Defender of the Future
book one of
The Tidesinger Trilogy

Chapter Twelve

The waters were still and silent as they swam up the coast away from Atlantis. Apparently the Foe had already been here, for there was nothing living on the bare and rocky shores, and the sand below was undisturbed by any living thing. It was the first Karkol and Chang had seen of what the Foe could do, and neither liked it much.

"Creepy..." Karkol shivered, casting a hunted glance back. "This isn't like it's supposed to be..."

Ecco nodded. "I know. The Foe would make the whole world like this if they could. The Asterite said they had a world of their own once, and they bled it dry." They swam on in silence for a while, and then Ecco paused for a moment, considering how to start talking again. "Karkol, listen--"

"No, I won't." The great white swam faster, anger in the swift, jerky movements with which his tail swung. Ecco had to hurry to keep up with him, and they were leaving poor Chang behind again. Karkol didn't slow for her. He stared straight ahead, but his words were directed to Ecco. "I know, Ecco, I know. I know everything you're going to say. You have to do this alone, it'd never work out, you're a mammal and I'm a fish, we're diametrically opposed..." The shark rounded on him, a hot glint in his dark eye. "I know! Heck, my people have eaten yours ever since you first took to the water! I'm no stranger to the idea of dolphins as enemies! But it's what you said in Atlantis--this is a bigger fight!"

He paused to gather his wits. Ecco was silent, shocked by the ferocity of the great white's words. Karkol shook himself and then went on. "I've seen these things too now. I've seen what they can do. But I can fight them, Ecco--you can't yet. At the very least, you need me right now. We'll go together and find these lone-swimmers or whatever they are, and we'll work out a way to kill the Foe. Then we can think about being enemies. Okay?"

"But--" Ecco said.

Karkol fixed him with a look. "I'm coming, Ecco."

Ecco stared at the shark with a peculiar expression, trying to think of a way out of this odd partnership. Finally he sighed and bowed his head. "All right. I guess I couldn't really make you go away, anyway... if that's what you want, we'll puzzle this out together."

They were silent for awhile. Karkol slowed, some of the anger going out of his muscles. The cuts on his triangular snout glistened pale white against the dark slate-gray of his head. Ecco kept pace with the shark, thinking dark thoughts. Finally, Karkol glanced sideways and said, "We're not all that different, actually. I mean, physically."

"What?" Ecco stared at him.

"Well sure, there's the whole air-breathing thing with you, and you're smaller. But the Slayer said once that we're closer to dolphins than we are to fish. We're warm-blooded, Ecco, did you know that? That's why we're so much smarter than other fish. And we don't lay eggs." Karkol grinned slightly at his surprise. "A lot of sharks give birth to live young. Just like dolphins..."

Ecco sighed again. "I don't know how the lone-swimmers will react to you, Karkol. I mean, your average dolphin does not like sharks."

"I'll manage," Karkol said gruffly.

"I wonder if they will..." Ecco murmured to himself, with a smile.

They were interrupted by Chang as she tumbled up to them, doing the fish equivalent of staggering. The little angler was exhausted enough that she went right up alongside Karkol without any evidence of fright. "You rotten... things..." she gasped, "...you might have waited..."

"Sorry, Chang," Ecco whistled, unable to hide a hint of amusement in his voice.

Chang waited, gulping, until she had recovered some of her poise. "Listen," the angler-fish said after a moment more, "I had to catch you up because... well, because I guess I need to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Ecco repeated stupidly.

Chang nodded, looking a little uncomfortable. "I really need to thank you for helping me out of the Undercaves... I think," she added, giving him a sharp look. "It might have been more trouble than it was worth. But I'm glad you turned up before those things did. But Ecco, I can't help you with them. I--I'm too scared." She looked away unhappily. "I'm too little to be any use, anyway."

"You've been a lot of use," Ecco said sincerely. "Your light got me--got us, even--out of the Undercaves in the first place. And then you spotted the switch in Atlantis." He smiled. "No, Chang, never think you're no use. We both need to thank you."

She smiled, nervously. "Thanks... listen, I gotta get going, okay? It's a long way back home."

Ecco nodded, thinking of the deep darkness to which he had traveled. It had taken him to the limits of his resources to reach the depths where he had found Castor, and he had a feeling that that wasn't even a very deep dive to a sperm whale. Chang would have to go more than twice as far before she reached her abyssal home waters. "Good luck, Chang," he said quietly.

"Watch out for those damn things," Karkol added, and though there was the usual wicked tone in his voice, there was a serious look in his dark black eyes that didn't gel with the rakish grin.

Chang nodded slightly and turned to swim away. "Chang?" Ecco called suddenly. She turned back, her light glowing softly yellow in the water. He blinked, wondering what it was he could have been about to say. "I know I shouldn't ask, but if you see Castor... tell him..."

"Yes?" Chang prompted cautiously after a few more moments.

Ecco frowned. It was a measure of the trust she had in him that she was even prepared to listen, but he couldn't in all faith ask her to seek out Castor. The sperm whale was big enough to swallow her without even noticing. Would he even listen to the words of a fish? "Nothing," he said finally. "Never mind... just take care, okay?"

Chang gave him a long, relieved look, and turned away again. Ecco watched as her light bobbed down through the water until it faded into the deep blue-black. They were left alone between the silver light of the moon and the darkness of the depths.

"Well, that's that," Karkol said, in a voice that wasn't all carefree cheerfulness. "Let's go."

"Poor little Chang," Ecco murmured. "I'll miss her, you know. She was pretty brave for her size..."

"Deep-down dwellers usually are," the shark said, glancing at him again. "I've been down a ways--not to where they live, of course, but far enough. There's some pretty nasty things down in the abyss. I saw one fish that was all mouth--I mean, it had this really thin long body like a sea-snake, and then this gigantic mouth with teeth that were longer than its body was wide. Scariest thing I ever saw. It could've taken a tuna whole."

"A gulper?" Ecco wondered out loud, and then shivered. Chang might prefer it down there, but he was pretty sure that he was more attached to the surface where at least you could see your enemies coming. A moment later, he gave up on the thought. "Karkol, we'd better start looking for dolphins. We're going to need to ask people about the lone-swimmers if we're ever going to find them. I don't suppose..." He eyed the shark. "Would Greshruk know?"

"The Slayer?" Karkol gave him a funny look. "You really want to go and ask her after what happened to you before?"

"I thought you could maybe, since you're, you know, her son...?"

The shark shook his head emphatically. "She'd eat me as happily as she'd have eaten you, let me tell you. I think we'd better avoid her, to be honest... when something gets away from her, she's in a bad mood for days, and believe you me, you do not want to meet the Slayer in a bad mood."

Ecco fizzed out laughter. "I thought sharks were supposed to be reverent about the Slayer!"

"I can be rude about her if I want," Karkol said with a grin. "She's my mother."

They had been swimming all this while, moving slowly north up the coastline. The seas were still empty of life, and now that the moon was high there was an eerie silver glow on the bare sand. Ecco had never seen anything quite like it... there was no such thing as a desert in the sea, but he had heard Arctic terns talking about the high places of ice where nothing could grow. Perhaps it was like this, pale and empty.

The moon slid slowly down towards the horizon, signaling the relentless approach of another day. And, with the night's waning came the sound again. The screeching, far in the distance. Ecco listened to it for a while on his own and willed it to go away--he had superlative hearing, better than Karkol's own. Finally, however, he could bear it no longer and looked towards the big gray shape that swam silently at his side.

"I know," Karkol said, catching his eye. "I've been hearing it too. They're back, aren't they?"

"Too many to fight," Ecco agreed dully. "I guess we flee again."

"I'm tired of just sneaking away," the shark said in a low growl.

Ecco sideyed him. "Don't even think about it," he advised. "You took two of them on your own, fine, but when they get together... well, Castor said they killed Carcharodon."

Karkol nodded slowly. "It's true, they did... I know I can't fight them, Ecco. Doesn't say I have to damn well like it."

The shrieking was a little louder. Ecco looked behind him nervously. "Should we go faster?" he asked.

"Probably," Karkol said tightly. "Dunno where we're gonna swim to, though. If they got into Atlantis, they can probably get into anywhere. How many, d'you reckon?"

Ecco listened hard to the alien sounds from behind them. "I don't know," he said at last. "Maybe ten, maybe a lot more. There's too many for me to count. And they can fly," he added, remembering being chased out of Sapphire Bay. "That's probably how they got in--they flew over the gates."

"And then flew out again," Karkol said with a grim expression. "Great. This isn't fair. I'm supposed to be the number-one hunter round here! I've never been hunted myself before!"

"Well, this is what it feels like." Ecco listened to the sounds again--they seemed closer. The Foe were coming for them. Would there never be any respite from this? "Come on--" he began, intending to coax the angry shark into faster swimming, when he heard something else... the mellow, flowing tones of whalesong. "Karkol, listen! Can you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Karkol began. "If you mean the Foe, I--" He broke off suddenly, cocking his head with a thoughtful expression on his head. "Uh-oh."

"What do you mean, uh-oh?" Ecco asked, staring at him. "They're whales! They can help!"

"They're killer whales, Ecco," the great white said nervously. "They're supposed to live up north. I don't know what they're doing all the way down here, but don't think they're soft like those big plankton-feeders." He had slowed, and now seemed undecided as to whether to face the killers or the Foe. "Ecco, listen--I know a bit about killer whales, news comes down on the current. They're pack hunters--they eat sharks, and dolphins too when they can get them. They'll even have a good go at a humpback whale now and again. We have to stay clear of them!"

Ecco was shaking his head. "No, we can't. The Foe will catch us up. We have to ask them what they know. Look, you can stay back if you want... I'm going to talk to them."

"Got a big rock handy to hide behind?" Karkol asked sarkily, following with obvious reluctance.

It was easy to find the killer whales. Their song filled the empty water with pops, beeps and sharp little tingling sounds. Ecco judged that there were around eight of them, mainly adults but with one or two younglings in tow. He and Karkol swam slowly around a point and came across the whales in a sheltered bay that looked very similar to Sapphire Bay itself. Long, plump, piebald shapes slid through the water, cutting its surface with long black fins. The whales were black and silver in the moonlight.

"Here goes nothing," Ecco whispered to Karkol, and then searched his memory before realizing he only really knew how to address a blue whale properly. Corse hadn't told him anything else, save for one bit of advice. Be sincere... He raised his voice. "Hello?" he called. "Can I talk to... uh, whoever's in charge here?"

"We're dead," Karkol muttered.

The fluting tones stopped. Ecco's sonar picked out swift shapes sliding through the water--he backfinned quickly and felt Karkol's rough hide brush against his body. For some odd reason, that comforted him, though the shark was just as nervous as he himself was. The killer whales came glittering out of the blue towards them in a regimented formation, silver moonlight pouring off their gleaming bodies.

"Don't eat us!" Ecco cried out desperately, seeing it all end in a roiling mass of orca jaws. "Please, we need your help!"

The whales approached--he felt Karkol trembling beside him, forcing back the urge to turn into blood-red death in the water. Ecco pressed his tail against the shark's side for a moment, willing him not to snap. Less than a length away, though, the killers drew to a halt. Small brown eyes flashed fiercely as the piebald hunters examined he and Karkol up close, a ring of hot black-and-white bodies.

"Ha, talking food?"

"Bizarre!"

"What do they want?"

"Can we eat them?"

"Quiet!" This last was a blast of sound which sent the whales backfinning hurriedly. A huge, scarred individual, fully two dolphin-lengths longer than Karkol, swam up majestically as the other killers backed off. Ecco and Karkol watched silently as the pod leader examined them. He took his time before speaking, so that their nervousness reached a peak. At last, though, the pod leader spoke, and his tones brought the other whales back into a regimented order. "We will hear them out, hunt-brothers. The little singer asked for help. You know the law!"

"But it's food, hunt-master!"

The pod leader growled without turning his head. The speaker subsided. Ecco and Karkol exchanged glances, and then the pod leader spoke out again. "You, little singer, and you, hungry one. Speak swiftly or not at all. Who are you?"

What do we have to lose? Ecco wondered. And Karkol certainly wasn't about to speak up... looked like it was down to Ecco again. He let out air nervously. "Sir," he said, as politely as he could, "This is Karkol, and I'm Ecco. We ne-"

The whales had erupted into a cacophony of excited singing. One or two even fluked up and breached, throwing themselves right out of the water in exuberance. "Ecco! Ecco!"

"What'd you say?" Karkol asked, nonplussed, and then stared around at the joyful killers, who certainly seemed in no mood to think of eating. "Carcharodon's teeth, whatever it was we might actually get out of this alive!"

The pod leader was the only one who had remained aloof from all the excitement. He waited in the water in front of them, a streamlined bulk of black and white, gazing at them coolly through his small eyes. "Ecco... so you are Ecco."

"Y-yes..." Ecco blinked. "You've heard of me?"

"Where have you been recently, little hunt-brother?" the killer whale asked with an expression of astonished amusement. "On the moon? Your name has been sung up and down these shores for the past three days! You're the one who is going to fight the Foe!"