Black Leviathan by Bernd Perplies

Author:Bernd Perplies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

18

The Cloudmere Floor

Fifth Day of the Sixth Moon, year 841

The fall into the abyss seemed to last forever. Through storm, rain, and darkness, they dropped deeper and deeper. At first, Lian cried out along with the panicked raptor. Then both went silent. Lian began to pray to the Winds, with desperate hope that one of the four would mercifully send a miracle to a lost soul like him, who rarely paid deference. The animal, now close to death, tenaciously flapped its wings as though all would be well if only it could find its way back to the comfort of its den.

Lian knew that the creature’s hopes were foolish. He knew what the spear burrowed into the dragon’s belly meant. The dragon would perish, and Lian along with it as soon as it realized the fruitlessness of its fight and ceased its struggle.

Why am I deceiving myself? Lian thought. One way or another, he was done for. Nothing ever returned once it met the Cloudmere floor.

Lian wondered if the Winds’ powers reached as far as the depths. Could the Southern Wind carry him to the warm place where his father and Canzo awaited him? The idea of meeting his friend so soon was a bitter comfort. Lian wished he could change his fate to live out a long life in Skargakar, on solid land, with his friend at his side, but it was too late for that now.

What if the Winds never found him? Maybe his would be just another damned soul lost to eternal cold and damp darkness. Perhaps he was destined to roam the abyss, a pale, restless phantom among the fog, for all eternity.

Was there even a bottom to the Cloudmere’s depths? The folk of Skargakar assumed so. But if no one had ever returned from its depths, how could they be certain? Lian could just as easily continue to fall, farther and farther, until he died from hunger and thirst.

His mind raced. Completely powerless, his fate now dangled in the raptor’s talons. Staring into the darkness, he couldn’t make out any forms. High above them, lightning lit the sky, and muffled thunder rumbled in the distance. Even in these flashes of light, Lian saw only thick and endless clouds as he rushed downward.

The rain lessened as the storm abated somewhat farther down, though it was impossible to tell whether thick clouds shielded Lian or if the storm lost strength with the increasing depths. The lightning dimly lit the all-encompassing fog, which began to dissipate around him. Indiscernibly at first, Lian realized complete darkness no longer surrounded him. He spotted a weak, sickly, green fleck of light beneath him—a peculiar light that rapidly grew larger as they neared.

For a moment, Lian forgot his fear. There was something below them. Could it be the Cloudmere floor? Was it possible that there was life there after all, as foreign or unhallowed as it might be?

I’ll never find out, thought Lian. When I hit the ground, I’ll die instantly. Sorrow overcame him.

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