by Diane Duane
She looked ahead and saw what he saw. The milky water ahead of them had a great cloud of blood hanging and swirling in it, with small bright shapes flashing in and out of the cloud in mindless confusion. Nita let out one small squeak of fear, then forced herself to be quiet. The sound came back, though, and told her that inside that roiling red darkness, something was cruising by in a wide curve — something nearly Kit’s size. She backfinned to hover in the water, glancing up at Kit.
He drifted downward to her, singing no note of his own. She could understand why. Tumbling weightlessly out of the blood-cloud, trailing streaks of watery red, were the slashed and broken bodies of a school of smallfin tuna— heads, tails, pieces too mangled to name, let alone to bear close examination. Some of these drifted slowly to the bottom, where the scavengers — salt-water catfish and crabs and other such — ate them hurriedly, as if not wanting to linger and face whatever hunted above.
Nita didn’t want to attract its attention either, but she also wanted Kit’s reassurance. This place to which S’reee had brought them was unquestionably the location of a shark’s “feeding frenzy,” in which the hunter begins to devour not only its prey, but anything else that gets in the way, uncontrollably, mindlessly, until sated.
Inside the cloud of blood, which the current over the shoals was taking away, something moved. Impossible, was Nita’s first reaction as the circling shape was revealed. It broke out of its circling and began to soar slowly toward her and Kit and S’reee. Sonar had warned her of its size, but she was still astonished. No mere fish could be that big.
This one could. Nita didn’t move. With slow, calm, deadly grace the huge form came curving toward them. Nita could see why S’reee had said that this creature was a good candidate for the title Master-Shark, even if the original had lived ten thousand years ago, when everything was bigger. The shark was nearly as long as Kit — from its blunt nose to the end of its tail’s topfin, no less than ninety feet. Its eyes were that same dull, expressionless black that had horrified Nita when she’d watched Jaws. But seeing those eyes on a TV screen was one thing. Having them dwell on you, calm and hungry even after a feeding frenzy — that was much worse.
The pale shape glided closer. Nita felt Kit drift so close to her that his skin brushed hers, and she felt the thudding of his huge heart. In shape, the shark looked like a great white, at least as well as Nita could remember from Jaws. There, though, the resemblance ended. “Great white” sharks were actually a pale blue on their upper bodies and only white below. This one was white all over, an ivory white so pale that great age might have bleached it that color. And as for size, this one could have eaten the Jaws shark for lunch, and looked capable of working Nita in, in no more than a bite or two, as dessert. Its terrible maw, hung with drifting, mangled shreds of bleeding tuna, was easily fifteen feet across. Those jaws worked gently, absently, as the white horror cruised toward the three of them.
S’reee finned forward a little. She inclined the fore half of her body toward the white one and sang, in what seemed utter, toneless calm, “Ed’Rashtekaresket, chief of the Unmastered in these waters, 1 greet you.”
The shark swam straight toward S’reee, those blank eyes fixed on her. The whale held her position as the Pale One glided toward her, his mouth open, his jaws working. At the last possible moment he veered to one side and began to describe a great circle around the three.
Three times he circled them, in silence. Next to Nita, Kit shuddered. The shark looked sharply at them, but still said nothing, just kept swimming until he had completed his third circle. When he spoke at last, there was no warmth in his voice, none of the skin-stroking richness she had grown used to in whale-voices. This voice was dry… interested, but passionless; and though insatiably hungry, not even slightly angry or vicious. The voice destroyed every idea Nita had of what a shark would sound like. Some terrible malice, she could have accepted — not this deadly equanimity. “Young wizard,” the voice said, cool and courteous, “well met.”
The swimmer broke free of his circling and described a swift, clean arc that brought him close enough to Nita and Kit for Nita to see the kind of rough, spiky skin that had injured S’reee so badly two nights before. The great shark almost touched Nita’s nose as he swept by.
“My people,” the Pale One said to S’reee, “tell me that they met with you two nights since. And fed well.”
“The nerve!” Kit said, none too quietly, and started to swim forward.
Aghast, Nita bumped him to one side, hard. He was so startled he held still again. “Keep your mouth shut!” she said quietly. “That thing could eat us all if it wanted to!”
“If he wanted to,” said the Pale One, glancing at Nita and fixing her, just for a moment, with one of those expressionless eyes. “Peace, young human. I’ll deal with you in a moment.”
She subsided instantly, feeling like a bird face to face with a snake.
“I am told further,” said the shark, circling S’reee lazily, “that wizardry struck my people down at their meal…”
“And then released them.”
“The story’s true, then.”
“True enough, Unmastered,” said S’reee, still not moving. “I’m no more ignorant than Ae’mhnuu was of the price paid for the reckless wasting of life. Besides, I knew I’d be talking to you today… and even if I didn’t, I’d have you to deal with at some later time… Shall we two be finished with this matter, then? I have other things to discuss with you.”
“Having heard the Calling in the water last night, I believe you do,” said the Pale One, still circling S’reee with slow grace. His jaws, Nita noticed were still working. “You were wise to spare those of my Mastery. Are your wounds healed? Is your pain ended?”
“Yes to both questions, Pale One.”
“I have no further business with you, then,” said the shark. Nita felt Kit move slightly against her, an angry, balked movement. Evidently he had been expecting the shark to apologize. But the shark’s tone of voice made it plain that he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong… and bizarrely, it seemed as if S’reee agreed with him.
“Well enough,” S’reee said, moving for the first time, to break out of the Pale One’s circle. “Let’s get to business.” The shark went after, pacing her.
“Since you heard the Calling,” S’reee said, “you know why I’m here.”
“To ask me to be Twelfth in the Song,” said the shark. “When have I not? You may administer the Oath to me at your leisure. But first you must tell me who the Silent One is.”
“She swims with us,” S’reee said, rolling over on her back as she swam— something Nita would certainly never have dared do, lest it give this monster ideas — and indicating Nita with one long forefin.
Nita would have preferred to keep Kit between her and the shark; but something, the Sea perhaps, told her that this would be a bad idea. Gulping, she slipped past Kit and glided up between S’reee and the great white. She was uncertain of protocol — or of anything except that she should show no fear. “Sir,” she said, not “bowing” but looking him straight in those black eyes, “I’m Nita.”
“My lady wizard,” the Pale One said in that cool, dry voice, “you’re also terrified out of your wits.”
What to say now? But the shark’s tone did have a sort of brittle humor about it. She could at least match it. “Master-Shark,” she said, giving him the title to be on the safe side, “if I were, saying so would be stupid; I’d be inviting you to eat me. And saying I wasn’t afraid would be stupid too — and a lie.”
The shark laughed, a terrible sound — quiet, and dry, and violent under its humor. “That’s well said, Nita,” he said when the laughing was done. “You’re wise not to lie to a shark — nor to tell him that particular truth. After all, fear is distress. And I end distress; that’s my job. So beware. I am pleased to meet you; but don’t bleed around me. Who’s your friend? Make him known to me.”
Nita curved around with two long strokes,
swam back to Kit, and escorted him back to the white with her fins barely touching him, a don’t-screw-it-up! gesture. “This is Kit,” she said. “He may or may not be singing with us.”
“A whalesark?” said the Pale One, as Kit glided close to him.
“Yes,” Kit said bluntly, without any honorific note or tone of courtesy appended to the word. Nita looked at him in shock, wondering what had gotten into him. He ignored her, staring at the shark. Kit’s teeth were showing.
The Pale One circled Kit once, lazily, as he had when offering challenge to S’reee. “She is not as frightened as she looks, Kit,” he said, “and at any rate, I suspect you’re more so. Look to yourself first until you know your new shape better. It has its own fierce ways, I hear; but a sperm whale is still no match for me.” He said this with the utter calm of someone telling someone else what time it was. “I would not make three bites of you, as I would with Nita. I would seize your face and crush your upper jaw to make myself safe from your teeth. Then I would take hold of that great tongue of yours and not let go until I had ripped it loose to devour. Smaller sharks than I am have done that to sperm whales before. The tongue is, shall we say, a delicacy.”
The shark circled away from Kit. Very slowly, Kit glided after. “Sir,” he said — sounding subdued, if not afraid, “I didn’t come here to fight. I thought we were supposed to be on the same side. But frightening us seems a poor tactic if we’re supposed to be allies, and singing the same Song.”
“I frighten no one,” said the shark. “No one who fears gets it from anywhere but himself. Or herself. Cast the fear out — and then I am nothing to fear… No matter, though; you’re working at it. Kit, Nita, my name is Ed’Rashtekaresket.”
“It has teeth in it,” Nita said.
The shark looked at her with interest in his opaque gaze. “It has indeed,” he said. “You hear well. And you’re the Silent One? Not the Listener?”
“The Listener’s part is spoken for, Pale One,” S’reee said. “And the Silent One’s part needs a wizard more experienced than any we have — one already tested against the Lone Power, yet young enough to fulfill the other criteria. HNii’t is the one.”
“Then these are the two who went up against the Lone One in Manhattan,” Ed’Rashtekaresket said. “Oh, don’t sing surprise at me, Kit: I know the Human names well enough. After all, you are who you eat.”
Nita swallowed hard. “Such shock,” the shark said, favoring Nita again with that dark, stony, unreadable look. “Beware your fear, Nita. They say I’m a ‘killing machine’—and they say well. I am one.” The terrible laugh hissed in the water again. “But one with a mind. Nor such a machine that I devour without cause. Those whom I eat, human or whale or fish, always give me cause. I’m glad you brought them, S’reee. If this ‘Heart of the Sea’ the wizards always speak of really exists, then these two should be able to get its attention. And its attention is needed.”
For the first time since the conversation began, S’reee displayed a mild annoyance. “It exists, Pale One. How many Songs have you played Twelfth in, and you still don’t admit that—“
“More Songs than you have, young one,” Ed’Rashtekaresket said. “And it would take more still to convince me of what can’t be seen by anyone not a wizard. Show me the Sea’s Heart, this Timeheart you speak of, and I’ll admit it exists.”
“Are you denying that wizardry comes from there?” S’reee said, sounding even more annoyed.
“Possibly,” said the shark, “if it does not. Don’t be angry without reason, S’reee. You warm-bloods are all such great believers. But there’s no greater pragmatist than a shark. I believe what I eat… or what I see. Your power I’ve seen: I don’t deny that. I simply reserve decision on where it comes from. What I say further is that there’s trouble in the deep waters hereabouts, more trouble than usual — and it’s as well the Song is being enacted now, for there’s need of it, wherever its virtue comes from. Will you hear my news? For if things go on as they’re going now, the High and Dry will shortly be low and wet — and those of my Mastery will be eating very well indeed.”
A Song of Battles
“What is it?” Kit said. “Is it the krakens?”
Ed’Rashtekaresket looked at Kit and began a slow, abstracted circling around him. “You know about that?” said the Master-Shark. “You’re wise for a human.”
“I know that the krakens are breeding this year,” Kit said, “breaking their usual eleven-year cycle. And they’re bigger than usual, our Seniors told us. In the deep water, krakens have been seen that would be a match for just about any whale or submarine they grabbed.”
“That is essentially what I would have told you,” the Master-Shark said to S’reee, still circling Kit. “My own people have been reporting trouble with the bottom dwellers — but any sharks who cannot escape such are no longer entitled to the Mastery’s protection in any case. At any rate, I pass this news along as a courtesy to you warm-bloods. By way of returning the courtesy done to my people after your accident.”
“Thank you,” S’reee said, and bowed as they swam.
“Odd,” Ed’Rashtekaresket mused as they went, “that qualified wizards of high levels are so few, the whales must bring in humans to make up the number.”
“Odd isn’t the word for it, Pale One,” S’reee said. “Advisories and Seniors have been dying like clams at red tide lately.”
“As if,” the Master-Shark said, “someone or something did not care to have the Song enacted just now.” His voice sounded remote. “I’m reminded of that Song enacted, oh, a hundred thirty thousand moons ago — when the bottom shook as it does now, and the Lone One had newly lost the Battle of the Trees. One wizard was injured by rockfall while they made the journey down through the Gates of the Sea. And when they began the Singing Proper, first the Killer and then the Blue lost control of their spells at crucial times. You know the moment, S’reee: when the mock-battle breaks out among the three parties, and each one tries to force the others around to its way of thinking.”
Ed’Rashtekaresket fell silent. The four of them swam on. “Uh, Ed_ Ed’Rak—“ Nita stopped short, unable to remember the rest of his name as anything but the sound of gnashing teeth. “Look, can I call you Ed?”
Blank eyes turned their attention toward her. “At least I can say it,” she said. “And if I’m going to be singing with you, it can’t be titles all the time. We have to know each other, you say.”
“A sprat’s name,” the shark said, dry-voiced. “A fry name — for me, the Master.” Then came the quiet, terrible laughter again. “Well enough. You’re the Sprat, and I’m Ed.” He laughed again.
Nita had never heard anything that sounded less like mirth in her life. “Great. So, Ed, what happened? In that Song, when it went wrong. Was anyone hurt?”
“Of the singers? No. They were inside a spell-circle, and protected — it has to be that way, else anything might get in among the singers and upset their spelling. But when the Song failed, all the power its Singers had tried to use to bind the Lone One rebounded and freed him instead. The sea bottom for hundreds of miles about was terribly torn and changed as a result. Volcanoes, earthquakes… Also, there was a landmass, a great island in the middle of these waters. Surely you know about that country, since your people named the ocean after it. That island was drowned. There were humans on it; millions of them died when the island sank. As for the rest — eating was good hereabouts for some time. The species of my Mastery prospered.”
“A hundred thirty thousand moons ago—“ Kit whispered, one soft-breathed note of song. “Ten thousand years!”
“Atlantis,” Nita said, not much louder.
“Afallone,” S’reee said, giving the name in the wizardly Speech. “There were Senior and Master wizards there,” she said sadly, “a great many of them. But even working together, they couldn’t stop what happened. The earthquakes begun by the downfall of Afallone were so terrible that they tore straight through the first level of the l
and-under-Sea — the crust, I think the two-leggers call it — and right down to the mantle, the molten stuff beneath. The whole island plate on which Afallone stood was broken in pieces and pushed down into the lava of the mantle — utterly destroyed. The plates of your continent and that of Europe have since drifted together over the island’s old location, covering its grave… But even after the Downfall, there was trouble for years — mostly with the atmosphere, because of all the ash the volcanoes spat into the air. It got cold, and whole species of land creatures died for lack of their food. It was thousands of Moons before things were normal again. So we tend to be very careful about the Song. ‘Lest the Sea become the Land, and the Land become the Sea—‘ “
“And the krakens are breeding,” the Pale One said as they swam. “Well. I’m for the Northern Rips tonight; there’s trouble in the water there.”
What kind of creature, Nita wondered, could hear the sounds of simple distress at a distance of two hundred miles and more?
“Beware, Nita,” Ed said. “Only a dead shark could have avoided hearing that thought. If we’re to know each other well, as you say you desire, best mind how you show me your feelings. Else I shall at last know you most intimately, sooner than you are planning — and the relationship will be rather one-sided.”
Ed’s jaws worked. “—I was going to say: matters swimming as they do, I will see you three home. It’s getting dark, and—“
“Dark!” Nita and Kit looked around them. The water, turbid green white when they had come here, was now almost black.
“The Sun’s going down,” Kit said unhappily. “We’re really in for it now.”
Nita agreed. “Master-Shark,” she said, staying as calm as she could, “we have to get back to, uh, our feeding grounds. And in a hurry. Our parents are waiting for us, and we had orders to be back before it got dark.”
Ed simply looked at Nita with that calm black stare. “As you say,” he said, and began to swim faster. “But we will not be at Bluehaven before many stars are out and the Moon is about to set.”