Chapter House

"This is the shrine. You may occupy the dwelling next door. Your next-door neighbor is the local cook and will provide your meals."

J'anan had brought them to a section of the town dominated by a dome-topped building, the only one of its kind. Its meter-thick back wall was part of Dagono's barrier to the outside, just like all the others, but there were no intervening floors between the ground and the top of the dome. The interior was tall and round, and partly lit by garden-facing windows. The high dome ceiling was a faded blue. An altar made of palm stood in the center, topped by a brass seven-pointed star shining dimly in the shaded space. A single shelf ran along the curved back wall to hold the local copy of scripture, written on thin wooden boards, chapters bound together by string.

On the other hand, the residence was not in good repair. The door was half off its hinges, the shutters were closed tight, tattered cloth hung where an awning should have been, and debris littered the stoep. Mila and Milo stood in front of Taylor, heads bowed, to receive a stack of silent blessings: sensory acuity, proof against poison, toughness, and a little strength. They entered the house with weapons drawn.

"That seems extreme," observed J'anan, "sending your guards into a house like that."

"The tower was full of snakes when we got there," said Inez, "the green-headed kind. Our young master cannot be risked in trivial matters." A family of mice escaped the upper floor through a crack in the shutters and scurried down the rough adobe at speed until they hit the pavement, then charged into the garden. The spike-haired cousins reappeared a minute later looking satisfied. They declared the house empty except for dust.

Taylor entered next, alone.

"You should stand over here, dear, away from any openings." Alice pulled J'anan away from doors and windows on the lower floor.

"Why? What's he going to do?"

"You've never seen a Nexus disciple at work, have you?" Milo looked smug as he said it.

The house sneezed. A plume of dust and cobweb expectorated out the door. The shutters blew open with a crack and a clack, and spewed brown poofs of unwanted debris into the street, raining leaves and dust bunnies and mice droppings and all the little things that sneak into a place long thought shut. It stank a little, until a smaller cough exhaled better-smelling air. A whirlwind in miniature danced its way out the door, to evict the last unwanted residues of stains, molds, and scruff that any normal housekeeper would scrape away with tools.

The party hefted their saddles and their gear, which they had lugged across the garden twice now, and carried it into their temporary home. The furniture was minimal, a few low tables strategically placed, and there was nothing to sit on anywhere.

"Welcome to our first chapter house," said Taylor. "We can use the front room as a parlor, and the side room for treatments. I'll take the smallest room upstairs, and the rest of you can divvy up the others and share as you like. There's room enough for everyone. J'anan, can we get two pallets for the treatment room, one with a thin mattress and the other with something more comfortable, in case we have to watch them overnight? And a privacy screen, or materials to make one? I'll start seeing people this afternoon."

"So soon?" J'anan looked dazed, still processing how everything was so suddenly clean.

"We agreed to pay for room and board and access to your gardeners," Anisca reminded her, "with disciple services."

"I'll fetch water," Milo volunteered, grabbed the barrel near the door, and set it on his shoulder. He would fill it up entirely and haul it back, instead of moving buckets back and forth from the well. Strength enhancements were handy.

"I'll set up Young Master's room," said Alice.

Mila picked books, small boxes, and tightly wrapped bundles from their luggage. "I have the treatment room."

Inez took a post by the front door, while Otavio hauled the remaining luggage upstairs.

"We need a first patient, someone who can't be healed normally. They'll spread the word for us. Does anyone come to mind?" Taylor aimed the question at J'anan, who stared at him with an open mouth.

"You can't. Nobody will come."

"Why not? I'm a disciple, and I'm here, and the circle agreed to pay with food and shelter. What's the problem?"

"In case you haven't noticed, you're a man!"

"And?" Taylor didn't see the problem.

"And healing is a woman's job. Nobody will agree to put themselves into the hands of a man."

"That's ridiculous! And anyway, I thought Calique were desperate right now. You'd think that would soften their views a little."

J'anan pointed to the east, where the Pashtuk camp was said to be, "the refugees are desperate. Dagono isn't. Nobody here will break tradition for convenience."

Taylor deflated a little. He had so many disciples around him lately that he seldom got to do any proper work. He had been looking forward to it.

"Let me try." Anisca had been hoping for a chance to help the disciple personally. It wouldn't put her in his good graces, exactly, but it might lift her out of the sinkhole she was in. "Give me Alice and Otavio, and the appalons. We'll ride east to Pashtuk's camp and find people desperate enough to be healed by a man. I'll even ferry them back again. People here will see the results. Maybe they'll accept you as a healer."

"Pashtuk is destitute," J'anan reminded them, "and they're not covered by Dagono's payment. How will they pay you?"

"With songs," said Alice from the stairs. "He's a musician you know, so they can pay with music if they have to. Or handicrafts, or housekeeping, or anything at all. The truly poor owe little for his services."

"The lords all pay in silver bars," Milo said with pride, as he carefully put down the barrel of water. "And he's turned away gold for jobs he thought were wrong."

J'anan made a noise of disbelief.

"Money is necessary," Taylor quoted from Disciple's Guidebook, "but it isn't the goal. Go ahead Anisca, but wait for the day to cool a little. Meanwhile, I'll put up a sign." He went outside and chose a section of the building's face, at about chin height for someone standing near the door. He smoothed a rectangular area using the arts, which took a while but was worth the effort. Polishing revealed mottled blacks, browns, reds, and oranges, all shot through with streaks of yellow.

He shaped letters into the polished surface:

Phillip the Younger, Disciple in Residence

Afternoons, 2nd to 7th day

Tools Enhanced

Monsters Exterminated

Lost Persons Found

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Wounds Healed

Diseases Cured

Beneath the letters, he placed a disciple's mark. His was a futobel drawn in silver lines, a pig-like creature with six legs, a short trunk, and antlers spread wide to encompass four stars to represent the four tenets. It was one of Taylor's favorite bits of magic in this world: the animal smiled at the world, pranced back and forth across the sign, shook his antlers in challenge to passersby, and raced around the sign when the mood so struck it. Every disciple's mark was unique. The most powerful ones seemed to take on lives of their own.

"That's amazing," said J'anan.

"The contrast is a little low," worried Taylor. "The letters could be easier to read."

"They need whitewash or white paint," offered Mila.

"Or I could fill the letters in with quartz. I'd take a bag of good sand about yay big as payment if someone has it."

"It's going to draw a crowd as it is," observed Alice, "we should rest while we can. J'anan, will you be resting with us?"

"I have something to do, at home. I'll be back before the gathering hour." She sounded far away as if their association had drained her. She left abruptly with the obligatory wish for their good rest.

As soon as she was out of earshot Taylor mused, "If we're going to split the party I should make a set of links. Just in case."

Most people who visited the first day just stood outside and watched the futobel prance around the sign. Soon the entire garden would know about the "resident disciple". Mila put on Calique women's clothes and worked the door that afternoon, greeting people, answering questions, and prioritizing potential clients. It put the clientele at ease to be greeted by a woman, in that she lent her authority to the figure in the back room.

The little work Taylor did that day was fixing or enhancing tools. Calique didn't smelt or cast metal because the fuel requirements would be ruinous for a garden. With the merchants gone, they could not replace broken tools made of bronze. They also used tools of bone and wood, which wore down quickly and had to be replaced frequently. Dagono denizens brought Taylor their favorites for strengthening, in hopes the enhanced tools would last. One man brought in broken bits of metal to be reformed into a new cooking knife.

Several people were interested in healing for their family members, but none were willing to let a man do the job. The closest Taylor came to getting a patient was a builder whose six-year-old son had a crooked arm: his radius had broken as an infant but was never properly set. The father paled when Taylor explained the procedure would involve opening the skin, breaking the boy's arm again, shaving away the bone that had grown crookedly, and then putting it all back together and healing it. Taylor's assurances the procedure was routine, and that the son would be painlessly asleep for the operation, and he had done it many times before didn't win over the father. Like all the prospective patients, he said he would be glad for Nexus' aid just as soon as they sent a "real healer", meaning a woman.

Anisca's best efforts among the Pashtuk likewise met with limited success. At length she found a single patient, a woman with a scarred face, who wanted to be healed badly enough to let a man do it. Also, there was one other matter.

"Taylor," she asked him over the link, "how good are you at finding missing persons?"

"If I have something that belonged to them that they used all the time? Very good. Distance is practically no object."

"I saw Iraj today. He says some Pashtuk women are missing, and he wants to know if you can find them. When I asked for details he became very cagey. He says he wants to talk to you about it in person."

"Missing women sounds like it would be a huge issue for Calique."

"None of them were hands or tablas. They might have run away to find a better situation. The conditions here are … difficult would be a fair way to describe it. It's orderly, but there isn't enough food to go around and they're all living in tents."

"Do they have water?"

"There's a well in the Dagono mischus they use. It's a long haul."

"It sounds like they need us more than Dagono does. I could send a cadre for a few days and make their lives a little easier."

"Well if you do, tell them to bring blank books to write songs in, because that's all you'll get for your trouble here. These people have nothing. Even the clothes on their backs are falling apart."

"Hope to the hopeless," Taylor quoted, "it's kind of what we're known for."

"What about Iraj?"

"Bring him. Say he's an escort for the patient you're bringing to Dagono. And bring articles from the missing women, but don't let them touch. Keep them separate from each other."

"We'll see you in an hour."

The woman's name was Soraya, and she had acid burns on her face. The wounds were terrible, about a month old, and she would not say where they were from. Taylor took that to mean they had been caused by the monster Darkmaw. The skin had scarred as it tried to heal and pulled her features cruelly. One eye was pulled almost shut, her lips were twisted in a snarl, and one ear hung lower than the other. The numerous delicate muscles of her face were damaged underneath the scars, but her bones were sound. Healing her would be easier than resetting an arm, but would require her to eat. Her body was too thin to support regenerating muscle.

Fortunately, his other clients had left baskets of produce as offerings for his help, the circle's contract notwithstanding. Taylor pressed Soraya to eat before he began, tempting her with roasted tubers slathered in appalon butter from the cook next door. It was supposed to be his portion of the noon meal, but they had plenty of other food to choose from.

Under the disciple's hands, her tortured muscles relaxed and reformed, new flesh grew under scars while old skin died and peeled aside in layer after layer, to be captured in a wooden bowl, until pink new growth reached the surface. The new skin needed sun, but it was perfect. When Taylor showed Soraya her new face in a mirror she simultaneously wept with joy and shook from extreme hunger. She took the basket he offered her without question and ate with determination. Entire limbs and organs could be regrown as long as there was food enough to feed new flesh.

Taylor sent her to the parlor so he could speak privately with Iraj, with Otavio in attendance. He made a show of praying out loud (Shelter us Oh Lord from adversaries' gaze; Ring us round with walls of blessed silence) so the Pashtuk spear would know their conversation was private. That Taylor kept a guard was reasonable, given they barely knew each other and Iraj had once tried to steal from him.

"So, what couldn't you say to Anisca?"

"This is desert business, men's business. Women don't want to know about it. These women who are missing are very young -- the Satomen have stolen them for wives. They don't follow the proper way to steal wives! You must go and get them back for us!"

"There's a proper way to steal a Calique wife? I'm afraid you'll have to explain that to me Iraj, and remember I'm a foreigner who doesn't understand everything about your people."

"Of course, of course. I forget because you wear your garden's colors so well. You even hold yourself like we do."

"Flattery isn't what I need from you right now if you want my help. Tell me about the wife stealing."

"When a man wants to marry, he meets with women from other gardens. Sometimes this happens in Sand Castle, and sometimes during trade between gardens. Often there is a tabla or a hand who helps. When he finds a woman who accepts him, he moves to her garden and becomes one of them."

"So a man marries into his wife's garden."

"Yes, but not always. Sometimes, the woman does not want to stay in her garden. Perhaps she has no advancement with her own people, or she has trouble with someone there, or she's grown tired of the same faces every day. When this happens, the man will come in the night, sneak into her house, and carry her away. She kicks and she yells. The family makes a show of trying to stop him, they chase him, but only to the garden wall. They stand on the wall and shout at him as he rides away with her. All the neighbors will join them and throw things. The father will shake his fists. The mother will weep. It's very special."

"But the families are in on it. I take it that's not what the Satomen did?"

"Satomen are not proper Calique. They dress like us and live in gardens but they are not us. They buy their wives from Hyskos debt-slavers and take them by force. Once they are with child they have no choice but to stay. A woman will cherish a child, even one begotten in violence. If they escape, no other garden wants them because they are not Calique, and they fear Satoma's strength."

"Amadis said this morning something about Satoma losing all its women. What's that about?"

"Not just the women. All the children, too. The Satomen were out in force, hunting the creature I can not name."

"Darkmaw. The circle told me its name today, but that's all."

"You're making progress! This is good!" Iraj's pleasure on Taylor's behalf seemed real. "The Satomen hoped to kill Darkmaw and take the glory for themselves. Every garden will owe a debt to whoever kills it. They were gone for weeks hunting Darkmaw, with only a small force left behind to defend Satoma. The Kashmari came and overwhelmed them. They killed the men and older boys, then took the women and children away to Kashmar. No one was more surprised than the Satomen. Their garden is the farthest north, closest to Kashmar. In the past, they've done Kashmar's bidding and even paid tribute to their prince. Why would mighty Kashmar turn on their only ally in the desert? No one understands it."

"And now Satoma is stealing wives from Pashtuk."

"Yes, but silently. There is no wailing, no shaking fists goodbye to your departing daughter. The sun rises one morning and she is gone."

"How do you know this is Satoma's doing? Your situation is pretty rough from what I hear. Maybe the women wanted to leave?"

"That's what the Satomen will say! But they are a menace to everyone! Pashtuk is too weak to fight them. Dagono's doyenne will not allow her men to help us, because a battle with the Satomen would be very costly. She even gives food to the Satomen to keep them sated. Their camp is a threat, to both gardens."

Iraj had grown more excited during his speech about the Satomen, a people he clearly didn't love. But, he didn't know what had happened to the missing women. Not really. Taylor had to proceed with caution here.

"If you brought me the things I asked for, I'll find the missing women. But!" Taylor had to stop Iraj in mid-cheer. "We will ask them if they want to return or not. It's their choice. And we're not leaving right away. If you're right, this is night work. We leave after dark."