Quickburned

Sunset

Now...

Lysistrata did leave a note.

He woke abruptly at dawn after only an hour or three of sleep, out of uneasy dreams banished with the sun, to an empty bed. Jasmine-and-firedust lingered on the pillow next to him, but her gear was gone, and he had a feeling if he went out her camel would be missing as well.

"Sun above, Lys, y'did this last time, too. Can't ya just say 'see ya round' like reg'lar folk?" Apparently not. He dressed, stiff with sore muscles and irritation. The scrap of rice paper and the bead on its cord he found tucked into the holster of his gun belt when he buckled it on last.

Follow the bead, sunshine. There's something you lost at the end of it. Forget I ever was.

"As though I could be doin' that." The scrap went into the inner vest pocket closest to his heart, where the (water-stained and near illegible) letter from his Ma still lay.

He and Dirt followed the bead, towards the mountains. It was territory he knew, finally, north of Rattlegorge where the badlands started giving way to rocky chaparral and savannah. He spent a night or two camping out after short days, both he and Dirt working back up to their former ways.

By the time he hit the little town of Harmony Hollow, tucked into the foothills under Steepwater Pass, he'd scraped together enough silver from the bottom of his packs to put him and Dirt up at proper lodgings for the night. Saving the South was good and all but the pay could be better.

He caught a glimpse of a familiar face coming out of the town's little sundries store and turned on his heel to catch up. "Tzali! Hey!"

"Caleb?" Tzali's eyes went wide behind his veils before he grabbed Caleb into a back-thumping hug. "Caleb! You lived! Sun above—we thought you were dead when you vanished into that storm with those nightmares on your heels."

"Takes more'n that to get rid of me." But not much more. "Careful there, hey, I ain't all in one piece yet—" Caleb returned the embrace just as enthusiastically. "I wanna hear what happened t'you folk! This town got a place to get a decent meal? I'm fair sharp-set."

It did, and Caleb and Tzali spent the rest of the evening sharing food and drink—Caleb hadn't had a decent drink since Riven—and each other, well into the night. Tzali was good company, and with Lysistrata leaving a fresh hole in him, the other man's presence was doubly appreciated. In the morning, dawdling over another plate as full as he could get away with, Caleb asked, "What brings you out this way anyhow, pal?"

"On my way to Rattlegorge," Tzali replied, setting his cup down. "Off to tell my mother's other sisters everything's settled now, the whole story. And my other cousins. Chavella was fixing to ride out with me, just as spittin' mad; only reason she didn't is she runs the family business now and everything would fall apart without her. And folks still have to eat."

"Sure they do." Caleb lifted a chunk of flatbread in salute. "She sounds a right calamity."

"You don't know the half of it. She used to ride with one of the trade-road gangs up till a few years ago, nearly had the run of it herself as she tells it."

Caleb spluttered, nearly choking on his drink. Shade. Had to be Shade—Tzali looking like he did; the same shade of violet streaking his hair and the same refined cast to his bones—a cousin with the trade-road gangs. She was still alive? She was going to hunt him down and gut him, soon as she heard. "Yeah? What made her leave?"

"Remember the brushfire war out east, few years back? Seems like they got caught up in that. She came home after with a few others." Tzali scraped up the last of his meal. "I need to get on the road if I'm to get there before they send out search riders. Dallied long enough with you already."