Dusk n-1

by Tim Lebbon

  Kosar handed over a coin. “One for yourself,” he said, and he enjoyed the flash of gratitude in the barman’s eyes.

  There was a sudden burst of laughter from a corner of the tavern, and Kosar spun around. How can they laugh, he thought, when Trengborne lies dead, massacred? How can they laugh like that? But of course they did not know, nobody knew other than himself and the boy Rafe Baburn. Kosar looked at the group with envy. Three men, three women, comfortable in one another’s company, casual with their affections, their conversation easy and light. If only he had so few concerns, and so many friends.

  “I don’t suppose you know A’Meer Pott?” he asked the barman. “She’s a Shantasi, used to come here three years ago.”

  “Still does,” the barman said. “In fact, she works for me now and then.”

  Kosar frowned, trying not to imagine what that work entailed.

  “Don’t worry, thief,” the big man said. “Not that sort of work. I leave that side of things to the Twitching Twat down the road. The Broken Arm is a place to rest the mind, not exercise the body. No, she collects glasses, works the bar, makes food sometimes if there’re those here who’ll buy it.”

  “Will she be in today?”

  “She should be, come sunfall. Nice one, A’Meer. Very knowledgeable. A real traveler, so she keeps telling us. Though the fact that she’s stayed here so long seems to mar that image a little.”

  “She is a real traveler,” Kosar said, smiling at the memory of her telling those stories, the disbelief of people when she openly proved them as true. “But for a Shantasi, a few years is nothing. They live a long time.”

  The barman leaned over the bar and motioned Kosar closer. “She once told me,” he whispered conspiratorially, “that she’s been right to the end of The Spine.”

  Kosar nodded. “She told me that too.”

  The barman frowned and stood back up, picking a jug from a hook to serve another customer. “The Spine has no end,” he said.

  “That’s what we’re supposed to believe,” Kosar hefted his jug in a toast and then left the bar, searching for a free table, finding one beneath the wooden staircase that led up to another level of tables above. He sat there alone, looking around, blending in with little effort. He caught a few patrons’ eyes, but there was neither threat nor any real interest in their gaze. Most of them were here to forget old trouble, not make new.

  The wood of the tabletop was scored with graffiti, some of it recent, much of it old, all of it telling a story. There were many names mentioned, most of them with some reference to the impressive or pitiable size or function of their sexual organs. Places were named too, often in childish bravado, like I went to Kang Kang and it stank of shit. And here and there were messages. Xel-meet me at Friar’s Bridge, sunfall, noonday-Yel. Kosar wondered if Xel and Yel had made the meeting, and why, and what had come of it. He wondered whether they were both still alive, and if not whether they had died happy. Death was free nowadays, handed out on a whim by militia and murderers alike. And Red Monks too. A Red Monk slaughtering a whole village.. .

  He looked around the tavern and shivered. He had heard what the Red Monk asked the children on the bridge before he killed them: Where is Rafe Baburn? The only villager that madman had not killed was the one he was seeking. There was a message in that, more hidden than those carved into the oak of this tavern table, and yet far more important. For a Red Monk to be abroad, it meant only one thing: that magic was back in the land. And for the Monk to be seeking the boy Rafe…

  He shook his head and took a huge swig of his ale. It truly was an Old Bastard, coursing into his stomach and blurring his vision within minutes. It had been a long time since he’d taken a drink like this-back in Trengborne he was lucky to be given a bottle of rancid rotwine-so he would have to be careful. He had no wish to greet A’Meer by sicking all over her.

  Yet strong ale would not purge the fear that had been seeded in his mind. Kosar had never felt a terror like this. He had been afraid many times in his life-fearful for himself, and those he sometimes had cause to call his friends-but never terrified. Even when the rovers had tied him down and watched as a weasel nibbled at his thigh, he had been certain that he would survive. Perhaps it had been the cocky conviction of a younger man, someone who almost always got what he wanted by stealing it, but it had seen him through. This was different. Earlier fears had been based on knowable threats, the knife in this man’s hand, the whip in another, a herd of tumblers chasing him for a day and a night across the foothills of Kang Kang. Those threats were tactile, understandable. What he felt now was a terror of something transmuted into myth and legend. Secondhand, yes, but no less heartfelt for that.

  During his travels Kosar had come to learn a little about magic, how it had once fused with the land, and the fact that it had stopped working when the two Mages misused it to their own ends. They had been expelled from Noreela at the end of the Cataclysmic War, driven north out of the land and into the unknown. Watching stations had been set up along The Spine-the series of islands extending into the seas north of Noreela-to warn of their approach, should they survive and seek revenge. But here rumor truly took control, because there were even more legends about The Spine than the deadly mountains of Kang Kang. The Spine is endless, and the Mages are still traveling its length. The Spine moves, shifting over centuries like Noreela’s giant tail, and should its tip ever touch wherever the Mages ended up, they and their armies will swarm back into Noreela, sporting fury nurtured over three centuries of banishment.

  A’Meer truly had been along The Spine, and she had told Kosar the truth: it was far from endless. And the warning stations and islands, though most were still inhabited and functioning to some degree, were all but worthless.

  Therein lay Kosar’s terror. Magic was back in the land. It had once served humanity well, maintaining the balance of nature and making known the language of the land. But the Mages, were they still alive, would have their ways and means to hear of it. The Red Monk-part of an order sworn to keep magic from the Mages, should it arise again-had been looking for Rafe Baburn.

  Kosar the thief, whether he liked it or not, was involved.

  A’MEER POTT HELDher age well. She had told Kosar that she was almost one hundred Noreelan years old, yet she still looked younger than him. She was short, her body lithe instead of thin, her long black hair locked into twin braids that fell to either side of her snow-white face. Such paleness emphasized everything about her features, from the deep, dark eyes to her pale red lips. As usual, she was dressed in black. He had heard the Shantasi described variously as walking corpses, living shades and angel messengers to the land, but Kosar had formed the opinion that they were a mixture of all three. Like Noreelans, the Shantasi trod a narrow path between jubilation and damnation.

  He watched her enter the Broken Arm and smile at some of the patrons, exchange greetings with one or two. She drifted to the bar, and Kosar was pleased to see that she and the barman were friends. They seemed to talk trivialities for a few minutes as A’Meer slipped off her cloak and took a drink. The barman glanced across the tavern into Kosar’s shaded nook beneath the stairs once or twice, but Kosar shook his head, held a finger to his lip. Eventually A’Meer went about her business, and as he watched her move between tables collecting mugs, wiping down spilled beer and nattering with the customers, Kosar felt a deepening nostalgia for their time together.

  Their relationship had been short, and ruled more by lust than anything else. He had met her in this very place, and their mutual delight at each other’s tales of travel drew them close very quickly. Of course, Kosar’s tales were pale and lackluster compared to the accounts she told him over the following moons. That first night had ended with them falling drunk into each other’s arms, and before they knew it they were back in Kosar’s rooms screwing like old lovers. The sight of those cherry-red nipples against her pure white skin, the black hair between her legs like a hole in virgin snow, her long dark hair loosened so that i
t drifted across the landscape of her shoulders and breasts had driven Kosar mad. They eventually left his room two days later, but only to eat and drink.

  The sex had been central to their relationship, but they had also developed a deep and lasting trust which both admitted felt new and fresh. Kosar was a marked thief, and few people trusted him now or ever would again. A’Meer was a Shantasi, a race that even after all this time was held at a distance by Noreelans, their distinct features and ambiguous history setting them too much apart. Both loners, they reveled in the companionship. He had told her much about himself, some of which he was surprised at even remembering. She had told him of her travels, the things she had seen, dreams of places yet to see.

  Leaving A’Meer and Pavisse had been the final penitent act of this wandering thief looking for a home.

  Kosar had finished three mugs of Old Bastard waiting for A’Meer’s arrival, and he felt more than a little light-headed. He needed some food, he needed sleep, he needed escape from the horrors he had witnessed the previous day. He watched her as she approached, moving from table to table, collecting mugs, sometimes chatting with the drinkers and sometimes not. She wiped at his table where he had purposely spilled some ale. He leaned back on his chair, his face in shadow beneath the staircase.

  “Another mug of Old Bastard, please,” he said in a low voice.

  “I’ll wipe up your mess, but I’ll not serve for you. Get your ale at the bar, friend, and try not to spill it next time. Old Bastard is too expensive and too good to waste.”

  Kosar grabbed his mug before she could reach for it, lifted it and offered it to her.

  “Thief,” A’Meer said mildly upon seeing his bandaged hands. She bent down then, peered beneath the staircase, and her face broke into a delighted smile. “Kosar! You treacherous old bastard, what in the name of the Mages brings you back to this stinking shit pit?”

  “You,” he said, pleased by her smile. He had left her rather quickly after all, and with little real explanation.

  “Liar! It’s the ale, isn’t it? And the bustling center of art and culture that is Pavisse.” She pulled up a chair, hesitated, leaned forward and hugged him warmly, then sat down.

  “A’Meer, it’s great to see you.” He meant it. He felt panic pressing in, a potent combination of terror and alcohol driving him to distraction, and her familiar face was welcome.

  “You too! I haven’t had a fuck as good as you for years.”

  Kosar laughed despite himself. “I haven’t at all since you,” he said.

  Her eyes widened fractionally, but she did not comment. It had been a long time, and although they both seemed pleased to see each other, there was an awkwardness here. He hoped it would dissipate soon.

  “So what urges you to leave your little village, eh? Wanderer’s life bleeding back into your system now that you’re used to the brands?” She held his hands gently and unwrapped the bandages, grimacing at the bloody wounds on his fingertips. “Fuck, Kosar, all for a few furbats. I remember what used to soothe the hurt. You remember?” She arched her eyebrows mischievously, and yes, he remembered.

  “A’Meer, it’s something bad,” he said quietly, his tone killing the moment. Suddenly it was as if they had never parted and here they were in the Broken Arm, swapping stories, drinking, sinking into solemn discussions about how things might be turned around, how the long-ago loss of magic might just be weathered and survived. Everything was falling apart, they would say, and A’Meer would tell him about the plains south of Kang Kang where things fell into the sky and the air was turned to glass.

  “How bad?” A’Meer asked. When Kosar did not answer she let go of his hands and sat back in her chair. “Bad enough that we need a bottle of rotwine to talk about it?”

  “Get two,” Kosar said without smiling.

  “Oh Mage shit.” A’Meer rose and went to the bar. She exchanged a few words with the barman, slapped him on the back and then returned to the table with two bottles filled with black rotwine. “I’ve got the evening off,” she said.

  Kosar nodded, popped the lid on one of the bottles and filled the glasses A’Meer had brought. “A’Meer,” he said, lifting his glass and seeing how the fluid seemed to swallow the light, “I think things are about to change.”

  Tim Lebbon

  Dusk

  Chapter 7

  IT DID NOTfeel the cold. It had only a vague sense of things, a concept of shape and size and direction that was barely enough to guide it on its way, abstract ideas of how things were supposed to be as opposed to observations of how they actually were. Its whole world was its own, contained within its potential mind, where a slew of instincts were all that existed; no experience, no history, nothing to shape this shade any more than nature had already done. The faults were already there, not planted by outside intervention. There are mistakes even in nature.

  It did not know that it was a mistake. It was perfect. It had been told so by its god, and that god had sent it on its way, launched it from endless waiting out into the world with an aim in mind. It could find itself a home, the god said, somewhere to settle and spread, let its potential filter down into flesh and bone, heart and desire, mind and body. And then-the hardest part-it would leave this home and return.

  It was all instinct, and the instinct was to never go back. But one of the knots in its makeup made it, so its god said, better than perfect. It made it exquisite. It gave this shade, this empty space of potential mind, soul, spirit, experience and existence, something of a life already.

  It was loyal to its god.

  It traveled quickly, seeking out whispers echoing through the spaces surrounding it. Ideas, words, visions it had been told to watch for. The whispers had silenced already, but the shade knew the direction, even if distance was something as yet vague. It traveled beneath the surface of the world, behind the plane where true life existed, and though the temptation was to immerse itself in this reality-the draw was huge, the power great, the shade’s potential aching to be let in-it knew to wait. It had its instructions. So it traversed spaces where there had never been anything, passing by others similar to itself as they waited patiently for life. They did not notice its passing, though in its wake they were scrutinized one more time for any imperfections. There were none; their creation was thorough. This shifting shade was an oddity, an echo of something not there, and something not noticed cannot be forgotten.

  Its imperfections dipped it into the world on occasion, and the sudden shock of life flung it out instantly: a brief instant of cold as it hits a field of white, things darting away in terror, the white solidifying and becoming clear in its path; more cold, subsumed in fluid, life swarming and seeding and ending around it, life as small as a piece of nothing or large as the mind of its god, and all of it shocked at the shade’s brief arrival; something more solid, rich in the history of life though holding little, only sleeping things, even older than its god and so much more unknowable.

  The shade withdrew with something akin to fear. It was its first true emotion, and it was quite apt.

  Time passed, though the shade did not know time. The places it skirted became warmer, the oceans more full of life, the sky lighter and more loaded with living things. Nothing saw it-there was nothing to sense-but the mood of wrongness at its passing sent a pod of blade whales on course for a distant beach, a giant hawk into sea-bound freefall, and the crew of a fishing boat into a murderous madness.

  It moved on, listening for more whispers to carry back to its god.

  Tim Lebbon

  Dusk

  Chapter 8

  HOPE’S TATTOOS SEEMEDto reflect her mood. They emphasized the set of her face and now, as she spoke sadly of what was past, they drew down the corners of her mouth, painted themselves as deep creases around her eyes. They made her look very old.

  The boy had not yet given her a satisfactory answer. Hers was the only one that made any sort of sense, crazy and terrifying though it may be. There were other ways she could check, but s
he was too terrified. If she looked and saw and it was true… then everything was ending. Ending, and beginning again.

  This was the moment she had been living for.

  “BUT I’M ONLYa farm boy,” Rafe said yet again, as if his insistence would make it so.

  Hope shook her head in frustration, her spiked hair snapping at the air. “You’re impossible, that’s what you are!” She stood and went to pour them both some more water. Rafe was not sure quite what she meant.

  He wanted to curl up and sleep. He may be in this strange place with this strange woman, but he was exhausted, physically and mentally, and sleep lured him as a welcome retreat. He might dream of his parents, but then he might not. And he hoped that if he did dream, then for a while they would still be alive. A million good memories awaited him in sleep.

  “How do you explain what you’re hearing?” Hope asked yet again.

  “I don’t know what I’m hearing! Just… things. Whispers. Words I don’t know. Other things.”

  “What other things?” She gave him a glass of water. She’d asked him already, but she looked determined.

  “Hope, I don’t know, I’ve told you. It’s like… have you ever tried to explain a dream? A really strange dream, one that makes perfect sense to you when you’re in it but once it’s over and you’re awake you can’t put it into words, can’t make sense of it, even to yourself?”