Nether Kingdom

by J. Edward Neill

  Calmly and cruelly, he dragged her by her chain to the wall. The place he brought her to was treacherously dark, the shadows dancing in the light of his servants’ faraway torches. There in the gloom, a ring protruded from the basalt, a hard, cold circlet of iron.

  To lock me in.

  Wrenching her inert arms up, Grim unbolted the chain from her manacles, freeing her arms for a single breath before looping the chain through the iron ring and snapping her bonds shut again. Chained to the wall like an animal, she dropped to the bone-brittle floor.

  “Is this it?” she wept.

  “Yes.” Grimwain regarded her. “After this one final thing.”

  She glanced up, wanting to know. Raising his right hand to his left ear, he backhanded her across the mouth, bloodying her nose and lips with so hard a stroke she thought she might die. Gasping in pain, she could but listen as he knelt to whisper in her ear.

  “Little thing.” He touched her face, his presence invading her. “For daring to dream our end, that was my gift. My second gift is this: you will stay here, starving and alone. When our torches leave, you will rot in the darkness just as your father. He thought he could escape his exile, but no. There’s no escape. This is a grave only half-filled, Lady Anderae. Beneath you are the millions slain during your ancestors’ wars. Your great grandfathers, and theirs, and theirs. Enjoy their touch, my sweet. Relish what your forefathers left you. When Father Sun catches his funereal flame, you’ll never see it. You’ll know only the everlasting darkness that comes afterward.”

  Her blood flowed from her lips down to her chin, dripping on her breast. The sounds of Grimwain’s booted footsteps dwindled from her ears. Her head ringing, she fell hard to the bone-riddled floor.

  Father? she tried to cry out.

  And all she knew faded to black.

  Daggers of a Dead Island

  At twilight’s edge, the last light of the setting sun glimmered over Garrett’s shoulder, illuminating the stairwell in a grey, unwelcoming pallor.

  His skin was caked with bone-dust, his eyes dry and stinging. His expression was the same as ever: stoic as the moon in the middle of the night. He imbibed a shallow breath, tasted the dead Cornerstone air, and descended into the catacombs beneath the behemoth tower.

  With Andelusia’s memory drifting through his mind, he passed from the murky dusk into a corridor whose walls were lined like that of a mortuary, and where sarcophagi long-sealed were sheathed into the stone by the thousand. The tower catacomb was lifeless, an alien labyrinth, a crypt for uncountable dead. As if fearing to illumine such a place, the sun plummeted behind him. Garrett grimaced and raised his lantern high.

  Whispers, he swore he heard as he walked. Voices in the walls. As he descended, his heartbeat quickened. He raised his fragile flame, lighting the pale corridor, and yet saw nothing. It was no living thing breathing in the darkness, he believed. Something older. Something we should fear.

  His sword scarlet with Wolfwolde blood, his gaze emptier than a starless night, he cut deeper into the corridor. The crushing feeling of so much dead mass above his head slowed his steps and weighed on his bones. Twenty steps in, the shadows thickened, the dust disturbed by his measured footfalls swirling like stars in the void.

  Most would have been horrified to go any deeper.

  Not he.

  Immune to the horrors drifting in the blackness, he raised his broken-glassed lamp and marched on. He moved still deeper into the tower catacombs, where the air tasted of ancient death, and where bone dust shivered off the walls when he walked by.

  He found Saul right where he had left him.

  Slumped against the cold corridor wall, poor Saul was fast asleep, still sick with the poisons administered by his Thillrian betrayers. Garrett halted beside his resting friend and regarded him. Like Andelusia, little I can do to help him.

  He set down his lamp, hunkered to the mercilessly hard floor, and allowed himself a moment’s thankfulness that Saul was still alive. He observed the irregular rhythm of Saul’s breaths, regretting the staleness of the catacomb air. But he will survive, he knew. At least for now.

  Already Saul’s color was better. The lividity had faded from his lips and his sleeping shivers seemed far less violent than before. Turning away from his friend and clapping the dust from his bloodstained palms, Garrett slumped against the tunnel wall and let his pack slide from his shoulder. The spoils of his ambush spilled to the floor. Stolen from dead men, he ruminated. Two waterskins. A sack of food. A weather-beaten bag. Enough to die a few days from now.

  In his mind, the foodstuffs were pointless to possess, the valueless treasures of a hollow victory over the Wolde. He thought of the eight he had slain, and his most powerful emotion was regret, that I failed to kill them all. All that mattered anymore was that Andelusia was lost, and that Grimwain had yet to show himself.

  An hour swept by before he pulled his palms down his face and opened his eyes again. Weary but unable to sleep, he gazed to his left, where the catacombs burrowed into the unknowable depths beneath the behemoth tower. He felt his mind playing tricks on him. In one breath he heard exhalations in the darkness, as if the horrors buried in the black respired at his scent. In the next breath, he heard a thousand intermingled whispers, none of them in a language he knew, all of them wanting me dead.

  He slapped his cheek and squeezed his eyes shut. It made little difference. The sounds existed in his mind. Nothing could drive them out.

  In those darkest of moments he felt his mind return to Andelusia. Her beliefs are truth, he understood now. The Ur are real. Exactly where and how they existed were mysteries to him, but what they were felt clear enough. Entropy. Pain. Vengeance. Death. It was as though Andelusia were whispering the truth of them into his ear, for even as he hunkered in the dark, he understood.

  The beginning and the end. They un-live, un-exist. They desire all things to meet their proper demise, that all life be extinguished, that they can be free. What stopped them so long ago, no one knows. No one but Grim. No one but Ande.

  Apologies, world. Forgive me, Ande, Nephi, Saul. The Ur will do as they want.

  Much later, Saul awoke. Brooding in the blackness, Garrett was immediately aware of it, feeling as though Saul were a second flame flaring to life beside the lamp. Saul groaned and pushed himself upright, and Garrett reached out to steady him.

  “Ande, that you?” Saul teetered at the edge of consciousness.

  “No.” Garrett lifted the lamp. “Lost.”

  “But I thought I heard her voice.”

  “As did I. But no. Only ghosts. Only the dead, whose ranks she likely walks by now.”

  Saul swallowed hard, his eyes welling. “Where are we?”

  “You will not remember.” Garrett lowered the lamp. “We pursued Bretaen and his men. You collapsed. I stopped to help you, and we lost them. I tried to track them alone, but I could not. The bones of Cornerstone mark no man’s passage, and the darkness did the rest. At midday yesterday I brought us here to hide. The Wolves were after us, though not any longer.”

  The tale took many moments to settle in Saul’s mind.

  “Ande’s dead? You saw her?”

  “I did not.” He rubbed his temple. “But I saw the Wolde marching to the shore without her. Her end is what they sought all along. Their master feared no other but her. Since nothing else remains, I will search for her. Dead, alive...it does not matter. I took several days’ food from the Wolde. It will serve long enough for me to find her, or brief enough to die in trying.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “As you wish. But join me knowing we are not likely to succeed. She is surely slain, and we will perish long before we find her body.”

  Nothing more was said, and Saul sat in a daze only to slip back into fitful slumber. Garrett allowed his friend to rest. Sleep enough for both of us, he hoped. He knew Saul was not well enough to march. Even had he been, Cornerstone’s inky black sky barred any hope of searching for Andelusia in the
night.

  In the deep dark, he lay awake. Sleep eluded him. The shadows in his mind closed in. Like the dungeons beneath Archaeus, he felt. If Nephi were here, she would lull me to sleep. But with Ande, we would suffer alike.

  Late, well past midnight, the sound of Saul waking again pulled him from his morbid state of mind and back into the present.

  “Garrett? Did you hear something?”

  He shut his eyes, hoping that Saul could not perceive the Ur thrum. “No. There is nothing.”

  “I thought I heard someone say our names.”

  “No. No one here but you and me.”

  Sleepless, the rest of the night passed. Dawn arrived none too soon. The new day’s glow peered into the catacomb, a sliver of radiance from an unhappy sun. Slowly, the cold light delivered Garrett to unwanted awareness. Weary but awake, he raised his head and strode to the catacomb entrance.

  I should never have left her, he thought. I should have taken her home. After Rellen. After the Undergrave. No reason to hunt Grimwain. I could have protected her.

  And instead I hunted.

  At length, Saul joined him to watch the sun rise. “I’m alive.” The Elrain man dropped the stolen Wolfwolde satchel on the floor. “But you’ll have to carry these.”

  Saying nothing, Garrett bent to a knee and slung the satchel over his shoulder.

  “How do you know the wolves aren’t waiting for us?” Saul’s voice was raspy and frail.

  He showed Saul his hands, stained black with blood. “I gave them many reasons to leave. They will want to be back on their boat. By now they probably are.”

  “What about Daedelar?”

  “His ship is lost to me. I thought I knew the way back. I was wrong.”

  After a short while of watching the sunlight creep into the catacomb, he ascended the stairs and entered the grey light of Cornerstone’s overworld. “Follow if you can,” he said to Saul. “We eat later.”

  The world was as dismal a sight as he expected. The four nearest towers vaulted from the pale earth like vast tombstones, their barren white sides smooth as polished bone. Higher up, the sky was an indeterminate shade of grey, the clouds swimming at the towers’ tops like ghostly faces.

  “Still not cold,” remarked Saul.

  “Ur magicks,” he replied.

  “You believe?”

  “I do now.”

  “Where to?”

  He touched the pommel of his sword and gazed northward. He wished for many reasons Saul were safely aboard Shiver’s Pride. For out here he may die. And he will surely slow me down.

  “Twenty towers.” He glanced to the next nearest monstrosity, doubtless two hours’ walk away. “We search as many as we can until the food runs out.”

  Saul leaned hard against his staff. “And the Wolde? What if they have her?”

  “They do not. Not if I guess rightly.”

  “Why didn’t you stop them?” Saul asked the one question he dreaded. “You could’ve left me. You could’ve hunted them.”

  He exhaled. “I should have. I wanted to. They had knives to her throat.”

  “You were afraid? You love her?”

  Yes, he almost said. “I froze,” he sighed.

  “Is this what she’d want of us?” Saul’s logic sounded harsh. “If you’re certain she’s slain, don’t we owe it to her to carry her cause back to Thillria?”

  His feelings smoldered behind his ribs. Bristling, he looked to the tortured sky. “If we live long enough to escape and put Grimwain to the sword, so be it. But if Ande is dead and Grim has sailed, I see no other end than for our bones to join the rest. We are stranded. We are exiles. We are already dead.”

  “You assume it,” Saul said, “But you don’t know.”

  “Nothing is certain.” He shook his head. “At least not yet. The longer we stand and talk, the less likely we are to find her before our food runs out.”

  Saul understood. With what strength remained in him, the Elrain man lifted his battlestaff like a walking stick and made ready to follow.

  Thus began the search for Andelusia.

  That morn, Garrett led the way toward Cornerstone’s heart. Desolate bone-fields and vast, tomblike hummocks of rock were all that existed in the dead realms between the towers. Saul trailed him at a close distance, staggering and shambling, but determined. Through meadows of white ash and pale, glassy plains Garrett walked. He expected Saul to collapse. It never happened.

  An hour before midday, he came to a tower. Shorter and broader than the one he and Saul had spent the night in, the second spire was no less dreadful to behold. Its girth could have encompassed a city, while its ivory sides were graven sharp and spear-like, a dagger from the earth’s heart breaching the bottom layer of clouds.

  “Ande would say these were made by her monsters.” Saul leaned on his battlestaff.

  “She would be right,” he countered. “Twice now, I have felt their presence. This island, these bones…her monsters are real.”

  “What are we looking for?” Saul shuddered. “Beyond the obvious.”

  Garrett took five steps closer to the tower. With the Hunter’s precision he honed his senses until and all the elements of Cornerstone faded away. Across the tower’s base he gazed, searching in silence. It was then, as he held himself as motionless as the tower itself, he found what he sought. There, far across the dead field, he spied a dark spot at the tower’s bottom.

  “There.” He pointed. “A black blemish. An entrance. Another catacomb.”

  Saul squinted hard, his eyes beady above his voluminous beard. “A second tunnel?” Saul bent his staff beneath his weight. “Does every tower have one?”

  “So it appears.”

  At that, Saul’s expression darkened. “Garrett,” he said while sagging. “I’ve the feeling these tombs are deeper than we can follow. How will we know we haven’t passed Ande by? How will we find her if she’s down inside one of those…things?”

  “No way to know.”

  “Then what? We search them all? It’d take years.”

  “You do not have to follow.” He glared at the tower. “Wait outside and guard the door.”

  “No,” said Saul. “It’s not that. I’m not afraid. But you…you’re different. There’s murder in your eyes. You’re not yourself. This isn’t the best way.”

  He nearly smiled then. He knew exactly what it was Saul saw. The Garrett of old had fallen into shadow, and a newer, deadlier soul emerged from the ashes. “Follow.” He beckoned. “If Ande’s here, we will find her.”

  Putting boot to bone, he marched for the tower. Saul struggled to keep up. Nearer the tower, he drew his sword, stoked his lamp, and halted at the catacomb entrance long enough for Saul to stagger to his side.

  “I am going in.”

  Fearless, he descended once more into the underworld. With Saul clattering behind him, he marched far deeper than in the first catacomb. He wended his way through passage after dark passage, stalking the labyrinthine halls. Bones crumbled beneath his boots and bleach-white walls shed the pale dust of ancient dead in his wake. The branching, low-ceilinged halls stretched out in every direction like the roots of a long dead tree. He walked scores of passages. He found every artery empty, every capillary hollow.

  No matter the depths he descended, he saw no sign of the Wolde, no evidence of anything alive. A hundred times he called Andelusia’s name, and each time his only reward was an eerie echo and a dry, dust-tortured throat.

  “She’s not here,” said Saul a dozen times.

  Quiet, he wanted to say.

  An hour in, he conceded. No one is here. The next tower, perhaps. In his little lamp’s dying light he looked to Saul for the first time since entering. “To another tower we go,” he said, his voice raw. “Our lamp is almost dead. Our search will be…challenging.”

  Saul answered. He heard nothing. His mind was elsewhere, his heart pounding out a beat that drowned all other things.

  And so the rest of the day slipped by him, fr
uitless and full of despair.

  Six catacombs he came to, and in six he found nothing. His lantern dead, he walked no deeper than a hundred steps in each, and though he called Ande’s name till his voice died, he earned no answer. At dusk, in a desolate valley between towers, he sat upon a skull-like boulder in the Cornerstone overworld, brooding upon black things. The sun dipped low behind him, casting his long shadow across Saul.

  “Garrett?” Saul uttered his name for the tenth time. “You must eat. You’ve fasted all day.”

  He grinned at Saul’s pragmatism. Absently, he reached out and took a brick of bread, chewing the tasteless thing in silence.

  “What if they took her?” The half-disc of grey sun reflected in Saul’s eyes. “What if she’s on Grim’s ship? She might be bound for the mainland already. Or maybe Daedelar has her.”

  “Possible. But unlikely.”

  “Should we not try the shore then?” Saul persisted. “At least to make certain? I’m not saying I’m abandoning you, but aren’t we more likely to find her if we go back to the Selhaunt. Maybe we could capture one of the Wolde. Maybe he’d talk and tell us things.”

  “I feel the wolves are gone from here,” he murmured. “Same as the sun.”

  It was true. The sun was almost gone. Traces of grey and lavender streaked the heavens, but all else was pitch. He savored it, for the growing darkness mirrored the feeling within him.

  “Garrett,” Saul called him back to consciousness again. “I know what you’re feeling. You mustn’t let it destroy you…or us.”

  “And why should our destruction matter?” He grimaced. “Ande matters, nothing else. Without her, we can no more halt Grim than two drops of rain could hope to drown him.”

  Saul dusted his pants with the flats of his palms. “I’ll follow wherever you lead. You know this. But walking from tower to tower across this damnable island feels less like heroism and more like madness. Consider reason. Lead with your mind, not your emotion.”