Dusk

Chapter 23

ELDRISS MAHAY WASnot having a good time. Yesterday a foxlion had taken three of his sheebok, one after the other. Eldriss had been asleep at the time, huddled under a couple of pelts in a copse of trees. His flock were grazing on the plain, trying to fatten themselves on grass gone weak and pale over the past few years, fading, just as Eldriss had felt himself slowly fading. Age was doing it to him, and apathy as well, a continuing and growing belief that there really was no point to anything. Sleep was a retreat he sought more often than ever. Invariably when he woke up his flock was together, just where they had been when he drifted off, and it would only take an hour to gather them in for the night. Ironically, that would make him feel even more superfluous.

And then he had begun to feel ill. It came suddenly, a thump to his gut and a thud in his head, a swimming of vision and a retreat of his hearing. He had doubled up in pain and fallen to his knees, some of his sheebok glancing up listlessly, and he crawled through the long grass to the shaded shelter of the trees.

He had remained there for some time, and when he came around he felt like a stranger. The way he reacted to things was different: the heat of the sun on his skin; the shape of the sheebok; the feel of his flaccid tool as he took a piss. Everything had changed, and yet everything remained the same. It was his perception that had altered. The grass was still pale green, but it provoked subtly changed emotions. The trees he sheltered beneath were the same size, yet the height made him stretch that much more to view them. And when he thought of his family and friends in Cleur, it was with an interest that he had not felt for a long time.

He had heard the foxlion stalk in and steal the sheebok. The first one taken was almost silent, only the dull muttering of the rest of the flock giving any sign, and with his eyes closed Eldriss had felt something stretch out in his mind to test the animal’s pain. The foxlion had returned soon after and chased another sheebok, the flock parting around the pursuit like dead leaves scattered by the hunter’s feet, and at the point of capture Eldriss had felt himself lessen, caught and pulled down, as some other consciousness used his senses to observe the kill. By the time the predator took the third of his animals, Eldriss thought he was dead.

Yet he stood and moved and finally walked out from the shelter of the trees to survey the damage. There was little blood, a few scraps of wool and one whole leg, chewed off and left as a defiant sign of the foxlion’s intrusion.

Eldriss should have chased it and put a bolt in its skull, but he was barely able to hold his own weight. And yet he stood and was strong.

Something else had him.

Today, with Eldriss still trying to come to terms with these contradicting sensations-greater awareness, numbing concealment-the river had been sucked away. One hour the Cleur flowed full and steady, passing by to the north. The next-and with a sudden rushing sound that had floored birds with its intensity and driven his remaining sheebok running for cover behind rocks and trees-the water had rapidly increased its rate of flow. The banks had started to disintegrate, trees and bushes pulled in, and over the space of a few minutes the violent waters had decreased to a bare trickle.

Eldriss was terrified, but the new, greater part of him was fascinated as well. With new eyes he had viewed the riverbed, already drying in the sun, totally featureless where the rapidly flowing waters had abraded it smooth.

He lingered, but the river did not return.

Back with his sheebok, Eldriss sat beneath the trees and waited. The urge to experience scorched his mind, but his duty ensured that he did not run wild. And not his duty to the sheebok-he barely saw them now, had almost forgotten that they existed-but the obligation he felt to… to… his god.

His god.

His god would reward him well if he took her news.

So he waited and watched, comfortable in the knowledge that he would know when there was something to tell.

THAT SOMETHING ARRIVEDat sunset.

Rafe, a voice whispered in his mind, Rafe Baburn.

There were four of them walking, two more on horses, both seemingly unconscious or dead. They came toward the copse of trees, and perhaps they had not even seen him yet. He remained still, leaning casually against a trunk, arms crossed.

The woman in the lead was short, small and heavily armed. Her face was pale, even in the pink sunset, and her eyes scanned ahead, worried, constantly looking for danger. Her gaze passed across Eldriss without pause. The shadows of the trees hid him well.

There was a big man walking next to her, leading one of the horses. He looked quite old, but fit and lean. He also seemed tired. His clothes were streaked with dried mud, and he held his free hand slightly from his body as if in pain.

When they were a hundred steps from the trees they paused. The short woman muttered something and then came on alone, one hand resting on the hilt of a short sword.

Eldriss stepped out of the shadows.

Rafe, he heard, but it was echoing inside. His name is Rafe.

The woman stopped, surprised, and Eldriss raised a hand in a casual wave. “Hello!” he said. “Beautiful evening!” Two sheebok strolled before him and he patted them as he walked by. They stared up at him, and Eldriss knew that they did not recognize him. They were too stupid to show it.

“Stop there,” the woman said, and when he looked up Eldriss saw that she had unshouldered her bow. No arrow notched yet, none drawn from her quiver, but her expression showed that she meant what she said.

He stopped. “No need for nastiness,” he said, and deep inside where Eldriss was fighting to surface he was pleased, for a moment, that he had slipped some real feeling into that comment.

“Have you seen Red Monks?” the woman asked.

And the thing that had Eldriss knew straightaway. Red Monks! They fear the Monks because they are hunted by them, and they are hunted by them because…

“You have Rafe?” he asked.

The woman’s eyes opened fractionally, surprise catching and reflecting the sunset.

That was enough for the shade. It pulled away, withdrawing its myriad psychic tendrils with no subtlety, no pretense at caution, and the pain was worse because Eldriss could not scream.

The woman was moving quickly now, squatting down, arm whipping around, her hand holding the bow rising into position.

The shade was free but it thrashed in Eldriss’ mind, wrecking, tearing, giving the shepherd only agony for the final second of his life. It ripped away and left the world as the arrow flew, striking the man’s right eye and punching a hole through the back of his skull.

Free, alone, stunned by the sudden lack of input, the shade reeled for an instant in an infinity of nothing. But it had been given taste and thought and sensation, and soon the idea of reward ordered its mind. It stopped tumbling and started to flow, passing through and over the world toward where its god waited patiently in the dark.

Rafe, it shouted, I saw Rafe.

My good shade, a voice said before an instant of time had passed, come to me.

The shade told what it knew and reveled in its god’s praise.

KOSAR RAN TOA’Meer’s side, drawing his sword. The Shantasi had notched another arrow and now she waited, scanning the copse of trees. “I think he was alone,” she said.

“You killed him!” Kosar said. “He only said hello.”

“He asked if we had Rafe.”

Kosar shook his head. A’Meer’s impatience was obvious, yet she did not shift her gaze from the trees and the dead man before them.

“How would he know?” she said. “A shade was in him, just as Alishia had one when we first met. The Mages must have sent out thousands, and they’re waiting for us.”

“But they could be everywhere!”

“They will be. Anywhere and everywhere. Anyone we meet may have one watching for us. Wherever we go, we have to assume the Mages know of our whereabouts.”

“What is it?” Trey said, coming up behind them.

Kosar told him, and Hope heard as well.

“So now we have Red Monks chasing us, and the Mages searching for us as well,” Hope said. “Well, things could be worse. I have no idea how, but I’m sure they could be.”

“One good thing,” Trey said, “they aren’t after the same thing.”

“And that helps us how?” Hope said. “The Monks want to destroy Rafe before the magic can reveal itself. The Mages want to steal the magic away and make it their own. And between the Monks and Mages and Rafe? Us!”

“At least they won’t join forces is what I mean,” Trey said weakly.

“Well, we can’t stay here,” Kosar said. “We have to keep moving.”

“We need to rest,” Hope said. “So the Mages may know exactly where we are… it’s not as if they’ll run down from the Widow’s Peaks to take us. They’re an eternity away from here, not even in Noreela. We’re within a few days of New Shanti, and by the time we get there-”

“By the time we get there Noreela may have changed forever,” A’Meer said. She lowered her bow and approached the dead man, nudging him slightly with her foot. She looked up again, sad. “There’s no saying where the Mages are,” she said. “Perhaps they’ve already landed their armies on The Spine. They may even be in Noreela themselves. A war might have begun, and there’s no way we could know.”

“So,” said Kosar, “we have to keep moving. There’s no time to rest. We owe it to Rafe to travel day and night until we reach New Shanti, then at least there’s a chance whatever he has will be given time to emerge.”

“Why can’t the magic help us?” Trey said. “Fly us there, move us quickly, destroy the Monks or the Mages before they catch us?”

“Magic does not aim itself,” Hope said. “What the Mages did last time is testament to that. It’s the most powerful force there is, but it’s weak in many ways. It makes no allowance for morality. It’s in Rafe now, which probably means it wants to present itself to the land again, make itself available to humanity for a second time. But the Mages will do the same again if they catch Rafe: steal it away, twist it to their own means, drive it out once more. And this time they’ll be aware of the results of their actions… and they’ll be ready. Before magic pulls itself away for the second and last time, they’ll have everything they want. Power. Control. Revenge.”

There was silence for a while, and then Trey spoke up. “You offer a wonderful image.”

Hope shrugged, walked back to Rafe’s horse and checked on him. “Saying what I think,” she said. “This boy here… he’s the future. Life and prosperity for Noreela, or death and pain. All or nothing. It’s the end of an era right now, and we straddle the moment of change.”

“So we keep moving,” Kosar said again, glancing at A’Meer for support. The Shantasi was still looking down at the dead man.

“He was only a shepherd.”

“You had to do it,” Kosar said.

“It probably didn’t make a difference. I saw his eyes when he died-he went from arrogant to afraid the second I let the arrow fly-and when he died, he was only a shepherd.”

“The shade had already left?”

A’Meer looked up at Trey. “We may be doing a lot more killing before we get where we’re going,” she said, her voice strong and sad.

Kosar offered her an encouraging smile but she turned away, walked past the body and approached the copse of trees. “I’ll see if he had anything useful,” she said. “Most shepherds carry weapons. We’ll need them.”

They milled around the body for a few minutes, all of them doing their best to avoid looking. The sun fell below the horizon and the corpse became more shadowed, melding in with the dark ground as if already rotting away. A’Meer found a crossbow and several bolts hidden away between the trees, and a skin of fresh water. No food, no clothing, nothing that indicated that this was any more than a temporary resting place for the dead man.

After dragging the body into the trees they headed off again in the dark. Their way was lit by the shared light of the moons; the life moon fading, the death moon full. Kosar and A’Meer walked together.

“You’re quiet,” Kosar said.

A’Meer made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “I just killed an innocent man, Kosar. I’m a Shantasi warrior, not a murderer.”

“He wasn’t innocent when you killed him. There was some part of him that threatened us. You did what you had to do, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” she said, but her mocking tone was tempered by the dark.

A shower of shooting stars lit up the sky, spearing across the heavens and burning out before they reached the horizon. Trey gasped, Hope muttered some old spell, and Kosar and A’Meer touched hands briefly. Kosar reveled in the contact.

“Once, just before I left Hess, a falling star struck New Shanti and killed thousands,” A’Meer said. “Some claimed it was because magic had gone and was no longer protecting the land; the Mystics said it was our ancestors, angry at us for not doing more to reclaim magic.”

“They’re the souls of the dead,” Trey muttered in wonder. “As they go into the Black, so they fall from the sky.”

Kosar sighed. “They’re just falling stars,” he said. “Flames in the heavens that burn out quickly. Nothing lasts forever, and you don’t need to find an omen in everything.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” Hope said. She was looking at Rafe, not up into the sky.

A’Meer seemed not to have heard anyone. “My people will be looking skyward, hundreds of miles from here, wondering what it is they’re doing wrong. Our distant ancestors managed to find the truly enlightened path, and they were… not as lucky as we are now. They were used and abused, yet they attained spiritual perfection. We’ve lost that. Almost as if pain and suffering help a soul reach such planes of understanding.”

Kosar did not understand. This was A’Meer’s moment, not his. The idea that he could help her by listening to her woes comforted him and made him feel special.

“The Guiders will be gathering in the halls at Hess, poring over their old texts and trying to see the significance of the shooting stars tonight, the direction, the number. They’ll be agonizing over the inner workings of New Shanti, wondering whether the enlightened path all Shantasi seek has veered from the True, arguing amongst themselves like a flock of birds fighting over a scrap of food.” She smiled, and her expression was almost wistful. “Such minor concerns,” she said. “Such petty worries when the real fate of things rides on the horse behind us.

“But maybe a few will ascribe those stars to magic. Perhaps one or two of the Guiders will try to ally their appearance with something else, some other sign, and read Truth in them. I wonder what a Guider on fledge could see?”

A’Meer fell quiet, but the silence between them was not comfortable. It was waiting to be broken.

“How long is it since you’ve been to Hess?” Kosar asked.

“Seventy years,” she said. “And now I return with the news my people have been awaiting for so long.”

“Can they help us?” Kosar asked. “Will they hide us, protect us? Can they hold off the Red Monks, the Mages?”

A’Meer glanced at him, and in the moonlight her skin was even paler than ever. He did not like the smile on her lips. “You’ve seen how a Red Monk fights,” she said. “Given magic, the Mages will be like tumblers to the Monks’ ants. There are thousands more like me in New Shanti, trained to fight specifically to defend magic should it arise. We’re a very spiritual people, we were never meant to fight; look at me, my build, how small and weak I look. Perhaps that’s why we make such good warriors: we’re not made, we make ourselves. And to answer your questions, yes, we can defeat the Red Monks. But the Mages… if they catch Rafe before New Shanti can protect and hide him away.. . they’ll push us into the sea, just as was done to them at the end of the Cataclysmic War.”

“I’m just a thief,” Kosar muttered.

“And Rafe’s just a farm boy!” A’Meer snapped. “That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be special.”

“And I am?” Kosar whispered. “Tell me, how am I special? I can barely hold a sword straight because of these fingers, and I have no idea about any of this. The witch knows more than me, and I trust her about as much as I would a Violet Dog.”

“You’re special to me,” A’Meer said.

Kosar was shocked into silence. It was the first true indication she had given since their last night in Pavisse that she had any of her old feelings left for him. She had become a stranger over the past few days, and although there had still been an aura of friendship he had thought her affections lost, shattered by her admission of who she was, killed by the enormity of events surrounding them and steering them on.

They walked on into the night, not knowing what waited ahead of them, nor what followed behind.

WHEN MORNING BROKEand cast its cleansing light across the grasslands, Rafe woke up and said that he wanted to go to Kang Kang.

Tim Lebbon

Dusk