Nether Kingdom

by J. Edward Neill

  Lykaios had selected the texts, he knew. The volumes were meant to teach him the events that had happened in the years after his death, while at the same time telling the unsubtle truth of how the world viewed his reign of horror. Most noticeable amongst all the descriptions was that none of the passages told of his final fate. Several suggested he had even escaped the rain-slashed courtyards of Mooreye, that he had been the war’s sole survivor on the Furyon side.

  They don’t know. He pushed the books away with a smirk. Graehelm, Romaldar, and the Wolfwolde. They believe I survived. None but Lykaios and Unctulu know the truth.

  Lykaios is not who Roma thinks he is.

  On his third evening in the tower, he held quiet vigil by his favorite window. The falling sun smote the far lake such that its fire danced atop the water. Dusk deepened, and as the lake went dark, supper arrived. The same barefooted girl who always brought his food knocked on his door and entered without waiting for his response. She was a nameless, voiceless woman, her eyes like candles in the darkness of his soul.

  “What’s your name?” He heard his words before realizing he had spoken them.

  The girl filled his goblet with fresh wine. “Mykla,” she said. Her voice was as cool as evening rain.

  “Mykla.” He let her name roll from his tongue. “A pretty name. A Roma name.”

  “Thank you.” She shyly smiled.

  “Mykla,” he said, now less friendly. “Do you know the Master?”

  “I know of him, but I’ve never seen him.”

  “And what do you know?”

  “Nothing really.” She looked to the floor. “Only that the king is dead and the Master sits on his throne.”

  “Does this trouble you?”

  For the first time, she met his gaze and held it. “One king is the same as the next.”

  “Mykla,” he scoffed, “you’ve little experience with kings if you believe they’re all alike.”

  Falling silent, she looked to the floor again. Her dark curls framed her cheeks, and he saw sadness beneath her beauty.

  “You should go from here,” he said. “I’m new to Roma, but I’ve seen the signs. I once stood in a Furyon city, and it was not half as grave as Archaeus. The darkness gathers here. I sense you’re not like these men, these wolves. Were I you, I’d run.”

  He looked up to him again. “I know.” Her voice broke. “But there’s no leaving. It’s too late.”

  She said no more. She showed a sad smile and left him standing beside his table, where he lingered for many moments after she was gone. He could not fathom why he had warned her, and when he finally went to bed many hours later, her face was the last thing he remembered.

  Thunder and gloomy skies greeted him the next morn. Mist fluttered through his wide-open windows and settled on his face like cold upon a corpse. He felt his bones creak as he woke. His head pounded and his body hurt, and he believed he knew why. It was Them, he supposed, reminding him of the unknowable task he had yet to perform. He blinked, and after seeing Their faces stretched across the insides of his eyelids, he slid from his bed and rubbed his eyes until the images went away.

  The expected knock upon his door arrived not long thereafter. Dressed in his new attire, he plodded to the door as though his executioner lay behind it.

  “Come with us, Pale One,” grunted the soldier awaiting him.

  Falling in behind four Wolfwolde, he returned to the Master’s fortress. In the rain, the courtyards were empty and the sounds of the blacksmiths’ hammers absent. He marched through the mist and entered the gates, feeling small in the shadow of Thresher, who stalked behind him almost protectively.

  He felt nothing like himself.

  He sulked through the maze of corridors like a prisoner on his way to the gallows. Whenever he passed Wolfwolde men, he did not sneer or grimace as he usually did, but instead searched their faces, wondering how it was they had come to serve the Master. He climbed stair after stair, losing himself in the rhythmic thudding of Thresher at his back.

  He arrived. The soldiers opened a door, and he entered the highest room in the fortress’s tallest tower. The men remained outside, but Thresher followed, his armored plates scraping. He trod into a round, finely-furnished chamber, a room in which dark wolfskins curtained the windows and lanterns shined amber and red, their glows like eyes.

  The Master of the Wolfwolde sat at a black, iron-wrought table, his hands folded peaceably before him. “Ah. He arrives.” Lykaios grinned, unfathomable and unsettling.

  The Wolde shut the door hard behind him. He felt captive, as powerless as ever in his life. Walking across the wolfskin carpet, he stopped in the center of the room and felt the weight of a hundred gazes fall upon him, even though it’s only one.

  “I’m here. What do you want with me?” He forced his words out.

  Lykaios set his hands on the table. He showed no signs of injury, no evidence that the Needle had caused him even the slightest injury. “You have questions,” he said. “Now is the time to ask them.”

  Aware that his cold composure was flagging, Archmyr forced his lips into a smirk. “You want me to win a battle. Against whom?”

  “Thillria.”

  “With the Wolde as my army?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your men despise me. How do you know they’ll do as I say?”

  “If you are as your reputation builds you to be, they will follow. Out of terror, if not love.”

  “Thillria’s a long way from Romaldar.” He stepped closer to the Master’s table. “Yrul and Triaxe stand between us. Am I to carve my way through, or have you some other plan?”

  “I’ve made a pact with the Yrul.” Lykaios remained expressionless. “Your passage is paid for. As for Triaxe, you’ll not cross their territory. You’ll go south. You’ll pass the wilderness along the coast. The Moerlahn, so they call it.”

  Narrowing his eyes, he stalked to the edge of Lykaios’ table. He felt his confidence growing, the heat pumping in his blood. “You chose me because I’m Thillrian. Because I know the land. Because of my service with Furyon. And because of my victories...and my cruelty.”

  “True enough.” Lykaios nodded. “But mostly it’s because you, of all the dead men in the world, have the most to gain.”

  He froze. Struck still by Lykaios’ words, his blood ran as cold as glacial ice. This is the heart of the matter, he knew. The reason I followed Unctulu to Roma. The meaning of my rebirth.

  “How?” His smirk fell away. “How can you give me what I desire? For eight years in death, they had me. For eight years, eight that felt like eight thousand, I walked their underworld, dying every day. How is it you can promise I’ll never go back?”

  The barest hint of a smile worked its way onto the edge of Lykaios’ mouth. Relaxed in his chair, the Master let out a barely perceptible sigh, withdrawing into shadowed thought before returning.

  “To earn your sleep, Pale One, each of you has a task, a deed that must be done. Unctulu has already gone to his; his work will be done ere you arrive in Thillria. Numinous is second, though his deed will be simpler. You are what is most important now. Come closer, sit down, unburden your mind of all your concerns.

  “And I will tell you what you must do to earn your sleep eternal.”

  Diary, Part II

  Alone again.

  Muthemnal is behind me. The sea, Ghurk, Aera, the Duke, my friends. All gone. I left without much of a fight, for it was not in my heart to wage war against the inevitable. The Duke sent me away because he believes I abused his son’s trust, and perhaps it is true. But does it matter? No. For Muthem’s sake, I would have left all the same.

  My first night out, and the trees south of the city have the look of late autumn. The leaves are gold and scarlet, dangling limp as hanged men over my head, channeling the rain into a million miniature waterfalls. I do not know the name of this forest, but I am glad to be here. The trees are my only friends anymore. Though a few nights more, and they too will die.


  Twilight settles. The clouds are grey slate and the skies endlessly weep. Two villages lie just to the north, but no people are outdoors. Even the livestock are put away. The rain is still rain for now, but soon it will be ice. Who would dare linger in the open? No one but me.

  A week ago I possessed everything a woman could want. Tonight I have almost nothing to my name. Before leaving, I took my leather satchel, my sole remaining relic from Graehelm, and stuffed it with a few fistfuls of clothing, this journal, two wells of ink, two quills, and the Pages Black. Aera, sweet Aera. She gave me an umbrella. It is little more than a wooden stick with a ring of oiled canvas atop it, but her gift is the only reason I am able to write in the rain. She also gave me a basket stuffed to its brim with bread, half-frozen fruit, and a wineskin. Aera, my friend, I will miss you. I will miss everyone. How does one say goodbye forever?

  And so I sit in the rain and write. Aera’s umbrella shields me from most of the downpour, but not all. I have not bothered with a campfire, not that I could start one in this sodden mess, not that I need one. It is not cold, not to me. My face feels clean and damp, my clothes are drenched like dishrags, and my hair is slick down to the middle of my back. Well and good. Feels no different than if I were tucked in bed beside a roaring hearth. Doubtless I have the look of someone who has lost their mind, but what does it matter? I am alone here, three hours’ walk from Muthem. No one will see me. No one will care.

  I feel dreadful for what I have done. My mood makes the cold and the rain, and they are what injure Muthemnal. I saw it as I fled. I saw the streets drowning, the people suffering. Muthem sits on a steep hill, and so the water washes down it like a scythe, carving up everything on its way to the bottom. Some dwellings were flooded. Others were washed away. I saw mothers weeping for lost children and children weeping for lost mothers. I saw a drowned graveyard, the bodies of men long-buried floating in the street. I even saw Ghurk shoveling ruts for the rain to follow. He looked tired, oh so tired. He saw me walking by. I wonder if he knows.

  And the Pages. The damned Pages. Even now the black book sits beside me, peppered by the rain. If it were paper, it would have rotted long ago. But its magicks are writ upon flesh, ensorcelled by the Ur to be forever indestructible. I wish not. I wish I had forgotten it. But I brought it. I could not help myself.

  I look to the sky. Father Sun has given up for the night, and darkness reigns complete. It has been many years since I spent a night outside like this. I listen for familiar sounds: crickets, toads, or nightingales, but they are silent. I wonder if they died or if they escaped in time to avoid this wretched season. I hope for the latter. For me to cause a city heartache is one thing, but to injure the earth itself is another.

  If writing in this journal seems pointless, perhaps it is. I jot these pedestrian things as though they matter, when my mind is taken almost entirely by other thoughts. Stalling will only work so long. My pen feels heavier in my fingers with each word. My concerns feel almost hypocritical, considering I am the cause of everyone’s pain. No, what roams in my head is not so tangible as rain, trees, and written words. My mind moves elsewhere. I fail myself with every stroke of my quill.

  The Black Moon. I saw it again before I entered the forest. Through the rain, the clouds, and the thickening dark, I glimpsed it just as it rounded the horizon. How, I wonder? It seemed lower in the sky than before, visible no matter the rain. Impossible, but not.

  The Black Moon.

  The Black Moon.

  The Black Moon.

  Is it I who watches it or it who watches me?

  Can anyone else see it?

  Anyone but Father?

  I do not think Father tried to hide it from me, but rather that he knew too little to tell. He thought the Ur slept far below the earth. But no. Every living soul owes their existence to his being wrong. The Ur roam the sky this very night, watching and waiting. I have vowed not to help them return. I have the Pages Black. I should feel secure. I do not. For as long as the moon wanders, all of us should be afraid.

  I had another thought just now. My heart jumped. My insides felt warmer. Garrett. I wish he were here. It seems wrong not to hope for Rellen or Saul, but what can I do for it? The memory of Garrett sets some small part of me at ease, and I swear the rain lessens whenever I dwell on him. He would know what to do. He would think up a way for me to drive the shadows out. But I wonder; would he help me if he saw me now? Would he care? Would he be angry? I do not know for certain, but I can hope. Though hope is pointless.

  I remember him, and to this very day I yearn for him. He is one of my people, one of the old blood, cursed to wander the earth in search of something none of us will ever find. I know this. I have accepted it. He is gone, and we are all lesser for it.

  The cold is here, black and bitter. My fault. Mine alone. I am a slow writer, and the hour has grown late. The rain is gone, replaced by snow. The wooly whiteness crumbles from the sky, falling so slowly through the treetops I could make a game of trying to catch as many flakes as I can. The snow is far more placid than the rain’s constant pelting, but try telling that to Muthemnal. The last crops will freeze over and die. the ice will kill many, and the floating corpses will freeze to the graveyard pickets and gaze across the streets.

  Midnight has come and gone. I am not tired. As ever, the open darkness restores me, fulfilling me as much as a full night’s sleep. It breathes life into a new dilemma. Here at the height of my power, I could take flight as a shadowling in the sky. I could soar all the way to Shivershore in one eve, maybe two. It would be a simple thing. It would save me weeks of tramping about on foot. I could fly to Father’s old tower beside the Selhaunt and start my new life tomorrow, sparing all the lands between here and my destination the ravages of my storm.

  But no, I will not do it. It will be part of my penance to make this journey the hard way. It will keep me from abusing the Nightness, which is of course the very reason I am here.

  The Hunter

  He stood alone atop his hill. The wind, cool and sharp, tossed his shabby cloak above his shoulders, lifting it like the tired tail of a wizened hawk. The coming storm boomed at his back, an earthquake thrumming through the forested slopes and stream-riven valleys.

  The rain is coming.

  He closed his eyes and smelled the storm in the air. He held out his open palm and imagined the rain. Soon the mists would arise and brim like steam from a thousand cauldrons.

  Soon his hunt would begin.

  There were none more alone than the Hunter of Romaldar. Tall and lean, he stood like a lion atop his hill, his gaze hard and steady, his beard billowing, and his earthen-hued hair sodden to his head. This was not the life he dreamed of, but the life I have chosen.

  He was but thirty-three years old, and yet the shadow of the Hunter’s troubled soul lay long and dark across face. Once brighter and bluer than the sea, his eyes were hard mirrors beneath his haunted brow, a formidable tempest of a gaze into which no man dared look for longer than a breath.

  Be their fear, he reminded himself. Play my part until the end.

  The first raindrops struck. He touched the frayed feathers of his remaining arrows, and the slender vanes jostled like reeds in his shoulder-slung quiver. Dozens, he had shot, and of all the arrows he had used, but four were left to him. Such was his business, the slaying of men. It was all he did, all he was capable of anymore. There seemed no end to the Wolde, no dwindling of the numbers thronging from the countryside and into Lykaios’s service. Slaughtering them was his passionless sport, and all for the sake of vengeance against their Master.

  The rain came harder then, darkening his threadbare shirt. Unbothered, he cupped his palms and collected the droplets as though to pay homage to the sky. The harder the rain fell, the greater his anticipation grew.

  Almost time. Tonight the rain will wash blood from my hands. Tonight the wolves will be lambs.

  The first rush of rain slowed. He quickly and quietly broke camp. He folded his tent, unstrung his
food from a low-hanging branch, and slid his few possessions into a half-rotted bag. Lastly he went to his weapons, which he treated with far greater reverence than all else. He lashed his dagger, his stubby, sharpened-too-often knife, to his calf. He slung his bow over his shoulder.

  And he took up his sword.

  The blade felt weightless in his grasp. The rain slid like oil from its sleek grey surface, dripping off the pommel in tiny pale globules. A special sword, he remembered its maker. Made by worshipful hands. The old Romaldarian smith had forged the Greyblade from a fallen meteor whose dark alloy existed nowhere else in the known world. The smith had been the Hunter’s friend and confidant, but like so many others, the Wolfwolde had murdered him.

  The rain quickened. He sheathed the Greyblade. As though aware of some distant clamor, he gazed across the ocean of trees beneath his hill. The thickets swayed in the wind, shimmering the same as a vast green ocean.

  No one to be hunted here. Time to leave.

  He began his descent. Into the valley he glided, leaping over deadfalls and sidestepping boulders as though they were but jumbles of children’s toys. The rain fell harder still, but he cut through the downpour with preternatural ease, an apparition unhindered. His journey would not take him far. The place of the expected Wolfwolde attack was but a half day’s northward march, near Roma’s border with mountainous Yrul.

  For the entire afternoon, he marched. He roamed over forested hills, waded through grey-watered bogs, and stole his way like a cunning cat into Romaldar’s eastern woodlands. The rain ended and the sun heated the earth. He felt sick with the smell of himself, so many weeks removed from a proper bath, and so many years stuck in the same ragged shirt and moldering boots. Still he marched, never slowing, never stopping save to eat or shuck the mud from his boots. Willpower alone made him indomitable, and always the promise of thinning the Wolfwolde pack urged him on.