The Night Land, a Story Retold

by James Stoddard

  Naani and I often discussed the location of her pyramid, but the only information her people possessed was a dim legend that the founder of the Lesser Redoubt had come out of the south. However, they had noticed that the needle of their ancient compass never remained steady, but always swung in an arc between north and south, which caused them to guess that the powerful pull of our Earth Current affected it, drawing it away from magnetic north. If this were true, the Lesser Redoubt lay north of the Great Pyramid. The evidence, though intriguing, was too insubstantial to risk a human life.

  I convinced the Monstruwacans to bring our own compass from the museum, but it reacted as it always had, spinning when we stirred the needle without stopping anywhere at all, the flow of the Earth Current from the fissure beneath the pyramid pulling it from the north and sending it wandering. I stood in a small, well-lit room with several of the Monstruwacans, watching it turn around and around.

  The Master of Metaphysics guffawed, "This device never pointed any direction at all! A fantasy, that's all it is, or an ancient toy."

  But I watched it with the minds of both Andros, who could not help but concede the Master's point, and of Andrew Eddins, who remembered a more ordered world.

  "If the compass never worked," I said, pointing toward the cardinal points etched upon its plate, "how did our ancestors know to name the directions? And if the sun and stars never shone, why do we still keep the days of the week, the months, and the years? They used this compass until they tapped the Earth Current, when it quit working."

  The Master chuckled. "You're only guessing. No one knows how the ancient traditions arose."

  "I do, for I remember the twilight."

  ***

  Though Naani longed for me to come to her, she forbade it out of fear for my safety, saying it was better to commune in spirit than to risk life and soul in a foolish attempt to find her through the darkness of the dead world. Despite her warnings, I would have gone anyway if I could have only discovered the direction and distance of her redoubt.

  The Master Monstruwacan did notice that I instinctively faced north whenever I sent my thoughts into the night. We tried various experiments together, covering my eyes and spinning me around to confuse my sense of direction, but I turned northward every time, and was incapable of speech if forced to face any other way.

  "I will write a study on your turning to the north," Cartesius said.

  "Fascinating reading, that," I replied, feeling sullen at having learned Naani's experiments had not achieved similar results.

  Cartesius did as he said and the study passed from the Tower of Observation to the Hour Slips of all the cities, where it became immensely popular. Everyone read it, and flurries of discussion swept through the redoubt, which only shows how fascinated our people were with anything pertaining to the outside world. Cartesius and I received so many messages we could not read even half of them. At times I enjoyed the attention, but it often made it difficult for me to live an ordinary life.

  Even as I struggled to find some way to reach Naani, a terrible thing occurred. I was taking my turn at watch beside the Master Monstruwacan in the Tower of Observation during the Hours of Sleep, when the ether suddenly thrilled around me and Naani spoke in my soul.

  As soon as we exchanged the Master Word, I asked, What's the matter?

  Her voice came so faintly I could scarcely understand her. We are in terrible danger. The Earth Current has failed! Father tried to reach you by the Instruments, but when you didn't reply he woke me to see if you had heard us.

  I hadn't heard anything! How did this happen?

  We have been so happy, Andros. Now, sorrow has made us old in a single hour. Everyone fears the surge in the power of the current was its final flicker before the end.

  Even as we spoke, Naani's voice grew fainter. There was nothing I could do, but we talked through the remaining Hours of Sleep, two lovers who might soon be forever parted.

  When the cities woke, the news surged through them, leaving our populace anxious and concerned.

  ***

  A month passed, while Naani's voice grew ever fainter, until I could hardly understand her messages. I treasured every word, and could neither eat nor sleep for my dread of our inevitable parting. Cartesius, fearing for my health, warned that if I became ill, we would lose all contact with the Lesser Redoubt since the Instruments could no longer detect Naani's messages. This goaded me to try to maintain a routine of rest and nourishment, but it was hopeless, especially when I learned that the monsters of the Lesser Redoubt had sensed its weakness and were gathering around it, awaiting the time when they could overwhelm its defenses. Two days later, Naani told how an Evil Force had assaulted the minds of some of the people. Under its influence, they had opened the gate and fled into the night, where they were all slain. Many of their souls were undoubtedly lost as well.

  Our scholars attributed the ability of the Evil Force to strike inside the Lesser Redoubt to the failure of the Earth Current, the lack of energy sapping the people's vitality. In only a few weeks their appetite for food and drink deserted them, along with their will to live, which was soon accompanied by an overwhelming dread of death.

  Upon hearing this news, my people began considering the eventual failure of our own Earth Current. The subject filled the Hour Slips. Most wrote to assure the populace that we faced no immediate danger, though some wrote foolishly, warning of impending peril. The accounts were also full of the imagined terror of our poor brothers and sisters out in the darkness of the world, facing the end which must come to all. I could not bear to read any of it.

  Our people wrote poems and songs to the Lesser Redoubt and contrived ridiculous rescue plans that no one put into effect, which only shows how easily people love to speak from a position of security. But more and more I considered going into the Night Land, for even if I achieved nothing but my own end, I preferred a quick death to my lingering heartache.

  One night, in the eighteenth hour, Cartesius woke me from a restless sleep.

  "The ether is filled with a tremendous disturbance," he said. "I need you to listen for the Master Word. We thought we detected it, but it is too faint for our Instruments."

  Even as I sat up in bed, the Word beat all around me, much stronger than I had anticipated, followed by: We are coming! We are coming!

  Fear gripped my heart, for the message seemed to originate nearby.

  I called with the Master Word and received no answer at first, but then the faint voice of Naani responded.

  Are you safe? I asked. You haven't left the pyramid?

  I am well, but was awakened by the sound of many voices. Are you coming to our rescue?

  The hope in her voice pierced me to the heart. You mustn't depend on that. I don't want you to torture yourself with false hope. I am not sure about the source of the voices, but the Monstruwacans will never allow anyone to leave the pyramid until we discover your location. Go back to sleep. I will tell you when I know more.

  We said little else, and when I finished, I turned to the Master Monstruwacan, who waited beside my bed.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  I began rapidly pulling on my clothes. "The Master Word was sent from somewhere nearby."

  "Impossible!"

  "It's true, and I don't think they used an Instrument. I sensed many minds calling in unison."

  "We have to reach the tower."

  As soon as we arrived at the Tower of Observation, we used the Great Spyglass to search the Night Land. For several anxious moments we saw nothing, for the country was enormous, but when we turned the glass to the pyramid's base we spied a large body of armored warriors passing over The Circle beyond the safety of the Ether Barrier, marching toward the darkness, the strange fires, and the hidden mysteries of the night.

  I exchanged a look of horror with Cartesius; I had never seen his eyes so wide with fear. We stared at one another, speechless, then he recovered himself and called to one of the Monstruwacans in a soft, earnest
voice, "Send word to the Master Watchman. His guardianship is violated. Some of our folk have left the pyramid."

  I could scarcely comprehend the enormity of the offense. No one ever entered the Night Land without notice being given to all the people, nor without a posting of the Full Watch by The Portal, for we opened that enormous door only with lavish ceremony. Neither did anyone ever leave the pyramid without passing a centuries-old Rite of Preparation. This law was so strict that a set of metal pegs still remained on the inside of The Portal where our ancestors, in the early days of the redoubt, flayed a disobedient man alive and stretched his skin there as a warning. Every child knew the story.

  We soon heard from the Master of the Watch, who had responded to Cartesius's message by leading a company of the Central Watch from the Watch Dome to The Portal, where he found the Gate Warden and the Evening Watch gagged and bound. Upon freeing them, he learned that at least five hundred young men and women—probably from the upper cities judging by their large chests—had assaulted the Watch and escaped into the night through the Eye Gate in the top of The Portal. Some of the Watch had tried to sound the alarm, only to discover the mechanisms sabotaged.

  "Is there anything we can do?" I asked Cartesius.

  He shook his head, looking older than I had ever seen him. "Nothing," he murmured. "They can be neither helped nor recalled, unless they choose to return themselves. So brave . . . so brave . . . but so foolish! Do they really think they can rescue the inhabitants of the Lesser Redoubt?"

  "What will happen to them if they return?" I feared they had broken the law beyond forgiveness.

  "That is the least of it. If they make it back, they and those who aided them will have to be punished, of course, but nothing we could do would be as terrible as what they may face out there with their unprepared souls. Bad enough the monsters, but if a Force of Evil finds them . . . And we dare not even call to them without alerting the whole countryside."

  News of the young warriors' journey swept through the cities of the Last Redoubt. The people of the south rushed to the northern sides, for The Portal was located in the northwest plane of the pyramid. Since the travelers had turned north after crossing The Circle, they were visible from both the northeast and northwest embrasures, and everyone in the redoubt wanted to see them. In addition to the spyglasses posted at many of the embrasures, every human owned a portable version, some hundreds of years old, some as old as ten thousand years—all handed down through many generations. Others were newly made, and of unusual and exotic designs, for our people were obsessed with constructing such instruments. Watching the monsters was our greatest sport, an insatiable fascination that followed us from birth to death. The embrasures were never entirely deserted.

  Although I did not understand exactly how the spyglasses worked, I knew they used energy from the Earth Current to gather and focus light, for no ordinary lens could have penetrated the sheer darkness of the Night Land. They were oddly shaped devices that fit close around the forehead and left a slight tingling sensation at the eyes.

  We had other means of observing, including huge Viewing Tables scattered throughout the cities. These utilized a method I can only compare to what we of the present age call Camera Obscura, but many times larger and low to the floor, so ten thousand could sit and look down on them from raised galleries. Unfortunately, these did not show the Night Land as clearly as the spyglasses.

  From the time the travelers left the pyramid, onlookers thronged the embrasures and Viewing Tables, anxiously awaiting word. Sometimes we saw the company plainly, other times they remained lost in the grotesque shadows of the Night Land. According to our Instruments and my Night Hearing the monsters and Forces of Evil remained unaware of them, and we began to hope that tragedy might be miraculously avoided. Three days and nights passed, and I scarcely slept at all, for as I sat in the Tower of Observation I knew there were mothers and fathers keeping vigil below me at the northern embrasures. With a strong enough spyglass, they might even be able to see their children's faces. Their combined sorrow, which I could sense with my Night Hearing, drove through me like a spike. I could not bear to rest while they suffered, not when my unique gift might aid them by sensing things undetectable to the Instruments.

  It encouraged us that the company kept a semblance of order. Through the Great Spyglass, we could see by the rising and falling light of the volcanic fires that they had food with them, and that they ate and slept at regular intervals and posted a watch whenever they halted. During their brief rests, they sat in circles among the shadows, facing outward. Any time they could, they stayed hidden within the moss bushes growing throughout the region. They seemed to have appointed commanders, and we later learned that their leader was a young man named Aschoff, an exceptional athlete from the Nine Hundredth City. They also each carried a weapon called a diskos. Every adult in the Great Pyramid was trained to use one from earliest childhood. The warriors had broken countless rules in obtaining their armaments, which were stored in every tenth house of the cities under the care of Charging Masters. The weapon did not shoot, but used a sharp disk of gray metal spinning at the end of a metal rod, charged by the Earth Current. So powerful were the devices that they could cut a man in two with a single stroke. They looked somewhat like battle axes, with handles that could be extended.

  The company angled northeast to avoid the Vale Of Red Fire, keeping about seven miles away from it. This brought them dreadfully close to the Watcher of the Northeast—the Crowned Watcher—and I could sense the rising anxiety of the inhabitants as the company approached that dreadful mountain of vigilance. Cartesius ordered his Monstruwacans to scrutinize the Watcher's left ear, which belled out from the back of the head toward the redoubt. According to our Records, if it began to quiver, it meant the Watcher knew of the company and was alerting the Forces of Evil throughout the Night Land. Since the blue ring of light suspended above the creature illuminated its ear, we could detect its slightest motion, and I spent many hours at the Instruments studying it. Like me, many of the Monstruwacans never left their posts while the young warriors remained outside, for this was the very purpose that the Order had originally been formed, and everyone was needed to monitor the Night Land for changes.

  Finally, after many uneasy hours, relief swept through the pyramid as the youths passed beyond the Northeast Watcher. They must have grown overconfident after eluding the danger, however, for they began to travel more quickly, with less stealth, and were soon sighted by a band of wandering giants.

  As the entire pyramid watched, the company formed a long line, with a space between each to give them room to use their weapons. They scarcely finished their preparations before the giants were upon them—twenty-seven in all—impossibly huge, like monsters from the ancient world, all covered with hair like crabs. When the flares of distant fires threw their fierce light across the darkness, the Great Spyglass showed the creatures so clearly that I could see the sweat streaming down their bodies.

  A terrible battle ensued. The travelers broke into circles around each of the giants and attacked from every side. I could scarcely bear to watch as many of the young warriors were torn to pieces, yet was unable to avert my eyes from the grim spectacle. At times, I glimpsed the sparks from the weapons and felt the ether stirring with the passing of the slain, though the miles of distance prevented their screams or the roar of the monsters from reaching my ears.

  The fight did not last long. When it was over, the dead giants formed twenty-seven hills where they had fallen. The leaders of the company sorted out their followers, and through the dim twilight I managed a rough count of our losses. The giants had slain about two hundred, leaving three hundred youths standing. Knowing the Great Spyglass could see what lesser lenses could not, Cartesius allowed me to send word through the Hour Slips.

  I watched as the warriors cared for their wounded. They separated about fifty from the others, and while the main company continued their march toward the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, the
se began to make their way back toward the pyramid. They approached slowly, stopping often because of their injuries.

  For the slain, there would be neither burial nor ceremony outside the pyramid, for the law was clear: Leave the dead where they fall lest the living be lost. So there they remained, subject to the scavengers of the night. However, this was not as great a sorrow as it might otherwise have been, for the people of the pyramid held a strong belief that the body was merely the shell for the soul.

  It distressed us greatly when the two hundred and fifty survivors did not abandon their quest, but continued into the Night Land. Despite our apprehension, we were gratified that our children were willing to go on after such a terrible battle. It occurred to me that while their mothers wept, their fathers' hearts must have swelled with pride. This, at least, postponed their pain a time.

  We now had two groups to watch, as the wounded youths slowly returned, many helping one another. Excitement and concern swept though the Great Pyramid about who were among the wounded, who among those who continued, and who lay quietly among the dead. Pleas for information poured into the Tower of Observation, but even with our superior lenses we could not help, since the company did not stand out in the glare of the flames the way the giants had, and the youths' faces were only plain when the light from the fires flared high or when the company passed close to the innumerable fire-holes scattered across the region. Even if I had seen them clearly, I could not have identified them, for the inhabitants of the redoubt were so numerous no one could know even half the leaders of a single city.

  Not long after that, one of the Monstruwacan's shouted across the chamber, "We are recording an Influence!"

  Cartesius ran his hands across his face and murmured, "What will save them now, I wonder?"

  At the same instant, I sensed the rising of a malevolent intelligence in the ether. There could be no doubt; one of the Forces of Evil was moving across the land.

  ***

  The rulers of the cities had met during the first hours of the emergency, and as a result, ten thousand men and women soon assembled beside the Room of Preparation. Throughout the Hours of Sleep they underwent the spiritual and physical rites called the Brief Preparation, in order to be ready to help the wounded once they drew closer. The next day, while the ten thousand slept, a hundred thousand more readied their weapons.