playing across her lips.
'Anointed Lord, can I perhaps ask where you attained this specimen?'
'It was apprehended at the Turnitia docks. Some of the thieves' guild were attempting a raid on a ship and this is what they met. I must say that even the city guard couldn't have done a better job in routing the rogues. They were hosing down the docks for days afterwards.'
'But where does this thing come from, originally?'
'We don't know. But we're hoping that it will be able to use its knowledge of and affinity with the sea to help us locate the Llothriall.'
'I can assure you, Anointed Lord, that I shall do my utmost to persuade the creature to be cooperative.'
Fitch looked down at the thing that sat before him. Barbed spines ran from the small of its back to the top of its head and he examined these closely before signalling to one of his attendants to hand him a pair of heavy-duty clippers.
'I need to be certain that these sharp protuberances are non-venomous. One shouldn't take risks in working with an unfamiliar species.'
As Fitch snipped the spines from its skull the howl of the creature was so loud that it rattled the instruments in their metal tray. The thing fought against its bonds for a moment but the collars and chains that restrained it only tightened in response.
Fitch waited until the creature had calmed before running his fingers over its scalp. The scales were cool to the touch and the tang of its alien thoughts flowed into him like incense. He lay his hands on the creature's skull, and then pushed against a slight resistance before his fingers sank into its mind.
'The prisoner should be ready for questioning now, Anointed Lord.'
Makennon sat down and looked thoughtfully at the thing for a moment before proceeding.
'How many more of you are there?'
Fitch moved through the creature's mind, his eyes rolling back in their sockets as he went deeper.
He looked up and, far above him, saw the underside of rolling white breakers. A brilliant shoal of iridescent fish darted in front of him and when they parted he found himself surrounded by the creature's brethren. They were swimming down towards a great domed building. Entering it they left they filed into a huge circular chamber. They congregated before a dais on which stood one of their own.
'There are many more,' Fitch said. 'Hundreds.'
'Can't it speak for itself?'
'Apologies Anointed Lord, this method is more direct and I don't think that the creature has an affinity with the human tongue.'
'Very well,' Makennon turned her attention back to the prisoner. It was breathing shallowly, wheezing gasps whistling through its many vicious teeth. 'I think it needs dousing again.' The attendants threw salt water over the creature and it seemed to recover slightly. 'Now, why the attack on Turnitia? What possible interest can you have in Twilight when the whole of the ocean is your domain?'
Fitch's found himself standing closer to the dais. The creature that stood above him was aged and stooped. In one clawed hand it grasped a staff, inset in its tip was a scarlet jewel that shone with an inner light. The ancient one was telling its people of a battle to come and Fitch could feel the blood lust and joy move through the crowd as the thing's words inspired a dreadful passion.
'I believe that they mean to make war on us Anointed Lord.'
'War? And how can you possibly hope to succeed when there are hundreds of you and thousands upon thousands of us?'
Sweat started to break out upon Fitch's brow and he could feel the resistance of the prisoner increasing as he probed even deeper.
And now he was on his own with the old one from the dais and the creature was showing him the pages of a book wrought entirely in metal. It moved its fingers across characters and diagrams but despite Fitch's concentration he could make no sense of the information. The thoughts that flowed into him began to cloud and Fitch pushed hard against the interference, his heart thumping heavily in his chest as his vision was obscured.
Out of the darkness emerged a single unblinking eye. Fitch was lost in the vastness of its pupil, around him he could sense an infinity of nothingness.
'Fitch?'
He couldn't feel anything. Not his fingers in the creature's thoughts, not even his own thoughts.
' Fitch?'
And then that great eye was speeding away from him and Fitch was falling at an astonishing speed. For a moment Kerberos hung before him and he had time to watch the flickering of lightning deep in its clouds, before he was slammed back into his body and sent flailing across the cell.
The creature snarled and snapped forward in its chains. Makennon felt a waft of its foul breath as it screamed.
'Your kind's days are numbered! The half-breed will father the new race and the Chadassa will stride through your land! The Great Flood is coming!'
Fitch raised himself, unsteadily, to his feet and reached for the instrument tray.
'The Land Walkers will lay waist to Twilight and break open the World's Ride mountains! The Great Fl — '
The creature slumped forward and Fitch threw the heavy, blunt instrument back into the tray.
'I cannot apologise enough, Anointed Lord. Its will was exceptionally strong.'
'Querilous, how did it learn how to speak our language? And, more importantly, what is the Great Flood?'
Chapter Four
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.
