Ø
“Status, Banks? Where are the patrol ships? I need eyes on the island, over.”
He was close to yelling into his cell phone, but not quite. He was always careful not to lose his temper in front of other people, people who were supposed to look to him for composure. Today was not a day for composure. Today was a day for staunching the proverbial bleeding, tallying the losses, and keeping things from spiraling past the threshold of control. Best-case scenario, he gets to keep his job and a lot of people keep their lives. He didn’t want to consider the worst-case scenario.
Ivo Caspian woke up at 6:00 to soft sunlight in his Class-A bunk at Site-184. His floor-to-ceiling windows greeted him with wispy clouds and indifferent seagulls. Coffee was pleasant, as was the brief walk from the personnel quarters to his office, across the courtyard with the water features, to the large room at the end of a rather nondescript wing tucked away in Aquatic Anomalies. He was ready for the day by 7:00. By all accounts, a quiet morning.
Then came the phone call from a junior officer stationed at one of his responsibilities, a little island off the coast of Normandy, France. A responsibility with a numerical designation of 7900. Then came a string of follow-ups from the island’s many patrols, confirming the observations of the first. Then the call from Security Chief Sebastian Banks, head authority of the island. Then the blaring alerts on his laptop, the messages on his mobile phone, the one, then two, then three rapid response officers at his door. The call from a dispatcher at Site Control, transferred immediately to the Chief Security Officer, then to the Site Director. By 9:00 he was on a call with the North American High Command with a liaison from the Overseer Council sitting in. He took one Advil, then another, and was out the door by 10:00.
“It’s the island, sir. Ekhi-class development.” Ivo recalled Banks’ words in the chill tone they were delivered in. Banks had long since lost his capacity for emotion, though sometimes, in moments of passion, he was known to drop the iron facade if only for a moment. Ivo saw it once when Lee Dupont was hauled from the Devil’s Well, broken and rambling and laughing at them all, laughing at the dozens who’d been devoured by the cave. He feared Banks might let the mask slip again today.
Ivo was now on a plane halfway across the Atlantic, as per the will of the Council. The matter of the island needed executive oversight. Executive oversight. The liaison who said so was a short man with thick-rimmed glasses and a gold pin on his lapel in the shape of a three-pronged circle. Though he was only a box on a screen next to a dozen other specialists in various flavors of disaster, his presence radiated authority. “Take care of this, Ivo,” the man said with uncanny composure before he disconnected himself from the call in a gesture of pompousness.
Ivo sat at the edge of a faux leather armchair. The plane, a midsize jet of German design, was made for transport, its sleek exterior slicing through the low clouds of the Atlantic. But it was built to move important people, so it was no stranger to modern amenities. He stared at a wall of screens opposite the chair. They were a barrage of light and sound, each showing the perspective of the various patrol ships all converging on the island like vultures to a festering corpse. A storm was brewing, and waves ripped upon the stony shores of the island and fell back upon the metal hulls of the ships. In his left hand he held a printout with readings of the PTX Raptor sensors installed by 7900’s final exploration crew, with timestamps of their activation. They were tripped within minutes of each other, which all but confirmed the imminent appearance of something unsavory. In his right hand he held a cell phone with a direct line to Banks.
“Status?” He hoped the desperation in his voice was not too obvious.
“Standby.” The voice of Banks was professional, verging on disconnected. The screens showed that the patrol boats were closer now. One had already landed on the rocky shore of the island, spilling its crew like ants on the sand. Banks was among them, shouting commands indiscriminately.
A voice came through on the phone. “We’re setting up charges now.”
Ivo tried and failed to choke back his disbelief. “You’re what? No, no, you can’t do that—”
“Sir—”
“That’s an active theological zone, you can’t just—”
“Sir, there’s no time. I’ve already given the order.”
“What's going on down there?”
“Unclear sir, but something’s coming up fast. I think it’s…” The voice trailed off. Screens showed people in Hi-Vis suits, the demolition crew, affixing squares of C-4 putty around the gaping mouth of the island’s cave. Ivo heard shouting over the phone. Bank’s voice came back hurriedly.
“We’re—shit, we’re out of time. Another sensor just blew. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Banks, what is it? What’s coming out of there?”
He saw chaos on the screens. People were running for cover behind rocks and boats. One lifted a detonator to Banks, who gripped it tightly. He gave one look to the yawning cave, put a hand to his ear, crouched, and flipped the switch. The island exploded in a flash of white flame. Black smoke and fire sent shockwaves rippling out across the sea. A cyclone of seabirds appeared in an instant, and the camera feeds were interrupted by a brief static. When they regained focus Ivo could tell the damage had been done. Boulders had been peeled away from the cliff face, leaving an outward bulge of debris. The cave was gone, the mouth shut. A soft whine escaped Ivo’s lips, along with some half-formed understanding that had cradled itself in his nascent dreams. He did not yet know what had been lost, but he felt its absence all the same. Something had changed in the world, something irreversible. He felt as if some invisible destiny had been postponed. He lifted the cell phone tenderly to his ear and spoke into it softly. “What’s down there?”
Ivo felt Banks’ iron facade slip through the cracks in his voice. “It’s—it’s water, sir. I think it’s water.”
I
It had been three sunrises since John and Irving had reached the end of the beach, the point where sand gave way to blackknife rock, where the waves groped endlessly at cliffs of impossible height, each crash a gunshot to the senses. Above the din of the sea both men could hear the shrill, ever-persistent cry of divine lamentation sweep over the water like an infant foghorn. Irving had called it the voice of God, and that it was different for everyone. To John, it was a newborn left alone for too long without milk or attention. He didn’t know what it sounded like to Irving.
Life on the beach, which had been a dreamlike haze in its early days, became more real with each passing hour. The white fish that Irving caught on the second day were starting to foul, despite their efforts to preserve the meat. Water, thankfully, was not a pressing issue. From the steady slopes opposite the ocean came shallow streams of rainwater, runoff from the cloud-cloaked peaks.
The two had decided, on Irving’s insistence, to simply wait at the end of the beach until something—anything, really—happened. To John it didn’t matter what they did or where they went. He had convinced himself, upon opening that strange door to this world, that he had already met his untimely end. Perhaps that ship had fried him with a blast of hot electricity, radiation, or ectoplasm, and he was dead. In that case, none of this really mattered at all, and the frequent physical reminders he often had of his biological needs were simply vestigial, and would quickly fade once he realized they were no longer needed.
He had hoped Hell would have been a little more colorful. The endless gray numbed the senses, made him weak and complicit. He settled down on his patch of sand where a tattered strip of tarp provided some shelter and looked up and down the beach. Nothing. Some abrasions in the fog, and little rivets where runoff from the mountains cut the sand. He intentionally avoided the spot where Irving was praying—had been praying, for days. There he sat, a little yellow dot on the shoreline, the waves washing over his knees, his arms outstretched in religious ecstasy.
“Old man!” John called from the sand. “Give it a rest! Get some sleep, it’ll be there tomorrow!”
The shape didn’t budge.
“Christ,” John muttered to himself.
They had to find a way to continue, that much he knew. But how exactly to proceed from here eluded the both of them. They tried once, foolishly, to cross the black rocks that met them at the end of the beach, where the waves crashed and broiled. Irving had gone first, arms spread to hold his balance over the angry sea. It was no use; one slip and you would drown. They had resolved to find another way.
“What if we backtrack?” John had asked, two nights ago when they sat before a campfire and chewed on salted fish. “We could see what’s beyond the spot where I woke. Shouldn't take more than a day or so.”
“No good. I’ve been that way, there’s naught but sand and old bones until the waterlogged ruins. And we won’t be going to that haunted place. Besides, the voice comes from yonder,” he pointed to the sea, beyond the jagged surf. “Or had you forgotten?”
Once he had brought up the mountains, of venturing up and beyond, into the clouds. Irving merely shot him a glare that could kill a small animal. John didn’t bring it up after that.
So they had sat, and waited. John, finding ever-dwindling ways to pass the time. And Irving… he didn’t know what to make of the man. One minute he was a harsh realist, ready to shoot down a plan with the slightest hint of danger. The next, he was lying face-up in saltwater, hurling prayers and curses to deaf gods. He had scarcely eaten, never slept. Just out there, crouched or sat or kneeled.
What does he think is going to happen? Will the water part and let us through? Will something show up and give us a lift? If Irving was right, and this voice somehow led to a way out of here, a way back home… well that would be worth any amount of praying. Maybe I ought to get out there and join him. Two hands are better than one, after all.
Presently, John leaned back, stretched out on the sand. It was soft, not too irritating. Comfortable enough for a few hours of sleep, even if he did wake at odd hours of the night to what he thought were noises from the shoreline.
He let his eyes close, let his mind wander from thought to thought. Home, the boys at 184. What will they all think if I get out of here? Do I want to know? He remembered a man named Lee Dupont who had been detained somewhere at 184 after suffering some kind of breakdown on the job. He couldn’t remember much else; all the information on that was need-to-know, of course. But something about the story sounded eerily similar to the imagery around him. He had heard once from a security guard of some sublevel detention block of the physical changes in Dupont. He had, somehow, grown fins. Some were calling him the resident Mermaid. Then he remembered the corpse they had found on their walk here; the shriveled, dried-out skin with a whale’s tail. Surely they couldn’t be the same, he thought. Right?
His mind drifted to the mountains, those impossibly tall and impenetrable cliffs that shadowed all. What had Irving called them? Bad luck? Yet, as he often did when commanded to ignore something, he found himself thinking of them and what lies beneath. There’s lots of room for tunnels. And if there had been people there once, maybe they yet live?
And then there was the moon, etched so strangely into that book in the burned shack from days before. Of course, the moon and stars were invisible down on the beach; the fog was too thick. But beyond, high on the peaks, perhaps not. Irving… he would never allow it. Especially not with what he claims is on the other side—the wall of fire. Finally, he found himself thinking of the boat that brought him here to begin with. The Dread Ship. What was it doing out there, in the middle of nowhere? Was it waiting for me?
The questions, the endless, looping, dancing questions…
II
“By the mother’s mercy! Gods, take my wretched soul and plunge it beneath for eternity if it isn’t the work of the heavenly, the most divine! It’s here! Boy!”
The shouting came from the darkness of the beach. John rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up. The remains of a small campfire burned next to him.
“Boy? Boy!” Irving emerged from the foggy night covered in clumps of wet sand. “Get up! Don’t you see this? Don’t you see what this means?”
“Wait, hold on—” John tried to stand, but the old man was already on him, lifting him by his armpits and dragging him to the sound of crashing waves.
“Look, look damnit!” Irving was running now, and the two were engulfed in darkness. There was a click, and a small flame appeared, illuminating Irving’s face and chest. He cupped one hand over the match’s flame and held it out in front of him, slowing his pace to a careful walk.
“Keep a close eye out, boy,” Irving’s breath was shaking with excitement. “You don’t want to trip over it.”
“Trip over what? What are we even—woah!” John yelped and fell, landing on something hard. He fumbled in the dark, feeling the unmistakable texture of wood. Irving was laughing.
“Aye, there she be!” The flame dimmed, then surged. Irving hoisted a small glass lantern, the wick inside glowing bright.
John lay sprawled in a rowboat. Irving, still laughing, examined the exterior.
“Oh, ain’t she a beaut? Perfect shape, sealed tight. I myself used to have one of these when I was your age, a little trawler to catch dinner with. My uncle would take me out on one of these and we’d not come back for supper until we had three times the fish than we needed.”
“Where did this—” John found a wooden seat and righted himself, rubbing at his bruised elbow. “How did this get here? Did it wash up?”
Irving shrugged. “Best not to ask why, boy, lest we question God’s will. Here! Get out and help me push!”
“What? Now?”
“Yes, now! Or are you scared of the dark?”
“Wait—” John stepped out and began walking back to the camp. “Let me grab the provisions first.” He trudged his way through the night, away from Irving’s lamp. The darkness was suffocating, and the deep fog muffled all sound. All but a faint, airy breathing coming from—
John stood very still. Though he couldn’t see it, he felt its presence, a mass just beyond him in the dark. He could feel the air move back and forth as if it was breathing. Slowly, he stepped back, careful not to trip over his feet. The mass inched forward, following his pace carefully. Deliberately. John quickened. He felt the sand vibrate as something large pressed into the earth. Then another. He snuck a glance behind him. Irving was still far off, busy fixing something with the boat.
The thing in the dark edged forward, faster now, closing the distance. Some deep-seated instinct kicked in then. At first, John thought it was the training all Site personnel had to undergo at 184, the standard self-defense and survival tricks that everyone knew to some degree. But this was different. With the darkness closing in like an oncoming train, something primal took over his muscles, commanding him not to think, not to rationalize the situation, but to run.
He turned, just as the mass seemed to lunge forth, and sprinted.
“IRVING!” He shouted, his voice coming from somewhere beyond its natural limits. “PUSH!”
The old man understood instantly, and as John approached he saw the yellow of his raincoat flap with frantic movement.
The thing behind him was slower than he was, a huge, galumphing thing, but with a predator’s instinct. By the time he reached the boat, the waves were already lapping at their ankles.
“Push! Push!” Irving was bellowing. “Ain’t no sea imp gonna take me now! Push!”
The boat glided on the sand, then was picked up by the water. They almost lost their hold on it when they hit the waves, if it wasn’t for Irving’s steel grip. The thing behind them, realizing it had lost its moment, pursued them no further than the shoreline.
“Now! Hup! Inside, inside!” Irving gestured for John to get in, helping him up and over the boat’s rim without losing forward momentum. John tumbled inside, scrambling to right himself, and looked back toward the sand and the impenetrable blackness.
Irving was still pushing, out of breath. John could hear the old man wheezing with every step. It was odd, this shift in power, for now it was he who was in control. From up here, Irving looked just as he was: an old, weak, shivering thing, panting as he struggled helplessly against the surf. But in that struggle he saw his salvation, their way out. Insane he may be. But he had saved his life, and he would stop at nothing to do it again. Smiling, filled with a newfound trust, John held out his hand and Irving gripped it tight.
III
The cold sun beat pale rays through the heavy clouds. Its maddening white light turned the sea to diamonds, each whitecap rolling like rows of glittering soldiers off to some distant war. Hours after the encounter on the beach, the pair now drifted through the open sea, land long having faded into mist.
John rested at the bow of the old rowboat, hands braced on both its edges. He scanned the endless fog for any variation in the monochrome, hoping to see something. Irving sat at the boat’s rear, pulling a heavy plank of rotten wood back, forth, mindlessly. He stared somewhere off onto the horizon, seeing all and nothing. John felt a deeper gaze from those eyes, looking inward instead of out. Whatever he saw wasn’t something to be looked at, John sensed. In his pocket, he felt the weight of the rose pearl, felt it roll against his skin with the rocking of the boat. And across those waves, that bleating sound again. The cry of an infant God waxed and waned through the mist, but was always present. A ghostly hand that pulled them through the fog.
Irving’s metronomic rowing had lulled John to sleep more than once, but the sound always seemed to flare before sleep could set in fully. Irving never once shut his eyes.
A gust of wind picked up and the boat tilted with the movement of the waves, water dribbling in where the wood sank below the whitecaps. Foam splashed against John’s face, and he raised a hand to block against the gust. Suddenly unsturdy, he thrust out an arm to steady himself on something, anything, but found no purchase. Irving lept, catching him by the fringes of his clothing before he could tumble over the edge. He hung for a moment in the air, flailing, peering down at the grey sea. Shapes wiggled beneath, darting in and out of blackness. At once, the sea became alive where it had once been barren. Seeing movement where his mind had assumed there to be none, the world became expansive in its possibilities and its terror. He was back in the boat, flat on his ass, before more than a second, but to him it had felt an eternity.
Irving said nothing, apparently having lost the will or ability to chide. The two had eaten little before. Now, their stores were fully depleted, besides the remaining chunks of whale meat they occasionally chewed on. The meat was tough as rubber, tasteless, and oily. But, as Irving had claimed long ago on the sand, it had some nutritional value.
John’s heart calmed from his brush with the fathom beyond the boat, and he turned to the burlap sacks that lay amongst their feet. Three in total, and each had already been thoroughly combed through several times thus far. John opened them and spilled their contents anyway, hoping to find something they’d missed before. Rolling across the wood were three green-tinted bottles, empty and foul-smelling. A lighter with a mermaid engraving, with a little juice left. A fishhook and some loose wire. Some cans with faded labels, their uncertain contents long since eaten by the pair. Some useless junk, possibly the remains of a crab pot or some other fishing gear.
And then the thing that had surprised both of them. Irving had never seen anything like it, though he likened it to a tool he observed once in a woodworker’s shop near his childhood home. John recognized the flare gun instantly, its bright orange plastic and distinctive reflective tape marking it for emergency use only. He had explained the function of the tool to Irving: “It makes light, like a small, contained fire, in the direction you point it.” He was careful about his words, as he did not fully trust the other man. Nor did he really know the full capabilities of such a device, outside of its standard use as a signal. Could it stop an approaching mass? Could it kill if we need something to die? He doubted it.
Presently, he picked it up and examined it. The thing was still loaded, good for one shot. He affixed it to his waist and fastened it shut, hoping he could get to it quickly if they needed it.
This strange discrepancy in time, the way the objects of this world seemed to mesh together incorrectly, puzzled John greatly. It had occurred to him more than once that navigating this place felt like trudging through some half-remembered dream. The way everything felt so artificial, yet undeniably in possession of an ancient wisdom. There was a fundamental truth here, in these waters, one that terrified and intrigued. Yet the construction of everything around the waves, from the people to the boats, felt more like laughable caricatures of its setting than anything real. It’s true that he’d come to trust Irving since their first encounter, but his burning eyes and rubbery coat never failed to remind him of a dusty antique in the back of a pawn shop. As if the world could be unraveled with a simple twist of perspective.
“Aye, the left, mate. Watch yonder.” Irving spoke suddenly, rousing himself from his daze, and twitched a finger to point at something in the fog.
John registered movement, the subtle crest of a wave breaking the pattern in the whitecaps. A force, growing steadily, and headed in their direction. John wanted to move the boat, to shuffle it out of the way, but Irving sat still as a frigid paralysis took hold of his body. John said nothing, stifling his panic as he felt vibrations rattle the underside of the boat. Small impacts glanced off the wood and continued on to unknown depths. The wave of movement built in intensity, and the impacts became sharper, more desperate. The stampede crescendoed until it felt like the boat might tip over. John could see ripples in the surface of the water, sleek fins protruding and then disappearing.
“Hold on, lad!” Irving lifted his oar from the water and gripped the edges of the boat. John did the same, crouching, straining to see anything distinct in the water. The surface all around them buzzed, shapes ejecting inches and then feet into the air. Something leapt in front of them, slamming into John before sliding to the deck. He flinched, recoiling, but steadied himself. Slime covered his face and clothes, and he fought the urge to wipe it off, continuing to grip the splintering wood with white knuckles. A heavy shape glided past, chasing the buzzing sea, followed by a bulge of displaced water. The sudden movement sent the boat into an unsteady rock. John twisted behind and saw the shape once more, watched it crest the surface and flash a barnacled hide and a bony, pale arm. A moment later it was gone.
A wetness glistened from Irving’s eyes, and he reached to wipe it away. “Blessed be.” Irving’s voice trembled. “What a day to see a chosen. Not many of ‘em left, I wager. Might be, them’s one of the old of the faith. From before the rapture.”
“When did…” John stared at where those fingers briefly tasted air. “When did this become normal? When does this become expected? Something to be craved?”
“I don’t know what you mean, boy.” But in his face he showed recognition. A subtle understanding of the shattering in John’s mind. “This is how it’s always been. We just… never known it. Until now.”
“You said you saw this place like I did. In your dreams, at the back of your mind. Lingering, lurking. Threatening to spill over. In my time—in the past or future, I don’t know, will never know—I was brought here by a ship. Something conscious, aware. If I was brought here for some purpose—”
Irving interrupted. “There’s always purpose, boy. Yes, I was brought here too. But little do I remember of a time before. I… I believe now that I was made here, and only a visitor of other places. My life, my love, lies here. As it does for you.”
A sound rattled from the deck. John lifted one of the sacks to reveal a slime-drenched fish, eel-shaped and squirming. A breathlessness hissed from its sucker mouth, and the spines lining its body glittered like shards of broken glass. John edged back as far as the rim of the boat, Irving holding the oar defensively.
“Them’s a carp, lad. Keep a hearty distance. Those fins I’ve seen slice a man open.”
The fish twisted in on itself, roiling on the deck. As it wound itself tighter, John heard an awful tearing sound. The thing had twisted itself into such a knot that its flank had ripped open from the tension, spilling glassy tubes onto the deck. Without a moment’s hesitation, the fish looped its head around its serpentine body and began scooping up its own entrails with its twitching mouth, sucking up the matter only to eject it from its mortal wound. It continued to twist until it had severed itself completely in half, each end writhing. Irving, out of pity for the animal or simple annoyance, reached with the oar and flung it off the ship. Where it landed, John spotted crazed movement, and the carcass vanished.
Irving, sensing John’s repulsion, laid a rough hand on his arm. “This here’s a lesson. There’s one thing, one thing only, that motivates. And that is survival. All life comes from these waters with intention to survive. To eat, to grow, to…” He seemed to search for a word. “Evolve. Yes, to evolve. That is the rule, God’s greatest gift. Best learn that now, before we get any deeper.”
IV
I don’t care. Drink your piss if you have to.
The words came from somewhere beyond, a dark corner of John’s mind, brought forth in the hazy delirium of dehydration. The voice might have been Randal Karter’s, a face from his old life. Or it could have been someone else, some anonymous voice in a rec room seeped in drunken stupor. Those familiar rituals, those common spaces of life and habitation seemed utterly alien now.
John wondered if they had all been imagined. How much can I afford to forget before I become like him? He glanced sideways at the other man in the boat, who had hours ago given up the futile effort of steering the vessel. The two lay on the deck now, sprawled, limbs dangling limply above the water.
As John gazed skyward, he noticed—or perhaps imagined—a spontaneous break in the hanging fog, a parting, and above the white mist draped the suggestion of a blue sky. It was gone in an instant, but John clung to the memory, burned it into his eyelids so that he might not forget the vision of the open sky.
“Irving.” He struggled to form the words. His throat burned, his lips stung. Every patch of exposed skin hurt from the constant exposure to the bleak sun. “Irving. We need water. We need…” He didn’t bother finishing the sentence.
Irving stirred, but did not sit up. “Sea’s toxic. It’s not the salt that’ll kill you, see. The water’s just no good.”
“There must be… must be something.”
“The meat’s gone, son.”
John forced himself up, began to rummage through the scattered junk on the deck. “Something… something.” He moved closer to Irving, and noticed a small Mason jar tucked between the folds of the man’s rubber coat. “What’s that?”
He reached for it, but he swatted him away.
“Not for us, lad. Trust me.”
“At least tell me what it is.” The distinct flavor of peaches flashed in his mouth. It was quickly replaced by a memory of the acrid white flesh that had carried them this far.
“This…” He lifted the jar. It was palm-sized, and its glass was darkened with age. Its contents were inscrutable. “This is pure whale oil. It’s a… charm.”
“We are going to die. We need to drink something. Anything. I don’t care what it is.”
Irving eyed it, holding it up to the light and watched the rainbow fractals dance.
“Irving. Is it edible?”
“Edible?” He said the word slowly, like it was foreign to him. “Edible. Yes, it’s edible.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“It’s only…” He hesitated, voice wavering. “It’s bad luck, you see. To drink an angel’s blood.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake—”
The slap came hard, lightning fast. John recoiled from Irving’s blow, the fire surging in the man’s eyes.
“If you’re proposing blasphemy, boy, you best have the decency to hold your tongue. These are no mortal matters. High heaven, Lord above, if we do what you say we do, dying of thirst is the only mercy I reckon we both deserve.” With that, he twisted the lid from the jar, inhaled its contents, and inverted it. He drank deeply, then slumped.
John scurried to catch the jar as it slipped from his hand. Holding it, he gazed inside and saw patterns of light, a whole ocean of color, roiling like an ancient sea. As he drank, his mind drifted to the bony fingers, the pale mass that brushed past their meager vessel. When the flavor overwhelmed him, soaking his throat in rancid ichor, he fell, as if drunk, into a deep sleep.
V
The bottom of the sea was warmer than he’d thought. John woke cross-legged in the dark, a low rumble filling his ears. He felt the sensation of pressure all around him, pushing down, choking, yet he did not feel afraid. He moved his hands and felt coarse sand and pebbles shift beneath his palms, saw tufts of sand kick up as his eyes adjusted. It was warm, somehow. A gentle temperature. He stood and felt weightless, his body rising by degrees higher than he typically stood. Around he surveyed the flat expanse, took note of the gradual slope of the undersea dunes and the suggestion of jagged rocks in the distance. It was dark, so pitifully dark, yet John could see far.
He looked up and saw a deep blue halo, decorated by distant phantom beams of light. He must have been miles below the surface. The sight gave him vertigo. Did I drown? Was there an accident? Fear crept up like bile, and he looked around for a sign of the boat and the old man.
There! A fractured piece of wood stuck out from the sand. He glided over but his foot snagged on something. The storm of dust subsided and revealed the form of a skeleton picked clean by worms.
Relief washed over him, and he knelt to feel them. Good. Good. Everything is okay.
Bones surrounded him now, fingerbones sprouting like eels from the sand. A current unsettled the ocean floor, and a hundred skulls appeared, gazing at the distant surface. Remains of men and other things mingled together here to form new, impossible shapes. John spun, and with each revolution witnessed the bonefield grow. Above, bones hailed, drifting with the force of the immense water.
Everything is okay. John could not explain this thought. The words echoed themselves into meaning, forcing the world to conform to its logic. It is as it should be. This is what I was supposed to see. Everyone is here.
Everyone is here. Everyone is here. Everyone. He bent down and picked up Irving’s skull, dusting the sand off. It amazed him how delicately it fit in his palm. He let it go, let it drift away and turn to sand. Looking closely he saw that all the bones were turning to sand, that all the sand was made from this ineffable process. This understanding felt like a knife thrust into his skull.
Everything sunk. Or fell away. Or was dragged down. Or he was lifted, plucked. He saw the bonefield widen as he soared, realizing with a heavy stomach just how much it was. Infinity in all directions. He felt massive now, felt the water displace around him. Though he was closer to the surface, it still remained a distant thing. So far away it might have never existed.
These are no mortal matters. Irving was there now, floating next to him. His pearlescent skin reflected the meager sunlight elegantly. Don’t be afraid. You’re drunk on that slime, boy. Sleeping like a babe. He twirled, flexing his slender body.
What are we?
Calves, boy. Just calves. You see it now, finally. You see this green sea for what it is. With slender arms, he cradled a handful of sand, held it up to his head. Watch, Johnny. He exhaled water through his baleen, dispersing the sand. In its place fluttered a thin, metallic fish, emerging from the grime. You can do this too, if you want. And so much more. You can do it all. I’ve never seen an angel like you, Johnny. All that imagination. Come on, why don’t ya? Give her a try.
John held out his hands, spun them, and collected sand from the current. His fingers were long and bony, like Irving’s. He clasped his palms together and felt a buzzing from within. From within his hands he felt the bursting of a thousand fish, a thousand thousand, enough to fill the sea. Irving laughed as the fish emerged, circled, and disappeared into the blue.
All of creation, boy. Made from the dust of life. Do you see it now? Do you see the cycle? The power to kill, to create; it’s all the same. This is what we seek. The ability to become, the ability to fathom. The voice of God calls us, and we answer. You and I, Johnny. Pulled from our times and brought here for the purpose of comprehension. It is a select gift.
John shook his head. But that’s what they all say, isn’t it? Do we not reside in but one God’s domain? There must be others. There must be. The walker on the moon. The host of fires. The orange star. Ask any of their prophets and they will say they are the chosen. As you claim yourself.
You doubt. I did too. After the first kill, the second. Only whale meat to me. But then I opened my eyes. Drank up. The salt burns, and then it clarifies. Look around! Is this not beautiful? Life! Sick, twisted life, slogged from the mire only to return when called. That is who we are. We have simply reached the end of our cycle, and now we must return.
But you crave, Irving. You crave.
Irving nodded. His long body arced, and he floated upside down.
I do, Johnny. It is only my breed of madness. When the Dread Ship plucked me from my old life it called me The Whaler. I will kill, Johnny. I must drive the harpoon into its eye. When we trace that anguished cry to its source, you’ll see. I have a hunger. And a purpose. Who’s to say God deserves to be an exception to its own rule? All things return to this green sea.
John’s head was pounding now, and he tasted a bitter oil in his mouth. The sea chilled suddenly and his vision was fast fading. He felt a movement, back and forth, and the boil of nausea.
Let’s finish this, boy. Irving said, sinking away. His body vanished into the murky dark, fingers trailing, but his voice lingered. We’re so close. I can see the island now; its tower burns so brightly. Drink up, boy. It’s going to be glorious. Drink up. Drink.
VI
The water was frigid as it poured down his throat, filled his mouth, and flushed it of that awful taste. The world emerged around him from the darkness of the dream, first as only monochrome shapes and distant sounds. Color followed as he felt a hand on his face, more water dribbling down his chin and ragged clothes.
“Drink some more,” Irving said, standing over him. He poured and poured; his cup never seemed to empty.
The water tasted fresh and clean. John stirred, tried to sit up but felt he had no strength.
“Not yet. Rest a moment, why don’t ya?”
John took in the world and realized he was on a new shore, its sand black and soggy. Water lapped at his feet and his hands were stiff with cold. The boat lay a distance away, snug in the sand. Above them loomed a tall rock face, tufts of seagrass clinging.
“Where are we now?” John croaked. He got his answer sooner than Irving could find his words; the piercing wail that had haunted them since the first beach was deafening now, like an ever-present white noise. It ebbed and flowed with the tide and seemed to come from everywhere, reverberating across the rock and sand. John noticed a dark streak of shadow cross the thin shoreline and craned his neck to see what sprouted from the rock. He saw a tower of flame scraping high into the clouds, burning with the heat of a star. Its material was foreign to him, sleek and white as bone. John could make out shapes carved into the tower but couldn’t make sense of them. They twisted up its side, but whether they were reaching up or sinking down he couldn’t tell.
“We’re on the precipice, boy. Sturdy up. Won’t be long now.” Irving turned and walked along the shore. John struggled to his feet and followed.
“How did we get here? When I drank the oil, I… Well, I’m not sure. I saw things.”
Irving kept his pace. “Aye. Clarifying, wasn’t it? Mere men, we’re forbidden from drinking an angel’s blood because of what it might show. Knowledge is sacred here, and dangerous. You'd best forget what you saw.”
Irving’s words from the dream rang in John’s head: I will kill, Johnny. I must drive the harpoon into its eye. He didn’t want to mention them, didn’t want to ruin the trust they seemed to now share. To relive that phantom conversation… he didn’t know how the old man would respond. So he simply followed Irving along the beach.
Looping around the cliff, it became clear the two were on an island. A small one, at that, nothing like the beach he had woken up on. The rock jutted from the sand at a sharp angle, jagged at the bottom where erosion had yet to smooth the cliff. Above them the tower loomed, along with the suggestion of other structures. The sea around them stretched much like it had before, but John felt less of that familiar suffocation. He could see a bit further, breathe a bit easier. It was as if the world had been clarified, illuminated by the tower of flame. Surely it was an illusion, a haunted remainder from the sights and sounds of the oil-induced dream.
Around a curve in the shore, John heard the roar of moving water. Irving held out his hand, as if to indicate caution. The source of the noise came into view by degrees: a tall, intricate statue of an arced whale, its fluke raised over its disproportionate body. From its wide open mouth came a constant surge of water, firing like a pressure hose out to sea. The force of the stream was immense and terrifying, as was the anguished look in its eyes.
Irving approached slowly, reaching out with a trembling hand to caress its features. Looking closely John could better examine its material. It certainly wasn’t stone. Far too clean, and seemingly sturdy. Bone?
“The fountainheads,”—Irving shouted over the roar of water—“are objects of worship for thousands. There are seven, I’ve heard it said. All along the shore, arranged in a sacred shape.” He stepped back from the fountain.
“Why? What’s their purpose?”
“The birthplace of the sea! The birthplace of us all!” Irving laughed at this, spinning deliriously.
“And the water? Where’s it coming from?”
“From God, of course. Long ago it is said this island sprouted a holy fountain. The people back then, they fought it for a time. Couldn’t understand that it was their salvation. But water is persistent and it is eternal. Over the millennia, the fountain filled the seas and gave us this holy place.” With that he made his way along the cliff face, searching for a passage up to where the tower’s pale fire baked the black rocks.
Eventually they found a slice in the cliffside where they could climb, wedging their hands and feet into the sharp rock. By the time they reached the top, John’s hands were bleeding, and he wiped his palms on his clothes, stifling the pain. They found the tower surrounded by a ring of lesser structures, shrines and other crumbled ruins. It had once been a church, perhaps. A vision of a grand cathedral flashed before John’s eyes. Now it was almost nothing, but an air of grandeur remained. The ghost of a true religion.
The dirt of the island was littered with white material, brick-like but oddly organic. They were, on closer inspection, what composed the island’s structures. The two passed under an archway that stood at an uncomfortable angle, leaning from the weight of the ages. Around them were statues of fish, some familiar but just as many strange and bizarre approximations of known life. John saw many whales and porpoises engaged in strange contortions, bending over each other in frightening dances. One, towering over the rest, nestled its form in the bosom of a tremendous clam, its long human arms outstretched in a macabre embrace. Its gaping mouth yawned, and within it a hundred crabs crawled and a thousand fish swam. The calcified whale bore a microcosm, one that squirmed in the thin puddles of rainwater with fitful, uncomfortable life.
They stood before the tower now, having wandered the garden of ruins in silence. The patterns revealed themselves to be figures of indeterminate make. They were indeed falling, with a slow, dignified grace. Their faces were calm. They gave no hint of hesitation or remorse. The flow of the tower’s form gave the impression of a gentle, spiraling current. Above, the flame burned, but silently. Its white color was off-putting, and gave no warmth. As if it were an illusion, a trick of the mind seeing what it expects—or wants—to see. Irving sensed it too.
“I can’t believe how wrong I was. The tales I’ve heard. The survivors of the pilgrimages—they all tell of the tower and its guiding light. That redemption waits on high.” He gazed absently at the bleak sky and its rolling fingers of fog. “But it never was. It’s all below. God, the sea, everything. All bones sink.”
VII
It was an hour before they found the stairs, nestled amongst what they could only guess was once a crypt. Shallow divots were cut into the walls and filled with rotted wood boxes within which pale bones could be seen, bedecked in strange jewels and rich finery. The stairs descended coldly into another world, more blue and dreamlike than the one above. The steps were smooth, slippery from a thousand years of use. Even though the ever-present whine seemed before to be coming from the darkness beneath the island, the second they lost sight of sunlight behind them the air grew deathly silent, save for the incessant dripping of the subterranean rivers.
Irving led the way with the mermaid lighter, casting a dim orange glow as they made their descent. John ran his hand along the wall of the path, feeling the intricacies of the carvings decorating every inch of the bone-like material. Fist-sized holes marked divots where candles might have once burned, the openings stained black and painfully cold. A frigid, choking moisture permeated everything, dripping down the walls in streams that pooled among the stairs’ imperfections.
The two had settled into a wordless rhythm. Somehow John knew what the other man was thinking. His dream had revealed his thoughts, even if they had never come from Irving’s lips. He could see the anticipation in his eyes, the way he gripped the lighter and seemed to temper his breathing. They were here not as pilgrims but as trespassers. This descent would lead them to the source of the wail, the place where the ever-buzzing pearl seemed to yearn for. There would be violence. For all the piousness the old man seemed to shield himself in, John sensed a hunger, a yearning for power and death and submersion into something greater, more whole. Irving’s dream-words echoed: “All things return to this green sea.”
“I’m afraid I’ve been dishonest.” Irving’s voice cut the silence. “You asked about the Dread Ship. The Sailor.”
“What do you—”
“The thing that plucked you from your old time and brought you to me. It beckoned you with a door and an offer: You would become the Sailor. You were destined to cross the seas, to discover. To understand. And that is what happened.”
“You told me you’d never heard of it.”
He gave a pained expression. “Yes. I know. I didn't think I could trust you. Lots of bodies wash up on these beaches. They don’t always stick around long. The sea is like that. It gives, and then it takes. You’re different, Johnny. I can see that now. You’ve changed; I can see it in your eyes. I don’t know what you witnessed in your oil drunkenness. I don’t know what she showed you.”
“What did you dream?”
“Me?” Irving paused, breathed a moment. “I dreamed of you. I was a child again. Out at sea, the night I woke up here. I saw the Dread Ship through the fog. And you, at its helm. A right and proper sailor. I saw the door with those words, ‘The Whaler.’ I didn’t know then what it meant. I do now.”
“You’re going to kill, aren’t you? You told me so in the dream.”
Irving gave no response. The silence was an answer of its own.
Around them, the intricate stairs gave way to untampered rock. They were now in a deep cave, moist with seawater. Paths branched off around them, some leading to still pools, some to gushing spigots that rushed deeper still. Irving walked ahead with confidence, seeming to know the way.
“I need you to promise, Johnny: You won’t try to stop me. When the time comes, you’ll let things continue as they must. There are forces at play here, stakes I can’t gamble. I won’t let you interfere."
John didn’t know what to say. Those words were comforting, even if they were alarming.
“I need to know if I can trust you.” Irving seemed pained, vulnerable in a way he had never been before. “You might hear things, see things. All of them will be true, I confess—God never lies—but you can’t forget what must happen. The end that comes for all things. I’ve been steeling myself for this moment. On the boat, drifting through the sea, I thought for a moment we would never find our way, and I would be safe to die a simple death. Then I saw the pale fire rip through the clouds, and I knew at once I, we, had been called. I’m ready now. My heart is unblemished, and I am at last free of the burden.”
John smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve carried us this far. I trust your judgement. Get us home, if you can, and if we must die, let's make it count.”
“That device you found on the boat.” Darkness twisted the man’s face, the lighter’s orange momentarily dimmed. “That light-making gun. Do you still have it?”
John felt around his waist and nodded; the flare gun was tucked away, kept dry after all this time. “Just point and pull the trigger.”
“Aye, like any gun.” Irving patted John on the back. “Good lad.”
They followed the muggy cave tunnels, occasionally passing on both sides soot-covered sconces, long out of use. Heavy stalactites dripped moisture into thin puddles full of minuscule translucent minnows. Spider-like crabs and other things scuttled in the darkness. Soon they stood before a set of grand, sturdy doors. Markings decorated its clean exterior. John saw strange shapes in the etchings: lions bearing their teeth, planets drifting through space, blooming flowers, buzzing swarms of hornets. These were dwarfed by the depiction of a swarming pod of limbed whales, seeming to emerge from the cave walls to devour the door’s macabre tableau.
Irving pushed against a shoulder-height divot and beckoned John to help. With a grunt, the two heaved the doors open and were at once hit by a humid wind from within, pouring out from the darkness beyond. Irving raised the lighter and cast forth the small flame. John knew the space was vast, but couldn’t be sure of its details. Perhaps there were objects in the darkness, arched statues with looming, bony arms pressed against the ceiling of the chamber, jeering with wide baleen grins. Or perhaps not, and it was simply an empty chamber.
As they walked slowly ahead, Irving tugged suddenly on John’s clothes. His voice was stifled from either dread or excitement, but he spoke with stunning clarity. “Step no further. We’re here.”
Dimly though the darkness of the cave John could see that the ground shortly ahead seemed to simply fall away into nothingness. He looked left and right and determined that the entire chamber might be split in two by a vast chasm, peeling away to a void where light simply could not penetrate.
“Quickly!” Irving said, both a shout and a whisper. “Prostrate yourself. We must show reverence if we are to be granted audience.”
For a long and silent moment the two lay there, foreheads pressed against the cold earth. Nothing happened, and the seconds dragged on to the trickle of distant streams.
Irving’s breath soon grew rapid. “Are we not worthy?” His voice came out little more than a whisper. “What more do I have to give?”
It was then that John felt a vibration against his skin, or beneath it. Or perhaps he had imagined it all, for when he reached into the folds of his clothes he felt nothing but the cold smoothness of the rose pearl. On instinct, and unsure why, he gripped the small orb tightly and removed it from his pocket, sitting up and lifting it as if presenting it to the void. Irving, seeing this unfold from the corner of his eyes, began to chuckle, nodding vigorously.
“Yes, yes!” he said. “Now you understand. Now you see the connections, the rhythm of fate, where I had gone blind.” From the darkness John felt a great stirring, as if a vastness was coming to life, awakening, or being drawn forth. “I had almost lost myself to despair, in the final moments. But you, boy, you are a boy no longer. A right and proper sailor you are.” Irving sat up, taller than John remembered. He turned to face him, and even in the darkness he could see the glint of fire in his eyes, the madness creeping home. “Grab the mast of this world, wrestle its helm, and together we will go far indeed. You and I, Whaler and Ship. Together to claim what’s ours. Now—” he suddenly became hushed, gazing into the yawning chasm. “Observe, and marvel at the majesty of God.”
John felt his muscles grow weak, and he returned the pearl quietly to his pocket. He shut his eyes instinctively, wincing from the appearance of a danger unseen but rather felt. Wet air rushed around him, and suddenly the emptiness was filled, silently and in a single instant, as if it had always been.
“Look… by God, open your eyes, boy.” The lighter clattered to the floor, the flame little more than a dim spark, and when he at last opened his eyes he saw in its diffused beam that the void of the chasm was not a void at all, but rather a flat expanse of wrinkled skin, bubbling with scabs and scars and withered barnacles, opening and shutting like pustular sores. He swiveled his head, trying to get his bearings of the mass, but found no comfortable orientation; whatever creature this was seemed to span infinitely across the chasm, indeed, perhaps the world entire.
Irving’s voice came out as a choked whisper. “Righteousness almighty, my God the living, the supreme, bless your seaborne form, your endless grace. Look boy, look—”
—and John saw in the darkness far above his head the twinkling of stars, falling gently to his insignificant body. Only, as they came into the light he realized they were not stars but the watery reflections of a massive cornea, and inside was an iris one moment grey, the next sapphire. It regarded him with an alien intelligence that penetrated John’s body, then wormed into his mind. In that iris he saw a cloud-shrouded planet, rimmed by a halo of blue light like that of a stellar corona, equal parts mesmerizing and terrifying. In his lungs he felt the gurgle of water, and was violently overcome with the urge to spew his life upon the floor. He felt his death approaching imminent from within, a sudden impulse to die as if his mind and body sought to resist the gaze from above at all costs. But as he continued to stare, resisting the feeling of saltwater in his blood, his brain, gushing from his bones and out his nose, he felt the tension within him relax. A question had quietly become resolved. All at once the water became a comfortable pressure, familiar and homely. He recognized and welcomed its embrace, and as he did he watched the rings of flesh around God’s eye contract and narrow, its stare boring deeper.
A voice was calling from somewhere far away. Except it wasn’t far, no. It was close. Immediate. John tore his gaze from God and saw again with mortal eyes, heard with mortal ears. Irving was calling for him.
“—now, boy, it is time! Give it to me, that gun. The power is now ours to usurp! We will fulfill God’s demand, as it is demanded of us!”
But his words were distant, and he saw in the man only his sour title, Whaler (italics), so bereft of dignity, and so he made no effort to pull the flare gun from his waist. Irving’s face contorted into an exuberant madness, and he sprang at John, tackling him to the cave floor.
“Child! Ignorant fool! I should have let you starve on that shore! I should have let the sea take you, like I did the others. You are nothing but a lost calf, struck by its promise of power. Struck blind! How do you not see? Kill it, and its essence will be returned to the sea, in accordance with its own law!” He struck John hard across the face. The blow was strong and sent blood trickling from his nose, but when it crept into his mouth John tasted only cold salt. Irving struck again, and all strength was sapped from John’s body. There seemed no point in resisting any longer. All will be returned to the sea, John understood.
Irving stood, holding now the bright orange plastic of the gun. He considered its weight, then straightened, pointing its muzzle up to the looming iris.
“My God, I thank thee for this world, this beautiful sea, and all life within.” His eyes burned brightly now, no longer a dull yellow candle but a blazing wildfire. John watched a smile creep up his lips, and found within him the strength to stand.
“Return to the sea, my Lord!” Irving shouted. “Find grace within its unplumbed depths! Let the world feast on your holy flesh, drink from your oily blood! Let your angels multiply in your absence, so that we may one day ascend to replace you, to grow and struggle and one day die by the hands of our children—”
Irving felt cold hands press against his spine, soaking through his clothes. He stopped his raving, turning with disbelief to see what had risen, dripping, from the floor. He let out a choked whimper as the hands reached out again, but in a surge of defiance he pulled the trigger and fired the flare gun squarely at John’s forehead. The cave was lit by a plume of red flame. John saw the totality of God illuminated in the blazing light, and all around him the mummified bodies of half-formed things, at once human and cetacean, curled up or crawling aimlessly. Then the flaming shell collided with its target and extinguished itself in a hiss of steam, vanishing uselessly into the sudden darkness.
Irving resisted little when John surged toward him, raising his arms in limp defence against the coming tide. He was lifted, and then hurled with impossible fury into the chasm at his back. As John watched the man tumble, his screams turning by degrees into inane laughter, he saw God’s eye ascend rapidly, the movement of its holy flesh becoming like the speedy orbit of a planet, until it had shifted its position entirely. The wall of barnacled flesh became a void once again, but only for an instant. As Irving fell, the darkness seemed to open and accept him, and out of the black emerged a billion strips of broom-like baleen, above and below and spiraling on all sides. White lightning arced from dense clouds within and illuminated the cyclopean expanse beyond; John gazed upon a churning sea, draining down, down, and sucking inward untold legions of beasts born of land and sea and all places. Across a bulbous and terrible tongue John watched Irving plummet, flailing, on his face some nameless emotion of terror and ecstasy until at last the baleen walls collapsed and the world was once again plunged into darkness.
VIII
John remained where he woke, naked, amongst the tall grass. A pleasant breeze drifted by, rustling the weeds and his hair. Not far was the rose pearl, nestled amongst sand and pebbles, forgotten. The night was growing old, but he felt no urgency. There was, for the first time, nothing to be done.
Though he could not see it, he knew he was close to the sea, and he listened deeply to the gentle movement of the waves against sand. He fell upon his back, exhausted, and gazed awhile at the clear sky, trying to recall the names and arrangements of constellations he had learned in his youth. Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow he will set forth and begin the long work.
Presently he closed his eyes. In the final moments before sleep took him, he listened sadly to the far-off mutter of fishing boats coming to harbor from a long and hard journey, and he imagined somewhere a dread ship making its lonely rounds across the seas.
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