The Cetians are an ancient humanoid race that lives in the extreme depths of the White Ocean. Their city is encased inside a gigantic, magical air-bubble, as they mostly breathe oxygenated air. However, they did evolve with gills as well as lungs, although their gills can’t function so well.
Their underwater appearance is frightening, their skin like dried leather, their hair like drifting weeds, their faces terminating in something like octopus beaks instead of mouths. Their nostrils suction shut while swimming , like seals’ nostrils do in Earth’s oceans. This makes it seem as if they have no noses, and their ears can do a similar thing. They do not wear clothing, as they don’t feel the cold.
However, once they are out of water and in the air, they become beautiful in a strange way. Their ears and noses open, and their skin takes on a velvet texture. Their eyes are large and liquid like a seal’s, but often a blue or violet colour.
We meet the Cetians in “A Dark Heritage: The Nighthunter” (now available) when Captain Penglas hangs Logan and Noran over the side of the Gastwrnis on the pretext of using them as live bait to catch Selki (more about those creatures next week!). The ship bumps into the branches of a submerged, petrified forest that grows around the Cetian city, and the Cetians swim out to the boat, dragging the two frightened men under the waves…
Fortunately, this time around the Cetians are benevolent. They also show a childlike curiosity and intelligence mixed with naivete, taking the two men into their old city and offering them priceless books and other paraphernalia in exchange for whitestone (i.e. chalk) which Penglas usually trades to them for those books and artefacts, which he can then sell for a hefty profit.
Ceris, the elder of the Cetians, takes Logan and Noran into their temple and shows them a bizarre weapon which she wants Noran to have, for some obscure reason. She also tells them a tale concerning that weapon and an important part of Cetian history, which also involves the mythical First Race, and which is based on a familiar story by Hans Christian Andersen, though perhaps a little more bloody…
Nightwalks 