Success

Katabasis in fugue

Where the sun meets the sea, she makes her last voyage. Golden rays pierce her thick skin like spears from Olympus. Blood and luminecence turn the water pink and gold and silver, as though her own backdrop had been painted to frame the scene.

And then she rises. Shedding skin, layer by oily layer, each cascading down from greater heights like the veils of Melusine. And still she rises, the sun in the east laying out its rays like a path, guiding her on. Soon she is lost in radiance, only the drip-drop of ambergris from above to mark her passage. And soon even that ceases.

At last, she is gone. There is only the dawn. She has gone wherever whales ought not to go. There is an eery lightness to the world, the sun rising is dimmer than it ought to be. This is apocryphal, you realise, and the whale its anchor. And with that gone...

Firmament Sing, leviathan.

The Leviathan's Call

See how she rises