The Call of Kerberos (30 page)

But the transformation of the
Llothriall
was far from complete.

Kelos raised his arms again and brought his palms together. He said a word that had no meaning to his audience but which seemed to whisper deep inside their minds, eliciting a shiver from each individual as they felt the magic now working around them. The
Llothriall
began to grow, the wood of the hull to either side flowing above them, each edge curving towards the other before joining together, closing above them like a clam shell, sealing them in what many now felt to be a huge, lightless coffin. But Kelos coughed and said "my apologies," and then light began to filter in as organic portholes blinked open down the length of the ship.

"The beauty of the
Llothriall
," Kelos said as his audience rushed to the windows, "is that she is as proficient at sailing
beneath
the waves as she is upon them."

There were gasps from those looking through the portholes as the
Llothriall
began to sink. No, not sink, Kelos thought, that would suggest that they were trapped in some kind of shipwreck. What the
Llothriall
was actually doing was submerging, the magic that now suffused every part of the vessel taking her into a gentle descent. Kelos couldn't help a huge grin plastering itself onto his features. He had wanted to try out this ability of the ship ever since he had first read of it.

There was the hiss of air being pumped through the great chamber in which they now stood and the light filtering through the portholes soon faded to a deep aquamarine.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Kelos said, "welcome to the world beneath the waves."

It was so quiet.

The only sound that reached Kelos as he sat reading in the dayroom was the low murmur of Father Maylan's prayers. Usually there would be the sound of Jacquinto and Ignacio calling to each other from the rigging or playing dice, but tonight it was almost as if Kelos and the priest were the only ones on board. The rest of the crew and passengers had decided to get some sleep.

Kelos was too restless to sleep. He kept thinking about Dunsany. The prospect of his closest friend never waking up again scared him almost as much as facing the Chadassa in battle. He had tried to distract himself with books, but he'd been reading the same page on Brotherhood beliefs and heresies for the last hour and it was doing nothing to keep his mind off things.

He didn't realise that Father Maylan's litany had come to end until a knock at the door made him jump.

"Come in."

It was Bestion. "Mind if I join you? I couldn't sleep."

"I'm surprised that anybody can. Of course not, please."

Bestion gently closed the door before taking a seat opposite the mage. For a moment he didn't say anything. Instead he sat looking down at his hands. However, when he looked up and glanced over Kelos's shoulder his expression changed.

"My God, what are they?"

Kelos had forgotten about the Calma ships surrounding the
Llothriall
. He supposed that, in his worrying, he had become numb to their beauty.

"They are the Calma, or rather their vessels."

Bestion went over to the window. Kelos, deciding that he wasn't in the mood for reading, joined him.

There were about ten Calma ships visible from this side of the
Llothriall
, but Kelos knew that at least twice that number followed in their wake. Shoals of gemfish surrounded the ships - drawn either to the lichens that encrusted them or their lights - making it difficult to discern their shape. If Kelos had been pressed to describe their appearance, however, he'd have to say that they looked like nothing so much as giant starfish.

"It was in one of those that we came to Morat," Kelos said.

"You never realise quite how big your world is, do you," Bestion said, "until you're forced to leave home?"

"Quite, and I can assure you that the crew of the
Llothriall
know what it is to be exiles. If we ever returned home we'd be tried and executed for heresy."

"Your church would do that?"

"It isn't
my
church."

"But you believe in the one god, just as we do?"

"In my own way, yes, though I don't think that we can say that we really know Him. Or Her. Or It, for that matter."

"I know what you mean," Bestion said. "I always thought I knew our world and our god but then you came along. Our world fell apart and our god abandoned us." Not hearing it in Bestion's voice, Kelos looked for any sign of anger or hatred on the priest's face but all he saw there was exhaustion. "And this fight, is it worth it?"

"You've met Silus. I know that you've sensed how extraordinary he is. Would you say that he's worth fighting for?"

Bestion watched the Calma armada as it followed them, the great limbs of the ships propelling them slowly through the darkness.

"You know," he said, "I'm not quite sure why I believe this but yes. Yes, I'd say he's worth fighting for."

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Great Ocean stood with its followers, watching the twitching and trembling of the Queen. The heat rising from the great mound was so intense that it instantly cooked any of the sealife that came within a mile of it. The Chadassa themselves were standing at a safe distance, not wanting to join the litter of dead fish and marine mammals that radiated out from the great mound.

Silus had entered the embrace of the Queen only hours before and, already, the process was near completion. The birth of the new race had taken millennia to prepare yet only moments to realise. Soon the Chadassa would leave the sea behind, there to call forth a much greater ocean; one that was infinite, untainted and pure.

The ground shuddered and cracked. Vents opened up around the Queen, spewing black jets that bubbled high before solidifying into thin, twisted ebony sculptures. The heat suddenly died away and a cool tide rolled over the gathered Chadassa.

There was silence then and the Queen was still.

The Great Ocean could feel the expectant stares of the congregation. The elders clutched at their robes, willing forth the progeny of their god. The creature that had been Zac twisted and thrashed, while the Chadassa younglings hiding within the hollow of the Great Ocean's torso chattered in their idiot language.

The Queen sagged, the walls of flesh bowing outwards, rolling towards them a little way before coming to rest. Then she ruptured; a thick soup of amniotic fluid and shredded flesh boiling into the sea. As the cloud rolled over them the Chadassa tried not to gag on the nauseating stench that flooded their gills. They could see nothing of the Queen now. Some of them tried to make their way towards the mound, but the Great Ocean called them back, knowing that it would mean death for those who wondered into the path of what was about to emerge.

A pale light suffused the fog of debris and low, dark shapes could be seen within, shambling towards them. They grew in stature as they neared, looking much like the Chadassa themselves in outline, but when the first of the creatures stepped out of the cloud the differences in the new race were more marked than the similarities.

The Land Walkers stood twice as tall as the Chadassa and whereas the Chadassa were dark and scaled, these creatures had smooth, pale hides. The same vicious, quills ran from the top of the skull but they did not stop at the base of the spine. Instead they ran down the length of a long, thick tail that trailed behind, dragging along the seabed. The arms were shorter than the Chadassa's but well muscled, with hands almost human in appearance. Though these creatures had lost their brethren's talons they had developed a more powerful jaw. The snout was long and lupine, lined with razor-sharp teeth and crowned with wide, deep nostrils that looked capable of smelling out the smallest of prey. The eyes were entirely human in shape, only the night black pupils, flecked with gold, spoke of their alien ancestry.

The Land Walkers ignored the Chadassa before them - despite their calls of praise - and strode away from the citadel. The Great Ocean knew that if they tarried beneath the waves for long they would die. The sea was not their home, instead they would become the new masters of land and bring death to the human race.

The Great Ocean looked up to where the faintest glimmer from Kerberos pierced the waves.

A long time ago, before Twilight even existed and when just a handful of planets hung turning in the void, that azure globe had given birth to the Great Ocean. For a while the Great Ocean had worked in perfect harmony with the rest of the universe, but it had soon grown envious of creation. And so it had come here, to the best loved of all the worlds, and seeded it with creatures of its own imagining. For that the Great Ocean had been exiled to the very edge of the universe, where the roaring nothingness was barely held back by the fabric of reality. Over the millennia, though, it had begun to hear another sound. The call of its children. A plea no parent can ignore.

When the Chadassa had grown sufficiently in power they had pulled their god out of exile, drawing it across the universe with the force of their will. As the Great Ocean had phased into orbit with Kerberos it had thrown a blanket of silence over the planet, so that none would hear its call. Now it was time for the Great Ocean's children to leave the cradle and remake reality in its name. It understood now something of the pain Silus had gone through when his child had been taken from him. The pride that the Great Ocean felt in the creatures that marched towards land was so fierce that it regretted the brevity of the lives it had given them.

The ground shook as the birthing process accelerated. The Chadassa continued to gaze in awe at the rank upon rank of Land Walkers that marched past them. But these wonders were the smallest part of what they would soon behold. Soon, all of creation would ring with the songs of their praise and the Great Ocean would be all and all would be the Great Ocean.

Not far from where the Great Ocean stood, two Land Walkers dropped, their flesh burning. They made no sound as they fell and for a moment the god didn't understand what had happened, but then it saw a flash of light at the edge of its vision.

The ships unfolded from the darkness, glittering with light as they discharged their weapons. The Great Ocean had only a second to call a warning before the citadel began to fall apart.

Something was pushing down on Silus, smothering him as it closed over his face like a wet blanket, pulling him out of his warm, safe slumber. He scrabbled at the thin membrane, tearing it away before it could suffocate him, and fell to the sticky floor when the webbing that had held him in place gave way.

Something was wrong with the Queen.

All around him egg sacs were bursting as they putrefied, spilling out half-formed and aborted Land Walkers. One creature cracked as it hit the floor, its eye sockets empty and dry. Another crawled towards him dripping mucus, a fat black tongue lolling from its wrinkled jaw. Silus backed away from the abominations only to be dragged to the floor as a large wet hand closed over his face. A Land Walker that was little more than a torso squirmed over him and clamped its mouth on a nipple, futilely trying to suckle. When Silus pushed it away his hand sank into a skull that tore like wet paper, the brain beneath a sponge that crumbled beneath his touch.

There was a dull thud then and the chamber shook. Silus noticed the rent in the wall just a second before the sea rushed in.

He flailed in the darkness, a multitude of limbs brushing up against him as he tumbled through a nightmare of grotesques. A hand made a grab for him and he struck out, only to find his wrist clamped in a firm grip.

Silus turned to see what had grabbed him and found himself looking at his reflection in twin disks of glass. It took him a moment to realise that he was looking at someone wearing one of the underwater exploration suits from the
Llothriall
. Above the figure hung the ship itself and it gestured towards the vessel urgently. Spurred on by the sounds of fighting, Silus followed.

On board, when he saw who was within the suit, Silus gave him a fierce hug.

"Kelos! Gods, it's good to see you. Where's Dunsany?"

From the pained expression on the mage's face he could tell that something bad had happened.

"What? What is it?"

"Silus, you tried to kill him."

A chill ran through him. Silus tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing.

"I had no idea, really Kelos. You have to believe me. I remember nothing."

"The Chadassa within you was driven on by Belck," Kelos said. "He made you open Dunsany's throat. I thought we'd lost him. I thought we were all dead. But the Calma rescued us."

Kelos gestured with a hand and a part of the hull became translucent. Through it Silus could see the chaos that had come to the Chadassa city.

Things that looked like giant starfish moved over the citadel; some emitting brilliant beams of light that seared the flesh off any Chadassa they touched, others wrapped themselves around the coral towers until rubble rained down on the fighting below.

"Calma attack ships," Kelos said. "Their footsoldiers are in the city below, taking on the main Chadassa forces."

Silus saw that though the Calma were outnumbered they were quick and vicious as sharks. They would dart in, their silvery tails rippling, and wrap the tentacles of their flails around their enemy before darting away again, leaving a charred corpse rolling in their wake. For all this though, the Calma were being slowly whittled down and it would be only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

"The Calma think of you as their chosen one," Kelos said. "That's why they helped us rescue you. While one force attacked the main defences, we freed you from the Queen. We managed to kill the majority of the Land Walkers and interrupt the birth, but some of the creatures still escaped. I only hope that the forces on the peninsula will be sufficient to stop them."

"And what about Katya?"

"The Calma will bring her safely to us," Kelos said. "Don't worry, we can trust them."