Dusk (26 page)

“They don’t look like Monks to me,” the boy said.

“Monks?” Trey had sat with his back to the fire, and he mumbled something else into the dark.

Monks,
Alishia thought.
What sort of Monks did he mean?
There were the bands of moon worshippers—life or death—that still practiced their religions, long gone though the magic of the land was. And there were . . .

There were Red Monks. Red Monks like the bastard that had burned down her library, stolen something away, charred her dreams and memories to cover whatever he may have left. Red Monks. Sworn destroyers of magic.

Magic!
The shout was so loud in her head that she thought they must have all heard, but the boy’s eyes did not falter, the cursing witch did not let up in her litany. And Alishia, staring steadily into the flame, felt the darkened place in her mind open up.

Chapter 18

KOSAR’S FINGERS HURT
like the Black. Yet now more than ever he needed his delicate touch, the gentle manipulation that years as a thief had bestowed on him, even after his self-inflicted branding. His fingertips were raw and bleeding, but the fresh blood was all his own. He did not appear to be infected with the slayer venom.

He breathed quietly and slowly through his mouth. His bare feet followed the contours of the ground, flexing and settling comfortably around stony protrusions, a patch of hay, a clump of horseshit. His hands were held out from his side so that his clothing did not rub and whisper. Each step took many heartbeats, so his weight had time to settle on its own.

He had not stolen anything for years. His heart was beating hard and fast—he knew the man could not hear, yet still he willed it to quieten—and the mere act of metaphorically tracing his own steps was thrilling. However near A’Meer was to death, however much danger they were in from Red Monks and whatever else might be on their trail, he was actually
enjoying
exercising the talents of a thief. He could not make himself calm, composed and collected, but he was still pleased to find that his skills were not as rusty as he had believed. He had already passed two horses without so much as making them move. The stable was dark—only a little of the dusky light found its way through the holed roof—and the ground underfoot was uneven. There was a whole range of sounds ready to alert the guard to Kosar’s presence.

He came to within an arm’s reach of success before he gave himself away. It was his sword, its unfamiliar length finally swinging and tapping against a wooden stall as he shifted.

The man stood and spun around, eyes wide and glassy with rotwine, hand reaching instinctively for his own sword.

So much for silent theft. Kosar leapt forward and punched him in the throat, silencing any shout he might have made, and as the man sank to his knees Kosar kicked the back of his neck three times in quick succession. The guard went limp and collapsed to the floor.

The horses stamped in their stalls and snorted, and Kosar did the only thing he could to quieten them down: he stood and waited. It did not take long. They were all but asleep anyway, and the flurry of noise had been brief enough.

Kosar bent to the shape on the ground, felt his wrist to make sure he was still alive, then slipped the ring of keys from his belt. He opened the first stall and saddled the horse quickly, soothing it and whispering into its ear as he moved. The horse in the second stall stood still and let him saddle up, and then he led them both out into the moonlight.

He looked up at the big house. No lights had come on, no windows were opened, no raging owner had come running from the doors. Even if they had heard they would more than likely leave the trouble to the stable hand, not wanting to face any potential problems themselves. They were rich enough to buy new horses. Kosar had no qualms about stealing their best two. The only fact that troubled him was how much he may have hurt the lad, but it had been necessary. He was not dead. At worst he would wake up to a headache and a screaming match with his employer.

Kosar opened the yard gates and led the horses outside, wincing at the din their shod hooves made on the cobbled road. Once out in the street he did his best to blend in. A few people gave the two horses appraising glances and that was good, that kept attention away from Kosar, with his bloodied hands and blood-spattered clothing camouflaged in the failing light.

He made his way quickly through the park gates that Hope and Rafe must have exited while he and A’Meer were still battling the Red Monk. There were few people using the park now; night must bring new dangers, people and things drawn from below the ground at dusk’s first touch.

A’Meer was where he had left her, propped against a tree with her sword clasped in one hand. She was unconscious now, blood painting her beautiful pale face from eyes and nose and mouth. The veins on her temples and forehead stood out in stark relief, but Kosar was reasonably sure that they had not swelled any more. Perhaps the poison had slowed, its effect come to a head, but it might yet kill her. He bent closer, trying to make out her face in the weak moonlight. Where blood did not touch her skin, it was pale and sickly as the death moon.

“Come on,” Kosar said, holding A’Meer beneath her armpits and lifting. His fingertips stung, but she seemed to help herself up, pushing weakly at the ground until she stood propped against him. He held her there for a while, gathering his strength to hoist her into the saddle. He knew that he would have to lay her across the horse’s back, tie her there, and he had no idea what damage the pressure on her stomach might do. For all he knew it would aid the slayer’s poison in bursting her innards, but there was no alternative.

That was his problem: he knew so little.

Something rustled the leaves in the tree above their heads and Kosar glanced up. He was badly on edge, and exhaustion was only just around the corner. He stared through the branches and leaves at the glow of the life moon, and the rustling stopped.

“A’Meer,” he whispered into the unconscious woman’s ear, “I have to lift you onto a horse. Go limp, let me help you up, then I’ll tie you there to stop you spilling off.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, held her uninjured arm across his shoulders and half carried, half dragged her to the horses. The animals stood still as he bent and let A’Meer fall across his shoulder. “Going to lift you up now.” He stood, placed both arms under A’Meer’s small waist and pushed. “Maybe I’ll take advantage of you,” he said. She slid onto the saddle and he paused, both arms locked straight to stop her from falling. “Come on, A’Meer, don’t give me this shit, you’re doing this on purpose.” He pushed at her arm and shoulder, slipping her sideways across the saddle so that her arms dropped down the other side.

She was totally limp. There was no help from her, no attempt to aid him at all, and for the first time Kosar seriously thought that she might be dead. He dashed around the front of the horse and knelt by A’Meer’s head, listening hard to hear her breathing, sighing with relief when she expelled a hot breath against his neck.

“A chair,” she whispered, “I like it over a chair.”

Kosar laughed quietly. “I’ll get you out of here,” he said, “then we’ll see if the witch keeps her promise.”

“Northeast,” A’Meer said. “Away from Trengborne.”

“And toward Noreela City?”

A’Meer moved her shoulders in what must have been a shrug.

Kosar jumped onto the other horse and led them from the park. The darkness was waking behind them—more rustling in the bushes and shrubs, splashes in the large pond as something rose from the depths, hoarse giggles from a gang of shadows flitting around the park’s perimeter—and he was glad to leave.

Once back on the streets he rode fast, conscious that night was here at last and that the darkness turned the town into a whole new place. He saw shadows darting through deeper shadows, and they may have been wraiths. A huddle of fodder wound their way along the street, their inbred insecurity making the dark their preferred home. Metal scraped along stone, and wet slapping sounds came from the dark infinity between two large buildings. Machines were silhouetted against the moonlight here and there—not as many as in the hidden districts, but there were always some—and Kosar tried not to see their sharp spears, curved shells, blocked facades. On his travels he had heard rumors of machine graveyards, and dusk gave Pavisse that appearance. They disturbed him more at night; it was then that their purpose seemed so close to the surface.

More so tonight of all nights. Tonight, magic was on the run.

They left Pavisse quickly and without incident. He saw no Red Monks. That was a good thing for him now, but a bad thing for the future. It meant that the Monks had probably left Pavisse ahead of them, moving out from the town in pursuit of Rafe and the witch. And that meant that, whether Hope delivered a message to him and A’Meer or not, the Red Monks stood between them.

THE MESSAGE CAME
soon after they had left Pavisse.

If Kosar had had his wits about him, the messenger would have been killed. If he had been paying attention, the witch’s words would have never found their way to him and A’Meer. Many things changed in the land of Noreela that night, and many destinies were entwined. If Kosar had not fallen asleep on his horse, the future may have been a very different place.

He was on a boat, bobbing in the network of drainage ditches he had been digging around Trengborne for thirty years. They had expanded into canals, taking up most of the land and negating their original purpose, but their digging had become a purpose in itself. The boat was of his own making. He rode it alone, pulled along by a horse on the bank, and the people of Trengborne had gathered in the distance to welcome him back from another digging expedition. They had furbats and flowers and bottles of their best wine, and one of them, a boy called Rafe, held two tankards of Old Bastard for both of them to enjoy.

In the distance, past the crowds, the village of Trengborne had changed. When he had left sometime in the past it had been a dead place, filled with people waiting to die, the crops failing and the animals showing ribs through their weak hides. Now . . .

Now there were
things
in the village, large and small, fast and slow, moving and still, colorful and bland. Most were solid with pulsing sacs at various points around their constructs, stone mantels bearing dull yellow masses of fleshy parts, shimmering and steaming in the heat. Appendages shifted in the sunlight, turning on multijoints, digging or scraping or building, forming solid curved limbs that propeled them over the ground like carts, except that these steered themselves. Many had long, tapering tendrils sprouting from their bodies, dipping down to touch or pierce the ground, drawing energy, drawing
magic.
Because these were machines.

“Machines!” Kosar said, but then the people waiting for him along the banks of the canal drew suddenly nearer, and he saw that all but Rafe wore red.

And madness colored their faces.

“MACHINES!” KOSAR SCREAMED,
and as his eyes sprang open he tumbled from his horse in shock.

“Kosar,” A’Meer said, “I know where Rafe is.”

The impact had winded him, his foot was tangled in the stirrup, his bare bloody fingers grated with dust, and now A’Meer—half-dead, infected with a poison that may yet kill her—was talking to him. He twisted his foot free and kicked at the horse’s side as it trotted away. Then he glanced back at A’Meer’s horse . . . and froze.

In the death moonlight he saw a skull raven perched on her back.

“Kosar!” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re still asleep after that fall. Did you hear me? I know where Rafe and the witch are. Help me sit up, and then we have to ride. Ride
fast.
”

“Keep still,” Kosar said. “Very still.” He stood slowly, painfully, and started drawing his sword.

“No!” she said. “This is the witch’s message.”

Kosar kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, moving closer to A’Meer’s mount. The raven fluttered its huge wings and he felt the breeze lift his hair. It stared at him with black pearl eyes, reflecting a moon in each. “I don’t understand.”

“It spoke to me when I was unconscious, gave me the witch’s words. They’re camped a few miles north of here.”

“That’s a skull raven.”

“Yes, she gave it the message. She’s a
witch,
Kosar, she has her ways. Now, please, let me sit on my own. What blood I have left inside me is collecting in my head, and I can’t think straight. At least let me die sitting up.”

“You’re not going to die,” he said.

“I hope not. I don’t know how much worse it is. I feel . . . strange inside. I think I might be bleeding in there.”

Kosar helped A’Meer down from her horse, the skull raven flapping off to a nearby tree to watch their efforts. It cawed quietly, and Kosar kept glancing its way. He had never been this close to a skull raven, but all the tales he had heard were bad. He did not trust it one bit.

“How did it tell you?”

“In my sleep. In my dream.”

“I had a dream,” he said. “I saw machines in a village filled with Red Monks.”

“We should get there as fast as we can,” she said weakly, leaning against him, smelling like death. “If there is an antidote for this and the witch has it, the sooner I take it the better.”

“And then what?”

“And then we run with Rafe.” She said it simply, matter-of-factly, as if Kosar should have known that all along. Run with Rafe.
So that was it? His future was running from murderous Red Monks?

The bird called out again, louder this time, and it was answered from somewhere far away.

A’Meer sat in her saddle, leaning forward so that she almost breathed in the horse’s mane. Kosar found his own horse and remounted, and this time he and A’Meer rode side by side. The skull raven fluttered on ahead, waiting for them, flying on again, never quite losing itself to the dark. It circled overhead once or twice as if catching moonlight.

After hours spent traveling through the night, the bird still hovering but joined now by more shapes, all of them calling quietly, they mounted a small hill and saw the flicker of a campfire at its base.

RAFE WAS THE
first to hear the horses.

He and Alishia had been watching each other through the dancing flames of the campfire, smiling, glancing away, looking again. Something about her eyes drew him in, but there was a disturbing factor there repulsing him as well, a sense that beneath her outside beauty lay something rotten. If he closed his eyes as she watched him he could smell bad things, feel the breath of the world stuttering against the walls of his heart, hear worried whispers passing through blades of grass, apprehensive heartbeats pulsing from the depths of the land. So he kept his eyes open, and while he knew that she was
wrong,
the young lad in him reveled in her smile.