Tim Lebbon - Dusk

Their relationship had been short, and ruled more by lust than anything else. He had met her in this very place, and their mutual delight at each other’s tales of travel drew them close very quickly. Of course, Kosar’s tales were pale and lackluster compared to the accounts she told him over the following moons. That first night had ended with them falling drunk into each other’s arms, and before they knew it they were back in Kosar’s rooms screwing like old lovers. The sight of those cherry-red nipples against her pure white skin, the black hair between her legs like a hole in virgin snow, her long dark hair loosened so that it drifted across the landscape of her shoulders and breasts had driven Kosar mad. They eventually left his room two days later, but only to eat and drink.

The sex had been central to their relationship, but they had also developed a deep and lasting trust which both admitted felt new and fresh. Kosar was a marked thief, and few people trusted him now or ever would again. A’Meer was a Shantasi, a race that even after all this time was held at a distance by Noreelans, their distinct features and ambiguous history setting them too much apart. Both loners, they reveled in the companionship. He had told her much about himself, some of which he was surprised at even remembering. She had told him of her travels, the things she had seen, dreams of places yet to see.

Leaving A’Meer and Pavisse had been the final penitent act of this wandering thief looking for a home.

Kosar had finished three mugs of Old Bastard waiting for A’Meer’s arrival, and he felt more than a little light-headed. He needed some food, he needed sleep, he needed escape from the horrors he had witnessed the previous day. He watched her as she approached, moving from table to table, collecting mugs, sometimes chatting with the drinkers and sometimes not. She wiped at his table where he had purposely spilled some ale. He leaned back on his chair, his face in shadow beneath the staircase.

“Another mug of Old Bastard, please,” he said in a low voice.

“I’ll wipe up your mess, but I’ll not serve for you. Get your ale at the bar, friend, and try not to spill it next time. Old Bastard is too expensive and too good to waste.”

Kosar grabbed his mug before she could reach for it, lifted it and offered it to her.

“Thief,” A’Meer said mildly upon seeing his bandaged hands. She bent down then, peered beneath the staircase, and her face broke into a delighted smile. “Kosar! You treacherous old bastard, what in the name of the Mages brings you back to this stinking shit pit?”

“You,” he said, pleased by her smile. He had left her rather quickly after all, and with little real explanation.

“Liar! It’s the ale, isn’t it? And the bustling center of art and culture that is Pavisse.” She pulled up a chair, hesitated, leaned forward and hugged him warmly, then sat down.

“A’Meer, it’s great to see you.” He meant it. He felt panic pressing in, a potent combination of terror and alcohol driving him to distraction, and her familiar face was welcome.

“You too! I haven’t had a fuck as good as you for years.”

Kosar laughed despite himself. “I haven’t at all since you,” he said.

Her eyes widened fractionally, but she did not comment. It had been a long time, and although they both seemed pleased to see each other, there was an awkwardness here. He hoped it would dissipate soon.

“So what urges you to leave your little village, eh? Wanderer’s life bleeding back into your system now that you’re used to the brands?” She held his hands gently and unwrapped the bandages, grimacing at the bloody wounds on his fingertips. “Fuck, Kosar, all for a few furbats. I remember what used to soothe the hurt. You remember?” She arched her eyebrows mischievously, and yes, he remembered.

“A’Meer, it’s something bad,” he said quietly, his tone killing the moment. Suddenly it was as if they had never parted and here they were in the Broken Arm, swapping stories, drinking, sinking into solemn discussions about how things might be turned around, how the long-ago loss of magic might just be weathered and survived. Everything was falling apart, they would say, and A’Meer would tell him about the plains south of Kang Kang where things fell into the sky and the air was turned to glass.

“How bad?” A’Meer asked. When Kosar did not answer she let go of his hands and sat back in her chair. “Bad enough that we need a bottle of rotwine to talk about it?”

“Get two,” Kosar said without smiling.

“Oh Mage shit.” A’Meer rose and went to the bar. She exchanged a few words with the barman, slapped him on the back and then returned to the table with two bottles filled with black rotwine. “I’ve got the evening off,” she said.

Kosar nodded, popped the lid on one of the bottles and filled the glasses A’Meer had brought. “A’Meer,” he said, lifting his glass and seeing how the fluid seemed to swallow the light, “I think things are about to change.”

Tim Lebbon

Dusk

IT DID NOTfeel the cold. It had only a vague sense of things, a concept of shape and size and direction that was barely enough to guide it on its way, abstract ideas of how things were supposed to be as opposed to observations of how they actually were. Its whole world was its own, contained within its potential mind, where a slew of instincts were all that existed; no experience, no history, nothing to shape this shade any more than nature had already done. The faults were already there, not planted by outside intervention. There are mistakes even in nature.

It did not know that it was a mistake. It was perfect. It had been told so by its god, and that god had sent it on its way, launched it from endless waiting out into the world with an aim in mind. It could find itself a home, the god said, somewhere to settle and spread, let its potential filter down into flesh and bone, heart and desire, mind and body. And then-the hardest part-it would leave this home and return.

It was all instinct, and the instinct was to never go back. But one of the knots in its makeup made it, so its god said, better than perfect. It made it exquisite. It gave this shade, this empty space of potential mind, soul, spirit, experience and existence, something of a life already.

It was loyal to its god.

It traveled quickly, seeking out whispers echoing through the spaces surrounding it. Ideas, words, visions it had been told to watch for. The whispers had silenced already, but the shade knew the direction, even if distance was something as yet vague. It traveled beneath the surface of the world, behind the plane where true life existed, and though the temptation was to immerse itself in this reality-the draw was huge, the power great, the shade’s potential aching to be let in-it knew to wait. It had its instructions. So it traversed spaces where there had never been anything, passing by others similar to itself as they waited patiently for life. They did not notice its passing, though in its wake they were scrutinized one more time for any imperfections. There were none; their creation was thorough. This shifting shade was an oddity, an echo of something not there, and something not noticed cannot be forgotten.

Its imperfections dipped it into the world on occasion, and the sudden shock of life flung it out instantly: a brief instant of cold as it hits a field of white, things darting away in terror, the white solidifying and becoming clear in its path; more cold, subsumed in fluid, life swarming and seeding and ending around it, life as small as a piece of nothing or large as the mind of its god, and all of it shocked at the shade’s brief arrival; something more solid, rich in the history of life though holding little, only sleeping things, even older than its god and so much more unknowable.