Nether Kingdom

by J. Edward Neill

  Marid shook the rain from his hair, making a miniature storm of his own. “This Grimwain, why should we care what he does in Romaldar? If he wants to start wars and raise havoc in his own realm, who are we to interfere?”

  “Because,” she said.

  “Because what?”

  “He will not stay in Romaldar. He will return to Thillria.”

  “Why?”

  “The tomb. He will want the tomb.”

  Saul and Marid looked at each other.

  She walked through the rain. It washed over her, and when the lightning flashed shadows roiled in her eyes. “At least, we thought it was a tomb.” She stood between the two men. “But the Undergrave is not what we believed. I know. I looked within. I felt the presence of the Ur, and I understood. The black tower at the world’s bottom is no place of resting. The Pages Black names it a conduit. The Ur use it to influence us. And one day they will use it to return. They will come back. They will kill us all.”

  Marid, of course, did not comprehend. She looked at the poor boy, rain sluicing down his smooth cheeks, and she was glad for his ignorance.

  Better that he not know.

  Better that he thinks me mad and runs.

  Grey Curtains

  Peals of thunder shook the world. The rain minced the forest floor, the cold, grey curtains tearing at every tree. Huddled inside Saul’s lean-to of sticks and leaves, Andelusia hunkered between the two men. Marid tinkered with the lantern, while Saul clutched his bag of books as though it were a child.

  Both men were miserable.

  And yet this is nothing.

  With sleep impossible and the lantern light threatening to expire, Marid let out a groan. “Only thing worse than the weather is the two of you,” he groused. “All these riddles, all this talk of wizards and ghosts. It’s like you’re speaking a different language.”

  “What would you like to know?” grunted Saul.

  “Well…” Marid sounded surprised. “Who’s this Grimwain? What did he do that was so bad?”

  The thunder tore another hole in the night. The rain slithered into the lean-to for a dozenth time, a skinny waterfall dripping on Andelusia’s knee. After sealing the hole with another fistful of leaves, Saul clutched his bag of books close again. If the shelter falls, she feared, all his books will be lost.

  While Marid shivered, Saul tried to answer his question. “Grimwain. An exile of Romaldar, so they say. A killer and a lunatic. You’d never know it if you met him. I was his prisoner in the Undergrave, and he never said a word to me. He was calm, so damnably calm. Doesn’t matter. It’s all a lie. He’s the most dangerous man I’ve ever known. They say he walked into the court of Romaldar’s king and butchered dozens of armored men. They say he spent the entire night battering his way into the king’s chambers. They found the royal family the next morn, the lot of them dangling from the rafters. No one knows how he got them up there.”

  After another bout of thunder, Andelusia sat up. She supposed she should have been horrified by Saul’s story, but in the rain she felt impossibly serene.

  “You must warn Thillria,” she said.

  “You’re right. We warn them, and then we go home,” reasoned Saul.

  “You do as you like.” She shook her head. “I have other things in mind.”

  “Ande…”

  “Let it go,” she warned him. “If he comes, I will put an end to it. I will smoke him from his skin and watch him burn. Who else, if not me?”

  Saul sighed. Marid went back to fidgeting with the lantern. By now they knew better than to argue. They had tried for hours to no avail.

  They do not understand. She sat in silence. If I could hunt Grim down tonight, I would do it. I would dance through the clouds and burn him to ash. I would roast him and his army in their sleep. I would-

  “Ande, you’re shivering.” Saul cracked her concentration.

  “Not from the cold,” she murmured.

  “What then?”

  “I will not have to seek him out.” She ground her teeth. “He will come to me. He will march to Thillria, and he will want the Pages to finish what he started. He may not require me, but the Pages…the Pages he will need.”

  “Then bring the Pages to Graehelm,” argued Saul. “His army isn’t powerful enough to invade.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because no.”

  Saul argued no more.

  The rest of the night passed in misery, infinitely more for Saul and Marid than for her. The rain, cunning as any thief, found dozens of ways into the shelter, slinking through gaps in the leaves and through crannies in the little wall of sticks Saul had built. Saul was a well-traveled man, having endured such nights a hundred times before, but Marid was not so sturdy, and suffered the worst of it. She wished she could shield him, but my magicks were meant for other things.

  At some point deep in the night, the men nodded off.

  Marid’s soft snores gave him away, and Saul slept while sitting up, his bag of books cradled beneath his chin. Alone between them, she felt stifled. No room in here. No air. Must get out. Must walk beneath the rain.

  She had no way of knowing she was also asleep.

  Her dream felt real. After wriggling out from between Saul and Marid, she imagined herself slipping out of the shelter and into the rain. There she stood, wet and alone. Her dream was so real she heard Saul’s stallion whicker and snort. She pitied the poor beast, and after patting its rump she walked into a clearing where the rain fell hardest.

  This is where I belong. She believed she was awake. In the rain. In the storm. Happy. Alone.

  She closed her eyes. The feeling of the rain against her skin fell away. After a few contented breaths, she felt herself falling. A black stone, she tumbled through the soil and into the belly of the earth, spearing so deep that neither light nor heat existed. The void failed to frighten her. Her descent slowed, and her feather’s fall into the inky darkness soothed her weary soul. When she touched down upon the nameless surface at the world’s bottom, she felt as though she were standing atop cool water. It comforted her. She wished it would never end. She believed she was still awake.

  There was another in her dream. While she dallied in the dark, she sensed his presence drawing near, a cloud of sparkling stardust taking a too-familiar shape. She despaired upon seeing him, and yet the feeling was fleeting. This is no denizen of darkness, no Ur.

  This is Rellen.

  A wandering spirit, Rellen’s skin glowed in the abyssal dark as though lit by a golden-eyed lantern. He drifted to her side, and when he smiled she felt like the summer sun were shining upon her. He looked handsome, painfully so, his golden locks catching in an otherworldly breeze. She believed herself awake, and yet regretted not dreaming of him more often than she had.

  “Rellen.” She reached out to touch him, her hand passing through his face. “Where have you been? You so rarely visit.”

  “Ande.” He breathed her name. Misty motes of light escaped his illusory lips. His eyes, the color of the sky, smiled for her. “I miss you. If I could come more often, I would.”

  It was then she understood it was only a dream. She knew Rellen for what he was, a ghost, and yet she pretended he was real. It was not so difficult. She touched him again, her fingertips sparkling when she grazed his skin. He is happy. Far more than in life.

  After breathing in the sight of him, she looked deep into his eyes. “How are you here? Usually when I dream I am alone.”

  His gaze darkened. “I am a messenger.”

  The way he said it swept her good feeling away. His aura did not go cold, nor was his tone any harsher than a cool breeze on a summer day, but within his voice she heard purpose, something far from accidental.

  “A messenger for what?” She tensed. “Something bad?”

  He lowered his head. “You know why I’m here,” he whispered. “Your time’s coming. The lock awaits the key. The Ur move ever closer. These events are inevitabl
e, my love, set into motion long ago. You know what you must do. You’ve always known. I come to remind you.”

  In the time it took to breathe a single breath, she understood what he meant. She felt her heartbeat slow, her pulse plummeting to near total stillness. I am still dreaming.

  “I will do what I must. Even if it means the end of me.”

  He smiled. “I know you will. My brave, brave Ande.”

  “I wish I could stay here.” She touched his cheek. “I wish you were real.”

  His skin moved beneath her touch as though his face were a pool of water. Perfect ripples of stardust fluttered into the darkness. “I’m real,” he told her. “More than a dream, at least.”

  “Will I remember you when I wake?”

  “You will remember my message.”

  “But will I remember being down here…with you?”

  “I like to hope so.”

  He looked at her as he had in life. Warm. After a cup of cider at his father’s table. After a kiss. After making love in his tower while everyone else in the world slept.

  She wept. He touched her face, his fingers fading to golden dust. It was a sign to her that the dream was almost at an end.

  “Must you go?” she asked. “So cold up there, and so warm down here with you.”

  “I must. It’s warm here now, but not forever. If the Ur come, we’ll never be warm again. Not you. Not me. Not any soul alive or dead or in-between. Ours is the last world standing, my love. They’ve taken all the others. Someday, long from now, all the stars will go black. All of them save ours, I hope.”

  “No…” Her tears fell faster.

  “You know what you have to do. Don’t you, my love?”

  “Yes.”

  He began to fade. Tears dripped from her cheeks, lighting the darkness like crystalline motes. Helpless to stop his leaving, she squeezed her fists and hugged herself, willing the dream to last just one moment longer.

  “Goodbye,” she said.

  “Goodbye,” he answered, and then he was gone.

  Dawn arrived.

  The rain had slowed overnight, but not ended. By the time Saul and Marid crawled out from the shelter, she was already awake, standing beside Saul’s miserable stallion. The air was bitingly cold, and though the men’s breaths were frosted, hers was not.

  She saw the looks in the men’s eyes as they spotted her, her arms outstretched, her skin glistening in the rain. “Do not fret,” she told them. “I feel no cold. I am my father’s daughter.”

  Drenched and shivering, clinging to their shirts with blue-knuckled hands, Saul and Marid sloshed away from her. Beside a rotted oak they hunkered and conversed in whispers, glancing often in her direction. I could listen, but I will not.

  When they emerged from their secret council, she faced them.

  “You would be wise to leave now,” she said. “The sooner, the better. Hop on Saul’s horse and go north as fast as you can. It is summer elsewhere in Thillria. The days are warm and luminous. Neither I nor the rain will follow.”

  “Why north?” Marid, young and guileless, stood in the rain and dripped.

  “Yes,” said Saul. “Why?”

  “Because of Denawir,” she answered. “You must give warning to the King. Tell Tycus to ready his armies. Tell him the darkness is coming. While you go north, I will go east. I’ll journey to Sallow and stand as guardian of the Undergrave. The storm will trouble few in Sallow. Not many live there.”

  She expected outrage, especially from Saul. She waited for it, for the pleas begging her not to go, for the demands that she return to Graehelm and forget Thillria ever existed. She even imagined Saul might conk her on the head with his steel-shod staff, to carry me home as though he were a hero and I his damsel.

  “We were talking,” blurted Marid. “We agree we should go to Denawir. And if Tycus won’t hear us, we’ll go to Muthem. Saul’ll do the talking, so’s not to arouse suspicion.”

  “Good,” she said.

  “But about this Sallow plan of yours…” Saul started.

  “I will not discuss it,” she interrupted. “Perhaps Grim will never come. Perhaps he will prove content to ruin Romaldar. But not likely. If no one stands watch over the Undergrave, he will do as he pleases.”

  “Ande…” Saul tried again.

  “No.” Her gaze went cold. “If you wanted me to return to Graehelm, you never should have mentioned his name. Stopping Grimwain is what I am meant to do.”

  She saw the light burn out in Saul’s eyes. Her guilt felt crushing, but she hid it well, gazing into the searing, soothing rain without emotion.

  “I knew this would happen,” Saul lamented between crashes of thunder.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  “When will you leave?” he sighed.

  “Now.”

  “I’d rather you stay. We both would. We’ll go to Denawir together. We’ll outrun the storm.”

  “No.”

  Dripping, Saul retreated to his stallion. The poor beast was a brave creature, or stupid not to flee. Saul reached into its saddlebags, fumbling in the rain for many breaths before pulling his empty hands out.

  “I found the irons you brought for me,” she told him. “Hard as it was to touch them, I threw them into the woods.”

  Saul looked wounded. Ashamed, she knew. And betrayed. “I’m sorry, Ande.” He held out his hands. “I only thought…I hoped…I promised Garrett I’d come back for you.”

  She closed her eyes and reopened them. The rain tore the earth ragged all around her, but left the clearing alone for the span of several breaths. But for the slow thump beneath her breast, the world went still. “I am not angry,” she told them both, for Marid knew as well. “You have always been a friend. You would never try to hurt me. I know this.”

  “What happens now?” he asked.

  “You go north. I go to Sallow.”

  Saul lunged for her, but he was too slow. She sucked in a shallow breath and willed her skin to become shadow. His hand swept through her, touching nothing.

  The dawn’s grey light peeled away and all turned to darkness. In shadow shape, she fluttered to Saul’s shelter, became flesh long enough to snare her satchel, and then turned ethereal once again. She saw them watching her, horror in their gazes, hearts breaking as the storm washed over them.

  Goodbye, she wanted to tell them as she soared above the trees, through a curtain of rain, and into the clouds.

  I love you both.

  But I will never see you again.

  The Forerunner

  The Nightness claimed Andelusia.

  In one moment, she floated above the trees like a ship’s sculpted figurehead, and in the next she tore a hole in the heavens. She became shadow, her body and possessions stretched into a delicate slip of darkness, a dagger of Nightness no more tangible than a cloud.

  Forget Saul and Marid.

  Forget them and fly.

  Being so suddenly unbound from the physical realm intoxicated her. Her heart ceased to thrum. Her earthly emotions collapsed. She saw everything at once, the sky, the earth, and all sights between. In her eyes, dawn looked little different than dusk, for she was the sky’s princess and its pulse, a raven without bounds, a knife at heaven’s throat.

  She swept high above the clouds. The rising sun lit fires behind her, but she cared nothing for it. Skimming the cloud tops, she witnessed the true vastness of the storm, my storm. It roiled beneath her, a maelstrom, spinning around what she imagined was the very center of the thicket she had left Saul and Marid in. As she soared away from its heart, the storm did not react. It was a sluggish thing, a lumbering titan.

  But it will find me again. Slow and steady as death.

  Flying faster and faster, she reached the storm’s outermost tendrils, and once it was behind her she enjoyed a different sort of view, the spectacular panorama of Thillria at dawn. Villages dotted the prairie, their lights sprinkled across the failing dark like tiny motes of silver. Forests swayed peacefu
lly, untouched by the rain, though soon to be slaughtered. She soared above it all, a dark-feathered dove floating through the sunlight.

  After taking in her fill of Thillria’s splendor, she flew even higher into the sky’s stratum. The sunlight felt weaker here, and night’s last remnants clutched at the world. Up, up, up she flew, climbing until she soared at the edge of the terrible darkness beyond the earth. From her vantage the stars became a hundred times brighter than the city lights below. She saw millions upon millions gleaming in the void, and at the edge of consciousness she remembered what Rellen had told her in her dream: ‘Ours is the last world standing, my love,’ he had said. ‘They’ve taken all the others. Someday, long from now, all the stars will go black.’

  And we will be alone.

  Her wonderment withered. Soaring eastward, her awareness fell from the stars long enough that she glimpsed a dark sphere in the sky.

  The Black Moon.

  Here at last.

  This was as near as she had ever come to it. The dread sphere, void and soulless, looked upon her as though it were an eye and she an insect. Upon its surface she saw lines of magic, pale strokes against the midnight material. Prison bars for the Ur, she understood. The lines…not Ur magic. Newer. Cleaner. Drawn to bar their escape.

  She wondered how it had been done and who had managed the impossible task of imprisoning the Ur, but the truth remained beyond her comprehension. The longer she gazed upon the moon, the less she wanted to know.

  Too near. Too powerful.

  She tore her gaze away and never looked back.

  Fearful, she descended. She felt the Black Moon watching her, and she pretended not to notice, concentrating instead upon the far horizon. She hurtled through the lower atmosphere, spearing through the dawn at so terrible a rate that everything became a blur. Still faster she sped, stretching herself out across the sky until her shadow was longer than any cloud, narrower than any thread.

  Sallow. I see it.

  Dreary thickets and slate-topped hills arrived in her perception. All other features of Thillria tapered away. As her senses fragmented, the Nightness became her guide. She felt nothing. She saw only blackness. At the Nightness’s mercy, she hurtled through the morning mist until she touched down in a place she had never before seen. She became flesh again, pale and perfect. Nearly blind, she staggered between stunted, grey-barked trees until she came to a gnarled willow, upon whose trunk she collapsed into comatose sleep.