Beyond the Storm Wall, far and deep off the coast of Twilight, beneath waves that rose to the height of mountains before crashing into troughs so wide they could accommodate an entire fleet of ships, stood a city that no human eyes had ever seen.
Great structures of coral and mineral, fused together and roughly shaped, rose from the seabed. Vicious, many spiked towers were linked by archways, carved from rock and glittering with iridescent minerals. A wide avenue, illuminated by the glow of gelatinous octopus-like things staked at regular intervals, linked narrow streets and alleys. At one end of the city, before a series of rock shelves fell away into darkness, a great mound heaved and shuddered. Its surface looked like stone but moved like flesh. Fissures ran zig-zagging across it, occasionally emitting chinks of brilliant light, making the water around it boil briefly, before the mound settled back into a restless slumber.
No lights came from the buildings of this deep-water metropolis and the sea was quiet for miles around. Not even the leviathans, who had no natural predators, would swim these waters and the only marine life visible were the albino catfish that rooted in the muck of the bottom, occasionally regarding one another with blank — almost stupid — expressions before burying their blunt noses into the silt once more.
Along the central avenue the glowing things rose on their tethers as something approached from the south.
Its structure had no grace and no attempt had been made to streamline the craft or make it look functional. It looked like a barnacle encrusted boulder and it turned end over end, silently, as it made its way towards the city. As it drew close a hole opened up in the centre of the illuminated avenue and the craft descended into a wide, deep shaft. It passed through a shimmering circle of light and continued its descent into a vast hall.
Dark scaled creatures watched its approach as it drifted down towards a central podium, where it came to rest. The craft opened up like the petals of a flower, thick blue mucous oozing from its folds. The creature that stepped out was clearly of the same breed as those filling the hall, yet its flesh was pitted and scarred. The spines that ran from the top of its skull to the small of its back were faded at their tips. In its right hand the creature held a staff, a red gem embedded in its apex. This it raised to the audience and they responded with a cry, the joyous sound reaching him clearly through the water.
"Belck!"
Belck surveyed the ranks of creatures before him. He had led the Chadassa for thousands of years, taking on the staff from his father, who had inherited it from his father in turn.
"Broodkin, the time draws close. Our blood is strong in the half-breed's veins. It is his seed that will give rise to the Land Walkers and with them we shall take Twilight. The time of the Great Flood is almost upon us!"
The hall echoed with the sound of the creatures' praise. Around them lights danced on the many murals that decorated the hall. In one of these the Chadassa were depicted in battle, cutting down members of another marine race that looked not unlike themselves, in the background a city burned with spectral flames. Another mural depicted a huge, black disk. Its face was barely defined, only the stars that surrounded it picked it out of the blackness.
It was towards this scene that Belck now turned his gaze and, without his prompting, the gathered Chadassa joined him in chanting their creed.
"Beyond Kerberos he waits
He will come again
Beyond time and the stars he waits
He will come again
From the one Great Ocean he is formed
He will come again
He is the Great Ocean
He will come again."
"Broodkin he will indeed come again. Tonight the elders will join me and the ceremony of calling shall begin. For now, return to your nests and meditate upon the Great Ocean. Remember the songs of your ancestors and the stories of our many victories over the Calma. Prepare yourselves for the Great Flood." Belck raised his staff, the gem at its tip burning with a fierce scarlet light.
" He will come again!"
Belck, for all his posturing and pronouncements, had his doubts that 'He' would come again. In their many preparations and holy rites they had received no sign from their god. Even in his special place of meditation, among the deepest thermal vents, Belck had sensed nothing.
Rimbah had urged him to take heart. "If it is his will to be silent," Belck's advisor had said, "then it is his will."
But such cryptic words were of little comfort and did more to frustrate Belck than anything else. At times he had to restrain himself less he lash out at Rimbah. His father wouldn't have hesitated. In his day many were put to death with little more excuse than his displeasure.
Belck signalled to Rimbah to bring him his ceremonial garments. Sign or no sign they had a summoning to perform. As his advisor dressed him in the close-fitting raiment, Belck looked out over their city. From his vantage point he could see all the way down the central avenue to where the Queen slept.
He had personally supervised her cultivation, from lowly Chadassa maid to the great mound that he now surveyed. In the beginning she had fought as the caul had been formed around her, but Belck liked to think that she now lay in a state of contentment, cradled in the centre of that liquid warmth, listening to her own heartbeat amplified by the egg sacs that were growing around her.
Soon those sacs would team with new life when the half-breed became one with the Queen. From her would then come the Land Walkers, the new race, a mighty and unstoppable army. They would stride across Twilight, laying waste to the humankind until they came to the great mountains at the edge of the world. There they would call upon their god to break apart those ancient stones and reveal the heart of this world, bared for him to pour into it his very essence, this Great Flood leading into the reshaping of all reality to the glory of the Chadassa.
Through the window Belck could now see the approach of the elders as they swam into view. Quickly checking over his ceremonial garb, he swam out to join them.
Together they swam to the edge of the city where they followed the descent of the seabed as it shelved down, before dropping into the sheer sides of a trench. Standing on the edge of absolute darkness they acknowledged one another — "He is the Great Ocean," — before stepping off the edge.
Belck quickly lost his buoyancy as he emptied his air sacs. The others followed him down and, for a moment, he saw them suspended in a line before the darkness took them. Even though they could no longer see each other, Belck could feel the touch of their minds near him. It was easy to lose himself in those thoughts as the walls of the trench fell away and that was just what he did, becoming — together with the elders — one mind.
He is the Great Ocean.
They came to rest. Around them they could feel nothing, not even the touch of the water that should have been freezing cold this far down.
He is the Great Ocean.
The voice of their consciousness echoed out into infinity and the part of them that was Belck urged that formlessness to take shape.
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.