Dawn (19 page)

The tunnel curved sharply downward and Hope followed, disc-sword in one hand, the other cupping the gravemaker spider. Yet she perceived no real threat. This was simply another moment in time, not a pause before chaos. She stepped carefully down the sloping cave, aware of the distance she was putting behind her.

I’ll never get back up here,
she thought, but she hoped that she would not have to. Once the God was awoken…

Hope had always looked away from herself, out into the world, seeking truths and lies that would help her. She was aware of herself at the center of things, but her attention was forever focused elsewhere. Now every moment was rich and relevant, each breath the most important she had ever taken. She was living for the present once again, and each heartbeat took her closer to the Sleeping God.

Wake,
she thought, but nothing answered her call.

The floor leveled and Hope found herself in a large chamber. The walls exuded a subtle luminescence, as though set with fire-stones, but when she reached out and touched the surface to her left, it was cold. She pressed her hand to the wall, and the pale light shone through and showed her bones, and her veins crissing and crossing like a map of Noreela itself.

She pulled her hand away and heard a crackling behind her. She spun around, lifting the disc-sword and setting its blade spinning. Something brushed her face and at first she thought it was another web. But as she wiped dust from her eyes and moved back, she saw that the whole chamber before her was patterned with thin, delicate stems.
Like the veins in my hand,
she thought. They went from floor to ceiling, ceiling to walls, and some even stretched right across the chamber, twenty steps long. She reached out and touched one of the stems, and it crumbled into dust. She smelled her hand; there was hardly any scent at all. The dust was nothing more than gritty air in her nose.

At the other end of the chamber she could see an opening, and its shadows suggested that it led farther down.
Deeper,
she thought.
It’s sleeping deeper, probably right at the bottom. Maybe thousands of years ago this place was a defense against invaders.

She tried to avoid as many of the petrified stems as she could, but still they broke around and across her, spreading their dust to settle quickly in the still air. Once through the chamber, she turned and looked at what she had done. There was a clear path across the cavern.
Easy to follow,
she thought. Hope brushed dust from her hair and entered the opening in the wall.

THE TUNNEL OPENED
up into smaller caverns, narrowed, twisting and turning this way and that, but always heading down. She wondered how far it went. The Sleeping Gods had been gone for longer than anyone knew; it could be a whole new world down here.

Search though she did, she could discern no signs at all that she had been noticed. There were no held breaths, no rumbles of movement from far away, no sudden vibrations as something huge rolled awake or sat up. If the God had awoken, it was remaining quiet.

It’ll be hungry,
she thought. She shook her head to clear the idea but it was there, implanted in her brain.

The ground went from leathery and hard to soft and moist, and she slipped and landed hard on her rump. She rolled, going with the lay of the land where it had suddenly shifted, trying to grab something but finding nowhere to hold on. She touched a ridge in the ground and it flattened; her fingers slid across a raised knot and it snapped off, turning to dust. She was sliding toward a long, low crack in the tunnel wall, one that looked small until she reached it and passed inside. The subtly glowing walls faded to black, and she discovered true darkness for the first time in her life. She was still slipping, holding the disc-sword close to her chest to prevent it from being snapped away, and she let out an involuntary screech. There were no echoes. She barely even heard herself.

And then she was out, falling into a cavern where the walls glowed brighter than before, the floor was covered with a bluish haze, and at its center a mass sat atop a raised platform like a statue on its pedestal.

As she struck the foot of the wall and rolled into the haze, she thought,
That’s it?

But then her mind was no longer her own, and she thought no more.

Chapter 8

“WHY HAVEN’T YOU
killed me?” Kosar asked.

“I will.” The Monk was kneeling several steps away, concentrating on something on the ground. He shielded the object of his fascination from Kosar. The thief did not like that.

“I killed you,” Kosar mumbled. His vision swayed as his head lolled on his shoulders.
Stay awake. Stay awake!

“I fell. I survived.” The Red Monk’s voice was like gravel being poured into a grave. Kosar guessed it did not have much cause to talk.

“Last Monk I killed was a woman.”

The demon ignored him. Its shoulders flexed, and it moved its body to the side, as though to shed some moonlight on whatever it was doing. Kosar strained against his bonds, trying to see past the robed figure. But the knots were tight, he was woozy, and seeing would do him no good.

Whatever the Red Monk had planned, Kosar would be helpless.

He closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest, trying to control the waves of faintness. Pain had spread through his head and neck; muscles ached, bones ground together. But Kosar knew that none of this mattered. He was going to die, and for some reason the Monk was taking its time.

I know you,
it had said.

Kosar was almost certain that this demon had killed A’Meer.

His sword lay beside the Monk, still stained with Breakers’ blood. Kosar wondered, after all the killing it had done, whether it could ever feel right in his hand again. If only he had the chance to find out.

“Kill me quickly,” Kosar said. He bit his lip and looked up, the pain bringing him back from the edge of unconsciousness. He would look death in the face.

The Monk breathed heavily, coughing now and then, spitting blood that bubbled on the ground as if it were sap from the Poison Forests. It seemed unconcerned at the several crossbow bolts buried in its body.

“You sadistic fucking piece of Mage shit,” Kosar spat. “Did you kill her the same way?”

The Monk paused, raised its head and turned to look at Kosar. Its face was not as red as it had been, though its eyes still reflected darkness. It turned back to its work.

Kosar struggled against the torn clothing the Monk had used to tie him to the broken machine. The cloth was still wet with blood. The Monk had stripped it from the Breakers it had slaughtered.

His head thumped, his chest and sides hurt and Kosar struggled every step of the way as unconsciousness took him somewhere less painful.

“BRING IT TO
life,” the Monk said.

“What?” Kosar surfaced, pulling back from the Monk standing before him.

The Monk clanged the machine with his sword. “Give it life. Wake it. Use it against me.”

Kosar’s head slumped back against the machine. He closed his eyes, fighting dizziness and pain. “Not right now,” he said. “Maybe later.”

“You can’t,” the demon said.

“I will. As soon as you turn your back.”

The Red Monk sat down again, shifting soil and sand and rocks with the swords.

Now,
Kosar thought, knowing it would do no good.
Now come to life and kill the Mage-shitting thing. Come alive now, now!
He shook his head and suddenly felt clear, strong and aware. “So what are you looking for, you piece of Mage shit? You’ve lost, failed. Magic is back, and the Mages have it, and it’s the fault of you and yours. So what are you looking for in the bloody dust?”

The Monk rose, turned and stepped toward Kosar. It held something in the palm of its hand, a squirming insect that seemed to hate the weak moonlight. “The truth,” it said.

“What’s that?”

The Monk ignored his question.

Kosar aimed a kick at the demon’s hand, but it moved aside and came in close, too close to kick again. He could smell it now, sickly sweet rot and body odor, the stench of something that never cleans itself, takes no care.

“Fuck off,” Kosar said.

“I need to know,” the Monk said. In one quick movement it brought a knife from beneath its robe and thrust it into Kosar’s neck.

Kosar went stiff with shock. He could feel the knife in him, an alien object that felt much larger than it actually was, and even after the Monk withdrew the blade it felt as though it were still there, turning in his flesh with every breath he took. He gasped.

And then the pain kicked in. It overrode every other ache in Kosar’s body. His bleeding nose was forgotten, the injury to his hand from the fight in the machines’ graveyard, the stab wounds to his shoulders…

The Monk watched for a second, eyes flicking down to the wound then back to Kosar’s face. Then it dropped the insect onto Kosar’s neck.

He felt it. Even through the intense agony he felt the intimate contact of its tiny legs crawling up his neck, against the flow of blood, against the pain. It reached the wound and invaded his body. It was much worse than the knife, because this thing was alive. It delved and probed, passing into the rent the Monk had made and tearing its way deeper. And Kosar found himself silently begging dead A’Meer to come and take him from this terrible agony and carry him into the Black.

Then the insect stopped moving, and everything changed.

Kosar felt it growing within him. It was as though he were shrinking and the insect expanding. He was moving away from the world, sinking somewhere darker, and yet the suffering was still there. This was not unconsciousness; this was him being driven down and forced back. He fought, but there was very little fight left in him. His throat began to rattle. His mouth opened and he growled, as if attempting to speak a language he had never known.

“Why do you have those wounds on your fingertips?”

Fuck you,
Kosar thought. “I’m a thief,” he said. He could not help himself. He tried to bite his tongue to prevent himself from speaking more, but the thing inside him would not allow it.

The Monk smiled. “Good.” It retreated a few steps and sat down, groaning as it did so. It plucked a bolt from its neck and threw it aside. Blood ran from the wound, but only a dribble. It cricked its neck and lowered its hood, revealing the bald scarlet scalp. The huge bonfires cast flickering shadows on its head.

Kosar strained at his bindings, but he could no longer feel his arms. They belonged somewhere else. The thing inside him was huge, larger than him, bursting out and becoming the center of everything he knew and believed. It had swallowed him, and when the Monk began asking its questions, the insect regurgitated the answers from Kosar’s stiffened mouth.

“Who are you?”

“Kosar.”

“Where are you from?”

“Trengborne.”

“The village where the boy came from?”

“Yes.” The insect squeezed, white fire consumed Kosar’s bones. “He wasn’t
from
there, but he
lived
there.”

The Monk regarded him for a while, stroking the side of its nose with the tip of Kosar’s sword. “The boy had magic?”

“Yes.”

“He used it?”

“It used him.”

The Monk nodded, musing on this. “Where is he now?”

“The Mages took him.” Kosar did not have to fight against the truth in this case; he
wanted
to tell it. “They took him, stole the magic, and they have it now.”

The Monk looked away, simmering.

Kosar bit his lip. Fresh blood flowed into his mouth but the pain was immaterial. It lifted him nowhere, purged nothing from his body except for more blood. He looked to the sky to see why it was darkening, then at the fires, and he realized that his vision was fading.
About time,
he thought.

“Where were you going?” the Monk said.

“To…to…” He fought, but the insect crushed him down. “To Hess.”

“Why?”

“To tell the Mystics about Alishia.”

“Alishia? Who is she?”

“She has something…” Kosar closed his eyes and raged against the thing controlling him. He thought of A’Meer and her determination, her pride, and he thought about how Rafe had changed in the space of a few days. But his mouth opened, his throat flexed and he could not swallow the words. “…something of magic within her.”

The Monk stood and came forward, holding the sword out before it. “You cannot lie to me.”

“I can’t lie.”

“Then there’s still a chance,” the Monk said. “Where is Alishia?”

Still a chance?

“Going…to…Kang Kang…”

The Monk turned and walked away, its shadow dancing behind it. It sheathed its sword and threw Kosar’s aside.

It sees something of magic as a chance?

The Monk disappeared beyond one of the huge fires. Kosar felt the insect rip itself away from his spine and claw from the wound in his neck, saw it tumble down his chest and land in the dust. It was on its back, legs flailing at the night, and a hundred thin white tendrils swirled around it, licking at the air as if trying to find nerves once more.

With all the strength he could muster, Kosar lifted his foot and brought it down onto the struggling beetle.

He came back to himself in time to feel life fading away.
The Monk left me to die,
he thought.
At last…at last…

BUT DEATH IS
no easy escape, and the pain of life brought him around once more.

Kosar had no idea how much time had passed. The great fires had burned down somewhat, so it must have been several hours, but the moons still hung in the sky, it was still twilight…and the Monk was still there. It sat at a distance, close to one of the fading fires, its cloak hugged tight around it and its hood lifted back over its head. It had its back to Kosar. It seemed to be asleep.

He was still tied against the broken machine. His chest was tight and sore, and he stood on shaky legs to ease the pressure on his shoulders.

I should be dead,
Kosar thought. He swallowed, wincing at the pain that slight movement brought. He turned his head left to right and felt something on his throat, something in him, and for a second panic rose again. But he could still see the remains of the crushed insect on the ground beside his foot. It had burst when he crushed it, spilling a puddle of his blood merged with its own.

Something ran past him. He held his breath and did his best to keep still, tracking the shadow as it darted low across the ground. It was a sand rat, large as a small sheebok, scaly tail waving at the air as it buried its long snout into one of the dead Breakers.

Kosar looked at the Monk, but the demon seemed unconcerned.

The sand rat pulled back and took something from the body. It hurried back past Kosar, glancing at him as it ran by with the Breaker’s heart in its mouth.

Kosar slumped against the machine and cried out at the bindings chafing his wrists. They had rubbed the skin raw, drawing more blood and tightening each time he moved against them.

“You!” Kosar called. The Monk lifted its head, staring into the fire as if believing the call had come from there. “Haven’t you killed me yet?”

The Monk stood slowly. Kosar noticed several arrows and bolts on the ground by its side, evidently picked from its body while it had been sitting beside the fire. Its red robe bore many darker patches.
Their rage keeps them going,
he thought.
Perhaps now they know they’ve lost, they’ll just die away.
But the Monk shrugged its robe higher onto its shoulders and pulled its hood lower over its face, and when it started out for Kosar it was with purpose.

I told it about Alishia,
he thought in despair.

The demon walked past the bodies of several Breakers, paying them no attention. Its feet kicked through sandy soil darkened with blood. When it came to within a dozen steps of Kosar it paused, raised its hands and lowered its hood slowly, as if uncertain of its actions. It looked above Kosar at the machine. It looked down at the puddle of blood at his feet. It looked anywhere but at his face.

“I haven’t killed you,” it said. “I saved your life. Clasped the wound shut. Stopped the bleeding.” Its voice was rough and low, and Kosar saw the terrible scars on its face and neck for the first time. “I am Lucien Malini,” it said.