THE BLACKTHORN CODEX
Episode 18 — The Altar of the Abyss
> "The altar is erected. Let the gates open."
The river roared, the ground trembled, and the first crack opened in the heart of the cyclopean stone, pouring out a black glow, darker than night.
November 15, 2023 — 2:47 AM
Under the Marseille bridge, the city still sleeps, but the river is awakening. Clarisse, a shadow puppet, stands amid the oozing pillars. Her eyes, two greenish flashes, illuminate the damp stone.
The river rises. Bubbles burst on the surface like open wounds. A smell of salt and rotting flesh fills the air. The drowned figures haul themselves out of the water, their translucent fingers clawing at the stone, their mouths spitting black water. Their eyes are empty, but all stare at Clarisse with morbid devotion.
The bridge breathes. Its arches tremble. The ancient runes, invisible to men for centuries, glow with a black glow. The stone oozes a cold vapor, and the engravings once carved in the shadows seem to move. The carved faces open their mouths and chant silently. Clarisse becomes their priestess.
Thousands of kilometers away, Leander collapses to his knees. The Codex in his hands trembles like a living creature. Its pages snap, rewriting themselves in a language he has never learned. A guttural voice rises, echoing in his skull:
> "The seal is broken. The river is no longer a river. The altar calls for its master." »
A tear of blood flows from his left eye. His throat burns. He feels Clarisse as if she were within him, a shared tear.
Under the bridge, the drowned kneel, forming a circle around Clarisse. She stretches out her arms. Her skin cracks, fissures like dry earth, letting out a greenish glow. The entity speaks through her:
— "The threshold is raised. Let the gates open."
2:55 AM
The ground trembles. The waters boil and part. A fissure opens beneath the river, like a gaping wound in the earth. A black light bursts forth, so dense that it seems to absorb all light. The drowned throw themselves voluntarily into the fault, disappearing into nothingness, like an offering.
A howl rents the air. Not that of a man, not that of a beast. Something behind the fissure awakens. Reality bends around the bridge, the city's streetlights explode one by one, sending sparks flying into the night. Marseille breathes fear.
Clarisse looks up at the sky. Her lips articulate words no human language can contain. The entity no longer invokes. It calls.
The infernal clock continues.
The sky opens. Not with lightning, but with a tear of darkness. The stars go out above Marseille. The inhabitants are still asleep, but their dreams are synchronized: everyone dreams of the river, everyone sees Clarisse.
Léandre, thousands of kilometers away, sits up, the Codex pressed to his chest. His body no longer obeys. His mouth speaks alone:
> "Three candles... three hours... three offerings."
His fingers burn as he holds the book, but he can't let go.
Under the bridge, three drowned men don't reach the crack. They remain standing, motionless, and their flesh contracts. Their bones break to reassemble. They become the Guardians of the Threshold, massive silhouettes with disproportionate limbs, their mouths sewn shut with threads of black algae.
The bridge groans. The stones ooze a black liquid. The faces carved into the arches now scream, soundless, in frozen agony. Clarisse staggers: the entity is exhausting her. She is no longer Clarisse. She is the Chalice.
The crack widens. The waters of the Rhône no longer flow. They are suspended in the air, frozen like liquid glass. Behind the fault, an immensity throbs, a lidless eye slowly opening.
The city begins to wake up. Dogs bark. Windows crack. The clocks all stop at 3:45. Not a single needle moves in Marseille.
An unearthly silence engulfs the entire city. Even the insects cease to live. Clarisse collapses to her knees, but her hands are pulled toward the invisible altar beneath the bridge. Her fingers are torn off, drop by drop, in the crack.
The surviving drowned form a procession. They leave the river, crossing the city slowly. No one sees them, except for the children who wake up and cry.
Léandre loses consciousness. The Codex falls to the ground. The pages stop moving, but one sentence remains visible, written in still-wet blood:
> "At dawn, the mouth will be full."
The Guardians of the Threshold raise their deformed heads toward the horizon. They wait, motionless, like enraged statues. Clarisse no longer has a voice. Her lips still move, but no sound comes out.
6:00 a.m.
The sun finally rises. But its light does not touch the bridge. Beneath its arches, only a black brightness reigns, a false daylight that swallows everything it illuminates.
In the crack, the eye opens wide.
At dawn, the Altar of the Abyss has given birth to a permanent opening. Clarisse, now a prisoner of the entity, is nothing more than a vector. And Marseille, without knowing it, has just become the first living altar of the Codex.