Call of Kerberos: Twilight of Kerberos, The - Jonathan Oliver Page 0,53

been aware of the abundance of life that moved beneath them. But it was not the only life he could sense now and he soon realised that the urgent whisper that he had been hearing, that seemed to underlie everything, came not from the sea, but from Katya's womb.

Katya clutched Silus's hand as a contraction gripped her. It was the second in the last hour and he could tell that she was beginning to panic.

"Not long now and I promise that you'll have something more stable than the deck of a ship beneath you."

"I really hope so. I have a feeling that this one isn't going to want to hang around."

Silus knew. The urgent whisper had grown in volume. In fact, the voice was so clear now that he could tell that they were going to have a son.

Katya breathed deeply as the pain passed. She looked exhausted and Silus wished that he could take away the fear that he saw in her eyes.

"You should get some sleep," he said. "You've gone through more than any expectant mother should endure. But when our son is -"

"We're going to have a son? Silus, how do you know?"

"I... I can hear him. He's speaking to us."

"Like you could hear the creature that's towing the ship?"

"Something like that."

"What's he's saying?"

"It's not words I can hear, so much as the voice of his urgency. He's almost ready to come into the world."

"How can you hear these things Silus? Where did this power come from?"

"I don't know. It just seems to have been awoken somehow."

"You're changing?"

Silus thought of the vision that the Chadassa ancient had shown him and the vision of the battle at the underwater citadel, how he had felt the joy of the fight overtake him.

"I'm still me," he said and kissed Katya's forehead. "Still the fisherman from Nürn you fell for."

But something about the look that Katya gave him told Silus that she was no longer so sure.

Katya's waters broke on the third day after they had harnessed the ship to the leviathan, and Silus immediately went into a state of full-blown panic. Fortunately Father Maylan had helped deliver children in his parish on many an occasion and was fully conversant in dealing with fearful new fathers.

"First thing Silus - and this is very important - drink this."

Silus took the bottle of flummox and necked half the contents. Beside him Katya shot her husband a filthy look.

"In case of emergency drink first huh?" she said. "Great advice. I'd always wanted to give birth on a ship with a half-cut husband by my side."

"Now Katya, don't say anything you don't mean," Maylan said, before rolling up his sleeves.

"Okay, in that case I won't say I wished that Silus had never met Kelos and that I wished we'd never been forced onto this voyage."

Silus gripped Katya's hand and kissed her on the forehead. "I'm so sorry Katya. Father Maylan will see us through this. Don't worry."

Katya screamed as another contraction hit and Silus looked at the priest, urging him to do something.

Maylan knelt down and hooked a pair of spectacles over his ears. "Oh yes, all quite normal down here I can assure you. Nothing to worry about at all. Now Katya, I want you to start to push... now."

Silus cried out in pain at the same time as his wife, as his hand was crushed in her grip.

"That's it Katya. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe."

Father Maylan did something with his hands and Silus was alarmed to see him wipe blood off them a moment later. The priest caught the panicked look on Silus's face and shot him a reassuring smile. "Really Silus, don't worry. The blood is all part of it. You're going to have to get used to a certain level of mess. All part of the magic of childbirth."

"Magic!" Katya shouted. "I'm sure you wouldn't say that if you were in my position."

"Don't worry Katya. We'll soon be there. And another big push. One, two, push."

The sweat was pouring off Katya now and Silus brushed the hair out of her eyes. Every time she screamed out, every time she had to give another push his heart lurched and a terror gripped him that something would go wrong. He knew women who had died giving birth. Strong, healthy women. And here was Katya, miles out at sea with not a midwife overseeing proceedings, but a priest on the run from the Final Faith.

The ship shuddered and the light coming in through the porthole dimmed