© Stephen Fabian The Testament of Andros

By James Stoddard Being Chapter II of The Night Land, rewritten

Since Mirdath died and left me alone in this world, I, who once cherished her sweet companionship, have suffered an almost unbearable longing. I have tried to continue my studies, my riding, and my physical training, but it all seems empty now. Mostly, I have spent my hours sitting beside the hedge gap where we first met, remembering the moments when we were together.

In the last few months, however, a miraculous event has given me hope, for in my dreams I have been transported into the future, where I have witnessed strange and marvelous things. Though I do not know if anyone will ever read it, I must set the story down, if only to ease my yearning for my beloved. If anyone does read my account, they will certainly disbelieve it. I scarcely believe it myself. Sometimes I think grief has stolen my sanity. But if you read with an open mind, you will gaze with me into the very portals of eternity.

From the time the dreams began, they continued night after night, always opening exactly where they ended the night before. They did not seem like dreams to me, but rather as if I woke in the future. A gray mist invariably obscured my vision when I first arrived, but it soon faded, leaving me in a land of darkness, lit here and there with strange sights. For the sun had died and everlasting night lapped the world.

From the moment I entered the dream, I possessed a full knowledge of the Night Land, and a complete set of memories, as if I had lived there all my life. In my earliest vision I found myself an adventurous, if hesitant, sixteen year old named Andros, standing at one of the windows of the Last Redoubt, high up in the side of a four-sided pyramid of gray metal forged to protect the last millions of this world from the Forces besieging them. The structure rose to a height of almost eight miles and held one thousand three hundred and twenty floors, each containing a city. I do not know its location, except that it lay in a tremendous valley.

I stood upon the One Thousandth Plateau, looking through a queer spyglass to the northwest, studying the hideous, but completely familiar landscape I had observed all my life. The window, which was made of a transparent substance much thicker and more durable than stained glass, rested in a recess the inhabitants called an embrasure. Thousands of embrasures covered the walls, which were all made of shining gray metal. The spyglass was a rectangular box set upon a pole, with not one, but two lenses, one for each eye. Its range could be adjusted using a thin lever; it hummed slightly and thin points of golden light burned within it.

In my right hand I held a copy of Ayleos' Mathematics, a book with a yellow metal cover, for as Andros I had always loved the art of numbers, particularly geometry. There is such certainty in mathematics; the world may change, but a seven is always a seven, and when added to two will invariably make nine. As a child I assigned personalities to the first ten numerals: 1 was strong, 2 friendly, 3 wicked, 6 funny, and so on. I even devised rules to explain how their personalities produced the correct answers in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I considered the contemplation of numbers glorious sport, particularly the number seven, who I thought of as a good friend. Any time I was presented with a difficult decision, I could escape to mathematics for a happy hour. Often, after doing so, I would return to my troubles and immediately see the solution. But perhaps an interest in geometry is not surprising for one raised in a pyramid.

Because of my mathematical interest, as I stared through the spyglass I could give the name and distance of every object in sight, as calculated from the pyramid's Center Point - a mysterious strip of polished metal said to possess neither measurable length nor breadth, installed within the Room of Mathematics where I conducted my daily studies. In the wide field of my glass, my eyes first fell upon the bright glare of the fire from the Red Pit shining upward against the underside of the vast chin of the Northwest Watcher--The Watching Thing of the Northwest: That which hath Watched from the Beginning until the opening of the Gateway of Eternity. So Aesworth, the ancient poet had written.

To my amazement I suddenly realized the bard was incorrect, for deep within my soul I saw, as dreams are seen, the sunlit splendor of the past. Thus, even as I, Andrew, dreamed of the future, the youth in the embrasure remembered his former existence, though it seemed to him a vision of the dawn of the world. I looked back upon my life as Andrew Eddins as if I pondered dreams my soul knew as true, but which appeared as a far vision, hallowed with peacefulness and light. Since I had often demonstrated a knowledge of antiquity that confounded and angered the men of learning, I cannot claim to have been completely unaware of the past before then, but from that moment my awareness of the lost ages grew tenfold.

The knowledge struck me with such ferocity that I cried out and fell to my knees, overcome by the power of the revelation. I knelt there, stunned by all I knew and guessed and felt, overwhelmed most of all by the memory of Mirdath. As I recalled the way she had sung to me in the days of sunlight, the longing for her reached me from across the ages, and for the first time I understood the emptiness that had haunted me even from my childhood.

"Are you ill, Andros?" a voice asked.

I looked up to see the ancient, friendly face of Cartesius, my mentor and friend, who had taken me under his protection after my parents died six years before.

"Respected Senior, why are you up so late?" I asked, avoiding his question as he helped me back to my feet. "It's past the fifth hour of sleep."

"I can sleep later. A waste of time, sleep. I haven't slept in. . ." he blinked in thought, "forty-two hours. There's too much to do. The Thing That Nods has changed the angle of its movement by the slightest degree. We can see a fraction more of its face, if it is a face at all; the scholars are in furious debate on the issue. The whole tower is astir with excitement. According to the Records, such an event last happened four thousand seven hundred and twenty-six years ago, when Olin was Master."

"That's wonderful."

"Precipitous times, indeed. Who knows the ramifications?" He grinned happily, his eyes lost in distant horizons. "We are gauging the rest of the land, to see if any reactions arise. So far, we show a twelve percent increase in movement around the Giants' Kilns, but nothing more. We are watching the points of the compass steadily, though I just sent most of my assistants to bed--for some, exhaustion overcomes passion. A pity they lack fortitude."

He paused, his eyes suddenly focusing upon me. "But you were distressed when I first approached, and now you are trying to divert me. What is it, Andros? How can I help?"

I sighed. "It's hard to explain. I've. . . .seen something."

"Something unusual, by your demeanor. A revelation?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Tell me all about it. Leave out no detail, no matter how small. We shall find the significance in the insignificant."

I smiled at his old turn of phrase. A brilliant man, Cartesius served as the Master Monstruwacan within the Tower of Observation located at the pinnacle of the pyramid, where he and his fellow Monstruwacans observed everything that occurred within the land, peering into the darkness to extend their knowledge, always gleaning new information even while thwarted by distance--the plain of the Night Land remaining always beyond their reach. Their main duty was to watch, measure, and record the movements of the monsters and beasts besieging the Great Pyramid, so that, should one merely sway its head in the darkness, they set down every detail in the Records. The name Monstruwacan itself, in the strange language of the people of the pyramid, literally meant Scholar of Monsters. Though snow-haired with antiquity, Cartesius stood straight and unbowed, his dark eyes bright. He wore a perpetual stare, as if peering through the Great Spyglass had fixed his expression.

He had noticed me in my youth, for I possessed that rare and strange talent my people call the Night Hearing, a gift so uncommon that only I, of all the pyramid's millions, exhibited it to any great degree. I could detect, with better accuracy than the recording Instruments, the invisible vibrations pulsing continually through the eternal darkness of the ether.

"I have seen the past," I finally said.

His hoary eyes grew bright; he gave a happy smile. "Tell me."

So I related all I knew. The words tumbled from me. Even as I spoke, I expected Cartesius to reprove me, for I told of grass and trees, oceans and wind, and most of all, of the glorious, golden sun--such things as the people of the pyramid called myths. Then I detailed the tale of Mirdath and Andrew and all that had happened to them.

It took more than an hour to tell it, and when, voice choking with emotion, I finished, tears glistened not just in my eyes, but in Cartesius's as well. "Do you think it's all nonsense?" I asked.

The Master Monstruwacan sat upon a gray stone bench, his hand upon his bearded chin, his eyes lost in the strange world I had described. He cleared his throat. "Certainly not. Nor do I think an Evil Influence has affected your mind. You have surely experienced something. How extraordinary if it is true! And how sad."

I gave a sigh of relief. Even though, through experiments and the refinement of mental arts, the people of the pyramid spoke comfortably of ideas closed to our present understanding, as we of this day harbor beliefs our forefathers would have considered lunacy, still I feared my story too bizarre to be taken seriously.

"This strange gift you have, Andros," Cartesius said, "you have always known much about the ancient Days of Light. How I have laughed to see you confound and anger our scholars. How they long to believe you, even when they cannot accept your tales."

"But this--" I said. "It seems so unbelievable! Can a man live again?"

"I don't know. I have never heard of such an occurrence, but life is filled with many strange and wonderful events. I am perpetually astounded that we exist at all. How can I say something is impossible simply because it has never happened before? Every action must have originally occurred for the first time. I therefore grant that though your experience is unlikely, it is within the realm of the possible. I believe you."

"Thank you." My voice almost broke in gratitude.

"You need time to understand the revelation. Once you absorb it, you must write down everything--the tiniest bit, the merest speck. You must draw the shape of every leaf, show the precise color of the sky--a thousand things. Fear nothing and tell all! That is the way of the observer. Then I will set the Monstruwacans scouring the ancient histories--a man could spend a lifetime studying all you have told me. If only I were young! It makes me long to leap to the annals, to brush the dust away, to blow back the debris and look for correlation." A fire rose in his eyes. "This is even more important than the movement of The Thing That Nods! I will go to the Hall of Records at once. There is one volume, yes, I see it clearly in my mind. I will rouse all the Monstruwacans from bed--they've had at least an hour's sleep; it should be sufficient. We must discuss this. We must correlate. We. . .must. . . correlate!"

He leapt to his feet, eager as a hound, and sped a dozen steps before abruptly turning.

"Forgive me, Andros. I forget the human in the hunt for the unknown. Will you be well, my boy? I can stay if you like."

I managed a smile. "I just need time to think."

His eyes focused gravely upon me; I felt him studying me with the meticulous scrutiny usually reserved for his work.

"Yes," he finally said. "You do need time. You must weep and laugh, grow angry and mourn, to prevent the vision from overwhelming you. But you will prevail, Andros. I see it. You will prevail. Come to the Tower of Observation if you need me."

As he vanished from sight, the thought struck me that I would not be the one to correlate my story with the Records. I did not need to; I had seen the past and knew the truth, but I loved my wise, old friend for believing me. Then the revelation overcame me again, and I sat and wept, clutching my copy of Ayleos' Mathematics, consumed by my memories of Mirdath.

Presently, when I could no longer bear contemplating my former life, I turned from the haze and pain of my memories back to the embrasure and the inconceivable enigma of the Night Land, for none of the inhabitants ever wearied of looking upon its dreadful mysteries. The old and young, from infancy to death, watched the black monstrosities of that fearsome country, which only our last refuge of humanity held at bay. But now I saw the familiar things with new eyes, as if from the perspective of that ancient gentleman, Andrew Eddins, and it left me dumbstruck to discover my impressions of the world so changed.

To the right of the Red Pit and the Northwest Watcher lay a long, sinuous glare known as the Vale Of Red Fire. Slightly more than fifty-three miles separated the pyramid from the Watcher. The creature could be seen from such a distance both because of the height of the redoubt, and the Watcher's enormity, for it stood twenty-six hundred and seventeen feet tall, or almost a half a mile. Its form was so cragged it might have been mistaken for a mountain if not for its brooding mouth and hollow-eyed, unswerving gaze. It possessed neither noticeable arms or legs, and its whole body cascaded downward from its head in irregular terraces. Beyond the Watcher stretched the dreary leagues of blackness called the Unknown Lands, across which shone the cold light from the Plain of Blue Fire.

On the borders of the Unknown Lands ran a range of low volcanoes, which lit up, far away in the outer darkness, the Black Hills. There shone the Seven Lights, which neither twinkled nor faltered through eternity, and which even the Great Spyglass could not make clear, since they stood over one hundred and sixty miles away. Neither had any adventurer ever returned to tell of them, for if he had, a record would have existed within the Great Library, which held the histories of all who ever risked not only their lives, but their spirits, by venturing outside the pyramid. The accounts of the Last Redoubt did not deal with mere thousands of years, but with millions, dating back to what we called the early days of the earth, when the sun still gloomed dully in the twilight sky. Of all that occurred before that, only myths and legends remained.

To my right, to the north, the House of Silence stood upon a low hill about seventy-five miles away. Many lights gleamed within it, but no sound ever rose. It had remained unchanged through uncountable epochs--always the unwavering lanterns shining from beneath its sloping eaves and twisted windows, but never a whisper our listening devices could detect. Our people considered this House the greatest peril in all the Night Land. From my earliest childhood, perhaps because of my Night Hearing, I feared it more than any other aspect of that terrible country, for I often thought I felt the evil seeping from it, reaching toward the pyramid. It always seemed as if some fate awaited me concerning it, and a violent trembling would seize my entire body if I stared too long into the beckoning blackness of its enormous, arched doorway.

Beside the House of Silence wound the gray, shimmering Road Where The Silent Ones Walk. We knew almost nothing about the Road, which passed around the eastern and southern sides of the pyramid before finally vanishing to the west. Many scholars held that of all the structures surrounding the pyramid, only it had been built, long ages before, by human hands. On this point alone were written more than a thousand books, all contradicting one another, and so to no end, as is the way in such matters. It was the same with every other monstrous thing--whole libraries had been penned on every aspect of the Night Land, and millions of volumes had molded, forgotten, into dust.

I stepped out of the embrasure. Because of the lateness of the hour, the wide corridor banding the One Thousandth Plateau lay deserted, save for a watchman riding the moving road spanning the width of the passage. Seeing this familiar scene from Andrew's perspective, I hesitated, for I could not help but wonder what he would think of it all, especially the traveling roads we called migrators, which ran around the outer edge of each of the plateaus. The One Thousandth Plateau stood six miles and thirty fathoms above the plain of the Night Land, and stretched more than a mile across. Numerous doors and passages lined the corridor's inner wall, and though most of the pyramid was made of the same shining gray metal, through the ages various artists had painted colorful scenes along the passage, so that as I stepped onto the migrator, I rolled past many-hued depictions from the history of the One Thousandth City, along with portrayals of battles with the monsters of the Night Land. The ceiling, which hung twenty-six feet above me, had always provided ample space before, but now, remembering the blue dome of the ancient sky, I felt confined.

In a few minutes, I stepped off the migrator at the northeastern wall, where I gazed through another spyglass at the Watcher of the Northeast--called the Crowned Watcher because a blue, luminous ring hung in the air above its vast head, shedding a strange glow downward over the monster's dreadful folds. The light revealed its vast, wrinkled brow, but left all the lower face in shadow, save the ear, which belled out from the back of the head toward the redoubt. Past observers claimed to have seen it quiver, though no living person had ever witnessed it. The night hid its body, though ancient travelers' accounts claimed that it stood like an enormous idol, its shoulders tapering down in a severe angle, its distorted hands hanging to its sides, its lower body an amorphous mound of darkness.

Beyond the Northeast Watcher, close by the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, lay the region called The Place Where The Silent Ones Are Not, so named because the Silent Ones were never seen there. The Giants' Sea bounded the Road upon the far side, and beyond the sea ran another, smaller road called The Road By The Quiet City, which passed beside the unwinking lights of a strange metropolis. No spyglass had ever revealed life there; neither had any of the lights ever faltered through all the ages. Its towers and domes rose, row upon row, into the sky; strange sculptures dotted its high roofs, and sweeping stairs wound between its structures, as if it had once been home to a great people.

Close beside the lights of The Quiet City lay the impenetrable void of The Valley Of The Hounds, home of the monstrous Night Hounds. Beyond that, obscuring all the east, hung a tangible, absolute darkness we called The Black Mist.

As I moved through the quiet Hours of Sleep toward the southeastern wall, I heard a far, dreadful sound, down in the lightless east, and, presently, again--a strange, terrible laughter, deep as low thunder among the mountains. Because this came at random intervals from the Unknown Lands beyond the Valley Of The Hounds, we named that distant, unseen region The Country Of The Great Laughter. Despite having heard it many times, it always left my heart quivering in despair at the terrors assailing earth's last millions.

Again, I was struck by the contrast between my life and my vision of the world before the sun failed. How strange a man Andrew Eddins seemed to me, who could, on whim, ride a horse through forests and glades! How different and yet how similar the two of us were, he with his interest in biology, I with my fascination for mathematics, he loving an outdoors I had never seen. I knew my environment had made me more contemplative than he; I lacked his quick temper but shared his impulsive nature. He seemed the strangest of creatures, a great hulk of a man, so alien as to be almost beyond my understanding, and yet, at the same time, an aspect of myself.

I gazed at the translucent cover of one of the pyramid's millions of interior lights. Though I understood the simple principle of its mechanism, the part that was Andrew, who lived in a world of torches and candles, looked upon it with awe.

I sat down on a bench, overcome once more, thinking of that whole lost world. How unfair it seemed for my people to suffer constant imprisonment when humanity had once roamed the whole world. I put my hands over my eyes, as if to blot out the vision, but in the darkness I saw only a tall, green-eyed lady, wearing unfamiliar garments.

After all these ages, where are you? The thought came unbidden, and I looked up, suddenly struck by the notion that if I had returned to life, perhaps Mirdath might do so as well. The idea filled me with excitement, but dismayed me as well, for if she dwelled among the millions within the pyramid, I did not know how I would ever find her, since she would undoubtedly look much different than she had before.

The Laughter sounded again, waking me from my reverie. As it died away into the eastern darkness, I rose and went to the spyglass, knowing my memories of Andrew's world would lend the image a new significance. My glass focused upon the crater of the Giants’ Pit, lying south of the Giants' Kilns. The giants tended these Kilns, which were enormous, bulging cylinders casting a red, sporadic light that threw wavering shadows across the mouth of the Pit, so the titans could be indistinctly seen, crawling along its rim, performing incomprehensible tasks. We neither knew what they did to the Kilns, nor why they did it.

To the back of the Giants’ Pit, between it and the Valley Of The Hounds stood a vast, black Headland. The light of the Kilns struck the brow of the Headland, revealing things constantly approaching the illumination, looking over the edge, and swiftly returning to the shadows. Throughout our recorded history, never had an hour passed without at least one of the creatures emerging. Because this had happened through countless ages, we marked the region on our maps and charts as The Headland From Which Strange Things Peer.

The Road Where The Silent Ones Walk ran directly before me. I searched it with the spyglass, for the sight of its sojourners always stirred my heart.

Presently, alone in all the miles of that night-gray road, I saw a quiet, cloaked figure moving in the field of my glass. As was the way of those beings, it was shrouded, and looked neither to right nor left. Legends said the Silent Ones would not harm a human, so long as one kept a fair distance from them, but I could not help but shudder as I watched him leave that part of the Road lit by the light from the Three Silver Fire Holes and pass into the shadows.

Far to the southeast, beyond the Fire Holes, fluttered The Thing That Nods. I gaped at it a time; it had indeed turned a fraction more of its face toward the pyramid, and though its features remained indecipherable, I looked upon it in fascination. No one knew what it was, or why it moved; like so much of the Night Land it remained a mystery.

To the right of The Thing That Nods, but nearer, rose the vast bulk of the Southeast Watcher--the Watching Thing of the Southeast. The Torches burned to either side of the squat monster, and though they were easily a half mile away from it, they cast enough light to illuminate the beetled head of the unsleeping brute. Its body hung behind it in a mound resembling the distorted form of an amphibian. It seemed to rest its weight on its deformed, splayed front legs.

The Road swept farther southeast, on to where it swayed just south of the Dark Palace, and then further south, passing around to the west beyond the mountainous bulk of The Watcher Of The South--the greatest monster in all the visible Night Lands. My spyglass showed it clearly: a living hill of watchfulness, brooding squat and tremendous, hunched over the pale radiance of the Glowing Dome, its mouth gaping open, its eyes staring vacantly ahead.

Much was written concerning this odd, vast Watcher, for it had grown out of the blackness of the Unknown Lands of the south a million years before and had drawn steadily closer through twenty thousands years, but so slowly no one could discern its movements in a single year. Yet it did move, and the Monstruwacans had noted its approach and recorded every foot of its progress.

It had come quite far on its journey to the Last Redoubt when a Glowing Dome rose out of the ground before it, halting its advance. From that time on, through countless ages, it stared over the pale glare of the Dome toward the pyramid.

Because of this, many scholars wrote essays suggesting that even as the Forces of Evil were unleashed upon the last age of mankind, so other Powers of Good, incomprehensible to the human mind, aligned themselves to battle the terrors. The Glowing Dome was not the only evidence of such, as I will later relate.

Of the coming of these monstrosities, we knew little, for the evil began before the histories of the Great Pyramid were written, before the sun had even completely faded. We believed the trouble arose in the legendary Days of the Darkening, when ancient science disturbed powers beyond the earthly plane and allowed the monsters and Ab-humans to pass an unseen barrier previously protecting mankind. Grotesque and horrible creatures materialized, or later, developed, to assault humanity, while those entities lacking the power to assume material form grew into Forces capable of influencing and destroying the human spirit. As civilization degenerated into lawlessness, the surviving millions banded together in the twilight of the world to build the Last Redoubt.

Later, through hundreds and thousands of years, mighty races of dreadful creatures, half man and half beast, appeared. They warred against the pyramid, but were driven back, time and again, with much slaughter on both sides. After many such attacks, the people tapped the energy flowing through the earth and erected a circle of power around the redoubt. After sealing the lowest half-mile of the pyramid, they found peace in what was the beginning of an eternity of quiet waiting for the time when the Earth Current would fail.

Through the centuries, the creatures glutted themselves upon any who dared to venture beyond the sanctuary to explore the Night Land. Of those who went, few returned, for eyes peered through the darkness, and Forces of Evil moved upon the face of the earth, keeping vigil with senses superior to those of human kind.

As the eternal night lengthened across the world, the powers of the evil ones grew, and new and greater monsters developed and bred out of space and other dimensions, attracted like infernal sharks by that lonely hill of humanity. Giants arose, fathered of bestial humans and mothered of monsters, and various other creatures appeared, bearing human semblance and cunning, so that some of the lesser brutes possessed machinery and underground chambers for warmth and air.

I listened to the sorrowful roar rising continuously over the Gray Dunes from the Country Of Wailing, which lay midway between the pyramid and the Watcher Of The South, then I took the migrator toward the southwestern side. As I rode the traveling roadway, I watched the panorama of the Night Land, a landscape vast as a nation, through the passing windows.

I stepped off the migrator and looked from a narrow embrasure far down into the Deep Valley, four miles to the bottom, where broiled the Pit Of The Red Smoke. The mouth of this pit extended one full mile across, and the smoke filled the Deep Valley at times, making it appear as a glowing red circle amid dull, ocher clouds. Since the smoke never rose much above the valley, it left a clear view across to the country beyond. There, along the farther edge of the Valley, the gray, quiet Towers, each nearly a mile high, shimmered wickedly.

Beyond these, to the southwest, loomed the enormous bulk of the Southwest Watcher, a creature shaped much like a gargoyle with shoulders held high as if in a perpetual shrug. The Eye Beam projected from the ground before it--a single ray of gray light shining on the monster's right eye. Because of the illumination, that eye had been scrutinized through thousands of years. Some believed it looked steadily through the light at the pyramid. Others, thinking the ray the work of those Powers of Good opposing the Evil Forces, argued that it blinded the Watcher, preventing it from seeing the redoubt clearly. Whatever the case, as I watched through the spyglass, it seemed the brute stared, unwinking, as if fully aware I spied upon it.

I have told of the five great Watchers surrounding the pyramid: the Watcher Of The Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast, and South, each keeping silent, immovable guard upon the pyramid. Despite their motionlessness, we knew them as mountains of living vigilance, filled with hideous, steadfast intelligence.

To the northwest of the Southwest Watcher, extending an unknown distance northward, lay a region called The Place Where The Silent Ones Kill, so named because ten thousand years before a group of adventuring humans left the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk and were immediately destroyed. Only one survived to tell the tale, though he died soon after, his heart frozen. Our scholars could never explain the account, but it was written in the Records along with the testimonies of those who examined the body.

Far beyond The Place Where The Silent Ones Kill, in the very mouth of the western night, glistened the Place Of The Ab-humans, where the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk was lost in a dull green, luminous mist. We knew nothing of that region, though it stirred the imaginations of our greatest thinkers. Some believed that it was a place of sanctuary, differing from the Last Redoubt as we of this day suppose that heaven differs from earth. Those who held that view thought the Road might lead there, if only the Ab-humans did not obstruct the way.

Finally, my observations came full circle, back to the Red Pit and the Northwest Watcher. Between all the Watchers, monsters, flames, and terrors, numberless fire-holes pocked the surface of the Night Land. From where I stood, they appeared as pin-points of light across the dark plain. As a boy I had often tried to count them, but they were too numerous.

I have described something of that land, and of the besieging Watchers and terrors that waited for the hour when the failure of the Earth Current would leave us defenseless. I stood, quietly gazing, lost in wonder both at my own, dark world, and at the forgotten days of sunlight. Sometimes I glanced upward to the gray, metal mountain rising measureless into the gloom of the everlasting night, or downward to the sheer sweep of the grim, metal walls, more than six full miles to the plain below. All around the base of the pyramid, which was five and a quarter miles each way, ran the great circle of light generated by the Earth Current, bounding the edifice for a mile on every side and having the appearance of a transparent tube which we referred to, simply, as The Circle. None of the monsters could cross it, because it created what we called the Ether Barrier, an invisible wall of safety. It emitted a vibration that disrupted the brains of the monsters and lower man-brutes and produced an even more subtle resonance that protected us against those Forces capable of affecting our souls. A Force of Evil could only penetrate the pyramid if an inhabitant dabbled in matters that left him open to its dreadful influence.

I could never look at The Circle without thinking of my parents, who had helped maintain the pyramid's mechanisms. They and their fellow workers had been required to perform a full survey of The Circle once every six months. A young member of the team, either through foolishness or carelessness, stepped across The Circle and was attacked by a monster. When my mother and father rushed to his aid, the beast killed all three. I was ten years old at the time, and saw the entire episode through a small spyglass.

As I stood thinking of my parents and Mirdath, I realized that in both instances death had stolen my loved ones while I helplessly watched. Leaning against the embrasure, overtaken by the losses of two lifetimes, I stared out into the night.