Everything, Including the Stars, is Falling

When Poseidon Wins

Sometimes, when you come against dark forces, they win. Especially when their weapons of warfare aren’t carnal. The Marshes have discovered as much. Slings and arrows and claws and compromise do little good against the evils of the unseen realms.

If you know your ancient history, you may catch some of the connections in todays chapter. This tale has ties to old, old stories.

If you missed the last chapter, tap here to catch up on it. If you need to start from the beginning, tap here to go to the chapter list.

This is the penultimate chapter. The end is near.

Everything, Including the Stars, is Falling

Cole and Lily huddled together in the underground temple. Tannites behind them. The dark lord under the mountain of Tannigath in front of them. Ezekiel crushed before them.

Apkallu drew the damp air deeply into his lungs and smiled. The scene before him was delicious in his eyes.

The brides. The blood. The children. He rose his nose to draw in the iron scent that filled the chamber. He trembled with anticipation of how his remaining faithful would love him.

Jeremiah backed his scaly skin up into Cole and Lily. He turned and looked at his wife and son, black eyes deep with sorrow and regret. She railed her fists onto him, trying to get the thing away. He held one webbed claw out to them, palm up. Cole stopped her. “Mom, I think this one is dad.”

She pushed against Cole. “He did this to himself! He brought us down here! It’s his fault!” she spat as she frantically skipped her eyes from threat to threat.

The Tannite that was Jeremiah sagged his shoulders and sighed. There was still fight left in him but he was getting tired. He gave Cole a glance with his dark eyes, squared his shoulders, and rushed into the encircling Tannites.

Erets was a froth of green skin and webbed claw. Fins rose and fell. The blood of men who had become sea dragons sprayed in the air and spattered the ground. As Cole watched the mass of monsters writhe with indiscernible motion, his eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped slack. Lily held her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook and she cried.

“You still have a promising life in me, woman,” said Apkallu from his perch on high. “Meaning beyond your wildest dreams. All my glory can be yours.” The beast drew in a breath that swelled his chest and shoulders. Lily’s entire body sagged, then she nodded her head.

“Take your son to the altar for our final consummation,” said the lord under the mountain.

“Cole, baby, come on,” said Lily. “I don’t see any other way.”

“Stop!” Cole shouted at her. “It doesn’t have to be this way!”

“Yes, honey. It does. Look around. I don’t have any choice. What other way is there?”

“You could fight it!”

Apkallu laughed at his remark. “Boy, you cannot fight love.”

Cole pointed at the beast. “You lie! All you do is lie! All these priestesses of yours lie! You make liars out of people!”

Apkallu shrugged with a smirk and pointed at the stone table. “Altar, my love.”

Lily pulled at Cole’s shirt and he pulled it away from her. He smoothed out the wrinkle with his hand and walked to the altar himself. He climbed up on it and knelt and prayed in silence.

Apkallu approached the boy on the stone table. “The Canaanites of old gave their love to me and I loved them in blood. Weak souls fell before them. Their mighty men of valor would raise their spears and offer their young to me in tribute.” He paced as he spoke, and his voice grew in volume and conviction with every word. “Dagon is my name, lord of the deep. I led the charge, riding the lightning down upon Hermon where we took our first wives. For times beyond earthly days, I have waited, sleeping under the mountain. Unjustly, I was bound to the gloomy dungeon below the waters. Chaos is my home. My image fell and shattered but my wrath was kindled in the deep. I would have their love again.” Apkallu stopped and raised his voice to every boy, woman, Tannite and orb that could hear. “I am the great sea dragon of Gath, and I will accept this tribute!”

As the shadow beast monologued in the dark, Cole thought of light. He thought of all the good he could remember before the accident. He remembered the meals Lily had made for him. He remembered the stories she’d tell and the laughter in the house. Encouraging words Lily had spoken to him began to outweigh what he had heard from her in these caverns.

Apkallu beckoned to the side of the altar where Heather had hidden from the fighting. Amber lay on the cavern floor, trampled by the Tannites. Apkallu stepped on her pulp as he ascended the steps to his crooked throne where he would observe the tribute.

Cole remembered the sayings Jeremiah would tell him when he needed to be strong.

“We have to carry the fire.”

“We have to fight in the shade.”

Whatever any of those things meant, he wasn’t quite sure. The most important thing to him was he could still hear Jeremiah’s voice saying them to him.

Heather licked her lips as she ran her fingers along the edge of the altar. Cole remembered Jeremiah telling him how proud he was of him because he knew how to persevere through a struggle. The struggle would make him stronger than his peers who didn’t have to try or who gave up when the road became dark. Clearly, he needed those words as much as he thought his son did.

“Sing the song,” Heather purred in Cole’s ear. She leaned down and kissed his cheek. Cole thought she smelled like raspberries and root beer. “We will be together. You’re home now.”

Black fog and shadows once again began to billow and roll down from Apkallu. He rubbed his hands together and bared his teeth as his eyes glowed with crimson fire.

A beat. Time stood still.

Cole closed his eyes. He waited. He held his words.

Dad and mom would be so proud of him. He had struggled to holds his words as long as he could remember. It was the easiest thing in the world to let whatever he had to say flow out of him with anger and passion. In this moment, he controlled his tongue and it did not control him. A single purple light shimmered over Cole and the altar.

He loved them. For all their faults, they had loved him. The world became crystal clear to Cole. The failures. The crying, the sulking, the hollowing out that had happened to Jeremiah and Lily through their own actions cut him deep. They were his parents and the closest people to him. Each failure was a wound for the ages. Yet, even through the fog of failures and twisting lies of demon lords, Cole saw their love with a crystal clarity.

All the wrongs. All the words. All the fights. All the loss.

He absorbed it all. Cole took the hurt, took a breath, and accepted whatever may come.

“I will not sing your song. You have no power over me, demon.”

Apkallu clutched the arms of his throne as he glared at the boy.

Cole turned to his parents, hugged them and said, “I forgive you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the altar broke and the temple began to shake. Tannites began seizing and fell to the floor, rolling and shrieking in agony. Heather’s eyes went black as her mouth gaped in a scream. Needle teeth sprang from behind her ruby lips and gnashed at the cool air before she withered and collapsed.

Apkallu grasped the arms of his throne as the fire in his eyes dimmed. The walls of Erets began to rumble.

Cole climbed off the pile of rubble and Lily ran to him. She wrapped her arms around her son and squeezed him tight. The air grew thick with pressure. As Cole hugged her back, the walls of Erets began to crack. Water rushed in from the sides and ceiling and began to pool around the floor. The roof of the temple split wide in an earth shattering tremor and the sea rushed in.

As the water began to rise above Cole and Lily’s feet, they searched for high ground. The only place to go was Apkallu’s throne.

Above them, panicked and angry, the dark lord seethed. Black smoke rolled off him like raw fuel burning. His dimming had only lasted a moment. His fists slammed to the arms of the throne. Heat waves rippled in the air around him and his eyes burned and wept like lava. Now, Apkallu was a storm cloud of unrighteous wrath, writhing with all the fury of the sea.

The air began to pop and crackle with static. Like the pressure before a storm, the air grew dense and thick. Cole held his mother tight as she cried and looked for anything to find safety in. She choked and gasped as the air in her lungs became heavy. From the chasm that had opened over their heads, a bolt of purple lightning that shone with all the glory of a rising sun shot down through the darkness and struck the throne where Apkallu sat.

True Royals

It’s hard to believe I’m saying this, but the next chapter is where the story will come to an end. There is only one chapter left in The Story of the Marsh Boy. It’s been almost a year since chapter one where Jeremiah was trying to talk to Cole about writing a paper for school.

We all face proverbial giants every day. Some from without. Many from within.

Don’t give up. Your life will not be free of giants nor of the waves they command.

Keep on fightin’ Poseidon. Even when he rages.

One day at a time.

~ J.P. Simons