A Girl From Nowhere

by James Maxwell

Taimin realized they were discussing his life. Abi took a few moments to reply. “I can’t promise anything except that I’ll do what’s right for the boy.”

  Gareth gave a sharp groan. Taimin couldn’t bear how much pain his father was in. Gareth’s face screwed up as his entire body shuddered.

  Abi lifted her head. “Look away, Taimin.” Her bone knife was in her hand. She leaned over Gareth. “Are you ready?”

  Gareth gave a slight nod and turned his head so that he was looking at Taimin. He struggled to raise his voice. “Taimin. Be strong!”

  “Father!” Taimin cried out. He pushed at the ground to raise his head; his eyes were fixed firmly on his father.

  Abi’s arm thrust forward as she plunged her bone knife deep into Gareth’s chest. The breath left Gareth’s body. Taimin’s heart gave strong, savage thumps inside his chest.

  Abi looked up and saw him staring. “I’m sorry, but he was suffering.” She rose from her crouch and glanced at her brother and his wife. She shook her head. “You heard what we were discussing?”

  “Yes,” Taimin whispered.

  “The wasteland is too dangerous for a cripple. It might have been better if you’d fallen to your death down the face of that cliff. It all depends on your determination, and how you heal. But you can only control one of those things. Do you understand me, Taimin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll take you home first, and then I’ll fetch the bodies of your mother and father before the scavengers come.”

  Aunt Abi was a fighter, stronger and tougher than Gareth and Tess put together, but as she admitted herself she was no healer. She massaged the bones in Taimin’s foot and then wrapped a cloth tightly around the whole thing.

  For the next three days, Taimin writhed in agony. Abi fed him water but he couldn’t keep food down and she didn’t force the issue. Meanwhile, she went about her usual routine: checking the homestead’s defenses, looking to her snares, tending to her garden. She also prepared the bodies of Taimin’s parents for their final journey.

  Abi seemed angry as she moved about the homestead and Taimin wondered if she was mad at him for not helping his parents fight the rovers. She cursed and muttered to herself as she made a litter for Taimin’s father and cast frowns in Taimin’s direction. Taimin did his best to stifle his groans.

  At the end of the three days, Abi disappeared for a time, and when he could think clearly, Taimin saw that his father’s body had vanished with her. While he was sleeping, she took Tess’s body too, and when Taimin woke he saw Abi looking down at him.

  “You’re coming with me,” she said. “I’m going to carry you, but this is the last time. Do you understand me, Taimin? For good or ill, this is the last time I will do it.”

  Taimin nodded, uncertain what to say.

  Abi grunted as she picked him up, carrying his slight frame easily in her arms. She took him out into the open and Taimin blinked as he saw the two suns glaring down at him. Abi disarmed the traps around the gate in the fence and then reactivated them behind her.

  She walked in a direction they didn’t usually travel in, and he realized she was taking him to the firewall.

  She stepped over rocks and climbed down hills before making her way up more rises in the land. Taimin was jolted time and time again, but he choked down any cries. His foot was in agony, but Abi’s bold strides and tosses of her fiery hair told him she was in no mood to talk. He had always been a little afraid of her, and he wasn’t sure if she wanted him to live or die.

  The firewall was ahead, a place where the sky became steadily pink and then deepened to red, and the air became hotter and hotter until it reached a point where it was unbearable. Abi kept walking.

  Then, when they reached a knoll looking down at the landscape beyond, Taimin saw the blackened land where it was impossible for anything to survive.

  He knew that some quirk of the twin suns scorched most of the world, leaving just one portion inhabitable—the wasteland. The boundary, where Taimin now found himself, was called the firewall. Gareth once said that the firewall would one day close in and extinguish all life, while Tess disagreed, and said she had heard that long ago there was no firewall, and all the world was filled with forests of trees and oceans of water. Aunt Abi had never weighed in, and Taimin didn’t know what she believed. What he could see with his own eyes was that the sky was red and hazy, and the air above the rocks shimmered. He wanted nothing more than to be gone from this terrible place, but instead Abi sat Taimin down next to the bodies of his mother and father.

  “Say goodbye, Taimin,” she said.

  Taimin looked at his father, now wrapped from neck to toe in white cloth. “Goodbye, Father,” he said. He knew that his life had changed forever. Abi’s watching eyes made him conscious that he had to show her he could be strong.

  “Goodbye, Mother,” he said to his mother’s body. Her eyes were closed and her face looked calm. The cares of her life were now washed away in death. He bit his lip and glanced at Abi, who scratched at the wide scar that ran from her forehead to her neck. “What about you?” he asked.

  “I’ve said my goodbyes.” She let out a breath. “This isn’t easy on either of us.”

  Without another word, Abi picked up Taimin’s father and grunted with effort as she hefted him over her shoulder; her frame was wiry but she was stronger than she looked. Abi walked down from the knoll. In moments she had plunged through the firewall and into the heat beyond.

  She walked a surprising distance before setting down Gareth’s body. Taimin wondered how she could stand it. When she returned, her face was red, making her blue-grey eyes look wild and manic. She then took Taimin’s mother’s body and laid it beside his father’s. Abi was panting when she rejoined him; he could tell that even she was exhausted by her battle with the oven-like conditions.

  “We should always give our dead some kind of farewell,” Aunt Abi said. “Watch.”

  She sat down next to him. Time passed, and then smoke began to rise from both bodies. Taimin was glad he couldn’t see them up close anymore. Slowly, gradually, they blackened, and the white cloth charred to gray and flittered away. A while longer and the smoke stopped rising. The bodies were now just two piles of ash on the ground.

  Abi stood up. “There we have it. Their spirits have gone to Earth, if you believe in that sort of thing. No reason why not to, if it makes you feel better.” She scratched again at the scar on her face. “Now, Taimin, it’s time for you to make your choice.” She met his eyes. “You’re crippled. You know what that means, don’t you? You’re going to be a burden to yourself and to anyone you depend on. You likely won’t be able to pull your weight, and I won’t be around forever. You don’t have a good life ahead of you.”

  Taimin looked out at the charred remains of his parents. He wondered if Abi intended to take him out there to die.

  “This isn’t just about you,” Abi said. “I know it’s hard for you to understand.” She stared into the distance. “I remember when you were little, you were shivering with the fever. I wanted to take you past the firewall and blast the fever out of you. Seemed like a good idea at the time.” She laughed without humor. “Your mother was right. It would have killed you. The fact is, I’ve never liked children. Too dependent. I know nothing about how to give you the things you need. And as for a crippled child . . .” Her mouth twisted. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing for both of us, for me to take care of you. So here’s what I’ve decided.”

  Taimin watched her and held his breath as he waited for her next words.

  “I’m going to leave you to make the choice yourself,” Abi said. “I’m heading back, and you can either drag your body to the homestead, or you can go out there to die. If you make it back alive, I’ll know you have the determination to carry on, and maybe you’ll be able to survive, even with someone like me to take care of you. If you take yourself into the heat, well . . . that’s your choice.”

  Abi squeezed Taimin’s shoulder, and the
n left him alone beside the firewall.

  Much later, as the crimson sun Lux rose above him, Taimin moved inch by inch over the rust-colored landscape. His mouth was dry and he was covered in dust, but as soon as he saw the distant shack and the tall fence surrounding it, he narrowed his eyes and shuffled even faster. A surge of victory coursed through him. He knew he had learned something about himself.

  The wasteland was harsh. Only the strongest survived.

  He might be crippled, but he had passed his first test. He had the determination to keep going.

  2

  “Your father was too soft,” Abi said to Taimin as she snipped leaves from her nursery plants. “He didn’t push you hard enough.”

  Taimin thought back to the sword practice with his father, the archery instruction from his mother, and the care both his parents took when explaining the harsh rules that governed the wasteland. Taimin had always woken up before the true dawn of Dex and worked as hard as anyone around the homestead.

  Yet it was true that Aunt Abi was different. Taimin’s parents had always held her abilities as a fighter in awe. Taimin often wondered how she became so skilled, but she rarely spoke about her past, even when asked directly.

  As was sometimes the case, Taimin didn’t know how to respond to his aunt, so he said nothing as she worked her way around the nursery. He knew better than to try to help her; the fenced section of the homestead was small, with makeshift shelves for the gnarled shrubs, cactuses, tubers, and herbs, and it was always his aunt’s place.

  “You probably think he was teaching you all he could. If that’s what you think, well, you’re right. But the fact remains that he couldn’t teach you much. I saved your father’s life too many times over the years, and his weakness was always going to catch up with him one day. That day came six months ago, and here we are.”

  Taimin had never heard Aunt Abi speak to him in the way she was now. She had generally left him alone while she watched over the homestead, keeping her thoughts to herself.

  She wiped her brow, setting the snippers on a hook. She glanced at him and then looked away, muttering to herself. He only heard the words, “. . . fool of a child.”

  Taimin leaned on his crutch, keeping the hilt buried under his armpit, as he followed Abi out of the nursery, past the water collector, and through the only door out of the shack. He hurried to keep up with his aunt’s purposeful strides, controlling the pain in his ruined foot and keeping his face like stone.

  He watched Abi check every inch of the tall, protective fence, squeezing several thorns to eject fresh tips of purple poison. Nodding to herself, she then carefully peeled aside the gripper vine before exiting the gate. The deep ditch outside the fence was filled with sharp wooden stakes, and only the plank Abi carried under one arm would enable them to leave the homestead. She laid the plank over the ditch and then walked over. As always, she didn’t help Taimin to cross; instead she waited impatiently for him to hobble over the makeshift drawbridge.

  Out in the open, there was only a light breeze. Both suns shone fiercely on the reddened landscape. A few pricklethorn bushes and twisted spider trees broke up the vista. Birds, possibly raptors, wheeled in the distance.

  Abi turned to face the homestead. “I’ve brought you here to make a few things clear,” she said. “Look at our defenses. Tell me what you see.”

  Taimin gathered his thoughts. “The homestead has a ditch around it, and a fence behind the ditch.”

  “How deep is the ditch?”

  Taimin hesitated. “About twelve feet.”

  “How tall is the fence?”

  “About the same,” Taimin said.

  “Out in the waste, which creatures grow taller than twelve feet?”

  Taimin reflected. He once saw a group of bax in the distance, and with his father he had seen tracks from a passing pair of snub-nosed trulls. He wasn’t sure how tall skalen were, but his father had said they preferred to live underground so he doubted they were big.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You should,” Abi growled. “You can’t build defenses if you don’t know what you’re defending yourself from. Your life depends on knowing your enemies.” She shook her head. “Your father was remiss, but I wonder if it’s my fault.” Abi pointed at the angry red scar that parted her face from her brow to her neck. “Look at this. No, I said look at it.”

  Taimin forced himself to look at the ugly gouge.

  “Your father did this,” Abi said. Taimin’s eyes went wide. He had always wondered how Abi got her scar, but the one time he had asked his father, Gareth went silent. “No, I don’t mean he did it himself.” She scratched the scar. “Blasted thing itches. Before we built this place, while you were still inside your mother’s belly, we had a camp not far from here. This close to the firewall you get fewer predators, but that doesn’t mean there’s none at all.” She met Taimin’s eyes. “During the night, your mother went into labor, and we were attacked by firehounds. No doubt they came when they heard her cries. I needed Gareth beside me, but he said your mother needed him, which was a lie. What did he know about childbirth? So I stood alone and fought them off.”

  Abi shook her head. “I begged him to help me. With two of us fighting they would have been wary, but with just me, the firehounds grew bold. One of them knocked me over while another gored my face with its horns.” Her voice became filled with regret. “I drove them off, but from then on, my life wasn’t my own. I’m no fool. No man would ever want a woman with half a face.”

  Taimin had never thought of his aunt ever wanting to find love in the same way his father had found his mother. She was transformed into something more human.

  Abi’s manner changed, as if she were shaking off the life she never had. “Despite the attack, this is a good place,” she said. “There’s hunting at the cliffs and deep water if you know how to find it. We built this homestead, close to the firewall where few others go, but I’m the one who knew how to fortify it. Your parents and I fought off attacks over the years, but I was always the one in front.” She stared into the distance. “Tess was a good person, as was your father, but they weren’t suited for this world.” She then looked down at Taimin. “And now I don’t know if you’ve got your father’s spirit.”

  “I can be strong, Aunt Abi,” Taimin said in a small voice.

  Abi’s lips thinned. “I’ve been thinking about this long and hard. I see strength in you, but you’re a dreamer, and you’ve got a sensitive side. You’re also a cripple.” She gave him a firm stare. “At any rate, I don’t think your future is for me to decide.”

  Taimin watched his aunt’s face and felt a chill. The last time she had asked him to make a choice she had left him at the firewall. “Decide?”

  “I won’t live forever and you might be better off surrounded by other people. The journey would be tough—you have no idea how tough—but I can take you to a larger group of settlers, if that’s what you want.”

  Taimin swallowed. He realized that the choice he was being asked to make was momentous. He remembered dangling on the rope as he gazed out from the cliff and wondered about the lands that lay out of view. In that moment, he had thought that his parents were too cautious. More than anything, he had wanted to meet other people.

  But then he had met other people . . . ruthless men who had killed his parents.

  Something snagged in his memory. “The rovers . . . They asked Father about a white city . . .”

  Abi’s face curled in a scowl. “There is no city, boy. It’s a myth. People live in caves and homesteads. Well? Do you want to go? You might be too young to think about finding love, but you won’t stay young. There might be someone out there compassionate enough to love a cripple. It’s unlikely, but sometimes people fit together and we don’t know why. There’s no chance of it at all out here.”

  Taimin longed to find other people, but he didn’t want his aunt to abandon him forever. He didn’t know what was out there, and he was afraid. “I want to
stay with you. You don’t have to get rid of me.”

  “We’ll see,” Abi said. She nodded. “You’ve made your choice, then.” She inspected him and frowned. “Stand tall.”

  Taimin straightened but gave an involuntary wince of pain. Abi looked at his crutch and then, without warning, reached forward and pulled it out from under him. He nearly fell before he managed to right himself.

  “It’s been six months,” she growled. “By now your bones have knitted together into some sort of blasted arrangement. The healing is done. I’ve got bad news for you, boy. Whatever you feel now is what you’re going to feel for the rest of your life.”

  Abi broke the crutch over her knee and tossed the pieces into the ditch. Taimin watched as the bits of wood disappeared. “You’re going to have to learn to move without a crutch. You’ll never be able to fight if you depend on something like that.”

  Taimin nodded. He took a deep breath. “I understand.”

  Her mouth tightened. “I hope you do. Because you’re going to have to be more than strong to survive. You’ll have to be stealthier than a skalen and tougher than a bax. Mantoreans are good archers; you’ll have to be better. Trulls are big; you’ll have to strike them down anyway. You’ll need to use your head and know more about the creatures of the waste than you know about yourself. Most important of all, you’ll have to know how to find food and water in the driest desert.”

  Taimin nodded again and gave his aunt a determined stare.

  “If you’re going to stay with me, you’ll have to learn all that and more. Now come on, let’s get inside before Dex goes down.”

  Taimin followed his aunt back into the homestead, and when they reached the kitchen she told him to sit down at the table. A few moments later, she came to him with a pair of boots. Curious, he recognized the soft leather she had been saving for a new vest to replace the tattered thing she wore now. The boots were dark red, the same color as the wyvern’s hide they had come from, and were made with the same care Abi brought to everything she did.