Part of the old verse about His shell came unbidden into his head.
…Garamoush saw nature grow
Up from girlhood
She gave Him a shell
He gave us knowledge,
Protection, guidance,
His shell, like His body
Is just another face
To His many appearances
Of Greatness
“Look deep”
He said
“Deep inside of me”
“For it is where my knowledge comes”
He speaks in riddles
Lest we lesser creatures wrestle His divinity away
“Make pilgrimage”
“Into my labyrinth shell”
He would say
Heed Him well, you lesser creatures
Us lesser creatures
His knowledge cannot be claimed
Only earned
If not by advantage
Then by adventure…
What the singers of that story often failed to note, however, was that to enter His shell was treasonous and sinful on an uncountable number of levels. Stenn had even seen a few poor sods dragged into the dark underworks of the Ministry’s Granite Citadel for heretical offences much less severe than entering His shell. Not only were they never seen after that point, but they were never even spoken about. It was as if the Ministry erased them from history.
Stenn looked about. He bit his lip as a new layer of sweat formed along his forehead. He wagered that it was unlikely that anybody could see him if he decided to poke his head in and although members of the Ministry were just barely out of earshot; Stenn had gone too long in his life being afraid of them. Stenn knew perfectly well that what he was doing would probably be considered a great sin by the Ministry, but if he just took a quick look… A quick look for a good reason…
“Hello?” Stenn called, stepping up into the hole. It looked more like the mouth of a cave now that he got to take a good look at it. Only his echoes responded to his call. “Hello?” he called again. “Uh… young ma’am? Are you in there?” Stenn waited, but again only heard his own dwindling voice talking back to him. It made his skin crawl to think about it, but as far as he knew, he could be standing right on top of that poor girl at that very moment. She could be underneath Garamoush’s shell, pulverized into the sand and dirt like a post driven in with hammer. Stenn tried to shake the thought out of his head.
Stenn swallowed hard as his thoughts drifted to his child. Little Eym needed to know her father was, without a doubt, going to be coming back alive and well. But the lost girl’s parents, whoever they might be, deserved the same peace of mind. In a way, the familiar warm buzzing in the head of a duty unfulfilled, one of a father, if not in practice than in theory, made up Stenn’s mind.
Am I really playing hero like I’m from some child’s fable? Stenn thought. I suppose I am.
And then there’s the Ennets… Stenn, along with the friends and colleagues of the Ennet family even held a funeral for in their honor three years ago. At first, the Ministry’s Knights and Justices kept a careful eye on Garamoush’s shell so that they might arrest Samuel and anybody who had gone in with him. But, years later, even the Ministry had given up the hope that either of the Ennets was still alive. But there Stenn was, standing at the cusp of an entirely different world, the same world where a man who once meant the world to him had disappeared into. No, Stenn thought, he’s gone. He and Marianne and any who came with them.
“This isn’t for me,” he mumbled. “This isn’t to set my mind at ease. It’s to set some poor worried parent’s mind at ease.” When he said it all out loud it seemed to make much more sense. I’m going to be coming back, Stenn assured himself. I gave Eym my word as a father. He called one last time but entered into the deep dark of the shell even before his echoes died away.
The cavern Stenn found himself in was one almost unnervingly close to human architecture. Bone made up the trusses and pillars that supported walls and ceilings of warm red flesh. The floor, made of the same fleshy material, was remarkably firm. The squelching sound his heavy feet made was almost negligible to his ears. But, as a worrying testament to the length of the cave, if it could honestly be called a cave, was that the sound still echoed a good ways before fading into the thick darkness. The whole atmosphere smelt and felt… cold. Like raw meat covered in a layer of frost. Stenn was fully aware going into Garamoush’s shell that it was unlike the shell of a usual tortoise or turtle. His shell was an extension of His living flesh. Stenn was certain that the fleshy material in the cavernous space was actually part of Garamoush’s own body. He would look over his shoulder every few steps. The cave hardly ever bent, rose, or fell, but the brightened path to the outside world was quickly getting dimmer the further he pressed onwards.
Eventually, only his hand and careful walking was a reliable guide to him when the light from outside failed to reach him. Looking ahead into the endless darkness, he couldn’t help remembering what Lord Samuel Ennet had written about the deep ocean in On Natural Forces.
Light, he had written, and Stenn’s mind recited in Ennet’s characteristically high and bookish voice, is not infinite. Stenn noticed that when he blinked now, there was no difference in the light or dark. The further one goes down into the depths of the ocean, Stenn’s hands could reach out and touch both sides of the walls now; the tunnel was becoming narrower, the less light ultimately reaches. Stenn checked over his shoulder. The light was hardly a grain now. And the darker the deep ocean waters become.” Sten called out again, twice in a row. The sound of his echoing voice played a trick on his mind, making him think he heard a deep rumbling. I would exercise extreme caution… Ennet’s voice said. The rumbling came again, this time unbidden by Stenn, … when investigating the unknown and mysterious depths.
The next time the rumbling came, Stenn was thrown to the wall. It was louder and longer this time. The wall became the floor. Then it became the ceiling. Garamoush was Stirring again. The last speck of light faded away and Stenn’s head hit a length of bone hard. He didn’t even know his eyes were closed until half his body went numb and he passed into unconsciousness.
Part 2