James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

Leitos did not want to believe that about Adham, but could not help but wonder. The explanations he relied upon were merely the repeating of things Adham had told him. In truth, everything that he knew of the world outside of the mines was based on the stories his grandfather had fed him growing up.

Why would Adham have lied to me ? The Hunter’s voice again provided the equally simple and altogether bleak answer. “Lies and smiles, boy-that is how you survive under the rule of the Faceless One and his devils.”

Can it really be so? Had his grandfather invented false stories in a bid to mask the hopelessness of a life spent chained and toiling? To retain some measure of sanity, had Adham given his life to ensure Leitos’s escape, set him seeking after a shadowy group of men whose existence even he had often seemed to doubt? Or had Adham gone irrevocably mad long before Leitos took that first step?

Leitos’s head ached with the effort of thinking these things through. More than anything he wanted to stop, throw himself upon the desolate street of this bone-town, and just give in.

While he continued moving along at the heels of the Hunter, his mind abruptly ceased wrestling with itself, letting his eyes see the truth. All around lay the evidence of what had been, the corpse of a place where men and women and children had lived before the Faceless One. Empty now, to be sure, but at one time folk had gathered together, built upon the desert, lived out their lives. If it was true here, then why not other places Adham had spoken of, in lands near and far?

The names of fallen realms filled his mind. Izutar, Aradan, Tureece, Falseth, Kelren, Geldain . And within each realm there had been many cities, great and small, corrupt and shining and in-between. It was certainly possible that Adham, caught in the throes of some insanity, had invented these places. But with the evidence of the bone-town all around, a city whose sunken foundations kept secret the name it once bore, Leitos had to believe some, if not all, of what Adham had told was real, and it did not matter if he had actually seen them before the Upheaval or not.

How many more bone-towns exist? Leitos thought then. By the Hunter’s lips, there were at least two lying north of Zuladah. If two, there could just as easily be a dozen, perhaps even scores, all of which had been destroyed by the Upheaval, or later subjugated by the Faceless One, a creature that walked the world in the form of a man, but who was not a man. A creature who had twisted the hearts and minds of humankind to the point that a mother would cut the heart from her living husband, then give over her only child for a loaf of bread, and perhaps a promise of peace.

Could not a creature such as the Faceless One also convince otherwise strong men that all they knew was a lie, that it was better to betray and hunt their own kind, rather than resist? His captor was evidence enough of that, but how many more were there in the world like him?

“Boy,” the Hunter snarled. He stood several paces away, peering at Leitos through the gloom.

Leitos glanced up, stunned to find that he had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he had stopped in his tracks. “I thought I heard something,” he mumbled, offering the only response that might convince the Hunter not to question his actions.

The Hunter tensed. “What did you hear?” he demanded, taking in the shadows.

He fears the Mahk’lar. Leitos was about to utter some lie, when he actually did hear something … a hushed scraping sound. The Hunter heard it too.

Though standing well apart, they turned as one, facing an alley heaped with smashed mudbricks, shards of wood from old barrels and crates, and moon-cast shadows. The scraping sound came again, followed by a rattling thud.

The Hunter drew his knife and inched toward the mouth of the alley. Leitos wanted to stay close, but as he had no weapons, he decided staying put was his best choice. As he watched the man’s broad back pass from the thin light given by the moon into the alley’s gloomy embrace, he again considered making a run for it, but just as quickly abandoned that idea. If left alive, the Hunter would find him.

The Hunter cursed under his breath, and Leitos moved forward, feet padding lightly over the sand-covered street. The dark of the alley greeted him as readily as it had the Hunter. The upper floor of one of the buildings bracing the alley had tumbled down, crushing a wagon laden with barrels and crates. Three-no, four skeletons lay half-buried under rubble. Doubtless, rescuers had come, hurling aside the bricks in a bid to free the victims, only to find that all had perished. As no one had fully dug out the dead to give them a proper burial, things in the city must have rapidly worsened.

When he stood near, Leitos whispered, “What did you find?”

“Save rats and shadows,” the Hunter said after a time, “there is nothing here. Come. I know a place nearby to rest for the night-”

The Hunter’s words cut off. Leitos froze at the sight of two wraithlike figures hovering at the mouth of the alley. He shot a glance over his shoulder, but a high wall blocked the other end. Leitos’s hand flew to the amulet at his throat. It was his only defense, but in that moment he feared that the trinket was utterly useless against Mahk’lar .

The two figures closed in, spreading apart as they came. While they made no sound, and advanced with a disturbing grace, they did not float, as Leitos would expect from creatures of spirit. The duo approached as would cautious men, walking in crouches, each step placed precisely. He grew more troubled, thinking that the Alon’mahk’lar had tired of waiting for the Hunter to deliver his quarry, and decided instead to collect Leitos themselves….

But no, neither of the figures’ eyes glimmered beneath their hoods, and they stood far too short and too slender to be the offspring of the Fallen. In addition, the figures each bore a sword that would have been no larger than a dagger in the hand of an Alon’mahk’lar .

The Hunter abruptly straightened up to his full height. “After our last meeting,” he growled, “I did not expect to see the likes of either of you again.”

The two dark shapes halted. “How did you know it was us and not mere rogues, or greedy treasure seekers on the prowl?” the man on the left said. Friendly sounding or not, the man did not drop the tip of his sword. If anything, there was an almost imperceptible firming of his stance.

“He knew,” the other figure said dryly, “because only Hunters could possibly catch a Hunter off his guard. Isn’t that so, Sandros?”

Upon hearing the second figure speak, Leitos’s mouth dropped open, and a strange tingling rippled over his skin. Though he had never heard a woman’s voice, his grandfather had frequently spoken of their attributes-at least as often as he talked of freedom-and held them in high regard. But those wistful musings had in no way prepared Leitos for the stirrings he felt in his middle at the songlike tones of female speech. He imagined he could sit in the sand and let her run that sword of hers through his heart, if only she kept talking.

“Why are you here?” the Hunter demanded. “If I do not like your answer, I will string your guts from the eaves of this city.”

Unlike Leitos, he seemed unmoved by the man’s pleasantness or the woman’s voice. If anything, he too seemed more on edge. For Leitos, that last shattered the spell of hearing a woman speak for the first time, and he backed a careful step behind Sandros. Distractedly, he thought he would never be able to apply that name to the man he knew only as the Hunter .