Pashtuk People

A cadre of disciples, working for nearly a week, had entirely remade the Pashtuk camp. The center was still dominated by spacious round tents made from insulating layers of cloth and rough coir fiber. Those were the homes of Doyenne Yalda and other important figures, meeting spaces, and group work areas. The interior of the circle was a gathering area paved in compressed earth, featuring a new well.

A sprouting garden surrounded the tents: shade trees with an under-crop of melons and other fast-growing plants that, with encouragement from visiting disciples, would fruit within a few weeks. Here and there among the garden were rounded mounds, the same width as the big tents but only waist high, clustered in groups. The Pashtuk gardeners took advantage of the new contours in the land to vary their plantings, putting sun-hungry types on south-facing slopes, and more shy plants on the north.

Beneath the humps were living quarters for most of the refugees. Each was the size of the great central tents, lined with stone, and housed a half-dozen people. Clever vents connected to discrete chimneys kept the rooms supplied with fresh air. Entrance to the underground spaces was by a stairwell to a common area shared by three such dwellings, and a shared well. Light was supplied by magic lanterns suspended from the peak of their domed ceilings, each one featuring an orb of quartz that shed soft light into the stone-lined spaces. These were not the spirit lamps so common inside Nexus but inscripted devices, powered by pea-sized spirit stones. One red stone could keep a lamp lit for weeks and could be recharged by a disciple in a few seconds.

It wasn't what the Pashtuk were used to, and it wasn't a proper garden, but they were protected from the elements and had easy access to water. It was a lot better than their lot a week ago.

Thalia showed Taylor and Anisca the subterranean houses with pride. "Lector Manu already had us experimenting with underground spaces, for Anisca's growing rooms. Given the issues with tunneling any further into Red Tower, we've been building them in the nearby desert." The issue she avoided talking about was the ancient installation buried in the center of their mesa. "We did a few trial runs the first day, talked to local gardeners and builders, and together we came up with this."

Everywhere they went, people paid their respects to Anisca and Thalia. As far as the Pashtuk were concerned, they were the ranking people of Red Tower. Taylor was glad to see Nexus get some acceptance from Calique, even if it was the most desperate among them, but it irked him to get none of the credit for anything. Iraj and his little band of hunters were the only ones to acknowledge him, silently, by signing their thanks to him when others weren't looking.

By the time they headed for the central tents, his mood was soured.

Just as Dagono wouldn't face any repercussions for how it dealt with Nexus, Pashtuk was free to strike their own deal with them. The doyenne's tent was tolerable despite the day's burgeoning heat. They found Yara inside with two tablas and two children to run errands, leaving generous space for visitors. She looked tired.

The women touched hands and sat near each other, leaving Taylor to sit quietly next to Anisca, with his guards in the background. He tried to view the proceedings with meditative stillness, as part of the scenery to be observed without letting it snag on his impatience or that other emotion lurking inside of him. (Was it jealousy? Was it grievance?)

"It's good to see you again, Wise Yalda," said Anisca, "you're looking better." Taylor hadn't known the old woman had been ill.

"Your healer is quite good. She seems to know these old bones as well as I do. Thank you for sending her along. Now, what can this poor doyenne do for you?"

"Dagono's circle won't honor their promises with us, so we're moving on. We wanted to check on your situation, and ask your advice; and a favor."

"Why ask, when you have the power to take whatever you will? I'm just an old woman squatting in the wild. The desert belongs to the strongest, not to those of good council."

"We must be excessively naive," Anisca responded with a slight smile. "First we thought Dagono would bargain in good faith. Then we assumed a doyenne would care about the fate of her people, no matter where they went, garden or no garden. We are getting quite the education today."

"Pay this crone no mind, pretty Anisca: we doyenne are a conservative lot. Take away our gardens and we're nothing. We see our people living in strange homes, under the garden instead of around it, lit by strange lights, and we wish for the flimsiest of tents. We weep to receive our daughters and distrust the hand that freed them. We eat the gifts and begrudge the givers."

"This place is only temporary," Anisca assured her, "until Darkmaw is killed. Then you can return to your rightful garden. But that project would be done sooner if you lifted the taboo on your hunters. Let them tell us what they know about the creature."

"You ask for the one thing I cannot do. It was decided by a circle of all the gardens. If the day ever comes when we rest in the shade of our own garden, you are welcome to live with us: keep a chapter house, as you call it, and let your people mingle with ours. This I promise, with my successors as witnesses. But I cannot lift the taboo. To do so would send us the way of Lobat, whose garden you now inhabit. Dissolution. My people would be scattered to other gardens, our wells filled, our walls torn down, our garden burned. I would be exiled. Understand?

"Please ask me for something else, something I can give. Anything."

Every garden was responsible for itself above all else, but Pashtuk had been living by charity for months. The disciples' many gifts had further indebted Yalda beyond all hope of repayment. And then Anisca had added to that debt by the generous way she handled the Satomen's spoils. Call it pride or call it shame, but Yalda was desperate to return even a small part of that debt.

Anisca motioned Taylor to speak.

"Wise Yalda, we would like to borrow some of your people to help us establish Red Tower. This should help us both: we get the help we need, and reducing your numbers will stretch the gifts from Dagono."

"You have the power to take whatever people you will, little maul. Why come to a useless doyenne without a garden?"

"We would still like your advice on who to take with us, and your willing cooperation."

"How do you know our advice is sound? Or friendly?"

"If you abuse us in these discussions, we'll know the kind of people who are in Pashtuk's circle, and we will treat you accordingly in the future. Or not at all." Taylor wouldn't murder the lot of them wholesale, but he could avoid dealing with them.

"Goodness!" The doyenne fanned herself vigorously with a triangle of woven leaves, "When this one speaks I feel a knife in my throat!"

"He's frustrated today," Anisca explained for him, "and he's terrible at hiding his emotions. But you can trust his good intentions. We see this as a way to improve our situation at Red Tower while protecting innocent people. Don't bother to ask why," she said with a sigh, "it's just the way true disciples are."

The doyenne grunted and wiped the sweat from her face. "Under the circumstances, I have no choice but to offer whomever you want, young or old, male or female."

Taylor was annoyed by the doyenne's recurring claim she had no control over the situation, even while she had a great amount of influence with her people. Yet Anisca let the repetition pass unremarked.

Taylor continued, "First, we would like to test your people for talent with the spiritual arts. If we find any good candidates, we'll invite them and their families to live at Red Tower permanently."

"And if they do not agree to follow you?"

"Then they don't follow. We can't make someone a disciple against their will. Next, we would like at least one woman trained in the circle's tabulations. We have our own ways of planning, but we'd like to incorporate calique techniques. The next priority is gardeners, followed by hunters who are willing to train as bulwarks. They will be key to killing Darkmaw."

Yalda looked at him thoughtfully. "You still plan to hunt that creature, even after Dagono's deception? And without the taboo being lifted?"

"The Pashtuk need their home back, don't they? And so do the Salujan. People are suffering, and Nexus is in a position to help. Besides, we have our own reasons to kill it."

"You want to prove your superiority, and rub Enclave's nose in it," accused the old woman, pleased to have figured him out, "isn't that it?"

"Something like that," he agreed. Indeed, it was exactly that. "We're willing to take families, provided there are two able bodies for each one too old or young to work. As the garden grows, we can take more people. But our ultimate goal is to kill Darkmaw, return the desert to the Calique, and let the Pashtuk return to Pashtuk."

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"We don't have any hunters to spare, just a few spears and their teams for the four hundred of us. Most were lost defending our retreat. Many of our old were lost, too. There might not be enough Pashtuk left alive to restore the garden. But that is our problem. You can do as you like with the people we have."

Taylor and Anisca spent the rest of the day interviewing people and talking to Red Tower through the administrative link. During a brief lull, while none of the Calique were around, Taylor asked, "Why is she being like that?"

"Imagine her position. Any garden would do its best to feed Calique from another garden, but none of them would do what you've done, risking lives to retrieve a few women and returning pillages spoils. They're as good as a client state to Nexus now." Anisca looked proud of that accomplishment, and her role in it. "So here you come again, asking for some people, what's she supposed to say?"

"She's supposed to say yes, because it helps both of us?"

"A garden's doyenne is supposed to send you away. She's supposed to reject the outsider's insane request to borrow Calique to build a garden for people who aren't even Calique. She's supposed to turn her back on you and let Nexus brave the desert alone. And someday, if you live to see Sand Castle restored, you might get some minor concessions after the doyenne speaks in your favor. That's what a garden's doyenne is supposed to do."

"But we're not in a garden," said Taylor, catching on, "and a doyenne without a garden isn't a doyenne. We're in the desert, where anything goes. Satomen can capture women, Nexus can re-capture them in a bloody raid. Pashtuk can set up a tent city, or Nexus can build houses underground. Nexus can recruit Calique and nobody can complain because it happens in the desert."

Anisca held up a warning finger. "She's also previewing what will happen if this ends badly: She'll put all the blame on you, for strong-arming her into giving up her people."

That night a strange procession left the Pashtuk refugee camp, bound for Lobat's Tears. Taylor and his usual company were followed by Thalia's cadre and forty people on foot pushing carts or leading appalons laden with their few worldly possessions. A few of them rode the remaining appalons with children too small to walk the distance. Taylor hadn't found any hunters willing to join him, not even Iraj, as Pashtuk had so few of them left. But he got more tablas and gardeners than expected, and also got some tradespeople.

But the real prize of the day shared Ben's saddle with him, held in place by Taylor's arms: Vafra, an orphan who showed good potential. When light from a fragment of sun touched the boy, he lit up like a signal fire. Darkmaw had killed his father and then his mother had died during the escape from Pashtuk. His brothers were unaccounted for, lost in an attempt to scout the remains of Sand Castle. He was only eight years old, with soft white mouse-like ears that tickled Taylor's chin as they rode.

There had been no one to speak for the boy. The other refugees were feeding him enough to keep him on his feet, but little more than that. A boy that young wasn't large enough to do a man's work, yet he still had to be fed. If it came down to an unthinkable choice, Pashtuk would starve him to feed the girls.

To Taylor, he was a gem. A stroke of luck. Not one person in five thousand held so much promise, and many turned down the call. Getting a talented child of seven or eight, orphaned in dire need, was nearly perfect. Vafra's hunger for food and family made him easy to recruit.

"If you could be powerful, what would you do?" he had asked Vafra.

"I would hunt the monsters and I would make lots of food, so nobody had to starve!"

"I can make that happen. At Nexus we can teach you not only to be strong but to make others strong, so they can fight with you. We can teach you to heal people who are hurt, purify water, and all kinds of other things. It takes a lot of studying and a lot of practice. It's a different kind of garden than you're used to, but you will have many brothers and sisters in this new family. Many teachers, too. Are you interested?"

Before Vafra could answer, Taylor held out a pink and yellow striped melon as big as the young boy's head. Vafra grabbed the melon and his future with both hands.

"Sit up straight, and hold Ben with your legs, Vafra."

"I'm sorry Lector!"

"You don't have to apologize, just correct. We will have to repeat this many times before you learn completely. Even I forget sometimes."

"Do you have a teacher who reminds you?"

"Magnificent Ben reminds me." The appalon raised its trunk and gave a soft blow when he heard his name.

"If he doesn't, I do," added Inez, who rode beside them. "And if he ignores me, I give him a little tap with the stick. Like so." Inez tapped Vafra's lax thighs with a thin strip of wood, barely hard enough to sting, and the boy gripped Ben tighter. "See?"

They rode for a while, listening to the soft whump of appalons' feet, the churn of wheels, and the plod of walkers behind them. Nobody tired because Taylor had given them enhanced endurance for the night's journey.

"Something is bothering you Vafra. Speak up!" He jostled the younger boy playfully.

"There is no water at Lobat's Tears. What will we drink?"

"We'll drink water, of course. We made sure of that as soon as we set foot there, by opening all the wells. It used to be a nice garden, you know. Can you tell me what happened to make the water dry up?"

"The people who lived there used too much water and the wells dried up. Lobat was maul there, and he got angry with the god Olyon. He demanded more water. He dug and he dug, but all he found was sand. He kept digging and digging until he hit the rock at the bottom of the world. Still no water. Then he cursed at Olyon, who sent fire to burn down the garden. The people of his garden were so mad at him that they left to live in other gardens. The doyennes abandoned him. He was a maul without anything to protect and died in the desert, alone."

"That's a very interesting story. It's different from the one I heard."

"What did you hear, Lector Phillip?"

"I heard a disciple of Enclave was sent to hunt bothersome monsters in the area. When they came to the garden, Maul Lobat refused to shelter the disciple and his people. Enclave believes they represent God, so this refusal was taken as a religious insult. They argued, and Maul Lobat attacked the disciple. The disciple won that fight, of course. To punish Lobat, the church sealed his wells. And that was the end of Lobat's garden."

"So which one is true?"

"That's a good question. They can't both be completely true. I wonder how we can decide which parts of the stories are probably true, and which ones are probably made up, or just one-sided?" Taylor let the boy chew on the problem.

There was only one incident during the hike when advance riders spied a large trapdoor spider. "It's just as Amadis said," Milo told them, "the trap is easy to spot if you know what to look for. It's two meters wide."

Otavio was quick to volunteer. "Allow me, Young Master!"

Taylor barely suppressed his grin. "You just want to wrestle it, don't you?"

"And you don't?"

In truth, Taylor did not.

"Go ahead. Alice, you can go with him because I know you want to watch." The woman beamed. "Take a few more bulwark and some Calique with you. I want them to see what bulwarks can do."

When its lair was surrounded the spider sprang from its hiding place underground, faster than most people could react, expecting to sink its fangs into a juicy human or maybe an appalon, poison it, and drag its prey into its den. It got Otavio instead. The large man seized the monster by a fang in one hand, and a leg in the other and used its momentum to yank it fully out of its hole. He flipped the thing over his head and slammed it onto the ground with a cracking sound. Urged on by Otavio's heroic feat, the other bulwarks drove their spears into the monster.

"Maul Phillip!" called one of the Calique, a cook. "Give us time to harvest the spider!"

"Is there anything useful in it? I'm not familiar with these."

"The body is too poisonous to eat, but the legs are excellent." He gave a sidelong glance at the marchers, who in turn were eyeing the spider's plump (albeit hairy) legs. "And the poison is used to make medicine. We don't have herbalists with us, but you could trade the venom with Dagono."

"All right," agreed Taylor, "let's break here. Show me how to break this monster down."

The cook and a helper skillfully separated the legs from the body, and the meat from the legs. Taylor observed this process, and how they drew poison from the dead creature's fangs into a glazed jug. They sealed it with wax and stored it carefully as community property.

Taylor shaped the earth to form a stove. One of the immigrating families had hauled a large copper pot with them, all the way from Pashtuk. They proudly placed it on the stove. The meat went in the pot with herbs, disciple-purified water, and a generous amount of appalon milk fresh from the pack animals.

After the body was denuded of its useful parts it had to be moved away from the road. Alice took a firm grip on the monster, spun around twice, and flung it more than a hundred meters.

"Is this the disciple's power?" asked one Calique.

"Partly," said Alice with pride, "but it takes skill to use a disciple's enhancements well. Otavio and I are still new to this. We aren't nearly as strong as Inez, or the cousins."

"This is why the maul is so confident he can kill Darkmaw," said another, "it isn't only the disciple who is strong."

Alice beamed brighter. "Of course! Any who wants this strength will have to practice so it doesn't destroy them. Any hunter who survived Darkmaw's attacks should be eager to learn."

Soon bowls of hot spider leg chowder were passed around, topped with a pad of appalon butter. Taylor knew from his few days in Dagona what his role was. Once everyone had a bowl in hand he told them, "It smells good. Let's eat!" The marchers cheered and dug in. Most people got seconds, the children had thirds, and soon the pot was empty. His new villagers talked excitedly after that, and they even took the opportunity to ask him questions.

Thus cheered, the families picked up their burdens and continued the journey.

Dahabia came to visit Taylor after Vafra had fallen asleep. She shared her saddle with the cook's child, a girl who was even younger than Vafra.

"You carry him like he's your little brother."

"He is. Or he will be when his training has reached a certain stage." He could feel the boy breathing, boneless in his arms. "He's had a tough run lately, and he's about to be dumped into a strange environment. He deserves his sleep."

"Do you think us cruel for letting him go hungry?"

"If there was enough food, would you have fed him?"

"Of course." Dahabia looked offended that he would even ask. She wasn't over-fed by any means; none of the Pashtuk were. But the boys and the older men bore the brunt of the food shortage.

"I'd say your people aren't cruel, but they had to make cruel choices. Someone had to be singled out. It's not nice, but sometimes that's the way things are. Vafra's part of Nexus now. You don't have to fear for him."

Taylor thought of all the things he wouldn't be able to do for Vafra personally. In the past, he would have been the first to introduce a young student to the room of mirrors where he would learn to sense and control spirit. He would have taught the first exercises and the first prayers. Now there were other people to guide candidates in their early steps. He might not see Vafra again until he was ready to tackle the most difficult prayers or learn advanced techniques.

"Shall we continue our game?"

"I don't know. Last time we played, you fell asleep. It might be too boring to play again."

"You can't hold that against me! After the week I had!"

"I guess you have a good excuse."

"That's very big of you. Why don't you go first, since you're being so generous."

Taylor told her about the time he met a strange appalon in the woods, wrestled it and lost, then took it on adventures with him.