Leftovers

— Tishk —

The storm was over, but Tishk was just as lost as when the winds grabbed him by his canvas and hauled his not-yet-a-carcass over kilometers of desert until he'd freed himself from the improvised sail. The trip hadn't done him any favors. He lost his pack, his uniform was torn, and his weapons were missing. His only intact possessions were his boots and an empty waterskin. His many scrapes were scabbed with dirt, but he wasn't bleeding, which was a good thing.

The sun hid behind a sky of rusty orange, and he could only see about as far as he could throw a rock. He was alone, directionless, and thirsty. He never imagined a man could want water with so much of his being that the need would drive him forward into bare, featureless earth without knowing if he was heading toward water or away from it. He knew there wasn't any water where he was standing, and that was reason enough to move on.

Once in a while, he'd find a plant but it was always the wrong kind. Thick-leaved bushes secreted an oil that stung his tongue and numbed his whole mouth. Tall standing-man cacti were guarded by fierce birds who made their homes in them, but they looked dry anyway, having used up the last of their water stores. He found a vine that looked promising, with tendrils the width of his little finger spanning farther than he could see, but when he broke off a length of tendril, the entire thing attacked him. Tiskh backpedaled from the sinuous mass until he fell on his ass, just out of reach, still clutching a soft juicy sample in his hand. He split the green tendril with his fingernails and sucked wet pulp from it. He would have taken more but the plant was ready for him, this time with thorned branches that would suck him dry. He remembered Bitter Spring, and moved on.

The vine pulp kept him going for a little while, until he started to hallucinate. The soldiers of First Regiment had introduced him to drugs that did all kinds of things. Some steeled them for battle, others helped them sleep, while a precious few brought visions. Tishk ignored the beguiling pools of water, cold snowy breezes, the fog of breath from his lips, and walked the straightest line he could. He walked until his sense of up and down was turned over by vine-drug, and his face planted itself in the dirt and started growing roots. He'd come to the desert to fight. Anyone would do for an enemy, but the rebels and heretics either hid themselves or ravaged the army with traps and weapons never seen before. But, it was the desert that would claim him in the end, and that felt just. What was larger and more implacable than the earth itself? Tish wondered how deep his roots would grow. Would he ever find water, or would his plant-self die of thirst, too?

He wasn't dead. He had fallen with his face in the dirt, and he had dirt in his mouth and felt like it was drying him out even more, but he wasn't dead. Sounds reached him through the earth, of soft thudding appalon feet and smaller footfalls. Hands turned him over to a sky too bright to look at, giving up its orang hues for piercing blue. Tishk expected the sting of bronze. The army had come here to kill and enslave, so why should any of them be spared? Instead of bronze, a shadow fell over him, a figure his crusted eyes couldn't make out against the glaring sky.

"This one's alive. A skirmisher," said a man's voice, but not the shadow. There was more than one person here.

The shadow knelt beside him and wiped Tishk's alarmed face with a cold wet cloth. The kindness was torture when he was so thirsty. He needed water in his mouth, not his face.

"He's quite young," said the shadow, a woman. Drops of water passed his lips to be sucked up by greedy flesh. He wanted so much more, but she only fed him drops at a time until his mouth was revived enough to speak.

"I'm not dead." His eyes were clearing, and he could just make out a woman's profile as she brought more water to him. Full sips this time, from a small wooden cup.

"That's up to you," she said, wiping away more dirt from his face. She smelled like earth and plants, but not the ones he knew. Strange flowers, good spices, and exotic oils woke his nose and mind. "If you want death, my spear will give it to you. Or, you can surrender and we'll send you home."

"I don't want to die." Tishk's voice was coarse, still starved for water. "I don't want to go home. I don't want to be a farmer."

He could see her clearly: a woman his own age, confident, and dressed well for the desert in a thick felted robe, open over colorful garments wrapped close to her skin. Her head was covered in a scarf, but when she turned to talk to the man, he could see edges of keratin plates lining her head and neck. Her nose and mouth were pushed out by a slight snout. Her eyes were green gems set in marble as white as the temple in the capital. The yellow eyelids and green lips were symbols he didn't understand, but he felt they were important somehow.

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and she was here, in the desert, with him.

"He's young enough and good to look at. And he's alive. What do you think?"

"I think it's risky to adopt zealots. This one is a step up from your average piker." A heavy foot nudged his insignia showing he was part of a mounted troop. "Two steps up. Deserter loyalty can't be trusted."

Adopt? Were they thinking of taking him in? If it meant living near this woman, or any who were like her, then it was worth a shot. The worst had already happened.

"Not a deserter," Tishk croaked. "Is the Princeps dead?"

"Pasha took his head two days ago."

The news hurt Tishk less than he expected. The prince had pulled him from a farmer's muck and given him a chance to live a different life, but only to use him as a weapon. The ex-farmer had promised to fight for the prince, and now the prince was dead.

"Not a problem," said the ex-soldier. "I fought until the end, didn't I? If it's over, then I'm not even switching sides."

The hunter's laugh boomed. "I like this one."

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The woman leaned over him, close enough to feel the heat from her skin, and put something in his mouth. Sweetness exploded over his tongue and spread energy through him. The first tingles of life trickled into Tishk's numbed fingers. She fed him two more while looking at him with painted eyes. After the third fruit, she pressed a bag full of the little things into his hand.

"Get him on his feet." More than one pair of hands lifted him, steadied him, but Tishk only had eyes for the woman.

"You don't even know my name."

"You have no name," she smiled at him but stepped away. He never felt lonelier than when she put that distance between them. "If you learn to be one of us, and you gain the garden's acceptance, then we will give you a name."

"And I won't have to farm?"

Several voices laughed all at once, mostly the men. "We don't have farmers. We have gardeners, and they're always women."

"Then I'd like to live the rebel life."

"We call ourselves Calique," said one of the men, slapping him on the back so hard he would have fallen over if they weren't already holding him up. "Come along boy, and we'll make a new kind of man out of you."

— Zorda's Bulwark —

"If I die, wait for me. Do you promise? You have to keep watch." Whenever the moon Boraz showed full in the sky, Zorda made them promise. It was one of his routines. He was a sweet man, but he could be inflexible about his routines. Certain days required specific meals. Certain places required specific articles of clothing. When they stayed in a town, each bulwark had their designated day off, according to the day of the week. Exceptions were negotiated in advance, or else the upset in routine would leave him feeling out of sorts for the entire day.

Zorda never touched alcohol, but on solstices and equinoxes he drank a psychedelic potion, then grinned at the stars until dawn. Afterward, he would sleep for an entire day. Robyn asked him once what he saw in the stars. "Everything," he said, then he grunted his frustration as all the words he wanted to say refused to come out. "Everything," he said again.

So when he died, his bulwark kept watch over him as if he were still alive. What else were they going to do? Life with Zorda was always somewhat aimless. Most of the time, they followed whatever road was most broken so he could fix it. Occasionally they took commissions, for which Robyn extracted massive sums so Zorda could live as he pleased the rest of the time. Until Enclave recalled all the disciples, it had been years since they had to be anywhere by a specific time. Now that he was dead and they were out of the war, they were aimless again.

Robyn was the oldest, and the leader of his bulwark. Robyn's mother was from a mainline family but had married 'down' to a secondary family for love, leaving behind a younger brother who would become the famous road-building disciple. After his anointment, Zorda would visit Robyn's family once a year, stay for a week, and then depart for some far corner of the world. As a child, Robyn was always drawn to his kindness and to the stories his bulwark told about their travels. When Robyn was twelve, she had the opportunity to travel with him for a season as an assistant. She cooked, carried, and did other menial but meaningful chores. In return, the bulwarks taught her the first elements of the sword and spear and educated her from scripture and the Guidebook. She saw Dace and Moldonia, not rushing by on a train but at a walking pace. By the end of the summer, she was hooked. She spent the next five years training relentlessly so she could join his bulwark instead of getting married. At this point, she had spent far more of her life with Zorda than without him.

A Nexus disciple revealed themselves to Zorda's bulwark as soon as they were out of sight of Zaid's army. She was a thirtyish woman in a man's turban and thick robe, flanked by three bulwark. Robyn didn't draw her sword, but the younger two bulwarks did, thinking they might be attacked.

"Put those away," she said impatiently, "they won't do any good." All three of them could fight well, but without enhancements they had no chance against the Nexus disciple-killers. "What do you want?" she demanded from the disciple.

"To show you to a refuge where you can stay. There's food and water there. I'm supposed to make sure the preservation prayer on his body is done properly. May I?"

"No," said Robyn, drawing her sword, "you may not." Her companions' swords were out too, as they barred the foreign disciple's access to the body of their friend and master.

The disciple opened her fragment of sun to let the coruscating silver waves flow over everything and everyone. The light was uncomfortable, prying, seeping into corners that didn't want to be seen. "I swear by the light of the sun, we mean you no harm. We won't do anything to damage Zorda's body."

Robyn had heard about the fragments, but she hadn't believed them until that moment. She had seen the one in Bahram's Basilica many times but, like so much of Enclave, it was a fraud, just a slightly brighter light than normal. The Nexus light held power. It knew things. It revealed what was hidden. It felt dangerous but more trustworthy because of it.

"Fine. You can check him." Robyn and the others gave the disciple room to approach. The disciple closed her small fragment lamp and stood near Zorda's body draped over an appalon's saddle.

"I thought so. This would only hold for a few days at most." She said the Prayer For Preservation and then nodded to herself in satisfaction. That'll be good for two weeks. If you stay at the refuge, we'll send someone to check on you every few days. You can use it for as long as you like."

"Why are you helping us?"

"Because we didn't want this. If it weren't for that stupid oath, he could have joined Nexus." The Nexus disciple looked at Zorda's corpse with longing. "We've met before, in Ullidia, but you wouldn't remember. It was a while ago."

Tears threatened to overcome the disciple, and she turned away. "Let me show you to the refuge. It isn't far."

Robyn was still there more than a week after Zorda's death, in the Calique refuge, eating Calique provisions and drinking from a Calique well. The hideout was underground, well-lit, well-ventilated, and had plants that gave fresh food to supplement their rations. Robyn was making bread for their routine eighth-day meal: fluffy leavened rolls in a covered pan heated over a fire of dried appalon dung. They would split the rolls and sandwich a patty in between, meat if they had it, or vegetables if not. On their better days they had condiments, too. Today they would use slices of Calique rations warmed over the fire, topped with a slice of cheese.

She made eight buns out of habit, then realized they would only need six. They only had three mouths to feed instead of four. For the thousandth time, the empty space in her ached for her friend and disciple. She wanted to abandon the meal and double over around that grief, but she had the younger bulwarks to think about. They almost hadn't stopped crying since it happened.

A Nexus disciple chose that moment to visit, a different one than before. He was maybe forty, with a frost of gray around the fur on his chest. "Pardon my intrusion," said the strange disciple, "and my poor manners. I don't have a lot of time. My name is Darius." He sat down uninvited and told them the desert fighting was over and how it had ended.

"We're building a new refuge for travelers on the highway. It'll be larger than this place, have more space for appalons, and a proper kitchen. We don't expect it to get used right away because the war's not over yet. So you'll have the place to yourselves for a while. It's designed by Mistress Manu, so it should be something to see."

"You're kidding," Robyn exclaimed, "I thought she was dead by now."

"No," chuckled Darius, "she's still scolding practitioners left and right. She talks about Zorda all the time. If anyone does something right, she tells them, "You're still no Zorda, so don't get too full of yourself!" "

"He talks about her, too. Talked," Robyn corrected herself. "Can I offer you anything?"

"I wish I had the time," he said, rising, "I mean that. But this thing isn't over yet." He refreshed the prayers on Zorda's body, asked if they needed anything, and departed in short order. It was considerate of him to let them grieve in private, but Robyn wished he could have stayed a little longer.