"If you think it will help I have no objections. Unless - " Silus looked over at Katya.
"No, it's fine. Go."
Win nodded. "Good. We'll finish our meal, then if you and Kelos would care to accompany me, I'm sure the priests will be happy to talk to you."
As they ascended the terraces to the Temple of the Allfather, the sky began to open up around them once more. Silus was glad to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin again. The cheer that it brought, however, was marred by the sight of the black canker that continued to blight the face of Kerberos. Silus hoped that it was just some natural phenomena that would soon pass, but the more he looked at it, the more he knew this not to be the case. Something unnatural was hanging over the gaze of the Lord of All, like a barbed mote in His eye.
The Temple of the Allfather was spread over two levels and, from it, they could look down on the palace and the house of the Stone Seers. Its gardens were equal to anything they had seen since arriving and, as they approached, Silus could see several robed figures amongst the lush green ferns and flowers, sitting in attitudes of quiet contemplation.
The entrance to the temple gave on to a cool, marble hall festooned with hanging baskets overflowing with fragrant herbs and busy with the noise of the tiny birds that twittered from archway to archway.
A robed man greeted them as they entered.
"Friends, welcome. Win told me of your arrival. Indeed, I'm sure the whole of Morat is abuzz with the news of our guests. I am Bestion. I believe that we have much to discuss, so if you gentlemen would care to follow me?"
The priest led them down a flight of stairs and into an indoor garden. Above them, holes in the temple roof let in narrow shafts of sunlight, which fell on clusters of iridescent lichens clinging to dark boulders. Between the stones trickled a shallow stream, the noise of the water's play over the gravel beds amplified by the marble walls that surrounded them.
"The gardens are central to our work here at the temple," Bestion said, ushering them through a door and into a small room lit by oil lamps. "We use the herbs and lichens we grow here in many of our ceremonies."
Bestion seated himself on one of the cushions that were scattered across the floor, and gestured for his guests to do the same.
"Our friends here are curious to find out more about the Allfather," Win said. "Silus, in particular, seems to have a strong bond with Him."
"I have been fascinated by Kerber - sorry, the Allfather - for a very long time. Win tells me that you have a method of communing with Him," Silus said.
"Yes, through the sacred lichens we can leave our bodies for a short period of time and enter into His presence."
"I would very much like to do that, if you would be willing to guide me."
"Silus here has been having dreams concerning the Allfather," Kelos said. "Perhaps through this meditation he can work through some of his concerns and come to a greater understanding of our god?"
"With respect, Silus does not number amongst the priesthood."
"I understand," Kelos said. "But ever since I met Silus I have sensed a deep spirituality in him. It is my belief that he will increase our understanding of the Allfather. Maybe he will even be able to shed light on the dark speck that has so recently marred His face."
"Bestion, we do not pose a threat to your beliefs," Silus said. "We praise the same God you and I, just under different names. We all respect the sanctity of Kerberos, the Allfather.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence then. Bestion stared at Silus intently, his gaze not unfriendly, yet piercing, as though he was searching for any sign of moral laxity in Silus's soul.
"If I am to guide you through the rites, Silus, you must do everything that I say, exactly as I say it," Bestion said. "The rituals are not to be entered into lightly."
"I understand."
"Win and I will return to the palace while you work with Bestion," Kelos said. "We will see you after your meditation."
"Very well," Bestion said. "Silus follow me to the sanctuary. I will inform the other members of the priesthood that we are not to be disturbed."
Bestion led Silus deeper into the temple complex. As they passed through more of the gardens, he saw men tending to the sacred lichens and herbs. He noticed that some of the priests had peculiarly iridescent eyes.
They passed through an archway and into a silent hall. No birdsong rang from the walls here and there was no trickling of water. Their footsteps made no sound. Bestion opened a door at the far end and they entered a room bathed in the light of Kerberos.
A stream ran out of an archway on the far side of the room, forming a moat around a stone dais in the centre of the chamber, before exiting through a second archway. On the dais four brass censers were set at the corners of a carpet woven with symbols not unlike the songlines that had been inked onto Emuel's body. Above the dais, a wide circular hole in the roof let in the light of Kerberos.
Bestion led Silus over the bridge crossing the moat and gestured for him to be seated on the carpet.
As he sat, Silus looked up and was reminded of that first night with Katya; how they had moored the boat on the subterranean lake beneath the gaze of Kerberos, how he had shared his dreams and fantasies with her. Now that he was actually to come into the presence of Kerberos more directly, Silus wondered whether any of his visions would turn out to be true.
Bestion poured a sparkling powder into each of the censers before lighting them. The smoke that poured from them was bitter and Silus choked as it wreathed itself around him.
"Don't fight it," Bestion said. "Otherwise this isn't going to work. Breathe."
The first lungful burned as deeply and painfully as a knife to the ribs and, as Silus fought a growing sense of panic, Bestion put his hands on his shoulders and forced him to be still.
"Breathe, Silus, breathe."
Eventually, the pain subsided and Silus found himself able to breathe without gagging on each inhalation. There was a taste in his mouth that was vaguely metallic, but also sweet. Bestion sat opposite Silus and he noticed that the smoke didn't go near him. Instead, it seemed to be pouring from the censers and streaming directly into his nostrils.
When the censers were empty Bestion began to chant.
His voice was low and resonated deep within Silus's chest.
Silus didn't understand the words, but they seemed to be doing something to him. The taste in his mouth grew more pronounced and he felt as though he was going to be sick. He folded himself over the centre of his sickness - trying to hold it in - but a great shudder wracked his body, forcing him upright. When he opened his mouth what came forth, however, was not bile but smoke. It felt like he was being drawn inside-out. Silus tried to scream but he couldn't. The smoke pouring from his mouth felt like something solid, something living. He looked up and saw the column of smoke reach the hole in the temple ceiling, and he suddenly found himself following it. As he tumbled towards Kerberos he looked down and could see his body below, kneeling with its head thrown back. And as Silus looked at himself, he prayed to the Lord of All that he would be able to return so that life would once more shine behind those eyes.
Chapter Seventeen
The sound of Bestion's chanting followed him as the thread tying him to his body unravelled.
Silus rose through the temple roof and, looking up, he could see the great disk of Kerberos expanding as he hurtled towards it.
As the last few words of Bestion's mantra faded away, Silus found himself moving over the azure planet, the clouds just inches from the soles of his feet.
This silence was bigger than himself, bigger than the stars that blazed above him like a multitude of jewels strewn across black velvet. Ahead of him, one jewel burned brighter than all the others - its blue-green light reaching him in brilliant cold shards - and Silus knew that he was looking at Twilight. It seemed so fragile, as though if he could reach out and touch it it would shatter.
Remembering his dream, he stared into the clouds below him,
expecting to see the spirits of all those who had left Twilight behind, but there was nothing. Just the odd flicker of lightning gave life to the roiling mass.
Silus felt disappointed. He had expected this to be a profound, spiritual revelation but, instead, he had found that, even close-to, Kerberos refused to give up its secrets.
He felt anger burn through him. Below him the clouds darkened.
Lightning lit the planet from horizon to horizon in a blaze of blinding light.
Silus understood then that Kerberos had just blinked.
Tendrils of cloud rose up around him, caressing him as they drew him down towards the surface.
Silus closed his eyes and sank into Kerberos.
Silus wasn't sure how much time he had spent in Kerberos's presence before he found himself rising back up, but he felt as though he might have been conversing for hours. However, he found he could remember very little of what had been said. All his questions and doubts had been replaced with new questions and doubts. He was no more aware than he had been of who was right about the nature of the azure giant; the Final Faith, the followers of the Many Paths, or the priests of the Allfather. In a sense he knew that there was a grain of truth in all of their beliefs but, at the same time, he realised that they all had a long way to go before they could claim to truly know Kerberos.
Silus rose into the void and looked towards Twilight. To his left the sun blazed away, great geysers of fire shooting out into the eternal night. Twilight caught the light and reflected it back and, feeling the pull on his body, Silus moved towards home.
However, something was rising over Kerberos's horizon. Something that Silus only began to see as a deeper darkness moving against the sea of stars. Then, as it rolled towards him, he could see that it was a pitch-black sphere. It was about an eighth the size of Kerberos and utterly featureless, its smooth surface reflecting the light of the sun like polished onyx.
This was the blight that marred the face of Kerberos.
There was a sudden sense of disorientation and Silus found himself looking down on the black terrain of this strange new world, with Kerberos now looming above him. He tried to will himself towards home and his body, but the dark moon dragged him down until he came to rest on its surface.
He sensed movement behind him then. Silus turned to see an arm reaching up through the ground. No, that wasn't quite right, he decided. The arm was in fact forming itself from the ground, the very terrain shaping itself into the semblance of a limb. Another arm rose beside it and then the ground between them bulged as a head, and then a torso, pulled themselves free.
The thing looked up at him as it coalesced, and its face was as smooth and featureless as the dark moon itself. As it rose to stand over him, the only thing to define it against the night-black background was the reflection of the stars on its obsidian flesh.
Silus prepared to defend himself before realising that there was nothing for the creature to attack. He had no body.
"What are you?"
The thing's blank face began to form itself into his own.
"Please, don't do that. You don't know me."
There was the sound of the ground breaking behind him and he turned to see another figure pulling itself together from the surface of the moon. This one coalesced into Katya's form. Something crawled out of the ground beside her and when she picked it up, he saw that it was a mockery of his son. As Zac looked at him with its eyes of pitch, fear overtook Silus and he desperately tried to find the link to his body, but when he reached out, there was nothing.
"What do you want with me? What are you?"
We are the Great Ocean. The three figures said with one voice. We are the endless sea. We are the father of the creatures you call the Chadassa. The creatures whose blood run in your veins.
"But I don't understand what you want with me."
Silus, your birth was the start. You are the herald for a new age of the Chadassa. The time of the endless ocean.
"How? Look, you have driven me from my home. You have caused the deaths of people I care about deeply. You owe me an explanation."
We agree. Too much has been hidden from you. It is only right that you are made to understand. Maybe then you will submit to us with gladness when you realise just how important you are.
"How can I be so important?"
Look, said the Katya facsimile, holding out the thing that looked like Zac.
Silus didn't want to look at the thing. It wasn't his son. But when it smiled and said his name, he found himself falling into the bottomless pits of its eyes.
As Silus was dragged far into the past he tried to scream, but he had no mouth.
It felt as though he fell forever, but he didn't fall far.
As he came out of his tumble, he saw that Kerberos still turned slowly above him and Twilight still sat against its blanket of stars.
Something was different though and it wasn't just that the dark moon was no longer there to cast its shadow on the face of Kerberos. Something made Silus feel that he was further away from home than he had ever been.
Then he had it. He had fallen not through space, but time.
As Silus wondered why the creature that called itself the Great Ocean had dragged him into the past, there was movement at the edge of his vision and the dark moon drifted towards him. This time, however, it paid him no heed. Instead, it came to rest before Kerberos, hanging in the void.
As Silus began to wonder what great revelation it was that he had been sent here to witness ripples passed through the surface of the moon. The black orb convulsed and a great rock erupted from its surface to go spinning towards Twilight.
Silus was dragged into its wake, following it as it sped towards his world.
After the endless silence of space the booming concussion that the rock made as it entered Twilight's atmosphere was deafening. Fire erupted from fissures in the stone and gas vented from cracks to surround Silus in billowing steam.
The clouds broke and Silus saw that they were hurtling towards the sea, the water coming up to meet them at a sickening speed.
He braced for impact but the scene changed suddenly, and he found himself beneath the waves rather than falling towards them.
Silus was standing before a beautiful citadel, much like the one he had explored with the crew of the Llothriall. But whereas that city had been broken by war and time, this one shone in its perfection. Great towers reached from the seabed - linked by arches that looked like they had been formed from polished quartz - while domes of glass nestled amongst forests of seaweed, the green fronds alive with the play of brilliantly coloured fish. Shafts of sunlight filtered down through the surface, moving slowly over the scene, picking out the smooth green stone of the buildings one moment and shining from the glass domes in dazzling coruscations the next.
As Silus looked more closely he could see tiny lights darting through the city like fireflies and when a shaft of light moved to rest on one of them for a moment he saw that they were attached to strange creatures.
They were humanoid in appearance, though thin silvery tails propelled them quickly through the water and small globes of light hung from either side of their jaws, looking much like the lures of anglerfish. Their heads were larger than an average human's, with great dark eyes staring from above a circular mouth lined with hundreds of needle-like teeth. At the ends of their hands were not fingers but fronds, not unlike those of a sea anemone.
These are the Calma, the voice of the Great Ocean said. A simplistic and mongrel race.
The creatures moved through the city with a balletic grace that was a joy to watch. As Silus saw two of their young race each other to the surface, he realised where he had seen such incredible beings before. His vision in the broken citadel. He had seen himself killing the Calma. He had revelled in their deaths while standing knee-deep in their fallen.
There was a commotion above the city then and Silus saw a host of Calma rushing away from the surface, as though fleeing from somethin
g there.
Panic overtook the city as a great shadow fell upon it.
Silus wasn't sure what had happened but he was suddenly surrounded by a thick cloud of debris. Dark shapes moved past him in the murk, and he could just make out chunks of broken rock and the tangled masses of shredded corpses tumbling through the clouds.
Then as rapidly as the cloud had rolled over him it was gone, and Silus now found himself looking at the ruins of a shattered city.
The scene before him blurred, light strobing erratically across it, as though the sun was racing through the sky far above.
Eventually the light stabilised and Silus could see survivors crawling through the ruins.
At the centre of the broken citadel sat the great black rock that he had followed into Twilight's skies. Dark tendrils were reaching out from the burnt and pitted stone, and where they touched the Calma survivors a horrible and violent change wracked their bodies.
The sheen of their scintillant scales darkened to a pitch black, while the fronds of their hands retracted and stiffened, razor sharp claws bursting from the flesh of their newly forming fingers. The process looked agonisingly painful and the screams of the creatures confirmed the torment they were in.
The creatures got stiffly to their feet as they changed, their toes elongating and sprouting vicious-looking talons that dug into the seabed; their jaws shattered and then slowly reformed, their mouths now lined with long sharp teeth. As the glowing nodes fell away from the creatures' faces, Silus knew exactly what he was looking at.
Chadassa.
The newly birthed Chadassa moved through the rubble, dispatching any of the survivors too weak or gravely wounded to make the change. As they experienced their first kills, Silus could sense their joy. Part of him - for the briefest of moments - even shared in it, but he bit down on this dangerous lust, burying it deep.
See the birth of the emissaries of the Great Ocean. See the first tentative steps of your kin.
Silus wouldn't have called their steps tentative. The Chadassa strode through the broken city killing anything that was not their own kind.
The Call of Kerberos Page 16
