Isles of the Emberdark

by Brandon Sanderson

He started away from the stream, and as he did so, his corpse appeared suddenly before him.

Patji was a domineering, vengeful parent who sought the blood of all who landed on his shores.

The woman rotated slowly in her net, and he noticed an Aviar clinging to the outside—like his own birds, it was about as tall as three fists atop one another, though this one had subdued white and green plumage. A streamer, which was a breed that did not live on Patji. He did not know much about them, other than the fact that like Kokerlii, they protected the mind from predators.

“One. One female trapper, Yaalani the Brave. I’ve heard her story a hundred times from the loremothers. She dressed as a man in order to trap, and was successful, but I’m half convinced that such stories exist so that parents can tell their daughters, ‘You are not Yaalani.’”

He needed nothing. Except a purpose. Other than to sit in a jar and be shown to children. Patji send that Frond was right.

“They’ve said they’ll remove their helmets and greet Vathi face-to-face for the first time before they go.”

Dusk hastened his step, and Soil reluctantly handed him something Vathi had sent. Some transcriptions of the talks that day, as typed by the stenographer. He really was forgiven. Her handwritten note at the bottom said, I’m sorry.

He read the notes, and realized what was happening. Vathi and the others were close to giving in. The Ones Above were finally winning.

This chamber was supposed to be secret, with reflective glass on the outside, but he didn’t trust that. The Ones Above had machines that could sense life. He suspected they could see him—or at least his Aviar—regardless of the barrier.

So he was there when, for the first time, they realized the truth. The Ones Above were human. The officials gathered in the room with him gasped as they saw the faces. One male, one female, with strangely pale skin. Perhaps this was what happened when people never saw the sun, living in the emptiness between planets. What were those odd pieces of metal stuck to their cheeks? Ribbed, like ripples of waves, those didn’t seem like armor. More ornamental.

She squawked again, and it took him another moment to spot the death—it had appeared out on the launchpad. One of the two aliens stood with her foot on Dusk’s skull, his face smoldering as if burned by some terrible alien weapon. What did it mean? Sak chirped, soft, and he felt something. This…was a different kind of vision, wasn’t it? Not an immediate danger—but something more abstract. The Ones Above were unlikely to kill him today, but that did not mean they were safe or trustworthy. He nodded in thanks for her warning.

It seemed worse to him, somehow, that the Ones Above were human. An alien monster, with features like something from the deepest part of the ocean, would be more understandable than these smiling humans. Familiar features should not cover such alien motives and ideas.

“Just be ready to accept our installation when we return, yes?” the female said. “No deception.”

climbing aboard their sleek flying machine—a triangle pointed toward the sky. It soon took off, streaking through the air without a sound. Its ability to fly baffled explanation; the only thing Dusk’s people knew about the process was that the Ones Above had requested the courtyard launchpad be made entirely of steel.

She got like this when she saw Vathi. Not because Sak disliked the woman, but because Kokerlii had liked her so much, so seeing her reminded them of him. “I can’t bring him back,” Dusk whispered. “I’m sorry.” It had been two years since the disease, which had claimed so many Aviar. He worried that without that colorful buffoon around to chatter and stick his beak into trouble, the two of them had grown old and surly. Sak had nearly died of the same disease. But then alien medicine from the Ones Above had arrived. The terrible Aviar plague—like those that had occasionally ravaged the population in the past—had been smothered in weeks. Gone, wiped out.

With the full arrival of the Ones Above, he doubted there would be any wilderness left on the planet. Parks, perhaps. Preserves, like the one he’d just left. Unfortunately, he’d learned that you couldn’t put wilderness in a box any more than you could capture the wind. You could enclose the air, but it wasn’t the same thing.

Vathi entered the observation room, Mirris on her shoulder. President of the First Company—which had once been the Northern Interests Trading Company.

“They won’t attack,” Vathi said. “Eight years or more, and they’ve suffered our delays with nothing more than threats. There are rules out there, in space, that prevent them from simply conquering us.” “They’ve already conquered us,” Dusk said softly.

Words had their own economics, as sure as precious metals did. The ones in short supply were the ones that, secretly, everyone wanted.

The Ones Above were quick to share their more common technologies. Lights that burned cold and true, fans that circulated air in the muggy homeisle summers, ships that moved at several times the speed of steam-powered ones. But all of these ran on power sources supplied from above—which deactivated if opened.

They returned shortly with an incredibly strange figure. The Ones Above wore uniforms and helmets—unfamiliar clothing, but still recognizable. This creature stood seven feet tall, and was encased entirely in steel. Armor, thick and bulky, with smooth, rounded edges—and a smoky grey light glowing at the joints. The helmet likewise glowed from a slit-like visor that appeared to have glass behind it. An arcane symbol—reminding Dusk vaguely of a bird in flight—was etched into the front of the breastplate.

“Tell me. Is there a place on your planet where people vanish unexpectedly? A place, perhaps, where an odd pool collects something that is not quite water?”

“You have only one gem with which to bargain, people of the isles,” the alien said, “and that is your loyalty. You cannot withhold it; you can merely determine to whom you offer it. If you do not accept my protection, you will become a vassal of the Scadrians, these ‘Ones Above.’ Your planet will become a farming station, like many others, used to feed their expansion efforts. Your birds will be stripped from you the moment it becomes possible to do so.”

“My people will give you back one out of a hundred birds born,” the armored alien said, “and will allow you to fight alongside us, if you wish, to gain status and elevation.”

The alien thrust out his armored hand, and smoke—or mist—coalesced there out of nowhere. It formed into a gun, longer than a pistol, shorter than a rifle. Wicked in shape, with flowing metal along the sides like wings, it was to Saplings’s pistol what a shadowy deep beast of the ocean was to a minnow. The alien raised his other hand, snapping a small box—perhaps a power supply—to the side of the rifle, causing it to glow ominously.

“I do not envy your decision,” the armored alien said. “You have been thrust into a conflict you do not understand. But like a child who has found himself in the middle of a war zone, you will have to decide which direction to run.”

“He arrived early this morning,” Vathi said, “with a simple offer. No negotiating.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t seem to need a ship to travel the stars. He…flew out of the sky under his own power.”

Sak chirped, and a body appeared on the table in front of Vathi. Dusk frowned. Then that frown deepened. Because the corpse was not his. Never in all his time bonded to Sak had she shown him anything other than his own corpse. Even during that dangerous time years ago, when her abilities had grown erratic, she’d shown Dusk only his own body.

She frowned when he ignored her to inspect the body on the table. It was female, very old, long hair having gone white. The corpse wore an unfamiliar uniform after the cut of the Ones Above. Commendations on the breast pocket, but in another language. It’s her, he thought, studying the aged face. Vathi, some forty years in the future. Dead, dressed for a funeral.

“Your forename was Sixth, wasn’t it?” Vathi said from below, voice accompanied by the sound of a blanket being shaken. “It is.” “Large family,” Vathi noted. An ordinary family. Or so it had once been. His father had been a twelfth and his mother an eleventh. “Sixth of what?” Vathi prompted below. “Of the Dusk.” “So you were born in the evening,” Vathi said. “I’ve always found the traditional names so…uh…descriptive.” What a meaningless comment, Dusk thought. Why do homeislers feel the need to speak when there is nothing to say?

We’re determined to find out, once and for all, why the Aviar must be born on one of the Pantheon Islands to be able to bestow talents.

“The body wears a uniform. One of theirs. The Ones Above. There are symbols on some of the patches and awards. I cannot read the alien writing, but the body appears as if prepared for burial at sea.”

“It really is their writing. It says…you are colonial governor of the occupied planet Drominad.”

“A commendation for valor,” the woman continued. “For putting down something called the Saoa Rebellion. The date is…twenty years from now? The others are similar.”

then noticed the corpse holding something in a clutched hand. A small disk or coin, with a drawing on it? Father. It was his medallion. The one with Cakoban on it. He had given that to her five years ago…on Patji.

“The dusk has passed. This is the night. You will presume to find a new dawn, and do what you must to guide us there.” He looked to her, then tried to smile. “There is a wisdom to that, Vathi. It is what you taught me, years ago.”

“Vathi,” he said softly, “have you considered that we discovered the very thing this armored stranger mentioned?” “The pool?” “Yes,” he said. “More importantly, what’s on the other side.” He paused. “The endless night, Vathi. It’s real. And we must tame it.”

Dusk held his hands to his ears, eyes wide as corpses appeared around him. They piled high, one atop another, some bloated, some bloody, some skeletal. Haunting him. Dozens upon dozens. He dropped to his knees, yelling. That put him eye-to-eye with one of his corpses. Only this one…this one was not quite dead. Blood dripped from its lips as it tried to speak, mouthing words that Dusk did not understand.

He took her by the front of her vest, pulling her toward him in a two-fisted grip, meeting her eyes from only a few inches away. “What are your people doing?” Her eyes widened, and he could feel her tremble in his grip, though she set her jaw and held his gaze. Scribes were not supposed to have grit like this. He had seen them scribbling away in their windowless rooms. Dusk tightened his grip on her vest, pulling the fabric so it dug into her skin, and found himself growling softly. “Release me,” she said, “and we will speak.” “Bah,” he said, letting go. She dropped a few inches, hitting the floor with a thump. He hadn’t realized he’d lifted her off the ground. She backed away, putting as much space between them as the room would allow.

“What do you know of the Ones Above?” she asked him. “They live in the stars,” Dusk said.

They look like us—two arms, two legs. They wear helmets, so we can’t see their faces, but they speak our language. “They have…rules, laws that they won’t explain. They refuse to sell us their marvels, but in like manner, they seem forbidden from taking things from us by force. They warn it might happen, though, someday when we are more advanced. Or…if we keep resisting what is good for us. It’s like they think we are children.”

“What is that?” Dusk asked, nodding to the thing she took from her pocket. It rested in her palm like the shell of a clam, but had a mirrorlike face on the top. “It is a machine,” she said. “Like a clock, only it never needs to be wound, and it…shows things.” “What things?” “Well, it translates languages. Ours into that of the Ones Above. It also…shows the locations of Aviar.” “What?” “It’s like a map,” she said. “It points the way to Aviar.” “That’s how you found my camp.” “Yes.” She rubbed her thumb across the machine’s surface. “We aren’t supposed to have this. One of their emissaries left it—and a few other things—behind by accident. They can make mistakes, stupid ones. He later returned, searching for his machines, and we will have to return them soon. But this device tells us what they are after: the Aviar. The Ones Above are always fascinated with them. They want to trade for the birds, in a way their laws allow. They hint that we might not be safe, that not everyone Above follows their laws, that we should accept their protections.”

“When you last used it, did it draw the attention of all the Aviar? Discomfort them?” “Well, no,” she said. “But the moment of discomfort has passed, hasn’t it? I’m sure it’s nothing.” Nothing. Sak quivered on his shoulder. Dusk saw death all around him. The moment they had engaged that machine, the corpses had piled up. If they used it again, the results would be horrible. Dusk knew it. He could feel it.

They showed a warship full of soldiers. And a strange land with a black sky, and no sun. Endless darkness beyond. “We tried,” Rattu said. “Madam President, I don’t think you appreciate the difficulty we had assembling a ship on the other side, in that dark dimension. It took an extreme amount of work to prepare, outfit, and launch it—not the least of which being the fact that we had to carry it across dry land in pieces to get it through the portal.”

“The worms, Dusk. They float in the…the not-water on the other side.” The worms? The ones he and Vathi had revealed? Interesting. He turned to another page depicting the strange darkness. They’d found the place—the dimension—only two years ago. The clue had come from a discussion with the Ones Above, who asked—trying to make it sound offhanded and irrelevant—if anyone on the planet knew of a strange pool where people sometimes disappeared. Just as the creature in the armor had asked.

“They know,” he said, looking through the images, “that this portal leads somewhere important. They’re trying to reach it.” “You can’t possibly know that,” Admiral Rattu said. “It’s conjecture.” “It’s where we came from,” Dusk whispered. He’d been to this dimension once, before being grounded. “It…does sound like the stories,” one of the senators said. “I think the trapper might have a point.”

“We crossed the night sea,” another senator said. “Isn’t that what the endless darkness means?” “No,” Dusk said, looking through the pages. “No, I’ve seen this place. It does seem endless…and it’s where we came from. So if we crossed this long ago, we can do so again.”

“You’ve discovered a new Aviar,” Vathi said. “How… When…?”

Kokerlii would hide their minds, and with that, they had a chance. It would still not be easy. The things of the jungle relied upon mind sense, but many could still hunt by scent or other senses.

“You have two Aviar,” she said. “You use them both at once?” “My uncle had three.” “How is that even possible?” “They like trappers.”