The Call of Kerberos

by Jonathan Oliver

  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."

  There was a flash of light and when it faded they saw that part of the citadel had disappeared. In its place now was a vast area of scorched seabed over which fell a slow rain of corpses; Chadassa and Calma alike.

  "I have to find her," Silus said, before adding, "I'm sorry about Dunsany, Kelos. Really."

  Kelos reached out to him but, before he could say anything, Silus stepped through the membrane in the side of the ship and into the sea.

  He breathed deeply, energised by the cold burn of the salt water in his lungs.

  Belck had made him embrace his Chadassa nature and use it against his friends, but now he would use it against the Chadassa themselves. As he thought of Katya, trapped somewhere within the city, and of what had been done to Zac his rage intensified.

  Ahead of him four Chadassa were tearing into a single Calma, oblivious to him in their killing frenzy.

  Silus barrelled into them, grabbed one by the head and squeezed until it came apart. He didn't feel the blows of the other Chadassa as they fought him and when he turned on them they came apart just as easily. One of them he left alive, but only as long as it took him to peer into its mind and find out where Katya was being kept. After that he slammed the creature into the ground again and again, his fingers dug deep into the flesh of its throat. The Chadassa flopped in his grip like a rag doll as a strange, high-pitched keening made his skull ache. It took Silus a moment to realise that the sound was coming from him. It shocked him out of his fury and he stood in a cloud of sand and viscera, wondering just what he was becoming.

  Kelos had taught him that he was special and the Chadassa had shown him that he was a monster. Silus knew that he was both.

  He kicked away from the seabed, darting into a forest of weeds when he was spotted by more Chadassa. He lost them amongst the fronds, only to be startled by a shoal of gemfish that exploded around him as he swam into a clearing.

  Ahead of him lay the centre of the citadel. Its dark coral towers swarmed with the Chadassa as they tried to defend them against the Calma ships. One of the towers fell; fortunately, Silus saw, not the one that Katya was imprisoned in. However, he didn't have long. Already several of the Calma ships had fallen - great clouds of sand and silt marking their impact sites - and more Chadassa were boiling up from beneath the city all the time. Silus even thought he saw the twisted form of the Great Ocean amongst the chaos, but couldn't be sure.

  He looked for a way in, but knew that to wander into the centre of the fighting would mean death. Somehow he had to make it to the prison tower unseen.

  A flash of neon caught his eye and he knew what he had to do.

  Silus called the gemfish to him and soon he was hidden within the glittering shoal. Together they moved into the heart of the conflict. Several times, when they ventured too close to the fighting, the shoal threatened to break apart, but Silus reasserted his will and kept the gemfish close. To those caught up in the chaos it would merely seem that a school of fish had come to feed on the detritus of the battle.

  But there were bigger scavengers than the gemfish around and soon a gaggle of razor dolphins had closed in on them, picking off the glittering fish and picking apart Silus's carefully constructed shroud. Realising that his cover was rapidly disintegrating he tried to bind the razor dolphins to his will; however, their minds were slippery and soon they were darting away again in search of more food.

  Silus floated, isolated in the middle of the conflict, wondering how long it would take for the Chadassa to spot him.

  It wasn't the Chadassa who noticed him first, however, but the Calma.

  Gesturing to its four comrades, one of them swam towards him, the light shimmering on its gossamer tail as it approached. The last time Silus had been this close to the Calma, he had been killing one of their kind, driven on by Belck's manipulations. Something of that bloody hunger must have been obvious in his eyes now as the Calma suddenly hesitated in its approach.

  A Chadassa riding a giant, horned eel swooped in, spearing the Calma through the chest with a barbed javelin and scattering its brethren in the wake of its mount. The Calma soon regrouped, however and, as the eel turned for another pass, they brought their flails to bear.

  Amazed at the Calma's bravery Silus moved to join their defensive line.

  The eel coiled around a tower and out of sight and, for a moment, Silus thought that it had moved on to other prey, but then - with a terrifying screech - the sinuous beast was amongst them.

  The rider lashed out with its javelin, only for one of the Calma to wrap its flail around the shaft and pull. The weapon slipped out of the Chadassa's grasp and started to fall towards the seabed. Silus snatched it up before it could disappear and turned in time to see another Calma entangle its flail around the wrist of the eel rider. Within moments, however, the Chadassa had unsheathed a knife and severed its own hand, freeing it of the Calma's hold. Dark blood boiled into the water, throwing the eel into a frenzy that jolted the rider about in the saddle, but it soon had its mount back under control.

  The eel opened its jaws and rushed another of the Calma, only to find Silus barring its way. The creature came to a sudden halt, jerking its rider forward in the saddle, its long, slim tail coiling behind it. A stream of bubbles slowly rising from its nostrils, the eel's eye slits narrowed as it considered this new thing now before it.

  However, Silus didn't give it long to calculate its next move. He lunged for the eel, wrapped one arm around its thick neck and drove the barbed point of the javelin deep into its mouth. The eel let out a shriek that sounded like sheet metal tearing before rapidly ascending, taking Silus with it as he continued to cling on to the shaft of the weapon. The Chadassa crouched low over its mount's skull as it urged it on, trying to shake Silus off with rapid twists and turns.

  As the towers of the citadel rolled dizzyingly around him, Silus saw that the remaining Calma were following in the eel's wake. He urged them back, not wanting any more of their blood on his hands but, despite his gestures, they closed on the beast.

  One of them latched onto the eel's dorsal fin and tore into the ridged flesh, causing the creature to buck and writhe as it attempted to dislodge its attacker. Another Calma descended on the rider and tried to pull it from the saddle, but this attack met with less success and soon the Calma was tumbling away from them, blood gushing from its throat.

  Silus's arms were beginning to ache with the effort of maintaining his grip on the javelin. Blood was pouring freely from the wound in the eel's mouth and the strong oily taste of it, as it clouded the water around him, was beginning to make Silus dizzy and nauseous.

  They were not far from the sur
face now, but instead of launching itself from the sea, the eel began to slow. Thinking that it was finally succumbing to its wounds, Silus loosened his grip on the javelin and looked up to see how the Chadassa was responding to the imminent death of its mount.

  But the creature didn't seem at all perturbed; instead it dug its heels sharply into the eel's temples and placed its remaining hand on the top of the creature's skull.

  There was a flash of light and it felt as though a vice had suddenly closed on Silus's heart, as though he had been slammed into a brick wall at speed. One moment he was preparing himself to deliver the killing blow, the next he was falling, wracked with pain and paralysed. The water around him sparkled with electrical discharge and a dead Calma drifted down towards him, lazily turning, its eyes the white of cooked fish.

  The eel coiled down from above and tore the creature in two, hungrily gulping down the innards that burst from its sundered flesh. But the Chadassa didn't give its mount long to feed and soon the eel was hurtling towards Silus once more.

  He willed his limbs to move, he even attempted to reach into to the eel's mind and turn it on its rider, but all he could do was watch as death came to claim him.

  He was about to close his eyes and offer up a final prayer to the ancestors, when a Calma ship closed around the eel.

  The Chadassa was thrown from its saddle only to be cooked in an instant when a thin beam of emerald energy lanced from the ship. Riderless now, the eel coiled itself around the strange vessel and tried to close its jaws on the flesh-like hull, but the ship was clearly tougher than it looked. The eel worried at it in vain, rapidly becoming more and more enraged by its impervious prey. The ship withstood its futile scrabblings for just a moment longer, before suddenly flexing its limbs and pulling the eel apart.

  As the sundered chunks of flesh fell slowly past, feeling began to return to Silus's extremities; but not quickly enough for him to get out of the path of the ship as it closed on him.

  A thin, translucent tentacle unfurled from the centre of the craft to wrap itself around his waist. He knew that the Calma were on his side, but he couldn't help but feel afraid as he was pulled into the red, gaping maw that opened up at the vessel's core.

  The mouth closed behind him and Silus was deposited into a small domed room that began to rapidly drain, leaving him on his knees, coughing up the seawater from his lungs. Once he was breathing normally again he managed to stand, though his legs shook with the strain and he had never felt so tired or so cold.

  With a sound like lips moistly parting, a door dilated open above him and a hand reached through. Silus knew that hand and when he looked up, sure enough, there stood Katya. She helped him scrabble up into the ship's control room, where several Calma were busy piloting the vessel.

  Silus and Katya didn't say anything as they embraced.

  With his wife's arms around him, he realised just how long it had been since he had last held her. All the things he had taken for granted - the smell of her hair; the warmth of her skin - suddenly seemed as though he were experiencing them anew, and when she said his name he began to cry.

  "I'm so sorry. So, so sorry," he said. "What did they do to you?"

  "They took Zac away and then left me. After that there was nothing. Have you seen him Silus? Do you know where Zac is? He's safe, isn't he?" The look in Silus's eyes told Katya that he wasn't. "No, please no. No, please Silus. Tell me that he's okay. Please."

  But no matter how much she pleaded with him, Silus couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear, so instead he continued to hold her, and when the grief overcame her and she sank to the floor, he went with her.

  "Make them pay, Silus," she said, "promise me that you'll make them pay."

  As they sped away from the Chadassa citadel, Silus promised.

  Kelos waited until the remaining Calma ships surrounded the Llothriall before he began to cast the spell. The parchment he took from the battered leather tube had the rainbow sheen of fish scale and, indeed, the sheet had been made from the hide of an extremely rare marine creature. It had cost Kelos a considerable amount to acquire and would crumble into dust once the spell was cast, but he considered that such circumstances as they now found themselves in more than justified its use.

  Kelos lay the shimmering material flat on the table before taking out a small bottle of violet ink and a quill from a pocket in his robe.

  "Kelos, what the fuck are you doing? This is no time to draw a picture," Jacquinto said, as he peered over his shoulder, "those bloody things are almost on us."

  "I am not drawing a picture. It may not look like it, but I am performing some extremely powerful magic. You should be impressed."

  Kelos began to draw a diagram onto the sheet, the ink of the chasm squid sinking into the page with the faintest of crackles as he moved the quill.

  The Llothriall shook as something ploughed into its side and the bottle of ink went skittering across the table. Jacquinto caught it just before it hit the floor and Kelos exhaled heavily.

  "Thank you, you may well just have saved all our lives."

  Kelos finished his illustration as the sound of the assault increased on all sides. Then, after blowing on the ink to ensure it was dry, he took the page and folded it into eight segments.

  The Llothirall shuddered as the sea warped around it. Kelos closed his eyes as the geometry of the cabin ruptured, the scene before him breaking into a kaleidoscope of disparate fragments. He heard Jacquinto say something, but his voice seemed to be getting further and further away.

  Kelos tied the threads of elemental power together, spoke the closing words of the spell and unfolded the sheet.

  The noise of the Chadassa bombardment stopped suddenly and the quiet was only broken when Jacquinto dropped to his knees and vomited.

  "What the hell did you do?" he said, after the last spasm had died away. "It felt like being turned inside-out."

  "I simply brought our destination closer to us, thus facilitating a swift exit and avoiding the need for a lot of tedious sailing. We are now not far from the Calma's city. Look."

  But through the porthole, they saw not the glass domes of the city but a pall of thick black smoke boiling swiftly and steadily to the surface. Above, they could just make out the keels of a fleet of ships, from which fell a steady rain of dazzling white fire.

  "I thought that you said the Llothriall was the only ship capable of sailing the Twilight seas," Jacquinto said.

  "It is."

  "Then who in the name of the seven hells are they, and why are they attacking the Calma?"

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Llothriall surfaced and, at a gesture from Kelos, the covering that had enclosed the deck dissolved, bright sunlight washing across the boards as it fell away. He chose to keep the masts down and the sails furled for now, not wanting to attract the attention of the fleet of eight ships that sat some thirty yards from starboard.

  Whatever Kelos had been expecting to see on breaking the waves, it certainly hadn't been the symbol of the Final Faith, painted in red on the white of the ships' sails. For a moment he thought that the Faith had managed to repeat the success of the Llothriall, but then he saw that these vessels weren't suited to the Twilight seas at all. Already several were sporting rents in their hulls where the waves had battered their way in and, as he watched, one of the ships took a sudden nosedive. The men and women who fell from the deck were sucked under in her wake.

  This, however, did not detract the remaining ships from their task.

  Gun ports stood open along each vessel and through these were being pitched weighted barrels that burned with a blinding light. Even as they sank the flames were undiminished and Kelos wondered what kind of fire burned underwater. His awe at this peculiar sorcery, however, was broken by the realisation that if they didn't act soon the Calma city would be entirely destroyed. More importantly, Dunsany was somewhere down there. For all Kelos knew he could already be dead.

  Kelos raised his hands. The Llothriall
's masts rose from the deck and the sails unfurled. He grabbed a speaking tube and shouted down to Emuel to begin the song. As the deck shuddered beneath him, Kelos brought the Llothriall about, swiftly cutting a path towards the Faith vessels.

  He ran to the prow as they neared, raising his arms and shouting, "Stop! You're killing them!"

  Perhaps it was Kelos's plea, perhaps it was the realisation that the Faith's fugitive ship was amongst them, but the bombardment finally came to a halt.

  By the time the Llothriall reached the fleet, more of the Faith's ships had succumbed and only three remained. Kelos realised then that this must be a suicide squad of some kind, sent to enact Makennon's vengeance with no hope of returning.

  As they came alongside, Kelos extended the Llothriall's protective field to encompass the diminished fleet, before leaping onto a neighbouring deck, only to be immediately seized by men in robes.

  "Let go of me! What are you doing?"

  "You are a fugitive of the Faith. We are detaining you in the name of the Anointed Lord."

  "For god's sake, we're trying to stop you killing the Calma."

  "The Calma? What are the Calma?"

  As if summoned, a Calma vessel surfaced nearby. A door dilated open in its topside and out stepped Silus and Katya, followed by several of the creatures. The craft drifted towards the ship and the small party climbed onto deck.

  "Those are the Calma." Kelos said, nodding towards the creatures. "Now why did Makennon send you to kill them?"

  A man with the symbol of the Faith tattooed onto his face backed away from the visitors, his hand going to the dagger at his belt, but before he could wield it, one of his shipmates had knocked it from his grasp.

  "No. Leave them. They're not your enemy, the Chadassa are."

  "The Chadassa," Kelos said. "What do you know about them?"

  "They have been attacking the Twilight coast. Makennon's inquisitor -"

  "Fitch?"

  "Yes, Querilous Fitch. Through his methods of interrogation he managed to get one of the Chadassa to give up the location of its base here. Makennon's mages teleported us in to destroy it."