The Night Land, a Story Retold

by James Stoddard

  A tremendous roar erupted from one quarter of the night and another answered from a different direction. The whole country boomed with gargantuan, husky voices, as if men as big as houses ran shouting through the darkness.

  Naani, having heard many such noises during her month of wandering, began to tremble violently in my embrace, so I drew her deeper into the cave. But I was no less frightened than she; it sounded like an army of giants approaching.

  A dreadful, wailing scream rose and fell, the sound of a woman being brutally slain. My heart sickened; rage filled my breast. If not for my concern for Naani, I would have bolted after the monsters. When the girl's screams abruptly ended, Naani covered her face with her hands and broke into desperate sobs.

  Other screams followed, accompanied by the hoarse shouts and thudding feet of the giants stalking their prey. The whole land echoed with the sounds of pursuit, the din increasing until the chase seemed right at the edge of the hollow. I crept forward and peered out from a position where I could see over the far side of the fire-pit's rim. A cluster of humans, either naked or in rags, passed beside the lip—weeping, screaming, and panting—like wild animals fleeing the hunter's bow. Though I saw them for but an instant, the memory remains burned in my mind.

  Only my fear of abandoning Naani kept me from leaping after them, but no sooner did the humans pass than four giants thundered by, three a dull gray in color and covered in thick hair, the fourth a pale white, his naked body scored with livid blotches, and I realized I could do nothing to help those poor souls. Out in the night, the giants' bellows mingled with distant screams followed by silence.

  My heart ached at seeing the fleeing victims, too terrified and broken in spirit to turn and defend themselves. I knew, from what Naani had said, that her people had grown listless from being starved of the Earth Current for thousands of years, but even if they had possessed my people's vigor, they might have done little better in such a hopeless situation. Still, I always thought Naani an exception to her race, for regardless of the danger she kept her courage.

  As I watched these events unfold, Naani wept in the back part of the cave. "Oh, can't we do something?" she whispered. "Can't we do something?"

  I was about to turn to comfort her when a half-clad woman clambered over the edge of the hollow. She slipped and slid her way to the bottom, gave a quick glance over her shoulder, and hid herself by crawling under a rocky ledge. No sooner had she done so than a squat, hairy man, with shoulders broad as a bull's, scaled gracefully into the hollow. He turned his evil head from side to side, sniffing the air like a beast. Sharp tusks curled out of his mouth. He seemed to know exactly where she was, for he scurried, silent as a fox, toward her hiding place.

  Cold anger filled me. Though I could not aid the others, I resolved to save this one woman. Without hesitation, I leapt the twenty feet to the bottom of the hollow. I rolled to cushion the blow as I landed, but the Squat Man was so fast he reached the girl by the time I regained my feet and dragged her from her hiding place by one leg. She gave a shriek and I shouted a challenge, but in a split-second the hunter ripped her nearly in half, cutting her scream short.

  I was so blinded by rage I could hardly see the Squat Man as I hurled myself toward him. The roar of the diskos filled the hollow, as if it, too, yearned to gorge itself upon the hunter.

  My opponent turned toward me, no doubt thinking to deal with me as easily as he had the woman. He attacked silently, without so much as a growl. I swung the diskos at him as he sprang toward me, but he ducked beneath my blow with animal speed, then caught me by the legs and tried to tear me apart as he had his first victim.

  I slashed at him, severing one of his taloned hands. Even then he did not cry out, but threw me halfway across the hollow. I hit with a tremendous impact, my mail clanging against the rocks, my diskos ringing like a bell. But my armor protected me and I bounded back to my feet, still holding my weapon.

  The Squat Man reached me in two quick strides, still silent but frothing at the mouth in fury, specks of foam gathering around his tusks. I sprang forward to meet his charge, first feinting to the left, then swinging to the right with all my strength. The weapon shrieked as it took off his head and shoulders. The momentum of his charge knocked me backward and we fell together in a heap. I rolled away to escape his thrashings, then jumped up to strike again, my brain not yet registering his death.

  A movement to my left caught my eye, and I pivoted, thinking it another foe, but it was Naani rushing to help me, her knife in hand, her face pale but determined. As soon as she realized I was safe, she turned and helped me look for other dangers.

  Once we were sure that there was nothing else that could harm us, I said, "Go back to the cave. I'll give the woman as much of a burial as I can."

  Instead, she walked past me, avoiding the body of the woman, but going straight to the Squat Man's corpse. A dozen emotions flashed across her face as she stared at the broken form.

  "I didn't believe anyone could kill such a creature," she finally said, looking at me with a touch of awe. "No one from my redoubt could have done it."

  I shrugged. "Your people don't have diskoi."

  The ferocity in her expression surprised me. Her voice was hoarse, her breathing heavy. She stared at the dead man a long time, her eyes shining with disgust, hate, and, above all, triumph. She abruptly kicked the body, and then began lashing at it, kicking it over and over, her face suffused with rage.

  "I'll . . . never . . . fear . . . you . . . again!" she cried, striking the corpse between each word.

  I rushed to her in alarm and seized her arms. For a moment, she flailed against me and I had to call her name several times before she finally stopped, her face red, her eyes wild. She broke into sobs against my shoulder.

  With the danger past, we trembled in each others' arms. I will always remember her defiance and the way she looked when she saw how I had killed the Squat Man.

  We dared not stay in the hollow much longer. I cast the torn body of the woman into the fire-hole while Naani waited a short distance away, her eyes averted as if in prayer. When I returned to her side, sorrow etched her face, as if I had given everyone she ever knew to the flames.

  Together we climbed back into the cave to catch our breath and eat. My battle left me parched, and I drank more water than usual. For an hour we sat listening, without hearing any more noises. While we waited, Naani prepared another sheet describing the way to the Last Redoubt, which she placed on the floor of the hollow, weighted down by a stone.

  We left the fire-pit and headed back toward the ancient sea bed. It took two hours to reach it, for we crept from bush to bush in case the titans were still searching the land. Once there, we felt safe enough to increase our pace, believing the giants would stay close to the fire-holes to hunt the humans seeking warmth. We traveled an hour into the sea, then turned slightly southwest and began skirting the shoreline, steering by Naani's knowledge of the country and the light of The Shine. By the seventeenth hour Naani thought that we had passed the fields of poison gas.

  We began looking for a place to sleep. I was particularly exhausted from my battle, which had left me bruised and sore. But after searching through the gloom for an hour without finding anywhere to rest our heads, we decided to build a shelter by gathering some of the smaller boulders scattered along the shoreline.

  During our discussion we both said the same words at the exact same time, and without thinking, caught our little fingers together in the dark of that grim land, even as we used to do in the early years. Solemn as children, we made a silent wish, the way a lad and lass might once have done. Then we laughed and kissed each other. In that moment it seemed that the world and time could not alter the heart.

  Naani carried the thin, flat boulders and I rolled the larger ones until we constructed a fortress big enough to sleep in, with the flat stones placed along the sides to keep creeping creatures from reaching us. When we were done, we climbed in and sealed the entrance with rocks.
It was a poor shelter, for it left us trapped if a beast found us by our scent. Though I said nothing to Naani, I felt as if I had crawled into my own coffin.

  We ate in complete darkness, then slept with the cloak over us. I could not bring myself to remove my armored shirt, though it would have helped us conserve warmth. As it was, I spent a restless night between the cold, my aching body, and my fear of discovery. Every time I drifted off I dreamed of fighting the Squat Man again. But Naani slept in my arms peaceful as a child.

  At the seventh hour, my soreness became so intolerable I could scarcely move, and I gave up trying to sleep. I slipped out of Naani's arms, intent on letting her rest a little longer, and after listening for several minutes, rolled the entrance stone away and crawled outside, where I walked back and forth swinging my arms, trying to loosen my joints. It seemed hopeless; my muscles were all but locked in place, and I did not know how I could defend us from danger when every movement made me groan in pain.

  Without waking Naani, I crawled back into the refuge and retrieved my ointment from my pouch. Once outside again, I stripped off my armored shirt and began rubbing the salve wherever I could reach, though I moaned from my efforts. I began to realize just how far the Squat Man had thrown me. Despite the pain, I had to rub fiercely to keep warm.

  In the middle of my work, I heard a stirring. Naani poked her head out of the shelter. "Andros, what are you doing?"

  "I didn't want to wake you."

  "I thought something was killing you out here." Her knife glistened in her hand.

  "Sorry. I tried to keep quiet."

  "Where's your shirt? Do you want to die from exposure?"

  When I explained what I was doing, she said angrily, "Why didn't you call me? You have no business trying to do this alone. Take your diskos and give me the ointment. You'll freeze."

  She hurried back to our sanctuary, brought the cloak and put it around me, then massaged my back with the ointment while I rested on my knees. When I could move a bit better, she sent me back to the refuge and had me lie down. There she spent a long hour rubbing me down, speaking gently but seriously as she worked.

  "You're not alone any more, Andros, and I'm not a child. I can't do what you can, but I can help. We have to work together. It hurts me that you tried to do this by yourself. Promise you won't do anything like it again."

  "I only wanted you to sleep a little longer."

  "It won't do. We are partners. What use is our being together if I can't help you? You have done so much, finding me in the darkness—"

  "I only did what my heart commanded."

  We both fell silent, while she continued my massage.

  Finally, I said, "Do you remember when Mirdath disguised herself as a villager to go to the dance?"

  "I do. You tried to stop me, but I was too stubborn. You had to fight two men who wanted to take advantage of me. You were magnificent."

  "You are still stubborn, Naani."

  "I am still stubborn. Don't forget it."

  We both laughed.

  "Does it ever bother you, the two lives?" I asked.

  Her hands slowed their ministrations. "It did at first, but not now."

  "Even though I know it's all true, I still find it hard to believe."

  "If you know it's true, why is it hard?"

  "I don't know. I feel pulled sometimes. Stretched. Don't you?"

  "No. I feel Mirdath behind me. She was beautiful and she knew it. I'm not as lovely, but I have always felt beautiful, even as a child. I think that was her. Believing I was pretty made me seem prettier than I am."

  "You are beautiful, inside and out."

  She bent down, kissed my cheek, and continued the massage.

  "It wasn't all confidence with her, you know," Naani said after a while. "She desperately needed someone after her parents died. She wanted a man to take charge of her. Sir Alfred did his best to give her security, but she never forgot that it could all be taken away. It made her needy, despite her beauty."

  "Don't you need anyone?"

  She laughed. "We all need someone. But that was a different time, a day of lords and ladies. What a world it must have been! Men going about, free to do anything they wanted; women, as captive in their houses as we are in our pyramids."

  "Were you unhappy, then?"

  "No, because I was a creature of that day."

  After the massage I felt better. I dressed and we sat eating breakfast, talking of ancient days, feeling the love between us. I remember that sanctuary as a holy place, a shelter from all the terrors of the world.

  We departed, leaving the ancient sea behind for the last time. When we reached the crest of the shore, we surveyed the land again. The Red Fire-Pit stood nearby in the southwest and monstrous figures moved against the glow of the flames. We dropped to the ground at once, thinking we might be revealed in the light, but were actually too far away to be seen.

  Fire-holes covered all that portion of the country, mostly red in color except in the field of poison gas far behind us. The Shine blanketed all the west, and in order to avoid both it and the Red Fire-Pit, we needed to travel west by southwest. This would also allow us to bypass numerous other dangers, of which there were so many that when Naani described them, it amazed me that I had survived my original journey. We would have to avoid the low volcanoes as we approached the mouth of the Upward Gorge, for though no one from the Lesser Redoubt had ventured into the night for thousands of generations, the Records indicated a tribe of wolf-men dwelling among the peaks.

  I asked her countless questions about the country, and under my prodding she said that The Shine was considered the source of every Force of Evil working against her people's spirits. Her grief overcame her as she told me this, and I took her gently in my arms, vowing to myself to ask only for those details necessary for our survival, to avoid arousing her sorrow merely for the sake of my own curiosity.

  We traveled northwest a while longer to give the Red Fire-Pit a wide berth. Its light illuminated the countryside for miles around, forcing us to crawl over the barren regions between the clumps of vegetation. We did not stop to rest until we felt we were far enough away from the realm of the giants, and when we resumed we turned southwest to avoid getting too close to The Shine, only to encounter a broad valley filled with a deep darkness. After some debate, we decided to cross it rather than go around, in order to save several hours.

  It soon seemed we had made a mistake, for though the valley appeared shallow from above, it proved tremendously deep. We descended three hours before reaching the bottom, and I became so nervous that except for Naani's insistence, I would not have even stopped to eat and rest. It helped that when I grew uncertain she kept calm, and when she became anxious I remained steady. So we balanced each other, as is the way of love between a man and a woman.

  However, we decided not to stop to sleep at the seventeenth hour, for we both urgently wanted to leave the valley behind. This was partially due to a lack of fire-holes, since the only ones we saw emitted an uncanny blue glow. But from the first hour of our descent we had both sensed an aura of evil within the vale.

  Two hours after we ate, we were halted by a vague sound. Without a word, we dropped to the ground and listened. Though we remained there for several minutes, we did not hear anything else, and eventually rose and continued on our way.

  We passed two places where blue flames licked out of the earth. A gas hung around them and their fires burned with an even, smoldering light, clear as a star's. A stench accompanied the flames and the bitter gas burned our throats so badly we feared being overcome. After that, we avoided the fires whenever we could.

  An hour past the second fire-hole we heard a soft rustling behind us. We glanced back and glimpsed what seemed to be humans running through the night, their faces pale. They made so little noise among the stones I thought they had to be barefoot. So shadowy they seemed, so much like lost spirits among the blue shining, I hesitated to attract their attention, for more than one monste
r possessed human traits.

  Even while I debated, a noise arose, far in the distance, but in the direction where the figures ran. We recognized it as the mysterious sound we had heard before, though this time we perceived it more with our spirits than our ears. It became gradually clearer—the din of something spinning high in the air, as if at the valley's edge—and we both suddenly knew, beyond doubt, that it was a Force of Evil.

  Now that it was upon us, I realized that its presence had affected me from the time we first entered the valley. Despair filled my heart, for if it found us, how could I protect Naani?

  We heard the spinning descend into the vale and begin drawing closer. I looked around, trying to think of a way to escape, but there was nowhere to hide. In desperation, I drew Naani behind some boulders. To my eternal shame, I hoped it would find the other figures we had seen rather than us. Perhaps if Naani had not been with me, I would not have thought such a cowardly thing. But I will never know for certain.

  The sound came closer, its volume increasing. I could make out two distinct tones within the spinning, and a third resonance, heard only in my spirit, the sound of Darkness Incarnate, whispering of the Void and the Abyss.

  Without speaking, Naani drew her knife from its sheathe and handed it to me, so I could save her soul by slaying her. I raised my diskos, thinking it might be a cleaner death, but she whispered, "No, not with that. Don't cut me to pieces. A quick stroke with the blade."

  It became ever more evident that we were the Spinner's target, for it was almost upon us. I stood heartbroken and helpless, trembling. My mouth went dry; my heart hammered against my chest. I gripped Naani close to me, and could scarcely restrain a sob rising from my soul. I did not kiss her, nor she me, but we clutched each other while I held the knife ready. Despite the many dangers we had faced, I realized Naani and I had been happy in our short time together. Now death, and worse, had come.

  The spinning pulsed through the air, echoing off the boulders. I bared my forearm, where the Capsule of Oblivion lay embedded beneath my skin. A wave of blackness passed across my eyes, blacker than the darkness around me. I wondered if I had the courage to do what must be done.