Deep Wizardry, New Millennium Edition

  “Later. Meantime, here’s S’reee, and hNii’t with her,” said T!h!ki. “HNii’t’s singing the Silent Lord. HNii’t, this is Roots.”

  “Oh,” said Roots, “well met. Pleasure to sing with you. Would you excuse me?” She flipped her tail, politely enough, before Nita could sing a note, and a second later was head-down in the kelp again, ripping it up faster than before, as if making up for lost time.

  Nita glanced with mild amusement at S’reee as Hotshot spiraled down to join them. “She’s a great conversationalist,” Hotshot whistled, his song conspiratorially quiet. “Really. Ask her about food.”

  “I kind of suspected,” Nita said. “Speaking of the Master-Shark, though, where is Ed this morning?”

  S’reee waved one long fin in a shrug. “He has a late appearance, as you do, so it doesn’t really matter if he shows up late. Meanwhile, we have to meet the others. Ki, are you finished with Roots?”

  “Shortly. We’re going through the last part of the second duet. I’ll catch up with you people later.” The right whale glided downward toward the weeds, and S’reee led Nita off to the west, where the Blue drifted in the water, and the beluga beside him, a tiny white shape against Aroooon’s hugeness.

  “Aroooon and I are two of the Untouched,” said S’reee. “The third, after the Singer and the Blue, is the Gazer. That’s Iniihwit.”

  “HNii’t,” Aroooon’s great voice hailed them as Nita approached.

  Nita bent her body into a bow of respect as she coasted through the water. “Sir,” she said.

  That small, calm eye dwelt gravely on her. “Are you well, Silent Lord?” said the Blue.

  “As well as I can be, sir,” Nita said. “Under the circumstances.”

  “That’s well,” said Aroooon. “Iniihwit, here is the human I spoke of.”

  The beluga swam away from Aroooon to touch skin with Nita. Iniihwit was male, much smaller than Nita as whales went, though big for a beluga.

  But what struck her more than his smallness was the abstracted, contemplative sound of his song when he did speak. There were long silent days of calm behind it, days spent floating on the surface alone, watching the changes of sea and sky, saying little, seeing much. “HNii’t,” he said, “well met. And well met now, for there’s something you must hear. You too, Senior.”

  “The weather?” S’reee said, sounding worried.

  “Yes indeed. It looks as if that storm is not going to pass us by.”

  Nita looked at S’reee in surprise. “What storm? It’s clear.”

  “For now,” said Iniihwit. “Nevertheless, there’s weather coming, and there’s no telling what it will stir up in the depths.”

  “Is there any chance we can beat it?” S’reee said, sounding very worried indeed.

  “None,” the beluga said. “It will be here in half a light. We’ll have to take our chances with the storm, I fear.”

  S’reee hung still in the water, thinking. “Well enough,” she said. “Come on, hNii’t; let’s speak to Areinnye and the others singing the Undecided. We’ll start the group rehearsal, then go straight into the Song. Time’s swimming.”

  S’reee fluked hard and soared off, leaving Nita in shock for a moment. We won’t be going home tonight, she thought. No good-byes. No last explanations. I’ll never set foot on land again…

  “Neets?” Kit’s voice said from behind her.

  “Right,” she said.

  She went after S’reee to see the three whales singing the Undecided. Areinnye greeted Nita with cool cordiality and went back to her practicing. “And here’s the Sounder,” S’reee was saying. “Fluke, this is hNii’t.”

  Nita brushed skin with the Sounder, who was a pilot whale; small and mottled gray, built along the same general lines as a sperm, though barely a quarter the size. Fluke’s eyes were small, his vision poor, and he had an owlish, shortsighted look about him that reminded Nita of Dairine when she’d had to wear glasses for a while some years back. The likeness was made stronger by a shrill, ratchety voice and a tendency toward chuckles. “Fluke?” Nita said.

  “I was one,” the Sounder said. “I’m a triplet. And a runt, as you can see. There was nothing to do to hold my own with my brother and sister except become a wizard in self-defense.”

  Nita made a small amused noise, thinking that there might not be so much difference between the motivations and family lives of humans and whales. “And here’s Fang,” said S’reee.

  Nita found herself looking at the brilliant white and deep black of the killer whale. Her feelings were decidedly mixed. The humpback-shape had its own ideas about the killer, mostly prejudiced by the thought of blood in the water. But Nita’s human memories insisted that killers were affable creatures, friendly to humans; she remembered her Uncle Jerry, her mother’s older brother, telling about how he’d once ridden an orca at an aquatic park in Hawaii and had had a great time. This orca edged closer to Nita now, staring at her out of small black eyes—not opaque ones like Ed’s, but sharp, clever ones, with merriment in them. “Well?” the killer said, his voice teasing. “Shark got your tongue?”

  The joke was so horrible, and somehow so funny, that Nita burst out laughing, liking this creature instantly. “Fang, is it?”

  “It is. HNii’t, is it?”

  “More or less.” There was a kind of wicked amusement about Fang’s song, which by itself was funny to listen to—sweet whistles and flutings peppered liberally with spits and fizzes. “Fang, are you from these waters originally?”

  “Indeed not. I came down from Baffin Bay for the Song.”

  Nita swung her tail in surprise. “That’s in Canada! Fifteen hundred miles!”

  “What? Oh, a great many lengths, yes. I didn’t swim it, hNii’t. Any more than you and Kit there went where you went last night by swimming.”

  “I suppose,” she said, “that a wizardry done like that—on such short notice, and taking the wizards such a distance—might have been noticed.”

  Fang snorted bubbles. “ ‘Might’! Yes, it’d stand out a bit. But it’s understandable that you might want to indulge yourselves. Seeing that you and your partner won’t have much more time to work together in the flesh.”

  Fang’s voice was kind, even matter-of-fact; but Nita wanted to keep away from that subject for the moment. “Right. Speaking of which, S’reee, hadn’t we better start?”

  “Might as well.”

  S’reee swam off to a spot roughly above the wreck, whistling, and slowly the whole group began to drift in toward her. The voices of the whales gathered around to watch the Celebrants began to quiet, like those of an audience at a concert.

  “From the top,” S’reee said. She paused a few seconds, then lifted up her voice in the Invocation.

  “Blood in the water I sing, and one who shed it:

  deadliest hunger I sing, and one who fed it—

  weaving the ancientmost song of the Sea’s sending:

  singing the tragedy, singing the joy unending.”

  Joy… Nita thought, trying to concentrate. But the thought of whose blood was being sung about made it hard.

  The shadow that fell over Nita somewhere in the middle of the first song of the Betrayed whales, though, got her attention immediately. A streamlined shape as pale as bleached bone glided slowly over her, blocking the jade light; one dead-black, unreflecting eye glanced down. “Nita.”

  “Ed,” she said, none too enthusiastically. His relentless reality was no pleasant sight.

  “Come swim with me.”

  He arched away through the water, northward toward Ambrose Light. The gathered spectators drew back as Nita silently followed.

  Shortly they were well to the north, still able to hear the ongoing practice Song, but out of hearing range for standard conversation. “So, Silent Lord,” Ed said, slowing. “You were busy last night.”

  “Yes,” Nita said, and waited. She had a feeling that something odd was going on inside that chill mind.

  Ed looked at her. “Y
ou are angry...”

  “Damn right I am!” Nita sang, loudly, not caring for the moment about what Ed might think of her distress.

  “Explain this anger to me,” said the Master-Shark. “Normally the Silent Lord does not find the outcome of the Song so frightful. In fact, whales sometimes compete for the privilege of singing your part. The Silent Lord dies indeed, but the death is not so terrible—it merely comes sooner than it might have otherwise, by predator or old age. And it buys the renewal of life, and holds off the Great Death, for the whole Sea—and for years.”

  Ed glanced at her, sedate. “And even if the Silent One should happen to suffer somewhat, what of it? For there is still Timeheart, is there not?… the Heart of the Sea.” Nita nodded, saying nothing. “It is no ending, this song, but a passage into something else. How they extol that passage, and what lies at its end.” There was faint, scornful amusement in Ed’s voice as he lifted his voice in a verse of the Song—one of the Blue’s cantos—not singing, exactly, for sharks have no song; chanting, rather. “‘…Past mortal song—

  “—that Sea whereof our own seas merely hint,

  poor shadows sidewise-cast from what is real—

  where Time and swift-finned Joy are foes no more,

  but lovers; where old friend swims by old friend,

  senior to Death, undying evermore—

  partner to Songs unheard and Voices hid;

  songs past our knowing, perilously fair—’ ”

  Ed broke off. “You are a wizard,” he said. “You have known that place, supposedly.”

  “Yes.” To Nita Timeheart had lat that point ooked like a bright city, skyscrapered in crystal and fire, power trembling in its streets and stones, unseen but undeniably there. And beyond the city stretched a whole universe, sited beyond and within all other worlds, beyond and within all times. Death did not touch that place. “Yes, I was there.”

  “So you know it awaits you after the Sacrifice, after the change of being. But you don’t seem to take the change so calmly.”

  “How can I? I’m human!”

  “Yes. But make me understand. Why does that make your attitude so different? Why are you so angry about something that would happen to you sooner or later anyway?”

  “Because I’m too young for this,” Nita said. “All the things I’ll never have a chance to do—grow up, work, live—”

  “This,” Ed said mildly, looking around him at the green-burning sea, the swift fish flashing in it, the dazzling wrinkled mirror of the surface seen from beneath, “this is not living?”

  “Of course it is! But there’s a lot more to it! And getting murdered by a shark is hardly what I call living!”

  “I assure you,” Ed said, “it’s nothing as personal as murder. I would have done the same for any wizard singing the Silent Lord. I have done the same, many times. And doubtless shall again...” His voice trailed off.

  Nita caught something odd in Ed’s voice. He sounded almost… wistful?

  “Look,” she said, her own voice small. “Tell me something . . . Does it really have to hurt a lot?”

  “Sprat,” said Ed dispassionately, “what in this life doesn’t? Even love hurts sometimes. You may have noticed.”

  “Oh, come on. Love? What would you know about that?” Nita was too pained to care about being scornful, even to the Master-Shark.

  “And who are you to think I would know nothing about it? Because I kill without remorse, I must also be ignorant of love, is that it?”

  There was a long, frightening pause, while Ed began to swim a wide circle about Nita. “You’re thinking I am so old an order of life that I can know nothing but the blind white rut, the circling, the joining that leaves the joined forever scarred. Oh yes, I know that. In its time… it’s very good.”

  The rich and hungry pleasure in his voice disturbed Nita. Ed was circling closer and closer as he spoke, swimming as if he were asleep. “And, yes, sometimes we wish the closeness of the joining wouldn’t end. But what would my kind do with the warm-blood sort of joining, the long companionships? What would I do with a mate?” He said it as if it were an alien word. “Soon enough one or the other of us would fall into distress—and the other partner would end it. There’s an end to mating and mate, and to the love that passed between. That price is too high for me to pay, even once. I swim alone.”

  He was swimming so close to Nita now that his sides almost touched hers, and she pulled her tail and fins in tight and shrank away from the razory hide, not daring to move otherwise. Then Ed woke up and broke the circle, gliding lazily outward and away as if nothing had happened. “But, Sprat, the matter of my loves—or their lack—is hardly what’s bothering you.”

  “No,” she burst out bitterly. “Love! I’ve never had a chance to. And now—now—”

  “Then you’re well cast for the Silent Lord’s part,” Ed said, his voice sounding far away. “How does the line go? ‘Not old enough to love as yet, but old enough to die, indeed—’ That has always been the Silent Lord’s business—to sacrifice love for life. Instead of, as in lesser songs, the other way around...”

  Ed trailed off, paused to snap up a sea bass that passed him by too slowly. When his eyes were more or less sane again and the water had carried the blood away, Ed said, “Is it truly so much to you, Sprat? Have you truly had no time to love?”

  Mom and Dad, Nita thought ruefully. Dairine. That’s not love, I don’t love Dairine!—do I? She hardened her heart and said, “No, Pale One. Not that way. No one… that way.”

  “Well then,” said the Master-Shark, “the Song will be sung from the heart, it seems. You will still offer the Sacrifice?”

  “I don’t want to—”

  “Answer the question, Sprat.”

  It was a long while before Nita spoke. “I’ll do what I said I would,” she said at last. The notes of the song whispered away into the water like the last notes of a dirge.

  She was glad Ed said nothing for a while, for her insides gripped and churned as she finally found out what real, grownup fear was. Not the kind that happens suddenly, that leaves you too busy with action to think about being afraid—but the kind that she had been holding off by not officially “deciding”: the kind that swims up as slowly as a shark circling, letting you see it and realize in detail what’s going to happen to you.

  “I am big enough to take a humpback in two bites,” Ed said into her silence. “And there is no need for me to be leisurely about it. You will speak to the Heart of the Sea without having to say too much to me on the way.”

  Nita looked up at him in amazement. “But I thought you didn’t believe—I mean, you’d never—”

  “I am no wizard, Nita,” Ed said. “The Sea doesn’t speak to me as it does to you. I will never experience those high wild joys the Blue sings of—the Sea That Burns, the Voices. The only voices I hear cry out from water that burns with blood. But might I not sometimes wonder what other joys there are?—and wish I might feel them too?”

  The dry, remote pain in his voice astonished her. And Nita thought abruptly of that long line of titles in the commentaries in her manual: as if only one shark had ever been Master. Sharks don’t die of natural causes, she thought. Could it be that, all these years, there has been just one Master? And all around him, people die and die, and he—can’t—

  —and wants to? And so he understands how it is to want to get out of something and be stuck with it.

  Nita was terribly moved—she wasn’t sure why. She swam close to the Pale One’s huge head for a moment and glided side by side with him, matching his course and the movements of his body.

  “I wish I could help,” she said.

  “As if the Master could feel distress,” Ed said, with good-natured scorn. The wound in his voice had healed without a scar.

  “And as if someone else might want to end it,” Nita said, sarcastic, but gentle about it.

  Ed was silent for a long while. “I mean, it’s dumb to suffer,” Nita said, rather desperatel
y, into that silence. “But if you have to do it, you might as well intend it to do someone some good.”

  In silence they swam a few lengths more through the darkening water, while Nita’s fear began to build in her again, and one astonished part of her mind shouted at her, You’re running around talking about doing nice things for someone who’s going to kill you? You’re crazy!

  Ed spoke at last. “It’s well said. And we will cause it to be well made, this Sacrifice. You, young and never loving; I, old and never loved.” Calm, utterly calm, that voice. “Such a Song the Sea will never have seen.”

  “HNii’t?” came a questioning note through the water, from southward of Ambrose: S’reee’s voice. “It’s almost your time—”

  “I have to go,” Nita said. “Ed—”

  “Silent Lord?”

  She had no idea why she was saying it. “I’m sorry!”

  “This once, I think,” the passionless voice said, “so am I. Go on, Sprat. I will not miss my cue.”

  Nita looked at him. Opaque eyes, depthless, merciless, lingered on her as Ed curved past.

  “Coming!” Nita sang in S’reee’s direction, loud, and tore off southward.

  No pale shadow followed.

  ***

  The next few hours, while the water darkened further, ran together for Nita in a blur of music, and annoying repetitions, and words that would have been frightening if she hadn’t been too busy to be frightened. And something was growing in her, slowly, but getting stronger and stronger—an odd elation. She sang on, not questioning it, riding its tide and hoping it would last through what she had to do. Again and again, with the other Celebrants listening and offering suggestions, she rehearsed what would be the last things she would ever say: