Nether Kingdom

by J. Edward Neill

  His thoughts sat like sickness in his gut. His soldiers, the Wolfwolde, were the inflictors of wanton, needless cruelty, all too happy to torture, rape, and murder. Each day, he watched them carve deeper into the Undergrave, and each night he felt increasingly wicked to be the motivating force behind them. He hated the Wolde, for they represented the worst side of himself, reminding him too often of the soulless, black-hearted creature he believed himself to be.

  Disgusted, he pushed his supper of stew and bread aside. He was not hungry anymore, not tonight. Slouching in his chair, he breathed each hated breath as though his heart were worm-eaten, his bones brittle as glass. He wished he were capable of leaving Sallow behind, or even of taking a knife to his neck and accepting the suffering awaiting him after his second death. But he was not so brave. The threat of eternal torment lay ever on his mind, and the Master’s promises were too tempting to overcome.

  He arose from his table. His black hair hung in whiplike lashes atop his shoulders. His swords, freshly polished, swayed from his belt like sad willow branches. His eyes sheltered in shadow, he pushed his cabin door open and stepped into the deepening night.

  Outside, the smells of Sallow inundated him.

  He inhaled, tasting smoke from the crackling campfires of four-thousand Wolde. He imbibed the stale odors of the earth, smelling the saturated loam and tomblike trees as though they were the familiar aromas of his grave. He took twenty steps beyond his door. He realized this was his favorite part of the evening, his one opportunity for aloneness as the sun paled and darkness drew down. In the growing twilight, he stood as still as any of the hundred dead boulders piled around him and contemplated the terrors he so willingly worked upon the world.

  What’s the matter with me? All these…feelings.

  Dusk soon turned to darkness, and the haunted hues of twilight gave way to Mother Moon’s silver stare. She gleamed atop Sallow’s crags and slate-topped hills, waking him from his brooding. After a hard shiver, he rolled his neck and snapped his eyes wide-open. No time left for misery, he knew. After three weeks of being away, Unctulu, the Master’s maggot, was due to return tonight. Nothing for it. He spat in the dirt. What the pusbag says, the rest of us have to do.

  Nigh invisible in the night, he leaned against a perished tree and gazed into the landscape of the Wolfwolde camp. Torch-bearing soldiers moved past him, unaware of his presence. A line of Thillrian prisoners shuffled by, twenty men strung together with rusted chains. None of them noticed he was near. Quietness closed in around him. His thoughts, ever blacker, slid slowly though his mind, drifting hither and to like sheaves of unhappy clouds.

  At length, as his thoughts grew calm and a grey sheen of smoke scudded over Mother Moon, he saw what he expected to see: ‘Tulu’s entourage. The Maggot’s servants wended their way through the outlying teeth of the Wolfwolde defenses. He watched them, a bird of prey, his eyes roving as Unctulu’s men marched between dead tree trunks and slithered along gravel-packed lanes. He counted three creaking wagons, ten tired horses, and fifteen men-at-arms.

  So much for freedom.

  Silent as a dagger slipped between unsuspecting ribs, he cut through the darkness and returned to his hut. He knew Unctulu would seek him out soon enough.

  An hour later, as he sat at his table, his door rattled beneath three heavy-handed knocks. After a breath, he watched Unctulu’s worming fingers creep around the door’s frame and pry it open. The fiend entered, his fat-padded feet landing like pudding on the floor.

  “Pale One, Pale One!” Unctulu wobbled across the threshold with a dozen glass vials clinking around his waist. “Tell me how much you missed me.”

  He glared into Unctulu’s glassy eyes and said nothing.

  “As you like.” Unctulu tugged the door shut. “To business it shall be.”

  The fiend tottered closer. He looked more grotesque than ever. His hide, shrouded in a grey, moth-eaten tunic, reeked like a swamp. His breath stank, his fingers were filthy, and his hairless chin still greasy from whatever meal had been his last. Uninvited, the foul beast straddled the second chair at the table and spilled into it like rotting porridge into a bowl.

  “I’ve news for you, Pale One, much news,” Unctulu bellowed. “I’m sure you’ll want to hear it, oh yes.”

  “What is it?” He felt his stomach squelch.

  A glimmer lit the fat fiend’s eyes. “Ah, first the fun part. I’ve gifts for you, Pale One, presents to put a smile on that sour mask of yours. During my tour of northern Thillria, I found three of the most delicious youngling girls. They’re tasty, they are, the sweetest, palest things. They’re for the pleasure of your whip, your sword, or whatever you’d like. Any man alive would enjoy them, but these three I brought just for you.”

  “Girls?” He frowned.

  “Yessss.” Unctulu licked his lips. “The three finest. Two from the countryside and another from merry little Muthem. I thought you’d enjoy a taste of your native Thillrian fruit. I inspected them myself.”

  “Girls,” he grumbled after a moment’s thought. “Send them home.”

  “But why?” Unctulu complained. “They’re so pliable, so pretty, and…so very unwilling.”

  Chin set atop his fist, he thought carefully before answering. A refusal of Unctulu is refusal of the Master, he knew. Cracking a quarter-smile, he decided he did not care.

  “Many reasons,” he said. “Foremost, I’d not have the wolflings see me partake of any pleasures I’ve forbidden them. No girls for me, and none for them. And…” His gaze darkened. “…considering the place I’m bound for, the horrors I work to bring, a few quick pleasures’ll do nothing to warm me. Set the girls free. Send them home, preferably unspoiled.”

  Unctulu clucked his wormlike tongue. “Lost your feel for it, eh? No satisfaction for the Sleeper’s warlord? Well enough then. I’ll dribble one of my potions on their lips as they sleep. Their minds will turn to mush. They’ll remember nothing.”

  “Fine,” he said. “What else?”

  “I’m glad you asked, so glad.” Unctulu slapped his sausage-fingered hands on the table. “If sweeties aren’t to your tastes, perhaps prisoners will sate you. I’ve four of them, four of the rebels you’ve been looking for. The Sleeper’s soldiers found them slinking like rats about the northern hillocks. Their men-at-arms we butchered, but these few we spared the sword.”

  He closed his eyes. He struggled to remember the names of the many the Master had ordered him to imprison or kill. ‘Pests…’ Lykaios had described the Thillrian resistance in one of his missives. ‘…whose nibbles might slow you if you give them room to graze.’

  “No more prisoners,” he decided. “Prisoners need feeding, and this wretched landscape leaves us short of food as is. Even if these four of yours were important, they no longer concern me. My orders are to keep Muthem and Dray secure, and Sallow fenced against intruders. I’ve done so. We fear nothing here.”

  Again, Unctulu complained, “These are the sons of Muthem, the conspirers Duke Ghurlain, his son, and their underlings. If your clouded mind will recall it, these filth raised a rabble against us at the Sallow outskirts. For that alone, methinks you should torture them.”

  “Torture?” He lifted his gaze from the table. “Why waste my time? Not all souls are like the Wolfwolde, who let blood just to see the earth turn red, or like you, who giggles to wrap your fat fingers around girls’ necks. Some of us have evolved beyond our ordinary selves. Maybe you should ask yourself; why should any of us be excited to slay these men when by the Master’s hand the entire world will soon be dead? Why should we care what the rest of Thillria does? We have what the Master came for. The Undergrave is ours.”

  Furrowing the lines of fat on his forehead, Unctulu eyed him. “Surprising that you, of all people, should choose mercy,” the fiend burbled. “But no bother to me, I suppose. I’ll keep the vermin for my own pleasure. A cold cage and some rotting meat should suit them. Maybe I’ll even test a recipe or two on them. A potion here, a poison
there, and we’ll see how long their skins stay on.”

  Suppressing himself, he rose from his chair and stalked to his hut’s tiny hearth. He felt well and thoroughly nauseated. Years ago, I’d have relished the thought of tormenting maidens or putting men to the sword. But not tonight. Tonight his tongue was dry, his fingers cold, and the taste in his mouth little different than rotten meat. He knelt and stoked his hearth’s tiny fire, and his only hope was that when next he turned around ‘Tulu will be gone.

  “You should be aware, fat one,” he murmured over his shoulder. “If we fail in this, your pain will be much greater than mine.”

  Unctulu said nothing.

  At least not that he could hear.

  It was in that moment, even as he jabbed the poker into the hearth, the atmosphere his hut turned black. He jostled a smoldering log, but rather than spark and sizzle back to life, the weakling flame winked out. The hearth’s scarlet glow went dark, and the lantern-lights in the hut shuddered and dimmed.

  What’s this?

  It was an unnatural, impossible thing to happen. His fears leapt to the memory of the girl-witch, for this was her hut, and he wondered if her spirit had returned to haunt him. His heart spiked within his chest, and his poker, its end now as brittle as a blade of frosted grass, fell from his hand and shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor.

  He stood and shouted something at Unctulu.

  Again, Unctulu said nothing. The fiend, his fingers knotted over his chest and his face corrupted by a corpse’s smile, was frozen in place the same as a statue. Archmyr snapped his fingers, but earned no answer. It was as though time had stopped, as though the world had halted and he the only one left alive.

  “Wake!” he cursed at Unctulu. “Snap to it, maggot!”

  The silence that answered was that of a graveyard at dusk. All sounds were muted, even the rattle of his breath. His blood chilled in his arteries, he set one palm on his left sword-hilt and spun twice around, searching for the cause of the change.

  Eyes wide, heart slowing, he halted in place. He gazed into the hearth. Fresh shadows stirred to life like black broth inside a cauldron.

  He went numb, his heart fluttering, his bones vibrating with nameless horror.

  Whispers thrummed inside his head.

  It’s Them, he perceived. They’ve found me. Either this was the opening act of his second death, he reckoned, or They visit to torment me.

  Their shadows took shape within the hearth, a candle’s worth of nightmare flame flickering to life among the charred kindling and logs. Smoky, dagger-toothed smiles formed in the black fire, and laughter like ragged thunder banged against his eardrums. He saw Their faces form and heard Their whispers make words he remembered from his grave.

  “What…do you…want?” He shivered so hard his insides hurt.

  Three mouths of ash and shadow moved in unison within the hearth. They were the same mouths he dreamed so often of, the same that had devoured him a thousand times during his death.

  “Pale Death, Pale Death,” They boomed. “Go now beyond your door. Look to Mother Moon and see the shadow fall upon her.”

  He could not help but do as They commanded. Stiff as a skeleton, he compelled his limbs to take him to the door and open it. The hinges made no sound. The air beyond was still and void. He stepped outside. He expected his men to come rushing, but in the haze of night he saw no motion, nothing to suggest the Wolde were not as frozen in time as Unctulu.

  “Up, up,” the shadows bellowed. “Gape moonward, Pale Child. Ours is near now.”

  He gazed to the sky. At first, he saw nothing but the starry wastes, but then he saw more. Like a pupil set dead in the center of a massive eye, an ebon sphere moved in front of Mother Moon. A moon, he breathed. A black moon. The ebon oculus gazed upon him, midnight’s onyx haunting his heart.

  “Watch, Pale Death,” They whispered. “Watch and learn.”

  The world changed. The Black Moon expanded in diameter, fully eclipsing its brighter sister. Soon the only remaining light was that of the stars, which burned against the pitch like white funereal candles. A dark storm took root in the sky. He stared helplessly as the clouds caught fire and disintegrated. He listened as the surrounding hills, their tops sharp with boulders and slate, trembled and cracked open. He was reminded of his death.

  “Dally, dally, and this is what awaits you.” The horrid voices engulfed him. “So slowly, your cretins dig. Prod them, quicken them, Pale One. Stick them, prick them, make them move faster. So near, the death of spring, and ours has only this window to escape, lest we wait another hundred winters.”

  He opened his mouth to dare a question, but no sound came out. The wind whipped with a hurricane’s force, smothering the world in shadows, drowning him in thunder. He tried shouting again, again, and again. At last, come the briefest break in the screaming storm, he screamed so loud a whisper came out.

  “The Sleeper…what is he? How did he get in?”

  Waves of darkness folded like death shrouds around him. The stars winked out and the pressure in his ears smothered his senses. Somehow still alive, he gazed upward. The voices, striking chords anything but human, cracked the sky with Their answer.

  “Chiseled chip, fallen flake, dagger of midnight’s moon. Ours gave the Needle and the little lamb took. His mortal miseries made him willing for brother Grimwain’s soul. The Sleeper is inside him. Ours is happy.”

  Their words meant nothing to him. He was too dizzy, drowning in shadows. His swords vibrated in their scabbards, and his eyes quivered in his sockets like shaken dice. He went to all fours, wanting death.

  “Make them move faster,” They said again. “Claws and picks and searing spades, make them cut the way down to the hallowed tower. If ours is late, if ours misses midnight’s breach, it is yours who suffers most, yours the Sleeper will send back to die and die and die forever.”

  His skin burned. His bones shattered. He clutched his skull and closed his eyes in the hope he would never see anything again.

  And then, without warning, the world quieted.

  After a long silence, he cracked open his eyes, lifted his head, and breathed. He recognized he was no longer outside, but kneeling inside his hut. The storm was gone, the world undestroyed, and he very much alive. He squatted before the still-smoldering hearth, whose red glower was exactly the same as during the instant it had winked out. The poker dangled in his grasp, not shattered, and the hut’s lanterns cast their usual yellow light throughout the room.

  And then there was Unctulu. In the far corner of his consciousness, he heard the fiend shift in his chair. He glanced over his shoulder, and there the creature was, leaning back with his usual smugness, playing his fingers together like two fistfuls of worms. A hallucination, he understood. My mind is lost.

  “Something the matter?” Unctulu burbled.

  The question was not so easy to answer. Physically, he felt nothing, neither pain nor pressure nor the terrible chill of the shadow-swarmed sky. But his mind felt frozen, and the synapses of his intellect shattered.

  Rising to his feet, he kept his back to Unctulu. He wanted the maggot to guess nothing. “What other business?” he managed to say. “If nothing, let me be for the night.”

  Oblivious, the fiend settled deeper into his chair. “This is what we admire about you, Pale One. You’re always straight to the point. I like these things: your dedication, your willingness, your lack of humor. It’s almost…charming.”

  He pivoted halfway around. He needed to be alone, to mill the night’s experience away with sleep. “What do you mean?” he said.

  “I mean what I mean what I mean.” Unctulu’s tone turned serious. “You’re good at what you do, so very good. Why, what other creature could be reborn from such suffering and yet be so eager to return to his wicked work? One would think you might conjure some pretend piety or run and hide in whatever place Father Sun shines brightest. But no, not dearest Degiliac. You dabble with a devil’s hands, and become the tool
the Master requires. I doubted you, Pale One. We all did. But now I’m envious. For who else, even the lowliest among us, would kill every soul the world knows just to save himself?”

  He hesitated for three hard breaths. Not mocking me, he understood. Praising me.

  “Please go,” he said. “I’ve orders to draft, plans to hasten. Leave me be for the night.”

  Unctulu twitched, but remained sunken like a boulder in his seat. “I will, I will, Pale One, and leave you to your sulking. But first, more news. My visit is for more than girlies and gallows-fodder. We’ll have visitors soon. I think it’s best you know.”

  “Who?” He shut his eyes.

  “More of the Sleeper’s servants,” Unctulu gurgled. “Thirty of the finest dead men you’ll ever meet, and the one whom our Master has chosen as his new apprentice. I doubt you’ll like him, Pale One. None of us do. He’s the Sleeper’s eye, this one, and he’ll have questions. He’ll want to see how much progress you’ve made, how deep the wolflings have dug. I wouldn’t lie to him. He’s got as much Archithropian in him as you do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll see. Soon enough.”

  He grated his teeth. “I’ve done everything the Master wanted. Now go. I’m weary, and just the smell of you makes my eyes hurt.”

  Pleased to prove himself a nuisance, Unctulu let out a disgusting snort. “Tomorrow, Pale One.” The fiend pushed himself out of his chair. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, we’ll talk more. Alert your captains and have them ready ere the Father sinks beneath the Gluns. The apprentice’s wagons were only one day behind me.”

  Unctulu backed away from the table and waddled toward the door. His vials clinked and his moth-eaten tunic spread its malefic odor. Scuffing his feet against the threshold, the fiend offered a last loathsome smile.

  “G’night, Pale One.” He slid like a slab of stinking meat into the dark. “Remember tomorrow.”

  The door thudded shut and Unctulu’s shadow vanished. Archmyr reanimated only when the stench subsided. As though the weight of the Undergrave had been lifted, he sank into his chair. Steely glowers and perfect postures were all he usually offered the world, but no longer. His encounter with Them weighed on his mind. He felt as though his head were filled with gruel and his heart pumping poisonous dust in place of blood.