The Broken Isles

ONE

Wind stirred the leafless treetops. Other than that, Commander Brynd Lathraea could hear nothing to cause concern, nothing out of the ordinary. Snow was settling deep in the Wych Forest.

Still, at least this is better than being in Villiren.

Just a few miles to the north, most of that city was now little more than a war-shattered pile of rubble. Each day since the fighting, soldiers had been discovering dozens and dozens of dead bodies, which were to be burned on pyres. His orders had been strict: this necessary evil was to continue until every citizen’s soul had been freed. It was a messy business, but then the war had left a lot of mess behind. Entering through gates into this world, the Okun had made their way across the water aiming straight for Villiren, focused on the city’s destruction. Brynd organized Villiren’s defence and, though he could declare the operation a success, it didn’t much feel like a victory when so many thousands of Empire civilians had been torn apart.

After that Brynd often preferred to be out here, to talk to the crows and run his hand along damp bark, rather than having to apologize to families for carrying their dead kin through the streets.

But he was not here to relax; he was here for business. A figure could be discerned nearby, beside her waxed canvas tent, lifting a flask to her mouth.

‘Drinking on the job, sergeant?’ he called out.

Sergeant Beale, one of the few surviving Third Dragoons, Wolf Brigade, dropped the flask. She peered around while grasping frantically for her sword. When her eyes settled on him, she didn’t relax at all — in fact, she seemed even more agitated. This was no surprise: Brynd was used to people’s reaction. He was an albino and his eyes were the colour of the sun. He was lean, with day-old stubble and a few inches of silvery white hair. His coal-black uniform, without armour, was immaculately clean and a sabre hung by his side. ‘I’m sorry, commander,’ Beale spluttered. ‘I swear I didn’t hear a thing. In fact, I haven’t for days. And I don’t drink on the job — honestly. Well, just enough to keep warm, sir, since I’m not getting much exercise.’

Brynd reached down, sniffed the flask, then screwed the cap back on before tossing it back to Beale. ‘A waste of good vodka.’ He looked around the forest, before staring intently at her. ‘So you say you’ve seen nothing at all, sergeant?’

‘No, sir.’ Beale looked scruffy after five days in the mud and snow with little access to clean water. ‘A garuda whizzed by during yesterday afternoon, and I’ve circuited this part of the forest every hour, but all I’ve located is some ruins, sir.’

Brynd strode casually over to her shelter and tapped the rope holding it between the trees. ‘That’s good work, putting this together. It’s held up well enough considering there’s little canopy cover.’

Beale said nothing, simply nodded.

Brynd continued to assess his surroundings, each individual trunk, clearings, the skeletal tree line, as if hoping to discern something. ‘Five days and absolutely nothing, you say?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good,’ he replied mysteriously.

She frowned. ‘Does this mean that I am to be relieved, sir?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not yet. A small unit of soldiers will be arriving within the hour with. . someone who might cause alarm upon first sight.’

‘I’ve heard of a giant in the ranks,’ Beale offered.

‘She’s not that big, if that’s what you’re thinking, but yes, it’s her. What you may or may not see is to remain strictly within this forest, do you understand?’

Beale gave a quick nod, and that was that.

‘How is the rebuilding of Villiren?’ she enquired.

Brynd once again scrutinized their surroundings, like a paranoid man. ‘It has begun, but you’re better off out here.’ He indicated the wilderness. ‘This is where the real world is to be found, with trees and earth, not searching the veiled comments of businessmen for a kernel of truth.’

Brynd reached into his pocket, then unfolded a map, his breath clouding in the late afternoon chill. The sun was sliding over the horizon; the sky turning to the colour of dried blood.

‘Do you, uh, have any duties you require of me, commander?’ Beale asked, impatient and nervous in his presence.

‘Do you mean,’ he replied light-heartedly, ‘what am I, the commander of your army, still doing here so late in the day?’

‘I wouldn’t presume-’

‘It would be a fair question,’ Brynd said. ‘This is an issue of utmost secrecy and I can trust few people these days. However, a better question would have been why you were sent here in the first place.’

Beale remained silently annoyed with herself.

‘It’s all right — you just take orders and get on with it, I know. There’s a lot to be said for soldiers like you, and that spirit will get you far in the army.’

Beale nodded.

‘In an hour’s time, about fifty soldiers will descend on this woodland. They’ll take the main track through to those ruins you mentioned.’

‘Sir.’

‘You’ll say nothing about what you may witness, nothing about what occurs here.’

‘Indeed, sir. Though. . what will be occurring, so I know not to look?’

‘You can look,’ he said, ‘though I’m not entirely sure what to expect myself.’

‘Bleak times,’ Beale said.

‘You don’t know the half of it. Were you there in Villiren from the start?’

‘I’m afraid to say I was.’

‘You’re a brave woman.’

‘Lucky, I’d say,’ Beale added.

‘Lucky?’ Brynd gave a short laugh that emitted a cloud of his breath. Beale visibly shivered: the temperatures were plummeting as night approached. ‘Luck would have had you elsewhere in the first place. But, by Bohr, a lot of good men and women were just hacked apart like nothing I’ve ever seen.’

‘What was the death toll in the end?’ Beale asked.

‘The official estimate now stands at a little over one hundred and twenty-five thousand who died in or just after combat. .’

‘Shit. .’ Beale shook her head in disbelief. ‘Pardon my language, sir.’

He waved her apology away. ‘Though some of those deaths might be due to the cold weather and lack of food in the aftermath.’

‘You’ll see the place made good again, won’t you, commander?’

The albino gave a shrug. ‘We can but try. However, I’m not entirely sure that those events — that huge loss of life — weren’t the beginning of something bigger. There are millions scattered across the Jamur Empire-’

‘Don’t you mean Urtican?’

‘No,’ he said and looked at her with intensity. ‘The Jamur lineage has been reinstated for the foreseeable future. Empress Rika is safe and placed in senior command once again.’

‘But. . I don’t understand.’

‘That’s the least of your worries tonight, sergeant,’ he said, and walked away. ‘As you were — and remember to forget what happens later.’

Brynd wondered again what the former Emperor Urtica must have thought upon receiving his letter in Villjamur via garuda all that time ago, effectively annexing the city of Villiren from the Empire and taking what was left of the armed forces to support Jamur Rika. Brynd had received nothing in return, no indication that their declaration had even been read.

Later on in the night a torch flickered, moving between the branches; one, two, three of them now, all leading a small band of figures through the forest. Among the gathered silhouettes came Artemisia, a figure who towered over the others by at least a foot, and she moved with a fluid gait. At the front of the group walked Brynd, and he peered back to assess their progress.

He was surrounded by members of his Night Guard, the elite regiment that he led. More soldiers shuffled into line at the back, about two dozen archers with their bows poking up over their shoulders.

The group headed towards Sergeant Beale’s post. She stepped out onto the path with her hand on her sword, and saluted Brynd.

‘At ease, sergeant,’ he called, his voice absorbed by the black, dead forest. ‘You can fall in line with us at the rear now. We’ve scouts skimming around the edge of the forest.’

‘Am I relieved of duty?’

Brynd considered this for a moment before he called out, ‘Are you any good with a bow?’

‘As good as any,’ she replied.

‘Good.’ Brynd turned behind and gave some sharp orders. A bow was brought forward, along with a quiver full of arrows; he slung them towards Beale, and ordered her to fall in with the archers at the back of their unit.

They reached a clearing, the location of one of the ruins that littered the Wych Forest. Crumbling masonry of once-immense structures sprawled across each other, which was nothing new in the Boreal Archipelago, but here there was a key difference: none of these ruins was covered by moss or lichen like the adjacent deadwood — the smooth, pale stone remained blemish-free. This particular ruin seemed to have once been a kind of cathedral, with huge arches facing directly north. Little of the walls remained, but at the other end — opposite the slightly curved remains of the apse — lay a fully intact arch. It must have stood twenty feet high and, on closer inspection, its surface was remarkably smooth, like new — as if time had not touched it.

Artemisia moved past Brynd and marched right up to the archway as he gave instructions for the archers to line up in two rows extending from the archway, facing each other. Once assembled, they stood silently, in the cold.

The commander was not all that convinced. Of all the possible outcomes, the most likely would be that nothing happened, that this was all some ridiculous fantasy, and there would, in fact, be no extra military support coming his way.

‘How much longer must we wait?’ Eir asked out loud. She momentarily looked over to her sister, the Empress Rika, who remained impassive. ‘We may freeze out here — it’s so very cold.’ The man behind her, Randur Estevu, placed his arms around her protectively and whispered something into her ear, which seemed to warm her up.

Brynd found their affection mildly nauseating. ‘I haven’t noticed.’

‘Your enhancements,’ she said, ‘escape your attention. You can’t feel a thing, I’d wager. Meanwhile our bones will turn to ice.’

‘We’ll take as long as it takes, Lady Eir,’ he declared. ‘Besides, it’s ultimately up to Artemisia as to how long we remain out here.’

The blue giant lumbered into view, bearing down on them. Brynd remained astonished by this alien woman who had burst into their world seemingly from nowhere, bringing the two Jamur sisters, and offering them her aid. She was wearing typical clothing for these islands: breeches and undershirt, but she wore an overcoat cut for combat, with a body-sculpted, brown breastplate that was adorned with a thousand minute symbols, none of which Brynd had ever seen in all his travels. Her hair was tied back out of her way, exposing over her shoulder the handles of her swords. She eyed them curiously, as if she was about to say something patronizing.

Then Artemisia beckoned forth three cultists, two men and a woman dressed in black robes, who were carrying a trunk of relics. She gestured for it to be taken towards the large archway, and the cultists trudged off hastily, their cloaks fluttering in the breeze.

‘I will know soon enough,’ Artemisia announced, ‘how long it is we must remain out here.’ Whenever she spoke, it seemed all those around her listened. She commanded respect. Brynd wondered what her position was in her own world.

‘Have you all that you need?’ Brynd asked her.

‘For now,’ she replied.

‘If it carves a path in the wrong direction?’

‘You have your archers.’

‘And if it fails completely?’ he asked.

‘It will not.’

‘But if it does?’ Brynd pressed.

‘Then, commander, it will be because your cultists have tampered with the technology. The theory, as I have stated, is sound.’

Her skills in the Jamur language had improved rapidly, even if her attitude had not.

For the better part of thirty days, she been working with the city’s cultists; each night she returned to the Citadel in the centre of Villiren, where Brynd, Empress Rika, her sister Eir and the Night Guard were garrisoned, and she brought them relics. For millennia, cultists had monopolized these remnants from the technological glories of the past, even though they often only barely understood them; and now, for the first time, there were explanations as to their uses. Explanations both logical and full of absurdities. If only he could understand more of what she said. He wasn’t interested in the theory, but their application — she was promising she could aid his army, and that was all he was bothered about.

So they had gathered in their numbers, here in the Wych Forest to the south of Villiren, to watch her apply this knowledge. What happened here would give Brynd some indication of Artemisia’s true value to the people of the Boreal Archipelago.

The archway seemed to entrance her and Artemisia approached it with almost a religious fervour. As she retrieved a device from one of her pockets, Brynd stepped alongside her, under the gaze of the archers on either side.

‘This is the archway then,’ Brynd grunted. ‘It looks a fine piece of architecture, but really — you honestly think this is the place?’

‘Your scepticism does not favour you,’ she replied.

‘You mean does me no favours?’

‘That is what I said. I would have thought that, by now, given all you have seen, you of all humans would be more inclined to possess an open mind.’

‘It’s my scepticism that’s kept people alive!’ he responded. ‘You’d do well to remember that.’

It wasn’t a confrontation, but she didn’t acknowledge his remark. The cultists lowered the trunk to the ground, and stepped aside as Artemisia loomed over it. Torches were brought closer as she lifted back the lid to reveal what to Brynd appeared to be the contents of a junkyard in Villiren — bits of piping, metal sheets, all items that could be melted down into something more practical like a sword. But there were stranger things there, too, wires and intricate compasslike gadgets, and materials he hadn’t seen before.

He muttered disapproval of cultist trickery, and left it at that. Now was not the time to criticize: she was, after all, going to help him, help Jamur Rika, and help what was left of the Empire. Artemisia rummaged in the trunk.

‘I will commence the build,’ Artemisia announced, standing tall with two metal objects in her fists. She strode towards the archway and Brynd watched her work: at first she piled the relics at each side of the arch, and further away she began placing small metallic domes at regular intervals, stretching back through the ruins. She began connecting each of them up with a long cable, and then tied those around the arch. The process took the better part of an hour, and Brynd could sense anticipation and anxiousness from the archers.

Eventually, when Artemisia had rigged up an intricate latticework of wires, girders, poles and dials, it looked as if half the cathedral had almost been rebuilt out of this skeletal frame.

She turned to Brynd. ‘I am now ready for the first attempt.’

Brynd nodded and marched along each row of archers, giving sharp orders, seething at their lack of discipline as they listened lazily to him.

This wouldn’t happen with good honest army-bred soldiers, he thought. Still, it’s hired thugs or nothing.

Once the archers nocked their arrows, Brynd ordered them to regard the space in front of the archway and to wait on his word before firing. Then Brynd returned to his position alongside Jamur Rika, who remained strangely stern-faced and emotionless. She was not the young woman he remembered from Villjamur, and these violent times had affected her deeply.

The wind groaned in the clearing. Dead trees rattled behind them.

Artemisia stood in the centre of the scene now. She unsheathed her immense blades and took both swords into one fist. Then crouched down to the floor, where she began tinkering with some small device exactly as a cultist might. She called one of the cultists over, and the woman rushed forward, remarkably servile, then the two of them conversed in whispers. A moment later the cultist ran back to make some minor adjustments.

Oh come the fuck on, Brynd thought. This is taking forever.

The sound of static was faint at first, but increasing in volume. The fabric of the air surrounding Artemisia became charged: a fine web of white light could be discerned, like a ghostly net; it became clearer still, hanging there — not a net, but some three-dimensional grid. Brynd peered around and could see this grid extended to the area they were now in, reconstructing the cathedral ruins in light. He held up his hand and it passed unaffected through one of the glowing lines.

The lines of archers held tight, impassive at the spectral architecture. For several minutes they all stood there, waiting as if nothing had happened. The lines began to fade, the form of a cathedral vanished into the icy night, and Brynd kicked his boot against a crumbling piece of masonry before marching up to Artemisia.

‘Nothing, then,’ he declared, but Artemisia stood staring at the archway.

He followed her gaze, and then he noticed that the darkness within the arch was different from that outside. Inside was an utter blackness, totally devoid of light, whereas outside he could see the edges of branches and tree trunks picked out by torchlight.

‘An absolute nothing,’ Artemisia confirmed smugly. ‘This is, I believe, progress.’

‘Where’s this assistance then?’

‘I never said it would come naturally. I may have to enter through here in order to retrieve it. No one on the other side would have known of my summons. This is merely a gateway.’

‘The descriptions of the other Realm Gates were different,’ Brynd said. ‘They suggested a purple mesh of light — this has nothing.’

‘There are different methods of construction — also, the light may be on the other side. This might only go one way. I would have to turn it around.’

‘You mean, go in? How can we be certain you’re not wasting our time — that you’ll go back to your world and that’s that?’

‘Dimension,’ she corrected. ‘It is the same world. Why would I waste my time coming here in the first place? If it works, then I will be back immediately. Time works differently, I assure you.’

‘Go on, then,’ Brynd commanded. ‘We might as well get on with it if our situation is as bad as we think it is.’

‘Very well, I will return immediately,’ Artemisia replied, and simply marched towards the archway — and then into a void.

Gasps came from the archers, and Brynd had to admit his own surprise at her nonchalance at the act. Then again, if she had breached worlds before, it might be second nature to her.

People began murmuring, and Brynd could hear the question arise of how long they would stay out here in the cold. Bitter disappointment was apparent on everyone’s face; hopes began fading as the minutes passed.

But no sooner had the gathered soldiers begun to murmur when the archway began to emit light. A grid began to form, one similar to those that Brynd had heard about out across the ice, where it was thought that other races had infiltrated this world and gathered the invasion force that attacked Villiren. The purple lines of light bulged in hypnotic ways, as if a force were trying to push from the other side. The lines of light peeled outwards.

Brynd immediately called for order, stopping the panic from spreading and dragging the archers back to attention and telling them to focus their arrow-tips at the archway, because something was certainly trying to enter the clearing.

A moment later, a blue head pushed through — followed by its body.

It was Artemisia.

She appeared to be different, wore strange new clothing — dark armour with a red sun emblazoned on her chest.

‘Prepare,’ she muttered, and stumbled forwards.

Behind her, the gateway bulged again: this time in several places. Something pressed against it, then burst through — human hands, attached to. . yes — human warriors. Brynd had expected something stranger, given the nature of the recent invasion. He was almost relaxed at the familiar sight.

Then it struck him: humans exist in this other dimension?

Clad in body armour and carrying circular shields and short, thick swords, warriors tumbled forward out of the gate, flooding into the clearing. They all bore the same emblem on their chest and on the forehead of their regal-looking helmets: a hollow red sun.

Brynd turned to face his own military lines, ordering them to stand down: ‘Take ten paces back for space, keep your aim squarely ahead. Do not fire.’

His men shuffled back into the darkness as these otherworld soldiers continued flowing through the gates into the ruins of the cathedral, maintaining impressively precise ranks. There must have been two hundred of them. Here was a mix of dark-skinned and light-skinned men, some bordering on albino, and they were all broad and muscular.

Artemisia approached him. ‘These are the elite of our warriors.’ The pride was clear in her voice.

‘Fine-looking soldiers,’ Brynd admitted. ‘Though I had hoped for more.’

‘There are many more where they came from,’ Artemisia replied. ‘Tens of thousands, though of a more inferior quality. I located the ones that could be spared immediately. More will be brought soon enough. You should know I was gone from here for over five days in my nation. I also bring some news.’

Brynd nodded for her to continue.

‘Frater Mercury, our creator, has already, it seems, made it into this world.’

‘How? This is your ruler, right?’

‘No — creator not ruler. Our society is democratic — there is no one ruler, but a working, interchangeable council of elders. Frater Mercury’s work was in enabling us to exist and to breed more, but he has only ever advised.’

‘What’s he doing in our world?’

Artemisia seemed for the very first time to show concern on her face. ‘I am not entirely sure. He had not. . alerted any elders of intentions. It is a surprise to all of us. He has since left only a handful of messages.’

‘I’m guessing you’ll need to locate him,’ Brynd said.

‘A possibility, yes.’

‘We’re going to have to combine tactics — your nation, and ours — if we’re not only to fight together, but also to live together peacefully. If you would head back to your world,’ Brynd indicated the gate, ‘I would like to meet with your elders. They should speak with Jamur Rika. We should begin diplomatic discussions immediately.’

Artemisia nodded. ‘It could take a while to assemble them, but I will.’