The Twilight Land

Sigar looked out over the jungled wilderness below, then wiped a sweat-stained palm on the tattered clothes he wore, cunningly painted to blend in with the jungle around him. “We’re close,” he said at last to his band’s Whisperer. “Another moon cycle’s worth of journeying, and we’ll be there.”

“Are you sure?” Sigval the Whisperer, the dusky light obscuring the intricate tattoos inked across his face, asked as he crept up along the edge of the cliff and looked out as Sigar had done. “You’re right,” he said at last in quiet amazement, tone hushed.

Sigar, the group’s way finder, had led them carefully to this exact spot, knowing from here he could show the band their destination and hopefully give them all a small, desperately needed boost of hope. His patience had been rewarded, as he and the others now gazed in awe at the vista spread before them.

Sigar brushed his unkempt, dirty hair away from his scarred face so he could see better. For him and the others, survival came before anything else, even personal hygiene. The valley below, carpeted in dense jungle vegetation, stretched on for miles below them, its borders marked by the stark, impossibly tall ridges of mountains on either side. The only structure that emerged from the jungle was a massive pyramid, its sides slick and perfectly uniform, with several smaller pyramids arranged around it in a rough semi-circle. The top of the central pyramid seemed to glow with an unnatural golden light. A thick, heavy fog laid across the jungle, as it always did, which, combined with the perpetual twilight overhead, made it nigh impossible to make anything out clearly or distinctly. Sigar was used to such difficulties, however, and felt confident he could lead his band directly to the pyramid and hopefully, to their salvation.

The world was a sphere, or so Sigar had been told, a sphere that never spun, perpetually trapped with one side facing towards the burning sun and one side forever denied its life-giving warmth. Some said it had spun once, but if so, that was so far in the ancient past that even the legends of the legends only so much as hinted at such. The side that faced the sun’s warmth, the Day Lands, was a volcanic waste inhabited only by fire demons and the half-mad machines of a long-forgotten civilization. The Night Lands were little better, the frozen domains of powerful liches who hated all living things almost as much as they despised each other. Only in the narrow band between, the Twilight Lands, could human life survive, and survived it had, although it had far from thrived in the millennia long struggle.

Sigar looked back over his shoulders at the rest of his band, nearly two-dozen nomadic warriors such as himself who stayed forever on the move to avoid the many dangers of the Twilight Lands. Well, no more, Sigar thought. Tomorrow, we reach the Lands Beyond.

A mythical place spoken of only in the most hopeful of stories, the Lands Beyond were where the noble warriors who died in battle were said to travel. Those same stories also said there was a way to reach it while still living. At long last, Sigar thought he saw that way.

Pointing to the pyramid in the distance, Sigar said, “There is our destination. All we must do is cross this basin.”

His companions cheered, although it was a hollow, wearied sound. Sigar well understood their exhaustion: several larger bands had met a short while ago to share information about the gate to the Lands Beyond only to suffer a particularly ruthless attack by a traveling lich. Those surrounding Sigar were the survivors of that attack. Sigar had taken command simply because no one else was willing. He gestured with his hand, and two of his band’s members stepped forward and let down ropes made of vines woven together over the side of the cliff and down into the jungle basin below.

Sigar looked to Sigval, one of those talented few with a special sensitivity to the ancient relics that dotted the Twilight Lands, and asked, “Anything out there that’s dangerous?”

Sigval frowned slightly. “The entire valley is practically crawling with danger, Sigar. I’ve never felt such a concentration of power before.”

Sigar balled his hands into fists, then said, “We push forward, regardless. It’s too late for us to stop now.”

Everyone nodded their silent agreement with that statement. Once the ropes were in position, they started vaulting their way down the cliff face, Sigar leading the group, until they reached the ground far below. Now deep within the jungle proper, the sky was cut off above them by a thick tangle of branches, and the ground below their feet was made of countless twisted roots overlapping each other and the half-decayed, compacted matter of countless fallen plants. The air felt both heavy and damp, to the point where Sigar almost felt as if he was drowning with each breath he took. The jungle around them practically glowed even in the dim light, with every vine, tree, and flower illuminated by their own internal light. One of Sigar’s followers reached out to touch a particularly brilliant sparkling red flower, but Sigar shot him a warning glance.

“It’s probably poisonous,” he warned. Instantly, the man drew his hand back, wincing as he did so. “Touch nothing and be cautious.”

The band made their way along through the jungle, often having to stop so Sigar and the others could hack through the dense foliage with their swords and knives. With the sun never moving, the only way to keep track of the passage of time was the rise and fall of the moon, which had completed one cycle through the sky by the time that they approached the pyramids. They stood there, seemingly illuminated from within, a smaller pyramid standing directly before the grand central one. A small lake was all that remained between them and the ancient ruins. The moon, bright, full, and ethereal, hung directly above the central pyramid, as if signifying to Sigar and the others that it was truly the destination they sought.

Sigar and the others started to walk around the edge of the lake, approaching the smaller pyramid as well. As they drew closer to it, Sigar noticed Sigval’s normally serious face draw into a concerned frown, his expression focused entirely on the structure before them.

“What is it?” Sigar asked.

Sigval pointed a trembling hand at the smaller pyramid. “There’s something inside,” he said softly. “I can feel it. And it’s alive.”

Sigar stared at Sigval in amazement. “Alive?” he said. “What do you mean-”

He was cut off by a beam of piercing blue light cutting through the relative stillness of the jungle, striking one of Sigar’s followers, an older man with a dirty gray beard, through the chest. The man disintegrated in an instant, dead before any of them could even react to what was happening around them.

“Get to the ground!” Sigar shouted, and his followers instantly complied. A few tense moments later another identical beam of light cut overhead, although this one missed them all and instead struck a grove of trees behind them, igniting bright blue flames that quickly consumed a section of the jungle before fading out.

“Wonderful,” Sigar breathed. “This couldn’t get any worse.”

He was proven wrong a second later when the smaller pyramid’s point began to open like a flower blossoming, the sides swinging down in unison. Out of that opening crawled an enormous machine, unlike anything Sigar had ever seen before. It reminded him of a spider, with countless twitching metallic legs connected to a single bloated body, the head jutting out of the front bearing a single enormous eye that glowed a baleful blue color as it twitched back and forth, scanning the jungle below. Each of those legs ended in a claw whose talons gripped the exterior of the pyramid as it crawled its way down towards the jungle floor.

“What is that thing?” Sigar asked Sigval.

“A sentinel of some kind,” Sigval responded. “I can feel only a blind obedience in its mind, a devotion to protect that central structure.”

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Sigar grinned to himself then. “That means that we were right. This is the gateway to the Lands Beyond. Otherwise, why bother to protect it so closely? All we’ve got to do is smash this thing and we’ve reached our goal.”

“We can’t fight something like that!” Sigval protested. “It’s a machine that can kill with light, and all we have is swords and clubs!”

“Wrong,” Sigar said. “There’s one other thing we have. Our minds. It can’t think, only obey. We can think.”

As the enormous machine finished traversing the pyramid’s exterior and landed on the jungle floor, Sigar suddenly stood up and bellowed in its direction. “Hey! Over here!”

Immediately the machine’s head snapped to look in his direction, the eye beginning to glow brighter and brighter as it charged its beam.

“What are you doing?” Sigval shouted.

Ignoring him, Sigar charged directly for the machine, leaping into the small lake, plunging deep beneath the surface and beginning to swim towards the spider machine.

“He’s gone mad,” Sigval said aloud.

The machine lumbered to reorient itself to face towards the pool. By now, a loud, high-pitched humming could be plainly heard to come from the machine, and in a blinding flash another beam of brilliant blue light emerged from its eye and struck the lake, which exploded into a foundation of superheated steam. The band had to shield their eyes for a moment, but when they could look again, all they saw was the machine staring patiently at the lake, whose surface still rippled from the blast.

“He’s dead,” Sigval said softly, the words quickly being carried through the rest of the band. Sigval hung his head, ready to give the order for the group to turn around and retreat.

At that instant, Sigar burst from the surface of the lake along the shore near the machine, which seemed just as startled as the rest of them, scrabbling away from the shore as fast as it could. Leaping out of the water, sword already drawn, Sigar closed the space between himself and the dread machine with ease and, before it could escape, stabbed the device directly through its eye. A cascade of azure sparks flew out, and the thing let out a horrendous high-pitched shriek as it writhed in pain, before collapsing, legs splayed out to all sides, inert.

Panting heavily, Sigar sheathed his sword as he waited for the rest of the band to join him besides the fallen machine.

“How did you survive that beam of light?” Sigval asked.

Sigar grinned at him. “It was easy, actually: water diffuses light, forces it to go in a different angle from the one it entered by. I assumed that, if this machine’s weapon was truly made of light, it would act the same way, and as it turned out, I was right.”

Sigval shook his head at that. “Impressive.”

“Thank you.” Sigar turned his attention back to the fallen machine, running a hand along the edge of its bulbous metal head. “Whisperer, I need you to reach inside this thing, see if it knows anything that might be of use to us.”

Sigval nodded, kneeling next to the fallen machine as he reached out, eyes closed. He concentrated for a moment, then opened his eyes and looked at the rest of the band. “There’s an entrance to the central structure up ahead, just through this last patch of wilderness.”

Sigar looked up, trying to make it out but unable to do so in the dusk. “Good.”

Their band set off, now eagerly anticipating the end of their journey and the entrance into the Lands Beyond. The journey to the larger pyramid was surprisingly short, a narrow trail through the jungle seemingly cleared before them. They stopped just outside the large pyramid, whose base they could now see was lined with glyphs that glowed with their own internal golden light. Just a few hundred feet before them stood an open doorway leading into the pyramid, the light within illuminating a hunched figure wrapped in a robe that sat on the step leading up to the door. The figure looked up as they approached, causing them to all freeze with fear. They saw the skeletal grin of a lich, its eyes alight with malevolent undeath.

“So, you made it here at last,” the lich said, his skull not moving as it spoke, its voice emanating from all around its body instead. “I was wondering when the survivors would reorganize.”

“You’re the lich who attacked the gathering,” Sigar said in recognition.

“The same,” the lich acknowledged. “Did you think I did it out of pure malice? No, I sought to escape to the Lands Beyond as well, and so raided the memories of your dead comrades for what you knew. It proved very illuminating, and with my sorceries, it was easy enough to reach here before you did.”

“Then…why wait here?” Sigval asked.

The lich laughed, a dry, brittle sound, like bones being ground to meal. “Because, as it turns out, only the living may reach the Lands Beyond through this path. Isn’t that ironic? So, I am standing guard here to make sure no others can partake of that which I cannot. Oh, I suppose this is your warning: turn back now, or I will destroy you all.”

Sigar pulled out his sword and faced the lich. “I have a counteroffer for you, lich.”

The lich feigned a yawning motion with one skeletal hand. “What a bother, but I suppose I have nothing better to do then listen. Carry on.”

“Instead, we’ll kill you,” Sigar said matter-of-factly.

The lich shifted, leaning forward. “Well, now you have my attention.”

“You left your demesne in the Night Lands to journey here, which meant that you were no doubt bored with the pointless, endless politics and war among the other liches. You sought to escape this life into the Lands Beyond, yet you have already achieved immortality. And, you undoubtedly could have killed all of us already, yet you have not done so. I think you’re bored, lich, and seek death as a means of escape.”

“How very astute of you,” the lich said. “Regardless, I hardly see an ignominious death at the hands of some primitive band and your escape into paradise as an equal trade, do you?”

“You said you cannot enter the Lands Beyond, correct?” Sigar asked.

“The gates, such as it is, will not open for me,” the lich admitted.

“Then let us destroy your body, and take your phylactery, your soul,” Sigar said. “We will pass through the gate with it in hand, and then you can remanifest on the other side.”

The lich’s eyes glittered. “I accept your deal.”

Sigar stepped forward and, with one swift movement, severed the lich’s head from its body. The skull clattered to the ground alongside the skeleton, which evaporated into dust an instant later. In its place, lying on the stone step, was a small glowing vial, an eerie wisp of green fire trapped within.

“We could shatter it and kill him, right here,” Sigval suggested. “Liches are not to be trusted, Sigar.”

Sigar looked at his Whisperer in disgust. “And break my word? Never.” He picked up the phylactery and, clutching it tightly in his hand against his chest, stepped into the pyramid, his band close behind.

They travelled through the winding passageway, which worked its way steadily upwards, until they arrived at last at a solid door made of stone shut before them. Sigar looked over at Sigval, who stepped forward and placed his palm against the door. A moment later it slid opened, and they passed through into, from Sigar’s perspective, the strangest chamber he had ever seen.

The room they found themselves in was long, cylindrical, and made of polished metal, with seats mounted in the walls rather than the floor far below. Countless blinking lights and alien controls lined the walls. The “ceiling” of the room, far above, was made of glass, although at present all that could be seen through it was the stone above. By making their way along using handholds in the walls, each of Sigar’s band reached a seat and found, as soon as they sat within it, automatic belts locked them firmly in place.

“How strange this all is,” Sigar said. “Sigval, what else do we need to do?”

Sigval concentrated, closing his eyes, then said, “The structure is…readying itself, I think.” His eyes snapped open. “It’s begun.”

“What has?” Sigar asked, but in response they all heard a loud droning siren begin, as the door leading into the chamber slammed shut. The entire structure began to rumble slowly, shaking every bone in Sigar’s body. The entire pyramid around them seemed to open then, allowing them to look up at the moon hanging in the sky above, pale and beautiful.

“What…is…happening?” Sigar asked through shaking teeth as it felt like the world fell apart around him.

“We’re leaving the Twilight Lands behind,” Sigval responded as best as he could. Even as he said that, they all felt as if an immense, crushing weight was suddenly lashed to their chest, and they were thrown back against their seats as the entire structure around them, which Sigar now realized was actually a vehicle, left the ground, soaring up into the air with more and more speed with each passing second. The moon before them seemed to swell, taking up more and more of their view until it was all they could see out of the glass window before them. The violent shaking suddenly stopped. Simultaneously, the belts holding all of them in place snapped open of their own accord. A moment later, they started to float as if in the water, feeling weightless.

“What is this?” Sigar asked, his voice hushed. “Is this…the Lands Beyond?”

“I don’t think so, at least, not yet,” Sigval responded.

Using his hands to mimic the motion of swimming, Sigar found that he could make his way along up to the glass window, looking out at the moon above. He had never seen it in such perfect, pristine detail, every crater and ridge on its on its face visible with a clarity he had never seen before. By pressing his face up against the window, he could even look down and over the edge at the rim of the planet below, shocking him with what he saw. It was indeed, just as he had been told, a sphere, a narrow band of lush green between icy black and burning red.

“A beautiful, scarred world,” Sigar said aloud. “I’m not sad to leave it behind.”

Sigval pointed to a small, shimmering object which seemed to be orbiting the moon. Peering closer, Sigar thought it was a diamond shaped structure of some kind covered in glowing glyphs just as the pyramid had been. “What do you think that is?” Sigval asked.

Sigar couldn’t help but grin and had to resist the urge to laugh joyously so he could answer his Whisperer’s questions. “That, I think, is the Lands Beyond,” he said, and he had never felt such joy in his life as when he said those words.