Defender of the Future
book one of
The Tidesinger Trilogy

Chapter Fifteen

When Ecco had found his voice again, the first thing he asked was, "Rhiellan?" It took a moment for that to work its way through, but his befuddled brain had already noted the similarity between that name and the others he had heard. "Rhiellan? A lone-swimmer? You knew my father?"

Afarellan gravely inclined his head. "Yes, Ecco. I... knew your father, long ago. He was one of us. The stars you bear on your head come from him."

"Is he here?" Ecco asked, suddenly excited beyond words.

But the old dolphin shook his head. "No, Ecco, I am sorry. Your father..." He sighed. "Your father was... taken."

"By the Foe?"

"By a shark." Afarellan's pale eyes, blue like the sky, met Karkol's. "A white pointer like your friend. It was many years ago. I do not hold grudges against your kind, young Karkol. You do what you are designed to do, as we must all do. It is the only true law in the sea." Karkol looked unhappily at Ecco, who looked back without any words to say.

Afarellan rose gracefully and took a breath from the air at the top of the chamber. "But this is not the time," he said quietly, returning. "The Foe are our enemy now, not each other. It seems that this is a lesson which you two have been learning over the past few days." The old dolphin glanced between them quickly. "We will do everything in our power to help you, as we helped Tidesinger long ago. The Foe cannot find this place yet--it is hidden by an ancient song of power. You passed through the stone to get here; you know of that."

"Yes," Ecco said softly, making an effort to get his brain working again. "You know why we've come?"

"You seek the song that will defeat the Foe." Afarellan nodded slightly. "Yes, I know. But you are very young, and you are still inexperienced in battle... I fear that your strength may not be enough for the task ahead of you." He looked away for a long moment, finding solace in the picture of Tidesinger. "Ecco, do you know what you have to do?"

"No," Ecco said truthfully. "That's what I've spent the past couple of weeks trying to find out."

"You must destroy the Foe ship. If you destroy the brood mother, you destroy the Foe. But they will keep the brood mother heavily guarded by her strongest servants." Afarellan sighed. "I have felt them, Ecco... they have been building a new ship, far down in the deep. It is almost ready now. You have at most three days before it rises from the water into the sky. If the Foe escape Earth, no power of ours will be able to stop them."

"Then where is it?" Ecco asked fiercely. "Karkol and I will find it and destroy it, if that's what's needed!"

"It is deep within the abyss, Ecco," Afarellan said simply. "Not even with the Asterite's power could you dive that far--not even without the need to breathe. Ask Karkol--he will tell you what the deep-down does to those not used to it."

"It's true," Karkol answered, sending an unhappy look in Ecco's direction. "We'd never be able to make it in two days. The water pressure would crush us. I've seen what happens when you take a deep-down fish and bring it to the surface too fast--it explodes. Can you imagine the opposite of that?"

Ecco could--he shuddered. "Then what do we do?" he asked helplessly. "If we can't defeat the Foe that way, what else can we do?"

"Do you remember the story of Tidesinger?" Afarellan asked.

"Singing down the moon?" Ecco blinked. "Of course I do, it's all I've been hearing over the past few days. What good will it do us if the Foe are in the abyss?"

The old dolphin laughed a little. "Ecco! Remember that the Foe are going to leave the Earth soon! Perhaps if you used the Moonsong once again, you could intercept the ship on its way. They will be off their guard then--they will never expect an attack from you to come while they are in the air."

"But I can't breathe in air," Karkol said simply, and then his eyes widened. "No! Don't make him go alone! He needs me! He--"

"Patience," Afarellan answered with gentleness in his eyes. "No, I would not ask Ecco to go alone, and neither will I ask him to take one he does not know. But there is one more thing you must consider--the Foe ship will have no air. If you could not breathe on the way up the moonstream, Ecco would drown on the ship. We have a gift to give you both that will allow you both to go, but it is a double-edged sword. You must think very carefully before you accept it."

Ecco and Karkol exchanged confused glances. "What is it?" Karkol asked eventually. Ecco rose to breathe, Afarellan's words having reminded him of the need.

Afarellan paused for a long moment, thinking over what he would say. Eventually he nodded slightly to himself and began to speak again. "We are the keepers of certain ancient Powers. The Power of Song will be yours alone, Ecco, for you are the only one who can wield it. It will allow you to battle the Foe. This is what you came here to acquire." The old one paused again. "There are two more Powers. One we keep hidden in a secret place far from here--it has been used only once, and never shall be again. The third and last is the Power of Air." He paused, looking at them out of his pale blue eyes--strange eyes, in a dolphin. "If you accept it, like the Foe you will no longer depend on oxygen to survive. You will be able to swim in water or in air without ill effect."

"Forgive me for saying so," Karkol broke in, looking puzzled, "but I don't see how that could possibly be a bad thing. I mean, it'd make us both stronger, right?"

"But it involves giving up a part of yourselves," Afarellan said simply. "You will be unlike all others of your kind. Such power affects everybody differently." He paused. "We have given the Power of Air to only two others in history."

"One was Greshruk, wasn't it?" Ecco asked quietly.

The old dolphin looked at him with a flash of blue. "Yes, it was," he answered. "You have a quick mind, Ecco. We gave the Power to Greshruk and to Lord Tidesinger so that they could use the Moonsong. But we did not foresee the effect it would have on the both of them. It is a kind of immortality, you see. Freed from the need to breathe, Greshruk found a new need--the need to kill. She became the Slayer, the ocean's angel of death. And so she has swum on down the ages, never tiring, never sleeping, growing greater and more terrible."

"What happened to Tidesinger?" Ecco had to ask.

Afarellan was silent for a long while. "We do not know," he said at last. "Lord Tidesinger has not been seen for very many years. Here in Lunar Bay we honor his memory."

They were silent. Afarellan looked from one to the other, then glanced swiftly at Naylle. She nodded without speaking, turned and left the chamber. "You may consider your decision," the old dolphin said, backfinning respectfully. "But there is not much time left... if we are to sing the Moonsong again, we must send messengers to every corner of the Earth."

Ecco looked at Karkol, who looked back. "I don't want to turn into the Slayer," Karkol said at last.

"I don't want to disappear," Ecco agreed worriedly. "What do we do?"

The shark shook his head helplessly. "We haven't got a choice. We have to do this, or Earth dies."

"I know," Ecco answered. "I guess I just wanted to hear it from you. The killer whales made their sacrifice, and now we're being asked to make our own. I... guess it's fair."

"The Moonsong, then," Afarellan said gently.

Karkol turned towards him. "Yes," he answered with a slight effort. "We'll do it. Whatever needs to be done, we'll do it."

"How like your mother you are," the old dolphin said, and there was a strangely thoughtful look in his eyes as he said so. "Good luck to you both, then. The Moonsong must be performed at the time of the full moon, and we have only two days left. You must leave here as soon as possible in order to get to the Moonsong Stone in time." He swam slowly towards them. "I can give you the Powers you need now, but then you must hurry. There is another journey before you."

Ecco remained still as the old dolphin stretched out and gently touched him, on the forehead and then on the top of his head. A strange tingling went through him at the touch, a sensation that was not altogether pleasant. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the same prickling sensation in his chest, and suddenly had a very un-delphine urge to cough. The tingling spread right through his body, and he felt five sharp stinging pains on his forehead, where the star-markings lay. He hunched up in misery and waited for it to be over.

The sensations abated quite suddenly. Ecco opened his eyes a crack, then blinked swiftly, realizing that he didn't feel much different. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Karkol shaking himself dizzily. "That felt weird," the shark said, slightly nervous. Afarellan was waiting a length or so away, watching the both of them in silence.

Ecco slowly swam forward, aware now of a new heaviness in his chest. "Well," he said carefully, "I guess we're ready."

"Follow me then," Afarellan said, "and good luck to you. I will tell you more of what you must do while you swim with me."

The Moonsong Stone was, like Lunar Bay, a place sacred to the lone-swimmers. Legend had it that the Stone was where Tidesinger had first left the Earth on his quest to defeat the Foe--the sea bed had reached up after him, as if to call its champion back. The Stone was a high needle-like pinnacle that jutted up more than a hundred feet above the water, marking the very center of a wide coastal lagoon. That place was where the Song had first been performed, by Tidesinger alone if the legend held true.

"The lagoon is many miles south of here," Afarellan said, as he accompanied Ecco and Karkol through the still night-lit waters of the bay. "You must swim tirelessly if you are to reach it in time. We have spent nearly a day talking... you have two more to reach the Stone."

"We'll make it," Karkol said firmly. "We must've gone halfway across the ocean in the last couple of days. We'll get to the Stone in time, don't worry."

"I hope and pray that you do," Afarellan answered gravely. "-Ah, here comes Mallidith." The large white dolphin who had first challenged them was speeding through the water towards them, flinging himself clear of the waves in his hurry. Karkol growled softly, but Ecco shot him a glare and he subsided. Afarellan waited quietly for the other dolphin to reach them.

"Is it true, Leader?" Mallidith asked angrily, even before he had drawn to a halt before the old one. "You gave the Power to these two?" His eyes, pale and furious, swept over Ecco and Karkol. "They are outsiders!"

"They are the chosen ones," Afarellan said simply. "It must be so."

Mallidith's eyes flashed pale fire. The stars on his body gleamed hungrily under the strange moonlight of Lunar Bay. "It is not right!" he insisted wildly, glaring at Ecco as if he would have attacked him; Karkol moved a little closer to Ecco, indicating with his size that he was ready to defend him. Mallidith did not back down. "Afarellan, he is a half-breed! I should have been the one--"

"Mallidith!" Afarellan's voice, suddenly amplified to ten times its previous volume, actually pushed the angry lone-swimmer back in the water. "I know your feelings on the matter, and I know of your high pedigree! But Ecco is the chosen one! Can you deny his markings?"

"He is not one of us," Mallidith hissed hatefully, and turned away with a flick of his sooty black tail. "I care nothing for the spots on his bottle-nosed face." With that, he was gone into the blue like a bolt, leaving behind the bitter taste of his anger.

"Nice guy," Karkol remarked.

"He is angry," Afarellan said with a kind of sad simplicity. "Mallidith's family is a very old one--they claim that they can trace their ancestry all the way back to Tidesinger himself. He believes that he should be the one to oppose the Foe. But..." The old dolphin sighed a little. "He does not have the marks. He cannot be the chosen one."

"What marks?" Ecco asked, knowing in advance the answer.

"It was prophesied long ago," Afarellan explained, and poked his head out of the water to indicate the glittering stars which mirrored Ecco's own markings. "Delphinius sets his mark on the one he has chosen to defend his people. You are that chosen one, Ecco. Mallidith is angry because of that--when the Foe swam again, and you did not come, he dared to hope that you would not: that we would call upon him instead." Afarellan sighed heavily. "I am sorry for him. Jealousy is a hard burden."

They had progressed all the way to the wall. Ecco looked up and saw the shimmering barrier standing before him. He could hear the Foe, faintly, and he looked at Afarellan with sudden worry in his eyes; Karkol did the same. "What about--" the shark began nervously.

"The Foe cannot find their way here," Afarellan said, "for the moment. We knew that the Foe would be on your trail, and so Naylle has taken some of the singers into the reef from whence you came. They are weaving enchantments to baffle and ensnare the Foe. It will take them fully two days to find their way out--and when they do, it will be too late for them to catch you up."

"Thank you," Ecco said softly.

"Good luck to you." Afarellan smiled a little. "Ecco, I have faith in you, even if Mallidith does not. I can see, as he cannot, that you are truly the one. And Karkol... you swim in your mother's trail, my friend."

"Why doesn't that comfort me," Karkol said flatly.

"Do not misjudge the Slayer, my friend," Afarellan answered, unfazed by the shark's harsh tone. "She too rose to defend Earth in her time. Though she may well seem cold and cruel to you now, I know that there is good deep inside her still. And blood will out in the end... blood will out." He paused, looking up at the moon which hung like a silver lantern in the sky. "I have not told you the legend of Lunar Bay, my friends. This sky of ours is an enchantment wrought long ago... it is the sky that appeared here on the night Tidesinger sang down the moon, preserved for all eternity above our waters. Whenever we look up at it we remember his sacrifice, and we mourn, and we love."

Such devotion, Ecco thought, to a dolphin so long dead. It made him sad. "We should go," he said quietly to Karkol, who nodded and swam forward towards the wall. Ecco paused, looking back at Afarellan. Above their heads, hundreds of great white birds sprang from the cliffs and circled with cupped wings before sliding off into the sky. The air was filled with their lonely cries.

"Go, swiftly!" Afarellan said. "The messengers are already leaving, summoning the singers of the world to the Moonsong Stone. You have two days left--use them wisely!"