Prelude
He lay like one who had died, buried beneath the lifeless soil. He cupped his hand to his mouth, making a tiny pocket of open air and tried to slow his breathing to a mere trickle – enough to keep him alive, but quiet enough to avoid the sharp ears of the creatures that stalked him. It was a desperate plan, almost certain to fail, but it was all he had left.
He had tried to cross the Dark at the Palina Gap without a sunstone. He had bet on the Gap being empty of Thramorri – a fool’s gamble if ever there was one – and lost. He’d had little choice in the matter; his sunstone, a cheaply made thing amateurishly cobbled together from fragments, had cracked just as he entered the deep Penumbra at the edge of the Gap. Without it, he could either turn around and hike back along the lamp-line to Embervale – a journey that would exhaust his meagre supplies of food and water – or he could take his chances and spend several long, terrifying hours in the Dark. He wished he had chosen to risk starvation on the lamp-line.
He felt a shuffling nearby and he froze. He could hear the muffled, guttural language of the Thramorri as it spoke to another of its kind nearby. He didn’t speak their language – no human really could – but he knew enough to know they were on to his scent. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize where he was in the Gap. He had struck out with the glow of the lamp-line at his back, and the faint glimmer of the lamp-line on the other side of the gulf directly ahead. He had moved fast – as fast as he could across terrain lit only by starlight – but the Thramorri had found him just after passing what he was sure was the half-way mark, a tumbled ruin from the last Dawn Age laying half-buried in the dust. He had tried to evade them, all the while pushing forward towards the glimmer of the lamps ahead. But they were too close, and so here, on the outskirts of those same ruins, he made the decision to hide. He had few options, none of them good, but this was perhaps the least worst of the lot.
The muttered conversation above him broke off suddenly and he tried to become even more still. He held his breath and tried to will himself to sink down into the dead earth around him. They would find him, if they hadn’t already, and when they did, they would tear him from the dirt and drag him off to whichever nightmarish hive they called home. They would enslave him, brutalize him and after breaking his body through labour, they would consume him. He tensed himself; he would fight them. He wouldn’t surrender.
There was an explosion of movement, muffled by the dirt in his ears, but unmistakable: the creatures were leaving – and quickly. What ever they had sensed had drawn them off! He waited until the heavy thuds of footfalls dwindled to nothing before bursting from the ground, trailing dust behind him like a comet as he sprinted with energy borne of terror towards the distant glow of the lamps. If he ran hard enough, and if there were no other Thramorri in the area, he might make it to safety at last.
It was a desperate gamble.
Part One: An oasis of light
Jenna stood at the boundary marker of the village and peered out into the gloom, her eyes straining for any hint of movement. The light this far from the sanctuary was dim, even by Penumbral standards, but still she stared. Tomas was supposed to have been back by now. He had been gone nearly a month, travelling east along the lamp-line from their home in Pelkan Sanctuary towards the illuminated lands of the Daggerspire. The starlit skies had been clear of storms and travellers arriving in Pelkan had reported the way was clear. On foot and according to the rigid schedule Tomas always set for himself, he should have been back by the first brightening of the sanctuary Lamp’s cycle yesterday. That he was not was uncharacteristic of the veteran traveller, and so Jenna worried.
She wasn’t by nature a nervous person, and she knew her childhood friend to be a confident – but cautious – traveller, but she couldn’t shake her conviction that something was wrong. She fished an egg-sized stone from her pocket – a sunstone – and rubbed it vigorously to wake its inner fire; she held it high above her head to push the darkness back – if only a few paces. It bathed her in a steady golden radiance, as if she held a tiny star in her outstretched palm. She was like many of the residents of Pelkan Sanctuary: pale-skinned and pale-haired. Her brown eyes were serious as she stared unblinkingly into the deep Penumbra, the shadowy lands at the far edges of the sanctuary Lamp’s spirelight.
“Jenna!” A familiar voice called to her from nearer the village. “Stop taunting the Watchers and come back to the spirelight!” She turned, frowning, and watched as her sister Anik edged her way slowly down the road towards her. Despite growing up in what was technically a Penumbral village, Anik had never truly been comfortable any distance from the blazing light of the sanctuary Lamp. Even here, where the fading light was nevertheless bright enough to deter almost any Thramorri raids, she remained overly-cautious.
“I’m not taunting anything,” Jenna retorted, hooking her pale hair behind her ears irritably. “I’m waiting for Tomas; he isn’t back yet.”
“Wasn’t he supposed to be back yesterday?” Jenna’s ash-haired sister asked, frowning.
“A first brightening. It’s not like him to be late.”
“Maybe he was held up in Embervale?” Anik asked hopefully.
“Maybe.” She held the blazing stone to her lips and blew sharply, extinguishing the light before approaching her sister. Anik was something of a rarity among her people; she was spark-numb, someone who was not only unable to interact with magical constructs like sunstones but seemed to be anathema to them. Had Jenna’s sunstone been active around her sister, it would likely have ceased to function – it might even have cracked. It had happened before.
As the light from the stone blew out, Anik’s dark eyes widened and she shivered. “Let’s go, Jenna,” she said nervously. “We can worry about Tomas as easily in town as we can out here.”
“Didn’t you think to bring one of those ‘chemy’ things you’re always working on?”
Anik shook her head. “It’s ‘alchemistry’”, she said with exaggerated patience, “and no, I didn’t. I’m still finishing the wiring on my luminator, and I don’t want to rush it. The last thing I want is another… reaction like last time.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Jenna smirked. “You looked a bit foolish without eyebrows.”
Anik snorted and grabbed Jenna’s hand, tugging her towards the village. “Come on. The sooner we’re home, the better.”
As she took Anik’s hand, Jenna was once again struck by how resourceful the young woman was. Her sister’s disability had forced her to adapt if she was to survive in their lightless world. Without access to sunstones or any of the arcane devices that humans used to keep themselves safe from the Thramorri, Anik would ordinarily have been confined to the brightest zones of Pelkan sanctuary, and she would never have been able to travel the lamp-lines to the illuminated regions of the great Spires.
Rather than resign herself to such a fate, Anik instead devised a workaround based almost entirely on a single passage of recovered text recovered a piece of Dawn Age writing that spoke of the ability to make light from mundane elements. For years her sister wrote letters to universities and arcane colleges, seeking any information on these ancient practices, and in time, her searches bore fruit in the form of alchemistry, the ancient, pre-Dark science of creating light and energy from the elements of the earth itself. With this wondrous, if sometimes explosive knowledge, Anik began to devise new and powerful tools that would free her from her dependence on the solitary sanctuary Lamp.
They soon reached the outer edge of the village proper and walked down the broad road that cut through the concentric rings of concrete and tile buildings and led to the base of the Lamp. They skirted the small, tree-covered hillock at the base of the structure and made their way to their family’s home, a series of interconnected concrete buildings surrounded by a low wall located somewhat apart from the rest of the village. The open land around the compound was neatly tilled, with rows of crops and olive trees which provided much of the family’s food and income. When Anik’s condition manifested, they’d had no choice but to put some distance between themselves and the rest of the village, and the orchards were her family’s way of putting that distance to good use.
“Come to my workshop,” Anik urged as they entered the compound, “I want to show you something.”
“I’m not going to regret this, am I?” Jenna asked nervously. “I like my eyebrows.”
“It’ll be fine, I promise.” She led her to a squat outbuilding in the corner of the compound and pushed open the heavy wooden door. Inside was a labyrinth of shelves, tables, and strange devices connected by wires and tubes. “Just stand over there by the door; I wouldn’t want you to wreck anything.”
She obliged, standing near the doorway, tapping her hand against her leg impatiently. She wasn’t here to admire her sister’s handiwork; Tomas’ absence could mean anything – injury, illness, Thramorri. She shivered. “What are we doing here, Anik?” she demanded.
Anik turned and gave her a long look. In her hands she held what looked like a lantern, heavily modified with strange pieces of wiring and what looked like boxes made of metal and wrapped with thick, heavy burlap. “I wanted to show you this, but you’ve clearly got something else on your mind. What is it?”
“Tomas.” Jenna replied. “I’m worried about him. He should have been back by now.”
“There’s more though, isn’t there?” Anik’s look was penetrating. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jenna hesitated. Anik was right; she wasn’t just worried about Tomas. She was frightened for him. Something in her was screaming that he was in danger, and she had grown to trust her instincts. They were usually right. “He’s in danger, Anik. I can feel it. I’m going out to look for him.”
Anik’s singed eyebrows shot up. “Since when?”
“Since right now. I’m not going to sit here comfortably in the spirelight and wait for him to find his way home. If he’s lost or hurt, he’s going to need help. I’m going.”
“Jenna, no!” Anik’s voice was frightened. “What about the Watchers? What if you get lost out there by yourself?”
“I’ll have my sunstones with me,” Jenna replied, her voice impatient. “The Thramorri will stay well away from me. Besides, I won’t get lost. I just need to keep our Lamp at my back, and the Embervale Lamp in front of me. It’s a straight line across basically flat land.”
“There are hills you know,” Anik replied acidly. “I’m scared, Jenna, not stupid or forgetful. I’ve walked the lamp-line myself, remember?”
“And our father died because of it!” Jenna snapped thoughtlessly, before slapping her hand across her mouth. Anik gasped and stared at her, eyes wide and full of tears. Jenna might as well have struck her.
“You’re blaming me?” She whispered tearfully.
“No! No, I’m sorry Anik, I’m so sorry!” Jenna moved to her, grabbing her in a tight embrace. Anik struggled and pulled away, her face pale with anger.
“You do blame me! I didn’t know I was spark-numb, Jenna! None of us did!”
“I’m sorry, Anik!” Jenna’s voice was anguished. “I don’t know why I said that. There was no way any of us could have known about your… condition.”
“That’s right,” her sister spat, “I was a child; how was I to know that playing with the sunstone would break it?” She set the object in her hands down on a workbench with a heavy thump and turned away. “You can leave now. Go find your friend.”
“Anik…”
“Just leave me alone, Jenna. I’ve heard enough thoughtlessness from you for now.”
Jenna left. Her sister was right, she thought as she walked across the walled compound towards the main living quarters. She was impulsive. She had an unfortunate tendency to blurt things out without thinking, and it hadn’t done her any favours growing up. She had a hard time making friends; Tomas was one of the only people in the village she had been close to as a child. He never seemed to take offence at her often-ill-timed observations. His patience had become a natural counterpoint to her impulsivity, and she tried hard to follow his example. Her steps quickened as she approached the living quarters she shared with her sister and their mother, a fierce, stern woman and one of the village’s principle healers.
Like most of the buildings in the village, theirs was made largely of concrete. The substance was cheap to make, could be poured into moulds for easy shaping, and once set, lasted for decades. Their home was simple, a two-story rectangle with rounded corners, and lamp-facing walls open to the spirelight. Where other homes used sunstones to add additional light to the interiors however, the home of Jenna, Anik, and their mother used sturdily-made iron lanterns that emitted a cheerful golden light. The walls of their home were thick and plastered, and the interior was cozy, filled with heavy rugs, low divans and pillows arranged in small piles on the floor. Jenna’s mother Kerra had painted the walls a brilliant – almost garish – red; Jenna wasn’t fond of it, but it suited her mother’s sometimes fiery personality.
“Mother?” She called, crossing the floor made of hard-packed mud and sealed with a thick layer of oil and wax. “Mother, are you here?” The house was quiet. Frowning, Jenna climbed the worn steps to the second floor and poked her head into her mother’s sleeping chamber. The pillows and blankets were neatly folded atop the round, wool-wrapped rattan sleeping mat, and a square piece of parchment, folded neatly and set atop the blankets faced the arched entryway. It was a note, written hastily in her mother’s distinctive hand above the glyph of her name,
Girls,
I’ve been called away to Greylamp Sanctuary to help deliver a baby. It’s not far so I’ll likely be back sometime after first Brightening tomorrow – maybe second Brightening.
There’s stew in the oven. Anik, don’t sleep in your shed. You have a bed. Use it.
Jenna cursed under her breath. She wasn’t going to wait for her mother to return; Tomas might not have that long. She folded the note and carried it back downstairs, where she placed it on the low table in common room facing the door. Anik could read it herself when she came in – if she came in before last Dimming. Jenna wasn’t about to spend any more time waiting around than she already had. She needed to pack for a short journey into the Dark.
She emerged from the house a short time later and strode purposefully towards the compound gate. She passed her sister’s workshop, pausing briefly to listen to the strange sounds coming from within before passing through the gate and out on to the path that would take her through the village. She was dressed in sturdy travelling clothes: padded leather breeches and thick-soled boots that covered her to mid-calf. She wore a heavily padded tunic that was pressed firmly to her breast by a pair of wide, pouch-covered straps that crisscrossed her torso and hooked to her belt. She carried a rugged pack over her shoulders, filled with everything she thought she might need for her journey: medicinal herbs and bandages, food and water, a spare change of clothes and a pair of old, worn boots the size Tomas wore tied snugly to the outside of the pack itself. As she passed through the outermost ring of buildings and made her way to the east facing lamp-line, she knelt on the well-travelled road and quickly assembled the most important element of her equipment, a long, flexible pole with a bracket at its narrowest tip. She carefully fitted a large sunstone about the size of her fist into the bracket and rubbed it in her hands to wake it. Its light flared out from between her cupped hands. She placed the wide end of the pole into a special mount on her pack. Once set, the pole rose high above her head, allowing the sunstone to cast its light in a vast circle around her. With that a blinding light overhead, only the most powerful of the Thramorri would dare attack her.
She set out once more, moving quickly down the hard-packed road to where a stone plinth marked the edge of the village and the beginning of the deep Penumbra. She didn’t hesitate, moving across the invisible boundary and into the twilight lands beyond. Beyond that point, the spirelight from her village’s Lamp was weak, and the danger grew with each passing step. Without her sunstone to light the way, the penumbral gloom posed a serious risk. Not only would it grow more difficult to see the path ahead, but the failing light posed less of a risk to Thramorri raiders in search of slaves or food.
She’d always found the deep Penumbra unnerving. Compared to the lush, green hills and fields of the village, the penumbral lands were alien. The further she walked, the worse it became. The trees grew stunted and sickly, their branches reaching almost pleadingly towards the spirelight, and the grass quickly gave way to exposed dirt and lichen-covered rocks. Here in the gloom, new life emerged; pale, fat mushrooms grew in vast rings across the ground, fed by nutrients blown out or washed to them by the winds or the rain. Were she foolhardy enough to extinguish her sunstone, her dark-adjusted eyes would see vast fungal patches, like diminutive forests of pallid, bulbous trees that glowed with a pale light. She shivered at the thought, glancing up at the reassuring light of the sunstone.
It was quieter here too. Living creatures tended to avoid the Penumbra. Even those that grazed in the vast, fungal fields knew to retreat towards the light before long. Her footsteps sounded loud on the hard-packed earth of the road, and she quickened her pace towards a tiny spark of light ahead, the first of three small Lamps that made up the lamp-line between Pelkan Sanctuary and the Palina Gap.
“Jenna, wait!” She spun at the sound of her sister’s voice. Anik stood in the road a short distance behind her, panting heavily. She was dressed in rugged travel clothes like her sister; heavy boots, sturdy padded breeches and a padded tunic festooned with pouches. But where Jenna’s pack was made of soft – but sturdy – cloth, Anik’s was heavily reinforced with thin straps of cloth-wrapped steel, arranged cage-like over a cluster of metal boxes. Heavy cables sheathed in layers of wax and ribbon snaked up a long metal rod that rose high above her head, only instead of a sunstone, it carried a large crystalline sphere that burned with a steady white light that nearly outshone Jenna’s sunstone.
“What are you doing here, Anik?” Jenna demanded, shrugging off her pack in order to extinguish her sunstone. “And what are you wearing?”
“I’m coming with you,” her sister replied, setting her jaw. “You can’t go into the Dark alone.”
“This isn’t a game, Anik,” Jenna replied in exasperation. “We’re not playing Taunt the Watchers here, and I don’t have time for you to experiment with your… toys.”
“I’m not playing, and I don’t need you to wait for me,” Anik’s tone was stubborn. “Tomas is my friend too.” She glanced up at the blazing white orb above her. “You don’t need to worry about the light,” she continued, “I’ve been testing this chem-light for weeks already and it hasn’t failed yet. With the lightning-jars I’ve attached to it, I can power the light for nearly three days.” She looked smugly at her sister. “That’ll be more than enough time for us to head out into the Gap, find Tomas, and get him back to the lamp-line.”
“Anik…” Jenna began but Anik waved her hand dismissively.
“’Anik’ nothing, Jenna. I’m coming. I’ve got my chem-light, and a few other devices besides. I’ve got food, medical supplies, and maps of the Palina Gap. I’m coming, and you can’t stop me.”
“Fine!” Jenna surrendered. “You can come; bring the whole bloody village for all I care!”
“Jenna be reasonable,” the ash-haired girl replied flippantly. “I’m not inviting the village along. It’s just you, me, and my alchemistry.”
“Great.” Jenna hoisted her pack on to her shoulders and shrugged it into place. She drew alongside her sister and kept pace, casting her eyes up frequently at the dark sunstone in its bracket. If her sister said the chem-light would work, it would work, but Jenna – like many others in her village – remained skeptical of the alchemical device (and if she was honest, of all non-arcane sources of illumination).
Before long, they reached the first of the line-lamps, the smallest of the arcane lamps, used almost exclusively to mark and illuminate the narrow roads that connected the illuminated regions to one another. As they drew nearer, she turned her face to it and bathed in its golden radiance. Anik, on the other hand, gave the tower – more a tall cairn, really – a wide berth. It was doubtful that the presence of one who was spark-numb would harm a construct as large as the lamp, but Anik remained cautious.
“Two more line-lamps until the Gap,” Jenna said as they passed. “We’ll stop at the last one and make sure we’re ready.”
“Good idea,” Anik replied. “I want to make sure the connections between the chem-light and the lightning-jars are secure.”
They reached the final line-lamp a little over two hours later. Though the journey had been uneventful, the pair were alert, constantly scanning the gloom around them for signs of movement. They were no longer in the deep Penumbra; if this lamp somehow failed, they would find themselves fully engulfed in the Dark. It was apparent to them wherever they looked. There was no vegetation here, only dust and scabrous, lichen-covered rocks. In the sky above, Jenna could make out many of the brightest stars, their twinkling light visible in the deep purple false-twilight created by the weak light of the lamp. Turning to the west, the Still dominated the sky, a vast, hemispheric void completely empty of stars that rose from the horizon like a curtain drawn across the heavens. Jenna was more afraid of the Still than of anything; it did nothing, it did not move or change, but hung forever across a third of the sky and it terrified her.
“Redeemer Cantica says the Still is the manifestation of sin,” Anik observed as she and her sister stared into the abyss. “She said that it will wane if we return to the path of virtue and purity.”
“Redeemer Cantica is a shade-touched huckster,” Jenna snorted, tearing her eyes from it and turning back to the road ahead. “She’s out to take coin from the gullible.”
“If you say so,” Anik said, noncommittally. “Plenty in the village seem to want to listen to her.”
“The same people who called you ‘cursed’ and wanted you fed to the Thramorri to prevent other children from being born spark-numb?” Jenna asked pointedly.
Anik grunted and kicked at the dirt of the road. “Point taken.”
“Come on. I want to reach the middle of the Gap as quickly as possible.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Let’s go,” she said, and stepped past the lamp into the Dark.
Interlude
They were herding him, pushing him along a path of their design. By the glittering starlight, he could make out faint shapes as they prowled the lands around him. They wanted him afraid and confused. They wanted him to lose hope, to despair, to collapse broken and wait for them to take him at last. He would not.
He wasn’t far from the middle of the Gap, he was certain. They had herded him in circles around the crumbling ruins of whatever ancient city had stood here before the Dark had come. His mind worked feverishly to build a list of potential weaknesses in his enemies. They were all nearly blind; creatures born in the Dark had little need for eyes. What vision they had was blurry and near-sighted. Their ears were sharp as any dog, and their smell almost as well developed. If he could mask his scent, perhaps he might last a while longer – long enough to escape, perhaps. Failing that, he could always bury himself in the dirt again. He crouched beside a tumbled down wall and slowly removed his knife, his pack, anything that gave off sound when he moved. He needed to be silent now; against a pack of Thramorri, his knife would do nothing, and he had no food or water left to carry. He removed his sweat-soaked tunic and replaced it with a dry one from his pack, which he then covered in the damp soil at his feet. He moved on silent feet as quickly as he could, putting distance between himself and his fragrant pack. If he was clever, he might yet survive.
Part Two: The Watchers in the Dark
The light cast by Anik’s device was strange. The orb above their heads blazed like a pale star and seemed to wash the colour out of the world around them. As they moved deeper into the Dark, their eyes grew accustomed to the unnatural brilliance of the chem-light; it wasn’t as bright as Jenna’s sunstone, though it nevertheless illuminated the land around them for dozens of paces in all directions.
Jenna had heard stories from travellers on occasion that described what it was like to stand in the Dark without light of any kind. In the stories, a person could look up into the sky and see stars beyond counting in the heavens and behind them, thick white bands of light like ribbons arcing across the sky until they were swallowed by the black of the Still. They described the beauty of that sky in terms that hovered so close to reverence that Jenna sometimes ached to see what they had seen. She saw none of that here. The hard light they travelled with rendered the stars invisible and made the Dark seem impenetrable. Beyond the pale circle of light, the Dark was almost oppressively heavy, a wall of absolute black holding unimaginable terrors. Her steps slowed and her breathing quickened at the thought. She raised her hands to her face and saw them trembling as panic broke over her like a wave.
“What are we doing here, Anik?” She cried suddenly, her voice despairing. “What are we doing? We don’t belong out here!” Her chest heaved as she gulped down air; she was drowning in her fear. There was nothing to keep them safe, but a thin shell of light cast by her sister’s fragile machine. If it failed, the Thramorri would take them. They would die out here in the Dark.
She didn’t even realize that she had turned to flee back towards the line-lamp until she felt her sister’s vice-like grip on her wrist. “Where are you going, Jenna!” Her sister’s voice snapped.
“We need to leave! We’ve got to get out of the Dark! Please, Anik,” Jenna cried desperately, “let’s go back!”
“Jenna, stop!” Anik’s voice cracked like a whip. “Listen to me! This isn’t you! This is the Dark speaking! You’re letting your fear rule you. You need to stop and breathe.” Her voice was hard, as was her grip on Jenna’s wrist. Jenna stopped fighting and dropped to her knees, sobbing and fighting against her terror. It was hard, but slowly her breathing began to slow, and her panic ebbed.
Anik was right, of course. For humans, the Dark was horror and death. It was the domain of the Watchers – the Thramorri – and had been for millennia. Fear of the Dark was only natural, but anyone who travelled through it needed to learn to control that fear, as her sister had clearly done. Though Anik often appeared to be more frightened of the Dark than she was, she displayed none of that fear now. It was surprising, and welcome. Jenna climbed back to her feet and drew a shaky breath, wiping her eyes with her free hand and sniffing loudly.
“Are you good?” Anik’s voice was hard and steady, and her eyes searched Jenna’s face. Her hand still gripped Jenna’s wrist like an iron shackle. “Are you with me?”
“I’m here, Anik, I’m back.” She covered her sister’s hand with her own. “I’m sorry; I’ve never panicked like that before.”
“I have,” Anik admitted, shaking her head. “I was testing one of my machines out past the last line-lamp once and it failed. I spent almost a minute in the Dark and it was the most terrified I’ve ever been.”
“Did… did you see the stars?” Jenna couldn’t help herself.
Anik was quiet for a moment before nodding. “I did.” She sighed deeply. “I see them every time I close my eyes.” She drew a deep breath and looked to her sister. “Are you ready?”
Jenna nodded. “Yes. Let’s get going.”
“Agreed, but I think we should hold hands – at least for a little while.”
“I’d like that.”
They set out once more, hand-in-hand, moving cautiously along the wide and dusty road. The further they travelled, the worse the road became, as ruts became holes, which grew to become complete washouts as they moved further from the line-lamp. It soon became clear that the road had been crossed, more than once, by non-human travellers; the Thramorri had begun to exploit the Gap.
It hadn’t always been this way. The Palina Gap had only existed for ten years or so, after one of the line-lamp towers had collapsed during a brutal dust storm that had scoured the region. In different times, a lightsman team would have been dispatched from the Daggerspire, the principle spire in this region, to repair or replace the tower but something in the politics of the Daggerspire had changed. Rather than maintain the lines that joined communities like Pelkan to the illuminated regions of the spire, its rulers had been letting them fall into disrepair, demanding that minor Lamp communities maintain the lines instead. Yet how could they, when the knowledge required to do so was rarely found outside of spire cities like Dagrenost, the so-called ‘Flame of the Daggerspire’? And so, in a pattern that had become all too common, the politics of the spire cities impacted the lives of those living days, even weeks beyond the edges of their spirelight.
“Where should we start looking for Tomas?” Anik inquired after they had been walking for a time.
“I’m not sure,” Jenna admitted. “We’ve got enough supplies to reach the other side and back, so maybe we should start by looking for tracks as we walk. He might be nearby.”
“There hasn’t been any rain or dust storms lately,” Anik said as she turned her gaze to the ground at her feet. “If he’s come through recently, we should be able to spot his tracks.”
“And we haven’t had any visitors to the Sanctuary in weeks, so whatever fresh tracks we find are almost certainly his.”
Their pace slowed as they began to scour the road in front of them, looking for any signs of their missing friend. Like everywhere in the Dark, the road was dusty and lifeless, save for the presence of faintly glowing lichen that dotted the surface of the larger boulders and exposed rocks of the roadway. Their searches turned up little at first, until after nearly an hour, Jenna spotted something that made her stomach knot in sudden terror.
“Anik,” she hissed, and pointed to a stretch of road in front of her. “Look!” The dust had been disturbed recently, and the pair could make out the unmistakable prints of a non-human foot. The print was large and featured the distinctive wedge-shape of Thramorri boots – wide at the front to accommodate the creatures’ extra toes. As they approached, they made out several more of the large boot-prints, and a scattering of smaller, clawed feet. The Thramorri wasn’t alone.
“At least one Khorg,” Anik confirmed in a whispered voice, “and maybe three or four shadrechi as well.”
Jenna shuddered. Khorg were the largest of the Thramorri, standing nearly ten feet tall and powerfully muscled. They were reputed to be quite stupid, but if they were travelling with a party of shadrechi, they didn’t need to be smart; their twisted, human-sized companions would be the ones in charge.
“If they’re out here…” Anik began.
“They might be hunting Tomas already,” Jenna finished for her. “Come on, let’s keep moving. We’re almost at the ruins and the old line-tower. Maybe we’ll find Tomas’ trail there.”
They moved quickly then, scanning the road in front of them for more signs of Thramorri. Despite her fears, Jenna was reasonably confident of their safety; no matter their size or strength, all Thramorri feared the light and would rather run from it than stand and fight. Once, when she was a little girl, she had travelled with her family to a nearby Lamp community and on the way had passed another line-tower that had failed. They had continued, with only their sunstones to protect them, and had come under attack by a swarm of esek – tiny, winged Thramorri who hunted in vast swarms. The creatures must have been starving, as they attacked Jenna’s family despite the presence of their sunstones. As soon as the creatures encountered the light they died, horrible, screaming deaths as their flesh bubbled and sloughed off mid-flight. What had been a swarm of esek in seconds became a shower of putrefied flesh. In the end, Jenna and her family were left standing in a ring of steaming bodies.
“The light is our salvation, Jenna,” her father had told her then. “When the Dawn comes again, the Thramorri will be driven back and the world will be ours once more. Remember that.” She had.
The land around them began to change. The rolling, dust-covered plains grew rockier and the road climbed towards what Jenna knew to be a ruin from the last Dawn Age. Though they couldn’t see it yet, the pair had travelled through it on several occasions before and knew where it lay. In ancient times it would have been a sight to behold, but now it lay in broken pieces scattered and half-buried beneath the dust of millennia. As they approached, their light began to reveal some of those pieces; tumbled ruins worn down by wind and rain and the scouring of dust storms.
“Jenna!” Anik called out suddenly. “Over here!” She was kneeling in the road, holding something in her hand. Approaching, Jenna could see signs of Thramorri everywhere, footprints and claw marks that confirmed to her the presence of shadrechi.
“What is it?”
“I think it’s a sunstone.” Anik stood and held the object out for her to take. Jenna held it up to the light and inspected it closely. Whomever had made the ruined piece was a person of little talent. Whereas most sunstones were sculpted from a single piece of feldspar, quartz, jasper or carnelian, this stone appeared to be made of shards of at least some of those minerals, bonded together with what appeared to be resin. The whole thing had been polished and bracketed with copper wire, but it was obviously cheaply made. A thick black fracture had split the ‘stone’ lengthwise, and the resin had crumbled; only the bracket itself held the ruined thing together.
“It’s a sunstone, alright,” Jenna muttered, turning the object over in her hands, “if only barely. The person who made this was either an idiot or a grifter. There was no way this thing would have lasted more than a day or two.” She tossed it to the ground, where it shattered as the last of the resin holding it together failed. She spat on the ground nearby. “If I had the time, I’d find the person who made this and braid their fingers together.”
“Why would Tomas buy something so cheaply made?”
“Because ‘cheap’ may as well be Tomas’ middle name,” Jenna said in exasperation. “Come on, we’ve got to find him. If that was his only sunstone, he’s in danger.”
“Do you think the Thramorri have found him already?” Anik’s voice was fearful.
“If they haven’t, they will soon.” Fear and anger mixed in her gut. Tomas was in danger, but it was his own miserliness that seemed to have caused it. She shook her head angrily; when she found him, she’d give him a piece of her mind.
“I think the tracks lead off the road towards the ruins,” Anik said, turning and pointing to where they seemed to be heading. “Should we follow them?”
Jenna nodded. “Let’s be careful; there are a lot of places to hide in these ruins.”
They moved slowly, following the tracks as they wound their way through the collapsed walls and ruined buildings. The tracks widened, evidence that whomever made them was confident of the direction in which their quarry had fled. As they moved, Anik stopped frequently to gather fragments of thick, blue and green-tinged glass that poked out from the dirt.
“Dawnglass is expensive,” she said defensively, when she caught Jenna watching her. “Since we’re out here anyway…”
“This isn’t a salvage expedition, Anik,” Jenna said angrily.
“No, it’s not,” her sister retorted. “I know why we’re here. I’m not stopping the search, and I’m not slowing us down.” She finished depositing some of the ancient glass in one of her many pouches and stood up. “There’s some more footprints over there,” she said, pointing towards a cluster of collapsed buildings on a low hillock nearby. “Maybe Tomas found a place to hide?”
“Maybe. I’ve heard that the Thramorri have excellent noses; he’d have to find a way to mask his scent to stand any chance of staying hidden.”
“Well, let’s go take a look.” Her sister moved ahead, threading her way through the small piles of stone and brickwork towards the hill.”
Their search of the hill was quickly rewarded. “Look!” Jenna called to her sister, waving her over from where she was picking through a tumbled section of wall. “I think I’ve found something.” She looked back down at her feet, to where the earth appeared to have been recently disturbed. “What does this look like to you?”
Anik knelt and ran her hand over the ground. “If I had to guess, I’d say that something was buried here,” she said, frowning. “Ah! Look at this,” she said, reaching down and pulling an object free of the loose soil. It was a shard of dawnglass, wide and flat; dirt was caked along one side, evidence that it had been used as a makeshift shovel. “Someone used this to dig this hole, I’m sure of it.”
“And I’m positive it was Tomas,” Jenna said, nodding towards one of the edges of the depression. “I think he climbed out of the hole he dug and ran off in that direction.” She pointed towards the distant gleam of the line-lamp they had stopped only a short while before. “He’s not far from the road, though in the Dark I’d imagine it would be hard to find.”
“Then let’s follow his trail!” Anik stood quickly and moved to Jenna’s side. “It should be easy to follow; it’s not like he was trying to hide it.”
Jenna nodded and set out once more, this time following a set of heavy footprints that lead away from the shallow ‘grave’. She looked closely at the tracks they followed: they were clearly human – or human-shaped, but she could also plainly see other tracks on either side. Tomas was being stalked.
“I wish we could let him know we’re here,” she said as they moved. “If he’s close by, we could chase off the Thramorri for him.”
“We might,” Anik replied, pawing through her heavy pouches and satchels. “I have something that might help us.” She pulled it from a heavy pouch at her waist. It resembled a metal tube with a heavy wooden stopper and handle on one end. She held it up in front of her and twisted the handle sharply. There was a fizzing sound, followed by a loud popping noise, as something burst from the end of the tube and soared up into the blackness above.
“What is that?” Jenna gasped.
“Wait for it,” Anik replied, her eyes fixed above her.
There was a sudden flare of hard white light followed by a distant pop as a new star exploded the night directly above them. Jenna cried out and shielded her eyes from the burning light that chased away the dark for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of paces in all directions. No sooner had the light burst into being than tortured screeches and howls of agony erupted from all around them; Tomas had not been the only prey being stalked by the Thramorri.
“Jenna!” Anik cried, dropping the tube she carried and drawing her dagger. “They’re all around us!”
“Not for much longer,” she said grimly as the light from above drove the Watchers into hiding. “Come on.” She picked up the tube and handed it to her sister. “We need to get out into the open and away from these buildings. There are too many places for Thramorri to hide.”
Tomas’ tracks were easy to find, and the pair made good time as they fled down the hillock and back towards the glow of the line-lamps. As they descended, Jenna paused briefly to gaze out at the lands Anik’s flaring light had illuminated. Absent any illumination, the lands had died. What ever plant life had been here in the time before the Dark had long since disappeared and with it, virtually all animal life. What had remained – briefly – had been consumed by Thramorri hunters leaving a lifeless, dust-filled land behind. Without grass or plant life, there was no soil; all that remained was dirt, cracked and barren.
“How long will that light last?” She asked as they rounded a small pile of stones.
“Not much longer,” Anik replied, wiping her brow with her sleeve. “I have another one, but I want to save it for an emergency.”
“How did you even make it?” Jenna looked up at the light once more, to see that it was rapidly dimming.
“I found schematics in an ancient book,” her sister explained. “It showed me what I needed to make flash powder for the ignition, and how to make the flare itself.”
“How does it stay up there so long?”
Anik shrugged. “No idea,” she said, “but they’re sure handy.”
They had walked no more than a dozen steps when Jenna held up her hand and motioned her sister to stop. “Do you hear that?” she asked. She was certain she’d heard a deep moaning sound from somewhere up ahead.
“I don’t hear anything, but do you smell something burning?”
Jenna nodded. “Be careful, we might have caught out a Watcher with the light of your flare.”
They had. It was a khorg, a towering, heavily-muscled Thramorri, and it was dying. It had tried to shield itself from the light behind a ruined wall, but enough of it had been exposed to prove fatal. The creature was massive; each of its hugely muscled legs was thicker than Jenna’s torso, and its pale, almost waxy skin was covered in coarse black hair. The creature was obviously in pain. It moaned and shook as its exposed flesh bubbled and slid from its body in putrefied chunks. Its brutish face was agonized and as the light from Anik’s luminator fell on it, the creature’s tortured screams rose, then fell as its face and throat began to dissolve. After what felt like ages, the creature slumped back, its laboured breaths gurgling as its lungs disintegrated. Jenna and Anik gagged and wretched, overcome by the sounds and smells before them. They clasped each other’s arms and staggered away bracing against each other as they vomited. When their stomachs were empty and the heaving had stopped, they tried to regain their composure – with little success.
“I’ve never seen a Thramorri like that close up before,” Anik mumbled. “Are they all that big?”
“Just the khorg, I think,” Jenna said uncertainly. “I’ve seen plenty of esek – or what’s left of them after the light hits them – and they’re tiny.”
“We’d never be able to fight those things, even if we wanted to.”
“No,” Jenna replied, “which probably explains why they rule the whole world and we’re trapped in the lands near the Spires.”
“You think we’re trapped?” Anik’s voice was incredulous.
“You don’t?” Jenna drew a shuddering breath. “The Thramorri can go anywhere they like. They have the whole world to explore and rule over, while we can’t step more than a dozen paces beyond the deep Penumbra without risking our lives. Everywhere on earth is death for us, Anik, except for the tiny circles of light cast by the Spires. The light is our salvation and the Spires our greatest defence against the Dark, but they’re also our prisons. We’ll never be free until the Dawn comes again.”
“That’s depressing.”
“No, that’s reality. Tomas is in danger because he left the safety of his prison; we need to find him and return him to it. We can call it whatever we want, but until we can walk freely under the stars without fear of the Thramorri, we’re prisoners.”
They moved slowly from then on, tracing a careful circuit through the ruins. They moved cautiously, angling the light to stab deeply into any recesses or sheltered spaces they came across. As they searched, they began to encounter evidence of Tomas’ passage; footprints led them to what must have been an alley once, where they found a mangled pack tossed haphazardly against a wall.
“No blood,” Anik said, upon inspecting the ruined article. “If he had been wearing this when it was destroyed, he’d be bleeding all over the place.”
“He’s got to be close by,” Jenna replied, crouching in the nearby dirt and examining a set of fresh-looking tracks. “Maybe he’s trying to hide again.”
“Hold on,” her sisters began to dig through her pouches, “I have two more flares with me. Maybe if I use another one here, he’ll see it and be able to reach us before it goes out.” She fit it into the firing tube, held it out in front of her and twisted the handle, sending another of the strange devices hurtling into the sky. Second later the land around them was illuminated by the hard, white light, and more screams erupted in the distance.
“If he’s nearby, he’ll see that,” Anik said.
“I hope so,” Jenna replied. “With any luck, he’ll find his way to us.”
Interlude
He was tired, sore, and bleeding. The more time passed, the more convinced he became that he was being toyed with. The Thramorri were blind – or nearly so – but their hearing was sharp and their sense of smell sharper; they knew where he was. Every time he thought he had found respite beneath some collapsed wall or doorway; some hidden thing would lash out from the Dark to remind him that he was prey.
He sank to his knees and despaired. He had thought himself brave enough, strong enough, to fight them when they came for him, but he was wrong. They had driven all hope from him at last. His chin sunk to his chest and he wept. He could hear the shuffling of the creatures as they encircled him, ready to feed. At least now it was over.
Without warning, he was surrounded in a blaze of hard, white light. Something brighter than any star had burst into life in the skies above him, shining like some floating Lamp. In the pulsing light he saw them, the twisted shapes of the Thramorri as they screamed in agony. Their pallid skin erupted in blisters which burst in showers of clear liquid. They stumbled about blindly, arms raised in futile attempts to ward off the deadly light. Their flesh began to steam, and bubble and their features warped and ran like clay left exposed in a rainstorm. In their agony, they writhed and shuddered, ravaged arms reaching out blindly for nonexistent cover.
In moments it was done. The ruined piles of flesh and bone all around him were all that remained of his pursuers. In the shocking silence that fell as the last of them died, he began to hear a soft patter, like rain striking the dusty ground, as tiny gobbets of steaming viscera fell from the sky around him. Even the tiny esek hunters that had dogged him were dead.
“What is this,” he croaked, shielding his eyes from the glare as he took in the carnage around him.
And then he heard it, the distant sound of his own name being called over and over. Someone had come for him! He lurched to his feet with energy born of desperation and staggered towards those distant voices. Perhaps salvation had found him at last.
Part Three: Beacon at the edge of twilight
Together they watched as the second flare sputtered and died. The Dark, held at bay by the strange alchemical light, rushed back to slam against the ring of light projected by Anik’s luminator. The screams that had erupted nearby had faded and the world around them was silent once more.
“I suppose that’s that,” Anik said quietly. “If he was nearby, he would have seen the flare or heard our calls.”
But Jenna wasn’t listening. Instead, she stared out into the Dark, her face locked in an expression of intense concentration. She held up her hand, motioning Anik to silence, and pointed with the other to a point beyond the light.
Anik began to listen as well, her face intent as she sought to detect what had caught the attention of her sister. In the Dark, Jenna could hear a faint shuffling, growing louder as it approached. Something was coming. Soon, she could hear ragged breathing and the sounds of exertion, as what ever was out there beyond the light pushed itself hard to reach them. “Tomas?” she called into the Dark. “Is that you?” The shuffling grew louder as the unseen creature propelled itself out of the Dark and into the half-light at the edge of the luminator’s circle.
It was Tomas. He clothes – little more than rags at that point – were torn in dozens of places, and he was bleeding from numerous cuts, scrapes and gashes. His eyes were dead with fatigue, but they widened in recognition when he saw them. He sprinted the last few steps and practically hurled himself at Jenna, throwing his arms around her and sobbing uncontrollably.
“I thought I was going to die out here,” he wept as she held him close. “They were everywhere. They wanted me to be afraid, Jenna. They wanted me to lose hope.”
“It’s going to be fine, Tomas,” Jenna whispered, stroking his back to calm him. “We’re here; we’ve come to take you home.” She knelt, bringing him down to the ground with her, and gently detached his arms from around her neck. “We’ve got you.”
Anik knelt beside them, holding a water skin in one hand and a small loaf of bread in the other. Tomas snatched them and drank deeply, spilling water down his chest in his haste. “Take it slow, Tomas,” she said, watching him carefully. “Don’t choke.”
“I’ll be fine,” he gulped down the remaining water and tore a sizable chunk of loaf with his teeth. “Thank you.” He looked at her closely, his eyes trailing up the pole on her back to where the luminator blazed. “How are you here, Anik?”
“Alchemistry,” she replied smugly. “We can talk about it later. What happened?”
“I made a mistake,” he admitted, shaking his head angrily. “I misplaced my sunstone in Embervale and was forced to buy a new one. The one I purchased was garbage.”
“We found it on the road,” Jenna replied. “We had to backtrack a bit to find you. You were closer to the lamp-line that we thought.”
Tomas nodded. “I knew which way I wanted to go,” he said, “and even when the Thramorri started to toy with me, I kept trying to make it to the Pelkan side of the Gap.” He sagged against Jenna then, as though speaking had used the very last of his strength. Jenna took him in her arms and held him, ignoring the look her sister gave her as she did.
“Just rest, Tomas,” she said softly as he leaned against her. “We’ll start back towards the line-lamp when you’re ready.”
He nodded and closed his eyes. Anik and Jenna shared a long look. “We can’t stay long,” the ash-haired woman said quietly. “We’ve stirred up an ant’s nest here.”
“As long as we’ve got your light, what can they do to us?” Jenna replied.
“You know as well as I do how clever the Watchers can be,” Anik said. “If we were in the Penumbra, I’d be less concerned, but we’re exposed out here; all it would take is a well-thrown rock or even an unlucky stumble and we could lose the light completely.”
“Well rest for a few minutes more, and then we’ll leave,” Jenna decided. “It’ll be slow going, but we don’t have a choice.”
“I can walk,” Tomas muttered, pushing himself away from Jenna and sitting back on his haunches. “Give me a minute and a bit of help.” He took several deep breaths as if preparing himself for the effort to come and stood to his feet. His limbs trembled with exhaustion, and he staggered a bit, but he was able to move under his own power. “Let’s go,” he said, his faced locked in a grimace of determination. “I’ve had enough of this place.”
“Agreed.” Anik took up a position just behind Tomas, who with Jenna’s support, set out towards the line-lamps once more.
Their pace was frustratingly slow. Tomas tried to hurry, but he was clearly struggling. After no more than a half hour, Jenna was forced to take on much of his weight as she half-dragged, half-carried him towards the distant lights. It became easier once they reached the road, but their pace was still painfully slow. At one point, while they paused to allow Tomas to catch his breath, Anik shushed them all to silence. She held her hand to her ear and pointed off to the side of the road. Jenna closed her eyes and concentrated; something big was shuffling through the dirt beyond the light. Her eyes snapped open and she stared at Anik’s pale face. Khorg? She mouthed at her sister, who gave a small, frightened nod. Suddenly, Tomas held up his hand to catch their eyes and pointed off to the other side of the road; a second large creature could be heard moving in the Dark.
With strength born of terror, the trio set off once more, pushing themselves to move more quickly towards the light, while all around them the sounds of pursuit grew louder.
“There’s no use being quiet,” Jenna said finally, “they know exactly where we are. Even the blindest shadrechi could spot our light.”
“We need to hurry!” Tomas said, before grunting in pain as something struck him on the shoulder. The Thramorri had begun to throw stones at them.
“What are they doing?” Jenna cried, shielding her head and face as they moved.
“The Thramorri don’t really use weapons,” Tomas snarled, “but they’ll throw rocks if they think they can hit our light source.”
“The luminator is much more fragile than a sunstone, Jenna!” Anik’s voice was strained. “If they hit the sphere, it could shatter!”
But it wasn’t the sphere the Watchers hit. As they fled towards the safety of the line-lamp, a large rock sailed out from the Dark and struck Anik’s pack. The young woman stumbled and fell hard on her side, slamming the pack against the ground. There was a hissing sound and a crackle of lightning and the luminator sphere went dark.
“No!’ Anik shouted. “The lightning jars!” All around them there came a horrible sound, a guttural croaking laughter than ran like a clawed finger down their spines. Without thinking, Jenna reached into one of her pouches and pulled out her sunstone. With a quick movement, she activated it and held it aloft. The stone’s golden light blazed out from between her fingers like spears, carving their way through several of the creatures that had been closing in on them.
“There’s so many of them!” Jenna screamed as Anik pulled off her pack, searching for signs of damage.
“Hold the stone high and steady, damn it!” Tomas shouted. “Open your hand Jenna!”
She realized that in her fear she had clenched her fist around the stone, minimizing its reach – and its danger to the Thramorri. She raised her hand, palm up to the sky to let the stone shine out in all directions. The creatures near them howled in pain and drew back into the Dark, retreating in fear from the blazing stone.
“Hurry, Anik!” Jenna urged her sister. “Who knows when the sunstone will fail!”
“I know!” her sister snarled. “I’m working on it!” Her hands brushed over the pack until they found the source of the luminator’s failure: several of the wires that connected the jars to the luminator sphere had been severed and hung uselessly from the pack. “It’s the wires! They’ve been cut! I need to reconnect them.”
Tomas picked up a rock and hefted it a couple of times. “It’s not much,” he said grimly, “but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them take me without a fight.”
More rocks sailed into the circle of light, but they fell short, as the light of Jenna’s sunstone pushed the Thramorri further away than had Anik’s luminator. The din beyond the light grew louder as the hunting Thramorri converged on the huddled group.
There was a chorus of shrieks in the sky above as a cloud of esek, driven by a single-minded desire to latch themselves to warm flesh, hurled themselves into the circle of radiance. The light immolated them instantly, and their momentum carried their ruined, smoking corpses down like a hailstorm of bodies to impact with sullen thuds into the dusty ground. Tomas and Jenna backed slowly to where Anik worked with feverish speed, using their own bodies to shield her as she worked to repair the damaged construct.
Without warning, the cacophony in the Dark ceased. The esek that had swarmed like a vortex of wings and chittering calls vanished, and the movement in the Dark stilled. The enormous khorg and the twisted shadrechi ceased their pacing, though their heavy, chuffing breaths stirred the dust near their feet. Something was coming.
And then they heard it, the steady beat of vast wings in the black skies above. There was power in that sound, a strength that gripped them and rooted them in place. Jenna felt a trickle of wetness run down her trembling legs and she reached out to grasp at Tomas’ shoulder with a fumbling hand. Beside her, Tomas moaned in terror and closed his eyes.
“Khybim,” he croaked, as nearby there came the sound of something heavy striking the earth. A wave of dust blew in from the Dark, sweeping over them and carrying with it a warm, almost sweet fragrance, like flowers at a freshly dug grave. At the edge of the Dark, something moved, something capable of resisting the searing light of the sunstone. Jenna’s body shook with terror. The Khybim were the most feared of all Thramorri and the undisputed lords of the Dark empires. They were seldom seen anywhere near the lamp-lines, and those unlucky souls who met them rarely lived to speak of their encounters.
“Humans,” hissed a voice that reached into Jenna’s soul and hollowed it out. “You are trespassers here in the dark.”
“Stay back!” Jenna cried, her voice cracking. “Come closer and we’ll burn you to ash!”
The creature stepped into the half-light at the edge of the circle. It was shaped like a human, if a human was eight feet tall and sported vast, sail-like wings on its back. As it moved, the tiny, chitinous scales covering its wings glittered. It was clothed in heavy fabrics and sculpted pieces of metal forming a protective shell against the light. Its face was hidden beneath a mask sculpted to resemble – or perhaps moulded to fit – a savage reptilian skull, and its eyes glowed with pallid light. “Your stones are frail, human, and their light is dim.” The creature inhaled deeply as if tasting the air around it. “One of you is lame. I smell its blood, its sweet fear.” It stepped closer, its armoured foot driving small clouds of dust before it. “One of you kills magic, I taste its bitterness. Soon it will kill your stone as well.”
“Anik, please,” Tomas begged in a broken whisper.
“Nearly there,” she hissed.
Jenna glanced down and saw her move her hand from the pack to one of her pockets, unbuttoning the flap before returning to her desperate work. Jenna turned back as the towering creature advanced once more to stand fully in the light of the sunstone. “Not long now,” the Khybim drew a heavy, curved blade from its hip. “Your stone is failing.”
As if governed by the creature’s words, the stone in Jenna’s hand flickered. The Watchers surrounding them shifted and hissed excitedly to one another. She held the stone between her hands and rubbed it furiously, as if trying to ward off the inevitable. It flickered again and grew dim. “No,” she whispered as the glow in her hands flickered one more time and died.
The Dark rushed in like a wave. Without the stone, they were blind and defenceless. The Watchers, now free to act, surged towards them, their pounding feet and chittering voices heralding their approach.
Tomas screamed in helpless rage. Jenna raised her hands in front of her, blindly swinging them as though she might ward off the coming violence. Something heavy struck her on the shoulder and she spun. A second impact to the small of her back drove her to her knees. She fumbled towards where she thought her sister and Tomas where, but a clawed foot stomped down hard on her hand, pinning it to the ground in front of her. She screamed in fear. Nearby one of the Thramorri snarled in pain; Tomas seemed to have been lucky with his heavy stone before a heavy sound of bone meeting flesh ended the struggle.
Something was on her back then, scrambling over the folds of her back towards her unprotected sides. She could feel dozens of tiny hands gripping her clothes and hair as the esek filling the skies above swooped down to latch themselves to her body. She screamed again as small mouths filled with needle-sharp teeth bit into her ribs and chest and locked the esek in place. She cried out once more, helpless, as the Thramorri moved to claim her.
“Close your eyes!” Anik bellowed from somewhere nearby. Jenna didn’t understand, but she complied, screwing her eyes shut against salvation or death, whichever was to come. There was a heavy thud and the sound of glass crushing into the dirt. And then there was light.
It was hard, like a hammer forged from spirelight, but white hot. It burned like a star had burst into life before her. She could see the light through her eyelids, and she cried out again, burying her face in the dirt to shut it out. All around her the Thramorri began to scream, terrible, rending screams as Jenna’s nostrils filled with the scent of burning flesh. She cracked her tear-filled eyes open against the glare to see the towering Khybim stagger and drop to its knees. It clutched at its helmeted head and roared in agony as smoke billowed from the helmet’s eyes. The Khybim’s armour, while thick enough to ward off the light of a sunstone, simply could not keep the terrible illumination from reaching its skin. It howled as it, like the rest of its kin burned in the diamond-hard light.
Her vision blurred by tears, Jenna turned her head from side to side, taking in the carnage around her. The Thramorri were burning. All of them. The light struck them like a flensing wave, peeling layer after layer of skin and flesh from them as they thrashed and howled in torment. Jenna felt movement beneath her as several of the esek locked to her torso squirmed away, struggling to fit into the shadow cast by her body. She shifted, exposing the creatures to the light and they simply came apart, collapsing into small patches of ash. The searing pain of tiny, gnawing mouths ceased, and she felt something like snow brush against her tear-streaked cheeks. She climbed unsteadily to her feet and moved towards the source of the light. Though she could not look directly at it, she could see that it was coming from beside where her sister knelt. Anik’s face and neck were bloody, and she was covered in tiny, round wounds. The esek had latched themselves to her as well, before meeting the same fate as the ones that had tormented Jenna.
“What is this light?” she asked in a stunned voice.
“I call it a spirelight flare,” Anik replied, her voice trembling. “It won’t burn much longer though.”
“I’m going to check on Tomas.” Jenna moved slowly to where Tomas lay crumpled on the ground, surrounded by small mounds of burning flesh. An ugly bruise on his face explained his unconscious state, so Jenna resorted to dragging him by his arms back to her sister’s side.
“Jenna,” Anik said in a small voice, “I need your help.” Her hands groped and fumbled across the wires and lightning-jars of her pack. “I can’t see.”
“What?”
“The flare, I was looking right at it when…” she trailed off. “I need you to check the wires. Make sure they’re properly connected.”
Jenna was numb. Her injuries would heal, of that she was certain. Anik’s blindness, on the other hand, was more troubling. She had heard of people who stared too long at the spirelight of the great Spires going blind; would Anik share a similar fate? She reached out and traced her hands along the wires. They all seemed to be connected, except for the last one. With her sister’s voice to guide her, Jenna completed the repairs on the luminator and flipped the switch: the sphere flickered, then lit, casting its steady white light in a great circle around them and protecting them once more. Moments later, the spirelight flare sputtered and died, and the luminator seemed suddenly fragile and dim in its absence.
Nearby, Tomas groaned and struggled to sit up. He immediately rolled on to his side and vomited. “Bloody Still, what happened?”
“Anik saved us all,” Jenna hoped she sounded happier than she felt. “She had some sort of device.”
“The last thing I remember was swinging my rock at something trying to get me,” he muttered, spitting thickly into the dirt. “It must have hit me.”
“Oh, it did. Your face looks like someone hit it with a sack of doorknobs.”
Tomas nodded, then winced. “That’s what it feels like.”
“Is the luminator working?” Anik asked. Tomas looked at her sharply, then glanced at Jenna. She tapped beside her eyes and shook her head.
“It’s working. Come on, let’s get out of here.” She took her sister by the arm and moved to support her. “I’ve got you.”
Tomas was slow to stand, but once on his feet, he was able to take a few limping steps. “I’m a bit dizzy,” he reported, “but I’ll manage.” Slowly, painfully, the trio set out, but had taken only a few steps when a sound from behind them made them turn. The Khybim yet lived. Its limbs scraped across the dirt as it slowly writhed in torment. Though the glare of Anik's deadly weapon had faded, the damage it had wrought was lasting.
“Your victory here is hollow, Humans.” The creature's horrible voice was like fingernails across rusted metal. It lay on its back, smoke coiling from inside its sculpted helm. “We still rule the Dark. You and your kind are nothing but slaves or food - vermin huddled in the glare of your wretched spires.”
Jenna gently passed her sister to Tomas, who struggled but held her upright. She approached the recumbent armoured figure and knelt beside it. What little she could see of its face behind the mask was a ruin of blistered and charred flesh. She studied it clinically, noting that her fear of the creature, while still present, no longer consumed her. “Maybe you’re right,” she said finally, reaching out to grasp the sides of the creature’s mask with her hands. “Maybe you really do rule everything in the Dark.” She pulled hard, releasing the mask and exposing the Khybim’s face to the light of Anik’s luminator. It moaned in terrible agony as its albino flesh erupted in great blisters before turning black. “But you’re in the light now; burn in it.” She rose and returned to Tomas and her sister as the Thramorri's moans grew to helpless shrieks behind her. “Come on,” she said as she and Tomas supported Anik between them, “let’s go home.”
Epilogue
Anik sighed and sat back from the cluttered work bench. She rubbed her temples over the thin strip of unbleached linen that wrapped around her skull to cover her eyes. Her vision was returning, but slowly, and even in the dim light of her workshop, she needed to protect her light-scorched eyes. Still, it could have been worse.
It had been nearly a month since their return from the Palina Gap. Word of their rescue had spread through the village like a wind, and Anik basked in the sudden fame - even respect - she appeared to have earned for her part in it all. Jenna's descriptions of Anik's inventions had set their neighbours afire with curiosity, and it wasn't long before they began to trickle into her workshop to ask her about them. Their expressions - once she was able to see them - were often a curious mix of apprehension and wonder and they looked around at the strange, glowing devices and snaking bundles of wires and cables connecting them all. Some of her guests wanted to see more of her work, others wished to actually purchase some of it, and still others came simply because everyone else had. She could have been resentful of their presence - maybe she should have resented, even hated them. They had mocked her and driven her family from the village out of fear, yet she couldn't bring herself to hate them for it. Anik had never really understood the allure of hate. It was sterile and hurtful, and had never lent itself to anything beautiful. And so she rejected it. She resolved to use her knowledge to help others and through her actions win her neighbours to her cause. She had always been an optimist at heart.
Tomas' physical injuries had healed in due course, but his mind remained fragile. His experiences in the Dark had changed him somehow. Jenna had said that on more than one occasion she had caught Tomas wandering in the deep Penumbra without the light of a sunstone to guide him. He said he was simply trying to see the stars. Anik and Jenna worried about him constantly, and often took turns spending time with him to keep him from being alone.
Perhaps the Dark really had changed Tomas; perhaps it had changed them all. If that was so, then Anik was secretly thankful for it. Her entire life had been spent in terror of the Dark, but after having experienced its horrors first-hand and surviving, it no longer frightened her as it once had. She had made light from the elements of the earth itself, and had carried them out into the Dark where they had saved them all. The Light was their salvation, but she no longer prayed for the Dawn to come. She would bring it to the Thramorri herself.
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