Story #47
Page of Wands
Analee lugged her water-skins down the dark, dusty alley. She carried a full bladder in each hand, and shouldered a yoke with two more attached on each end. A warm blast of wind, laden with sand, slapped at the makeshift walls of the outpost, tore at every nook and crevice, and bit at any exposed skin. She squinted her eyes, though her goggles kept out the worst of it, and quickly ducked through the back door of the cantina.
“Ay! Dios mio! Mija! You’re loaded up like a little donkey, burrito! Why you no have help?” Speedy, the round, greasy-haired cantina owner hurried to assist her.
“They’re securing the boat,” Analee replied, letting the sloshing bladders slip to the floor, then dipping her shoulder to shift the yoke off. “Karl’s behind me with the rest of your order.”
Analee had learned to scrounge the desert at the knee of one of the best. He’d protected and mentored her as long as he was able, teaching her how to find treasure that most would overlook. She’d still been a child when she’d ventured off on her own. She’d graduated from her original little tub whose sails were subject to the punishing winds, dragging the bottom of her boat across dunes and down canyons. Quickly, she’d learned that in order to survive, she had to do better, be smarter. She’d experimented with scraps and bits, levers and gears, until she’d engineered a boat that utilized mechanical legs to lift off the desert floor, and featured a series of small sails, easily controlled and less subject to wind damage, that powered the legs as the air pushed against them. No longer subject to the whims of the desert floor, she found all the best hiding places, and edged into the trade market.
She’d worked hard to pick her clients carefully, keep her head down, and draw as little attention as possible. Over the years, though, there were those who began to take notice. In a world continually locked in a struggle for survival, technology of any sort was in high demand. The kid that had been easily dismissed grew into a young captain whose identity was closely guarded, the crew selectively chosen.
Karl, Analee’s helmsman, pushed through the back door, looking like a tall, lean, alien insect, two yokes with bladders balanced like wings, a converted gas mask filtering the silt-like sand that could seep into a person’s lungs and slowly drown them. Long, blonde braids were plaited flat against the sand sailor’s scalp and trailed behind them like antennae at rest.
“Gringo!” Speedy twirled his mustachios in glee, his eyes twinkling with pleasure.
