Dusk

by Tim Lebbon

  The priests went mad. The Red Monks rose from their madness, feeding upon it and dressing themselves in its color. They became ghosts of the Cataclysmic War, wandering the land, searching for hints of magic’s return. Vowing, with every breath they took, to put it down.

  The Monks became something of a myth, fading away into the past in the company of other truths. They hid away in their retreats, keeping watch, and if ever magic was hinted at in the land, they investigated.

  These past days, the Red Monks had been sighted all across Noreela.

  A FLASH FROM the opposite hillside told Lucien that the time had come.

  He shifted his sword and signaled back, and then he saw movement as the other dozen Monks began their descent from the hills into Pavisse. They had encircled the mining town, remaining high up so they would not be spotted, keeping to old sheebok trails and finding concealed places to await the signal to move. This was a much more coordinated effort than their assault on the farming village over the hills. There, Carfallo had gone in on his own instead of awaiting the arrival of his brethren. He had obviously believed that he could take the village singly—and he had—but he had also allowed escapees. Lucien and the other Monks were not concerned at the number of people that had escaped Carfallo’s fury. What they were concerned about was that one of them was Rafe Baburn. They had met at Trengborne as arranged, entered the village quickly when they saw what had happened, stepping past and through the destruction that held little surprise for them. There in the trading square of the village, surrounded by his stiffening victims, they had found Carfallo. Lucien had sworn that he was dead, such were the profusion of arrows and bolts and swords in his body. The dust around and beneath him was blackened, as if a huge bruise were slowly spreading across the ground, and his face was pierced and parted where the shafts had done their damage.

  “No Baburn,” he had whispered, and then his last bubbling gasp shook his body, rattling arrow shafts and scraping lines in the mucky dust. He had waited for their arrival before dying.

  The Red Monks had remained in the village that evening, planning their next move, confident that no one would return. And if a few brave stragglers did come back to try to bury their dead, then that was simply more blood for the Monks’ swords. For them, the colors of blood and madness were much the same.

  The Monks knew many arcane things. Their divinations and interrogative techniques went far beyond torture and threat, extending past boundaries normally reserved for dead magic or living legend. The trails they followed were always cold and covert, and this one—although they still believed that Baburn was unaware of his legacy, his destiny—was no exception. It was that very ignorance that kept him from them. They had sensed the emergence of magic, their utter hatred of its promise lending it the characteristics of an unknown color, an impossible sound in their thoughts. But given that the boy knew nothing of the potential stirring in his head, to track it was nigh on impossible. They had to use techniques perfected by their ancestors as they spent lifetimes seeking magic. Sometimes dregs were found: a witch here, with a hint of enchantment about her; a girl there, finding her monthly cycle and with it a closeness to the land, a sight she could use to predict. The Red Monks tracked them down and destroyed them all, often annihilating those around them as well. There was always a risk that the magic had spread, like the disease they believed it to be. And even if that were not the case, death was meaningless to the Monks, and easy to mete out.

  The skills they used were not magic, but rather forgotten talents, practices that had been mostly discarded long ago. The Monks knew the boundaries between where the laws of nature crossed and diverted, and where they were purposely bent out of shape. It was ironic that the greatest weapons they employed against the reemergence of magic could look so much like its use to any who bore witness.

  Still, the Monks had their ways, and that night in the dead village of Trengborne they used them. It was a place rich in wraiths, the disturbed and confused souls of those so violently and recently killed, and the Monks had ways to question these. They sought them out where they hid, folded between moments and slipping madly from one moonbeam to the next, and while one Monk held them down with a mirific chant, another would seek out the mind—mad and confused, sad and raging—and question it with a Delving root. The Delving was a common plant near rivers and lakes, and its root, if picked at the exact moment between when it was sterile and when that sterility suddenly ended, became receptive to many hidden influences and energies. It planted itself not only under the surface of the land, but beneath the plane of the world, burrowing down from true reality to where the richest, purest sustenance was to be found. Only the Monks knew this, because over the decades they had wiped out anyone else with that knowledge.

  Where is Rafe Baburn? they asked.

  Dead, dead, we’re all dead—

  I don’t know, help me, help me!—

  Not you again, not you, not you!

  Where is Rafe Baburn? they asked again. There was much madness in these new wraiths; anger and ire and bewilderment. But the Monks kept asking because they had all night.

  Where is Rafe Baburn?

  And eventually:

  Rafe? My Rafe, my son? Is that you? Run Rafe, run! Flee! Go to Vance, find Uncle Vance in Pavisse!

  Pavisse, the Monks said, and the root transmitted their smiles and made their emotions its own, a chemical message to spring into the ether where this wraith floated on uncertainty.

  No! the stricken wraith said, but the Monks had withdrawn, and they left it to its raving.

  They set out from Trengborne straightaway, traveling through the night, following their ancient maps and finding shortcuts through the mountains that even the most experienced shepherds did not know. As they walked, they planned. Their talk was spare, and in the space of a hundred words they had agreed that their incursion into Pavisse had to be carried out with more care. Trengborne had been only hundreds of people; Pavisse had a population of tens of thousands. The Monks would not be averse to killing them all if it meant that one of them was Baburn, but practicalities forced them to think logically. Not only would it be impossible to keep everyone in the town while the slaughter progressed, but that very act would take days. And as Carfallo had demonstrated, even a Red Monk could be worn down in the end. Madness had power, but only so much. Eventually a punctured heart needed more to run on than rage, and once its blood had drained and the routes for the fury had been slashed and cut, death was all that was left.

  They needed stealth and speed. Their red robes would be seen, and some who saw might know what that meant. The word would spread. But the Monks still had surprise on their side. They were sure that the boy still did not know who he was.

  They sought Vance Baburn. If they found him, they would find the boy.

  Lucien headed down the hillside, aiming for the northern outskirts of the town, where a wide sprawl of shacks and tents indicated a growing influx of refugees. From his travels over the years he had come to realize that Noreelans, though fracturing into tribal elements once more, were still finding safety in numbers. The towns grew as the regions shrank, and the Duke found himself ruling over new kingdoms and independent states instead of simply Noreela. Perhaps that was why he barely ruled at all. Lucien viewed people as another part of nature, nothing special, distinct from it only because they had such a proclivity to destroy instead of nurture. They flocked, they feared, they were terrified at what they had sown, and yet they attempted little to right their wrongs.

  He crossed a small wooden bridge spanning a stream. The water was barely a trickle, and as he passed over, it seemed to cloud. Bloodied from upstream, perhaps, or maybe he was seeing an echo of what was to come. He looked up but the stream disappeared between buildings, like an artery drawing life through the dying town. Because this place was dying. Lucien had been around enough death to recognize its stench, its sights. The refugees clung on to the town’s outskirts like premature mourners, here to take what they
could and then flee when the time came. The town stank of apathy: shit and rot left in the open; a miasma of stale fledge and spilled ale in the air, drifting from the many drink and drug establishments; food gone off, bodies unwashed, and above it all the smell of burning. Lucien saw a pall of smoke hanging above the center of Pavisse, evidence that even here the Breakers were at work, paring down the old dead machines in the hope of finding dregs of magic in their sumps, hidden away in petrified timber arteries, clasped in stone wombs never before seen, ossified by time but still potent. He would usually kill a Breaker as a matter of course, simply because of what they sought, though none that he knew of had ever found a scrap of magic. Right now his aims were higher.

  The look of Pavisse also marked it as a place waiting to die. These encampments on the outskirts bled it out across the valley floor, but as he approached the town proper it was difficult to tell where the shantytown ended and Pavisse proper began. The buildings changed gradually, progressing from tents to wooden shacks, and then on to dwellings with stone walls and reed roofs. But the degradation was wholescale. Gardens lay dead and sterile, pools of dust where he saw skull ravens bathing and plotting. Windows were mostly glassless, covered with swathes of sheebok fur to keep out the light and the stares of prying eyes. Graffiti adorned many walls facing out onto the main streets, sigils and codes marking the turf of one street gang or another. But even that was old and worn down by the sun. The gangs were still there, perhaps, but less zealous now, members more concerned with their own personal survival than that of their mob.

  Lucien passed a small street market where traders sold fruit and vegetables on the verge of wrinkling into rot. There were craft stalls and a furbat drainer milking his restrained creatures of rhellim, stroking the fluid into individual vials that would sell for more than most of the fruit in any neighboring stall. This trader looked well fed, well traveled and relatively affluent. Lucien spotted a platinum ring on his finger, a metal only mined and worked on the Cantrass Plains three hundred miles to the northeast. A few of the sellers called to Lucien as he passed by, inviting him to sample their wares, but others fell silent at the sight of his weapons. He walked on without glancing their way, but he felt their eyes on his back. Maybe they had heard stories. Perhaps one or two had even seen a Red Monk before, knew what he sought, why he was here. If so, they would do well to pack their stalls and leave.

  His brethren would be infiltrating Pavisse now, pushing in from twelve different directions, opening their ears and eyes, trying to find any trace of Baburn or his uncle. He felt his sword hanging light at his belt, waiting to be fed and gorged again. He hoped that he would be the one to find the boy.

  Lucien sniffed, but there was no magic in the air.

  He passed by an old machine, a hollow oval the size of a man, whose use could only be guessed at. It had been incorporated into a building, framing the main doorway with its textured and ridged surface. There were stumps of hardened veins protruding from its top edge. As ever, Lucien was amazed at how casually people treated miracles. If this thing suddenly came to life it would scare most people to death. Perhaps it was a hole-maker, punching shafts into the ground a mile deep with energies gathered in its hollow center. Or maybe it was a break-healer, raising and lowering itself around a wounded body and knitting bones, patching torn flesh. Whatever, now it was a doorway into a whorehouse. Its ancient and inexplicable use granted it no favors. Lucien’s hatred of magic was fed by what humankind had tried to achieve with it. The Mages had been the worst by far, yes, but all people were like that at heart. Those two had simply had the face to forcefully seek what they desired.

  “That’s a Red Monk!” he heard someone whisper behind him, and he did not turn around. It had been the grizzled old coal miner lounging in a chair outside the whorehouse; Lucien had heard him cough as he approached, and now he knew his voice as he whispered again. “Mean bastards, they are!” Whoever the old man was trying to impress did not reply.

  He came to a tavern, peopled mainly with drunken militia being tattooed by a harem of Cantrass Angels. Approaching the bar, Lucien heard the scrape of metal on stone behind him. He turned slowly and peered out from within his robe’s hood, spotting the militiaman who had moved. A Cantrass Angel was scoring a Ventgoria Dragon into his leg, substituting its customary steamy breath with a mythological burst of fire. The man’s eyes were unfocused and bloodshot with alcohol, and he looked away immediately, slipping back into his chair.

  Lucien turned to the barman, alert to any possible movement behind him, and asked his question. “I’m looking for Vance Baburn to conclude a business deal.”

  “Never heard of him,” the barman said, and he was telling the truth. Lucien could see the sparkle of fear in his eyes; perhaps he thought these drunken and stoned militia could help him, should the need arise.

  Lucien turned away and left the tavern, hearing blustery mutterings behind him as the men revealed how they could have taken him, had they so wished.

  The streets were becoming busier the farther into Pavisse he went. More impromptu street markets had sprung up, and their sellers seemed to be doing brisk trade, the produce richer and fresher than that sold on the outskirts. The traders nearer the river had their choice of the fresh wares, while those dealing on the outskirts probably brought their own produce in overland.

  Every doorway could hide Baburn. Every alley, darkened as they were with wet clothes strung high up between buildings, could be the place where this could end. Maybe the boy had not even found his uncle and was hiding in the streets, sheltering in an empty house or trying to find work at the small docks. In a town of tens of thousands, finding him would not be an easy task, however aware or unaware he may be of his burgeoning powers. Time was not on the Red Monks’ side, and Lucien knew this only too well. He would not sleep. He would not stop looking or questioning, and if needs must, he would move past questioning, start using some more direct methods of interrogation. Someone here knew of Vance Baburn.

  He paused in front of another tavern, rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and went inside.

  IN THE END, Vance Baburn came to Lucien.

  “I’ve been looking for you!” a voice hissed behind the Monk.

  Lucien had strayed from the main streets and found an area of holding pens for sheebok, goats and a couple of chained and spiked tumblers. The cages were heavy and thick, and he wondered just what else they had been designed to hold. The air stank of stale shit. There were a few people milling around—feeding the animals, clearing out stalls, nervously teasing the tumblers—but not many. Lucien had asked his question and was about to leave when he felt the point of a knife in his back, heard the whisper in his ear.

  “You’re not hard to find, you know. Dressed like you are. Like blood-colored shit.”

  “I’ve been looking for you too,” Lucien said. The knife was pressed harder into his back and he felt the skin part, the cool metal sliding half a finger-length into his flesh. It did not hurt straightaway, but it stirred his blood. He felt his face flushing with rage, the sword twitching at his belt, and yet he did not turn around. He knew that he could use this movement to his advantage; he simply had to reign in his fury for a few heartbeats more.

  “Where’s the boy?” the voice hissed.

  “I don’t know, I’m looking for him myself.”

  “What have you done to him? Killed him like you killed my brother and his wife? Butcher! What possible reason—”

  “That was one of my brethren,” Lucien said, “and he did it—”

  “I don’t care for your reasons! If you’re in with that murderer, I should kill you right here.”

  “You can try,” Lucien said, and there was a pause. They stood there like that for a long moment, Vance Baburn holding the knife piercing the Red Monk, Lucien facing away from the man he sought, trying to control his rage, telling himself again and again that he needed this man alive, needed to question him, find out where the boy had gone. After a sufficient pause
he made his move. “Or we can go to your home,” he said, “and talk about this sensibly.”

  “I won’t talk sense with a madman,” Vance hissed.

  “We’re not all mad. Some of us are more obsessed than others. Like mad old Carfallo who found your nephew’s village.”

  “He didn’t find it, he slaughtered it.”

  “He killed some there, I admit, and for that I offer no apologies. But not all of them. A few militia, and some men who attacked him. Rafe—your nephew—escaped before Carfallo could kill him.”

  “You admit you want to kill him? Why? And what makes you think I can’t push harder now, cut those words right out of your putrid body?”

  “He’s a danger to everything!” Lucian said, trying to rein in his anger.

  “He’s just a farm boy, what danger could that be? And he said the whole village was dead.”

  “A young farm boy’s exaggeration. I’ll not lie to you, Vance Baburn, I do seek to kill him. But I can make it easier on you, and your nephew. And easier on the people of Pavisse. Because we know he’s here somewhere, and I’m not the only Monk searching these streets.”

  “Then we’ll slaughter you all! I’ll start with you right now, and the militia will clean up the rest of you like rats’ bodies rotting in the streets!”

  “Militia like those I just saw being tattooed by Cantrass Angels?”

  “They’re not all like that,” Vance said, but the desperation in his voice was obvious. He pushed a little more. The knife sank deeper, and Lucien tensed, slipping the sword from his belt. The moment hung like that, ready to go either way. Lucien’s instinctive rage could take full control, flushing him with the bloodlust and madness, spinning him around and slicing this man in two. Then he would slaughter those who watched; he sensed them hiding, terrified and fascinated. Or the men would part and go to Vance’s home, and maybe Lucien would find what he sought.