Брендон Сандерсон - Sixth of the Dusk

“Isn’t this dangerous?” she whispered. “The trees are blooming. The nightmaws will come! But no. So many Aviar. They can hide those blossoms, like they do a man’s mind?”

“No,” he said. “All minds in this place are invisible, always, regardless of Aviar.”

“But… how? Why? The worms?”

Dusk didn’t know, and for now didn’t care. I am trying to protect you, Patji! Dusk looked toward Patji’s Fingers. I need to stop the men and their device. I know it! Why? Why do you hunt me?

Perhaps it was because he knew so much. Too much. More than any man had known. For he had asked questions.

Men. And their questions.

“They’re coming up the river, aren’t they?” she asked.

The answer seemed obvious. He did not reply.

“No,” she said, standing. “I won’t die with this knowledge, Dusk. I won’t . There must be a way.”

“There is,” he said, standing beside her. He took a deep breath. So I finally pay for it. He took Sak carefully in his hand, and placed her on Vathi’s shoulder. He pried Kokerlii free too.

“What are you doing?” Vathi asked.

“I will go as far as I can,” Dusk said, handing Kokerlii toward her. The bird bit with annoyance at his hands, although never strong enough to draw blood. “You will need to hold him. He will try to follow me.”

“No, wait. We can hide in the lake, they—”

“They will find us!” Dusk said. “It isn’t deep enough by far to hide us.”

“But you can’t—”

“They are nearly here, woman!” he said, forcing Kokerlii into her hands. “The men of the company will not listen to me if I tell them to turn off the device. You are smart, you can make them stop. You can reach them. With Kokerlii you can reach them. Be ready to go.”

She looked at him, stunned, but she seemed to realize that there was no other way. She stood, holding Kokerlii in two hands as he pulled out the journal of First of the Sky, then his own book that listed where his Aviar were, and tucked them into her pack. Finally, he stepped back into the river. He could hear a rushing sound downstream. He would have to go quickly to reach the end of the canyon before they arrived. If he could draw them out into the jungle even a short ways to the south, Vathi could slip away.

As he entered the stream, his visions of death finally vanished. No more corpses bobbing in the water, lying on the banks. Sak had realized what was happening.

She gave a final chirp.

He started to run.

One of Patji’s Fingers, growing right next to the mouth of the canyon, was blooming.

“Wait!”

He should not have stopped as Vathi yelled at him. He should have continued on, for time was so slim. However, the sight of that flower—along with her yell—made him hesitate.

The flower…

It struck him as it must have struck Vathi. An idea. Vathi ran for her pack, letting go of Kokerlii, who immediately flew to his shoulder and started chirping at him in annoyed chastisement. Dusk didn’t listen. He yanked the flower off—it was as large as a man’s head, with a large bulging part at the center.

It was invisible in this basin, like they all were.

“A flower that can think,” Vathi said, breathing quickly, fishing in her pack. “A flower that can draw the attention of predators.”

Dusk pulled out his rope as she brought out her weapon and prepared it. He lashed the flower to the end of the spear sticking out slightly from the tube.

Nightmaw screeches echoed up the cavern. He could see their shadows, hear them splashing.

He stumbled back from Vathi as she crouched down, set the weapon’s butt against the ground, and pulled a lever at the base.

The explosion, once again, nearly deafened him.

Aviar all around the rim of the basin screeched and called in fright, taking wing. A storm of feathers and flapping ensued, and through the middle of it, Vathi’s spear shot into the air, flower on the end. It arced out over the canyon into the night.

Dusk grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back along the river, into the lake itself. They slipped into the shallow water, Kokerlii on his shoulder, Sak on hers. They left the lantern burning, giving a quiet light to the suddenly empty basin.

The lake was not deep. Two or three feet. Even crouching, it didn’t cover them completely.

The nightmaws stopped in the canyon. His lanternlight showed a couple of them in the shadows, large as huts, turning and watching the sky. They were smart, but like the meekers, not as smart as men.

Patji, Dusk thought. Patji, please…

The nightmaws turned back down the canyon, following the mental signature broadcast by the flowering plant. And, as Dusk watched, his corpse bobbing in the water nearby grew increasingly translucent.

Then faded away entirely.

Dusk counted to a hundred, then slipped from the waters. Vathi, sodden in her skirts, did not speak as she grabbed the lantern. They left the weapon, its shots expended.

The calls from the nightmaws grew farther and farther away as Dusk led the way out of the canyon, then directly north, slightly downslope. He kept expecting the screeches to turn and follow.

They did not.

The companyfortress was a horridly impressive sight. A work of logs and cannons right at the edge of the water, guarded by an enormous iron-hulled ship. Smoke rose from it, the burning of morning cook fires. A short distance away, what must have been a dead shadow rotted in the sun, its mountainous carcass draped half in the water, half out.

He didn’t see his own corpse anywhere, though on the final leg of their trip to the fortress he had seen it several times. Always in a place of immediate danger. Sak’s visions had returned to normal.

Dusk turned back to the fortress, which he did not enter. He preferred to remain on the rocky, familiar shore—perhaps twenty feet from the entrance—his wounded arm aching as the company people rushed out through the gate to meet Vathi. Their scouts on the upper walls kept careful watch on Dusk. A trapper was not to be trusted.

Even standing here, some twenty feet from the wide wooden gates into the fort, he could smell how wrong the place was. It was stuffed with the scents of men—sweaty bodies, the smell of oil, and other, newer scents that he recognized from his recent trips to the homeisles. Scents that made him feel like an outsider among his own people.

The company men wore sturdy clothing, trousers like Dusk’s but far better tailored, shirts and rugged jackets. Jackets? In Patji’s heat? These people bowed to Vathi, showing her more deference than Dusk would have expected. They drew hands from shoulder to shoulder as they started speaking—a symbol of respect. Foolishness. Anyone could make a gesture like that; it didn’t mean anything. True respect included far more than a hand waved in the air.

But they did treat her like more than a simple scribe. She was better placed in the company than he’d assumed. Not his problem anymore, regardless.

Vathi looked at him, then back at her people. “We must hurry to the machine,” she said to them. “The one from Above. We must turn it off.”

Good. She would do her part. Dusk turned to walk away. Should he give words at parting? He’d never felt the need before. But today, it felt… wrong not to say something.

He started walking. Words. He had never been good with words.

“Turn it off?” one of the men said from behind. “What do you mean, Lady Vathi?”

“You don’t need to feign innocence, Winds,” Vathi said. “I know you turned it on in my absence.”

“But we didn’t.”

Dusk paused. What? The man sounded sincere. But then, Dusk was no expert on human emotions. From what he’d seen of people from the homeisles, they could fake emotion as easily as they faked a gesture of respect.