The Darkness at the Edge of Noon: a Thalassia novel Read online

  The Darkness at the Edge of Noon

  By PD McClafferty

  Copyright © 2015 PD McClafferty

  All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ISBN 978-0-986425-2-6

  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Dripping water slid down Logan’s beak-like nose and he sneezed. “You’re right, Moray.” His dark blue eyes scanned the surrounding jungle and at that particular moment he didn’t quite resemble a wet rat. “Something just doesn’t smell right to me too. You stay here. I’ll tell the captain.” His given name was Logan Conall MacKennit and he was called Gunny in the Imperial Guards. The ancient meaning of the rank was lost in antiquity.

  The other guard shifted his stance, gripped his spear tighter, and turned to face the rainforest. “Aye, Gunny. I’ll be waitin’ right here.”

  With a brief nod the first guard turned, entering a dark doorway at his back. The ancient and worn entry led to a dim, downward sloping hallway that extended for a few yards, arriving at a great torch lit room where a large group of men and women waited. Moss covered the worn block walls of the chamber, water trickling down the rough sides to form shallow oily pools on the stone floor. Smells of mold and nervous sweat were heavy in the cold damp air and the soldiers looked up as he entered.

  “Well, what did you find out?” A tall man in gleaming armor asked imperiously, tucking in his riding crop, the symbol of his rank, firmly under his arm.

  “Moray was right, Captain. Something smells strange out there. I don’t like it.”

  Before the captain had a chance to reply a corpulent man dressed head to toe in plum, waddled up to stand before them, thumbs hooked in the waist sash of his pants. “Gunny, are you turning cowardly? It’s a good thing your father is dead. This shame would have killed the Councilor.” The fat man gave a derogatory laugh. “I’m only taking my family outside for a breath of fresh air, after all. We have all these fine soldiers to protect us, Gunny. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Logan flushed with anger, and out of the corner of his eye he could see his captain laughing. “I am just being cautious. I’d rather not risk lives if I can avoid it.”

  “Oh, bother.” The fat man chortled. “Captain, take the men outside if you please. It’s almost noon, and I don’t want to miss the show.”

  The captain bowed and smiled his best, ingratiating smile. “As you wish, Minister. Try not to get your shoes dirty. The cleaning crew is always on my case, you see.”

  The minister returned the smile, while his eyes remained hard, and turned back to his plump wife and portly children. Gunny wanted to throw up.

  The captain’s voice was cold. “Take your troops outside, Gunny. You and I will discuss this later—privately.” Logan winced.

  “Yes, Captain.” He turned to the cluster of guards, both men and women. “Bel and Tiana; you take scout. Soft and quietly, ladies. Don’t spook anything bigger then we are.”

  “Don’t tell us how to do our jobs, Gunny. Two scouts?” The petite blond woman looked curious. “You must really be worried.”

  The two slender women pushed through the cluster of bodies and headed for the doorway, tightening their armor on the way, so it wouldn’t rattle.

  “OK, the rest of you move out. Orin and Calder take rear guard.” There was a muted chorus of, “Yes, Gunny.”

  The sun was just a memory. The heavy rain had finally let up, turning to a thick oozing drizzle that crawled off of the cold gray stones to land on the waxy dark green leaves of the small plants that grew at the base of the ruined wall. Twisting roots of trees and creeping tendrils had eaten the city’s heart out, and what remained was a bitter, empty husk. Decaying plants filled the jungle with a thick heavy scent; air that was already full of the sounds of little things—things that crept and slithered and scuttled over the soft, unctuous ground.

  The rat, hiding under the green moss-covered remains of a stone foot looked up, eyes glittering blackly. Its ears twitched. Waiting only another moment it darted away, splashing through freshly minted puddles in its haste to escape. Behind the stone foot, deep in the darkness of an ancient doorway, there came a grinding of rock on rock, a wash of yellow torch light and low voices.

  “At least the bleedin’ rain’s almost stopped, Duff. I don’t relish another day bein’ wet and cold, don’t cha know.”

  “Quit yer bellyaching, Moray.” A second, deeper voice replied. “We get paid to guard the minister and his family. Good money too. In an hour we’ll be back inside havin’ a nice hot lunch.”

  Rock grated against rock one more time as the door swung wider. “Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms.” The first voice complained.

  “Wha da ya want? We live underground. Think we get termaters there?”

  There was a short barked laugh. “Where’d yer hear bout termaters, Moray?”

  “I heared a story once. Now, check the outside, like you was paid te do. I know that they haven’t seen any o them demons in months, but you can never be too careful, my ma always said.”

  A cheap silver-painted ceramic sword appeared out of the doorway, just as the clouds shed their last few drops and the rain stopped—for the moment. The captain pulled up his thick cloak and followed the point of his sword, eyes scanning the wall of leaves, nose sniffing intently. “I don’t smell anything.” His high pitched voice sounded dubious. “It’s all clear, Minister Dumple. You can bring yer family out if you will, but it will still be a little wet.”

  The big man laughed, a thick braying sound, and his feet squelched in the soft dirt. “Wet we can deal with. Move the children over there, Sibeal.” His be-ringed hand pointed to a small rise, a hundred yards from the entrance. Logan, watching from the edge of the clearing, groaned inside. It was too far, too damned far away from the doorway.

  “Gunny!”

  “Yes, sir.” Logan replied crisply, snapping to attention in front of the captain.

  “Take a few men and follow the minister and his family. Just a few, mind you. We don’t want to bother him. Pick six others and make four of them women. The women won’t frighten the children as much.” Logan groaned again. “What did you say, Gunny?”

  “Nothing, sir. I was just leaving.”

  Logan spread his men and women loosely around the Ministerial Family, and then he waited and listened.

  “Now, the reason we are here today,” The minister bragged in an important voice. “Is so that I can show the two of you how to open doors into shadow.”

  “Shadow?” The chunky little girl whispered, her ey
es going wide.

  “Yes.” Her father continued, stroking her hair and smiling. “Only special people can do it; people who belong to certain important families; our family, and a few others.”

  “Could our family always open doors in shadow?” The equally heavy boy, maybe twelve years old Logan guessed, looked excited.

  “No. Our family has only developed this ability in the last three generations. There are limitations to this skill, though; you must know both where you are and where you are going to, in order to picture it in your mind. That is what makes the door in the Darkness at the Edge of Noon so dangerous, you don’t need a destination; all you have to do is open the door and step through it to somewhere else. That is what I am going to show you today. The rest we can practice inside, where it’s safe.”

  “Why don’t we travel through shadow all the time?” The girl cut in.

  “We don’t use our gift all the time because not all people have the ability, only a few families. We don’t want everyone to get jealous now, do we?” She nodded slowly.

  “Brody!” The minister’s wife pointed upward. Through a break in the heavy clouds he could see the glittering rings of their planet Thalassia, and the sun was just starting to touch the edge.

  “It’s time. Children, stand close to your mother. I will open a door to show you what one looks like. Reach out with your minds. Feel what I’m doing. The doorway only lasts a minute or two, and then it disappears. Five minutes later, as the sun crosses the other side of the rings, the shadow will appear one more time, and we will open the door again. Another day, when the sun is shining more brightly, I will open a door and we will cross through, wait for five minutes and cross back through the next door.” Logan, standing on the sidelines, found that he was holding his breath, reaching out in some way with his own mind.

  There was a wash of shadow as the sun crossed the leading edge of the planetary rings. Logan felt the minister reach out in some way, and twist the fabric of space. A line as sharp as a razor split the air between two trees, and seemed to turn, widening into a doorway of purest black. Nothing could be seen beyond. Heavy branches from the two trees formed a strange lintel over the darkness.

  “Ooooooo.” The little girl’s eyes were as wide as they could go.

  “That’s great!” The boy was jumping up and down.

  A minute later, the door winked out of existence. The minister looked smug. “The only way you can find your way back through this door is to step through and turn around. Five minutes later you can open the door again and leave. If you wander you will get lost and never find the same spot that you came through. A door won’t open at any other spot. That’s why it’s so dangerous. It’s also why I’m showing this to you; for your own safety.”

  There was a crash in the jungle, and the minister’s smug expression wavered. Everything seemed to happen at once.

  “Protect the minister!” The big captain was shouting to no one in particular, waving his sword in the air. “Protect the...” Green hands materialized from the jungle behind his back and wrapped themselves around the man’s neck. Logan noted the look of surprise on his superior’s face, as the green skinned creature stepped out of the jungle and calmly twisted the head off the captain’s well-muscled body. Blood arched like a fountain.

  Logan slashed the tendons on the back of another creature’s legs, then stabbed it cleanly in the chest as it flopped on the ground.

  “Run to me! To me!” He shouted at the top of his lungs into the milling chaos. More green forms were pouring out of the jungle, blocking their only doorway to safety. More and more of his men were down. “To me!” Green clawed arms dragged the two chubby children screaming into the jungle, while other creatures slowly and very thoroughly dismembered the parents. More thick blood flowed. Screams of the dying filled the air.

  There was a flicker of darkness around them as the sun crossed the other edge of the ring, and Logan desperately reached out with his mind, like the minister had done, and twisted. A razor thin cut formed in the air before him and turned in some unimaginable way to form a doorway.

  “Through the doorway!” He screamed. Half the guards were down now, and the remainder were all wounded to a greater or lesser degree. A green arm came from behind him, claws raking across his face, and he sagged for a second from the fierce pain, his left eye blurred. Ignoring it, he swung his heavy spear blade. The creature howled, and Logan’s face was splashed with the thing’s green blood, hot and bitter tasting. He stabbed again and the thing was still.

  The jungle was alive with the green creatures now, and when he saw the last of the living guards disappear through the doorway, he jumped too.

  The darkness was absolute, without feeling, without sound, and he hung there for a time. Then he fell. Shouts greeted him as he crashed to the ground, rolled. Something else struck the ground beside him. Something big and green, but it wasted no time before it bounded off into the woods. Somewhere behind him, hidden by fog and thickets of waxy green leaves, the door twisted closed.

  Chapter 2

  Standing up made the world swim around him, so he sat back down on the soggy ground, breathing deeply. The air smelled of rot and blood. Only seven of them left out of eighteen, all with varying degrees of damage. Two men and, thanks to the captain, five women. One woman had a broken arm, a man had broken ribs. Another woman had two broken fingers. All had cuts and gouges from fangs and claws. He had probably lost an eye. He brought up his left hand and began to gingerly feel the damage to his face. Another hand slapped his away.

  “Your hands are filthy,” A female voice stated, but he could sense her smile. “Gunny. You’ve already lost an eye, you wouldn’t want those wounds on your face to turn septic, and your whole head fall off, now would you?”

  He smiled and regretted it almost immediately as pain lashed across his ruined face. “Well, it looks like I won’t be winning any beauty contests for a while.”

  “Like you ever could have with that beak, which survived unscathed.” Aileen, the squad’s one medic, replied.

  “I was just born lucky, I guess.” Gunny muttered. “All right, listen up everyone.”

  All the heads turned to face him. “I don’t know where the Hells of Katar we are, or how we are going to get home, but we’re alive. It’s more than we can say about our Captain McDermit.” Someone made a rude noise which Gunny chose to ignore. “As long as we’re here we can drop calling each other by our proper ranks. You know that I’m Gunny. You also know that Aileen,” he nodded stiffly to the woman who had bandaged him, “and Grady are both corporals. The rest of you are privates until we get back and I can get the lot of you promoted for gallantry above and beyond, or some such nonsense.” There were grins all around. Promotions meant more money. “We might as well use our first names, too. Any objections?”

  “We can’t use nicknames?”

  “No, Megan, we won’t use nicknames, although for you, ‘killer’ is quite appropriate.” Grady sniggered, and Megan’s glare could have skewered him. “Bel and Tiana, if Aileen has seen to your wounds, do a quick reconnoiter. I don’t want anything to surprise us.”

  The two women got to their feet, and the darker haired of the two sketched a brief salute. “Aye, aye, Gunny.” She gave him a sheepish look. “I meant Logan.” They turned and disappeared into the woods. Logan smiled. They were really very good scouts, but he wouldn’t say that to their faces.

  Two weeks later, with dwindling rations, he was beginning to wonder.

  Corporal Grady McMullan was a big man, big of bone and muscle, and his hair was dark and curly. With a week’s growth of beard, he was starting to resemble a bear, and his voice reflected the man.

  “Logan.” The big man had come up quietly on Logan’s bad side, and the quiet voice made him jump.

  “What is it, Grady?”

  The big man pointed to a fallen tree, leaning precariously against another, its leafless gray branches looking like a thicket of hedgehog quills. “We’ve passe
d that tree before, Logan.” A worried expression furrowed his face. “I know we have. I think our scouts are leading us in circles.”

  Logan looked at the tree as they passed. “We’ve passed that tree twice before, as a matter of fact. I’ve never known Bel and Tiana to be so clumsy. Let’s stop here for a while. I’d like to work this out.”

  A few minutes later the scouts came in, frowns on both their faces. Bel ran dirty fingers through her dark hair. “I know what you’re going to say, Logan, and you’re right. We’re going in circles. But, at the same time, we’re going in a straight line. I don’t understand it.”

  Logan thought for a second. “We’ll wait here. You follow on through the woods, like we’ve been doing and we’ll see what happens. We’ll get a fire going and see what we can find to eat. We’ll save you some.”

  Tiana, the short blond-haired woman gave him a flat look. “You had better. We’re getting hungry too.”

  Logan pointed to the foggy woods. The scouts left. It was noon the next day before the scouts returned, from the opposite direction, and they were arguing.

  “...is not my fault.” Bel was fuming. “I led us straight. There’s no way in the bloody frozen hells that we could have come up from the other side. We only crossed that river once, right?”

  “I still don’t know.” The blond sounded dubious.

  Logan pointed to a covered pot on the cook fire, and thanked the gods that the squad never went anywhere without fully equipped packs. “Get yourselves something hot to eat. Grady snared a couple of rabbits, Aileen found some mushrooms and Ryanne some tubers that taste surprisingly like potatoes—and a salt lick.” The women dug in with undisguised enthusiasm. “I suspect that we’ve fallen into a trap. When you have finished I’d like you to head out again, this time at right angles to the way you went before. Go right or go left. It doesn’t matter. We’ll see if you come back from the other side again.” Tiana and Bel both nodded, saying nothing, their mouths full of savory stew.