A Girl From Nowhere

by James Maxwell

  Selena stared into Taimin’s eyes. “We’re looking for the white city,” she said.

  Taimin’s manner changed. He became completely focused on her. “It’s real?” he asked incredulously.

  “I’ve always heard rumors,” Lars spoke up, “bouncing around from the rovers to the settlers and back. But the mystic here, she can cast far enough to actually see it. It’s beautiful and white, with a tall tower. Newcomers are welcome. There’s plenty of water, fields of crops, and safety inside its walls. The leader is called the Protector. He’s wise, and watches over his people. It’s the only place where everyone can live in peace.”

  “I thought it was a myth,” Taimin said. He looked at Selena, still dubious and waiting for her to confirm what Lars had said.

  She felt a flash of irritation. “It’s real,” she said firmly. She tried to cast now, just to confirm for herself that it was there. But the vision her talent gave her was always hazy, and even having drunk some water, she still needed rest and recovery.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  When Selena opened her mouth, Lars interjected. “She’s a mystic,” he said. “And if you’ve got any sense you’ll follow where she leads. One thing I know is that if I spend much longer roaming the wasteland, I’ll be dead before my time.”

  “There might be someone there who could heal your injury,” Selena said.

  Thoughts visibly crossed Taimin’s face. His eyes lit up with hope, but then he controlled his expression. “Do you really think that’s possible?” he asked cautiously.

  “In the white city, anything is possible,” Lars said with a grin. “Well? Will you help us find it?”

  “There are people there? More people than in the waste?”

  Lars barked a short laugh. “Undoubtedly. The humans in the waste are spread thin. The settlers fortify their homesteads. The rovers kill and trade, skin and hunt. You can go for weeks without seeing anyone. If the city is as big as she says it is, there’ll be a chance to build a real life.”

  Taimin looked pensive for a moment. He then nodded to himself. “I will help you find it.”

  The serious way he spoke heightened Selena’s sense that something important had just happened. She glanced at Taimin and he met her eyes at the exact same time.

  “Whether the city is real or not, we should get moving before the scavengers come,” Taimin said. “Lead the way.”

  5

  Taimin sensed that Lars and Selena hadn’t known each other for a long time. As he headed with his two new traveling companions away from the site of the recent battle, he tried not to let Selena catch him glancing at her. She had long coal-black hair and odd-colored eyes, one brown and the other green. Her features were small but sharp, with high cheekbones and ears barely visible under her hair.

  Tearing his gaze away, Taimin turned his attention to Lars. He inspected the bald, bearded older man, still taking his measure. “So you’re a rover,” he said slowly. “Rovers killed my parents when I was young. Two brothers with pale hair.”

  Lars gave Taimin a black look. “Not all rovers are killers, lad.”

  Taimin pictured the white-haired rover’s hard, angular face, and saw again the arrow that struck his mother in the cheek. He would never forget his father’s pain as he lay bleeding on the ground.

  Lars cleared his throat. “I’m a skinner, to be exact,” he said. “That’s a nice wherry you’ve got there. I could remove his hide with barely a mark on it.”

  Griff growled and tossed his head, while Taimin kept a firm grip on the reins. “I don’t think he likes you,” Taimin said.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” said Lars. “I don’t know how you can trust your life to one of those beasts.”

  “Without Griff I wouldn’t be alive to hear you say that,” Taimin said.

  “Is that his name?” Selena asked.

  “That’s his name,” Taimin said, patting the wherry’s flank.

  He was surprised when Selena reached out and stroked just behind Griff’s head. The wherry even grinned when she scratched his long, floppy ears.

  As Taimin walked at Griff’s side, he caught Lars looking down at his leg.

  “How bad is it?” the skinner asked. “Your leg.”

  “Bad enough.” He saw Selena watching him as he replied.

  “Not a good thing, to be a cripple in the waste,” Lars said. “Can you run?”

  “Not really,” Taimin said.

  “You can fight, though.”

  Taimin gave a brief shrug.

  “Remind me not to stand too close to you, though, if there’s trouble and your wherry isn’t nearby,” Lars said in a grim voice. “A man who fights but doesn’t run is a danger I can do without.”

  “I was taught to avoid trouble.”

  Lars tugged at his thick black beard. “Trouble has a way of finding you.” He glanced again at Taimin. “And I hope your aunt taught you more than just how to fight.”

  “What do you mean?” Taimin asked.

  “You know . . . How to talk to the different races if you get into trouble. Their habits. Sure, bax have green blood, but they’re the most similar race to humans.” Listening to Lars, Taimin realized that the skinner must know even more than Abi. “They marry like we do, and when they do, it’s for life. But the young warriors can’t marry without a warden’s blessing, so they have to prove themselves first.”

  “Warden?”

  “It’s like a chieftain. The lead bax who looks after a territory. One thing’s clear: there’s a warden out there who doesn’t like humans one little bit.”

  Feeling anxious about the journey ahead, Taimin had a sudden thought. “I’ve got something to show you both.” Reaching into his pack, he rummaged until he found the drawing he had salvaged from the homestead. “Here,” he said. He passed it to Selena.

  She opened up the folded paper. He watched her face as she inspected the lines that made up the image. She gave an exclamation. Her gaze roved over the high wall that surrounded a collection of buildings, with a tall, soaring tower in the very center.

  He leaned toward her. “That’s it?” he asked.

  Selena met his eyes. “This is it. The white city. Where did you get it?”

  “I found it in my aunt’s things. I’ve no idea where she got it.” Taimin left unspoken his aunt’s reaction when he had asked her about the white city. There is no city, boy.

  “Give it to me.” Lars snatched the piece of paper, and as soon as he looked at it his manner changed completely. He let out a slow, steady breath, and his expression was utterly captivated as he saw the multitude of buildings, so many that it was incredible such a thing could exist in the barren wasteland. He rested his dark eyes on Taimin. “You sure you don’t know anything more about who made this?”

  Taimin frowned. “I’d tell you if I did.”

  “Lars, give it back to him,” Selena said.

  Lars reluctantly handed Taimin the piece of paper, and Taimin folded it and returned it to his pack. The skinner lifted his gaze. “Light’s fading. I’ll scout ahead.”

  As he watched Lars move to higher ground, Taimin realized he was alone with Selena.

  “How long have you known him?” he asked.

  “Lars? Not long.”

  “How did you know you could trust him—and his two friends?”

  Her mouth tightened. “I didn’t, but anywhere was better than where I was.”

  Taimin watched Selena, waiting for her to continue.

  “Things changed. Someone I trusted died and a few newcomers joined the group. I thought we had an arrangement. I would help around the homestead in return for a place to sleep, but then . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I get headaches. They’ve been getting worse and the settlers I was with were becoming tired of me. I’m glad Lars took me away from them. He’s using me, but I’m using him too.”

  Taimin wanted to ask about her family, but he sensed that she had already given him the answer. He glanced at Lars’s large figure, v
isible in the distance as the skinner gazed out from the top of a hill.

  “And you’re guiding him? How?” His brow furrowed.

  Selena’s face registered surprise. “You really don’t know what a mystic is?”

  Taimin shook his head.

  “It means I can farcast. It’s not as common in humans, but mystics come from all the races. Sometimes I can see things with my mind I can’t see with my eyes. I can cast farther than most, which might explain the headaches I get.”

  Taimin knew he hadn’t seen much of the world, but he still couldn’t hide his incredulity. “I see,” he said slowly.

  Selena’s eyes flashed. “If you don’t like the truth, next time don’t ask.”

  Looking at her, Taimin swiftly reassessed her. Though she was undeniably pretty, she was also brittle. Just because he was trying to understand, she flared up with anger.

  “How far can you . . . cast?” he asked, curious.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Taimin wanted to believe her, to believe that the white city was real and she had somehow seen it with her mind. Lars clearly did. At the same time, he didn’t want to allow himself to hope that someday his injury might be healed. “Please,” he said. “Tell me. I want to know.”

  She glanced at him, checking his expression, and then continued. “I see outlines and shapes better than I can make out detail. Sometimes I see things so strange I wonder if they’re part of this world. If something isn’t close, I often don’t know how far away it is.”

  Deciding to reserve judgment, Taimin thought back to a time when he had gazed out at the lands below the cliffs and wondered about the wider world. “It must be a useful skill to have.”

  “I hate it,” Selena said with venom. “My whole life people have looked at me like I’m a monster. Stories go round about mystics who read people’s minds and control their thoughts. No one wants to be near me. They keep me at a distance, or tie me up because then if I try to bewitch someone they’ll be able to knock me on the head and end the spell. I’ve taken my share of beatings for nothing. It’s a curse, not a blessing.”

  “Then what made Lars take you?”

  “Like I said, I wanted to get away from the people I was with. I told Lars about things he’d done before he arrived at the settlement. Where he camped . . . when he’d last scraped the hair from his head. I impressed him. When I told him about the city, that’s when I knew I had him.”

  As he saw Lars returning, Taimin inspected the terrain ahead. They were on open ground, on a broad plain where anyone could see them.

  “No sign of somewhere safe to camp,” Lars said as he approached.

  “Camp? Here?” Taimin shook his head vigorously. “This isn’t a place to stop.”

  “I need to rest,” Selena said firmly.

  “I understand that,” Taimin said, “but if we want to stay alive, we need to find somewhere sheltered.”

  Lars scratched his beard. “The lad has a point.”

  Selena’s expression darkened. “And if we’re going the wrong way? We could end up retracing our footsteps. I need to cast so that we know where to go.”

  “Look,” Taimin said. “Even if you can do what you’re saying—”

  Without warning, Selena strode away. Her voice was cold as she spoke over her shoulder. “You want to keep moving?” She looked meaningfully at Taimin’s leg. “Then you’d better hurry.”

  Lars gave Taimin a rueful grin. The skinner indicated Griff, and Taimin scowled and then pulled himself up onto the wherry’s back.

  In the end, Taimin found a bowl-shaped hollow where the three travelers could shelter for the night. After a cold camp, he rose early and went hunting with Griff. When he returned with a fat lizard, he found Lars quietly sharpening his skinning knife. Selena sat with her back against the rock wall. Her shoulders were slumped and her eyes stared without seeing.

  Lars put a finger to his lips.

  Taimin frowned but he quietly and carefully removed the saddle from Griff’s back. The wherry sank to his haunches, panting as he spread out on the ground.

  “Here,” Lars whispered, holding out a hand. Taimin gave the bald man the lizard, and with several swift movements Lars skinned it better than Taimin could ever have done. Soon the tender flesh was separated from the bone while Griff whimpered nearby.

  Taimin took some sticks and dried cactus flowers from his pack. He looped his bowstring around one of the sticks and placed the stick into a groove on another. Yanking his bow back and forth, he soon had a fire going. He glanced at Selena, but she was unresponsive. He added some larger kindling, before letting the fire die down to embers.

  Lars laid the lizard meat on the coals and murmured, “Got any salt?”

  When Taimin shook his head, Lars pulled a small pouch out of his pack and sprinkled a little white powder on the grilling meat.

  “White gold.” Lars grinned.

  “What’s gold?” Taimin asked.

  Lars laughed, and the booming sound echoed around the rocky hollow. Selena’s head moved and Taimin that saw her eyes had refocused.

  “Did you see it? The white city? Which way do we go?” Lars asked.

  “I saw it,” Selena said. She didn’t look at Taimin as she spoke. “We’re heading in the right direction. The firewall curves, opening more land up ahead.”

  “Good, good,” Lars said. “Dangers?”

  She shrugged and shuffled over to take a speared piece of cooked meat from Taimin’s hands without asking. “There’s always danger,” she said as she ate. “Nothing I could see, though. We’ll soon reach two tall rocks leaning against each other. When we get there we’ll be able to take another bearing.”

  Taimin saw that the light filtering into the hollow from above was shifting hue from red to gold, indicating that Dex was rising. He ate quickly and then threw gravel on top of the embers to put the fire out.

  “We should go,” Taimin said.

  They swiftly packed and drank a few mouthfuls of water. The golden sun greeted them as they left the shade and began the day’s journey.

  The three travelers kept the firewall on their left as they walked ever onwards. At first Lars seemed worried that Taimin would tire and barely concealed frequent glances at his leg, but as the day progressed Taimin showed no signs of fatigue. He might not have speed, but he had endurance. His foot hurt, of course, with a pain that grew steadily, but he had learned to control the pain by keeping his mind busy and staying alert for danger. He scanned the terrain with a dedication that Lars said was unnatural.

  With the crimson sun below the horizon, the rugged landscape was washed with golden light. As ever the bright blue sky was clear and the slight gusts of wind were hot and dry. Cube-shaped boulders the size of houses clustered in odd arrangements. Every time he neared them Taimin was wary; they would make excellent positions for an ambush.

  They followed a canyon between two peaks, which soon opened up onto another plain. Ahead, in the distance, Taimin saw two slanted rocks on a tall hill, each the height of ten men, leaning against each other with a void underneath. Remembering Selena sitting with her eyes glazed, he stared at her in awe.

  “You don’t need to say anything,” she said.

  “From all that way—”

  “Wait.” She cut Taimin off with a stroke of her hand. “There’s something there . . .” She hesitated. “Yes, definitely. A group of mantoreans on the hill.”

  Lars swiftly focused on her. “How many?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Try harder.” Lars scowled.

  Taimin squinted but the distance was too far to make out any figures. Giving up, he turned to see Selena’s brow furrow in concentration. All of a sudden, she put her hand to her head and swayed. He was walking beside her and she used his shoulder to steady herself.

  “Sorry,” she said, taking her hand away.

  “Don’t try anymore,” Lars said to her. “The last thing we need is you fainting.”

  “We
’re still far away,” Taimin said. “If we find another route, they won’t see us.”

  Lars thought for a moment and then shook his head. “We should go up to them. They might even trade. I have a couple of skins I could get some food for.”

  “Trade?” Taimin frowned. “If they were humans, maybe . . .”

  Selena and Lars exchanged glances. “What did your aunt teach you about the other races?” Selena asked Taimin.

  He shrugged. “She taught me how to kill them.”

  “There are good humans and bad humans. It’s the same with the other races.”

  Taimin immediately pictured a snarling bax, eyes deep-set and menacing, ready to kill. “I wouldn’t share a camp with a bax,” he said.

  She gave him a look of amusement. “I’ve met humans who have.”

  He blinked. The idea was strange.

  “Leave this to me,” Lars said. “Taimin, watch and learn.”

  Taimin’s lips thinned but he didn’t reply. He and Selena followed Lars toward the hill, and as they neared he shaded his eyes to look up at the two leaning rocks. His gaze kept moving until he saw something nearby, to the right. “I think I can see them. Looks like they’re resting.”

  “Let’s go up to them,” Lars said. “It pays to show we’re not afraid.”

  The terrain was graveled and devoid of anything except the occasional thorny cactus. Heat waves rolled off the ground. On Taimin’s left, the sky near the horizon was red rather than blue—always a sign that the firewall was near. Taimin felt tense; as they climbed they would be visible to the mantoreans on the hill.

  Soon they were approaching eight humanoid figures, clustered together near the leaning rocks. Lars turned his head toward Taimin. “No mystics with them. That’s a blessing.”

  “How can you tell?” Taimin asked.

  “Mantoreans make the best mystics but they only train females. Don’t ask me why. There’s none with the group. Females have an egg sack, just below their waist.”