The Night Land, a Story Retold

by James Stoddard

  We returned to the manor without another word. Mirdath kept close to me, as if both comforted and embarrassed by my presence, and I led her through the hedge gap and back to the Hall, where I bade her goodnight at a side door for which she had a key. She replied in a subdued voice, acting almost as if she did not want us to part.

  Yet when we met the following day, she taunted me all through dinner, little jabs that burned like tiny brands. Finally, around dusk, when we were alone in the Music Room, I asked, "Why are you being so spiteful? Is it because of last night?"

  "Have I been cruel?" she asked.

  "You know you have."

  She looked down. "After my parents died and Alfred became my guardian, my moodiness often surprised him. Sometimes he took me rowing out on the pond in a little boat. We would spend the whole day together. Those were happy times for me. We laughed and played—he can tell the most wonderful stories—but when we speak of it now, he says that toward the end of the day I would invariably start an argument. He thought it was because I was afraid to love him, lest he die, too."

  "An understandable reaction, I suppose, but it won't bring you much happiness."

  "No," she said, her face growing gentle. "Come, let me play my harp for you."

  All that evening, to make amends for her cruelty, she played the favorite melodies from our childhood, and by the time I left I loved her even more.

  That night, escorted by her three boar hounds, she accompanied me to the hedge gap, but being unwilling to leave her alone in the darkness, I followed her unobserved until she returned to the safety of the Hall. As she walked home, softly singing a love song, one or another of the dogs ran back to me and nosed against my hands, but I quietly sent them off again. I did not know whether she loved me or not, though I believed she felt some affection for me.

  ***

  On the following evening, I went to the gap somewhat early, and to my surprise found Lady Mirdath talking to a well-dressed man with the air of the king's court about him. When I approached, he did not step aside to let me pass, but eyed me insolently and stood his ground.

  "Pardon me," I said, the way being clearly too narrow to accommodate us both.

  Though he looked directly at me, he refused to budge. My pride rose at his ungentlemanly behavior. Regardless of his rank, I would not be mocked in my own country, not before Mirdath. Determined to teach him a lesson, I picked him up by the shoulders and set him to one side.

  To my pain and astonishment, Mirdath turned on me, her face red with rage, "How dare you manhandle my friend, you—you bully! I have been so mistaken about you! How could you? How dare you?"

  I stood stunned before her assault. For her to humiliate me, her true friend and cousin, before a stranger, surely meant she did not love me. Too deeply wounded to argue, I bowed low to Mirdath and the man, who really was slight of frame. He had weighed nothing at all when I lifted him. "I . . . apologize. The Lady is correct. I should have been courteous from the start."

  Having somewhat repaired my error, I turned and stalked away, leaving them to their happiness, my own sight blurred by despair and anger. In my anguish, I walked a good twenty miles before returning home. I ate no supper that night, and got little sleep. For days afterward, I remained despondent, for I was so desperately in love with Mirdath, and my entire spirit, heart, and body ached with the sudden, dreadful loss.

  For a long week I took my walks in another direction, but by the end of that time could not resist following the old way in hopes of catching a glimpse of her. In reward, I saw all a man ever needed to fill him with jealousy, for as I approached the gap, I found Mirdath walking beside the well-dressed man, his arm around her. Since she had neither brothers nor young, male relatives, I knew they were lovers. Yet the moment Mirdath saw me, she acted ashamed, for she shrugged off her companion's arm and curtsied to me, her face glowing crimson. Not knowing what to say, I bowed low and passed on.

  "Andrew, wait!" Mirdath called behind me.

  I turned only long enough to say, "There is nothing to wait for, nor any reason to ever pass this way again."

  I did not linger for a response, but even as I turned back I saw the man put his arm around her once more. Perhaps they watched me as I departed, stiff and desperate, but I did not look back again.

  For an interminable month thereafter, I avoided the gap, my love and hurt pride raging within me. However, pain shapes a man's character, and at the end of that time, thinking myself reconciled to the loss, I began taking my walks past the gap again. I never saw Mirdath, though one evening I thought she must be nearby, for one of her boar hounds bounded out of the woods and onto the road to nuzzle my hands. I waited a long time after the hound left, but caught no sight of her, and so continued on again, my heart heavy.

  I threw myself into my studies and physical conditioning, and rode my black stallion around the county for hours. Like many young men of my station, I thought much of myself, and the idea of Mirdath rejecting my advances for such a slight man, regardless of his position, baffled and wounded me. I had yet to learn that living invariably cures vanity, and that no one passes through this world without undergoing humiliation.

  Two weary, lonely weeks passed, and I grew sick with longing. By the end of that time I resolved to enter the grounds surrounding the Hall to try to catch sight of her. Having made my decision one evening, I went out immediately, and entering the gap, came by a circuitous route to the gardens around the Hall, which I found brightly lit with lanterns and torches, and filled with a throng of people eating and dancing at a costume ball. A sudden, horrid dread pierced my heart that this might be Lady Mirdath's marriage dance, but I soon dismissed the notion, for I would have heard the announcement of a wedding. Then I remembered this was her twenty-first birthday and the end of Sir Alfred's guardianship. In fact, I had received an invitation several weeks before, but had dismissed it as a polite gesture on Sir Alfred's part.

  Had I not been so heartbroken, I would have enjoyed seeing that spectacle. The revelers danced on one end of the wide lawn opposite lines of bronze and silver lamps, and lanterns twinkled among the trees and leaf arbors, reflecting their starlight off the silver and crystal adorning a magnificent table spread with all kinds of food.

  I caught my breath as Lady Mirdath stepped out of the dance, dressed in an exquisite, blue gown, her golden hair falling about her shoulders. Despite her beauty, to my eyes she seemed pale in the looming lights. No sooner did she take a seat than a dozen young men from the great families flocked eagerly around her. She looked exquisite in their midst, but somewhat pensive; her glance drifted away so often that I soon realized she must be looking for her absent lover. I could not imagine why he would desert her on such a night unless he had been called back to the court.

  As I watched the young men fawning about her, I burned with a fierce, miserable jealousy. How I longed to step from concealment, to pick her up and carry her away, to take her to walk with me in the woods as in the former days, when she, too, seemed close to love. But what was the use? Clearly, it was not they who held her heart, but one small man of the court. So I stood and watched and did nothing until my misery drove me back to my house.

  I avoided the gap for three miserable months after that, but by the end of that time, unable to bear not seeing her, I found myself standing before it one evening, at the spot where I had first, on a single night, both met Mirdath and lost my heart to her. Trembling with eagerness, I peered across the sward lying between the hedgerow and the woods. I stayed there a long time, waiting and watching hopelessly, until something soft brushed my thigh. My heart leapt when I discovered one of the boar hounds, for I knew, with agony and anticipation, that Mirdath was near.

  As I waited, my heart pounding in my chest, I heard a low singing among the trees, faint and filled with sorrow, and knew Mirdath wandered alone in the dark with her dogs, murmuring a broken love song. Despite the way she had treated me, hearing her in such grief awoke my compassion. Though I yearned to comfo
rt her, I did not dare move, but stood motionless in the gap, my soul in turmoil.

  Presently, her slim white figure slipped from among the trees into the twilight. She came to an abrupt halt, and staring all around, gave a muffled sob. A sudden, unreasonable hope filled me, and leaving the gap, I rushed to her side, calling softly, with eager passion, "Mirdath! Mirdath!"

  I came to her, while the hound, supposing it a game, bounded beside me. Without thinking, only craving to ease her pain, I held out my hands to her. She rushed into my embrace and remained there, weeping. When she finally fell silent, a sweet peace swept through me.

  Suddenly, she relinquished her embrace, slipped her hands in mine, and raised her lips to me, so that all at once I knew she loved me.

  That was the way of our betrothal, simple and wordless, yet adequate, except that love always gives more than mere adequacy.

  She soon freed herself from my arms, and we walked home through the woods, holding hands like children. After a while I gathered my courage and asked her about the man of the court. She laughed sweetly, but refused to answer until we came to the Hall. When we arrived, she led me into the Greatroom, where another lady sat demurely embroidering, though her eyes betrayed a hint of delight at seeing me.

  With an impudent curtsey, Mirdath said, "Sir Andrew, this is the Lady Alison."

  "My pleasure," I said, bowing slightly, though the looks the two exchanged confused me.

  Mirdath suddenly laughed so impishly she grew breathless, swaying a little with the effort, her cheeks red. "There is only one thing to be done," she cried, reaching above the fireplace to retrieve two pistols from their rack. "Andrew, you must challenge her to a duel to the death."

  I stood in astonishment, while Alison kept her head down over her work, her frame, too, shaking with suppressed laughter.

  "I don't understand," I said.

  In answer, Alison looked full into my face, and I exclaimed in astonishment, for her features were those of the man of the court. I looked helplessly at Mirdath.

  "Oh, Andrew, forgive me," Mirdath said, no longer laughing. "I have played a cruel joke not only on you, but on myself, and have paid a dear price. I have learned my lesson not to tease. Alison is my best and dearest friend. For a wager, she disguised herself to play a prank on a young man who wanted to marry her. When you happened along and treated her so forcibly, I lost my temper, forgetting you thought her a man."

  "So that was it?" I asked. "My bullheaded jealousy?"

  "And my foolishness," Mirdath said. "After that, we decided to punish you by fanning the flames, and met every evening at the gap to play at lovers, so you would see us. But when you appeared, I suddenly regretted our plan. I had not admitted, even to myself, my . . . feelings for you. Seeing the suffering on your face, I drew away from Alison, but when you bowed so coldly and refused my call, I grew angry and vowed to punish you even more. Oh, Andrew, forgive me!"

  I laughed. "I refuse to. I intend to remain by your side day and night, haunting you for your devilry."

  Filled with gratitude and mad delight, I took her into my arms, and we danced around the Greatroom while Lady Alison whistled a tune.

  So all ended well, despite the stubbornness and inexperience of youth. Mirdath and I were never apart thereafter, but wandered together rejoicing in one another's company. We were alike in a thousand ways, for we loved the splendor of gray evenings, the gathering darkness of dusk, the silent shining of starlight, the soft turning of the clouds by night, the faded colors of pastures in moonlight, the whisper of the sycamore to the beech, and the slow, somber rumbling of the sea. We listened to the thunder and watched the soft rains.

  We were married in the spring. She looked radiant in her bridal gown, slender and lovely as Love itself—the curls of her hair, her wonderful eyes sober and sweet, her full lips, her mischievous smile, her slender hands, the grace of her every move—this is only a hint of my beloved's charms.

  ***

  Mirdath, My Beautiful One, lay dying, and I had no power to hold back death's dread intent. In another room, I heard the thin wail of the child, and its crying woke my wife back into this life, so her pale hands fluttered desperately on the covers. I knelt beside her, taking her hands gently into my own, but still they moved helplessly, and she looked at me, unable to speak, her eyes pleading.

  I left the room and called softly to the nurse, who brought the child, wrapped in a long, white robe. When Mirdath saw the baby, her eyes filled with a lovely light, but she still moved her hands weakly. I took the infant in my arms and the nurse stepped from the room. Sitting gently on the bed, I held the baby near Mirdath, so the tiny cheek touched the white cheek of my dying bride, though I kept the child's weight off her.

  Presently, Mirdath tried to reach for the baby's hands, and I turned our daughter toward her and slipped the tiny fingers into the weak hands of my love. I held her above my wife with infinite care, so Mirdath's dying eyes looked into the eyes of the baby. In but a few moments, though it seemed in some ways an eternity, Mirdath closed her eyes and lay motionless. I gave our daughter to the nurse, who stood in the next room, then closed the door and returned to the bedside, so we could share those last seconds alone together. Mirdath groped along the covers, and I took her pale fingers into my own clumsy hands.

  After a little while, her eyes opened, quiet and gray, but a little dazed. As she rolled her head on the pillow, the confusion left her expression and she looked at me clearly. I bent close to her and her eyes begged me to take her into my arms for those final moments. I lay gently upon the bed and lifted her with all my care until she lay comfortably against my breast, for love gave me skill to hold her, even as it eased her pain in the short time remaining.

  So we were together, and it seemed Love made a truce with Death around us, leaving us undisturbed, for a peace fell upon my heart for the first time after many weary hours of pain. I whispered my love to her, and her eyes answered. The strangely beautiful, terrible moments passed into the hush of eternity.

  Suddenly, Mirdath whispered something. I leaned my head down to hear as she spoke again. "My Hercules. My circus strongman."

  I tried again to tell her how much I loved her, how much I would always love her, but even as I spoke the light left her eyes, and My Beautiful One lay dead in my arms . . . My Beautiful One . . .

  II

  THE LAST REDOUBT

  Since Mirdath died and left me alone in this world, I, who once cherished her sweet companionship, have suffered a longing such as words can never tell. I have tried to continue my studies, my riding, and my physical training, but it all seems empty now. Mostly, I spend my hours sitting beside the hedge gap where we first met, remembering our moments together.

  In the last few months, however, a miraculous event has given me hope, for in my dreams I have been transported into the future of this world, where I have witnessed strange and marvelous sights, and known once more the joy of living. Though I do not know if anyone will ever read it, I must write the story down, if only to ease my yearning for my beloved. If anyone does read my account, they will certainly disbelieve it. I scarcely believe it myself, and sometimes think grief has robbed me of my sanity. But if you read with an open mind, putting aside your doubts, you will gaze with me into the very portals of eternity.

  From the time the dreams began, they continued night after night, always opening exactly where they ended the night before. They did not seem like dreams to me, but rather as if I woke in the far future. A gray mist always obscured my vision when I first arrived, but it soon faded, leaving me in a land of darkness lit here and there with miraculous sights; for the sun had died and everlasting night lapped the world.

  From the moment I entered the dream, I possessed a complete set of memories of the Night Land, as if I had lived there all my life. In my earliest vision I found myself an adventurous, if hesitant, sixteen-year-old named Andros, standing at one of the windows of the Last Redoubt, high up in a four-sided pyramid of gray metal forged
to protect the last millions of the world from the Forces besieging them, a structure rising to a height of almost eight miles and holding one thousand three hundred and twenty floors, each containing a city. I do not know its location, except that it lay in a tremendous valley.

  I stood upon the One Thousandth Plateau, looking through an odd spyglass to the northwest, studying the hideous, but completely familiar landscape I had observed all my life. The window, made of a transparent substance much thicker and more durable than stained glass, rested in a recess the inhabitants called an embrasure. Thousands of embrasures covered the shining gray metal walls. The spyglass was a rectangular box that gave off a slight hum, set upon a pole with not one, but two lenses, one for each eye. Thin points of golden light burned within it, and its range could be adjusted by a thin lever.

  In my right hand I held a copy of Ayleos' Mathematics, a book with a yellow metal cover, for as Andros I had always loved the art of numbers, particularly geometry. There is such certainty in mathematics; the world may change, but a seven is always a seven, and when added to two invariably makes nine. As a child I assigned personalities to the first ten numerals: 1 was strong, 2 friendly, 3 wicked, 6 funny, and so on. I even devised rules to explain how their personalities produced the correct answers in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. To me, working with numbers was glorious sport, particularly the number seven, who I considered a good friend. Any time I was presented with a difficult decision, I could escape to mathematics for a pleasant hour. Often, after doing so, I would return to my troubles and immediately see the solution. But perhaps an interest in geometry is not surprising for one raised in a pyramid.

  Because of my mathematical propensity, as I stared through the spyglass I could recite the name and distance of every object in sight, as calculated from the pyramid's Center Point—a mysterious strip of polished metal rumored to have neither measurable length nor breadth, installed within the Room of Mathematics where I carried on my daily studies.