He was beginning to think that this was indeed the case when the glow from their lightstones finally revealed dark shapes beneath them.
The towers rose from a vast mound of rock, its sides dropping precipitously away. There was no hint of design or purpose to the mound and the only thing to show that hands other than nature's had shaped the stone were the magnificent pillars rising from it.
Silus was beginning to wonder how they were going to find a way in when he saw what he took to be a window in the side of one of the towers. Signalling to the others to follow he swam in close, but could make out only his reflection and nothing of whatever lay inside. He put out a hand and tried to clear the glass, but instead of coming up against a solid surface it passed straight through. Silus cautiously flexed his fingers, but could feel nothing on the other side. He withdrew his hand and looked at it, but it didn't appear to be any different.
The others had now clustered around him and, giving them a nod, he held out his lightstone and thrust himself into the side of the structure.
Silus's stomach turned over as he dropped, but it was only a short distance to the floor and he did little more than bruise his knees. His hands left wet prints in the thick dust covering the floor as he raised himself to his feet and looked over his shoulder. The others floated there beyond the window and he was about to give them the signal to proceed, when he realised that they couldn't see him. So, instead, he gave a tug on the rope that let them know that it was safe to enter.
All seven of them took a moment to look around after they stepped inside, their breathing and the drip of seawater from their suits the only sound in the musty chamber. Father Maylan crouched over something in the corner of the room and removed his hood in order to get a better look.
"Did you even stop to think that the air in here might not be breathable?" Kelos shouted, after removing his own hood.
"It's perfectly breathable, look." Father Maylan said, and demonstrated by taking a deep breath. "I wonder what manner of creature this is?" He said, indicating the skeleton before him.
The skeleton was propped against a wall. The skull that sagged against the chest was larger than that of a human and had an oval hole for a mouth instead of a hinged jaw. Behind the broken ribs the spine was a single piece of bone that tapered down to just above the ankles. The legs were much like those of a human, though there were only three toes on each foot, while the creature's arms were - like the spine - each a single piece of tapered bone.
Silus saw an object lying near the body and picked it up. From a metal handle emerged eight thick strands of a material that looked not unlike squid flesh.
"I'd be careful with that if I were you," Dunsany said. "It may be a weapon and you don't know how what it does."
As Silus looked at it more closely, he tightened his grip on the handle and the strands came to life, swaying like the fronds of a sea anemone caught in a gentle underwater current. When they began to twine around each other and crackle with small tongues of lightning he dropped the strange flail and stepped away.
"Whatever this creature was, it clearly went down fighting." Dunsany said.
"Fighting what though?" Silus said.
Apart from the creature's corpse and the strange weapon, the chamber was empty.
Kelos took a moment to untie each of them from the rope that joined them together, before they ventured through an archway in the far wall.
As they exited the room they were hit by a strong blast of wind, whistling down the tower from above. On it Silus thought that he could just make out the call of gulls.
"These towers must act as ventilation shafts." Kelos said.
"If they needed air to survive," Jacquinto said, "what did they go and build this place underwater for?"
"Most aquatic mammals need air. Consider dolphins, for example."
"What, dolphins built this place?"
"I believe that Kelos was only using dolphins as an example," Silus said. "The architects who designed and built these towers were clearly far more complex creatures."
The wind at their backs dropped briefly and, in the lull, Silus thought that he could detect a bitter odour rising from below. It reminded him of the smell of a cold range in the morning, the phantom of smoke that wafted from the grate as the ashes were shovelled out.
Ahead of him Dunsany stumbled as he tripped over a broken step and Silus saw that the stone there was cracked and charred. Streaks of soot began to mark the walls as they continued cautiously down, the stone in places bulging and glassy as though a fierce heat had once attacked the tower. When they reached the base of the tower the walls were almost entirely black and they had to hug the outer curve of the spiral to negotiate the last few shattered steps.
"Gods, it's a bloody charnel house!" Silus heard Dunsany gasp.
When he reached the bottom, Silus saw for himself what had so taken his crew-mate aback. Behind him there were similar exclamations as the rest of the crew joined them.
They stood at the entrance to a massive circular room, the floor of which had been gouged by deep, blackened rents. Above them the ceiling shimmered and through it they could see the six towers rising to the surface far above. Fragments of scorched bone and broken skulls were scattered across the floor, but it was not these that had evoked Dunsany's exclamation. There were three entrances into the chamber, besides the one through which they had entered, and each one was piled high with bones.
The smell of burned bone intensified as Silus approached one of the arches. The skeletons piled there - like a jumble of blackened twigs - had been fused together by the fire that had consumed the flesh that had once clothed them. Silus reached out to touch the edge of a leg bone and the whole pile shifted suddenly as it crumbled, a small avalanche of dry remains tumbling into the room.
"What in the name of Kerberos happened here?" Father Maylan said.
"A massacre." Silus said.
"Perfect! So, we discover a new race, only to find that it has already been killed off?" Kelos said. "Who'd want to be an adventurer?"
"It beats languishing in a Vos prison," Jacquinto said. "Trust me."
Beyond the archway, Silus could see through to where a flight of stairs descended.
"We could clear a way through this," he said. "Maybe we'll find some clues as to what happened here."
He unsheathed his knife and started to cut a path through the brittle skeletons. It wasn't a particularly difficult task as the majority of the bones crumbled as soon as he touched them. Black flakes rained down on him as the pile shifted and creaked. He paused for a moment but the mound of the dead held and he continued to tunnel towards the stairs.
The crew looked at each other, then at Silus sawing away, and - after only a brief hesitation - followed him through the charnel mound.
The quantity of bodies didn't lessen any as Silus approached the top of the stairs. The glow of his lightstone revealed yet more skeletons crowded into the scorched tunnel sloping away from them. Some were wrapped around their companions, as though the creatures had been seeking solace in their final moments. Others, towards the top of the pile, had arms outstretched and heads thrown back. Silus imagined them scrabbling across a pile of their already dead brethren, only for them to be annihilated by a roaring wall of flame.
"Do we really want to find out what did this?" Dunsany said from behind him. "I mean, I've seen the old battle fields in the Anclas territories but this... gods, it's just..." His voice caught for a moment and a sob escaped his lips. "Horrible."
Kelos put a hand on his friend's shoulder and Dunsany covered it with his own.
"I think that whoever did this is long gone," Silus said. "There's no more threat here. Just a tomb."
"It could be haunted." Ignacio said, from further behind him. "Places like this are always haunted."
"No, I feel nothing." Father Maylan said. "This place is just... dead."
Descending the stairs took them longer than Silus had anticipated. The bodies were packed in more tightly around them here and it was hard to see where each step fell. Twice Silus had to tell the group to back off so that he could work out the best route through.
As he was pulling bones away from the wall of the tunnel he heard a sound like a whisper and looked up.
A skeleton hung spread-eagled above him, its empty eyes seeming to observe him with contempt. Silus thought that he could see a glint of something deep within one of the sockets. The glint resolved itself into a more definite form, as a spider crawled from the hollow and skittered across a cracked cheekbone. With a dry rattle, the skull shifted slightly to the side, almost as though the dead creature were cocking its head at him.
Then, with a sound like the breaking of a thousand dry branches, the walls of bone shifted.
Silus ducked as a cloud of desiccated remains erupted around him, the vicious dust scouring his throat and making it difficult to breathe.
"Get back!" He shouted. "It's coming down!"
But Silus didn't have a chance to see whether his friends fled to safety, as he was swept away on a wave of bone.
The clattering avalanche that enveloped him sounded like the chattering voices of the dead. Wicked shards scratched his face and the lightstone was knocked out of his hand as he tumbled head over heels. And then, there was nothing below or above him as he fell into empty space, only to land with a thud that punched the air from his lungs.
From somewhere nearby there was the thud and crunch of living bodies impacting with long dead ones, as Silus's companions tumbled after him. He scrabbled his way to the surface and, looking around, he could see where some of their lightstones had fallen. Silus crawled his way to one of them and, raising it, he could just make out his friends, struggling to their feet.
"Well, I suppose that was the quickest way down." Father Maylan said, wading towards Silus. "Gentlemen, shout if you're amongst the living."
All answered and soon they had picked themselves up and were peering into the darkness that surrounded them.
This room felt bigger than the one from which they had descended and, as their eyes adjusted, they began to make out rows of columns rising to a roof far above them. The glow of their lightstones was thrown back by their smooth, reflective surfaces and Silus realised that the columns were made of glass. Within them, cloudy liquid moved sluggishly.
"What does this do, do you reckon?" Ioannis said, and before they could stop him he had turned the wheel he'd found attached to one of the columns.
A massive
thunk
echoed through the room and a rain of dust sifted down from above. Then, with a rumbling hum that rattled the bones on which they stood, the liquid starting rushing through the vast columns, gradually clearing as the cloud of particles that muddied them were sucked up through the ceiling. A soft glow began to infuse the room then, starting at the base of each column and working its way up as thousands upon thousands of tiny, glowing creatures were pumped through the mighty glass cylinders. Silus moved his face closer to one of the columns and could see that each creature was no larger than a mayfly, composed of a glowing, rapidly beating heart surrounding by hundreds of cilia.
"Gods, this place is huge!" Dunsany said, and Silus turned to see that the light had banished the shadows, revealing the full extent of the room.
As he looked around him there was a sudden, searingly painful flash of insight and Silus knew the nature of the death that had come to consume this underwater citadel.
Silus was amongst them as they stormed through the tunnels, threading their way through the under-levels of the citadel. In their hands they held staffs with glowing ruby gems set in their tips, the burning hearts of the stones pulsing with the fire barely contained by their facets. Ahead of them Silus could hear the first wave of their brethren laying waste to the outer defences and they soon piled into their rear of that skirmish, burning or slashing any of the mongrel creatures that made it past their brothers. The yards of tunnels they passed through were soon decorated with the bodies of their enemies; some burnt to a crisp, others gored beyond recognition.
They flooded into the great hall and the wave of their attack washed over the creatures milling there in panic, some with their young hugged to their chests as they made to flee to the upper levels. But they were soon overtaken and added to the pile of their dead, already several layers deep. Some fought back and some took down their assailants, but the sheer number of their attackers prevailed in the end.
And Silus stood amongst the growing mounds of the dead, covered in blood, the battle cries rising around him like some hideous chorus. The creatures that poured from the mouths of the tunnels fought with a joyous ferocity, never once pausing between kills. Even in the black pits of their eyes, Silus could see the terrible lust that possessed them, and he felt some of that same hunger himself.
Looking down Silus flexed his claws. They had yet to be baptised in the blood of his enemies but that would soon change.
For Silus did know the nature of the death that had come to the citadel of the Calma, because he was, himself, part of that terrible horde.
With a guttural, animal cry he launched himself at the creature cowering before him and knew his own name.
Chadassa!
Chapter Eleven
Querilous Fitch hated the way this place smelled. No matter how thoroughly they cleaned the chamber, the stench of burning heretics still clung to the walls. For a while they had tried adding aromatic oils to the naphtha used to incinerate the accused, but all that had done was add a cloying perfume to the odour of cooking human flesh. Still, Querilous considered that one wasn't supposed to enjoy the atmosphere here. The suffering of a soul being purged should not be pleasing, no matter how much it gladdened the heart to see a heretic dispatched to the judgement of the Lord of All.