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The Left Hand of Darkness

[Originally uploaded to Stronghold Heaven in 2011]

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This story takes place ten years before the Envoy’s arrival in the novel; classify it as fan fiction.

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In Karhide I had been branded an outcast. The nature of my crime is inexplicable as it is predicated on lies--no crime at all but the shared shame of my peers. It is the price of government. During the three days grace of exile I made my way back to the seaside village of Nameth and there rented a small ship to aid my travel into Orgoreyn, my birth land. I have no time for remorse, sadness--nor hatred. My character-murderers were swept up in the game of shifgrethor and power and prestige hoarding, as I was. As I sweep my way across the half-frozen slush sea I think of how Winter is indifferent to the traveler’s feelings, and in the biting cold of Nimmer my disdain is lost, blot out by white. Let it never be said that I haven’t committed similar atrocities in my time. I choose to forgive.


Eps nimmer (Day 3 of the month of Nimmer, third month of winter season)


The journey into Orgoreyn will not take long as my rented ship travels well across the stilled frozen sea, cracking the glassy expanding mirror of ice before it and leaving a clear trail of fragments. The only sound present besides the never-ending web-fracturing of the icy sea is a hollow stiff wind blowing down from the mountains, moaning across the ice sheet like dead ghosts. Though I am only two days out of Karhide the country already seems foreign, radio reports just playful mutterings of spirits. Orgoreyn looms larger every day.


Streth nimmer (Day 6 of the month of Nimmer, third month of winter season)


Too cold to step out of my tent. Though I brought plenty of provisions I failed to procure a better heib coat. Cutting through the tent’s thin fabric is starlight peeking out of the Void, and peering onto the sea I see their myriad reflections; shadows on snow.


Yrny nimmer (Day 11 of the month of Nimmer, third month of winter season)


The ship’s fore rudders--the mechanized rods that grind the ice and spit the pieces under and behind itself--has jammed entirely. I have no idea how to fix them, as I was never trained as an engineer. At the moment the ship is paralyzed and still, ice coalescing beneath as if clinging to a berg, and the windy moans of the volcanoes howls to remind me to move, move. My only hope is to wait: whatever chunk of ice is jamming the rudders will eventually clear, but until then the crusting frost will mount and weigh the ship down. I must enter and call upon my dothe strength to push the ship forward with oars lest I sink into a permafrost prison.


Opposthe nimmer (Day 25 of the month of Nimmer, third month of winter season)


I have finally recuperated after achieving dothe for a full twenty-four hours. I don’t remember much, and what I do remember seems surreal: my plunging an oar into diamond-hard sea ice and feeling the thunder crack rip at my body, over and over again wrapped in veils of ashen snow rain gliding on distant mountain winds. On the horizon I see the smoke of volcanoes rise in immense clouding drifts, hence the ash-snow. I must have eaten in the next half-month, as over half my provisions are gone; the rest will be rationed. My period of kemmer has passed unnoticed--just as well, as I’m completely alone. Must sleep now.


Getheny anner (Day 1 of the month of Anner, fourth month of winter season)


My homeland’s shore lies like a sandy scar some three miles away, and even as I write this I realize something is amiss. The great stone tower that watches over the sea is a sore wound of rubble; the stone hearth in grey scratches; its lesser wood hearth cousins rusted blood. Smoke rises from the mining village and I will investigate further tomorrow.


Sordny anner (Day 2 of the month of Anner, fourth month of winter season)


Landing I step onto the dock and give the ship a passing inspection: it is scarred now and unnatural looking, solid underneath with ice as if it was berthed from the glacier bearing down into the valley. The rivers here are frozen and snowed over and clotted with icebergs, the hearths destroyed and abandoned, wilderness teeming with white-fur pesthry. The hard-snow is barely contained and spills over walls of rubble. And all the while refugees trek into that wilderness of pain and into the mining village of Salek, where a new lord has taken residence. He calls himself The Wolf, and speaking with him seems wholly disinterested in returning control of this valley to someone of merit, someone born and raised here--me. Like every bandit he seeks only to strengthen his stranglehold, and now forces the quarrymen to ferry stone into the tower he foolishly destroyed in the foray. Even still he is not without shifgrethor; The Wolf is honorable enough not to ride out and annihilate me outright. But he is an uncouth warmonger in a league of uncouth warmongers, and no doubt he has made arrangements for my murder. I must play the game of shifgrethor if I am to wrest control of this valley from this Wolf. I hope old contacts survive.


Netherhad anner (Day 5 of the month of Anner, fourth month of winter season)


Good news: the Snake survives still and thrives and with his help I’ve learned the Wolf has enlisted the aid of Duc Truffle the Pervert. His thugs march on me now and will eventually overwhelm my encampment--unless, of course, the Snake intercepts them. He is an appreciator of fine ale, and by procuring some from the trade routes I will prove my honor and spur him to my aid; I need only acquire the ale, no transport is required. Such trivial objectives are the object of shifgrethor, and only the sight is necessary, never the proof.


Speaking of shifgrethor, I realize now that starting a foray is dishonorable--continuing one for so long is more dishonorable still. Therefore if I have not reclaimed this valley in sixteen years time, I will leave forever.


Streth anner (Day 6 of the month of Anner, fourth month of winter season)


Bad news: the Wolf has called for an invasion force in disguise as reinforcements. Nothing more to say about that, but I must withstand his attacks.


Orny anner (Day 8 of the month of Anner, fourth month of winter season)


The time has come to begin this foray. I will erect a new hearth under the ruins of the old hearths and under the death-glacier’s shadow, and from that vantage I will strike down this ruinous Wolf, this self-destructive man. I never imagined this. I never wanted this. On the ocean--on the boundary between Karhide and Orgoreyn--hearing nothing but the crush of Winter ice and feeling nothing but the frostbiting ash-drifts I daydreamt of a peaceful future amongst friends. But I arrived into a different fate, and instead of being greeted by inspectors and hearth-lords I’m greeted by snow blasted remnants and this bandit, this thug--this Wolf. I have little knowledge outside of politics, of trading--though that will serve me well. I know also of woodcutting and hunting, of spear-fishing. I will train my likeminded brothers to battle. I will play Shifgrethor with the Snake. I will, I will…


Light is the left hand of darkness

And darkness the right hand of light

Two are one, life and death…