Dusk Read Free Page B

of his mother to stay away ( It’s a hole, Rafe, a pit full of everything that isn’t good in the land ), to excited babbling amongst his friends about how there were naked women in the streets, warriors in the bars and an ancient wizard who had forgotten his own name living on the edge of town. But any past misgivings had been thrust aside by the deaths of his parents. Dangerous and unseemly Pavisse might be, but tonight it was safety, a light in the dark, a balm to Rafe’s grief. Something to aim for now that murder had made him aimless.
    Already he could smell the town. A giddying mix of stenches wafted up from the valley, helped on its way by a steady breeze coming down from the north. Some he recognized: the warm smell of just-cooked bread, rich and comforting; horse crap sweating in the heat; freshly turned earth, either from the fledge and coal mines that honeycombed the hills, or the fields on the flood plains. Stale beer too, reaching him even this far out. How much spilled ale, he wondered, to make such a stink? He’d heard the tales of bar fights and muggings in gloomy byways, but Rafe had faced a greater danger today and survived. Drunken miners did little to scare him.
    But there were other smells he could not identify, however hard he tried. A rich, acidic sting, vaguely earthy, that may be something to do with the mines. A perfume that reminded him of rot. And an odor that was undoubtedly food, but no food he had ever tasted. Spice-rich, hot, even the smell promised a tortured stomach.
    This high up in the mountains the land was completely untamed, and Rafe had to move cautiously to avoid stepping in a hole and breaking his ankle. Rocks hid among the sparse, low heathers, ready to trip him and send him stumbling. Melt trace as well, low ridges of loose stones left here after the last Age of Ice, virtually untouched since then except by the seasonal caresses of nature itself. Some of them were obvious, dark lines of shadow twisting along the hillside. Others were hidden by shrubs or long grasses, like snakes awaiting a catch. These were more dangerous.
    The life moon was out, lending a three-quarter light to his trek, affording him a silvery touch reserved only for the innocent and pure. But there were many definitions of pure, and Rafe suspected it was simply another legend left over from the time when magic was still alive. The sheen of moonlight on his skin gave him a sense of calm, because being good and pure was something his parents had so often told him was important. Wish for whatever you will, his father had said, but yearning is different from having. To have impurely is worse than never having at all.
    Well, he still lived in Trengborne, or he had until hours ago. A nothing village, a poor farmers’ settlement inhabited by simple folk out to make their living day to day, hour to hour. A place where his future promised little more than scratching a living in the dirt, celebrating when a new calf was born, getting drunk on the autumn windfalls, marrying a village girl and raising children to run through the same ageless scenario . . .
    Except that things had changed.
    Not only now, when a change was thrust cruelly and bloodily upon him. But before, days and weeks ago, a hint that something was occurring in his mind over which he held no real control. Something involving words he could not understand, themes and ideas that should be painting a picture for him but which, in reality, were merely keeping him awake. Yet they formed a concerto of change in his mind, unleashing his hobbled imagination. However terrible things now were, this journey seemed right. Meant to be. His parents were dead and there was a black pit of mourning opening up inside of him, but things were going the way that was intended. He was certain of it. From the day he had first heard those voices, he had known that he was destined for more than a life of farming.
    There was a noise behind him.
    Rafe crouched down low, spun on his