Dusk by Tim Lebbon Read Free Book Online Page A

seemed to have percolated throughout the whole building. Either that, or every room stank.
    Rafe wondered who the thief could be. There was Kosar, the worker in Trengborne, but they had never even spoken to each other. And surely he would have been killed along with everyone else.
    He found his way out of the building. Weak sunlight greeted him and, though they were frightening and strange, he introduced himself to the afternoon streets of Pavisse.
                   
    HE HAD HEARD much about the town. Some of it was hearsay, rumor passed through the young community of Trengborne and propagated by their desires of what the big town could offer. Some was from his parents, usually accompanied by warnings never to go there. It was a useless place, they had said, marked only by crime and badness, in dire need of rescue. Rescue from what, they had never expanded upon, and neither had they explained their stern words of caution.
    Rafe felt as if he was betraying his parents by even wandering the streets, but venting his grief in the presence of his drunken, frightening uncle felt worse. And it was such a strange and shocking place that curiosity got the better of him. Somewhere, perhaps that vague idea of help still existed . . . but it was a nebulous concept now, as distant as he felt.
    Pavisse was a mining town first and foremost, and most of its inhabitants had something to do with working the ground. Groups of miners strode along the street, proudly wearing the unavoidable badges of their trade. Coal miners had leathery black skin and broad shoulders. They also bore scars and injuries from the many accidents and cave-ins underground: missing limbs; empty eye sockets; faces cleansed of anything approaching joy. Those who dug fledge had eyes yellowed from their constant proximity to the drug, and bald scalps, a side-effect of its use. They were tall and thin, willowy men and women who twisted and turned their way through the many fledge arteries that networked the underground. They stared at something far away—memories of better lives, perhaps—and to Rafe they looked like ghosts seeking somewhere to lie down in peace.
    The miners had something else that set them apart, and it did not take long for Rafe to realize what it was. Three fledgers shoved him aside, walked on without giving him a second glance, and he knew then what he was seeing: total disregard for anyone other than fellow miners. Not just ignorance or aloofness; they could have been a different species.
    Before long, Rafe became completely overawed by what he was seeing. In Trengborne, a simple farming village where the folks worked to live, and lived simply, there was little out of the ordinary. Rafe had seen a raid by tumblers when he was very young—he remembered them congregating around a fallen child, playing with him, toying with their prey before one of them rolled forward and pierced him with its barbs—and sometimes, in dreams, he thought he remembered a wraith. But other than that, nothing extreme. Here, the sights saturated his senses very quickly. Rafe’s simple perception of things was soon drowned out by the excesses of Pavisse.
    A man was lying in the road being kicked by three coal miners, their boots impacting with his head and stomach and groin, and yet all who passed averted their eyes. The victim looked like fodder—dregs of an ancient race once bred for food in Long Marrakash—and although Rafe had never before seen one of these sad creatures, he hid his fascination and walked on. Elsewhere, a naked woman sat in a rocking chair in a doorway with her legs wide open, beckoning men to sample her wares. One fledger stopped, did his business there and then, paid her and walked away. The woman put on her stock alluring smile once more, scanning the street, eyes glazed with bad wine and skin grayed by years of rhellim use. The display was horrific and sickening, and Rafe thought of the many rumors he’d heard from the young men in