Nightlord: Orb

by Garon Whited

  We dressed me for it, I opened the tube-gate, we flinched away from the light, and I closed the gate.

  “Well?” I asked, addressing Firebrand and Bronze. I heard the psychic whisper between the two as they conferred.

  It’s much dimmer, Firebrand reported. The sun is probably going down. Try again in another half-hour.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Try?” Mary asked.

  “A drone flew over. Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe it’s a problem.”

  “I see. So, what do we do? We can’t just pack up and leave—well, wait. Could we? I mean, if the plastic arch is all charged up and ready to go, can we pick it up and run?”

  “We can. I’d rather not. Instead, let’s see if we can set up some magical defenses.”

  “Ooo! You have my attention!”

  “First, let’s thread some twine, pour in some lighter fluid, and pack in the fertilizer.”

  So we set up the chemical self-destruct before we went through the process of several more spells. Detection, cloaking, shielding, deflection, absorption, grounding, disruption—all the usual things. Mary likes cloaking spells, too. She’s a much better sneak than I am; when she gets the hang of cloaking spells, even magical alarms might not notice her.

  I kept expecting the buzz of a flying-wing drone. Or the tromp of booted feet. Or the hum and crunch of off-road vehicles. Something. And yet, there we sat on a constant upwelling of power while nobody seemed to notice. I did check for scrying spells, but nothing showed itself. I didn’t see any drones, either, not even at high altitude. Satellites, yes, but you can’t tell what those are looking at.

  We tried the tube-gate again; it didn’t seem too bright, but it felt itchy. A good sign. It was probably sunset. We waited another ten minutes and checked again. By then, the light was gone.

  After a quick double-check of all our gear, we bounced aboard Bronze and made our run-up toward the gate. It flickered, opened, and steadied down as a doorway to elsewhere. We shot through and Bronze skidded to a halt on the uneven flagstones, turning, and I gestured at the Great Arch, closing the gate from this end. As the image shivered and rent like a torn and burning curtain, sparks and flame appeared in the fractured image of the far side. The gate on Earth burned away and the Great Arch was just an arch again.

  We were in Zirafel.

  The place changed in the last ninety-something years. It used to be a dry, dusty wasteland. Nothing grew there—nothing could grow there—for centuries. It was a place of ruins, rocks, and dust. Now grass and vines were everywhere, all dark and grey in the monochrome night-sight of the undead. The stones shifted with time and roots, made the footing uneven. Dust turned to dirt, lightly touched with frost. Where it had once been a great city cursed by a would-be goddess, now it was just a ruin at the edge of the world.

  Let’s see… we were in the Plaza of the Gate, so the Theater of the Sun was that way, along the Street of Summer—the way I went when I chased after Tobias. Without prompting, Bronze headed that way, hooves ringing softly on the layer of dirt over the paving-stones.

  “Where are we?” Mary asked, voice hushed. It was that kind of place, ruined and ancient.

  “The ancient city of Zirafel,” I answered, remembering. “Half the heart of an Empire that covered the world. The western capitol joined via permanent gate with its sister-city, Tamaril. Once ruled by the beautiful Queen Flarima, whose name means ‘Unfolded Petals,’ she decreed all men might worship as they chose, rather than only in the Fire-temple sacred to the Empire. For this, the city and everyone in it was cursed by the fire-goddess, condemned to remain within the bounds of their city forever, even after death. Their ghosts walked these ruined streets for over a thousand years. Which is a shame, really. The city was once a magnificent place. Public lighting covered hundreds of miles of streets. Fountains provided water to the public, but were also works of art. Wealthier citizens even had running water in their homes. Beneath the streets—”

  “I get it,” she interrupted, “it was a nice place. Now it’s a ruin and we’re in it. Tell me more about this curse.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s broken.”

  “That’s when you ate all the ghosts?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, it’s perfectly safe now?” she pressed, still looking around.

  “As safe as any other ruin, I’d imagine. Don’t antagonize the hydra or the gargoyles and you shouldn’t have a problem.”

  There was a pause while Mary thought about that one. She eyed me sideways.

  “There are hydras and gargoyles?”

  “Not that I know of. It’s a way of saying you should still be on the lookout for mundane threats, but the broken curse isn’t an issue.”

  “Those are mundane threats?”

  “Around here? Yes.”

  “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

  “I’m not trying to be.”

  We rode in relative silence for several paces. The only sound was the bell-like chiming of Bronze’s hooves on the paving stones.

  “It’s hard to wrap my head around the idea I’m actually in a magic world,” she admitted.

  “Wait and see. I have something incredibly convincing to show you.”

  Bronze carried us to the Theater of the Sun. I remembered it clearly. I could almost hear the crowds screaming and cheering, smell the sweat and blood. From the outside, it still resembled the Colosseum. The door in front of us still lay where I left it, a broken slab of stone toppled inward from the doorway itself. Bronze clomped over it with no trouble and carried us down the long, straight tunnel.

  Traversing the tunnel brought back a flood of memories that weren’t mine. Geography and some celestial mechanics, mainly. To the extreme south of the world, a mountain range ran east-west across the southern edge. It was variously known as the Mountains of the Sun—the sun arced more or less over the range—or the Dragon Range, sometimes as the Spine of the Dragon—named so because it was inhabited by dragons. The sun rose at the eastern end of the range, arced over it, and set at the western end. Seasons came and went because the arc varied through the year, tilting farther north, more directly above the world, to spread more warmth, or swinging away south, beyond the southern Edge, leaving the world colder. It always rose and set at the same points, then arced through the sky at different angles.

  Since the plate doesn’t spin on an axis, does that mean the line between the points where all the solar arcs meet, east and west, would be the dominant navigational line? Does the world have an East Pole and the West Pole, somewhere at the extreme ends of the Dragonspine Range—or Mountains of the Sun, or whatever they’re called? I think it does. I’ve chomped down enough navigators to think so, anyway.

  This place is weird.

  The first time I came this way, I was in a hurry and still only beginning to digest a mammoth meal of ghosts. At the time, I recognized the tunnel was aligned with the solstice and, since I was used to a spherical world and sensible astromechanics, assumed it would naturally illuminate the altar on the solstice dawn. Now, traveling in a more sedate manner and after having some time to burp, I realized the tunnel was, yes, aligned with the northernmost point of the sun’s solstice arc, not for any sort of illumination, but for some mystical, astrological significance related to the Mother of Flame. Sadly, the precise reason still wasn’t clear; I didn’t have all that many priestesses in my mental inventory.

  I could ask her, I suppose… but I don’t think I will.

  Sandy dirt and frost covered the floor of the Theater. No rogue grass grew in this place; the dusty soil blown in was too thin over the smooth-carved bedrock. And yet, the thing would still serve beautifully as an arena, even after all the centuries of neglect. They built it with all the finesse of the Dome of the Rock, and all the functionality and durability of a brick.

  We stopped at the Edge of the World. A clean, sharp edge marked the ending of the world, beyond which were only churning clouds and wind. And beyond that… let
us not dwell on the Things seen only in the outer darkness. And there were Things out there, in the darkness. Mortal eyes might not see them, but Mary and I could look at the them as easily as they could look at us. This was not a comfort.

  The clean, sharp edge was marred in one place. It was a dent, as though a sphere had crashed into the edge and left its mark before falling away. The inside of the curve was glassy and full of cracks, as though melted and left to cool. No, exactly as though melted and left to cool.

  We dismounted and regarded it all. Mary stared in wonder at the actual Edge of the World, apparently oblivious to the scattered Things beyond it. I sat down next to the curving section, remembering how Tobias and the Devourer exploded and took Utai—Shada—with them.

  I wasn’t entirely to blame, it’s true. But I wasn’t entirely blameless, either. Hello, guilt. Nice to see you, old friend. Where have you been? Really? Following me around all this time? How did I know?

  “How far…?” Mary asked, peering over the Edge.

  “The world is flat,” I told her, dribbling some sandy dirt into the curve of the crater. It slipped down along the glassy surface and flung itself out into space. “This is, quite literally, the Edge of the World. If you were to fall off, I really don’t know what would happen. As I understand it, the underside of the world is the Underworld, a place of cold and darkness where souls go to be cleaned up before they’re sent back for reincarnation. And no, I don’t really know how it works.”

  “So, the world is flat,” she repeated. “I could dig a hole and wind up in whatever this underworld is?”

  “Yep.”

  “Literally.”

  “Literally. It’s an actual, physical location.”

  “But… but how does… how does anything work? I mean, gravity? Orbiting the sun? All that science-y stuff?”

  “The sun goes around the world, same as the moon, and apparently on the same path. As for gravity, I haven’t the foggiest notion. It’s one of my big problems with learning flying spells; they make no sense to me. My best guess is there’s some sort of midpoint—a plane of gravitation, if you like—somewhere down below. If we dug a hole deep enough, we’d hit a point where we would start digging up.” I shrugged. “Whether it would happen gradually with a zero-G spot halfway down, or whether it’s as sudden as crossing an invisible line, I have no idea. Like I said, it’s only a guess. For all I know, if you fall off, you keep falling forever.”

  “But this… this is…”

  “Impossible, yeah, I get that. New universe. New rules. Some of them seem awfully screwy, too.”

  “Well, you told me about it,” she admitted, still staring out over the Edge, trying to see farther down. “Being told about it and actually seeing it are very different things!”

  “Yep. Do me a favor? Sit down. You’re leaning too far for my taste.”

  She sat down. Then she lay down and peered over the edge some more.

  “It’s hard to take in,” she confessed.

  “I know. I had a much more sudden and unpleasant exposure to it, myself.”

  “I’m not sure I like this.”

  “Well, when you’re done with the view, we can poke around the ruins. Ever been to Rome?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can tell me how this compares. When you’re ready.”

  “Okay.”

  Mary regarded the prospect for a while longer. I went back to brooding over the screw-ups I made which led to Shada being vaporized. It was not a pleasant experience. Revisiting past mistakes seldom is. Why do I do it? Masochism? Or—let’s be generous—a desire to not make the same mistakes? If I never make the same mistake twice, I have the opportunity to make all-new ones! Being immortal means I can make every mistake it is possible to make. At least, until I make one that results in getting killed. At least I’ll only make a fatal mistake once; I won’t be able to make other fatal mistakes. Whee.

  Long thoughts lacking in comfort, those.

  Mary dropped a stone over the Edge. It fell away from us until the thin, misty vapors along the cliff face obscured it from view.

  Mary threw another stone, much harder, going for distance. I grabbed Firebrand’s hilt, afraid for a moment her thrown rock might crack the firmament like a windowpane. I should have known better. The thing survived for thousands of years without a scratch. At least, until the Devourer blew its top right at the Edge.

  The blue sky beyond the Edge of the World rippled as the stone passed through it. Circular waves spread from the entry—exit?—point and damped out after a few feet.

  The sky isn’t blue. It’s not a function of oxygen in the air, or not entirely. The world is surrounded by a blue bubble that looks like the sky… because it is.

  Sometimes, I hate this place.

  “Okay, enough of this,” I decided. “And please don’t throw any more rocks at the barrier keeping the demonic hordes of the void from pouring over the world.”

  Mary put down the stone she had just picked up.

  “You didn’t mention that part.”

  “I’m sure I did. Devourer, headshot, magic fork, kaboom?”

  “Oh, that. You mean the sky comes down to within… what, a dozen feet of the Edge of the World?”

  “Looks like.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  We walked back toward the Plaza of the Arch. Bronze reminded me she was still carrying everything we owned. It wasn’t a complaint, just a reminder; if I planned to be running anywhere, it was best to leave it on. If we were going to be playing tourist in the ruins of Zirafel, could we stash our stuff?

  We searched some of the ruins around the Plaza. A few were still in surprisingly good shape. Good enough to camp in, anyway. One of them was probably an old vintner’s building; it had a cellar ankle-deep in broken and empty jugs. We unpacked there. It lacked a door, but the opening in the shop floor would be shadowed by the walls of the ruins and we could cover it with a polymer-foil emergency blanket.

  Suitably dressed—that is, openly wearing weapons—we rode Bronze at a walk through the ruined streets. I sat in the saddle while Mary stood behind me, one hand on my head for balance. She said she liked the view better from up there. I’d have thought being ten feet off the ground would be plenty. Maybe my head was in the way.

  We headed south from the Plaza, along the Way of Kings, to look at the Imperial Palace. Wind whispered between the buildings, the only sound in the place but for us. It was actually kind of eerie. Is it odd that the blood-drinking monster Lord of Night vampire finds ancient ruins to be eerie? I think so. I wonder what humans think of the place, assuming any humans have been in the place.

  Slightly less eerie and more creepifying is how I know my way around the streets of Zirafel. I can pick up the rudiments of language from a mere dozen dinners; it’s hardly surprising hometown geography shows up with a few hundred thousand. Micro-flashes of memory, sight and sound and smell, showed me glimpses of teeming streets, the constant babble of the crowds, the scent of people and animals living in close quarters, the sparkle of the fountains, the singing of buskers on street corners…

  Mostly, though, there was silence, cold, and knife-sharp winds.

  Sparky has a lot to answer for.

  Zirafel really does remind me of Imperial Rome in many ways. It’s the columns and arches, mostly, I think. For another thing, they both used concrete. They also had aqueducts to bring water to the city. Mary tells me Rome used vertical arches—straight sides, with a semicircle on top—while Zirafel tended more toward arches with full curves and fewer straight lines. They made much more extensive use of domes and vaulting, too. Columns were still present, but they seemed to be more… how to put this? I felt the columns were the cheap solution, as though someone went with pillars instead of arches because they couldn’t afford archwork.

  The curves did tend to give the city an alien appearance, broken by the sense of familiarity. It was grace embodied in concrete. Strange, yet
inevitable. I wonder what my pet rock would think of it.

  The Imperial Palace was a huge, sprawling structure, done almost entirely in cut stone, concrete, and ceramic. Four great, rectangular wings emerged, one in each cardinal direction, from a massive, hemispherical center. Red tile formed a shallow-pitched roof on the emerging wings, while the center was simple and smooth. A frieze of heroic figures and monsters chased itself around the top of the walls, under the eaves of the wings, while the central section remained unmarked. Broad courtyards of flagstone filled in the spaces between the wings.

  The place was more than merely standing; it was in excellent shape. Even the wooden portions of the structure were sound. The courtyard had a weed problem and some stones were starting to tilt, but the building itself was practically untouched.

  Someone had done maintenance on it. Someone might still be doing maintenance on it.

  “What do you think?” I asked, glancing up and behind me. “Do we go in?”

  “From the look of the place, someone still lives here,” Mary said, eyeing the place. “Maybe we should knock. Or is there a doorbell?”

  “I don’t think the Emperor had many unexpected guests. I’d say they used a servant as a doorbell.”

  “Shout?”

  “We could,” I admitted, looking the place over. “I don’t feel right making noise in this place.”

  Mary took a breath and cut loose with a full-scale bellow:

  “Hey! Anybody home?”

  I winced as the echoes wandered from palace walls, down city streets, and limped home again. Mary crouched as I winced and half-hugged me from behind.

  “Sorry about that. I don’t have the same reverence for the dead past. The stones won’t care.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” I grumped. She kissed me on the ear.

  “There. I’m sorry. Feel better?”

  “Only in the sense the universe blossomed into a pleasant place.”

  Mary chuckled and slid down one side of Bronze.

  “Coming?”

  Bronze flicked an ear at me, clearly telling me to go ahead. I patted her neck and dismounted.

  We went up a dozen broad, shallow steps to reach the pillared portico and the heavy bronze doors in the north wing of the Palace. The only ways in seemed to be the doors at the end of the wings. The doors in front of us were covered in scenes from the history of the Empire, most of which I failed to recognize. A couple were slightly familiar, but I couldn’t recall the details. Maybe if I did a search in my study. They were also untarnished, even polished, which made me look at Bronze again.