The Night Land, a Story Retold

by James Stoddard

  With only a moment to escape, I made a sham attack toward the left, then bounded back to the right, coming in at his side. Trusting all my fortune to a single blow, I thrust at his belly. The diskos nearly cut him in two, and he fell, half leaping as he died. The rock crashed at my feet, inches from crushing me.

  I fell backward against the rock face, holding my diskos before me. When I realized he was dead, the strength left my body and I crumbled to my knees. I tried to rise, but found I could not.

  After a short while, I recovered, gathered my gear, and descended the crag. At its bottom, I found the first of the Humped Men lying dead. Killing a living creature has always troubled me, and I had no desire to see him up close, so I circled to the other side of the formation. My hands still shook from the aftermath of the battle, and seeing no danger about, I decided to halt long enough to eat and drink to restore my nerves.

  I made my meal seated on a stone at the base of the crag, turning my head this way and that, watching for more Humped Men. A small fire-hill, rising to the cliffs at my back, illuminated this side of the rock, and when I glanced up at the crown I gave a cry of exclamation; from this angle I recognized the formation that had puzzled me before as an ancient flying ship similar to those found in the Museum of Antiquities.

  I stood, staring at it, wondering why I had not identified it before, until I realized its farther side had lain in shadow, whereas now the warm light from the fire-hill glimmered off the dull metal of the ship's bottom, an alloy I recognized at once as the same type used in the construction of the Last Redoubt. Earth had covered the top of the vessel for so many generations that trees grew on its upper side.

  It seemed so odd, seeing a creation of man upon that lonely pinnacle! I walked back and forth, trying to get a better glimpse, until at last, unable to bear leaving without investigating more closely, I climbed back up the rock. Even as I scaled the cliffside, I reprimanded myself for wasting my time when there might be more Humped Men around, though I had a vague notion of finding something useful within the craft. The truth is my curiosity overcame my judgment, for I was heartsick for anything from the place of my birth.

  The battle had drained me more than I realized, and it took longer than I expected to scale the height, but once I began I refused to quit, and eventually came under the vessel's bottom. She had not landed easily; burn marks and dents scored her, and the upcropping itself had pierced her bottom, rending the metal. I climbed all around her, using the thick plants for handholds. The layers of earth obscured most of the ship, especially on top, but I found an exposed place on her side and used my diskos to try to cut an opening. The metal shrieked its defiance; smoke and sparks filled the air, and I halted, afraid the clamor would bring an army of Humped Men upon me. When I examined the side I saw my weapon had scarcely penetrated the metal.

  I climbed back over the top of the craft, searching without success for another entrance. Finally, I scaled the rocks along the ship's bottom, and found, at the place where the peak had punctured the vessel, a narrow opening, just large enough for me to poke my head and shoulder through. I had to crawl under a shelf to reach it, which made me anxious, both because of what I might encounter, and because it left me helpless if a Humped Man appeared, but at last I thrust my diskos up into the bottom of the ship, and triggering the weapon, pushed myself as far up as I could go.

  The interior was hot. The ship smelled faintly of metal, but not of decay, the bodies of its passengers having turned to dust ages before. I faced the front of the vessel and saw two seats overlooking a control panel. It made me nervous that I could not turn my head enough to glimpse behind me, where anything might be lurking.

  I suddenly found the closeness of the place unbearable: the heat, the darkness, my head and shoulder thrust between shards of twisted metal. My courage failed. As I gave the cabin a last sweep with my diskos, I spied a sheet with writing upon it lying beside the seat. I strained, reached it, then pulled myself back out. Moving with painful slowness, I resisted the urge to panic, knowing I would only injure myself struggling to break free. I withdrew from beneath the shelf, diskos ready, fancying a hundred foes awaiting me, but the peak remained clear.

  I wiped the sweat from my eyes and unfolded the sheet, which seemed to be made of the same enduring material as the gray metal book Cartesius had found in the Records. I do not know what I expected, the final scrawled words of a dying man, perhaps. Instead, it proved to be a portion of a map. At first, I could make nothing of it, until I saw symbols suggesting that it showed the Country of the Seas. It indicated mountains surrounding the entire land, with wide openings at both the north and south ends. Beyond the portal to the north lay a long passage, which ended at the corner of the page. A few letters, in ancient script, had been written there, the last four characters of what might have been the word 'redoubt.' My heart throbbed at the thought that it could indicate the location of Naani’s home. I turned the page over, hoping to see more, but it was blank.

  I turned and looked back at the craft. The rest of the map undoubtedly lay within it, if only I could reach it. For a moment, I considered trying, but I knew it would be useless. And what would it tell me, anyway? The portion of the map I held suggested only two ways into the Country of the Seas. And the longer I remained on the peak, the more likely my being found by the Humped Men.

  Feeling somewhat dissatisfied, I began my descent. Yet, I did not consider the climb useless; the map gave me hope, however tenuous. And it thrilled me to think of the ship waiting all those thousands of years for me to retrieve that single sheet. I conjectured how the sea might have been much higher in those days, and the rock but an island in the midst of the waters. I considered the various ways the ship might have come to its fate as it flew low over the ancient sea. I thought of the pilots, perhaps dying bitter, lonely deaths far from home, their corpses keeping watch through the ages as the seas shrank and the fires rose.

  When I reached the bottom I did not stop to rest, thinking I had already spent too much time searching the ship.

  Despite my fears, I saw no trace of the Humped Men during that day. At the thirteenth hour I waded a small stream. Not knowing what might lurk even in such shallow waters, I kept my armor on for protection, felt my way with the handle of my diskos, and so hurried across unscathed.

  Beyond the stream the forest quickly dwindled, leaving me in a country of short bushes and large boulders, where I soon met a new danger in the form of winged monsters that did not fly like birds, but bounded into the air, gliding from place to place on grasshopper wings. Three times I narrowly escaped detection by hiding behind boulders.

  At the end of my day's journey, I reached another forest that grew all the way down to the seashore. By then, I was desperately sore from fighting, climbing, and walking, and had not slept for twenty-one hours. At first I could not find anywhere to rest, for I feared the winged creatures might stumble upon me on the ground, but I finally decided to strap myself to the high limb of a tree. Once again, my lack of experience kept me from thinking of the idea at once, and I imagined Andrew scolding me for my thick-headedness.

  I ate my supper, then picked a likely prospect, an enormous trunk with numerous branches low to the ground. The climbing was easy, and I soon found myself high in the air, sitting with my back against a broad fork.

  In stories, when people sleep in trees they always seem quite comfortable—the branches form a perfect contour for their backs, the noise of the wind in the leaves rocks them to sleep. Here, there was no wind, and if not for my armor, my bed would have been unendurable. As it was, I could scarcely relax, and kept starting awake, thinking I was about to fall. I could not hold my diskos in my hand, but had to keep it strapped to my hip, making it difficult to reach in case of danger.

  A thousand worries troubled my sleep—the realization that I had not heard the Master Word in a long while, either from Naani or the Master Monstruwacan; the fact, attested by my scrawled notes in the back of Ayleos' Mathematics, that
I had traveled twenty-five days without reaching any country faintly resembling the land of the Lesser Redoubt; the fear that I might wander the Country of the Seas a long time and still not find my beloved. I thought of what it would be like for the Master Monstruwacan if I failed in my mission. He would wait and hope, and when at last I did not return, try in vain to reconcile my loss.

  After I lay upon the branch a time, unable to rest, I pulled the compass from my pouch. A yelp of excitement escaped me when I saw it no longer pointed straight north, but was now several degrees west of north, as if something, such as the Earth Current from the Lesser Redoubt, moved the needle away from the magnetic pole. I watched it a while, hoping it read true, and I thought of Naani, and of the map I had found in the airship, until my eyes grew so heavy I had to either put the compass away or drop it in my slumber.

  I dozed off and on, never sleeping very well, often lying with eyes half open, staring up through branches severe and black against the crimson shining of a volcano standing far out in the sea. Its fires seethed so violently, it caused the earth to occasionally tremble, and above its red smoke pressed the black, brooding gloom of the vast night, stark, ominous, and eternal.

  Watching the smoke, I was struck by the strangeness of my journey. How odd it seemed for me to lie warm and alive in a country of light and boiling seas! I have written that the Night Land was a hundred miles below the earth's surface, while the Country of the Seas lay even deeper, but these measurements are based on legend alone, and though it was just a feeling, I often thought my homeland lay even deeper. I pondered the lost world above me, desolate, airless, a land of eternal cold and starless dark, too bitter for life, and speculated that if any human could survive long enough to look down from the heights into the Rift, he would see only monstrous depths and the dim twinkling of scattered, witchy fires.

  I drifted off again, only to be startled awake by a noise. As the sound grew, I shifted on the branch so I could see more clearly. Eight Humped Men, running among the trees as if pursued, stopped not far from the tree where I lay. My whole body stiffened when I saw them, but I kept silent, daring to move only enough to unhook myself from the branch. The brutes began climbing another tree. I feared they would see me, but they kept their heads turned downward, as if watching for something.

  A din arose some distance away, the loud shuffling of a creature tearing through the woods. The Humped Men crouched, motionless among the lower branches, each one carrying a heavy, bloody, sharp stone under their arm, leaving their hands free.

  After some moments, another Humped Man appeared, running among the trees, passing just beneath the place where his comrades waited. When they made no sign to him I realized he was luring some creature to their position.

  The beast proved to be an abominable thing, with seven legs on each side, a wide, flat head, and gaping jaws. It moved in a clumsy, shuffling gait, grunting as it went; the tree branches shook from the weight of its passing, and its roars filled the forest. Horns covered its back, and its belly brushed the earth as it ran. Clearly, it was not made to pursue its prey, but followed the man because he had wounded it, for blood flowed all down its spine. The creature's movements made its back plating expand and contract, and the wounds lay between the armored joints.

  As the brute passed under the tree the Humped Men leapt from the branches and caught it by its long, spinal horns. Wielding their sharp stones, they set to work at the wounds, striking with all their strength. The creature roared and cried, but continued tearing through the forest while the Humped Men hammered at it.

  After traveling only a short distance, it abruptly rolled over on its back, first to the right, so the Humped Men leapt to the left, and then to the other side, catching three of its assailants beneath its bulk. The four who survived sprang into the trees as the creature returned to its feet, and the one who had enticed the beast hurried forward, waving his arms and leaping up and down until it followed. Once more he led it beneath the others; once more they bounded to its back. They soon passed from my sight, the beast bellowing piteously, the Humped Men striking with their stones.

  However many Humped Men had started the hunt, I knew few would survive to its finish. As I sat upon the branch waiting for the din to diminish into obscurity, I thought such struggles as these must have happened in the beginning of the world, and were now occurring again at its end.

  I eventually descended, made my breakfast, and began my trek. Throughout the day—my imagination fired by the map—I grew increasingly anxious, and could only prevent myself from running through the woods by remembering I still had to cross the entire Country of the Seas before reaching Naani's redoubt. I also had to resist the impulse to send her the Master Word, for though I seemed to have left the Forces of Evil behind in the Night Land, I could not know that for certain, and dared not risk losing everything to a whim.

  At the sixth hour I entered a region filled with steaming fountains, sprays, and boiling basins of rock, which spread a thin cloud of mist over the whole area. Since I could only see a few feet before me, I constantly mistook the boulders rising through the fog for monsters and Humped Men rushing to attack. As a result, I grew even more nervous. For orientation, I kept the sea, which also steamed, in sight to my right. I had to slow my pace in order to both watch for enemies and avoid falling into one of the many pools of boiling water.

  After three hours I passed through that area. When the mist cleared, I discovered that the vast sea, which had always been to my right, ended at the base of a mountain chain. The peaks vanished into the upper darkness before me, forming an unscalable wall that blocked my path. I pondered a bit, but having no other recourse except to go back the way I had come, I turned to the left and began skirting the base of the mountains.

  I continued this way until the fifteenth hour, when I discovered a far smaller gorge than the one I had used to enter the Country of the Seas, less than a hundred paces across, sloping slightly upward. Only a few dozen yards into the passage, the light faded into darkness.

  After walking in so much illumination, I dreaded entering that narrow, dreary way. More than anything, I feared it might be a blind alley, for it bore no resemblance to the passage on the airship's map. I stood looking at the gorge and the compass, but the instrument could not help me decide.

  Finally, I continued past the mouth of the gorge to see if there were any other way through the mountains. Another hour brought me to a black river a mile wide but so shallow the water scarcely covered the muddy bottom. Steam rose from its surface; it bubbled and foamed, and boiling waterspouts erupted in various places.

  The wall of rock bounded the river to my right, and the waters passed beyond sight to my left. I suspected it was not a river at all, but a stagnant sea. There seemed no way to cross it, for this part of the country lacked trees to use to make a raft. Even if I could have built one, the boiling waterspouts posed a terrible threat. Nor could I wade across—if the heat did not boil me alive in my armor, the mud would certainly drag me under.

  For the first time, it occurred to me that the way between the two redoubts might have become blocked over the ages. My stomach churned at the thought. Seeing no other choice, I returned to the gorge, praying with ever fiber of my being that it led to Naani. I stepped across the threshold, first into twilight, finally into darkest gloom.

  XI

  THE DARKNESS ONCE MORE

  The shadows fell upon both my body and soul, filling me with fright. Odd how the land of light made me fear the

  dark! My chest felt hollow as I glanced back down the gorge to the dwindling illumination from the Country of the Seas. I turned and began to walk, not daring to look back for a long time. When I finally did glance behind me again, the light was gone. Despite my fright, I trudged forward at a steady, stumbling pace for six hours.

  It felt as if I had returned to the Night Land, for fire-holes pocked the face of the gorge, shedding a dull crimson glare upon the black sides of the passage. Their light often rev
ealed the lowest parts of both sides of the ravine, though its heights, which seemed to climb upward forever, remained obscured. Enormous serpents and scorpions large as my head often clustered around the fires, and though I tried to avoid the flames, the narrowness of the gorge made it difficult for me to keep my distance. Other creatures moved among the rocks as well, and I kept my diskos ready.

  The gorge became steeper the farther I went, as if I climbed a gargantuan hill. This made the going tiresome, but I hurried as fast as I could, propelled by the hope of reaching the Lesser Redoubt. But every moment I feared the passage would abruptly end.

  At the beginning of the seventh hour I found myself stumbling not from lack of sight, but from fatigue. I started looking for a place to sleep and soon discovered a narrow ledge a few feet up the rock face. It proved difficult to reach, but I finally crawled over its lip and concealed myself in the shadow of the rock. I wasted no time making my meal, and was soon fast asleep, for twenty-three hours had passed since my uncomfortable slumber in the trees.

  The next day proved much as the last, except that toward its end I thought I sensed the weak beating of the Master Word. I listened anxiously for a long time, but when I did not hear it again, thought I must have imagined it. An image arose in my mind of the Lesser Redoubt overwhelmed by monsters and Naani fleeing through the darkness, alone and unaided. Though I told myself it was only a fancy, it disturbed me so much I could not rest at the proper time, but hurried on through the thirtieth hour.

  Finally, when I could no longer walk, I found a small cave nearly twenty feet from the bottom of the right side of the gorge. I climbed up to it, wary of an inhabitant, but the light of the diskos showed it to be clean and empty. I ate four tablets and fell asleep, thinking of nothing but Naani. Only one thought comforted me: if she and I had both been given this gift of a second life, surely it would not be in vain, surely we would find one another in all that dark world. Though a slender hope, based on nothing but faith and expectation, it helped me sleep.