Duskfall (7 page)

And yet, Knot hadn’t fought anyone since Pranna. Ildur’s implication surprised him.

“Can’t stay, Ildur. Sorry.” Knot would’ve liked to remain with Ildur’s caravan, but they were headed south towards Triah. Knot’s business took him the opposite direction. The men who attacked at the wedding were from Roden, and Knot felt inexplicably drawn to the place. He hoped he would find answers there. He had left Pranna to protect Winter. He had to find out about his past before he endangered anyone else.

Ildur nodded. “Very well, lad.” He pulled a small pouch from his belt, and offered it to Knot. “Recompense. You’ve paid for more than the shelter and food, with all you’ve done.”

Knot didn’t want to take money from Ildur’s meager operation, but he accepted it anyway. No use being impractical. He’d left Pranna with almost nothing of value.

“Thank you,” he said, hoping Ildur would hear his sincerity.

“It’s not charity, lad, it’s payment. You deserve it.” Ildur extended his left arm. In Khalic tradition, extending one’s left arm was a way of showing you meant no harm; that you were a friend. Knot gripped it with his left hand.

“Offer still stands, if you ever need the coin,” Ildur called over his shoulder as he walked to the caravan. “We could always use the help.”

Knot nodded as he watched the caravan disappear into the crowded street, though Ildur didn’t look back.

He sighed heavily. A long journey lay ahead of him, and most, if not all of it, would be on foot. He’d considered commandeering a boat in Pranna to cut across the Gulf of Nahl—such a trip would take him a week at most, instead of a month along his current route—but Roden patrolled its surrounding waters heavily, and they did not take kindly to foreigners. And, being honest, Knot was in no hurry. The time spent traveling—time alone, time to think—might help him prepare for whatever he encountered in Roden.

Knot turned. Two- and three-story buildings rose around him, built mostly of light-colored wood and, in rare cases, stone. Shops and tents and people shouting about the latest silk clothing from Alizia or fine steel from Maven Kol crowded the streets. Knot recalled there was one major market district in the city center, and other shops and merchants’ stalls lined the three main roads, leading from the city center to each gate.

The city was uncomfortably familiar to him. He had been here once that he could remember, with Bahc and Winter and Gord, for the Festival of Songs. Even then he had known things about the city that he should not have. The exact heights of the walls and guard towers. Patrol routes of the City Watch. The layout of the main gatehouse. He knew Cineste’s population was huge, roughly one hundred thousand people, not quite one-tenth of whom were tiellan.

The knowledge worried him.

The sun had nearly set. He needed to find an inn. As he walked further down the street, he felt the slightest tug on his belt.

His hand moved quickly and caught a small wrist. He looked down into the wide, bright-green eyes of a young girl, eight or nine years old, staring up at him. She wore a cloak with a large hood. Her hand was wrapped around the coin purse at his waist.

A pickpocket.

“Best you can do?” Knot asked, with half a smile. She was trying to rob him, sure, but she was young and looked frail. The life that led her to this didn’t bear thinking about. Even less so the life this led her towards.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” the girl said, lowering her eyes. “Please, I just…”

With bewildering power, the girl tried to wrench her arm free. Knot held on, barely, surprised at such sudden force. She’d nearly knocked him over.

“Wait,” Knot said, but with another gargantuan burst of strength the girl jerked her arm out of his grip and scampered off down the street.

What in Oblivion?
Knot was half tempted to pursue the girl, just to see who she was.

Caught me off guard
, he told himself. No other explanation for the fact that she’d nearly pulled him over.

If nothing else, it made Knot realize he needed a weapon of some sort. Next time someone confronted him, it likely wouldn’t be a small child.

Eventually Knot found an inn, marked by a large sign with an illegible name carved into the wood. The building was old, made of aging pine, and didn’t look particularly fancy. Exactly what Knot wanted. Just a place to rest his head. He’d leave Cineste at first light.

The common room was full, but well lit and clean. He took it in, measuring each variable and potential threat. The process was habit for him, now, ever since waking up in Pranna. There were plenty of people in the room, but only a few who knew how to handle themselves. A group of watchmen, likely off duty, conversed loudly at a corner table. They didn’t look overly competent, but the four of them together—and their chainmail, spears, and long daggers—would cause problems in a fight. Word of what had happened in Pranna must’ve reached the city by now, but he felt strangely confident in his ability to blend in. The watchmen seemed engaged in their own conversation, anyway; they’d pay him no mind.

A man who towered nearly a head over Knot stood stoically near the entrance to the common room. The inn’s own security. Despite the fat around the man’s belly, Knot guessed he might present more of a problem than all four of the watchmen if things got violent. The man’s scarred fists and knuckles and off-center nose were tangible proof. Even the way he stood, relaxed but alert, spoke of violence.

No one else was a threat. Most were either too involved in themselves or unhappily listening to an untalented lute player near the hearth.

“What’ll it be?” the innkeeper asked from behind the bar. He looked Knot up and down. Knot lifted the purse and set it on the bar.

“A room,” he said. “And some hot water.” He could use a bath, and Ildur had been surprisingly generous with his coin.

The innkeeper eyed the purse, then looked again at Knot.

“All right, friend,” he said. “One silver for the room. Three coppers extra for the water.”

Knot placed the coins on the bar. The innkeeper slipped them into a large pocket in his apron.

“Second floor,” he said, pulling a key from another pocket and slapping it down. “End of the hall.”

Knot muttered his thanks, and turned towards the stairs.

* * *

Knot dreamed of chaos and uncertainty.

He dreamed of watching a woman sleep. Knot sat in a chair beside her. The woman was beautiful, bathed in a soft light. In the distant dark, a man watched them both. He couldn’t see the man, but Knot knew he was there, watching.

Knot stood and walked out of the light and into a city covered in snow and ice. Hundreds of flat, squat huts spread out around him. Izet, the capital city of Roden. In the center of the city loomed a large, domed palace. A faint blue light shone at the peak of the dome, and Knot itched to know what the light was. He needed to find out, sure as breathing.

The city was empty. No people, no animals, no wind, no sound. Knot walked towards the great snow-capped dome and the blue light; the light was always further away, no matter how far his feet took him.

In the distance, someone ran quickly across his vision.

Knot rushed after them, but by the time he got to where they had been, the street was empty.

Knot turned. He thought he’d heard someone behind him. For a moment he thought no one was there, but then he saw her. Raven-black hair.

Knot called out. She ran on, as if she hadn’t heard him.

To his left, in an alleyway, he saw her again. Running.

To his right, she ran.

Suddenly the city was full of dark-haired women running down the streets, through alleys, between buildings. Knot reached out to touch one of them, but she disappeared as soon as he came close. He reached for another figure, and she too slipped away.

Knot began seeing other faces on the people running. Bahc, Lian, Gord, Dent, the watchmen he had murdered, the tall, ugly man from the chapel, Ildur, and others he didn’t recognize at all.

In the middle of them all, standing still, were two men. One was tall, strong, middle-aged, with a shaved head and a large gold ring on his little finger. Knot recognized the man—it was Grysole, the Emperor of Roden. How on earth did he know what a faraway emperor looked like? The other was hooded, surrounded in shadow, and Knot could not place him.

In the distance, the domes of Izet had disappeared. In their place were Canta’s Fane, the Citadel, and the House of Aldermen. Knot was in Triah.

Everyone running around him—hundreds of people, faces he recognized and those he did not—stopped moving. They lined the Radial Road, leading straight to Triah’s center. The crowds waited. The bald king and shadow man were gone, and in their place was another man with thick blond hair, facing Knot. The man held a sword up, looking down the blade at him. The man smiled, but his eyes were cold.

Knot realized he wasn’t wearing a sword, but before he could react, the pickpocket girl from Cineste was in front of him. Her eyes blazed bright green, blinding him.

“Not yet,” she whispered.

* * *

Knot awoke, sitting up sharply in the dark. He felt cold sweat on his back. He glanced at the lone window in his room, watching the wool curtains tremble and float in the breeze.

Knot hadn’t left the shutters open.

“What d’you want?” Knot asked the darkness, calmly. He didn’t care what the intruder wanted, but the question might buy time. Moonlight streamed in and painted a ghostly, silver-white square on the floor, the only source of light in the room.

Knot didn’t hear any movement, but a voice came from the corner, from the dark.

“I’ve heard of you,” the voice said. “Strange to think that the great legend is just… a man.”

Knot’s mind raced. A man’s voice, experienced but not old. No more than forty summers. Knot squinted as his eyes adjusted, and finally saw the outline of a shape. The man was tall, his dim frame imposing.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Knot said to the shape in the darkness. “But if you tell me who you are, maybe we can help each other.” He reached for the brass candlestick by the bed.

“I’m not a fool,” the man said, his voice hardening. “You chose to desert. You had to know we would catch up with you eventually.”

Knot’s fingers closed around the candlestick, and he threw it as hard as he could at the man. Then he leapt out of bed, whipping the thick wool blanket around and around his left arm. If the man carried a blade, minimal protection was better than none.

Knot knew something was wrong when the candlestick stopped in midair, right in front of the man’s face. He suddenly felt too aware of everything. The candlestick floating eerily in the moonlight. The slight breeze fluttering through the curtains. He shivered. A tingling sensation blossomed in his head, directly behind his eyes. A lot was wrong with this scene, but there was something specific, something nagging at him.

Then, faster than he could ever have thrown it, the candlestick flew back towards him.

Knot barely got his arm up in time to deflect, sending it clattering away. Sharp pain shot through his shoulder at the sudden movement, but Knot had learned to ignore the pain. He sprang at the man. Metal scraped against leather and there was a flash in the moonlight. The man whipped a sword towards Knot, and Knot barely dodged the blow. He weaved forward, raising his wool-wrapped arm in time to deflect another slash. He lashed out with his other hand and struck his opponent in the face. The man attacked again, but he was slower this time, and Knot managed an awkward kick at his stomach before moving in, unwrapping the blanket from his arm. Strangely, he felt no fear. From his words, his attacker might be able to tell about his past.

Even if he couldn’t, there was still the thrill of the kill.

The man swung again, but Knot danced around the sword, snapping the blanket up and around the blade, catching it in the thick wool. But something wasn’t right. Knot kicked the man again, at the same time pulling sharply on the blanket, and the man’s sword clattered against the wall.

“Feel free to join in any time you like,” the man rasped.

Knot’s body registered that there was another person in the room before his mind caught up. He felt the odd, tingling sensation behind his eyes again, and then the blanket was yanked out of his grip. Knot turned and dove for the sword, shining in the square of moonlight from the window.

As if repelled by his hand, the sword slid away from his grasp. At the same time Knot felt the blanket wrapping around his ankles, snaking up his body. In seconds he was bound tightly in a cocoon of wool.

He couldn’t move.

“Canta’s bones, you could have done that in the beginning,” the man said.

The man bent down to grab the sword. Knot flung his bound legs at the man’s ankles, tripping him. Knot was about to struggle his way towards the blade again, when he suddenly felt his whole body lift into the air.

“
Enough
.” A woman’s voice.

Then Knot was floating, held up by the wool blanket, the sword at his throat. But no one was holding it.

It was just that kind of night.

The blade pressed against his neck; he could feel the edge digging. If he moved at all, it would cut deeper. He held as still as possible, his gaze fixed on the levitating sword.

Slowly, a woman walked into view. She watched Knot warily, glaring at him in the darkness.

“You’re sure this is him?” she asked, her eyes not leaving Knot’s.

“I’d know his face anywhere,” the man said.

Knot strained his eyes towards the man, but didn’t recognize him—not from his dreams or his memories, such as they were.

The man swept towards Knot, angrily grabbing the sword from the air. He brought it back around to Knot’s throat again.

“Time for some questions, Lathe,” the man said.

Lathe
. The same name the attackers had used for him in Pranna.

“I’m not who you think I am,” Knot said.

The man snorted. “Deflection? Really? I’d have expected more from
you
, of all people.”

Then, before the man could say anything further, the door to the small room splintered inwards with a crash.