Solitudes and Silence
Chapter 12
Echo and Boom
Animals gave the caravan a wide berth, and they occasionally passed small bands of thieves and cutpurses, mostly thin pale pink olmians and crude carapaced vagramines, who huddled together and scowled at the heavily armed convoy guards.
Sir Esterhund wanted to raise an army, he said, to attack Argon. “Come with me, Terredor. My knighthood can raise an army the likes of which Argon hath never seen.”
“We may not have time for that,” Terredor said, “And anyway, armies are not the way of Modroben, who teaches that the words of war bear much but truth.”
“That is most wise. But still, I must fight in my way, and thee in thine,” Sir Esterhund said, and departed from the caravan.
The last day of the trip, Terredor was at the front of the procession, and saw a massive whale with translucent skin through which was visible the slow measured pumping of blood and the powerful flexing of fin muscles as it lazily drifted through a wide corridor, its mouth covered with white baleen that filtered the water. The animal was larger than any creature Terredor had seen. Three of Waimbrill’s huts could have fit in the beast’s cavernous belly.
A pack of merovens approached the whale, slowly, stealthily. They swam in circles around the surprised beast, which thrashed its tail fin wildly against a wall. Terredor and the olmians watched, awestruck at the bewildered whale’s bellowing. The merovens pounced, and an increasingly scarlet cloud of water billowed toward him. The taste of blood filled the water.
In minutes, the whale was gone, its bones settling on the floor of the rock corridor, and the merovens pointed their nostrils and ears towards Terredor and the olmians. But backed by a slowly moving caravan of pods and warriors, the olmians weren’t fearful and they taunted the merovens, who squealed and swam away.
Passing over the skeleton of impossibly large whale bones, Terredor took a moment to swim through the rib cage, through the bitter, blood-curdled water, emerging by the giant hollow skull. He rejoined the caravan as it passed overhead.
They entered a wide cavern, the walls so far away Terredor’s senses couldn’t feel them. He closed his eyes to sharpen his perception and felt an enormous set of buildings beneath him, tall, rectangular structures carved out of stone.
“We have descended,” Gelvid said, as he and Waimbrill caught up to Terredor, “This is Ehuun. It is the most populous and civilized area of the Deepdark. It’s mostly a temple complex devoted to Argon.”
Ehuun also encompassed a small independent city and small aquacultural farming villages. Most of the pods in the caravan dispersed towards the temple, and Terredor and the others followed suit.
“Now what shall we do?” Terredor asked, “We can’t simply swim in and ask if they are summoning Petromyza.”
“They may be killing Soulclaine, but they are smart enough to do it in far-off waters. No Mortiss of the Deepdark has gone missing, I’d know about it for sure,” Gelvid said, “So I should be safe if I demand an audience directly. You two should sneak in to see what information you can gather.”
They agreed, and Gelvid led them around the well-guarded perimeter of the temple complex. He found a large open entrance, where a stream of delivery pods stopped and spoke with a small band of derrador knights in scale armor.
Gelvid departed, leaving them with the words, “May your death be just.”
Terredor and Waimbrill waited for a break in the traffic of supply pods, then swam straight into the last pod in line. It was full of dead fish, and the smell assaulted their nose, chunks of flesh clogging their gills. Terredor grew nauseous as the line slowly moved forward.
The pod driver spoke, “I have a shipment of premium vellkizz for delivery to the Chamber,” he said.
“Open it up,” one of the guards said, “Random search.”
Terredor’s heart sank and his gills contorted in fear. He contemplated darting out of the pod. Waimbrill squeezed his hand, and Terredor closed his eyes, focusing on listening to the conversation, trying to ignore his fear and the reek of dead fish.
“Absolutely not,” said the fish-breeder, “These fish must remain in a quality-controlled pod. I can’t let unclean hands in there. Ye shall contaminate it. They are for Argon himself, who requireth very distinct qualities for which we breed and-”
“Fine,” said the guard.
The pod began moving again, and Terredor heard murmuring between the breeder and his compatriots. He couldn’t make out the words, but he thought one of the men sounded familiar.
An olmian voice rang out, startling Terredor. “Greetings, Mr. Chazzryn, I trust thou hast provided fish that meet our specifications?”
“Aye,” said the fish-breeder, “Raised entirely on dragon carcasses for three generations.”
“Good, good,” said the olmian, “Come this way.”
After a few minutes, they stopped. Terredor couldn’t sense anything outside the pod. He strained his ears but heard only the confusing bustle of a crowded room.
Terredor motioned for Waimbrill to leave the pod. They quietly swam out and hid behind the statue of a large dragon.
Eyes closed, Terredor and Waimbrill focused their Deepdark senses on perceiving their surroundings. They were in a large chamber, the edges lined with statues and sculptures. In the center of the room, in front of and below them, was an object Terredor couldn’t identify.
He focused, his gills shivering as its shape became apparent and Terredor realized it was a dragon, a sleek beast with strong crooked legs and sharp claws, overlapping sets of shark-like teeth on a long alligator snout, and a tail that curled in on itself but looked to stretch a hundred feet or more. Its scales were polished metal, a material that Terredor supposed must be what Gelvid had called uranium. This could only be Argon, the central god of the Deepdark pantheon.
A primitive urge to flee in terror at the majestic silhouette of the dragon filled Terredor’s mind. Argon’s very shape filled him with a feeling of impending doom. He sensed its massive gills slowly, rhythmically heaving, filtering the cold water that flowed through the chamber. It had wings, thin and wiry, wrapped around its massive body, and sensing their outline and size brought to mind the cruel claws and fiery breath of the dragons from Delver folktales.
Argon was being tended by a squad of olmians and derrador. Vagramines swam across his massive back, scrubbing each scale with a soft cloth. Priests bowed, praying and floating before him.
Terredor perceived a group of three derrador dressed differently than Argon’s attendants, and decided they must have been the fish-breeders whose pod they had hijacked. Tearing his senses from the awe-inspiring dragon, Terredor focused on the three breeders, and he realized one of them, the one whose voice had sounded familiar, was Sir Esterhund.
A shout echoed in the chamber, followed by a flash of light, its oddity in the pitch black of the Deepdark surprising Terredor so much he opened his eyes and jumped against the wall behind him.
A sphere of light encased the three breeders, who were near Argon’s sleeping head. Now that the dragon was illuminated, Terredor quivered and shook, unable to look away from it. The head was larger than three of Terredor, and its teeth were each the length of his arm. Its scales were a pale, sleet silver with a tinge of violet, like lavender-tarnished steel.
“Your followers have betrayed your vision, Argon!” the fish-breeder said, his voice magically enchanted to echo and boom, filling the chamber from all directions, “They keep you in an endless slumber so ye can be controlled.”
The guards, heavily armored, wielding long spears tipped with the same violet steel of Argon’s scales, attacked the sphere of light that encircled the breeder, Sir Esterhund and the third derrador, who tried to wake the sleeping dragon. The guards stabbed at the light, kicked and punched it, but nothing could penetrate its boundaries.
“Their betrayal now extends to our lord Modroben, whom they seek to usurp, in your name! They besmirch your honorable legacy!” the breeder shouted, “Even now, the
y plan to revive Petromyza, the great beast who vomits eddies of undeath! They are using the souls of Mortiss to awaken her, and thousands of innocents as an army!”
The door to the chamber opened, and in swam an olmian dressed in thick robes and a tall, decorated headpiece, his wrinkled, stern eyes and mouth betraying his nobility and cruelty.
“Silence, heretics!” shouted the man, “I am Lord Untegrin, the High Priest of Argon. He is fully aware of our plans. I communicate with him through dreams, and he has directed all of this.”
“Liar!” shouted the breeder, “We know the truth, and there are more than just us! We know ye keep him in a magical slumber, and ye will never get through our magical protection. We will not leave here until he is awakened and told of your betrayal.”
Sir Esterhund and the other breeder shouted and struck the sleeping dragon. The third derrador was a wizard, and presumably had created the globe of energy that protected them. He was casting spells at the sleeping dragon’s head, sending beams of light and heated water deep into its gullet, but Argon did not react.
Terredor felt a poke in his belly, and turned, his heart sinking as he saw a pair of broad-shouldered, heavily armored derrador pointing spears in their direction.
“We found intruders,” one of the guards shouted, “Freaks of a race I have never seen.”
He motioned for them to swim towards Untegrin, who shouted, “Humans! Surface-dwellers! Who are ye?”
“I am Mortiss Waimbrill,” he said, “And this is my apprentice, Terredor.” “Mortiss!” Untegrin said with a sneer.
“Terredor!” Sir Esterhund shouted in surprise.
“Ye are with them?” Untegrin said, then pointed to his guards, “Take them to the prison, and bring me my wizard. He will get through this bubble.”