Page 1 of Silk & Sand

CHAPTER 1

THREE HUNDRED MILES of roads and rutted tracks. Weeks of hunting markets and inns. Seth was used to all that. He didn’t mind blinding sun and lumpy beds and a dozen dead ends—because they never really were dead ends. There would be a crack, a hole, a hidden door. There would be a clue, and Seth would find it. As a Curator for the Arcanum, that was his job.

But what Seth usually hunted was artifacts. Arcane ones. Objects of interest to the scholars of the Arcanum College, things of power and danger and often incredible beauty. He followed trails that whispered from the fading ink of crumbling scrolls and the lore of fireside tales, into forests and far-flung cities, down back alleys and tomb shafts.

He did not, usually, hunt people.

But here he was in the dusty, desert-edge town of Shalaa, tromping into the bazaar with questions about a man instead of questions about a mystery. Of course, why an arcanist wanted for murder would have come to this little spot of nowhere was a mystery all on its own.

Mudbrick buildings squatted on either side of the not quite straight alley, their faded awnings drooping in the heat and the red govaa fruit at one merchant’s stall visibly shriveling. A town as remote as Shalaa couldn’t hope to enjoy the arcane advancements of a city-state like Masir, where the Arcanum birthed so many wonders.

No cooling boxes preserved the fruit. No arcane fans lifted the blanket of heat. In fact, Seth was likely wearing more arcane technology than existed in the entire town.

Without the cooling properties of the arcane fabric, his rugged black pants and sleeveless shirt would have been unbearable in this heat, especially with the added burden of his forearm bracers, utility belt, and thigh sheath. And of course there was also the heavy sword strapped at his back, its pommel jutting above his right shoulder.

The vendor with the shriveled govaa fruit woke with a snort, toppling from his cushion as Seth passed his stall.

Maybe he should have thrown on his kaftan after all, but it had seemed pointless. In a town like Shalaa, it wasn’t just Seth’s clothes that screamed foreigner, nor his clean-shaven face. He was too tall, too muscled, and too fair with his short brown hair and green eyes.

Even in Masir, his size and coloring marked him as other, and Seth preferred to think that those traits were responsible for the stares he got everywhere he went.

There was, however, another possibility.

He had been told (on many irritating occasions) that he walked like he was on his way to deliver a beating.

Seth found this unfair. He walked like he had something important to do. Which he did. And that important thing was finding out where in this gods-forsaken land a certain fugitive arcanist had vanished after murdering a fellow scholar.

Outside the Arcanum, such an event would hardly shock Seth, but arcanists tended to fight with words, not bludgeon each other with stone busts of the Arcanum’s founding father.

But Julian had done just that, and Catalus, head of the Department of Alchemy, was understandably upset. He had insisted that Julian be returned to the College for questioning and justice.

And so Seth had been yanked away from his much more interesting pursuit of a golden bird rumored to foretell the future and had been assigned to this dusty, thirsty, frustrating manhunt.

When Seth had protested the assignment, Catalus had only scowled at him from across his desk and said, “You’re the only Curator sufficiently tenacious and brutal for the job.”

Seth resented that. He was not brutal. He was skilled with his weapons, yes, and willing to use them, yes. And … yes, fine, he had a history of losing his temper. But he did not enjoy violence, and he had learned years ago to control himself. (Truly, he had no idea why he still ended up in so many fights.)

Feeling the startled gaze of the govaa vendor on his back, Seth moderated his pace with an effort. He even stopped to admire the finely woven baskets hanging from the awning of the next stall.

Set back from this fringe of baskets, the weaver sat in the mudbrick doorway of his house/shop. Beside him, a woman fanned herself with a palm leaf. The weaver’s nimble fingers worked the brightly dyed cheffah grass through a sturdy frame, making the humble item into a work of art.

Seth chided himself for his earlier thoughts about Shalaa. Even in this remote location, people worked wonders with the materials they had, even if those materials were simple grass.

Besides, the town wasn’t that small. He’d seen a bathhouse riding in, and though this might be the last town before the Kesh Desert, it was also the first town outside of it. People traded here.

When Seth stepped under the awning, the woman set aside her fan and levered herself up with a walking stick. She stumped forward, bent over the stick.

“You want to buy?” she asked in the trade tongue, the default speech of trade towns like this one. “My honored husband is the finest basket weaver in Shalaa.”

“His work is beautiful,” Seth agreed. The woman raised a gray eyebrow at his Masiri accent. “But I’m actually looking for someone.”

The woman planted the stick in front herself and craned her neck to look up at Seth’s face.

“Ah. So you want to buy information.”

Seth’s mouth twitched. Everywhere he traveled, people were the same.

But he couldn’t blame her, standing before him in her kaftan of faded purple cotton with its mended cuffs. He fished a drahm from one of his many pockets and passed it to the woman. The copper coin vanished into her wide blue sash with astonishing speed.

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