Insubstantial

"You're not dead yet," said Marlowe with a grin and gently stroked his head like she would a sickened child's. "That's just depletion telling you to quit."

Her touch was soothing him, until he lost his thoughts of dying now to ease the pains of losses yesterday and those to come. Her weapon-calloused hands were gentle-strong and slid beneath his shoulders finding all his worries there, his gathered knots of grief, embedded shards of futures unforgotten.

Although he couldn't see them now, he knew the boys and girls who'd left him had returned. They'd scattered to avoid Antonio's attack, and not be banished prematurely.

Listless and defenseless Harrence lay his copper head in her crossed legs and let her practiced hands untie him, bight and loop, until his ends were slack and running free, ungathered and uncoiled. He slept again.

"I understand why you would be afraid," Ma'Tocha said when he was mostly awake, "the rarest gifts are often held untold by gifted souls afraid of being shunned. But we're your friends, and we will understand." She'd come to Harrence after breakfast and a day of floating near the point of sleep. His death had lost some of its pull on him, and hour by hour he gained his will to live.

"I know you saved me Harrence, don't deny it. I had a mentor, Lucia. Great disciple. One day, she fought and killed someone, Disciple Juca — Nasty piece of work. In Enclave's book it was a victory, but for her cadre it was something else. When Juca died our Lucia was attacked by something none of us were trained to sense. Though we could not discern the source we felt the curse and what it did to her, the agony and terror it inflicted.

"Her injury was deep and permanent, and she retired to become a matrix. We lost our mentor, never understanding what it was that crippled her. Today I felt that threat again, but aimed at me. So, thank you. I hope you'll trust in us one day, enough to talk about what happened, and perhaps, with your consent, begin to train this talent that you have. It's rare and strange, but that's okay. We are your friends, you know."

❖ ❖ ❖

All of that was several days ago and Harrence hadn't yet explained to them the things that he could see, the bits of soul wandering free (or were they stuck?) to aid them in their hunt for murderous Enclave agents, and scourge the ones who persecuted them, and save the tender lives of hunted children.

Ma'Tocha turned them south, no explanation, flying over roads like phantoms faint, as hidden to the nearby travelers as the ghostly heretics that followed them. The further south they went, the more he left his other life behind, those ancient times when he had had a proper family. A house, a farm, and neighbors he could name.

Although he felt a little more alive, as days rode by, he hardly spoke at all. Instead of speaking he preferred to sign. Where signing was unnecessary, silence ruled his day. He focused on the kids, their little joys in finding secret places, animals hiding under rocks, or rabbit warrens in the roots of trees.

Once, they found a hidden, ancient shrine. It seemed like it was carved from solid stone, unbroken by the cracks or seams he knew from everyday construction. Awed and tired, the cadre rested there and had a meal. It was a single room, surrounded by a forest overwhelmed with kudzu vines.

"There's nothing left around that eats this stuff. The singing deer have all been hunted out," Ma'Tocha said, "for skins as soft as silk and antlers made of iridescent bone. The trees will suffocate and die, and leave behind a mass of vines. It's death by greed."

They left the shrine behind them, slowed their pace, and well into the nighttime came upon a line of hills, soft and round like breasts. The grassy mounds invited appalons to graze upon their gentle slopes and rest. The ghostly Yara pointed there and signed.

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Allies. Harrence knew the place she meant, how far it was, how many men were there.

When Harrence passed the information on, Ma'Tocha looked suspiciously well pleased. She took the lead and guided them between the hills and to the camp, and rode through their watch lines without comment. There was a full-strength cadre there, three disciples and twelve bulwarks, thirty appalons picketed nearby, and two handlers for the animals.

Something good was cooking, roasting meat full of southern spice and other smells that Harrence couldn't name. The cadre traveled far to get there and brought with them all the foreign places they had been. Camping cold was normal practice in unfriendly territory: A fire's light would have betrayed them. This new group cooked with heat emanating from a metal box, thin enough to pack away and carry. The miracle device depended on practitioners to power it but there was no doubting its convenience.

Supposedly they'd never met, and yet Ma'Tocha and the other cadre's leader, Thalia, exchanged warm greetings. They started with the traditional. "We meet in the light," said one, and the other said, "Let's walk as sisters." Then they embraced each other like they were family, united after many months apart. They must have met before, On The Wind (as they liked to say), and spent time together that way.

Thalia was very young, at most a middling twenty-five, yet her command of others was sure: they looked to her for direction, even though most of them were older, soldiers and guardsmen mostly, plus one that might have been Kashmari, judging by the color over his eyes and on his lips. If Harrence had felt like talking he might have blurted something awkward, but his long silence saved him. He soon would learn that confusing a Calique with Kashmari was the gravest insult.

"And you must be Harrence." Sister Thalia had a bit of a snout and clever pointed ears, strong beast traits marking her for leadership. Harrence offered her the Nexus bow that he had learned, a hand over his heart, a slight tipping from the waist, his eyes never leaving hers.

"He isn't speaking much," his disciple told the newcomer. "He's still recovering from depletion."

"Then this is a perfect time. I can start with him when the sun is up. Does he know?"

"Not yet." Ma'Tocha turned to Harrence. "Thalia is here to train you in some basics. You don't have to, but I think it's for the best."

Me? He signed. By which he meant, "did she bring all of this out here just for me?"

"There's more than one mission afoot. Nexus isn't asking you to become a disciple, not unless that's a path you choose. But whatever you've been doing lately, you're doing with the help of spirit. Training will open doors to new techniques, and strengthen you in preparation to hunt the last defender. Don't worry," she nearly laughed at him, "it doesn't hurt. It's not at all like the weapon drills I put you through."

"Sensing spirit and controlling it directly used to be very hard, very advanced stuff," Thalia explained, "and only veterans like Ma'Tocha could do it. But Nexus teaches those skills as foundational, with equipment I've brought along. What's his range, now?" The question was aimed at Ma'Tocha.

"He spotted you eleven kilometers away."

"Impressive. Let's try to make it twenty," said Thalia with ambition.

After dinner cooked on miracle stoves, they had another miracle. Thalia produced a bowl-shaped piece of wood. "It's just a dress rehearsal," she explained, which was no explanation at all. "Eldest Brother wants the show to run without any problems." The other cadres seemed to know what was coming, as did Ma'Tocha. But Harrence, Dash, Marlowe, and Callie had no clue.

And then the choir started. Hymns he knew from childhood but sung in ways he'd never heard before, by voices trained for grand basilicas to sing for lords and kings in silken finery, and masses gathered for grand religious holidays in Unity City, issued from the oddly-shaped instrument in front of him. More than music filled him, awe and wonder and something else, a meal he was starved for, craving with a part of himself he hadn't known existed.

It wasn't just the music. There was a sermon about scripture and lessons that could be drawn from it, given by a priest who was a gifted orator. Then, there was more music, followed by news of current events. The reader took them all over Tenobre and everything that Nexus disciples were doing while always being hunted by forces paid (or threatened) by Enclave. Dace was mentioned too, and Enclave's outrages there.

Harrence had taken his girls into a larger town a few times for big market days, and to see how other people lived. It had been their idea, not his, but the three of them had been captivated by the staged reviews of groups of entertainers. That's what this was, but the acts were better, and people would flock to it. Every hamlet would want a sounding board.

After all the miracles were over Harrence bedded down with Marlowe again, separate from the others, an increasing recurrence. He felt substantial that night, almost real, in a way he hadn't for a while. It happened while she was making herself comfortable against him, and draped his arm over her shoulder just so: he found his voice.

"Thank you." They held hands until they fell asleep.