by Scott Zamek
Filby knew as much. He was tired and hungry and wanted to rest, but he knew they could not possibly hope for the soldiers to have held the pass. Theirs was a delaying maneuver, meant to give the few who now walked out of the mountains a slim chance, and the order of the day, the pressing action, became one single-minded duty: flight. But traveling through the night made progress painfully slow and tiring, and so Filby was relieved when the first sallow rays of dawn backed the foothills ahead with a dull morning light. Soon he could see the figures of his companions marching in front of him: vague silhouettes descending through the drab foothills that extended endlessly to the east.
The snow abated but did not fully stop. Light flakes still scattered down from a covered sky, but the white pinnacles and frozen cliffs receded into the western skyline, now replaced by high hills clad in patches of dirty snow and dun, withered grass. Walking became easier, and Aerol set a quick pace. Patches of snow disappeared; the hard, frozen ground was left bare and blanched by sooty days and the malign fingers of darkness that held the land firm and unceasing. The peak light of noon showed as nothing more than a gasping twilight, yet still Aerol led on and did not slacken the pace. Finally, the snow disappeared altogether. Descending foothills reached forever to the eastern horizon, and the sameness of the land made a gaze in any direction a grim exercise in monotony. It was as if the hills had been engulfed in a great fire, leaving only withered ground and the ashen color of long-dead weeds.
They marched well through the night, until Aerol finally called a halt. Not one of them was immune to fatigue, but they went about setting up camp—cold, wet, and exhausted—without word or complaint. There were enough dried and brittle shrubs around to build a decent fire. Eyebold began boiling some beans, while Ethreal unpacked the bedrolls and laid them out near the fire. No moon showed itself on this black night; the only light came from glowing embers and the crackling shrubs Eyebold fed into the flames. Filby broke out the canteens, and the four were soon sitting in silence around the warmth of the fire. Exhaustion had overtaken words, and there was little to be said. Their flight had hidden any immediate sadness over the sacrifice laid down to allow them their mission. But now grim memories welled up in the silence and inaction of the deep night. Thoughts of the unknown road ahead still plagued them, though none could dispel a lingering sense of grief over the death and bravery that had aided them in their long journey east.
“Do you know where we are?” Turning to Eyebold, Aerol broke the silence.
“It is true I have traveled over the mountains, but these were always dangerous and dark lands, and I never traveled far. I fear these roads are unknown to me.”
“At least we have outpaced the enemy,” said Ethreal. “If indeed any follow.”
Aerol stayed alert, though the camp was well hidden and protected by surrounding hills. “They cannot negotiate the pass with horses,” he said, as he stood and rolled a branch onto the fire. “That gives us some time.”
“But if we don’t know where we are . . .” Filby looked at the others in the flickering firelight. The new branch sent sparks across the night.
“No one has been here since your grandfather,” said Aerol. “We truly do not know what we will find. The Light of Endura is fabled to be held in a great temple, the Temple of the Ancients, with a marble stairway leading up through stone pillars. And inside, the sacred hearth that holds the Light, but no one knows where the temple is and no living soul has ever seen it.”
Ethreal bolted to her feet. A sudden rustling in the darkness. Aerol stood, his sword naked in the firelight. Eyebold and Filby drew their swords and stared into the night.
“Stay your swords!” Sergeant Broadhurst and Lieutenant Lockley stumbled into the light. They stood, breathless and bloodied. Lockley buckled over and held his knees. “We thought we would never catch you.” His lungs pumped and a gash on his left arm dripped red into the dark earth. They each carried a musket in their right hand, but an extra musket was slung behind the sergeant’s back, and Lockley wore a flintlock pistol tucked inside his belt. “We followed your tracks in the snow, then saw your fire.”
“The others?” asked Aerol, as the soldiers were brought next to the fire. Filby handed them canteens and they drank quickly.
“No others,” replied Lockley. “We are all that’s made it.” He sat down and shook his head, as if remembering something beyond belief. “We fought to the last man. And the captain . . .” Lockley lowered his head.
“It was a right awful slaughter,” said the sergeant. “Right awful.”
“The Captain stood there,” said Lockley, raising his hand in the air as if grasping the past. “Alone. Twenty feet in front of his men, raising a silver cavalry sword . . . urging the men on.” The Lieutenant gazed into the fire and his eyes glimmered, then his voice lowered almost to a whisper, as if he was talking to himself. “Standing there, sword held high against the tide, he seemed to represent all that is noble within the warriors of Andioch.”
“The last man fell,” said the sergeant, “and it was just me and the lieutenant standin’ alone in front of the pass. I gave ’em one last blast with the canon, and when the smoke cleared, the enemy was retreating. We searched the dead for what was left of the powder and shot, then we slipped through the pass and ran like hell.”
“They won’t follow us for a while,” assured Lockley. “They would have to regroup first.” He shook his head in reflection. “We gave them something to remember.”
“We should douse the fire as soon as you men have eaten,” said Aerol. “If you can see the flames, so can any enemy about. Get something to eat—see to that wound. It is late, and we are all exhausted. Tonight we rest . . . tomorrow, we read the map.”
FILBY opened his eyes and stared at the cold fire pit from his bedroll. He could hear the clamor of gear being packed, and the low chatter of conversation. “You are needed.” The voice came from above; someone was standing next to the fire pit in the morning light. Filby sat up and saw Lieutenant Lockley, his wound bandaged and looking much recovered from the night before.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Filby, sitting up on his bedroll, “is that another weapon?” He pointed to the flintlock pistol tucked inside Lockley’s belt.
The lieutenant pulled the gun out of his belt and turned it over in his hand. “It was the captains.” He glanced at the ground as if in remembrance. “Works on the same principle as the long guns—easier to carry, but not as accurate. Better for close quarters.”
“Then you will need it,” said Ethreal, as she walked over and joined the lieutenant. “Come, Redmont. The map is laid out.”
Everyone was gathered around the map as Filby kneeled down and began tracing the runes that appeared on the vellum. “There are some new ones,” he said as he drew. “And they are all much clearer than before.” Once finished, he laid the paper out on the ground next to the map. Aerol and Eyebold crouched low and studied the runes carefully for many minutes.
“This first one refers to the Light of Endura,” said Aerol.
Eyebold nodded his head in agreement. “Undoubtedly. And here is the one for ‘oblivion’ or ‘cease to exist’ or . . .”
“It is ‘death.’ Did we not agree?” Aerol gave the Watcher a quick glance.
“Quite right, ‘death.’ Eyebold leaned down and analyzed the first line of runes. “The Light is dead.”
The reading stopped as everyone began talking at once. “What does it mean?” asked Filby, raising his voice above the chatter.
“It is as we already feared,” answered Aerol. “The Light of Endura has expired. The days quickly grow dark, but quiet now—there is more.” He touched his finger to the next rune on the paper. “It is the rune ‘to seek’ as it appeared before.”
“And the next,” said Eyebold, bending down close to the paper. “It is ‘the keeper’ again. The second line reads, ‘seek the keeper.’”
“Seek the keeper?” Ethreal stood with her hands curled into fists
and perched on her hips. “It is meaningless.”
“There is more.” Aerol pointed to the next rune on the page. “The rune for ‘small flame.’”
“Ember,” said Eyebold. “I think it means ‘ember.’”
Aerol ran his fingers over the second line of runes. “Seek the keeper of the ember.” He paused and took in the runes in their entirety. “Together it reads, ‘the Light is dead, seek the keeper of the ember.’” He looked around at his companions, but they all glared back in confusion.
“And the last?” asked Filby, pointing to the final rune on the page.
“It relates to time,” answered Aerol. “I believe it is meant to tell us that our time is limited, and we must hurry.”
“What does it mean?” asked Sergeant Broadhurst, as he slung a small pack of powder and shot behind his back.
Aerol shook his head and turned up his palms. “It bids us seek the keeper of the ember.”
“It is nonsense,” said Ethreal.
“Who is the keeper of the ember?” put in Lieutenant Lockley. “And how the hell do we find him?”
“There are lines!” shouted Filby. “On the map, I see brown lines!” He grabbed his pen and frantically began drawing on a new sheet of paper. After several minutes, he held it up to the others. It was nothing more than a set of triangles and circles and straight, parallel lines. Aerol took the paper and looked at it from several angles.
“That is even more meaningless,” grumbled Ethreal.
“Wait,” urged Eyebold. He took the paper from Aerol and held it up to the horizon. Then he moved it around to the four directions of the compass. “I believe it to be a map.”
“That?” Ethreal waved her hand through the air as if dismissing a gnat.
“Look,” said Eyebold. “If this line is the road we are on now, and this line is the road we are to take, then this jagged triangle is that mountain peak over there.” He pointed to a distant peak on the horizon. “And our way is to be the path to the north of that peak.”
Aerol stood behind Eyebold and matched the lines with the eastern horizon. “I believe he is right.” Filby took a turn, then Lockley, and finally the sergeant. It seemed Eyebold was right.
“And the keeper of the ember?” scoffed Ethreal. “What are we to make of that?”
Aerol glanced at his friend and suppressed a quick smile. He had known the warrior of Effindril for many years, and her reactions had become predictable. “All we can do is follow the map and see where it leads us. That is why we brought the see-er, and that is why his grandfather protected the map for all these many years.”
“Then let it be,” said Ethreal in a subdued tone. “If the elder Redmont thought it to be true, we must honor the dead.”
Sergeant Broadhurst slung his extra musket behind his back, and the others packed up their gear. Aerol folded up the map, tightened the scabbard around his waist, and turned toward the distant peak on the far horizon. The others fell in line as the group slowly made east into the heart of the Beyond Lands.
THE LIGHTLESS foothills rolled onward, endlessly descending in their monotony, as if the surface of the world were wrinkled upon itself forever and at once; as if the earth had been dipped in dim gray and the sun had fled eternally to the gentle lands of the west. There was no path; the group of six made their way over hard and barren hills, Aerol in the lead and Sergeant Broadhurst bringing up the rear. The faint clatter of gear reverberated through the highlands as Lieutenant Lockley’s cavalry sword rubbed against his belt and his flintlock pistol. The soldiers carried their muskets in their right hand, at the ready, and the extra musket slung behind the sergeant’s back remained primed and loaded. All were alert and aware of their surroundings. They did not know what they would find in the unknown quarter ahead; the myths and legends of the Beyond Lands spoke mostly of the Light, and failed to mention any creatures that might lurk in the darkest land of all.
Nothing stirred throughout the pathless hills, only a northerly wind blew bitter with the scent of ashes. The sky was gray and blank and seamless above, but the incline of the foothills gradually softened, becoming shallow and more rounded as they left the Far Mountains behind. The air remained cold, lifeless, as if something had sucked the very heart out of the world and left it dead and bleak and without form or substance. It was no longer snow that gave way underfoot, but brittle and withered plants unable to survive in the brooding air. Aerol was thankful for the supplies they had gathered from the soldiers, for he knew no living thing could grow or graze in such a place.
His black cloak rippled in a winter wind as Aerol led along the hard earth and raised his weary eyes to the east. A tan line curled around low-lying hills, rising and bending off into the distance where sky came to earth and melted the hills into a dim blur. They knew to stay alert, for there were no goats or deer to create such a path. But it was also not wide enough for any army; not wide enough even to hold two men abreast, and so they proceeded in single file along the thin way. A polluted lake appeared to the south, frothing over with scum to send the reek of decay through the stillness above. Eyebold stopped and held up his hand. “Look,” he called, and pulled Filby’s hand-drawn map from his pocket. He pointed to a circle on the map that earlier seemed to have no meaning, then he held the paper up to the lake. “The circle represents that small lake.”
“It may be so,” said Ethreal, looking to the barren south.
“At least we are reassured,” said Aerol. “We must continue east.”
They reached the solitary peak depicted on Filby’s map, where the tenuous path followed around the bare base of the mountain in a wide sweep to the north. Before them, the last isolated valley of the foothills angled downward and away to the east, but at the far side even Filby could see an abrupt end, where the valley faded into the deep darkness of tees and the path was swallowed by twisted shadows. Nothing could be seen to the north or south but an endless expanse of blanched earth, any sign of green long chased from the land by countless months of cruel days. Filby took one last look over his shoulder. Stretching behind them, forever lost in the distant lands of light and living things, a jagged line in the sky sealed off the western world like a great dark force: the last visage of the Far Mountains, its frosty peaks still barely glinting like far-off ocean waves.
Aerol led the way down into the desolate valley, where the path slowly widened into a lane of hard-packed dirt. A solitary brick appeared, powdered with dust and rounded at the corners by wear, then another deep-seated brick marked the road, its decayed top barely visible above the dirt and sand of the surrounding valley. Looking ahead, Aerol could see a line of weatherworn bricks half-buried in dirt and dead weeds, as if the road had been hidden by the passage of time. And beyond, the withered way disappeared into a thick row of waiting trees.
Filby felt the smooth, rounded stones under his feet as they trudged east. He felt the backpack full of supplies heavy around his shoulders, and loosened the straps slightly. “When was the last time this road was used I wonder?”
“Perhaps last used by the Ancients themselves,” said Eyebold, the soft sound of reverence in his voice.
The ancient road now showed only in patches, the rest hidden beneath brown moss and barren soil. Time had erased all in the land of the beyond, all that was once green and good; all that was bright and the once blue skies, and the malign forces were still at work—trying to eliminate the last sign of the Ancients. Nothing was immune. The color of decay and dirt and ashes mingled together to create a dark earth, and even the path was so inseparable from the land that it showed only as a discolored scar across the center of the valley. The sky of late, constantly dark and overcast, now became black with thunder marching in from the north. A gathering storm hovered above the forest, where the horizon reached down with roiling clouds to meet the treetops. Aerol stopped at the edge of the dark trees, just as an off-color rain swept in and turned the valley floor into a swampy mire.
“We have to go through that?” Filby fl
ipped up the hood of his cloak and watched the cold drizzle trickle in streams from the brim of his hood. The others stood in the deep shadow of the wood, peering into tangled branches. A heavy mist lay upon the land, heaving upward in ghostly clouds, and though they could see the path enter the forest like a burrow, it soon crooked left and disappeared into the gloom of darkness and fog. No leaves grew in the sterile wood, or very few, and what leaves did hang lifeless from the trees were brown and thick with fungus. Still, the knotted branches were so dense and intertwined that a canopy did hang overhead, a canopy of black vines and misshapen limbs working the sky above into a jigsaw of dismal clouds and rain.
Aerol said nothing. He lifted his hood against the sweeping storm and turned away from the valley to the dark path and into the trees. The rain slackened under the decayed branches, but it seemed to Filby as if they had stepped into a cavern where the light was that of the dim hour of dusk; as if the sun had already disappeared below the horizon. The only hint of day came from behind, from the opening of the tunnel upon the valley. They turned a corner where the path crooked left, and soon even the small glimmer from the valley disappeared. Densely woven limbs blocked out the sky, and it was not long before none could see save the Watcher. Eyebold crouched down in the thin darkness and broke off two dead branches, wrapping some moss around the end, then he lit the torches and gave one to Aerol in the lead and one to Lieutenant Lockley in the rear.
“Stay close.” Aerol held the firebrand high over his head, dripping chunks of moss onto the ground. The embers burned and sputtered below the heels of the Watcher who followed behind, then simmered with smoke as Filby passed, then Ethreal and the soldiers. Shadows crossed ahead like great dark holes slamming the way shut, while thin streams of rain escaped the branches above and pattered onto cloaks and hoods, into eyes and onto damp boots. Odd and eerie sounds began to echo from far off in the trees—the mournful call of animals, creatures unknown, and Aerol began to fear nightwraith. The day was surely dark enough for any evil of the night to roam free, but the call they heard from the grim wood was not wraith, nor was it any sound known to Aerol or Eyebold or any of the others. It was distant and cold, a long and forbidding howl, and it called across the forest and was answered by another.