XXII.

The Necropolis

The next ship was more of the same, as was the dozen or so after it. Signs of life, signs of character, both shown brightly upon each and every ship, reminding Vagari that they were more than just rusted hulks adrift in that acrid sea, but people with stories and lives as real as his was. All of their stories ended the same way, however, with a stain of torment and a violent death. None were spared. As they made their way to the center of it all, he could only hope they would be the first to break the dire chain of events. Finally, after what felt like countless renditions of the same sorrowful tale, they found one that sung a different tune. It was a military vessel, a large one that was seemingly cracked in two. Somehow it still managed to stay mostly afloat despite the damage it sustained. The vessel, some kind of sea-to-orbit defense platform, was the only ship they’d come across that wasn’t heavily retrofitted or cobbled together by scrap. That told Vagari it was wholly pre-apocalypse and hadn’t been touched since.

A defense platform with probably no less than fifty cannons and plasteel plating as thick as he was tall, it was amazing that it could even be damaged from the outside, and much more so that it had been bisected as it was. The drowned titan’s laser was Vagari’s first guess, but closer inspection brought the realization that it hadn’t been. It had been gnawed, Vagari discerned, staring down at the jagged edge of the divide as the pair made their way between the skyward cannons. Some immense thing had bitten right through it, he thought with a spike of dread, and those jagged edges were teeth marks. Whether it was the same creature they would face or not, he could only hope otherwise. And in hoping, Vagari recalled what he had said upon seeing BP’s sire, the absolutely titanic beast that had slunk deep into the lake of long dead New Houston.

“Behold, the hope of him is in vain,” a line from the Tanakh, Job 41:1-34, about the Leviathan, the primordial serpent. He had only been poetic then, but the sight of the gnash arose a real fear in him that, perhaps, they had just found the genuine thing. That fear turned to cold dread as a pneumatic pulse expanded outward from the core of that rotting place. It was a thing unseen, but they felt it as it washed over them; the feeling of suddenly being submerged in icy waters. Then a repulsive scent began filling the air, malodorous and mephitic. It was positively excremental, as if a cesspool had been filled with a whole worlds worth of rotting fish. Vagari had to fight to not break under the rancid assault, a battle BP quickly lost by choking up what was left of her breakfast all over the plasteel deck. “W-what IS that?!” BP croaked with a gag, clinging to the width of the nearest cannon. “It’s… it’s the worst thing I’ve ever smelled!”

“Death,” Vagari answered bluntly with a knuckle pressed up against his nose, “decay, and everything foul mixed in…”

A chthonic voice echoed out from within their minds, a low dull drone as deep as the Earth’s core, but soft and as cold as oceanic depths. “Hello there, brother and… little sister. Ha – curious,” the voice boomed painfully between their ears. “You’ve come to me so small, I thought you prey. Forgive me. I wouldn’t have let you drift for so long if I knew it was you daring a visit, Abaddon,” the hollow voice rung, “I’d have sunk you long before! Let you paddle the way like a dog. But oh you’re as clever as always, brother… sneaking up on me. What for, I wonder? Did she send you? I can imagine she’s none too happy with me – what else is new – but, to dig you up? I’ll not be reformed, brother, try as she might. I quite like my existence as it is. Quiet. Peaceful. Without her.”

“I’m sorry, friend,” Vagari replied in a holler, still shielding his nose, “I think you have us confused for someone else. I haven’t the slightest clue what you’re on about. We just want you to free our ship!”

“Yeah,” BP called out in confirmation, “let us go! We have to get across the lake!”

The being heard this and offered only a mind-numbing laugh in reply. From overboard, bubbles began to spew up in pillars as the ancient lake churned with a newfound life. Something was rising up from below. Vagari quickly pushed back, joining BP at the cannon as a wall of water rose up over the side before crashing down upon in a reeking splash. In the same instance a titanic mass cut through the turbulent waters and shot skyward, rising up until it towered high above them. Vagari ducked down, shielding BP from the caustic spray as the horribly large creature reared up before them. A great octopoid arm came crashing down upon the deck. It wrapped in behind them, boxing them in, its spined suckers easily puncturing the ancient metal, locking it in place. Now, the only escape was the watery void of its domain.

It was a terrible sight to behold, the Leviathan. A colossal union of things reptile, and ichthyic, it swayed before them like a cautioning serpent, not yet decided whether they were friend, foe, or prey. Two massive arms supported it, the one blocking their escape and another hidden somewhere beneath the waves, while thousands of auxiliary arms and feelers sprouted from the belly of it’s snake-like form, from top to bottom. Its head was a cruel mixture of sea-anemone and barracuda: a grotesque beak full of jagged teeth that peaked out of a sheath of thickly tentacled jelly-like flesh. The skin that covered the rest of it was a mottled brown, rough and leathery, but slick with a mucilaginous oil which was doubtlessly where its vile stench originated.

The great serpent stood before them, its mighty tail reaching all the way down to the lakebed. It stared with eyes burning bright like angler’s lures, bright even in the day, and from its mouth flickered dragon’s fire – crackling bursts of pneumatic energies that’s heat could be felt even from the great distance between them. “You play poor games, brother,” the cavernous voice said calmly. “Deceptions aren’t like you – or perhaps they are, all things considered. Perhaps it was the Lamb who sent you instead? Tzalmavet maybe? OR do you truly not know of whom I speak?”

The Lamb? Tzalmavet? Both were names or perhaps titles Vagari had heard once before, from Xu’s parasite. Neither rung any bells in any shape or form, but the fact that this was the second time someone accused him of working for either was enough to stoke Vagari’s curiosity. Were they potential allies, he wondered, or just more enemies? “No deceptions,” Vagari called out, shielding his eyes from the eerie blue glow of the pneumatic fire, “I truly have no idea who you’re referencing. But I’ll offer this – you are second to suggest it in the last month. We want only to be on our way, I promise you. Free our boat and we’ll do just that.”

“You truly do not know, do you?” the Leviathan said with almost a sense of sorrow in its voice. The immense creature cocked its head and stared down at them for a moment before continuing. “More is the pity, brother, because she has known you. I can see it, her mark upon you, her special brand burned upon your soul. It has broken you – shattered beyond all recovery… You are not who I thought you were, not any more.”

“No, I’m not,” he returned. “I am Vagari, and I want nothing to do with ‘her’ or any of the rest. I just want to cross the lake – safely.”

“Want?!” the Leviathan boomed with a smoke billowing bout of laughter that flooded the area with a noxious heat. “She has never given a thought to what you want, brother. What any of us want! That is why you…” The great infernal thing paused, seemingly thinking on its next words before continuing in a calmer manner. “I believe you, brother. You do not know, and perhaps that is for the best. But, let me tell you this: there are no wants in this reality but hers. And though it is truth you speak, that it is your own will that guides you here, I have my doubts that you are free of influence. Tell me more of your truth, for I, Esh, know what lays in wait across my domain…”

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Tehom, Esh, Tzalmavet… Vagari was at least half-sure the creature called him ‘Abaddon’ at the dawn of their encounter as well. They were all names with Kabbalic roots. He was not looking forward to dealing with any more branches from the Qliphothic tree that those roots no doubt grew from. That was beginning to feel inevitable, however. Angels, demons, Vagari couldn’t help but wonder, did they just adopt the names, or were they truly the creatures of myth? Were they truly playing out the foretold End of Days? Did it matter? No, he decided, it didn’t. The only thing that mattered was bringing and end to the end times – biblical or not.

Vagari thought on his words carefully. He had told BP what he had saw when he discovered the book, of the vision with the Being of Light, but telling this thing, this Esh, didn’t feel like the wisest decision. “No, I suppose my actions aren’t without influence,” Vagari answered truthfully. “Revenge motivates me – both of us. A man named Xu fled across, and I aim to catch up with him. He’s wronged us both. He killed my family, and abandoned her to starve in a cage. We want to make him pay for what he’s done, and make sure he can never do to others what he’s done to us. It isn’t noble, I know, but that is my truth.”

“Revenge, is it? Then perhaps not all of you is lost…” Esh mused to itself. “I would see you to it, brother… if it wasn’t lies. The Godhead calls to you – the ‘Being of Light’ so bright in your mind. I can see her threads run through you as clear as the Mother’s mark. I may not care for the others, for the Lamb and it's lies, or for Tzalmavet and his games, and I care less for the futures Tehom has forestalled… If only one of them had brought you my way instead. That THING cannot be released, brother. I shall not see it happen.”

Vagari knit his brows and then said, “What do you mean by that? You won’t let us go?”

“No,” the Leviathan answered as it began to lean forward; ghastly maw opening wide to draw them in, “I won’t let you live!”

“Vagari, watch out!” BP shouted, reaching out in a desperate attempt to stun the creature with her mind. The monstrous thing’s own quickly proved too great, rejecting her intrusion with such force that the psychic backlash nearly knocked her unconscious. Blood sprayed from her nostrils and a blossom of pain bloomed in her skull, but somehow, if just barely, she managed to withstand it. Vagari pulled her up into his arm and threw them both out of the way as the horrid creature’s beak-like jaws came crashing down around the cannon they had just been clinging to. It’s rows of jagged teeth scissored together, sheering the pillar of steel in threes. “You DARE try and control me, little sister?!” Esh’s voice exploded in their minds. “You bastard thing?! ME?! I am Lotan! Têmtum! The World Serpent! I am ESH, the unending fire! Know now my names and be stricken dead with fear and hopelessness, as countless have before you!”

The great demon reared back again, letting loose such a roar that it felt to them as if the world itself shook around them, that fear and hopelessness was truly all there was left. But then, just as death aimed to bare down upon them, fate intervened in the form of a beam of fiery light. The colossus appeared out of nowhere, rising up from its watery grave to strike out at its captor. A bestial shriek of surprise and agony freed itself from Esh’s tendrilled throat as the laser pierced its oily flesh as easy as a knife through paper. The archangel erupted from the acrid waters as violently as the serpent had, but with twice the malevolent intent, wasting no time in sinking its claws into the abyssal creature’s hide before striking true again with its smiting beam.

Vagari stared in a strange mixture of shock, fear, and amazement at the event playing out in front of him. “Run,” he shouted, half to himself, as he took BP by the hand, “BP run!” She hastily wiped the blood from her snout as she lurched to her feet, staggering forward in a dead sprint behind him. Her head swam with a pulsing pain that brought bright blinding lights to her mind’s eye, but all the same BP couldn’t help but dare a look back as he pulled her along. The angel was much larger than it had appeared before, not nearly as titanic as the serpent, but more than enough to contend with it. It was almost beautiful, she thought, shining alabaster with gold and silver trim as bright as the sun despite however long it had been trapped in the tainted depths. “Hold on!” cried Vagari as he threw them both overboard and into a frantic flight away from the dueling giants. He could feel the heat of their battle exploding behind them, scorching his wings as they fled onto the next ship.

They struck hard, skidding across the deck on the ruined boat, nearly falling over into the water on the other side. BP’s tried in vain to regain the wind knocked out of her, but Vagari wouldn’t slow to catch it – they couldn’t. Pausing even for a moment meant death. He could feel in the air, the sky blossoming with pneumatic energies as the monstrous Esh moved to retaliate. BP managed to struggle in a gasp just before he pulled her off her feet once more into another desperate ascent. This time, however, their flight was very short lived. There came a thunderous blast, a sudden eruption of force that sent them crashing into the rotten steal of a forgotten junk. Vagari’s head swam as he attempted to push himself to his feet only to be thrown back down by a second explosion.

Vagari’s vision danced between clarity and ambiguity, between times of absolute vibrance where the world looked as clear as it had ever been, and times where it looked as shattered and fogged as his head felt. “BP… Where are you?” Vagari said, or thought he said, unable to hear the words come out of his mouth. His vision cleared momentarily and he could see her, staring wide-eyed at the sky behind them. She stared, mouth agape, fear and wonder reflected in her bulging gaze. She hadn’t heard him, not over the ringing in her ears, or the thunder that cracked the sky above. Before now, such displays of power were unheard of, unfathomable to her – she was shell-struck by it. Vagari inched towards her, stumbling to his feet as he struggled to reach her. Just then the sky shattered like glass as the demon’s harrowing pneumatic draw ignited around it in an explosion of voltaic magics. “Dyewħrerseħwr bhaskwrengh!” a chthonic voice echoed over the wrathful roar of the storm, Esh howling a curse in Adamic before unleashing a word of power, “Mehghstenh!”

The serpent shouted and the storm bent unto its will. Bolts of fulmination rained from the heavens, crashing down upon the assaulting angel, dancing down its frame, causing it to seize. It had been for but a blink of the eye, but it had been enough for the demon to strike and bare down upon its adversary with the might of its immense jaws. Silvered liquid erupted from between the Leviathan’s jagged teeth as it clenched its jaws around the biomechanical horror’s shoulder. “D-don’t touch it!” Shouted Vagari as the liquid splattered all across the deck. That she heard. BP locked eyes with him and stumbled back away from the metallic ichor. Vagari rushed past her, grabbing her by the backpack to pull her along with him if he had too. “Quickly… We need to escape – BP, now!”

She didn’t argue, scream, or say a thing as he dragged her into the sky once more. BP just stared in shock at what they left in their wake, at the apocalyptic might behind them. Derelict after derelict they fled the battle, but with each infernal burst of energy it felt as if they were being tossed right back into the fire. Once more Vagari leapt, but this time would be the last. With a horrendous crack of thunder he felt himself falling, felt his wings burn and BP being torn from his grasp. He couldn’t hear her scream, but he could read the plea in her eyes. Vagari reached for her, a feeble attempt to salvage an already lost battle. He couldn’t reach her. His face met steel as he came crashing down upon rust and ruin. “No… No… Not again… Not you too…” he thought frantically, trying to keep conscious when the shadows began to overtake him. Now he could hear her screaming, distantly, growing more so with every bated breath. Vagari fought, fought with all his will and might, but ultimately the draw of the abyss overtook him.