Sixth of the Dusk Read online

“How can you know?” she asked, voice hushed. “Anything could be out there, in that darkness.”

  “If the nightmaws had seen us, we’d be dead. That is how I know.” He shook his head, sliding out his machete and cutting away a few branches before them. Any could hold deathants skittering across their leaves. In the dark, it would be difficult to spot them, and so brushing against foliage seemed a poor decision.

  We won’t be able to avoid it, he thought, leading the way down through a gully thick with mud. He had to step on stones to keep from sinking in. Vathi followed with remarkable dexterity. We have to go quickly. I can’t cut down every branch in our way.

  He hopped off a stone and onto the bank of the gully, and there passed his corpse sinking into the mud. Nearby, he spotted a second corpse, so translucent it was nearly invisible. He raised his lantern, hoping it wasn’t happening again.

  Others did not appear. Just these two. And the very faint image . . . yes, that was a sinkhole there. Sak chirped softly, and he fished in his pocket for a seed to give her. She had figured out how to send him help. The fainter images were immediate dangers—he would have to watch for those.

  “Thank you,” he whispered to her.

  “That bird of yours,” Vathi said, speaking softly in the gloom of night, “are there others?”

  They climbed out of the gully, continuing on, crossing a krell trail in the night. He stopped them just before they wandered into a patch of deathants. Vathi looked at the trail of tiny yellow insects, moving in a straight line.

  “Dusk?” she asked as they rounded the ants. “Are there others? Why haven’t you brought any chicks to market?”

  “I do not have any chicks.”

  “So you found only the one?” she asked.

  Questions, questions. Buzzing around him like flies.

  Don’t be foolish, he told himself, shoving down his annoyance. You would ask the same, if you saw someone with a new Aviar. He had tried to keep Sak a secret; for years, he hadn’t even brought her with him when he left the island. But with her hurt wing, he hadn’t wanted to abandon her.

  Deep down, he’d known he couldn’t keep his secret forever. “There are many like her,” he said. “But only she has a talent to bestow.”

  Vathi stopped in place as he continued to cut them a path. He turned back, looking at her alone on the new trail. He had given her the lantern to hold.

  “That’s a mainlander bird,” she said. She held up the light. “I knew it was when I first saw it, and I assumed it wasn’t an Aviar, because mainlander birds can’t bestow talents.”

  Dusk turned back and continued cutting.

  “You brought a mainlander chick to the Pantheon,” Vathi whispered behind. “And it gained a talent.”

  With a hack he brought down a branch, then continued on. Again, she had not asked a question, so he needed not answer.

  Vathi hurried to keep up, the glow of the lantern tossing his shadow before him as she stepped up behind. “Surely someone else has tried it before. Surely . . .”

  He did not know.

  “But why would they?” she continued, quietly, as if to herself. “The Aviar are special. Everyone knows the separate breeds and what they do. Why assume that a fish would learn to breathe air, if raised on land? Why assume a non-Aviar would become one if raised on Patji. . . .”

  They continued through the night. Dusk led them around many dangers, though he found that he needed to rely greatly upon Sak’s help. Do not follow that stream, which has your corpse bobbing in its waters. Do not touch that tree; the bark is poisonous with rot. Turn from that path. Your corpse shows a deathant bite.

  Sak did not speak to him, but each message was clear. When he stopped to let Vathi drink from her canteen, he held Sak and found her trembling. She did not peck at him as was usual when he enclosed her in his hands.

  They stood in a small clearing, pure dark all around them, the sky shrouded in clouds. He heard distant rainfall on the trees. Not uncommon, here.

  Nightmaws screeched, one then another. They only did that when they had made a kill or when they were seeking to frighten prey. Often, krell herds slept near Aviar roosts. Frighten away the birds, and you could sense the krell.

  Vathi had taken out her tube. Not a scroll case—and not something scholarly at all, considering the way she held it as she poured something into its end. Once done, she raised it like one would a weapon. Beneath her feet, Dusk’s body lay mangled.

  He did not ask after Vathi’s weapon, not even as she took some kind of short, slender spear and fitted it into the top end. No weapon could penetrate the thick skin of a nightmaw. You either avoided them or you died.

  Kokerlii fluttered down to his shoulder, chirping away. He seemed confused by the darkness. Why were they out like this, at night, when birds normally made no noise?

  “We must keep moving,” Dusk said, placing Sak on his other shoulder and taking out his machete.

  “You realize that your bird changes everything,” Vathi said quietly, joining him, shouldering her pack and carrying her tube in the other hand.

  “There will be a new kind of Aviar,” Dusk whispered, stepping over his corpse.

  “That’s the least of it. Dusk, we assumed that chicks raised away from these islands did not develop their abilities because they were not around others to train them. We assumed that their abilities were innate, like our ability to speak—it’s inborn, but we require help from others to develop it.”

  “That can still be true,” Dusk said. “Other species, such as Sak, can merely be trained to speak.”

  “And your bird? Was it trained by others?”

  “Perhaps.” He did not say what he really thought. It was a thing of trappers. He noted a corpse on the ground before them.

  It was not his.

  He held up a hand immediately, stilling Vathi as she continued on to ask another question. What was this? The meat had been picked off much of the skeleton, and the clothing lay strewn about, ripped open by animals that feasted. Small, funguslike plants had sprouted around the ground near it, tiny red tendrils reaching up to enclose parts of the skeleton.

  He looked up at the great tree, at the foot of which rested the corpse. The flowers were not in bloom. Dusk released his breath.

  “What is it?” Vathi whispered. “Deathants?”

  “No. Patji’s Finger.”

  She frowned. “Is that . . . some kind of curse?”

  “It is a name,” Dusk said, stepping forward carefully to inspect the corpse. Machete. Boots. Rugged gear. One of his colleagues had fallen. He thought he recognized the man from the clothing. An older trapper named First of the Sky.

  “The name of a person?” Vathi asked, peeking over his shoulder.

  “The name of a tree,” Dusk said, poking at the corpse’s clothing, careful of insects that might be lurking inside. “Raise the lamp.”

  “I’ve never heard of that tree,” she said skeptically.

  “They are only on Patji.”

  “I have read a lot about the flora on these islands. . . .”

  “Here you are a child. Light.”

  She sighed, raising it for him. He used a stick to prod at pockets on the ripped clothing. This man had been killed by a tuskrun pack, larger predators—almost as large as a man—that prowled mostly by day. Their movement patterns were predictable unless one happened across one of Patji’s Fingers in bloom.

  There. He found a small book in the man’s pocket. Dusk raised it, then backed away. Vathi peered over his shoulder. Homeislers stood so close to each other. Did she need to stand right by his elbow?

  He checked the first pages, finding a list of dates. Yes, judging by the last date written down, this man was only a few days dead. The pages after that detailed the locations of Sky’s safecamps, along with explanations of the traps guarding each one. The last page contained the farewell.

  I am First of the Sky, taken by Patji at last. I have a brother on Suluko. Care for them, rival.

 
; Few words. Few words were good. Dusk carried a book like this himself, and he had said even less on his last page.

  “He wants you to care for his family?” Vathi asked.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Dusk said, tucking the book away. “His birds.”

  “That’s sweet,” Vathi said. “I had always heard that trappers were incredibly territorial.”

  “We are,” he said, noting how she said it. Again, her tone made it seem as if she considered trappers to be like animals. “But our birds might die without care—they are accustomed to humans. Better to give them to a rival than to let them die.”

  “Even if that rival is the one who killed you?” Vathi asked. “The traps you set, the ways you try to interfere with one another . . .”

  “It is our way.”

  “That is an awful excuse,” she said, looking up at the tree.

  She was right.

  The tree was massive, with drooping fronds. At the end of each one was a large closed blossom, as long as two hands put together. “You don’t seem worried,” she noted, “though the plant seems to have killed that man.”

  “These are only dangerous when they bloom.”

  “Spores?” she asked.

  “No.” He picked up the fallen machete, but left the rest of Sky’s things alone. Let Patji claim him. Father did so like to murder his children. Dusk continued onward, leading Vathi, ignoring his corpse draped across a log.

  “Dusk?” Vathi asked, raising the lantern and hurrying to him. “If not spores, then how does the tree kill?”

  “So many questions.”

  “My life is about questions,” she replied. “And about answers. If my people are going to work on this island . . .”

  He hacked at some plants with the machete.

  “It is going to happen,” she said, more softly. “I’m sorry, Dusk. You can’t stop the world from changing. Perhaps my expedition will be defeated, but others will come.”

  “Because of the Ones Above,” he snapped.

  “They may spur it,” Vathi said. “Truly, when we finally convince them we are developed enough to be traded with, we will sail the stars as they do. But change will happen even without them. The world is progressing. One man cannot slow it, no matter how determined he is.”

  He stopped in the path.

  You cannot stop the tides from changing, Dusk. No matter how determined you are. His mother’s words. Some of the last he remembered from her.

  Dusk continued on his way. Vathi followed. He would need her, though a treacherous piece of him whispered that she would be easy to end. With her would go her questions, and more importantly her answers. The ones he suspected she was very close to discovering.

  You cannot change it. . . .

  He could not. He hated that it was so. He wanted so badly to protect this island, as his kind had done for centuries. He worked this jungle, he loved its birds, was fond of its scents and sounds—despite all else. How he wished he could prove to Patji that he and the others were worthy of these shores.

  Perhaps. Perhaps then . . .

  Bah. Well, killing this woman would not provide any real protection for the island. Besides, had he sunk so low that he would murder a helpless scribe in cold blood? He would not even do that to another trapper, unless they approached his camp and did not retreat.

  “The blossoms can think,” he found himself saying as he turned them away from a mound that showed the tuskrun pack had been rooting here. “The Fingers of Patji. The trees themselves are not dangerous, even when blooming—but they attract predators, imitating the thoughts of a wounded animal that is full of pain and worry.”

  Vathi gasped. “A plant,” she said, “that broadcasts a mental signature? Are you certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need one of those blossoms.” The light shook as she turned to go back.

  Dusk spun and caught her by the arm. “We must keep moving.”

  “But—”

  “You will have another chance.” He took a deep breath. “Your people will soon infest this island like maggots on carrion. You will see other trees. Tonight, we must go. Dawn approaches.”

  He let go of her and turned back to his work. He had judged her wise, for a homeisler. Perhaps she would listen.

  She did. She followed behind.

  Patji’s Fingers. First of the Sky, the dead trapper, should not have died in that place. Truly, the trees were not that dangerous. They lived by opening many blossoms and attracting predators to come feast. The predators would then fight one another, and the tree would feed off the corpses. Sky must have stumbled across a tree as it was beginning to flower, and got caught in what came.

  His Aviar had not been enough to shield so many open blossoms. Who would have expected a death like that? After years on the island, surviving much more terrible dangers, to be caught by those simple flowers. It almost seemed a mockery, on Patji’s part, of the poor man.

  Dusk and Vathi’s path continued, and soon grew steeper. They’d need to go uphill for a while before crossing to the downward slope that would lead to the other side of the island. Their trail, fortunately, would avoid Patji’s main peak—the point of the wedge that jutted up the easternmost side of the island. His camp had been near the south, and Vathi’s would be to the northeast, letting them skirt around the base of the wedge before arriving on the other beach.

  They fell into a rhythm, and she was quiet for a time. Eventually, atop a particularly steep incline, he nodded for a break and squatted down to drink from his canteen. On Patji one did not simply sit, without care, upon a stump or log to rest.

  Consumed by worry, and not a little frustration, he didn’t notice what Vathi was doing until it was too late. She’d found something tucked into a branch—a long colorful feather. A mating plume.

  Dusk leaped to his feet.

  Vathi reached up toward the lower branches of the tree.

  A set of spikes on ropes dropped from a nearby tree as Vathi pulled the branch. They swung down as Dusk reached her, one arm thrown in the way. A spike hit, the long, thin nail ripping into his skin and jutting out the other side, bloodied, and stopping a hair from Vathi’s cheek.

  She screamed.

  Many predators on Patji were hard of hearing, but still that wasn’t wise. Dusk didn’t care. He yanked the spike from his skin, unconcerned with the bleeding for now, and checked the other spikes on the drop-rope trap.

  No poison. Blessedly, they had not been poisoned.

  “Your arm!” Vathi said.

  He grunted. It didn’t hurt. Yet. She began fishing in her pack for a bandage, and he accepted her ministrations without complaint or groan, even as the pain came upon him.

  “I’m so sorry!” Vathi sputtered. “I found a mating plume! That meant an Aviar nest, so I thought to look in the tree. Have we stumbled across another trapper’s safecamp?”

  She was babbling out words as she worked. Seemed appropriate. When he grew nervous, he grew even more quiet. She would do the opposite.

  She was good with a bandage, again surprising him. The wound had not hit any major arteries. He would be fine, though using his left hand would not be easy. This would be an annoyance. When she was done, looking sheepish and guilty, he reached down and picked up the mating plume she had dropped.

  “This,” he said with a harsh whisper, holding it up before her, “is the symbol of your ignorance. On the Pantheon Islands, nothing is easy, nothing is simple. That plume was placed by another trapper to catch someone who does not deserve to be here, someone who thought to find an easy prize. You cannot be that person. Never move without asking yourself, is this too easy?”

  She paled. Then she took the feather in her fingers.

  “Come.”

  He turned and walked on their way. That was the speech for an apprentice, he realized. Upon their first major mistake. A ritual among trappers. What had possessed him to give it to her?

  She followed behind, head bowed, appropriately shamed. She didn
’t realize the honor he had just paid her, if unconsciously. They walked onward, an hour or more passing.

  By the time she spoke, for some reason, he almost welcomed the words breaking upon the sounds of the jungle. “I’m sorry.”

  “You need not be sorry,” he said. “Only careful.”

  “I understand.” She took a deep breath, following behind him on the path. “And I am sorry. Not just about your arm. About this island. About what is coming. I think it inevitable, but I do wish that it did not mean the end of such a grand tradition.”

  “I . . .”

  Words. He hated trying to find words.

  “It . . . was not dusk when I was born,” he finally said, then hacked down a swampvine and held his breath against the noxious fumes that it released toward him. They were only dangerous for a few moments.

  “Excuse me?” Vathi asked, keeping her distance from the swampvine. “You were born . . .”

  “My mother did not name me for the time of day. I was named because my mother saw the dusk of our people. The sun will soon set on us, she often told me.” He looked back to Vathi, letting her pass him and enter a small clearing.

  Oddly, she smiled at him. Why had he found those words to speak? He followed into the clearing, concerned at himself. He had not given those words to his uncle; only his parents knew the source of his name.

  He was not certain why he’d told this scribe from an evil company. But . . . it did feel good to have said them.

  A nightmaw broke through between two trees behind Vathi.

  The enormous beast would have been as tall as a tree if it had stood upright. Instead it leaned forward in a prowling posture, powerful legs behind bearing most of its weight, its two clawed forelegs ripping up the ground. It reached forward its long neck, beak open, razor-sharp and deadly. It looked like a bird—in the same way that a wolf looked like a lapdog.

  He threw his machete. An instinctive reaction, for he did not have time for thought. He did not have time for fear. That snapping beak—as tall as a door—would have the two of them dead in moments.

  His machete glanced off the beak and actually cut the creature on the side of the head. That drew its attention, making it hesitate for just a moment. Dusk leaped for Vathi. She stepped back from him, setting the butt of her tube against the ground. He needed to pull her away, to—