by Patrick Ness
Indeed she was. She drove Captain Arcturus further into the crushed hull of the ship that bore his name. He struggled mightily with his tail, but our Captain was bigger, stronger. She held him there.
Until finally.
“Mercy!” he cried. “I ask for mercy.”
She let him go instantly.
But of course, no whale who has begged for mercy in a fight is ever really let go. It would follow him to the end of his days, however many they were to be numbered.
We had triumphed.
30
AS THE ARCTURUS POD SWAM AWAY – for its last time, as no Apprentice would stay with a Captain who cried “mercy”; I wouldn’t, even Willem wouldn’t – our Captain turned, ignoring the superficial wounds she’d received, saying only one thing:
“It is time to meet Toby Wick.”
31
“WHICH DAY OF THE SETTING SUN?” THE Captain told me to ask Demetrius. “If he knows, tell him you will end his suffering the moment his words are proven true. If not, kill him now.”
I swam immediately to him. “She says–”
“I heard.” He caught my eye. “The irony. I finally understand the voices of whales just as they are speaking of my death.”
I hesitated. I barely knew the words that were tumbling through my brain and out of my mouth, but here they were. “It is three islands,” I said, quietly. “In the confusion, you may swim to one. Tell me. I will not kill you.”
“You do not even know your own mind,” he said.
“Has there not been enough death?” My brain was churning with all that had happened in such a short space of time, but it was this thought that it kept returning to. And what Demetrius – frail, little Demetrius – had said about sounding like Toby Wick. What sort of life Demetrius might have had in the world of men was beyond me. I had never asked. To me, all men were hunters, but if he had been conscripted, forced, and refused, then what did that mean?
What did that mean?
“Has there not been enough death?” I said again.
“Of the other whale? Death is suddenly objectionable to you when the dead has a name you know?”
I swam straight up to him at that, hitting the mast above his head, making him cower. “My mother was killed by a man. Do not presume to teach me of the objectionableness of death.”
“I say again, you do not know your own mind.”
“What were you before?”
He blinked at me, confused.
“Before you were taken. Before you ended up here. What were you?”
“I . . . was a baker,” he said, still confused.
“What is a baker?”
“Breads. And cakes.” He saw my confusion. These were clearly not things that would last under the water. “I prepared a certain kind of food.”
I swam close to him again. “Then know this, Demetrius the baker,” I said. “Death is coming. Death I cannot prevent. Large and multiple. But there is one life, perhaps, that I can save. And surely that is how the war ends. Not in cataclysm. But in the small saving of a life. I may not know my own mind, but I know that I will not become a devil.”
He watched me closely now as I swam in increasingly agitated circles. The Captain was waiting. She would not wait much longer.
“Tomorrow,” he finally said. “Tomorrow. At the setting of the sun.”
“You knew,” I said, so quietly it was almost a whisper. “All this time, you knew.”
He just whispered back, “I did not wish to send you to your death, Bathsheba.”
And though it may have only been the sun setting, one more time, the ocean felt all of a blackness around me.
32
I TOLD MY CAPTAIN WHAT HE’D SAID, AND we swam through the night, the Captain and her two Apprentices, our sailors tending the ship that bore her name. We were heading to battle, and under-whaled at that. Sailors were never promoted to Apprentices – the skills were different; sailors took such pride in theirs that they scorned ours – but even if they had been, what could one learn in a single night?
We swam with harpoons harnessed to our bodies.
Yes. We were heading to battle.
Demetrius was right. I did not know my own mind. I still didn’t know why I said I would spare him, though perhaps he was so ill now that his death was inevitable anyway. How could I know? The biology of men was a mystery to me.
But could I kill him? Though men had been the death of my mother, the death of Treasure, the death of countless whales . . .
This man had not. And we had both wished to save the other.
I did not know my own mind. It would be my death if I did not solve it.
“Your thoughts should be with us,” Willem said, at my side. “Or are they with Treasure?”
“To be truthful, I am not sure where they lie.”
“And I the same. I am shocked by her loss more than that of an entire pod. Is that wrong, do you suppose?”
“She was larger in your world than that pod. It’s only understandable.”
“Thoughtful as ever, Bathsheba.”
This caught my attention. Willem had always been so happy-go-lucky, so off in her own little world, so – I hate to say it – dim. Loyal, but always an Apprentice, never a Captain.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You notice what the others don’t.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re right, though.”
“No. But I begin to wonder if doubt is better than the wrong knowledge.”
She just glanced at me. “I will fight when we get there. I will help the Captain kill Toby Wick. I will do this as First Apprentice. And you, Bathsheba, you will assist us as Second.”
It took a moment before I realized what was happening. Willem was commanding me. Before I could even answer, she swam ahead, drafting in the wake of our Captain for a period of relative rest. I stayed in my position, behind them but before the ship.
Where the Second Apprentice always swam.
For Willem was right. We had both moved up a spot. And the Second Apprentice followed the orders of the First Apprentice.
33
I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THAT OUR APPROACH to the three mountains that night was dramatic, that we swam through much peril and reached them just in time to enjoin the battle and win the day.
In truth, we got there early.
They were lone mountains in the deep, far from any others, hanging from our sky and piercing the Abyss, as if the sea had gods and here were three. The current bent around them, but the ocean – which should have teemed with life – was strangely empty.
Including of our prey.
“He is not here,” the Captain said angrily.
To my surprise, Demetrius answered her directly. “I can only repeat what was told me by a frightened Captain. Toby Wick will be here at the setting of the sun.”
“You will live to see him defeated,” the Captain said, swimming close to Demetrius. “But not a moment longer.”
“You’re probably right.”
The Captain looked at me, surprised at Demetrius’s lack of concern. “He is dolorous,” I said. “Like men are known to be.”
“They are weak.” She swam to the stern of our ship to confer with the sailors, who were already unloading further weapons for our Captain to use: a plate for her head, blades hewn from coral for her tail. These were old, unwieldy but brutal, used only for the biggest ships and only then when coordinated in a rare tandem with another hunting pod.
There were no additional weapons for the Apprentices.
“Toby Wick will bring a fleet,” Willem said, swimming next to me again. “No matter what your man says.”
“Probably,” I said.
“We are but one ship.”
“It is a little late to be having doubts, Willem.”
“I do not have doubts. I merely point out how magnificent our victory will be.” She said it convincingly, as if I needed it. “Prophecy will be our greatest w
eapon.”
“You poor foolish things,” Demetrius said to me as Willem swam away on patrol. “I do not pity them.” He nodded to the other whales. “But I pity you.”
“You think we’re doomed.”
“I do not think it.”
“His fleet will outnumber us?”
“The devil always outnumbers his foes,” he said. “Even if he is alone.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only rumor. Only folktale. I know as much as you. When he comes, we will see.”
He was more right than he knew. For when the sun crossed the Abyss below us one last time, and night started seeping into the ocean like octopus ink, Toby Wick came.
And we did see.
34
JUST AS THE SUN HIT THE HORIZON, THE famous white hull of his ship appeared around the far side of one of the islands. As simply as that.
The moment had arrived, too fast, too sudden. I felt prepared but not ready. Though perhaps that would never have been possible, had I had my whole life to know I was heading for this moment.
With a turn around a mountain, here came our devil.
“He has come alone,” the Captain said, wonderingly. “Your man spoke the truth.”
I looked at Demetrius, but his eyes were on Toby Wick, too, wide with terror. My own unease, already twisting my guts, grew. “I would not trust it,” I said.
“You insult me if you think me a Captain who would,” she said, eyes still on Toby Wick’s great white hull. “Our destiny is here, my Apprentices. We have been chosen, and whether by prophecy or fate or even chance, dear Bathsheba, even you cannot deny it has arrived for us all.”
“No, my Captain,” I said. “I cannot.”
“Lucky is the whale who meets her prophecy’s end,” she said. “Prepare yourselves.”
These last were superfluous words. We’d had a night and a day. There was no more tactical preparation to be done. Our Captain in her armor, we two – just two – Apprentices with our harpoons, and the plan the Captain had laid out as we waited. Demetrius had no more to offer about what we might expect, but our Captain seemed to have forgotten about him altogether. The day was here. This one man could wait.
“Do you think it will hurt?” Willem said to me quietly, as we took our positions.
“What?”
“When we die. Do you think it will hurt?”
That’s when I realized what was different about her, different in even the small eye that genuinely wanted an answer to this impossible question but was only interested distantly, as if in a scientific query about tides.
Her eye was the eye of a true believer.
“You believe we will die?” I asked.
“For a glorious cause. For the death of Toby Wick.” Her eye glinted. “But our names. Our names shall live for evermore.”
“Not if no one survives to tell the story.”
A shimmer of doubt passed over her. Then our Captain’s voice came like a volcano. “Our moment is here and the two of you gossip?!” She swung her tail our way, though her attention was too fixed on the approach of Toby Wick’s ship to cause us any damage other than turbulence.
The ship continued its journey toward us, a decent speed along the surface of the Abyss, but nothing that could be considered fast. He was coming to us at his own rate, would enjoin the battle at a moment of his own choosing.
Or so he thought.
“Begin your ascents,” the Captain ordered, and Willem and I dove for the sky.
35
THE PLAN, FOR WHAT IT WAS: WILLEM and I would ascend, deep into the sky, before turning to make our attack run. We – two small whales in an entire ocean to make the first strike against the monstrous legend of Toby Wick – we would shoot into the Abyss on either side of Toby Wick’s ship. One of us, both of us, would certainly be killed, but his attention would be taken for at least a moment.
Which was when our Captain would pierce the very belly of his hull, descending like fury itself from the sky.
It was madness. It was impossible. If no other whale had ever managed it, why would we?
Because it was prophesied?
Deep, we swam, and high. I felt the ocean’s tightening grip. I strained my eyes for city lights in the miles around, even sent echolocation to try and feel the shapes of the homes and work-spaces of my people. The lights we’d created from luminescent life-forms. The oxygen wells, larger versions of our breather bubbles, really, but an innovation that had nearly – nearly – liberated us from the surface of the Abyss altogether. I called out for my people, sending no message except the forever message: I am here, are you here?
But there was no answer. Aside from the islands, this part of the sky was empty.
We were alone.
“Turn,” we heard. Our Captain, diving between us, past us, deeper and deeper. Her own turn would come later. Her power all that much greater.
Willem and I swung back toward the surface of the Abyss in fast curves. We raced downward now, feeling the pressure loosen, feeling the air in our lungs and breather bubbles expand as we approached the treacherous air of men.
“Aim for starboard,” Willem said.
“I know,” I said.
“I’ll surface from the port side.”
“I know.”
“May this day be glorious. May this be the day our names are remembered.”
“I already remember your name, Willem. Wilhelmina.”
“It was foretold.”
“Only once it already happened.”
We dove and dove, down and down and down, our tails making the currents boil. The Abyss drew closer, closer still. I saw our own ship, the Alexandra, my home for nearly a year, off to my left, the sailors watching the attack as we made it, echolocations of encouragement chirping their way through the water.
I saw Demetrius there, still tied to the mast. I wondered if I would keep my promise to him. I wondered what promise I had actually made.
The Abyss grew pink as the sun started to leave it, the water near the surface still holding the last lights of day.
And it was in that light that we saw.
“No,” I heard Willem say, in horror.
“Call off the attack!” I said, veering hard from my path.
“No!” Willem again, though in answer to me or still in her own dawning terror, I did not know, nor did she live for me to find out.
Because we both saw it as we neared, too late to stop, too late in realizing our mistake.
The great white hull wasn’t Toby Wick’s ship.
It was Toby Wick himself.
36
ONE GIANT FIST REACHED FROM THE ABYSS, from where we now saw he had been hiding them, and grabbed Willem round the middle. I heard only the briefest yelp before she was ripped from the water. A few seconds later her blood poured into the ocean and her body landed with a splash, broken, nearly torn in two.
I barely had time to register it, as Toby Wick’s other arm was already reaching for me, our plan to attack from either side clearly the worst possible. I dodged a great thumb and fingers, but he caught my tail briefly, pulling off half my fin as if it were so much seaweed. I tumbled toward our ship, screaming from the pain.
I managed to get near Demetrius. “How did you not tell us this?” I shouted at him in the maelstrom.
He looked at me, utterly shocked. “I did not know. There were stories but–”
“He is the devil.”
“Bathsheba,” he said.
It was his last word, as the great white body of Toby Wick blocked out the last of the sun. I struggled away from the ship as the devil made short work of our sailors, killing them as easily as if they were the shoals of squid from which we made our meals.
And then.
And then.
His terrible, terrible face. Dipping up into the ocean itself, grimacing barnacle-encrusted teeth as big as my head, wild eyes open in the salt, looking round, blazing with a madness that brooked no mercy, no argument, a mo
uth smiling in triumph as he grasped for the ship. His hair trailed behind him as he reached, great kelp beds from which coral grew and sharks swam.
That’s when I saw it.
He was whale. Arms, yes, the face and features of a man, but also somehow whale. A whale of the Abyss. A whale who was our reflection in monstrousness. And also a man who was a reflection of men’s, too. A place like the surface of the water where our worlds met.
It’s no wonder he slaughtered us. It’s no wonder he slaughtered them.
As now, when he crushed the ship like a toy.
“Demetrius!” I heard myself call, struggling to keep my orientation with the injury to my tail. I tell myself, even now, all these years later, that I would have swam toward him had I not been so injured, but I still also wonder if that’s true. Would I have been able to overcome my terror to try and save this one man? To try and almost certainly fail?
He looked over at me as the great fists of Toby Wick came for him. He did not speak. His last word had been my name. The last word he heard was me speaking his own.
Did this mean anything? And if it only meant something for the two of us, did that reduce it? For I felt the same give inside me that I felt when I found the body of the child. I felt a rip as he went to his death.
“Demetrius,” I said again, but softly, quietly, only to myself, as Toby Wick took him in his hands. I saw Demetrius’s face as he died. It was filled with relief.
And a kind of worship.
Then I was alone in the ocean with the devil.
Here was prophecy. Here was prophecy incarnate. And now I saw the truth. Every attack we attributed to him – from the massacre of my mother to, yes, the men who had harpooned and released my Captain – only brought the legend to life. You imagine the devil, you make the devil.
He broke our mast, ripped up the deck, sent the contents of our hull plummeting up to the darkest deep. Only the body of Demetrius floated to the Abyss, where all bodies that breathe air, ours included, go.
Toby Wick turned for me.
And our Captain flew out of the darkness, piercing him through the stomach.