Night Terrors by Tim Waggoner Read Free Book Online

it’s a pretty fair description.
    The sky is cloudless, permitting a perpetually clear view of the star-filled sky that Noddians call the Canopy. The stars are for decoration only – another gift from the Unwakened, although primarily an aesthetic one. Nod is adrift with the turbulent energies of the Maelstrom itself – the raw material of creation – and the simulated night sky hides the seething, multicolored vortex beyond. The energy is so powerful and chaotic that even Incubi can’t tolerate looking at it directly for very long.
    The most disturbing aspect of Nod, at least as far as I can see, is its moon: a glowing blue-white orb called Espial that resembles a gigantic floating eye, complete with lids and lashes. A silvery iris surrounds a pupil that seems to exert the pull of a black hole, and the moon’s phases are created by its torturously slow blinking.
    Right now, Espial was past full and its lids just beginning to close. Its cycle is roughly a month long, same as Earth’s moon, but unlike our planet’s satellite, Espial always seems to be gazing down upon Nod’s citizenry with a detached emotionless scrutiny that I find truly disturbing. The Incubi don’t seem to think much of it, though, ignoring Espial for the most part. I’ve tried to emulate them, but no matter what I do, I’m uneasy at the way the damn thing stares down at me, as if I were nothing more than an insect that it’s watching idly, hoping she’ll eventually do something interesting.
    There are any number of explanations for Espial’s existence. Some say it’s a result of the Incubi themselves, created from the raw material of the Maelstrom through their combined unconscious will. Others say that the Unwakened created it and use it as a way to keep tabs on the city’s denizens. Still others – though admittedly not many – claim that Espial is the eye of the First Dreamer, or one of that being’s servants, watching over Nod for its own enigmatic reasons. Me, I don’t care where the damn thing came from. It gives me the creeps.
    Even when wide open, Espial doesn’t provide enough light to illuminate the city fully, and there are streetlamps on every corner – chrome poles atop which crouch lightning bugs the size of large dogs. The creatures glow constantly throughout their life cycle and are replaced after they die. Seems like a lousy life to me, but then I’ve never heard any of the bugs complain.
    If you had Espial’s view of Nod, the city would look like a series of concentric rings. Oldtown lies in the middle. This is, as the name implies, the oldest section of the city, and it’s where the most ancient Incubi live. Some of them are hundreds, even thousands, of years old. The architecture of Oldtown resembles that of an Earth village from the 1700s – small wood and stone buildings, cobblestone streets, or more often, dirt paths. There are some nightmarish touches in Oldtown, but overall, it’s more normal than you would expect. The Rookery is located in the center of Oldtown. The Aerie, the most exclusive section – where only the most powerful and distinguished Incubi live – is close by.
    The next ring out is, unsurprisingly as well as unimaginatively, called Newtown. The architecture here, as well as the attitude, is more modern. Newtown resembles a small Earth city, steel and glass buildings, some of them quite tall, though not exactly skyscraper-level. There’s far more diversity of structure here. Some buildings look perfectly normal – more or less – but others appear to have sprung full-blown from a lunatic’s fever dream. Buildings with angles that don’t look quite right, and tooth-filled maws that appear and disappear at random in the street. That sort of thing.
    After that, the next ring out is the Cesspit, a combination of New Orleans at its most decadent and the Old West at its wildest and deadliest. All your darkest desires can be fulfilled here, often at the same time, provided you survive long