“Old Low-Pub is picked over to hell and back,” Palmer reminded her.
“I know. But this is a map of the old world. This thing is ancient. And if it’s to scale—” She held three fingers together and placed them between Low-Pub and the dive site where she’d been picking over a cache of bags for months. Flipping the map around, she refolded it to reveal something else. She measured her way north three fingers at a time. There was an even larger squiggle of lines and place-names right where she expected them to be. “Colorado Springs,” she said. She felt a chill, reading these words, realizing it was Springston. Visors were suddenly pulled down over her eyes that allowed her to see through all the sand that choked the old world. She was a god watching from on high. “This is Twin Rock Path,” she said. She showed her brother the dark set of double lines that ran between Low-Pub and Springston. It was the path their great-grandfather had followed in order to discover Low-Pub. Or so legend had it.
“Enter…State…Twenty-five,” Palmer sounded out. “The path has a number.” He tried to sit up to see better.
“There are a thousand dive sites here,” Vic said. She felt dizzy, looking at the map. Dizzy and excited. The danger her brother was in dimmed for a moment. But only a moment.
“The people who want me dead,” Palmer said. “I don’t … I don’t think they were looking for Danvar to scavenge, Vic. I’m not even sure it was Danvar they were after.”
She tore her eyes away from the map. “Then why would they have you dive down there to find it?”
Palmer situated himself against the hull of the sarfer. He stared out over that dark, damp patch of sand. “When I got back up, the pit they had dug was already filling back in. And they’d broken down a few of their tents, like locating the old city was all they were after. Like they were moving on. And there was a party that came back, that had gone somewhere. They returned the night I was there, looking for water. They’d gone off to find something.”
Vic didn’t understand. But she didn’t interrupt. Her brother was reasoning something out.
“I remember them saying something about us needing to be precise. They just wanted us to locate those scrapers, down to the last meter. I think they were using their map the way you’re talking about, to find other dive sites. That’s how they knew where to look for Danvar. They were homing in on some other spot. Getting it down precise so they’d know where to dig.”
“What makes you say that?” Vic asked.
Her brother turned to her. “Because they found whatever it was they were looking for. I think it was a bomb. I went into one of the tents, looking for water and food. There was a crate of smaller bombs. And then I hid and I heard them talking about this one device—I saw it, a strange-looking thing—and they said this one bomb could level all of Low-Pub. And I believe them. They were serious. Organized. They laughed about leaving the desert flat. I think they mean to do it.”
Vic studied her brother. She glanced at the map. “When?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s been three days. They saw me under the table. They probably assume I heard everything. I remember them saying they were going to hit Springston first.”
“Maybe they’ll change their plans because you heard them,” Vic said. “Maybe they’ll call it off.” She was trying to be hopeful.
“Or they’ll do it sooner. Vic, we’ve gotta get to Springston. We’ve gotta get Conner and Rob out of there. We’ve gotta warn everyone.”
“There are people in Springston who want us dead,” she reminded him.
“Brock and his men are heading to Springston, and they want everyone dead,” Palmer said.
The words stung like a gust of sand. Vic shook her canteen and listened to the contents splash around. Her brother looked away from her and toward the sky where crows circled and the tops of dunes blew in gray sheets. She knew her brother was right. She folded away the map of a thousand undiscovered treasures and slipped it into her pocket. She knew he was right and that they had to go back to Springston. And she didn’t like it.
41 ? A Smuggled Tale
Violet
There was the sting of a wolf biting her lips. A nightmare of burning desert sand and freezing windy nights and a pack of wild beasts tearing at her flesh—all broken by a splash of water against her mouth. And the young girl awoke in a strange room.
There was a woman above her. A bed. The young girl was lying on a bed beneath sheets as clean and white as a child’s teeth. Her dive suit and her britches were gone, just a shirt like a man wears folded across her and cinched with a white ribbon—sweet-smelling and clean. She moved to touch the shirt, and her side screamed out where she’d been bit.