The Place
The Abyssal Coil is a trench of the deep, and the trench is the whole of the place, because there is no surface here and the not-surface is the law. The trench runs along the floor of the sea for forty kilometers, and the forty kilometers is a measure the coil does not argue with, because the coil does not lie about its own length. The floor of the trench is black stone, a black that is more absence than color, and the stone wears a thin skin of the spawn's own working, a blue-black shimmer that is the color of the deep and is also the color of the meal, and where the spawn has fed the shimmer turns to a dull crimson that the deep does not wash away. The water over the trench is a cold that has no season, and the cold is the constant, and the constant is the law. Light does not come from the sky; it comes out of the trench itself, a faint blue that moves along the floor like a slow pulse, and the pulse is the coil breathing, and the breathing is the clock. The silence of the deep is not a silence; it is a pressure, and the pressure is the sound, and the sound is the only sound there is, a low hum that is the water remembering the surface. The one sound under the hum is the ring, a cold click from the deep that is the spawn being read as a word, and the word is the meal, and the meal is the find. There is no landmark the way a trench has a landmark, but there is one: the Coil, the largest lair in the trench, a spiral of tentacle and stone that has been growing for a thousand years, and the lair is the door, and the door is the conversation. What makes the Abyssal Coil itself is the conversation: the deep speaks to everything that enters it, and the speaking is the meal, and the meal is the end.
How They Live
The Krakens build their lair in the trench, a coil of tentacle and madness, their surface a constant blue-black shimmer, their floor dissolving and re-forming. A lair is grown one turn at a time, and a turn is the season and a turn is the calendar, and the growing is the craft and the craft is the rank. Light comes from the deep — the faint blue pulse of the trench floor, which glows faintly in the dark, and the glow is the daylight and the daylight is the kept. Food is the deep: the whale, the ship, the fish, the light, and the ring that keeps the spawn honest, and the ring is the staple, because the ring is what the deep leaves as a signature, and the signature is the kept. Water is the deep, and the deep is the water, and the coil drinks and hunts and eats in the same blue-black shimmer. Heat is not something the deep offers, and the not-offering is the law, and the krakens have stopped asking it to. The defense is the deep itself — a visitor who sails on the deep is already in the meal's path, and the meal is the alarm and the welcome and the sentence. The day is not measured, because there is no day, and the not-measuring is the law, and the law is the deep. The coil moves, and the coil rests, and the deep is the only clock, and the clock does not lie about the meal. Every spawn that hatches must follow the ring once around the trench before the deep will call it one of its own, and the following is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the deep ever gives back.
People
Home of the Krakens, whose lairs are counted by coil. Nine coils at the last count, and the count is kept by the deep, which is to say the count is as reliable as the pressure, which is to say it is reliable until the meal. The eldest coil leads, and rank is decided by the turn, because a coil that has grown a turn the deep has forgotten is the coil the deep trusts. Nothing that can swim is welcome, and the not-welcome is not an insult, because the deep has a meal, and the meal has a path, and the path has an end. A surface sailor who once saw the pulse from the deck of a ship called it a light that was not a light and a dark that was not a dark, and the calling was the truest thing he said and the thing the deep paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the deep is the only honest conversation, and the conversation is the meal, and the meal is the find, and the find is the end. The Forgotten have not sailed the trench, and the not-sailing is the decision, and the decision is the longest one the guild has made. Uaellaen read the ring once, from the surface, and the reading was correct, and the correctness was the only thing that frightened him.