Sir Bearach gave no response, leaving both in deathly silence.

Fionn’s flames revealed many irregularities within the cavern. Whereas the previous room had been formed directly in the mountain’s body, this room seemed to be built separately, for a different purpose. Oddly shaped stone columns re-enforced the walls, pointed and jagged at strange angles.

Just like Meadhbh’s temple. Fionn swallowed. Of course, it would make sense for both deities to dwell in similar structures, with architecture far removed from anything else in Alabach.

With equal inconsistency, the cavern’s spaciousness changed repeatedly as he went, from walkways between walls so close together they threatened to trap him, to wide, high-ceilinged corridors that seemed to never end.

You hear that? Bearach whispered abruptly. Your light, lad. Kill it.

Fionn’s torch quelled to an ember as he listened intently. Somewhere among his own staggered breathing and his beating heart, another pounding resounded through the caves. Though this was too irregular to be a heartbeat, and too loud to be organic.

Wraiths? Fionn conjured images of more cloaked men beating war-drums, patrolling through the caves.

With increased caution, he carried on forward, led by nothing more than a dim light. The pounding grew louder as he went, but something stranger joined it. A hum. A low, hideous hum like a voice rasping through lungs clogged with phlegm.

Don’t stop, Fionn thought, creeping forward. The dim light at his fingertips revealed that the corridor had widened once more. Bright blue slabs replaced the drab stone floor, catching Fionn’s embers in their reflection.

The strange noise grew to an abrupt crescendo; faster beats, louder hums. The clamour stopped Fionn in fright.

We are not alone here.

Gritting his teeth, Fionn poured his power into his hands, illuminating the great chamber. Light fell over the stone floor, the walls, and the source of the sound, in the centre of room.

No!

Immediately before Fionn, a great mass of squirming tentacles rose like a tower, each tendril writhing madly. Hundreds of feet tall, it loomed over Fionn, disappearing somewhere in the darkened ceiling overhead.

Amongst the glistening mound, countless eyes glared out, bloodshot and lidless. Their pupils dilated in the light of Fionn’s torch, twisting and turning in their bleeding sockets. Further up, two giant wings emerged from the horrendous form, crooked grey feathers distorted out of shape.

The thing shook again, sending all its eyes rolling, its tentacles twisting, its wings beating, and it let out another cry. High in pitch, the sound cut against Fionn’s skin like razors, freezing him with such unspeakable terror that every bone in his body could have screamed back if they could. And if they did, all Fionn would have heard was the terrible cry of this… being.

This terror reached heights Fionn had never known before, when he realised what this thing was.

Seletoth!

Taking in every inch of the shapeless mass of eyes and limbs, Fionn hardly noticed he now sat on his knees, jaw agape.

“Who?” Fionn stammered. “Why—”

A voice tore through Fionn’s soul. The faceless thing itself did not speak, but some strange influence penetrated the mage’s mind, leaving words that stung like insects, burrowing through his skull.

“You have defied destiny to come here. You have cast off the chains that bond you. Yet you ask only… why?”

“Yes,” whispered Fionn. Sir Bearach remained silent. “I… We have so many questions. So—”

“And they will be answered,” the thing continued. “For I am the Dawn of Creation, the Dusk of Destruction. The Beginning of all you know, and the End of all that there is. I am Seletoth, your Lord and God.”

An image of darkness flooded Fionn’s mind, speckled with bright stars spread amongst a void. Not unlike the star-charts of astronomers back in Penance, Fionn saw what appeared to be the night’s sky. Then the image shifted, moving away from a fixed position and showing more of the sky than Man could have known. Huge expanses of darkness and light. Giant balls of fire, immeasurable in size, burned with the brightness of a thousand suns. Other circular shapes sped past; emerald and cobalt spheres hanging in nothingness.

Another shape shot through the scene. A long mass of grey and green, thin and wiry compared to the rest. If these large spheres were man-made objects of iron and stone, this was a living entity, plummeting through the sky.

“That’s you…” Fionn realised. “You’re—”

The voice tore through Fionn’s skull once more. “I once lived amongst others like me. But I was too unlike them.”

Fionn’s perspective shifted once more. The stars and shapes disappeared, leaving the vague impression of Seletoth alone in the void.

“I was banished. And for a timespan beyond your meagre comprehension, I was sent through the firmament, with no direction or destination. Until I came here.”

Fionn found himself back in the cave, looking up at the towering mass once more as a hundred eyes dripping red stared back.

“Why are you showing me this? What is this?”

“This,” said Seletoth. “This is the Truth. The Truth your Church was built to conceal. The Truth that has driven so many of your people mad. One glimpse of it was enough to send the Godslayer on her conquest of death. And now that she has killed my Lady, the rest has been laid out before her. As it shall be laid before you now.”

Everything around Fionn dimmed to change once more.

Fionn stood on top of a mountain now, but not the snow-capped peak of Mount Selyth. A beautiful valley lay before him, with a plethora of greens set against the landscape, rising and falling with each hill. A river shot through the centre, like a slender laceration through skin.

Then, a flash lit up the sky, and before Fionn’s vision returned, the ground shook, and a cloud of dust rose over broken trees. When the smoke cleared, a shapeless bulk of organic matter lay in the valley’s centre… unblinking eyes, gleaming appendages….

Blood seeped through its body, soaking into the ground below.

“The land adapted to the impact immediately,” said Seletoth, darkness enveloping the scene once more. “But the flora and fauna took much longer. Poison replaced nutrients, and predators descended from prey. As I lay there, dying, the remnants of my might turned that valley into what you know now.”

“The Glenn,” said Fionn, looking back up at the Lord.

“The natives of the land avoided the region. And they would have left me there to die if I had not put in place one contingency. One final way to prolong my life.”

“Contingency?” asked Fionn.

When the answer came, Seletoth spoke blankly, as if not caring for the word that thundered through Fionn’s mind.

“Humans.”

“Us?” whimpered Fionn.

“As I plummeted alone through Eternity, I spread my seeds wherever I could, and they quickened to Life wherever possible. Somewhere, on the far side of this world, beyond many leagues of land and seas, the first Humans came to be. It took some time, but eventually, my influence reached them. First, to a young virgin named Meadhbh.”

“No….”

“And in her womb, I planted one more seed.”

“No!” Fionn’s hands reached up to clasp his ears. But the Lord’s voice spoke again.

“Her son, the soon to be King Móráin the First, united the scattered tribes of Man. To sail to this land. For one purpose.”

Fionn stood to his feet. “To… save you?”