"Used to be."
In some ways this was even worse and it was now Silus"s turn to look around nervously.
"Listen. Thanks but no thanks. You may think that Nurn is a small town and that we"re comfortably far from Scholten, but even here you don"t know who may be listening. There"s no question of me joining your expedition. I have a pregnant wife at home and a livelihood to consider. You said that you were pa.s.sing through Nurn? Well if I were you I"d continue continue to pa.s.s through, because any day now Makennon"s Swords are going to catch up with you and I"d rather you were far away from my town when that day comes." to pa.s.s through, because any day now Makennon"s Swords are going to catch up with you and I"d rather you were far away from my town when that day comes."
"Trust me, Makennon hasn"t the first clue where to find us." Kelos took out a map and laid it on the bar. It showed the peninsula and was heavily annotated. "What do you think lies beyond these rough seas Silus?"
"I really don"t know."
"But you want to, I can tell. They all know your stories here, those dreams of other places. What about making those dreams a reality? I know that you have a wife with child, but she"d be well looked after and you"d be paid handsomely for your time. Do you really want it to be Makennon who discovers new lands, only to bring them in line under the banner of her faith? If there"s something out there to be discovered wouldn"t you rather that it was people like ourselves doing the discovering, not those with a vested interest in spreading the "word"?"
As a child Silus had often played with maps, adding in his own details, drawing in new islands, whole continents peopled with his imagination. His father had told him tales of the Old Races and their mastery of the sea and Silus had wondered why humans hadn"t achieved the same heights of naval prowess. They were the ones who ruled now after all, long since those strange beings had perished. Why couldn"t they dominate and harness their world in the same way? Silus had been fishing and exploring the same stretch of coast ever since he was old enough to handle a boat and he often yearned to strike out far from sh.o.r.e and try his hand against the stormy waters beyond the horizon. He remembered that first time with Katya and how they had lain in each other"s arms, looking up at Kerberos, imagining beyond Twilight, wanting to explore together.
"Look, I hardly know you." Silus said, folding the map and handing it back to Kelos. "Really, the dream is compelling but I"m sure it"s just that. A dream."
"From what I"ve seen of you out on the water and what the good people of Nurn have already told me regarding your character, it would be a great shame if I couldn"t tempt you to join us. However, the decision must not be forced. No doubt I shall see you around."
Silus watched Kelos walk away. The dog at the knitting woman"s feet woke briefly to watch him go before returning to its snoring. The men playing the bones paused before the next throw. Then the ribs were rattling across the table once more as the door closed.
Chapter Three.
Querilous Fitch looked up as the prisoner was brought into the room. There was little natural light this deep in Scholten cathedral but what scant amount there was - funnelled by sun traps and mirrors - was more than enough to reveal the obscene form of the creature. Fitch grimaced at the smell and brought a pomander to his nose. The monster didn"t even acknowledge his presence as it was chained in place.
Two of the attendants periodically doused the prisoner with water as a third was sent to request the pleasure of the Anointed Lord"s company.
Fitch was well used to the torture and interrogation of human subjects but this was the first time that he had been requested to apply his technique to a member of an entirely different species.
He looked into the thing"s eyes, hoping to at least catch some emotion, some strand of fear that he could later use. But there was nothing.
"You. Hand me that needlereed."
Fitch used the sharp implement to extract a blood sample, which he then smeared thinly across a sliver of highly polished metal. The blood was black with a strange blue sheen and it smelt of the sea.
Well, this is a challenge, Fitch considered. He wasn"t entirely sure whether he was looking forward to it but he would certainly apply himself to the best of his ability.
The door to the cell opened and Katherine Makennon entered, a small retinue trailing respectfully in her wake.
"Querilous, I see that the prisoner has been prepared." She leaned in close to the creature, a cruel smile playing across her lips.
"Anointed Lord, can I perhaps ask where you attained this specimen?"
"It was apprehended at the Turnitia docks. Some of the thieves" guild were attempting a raid on a ship and this is what they met. I must say that even the city guard couldn"t have done a better job in routing the rogues. They were hosing down the docks for days afterwards."
"But where does this thing come from, originally originally?"
"We don"t know. But we"re hoping that it will be able to use its knowledge of and affinity with the sea to help us locate the Llothriall Llothriall."
"I can a.s.sure you, Anointed Lord, that I shall do my utmost to persuade the creature to be cooperative."
Fitch looked down at the thing that sat before him. Barbed spines ran from the small of its back to the top of its head and he examined these closely before signalling to one of his attendants to hand him a pair of heavy-duty clippers.
"I need to be certain that these sharp protuberances are non-venomous. One shouldn"t take risks in working with an unfamiliar species."
As Fitch snipped the spines from its skull the howl of the creature was so loud that it rattled the instruments in their metal tray. The thing fought against its bonds for a moment but the collars and chains that restrained it only tightened in response.
Fitch waited until the creature had calmed before running his fingers over its scalp. The scales were cool to the touch and the tang of its alien thoughts flowed into him like incense. He lay his hands on the creature"s skull, and then pushed against a slight resistance before his fingers sank into its mind.
"The prisoner should be ready for questioning now, Anointed Lord."
Makennon sat down and looked thoughtfully at the thing for a moment before proceeding.
"How many more of you are there?"
Fitch moved through the creature"s mind, his eyes rolling back in their sockets as he went deeper.
He looked up and, far above him, saw the underside of rolling white breakers. A brilliant shoal of iridescent fish darted in front of him and when they parted he found himself surrounded by the creature"s brethren. They were swimming down towards a great domed building. Entering it they left they filed into a huge circular chamber. They congregated before a dais on which stood one of their own.
"There are many more," Fitch said. "Hundreds."
"Can"t it speak for itself?"
"Apologies Anointed Lord, this method is more direct and I don"t think that the creature has an affinity with the human tongue."
"Very well," Makennon turned her attention back to the prisoner. It was breathing shallowly, wheezing gasps whistling through its many vicious teeth. "I think it needs dousing again." The attendants threw salt water over the creature and it seemed to recover slightly. "Now, why the attack on Turnitia? What possible interest can you have in Twilight when the whole of the ocean is your domain?"
Fitch"s found himself standing closer to the dais. The creature that stood above him was aged and stooped. In one clawed hand it grasped a staff, inset in its tip was a scarlet jewel that shone with an inner light. The ancient one was telling its people of a battle to come and Fitch could feel the blood l.u.s.t and joy move through the crowd as the thing"s words inspired a dreadful pa.s.sion.
"I believe that they mean to make war on us Anointed Lord."
"War? And how can you possibly hope to succeed when there are hundreds of you and thousands upon thousands of us?" of us?"
Sweat started to break out upon Fitch"s brow and he could feel the resistance of the prisoner increasing as he probed even deeper.
And now he was on his own with the old one from the dais and the creature was showing him the pages of a book wrought entirely in metal. It moved its fingers across characters and diagrams but despite Fitch"s concentration he could make no sense of the information. The thoughts that flowed into him began to cloud and Fitch pushed hard against the interference, his heart thumping heavily in his chest as his vision was obscured.
Out of the darkness emerged a single unblinking eye. Fitch was lost in the vastness of its pupil, around him he could sense an infinity of nothingness.
"Fitch?"
He couldn"t feel anything. Not his fingers in the creature"s thoughts, not even his own thoughts.
"Fitch?"
And then that great eye was speeding away from him and Fitch was falling at an astonishing speed. For a moment Kerberos hung before him and he had time to watch the flickering of lightning deep in its clouds, before he was slammed back into his body and sent flailing across the cell.
The creature snarled and snapped forward in its chains. Makennon felt a waft of its foul breath as it screamed.
"Your kind"s days are numbered! The half-breed will father the new race and the Chada.s.sa will stride through your land! The Great Flood is coming!"
Fitch raised himself, unsteadily, to his feet and reached for the instrument tray.
"The Land Walkers will lay waist to Twilight and break open the World"s Ride mountains! The Great Fl -- "
The creature slumped forward and Fitch threw the heavy, blunt instrument back into the tray.
"I cannot apologise enough, Anointed Lord. Its will was exceptionally strong."
"Querilous, how did it learn how to speak our language? And, more importantly, what is the Great Flood?"
Chapter Four.
Beyond the Storm Wall, far and deep off the coast of Twilight, beneath waves that rose to the height of mountains before crashing into troughs so wide they could accommodate an entire fleet of ships, stood a city that no human eyes had ever seen.
Great structures of coral and mineral, fused together and roughly shaped, rose from the seabed. Vicious, many spiked towers were linked by archways, carved from rock and glittering with iridescent minerals. A wide avenue, illuminated by the glow of gelatinous octopus-like things staked at regular intervals, linked narrow streets and alleys. At one end of the city, before a series of rock shelves fell away into darkness, a great mound heaved and shuddered. Its surface looked like stone but moved like flesh. Fissures ran zig-zagging across it, occasionally emitting c.h.i.n.ks of brilliant light, making the water around it boil briefly, before the mound settled back into a restless slumber.
No lights came from the buildings of this deep-water metropolis and the sea was quiet for miles around. Not even the leviathans, who had no natural predators, would swim these waters and the only marine life visible were the albino catfish that rooted in the muck of the bottom, occasionally regarding one another with blank - almost stupid - expressions before burying their blunt noses into the silt once more.
Along the central avenue the glowing things rose on their tethers as something approached from the south.
Its structure had no grace and no attempt had been made to streamline the craft or make it look functional. It looked like a barnacle encrusted boulder and it turned end over end, silently, as it made its way towards the city. As it drew close a hole opened up in the centre of the illuminated avenue and the craft descended into a wide, deep shaft. It pa.s.sed through a shimmering circle of light and continued its descent into a vast hall.
Dark scaled creatures watched its approach as it drifted down towards a central podium, where it came to rest. The craft opened up like the petals of a flower, thick blue mucous oozing from its folds. The creature that stepped out was clearly of the same breed as those filling the hall, yet its flesh was pitted and scarred. The spines that ran from the top of its skull to the small of its back were faded at their tips. In its right hand the creature held a staff, a red gem embedded in its apex. This it raised to the audience and they responded with a cry, the joyous sound reaching him clearly through the water.
"Belck!"
Belck surveyed the ranks of creatures before him. He had led the Chada.s.sa for thousands of years, taking on the staff from his father, who had inherited it from his father in turn.
"Broodkin, the time draws close. Our blood is strong in the half-breed"s veins. It is his seed that will give rise to the Land Walkers and with them we shall take Twilight. The time of the Great Flood is almost upon us!"
The hall echoed with the sound of the creatures" praise. Around them lights danced on the many murals that decorated the hall. In one of these the Chada.s.sa were depicted in battle, cutting down members of another marine race that looked not unlike themselves, in the background a city burned with spectral flames. Another mural depicted a huge, black disk. Its face was barely defined, only the stars that surrounded it picked it out of the blackness.
It was towards this scene that Belck now turned his gaze and, without his prompting, the gathered Chada.s.sa joined him in chanting their creed.
"Beyond Kerberos he waits He will come again Beyond time and the stars he waits He will come again From the one Great Ocean he is formed He will come again He is the Great Ocean He will come again."
"Broodkin he will indeed come again. Tonight the elders will join me and the ceremony of calling shall begin. For now, return to your nests and meditate upon the Great Ocean. Remember the songs of your ancestors and the stories of our many victories over the Calma. Prepare yourselves for the Great Flood." Belck raised his staff, the gem at its tip burning with a fierce scarlet light.
"He will come again!"
Belck, for all his posturing and p.r.o.nouncements, had his doubts that "He" would come again. In their many preparations and holy rites they had received no sign from their G.o.d. Even in his special place of meditation, among the deepest thermal vents, Belck had sensed nothing.
Rimbah had urged him to take heart. "If it is his will to be silent," Belck"s advisor had said, "then it is his will."
But such cryptic words were of little comfort and did more to frustrate Belck than anything else. At times he had to restrain himself less he lash out at Rimbah. His father wouldn"t have hesitated. In his day many were put to death with little more excuse than his displeasure.
Belck signalled to Rimbah to bring him his ceremonial garments. Sign or no sign they had a summoning to perform. As his advisor dressed him in the close-fitting raiment, Belck looked out over their city. From his vantage point he could see all the way down the central avenue to where the Queen slept.
He had personally supervised her cultivation, from lowly Chada.s.sa maid to the great mound that he now surveyed. In the beginning she had fought as the caul had been formed around her, but Belck liked to think that she now lay in a state of contentment, cradled in the centre of that liquid warmth, listening to her own heartbeat amplified by the egg sacs that were growing around her.
Soon those sacs would team with new life when the half-breed became one with the Queen. From her would then come the Land Walkers, the new race, a mighty and unstoppable army. They would stride across Twilight, laying waste to the humankind until they came to the great mountains at the edge of the world. There they would call upon their G.o.d to break apart those ancient stones and reveal the heart of this world, bared for him to pour into it his very essence, this Great Flood leading into the reshaping of all reality to the glory of the Chada.s.sa.
Through the window Belck could now see the approach of the elders as they swam into view. Quickly checking over his ceremonial garb, he swam out to join them.
Together they swam to the edge of the city where they followed the descent of the seabed as it shelved down, before dropping into the sheer sides of a trench. Standing on the edge of absolute darkness they acknowledged one another - "He is the Great Ocean," - before stepping off the edge.
Belck quickly lost his buoyancy as he emptied his air sacs. The others followed him down and, for a moment, he saw them suspended in a line before the darkness took them. Even though they could no longer see each other, Belck could feel the touch of their minds near him. It was easy to lose himself in those thoughts as the walls of the trench fell away and that was just what he did, becoming - together with the elders - one mind.
He is the Great Ocean.
They came to rest. Around them they could feel nothing, not even the touch of the water that should have been freezing cold this far down.
He is the Great Ocean.
The voice of their consciousness echoed out into infinity and the part of them that was Belck urged that formlessness to take shape.
Beyond time and the stars he waits.