Interlude 3.11: World Ender

Six months before the Battle of Fifth Peak.

Jemi was crouching beneath the shadow of the trees, listening to the water.

Shhhhhhhhh… it went, like a whispered secret.

A waterfall was up ahead. Around her, the jungle air was sticky and humid, the smell of wet mossy rock invading her nostrils. Sweat poured down her back, soaking into the cotton of her tunic. The festering heat was only meagrely alleviated by the billow of her hunting cloak and skirt about her legs. Jemi raised her head and swept her perspiration-soaked blond hair out of her eyes as she peered through the foliage.

From her cloakpockets, she unsheathed two gleaming daggers. Carefully, she crept out and towards the waterfall.

Jemi was months into her search for the fabled Kraken. Queen Medusa had told her to look for it, claiming that it had recently resurfaced, and that it was a valuable key to overthrowing Mount Casca for good. The first chance in three thousand years. The Queen had insisted Jemi take leave from Den work to focus her efforts on the search.

In the meantime, Jemi had placed Aunt Liz in charge. However, not wanting to stress the elderly Beast too much, the Cockatrice wanted to conclude her search as soon as possible. But it hadn’t been easy, and Jemi understood why Medusa had wanted her to take official leave. Just unearthing information on the Kraken had been a mammoth undertaking. And then there was actually searching for the damn thing. Jemi's search had led her to several dead ends. She heard its whispers in the air, the water, but the Kraken proved to be an elusive creature. It was easily spooked, so the Cockatrice could not bring other Beasts with her; this was a task for her alone.

But this time, she had a good feeling. She could hear the chittering of the Kraken just ahead of her, behind that waterfall. It was louder than ever, insistent, like a siren’s call. Jemi did not draw herself towards it as much as the sound drew her.

The rush of pounding water intensified as Jemi approached. Mist sprayed her cheeks, providing some much-needed respite from the heat. This was a place off the beaten path where even the most adventurous human hikers would not venture. Midway up the height of the waterfall, Jemi had scaled along a craggy cliff-face to get here, and it was a sheer drop of hundreds of metres down below. Jemi took her time with the climb, using one dagger to clear vegetation and the other to jab into the cliff for support, while her boots teetered precariously on a spur of slippery rock. The sticky soles of the Cockatrice would’ve helped, but she wanted to conserve Lunaki while in daylight. She’d need as much of it as she could save for later.

As Jemi drew closer to the waterfall, though, something felt off. In the previous times she had gotten close to the Kraken, it announced its presence via an all-subsuming cold. Right now, it was colder for sure; her ears were plugging up, a numbness ringing in her skull and spreading through her bones. But it wasn’t on the same magnitude as before. If Jemi had to describe it, being in the vicinity of the Kraken was close to what she’d felt like when she had first dropped herself into the moon: a cold so harsh that it felt impossible to breathe. With each inhalation, it was like cutting shards bloomed in her lungs, creeping over her heart in a way that seemed to freeze the blood in her veins, slowing down time to a crawl. This was nothing like that, even though she clearly heard the Kraken up ahead.

Chewing her lip, Jemi stabbed her knives into the next section of cliff and swung herself onto the final slab of rock with a burst of Lunaki strength. She thinned her eyes as she ducked through the curtain of water. Once she was beyond, she exhaled, wiping the streams trickling down her face out of her eyes.

Behind the waterfall, there was a cave. It was swallowed by darkness; the sunlight from outside seemed caught within the streaming water that doored the hollow, unable to advance. Fortunately, the Cockatrice had inherited a snake’s night-vision as opposed to a chicken’s. As the Beast stepped into the cave, she could see the details of the cave walls; rather, the lack thereof. The walls were slippery and smooth, like a polished marble. Certainly, a phenomenon commonly explained by decades’ worth of water-induced erosion. Except that… no water had ever passed through this cave. This was the trademark sign of the Kraken’s passing. The icy texture of the rock indicated it had been recently here, too. Still, the odd feeling that it wasn’t cold enough persisted.

Wringing out her dripping hair, Jemi continued to walk towards the back of the cave. She then stopped, just short of a steep drop downwards. Had her eyesight been any worse she would not have been able to spot it. A ravine led down into a yawning, interminable blackness. She tossed a chunk of rock down, but after waiting and waiting, she heard no sound. There was no telling how far down it went.

Jemi considered this. She tested the floor beneath her feet with her dagger. Nothing. It was too slick and too tough for any blade to be inserted in. So, she headed back outside, found the sturdiest tree root she could, and knotted the end of a rope around it.

Coming back inside, she tied the rest of the rope around her waist. She crawled on all fours towards the edge. She stretched a leg over and tested the surface of the wall with her foot. As expected, it was as slippery as the rest of the cave. She would find no footholds, or friction which would aid her in a rappel.

Just as she thought, then.

Jemi took a deep breath and braced herself. Then, she allowed herself to slide over the edge.

The Cockatrice fell. Rapidly, the rope unfurled in the span of seconds, and when it reached its full length, her spine snapped on impact.

Like a hanged man, Jemi dangled there in the darkness for who knew how long. Eventually, when she woke up, she was suspended by her waist, her hair and clothes dry. Resurrected—thanks to her life debt. Her legs and upper body hung slack, her body rotating slightly this way and that in the black chasm.

Grabbing onto the rope, she swung her torso up, letting the blood that had been pooling in her head drain slowly back into her body. She was swinging in midair, the one wall she had dropped over gone as well. There was nothing for her to prop her feet or hands against. Her only tether to the outside world was the cord around her waist.

Jemi breathed thickly. This far down, the sounds of the jungle and the rush of the waterfall were only a distant memory. She could not hear her own movements or coughs. It was complete silence and darkness. Jemi was afraid of neither. Only that, with the silence, came the voices and faces.

The ghosts.

“Cockatrice, Cockatrice, do you remember me?”

Jemi had not summoned any light. She should not have been able to see. And yet, as she spun around on the rope, she saw the face of a human boy. He was hanging upside-down beside her, swaying from side-to-side. Several more were hanging with him, leering in her face from every direction as she swivelled around. Old and young, small and large. Their disembodied voices chattered in her ears.

Jemi shivered. She tried to look down to see how much farther she had to go, but all she saw were hands reaching out for her. Hands covered in blood, wild and flailing. Ordinarily she had trained herself to ignore things like these. But rarely had she ever found herself in such stark silence, all alone, with nothing to ground her. And now the voices were crying louder than ever.

I was innocent, but you killed me like I was a traitor!

Was it worth it? Exchanging the hostages for a few crates of weapons? I had my whole life in front of me!

Why? Why me? I told you everything. I said I told you everything!

Jemi could not think any more. She was completely incapable of forming rational thought. She just had to get out of here, get out of here, leave—she grabbed a dagger from her pocket and started to saw through the rope securing her. While she did so, she started screaming, trying to drown out the noise, but she couldn’t hear herself at all. Get out get out get out—

The hemp snapped.

Jemi continued to plummet. Whistling wind ripped past her ears. But also, faintly, she heard the beating of wings. And a strange current of warmth. It was like… the warmth of some powerful angel. Yellow-hued light bloomed at the edges of her vision.

An angel was down here.

Ennanis?...

What a silly notion. Ennanis Zoleil couldn’t be down here. And if it was her, Jemi would be dead by now.

Thinking fast, Jemi shifted to Cockatrice form. She would need all the power she could get. As her veins filled with moonlight, her senses sharpened, the fatigue in her muscles fading into the distance. Dragging out her bow as she fell mid-air, she fired an arrow. One of the few good things about being part-chicken was her superior head stability. This arrow sailed into the gloom. The walls of the abyss were too firm and smooth for an arrow to be lodged in. But that also meant they would ricochet off the walls. While ripping through the air at terminal velocity, it was easier to aim for the wall than aim at the angel below. Furthermore, this way, the angel wouldn’t be able to tell her location. This way, the Cockatrice sent about five arrows pinballing down the abyss. At the speed she was falling, she was rapidly closing in on the angel’s level. That was fine. Jemi’s plan was to rip right past and continue falling on.

But then, all of a sudden, Jemi’s fall began to slow. It was as if the air had started to gelate, thickening until it was like she was drifting underwater. The Beast blinked. Her black skirts floated up around her. She had ceased falling.

Pushing her arms out, she swished her feathered tail like a boat’s rudder, swimming through the sluggish, cold fog that she seemed to be suspended within.

Then, suddenly, she twisted herself through the fabric of the air to face behind her.

Her cocked gun was aimed straight at the angel.

The man was still far away, but Soleki shimmered off his figure, wisping through the air like slowly-spreading honey in tea. His wings weren’t beating, merely the edges of the feathers fluttering slightly. It was as if he was suspended within the air, same as her.

Angel and Beast floated through the air, staring at each other. Through the birdmask, the Cockatrice squinted at him.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she demanded.

“That gun might not fire in here,” said the angel.

POW!

The angel hastily jerked his head to the side as a bullet sailed past his ear. Vibration tremoured through the air as the bullet smashed into the far wall.

“I think it’s good enough.” Expression flat, the Cockatrice reloaded. “I won’t miss next time.”

The angel put his hands up. “Hey, I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Great, because I am. Name.”

“I’m Atlas,” answered the angel immediately. Hands still up, he kicked his legs in order to ‘swim’ closer. The Cockatrice kept her gun trained on him. Her eyes widened as the angel’s features came into view. The Soleki wafting off him illuminated the man's platinum-blond hair and stubble, slitted eyes.

“...You’re the Chief Marshal,” she uttered.

The Chief Marshal of the angels did not show his face often. He was normally up above the clouds, giving directions from Mount Casca. He only came down in relatively grave scenarios. There were recent rumours that the Chief Marshal had gone missing.

“Cockatrice, I know that you’re after the Kraken,” Chief Marshal Atlas said. “I came here to stop you. You mustn’t form a pact with it. It is too much for the Beasts or anyone to bear.”

The Cockatrice’s eyes narrowed. She scoffed. “Sure. Look, why don’t you just get out of my way, old man? I’m not in the business of fighting geriatrics.”

“Princess, you must take this seriously,” said Atlas. His face was grave. “This goes beyond the sun and the moon. Emperor Prometheus has foreseen what will happen if I allow you to take the Kraken. It is one of the ancient fundaments of the world. Some things should not be tampered with at any cost, and nature is one of them. It is impossible to maintain control over such a being. Even should you succeed in overtaking the sun, your actions will ultimately bring about the demise of all extant species. There has to be another way.”

“Nag and nag and nag,” the Cockatrice mocked. “Nice try. Bring tea and cakes next time, it might make listening to you more tolerable. Let’s get you back to the nursing home now, shall we?” Sparks flying off her dark gown, the air charged up with silver electricity, crackling and converging on the barrel of her outstretched gun. Her finger pushed on the trigger. “Goodni-”

“Wait, Jemisha!”

The Cockatrice froze. At the last second, her gloved hands jerked, diverting the barrel. The supercharged bolt of magic blasted upwards. It slammed into a ceiling somewhere, its explosion reverberating through the chasm.

In the same breath, the Cockatrice had barrelled straight into the angel. Using a gust of Lunaki, she sent both of them careening into the far wall of the void. There, the Beast pinned him to the wall with her knife.

“How do you know that name?” she growled.

The Chief Marshal regarded her for a long moment. His blonde hair blew in an unseen breeze. He was breathing deeply, his slitted eyes trembling. Finally, he said,

“Of course I'd remember the name I gave my daughter.”

The Cockatrice’s inhale stopped in her throat.

A/N: FLHT is being uploaded to a variety of websites without the author's consent e.g. Novel / Phoe / nix. Please note that this story is being uploaded officially for free to Scri / bble / hub, Tapas, Royal Road and Honeyfeed. If you are reading on any other website, please support the original platforms!

-snowlily54