Where A Man Is Freest

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," said a mournful Alice, "it doesn't feel right to walk all over them."

The cadre stood at Pashtuk's open gates, looking toward their gathering space. Bones were everywhere, disarticulated, scattered, and all too human. The smell wasn't pleasant either.

"No, it doesn't," whispered Iraj. His eyes ventured over the remains as if he could recognize the fallen. There were scraps of hair and clothing here and there but mostly what they saw were bones. Some of them were piled in areas discolored by the acidic digestives scorpions used to dissolve flesh so they could suck it up.

"We will go around," their guide decided. They moved along the wall to a section that was damaged, partially caved in like a siege engine had attacked the wall and punched through it. Rooms could be seen beneath the rubble, the occupants' few possessions scattered and crushed. Iraj seemed to know the area well, and led them on a climb to the top, then walked along the rooftops, crossing several houses. He stopped them at a roof tiled in mosaics of exotic flowers with a knee wall to prevent the occupants from falling into the desert. Taylor expected a trap door into the house below, but access was by a ladder on the garden side, down to a balcony.

They left two guards to watch over the appalons, grazing in the mischus, while Iraj invited the rest of them inside. It was his home, and though it was large enough for a family their party of thirteen over-filled it. There were no signs of anyone living there besides Iraj himself: no pictures or obvious keepsakes, hardly any furniture, one bedroom that looked lived in by a single person, and another that seemed untouched: nothing but a bare mattress and a few thin articles of bedding neatly folded.

Iraj, as host, organized a meal. He set Milo to firing the outdoor oven at the house next door and making tea, while he took a group into the garden. They soon returned, arms laden with a dozen kinds of foodstuff. Together with oil and grain from his cupboards, and with the willing help of two bulwarks, he set to making a small feast for them. Instead of sitting inside the house, the cadre chose to occupy some tables just inside the garden. The heat outside was rising fast, but underneath the garden's canopy the day would be bearable.

"The garden is in better shape than I had feared," Iraj said happily, "some damage, but nothing that our gardeners and a few seasons cannot fix."

Taylor and his two junior disciples accepted tea from Milo, beautifully brewed, in glazed earthenware that might have been imported by Iraj when he was guarding caravans. Otherwise, their table was left alone. Mahzad and Khali were looking confident after their first encounter with cursed monsters. And why shouldn't they?

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"We could go straight to Sand Castle and tackle Darkmaw," suggested Mahzad, with encouraging nods from Khali. They were eager to build on the day's success. Their confidence had soared, and the only person nearby to tell them 'no' was their Eldest Brother.

"Those were pretty minor, as far as cursed ones go. As monsters get larger, they get tougher at a geometric rate. Imagine a scorpion twice as long: it would absorb maybe eight times as much damage and have a shell that was four times the thickness. Darkmaw might be even bigger than that. Maybe three times as long. Maybe more? Don't assume we can kill her as easily as we did her children."

"Do you think she'll be angry at us?" Khali asked.

"I doubt she's that smart. Scorpions carry their children on their backs for a while, to feed and protect them, but I've never heard of them keeping a family bond after the juveniles leave. They were quick to turn on each other as soon as one was wounded."

"We could go to Saluja and clean it," Mahzad suggested. It was appealing, but something about the notion bothered Taylor. They could return the gardens to their respective people, but would it even matter with Darkmaw still alive? As soon as she was hungry enough she might leave her nest in Sand Castle and venture out again. And, if she was as large as Taylor feared, she would travel fast. Even enhanced appalons might not outrun her.

"Where do you think the father is?" Mahzad's innocent question brought part of Taylor's nebulous fears into focus. "If Darkmaw is the mother, is there another super-giant scorpion running around?"

"She might have a monstrous mate, or even a cursed one. Or, she might be fertilized by normal males. Lots of them. That's the way bifurdactica do it. Or, and I hate to even think this, she could be fertilizing herself. She might not need sperm at all. She's the only one of her kind and it's not unheard of for a species under stress to resort to parthenogenesis, sex changes, or hermaphroditism. It's rare but … in this case, it would be very bad. Usually, cursed monsters devolve when they breed, generation by generation. Or at least they have so far, that we know of. But if our mother of terrors is breeding by herself then she'll always breed true, probably, and all her children will be as cursed as she is. If we don't find and kill all the children, we could end up with a desert full of them."

Taylor was only talking to himself, but he was scaring the other disciples.

"I know we're supposed to play nice with the locals but," Khali's hands formed the sign for 'excuse me' while she spoke, "shouldn't you get someone to take a look at her anyway? The doyennes don't have to know."

"You know, maybe it doesn't matter if they know." Taylor was sick of tiptoeing around the unhelpful doyennes. And maybe they were sick of it, too. Publicly they would stick together, but privately they had different agendas. He could never get permission from any of them because they had already made a decision, maybe an irreversible one, but he might be forgiven. Especially if he did his work in the desert. Maybe that's what doyennes Uzan and Yalda had been trying to tell him.

"Brother Phillip?" Khali waved her hand in front of his eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I was thinking. We'll never be fully accepted by Calique no matter what we do, because we aren't them. But that doesn't have to stop us from doing our work. They govern the gardens but beyond their walls, we can do whatever we want."