Seven: To Cross a Desert

"Wren," Schula whispered.

"I see it," I said.

The red star on his eye patch. It had to be the star we were following, the coincidence was just too much to be anything else.

The guide, Kai, was already marching through the front doorway into the hot sun.

Schula stood up just a heartbeat before I did, and we both hurried to the door. Kai wasn't far into the street thanks to the sluggish mob doing their morning shopping, and we easily caught up to him.

"Wait!" I shouted. "Kai!"

His shoulders stiffened and he turned his head, a frown creasing his face.

"Do I know you?" he grumbled.

Up close, he was short for a human man. His shaggy brown hair looked like he had cut it himself and the scar on his nose that I had seen before looked like he had gotten it a long time ago.

"No, but my friend and I overheard your situation just now. We want to hire you to take us across the desert. Tonight." I held my breath, waiting for his reply.

He narrowed his eye and looked us up and down. "If you heard what just happened, you'll have heard that I don't work for the guild anymore."

"We don't just want a guide, we want you," Schula said.

"Why me?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest. We got several annoyed looks from the crowd having to shuffle around us in the street, but it didn't look like Kai cared.

"From what we heard, you're an experienced guide who knows the desert," I said. "And... we're hoping you'll be lenient of guiding some outsiders. There are three of us, and a bird."

He snorted. "A bird doesn't make that strange of a party, and the guild back there is plenty tolerant of outsiders. So again, why me?"

I bit my lip and looked at Schula. It was now or never, I just knew we had to have him guide us south.

"We want someone who won't be jumpy around someone who is... out of the ordinary around here," I said, and I pulled the hood away from the side of my head enough to show him one of my ears before quickly hiding it again.

His lips parted and his eyebrows shot up in shock. "What the hells?"

"I'm a half breed, just like you," I whispered. "And my friends are different too. But we mean no harm, we just want to cross the sands safely, and we want to find someone who won't be afraid of us the whole time. That will just get all of us killed."

He nodded slowly, eyeing Schula. "You haven't convinced me, but we can go somewhere to talk. I'm open to negotiation."

I beamed. "Wonderful, where would be a good place?"

He jerked his head down the street. "Follow me, we can get a private booth at the bar. You're buying."

I laughed.

"If it will open you up to guiding us? Sure," I answered.

Our destination wasn't far. We followed Kai to a wide building with lots of people inside. It was packed with nothing but locals, a good sign in my opinion.

The moment we entered, Kai flagged down an older man at the bar. "Taking a booth, send three of the usual."

The man nodded to Kai, and our guide lead us to a booth in the back with walls all around it save for the front, which had a curtain that could be drawn closed. There were several such booths in the bar, and I wondered what kind of business was usually conducted in them.

Kai slid in first, spreading out his arms and leaning against the cushioned back of the booth. Schula and I sat on the other side and right away a girl brought over a tray with three drinks on it. She nodded to Kai, and pulled the curtain closed as she left.

The light in the booth was dim now that the curtain was drawn, but the candles on the table gave off plenty to see by, at least for us. I didn't know about Kai.

Kai kept his eye on the two of us as he leaned forward and took one of the drinks. He took a swig, and set it down in front of him with a sigh.

"So, you need a guide across the sands, last minute, and you're... whatever you are. I'd love to hear the story on that."

Schula next to me grabbed one of the drinks, sniffing it before trying a sip herself. I ignored my drink for the moment ant looked up at Kai.

"We didn't know we would be crossing the desert until just a few hours ago. As for what I am, I have a question for you before I answer that. I think I know the answer, or at least I hope I do, but what are your feelings on the witches?" I asked.

Kai looked surprised at the question, but he answered with a shrug anyway. "I think they have a worse reputation than they really deserve. I don't know a thing about magic, but I've met witches before who have helped people. I've met a fair number of shamans too. Seems to me they can be as good or bad as anyone without magic, so what's the difference?"

I nodded, relieved. I didn't know what a shaman was, but if it was another word for witch then I think we could trust him.

"We're looking for the witches, where they disappeared to," I said. "I just got a lead on that, and now we're in a hurry to move on. Now, as for what we are... we're from the Wyldes. I know what stories you must have heard about things from there, I know I'd heard my fare share growing up near Silver Lake in the mountains, but I promise we're not here to cause any trouble."

He frowned, taking another drink. "Well, that explains how you heard me quit the guild. With ears like that I bet you can hear a horse shit a mile away."

I blushed and looked at Schula, who snorted a laugh into her drink.

She wiped the foam from her lip with the back of her hand, and looked at me. "I like this human, he reminds me of my time in the kitchens."

"So, Kai," I shifted the subject away from my ears and what they could hear a mile away. "You said you're half nomad? Is that really a problem around here?"

He frowned. "Yeah, it is. I guess if you're not from here you wouldn't know, but the sand tribes aren't welcoming to the people of Sulls, and the people of Sulls don't associate with the sand tribes in return. I'm... an unusual case. I get by wherever I go. But you, how is it you grew up with the humans looking like that?"

I grimaced, reaching up to touch an ear under my hood. "I feel your pain, I definitely wasn't a welcome sight to the villages I lived by either. Humans can be fearful and petty to anything they don't understand. Very very unusual circumstances brought me there. I also didn't have my ears yet. I was raised by a human, and it wasn't until recently that I found out exactly what I was born as."

He nodded, then turned to Schula. "Alright, so where do you come in? I can see she is half... something, but you look like a human. A foreigner, but a human. How did you two meet up in the first place?"

Schula pasted a mischievous grin on her face. With that, she dropped her glamour and displayed her stark white hair and skin, her eyes brightening to the icy blue I was used to. Her sudden change succeeded in surprising me and visibly shaking Kai with shock.

"What the hells?" he hissed.

I sighed, and removed my cloak entirely, letting him have a better look at my ears. I guess we were all out in the open now. I tried to hold back my grin at his reaction, but mostly I was glad to shed my cloak, even for a few minutes.

He looked at us for a long time, his eye darting between the two of us. Then, he took a long drink. I thought he was going to drain the whole mug. He set it back down, and leaned back in the booth.

"You're one of those fae, aren't you?" he asked Schula.

"Yes," Schula said. "When Wren here came to the Wyldes, I was one of the first fae she met."

"And just how many more fae can we expect to come down here to Sulls?" Kai asked, suspiciously.

"I doubt any," Schula answered honestly. "Not only are we not welcome back to most of the Wyldes, only a couple others know we left and roughly where we're going. None know we're in Sulls exactly, and they have no idea when we'll be back."

He cursed, resting his forehead on his hands, then looked back at me with a sigh. "And you, you're half... whatever you are. But the other half, it's not human, is it?"

I sat up a little straighter. "No... it's not."

He nodded, his mouth a grim line. "Let me ask you if this sounds right. I'm going to take you two, and I'm guessing someone with some kind of special eyes or sight or something, and something that looks like a night bird, across the desert. Sound right?"

I looked to Schula with wide eyes, then back to Kai. "What... what makes you say that?"

He clenched his jaw, then spoke. "A shaman once told me I'd take the wild one, the white one, the one who sees, and the night bird across the sands, and that is when I would find what I'm looking for. I guess it wasn't all bullshit after all."

Schula took a sharp breath, and a shiver ran down my back at his words.

Schula pursed her lips and drummed her fingers on the table. She glanced at me, then back to Kai.

"In that case, we should tell you that to get to our destination, we're supposed to follow a red star south across the desert," Schula said.

Kai reached up to gently touch his eye patch. "No wonder you chased me down. It sounds like we're all right where we're supposed to be."

My whole body shuddered. "I don't know that I like how much these other things know about our future."

Schula reached over to hold my hand, rubbing comforting circles on my palm. "There is no arguing with the Stars, they know what is and what will be."

Kai rubbed his temples and looked between us again.

"What can you pay?" he asked.

My heart skipped a beat. Did this mean...?

"So you'll take us?" I asked excitedly.

Kai frowned, holding a hand in the air. "Hold on there. I think I know what I'm supposed to do, but I'm still not doing it for free. What can you pay?"

I nodded, reigning in my excitement. I dug in my pouch, feeling for what I had and pulled out most of my coins, only leaving back a couple for more food.

"This is what we have. We have some rations already, but I'll need to get a little more before we go." I slid the coins on the table between us and Kai looked down.

"That is a bit under the going rate," he said. "Then again, I'm not in the guild anymore. But you're going to have a hard time finding someone who matches all your criteria too. Plus, I guess I'm your red star. And I'm still not convinced that somehow taking you across the sands is going to get me anything I want. I'm certainly not searching for anything right now. So it sounds like you need me a lot more than I need you."

He scratched his chin, thinking it over. I was afraid he'd tell us no, so I offered the only other thing we had.

"I can pay you in other currency to make up the difference, but it's not um... it's not coins from here," I said.

Schula nodded to me and pulled out a couple coins to add to the pile on the table. At that, Kai leaned in to inspect them.

"What are those? Is that real gold?" He scrunched up his face and flipped one over to see the other side.

"Those are coins from the Wyldes," Schula said. "It's real gold, but we've had a hard time getting anyone to exchange them around here."

"Not surprised," Kai murmured. "But I'll definitely take payment out of these. I can have them melted down easily, back at the tribe."

"You'll take all the payment in our coins?" Schula asked.

"Sure, if it's the right amount," he said, leaning back. "I care more about the weight of the gold than the fancy pictures on the coins. I know a tribe that will melt them down for me, and after that gold is gold no matter who you are."

Schula looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. We had plenty of coins from Thanantholl, but little left for the humans.

"Then will this do?" She pulled my human coins back to me, and shoved a few more gold coins from her own pocket to Kai.

His mouth dropped open. "All of this?"

Schula shrugged. "In human terms we may be poor, but in terms of straight gold coins from back home? Let's just say we have enough to get by with."

Kai looked at the coins, then back up to Schula, then he scooped the coins off the table and into his own belt pouch. "This is enough."

I grinned, asking again. "So you'll do it?"

Kai had a hlaf smile on his face as he offered a hand to shake.

"Ladies, you have yourselves a guide. Don't make me regret this."