Sleep didn't come easily. Especially not with the sound coming from the cell next door. Silus didn't know what manner of creature the Chadassa had incarcerated there or what they were doing to it, but its cries shook the walls of the tiny room in which he lay.
The sound of voices approached, raised in song. For a moment they overrode the cries coming from the neighbouring cell before silencing them completely, as though the creature residing there had forgotten its agony to listen to the strange hymn. Then there was the sound of bolts being drawn and then a jagged shard of light leapt into the room, startling Silus and making it difficult for him to define the shapes standing in the doorway.
A Chadassa male stepped into the room, its hide marked by the symbols of ritual scarification. "It is time for the Queen to receive you."
Silus felt the last traces of hope burn away then. The crew of the Llothriall were dead, his wife and child incarcerated somewhere in this gods-forsaken place and now he was going to be forced to mate with the Chadassa's queen.
Silus looked at the creatures that had crowded their way into his cell, still singing that seductive, yet horrific, song. Desperately hoping for an ally, he looked for Belck amongst the throng.
"Belck, tell your people what the Great Ocean really desires for them, for all of us. Tell them Belck, you must have realised the truth, I saw it in you."
"Belck is not here," the creature standing over Silus said. "He too will be preparing for the ceremony."
Silus held his body rigid as the Chadassa tried to drag him from the cell. He wasn't going to make this easy for them and twice his captors dropped him. As he was manhandled down the corridor, the screaming from the neighbouring cell started up again, this time with more vigour as though to protest at the song being taken away.
Silus and the Chadassa choir descended the spirals of the prison tower until, passing through a membrane, they entered the water. Again, Silus's first instinct was to fight against the sea that filled his lungs, but soon he was breathing easily.
They passed through chambers carpeted with seaweed and lit by the glow of strange minerals until they came to a wide tunnel, sloping down into darkness, seemingly cutting through the bedrock of the ocean floor. A cold current rushed over them. Ahead, Silus could hear more voices raised in song and, as the two choirs neared one another they reached a complex harmony that was so exquisite it brought tears to his eyes.
The two groups of Chadassa emerged on either side of a large chamber and formed a circle around Silus as he was shoved into the centre of the room.
The cavern was warmed by the heat that was rising from a hole in the centre of the room. Silus looked down and, within, he could see the writhing forms of hundreds of fluorescent thread-like worms.
The choir fell silent and the Chadassa who had spoken to Silus in his cell stepped forward.
"To prepare yourself for the Queen, you must first be cleansed."
Silus looked at the creatures that surrounded him. There was nothing that he could do but obey.
Silus stepped towards the hole in the floor and a strong current suddenly grabbed him and pulled him down. As he was dragged into the warm darkness, the fluorescent worms shivered over his body before burrowing in through his pores, the pain like a thousand needles suddenly piercing his flesh. Soon, however, a great sense of calm and wellbeing overtook him and he found himself falling into a vast cavern, lit by the gelatinous forms that moved slowly across the floor. The worms that had entered his body left him then, erupting from his flesh in brilliant threads of coloured lightning. As the last of them swam out of sight, Silus realised that he felt better than he had in a long time, purified, even.
He came to rest on the carpet of glowing creatures that undulated across the cavern floor. They supported him on a bed of tentacles while passing him slowly across their bodies. Silus glided towards an archway at the far end of the room. Where the gelatinous creatures touched him his very flesh felt energised, buzzing with a new life and power. Silus wanted to stay down here forever, wanted this state of bliss to never end. He was surrounded by light and gentle caresses and soon all memory of his previous travails were erased.
His state of euphoria was shattered as he saw three Chadassa females hovering in the archway at the far end of the hall.
Though they were as fearsome in aspect as any of their brethren that Silus had met, their approach was gentle and considered. Instead of rushing in and grabbing him as he had expected, they beckoned to Silus to follow them.
Beyond the archway the water was cooler, the light softer.
Silus looked for the Chadassa females but they were nowhere to be seen.
There was a touch then, a palm gently stroking the back of his head and Silus turned only to catch the briefest glimpse of something swimming swiftly away. He moved deeper into the room and then there was another touch. Fingers lightly grazing his nipples, sending an inadvertent shiver of pleasure down to his groin.
Again Silus turned. Again, the merest hint of a shape.
Before he could proceed there was another touch and then another.
Another.
Lips briefly against his own.
A tongue.
The sensation of scale moving against his inner thigh.
A talon running swiftly down his spine, laying down a line of incandescent pleasure.
The touches and caresses surrounded him now and Silus tried to turn and see the source of this frenetic pleasure, but unseen hands held him firmly in place, carrying him onwards. He didn't fight it though part of him realised that he should be feeling revulsion, horror — even a deep guilt that he was allowing the caresses of these things while Katya was still captive somewhere within the citadel — but he burned with arousal and he let the Chadassa maidens and his lust carry him onwards.
They came to a flight of stone stairs, ascending towards a light. Silus's feet didn't even touch the steps and, as the light rushed towards him, he felt as though he were about to be reborn, as though he were about to come face-to-face with his god.
And, in a sense, he was. For as Silus was raised into the temple, standing before him was the Great Ocean incarnate, this terrible power now clothed in Chadassa and human flesh.
For the briefest of moments Silus was overjoyed to see his son again, but as he saw what had been done to Zac his mind railed against the horror.
The infant fused to the breast of the Chadassa smiled when it saw Silus. The half-formed foetuses that dwelt in the corrupt cavern of the creature's womb chattered in their imbecile language and the misted eyes of the Chadassa host wept a viscous, putrid fluid as it opened its jaws.
As one, the creatures playing host to the ancient and evil mind said, "He is the Great Ocean. He will come again."
Silus couldn't breathe. He tried to shut his eyes but one of the Chadassa maidens forced his head back, while another pried his eyelids open with her claws.
"Say it," she hissed into Silus's face.
Silus didn't know what she meant at first, but as the eyes of the Great Ocean bore into his, he finally understood.
"He is the Great Ocean."
The Chadassa maidens released him and returned below.
Behind the Great Ocean Silus could see that the temple was filled to capacity, the Chadassa's awe at seeing their god made flesh obvious in their humble and prostrate forms.
"What… what have you done to Zac?" Silus said.
"There is only the Great Ocean." The thing said, the congregation repeating its words just a fraction of a second later so that they echoed from the temple walls.
"And Belck?"
"His doubt undid him."
The Great Ocean took Silus's hand and turned him to face the congregation.
"Behold your salvation! The father of a new generation of Chadassa that will lead us all into a brave new era. No longer will we have to share this world with the humans. No longer will we have to remain beneath the waves. Soon all will be as the Great Ocean."
The congregation raised their voices in thanks and praise and, as they looked at him standing there, Silus could sense the weight of their need and the hope that they had placed within him. Despite himself, he felt a surge of pride and anticipation. That just one human could bring about such a transformation was astonishing. But then, he considered, he wasn't really human. The Chadassa were as much his people as they had been Belck's.
When the Great Ocean joined the congregation in the words of an ancient litany Silus closed his eyes, trying to picture his wife and child as they had been at Zac's birth, hoping that the image would shake him free of the creature's thrall. He tried to remember the fierce love that he had felt as he held Zac in his arms for the first time, and the look of happy exhaustion on Katya's face. He asked for their forgiveness.
The voices in the temple fell silent and the great double doors at the far end of the hall swung open. Silus realised that his time had finally come.
Weakly he submitted to the Great Ocean as it handed him to its acolytes. He didn't fight as they raised him up and carried him forth.
As they proceeded from the hall and out into the passage beyond Silus looked at the murals that decorated the walls as they scrolled slowly past. Scenes of conquest and icons of Chadassa leaders had been chiselled into the stone, some with surprising finesse considering the creatures behind the art. One face he saw looked familiar and as they neared the mural Silus realised why this was. He was looking at himself. The likeness may not have been painstakingly accurate but whoever had worked the stone had certainly managed to capture his essence. This was not a new mural either, the stonework was worn in places and covered with sea lichens. Looking up at himself, as he was passed from hand to hand, Silus realised then that this final act really was his destiny. This was where he was supposed to be. It had been foretold.
He had fought and fought, drawing his family and friends into an unnecessary conflict when he should have given himself to the Chadassa when they had first called.
The regret that Silus felt at this, however, was dispelled as he was brought by acolytes of the Great Ocean before the Queen.
The powerful musk of the creature rolled towards him on a warm current and Silus inhaled the scent deeply, letting her perfume fill him with a fierce arousal, of which the touch of the Chadassa maidens had been but the merest taste. The great mound shivered as he drew near and, the folds of flesh gently parting before him, the Chadassa Queen blossomed.
Silus didn't hesitate to enter her embrace.
After all, his destiny had been written in stone.