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 she 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?”
Hope stared at him, nodding.
“That’s what I hear. Stuff I can’t explain. But I don’t even understand it when I’m hearing it.”