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 light 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.

“But it was never an obsession. ” It sounded to Kosar as if she was trying to persuade herself.

“So now?” he asked, wincing as a gang of kids ran past carrying screeching bats. His headache had rooted itself firmly now, and the piercing screams seemed to thump inside his skull and become trapped there.

“Now we have to find the boy,” she said. “But back to my place first. We can spend a while there, make plans. And catch up.”

“I think I’ve done enough catching up for one night,” Kosar said.

“I wasn’t planning on talking.” A’Meer’s voice contained none of the flippancy he had come to know, none of the mischievous glee. It was low, urgent and very serious, as if she knew that tonight might be the last of its kind. She wanted one more fling with normalcy before things changed forever.

They walked through the busy streets until they reached A’Meer’s home, a ground-floor flat in a block of three. A whore lived directly above her, A’Meer said, and the third flat appeared empty. No one ever came, no one ever left. Windows were covered day and night. Another mystery in a town that cared little for them.

Inside the flat they heard A’Meer’s neighbor going about her business. The floors were thin-only a layer of timber boards and whatever covering the whore chose to put down-and Kosar tried to ignore the sounds as A’Meer prepared him a warm drink. As he sat and drank, listening to the sated couple mumbling above them, A’Meer rooted beneath her bed and dragged out a big leather bag. She opened it up and began laying out weapons. Kosar knew some of them, and others he recognized from her description of the fight with the Red Monk. These were blades that had been slicked with a Monk’s blood. Here was a slideshock that had been buried in its neck. Each weapon was wrapped in oilcloth, and they were all clean and greased. Beside them she laid a selection of sheathes and scabbards, equally well maintained. And beside them, other things that looked like nothing he had seen before.

A’Meer came to him suddenly. She straddled him on his chair and kissed him, fiercely and passionately, as if it were the last kiss either of them would ever know. Within a few seconds they were ripping at each other’s clothes, revealing themselves to each other for the first time in several years. The familiarity was there, they both remembered what the other liked, and when A’Meer sank onto him Kosar saw the scar across her throat, put there by the Monk.

As they made love Kosar glanced across at the weapons and other fighting paraphernalia arrayed across her bed. The newfound knowledge added a chill and a thrill to the sex.

THEY LEFT A’MEER’Sflat just before dawn. It had taken her a while to dress and strap on the web of leather and fur belts, straps and pockets she needed to carry all of her weapons. She looked even slighter when she had finished. And in her deep, soulful eyes, Kosar saw something akin to fear.

“I’m leaving,” she said, staring around the room. “I’ve been here for years, and now I’m leaving. We first made love in this room, Kosar, many moons ago. I’ve been settled here longer than anywhere in my life, other than Hess. I have friends in this place. Pavisse is a shit heap, but some of the people aren’t bad. Some of them, believe it or not, want to make things better. Though most of them have forgotten how.”

“You’ll be back,” Kosar said, but as A’Meer offered a weak smile he knew how hollow that sounded.

“Curse it, I haven’t worn this stuff for ages,” she said, shrugging her shoulders to settle the gear better across her shoulders and hips. “I feel different already. Bastard things chafe and rub. And last night has worn me out. But there’s always a time to move on. The Monks will have followed him here, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“We can’t let them find him. There’s a sick irony in the Monks’ existence, because their reasons are so justified. Nobody wants magic back in the hands of the Mages, if they’re even still alive. But madness informs the Monks’ methods, and all they can do is destroy. There’s no reasoning in them. This lad sounds more innocent than any of us.”

“They won’t know he has an uncle here. They won’t know where he lives.”

“Don’t you believe it. They have their ways, their methods. Come on, show me where you took him.”

A’Meer shut the door on her rooms without once looking back.

At this early hour the streets outside were quiet. A few drunks lay in the gutters or huddled in doorways, and there may have been more in other places hidden by darkness. The life moon was hidden by clouds, the death moon pale, and the only light in the streets came from weak oil lamps in windows and on hooks outside taverns and drug dens. There were a handful of people walking the streets, because in a town like Pavisse there is plenty of business carried out only at night. Some of them walked past Kosar and A’Meer without looking up, while others, perhaps catching sight of A’Meer in the ghostly light, hurried on or changed direction altogether.

Kosar saw shapes flitting through shadows without traversing the lit spaces in between. Wraiths. They were there in the daytime too, but sunlight negated them.

At the junction of two streets there was a band of militia smoking fledge pipes. They were muttering to one another, moving on the spot to keep warm. There were six of them, the dregs of law-keeping in Pavisse, many of them more criminal than some of those they sought to catch. Kosar knew that these men ran protection rackets, whoring houses and drug circles, and although they provided something of a ceiling above which crime was not allowed to stretch, it was a sad irony that they initiated much of it. They would have questions for the two of them, especially A’Meer. Fighters and mercenaries were not wholly uncommon, although their existence was grudgingly accepted rather than welcomed. But a fighter moving through the streets by night… yes, they would have questions.

Kosar and A’Meer backtracked and found an alternate route around the militia. It meant crossing the river, but they stole a small rowing boat and paddled over silently, the water tarry across the bow. The river smelled much fresher by night than it did in the day, as if darkness could bleed it of refuse, shit and the stink of animal corpses thrown in from sheebok farms up in the mountains. Unseen things made splashes but nothing troubled them, and they reached the far shore in a few minutes.

Within a hundred steps of leaving the river, with dawn bleeding across the mountaintops to the east, A’Meer paused and raised her hand. Kosar bumped into her and held her arms, his thief’s scarring finding succor on her cool bare skin. He could hear nothing untoward, see nothing, smell nothing unusual. A’Meer did not move for a few long moments, but then she started backing up, forcing Kosar back as well. The two of them kept moving like that until they came to a house doorway, where A’Meer fumbled with the handle, drew something from her belt, knelt and popped open the lock in the matter of a dozen agitated heartbeats.

She opened the door and hustled Kosar into a stranger’s house. It was only after she closed and locked the door behind her that she spoke, pressing her mouth to his ear so that it was more a breath than a word, unmistakable from a sleeper’s sigh.

Monk.

Kosar backed away from the door but A’Meer held him fast. He saw her sense. They were in an unknown room, whose confines and layout were uncertain in the dark, and any movement could tip a table and send its contents tumbling to the floor.

He glanced down at A’Meer just as she looked up at him, and her eyes reflected weak lamplight from the street outside. They were wide and terrified. He put his arm around her shoulders and his hand on her chest. He could feel her heart racing as if trying to outdistance the moment. She shivered, her skin slicked with a cool sweat, and she pressed close.

They heard a noise outside. Footsteps, slow and methodical, but with no attempt at concealment. The Red Monk passed by the house, paused and carried on along the street, and then A’Meer began to shiver even more. She was shaking her head, breathing heavily, and two of her blades clanged together.

Kosar held her tight and buried his face in her neck, whispering inanities to calm her, warming her cold skin with his breath. She clasped his hands where they held her, pulled him tighter, and he realized with sudden shock that he had let her tale cloud his judgment. She was a Shantasi warrior, a trained fighter, but that did not mean that she was unafraid. In fact, he suspected it gave her more to fear. And those things she had not told him, could never tell him. .. perhaps they were even worse.

“It’s gone,” he whispered in her ear. “We should go too.”

She turned and held him tight so that they did not need to talk above a whisper. “It came from the direction we’re taking. They may have the boy already. He may be dead!”

“Only one way to find out.”

A’Meer let go of Kosar, knelt and unlocked the door.

They were out in the dawn again, hurrying along streets, through alleys and across courtyards to put distance between themselves and the Red Monk. Kosar had come to know Pavisse well during his short stay here several years before, so now he navigated easily in dawn’s early light, picking out landmarks and listening for familiar sounds. They followed the course of the river for a while before turning into the heart of the town, heading for the hidden districts. The name was a misnomer-everyone knew the places were there, just as most who knew of them stayed away-but they were much more than slums and home for criminals and outcasts. The hidden districts held hidden knowledge. In that respect at least their name held water.

That’s where he’ll be if anyone has him, Kosar thought. That’s where I’d take him to keep him safe. The journey to Rafe’s uncle’s house had already taken on a doomed feel, perhaps initiated by the Monk’s appearance. If the boy was indeed as important as A’Meer suggested, the idea that he may still be there with his relative seemed naive. Rafe’s very existence had brought Red Monks to Pavisse, and his potential had urged one of Kosar’s best friends to revert to her warrior birthright. Rafe could hold the future of the land in his hands, or its eventual downfall. He had rapidly turned from a simple farm boy into someone both great and terrible.

Kosar steered around the outskirts of the hidden districts, and even here there were many old machines incorporated into buildings and street constructions, lending themselves as a skeleton around which Pavisse had grown and petrified since the Cataclysmic War. He saw one that he recalled from his previous time here, a great hollowed globe smashed in several places like a skull cleaved by an axe. It was buried deep in the rocky ground so that only half of its circumference protruded. It had once been used as a shelter by those who had no homes, and as he passed by Kosar smelled the familiar stenches of fledge, rotwine and waste.

Daylight was bringing the streets to life. A’Meer hurried along behind him, and when Kosar glanced back he saw that she was self-conscious of her new appearance. She looked utterly formidable, and the hint of mystery that had always surrounded the Shantasi added to the effect. And yet she was uncomfortable with her new apparel. He wondered just how intense her training in Hess had been, how long ago

… and how much of it she would recall after so long.

They arrived at Rafe’s uncle’s house, a straw- and mud-walled building with an old iron fire pit in a lean-to on one side. It looked unused, and Kosar guessed that the boy’s uncle had not shod a horse in many dozens of moons.

“It’s quiet,” A’Meer said.

They stood in the shadow of a building opposite, trying to make out whether there was anything to trouble them in or around Vance’s house.

“It’s early. Maybe they’re still sleeping.”

“No… the whole place is quiet. Pavisse is waking up, but not here. Listen.”

Kosar listened. In the distance he made out an occasional shout, traders urging their mules to the best-selling pitches. Blackbirds and honey doves chattered across rooftops, vying for space much the same as the traders, and here and there a skull raven sat on its own, other birds too wary to settle nearby. A pack of dogs ran along the neighboring street, the subject of their pursuit letting out a solitary panicked squeal. Window blinds crashed open, people coughed and spat the night from their lungs. Wheels whispered along the dusty streets.

Vance’s house was a dead zone in a place coming to life. No birds rested on his roof, no animals prowled the yard.

A’Meer drew a short sword from a leather scabbard on her belt and advanced across the street.

“Wait!” Kosar hissed. “There may be more Monks.”

A’Meer glanced back briefly. “I think they’ve been already,” she said softly. And then she ran.

Kosar stood in wide-eyed disbelief as A’Meer reached the front door of the house, swung it open and disappeared inside, all before he had time to draw breath for a reply. He had seen her run across the yard, kicking up silent clouds of dust, making no sound as she swung herself inside… he had seen every movement and moment, and yet it was impossible. She had moved as if the air itself parted before her.

Kosar had taken only several steps himself before A’Meer appeared at an upper window, leaning out.

“The house is safe. They’ve been.” And then she withdrew again, closing the window softly behind her.

Kosar found her in one of the bedrooms upstairs. He had smelled the body immediately upon passing through the front door, and as he climbed the stairs the stench grew worse; blood that was almost fresh, the rich tang of butchery. A’Meer was standing in an open doorway, panting as if she had just run twenty miles, and then he glanced past her at what was left of Rafe’s uncle.

A sudden, staggering possibility hit Kosar. “What if that’s Rafe?” he said.

“Did the boy have a beard?”

“No.”

“Then this can’t be him. There’s only one person here, and this belonged to them.” A’Meer lifted her sword, and dangling from its point was a clot of fur, blood and skin. It looked like a slaughtered furbat stripped of its wings.

“A Monk did this?” he asked.

“I assume so. Although they’re usually very calculating, very sparse in their murdering. This Vance must have annoyed or angered it somehow to warrant this.”

Kosar was stunned. So much had changed in such a short time that he could feel himself trying hard to catch up, failing at many points. The boy: a magician, a Mage? A’Meer, sweet A’Meer: a warrior trained by Shantasi mystics to seek out and protect magic? And his own existence, a life of travel and thievery given over to a simple, quiet way of life… changed suddenly and irrevocably by what he had seen, and what he was still witnessing now.

“You moved so fast,” he said. “I saw you, but you were so fast. ” He was still staring past A’Meer at the mess of blood and flesh across the bedroom, yet the scope of his amazement and confusion was far wider than this small place.

A’Meer looked back at him at last, and he saw that she was no longer so on edge. She must have been terrified that they would arrive here to find a Red Monk. She had defeated one before, but that offered no guarantees. And there was more to her fear, more than simply the prospect of confronting a Monk. Perhaps she too had expected to find Rafe’s remains mixed in with those of his uncle.

“There’s a lot I can’t tell you, Kosar,” she said. “I’ve already warned you about that. And it’s not simply because I’m not allowed to tell, but because much of it I just don’t understand myself. I don’t know how I moved so quickly. I was trained to do it and it happens. The mystics called it Pace, but I know that explains nothing. Accept it. I have to.”

“And that’s it?”

A’Meer shrugged. “That’s it.”

Kosar nodded. “Just warn me next time, perhaps.” But A’Meer had already turned away and started rooting through the meaty remains of Vance’s uncle.

Kosar started taking a look around the house, seeing if he could find anything that identified Rafe. If the boy had left something here-his jacket, boots, belt-that would indicate that he had gone quickly or been taken by force. If there was nothing of his, perhaps he had taken his own leave. Or maybe Vance had sent him away before the Red Monks arrived, knowing that his nephew was in danger and giving him the name of someone who would help or hide him. He found many empty bottles, piles of old clothes slowly rotting down, a few books with their pages stuck together by time and disinterest. Nothing of Rafe. No sign that the boy had even been here, although Kosar had brought him here himself. Perhaps he had not stayed for long. It was even possible that Vance had not wanted the responsibility. Knowing that the Red Monks might be on the trail of his nephew may have negated any familial loyalty.

Considering the state of his uncle right now, that may have been a blessing for Rafe.

“He’s not here,” A’Meer said as she followed him downstairs. “If the uncle knew anything of where the boy has gone, the Red Monk will have had it from him.”

“I don’t think he did know,” Kosar said. “If Vance wanted to help the boy he’d have known not to send him anywhere he knew. He probably wouldn’t have sent him out at all. And if he didn’t want to help, or was too afraid, Rafe may have left on his own. In which case, I think we should look in the hidden districts.”

“That’s a whole city in itself!” A’Meer said. “And why so sure he’s there?”

“I’m not sure at all, it’s just a hunch. Rafe’s a farm boy. If he left this house the natural route to take is down to the river, and that leads him past the outskirts of the hidden districts. And once there, a boy like that on his own won’t be left alone for long. There are whores, crooks, muggers and fledge dens. He’d have been taken there, I’m sure.”

“Of course,” said A’Meer. “Kosar.”

He turned and met her gaze. She was still afraid, but now there was excitement in her poise as well, as if it had taken time for the implications of events to sink in.

“You don’t have to come,” she said. “This is nothing to do with you. You’re an old thief who settled down on a farm, for Mage’s sake. You don’t want to get mixed up with Red Monks. Or me.”

Kosar found himself ridiculously hurt by her comments. She was right, this was nothing to do with him, and given any real choice he would steer as far from a Red Monk as possible. But he was involved, not only through his knowledge of what had happened to Rafe, but through her as well. He cared about A’Meer.

“I’ll tag along.” Perhaps she sensed how her comments had disappointed him, because she said no more as the two of them left the house. “There’s a quick way into the hidden districts from here,” Kosar said. “As long as you don’t mind the dark.” Any surprise A’Meer felt at his knowledge she kept to herself. Kosar had been here for only a few moons, but his type had a knack of discovering secrets.

They set off quickly, ignoring curious glances from passersby. Kosar led them back toward the river, and then ducked through an open doorway into a small square building. Inside he uncovered a hole in the floor, the vent of an old buried machine. “It’s not far,” he said.

“I’ll go first.”

Before Kosar could protest, A’Meer had drawn a small dagger for each hand and dropped down into the hole. He followed close behind, wondering what they would face at the other end.

Tim Lebbon

Dusk