“‘The Carving is falling apart. To think I’d live to see this day. I knew I would, I feared it. But I hoped Father’s curse would dispel someday. That I would wake up in paradise, by the side of my caretaker, and of my ward. I hoped it the day the Pygostilans died off. I hoped it when every other Masterwork went to sleep. I hoped it the day when the earth parted and swallowed Felsia. The stars die off, no creature walks the land, and yet you still fly, Unkindness. And yet I breathe. Why?’
‘Because someone needs to carve everything anew, and the All-Carver’s slumber is eternal. I could do it alone, Ald. I won’t. Come, blacksmith. At the feet of that volcano we will forge forth a new existence.’
‘Orphaned?’
‘As it should be.’”
—Conversation between the Creators of the Creators, as the world before the world before the world perished.
Hermatypic was not a word Dirofil had ever expected to use when discussing anything but corals, stromatolites, sponges, or bryozoans — and, to be fair, he had never expected to discuss even the most normal of them after entering the sea of dogs. It was, certainly, not the kind of word he would have ever imagined as being even tangentially related to Cocker Spaniels. Or to the Reaper for, to Dirofil’s fortune, the thing seemed to be dumber than a drunk polyp. It hung in the air in its form of chaotic tangle, slowly drifting away as the Thinker hid under a disc-shaped calcareous outgrow. From the thousand holes of the colonial skeleton long-necked Cockers poked out, their whiskers turned to squirming tentacles. Their legs had decayed, and they seemed to be glued to the colonial structure. Dirofil found himself wondering how they managed to deposit such thick layers of calcite or aragonite — he wasn’t sure which one it was — to create the structure that could be seen in the dead parts of the reef. It probably had to do with the hideous furry coenosarc that covered the living dog-corals. Where the dogs got the necessary elements to synthesize it, though, was a mystery whose answer probably was two simple words: Ex Nihilo. The dogs of the sea didn’t eat, yet for some reason they had beating hearts pumping nourishing blood. For some reason the air was oxygenated. For some reason his mind wandered to the absurd aspects of his world in those tense moments, where he could need to shoot from his hiding place if the Reaper managed to spot him.
The little tentacle-whiskers caressed his mucilage as he cringed against the stem of the structure. Oh, how bothersome were the coral Cockers while he, eye on the tip of his finger, peeked out at the sprawling evil looming over the landscape.
He wanted to rain curses upon the puppy-lit bottom of the layer, but he had no information about the organoleptic capacity of his chaser. Could the Reaper hear? Could it detect heat? Smell? Taste? And if it could, were those senses as twisted as its sight? As long as he didn’t know, remaining as unassuming as possible was the safest bet.
The one left hand that wasn’t relegated to eye-holding duty rested against his core. He covered it jealously, coveted his own life as the ever-present stalking of the Murkhounds tempted him to open his second most valuable possession wide. A blink of the hand, just enough to see soul and cur, to glimpse the world as it presented before the Reaper. A damning second of calm, a lid flutter away. The Reaper could be seen coming, the Reaper let you know you were about to die. The same couldn’t be said of Murkhounds. The idea of life being able to end at any given moment was, perhaps ironically, unthinkable for a thinker. Prior to the sea descending the only ways to be rendered thoughtless had been to cross Lyssav or to overexert one’s core. His ribs felt like a cell, his whole body a prison for a panicked soul. He wanted out of the omnipresent sea, he wanted the tranquility of his spire, of Shadiran’s embrace.
Yet his spire had fallen, and Shadiran waited beyond a layer of all-mauling beasts. All safe havens, all refuges for the soul forgone. His cape intruded his flesh and wrapped around his core, embracing it, spikes pointing outwards, disrupting the natural state of his form, causing a constant unease he tolerated only because it brought the peace of fake safety along itself. Each intrusion of dog matter into his body kept feeling undeniably alien. The eye, the lungs, the teeth. He had absorbed them out of necessity, yet through them the sea sung its wicked mute paean. The only way to survive in the sea of dogs to be replaced by them, liter by liter.
He wanted to let out a subtle weep, a weak lament, but the end watched and quite possibly heard from above. Sorrowful chandelier of the Collie layer, the Reaper was taking its sweet time to leave. And the damned Cockers kept lapping at his arms and shoulders with their twitchy extremities.
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He could jerk an arm and pluck them from their coralites, maybe even tearing off a piece of the coenosarc from the underlying coenostium — or, in layman terms, get them out their cups and rip flesh from the stone. But no. The sea wouldn’t get him to enact pointless violence against these weird creatures. The Chihuahuas were dangerous, if only because of their numbers and teeth. The Cockers were displeasing, but ultimately harmless. More innocent than he could ever be.
On another glance, he realized they resembled Babesi, in a way. It was, maybe, the tendrils on the head, the elongate shape. The playful wiggles. He pulled the finger’s eye back to his face and winked twice as the image fed by both of them aligned and adjusted its focus. Moving made the teeth of the cape dig through his matrix, stirring in him a feeling that couldn’t be described in animal standards, but, suffice to say, resulted unpleasant. He battled against the sensation and his slime constricted the ugly but necessary things in place.
He had to calm himself down. Somehow. But how to do it when the ghost of the end glided overhead?
Perhaps thinking of those that had parted willingly. Of Parvov. He imagined him, and his anguish as he tried to run away from the Reaper while carrying Morbilliv’s core. A defenseless core is a heavy thing. Not physically, but spiritually. One carrying the frail life of another. And it weighs more when that another is your dear brother. Dirofil dared to picture himself carrying Lyssav’s core as he escaped, wondering if he wouldn’t sacrifice it to the creature to save himself. He had to use her for the example, because everyone else he was sure he couldn’t let go. Lyssav provided an easing doubt, let him worry about what Leptos would say if he let his sister perish in such a gruesome way. Of course, it was merely a fantasy. Lyssav would not hesitate or fool around. She would sacrifice anyone but Leptos for a chance to beat and devour the Reaper. That is, if she needed to sacrifice anyone at all. Because if Leptos could be considered the closest thing to divinity to be found in their world, Lyssav was the closest thing to Leptos. He was positive, his sister had surpassed the easy-going Vedala long ago. Maybe she had even surpassed Leptos, and if that was the case… well, that hung another ticking clock on the wall. He would need to hold onto the hope of reaching the Zenith of Concepts before Lyssav enacted her plan, or for something worse than her to inhabit the sea and deal with his sister. And he didn’t want to think there could be things bigger and meaner than the Reaper waiting for him in the deepest layers of the ocean.
He made himself smaller against the calcareous column. The Reaper was leaving at a snail’s pace. When the thing wasn’t on a hunt, it seemed to loiter around aimlessly. It had to be either a very sad existence, or a very tranquil one.
Dirofil’s mind, just like the Reaper, kept wandering. From Parvov, to Shadiran, to his own precarious situation, to the question of the Reapers breed. Was it a Husky?
The Fourth Imagined slid against the cural, descending towards the light. He flowed around the furry stone, a river snaking down an inverted mountain. He slithered silently and with a glacial pace, incorporating and expelling kernels of stone out of his matrix as he advanced.
After an excruciating hour, almost reaching the bottom, he realized the coral reef was supported by a single drifting Rough collie on whose mats of hair, he assumed , the first coral larvae had found a home, beginning to build the colossal structure. The dog scratched his side with a noticeable lack of drive. Disheartened, weak kicks that scratched a bit of the stone that grew beyond his back and invaded its sides. The tail had been incorporated into the fabric of the reef, much like Leptos into his own core. It wouldn’t wag again.
Putting the poor thing out of its misery crossed Dirofil’s mind. Using valuable time to remove the limestone around the tail, setting it free. Letting it dash from left to right and back as it should. But the ocean wouldn’t recognize an act of kindness. The behemoth that had swallowed him —that would eventually swallow everyone— knew not of moral intricacies, endorsed no system to reward good deeds or punish bad ones. The ocean was no arbiter of good nor evil, and no dispenser of it either. Things in the ocean were, a physical mound of careless facts covered in fur. The hounds hunted, the corals grew, the Reaper rendered his kin thoughtless, the Pomeranians spat out green thunder. A mass of dogs, a reality solid and undeniable.
The only punishment for not helping the dog would be the one allotted by his conscience. Could he afford to be the Thinker Leptos thought he was? He preferred to not find out.
This evil, like the Reaper, he would let pass. So he began lowering himself, a stalactite that slowly incorporated the brass bones dense water had dragged along, and dropped over a collie, letting the floating reef behind. If his calculations weren’t wrong, he had to be near the area of Lyssav’s spire. If he crawled out the ocean —and the sole idea was demoralizing— he could either free her to try and earn her favor, or see how much the tides had descended, how far they were from engulfing her spire and unleashing her rage. To free Lyssav, to act against his best self interest in hopes of sparing the Corship and its crew her unheeding ire. To free the wagging tail. Those were the right things to do.
Maybe he could strike a deal. Act like he had left behind the idea of remaking the world, only yearning to see Shadiran once more. Lyssav could watch over them and enact her dream at the same time. So furtively ascending the Zenith… that was an option, if he could reach the other side with her help. It was a risky plan, but not much more than diving into the ocean blind as he had.
It was settled. He would come out the sea, by the bottom, if only to visit his elder siblings, because it was clear Cynothalassa wasn’t to be taken on alone, and because it would be safer to get to Babesi through known terrain: ascending from Leptos spire.