafiyas and galabeyas, passing piss-coloured liquor in glass bottles from hand to hand. Up closer, the one who’d taunted the brat with a mandarin was even better looking than she’d thought. His eyes were large and deep and green. A proud nose. Thick lips, but not too thick. That golden earring half obscured by lush, dark curls.

  She caught his eye. The corners of her mouth edged up into a smile. Golden Earring did not return the favour.

  “Star,” snapped Nene. “The willow bark. Where is it?”

  Her sister towered over her, hands on her hips, standing steady against the wagon’s jolting motion as the sun made a halo around her head.

  “Haven’t ground it up yet,” Star confessed. “Shavings are still wrapped up tight in muslin.”

  Nene snapped back at her, words drowned out by the thunder of the wheels.

  Whatever she’d said caught Golden Earring’s attention.

  “There’s ants in the honey again—do you know how much that stuff costs?” Nene repeated, louder this time. “And why are there no bandages prepped and rolled?” Nene gestured to the group of Sternpost wannabes—half drunk, some of them—trading insults on number seven. “How long before one of those idiots falls or gets shoved under the wheels?”

  Star smirked at the thought.

  “Star—I’m serious—are you even listening to me? You’re not pulling your weight around here. You haven’t been pulling your weight since Transom Swathe.”

  Star shrugged, keeping one eye on Golden Earring, who seemed to be listening very intently to their conversation. Unlike the others, he had not been swigging from the bottles passing hand to hand.

  “Fallow Heel is coming up. I need you to focus and catch up with your chores. There’s people who need us. Desperate people—don’t you ever forget that.”

  She was going to argue back but Nene interrupted, giving Star a swift nudge in the arm—the metal splint embedded in Star’s flesh was showing. She tugged her sleeve down to cover it, waiting to cop an earful from Nene about how they had to keep themselves to themselves, not wind up vulnerable to strangers and their questions.

  But Nene didn’t hang around. She turned and headed back the way she’d come, nimbly dodging around other travellers, both seated and standing, as the wagons rocked and jolted from side to side.

  Star folded her arms across her chest. Transom Swathe was where she’d gotten drunk enough to go with Remy, mere hours after Lucius had promoted him to point rider, replacing Jacko’s elder brother who’d decided against continuing up the Road. Damn Lucius had him riding up the front, spitting distance from number one; Benhadeer’s own wagon. “How ’bout you an me,” Remy had said, a greasy lock of hair hanging in his eyes. “Stick with me, girl, an we’ll do alright.”

  She hadn’t answered. Couldn’t stand the sight of him once she’d sobered up. Just another dusty Van rat with no coin in his pocket. Riding up and down the Road till some fat warlord put a bullet in his skull. “How ‘bout it, huh?” he’d called after her, clueless, like they all were. How ‘bout what, Remy? How ‘bout what, precisely?

  Nene didn’t get it. Nene still thought she could save the world—or what was left of it. Thought she could make a difference. That setting broken bones would set things right. Nene, her ten-years-older sister, better in every way. Kind, caring Nene, who kept healing sicknesses and patching wounds, no matter if people could pay or not. No matter how many sprung up to take their places. No matter what the Road threw at them, Nene was always steadfast in her hope. Nene’s hope was wearing Star to the bone.

  The Road was dying, its foliage more mean and shrivelled with every passing. Its people running feral—the children worst of all. Star wanted a better life—and soon. Before point rider Remy made another clumsy pass at her. Before she ended up as wild-dog-crazy as Yeshie and her one-eyed friend. Before one more swaggering adventurer pretending coastal provenance spat the nickname Van trash in her face. She was sick of the insults—and the rocks, not to mention the hopeless tide of half-starved refugees restlessly shifting from one unsafe haven to another. Sick of the warlords, each more violent than the last, waging their endless, pointless petty skirmishes.

  The Van was old, its tires patched, thirteen wagons battered from constant motion, sun power gradually on the wane. The day would come when its wheels would turn no more. Star wanted out before the lightning moved in close, crossed the Verge, and tore the Road to shreds. She wanted four walls and a bed. A floor that did not move. Paved streets, a solid roof, air that did not stink of drying herbs.

  Old Lucius reckoned Van folks were the lucky ones, despite encroaching storms and Dead Red sand. Their business was in transportation: moving and trading. Wheeling and dealing. They didn’t starve if the soil got tainted, offering up misshaped vegetables that looked like lopped off body parts.

  Alright for him maybe, an ancient tankerjack weathered into semi-retirement, keeping the younger ones in line with that hunting lance he swung like a fighter’s stave. Sun-baked, tattooed hide as tough as granite. She’d end up with a tough hide too if she didn’t get out of the sun before too long.

  A chance encounter with that girl last year had put everything in focus. Rich and pretty, Allegra was her name, her father said to be the richest man in Fallow Heel. The girl and her friends had gotten lost in the scary part of town. Scary for them but not for Star—she’d helped them out and to everybody’s great surprise, been invited inside a mansion to share tea. The most beautiful place she’d had ever seen.

  She’d had a whole year to think about it and she could wait no longer. As soon as the Van pulled into Twelfth Man, she was leaving it behind. Nene would
have to do without her. Life as a Sand Road medic was not for Star. Instead she would follow in the footsteps of their long dead parents. Become a relic hunter, maybe even join a tanker crew. She knew the dangers and the risks. All she wanted was a chance to earn big coin. Enough to set up Nene in a back street clinic, give them both a place to stay, year in, year out. A patch of soil where she could plant a garden, grow flowers good for nothing but looking pretty. Maybe even ending up looking pretty herself with the Road dust sluiced off and the ratty dreadlocks combed out of her hair.

  When the Van arrived in Fallow Heel, everything would change. But Nene. How would I ever get up the courage?

  She glanced across in the direction of their wagon, surprised to see Nene still up top, waylaid by an unfamiliar couple with a baby. The father was holding the little one, the mother explaining something with expansive hand gestures. Nene crouched, listening intently.

  “Hey Star!”

  Pulling up alongside, Remy was grinning madly, his camel veering way too close to wagon six. It wasn’t his camel, though. Most of the animals belonged to Benhadeer or his shady cousins. Remy owned nothing but the clothing on his back, and now he thought he owned a piece of Star.

  She didn’t smile back at him. Attention only served to make things worse. Instead she turned back to the bright-eyed wannabes, their fresh faces mixed amongst the weathered and tired. Young and stupid, that last lot from Sternpost—or wherever they really came from. Not that they would stay that way for long. Neat trimmed beards, jewels glinting in sunlight. Clean fabrics, skin and hair. The closer to the coast folks lived, the more effort they seemed to waste on outlandish fashions.

  “Coming up on Axa. Axa ahoy!”

  Lucius’s booming voice, followed by a shuffling and shifting. Everybody keen to get a look at the old-world Fortress City, a dark, squat shape shimmering with heat haze in the distance.

  Axa: a name that lingered on everybody’s lips, whispered like a ward. Axa, said to have stood at least a thousand years. There was no way in and no way out. The bulk of it lay underground—at least that’s what they reckoned. There had to be a way in somewhere, else how did black market dealers of tanker heart-and-brain collect their coin?