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He did not remember being young.
He knew the whales did, that while they had gained sapience over the generations until they gained their powers and dominion over portions of the ocean, they remembered having parents, pods, families. They discovered their powers—powers they claimed came from the Sea itself—and grew more and more aware. They gained dominion over their own species, while he had always claimed dominion over the sharks.
Most of them were more social with their own species than he was. Possibly because they could remember being young, having families. They had grown into their powers, but had not always ruled. They had memories, they aged, they even died, though death back then was a gentler thing. They came from somewhere, they went somewhere. They began.
ed’Rashtekaresket simply was. He always had been. He remembered no beginning. He had always been in the ocean, and the sharks had always been under his dominion.
***
He noticed, when the stranger came. He might not be social, might not seek companionship, but he maintained an awareness of what the whales and dolphins were doing. It was only sensible; they had powers that were not open to sharks and they claimed dominion over all ocean life but those of his own Mastery. If he were to be able to protect his people, he needed to know what they were up to. And the Master Shark existed to protect his people.
Sharks also existed to end distress, and the distress that came from the Ten was profound.
It struck ed’Rashtekaresket as off, this stranger. Someone the Heart of the Sea had not spoken of to the whales—well, that was fine; he reserved judgment about whether the Heart existed at all. But the only ones with such power were the Ten themselves. If another had come with such power, shouldn’t that one be a new Mastery? Would not having one with such power serving them disrupt the delicate balance of power within the Sea?
ed’Rashtekaresket was not the only one to wonder at the strange visitor. He watched from a distance, waiting to see what would happen, and found himself joined by another, one in such obvious distress that it was only her own self-control in not expressing it around him that kept him from eating her where she swam.
“Should you not be in among the others?” he asked. “You are one of Lords, after all, young though you be.”
“I have been,” she said, her song amused. “They all wish me to come around to their way of thinking; there is no peace when I am among them, and no space for thought.”
“Does it require such thought? Few of your compatriots seem so consumed; they have taken what the stranger offers or rejected it, with seemingly little thought required.”
“I see something in it they do not, I believe. Does this stranger not seem strange to you, Master Shark?”
“He does,” said ed’Rashtekaresket. “But I freely admit I do not know from whence your power comes. He could very well gain it from the same source.”
“We have told you where it comes from.”
“And if you show me where it comes from, I will believe you.”
She bubbled her amusement. “Your distance may be what makes you see what the stranger is.”
“I see that the stranger is strange. You speak like you see more detail than that.”
“He comes and sets them all to fighting, where there were no fights before.”
“Distress has been more frequently felt from your compatriots of late.” It was one of the reasons ed’Rashtekaresket had lurked around the edge of the singing. Distress drew a shark, distress always drew a shark. There was not yet enough of it to lead him to take on something with a wizard’s power, but their distress seemed to be of the type that grew. Soon enough it would grow to such a degree that his entrance to their singing would be inevitable.
“Distress at the stranger’s bidding. Distress at the arguing about whether to take what is offered.” She paused. “You end distress. It is what those of your Mastery are for.”
“I end distress by consuming those who are themselves consumed by it. I do nothing to eliminate the causes of it. Why would I? My people need to eat just as much as yours do. And the stranger is not distressed by the chaos he causes. Quite the opposite.” Though he was loathe to admit it, ed’Rashtekaresket was also uncertain about his ability to consume the stranger. The Master Shark was older than the Lords of the Humors, but not older than the Sea itself, for he remembered no time before the Sea.
He felt this stranger might.
“You see it, then,” she said. “You see what he is.”
“I see that he is not like either of us.” Nor was the stranger like any other being ed’Rashtekaresket had encountered in these waters. “I see that he causes distress, that he would likely cause my people to eat well—and yet I do not wish to see him have Mastery within these waters, nor belong to one of you. I would see him driven off.” Wizards might have their uses, but the Master Shark was certain this stranger was not a wizard. Creating discord was not in a wizard’s nature; this stranger reveled in it.
Maybe that was the thing ed’Rashtekaresket reacted to. Sharks ended distress; they did not cause it—but neither did they revel in it. It was the sign of a diseased mind to play so much with one’s food, and there was no doubt the stranger did see the whales as food, might even see the sharks as food. The fact that he had not come to the Master Shark to offer his gifts argued that whatever he offered was related to a wizard’s power, but ed’Rashtekaresket was not so foolish as to think himself indomitable. There were powers in the world capable of endangering even him, and he would not be able to protect his people in the event that they came for the Sea. He thought the stranger might be one of those people.
“You are still distressed,” he said.
“You haven’t made a meal of me,” she replied, “therefore I must not be that distressed.”
“Would you prefer that I did? It would not be difficult, for you are young still. A lesser shark than me could take you if required.”
“I wouldn’t prefer it, no.”
An odd phrasing, that, with its implied expectation that he would consume her at some point regardless.
“Yet you prefer my company, it seems, to theirs.”
“Your concerns are closer to my own. Your perspective is, perhaps, closer to my own.”
“Your people, I think, would be displeased to hear you say that.” The whales did not care for the Unmastered. They respected his strength and his independence and his place in the Sea, but they quite sensibly did not seek out his company. Except here and now, this youngest of the Lords had done so, apparently because she found his company, his inherent threat, more comfortable than that of her peers. It would have baffled him had he not understood it so well.
After all, who has clearer sight than a predator?
“My people would be displeased to know the run of my thoughts,” she said. “My people would be displeased to know what I consider. Because they have already assured there will never be an end to this discord! We cannot agree! Even if I refuse, this will keep happening. They’ll keep trying. And eventually someone will succeed.”
“I have no solutions to offer you save that most final.”
“Ending my distress?”
“It would serve that purpose, yes.” He was surprised to find he didn’t wish to, though. It was a strange thing to be seen so clearly, but she seemed to see him as clearly as he saw her. Certainly she was much wiser than her peers.
“What you offer would be cleaner than what he offers, to be sure.”
“A true predator kills as quickly and cleanly as possible,” said ed’Rashtekaresket. “There is a satisfaction in the hunt, and the kill, and in knowing one’s prey most intimately. But to take satisfaction in torment and conflict for its own sake? No, that is no business of mine, and I would not ally with anyone who does.”
She was silent, then, seeming pensive, and he floated beside her, listening as the singing continued to issue forth from where the other Lords had gathered.
“The only way out I can see, I do not want,” she said.
“Then it’s left for you to decide which you wish less—to see what the stranger will do to the Sea if unchecked, or whatever this way out is.”
She curled her flukes towards him. “You have given me much to think about, ed’Rashtekaresket.”
“Then I will leave you to think on it. But do not think I will let this decisionmaking go on unobserved. Even if my Mastery will be left unmolested, what is decided here will affect us all.”
“I would expect nothing less.” There was something frightened in her song, but a core of steel as well, and ed’Rashtekaresket found himself wondering what realization she had come to over the course of their discussion.
“Silent Lord,” the Pale Slayer said before he departed, with a respect he would have offered few others.
***
The singing continued. Ed’Rashtekaresket listened as it grew louder and ever more intense, with true hostility beginning to creep into the song. Still he sensed no distress from the stranger, but rather a cruel satisfaction in the growing discord. His dislike of the situation grew. There was not yet enough distress present for him to interfere with wizards, but that day seemed as though it was also drawing nearer, and while his people would certainly eat well in the event of the destruction of the Lords of the Humors, he thought that long-term it would make the pickings very bare indeed.
He did not see the Silent Lord again. She seemed not able to make another escape, trapped with all the Lords singing at her, and he did feel some sympathy for that. He swam alone, protecting his people, and needed no other company. She was more social than he was—being, after all, a whale—but there was a difference between being social and being harangued.
He would have liked to speak with her again now that time had passed, for her thoughts seemed worth listening to and something momentous to the fate of all the Sea was being decided.
He found himself regretting that thought, in the end.
***
At first, he thought she had at last freed herself to seek a moment’s peace from the singing. He approached her on that basis, thinking to ask what had been occurring. He saw her realize he was there, felt her sounding travel through the water to touch his skin. She did not speak, but there was something in the way she swam, the way she approached—and he realized she was no longer hiding her distress. Distress and outright fear were palpable, such that even a much lesser shark than he would be able to feel them coming off her.
He knew she could control herself better than that. Knew also that she knew better than to approach him like that. He had not hidden himself from her as he approached; she had to know he was there.
“You are careless,” he said, still reluctant, strangely reluctant, to exercise his purpose.
“Not careless,” she replied. “Decided.”
There was that steel in her tone again, underneath outright fear, and before he could react she made a sharp dive towards the coral below. He watched as she deliberately dove against the coral, spilling her blood into the water.
Blood in the water. A deliberate choice; she had known he was there. Was this what she had meant when she said she wouldn’t prefer his eating her? She had spoken of a way out she did not want—but he couldn’t imagine her choosing death merely as a means of escape. There had to be something behind this. There had to be something behind this decision, something more to be accomplished by her death, and by her choice of death. She wanted something that could be gained from him, specifically, and by this death, specifically.
He remembered his comment to her about knowing one’s prey intimately. The fact that he could think through her thought process in an instant meant that he had come to know her intimately.
Prey.
He wondered if she had thought that through herself or if she was simply counting on him fulfilling his purpose. For the first time he disliked the idea, disliked the idea of removing from the Sea this one Lord he had come to respect—and as little as he wished to admit it, to like. (He swam alone. He did not have friends.)
But his purpose was simple. To eliminate distress. And she made such a show of her distress.
He could sense the other Lords draw near. Whatever happened had apparently happened dramatically, but he was still loath to take on nine wizards. So he dove forward. He could not do otherwise.
Something passed through him, as he struck. This was no mere consumption of prey, no mere death. The feeling of distress ended, yes, but for a moment he felt the full force of power—her power, the power of one of the Lords of the Humors, the youngest of the Lords, and therefore the most powerful—crash into him, setting his every nerve ending to a sensation like a lightning strike. It passed over him—and then through him. For a moment he could feel every one of his people, every shark in every ocean all across the Sea. Whatever it was she had given, it passed through to all of them.
And to the stranger.
He felt the stranger’s cold darkness in his very bones, the dark pleasure taken in the distress of others, as the power coursed through ed’Rashtekaresket, the Silent Lord’s released power moving through him to the rest of the Sea, curling around the stranger until the Lone Power’s shape deformed, shifting into such a vicious monster-kraken shape that there could be no doubt of what It was. That power drew it down, dragged it towards the depths of the Sea. The Pale Slayer could feel the binding chains of the wizardry passing down beneath the crust until the Lone Power was trapped beneath the seafloor.
And then the power passed and ed’Rashtekaresket was once again himself, the Unmastered, the Master Shark.
Except some part of it hadn’t. He was not sure what was different—but he could still feel his people in a way he hadn’t before, and he felt the ghost of the lightning still dancing through his blood.
***
He drifted after that. The song had ended. The stranger revealed, the Lone Power bound beneath the Crushing Dark. The Great Death both had and hadn’t joined the Sea. Whatever the Silent Lord had done stayed within him, binding him to his people. He could feel them as they went about their business. They could feel him as well, though less acutely—and he noticed, as time went on, that he felt far fewer deaths than he knew there once had been, and rarely were they from natural causes. This was the gift she had given him, and he was grateful for it, even as some part of him did not like to name the feeling.
But it was a long time before he spoke with another whale as he had with the Silent Lord.
***
Wizardry spread throughout the Sea after the completion of the whales’ Choice. No sharks were ever offered the power, but it was not long before more whales than just the Lords of the Humors wielded wizardry. Few still alive in the Sea remembered the Song or the Choice. The Master Shark swam alone, at one remove even from his own people. He protected them as he could—for what was the power the Silent Lord had gifted him for, if not that—but he did not form bonds.
All power had limits, as had been true since entropy came into the world. A sacrifice willingly given, to save other lives, held unimaginable power, but eventually the time came when the floor of the Sea began to shake again. The krakens began to breed. The hot water began to vent from beneath the crust. He had known that the sacrifice could not last forever, but somehow it still came as a surprise to him that this would happen, that the power would wear thin and the Lone One begin to escape again into the world.
He watched, and waited, and wondered what they would do this time, how they would act, whether they would succeed at saving themselves.
And another young humpback came to swim at the Master Shark’s side.
***
He felt her watching long before he ever spoke to her. He almost assumed she had a tracking wizardry on him, because she turned up in his vicinity so regularly. He would have sent her off with threats and teeth, but she wasn’t distressed. She was curious and far, far too bold. So he watched her in return, let her chase him, did not chase her away.
But he didn’t hide what he was either. Let her know the whole of what it meant to be the Master Shark, if she was going to want something from him. (And she did want something from him. There was no reason for her to chase him in this way if she didn’t. It might be conversation, it might be something else. But there was no doubt she wanted something.)
Finally she managed to actually approach him.
And reminded him, as she did, so very strongly of the last humpback who’d spoken to him, for the way she approached her point was somehow both oblique and direct.
“They say you were there,” she said. “That you’re the reason the Sea has been so quiet all these years.”
“Is that what they’re saying?” If they were, it wasn’t precisely accurate. He hadn’t known what he was doing beyond that trusting that the Silent Lord had some sort of plan when she came to him and fulfilling her clear wishes. He might have been necessary, but the plan certainly hadn’t been his.
“You’re the only one left who was there. And whatever she did, it’s breaking down.”
“Nothing lasts forever.” Although he did sometimes wonder if he was one of the rare exceptions—he did not remember beginning; perhaps there would also be no end. Given that the universe would eventually run down, that was a thought more horrifying than anything. (He had noticed that his own people had considerably augmented lifespans since the Silent Lord’s sacrifice.)
“That’s the problem,” she said. “What happens when it stops lasting and the Fairest and Fallen breaks free?”
The stranger had worked enough damage with broken words. Freed of the need to cloak Itself… It might unite the Sea against It, but It would also do immense damage before It was through.
“Why do you ask me,” he asked, “when you have your ‘Heart of the Sea’ to listen to?”
“The Heart speaks only that what worked once will work again. The Sea offers no other answer.”
“You mean for me to do it again.” He had no idea how it had been done the first time. Something to do with wizardry, something to do with sacrifice, but he very much doubted that it was as simple as a meal. Something happened to put wizardry into it somehow.
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Of course it is.” There was not a trace of sarcasm in his tone; had he not just been thinking that it had to be?
“It isn’t just the sacrifice. There’s a ceremonial element to it as well. Recreate some of the original circumstances to recreate the sacrifice. And you… you were there. You remember it.”
“I was not there for the singing itself.” He had spoken to the Silent Lord of the events the stranger brought, but he had not been a participant until the very end.
“But you were there for the sacrifice.”
“So you wish me to tell you what happened. You realize what you are asking?” For there was no doubt in his mind that this youngster was volunteering to take the Silent Lord’s part.
“Yes,” she answered. “I do.”
He did not believe her. She seemed to have no distress over the idea, so it could not possibly have sunken in yet just what she was volunteering for.
He described for her what he had participated in in all of its gruesome detail. If she was going to insist on recreating it, she should know what she was signing up for—and he didn’t want her thinking of him as anything other than a predator, however much he had liked the Silent Lord. But she listened, regardless, and thought about it, and swam away again.
When she returned with a half-composed ceremony and asked for his input on the songs, he gave it to her, but he was ill-pleased.
Somehow his demeanor didn’t seem to phase her. He supposed this was a good thing. It kept him from conflating her overmuch with her predecessor—for she showed no distress at all for a shockingly long time, even as she orchestrated descendants in wizardry of the original Ten, even as she wrote oaths (she claimed with the help of the Heart of the Sea), even as she administered his oath—and that oath did have power in it; he felt it as he had felt the power of the initial sacrifice. It was only when they began to descend to the depths that her distress became apparent, and even then, it was only when they came to the very circle itself, the site where the Lone Power lay bound, that she truly seemed afraid.
He ended her distress as he had ended her predecessor’s.
And again, with some small amount of regret.
***
The third time the Song happened, it was almost disappointing. A wizard came to him and offered the same oath he had taken previously, and they went into the Crushing Dark and sang the same song he had sung the previous time. Another young whale, this one far more distressed about what she had to do, but clearly willing to do it for the sake of all the Sea. The Master Shark took the gift into himself again. With the third Song, and the feeling of the sacrifice each time, he felt himself coming to understand it more clearly. The gift the Silent Lord had given and the memory of her sacrifice—and because he had made it possible, a gift to his own people, to let death sit lightly on the species of his Mastery.
And so the Songs went, hundreds of times over many years. The Master Shark came to sing the Song, accept the sacrifice, and go forward. Always a young whale, one well-tested against the Lone Power. Always the Song. Sometimes with variations—for wizards were often creative—and camaraderie.
While they were routine in themselves, he welcomed them nonetheless, for they were also a break in his routine, a chance to keep company a while with others.
And then came Afallone and all thought of routine was driven from his mind.
***
For the first time, a Song seemed endangered from the start. By the time the young whale came to him this time, the bottom already shook. He knew there had been a great defeat for the Lone Power above—they were already calling it the Battle of the Trees—and Its anger from that was felt in the Sea. The Master Shark attended to his Oath as it was issued to him, but he knew perhaps better than the whales did what lurked in the depths, for his people brought him word of fights with breeding krakens and the darker creatures of the sea. They ate well, fought much, but it was out of balance, this way, and after such a long time he was so very attuned to the delicate balance of the oceans.
It was why he existed, after all. Bring the ailing, bring the weak, as the Song went. She had known what she was doing, writing those words for him. She had been right.
But was not his entire continued existence a testament to the Silent Lord being right?
The Calling was plagued by difficulties. The most powerful whales had already been dying before the Song even started, and there were problems finding enough whales to make up the roster—including finding someone to sing the Silent Lord. He was sworn late that year, for they nearly didn’t find one at all. When they did, he found she was an example of how the Master Shark had faded into story, in time, for she approached with respect but no curiosity. She was there to do her duty by the Sea because someone needed to, but no more than that. He wondered, after, if things might have gone better had she been there a bit more willingly.
But that way lay madness. He had thousands of years and hundreds of Songs behind him at this point and the fact that none of those playing the part lived up the original was basest sentiment which had no place in a shark’s heart.
There was an injury on the way there. There were spells that lost control. And at the end, before he could take the sacrifice, the spells rebounded and freed the Lone Power.
There were so few wizards of power and strength that they needed to wait some years to try it again, and during that time the Sea was filled with all the violence the Lone One could think to inflict.
The Silent Lord who bound It quiet again went willingly. She had to. It was the only way they could enact a Song of enough power to bind a freed Lone One. She sang her part with power ed’Rashtekaresket had not seen since the first Song, and when he took her sacrifice into himself it felt nearly like the first one, the lightning coursing through him to every shark in the Sea so forcefully even he could scarcely withstand it.
He almost regretted it again that year.
He respected her sacrifice even more.
***
The final Song he would partake in began with his people bringing him word that they had been struck down by a wizardry while feeding—sunk to the bottom. With so many Songs passed through his breath and skin, the Master Shark could feel another one in the water, and his people struck down at their meal could only by the first sign. They had also told him they were released, but he would have business with that new young Senior once she came to swear him to the Song. His people had their place in the Sea, and that place was to chase the wounded. He understood the desire to live—who better to understand it, as long as he had lived—but he would not see his people’s purpose set aside.
They had their own role, as the new young Senior well knew. Or would know, if she did not. Immortality was in the sharks for a reason. He would ensure she knew that before he swore to the Song—not that there was any real chance he would not swear, for he knew when it was necessary. But he remembered, as his people brought him word from the depths. He remembered Afallone, so very long ago, and the young one he had so respected who brought the chaos of that Song to its end so many years later. The krakens were breeding again. The monsters were rising. The whales were dying.
He might have been Unmastered, might not serve the same Powers that the whales did, might not truly believe in the Heart of the Sea, but the Lone One was still his enemy.
***
The young human called him by name—not only that, had the temerity to give him a nickname! Ed, she called him. It was a thing worthy of the part she played, for the last person to dare call him by name had been… well. A long, long time ago. He permitted it for that reason; he could already see that Nita would be one to play the part well, to do justice to the one in whose wake she swam. She was clearly afraid of him, but she was also clever, and she seemed to recognize that it meant something that he let her shorten his name. (She couldn’t know what. But she showed clear awareness that it was something.)
He could see enough of her to see her doing well playing the Silent Lord’s part. He looked forward to knowing her, even as the Song had become routine in itself, insofar as taking part in something so powerful could become routine. A renewal of the gift the Silent Lord had given him so long ago when she offered up her own life. He was surprised that Nita would give that gift without letting the people around her know. Would Kit explain it to her parents, or would she just disappear as far as they were concerned? Or would he tell the truth, that she had been eaten by a shark?
Ed felt a certain wry amusement at that thought. Sharks did not normally chase humans, after all. They weren’t exactly filling and one never knew when they might bite back. There was better prey to be had. If the human authorities believed that story it would be because they had wild misconceptions about sharks. (Which he had played into by drawing their attention long enough to let Nita turn from a whale back to a human, but that was an amusement as much as it was a favor. He might not be able to end their distress, but it still amused him to tease, and a being as old as he had to take amusement where it was to be found.)
He considered as he headed away towards the Northern Rips. What kind of creature, Nita had thought. What kind of creature indeed. A shark… but he had never been just a shark, had he. His people were born and died. Ed was not sure he had been born, and he didn’t think he could die anymore, not now that his body had become so accustomed to life. It wasn’t something he normally thought about, but he’d thought about it back then, in the immediate aftermath when he had wondered what exactly she’d done, and he thought about it now. He had heard what S’reee said to Nita about his being a good candidate to really be the original Master Shark.
So her Heart of the Sea hadn’t told her what he was. That might be taken as evidence that it didn’t exist, because that seemed like something that should be relevant information. (He didn’t like to admit it, or think about it, but he wanted it to exist, because it would mean some part of the Silent Lord still remained in the world. But sharks were the ultimate realists, pragmatists, and if he could not see the Heart, he would not believe in its existence. The curiosity about whether it might be real, what it might mean, the desire to know was stifled with long-practiced habit.)
***
He developed even more reason to be skeptical of the Heart’s definition of useful information the next day, when he discovered that no one had thought to tell Nita that there would be blood in the water by the end of the Song. Granted, he thought that should be obvious information to a practiced wizard—even he, no wizard at all, knew it took blood in the water to quell the Lone One—but Nita was young and going into the Song without the support of the people around her. If the Heart of the Sea cared as much for the well-being of its people as S’reee would have liked him to believe, it should have been more upfront about the end result. Especially for something that depended so much on willing sacrifice.
Long, long ago, the Silent Lord had deliberately left blood in the water for him, letting him know what she wanted him to do with that act. A generation later another humpback had come to him to ask how to recreate it. This was the first time he had seen one of the Silent Lord’s successors come to the process entirely deceived as to its purpose.
Even he knew that deception was the Lone One’s tool.
He did not, however, understand the strength of her distress. She was a wizard; she purported to have seen what came next—the wizards professed that it was not belief but knowledge that even the Great Death was not an end but a passage. That was the core of the Song itself. It was what the Silent Lord had sacrificed herself to attain for the entire Sea. Ed might reserve judgment about whether it existed, but Nita was a wizard, even if she wasn’t of the Sea.
Although that particular distress did seem to be shared out among other wizards as well. Areinnye was most distressed at the loss of her calf, enough so that it was only her necessity to the Song that kept him from making good on his threat to her—though he wondered when she swore, as he thought the others did as well, whether this was a good idea. The distress in her was the profound sort that afflicted those who sought his people out not for any type of willing sacrifice but merely because their distress was so unbearable they could not live with it any longer. (It was distress like any other, that kind of thing, but he wondered about it nonetheless. Life was so much a part of him now, and it could indeed be wearying—he swam alone, had done so since the very beginning, and he knew intimately that there were joys to be had beyond the rut which he would never touch—but he had trouble understanding the kind of despair that led one to deliberately seek to end one’s own life simply for the sake of ending it. Trouble understanding it, though, did not mean trouble detecting it, and it was that kind of distress that he sensed in Areinnye now. While it would be preferable if this did not cause problems later, he was uncertain of the wisdom of having sworn her to the Song.)
***
He considered, again, that night. It had been a long time since he had truly thought of the Silent Lord, truly considered what she represented, what she had brought him into by choosing him for her gambit. He had already ruled the sharks then, of course, and answered to no one but himself and his own people, but he wondered what he would have been before that happened. The whales had been born; he had not. His job had always been to end distress, and distress had called to him long before had taken in the Silent Lord’s gift. But it had gained power after that, when the lightning ran through his veins and through him to every shark in existence. There’s immortality in all sharks, he had said to Nita.
What use was there in wondering about might-have-beens? He was what he was, he existed as he existed. But Nita made him wonder as he had not in thousands of years. What might have been had things gone differently, what lay beyond, what was it that he dispatched each of the Silent Lord’s successors to. He heard about the wizards’ joys every time they did a song. By now he knew every part so well he didn’t need to think of them. They spoke of something beyond, other great powers to equal the Lone One.
It did make a kind of sense, that there should be other powers in the world besides the Lone One, although they did not seem nearly so inclined to run about interfering with people’s lives. (Then again, if they were the power behind wizardry, one might argue that they spent the majority of their time interfering with people’s lives.)
Master I have none, nor seek.
His refrain. And dwelling on it did no one any good. He had spoken truly to Nita, that it wouldn’t be of benefit to anyone if he chose to be miserable. He was immortal; he had been in the Sea since the beginning and he would likely see it to its end. Little though he liked to admit it, swimming alone was already wearing—it was only that the alternative, an eternity of swimming alone while feeling distressed by it, was much worse.
But Nita had the promise of this Heart of the Sea the whales spoke of. She had seen it, as a wizard.
So what was then so very frightful about death, when you had the certainty of something beyond?
***
It was and was not a gathering like any other. There were the spectators who always attended on the beginnings of a rehearsal. There was the song in the water as various whales sang through their parts. And the song of the others observing, talking amongst themselves, discussing the singers and the parts and the Song itself.
And there was Nita, floating off to the side in the water, looking at the other whales. This was not her part, nor was it his—neither of them entered the singing until much later. (And in truth Ed had no real need to rehearse. He had been doing this for longer than any other being in the Sea had been alive.)
He drifted towards her, invited her away to swim with him, wondering if she might answer the question he had asked himself the night before. She was afraid, and angry, and he did not understand… and if anyone had the right to see his own uncertainty, it was Nita. So he allowed it to show through, asked her his questions. Perhaps even with some intent to comfort, alongside his curiosity. For he did understand that much—finding yourself caught in something you’d never intended, hadn’t really understood when you were committing to it. He had taken the Silent Lord because she’d so clearly meant him to and he trusted her and she’d known him well enough to play into his purpose, but he hadn’t had any idea of the underlying meaning at the time.
He hadn’t known what he was taking into himself and therefore into his people.
He hadn’t known what he was committing to.
He had always been, but he did not know if he always would have been, if he would have eventually died had it not been for the Silent Lord’s sacrifice. Sharks didn’t die of natural causes, but his own people did generally eventually die of something. His body… his body had so much of the way of life in it that it would take something far stronger to kill him.
There had never been a Silent Lord who so reminded him of the original. Young, clear-sighted, compassionate enough to see him even while she was desperately terrified… there had been Silent Lords that Ed respected, ones who he thought worthy successors to the first, and of course each and every one of them had been willing to give her life for the Sea. But Nita… Nita seemed to be her, again, distressed and afraid and going into something she didn’t know, hadn’t been raised knowing like most whales were, as the Silent Lord hadn’t truly known what would become of her after her sacrifice… and somehow able to see past all that to see into Ed’s heart, enough to spot pains he took care to bury… enough that he trusted her enough to let those pains show. It was why Ed had pushed her to state it outright, to make the choice instead of avoiding it. He hadn’t truly doubted what she would say—but it would, he judged, be less distressing for her if she knew what she would say as well.
If she was going to see what lay behind his mask, he would help her deal with what lay behind her own.
After all, what were his kind for but ending distress?
But he did not lie, when he told her that just this once, he would regret it as well.
As much as he regretted the original, he did not say.
***
The pressure was of some concern to Ed (although less than for the others), but breathing was not—for he was the only one of the company who breathed water rather than air. This was also a journey he had made many, many times. It was not a place they were supposed to go—but it was a place where he had once been, lurking outside the singing, watching those first wizards make their decisions. Watching what would shape the great destiny of the Sea, though he knew it not at the time. Even he was not immune to the overpowering sense that something was to go wrong—perhaps especially he, for he alone among them could remember Afallone.
When the rockfall came, so like that one before, for a moment he was back there again, much younger but still gripped with the same sense of foreboding, the awareness of incipient distress. The weight of time had not yet settled on him as thoroughly back then; he had not yet truly absorbed what had and would become of him. It had not been shocking, as such, and those of his Mastery had eaten well in the aftermath, but he did not want to see it come before him again. He knew he would, someday—for that was the nature of time—but if it could be put off, he would see it done.
Then he saw Nita struggling with her spell, frantically trying to save a whale who would have killed her for being a human… a whale Ed himself doubted the wisdom of bringing into the song. He was struck again with the thought that here was the worthiest successor to the Silent Lord the Sea had yet seen. (For it was something she would have done as well, that guardian of seas with no songs.)
Even without wizardry of his own, though, he could see that she was losing control of her spell, so lost in concentration that she hadn’t realized the two sperm whales were clear of the fall. She couldn’t die here, where it wouldn’t serve the purpose; he dove deliberately towards her, brushing his fin against her flank. As he had hoped, the shock of the contact led her to drop the spell entirely. He could not entirely blame her when she avoided his gaze after she came back to herself; she had just been served an unwelcome reminder of what he was going to do. (He had also been served an unwelcome reminder of what he was going to do. It mattered, what she was going to do. It mattered to the whole Sea. But he thought as he had not in millennia that just this once, he wished he didn’t have to.)
He left her to herself and dove into the depths instead. There was a kraken down there, also waiting to kill them before time; he threw himself upon it and consumed the thing whole before racing back to warn the others of the new threat, but before he could issue the warning the krakens came and Ed threw himself into his purpose: to deal the death of the cycle of the Sea. They traveled, and they fought, and he kept Nita within his sights, for he was far older and better suited to deal with the attacking foes—they were, after all, his prey, though even his own appetite was sated after a time and he focused only on killing the enemies because they wished to kill him. This was his purpose, the pleasure of the hunt and the kill and the fight.
Finally they reached the place where the canyon widened and it became more visible just what kind of depths they were at, but also a place where the krakens were no longer lurking.
Ed kept part of his awareness focused on Nita, on seeing her react to the depths above and then to her friend’s thoughtlessness. That one, he thought, had spent too much time in the whalesark; combined with his distress over Nita’s fate it was beginning to overtake him. Ed moved towards Nita.
“Sprat,” he said, “come along.”
The cool words did their work and Nita followed him further into the depths. The swim was a long one, broken only by occasional visits from those of his people who resided within, come to pay their respects. He acknowledged them as was their due—they might go their whole lives without ever seeing him, and while they certainly knew their Master they deserved the chance to receive his acknowledgment now that he was there. At such depths there was little to eat beyond prey and what scraps fell from the surface (certainly the scraps from his own people’s meals drifting down were a source of food in the depths), and he could readily respect the predators that lived down here. (And given that he was expecting trouble—expecting something like the Song that had been Afallone, if they couldn’t manage to prevent it—it was a reminder that while the Lone Power’s creatures might be down here, Ed himself was not without allies, should the krakens manage to draw his blood.)
The long swim gave him ample opportunity to think, though, and he spent the swim chasing around in his mind the memories of previous songs. It was always evoked on this journey, of course, but it was somehow stronger this time, and Ed didn’t think it was just the sense of foreboding from knowing the Lone One did not want the Song enacted just now. Some of it was the newly awakened reminder of exactly what his role in the Sea was.
It wasn’t something he dwelt upon in the normal course of things. He had his people to manage, distress to end, hunts to hunt. He partook of the heat and the rut at times, when the mood was on him, and he swam alone through the Sea. His body knew life, knew it well, had borne it for some time. He tried, in truth, not to think of it. But he’d been speaking to Nita for the last few days, the first one in an age to not only use his name, but dare to give him a nickname—and provoke him to give her one in return, something he hadn’t done… ever, he thought. Friendships were not something of his, certainly not since the beginning, when he’d had that strange half-friendship with the Silent Lord. Warm-blood kinship wasn’t for sharks.
But he still wondered.
The whales said something lay beyond, that their power came from the Heart of the Sea. Nita said she’d been there, and that, too, awoke Ed’s curiosity in a way nothing else had. Even if it was real, it wasn’t for him; he had no wizard’s power and belonged not to any of the other Powers. There was likely nothing after death for sharks. But he wondered, nonetheless, as they swam—as they drew closer to a Song that was necessary in a way that had not been true since Afallone and a Song Ed wished little to complete as he hadn’t since the first one, when he’d only begun to piece together what had happened in retrospect.
He swam beside her and watched her, considering these things, as they drew closer, until Nita realized where they were and spoke, asking him questions again—and he realized that even among these other wizards, even as afraid as she was of what she must do, what he would do to her, she still turned to him for her answers, and she still swam close to him as they descended.
His brand of honesty was apparently of some sort of comfort to her.
He wasn’t sure what to do with that either.
But then they had arrived once again to the steam vent where Ed had come hundreds of times before.
And the Song began.
***
He could sense it, of course. Not through wizardry, not like the whales could, but out of an awareness of the distress and the sense memory of having done this a thousand times before. It felt like Afallone, when the Undecided struggled against the temptations of the Lone One far more than the Song called for. But he stayed out of the circle, as his part called for… and knew it instantly when the Song began to go off-script entirely. The Celebrants were always vulnerable to the temptations; that was part of the essence of the Song. No mere play, Ed had said to Nita not so long ago. Blood in the water, sacrifice willingly given, but it wasn’t just that or he could have simply come out here with a single whale at much less risk to everyone else. It was the whole ritual together that held the power: the evoking of the memory. (And it was a powerful memory. He had been there for every Song ever sung; he knew which ones were most powerful—and it was always those that most evoked the memory.)
He took no joy in being right, in the final proof that Areinnye should not have been sworn to the Song. But Ed himself froze when Arooon called to skip the battle. He knew what that meant, what was called for, and the disruption of the ritual he had counted upon to guide himself, to fall back on, brought surging to the fore how much just this once he didn’t want to do this. Lies were the Lone One’s plaything. Here and now that could be fatal—and so instead of burying the discomfort as he’d tried to do before, he let it come forward, let it suffuse him. He was the Master in these waters, he had been from the beginning, and he wanted something else, and he would do what the Song called for anyway, whether it gave him distress or not. (For who would end his own distress? He was the ender of distress; there was no one to end his.)
To do anything but what the Song called for was to make a mockery of all these millennia shoving back the Lone One, joining in because keeping the Sea safe for his people was his existence and because if he did otherwise what had the Silent Lord’s sacrifice been for? This was his part, this was why he existed, and he would sing it truly with every fiber of his being.
And then the krakens came boiling out of the depths.
He fought, of course; he was made for fighting even more than any of the whales. He let it consume him—but he kept part of his attention on Nita. For there was only one way to stop this, only one way to make the Sea free for what time was left allotted, and that was to make the sacrifice. He saw her fighting krakens… and felt the moment her distress left her.
That, too, felt like an echo of the first. She dove for the coral and Ed remembered something from before—one with a wizard’s power. It didn’t have to be a wizard, just one with her power.
Just this once, he didn’t want to be what he was.
Just this once, he didn’t want to do something he knew he would regret.
Just this once, he wanted to let someone so bent on doing good for the Sea stay in the Sea.
It was almost without thought that he inserted himself between Nita and the stone outcropping.
One with a wizard’s power.
And with the Silent Lord’s gift within him, he could carry wizardry if she gave it to him. He could end this here and now.
If he had built enough trust with Nita for her to trust him with her power.
He had. She did. The power crashed through him in a lightning rush, something he had felt once before, millennia ago… and many times since then, in varying strengths. The strength of this was almost a match for that first sacrifice, presumably a product of being given the power directly rather than through the filter of the song. He refused to let it overwhelm him, shook himself just once and dove for Areinnye, allowing her to score wounds on his flesh. There were, as they’d seen, sharks who lived down here naturally… and even among the ones who didn’t, his blood in the water would still call them. The wizardry passing through his blood would let them arrive faster—and even with that, he wasn’t sure they would arrive in time.
He fought. It was what he was for, and even with the wound on his side he was still formidable as an opponent. It wouldn’t be enough to save them on its own—but it would be enough to buy them time. Hopefully enough time, even as the seafloor began to rise and the terrible memory of Afallone asserted itself again. He had seen this Serpent before, had suspected he might see It again.
And he heard Nita begin to sing, even without her wizardry.
He let her, watched her. It was the blood that mattered, and the Sacrifice; the fact that he had her power in this moment would matter not. He could still end this in the way it always ended, with the Silent One’s blood on his teeth.
Not old enough to love as yet,
Though in Ed’s experience age mattered little for that. He had seen generations of whales pass by and he still hadn’t known that kind of love.
But old enough to die indeed—
Death could come at any time, at any age. Sacrifice, meaningfully… sacrificing love for life, he had said to Nita.
Ed wondered, though, if he would ever be old enough to die.
The death-fear bites my throat and heart,
Fear came only from within, and he had watched hundreds of whales master their death-fear. (He did not precisely fear death either. He had no assurance of the Heart of the Sea, but he had lived so very long.)
Fanged cousin to the pale one’s breed—
There was the other young human, attacking the Lone Power even despite his fear, despite his dislike of the sacrifice Nita had chosen. Ed had to respect that kind of courage. It took effort not to quail in the face of that Serpent; to actively attack it…
Past the fear lies life for them,
Life. The life he had chosen all unknowingly. It had worked, what they’d all done back then. Life did lie past the fear. Lose your fear of me and I am nothing to fear, Ed had said only a couple of days ago, and now the words of the Song held meaning as they never had before.
—perhaps for me; and, past my dread,
He hoped there had been something past her dread. He had hoped there was something past all of their dread for as long as there had been singing. Every young humpback he had eaten remained with him, a majority of them facing their fate with courage and determination.
Past loss of Mastery and life,
That fear he understood. His Mastery was his life, was everything to him. He devoted himself to his people—not in the warm-blooded whale way, but it was a devotion all the same. The Mastery, he thought, would hurt to lose even more than it would hurt to lose his life.
The Sea shall yet give up Her dead!
He spotted Areinnye moving before Nita did and dove for her, knocked her away, bit at her enough to actually kill her. They needed this done. Nita began to offer her gratitude and they were out of time, and the wound in his side continued to bleed.
Not a mortal wound, not for one such as he. If he did the Song as it was normally conducted, the wound would heal.
He could let Nita finish, let her offer the Sacrifice.
He understood the Silent Lord far better than he had before this Song began. She had been a friend of sorts, the closest he had come to having one until Nita, and it had taken him a long time to come to understanding that—and he hadn’t truly understood until this moment. The Sea mattered. Life mattered. The power that he held in that moment still did not let him hear the Sea, for he was not himself a wizard, but this power—not just the wizardry, but this wizard, this wizard’s power, was not something he would see gone from the Sea.
Just this once, he didn’t want to regret the life he was taking.
Just this once, he could choose another path.
He rammed Nita out of the way, and found that while he couldn’t hear the Sea, he did have the song that sharks were normally denied.
He had partaken of this so many times he had no need for anyone to whisper him the words.
Lone Power, I accept your Gift!
Had he not, after all, spent thousands of years accepting it over and over again?
But take my Gift of equal worth:
Was it not always with gifts that one thwarted the Lone One? The poisoned song turned back upon the singer? Ed had no Master; the Lone One held no power over him.
I take Death with me, out of time,
He had always wondered what was beyond time.
And make of it a path, a birth!
He had been the one to provide that path. It was only fitting that he now be the one to walk it.
Let the teeth come! As they tear me,
It had been such a long time since teeth had torn him. But they had earlier. The gash in his side was still painful.
They tear your ancient hate for aye—
His wounds had been inflicted by one under the Lone One’s sway, but tearing him… it would tear on that hate soon enough.
So rage, proud Power! Fail again,
He would end this now. He would not see her Sacrifice, nor his years singing another part, dishonored.
And see my blood teach Death to die!
Ed’s blood had that power all on its own. It made no difference that he was singing her part; he was still the Master Shark for what few moments remained to him. He would be able to see it done.
He needed no moment to steel himself. He knew nothing of what might come next, nor of how this might end, but he had lived so long that even knowing this was a possibility, it scarcely seemed real. He swam forward and bit down on the Serpent’s neck.
And as he felt Nita's horrified comprehension, he thought at the last how surprising it was that he might be causing distress as much as ending it by his own death.
***
The Sea was bright.
The Sea shone with a fire from within. He had never imagined seeing this place, for it was not his.
“You’re here!” cried a delighted voice.
Ed froze, for he knew that voice. He turned. And there before him he saw the Silent Lord, also lit by the strange inner fire that seemed to belong to everything in this place.
“The Heart of the Sea,” he said.
“So now you have to believe me that it’s real!”
Show me, and I will believe you, he had said hundreds of times over the years.
“Are you to be my guide, then?” he asked.
“Who else? You were mine, all those years ago.” She swam forward slightly, nudged him playfully. “You needn’t worry. You’ll still fulfill your purpose here.”
“As if the Master could feel distress,” he said, conscious of having so recently said those words to Nita.
The Silent Lord bubbled a laugh. “As if the Master could admit to it!”
He did his best to look inscrutable and forbidding, but she saw right through it. He followed her anyway, through the bright-burning Heart of the Sea.
And if he showed himself to Nita deliberately as he swam past, letting her see that some part of him survived, that was just fulfilling his purpose as well.
Seeking for pain to end.