She reached for her sword, had it half way drawn when the assailant’s blade stuck inside her—a great fang of a knife like the one her father wore.
Twenty-Seventh Verse
And so closes the song of Adam and Adnihilo sinking ever deeper into the black of the abyss where measure of time is found only in distance and blind eyes turn inward. Beneath the surface, they saw them—the horrid corpses. Floating furthest in the distance was a woman’s form: hips and bust bloated to grotesque proportions, petrified skin stretched thin to burst by black veins like barren rivers, ancient birthing blood crusted to her thighs, her face a grove of fetid trees and fungi. And between the dead feminine and the living men drifted a child’s body, swaddled to its throat in oil-soaked rags, only its head exposed—like a star cracked and blackened in smoldering repose. But those two primordial corpses clung to the far darkness; nearest the half-blood and the pastor’s son and the lighted mortal surface lay slain a titanic chimeric beast. Black fur turned it invisible in the abyss save for its unblinking amber eyes, square pupils behind a white film of death. It’s head was that of a bear’s, as were it legs, but its body ran long and slender, its tail like a snake. It wasn’t clear what had killed it. Not until they sank closer could they see the great blade thrust deep within its breast, a winged sword like they had seen in the Tsaazaari desert—the very one, they knew—for the fourth figure emerged.
No later did Adnihilo’s eyes fall upon it than did the lightning surge forth from his forehead—a sudden stroke of violent illumination, too bright for mortal eyes yet too profound to ignore. Amphibious tendrils slithered over the hilt of the sword, retrieved it from the beast, then coiled back to their source. It was a terrible thing to look upon, the face of the pale and Blind Leviathan. Empty sockets that had long swallowed their contents now breathed like nostrils the waters of the deep. And when its maw opened, behind rows and rows of razor-fang teeth stared a mosaic of eyes, alive and unblinking.
I’m dreaming, thought the half-blood as he watched the monstrosity untangle its serpentine body, begin swimming toward him, jaws open. This isn’t real, he tried to scream, but there was no air, not even in his lungs. Panic took him over, shut his eyes and ears to the notion that he was drowning, that the leviathan was near. This is a nightmare. I’m not here. He imagined himself aboard The Ashen Maid lying naked in Lilum’s bed after days of terror. He was passed them now. Soon, he would wake to warmth enveloping his skin, cradling and comforting, nourishing and soft. His angst dissolved, and Adnihilo thought to himself, If I could just stay here forever.
Then the Mad Dog barked, “Do even you know where you are?”
His eyes opened in the mouth of the Leviathan.
“Hark!” crashed a voice like the new-moon’s tide, and the half-blood woke blind to his surroundings, tumbling head-over-foot on what felt to be wood, every bump harrying him with bruises and splinters. Then, suddenly as it began, the passage opened and spit Adnihilo out onto the red earth below. He hit the ground on the flat of his back and lay there awhile catching his breath. It reminded him of Eemah, the powder-soft dirt strewn with smooth pebbles and warm, though there seemed to be no sun. Heat and light flowed from fissures in the ground, wafting and orange, making visible the tunnel from which Adnihilo fell.
Not a tunnel, he discovered, but hollow roots of a tree the height of a mountain, grown rampant down the walls, rendering cracks across the ceiling—no, that too was wrong. It was a firmament of stone, the inner surface of a dome plastered and painted. A single mural spanned unbroken. The half-blood lost his breath again taking it in: hordes of angels were locked in war.
Every shadowed sinew of their godly physiques, every feather of their dove-colored wings, each bead of dripping sweat, each step and plumes of cloud dispersing under their sandals, blood splatter on bronze skin, bronze armour and weapons, ruddy spears and shields—no details were spared by the hand that painted them, nor in each unique grimace toward their foe. Adnihilo’s eyes followed, and what they found he could only call demons, more beast than man, their perverted blood teeming with that of crows, locusts, spiders, and hounds—too many to count among the legionaries—but among the officers, he could see the horse-headed trumpet bearer, unicorn horned and gangly framed, under the shadow of two huge vulturous wings, urging the legion forward. An owl-crowned warrior led the cavalry swordsmen, charging astride his wolf along the left flank—while from the right, centaur horse archers and their jet haired commander loosed shafts like tree branches from bows taller than men.
Front and center the formation fought demons working engines of war: a hose of fire in the hands of a half-griffon; chariot scythes driven by a three-eyed ogre, snares and spikes laid by an antlered hound, and racks of flame propelled sulfuric arrows launched at the behest of a bloated wasp. Adnihilo eyes lingered on this one. Unlike those that came before it, there was hardly a hint of humanity in its blue-black carapace: six hornet’s wing and six human arms black of skin and fingered with stingers—the one at its
