Dusk n-1

by Tim Lebbon

  “Where is Rafe?” Lucien hissed, holding the ruined man by his beard and lifting him so high that they were face-to-face.

  Vance could not speak. He shook his head instead, grimacing as something ground in his neck like shattered glass.

  “Where?” Lucien shouted again. The sight of blood spattered across his red robe, sprayed across his hands, kicked into weird shapes on the wooden floor by the man’s thrashing legs… he wanted more. Every bloody splash took him closer to finding the boy.

  Vance shook his head and Lucien let him drop. He hit the floor and writhed there, groaning, eyes half-closed, broken fingers splayed across his chest as he tried to hold his crushed ribs. He could not speak. That did not matter. Lucien knew he had to be quick.

  He reached inside his robe and plucked a small box from a pocket, shaking it slightly to wake the thing inside. He heard the chitinous rattle of docked wings, the hiss as the insect tried in vain to fly out of the darkness that imprisoned it.

  “You will tell me the truth,” Lucien said. He dropped the insect onto the wounded man’s chest, and used the tip of his sword to slash a finger-long entry hole in Vance’s neck. The creature scuttled across blood-soaked clothing and the man’s broken fingers. It smelled the copious blood, but the leakage from the fresh wound was different. Here the creature found what it desired most: thick, rich arterial blood whose flow would soon cease.

  It burrowed inside. Skin and flesh parted, tearing around the cut Lucien had already made, and soon the lump that marked the creature’s presence disappeared as it drove deeper, attaching itself to the man’s spine with barbed claws, spreading its wing stumps so that other, finer limbs could extrude from its body. They delved through flesh and found what they sought.

  Vance’s throat began to rattle, his voice box agitated by the creature. “I’m going to die,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Lucien smiled, and nodded. “How true,” he said. “Now… where is Rafe?”

  “Don’t know.” The hiss was strange, inhuman, a caress of chitin on bone.

  “Has he been here?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Has he come back?”

  “No.”

  “Where is he in the town?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he know anyone else in the town?”

  “I…” The hiss blurred, as if confusion had set in.

  “Does anyone else here know him?”

  “A thief.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “How do you know he’s a thief?” Lucien smiled at the man below him, because Vance’s eyes were open again now. He was fighting, that was obvious, doing his utmost to keep silent. His eyes were filled with untempered hate. It did not frighten the Monk.

  “Saw his hands, he has a thief’s marks, he brought the boy to me, he… he…”

  “So Rafe fled when he knew you wouldn’t help him. He must have realized you were useless. I’m going to find the boy and kill him.”

  “No!”

  Lucien stood and turned away from the dying man. The blood was running slower now, pooling on the floor and dripping down between boards, finding its way to the earth. With no sign of Rafe-not really any nearer at all-still he had someone else to look for. A thief. In a place like this, there would be hundreds.

  “Kill you,” Vance hissed. “Going to…”

  Lucien turned around, but the man was already on his knees, knife in his unbroken hand, arm swinging around. He buried the blade in Lucien’s stomach, slicing through, twisting it as the Red Monk stepped back, gasping. The men parted, Vance’s eyes already drooping shut from blood loss.

  “Untrue,” Lucien said. And then he let his rage burst out.

  Tim Lebbon

  Dusk

  Chapter 12

  KOSAR AND A’MEERtalked long into the evening. Their closeness had returned, along with a sense of attraction and comfort that set them fully at ease. There were a few jokes, some flirting, some outright innuendos from A’Meer, but mostly the talk was serious. And mostly it concerned magic.

  A’Meer had once fought a Red Monk. When Kosar started his story she mentioned it straightaway, trying to appear casual but knowing the reaction her revelation would invoke. Kosar, already drunk on Old Bastard and rotwine, leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows, waiting for A’Meer to continue. She had told him many stories during their time together, but never had she mentioned the Monks.

  “I was traveling down through the stilted villages of Ventgoria. Everything is built high off the ground there, on wooden platforms set on the thick trunks of Bole trees. They try to make sure the villages-they call them villages, but usually there are no more than a couple of hundred people living in any one place-are built as far away from the steam vents as they can. The stilts keep them up away from the marshes and the gas floods that happen there sometimes, but really they’re frightened of the steam vents as well. They emerge here and there sometimes, unexpected, as if they shift underground and break out wherever they desire. Some of the villagers believe the vents are caused by giant steam dragons, living beneath the ground and burrowing their way through the loamy soil. And each time they need to take a breath, they vent their steam out through the ground. Who am I to doubt their beliefs?”

  “Everything amazes you, doesn’t it?” Kosar said fondly.

  “I’m Shantasi. We’re more receptive to wonder than you fucking Noreelan wasters.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Kosar drained his glass of rotwine and wondered whether he would wake up the next morning.

  “I’d gone quite a way down through the marshes, doing a bit of hunting here and there, when I met him. He was riding a horse, but it seemed to know where to go without him having to guide it. I was on foot, so I stepped to the side of the trail when I saw him in the distance and started a fire. It’s something of a tradition in Ventgoria that when you meet a traveler going in the opposite direction, you take food and a drink together. Not many people have cause to travel right across that place-there’s not much there, especially for those who have no sense of wonder. So I was plucking a marsh goose I’d shot down a couple of hours before, gutting it, stuffing it with a handful of tumblespit I’d been drying in my rucksack. I had a bottle of wine too, from the village I’d just left. Kosar, you won’t believe the wine those Ventgorians can brew! Their grapes grow in the open on string racks, no earth, only the sun to give them sustenance, and the long, loving care of the roots by the growers. Believe me, it’s something to kill for.”

  “Naturally, you bought it,” Kosar slurred.

  A’Meer glanced up. “I traded.” She looked back down at the table and continued, her glass of rotwine long forgotten. Her small hand traced the outline of somebody’s carved name, and Kosar wondered if she had known them. “When he came nearer,” she continued, “I’d already skewered the goose and it was spitting fat onto the fire. It smelled delicious. I knew of the Red Monks, of course. I’d been made to know their purpose. But this was the first one I’d ever met.”

  “Made to know how?” Kosar asked.

  “I’ll get to that, Kosar. Let me talk. You told me yourself what you think this all means-how relevant this boy Rafe could be, how his appearance might change everything-so now I have something to break to you. And this is my way. By telling you about the first time I met a Red Monk.

  “So, on came the Monk. He had his hood up, as they always do, and he seemed to be asleep. Hands on his thighs, his head dipped, the horse’s reins knotted on its back. The horse looked as though it had walked a long, long way. It sounded unshod, it was foaming at the mouth, and I could see its ribs rippling the skin with every step it took. My mouth was watering, but suddenly I wasn’t hungry. Because I knew what was to come.”

  She paused, and Kosar stared wide-eyed, suddenly sober. A’Meer was revealing so much to him in so few words, telling him that there
was something much more to her than met the eye. More than he had ever known before. They had been lovers for a few moons, and although they had talked incessantly, never had anything she revealed held as much import as this. The whole truth remained to be told, but already Kosar knew that things had changed.

  A’Meer glanced up and for a few seconds Kosar was petrified. Her eyes… there was so much more pain there than he had ever thought possible. Pain, and secrecy. He could see that this revelation was hurting her. “What happened?” he asked.

  “He came level with me, dismounted, drew his sword, and we began to fight.”

  Kosar was stunned. The first image that came to him was the Red Monk in Trengborne, marching through the village taking hits from arrows and crossbow bolts, every impact seeming to make him stronger, each splash of his blood on the ground empowering him more. And then he imagined A’Meer fighting one of those same creatures.

  It took him a few dazed seconds to comprehend that she had won.

  “I’m a warrior, Kosar,” she said. “I grew up in New Shanti, as I told you, but not in New Rol Port. And my parents weren’t fisher folk. When I was a girl they took me to Hess, the Shantasi mystic city. And there I learned a lot of things. A lot. Some of which I need to tell you now, most of which I can never tell you. However much I like you, Kosar-and believe me when I tell you I’ve never liked anyone more-my life and what I am has to remain my own.”

  Kosar stared at her white face framed by the beautiful black hair, those dark eyes that seemed to swallow even the reflection from oil lamps, giving out nothing. The raucous laughter in the Broken Arm seemed to fade away, little more than an echo, as if they had the place to themselves. He looked around and nobody was watching. In such a public place, he was about to learn secrets.

  “What happened?” he asked again. He simply wanted to know, not discuss. Not yet.

  “We fought for a long time. You’ve told me a little of what you saw in Trengborne, so you know the tenacity of these things. A Shantasi trained in the art of combat has few of the defenses a Red Monk has, because we’re not mad. In fact, a Shantasi fights with pure logic, knowledge transposing instinct, certainty voiding chance. A Monk has madness as its ally. And true madness has twisted them into something other than human, something more like a machine. There’s a bitter irony in that fact, but it’s true. They suffer a cut, they feel no pain. They lose a limb, and balance becomes a product of their madness, just as strength comes to those enraged. Stick a sword into a Monk’s gut and its muscles clench in rage, holding it, dragging it deeper in to bring its adversary closer. Slash an artery and insanity clots it, drives a fist of lunacy into the wound and stems the flow of blood.”

  “You sound like you speak from experience.”

  A’Meer nodded grimly. “I was armed with full Shantasi warrior weaponry at the time, as I was on all of my travels.”

  “You never said…”

  “I told you where I went, what I saw, who I met. I never mentioned what I was wearing at the time.”

  Kosar nodded, waved his hand, as if the slight deception was unimportant. And isn’t it? he thought. I thought my story would surprise her, but she’s spun the table.

  “I had to use it all,” she said. “We went with swords to begin with-a Monk’s sword is as mad as the Monk. It’s made of a metal that reacts with blood, craves it, whines as its being sated. Spooked the fuck out of me. We fought for an hour, and I put in some good hits. It’s strange, but a Monk is actually a very poor swordsman. They’re untrained, and madness doesn’t aid coordination. But madness is also their greatest weapon. The cuts and slashes did nothing to it, and when I eventually ducked, feinted, rolled and stuck my sword in its gut… as I said just now, it pulled me in. I didn’t want to let go, I couldn’t pull it out, and the sword was sinking deeper, the Monk’s flushed red face staring at me, those eyes… so determined to finish me, and so confident that for a few heartbeats I thought I could never win. But then I let go and rolled back, and took up a slideshock. I slipped it onto my forearm as the Monk was pulling my sword from its gut, and I took my first swing bent almost double. The wire caught it under the chin and the slide hit my wrist. It should have taken its head off, but it was spinning, wrapping the wire around its neck and drawing me in again. I lost another weapon; the wire had slashed its throat and buried itself deep. It bled a lot, but that didn’t seem to bother it. It came at me again and I fell, kicking it up and over my body and onto the cooking goose. The fire didn’t get a good hold because its cloak was so soaked with its own blood.”

  She seemed to remember her rotwine and drained it in one gulp. Kosar leaned forward and refilled her glass, pouring some of the black wine for himself.

  “We fought past dusk, and on into the night. The sky was clouded and the fire was out, but there are lights above the marshes in Ventgoria. Some say they are wraiths, but they sparkle and spit with energy, and a wraith has none. Whatever they are, they witnessed our fight. The Monk came at me with its hungry sword, and scored hits. You’ve seen the scars on my hip, the wound on my neck. I used weapon after weapon, getting in good hits but losing them all to the Monk in the end: throwing knives; my diamond ball; a handful of stinger eggs in its face; rotdust thrown into its wounds. I even ran for a time, circling as it stumbled after me, and I managed to score seven bolts from my wristbow before I tripped and lost the Mage-shitting thing in the marsh. And all the while it came at me, and all the while I was scoring hits. I was wounding it every time, Kosar. Every fucking time I went at it I’d take off a finger or push some rotdust into the wreck of its face.

  “By dawn it no longer had any eyes, but it listened for me. And my only defense through all of this-the only reason I beat that damned thing, exhausted as I was, weaponless as I became-was that it was no real swordsman. Tenacity is a fine weapon, but I could dodge, sidestep, flip, shrink myself away from its sword. It was just a matter of stamina.”

  A’Meer fell silent, took another drink of wine and looked around the tavern. It was emptying now, drunken people tripping over chairs as they left, laughing at themselves and their friends. The barman had started to glance over, obviously suggesting that it was time for them to leave as well. Kosar waited for A’Meer to finish her story, but he could not wait for very long. He was drunk and tired, and she was teasing him, whether she knew it or not.

  “And?” he said. “And?”

  “And eventually the Monk fell down. I took its head off with its own sword. That Mage-shitting thing screamed as I did it, and it was still whining as I threw it out into the marshes. Then I dragged the body until I found a small gas vent and dropped it in. I stayed the whole morning to watch for the next venting. There were bits of the Monk in the steam storm, small bits. I had to make sure. I was utterly exhausted, hallucinating from the exertion, and maybe… maybe I thought there was even more to them than that. Maybe sometime in the night I’d come to believe it was immortal.”

  “Why did it fight you in the first place?”

  A’Meer smiled then, leaned across the table and touched Kosar’s cheek. “Gods, I’ve missed you Kosar,” she said. “And it took you a while to ask that. Getting old, yeah? Losing it a bit up here?” She tapped his head and sat back in the chair.

  “Drink-addled,” he said. “And shocked. Imagine, my sweet A’Meer who likes it bent over a chair is a warrior, and probably the most dangerous person I know.” There was no humor in what he said; he did not feel frivolous. If anything he was drained, and tired, and perhaps a little annoyed that she had made this evening all her own.

  “The reason it fought me is why I have to ask for your help, Kosar. It fought me because I’m a Shantasi warrior, and it’s our chosen cause to bring magic back into Noreela. And you have to help me because that boy you saved, the only other survivor from Trengborne, may be what I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

  THEY LEFT THEtavern arm in arm. Kosar had a hangover, his inebriation driven to ground by A’Meer’s revelations. She felt lig
ht by his side, her arm thin, and he thought he could probably pick her up and fling her about his head with very little effort. Yet she was a warrior, and she had defeated a Red Monk in battle. Images mixed in his head; the Monk from Trengborne peppered with arrows, and the Monk in the Ventgoria marshes slashed and pierced by Shantasi weapons.

  The streets were busy with drunks, prostitutes and drug dealers, yet Kosar felt removed. Here people continued their small existences, busy doing the same thing day in day out, busy doing nothing. He did not resent them that, nor did he look down upon them; they had to get by the best they could, and most of them were decent folk reduced by general decline. But although he was a thief, he was a traveler also. He thought he had seen many things.

  Compared to A’Meer, he had barely left the place of his birth.

  She had been born in New Shanti, a place where few non-Shantasi visited. She had been south of Kang Kang to The Blurring. She had traveled along The Spine to its very tip, a place that many believed did not even exist. And he suspected that she had been to other, even more obscure places she had yet to tell him about.

  Kosar shook his head. “A’Meer, you amazed me so much when we were together, and you amaze me more now that we meet again.”

  “I’m sorry, Kosar. It’s not something I wanted to keep from you-truth is, it’s not something I did consciously. It’s been a part of my life for so long that I really don’t think I’m out of the ordinary. That was the first and last time I ever saw a Monk, and since then I’ve just been wandering. Never seen any sign of the magic I’m supposed to promote, and in all honesty I stopped looking long ago. It’s not like this was an obsession. The Shantasi mystics gave us talents, and much more besides.” She trailed off here, and Kosar thought, Much more besides… That’s what she can never tell me. It’s that “much more” that makes her a stranger to me now.