The Call of Kerberos

by Jonathan Oliver

  Beyond time and the stars he waits.

  Belck's doubts tinged their thoughts for a moment but the group consciousness drove them back, consuming them in the fierceness of its belief.

  He will come again.

  And with the disappearance of those doubts small points of light began to illuminate the darkness.

  But they shone only for a moment before they began to wink out. However, the stars weren't going out, something was moving before them.

  The great sphere was darker than the emptiness between the stars and, as they moved across its surface, the great depth of its blackness seemed to stare back at them like an unblinking eye.

  Belck spoke for the gathered. "The half-breed has come of age and the Land Walkers will soon ravage Twilight. Your time is upon us. We call you forth to initiate the beginning of the Great Flood."

  He is the Great Ocean.

  There was the slightest movement across the sphere, as though a ripple were spreading through it, and then the stars were blurring as their God rushed past them. Belck joined with the others in revelling in the ecstasy of their God's wake.

  Then the stars that surrounded them began to fade as they rose from their communion and through the depths of the trench, exultant that he had finally come amongst them.

  Chapter Five

  The room was thick with smoke and conspiracy. Heavy black curtains shut out the daylight and the men sitting around the table, whispering, looked up nervously every time someone passed by in the street outside.

  When a rapping came at the door they fell into an immediate silence. Dunsany put his hand on the heavy bolt and his eye to the spyhole.

  "It's okay. It's just Kelos."

  A collective sigh of relief was breathed as the bedraggled looking mage was let into the house.

  "Gods, the humidity of this place is insufferable!"

  "Just wait till you see the thunderstorms they get here," Dunsany chuckled. "You'll think that Kerberos itself is being torn apart. Come, sit down. You look like a man in need of a drink."

  "You're not wrong," said Kelos helping himself to a glass of flummox. "This constant back and forth between Sarcre and Nürn is beginning to age me, I'm telling you."

  "How did the recruitment drive go today?"

  "Not well. He's still not biting."

  "And you're still getting this 'feeling' about him?"

  "Oh yes, our boy is unusual alright. I don't know whether it's a latent magical ability or something else, but Silus certainly has talent. You should see how he handles a boat."

  "Come on Kelos, there's surely nothing magical to that."

  "But with Silus it's as if he has a sixth sense when it comes to the sea. Even if it takes three more weeks of persuasion I still think it's going to be worth having him on our crew. Speaking of recruiting I see that you've been doing some yourself."

  "Ah yes, I'd forgotten that you had yet to meet our new colleagues."

  "Let me be the first to say, Kelos, that it is an honour to be working with a mage of such power." The man who rose from his seat to thrust a bejewelled hand at Kelos staggered slightly, as though he had been on the flummox for quite some time. Kelos was bemused to be referred to as 'powerful' but also somewhat flattered. He had, after all, recently defeated a Shadowmage.

  "The gentleman with the jewels is Father Maylan, an old friend of mine." Dunsany said.

  "Father Maylan? Father?"

  "Relax Kelos, Maylan has little affection for the faith he purportedly represents."

  "Indeed," said Maylan, sitting back down and eyeing the contents of the flummox bottle. "I'm the Faith's token priest on Sarcre. Their only priest in fact. The church has very little real interest in the islands, but they can't be seen to be lax, so they 'converted' me and set me up as their Eminence here. Once a year I have to go to Scholten to maintain face, but it's all just a show. Not that Makennon knows that of course."

  "I met Maylan back when I was plying the trade route between here and Allantia. In those days he was head Diviner of the Many Paths." Dunsany said.

  "And to most of the locals I still am. But the crossed circle of the Faith is my mask now."

  "No offence Maylan but do we really need a priest on board?" Kelos said.

  "Actually, you'll find that Father Maylan has already proven himself invaluable. It was through him that I was introduced to the three gentlemen you see on your right."

  The three gentlemen in question had the look of men who spent much of their time being blasted by the elements. Sun tanned to the point of burnt, with large, scarred and calloused hands, it was clear that they all shared the same profession. They squinted at Kelos through the smoke from thin, mean cheroots. He noticed that the same tattoo was inked upon the back of each of their left hands.

  "Prison tattoos," Maylan said. "My friends here have spent time at the pleasure of Vos due to the nature of their export and import business."

  "They're smugglers?" Kelos said.

  "We prefer free traders," said the man in the middle of the group. "I'm Jacquinto. The man on my right is Ignacio, my brother, and on my left is Ioannis."

  "They bring me a certain spice that is essential to divination." Maylan said.

  "That and it gets you high as a woodrene." Ioannis grinned.

  "The important thing is that they know how to handle themselves at sea." Dunsany said.

  "Three smugglers and a priest." Kelos poured himself a glass of flummox. "Okay Dunsany, I'm sure you know what you're doing. Just give me a little more time with Silus."

  "Excellent! Then we're most of the way there." Dunsany rose to his feet. "Gentlemen, charge your glasses. I propose a toast. To adventure and new horizons!"

  Dunsany's grin fell as a thin, reedy voice came at them out of a dark corner of the room.

  "They will walk beneath the waves and no man shall halt their march. Already their god stirs and from the dark night of infinity he shall come."

  Jacquinto and his comrades were on their feet, blades in hands. Dunsany was just in time to stop the downward swing of Ioannis's attack.

  "No!" The knife skittered across the room and Ioannis turned an angry glare on Dunsany. "No. It's okay. This is Emuel. He's with us."

  "My Gods Dunsany, what is he?" Father Maylan said, eyeing the tattoos and elvish script that covered almost every inch of the eunuch.

  "Emuel is the ship's eunuch. It is his song that empowers the Llothriall."

  "Dunsany, something's not right," Kelos said. "Look at his eyes."

  Now that Emuel was fully revealed by the lamplight they could all see that his eyes were a deep violet. Kelos leaned in to take a closer look. Peering into the eunuch's eyes was like looking into the heart of a storm. Threads of energy sparked from his pupils and played across his eyelids.

  "The Great Flood is coming."

  "Kelos, snap him out of it!" Dunsany shouted.

  Kelos gripped Emuel's arms and was shocked by how cold he felt. Ignoring his babble for a moment he felt for a way to break through the glamour. Looking deep into Emuel's eyes he spoke words of power, but they had no effect whatsoever and the magic that had taken him was starting to fill Kelos's head, making his skull ache.

  "Nürn will fall. The half-breed will be theirs."

  Kelos abandoned his attempt at magical defence and made to slap Emuel, but before the blow could connect the light faded from the eunuch's eyes and he dropped to the floor.

  Kelos felt for a pulse. "He's alright. It seems to have left him now."

  "What the hell was that about?" Ioannis said, retrieving his knife.

  "It looked like possession to me." Kelos said.

  "He said that Nürn will fall." Dunsany said, helping Kelos move Emuel to a chair. "Isn't that where Silus lives?

  "Yes," Kelos said. "It is."

  Silus had been thinking about his meeting with Kelos at The Necromancer's Barge all day and, that night, the strange man had even found his way into his Silus's dreams.

  He had dreamt th
at Kelos had led him down to the harbour where a magnificent vessel was berthed. The ship shimmered with the light of Kerberos, the great azure orb seeming to lend its glow to every part of the vessel.

  And then Silus was aboard and they were leaving the shore behind, though the prow of the ship pointed not towards the horizon, but towards Kerberos itself.

  Soon they were flying above an endless sea of clouds and Silus leaned hard against the rail, trying to peer into the depth of Kerberos, only for a hard shove to send him spinning into the storm.

  Katya had shaken him awake. "Silus, Silus stop it, you're screaming. What's the matter?"

  After he had towelled the sweat from his body and calmed down, Silus told Katya about his meeting with Kelos. She had laughed over the implausibility of the venture that the man had proposed and, as the soft light of dawn crept into their room, Silus had to admit that it did now all seem somewhat fanciful.

  Nevertheless, later that day, Silus stopped in at The Necromancer's Barge to see if the man had put in a reappearance. But there was just the usual crowd; drinkers coming in off night shifts or workers fortifying themselves for the day ahead.

  Silus had stood in the Ocean Lily for a while then, reluctant to cast off into the fierce wind, knowing that today's catch would probably be worse than the last and that he and Katya would be eating seacrake again for supper. But the sea was a part of him, just as it had been a part of his father and his father before that. There would be hard times and bad days, but that was true of anything and when he and Katya's son or daughter came into the world, Silus wanted to have a trade that he could pass on.

  The song of the waves, the gulls wheeling above, the whisper of the wind were all calling to him and so Silus played out the rope, swung the boom and faced the sea once more.

  The Ocean Lily protested against every pitch and yawl and twice Silus swore as the rope cut too quickly through his hands. The sails screeched with the force of the wind on them and he feared that the fabric would tear, leaving him unable to return to shore.

  Eventually, though, he found the edge of the squall and the boat glided out onto calmer waters. He checked his nets and then made to drop anchor.

  As soon as the weight left his hands and plunged into the water he knew that something was wrong. Silus had no time to react, however, as he was pitched over the side, his right foot having become caught up in the rapidly uncoiling rope.

  He managed to resist the urge to gasp as the cold water hit him and he followed the anchor into the depths.

  Silus could see nothing but a stream of bubbles and debris as he fought against the pull of the rope. There was a sudden tug and he found himself arcing over a rock surface. He struggled to grab handholds, trying to bring a halt to his descent, but succeeded only in scraping his face and palms. The sting of the saltwater in his wounds was immediate and he came to a stop, suspended upside down beneath the overhang of a rock shelf.

  The worst thing that he could do, he realised, was panic but, even so, he felt a very real fear begin to buzz through his nerves as he struggled with the knot at his ankle. Taking a knife from his belt he jabbed at the tangle of rope but all he succeeded in doing was cutting his fingers and losing the blade to the sea.

  Silus knew that he had only seconds before his oxygen-starved body forced him to take a breath and he drowned. But as he fought with his entanglement he began to realise that his chest wasn't burning with the need for air and, strangely, his vision was crystal clear. Down here, in the shadow of the rock shelf little light penetrated, but Silus could see everything with a startling clarity.

  It was then that he looked round and saw that he was in even greater danger than he had first realised.

  Their clawed feet dug into the seabed as they strode towards where he hung, kicking up clouds of sand. Silus estimated that there were at least twenty of them. At their head marched one more gnarled and misshapen than the rest, holding a staff half again as tall as itself, a scarlet gem burning malevolently at its tip. The creatures stood as tall as a man and were covered in scales that looked as though they could stop the sharpest of arrows. Great black eyes bulged from either side of narrow heads filled with hundreds of needle-like teeth. From the small of their backs to the top of their skulls ran a line of barbed spines that flexed with the movements of the current, as though they aided the creatures in sensing their environment.

  Silus knew that even if he could sustain his held breath, when the monsters reached him he would be finished. His heart broke as he realised that he'd never see Katya again and that he'd never be a father to their unborn child. Closing his eyes he sent up a prayer to Kerberos, calling on his ancestors to either accept him with open arms or send their aid. When he opened his eyes again the creatures were moving below him and Silus braced himself for a slash from those wicked talons.

  But the creatures continued to march on as though they hadn't seen him at all, and soon the last had passed beneath him.

  And now fear really did begin to take hold because, watching the retreating backs of the creatures, Silus realised where they were heading.

  They were marching towards Nürn.

  Silus's fingers scrabbled again at the knot that ensnared his ankle. His lungs really were beginning to burn now and a lethargic weakness spread through his hands.

  Suddenly his vision was obscured as shoal of brilliant and multi-coloured slivers of light engulfed him. Gemfish, he realised as they swirled around him, tickling him with flickers of their tails. Perhaps these were the emissaries of Kerberos, who were to escort him to his resting place amongst the clouds.

  His stomach lurched as he dropped several feet. Silus realised then that he could move his ankle. He was free, the gemfish had chewed through the rope that had bound him.

  His vision started to blur as he kicked for the surface and when he finally broke through the waves, the breath that he took seemed like it would go on forever.

  Even though he wanted to do nothing more than lie on the deck of his boat and breathe in the fresh, cool air he knew that he had to alert Nürn to the danger that was heading their way.

  Silus pulled up the rest of the anchor rope and set the boom. As the sails took the wind he just hoped that the Ocean Lily would prove to be quicker than the things that marched along the seabed below.

  In the small barracks five of the Nürn guard were rolling woodrene bones. Already they had played six rounds of cards - in which one of them had lost almost a week's pay - and many more games of dice. This was the way it went most nights.

  "You know what? I think that was my last throw," said Officer Stinton. "Besides, it's probably time that I went on patrol."

  "And I think that it's probably time that you sat back down and gave me all your money." Officer Tolley said, leaning back in his chair and giving his friend a condescending smile. "Come on Stinton, don't be such a pussy just because you lost a couple of pieces."

  "Yeah, we'll give you a chance to win it all back, honest." Officer Bardsley said, his gold tooth catching the light of the lamp as he smiled

  "To be fair to Officer Stinton," said Officer Springer. "We do have a job to do."

  "Yeah, and that job is to take Stinton's money and then go and get pissed." Office Mooney grinned, looking at the wealth that he had gathered that evening.

  "Really, I'd love to be a further part of your games, but Nürn is not going to police itself."

  As Officer Stinton left the barracks he could see someone running towards him. It was the fisherman, Silus, and he looked to be in some distress. Stinton made sure that his sword was secure and then went to meet the citizen.

  "Ring the alarm bell now." Silus said as he struggled to regain his breath. "Summon every volunteer you can. We're under attack."

  "Silus, calm down. Attack from whom?"

  "From the sea. They're coming from the sea."

  "Who are coming from the sea?"

  But Officer Stinton's question went unanswered as Silus ran for home, and he was no clos
er to understanding whom their assailants were when they burst from the waves.

  The alarm bell was ringing and, as Silus rushed Katya from their home, they could see a plume of smoke rising above the harbour.

  The first body that they came across was Officer Springer's. He knelt on the cobbles as though in an act of penitence, his head on the ground turned at an angle that shouldn't have been possible. A shard of vertebrae protruded from the back of his neck. From the cracked stones of the road beneath him it looked like he'd fallen from a great height. It was almost as though he'd been thrown.

  Silus knelt beside the fallen guard and prised the sword from his stiff fingers, passing the weapon to Katya before unsheathing his own blade.

  "We may have to fight," Silus said. "There may be no other way to protect our child. We'll try and make it to the Ocean Lily and get to Vosburg. We'll make sure that you're safe there and then we'll get help."

  Katya nodded and kept a tight grip on Silus's hand as they ran towards the harbour.

  The clash of weapons and the cries of the injured - both human and inhuman - were clearer now. Flames had started to spread to more of the buildings and, as Katya pulled Silus to a halt, they saw the roof of The Necromancer's Barge cave in. Someone flailed out of the building, a human torch that screamed so shrilly it could have been either a man or a woman. The blazing figure got only a few feet from the tavern before it keeled over in the street and was still.

  A hideous form emerged through the smoke shrouding the end of the street. Katya cried out as it put one huge, clawed foot on the skull of the burning corpse. The noise that echoed off the walls with a sharp, yet wet, report as it stamped down was not something they would ever forget.

  "Stay close to me!" Silus shouted, raising his sword as the creature advanced.

  His first blow skittered across the beast's scales, deflected by tough hide. As he moved in again, Katya swung her own blade at its ankles, but the creature stepped out of the arc of her attack and raked its claws across her face. Had she been a step closer Katya would have been blinded. Instead four wet, red lines opened up on her cheek.