Tim Lebbon - Dawn

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.

Tim Lebbon

Dawn

“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’tfrom there, but helived 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; hewanted 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.