Call of Kerberos: Twilight of Kerberos, The - Jonathan Oliver Page 0,72

a moment to wonder whether the collapse was as result of their damage to the walls, whether the organism through which they fled was trying to limit the harm they had inflicted upon it.

They turned a corner only to find that the passage came to an end. Behind them the corridor continued to contract.

Father Maylan closed his eyes and began to pray.

"Maylan, shut up! That's not helping." Silus said.

Silus pushed against the wall blocking their escape and it gave easily under his fingers. When he tapped it, it thrummed like the taut skin of a drum. Using his bone fragment, he cut into the barrier and it tore with a hiss of escaping air.

"Follow me," Silus said, before pushing his way through the gap.

He fell to the floor on the other side and, for one vertiginous moment, he thought that he would keep on falling. All that separated him from the surrounding sea was a thin, translucent membrane. The whole room was made of the same clear substance and Silus barely heard his companions tumbling into the chamber behind him as he stared in wonder.

The clear hemisphere in which they now stood protruded from an expanse of dark, scaled flesh. Through the side of the chamber and far to his right Silus could see a vast tail slowly fanning from side to side and he realised, with shock, that he was looking down the flank of an enormous creature.

Kelos ran his hand over the wall, a look of excited confusion on his face.

"Extraordinary. Thin as a bubble but utterly resilient"

"I think that we're in the thing that attacked Morat," Silus said.

"And I think that you may be right. Gods, I thought that the leviathan we encountered on the Llothriall was big, but this is something else entirely."

"There really is no hope then is there?" Dunsany said.

"What do you mean?" Silus said.

"We can't cut our way out of here because we'll drown and we can't stay where we are because the Chadassa will find and eviscerate us."

"I think that if they were going to eviscerate us they would have done so already." Kelos said.

"And what about Win?" Dunsany said.

As they stood in uneasy silence, Silus began to search about them for another exit, but it was a futile gesture.

"What is that?" Father Maylan said, from where he was crouched near the floor.

Silus dropped down beside him and saw a large shadow directly beneath them. As it unfolded a lance of green fire erupted from it and slammed into the flesh just beyond the chamber wall. A great cloud of blood immediately boiled into the water. In it, they could see the corpses of several Chadassa. Another lance of energy punched into the flesh further to the right and this time the floor of the chamber shook as a screech of pain rang through the walls.

"What is that thing?" Father Maylan asked.

"I don't know," said Silus.

And he was no closer to knowing as it suddenly lurched out of the darkness and pressed itself against the chamber walls.

Katya awoke to find herself lying on a strange, spongy bed with two Chadassa females standing over her. One of them held Zac to a pendulous breast and she was horrified to see him greedily tugging at the teat, his face flushed with the warmth of the milk he was drinking. When she snatched him away from the creature he began to cry. Katya tried to calm Zac by holding him to her own breast, but he refused to drink and instead beat against her chest with his tiny hands.

She tried to run then, but the room she found herself in had no door and when she started scrabbling around the moist, fleshy walls, desperately trying to find an exit, one of the Chadassa females grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back to the bed.

The thing pulled Zac out of Katya's arms and his cries were silenced as he began to feed once more.

Katya closed her eyes and refused to open them until one of the Chadassa hauled her from the bed and marched her from the room. Mercifully Zac was placed back in her arms then and he had looked up at her with a happy little smile.

As they entered a large chamber that looked out onto the sea, Belck turned to greet them. He reached out for her son and Zac was soon crying again as one of the Chadassa took him from her and placed him in the ancient creature's arms.