Nights of Villjamur

by Mark Charan Newton

  From the clinking and rustling sounds, the enemy had begun to approach.

  Sliding from the saddle, Apium gave the last-placed device a gentle twist at its top, barely able to see it in the pitch-black of night.

  And with snow whipping against him, all alone in this bleak vista, with his lungs finally collapsing, he wondered vaguely what, if anything, would be waiting for him on the other side.

  *

  Behind them, the night sky lit up with an unholy fire.

  The ice sheets rocked and lurched and cracked.

  The survivors were now close to the longships, where a handful of Jamur sentries stood guard. All of them stood watching this last noble act of Captain Apium Hol.

  Nelum realized exactly what had gone on, and silently placed a comforting hand on Brynd's shoulder. A small gesture, but enough.

  Tonight they had witnessed real heroism and who would have thought it would be Apium of all people. Chubby old Apium, more interested in carousing than soldiering?

  No time for sentimentality. Brynd muttered a bitter prayer for his dead comrade and gave the command to head south.

  FORTY-FOUR

  A fresh layer of snow, not that the landscape needed it.

  That moment when it had just stopped.

  A silence even the air appreciated.

  The sun, wherever it was behind all those clouds, was setting - darker and quicker than Dartun had expected. They would make some form of camp here, a cluster of canvas tents pinned to the ice. But what comfort would sleep bring being exposed so far away from solid land?

  He looked back at the map, then again regarded the terrain. They had travelled up the western coast without yet engaging with many forms of life. The remoteness appealed to Dartun. Maybe dying didn't seem to matter so much when he was surrounded by an environment so detached from normal existence - it was like you were halfway there anyway. Dogs barked into the wind. His cultist followers remained dutifully on their sleighs. Dozens of the undead stood motionless, waiting for further instructions.

  They were now crossing the ice sheets somewhere to the north-west of Tineag'l. Just a year ago and they would have been walking on water. Instinctively, Dartun knew that he wasn't far from one of the Realm Gates.

  Verain stepped up alongside, placed her hand on his lower back. Thick clothing, a fur hood, and beneath it all she looked so distant. 'How long, do you think?'

  'Not far. Two hours, maybe three.'

  'Are you getting nervous?' she asked.

  'Nervous? Why?'

  'I don't know . . . because of what we're discovering. Because we have no idea what to expect on the other side of these gates - if they exist.'

  'They exist,' he said. 'They most definitely exist.'

  'So why don't you feel anything, Dartun? You seem to have switched off your emotions.'

  Verain moved to face him directly, placed her hand on his arm in a tender gesture. 'I no longer know what to make of you. You summon the dead to your side. You drag us all on an expedition to find another world. What am I supposed to make of it? You've stopped talking to us - to me. It's as if the Dartun I knew has died, and you're not him any more.'

  Her words pitter-pattered on, and he tried to ignore them. He was dying: that was the whole point, wasn't it? But what did she mean, saying that he was already dead? Had he changed so obviously in the face of his sudden mortality?

  *

  Night, and a small fire had been built on the surface of the ice, transforming his cultists into strange purple silhouettes. The dogs had fallen silent, bedding down alongside the sleds so that the only sound here was of the wind, haunting and isolating. Undead men and women shambled in patrols around the periphery of the camp. Dartun explained his situation to Verain, and repeated his statement to the rest of the Order of the Equinox. He had never been clear about his immortality to them, but was now candid.

  When Verain looked at him he felt for the first time in months that there was a connection. He had satiated her mind. They headed for their tent. As others chatted outside, in the light of fires that spat against the bleakness of the Tineag'l sky, the pair huddled together under the same blankets, finding a renewed interest in the details of each other's bodies. Only since regaining his mortality did Dartun truly appreciate the texture and fragrance of her skin. Subtleties he had forgotten were rediscovered under his fingertips, his lips.

  As his mouth now sought the warmth of her neck, there came a cry from outside. Dartun sat up, peering around the tent as if to locate the source there.

  It sounded again.

  One of his order in alarm or distress?

  Dartun looked back to Verain, who reflected his alert gaze. 'Let's see what's going on.'

  They dressed quickly, then headed out into the intense cold where he saw his order gathered in a cluster, on a hillock some way off. He trudged through the snow to see what they were all staring at.

  'What's going on?' he demanded.

  'Godhi, something on the horizon,' someone replied.

  Dartun pushed his way to the front and noticed a strange glow where the earth met the sky. Directly north, a faint touch of white light shone like a warning beacon against the surrounding blackness. His heart started to beat quicker: could this be what he was searching for? But why could they see it now and not earlier?

  'Fetch my maps,' Dartun instructed, still staring in excitement. Within moments, someone was thrusting the documents into his hand.

  'Not only there,' Tuung observed. 'To the east slightly, as well.'

  Dartun's gaze shifted to his right, where another line on the horizon was glowing. And suddenly he recognized them as a row of torches. There must be hundreds of them, at least an hour's journey away.

  'Looks like an army of some type,' he decided.

  'Jamur?' Tuung suggested.

  'Possibly,' Dartun replied.

  'Do you think they're heading this way?'

  'How long have you been here watching?' Dartun enquired.

  'Not long. Five minutes at most.'

  'Let's wait a little longer,' Dartun said, then turned to the rest of his followers. 'Everyone get ready, round up the undead, put out those fires.'

  He turned to study the first light. It could have been an atmospheric trick, but he could have sworn the white glow there had aggregated into the shape of a doorway.

  *

  The scout returned, his light sled fizzing to a halt. Four dogs panted heavily.

  'So what did you see, lad?' Dartun raised his voice above the wind. His cheeks were stinging in the cold, so he brought up his hood.

  'I couldn't get very close, but that's no Empire army.' Todi shuffled nervously on the ice. 'Isn't like any tribe I've ever seen, either. I could swear most of them were wearing some weird kind of armour that covered the entire body.'

  'Did it look like some kind of shell?'

  'Aye, I suppose it could, yes.'

  'What else did you see?' Dartun urged.

  'Rumel, too, but not so many of them, though there's hundreds of the armoured things over there. They've pitched a camp by the looks of it.'

  'And the other light directly north?' Dartun demanded.

  'Shaped like a door, just as you said,' Todi replied. 'It's big - about four men high.'

  Dartun had no real idea what a Realm Gate would look like, but this sounded encouraging. However, he tried not to become too excited by the prospect of it. And the army camped closer could well have stepped through it. Dartun was aware that something new had come to this island, and it was far from benevolent.

  The coming of the ice really had brought a change upon the Boreal Archipelago.

  Todi tossed him back the deyja, a small device that caused momentary invisibility.

  Dartun was impressed by this youngster. Whilst he might be naive, he was always keen to undertake these risky little missions now and then.

  Dartun turned to the others. 'Prepare yourselves for an operation of stealth, using every device at our disposal.
We head for the gate.'

  *

  But he couldn't hide the normal sounds made by the sleds and the dogs, nor could anything but darkness hide the undead. Dawn was an hour or so away, the horizon not yet purpling as the Order of the Equinox sped across the flat ice towards the north. Sunrise and sunset were a sudden business this far north. The armed undead ran alongside them, an eerily regular patter to their footsteps, as if they had connected to some distant mind in unison. Dartun didn't actually care what they were connected to, as long as they offered him some protection. Whether they were up to confronting this new race that was invading Tineag'l was another matter, but he had his relics, and he was still the most proficient cultist in the Archipelago. Years of acquiring knowledge wouldn't be wasted.

  He crouched, his knees pulled up to his face, riding on a smaller sled along with Verain, Todi and Tuung, the three most trustworthy of his cultists. They travelled at the very front of the group, although the deyja was in operation so they couldn't be seen, only their trails in the snow.

  It wasn't long before he could discern the peregrine army in more detail. Setting eyes on them for the first time in this crepuscular hour, he thought the assembled creatures shunned light itself, creatures seeking darkness. Not the best omen.

  Their sheer numbers were worrying, too. Dartun estimated several thousand judging from the extent of their camp. Rumel mingled with the newer race, their distinctive skin reflecting the glow of torches ranged in neat rows to an almost mathematical precision. Dartun focused his gaze to the gate itself, the object of his travel. Of his desire. That way lay his only hope of finding something to prolong his life once again.

  The call of some instrument sounded over to the east.

  Torches began to shift, clustering in a manner that suggested a disturbance had been spotted. And Dartun knew full well that he was the focus of this attention. He tapped Tuung on the shoulder, who pulled on the reins to halt the dogs. Dartun pushed himself upright, stepped out of the sled. He picked up a skjaldborg, a heavy brass box like a traveller's chest, the same device he had designed for the Jamur forces decades ago. For a moment he headed forward as if to meet the oncoming ranks, even though he had his suspicions that they wouldn't be coming in peace. Dartun placed the skjaldborg down with a grunt, arranged it in the snow to face towards the intruders. They were indeed gathering in force now, a mass of black soldiers under the fire of torches. Thousands of them. He opened the relic, took off his gloves, adjusted the tiny dials inside. Closed his eyes, sensing the most minor of movements inside. A difficult task to perform in any weather, let alone out here. As the technology clicked into place, he opened his eyes to see sparks of Dawnir power flicker across its open surface. He stepped back, closed the lid, then glanced up to both sides in turn.

  Behind him, his order remained still, an expression of fear on their faces.

  'Don't worry.' He returned back to join them. 'They won't get past that for at least an hour.'

  'Where did you set the limits?' Tuung said.

  'I didn't,' Dartun said, and from someone there came a gasp.

  Dartun put on his gloves and waited.

  The army approached at a rapid pace, flaunting no banners - this was nothing graceful. The rumel rode horses, their heads clear above the level of the armoured alien race who travelled just as quickly by foot. They could soon see that this wasn't armour, but a kind of shell. Shell-creatures with claws, black and fearsome, but Dartun eyed them with a casual regard, as if watching an experiment.

  The thick ice vibrated beneath their feet, responding to the bass thunder of animal and warrior. Some from his order beside him gave a mumble of concern. There must have been over a hundred soldiers now approaching them in two columns, and at thirty paces away the skjaldborg was all that lay between them.

  Approaching troops and horses collapsed on impact when hitting the invisible wall cast up by the relic, the others colliding straight into the back of them.

  Seeing how it was saving them, this relic didn't seem so much a piece of cultist technology as a makeshift prayer.

  There were gasps of agony from behind it as the oncomers still desperately piled in to the shield. Horses lurched sideways. Metal armour pinged against the resisting emptiness.

  Such power gave Dartun a cheap thrill at times, but he maintained his composure.

  The shell-creatures seemed totally unable to comprehend what they faced. Fallen companions looked up from the ground with bulging eyes as the horses trampled them. At least they're not invincible, Dartun thought, seeing black blood spit against the flat nothingness and ooze down it as if on glass. To the rumel, at least, it soon became apparent that there was no way through, and some began shouting urgent commands to those at the rear. Their language was none that Dartun recognized.

  Eventually the turmoil ceased and the rumel stood observing Dartun quite calmly, militant voyeurs. He turned to beckon to his entourage. 'Come on - don't be shy.'

  The other cultists joined him.

  'They look just like the rumels you find in the Archipelago, don't they?' Todi remarked.

  'They do indeed,' Dartun replied. 'Which is interesting, don't you think?'

  'How so?' Verain enquired.

  'Because those ones have red skins, unlike any of ours. Otherwise they seem anatomically identical. Even those shell-creatures aren't all that far removed from what we find in our world. They're bipeds, for one thing. Yet if they stepped out of that Realm Gate,' he indicated the glow to the north, 'then why would there be any similarities at all?'

  'That suggests some evolutionary link to our own world,' Todi said. 'Or maybe we derive from them in some way.'

  'Excellent reasoning,' Dartun said. His mind was buzzing with theories. 'One might go so far as to say our ancestors might have shared origins, then?'

  Someone on the other side tried firing an arrow, which struck the shield, stopped in midair, and fell uselessly to the ice. Others scraped the invisible wall with their swords. They weren't going anywhere.

  Dartun walked in front of them, his arms folded, scrutinizing them. The armour of the rumel was sophisticated, he noted - intricate designs which had their roots in some of the ancient traditions of the Mathema civilization. They clutched swords, bows, small round shields, which meant interestingly that their technology seemed no more advanced than that of the Boreal Archipelago. Dartun wondered how this race might have evolved totally independently of his own world.

  Gasps.

  Dartun looked round to see a group of shell-creatures begin advancing upwards, digging their claws into the wall generated by the relic. He laughed at this absurd vision, but for a moment he wondered just how high the relic's range would offer sanctuary. He certainly didn't want to take any chances.

  One of the creatures finally reached the top of the invisible barrier, then fell some distance to the ground, not far from his feet. Within moments, as if perceiving his own thoughts, the undead soldiers approached it.

  'Make sure they kill it properly.' Dartun gestured for the undead to move. They shambled numbly forwards, inert, eyes focused at a vague distance. Fifty or so had gathered around their intended victim when another creature dropped from the summit of the unseen wall. As it collapsed on top of the undead, there was not a single sound of protest or alarm.

  'Enough now,' Dartun decided, turning towards his sled. 'We head for the Realm Gate.'

  *

  Dawn broke with ferocious speed, shadows chased off the ice in the blink of an eye. The sled ride was uncomfortable, the entire company remaining silent. It was as if no one even wanted to mention having just encountered things from another world.

  Eventually the sleds came to a halt and everyone stepped off and stood in the same flat landscape they had been travelling through for days.

  They watched, still in silence, as Dartun sauntered towards the glow of an immensely high doorway, which seemed to hover just above the ice, fifty paces away. A group of the red-skinned rumel stood by it, armed with
swords, but showed no sign yet of having seen either the cultists or the undead. Their armour caught the rays of the new day's sun, and their presence made Verain wonder just how many waited beyond.

  She watched Dartun produce an aldartal, a narrow brass tube employed to pause time. As he approached, Todi and Tuung put their two arms around each other, and--

  - suddenly were some way off, now taking a few belongings from their sled. She looked up to realize that Dartun had just unfrozen her in time, having the aldartal still in his grasp.

  'You OK?' Dartun enquired of her.

  'Yes,' Verain said, pulling her hood up and pushing the loose strands of her black hair under it. Dartun gave her a loving glance.

  'We're finally here. This is it,' he said with a smile.

  'I'm a little scared.'

  'It's the unknown, that's all. It's all we're ever scared of. I'll look after you, I promise.'

  She looked behind them and saw that everyone else was now motionless. Even the undead stood with precision stillness. Up ahead, the rumel soldiers, too, were perfectly still. In the snowy haze, the Realm Gate glowed invitingly.

  'I'll just get this lot undone and then we're off,' he said cheerfully. Dartun headed back to free the rest of his order from the bonds of time.

  He left the dogs in a state of suspension though, as they wouldn't be required for the next stage of the journey.

  As he marched back to join her, everyone else plodded after him. It was a surreal sight, these few dozen men and women, all cloaked in black, tramping across an ice sheet.

  They continued towards the red-skinned rumels, Dartun pressing ahead alone, clearly the most eager. There were twenty rumels in total, but that showed no indication of their numbers beyond. Were these ones just as wary about being here in another world as Verain was to be stepping into one? A bitter wind forced her head down, but she continued walking in the footsteps of the cultist in front. When she looked up again she noted how the light from the Realm Gate didn't cast any shadows. Just how ancient was the technology that had created this thing? It loomed higher and higher, and the nearer she got to it, the more impossibly tall it seemed.