Snil knew exactly what Zac really wanted and she offered him a breast.
In momentary shock he pulled away from the vast dark nipple that she thrust at his face. But then, as her viscous milk started to leak from the swollen dug, Zac clamped a hungry mouth onto her and began to feed.
He was so much more tender than any of the children that had sprung from her loins, almost considerate. He closed his eyes and made sounds of satisfaction deep in his throat as he fed, his small hands raised, clenching and unclenching. Snil stroked the top of his downy head until Zac pulled away from the touch of her rough hand and began to cry.
"Shhh. Shhh," Snil soothed, guiding him back to her nipple.
She realised now that she'd be unable to comfort Zac in quite the same way she would one of her own. Snil knew so little about the humans. She only knew that the Chadassa were supposed to hate them and covet their mastery of land. But she found it difficult to hate something as perfect as the creature in her arms. In comparison to her own kind it would seem that humans were a far more subtle and complex race, created for a greater purpose than to merely breed and kill.
Zac looked up at her and enclosed one of her fingers in a fist. She could feel a fierce heat emanating from his palm and a flush of warm contentment was beginning to spread across his face.
As he fed, Zac held her gaze and Snil felt that she could look forever into those deep blue eyes.
Suddenly Zac's hand tightened its grip and he gave a sound like a violent hiccup. His teeth clamped down on Snil's nipple and bit through, her dark blood washing over his face. She tried to pull him away but, with a growl, Zac strengthened his hold. All the time he held her gaze, the darkness at the heart of his pupils growing to eclipse the brilliant colour of his irises until his eyes were a deep, uniform black.
Somewhere Snil thought she could hear chanting.
He is the Great Ocean.
He will Come Again.
In her womb, her unborn children began to writhe, the pain as they twisted around her guts and kicked and punched filled her belly with a raging fire.
The chant grew louder until it was all that Snil could hear.
The child in her arms, however, would not allow her to draw her eyes away from his dreadful stare. Snil could see beyond Zac's eyes, to something vast. Something that approached from an incredible distance, yet drew swiftly near and filled him with its midnight taint.
He is the Great Ocean.
He will Come Again.
There was an agonised mewling sound coming from somewhere and, with a growing sickness, Snil realised that it was the call of her unborn children. There was an intense, clawing pain and her belly began to distend as they pushed against the wall of her womb.
Pale tendrils emerged from Zac; from his eyes, nose and mouth. These wrapped themselves around Snil, sinking into her flesh, laying down lines of white-hot fire where they touched, until Zac was securely bound to her.
The pain was so intense now that she couldn't help but cry out and Zac added his voice to the cacophony as the flesh of Snil's belly finally ruptured.
With the hideous screech of the unborn, three partly formed Chadassa heads thrust themselves into the air and joined in with the chant that echoed all around her.
He is the Great Ocean.
He will Come Again.
Snil looked down at the twisted progeny that clung to her ruined torso. The darkness that filled the creature that had been Zac flowed from him and into her, enveloping her in an impenetrable night.
All that Snil could sense now was the endless chant as something ancient and evil rushed into her body.
Belck had told them all to look to the coming of the Great Ocean, to glory in his infinite presence, but now that Snil was filled with that dark and hateful water, she realised that the Chadassa had pinned their hopes onto nothing at all.
Belck stood at the edge of the canyon and stared into the darkness. Behind him, the water shimmered with the heat rising from the great mound of the Queen. The mass of flesh shivered and twitched in anticipation of the union that would make her eggs sacs teem with life. Belck should have felt joy at the prospect, but instead a fierce doubt ate away at him.
What exactly is the Great Ocean?
The truth was that Belck didn't know the answer to Silus's question. Even after all these years of indoctrination into the mysteries of the faith, Belck felt no closer to his god. Even having stared into the face of the Great Ocean itself, he felt no bond with the Chadassa's creator. Yet, because of his lineage, Belck had been chosen to lead his people towards the time of the Great Flood. And just what great new age was it that he was supposed to be the herald of anyway? Belck had spoken of it often, had even stirred up crowds of Chadassa into rapturous religious frenzy with prophecies concerning the arrival of the great event, but in all that time he had never truly understood what it was.
Once all reality was as the Great Ocean what then? What would there be for the Chadassa to do? Swimming together through infinity, all time and space being one vast sea may be a wonderful image with which to empower a sermon but it meant nothing to Belck when he thought of the Chadassa's future.
He sensed movement behind him and turned to see something striding towards him from the encroaching gloom. It looked like another Chadassa but there seemed to be something wrong with the creature, for as it advanced it moved with a shuffling gait, occasionally going down on one knee as though it had only just learned how to walk, kicking up clouds of silt as it did so.
How can you, who have seen my true face, doubt the plan that I have for your people?
The gait of the creature was growing more confident with each step it took and soon it was approaching him with purpose.
Belck could now see that the creature was Snil, the nurse that he had assigned to look after Zac, but the voice that had spoken was not hers. As she drew closer, the terrible change that had been wrought upon her made Belck take a step back, closer to the edge of the trench.
Snil, what happened to you?
Do you not recognise your god?
said the malformed infant that clung to her breast. Belck realised that it was Zac, though, somehow, his flesh had become fused to Snil's.
He is the Great Ocean, He will Come Again
, chorused the heads of the Chadassa infants that thrust from the ragged hole of her belly.
You have failed me Belck. Your doubts speak louder than your praise. Your prayers are not expressions of your joy and awe in my presence, but expressions of your fear.
With an encroaching fear, that threatened to break out into full blown panic, Belck realised that he may not know his god, but his god certainly knew him. Belck looked at what had been done to Snil and knew that the Great Ocean would use them all just as ruthlessly.
You possess none of the fire of your forebears, Belck. You are a disgrace to their memory.
The thing that had been Snil reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, the pure black of her eyes had misted into the milky white of the dead. Zac, hanging in his fleshy webbing, looked up and smiled. But it wasn't Zac and, in his eyes, and the eyes that stared from the ruins of Snil's womb, Belck saw the same thing.
Nothing.
This oblivion was not what he desired for his people at all. This was not the glory that the Great Ocean had promised them. Belck realised then that he had to let them know, otherwise they would all march blindly into the abyss.
He shook off the thing's touch and started to hurry back towards the city.
Zac's mouth snapped opened and a thick tendril of flesh erupted from it, to wrap itself around Belck's neck and bring him crashing to the seabed, a cloud of silt rising around him as he landed. Belck struggled against the creature's hold but it tightened its grip and soon he couldn't move at all.
He looked up into the eyes of the Great Ocean and his god stared down at him without pity or remorse from behind the Chadassa's dead eyes. Then, the unborn creatures crawled free of Snil's womb and kicked their way towards him. They landed on his chest and, for a moment, the cord that still joined all three of them to the womb prevented them from progressing any further. One of the infants bit through the rope, however, and severed the connection. It seemed all that they wanted now was affection, because they started to nuzzle against Belck, their mewling sounding like a plea for the milk he could not give them.
But the creatures were not nuzzling. Instead, they were looking for a vulnerable area of Belck's flesh. Finding it, they began to burrow into his hide. Even though they were tiny, they had none of the weaknesses of the unborn and were soon gnawing their way towards his heart.
Belck screamed and begged his God to make the pain stop, and his God obliged.
The Great Ocean placed its clawed foot on his head and pressed down with all its strength.
As his skull shattered, Belck got a taste of the oblivion that would be brought to his people and all reality, before it overtook him and he was no more.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kelos realised that something Dunsany had once told him was wrong. Drowning was not easy.
There was no feeling of soporific calm as his lungs filled with water, no sense of sinking gently into an eternal sleep. Instead, he thrashed his limbs and clawed for the dim light far above as a deep cold gripped him.
Then, as consciousness began to slip away, there was anger and despair. This was not how it was supposed to end. Kelos had wanted to reach a fine old age, living out his retirement on some sun-kissed island with Dunsany. There they would be far from the Final Faith, the politics of a divided nation and - more importantly - the rest of the human race. He had wanted to die looking up into Dunsany's eyes as they wished him a last goodbye, not consigned to a watery grave like some anonymous mariner.
But all that wasn't to be, so Kelos let go.
Seconds later, or so it seemed, he found himself kneeling on a stone floor, throwing up an apparently endless stream of water. Emuel knelt beside him, a look of concern on his face as he rubbed Kelos's back.
"Let it come. You're safe now."
Once the nausea had passed, the eunuch helped Kelos to his feet and he saw his new surroundings for the first time.
They were in a glass dome, beyond the walls of which moved the same creatures that had attacked the Chadassa vessel. Kelos watched their graceful forms as they darted between the towers and over the domes of a glittering citadel. The Calma shared some of the same features as the Chadassa, being bipedal creatures of roughly the same size. But where the flesh of the Chadassa was dark-scaled and rough, these creatures' hides shimmered in the diffuse light trickling down from above. Thin, silvery tails grew from the small of their backs, with which they propelled themselves swiftly through the water. From either side of their jaws hung small globes of light, reminding Kelos of the lures of anglerfish.
"The Calma," Emuel said. "They saved us when the Chadassa vessel was blown apart."
Kelos began to remember.
The expression on Silus's face as Belck's influence began to take hold.
The shard of razor sharp bone in Silus's hand.
Dunsany's blood trickling between his fingers as he clutched at his throat.
"Dunsany, where is he?"
"The Calma are taking good care of him, though he is still weak," Emuel said. "He lost a lot of blood, Kelos."
"I need to see him."
Emuel led him through a series of tunnels, each linked by more glass domes. On the way they passed several Calma and, at one point, Kelos thought he heard the raucous laughter of Jacquinto and Ignacio coming from a chamber.
"Sounds like somebody else is being well looked after too," he commented.
"The Calma have been most hospitable."
They reached a small, dim room. Through the glass ceiling Kelos could see the fronds of fern-like plants moving in a gentle current. Fragrant lamps burned in niches on the wall and in the centre of the room, on a low mattress, lay Dunsany.
He was pale and his breathing was uneven. The scar at his throat was the dark red of raw liver. As Kelos and Emuel stood over their friend a Calma entered the room.
"Your friend is in a deep sleep," the creature said, "but we have made sure that he is not in any pain."
"When will he wake up?" Kelos said.
"At the moment, we don't know."
Kelos bit back the tears that threatened to come and knelt beside his friend. "You stupid bastard. Look what you've gotten us into now."
Kelos had never seen Dunsany looking so frail, it was almost as though it wasn't him lying there but some poorly realised wax replica. Dunsany's hand was cold and when he squeezed it there was no response. The tears came then and the grief that they brought was massive and debilitating. Kelos didn't think that he'd be able to contain it. When he looked up, Emuel and the Calma had gone, leaving him alone with his friend.
Had he the magical knowledge to reverse the damage and pull Dunsany out of his deep sleep, he would have performed it in an instant. But such a thing was beyond him. Instead, Kelos took a fragment of tree bark from the pouch at his belt and lit it from one of the lamps. He let it burn for a while before blowing out the flame. Intoning the words of a spell he blew the smoke towards Dunsany's open mouth where it insinuated itself between his lips. Dunsany's breath caught and he gave a small cough, but then he was breathing easily again and the lines of tension were smoothed from his face.
Even though Kelos was unable to free Dunsany from the clutches of his unnatural sleep, he knew that whatever dreamscape his friend was now traversing, he was doing so holding Kelos's hand.
"Sleep well, my friend. Look for me in your dreams."
Kelos stayed by Dunsany's side for a while longer, before leaving the room to look for the rest of the crew.
All Kelos had to do to find his companions was follow the sound of Jacquinto and Ignacio's laughter. He entered the room to find them practically bent double with hilarity. Clearly the scabbed-over wounds that they sported were no longer bothering them as Jacquinto was just reaching the punch-line of a particularly filthy joke and Ignacio was begging him to stop. Sat around a table, in the centre of the room, were the rest of the crew. Without Silus, Katya and Zac the gathering now looked somewhat diminished. Father Maylan was slowly sipping from a glass and watching the two smugglers with a bemused expression and Emuel was conversing with the creature at the head of the table. This Kelos recognised as Seras, the Calma who had led the attack on the Chadassa vessel.