Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

I climbed the Endless Stair, as Le Aaiun did, and did not, when she reached the source of the Dead River. But as the Dreaming Moon rose above me, with perfect Vloles set upon it, I found that I could speak to it, and it to me, though my approach was both endless and futile.

“Immortal, inscrutable Vloles,” said I, “my family and kin are all gone. Taken from me, but in a way that there are none upon whom I might revenge.”

“Such is the way of things.” Vloles spoke in a multitude of voices, as if every citizen of Korton had lifted their throats up as one.

“I fear that nothing is left for me but the Next Dream, the Dream-to-Come, the Deepest Dream,” I continued. “Tell me if I am right or wrong.”

Vloles did not respond, so I continued walking. In time, I asked afresh: “Should I end myself? Cast me upon the plains of baleful Køs and let her horrid light be my end?

“If your rasp should wear, do you then destroy it?” Vloles, its multitudes, asked.

“No,” I said. “You re-cast it, re-forge it, into a hunting-knife. Or, at least, I have always done so.”

“Then that is what you must do. Seek for the north, for Harbiyyah. That will be your forge, your hammer, your tempering quench.”

“Harbiyyah is vast,” I replied. “How will I know when I have reached my destination? How will I know when I have leave, your leave, to depart to the Dream-To-Come?”

“How did you know to arrive into this dream, or any other images that have danced before your mortal eyes?”

“I do not know,” was my reply. “I just did.”

“Then there is your answer,” the many voices of Vloles said as one.

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“A vision of Vloles upon the Dreaming Moon, with your loved one calling to you from its battlements…” Farciya seemed to choke, unable to continue, once Tiris had finished his story.

“Is that so strange?” Tiris said. “The these dreamlands’ strange gods should speak to us through dreams within dreams, speaking in riddles?”

An icy wind from the north broke against the shelter, and the flames guttered as Farciya drew her blanket closer. “No,” she said. “What is strange is that I too, had such a vision Years ago. My kith and kin had died, and I beseeched immortal Vloles for a sign of what I should do next.”

She was silent as the wind whistled again, rising to a savage howl before abating.

“The answer was Harbiyyah,” she said. “Here. Now, I suppose.”

“Tell me what you saw,” Tiris said, his voice taking on a gentler tone. “We can compare our visions, and perhaps in so doing come to know our path a little better.”

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In my vision, I approached perfect, immortal, inscrutable Vloles, its turreted walls calling to me across the void, and beheld three shadowy figures perched on its living battlements.

“I am the Light,” said the first. “I bring illumination, but also burning-death, blindness, and charred flesh clinging to bone.

“I am the Dark,” said the second. “I bring obfuscation, but also rest to the weary, shelter to the hunted, and the deep cold of deep, still waters.”

“I am the Nameless,” said the third. “I cannot be known, but to know me would bring madness, so that be a mercy.”

I spoke: “Tell me, oh many-who-are-three, oh three-who-are-many, whether huddled within your walls I might find my beloveds, taken from me first in waking and later in dreaming.”

Their reply: “They are within, for all who pass beyond must first through immortal Vloles, the living city-god, pass.”

“I will seek you then,” said I. “I will sail the Dead River to the City of Aaiun and climb the Infinite Stair, if that be what is required.”

“No,” they said, as one and in unison. “Seek us at Farthest North. Aauin’s way is closed, now.”

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“Remote Piloted Drone log, pilot Dale Hillman III reporting. Please note timestamp and galactic coordinates.”

“System is Deep Near-Infrared Survey 1248-99. Please pull relevant details from database.”

“System consists of six major and ten minor planets. Append notes to observations as I read them, please.”

“First planet, DNIS 1248-99a, is of a Hot Jupiter type. Limited economic prospects, but possible site for hydrogen mining or dumping.””

“Second planet, DNIS 1248-99b, is terrestrial. .1 Earth masses, relatively few heavy elements, one satellite that appears to be captured asteroid or comet. Limited economic prospects.”

“Third planet, DNIS 1248-99c, is a super-earth. 8.5 Earth masses. Some trace heavy metals and a thin atmosphere. Tagged for possible future prospecting.

“Fourth planet, DNIS 1248-99d, is the big one. It appears to be a former gas giant that has undergone extreme hydrodynamic escape, stripping away all atmosphere and leaving only the core.”

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The porters had taken one of the canoes but left much of the food. Their note, apologetic, described their fear at seeing the dazzling lights in the sky, the men from their village that had not returned from the far north.

“I suppose I cannot ask you to come any further with me, then,” Tiris said. “I had planned and prepared for this eventuality, to seek the Dreaming Moon in the farthest north alone.”

Farciya was silent a moment. “I will accompany you, she said in time.

“Why?” Tiris said. “I release whatever hold I, as your employer, may once have had on you.”

“When you came upon me, I had long tired of the dreamlands as I had once tired of waking life, many years ago. I had begun looking for ways to pass beyond, into the Next Dream, the Dream-to-Come, the Deepest Dream. But surrender is not my way.”

“You came here to die,” Tiris said, shocked.

“I would accept success, and life, just as I would accept perishing in the attempt.”

Farciya let her words hang over the last refuge for a time.

“Why do you seek the Dreaming Moon?” she said. “I have unburdened myself to you unbidden; to pay me the same tribute is the least I can ask.”

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“This is the last refuge,” Farciya said. “North of here, there are not, nor have there ever been, aught but the occasional hunter or lost soul, and they wander at their peril.”

Tiris looked at the rude hut, with sod stacked upon its sides as insulation against the northerly winds. “How long before we stop seeing trees we can burn?” he asked, casting a glance at the firewood that had been cut and stacked at the hunter’s hut.

“Not far, now. You can already see how short and stunted they are. First we will leave them behind, then we will lose use of the rivers as they turn to ice, and finally we will break upon the rocky shores of Farthest North. I only hope that what you seek is there.”

“What is north of that?” said Tiris.

“Frozen water. Snow and ice, with polynyas. A tortured nightmare landscape from which there is no return.”

“Surely there is land beyond it,” Tiris said. “Somewhere, somehow.”

“Some have sought it,” Farciya replied. “None who set foot on that ice have ever returned.”

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Tiris had convinced only two of the remaining porters to accompany him north with Farciya. The other two took the bloody canoe, from which the sound-haunts had torn their compatriots, and portaged east, toward a river that would bring them to the Silver Sea and home.

Farciya insisted on paying them their full wages, and Tiris did not object. Supplies meant for ten would last four far longer.

They cached everything that could not be carried by burying it and then continued to sail north. Farciya warned that soon nighttime would desert them as they entered the lands where the sun is eternal and the night is even more so. It would behoove themes finish their travels before the long night began, for not even she knew what horrors emerged to tread the dreamlands in perpetual blackness.

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When reached I then the farthest north
The sun did stand on end
A dozen orbs in glit’ring robes
To the horizons did descend
Behind them all, looming bright
The Dreaming Moon I did behold
Upon it then I did alight
Lightly, briefly, in repose

Tiris closed the book. “I found that in the Chronicles of Ad Dakhla, in the great libraries of the City of Brass,” he said. “They are some of the last ravings of Le Aaiun, Lady of the Dead River, and it is my belief that the describe another route to the Dreaming Moon.”

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Some hours later, one of the porters’ canoes reappeared, drifting downstream. Farciya, along with the four remaining in the other canoe, were able to bring it in to shore. Of the inhabitants, there was nothing but bloody stains, but the tools were intact.

“How are we supposed to return if that awaits us?” Tiris cried.

“We will follow the Silver Sea coast,” Farciya replied. “It is normally far more dangerous to take that route.”

Tiris did not respond. Instead, he segregated himself away from the camp and began taking sextant readings of the setting sun, which he compared to notes and drawings in a small notebook. The surviving porters were soon grumbling about their employer’s lack of empathy, and Farciya was of the same mind.

“We have decided,” she said, approaching Tiris at his work. “Unless you tell us what, exactly what, we seek here in Harbiyyah, we will go no further.”

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“We must be very silent through here,” Farciya said, pointing at a pair of obsidian pillars, the bones of dead volcanoes, that rose on either side of the river flowing north.

“Why is that?” Tiris asked, looking down at the riverbank. The porters he had hired were busily packing up their camp and preparing the canoes to take them further into the trackless Harbiyyah.

“For the next hundred leagues, the riverbanks are infested with ganeni, the sound-gaunts, the seekers of shrieks,” said Farciya.

“I take it from their names that they do not react well to intruders.”

“They cannot be seen in any but the strongest light, they move fast, swim fast, and home in on any loud noises like a pack of wolves. They will rip us from our boats and devour us until the river runs red, for the rare travelers and beasts that stray through here are their only sustenance, and it may be aeons before their next meal.”

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