Tales of the Last Bards

By Charles Delaney

This is a compilation of short story fan fiction based on the book "The Night Land" by William Hope Hodgeson and is considered to be the best piece of macabre fiction ever written by the likes of H.P. Lovecraft.
It is a world of perpetual night, for the sun has died and no stars dot the ebony sky. Mankind's last bastion is a huge habitat called the Great Redoubt. It is found in the last habitable region on the dead Earth, at the bottom of a 100 mile deep valley. Strange creatures prowl the darkness awaiting any adventurer that might wish to leave the Redoubt and explore. Few ever do. Of those few, far fewer ever return.
Before that time the dying sun hung perpetually in the sky shining down into the Valley, for the Earth had stopped turning.
Before that time, when the world turned so slowly a day took a full year to complete, huge mobile cities chased the sun and it's life giving light across the world.
These are the epochs of the Night Land. Our world and species clinging to life at the end of time. These are stories from those final days and of those that lived them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Delaney
• Release date: Feb 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465860354

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Tales of the Last Bard

Charles Delaney

Copyright 2012 by Charles Delaney

Smashwords Edition

Prologue

The following is fan fiction based on William Hope Hodgson's book The Night Land. Had the book been written today it would be cutting edge fiction with some of the concepts put forth. That it was written a century ago makes it even more amazing. H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the best piece of macabre fiction ever written and I would heartily agree. If you've not read the book it can be found free on line. I would recommend chapter 2 as the best sampler: http://fiction.eserver.org/novels/nightland/chap02.html Fair warning, the writing style is as horrid as the story itself is fascinating. It's because of that that so many fans of the book will write their own variants, I guess we're trying to save the concept from the author's style. This collection represents some of my efforts along those lines. They are placed in chronological order, progressing from the time of the Traveling Cities to that of the Great Redoubt. I will offer one disclaimer here. The last stories, beginning with No Women, Ever! have descriptions of the horrid deaths that await those who would venture into the Night Land. These things were only implied in the original book by the author. If you do not care to read of such things by all means omit these from your reading. That is why I have placed them last. But to all readers who embarks on this journey into the Night Land, I raise my Diskos to you!

Table of Contents

Road's End

Stepping Stones, Parts I, II, and III

West into Darkness

Progeny, The Challenge

Progeny, Point of No Return

Perspectives

The Ecology of the Night Land

Climate in the West Valley

No Women, ever!

The Fall of the Lesser Redoubt I

The Fall of the Lesser Redoubt II

The Fall of the Lesser Redoubt III

Road's End

The time was drawing near. The time of the Gathering at Road's End. The Long Dark, when the lands froze, was over. As was the Bright Torrent, that followed the slow return of the sun into the sky, which replenished the Delving's underground cisterns. Waters that would be desperately needed as the sun crept higher and the Burning Time began. But now the searing sun was sinking towards the horizon. Already the eastern side of the mountains were in shadow. Soon the clouds of the Dark Torrent would come to soak the parched earth and allow a brief time of planting and harvest. Too brief to sustain the Delving alone. Left to that sparse husbandry it would cease to be. But after the Torrent passed would come the great City along the Road. There would be a Gathering and each would provide what was lacking in the other. Once an accord was reached...

It began at the time of the first Road Builders, when the mighty Cities were made as well. It was when the Earth's rotation slowed enough to warrant humankind leaving it's shelters to forever chase the light of the waning sun. Thus began the mighty work on the Cities. Before them went the Road Builders, who laid the great rails the Cities would ride upon. It was planned that, as the great Cities set out, that they would catch up to the Road Builders as they completed their final constructions that would join the globe girdling Road in and endless loop. Then they would rejoin their their brethren in the Cities so all shared in the benefits of this great work. Along many Roads this happened. But not all...

Envoy Kirce looked out at the approaching clouds of the Torrent, it's distant rumbles of thunder adding to her growing foreboding. This Gathering she would be Chief Envoy for the Delving with the City. She did not feel equal to the responsibility. Were this an average Gathering she would not be concerned overly. But, it was not. The world they knew was changing and because of that the City would not like what had to be said. If they did not listen all could be in great peril. They must listen. They must!...

When the mighty City began to roll ponderously along the new Road all the stress monitors read nominal. Scouts riding far ahead reported the Road without flaw or variance that night compromise the endless Journey. Thus they continued, comforted by the knowledge of the Road Builders' skill. All seemed well until a line of mountains loomed ahead and the scouts reported the Road ended at their feet. The mountains had proven a greater barrier than expected. Too high to be surmounted, and a tunnel of the dimensions required for the City to pass through was beyond even the Road Builders, this left removing the mountain as the only solution. Thus the Road stopped there until this mighty toil could be completed. Longer still after that it would be to extend the Road so that the Journey could be renewed. During this time the population built shelter in the very mountains that thwarted them. Ores were discovered and mined to speed the labors. Finally the Journey could recommence, but not all chose to rejoin it. Some chose to remain in the shelters, feeling this a safer place than the Journey. Some chose to maintain the pass created so the Journey would not be interrupted again. Yet other chose to mine the ores for what the City would need as it passed on it's next cycle along the Journey. Thus began the Delving and the Gatherings.

Morga was the Negotiator for the City. He looked over the reports with their projections and frowned. they were hardly encouraging. Production from the Delving had dropped steadily over the last several cycles. With the recent renovations to the primary drive trains their stockpiles were becoming critically low. Should a major repair be needed, or the Road needed maintained, the Journey could be threatened and the City with it. Morga looked at the approaching mountains and, still frowning, made up his mind. The Delvers must be made to understand. They must!...

With the arrival of the City, grinding to a halt in the pass, the Gathering began. Delvers swarmed from their underground shelters to set up shops of well made trade goods of unmatched quality that City artisans could not equal. These shops nestled under the massive chassis of the City, where Delvers were most at ease. The City dwellers, for their part, set their shops in the open air and slanting rays of the retreating sun. Here they were most comfortable and best showed the bright colors of their cunning art that was lacking within the Delving.

Between these areas a festival zone existed where swarthy City dwellers in bright flowing costumes mixed freely with pale Delvers in more somber dress. The novelty of each to the other brought much gaiety, flirtations, and furtive trysts. Such indiscretions were overlooked during the Gatherings, for any children born of them would augment a limited gene pool.

But not all was festive, much work had to be done in a short time. Work crews swarmed over the drive trains of the City doing maintainence that would have been far harder during the Journey. Broken and worn equipment was unloaded for Delver forges and shops to repair and recycle. Raw materials from Delver mines were brought out to replaced them. But the items of greatest importance, foodstuffs from the City and finished parts from the Delving, were held in reserve. those items were the province of the Envoys and Negotiators to decide on. There too the mood was not festive...

Kirce was not impressed with the Negotiator. Too tall and slight of build to be a Delver, he also wore his hair long in the vain City fashion, who preferred letting it blow in the perpetual wind of the Journey. For his part Morga saw a typical Delver in the Envoy. Short, stocky, and hair close cropped in the spartan Delver style. Their meeting place was under the mighty City's bulk but open to the air and sun's rays. A place where neither would feel uncomfortable or overly advantaged. Thus, mindful of the short time they had, deliberations began...

Morga: Our stockpiles are nearly depleted. You must increase production lest the City be placed at risk. Which would equally threaten the Delving since we are linked.

Kirce: We cannot increase our production, our stockpiles are barely sufficient for our projected needs. Needs that include the City's, though you will likely doubt it, in what now must be broached.

Morga: If this need takes supplies from the City and it's Journey, I will doubt indeed. What need could override the continuance of the Journey?

Kirce: It's ending.

Morga: How?! With the Delving's aid there is no section of the City we cannot repair or replace as we Journey. Even the Road's maintainence is not beyond our capabilities. Now you would withdraw that aid to the ruin of us all! Why?!

Kirce: Because things are changing. There is now more to consider than the Journey. And we do not withdraw our aid, we extend more than ever before!

Morga: By starving us?

Kirce: Fool! You only see the Journey. You forget your Journey rides on the labors of my ancestors, the Road Builders! It continues still by our labors today. When the pass was created through these mountains it caused tectonic stresses to form. Stresses that, left unchecked, will destroy the Road and collapse the pass. Thus we continue our labors on your behalf, even in the freezing Long Dark and blazing Burning Time, long after you leave again on your Journey.

Morga: You speak of what every child knows. On this you base your excuses?

Kirce: "Twice fool!! Yes! For every one of our children know you must constantly monitor those stresses and look too for trends you can predict. Those predictions point to the threat we are preparing for."

Morga: Just what is the nature of this 'threat' you fear so?

Kirce: First I would ask whether you have experienced undue tectonic activity over this last cycle?

Morga: Indeed! That is why our stockpiles are so low and you must increase production to compensate!

Kirce: Those problems will only become worse if our predictions prove accurate.

Morga: Then it is all the more critical to increase production.

Kirce: You do not understand. We have been monitoring tectonic forces throughout the planet's crust. They are building towards some end we can not even measure the magnitude of with accuracy. All we know with surety is the cataclysm to come will be like no other that has come before. We must be prepared for that time. It is predicted it will happen during the next cycle. When it comes we will have the means to deal with it. If we yet live.

Morga: "If I am twice the fool then you are thrice so! You've rubbed your eyes in dirt for so long you think us as blind as you. Just as you feel the pulse of the earth, we feel the air. The geomagnetic forces of