The Dead of Night: Dusk
An Exclusive Preview Excerpt
Important: The novel excerpted here is a work in progress. As such, the text in these pages is still subject to editing and rewriting, and may even be omitted from the finished novel. Please bear this in mind when reading the excerpt, and do not quote any part of it in reviews without first checking against a published copy.
The Dead of Night is a two book dark fantasy due for publication by Night Shade Books in 2004 and 2005. In a world where humanity has been denied magic after its misuse, society is in decline. Apathy is the ruling factor. Machines lay dead in the fields and towns, the mines and farms. And now, the landscape itself is showing signs of this decay. The land of Noreela is becoming a dangerous place to live.
But there are signs of magic’s re-emergence, subtle signs that only those watching for it can see. The Red Monks, an order vowing magic’s destruction. The Shantasi, a mysterious race from beyond Noreela who covet magic for their own needs. And the Mages, those two ancient magicians whose corruption destroyed the magic in the first place. These forces converge on one boy, an innocent farm lad who knows that something strange, something alien, is going on inside his head.
This extract is Chapter One of the first book, Dusk.
—Tim Lebbon
Chapter One: The Red Monk
When Kosar saw the horseman, the world began to end again.
The man and horse walked towards the village, the rider shifting in fluid time to his mount’s steps. The man’s body was wrapped in a deep red cloak, pulled up so that it formed a hood over his head, shadowing his face. His hands rested on his thighs. The horse made its own way along the road. Loose reins hung either side of its head, its mane was clotted with dirt, its unshod hooves clacked and clicked puffs of dust from the dry trail. Only one man on a horse, and he did not even appear to be armed.
How, then, could Kosar know that death followed him in?
With a grimace he stopped work and squatted. A warm breeze kissed the raw flesh of his fingers—the marks of a thief–and took away the pain for a few precious moments. Blood had dripped and dried into a dust-caked mess across his hands and between his fingers, and they crackled every time he flexed them. The wounds were a permanent reminder of the mistakes of his past.
Kosar decided that the trenches could wait a few minutes more. It had taken two years for the village cabal to get around to digging them; another moment would make no difference to the crops withering and dying in the fields. Besides, they needed much more than water, although most would refuse to believe that this was so. Now there was something more interesting to grab his attention, something that might bring excitement to this measly little collection of huts, homes and run-down dwellings that dared call itself a village.
He stared along the road at the figure in the distance. Yes, only one man, but he seemed to carry a threatening pall about him, like a dark echo of evil deeds he had done. Kosar looked the other way, past the old stone bridge and into the village itself. There were children playing down by the stream, naked and laughing, diving and resurfacing in triumph when they caught a fish between their teeth. Elsewhere, drinkers sat silently stoned outside the tavern, mugs of rough wine festering half-finished in the sun, the other half coursing through veins and inducing a few cherished hours of catatonia. It was a false escape that he, Kosar the thief, would never be permitted again. At least, not where law still applied.
The market was small today, but still traders plied their wares and squeezed rare money and barter from the village folk. Skinned fur-bats hung from hooks along one stall, their livers intact and ripe with lustoza, the drug of sexual abandonment. He had already seen three people skulking away, a fur-bat beneath their shirt and their eyes downcast. Their children may not eat tonight, but at least the parents would be assured of a good screw.
Kosar turned once again to the stranger. He was much nearer now, and the sound of his progress had become audible in the heavy evening atmosphere. The figure raised its head almost imperceptibly. The cloak shifted to allow a sliver of the falling sun inside and Kosar squinted as he tried to make out what it revealed. His eyesight was deteriorating, scorched by decades in the sun and weakened by lack of nourishment, but it had never seemed this bad. Never.
The stranger’s face was as red as his cloak.
