Something was pushing down on Silus, smothering him as it closed over his face like a wet blanket, pulling him out of his warm, safe slumber. He scrabbled at the thin membrane, tearing it away before it could suffocate him, and fell to the sticky floor when the webbing that had held him in place gave way.
Something was wrong with the Queen.
All around him egg sacs were bursting as they putrefied, spilling out half-formed and aborted Land Walkers. One creature cracked as it hit the floor, its eye sockets empty and dry. Another crawled towards him dripping mucus, a fat black tongue lolling from its wrinkled jaw. Silus backed away from the abominations only to be dragged to the floor as a large wet hand closed over his face. A Land Walker that was little more than a torso squirmed over him and clamped its mouth on a nipple, futilely trying to suckle. When Silus pushed it away his hand sank into a skull that tore like wet paper, the brain beneath a sponge that crumbled beneath his touch.
There was a dull thud then and the chamber shook. Silus noticed the rent in the wall just a second before the sea rushed in.
He flailed in the darkness, a multitude of limbs brushing up against him as he tumbled through a nightmare of grotesques. A hand made a grab for him and he struck out, only to find his wrist clamped in a firm grip.
Silus turned to see what had grabbed him and found himself looking at his reflection in twin disks of glass. It took him a moment to realise that he was looking at someone wearing one of the underwater exploration suits from the Llothriall. Above the figure hung the ship itself and it gestured towards the vessel urgently. Spurred on by the sounds of fighting, Silus followed.
On board, when he saw who was within the suit, Silus gave him a fierce hug.
"Kelos! Gods, it's good to see you. Where's Dunsany?"
From the pained expression on the mage's face he could tell that something bad had happened.
"What? What is it?"
"Silus, you tried to kill him."
A chill ran through him. Silus tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing.
"I had no idea, really Kelos. You have to believe me. I remember nothing."
"The Chadassa within you was driven on by Belck," Kelos said. "He made you open Dunsany's throat. I thought we'd lost him. I thought we were all dead. But the Calma rescued us."
Kelos gestured with a hand and a part of the hull became translucent. Through it Silus could see the chaos that had come to the Chadassa city.
Things that looked like giant starfish moved over the citadel; some emitting brilliant beams of light that seared the flesh off any Chadassa they touched, others wrapped themselves around the coral towers until rubble rained down on the fighting below.
"Calma attack ships," Kelos said. "Their footsoldiers are in the city below, taking on the main Chadassa forces."
Silus saw that though the Calma were outnumbered they were quick and vicious as sharks. They would dart in, their silvery tails rippling, and wrap the tentacles of their flails around their enemy before darting away again, leaving a charred corpse rolling in their wake. For all this though, the Calma were being slowly whittled down and it would be only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.
"The Calma think of you as their chosen one," Kelos said. "That's why they helped us rescue you. While one force attacked the main defences, we freed you from the Queen. We managed to kill the majority of the Land Walkers and interrupt the birth, but some of the creatures still escaped. I only hope that the forces on the peninsula will be sufficient to stop them."
"And what about Katya?"
"The Calma will bring her safely to us," Kelos said. "Don't worry, we can trust them."
There was a flash of light and when it faded they saw that part of the citadel had disappeared. In its place now was a vast area of scorched seabed over which fell a slow rain of corpses; Chadassa and Calma alike.
"I have to find her," Silus said, before adding, "I'm sorry about Dunsany, Kelos. Really."
Kelos reached out to him but, before he could say anything, Silus stepped through the membrane in the side of the ship and into the sea.
He breathed deeply, energised by the cold burn of the salt water in his lungs.
Belck had made him embrace his Chadassa nature and use it against his friends, but now he would use it against the Chadassa themselves. As he thought of Katya, trapped somewhere within the city, and of what had been done to Zac his rage intensified.
Ahead of him four Chadassa were tearing into a single Calma, oblivious to him in their killing frenzy.
Silus barrelled into them, grabbed one by the head and squeezed until it came apart. He didn't feel the blows of the other Chadassa as they fought him and when he turned on them they came apart just as easily. One of them he left alive, but only as long as it took him to peer into its mind and find out where Katya was being kept. After that he slammed the creature into the ground again and again, his fingers dug deep into the flesh of its throat. The Chadassa flopped in his grip like a rag doll as a strange, high-pitched keening made his skull ache. It took Silus a moment to realise that the sound was coming from him. It shocked him out of his fury and he stood in a cloud of sand and viscera, wondering just what he was becoming.
Kelos had taught him that he was special and the Chadassa had shown him that he was a monster. Silus knew that he was both.
He kicked away from the seabed, darting into a forest of weeds when he was spotted by more Chadassa. He lost them amongst the fronds, only to be startled by a shoal of gemfish that exploded around him as he swam into a clearing.
Ahead of him lay the centre of the citadel. Its dark coral towers swarmed with the Chadassa as they tried to defend them against the Calma ships. One of the towers fell; fortunately, Silus saw, not the one that Katya was imprisoned in. However, he didn't have long. Already several of the Calma ships had fallen — great clouds of sand and silt marking their impact sites — and more Chadassa were boiling up from beneath the city all the time. Silus even thought he saw the twisted form of the Great Ocean amongst the chaos, but couldn't be sure.
He looked for a way in, but knew that to wander into the centre of the fighting would mean death. Somehow he had to make it to the prison tower unseen.
A flash of neon caught his eye and he knew what he had to do.
Silus called the gemfish to him and soon he was hidden within the glittering shoal. Together they moved into the heart of the conflict. Several times, when they ventured too close to the fighting, the shoal threatened to break apart, but Silus reasserted his will and kept the gemfish close. To those caught up in the chaos it would merely seem that a school of fish had come to feed on the detritus of the battle.
But there were bigger scavengers than the gemfish around and soon a gaggle of razor dolphins had closed in on them, picking off the glittering fish and picking apart Silus's carefully constructed shroud. Realising that his cover was rapidly disintegrating he tried to bind the razor dolphins to his will; however, their minds were slippery and soon they were darting away again in search of more food.
Silus floated, isolated in the middle of the conflict, wondering how long it would take for the Chadassa to spot him.
It wasn't the Chadassa who noticed him first, however, but the Calma.
Gesturing to its four comrades, one of them swam towards him, the light shimmering on its gossamer tail as it approached. The last time Silus had been this close to the Calma, he had been killing one of their kind, driven on by Belck's manipulations. Something of that bloody hunger must have been obvious in his eyes now as the Calma suddenly hesitated in its approach.
A Chadassa riding a giant, horned eel swooped in, spearing the Calma through the chest with a barbed javelin and scattering its brethren in the wake of its mount. The Calma soon regrouped, however and, as the eel turned for another pass, they brought their flails to bear.