Night Work

They went south, pulled onward by a string of beaded amethyst enchanted by a prayer of divination, Taylor and his group of four: his three bulwarks and Iraj. The moons had yet to rise but as the night was clear the light of stars was enough to guide them. Heat bled off the ground into their feet and faces.

When they had passed the mischus and the crater's edge, Mila took a compass read along the necklace's heading. She turned and paced a good one hundred meters to the left, read the divination's pull again, and paced another seven hundred, then read a third time. From degrees of difference and a chart of sines, she estimated twenty-five kilometers.

"That's a handy skill," said Iraj, "I know what's there. A wadi and abandoned mines. It's a good place to hide."

Taylor built up layers of enhancements for travel: endurance, speed, protection, starlight vision, and a little strength. These went onto appalons and riders alike. Since Iraj was with them, and he was unaccustomed to the blessings, and his appalon was similarly untrained, Taylor kept the blessings weak. Too much could tear a man to pieces, petrify him, blind him, or shatter organs to cause his death before a healer knew to save him.

Their trip was eased by Iraj's skill: he knew the desert in these parts and kept them on the easy ground where appalons could keep good pace. They passed between the cooling ground and coldly gazing stars until the second moon's first arc peeked up from the east horizon. He stopped beside a row of three gray boulders. "We are getting close now. The land there rises, just a little, and then the wadi is below it. We can ride and come up on them quickly, and hope for the best. Or we can go by foot and maybe see without being seen."

Mila made her triangle again, confirming they were less than a klick away from the owner of the necklace.

"Tell me about the mines," commanded Taylor.

"Where wadis run they sometimes turn a bend around a different kind of rock, harder than what the desert's made of. Gray stone, thrust up from the world's bones. There's good clay between the gray bones and the red earth. And sometimes we find gems there, too. The mines are never deep. They're dug straight into the riverbank until the clay runs out, and sometimes down, as far as ten meters. We dig out all the clay we can, and any gems we find are sold to merchants. A few mines produced great jewels once, but that was generations past. These days all we find are tiny crystals. There are a few such mines along this stretch of the wadi.

"We'll go on foot," decided Taylor, "using Overlook." They had to teach the hunter about the prayer, what it did, and its strictures. Most importantly, he must stay close to his host, and the cadre must not wander too near to the Satomen, should they find some. The appalons were left behind, kneeling in the moonshadow of the rocks.

They padded forward silently, raising little dust, the five of them in a line with Taylor in the middle. They could see each other but an enemy would only know the footprints left behind them. Iraj stopped them with a hunter's sign, two men ahead, and where he pointed there appeared to be two rocks lying on the ground. The rocks were at a place where land gave way in a sudden crease, as if the old forgotten god Morufu had run His god-sized fingernail along the desert and carved a narrow trench.

A second look confirmed the rocks moved restlessly, and whispered to each other.

"I'm sleepy," said the left head.

"Don't sleep," said the right.

"I won't! I just said that I was sleepy."

"I heard you the first time. If you fall asleep on watch again Koroush will bury you."

"Go get something to eat and bring it back," demanded left-head, "I'll stay awake if I know food is coming."

"You've had your share and then some. That's why you're sleepy, you glutton! I'd get back and find you snoring."

Iraj drew his knife but Inez stopped him and looked to Taylor for direction.

Around, he signed. Obediently Iraj turned aside to avoid the sentries. Once they gained some distance from the watchmen they walked along the wadi's edge to look down on Satoma's camp. Fifty men were sleeping in the open, without fires, their appalons picketed along one side. The expected mine was at one end of the camp and easily identified, guarded as it was by several men.

This presented a problem. Overlook had an area of effect, and anyone within it could see each other. He'd have to pass directly by the sentries, with the blessing wrapped around himself as close as clothing. That was the surest way to get inside without a fight.

Lay down out of sight, Taylor signed, I'll sneak in to look. He raised all their enhancements to combat level (all except Iraj) and blessed their weapons.

If they detect you, signed Inez, we'll draw them off and face them here on higher ground.

"Let me go with you!" Iraj whispered urgently.

Be silent, signed the disciple, Be still. If girls are there and want to leave, you will fight. Be content.

Taylor crept away and disappeared, took his sword and shield with him but left his spear. A careful observer would note the footprints, or a slight disturbance of soil in the dry riverbank before all traces of him completely vanished. The Satomen had been camped a while, and whatever plants and shrubs had grown on the wadi floor were trampled flat or eaten down by their mounts, and only hard-packed ground remained. There was no trace of the disciple's passing there, not even when he entered the mine.

It was less a mine and more a cleft, following the contours of a boulder that had, in some past eon, collected layers of clay meters thick before it found itself buried in the sediments of the desert. At first the cleft angled up, until the top of the dig was open to the sky, and then it dove down as diggers followed the seam of clay, into total darkness. Well past the sentries at that point, Taylor traded Overlook for a privacy zone around himself, and used a spirit lamp, a clever housing for a bead of quartz which he blessed with light. It shined with a pleasing whiteness that stopped at the edge of his privacy barrier. If he stumbled on a sentry now he'd have to deal with them quickly. But, he could see again.

The mine ended all at once, stopping where the clay had ended. The final chamber had insufficient ventilation and the stench of people living with inadequate sanitation. Iraj had said Pashtuk was missing four young women but Taylor counted nine, sleeping heaped together in a tangle of dirty clothes and naked limbs, mottled black and green under his light. Later, he'd be unable to recall precisely what had caused him to abandon his habitual restraint. His clearest memory would be the one girl with leporid ears and golden irises, the first to startle awake in his light. Traces of Pashtuk's colors rimmed her eyes.

"Do you want to leave this place, or do you want to stay?"

Her voice belied her body's beaten state, "If I said we want to leave, what would be your price?"

He felt his spirit rising, throbbing in his hands and heart, crowding out all other feelings.

"The lives of fifty Satomen," he said.

"You can't!" another whispered desperately. "They'll punish us. Just agree to marry one and it'll all be over!"

"I'd rather die here," spat the brave one. "Ignore her, she's afraid. I don't know your colors. What garden are you from?"

"Red Tower. You know it as Lobat's Tears." Taylor put the lantern on the ground, to give them light while he was away. "Say the word, and I'll take you out of here, return you to your people."

Several of the forms stirred, but not all of them. Some were underdressed, their clothes falling apart. They had been captive for a long time. He kept his focus on the woman with the tall ears, on her golden eyes undaunted in a room of pain and fear.

"If you're strong enough, free us." Several other voices joined her. "Free us," they said, "get us out of here," and "what kind of question is that?"

He flew as if released from the falconer's glove. Taylor's body had no weight but contained all the motion in the world, passing over ground in zigs and zags, blurring the cracked earth beneath him. His shield was made of unyielding will, his sword an edge without mass. The desert came alive in his vision's silver fire, the sky turned bright to expose every sleeping form and tethered appalon, hearts and nerves shining, lives breathing in and out of them in puffs.

Sentries first. That was the way. He plotted his body's course to pass through the mine's guards, and intercept the few Satomen who moved nearby. In his passing things were severed: armor, limbs, and lives. They made no noises in their dying, but in their falling they were a racket. Enough to wake their fellows, who stirred in bedrolls without yet knowing death was loose among them.

Somewhere, far away, he heard Inez's voice trying to call him back, but it was too late. He was a monster hunter, and here there were monsters. Murderers. Marauders. Rapists. This world should have no use for them. Wherever one of them stirred, Taylor moved and severed, moved and severed again. There was no leather that could turn his edge, no bronze plate he couldn't pierce, no spear he couldn't shatter.

Slingstones came down from the wadi's edge, tearing air and pulverizing flesh, throwing the camp into even greater disarray. Then Inez was near him, and the cousins too, struggling to pace him, to clear his flanks, but they were too slow for the embodiment of velocity he had become. He punched with the rim of his shield, clubbed with the pommel of his sword, crushed knees with his feet, and all the while his sword was severing. As survivors massed together, Taylor thought of Clarion's Call. Lightning answered him, inhabited his blade, cracked and crackled, split the night in searing violence, and struck a dozen Satomen. Living men became smoking corpses, still balanced on their feet until gravity took over.

The rage ended as suddenly as it had begun, in a field of shattered corpses. The wadi drank their blood and moisture greedily, leaving them dry. Taylor cleaned his sword with silent prayer and sheathed it.

There were three survivors, brought cowering before him, no doubt begging for their lives but Taylor could not understand them. All their words were lost in the bestial sounds they made, not human anymore. If they deserved a mercy, it was the mercy shown to monsters. His followers stood near them.

"Kill them." The voice was not like his own, a dire and condemning thing fit for judges and fearsome kings. Three bloody spears were raised and then descended, ending three unwanted lives.

The last of his strange glow faded. His blood cooled, and the throbbing in his body stilled. His arms went lax. Cold air soothed his lungs. He had marks on him, places where weapons had touched his armor and he hadn't minded. There was a scar, brand new, on his leg where he'd been cut and healed himself. He remembered running heedless through a hunter's spear, so fast the head had bent and the shaft had splintered in the wielder's hand. Apparently, a disciple could impale himself on the weapons of others if he wasn't careful. He'd have to remember that.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

While Taylor was occupied with his post-adrenal calm, Inez put Iraj and the cousins to work, cleaning the battlefield. Bodies had to be searched and gathered, valuables taken. There was no intelligence to be gained from the dead men, as they couldn't speak and Calique didn't carry written orders. Everything of importance was always memorized. Taylor enchanted stones for them to see by, and scattered them around the camp.

Inez looked at Taylor, and then the cave. "Do you want to talk to them? You can send Mila if you're not up to it."

He didn't want to talk to them. He didn't want to see their shame or their hopeless faces. But he had a responsibility here. At the very least, they should know they were free to leave.

"Go gently," Inez reminded him.

Going into the mine, he encountered the women coming out, led by the gold-eyed one holding his lantern. They were moving slowly, supported by each other.

"It's done."

"I saw," she said.

"You're free." He didn't know what else to say. Instead, he stood there blocking their path. They looked rough, and needed healing. "They have a lot of food just ahead. You should eat, and then I'll heal you. With your consent. It'll make the journey a lot easier." He left them without waiting for a response. A man offering to touch them wasn't welcome.

When he left the mine he spied Iraj preparing the appalons for travel. A few of the beasts, loyal to their dead masters, refused his hand and ganged up on him, bowled him over, clambered up the bank, and escaped into the moonlit desert. The women mobbed the stack of supplies while Iraj worked on, more concerned with capturing mounts than rescuing women.

"Young Master, can I have a word?" Inez pulled him aside and he followed her, away from everything, until they were beyond the edge of the camp.

"Are you about to tell me I shouldn't have killed all those men?"

The former royal guard was surprised by his question. "This is our home now, and those men were a stain on it. Everyone is better off without them."

"What is it, then?"

"You're a righteous man, Young Master. It's why I serve you. But a commander can't let his emotions drive him, even when his cause is righteous. You can't afford to lose your head, go berzerk like that. It may be fine for front-line bulwarks whose job it is to fight, but not for you. Soon, you will have hundreds of disciples at your command, and thousands of others who will do your bidding, without question, in a nation that crosses all borders. You have to keep your head, always: even when injustice mocks you; even when your heart cries out righteousness; even when the pain of others hurts you; even when your hand would fly of its own accord. Your head must decide when and how to act, not your heart."

Taylor, tired as he was from the previous twenty-four hours, didn't want to have this conversation now. But neither could he find a reason to refute her, and no amount of sleep would change that. He had lost his mind, had killed men in a fury, and left his followers behind. Even if it was righteous, it was still stupid. The Guidebook expressly warned about leaving one's bulwark behind. It was fine for sneaking in and out, but engagements should only happen with bulwarks at one's side.

"This isn't what I wanted when I became a disciple." His voice sounded dull, even to him. "I just wanted to help some people. Everything's gotten so out of hand. The fate of everything shouldn't be on my shoulders."

"If things were fair, you'd have more time to grow up," Inez agreed, "you'd have more time to make mistakes while stakes were low. But this is where we are."

"And here we are." Taylor felt wrung out, like all the energies and enthusiasms that kept him going had gone missing. He needed to sleep. "Thank you, Inez. It takes a good follower to tell their disciple something he doesn't want to hear."

She knelt before him, took his hand in hers and placed it on her head: an ancient gesture of fealty in this world. "It's my wish to die in your service, if you'll have me. I'll be your fury's hand when you need it, and I swear I'll never lie to you."

She was the second to pledge herself like this. He had half-expected it, but why was she doing this now? Such displays of devotion wore on him, piled new obligations on top of old ones, but they came from people he could trust to carry out his will. Inez had earned her place.

"I accept your service, Inez of Lavradio. I pledge in turn to be a disciple you can serve in good conscience. My hope is you'll live a long time yet. Long enough to teach my children as you have me."

The two of them returned to camp in silence. There they found a woman, the same one who spoke of submission earlier, kicking the corpse of one Satoman in particular. She must have been at it for a while because she was out of breath and she grunted imprecations with every kick. "Liar! Viper! Evil! Shit!" The other women watched from a safe distance.

Taylor stood next to the gold-eyed Pashtuk woman. "Should I be doing something about this? Should I say something to her?"

"No. This is women's work." They watched her kick the corpse several more times. "She liked him. She trusted him. She let him steal her away without telling her parents and he brought her to this … place." The kicking woman, finally spent, collapsed on her knees and wept.

"I'm Dahabia, by the way."

"Phillip." He pointed at all the various goods the Satomen had laid against the wadi's bank, and stuffed into the first section of the mine. "What do you make of all of that?"

"They've been plundering the abandoned gardens. They claim they've been hunting the monsters so the doyennes will give them food, but they spend more time plundering than hunting. It's still risky. Some of them have died."

Taylor took special note of the plural. "What kind of monsters?"

"It's forbidden to speak of it." Seeing the frustration on Taylor's face, Dahabia looked ashamed. "I'm sorry. I don't understand why the doyennes forbade it, but they did. And being discarded by my own people would be worse than death. You understand, don't you?"

Taylor thought of Emristar and the family he would never see again, of the music and the movies and all the food. There were days he ached to hear his native language. And air conditioning. He missed air conditioning every day since coming to the desert.

"Yes. I understand."

"What are you going to do with all of this? It doesn't belong to Pashtuk or Saluja anymore."

"I guess we're going to take it, since we have enough animals to carry it. We'll give some back to Pashtuk, but I want to keep most of the appalons. Water and mischus are the two things we have a lot of right now."

Someone would have to take an inventory, and then dole out the goods without incurring too many hurt feelings. Taylor didn't want to think about it. He could, in theory, use the windfall to gather goodwill, but that would take a defter hand than his. Then again …"

"You're smiling, and not in a nice way."

"I just remembered I have a doyenne who would love this opportunity to gather a little gratitude. It's going to take forever to pack it all up, though."

"Also women's work. You did your share tonight. Let us do ours."

"We have until Silenz is this high up, and then we have to leave." Taylor pointed with his arm. "Any later, and the sun will catch us traveling."

After the women were fed and cloaks were found for them among the Satomen's plunder, food and goods were piled on appalons, and everyone was mounted, Taylor folded the land under the heap of corpses. In moments all the bodies of Satoma's men were buried. If anyone were to visit the site they'd find an empty camp, hastily abandoned.

❖ ❖ ❖

"Who's on the link?"

"Otavio here. Where are you?"

"We're on our way back. We should be there close to sunrise. When Anisca wakes up, I need you to give her a message. You'd better write it down because it's a lot."

"Why do you sound so happy?"

❖ ❖ ❖

The only sleep Taylor had that night was two hours in the saddle. He and Milo slept on their plodding appalons while Inez and Mila kept watch, then switched. The fifty mounts, most of them laden with either people or goods, were enhanced enough to reach Pashtuk's camp before dawn. That, plus the enhanced bulwark, was enough to keep Taylor drained of spirit. It was good practice for him, but it left him feeling groggy.

Dahabia had taken leadership of the rescued women and decided none of them should be exposed to Taylor, a strange and violent man from an unknown garden. Most of them fared poorly on the ride, being bruised and aching at the outset, as none had elected to be healed before setting out for home.

The Satomen's approach to courting was to starve the stolen women and hit them with riding whips until they chose a husband. One man would dole out the "discipline" while a succession of different men offered the women food and relief from their captivity. The beatings continued until love blossomed, or at least a semblance of it fair enough for the new husband. Their method had always worked so well with women they bought from Hyskos debt-slavers: most chose a man on the first day, and very few held out for more than three.

"They were so confused," recalled Dahabia with a pained laugh, "they honestly could not understand why they had to beat us so hard." Appalons didn't mind plodding shoulder-to-shoulder, and she took advantage of that to have a conversation with him. She kept looking at him expectantly, but Taylor didn't have a clue what she could want from him.

He caught a sign from Milo in the corner of his eye: Talk to her. Make friends!

"Dahabia is an interesting name," he reached for the easiest topic, "is it traditional in your garden?"

"Oh no you don't!" She laughed at him. "I'm ordinary. You're the strange one! You don't get to ask about me without telling me about yourself first. Where are you from?"

"That's pretty complicated." He grinned at her. "I'll trade you one for one, my bizarre origins for your merely exotic ones."

"You think I'm exotic?"

"You are to me. I'm not from around here, remember? It's a fairer trade than you think."

They talked for an hour, until Dahabia succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep in her saddle. Her mount kept should-to-shoulder with Ben, which let Taylor keep an eye on her. Not that she needed it: all Calique seemed capable of sleeping on the plod. Taylor's only intervention in Dahabia's rest was to put an extra cloak around her in the coldest hour of the night. In Lavradio the temperature would feel balmy, but compared to the day's brutal heat the night felt too cold to be comfortable.

Anisca was up before dawn, as was all the garden in that season, and on the link with Taylor as soon as she heard the news from Otavio.

"You sure know how to make extra work for someone."

"It wasn't intentional. We went looking for a few missing persons. That's all."

"And you're coming back with a parade of spoils. Thalia's cadre is showing up this morning too, at the Pashtuk camp. Can you meet us there?"

"We'll be coming from the south, using Overlook. Satoma is camped on the west end of the crater, and I don't want them to bother us."

"You surprise me. Why would you be afraid of them after last night?"

"I'm not, but it'd be hard to protect everyone and fifty mounts with just the three of us. They could harry us, if they were foolish enough. It's better not to be seen until we've arrived. Besides, I've killed enough people for one day."

"I'll have everyone together a little after dawn. See you then."

As they came near Dagono the caravan reformed, from a single long line into five lines walking abreast. It was easier for Taylor to use Overlook when they weren't spread out so far. They plodded like that for the final kilometers, to halt outside the Pashtuk camp just before dawn. They waited there, still hidden, for Anisca's welcome party.

Their camp was a century of tents in approximate concentric circles, set against the crater's base. The dawn had kicked up a fitful breeze and caused the more flimsy ones, shelters made of repurposed awning or whatever material a family could put together, to slack and billow by turns. The sturdier specimens, made of thick felted coir and other insulating layers, ignored the minor dust-up. People stirred in the camp, set out in groups armed with buckets to climb the crater's wall and down the other side to get water from Dagono's well. Others went into nearby mischus to collect the driest appalon dung to fuel the cooking fires. They moved without cheer, pushed along by their daily needs.

The mood changed when Anisca came over the crater wall, following the well-worn road that now connected Pashtuk's camp with Dagono's garden. Curious children were the first to encircle her and skip alongside her appalon. Otavio was with her, easy to recognize from a distance. She dismounted near Wise Yalda's tent and they greeted each other by touching their right hands together. While they spoke, a shout spread through the camp: visitors from the north had come. Thalia's cadre arrived, three disciples and six bulwark, laden with enough supplies for themselves not to be a burden while they worked to improve Pashtuk's lot. They had brought some other luggage too, at Taylor's request.

One of the bulwark, wearing the all-seeing enchanted goggles made by Nexus, looked their way and practically made eye contact with Taylor. He was grateful the man didn't point at them, and ruin the surprise. After all the greetings were finished, the doyenne and Anisca and a crowd of other people stood together and looked out at the desert.

"They really can't see us, can they?" asked Dahabia.

"Not usually, no. They could follow our footprints, or track us by the dust we raise, but we're invisible to them as long as they don't get too close."

The link came alive in Taylor's ear. "He's bringing your daughters home. Stay here but a minute, and they'll arrive."

"Ready everyone," Taylor told his caravan, "it's time to go home."

Anisca's voice was playful, pitched for the children who gathered near her, all of them peering into the desert. "In fact, you should see them. Right. About. Now."

Taylor dismissed Overlook with relief, and a gasp of astonishment went up from Pashtuk. They were not fifty yards distant. The shock wore off, and family members came running out to them, to welcome their daughters and sisters home. All the caravan knelt at once (almost, Iraj had issues with a few of the pack animals) and dismounted. Tears and kisses surrounded him, but the disciple contented himself with rubbing Ben's face and feeding him fruit out of his saddlebag. They had both worked hard the last couple of days.

Dahabia formed up her squad of young women and led them to stand before Anisca. They paid her reverence by pressing their palms together and touching their lips before doing the same for Doyenne Yalda.

"How do you like those coconuts, Ben? We do all the killing, and Anisca gets the credit." Ben grumbled and groaned in agreement. Or, he wanted more fruit.

"Get used to it, little maul." Iraj was similarly engaged with his mount, whom he seemed to know very well. "If men used spears for themselves, they'd be Satomen. Or worse, Kashmari. There are reasons we let our women rule us."

"Still. Just one of them could have said thank you."