James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

While the Hunter had beaten him for speaking out of turn after dragging him from the river, the man had not so much as scowled since then for the same offence. For his part, Leitos had made it a habit to flinch and cower often around the Hunter, doing all he could to ensure that he seemed intimidated.

Now, at the worst, the brute ignored him when he asked after something, a silent indication that he would not answer. Most times, though, he responded to just about any question posed. The man held within his skull a wealth of information, apparently taught to him while he was a slave. Often, Leitos was simply curious about this or that. Aside from the vague images his grandfather’s stories brought to mind, he had no experience of the world.

Standing off to one side making water on a scraggly thorn bush, the Hunter turned his head at the question, squinting against the reddish light of the setting sun. They had paused on the crest of a sandstone bluff with a good view. “It’s a bone-town, you dolt,” the Hunter growled. “Just another open grave given over to sand and scorpions.”

Leitos ignored the insult, having grown accustomed to them. A few miles to the south, in the direction the Hunter looked, sprawled a sweeping collection of crumbled buildings. It was no mere town-bone or otherwise-but a city. They had traveled hard for a week. Until now, Leitos had seen only endless desert.

He studied the ruins more closely. Bleakness stole over him at the aspect of long abandonment, and darkness followed at a thought he could no longer afford to ignore. That is where I will kill him .

He had considered the same more times than he could count, but so far he’d not had the opportunity. Running was no option, for he had seen the uncanny way in which the Hunter could winnow out the signs of a passing serpent in the dead of night, and then follow it to its den and kill it for supper.

I must kill him , he thought again. There was no other choice, and there could be no more delay. He had even decided how he would do it, although the idea of crushing the Hunter’s skull with a rock while he slept still turned his stomach. Also, it must be done in the first hour after the Hunter fell asleep. That was when the man slept the soundest. After that, he began stirring. Within two hours after falling asleep, the Hunter became restive, jerking awake at the faintest sounds. This night, I will take back my freedom .

He looked away from the desolation of what had once been a sanctuary for humankind. “Not the town,” he said, hoping the thoughts of murder wrestling behind his eyes did not show on his face. He pointed out another landmark an equal distance to the west. “ That .”

The Hunter finished his business, then moved to stand beside Leitos. He surveyed the land in all directions, save the one in which Leitos pointed. Leitos had witnessed this behavior often since they set out, and had adopted for himself the habit of always keeping a wary eye for potential threats.

The Hunter finally rested his gaze on the series of ragged craters gouged into the face of the desert. Most were small, no larger than the tumbledown abodes in the distant city. One in particular was far larger, a great bowl sunk into the face of the desert, with weathered fissures spreading crookedly from its crumbly rim. A layer of sand had accumulated on the bowl’s bottom, but the darker hues of scorched rock showed along the sides.

“I have heard it told that when the Three died,” the Hunter said, “burning stars fell from the heavens for months, the world cracked and trembled, and the seas raged far inland. With my own eyes, I have seen great cities throughout Geldain reduced to rubble by the Upheaval. Slavers and traders and the like say there are signs that the same happened the world over. Their elders told of a time when the sun did not give its light for a season or more.

“When light came again, bringing with it the new age-some years before the Faceless One took power-everything had changed. Where green things once grew, the lands had become dry and desolate. Where deserts had stretched for countless leagues, baking under the sun year-round, winter’s touch had swept in, burying all under snow and ice. Where land once stood, it had crumbled, allowing the waves of the sea to wash over fertile plains.”

Leitos nodded, for he had heard those same tales, and worse. According to Adham, the new age the Hunter spoke of was an age of darkness and loss, giving rise to demonic rule and the collapse of humankind’s greatest achievements. The Hunter saw his reaction and burst out laughing.

“Men say much, boy,” the Hunter said, “but mostly they utter lies. Take Geldain. It is as much a desert realm as ever it was.”

“But you said you have seen the destruction,” Leitos said, hiding his exasperation. “Do you now deny it … or was that another of your lies?” Belatedly, he recognized that he was treading on dangerous ground. The Hunter either did not notice, or dismissed it.

“On that score, I spoke the truth. I have seen signs like those holes in the earth, or places where the ground had been ripped apart, leaving bottomless chasms. As well, I have sheltered in what must have been grand palaces, and beside monuments hidden within cities so vast as to addle your wits. All were crushed by forces beyond my ken. But, who can say what really happened, and more, should we believe all that we hear about the world fairly breaking itself apart, even as stars fell from the heavens?” the Hunter asked in philosophical tone.

While Leitos coveted the knowledge the Hunter shared, it also never failed to leave him troubled. It was easier to think of the Hunter as a man of cruelty with little more than base cunning.

“Take my grandfather’s grandfather,” the Hunter continued, “born just after the Upheaval, and just before the coming of the Faceless One. Having never seen what had been before, he could only pass down what his father told him of those days-”

The Hunter paused in midsentence, eyeing Leitos’s odd expression. “What is it, boy?” he asked sharply, then scanned their surroundings, his hand falling to the hilt of his knife.

Leitos told himself he must have misheard. “ My grandfather told me those same tales.”

Finding no impending trouble, the Hunter shrugged his broad shoulders. “Why should that bother you?” he snorted disdainfully.

“Your grandfather’s grandfather,” Leitos said slowly. “That would mean the last age ended nearly two hundred years ago.”

The Hunter offered him a bland look. “Depending on who does the telling, the new age dawned near on three or four lifetimes of men gone,” he confirmed. “But to my mind, the only thing that really matters is that the Faceless One rose from the ashes of what was, and he has ruled these past seven score years.” Such a vast number in relation to the Faceless One did not shock him anymore than it did Leitos, for it was known that the Faceless One was not human. Just what he was, however, was a matter of speculation.

“You do not understand,” Leitos insisted. “My grandfather told me he was a boy before the Faceless One came. He was old, but not that old.”

“I keep telling you, men are liars. Your grandfather included. I suspect he fed you all manner of deceits, the whole of your life. He probably lied so much that he began to believe his own drivel. If you were not such a blithering idiot, you would have thought about that before you fled your masters, and spared yourself a mountain of trouble.”

Indifferent to any response Leitos might have offered, the Hunter turned and followed a wild goat trail down off the bluff. Slipping and sliding, using stiff brush for handholds, they managed to reach the bottom just as the sun dropped below the horizon, its legacy setting the sky ablaze with a dusky crimson light.