The Dimming Sun

by Lana Nielsen

  “You know, if you want to go see her now, I’ll go with you,” Darren offered.

  “I appreciate it,” she told him. “But you should rest.”

  “This is important to you,” he said. “It is the least I can do after all you’ve done for me.”

  Arithel smiled a little, savoring the notion that Darren considered himself indebted to her.

  “You need to save your strength,” she said. “Move around too much and the poultice will fall right out of your leg. You need another couple days of treatment. The infection is not clear yet.”

  Darren groaned, and pulled his sheets higher over his chest. “Ever since I found out who I am, you’ve been coddling me. That is not how I wanted it. This is not how these things work.”

  “What things?” Arithel asked, the corners of her mouth twisting into a smirk.

  “Prophecies, fate, lost bloodlines… Being called to fulfill a destiny!” Darren cried out, his eyes brimming with passion and wonder. Arithel envied him for it. She was sure no one had seen that look on her face in half a decade.

  “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself.”

  “If the journey to Paden is anything like what we’ve been through these past couple of days.” Darren sighed. “It’s going to be a long one.”

  “It’ll get better. After all, you have me as your guide.” She winked boldly at him. She was still thinking of how her skills and her skills alone garnered mention on the bounty notice. It was probably only because of how sensational a woman-at-arms was.

  “I thought Fallon was my guide.”

  “One of them,” Arithel snapped. His statement irritated her. It was as if he was questioning whether or not she was his elder, his mentor.

  “Maybe you would do a better job.”

  “What makes you think that?” Arithel murmured.

  She never objected to a bit of flattery.

  “I am glad Fallon found me. I’m glad his employer sent him to seek me out, but there is something cruel in his nature, something you don’t understand…”

  She sighed. It wasn’t what she had expected to hear.

  “You know I won’t listen to you disparage my friend. If you were wiser, you’d just be grateful for your medicine.”

  “I’ll try.” He sighed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Darren impatiently sat awake in bed for the next couple of hours. Dusk turned into night; the winds from the snowstorm howled. Arithel was neither seen nor heard from. He knew she had gone off in search of Anoria against her better judgment.

  Now that Elspeth’s prophecy was confirmed, the prospects of his quest were suddenly far more terrifying than romantic. A million unsettling questions floated about his head. What was he supposed to do once Fallon brought him to Paden? Would he get hurt again along the road? After all, the one blow from Mira had already nearly done him in. Would there be others after him? What if the weather stayed this awful the whole journey? He didn’t want to freeze to death in the middle of nowhere, to be buried without dignity beneath some roadside cairn. There was the most burning question of all—how exactly had Fallon managed to find him? It was eerie once Darren thought about it properly.

  Darren missed his grandparents, his village, the temple, their cows, their goat, even the blasted wheat fields. He wanted to be back at the farm, working. He was starting to feel like a prisoner.

  He shook his head and lay back against his pillow. He couldn’t think these thoughts; he had a goal, a purpose. Agron would be ashamed; he had no right to question the path laid before him.

  He caught himself reaching for the poppy wine again. After several minutes of deliberation, he allowed himself to steal one last sip. Though it quelled the pain from the wound, it muddled his mind and made him weak.

  Widow White came by his room to chat. She asked about his parents, how a good boy like him had fallen in with such shady, un-Agronian folk. Darren tried not to reveal too much information, but at the same time he answered as honestly as possible. He changed the subject of their conversation from Aelfelm to her deceased husband. She was more than happy to discuss that; she dabbed her eyes with the hems of her sleeves as she recounted how they first met.

  “I can’t believe I told you all that.” She laughed, turning her wedding band around her pudgy old finger. “Sometimes I forget he is gone. One morning I even found myself making a cup of coffee for him.”

  Darren thought of Arithel smiling as she beckoned him into the hot springs.

  Their conversation was interrupted when Fallon barged in, bearing a new bag of Orselus root and several bundles of supplies. A heavy purse dangled from his belt, the coins clinking together with each step. Darren noted that he was wearing new clothes and that his boots had been polished.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Fallon said, a small smirk playing around the corners of his lips.

  Darren had grown to loathe that perpetual smirk.

  “Not at all,” Darren told him, his gaze scouring Fallon’s suspiciously sophisticated appearance.

  Widow White got out of her chair. “I’ll be downstairs.”

  Fallon sat down in the old woman’s place and lit his pipe. He blew rings of opium smoke as he tilted his head back. He released his overstuffed purse from his belt, allowing it to collapse against the floorboards and eyed Darren’s half-filled cup of poppy wine with disapproval.

  “You’ll feel better if you drink it all. Don’t waste my medicine.”

  “I’m tired of the stuff. You shouldn’t bother with it anymore. I think I only need the Orselus from here out.”

  Fallon regarded Darren skeptically.

  Darren said, “I’m nearly better, you know.”

  “If you say so. Just don’t come griping to me about the pain.”

  Darren nodded. He wanted to ask Fallon questions about Nureen and Paden and the long journey ahead, but he hesitated. He did not know how to start such a conversation.

  “Take a look at this,” Fallon said, handing Darren a folded sheet of parchment. From the way the type looked, Darren determined that it was some sort of bounty notice. He figured it must have been about the killing of the Nureenian sentinels.

  “Are they on to us?” Darren asked.

  “No,” Fallon laughed. “Didn’t you read it? They haven’t the slightest idea who did it, they’re just offering up a reward for information. We dealt the Nureenians quite a blow, it seems. According to Arithel, the local folk speak of our deeds in the streets.”

  “Oh, right,” Darren said. Truth be told, he had no idea of what the notice said; he couldn’t read. He only recognized the “wanted” part because he had seen the same sort of writing before—back in Aelfelm, when the constables were searching for heretics, thieves, and witches.

  “This is a good thing, I take it?” Darren said.

  “Very,” Fallon said. “One, because we have obviously gotten off scot-free. Two, because we can connect this deed to you, now that it is semi-notorious. This will be very helpful to our cause.”

  Darren wasn’t really sure what he meant but nodded anyway.

  “Where is Arithel?” Fallon demanded, his gaze searching the room.

  “She went out for her sister. I tried to stop her…” Darren said with a shrug. He omitted the part where he offered to go with her; it would anger Fallon.

  Fallon cursed.

  “You should have known she would. She couldn’t stand to wait,” Darren pointed out.

  “You’re right,” Fallon conceded. “I shouldn’t have given her the address till tomorrow morning. Damn! What have I done?”

  He pressed his fingers into his temples and closed his eyes.

  “She’ll be all right,” Darren said. It surprised him to see Fallon so distraught. He had never before considered that Fallon actually cared for Arithel all that much, at least beyond a certain degree of possessiveness. Perhaps Fallon was not as dreadful as he seemed. Darren considered the implications of his thought and grew jealous. “She knows h
er way around the city. She slips through crowds well.”

  “I know.” Fallon narrowed his eyes at Darren.

  They sat in silence for a minute until Fallon stated, “We’re halfway done gathering our new provisions. Everything is falling into place.”

  Darren nodded. “Good news.” He recalled Arithel’s words from earlier as he gazed at the bag of money beside Fallon’s chair. “Just be grateful for your medicine.” The words echoed relentlessly and the purse seemed to get fatter the longer he looked at it. Suddenly, he was irrationally angry. He didn’t care that he was getting better, that Fallon had great plans for him, or anything else. All he cared about for now was that a great evil had occurred, and Fallon had been complicit, even supportive, of it.

  “So,” Darren raised his voice. “How many people did you force Mira to sell herself to? How long will you take advantage of her good nature?”

  Darren thought of poor Mira lying beneath some sweating old man and shuddered.

  He thought of his adoptive mother, Magda, consorting with Tifalla’s devils on the runestone back in Aelfelm, rocking back and forth, a pale gem glowing below her throat. He contrasted that image with that of his true mother Milisandia, the one he had never met—princess and nun, holy and noble. He pictured a beautiful lady, standing tall and proud, wearing a white cowl with a golden circlet about her brow. She would have kind eyes, he thought, not gold and wild like Magda’s.

  “Good nature? Have you forgotten how you received that wound?”

  The painful memory of his flesh being sliced like a ribbon resurfaced. His leg ached; he longed for the poppy wine.

  “I remember. I’ve forgiven her.”

  He wanted to bring up what he had seen between Fallon and Mira, but he knew better. Fallon would probably deny it anyway. That Arithel held a high opinion of Fallon made Darren’s blood boil. He had to let her know and soon.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Arithel started her trek to the slums. The temperature dropped as the light of the shrouded sun waned. She briefly considered that it may have been a mistake to head out. Night would arrive soon and the weather would surely get worse. The snowdrifts were already two or three feet high in some spots.

  Her bones ached and her teeth chattered, but there was no turning back; she would see Anoria before the end of the night. Every couple of minutes, Arithel would gaze upon the address, just to reassure herself that it was indeed real.

  She had devised a quick plan for her search. She would hire the largest, most frightening sellsword she could find to serve as her muscle. She would find out what had happened to Anoria and wreak a terrible vengeance if she had to. Arithel had taken some of Fallon’s money for her mission and swapped her skirts for his shabbiest breeches and tunic, which she further distressed by fraying the edges of the fabric with her knife; she would explain it to him later. She had also taken Mira’s kohl and smeared it liberally under her eyes and across her brow, like war paint. A scarf obscured her mouth and nose, and a tightly drawn hood hid her hair.

  The gate to the slums loomed tall before Arithel. Blue Nureenian flags were staked atop the battlements. A few soldiers were posted at the top, huddled around dim makeshift fires.

  “You’re mad to be out in our weather,” one of the guards told her. She’d never get used to the way the Nureenians spoke the Central Tongue.

  Arithel shrugged and waited for him to tell her the exact fee. One of the others was peeling an apple with a much-too-large knife. He tossed the skins into the muddy snow.

  “Two gold cuplets,” the soldier told her.

  She handed over the coins. They glimmered against his brown leather gloves. He motioned for the others to open the gate. It creaked slowly and was released only a few feet, just enough for Arithel to slip through. She could already smell the slums. Dogs, cinders, body odor, waste—all mixing together in a sickening maelstrom.

  The gate shut ominously, metal scraping painfully against metal. The guards on the other side were standing in a circle, tossing dice at the ground. They said something in their language as she passed, laughing and jeering and making kissing faces. “Elinmoor” was the only word she recognized.

  Loiterers shuffled to and fro, watching Arithel with hungry, resentful eyes. Hardly any of them had gloves or coats, and many had deformities of some sort—bent backs, twisted legs, goiters, and tuberous growths.

  She did not know where to begin to look for Atchington Alley. Unlike the middle quarter, she saw no street signs at all, not even one marking the main road. There were no torches, no lamps in the slums. She could picture Fallon’s tired face, warning her to stay at Widow White’s. When night arrived, only the vagrants’ fires would light the way.

  After walking down the main road for about ten minutes, with each narrow side street looking just as decrepit as the last, she decided it would be best to ask someone if they knew where exactly Atchington Alley was. She searched for a normal person, preferably a woman.

  At last a girl crossed her path. A grey scarf was wrapped around her mousy hair. A tow-headed little boy held her hand and hid behind her patched-up skirts.

  “Hey!” Arithel stopped her.

  “What it’ll it be?” the girl asked. Her mouth sounded as if it were full of marbles. When she licked her lips Arithel could see why. She was chewing on a great mass of purple stuff, probably emberweed paste. It had blackened her teeth.

  “I’m looking for a place around here,” Arithel said.

  The young woman gave her a scathing look: “Yer not from Belhaven or somethin’?”

  “I need directions.”

  The young woman nodded, her dark blue eyes hardly wavering as she gazed upon Arithel. The girl’s bare wrists and ankles were bird-like and thin. The child, however, was as chubby and rosy-cheeked as any country boy. Arithel offered the girl a few coppers, and she greedily snatched them.

  “53 Atchington Alley,” Arithel said.

  “That’s on the other side of the slums,” the girl said. “You’ll have to make a great big circle roun’ the whole quarter. I don’t know anything else, never been to that part. I hear a lot o’ real thugs prowl there, fellas even the Nureenians are scared of.”

  “It’s no different than anywhere else in the slums,” Arithel said flatly.

  “I… s’pose ye could say that.”

  Arithel was frustrated and wished she hadn’t given the girl money. “That’s it?”

  The girl nodded. Arithel noted a few rough men, all with daggers at their belts, watching the interaction intently.

  “How do I get to that other side?” Arithel whispered.

  “Keep followin’ this road left. This is the main sideways road. Ye should know that.”

  “Great lot of help you’ve been,” muttered Arithel as the young woman walked away. The girl turned back to face Arithel and sneered in disgust. She had no idea why she felt insulted. The chit had made money off Arithel for nothing. She doubted the woman was even telling the truth, but she kept going in accordance with the flimsy directions. She had little choice.

  Arithel kept walking. The road seemed to stretch forever. The city was even bigger than it looked. Night came and she was unsure how much ground she had covered or if she was any closer to Anoria. Little crystals of ice formed along her lashes and eyebrows. She was too irritated to brush them off.

  Arithel questioned a middle-aged man who was closing down a laundry. She asked if he knew where Atchington Alley was. He replied that he had never heard of it. Arithel asked him where all of the street signs were.

  “Been stolen for firewood, I reckon.”

  She kept walking for another half hour, exploring some of the smaller alleys. She asked three more slum dwellers, and none were any help. She wondered whether the place existed at all.

  Defeated by the blizzard’s wrath and her own impatience, Arithel wandered inside a temple for refuge. The priests did not notice as she slipped through the door—their sanctuary was full of children coughing and old w
omen complaining. Arithel stopped to rest, sitting on the floor below a bronze and enamel icon of Inara the Protectress. It depicted the saint as a young maid, holding her foster brother, Agron, to her chest as she stood against two roaring lions armed only with her shepherd’s crook. Arithel closed her eyes, leaned into the pew behind her, and allowed her mind to drift as her body warmed. Loud voices, past and present, exploded in her head, incoherent fragments of reverberating noise.

  Her hypnotic reflections were interrupted when some careless oaf flung a half-eaten chicken bone in her direction. It landed in her lap and she tossed it aside in disgust. “Time to go back out.” She got up.

  She lingered in the doorway, dreading the cold.

  “You lost?” a gruff voice behind her asked. She turned around and saw a man standing at the foot of the steps to the temple, with another fellow behind him. The man who had spoken was about half a head taller than her, with grey eyes, tawny hair, and a closely-cropped reddish beard to match his florid complexion. His big arms were folded across his chest. His companion startled Arithel. He was a veritable giant—perhaps even seven feet tall. He had a tanned, weathered look, with dark hair and squinty hazel eyes. Both men were well-built; they looked like warriors, and the nondescript grey rags they wore seemed unbefitting.

  “No.”

  She decided it was best not to say anything else. She felt very rash for venturing out and wondered if her own gall had gotten the better of her yet again. She supposed she had done it out of guilt, out of some need to test herself. Anoria seemed as distant as ever.

  The man spoke again, “It seems like you are.”

  Arithel decided it was a good time to leave. She noted there was something strange about the way he talked—his accent was not Elinmoorian, nor Nureenian. She had never heard anything like it at all. She walked away quickly and quietly, drawing her coat across her body and pushing her scarf back above her mouth. The men caught up to her. As she walked faster still, the giant grabbed her arm. Instead of running, as was her first instinct, she stopped in her tracks.