They floated so effortlessly, bodies lent buoyancy with the absence of memory. They were oblivious, ignorant to what their lives might have been when their feet lacked webs and could abide the feel of land beneath them. They were blind to the meaning of the rising and setting of the sun. They were deaf to the world, save the wailing chorus of the Prophet’s twin mouths, which he could not abide, and the distant call of Mother Deep, which he could not yet hear.
And, he thought resentfully, they sacrificed nothing.
They gave themselves fully, ate of the fruit of the Shepherd’s births, and were freed from their memories and the embrace of greedy, lying gods. He had abstained, at the Prophet’s request. He had become the Mouth and was denied their serenity, their bliss.
Their freedom …
And he … hehad given everything. He had abstained from the embrace of Mother Deep’s children, and for what? That he could be tormented still with his own ignorance? Taunted with the years he had wasted on a goddess that spared not his family? Agonised with the visions of their faces, the memories of their laughter?
And now, now they asked him to return to the land, to bear the stain of solid ground and recall the memories they had promised to take away from him. What he saw when he looked up across the channel at the docks he had walked off of, following three voices in the night, was a return to sinful memory and the company of ignorant airbreathers.
Not the salvation he had been promised.
‘And for what?’ he muttered. ‘This brings us no closer to the book.’
‘An ocean is a vast and tremulous thing,’ the Prophet replied coolly. ‘Its sheer magnitude makes it incomprehensible to view with mortal eyes. Where a gale blowing from the west may seem separate from a wave roaring in the east, they meet in the middle as a raging maelstrom.’ The shadow of the fish’s body paused thoughtfully. ‘And even then, it cannot be fully fathomed unless viewed from below.’
He could see flashes of white in the darkness as two broad mouths split open in wide, fanged smiles.
‘She sees where we cannot,’ the Heralds burbled in agreement. ‘Thinks in ways we cannot comprehend. The maelstrom whirls, swirls chaotically, inexplicably.’
‘But it is nonetheless felt,’ the Prophet added quietly. ‘The Mouth should not concern itself with the book. Mother Deep has seen to its return.’
He might have asked how. How could any creature, even one that made such promises and delivered such freedom as Mother Deep, affect anything beyond the bonds of her prison? How could she promise the salvation so freely, knowing that hers was a hand still wrapped in chains?
He might have asked, but recalled too keenly the wisdom of the Shepherds, delivered from their gaping jaws to the unworthy grasped in their oozing claws.
Memory was a burden. Knowledge was a sin.
‘A key, after all,’ the Prophet continued, ‘is but one part of a door. There must be hinges upon it to swing and hands to turn the knob.’ Golden gazes drifted toward the distant city. ‘If those hands should be freed from unjust bondage, so much the better.’
‘Better,’ the Heralds echoed. ‘The sons need a father. The faithful need a leader.’
Beneath the waves, something stirred in agreement.
Below, he saw the thousand glossy stares of the faithful turn in unison toward the city, as though something had called to them in a great, echoing call. Darkness stirred beneath them, where the light did not dare to touch, and he saw the great white stares of the Shepherds rise to add their attention.
It angered him that he could not hear what they heard, see what they saw. Before them loomed a prison in their eyes, an unjust and foul dungeon of stone and wind wherein lay the salvation he could not claim. All he could see was the lies and hate that had driven him to the deep in the first place.
What they heard, he could only make out faintly. Even as far away as he was, through the roiling waves and over the murmur of wind, he could hear it. Slowly, steadily, with a patience that had outlasted mountains and earth, it droned like small hands upon a large door.
A single heart, beating.
He supposed, he thought dejectedly, he should be thankful that he was blessed enough to hear even that. His ears burned enviously with thoughts of what the congregation might hear, what bliss it might bring minds wiped clean of memories and lies.
‘Impatience does not become the position She chose you for,’ the Prophet said coldly, as though sensing his thoughts.
‘At times, the reason for my choosing becomes obscured,’ he replied just as brusquely.
‘Is devotion no longer reason enough?’ the Prophet asked.
‘Recall the maelstrom,’ the Heralds agreed. ‘It is-’
‘I cannotsubsist on metaphors,’ the Mouth snarled suddenly, his patience lost in a sudden surge of grief. ‘Words do nothingto diminish the memories, to make me forget that Iam denied the gifts of Mother Deep that are promised to the less faithful!’
‘In time!’ the Heralds squawked in protest. ‘In time, there will be-’
‘Will be what?’ His frustration inspired words that he knew he should not speak, gave force to will that he knew was sinful. ‘All your promises, all your great plans have availed us nothing! The tome is lost, the longfaces drive back the faithful time and again, even desecrating the Shepherds with their vile poisons! And now, while they sniff out the book like landborne hounds, yousit here and point me toward the very city I turned to you to free myself of?’
He drew in a sharp breath whose saltless taste was yet not foul on his lips. He narrowed eyes that were not glossed over, clenched fists that were not webbed, as weak, sinful emotion came flooding into him.
‘Occasionally, Prophet,’ the man hissed, ‘gales and walls of water are nothing more than mere winds and waves, each without substance.’
Satisfaction was something he knew he should not feel. It was, like all sensations outside of unrelenting devotion, a sin, and he made himself stern with the knowledge that it would be punished. He imagined himself being torn to shreds by the Prophet’s shriek, the same wailing doom that had wrought ruin upon the faithless and blasphemers that stood in the way of the faithful.
Perhaps, he thought, that was as close to hearing the harmony in its words as he would ever come.
The Prophet circled his outcropping silently. The Heralds’ relentless crowing had fallen silent; they tilted their heads right side up in curiosity. The golden eyes were dark below. The congregation was still, suspended motionless in the water. Even the white stares of the Shepherds had vanished, as though afraid of what wrath awaited their former preacher, Ulbecetonth’s Mouth.
But after several painful breaths, all that emerged from below was a pair of melodic whispers.
‘Our pity is well given to you,’ the Prophet said softly. ‘Perhaps we have become too much like the Gods that ignore your cries. But we are not deaf …’ The voices snaked up like vocal tendrils, caressing him with slender, shimmering sound. ‘Your agonies are heard. Your faith shall be rewarded.
‘You wish your sinful memories to be absolved, the tragedy of your life to be eased inside your mind,’ the Prophet continued. ‘It shall be done. Yours will be ears closer to the Mother’s song than any of the faithful. All that is asked of you is that you grant Her one more favour.’
He drew in another deep breath, felt his heart pound with anticipation.
‘Free the Father,’ one Herald whispered, its voice carried on the wind.
‘End the injustice of his imprisonment,’ another hissed.
‘Lead the faithful to salvation,’ more crowed.
‘Free him,’ they burbled. ‘Free him … free him … free him …’
‘Let him crush the earth beneath his feet again.’ The Prophet’s voices silenced the chorus. Gold eyes turned upward again, burning with purpose. ‘Liberate Daga-Mer.’