Defender of the Future
Book one of
The Tidesinger Trilogy

Chapter Two

Moonrise found Ecco waiting at the mouth of the bay, as promised; below him the soft sand of the bay dropped away into the deep blue of the open ocean. Currents came to the lone dolphin with the freedom of the night, tastes in the water that spoke of adventures far away. Dimly, as through a haze, he could taste something else, just at the perimeter of his senses. It was an odd coppery feeling, a bad feeling... death was in the water tonight.

He had spent the rest of the waning day alone, in no mood for Star's exuberance. The wild joy of being important had left him swiftly, until he was left once more purely himself--and thinking with something like terror of the task ahead. What have I let myself in for? He could feel it--there would be no going back. Anyway, what sort of fool would he look like now if he turned back, went up to Corse, sniveled to be let off the hook? S'yuuii! They would see him as a silly adolescent who had gotten off his head on a taste of novelty.

No, he couldn't go back, not if he were to keep some shred of self-respect. He had to go through with this. Nervously Ecco began to swim in circles, his mind working ahead of his body. The dolphins had many songs about the dangers of the open ocean, and most focused on how much wiser it was to stay with the pod. The air-breathers did not willingly go alone.

Air beckoned. Ecco rose, breathed, and sank again into a slough of despondency. The moon was nearly at its zenith above; silvery light turned the calm water into white fire. Rolling onto his side, the young dolphin eyed the heavenly body, noting that it was nearly half full. Its energies were gathering, as they always did in the age-old cycle. In not too many days' time, the moon would be full, a white sphere in the heavens. The great salmon saw the moon as God, he remembered; the full moon would draw the fish to their spawning grounds this summer.

Half to himself, he began to croon the little snatches of song he remembered from his childhood, songs that told how to escape from sharks and which fish not to eat. Thus occupied, he barely noticed Corse's approach until the older male let out a soft volley of sonar clicks, the delphine equivalent of a polite cough. Ecco righted himself in a wash of embarrassment, and sent out an answering squeak, then backfinned quickly as the pod leader approached.

"Having second thoughts?" Corse asked.

Feeling silly, Ecco shook his head. "No, of course not. I want to go." It wasn't a lie, he insisted to himself; he did want to go, if only to prove to himself that he wasn't a complete hypocrite. He looked up at Corse quickly, imagining that the older dolphin knew what he was thinking; but the expression in Corse's eyes seemed nothing to do with him. It was a dark look, a sharklike stare.

"I came alone to talk to you, because I have one or two things to say which I would rather the others did not hear." Corse glanced back towards the bay, where indistinct delphine shapes cruised slowly by in the clear night water. "Are you willing to hear them?"

Ecco blinked at his tone; it seemed strangely deferential, not at all the way the alpha male should speak to a low-ranking adolescent. "Of course," he answered, a little confused, and then suddenly cottoned on. "You don't think I can do it, do you?" he asked sharply, his voice gathering strength as his anger rose. "You think I'm not going to come back!"

"Ecco, Ecco," Corse said calmly, "I know you're a determined youngster, but there's a lot of sea out there. We all respect your bravery in making the offer, but you must understand--even Klik would balk at going alone. Your greatest hope will lie in your being unnoticed and swift to flee. My heart is heavy in me at our having to send you this way, but I can spare no other."

"I swear, I won't fail you," Ecco insisted a little stiffly.

"You're strong in heart and lung, at least," Corse said, ignoring his last sentiment. "You have a good chance. And... there is the matter of your sire and heritage."

"My heritage?"

Ecco barely remembered his parents; his mother had been taken by sharks when he had been but a youngling. His father, as far as he knew, had been a lone-swimmer, one of the mysterious ones who went with no pod but lived on their own wits, and on the mystic delphine lore that was their birthright. The lone ones... knew things. They knew songs that could stop sharks in their tracks, or charm fish out of holes. But they kept those things to themselves.

The lone-swimmer had met Ecco's mother on the night of the full moon, when delphine energies were at their height. Old Salla had often told him the tale. His father had been a gray dolphin, dusted with stars under the light of the moon; from him, apparently, came the five starlike markings on Ecco's own head. Others had often remarked on them; how unusual they were in a bottlenose. Supposedly, since his father had been a lone-swimmer, Ecco had to have inherited the ability to wield those delphine powers of song--but he had never felt anything like in his life.

"Those markings on your head, young Ecco..." Corse harrumphed, seeming not to know where to go on from there. "They mean something, in legend. Follow me now." He rose up towards the surface like a gray ghost. Ecco followed, greatly wondering at the pod leader's strange manner.

Corse touched the surface, blew, and then spy-hopped, fluking slowly to push his head out of the water. Moonlight sparkled on his slick skin. "Look, Ecco--up there."

"Where?"

"The stars. Don't you see them?" Five stars seemed to glow brighter than the rest, shimmering and twinkling in the velvety blackness of the heavens. It was silent in the cool night. Strangely, as if from afar, Ecco seemed to hear voices--delphine voices, singing to each other from those distant stars. He blinked, and the strange happening was gone, leaving him to wonder if it had been tinnitus. He shook his head and subsided into the water as one of the stars above flashed brightly.

Corse was waiting for him. "You heard something," the pod leader said flatly.

"I... I don't know what I heard." He backfinned a little, nervous. "Corse..." How were you supposed to go on from there?

"There is an old children's story," Corse said, beginning to swim in a slow, lazy arc, "that strange dolphins once came down from the sky to give us the lore we now hold dear. Because they had swum among the stars for so long, stars had stuck to their bodies and they glittered with them. The lone-swimmers are the descendants of these strange ones." He let out air slowly before continuing. "The starlike markings some dolphins carry are supposed to be a mark of their pure ancestry. Yours say that one day you too will swim among the stars."

"But it's only a children's story," Ecco said, mystified. "Everybody knows you can't swim among the stars. There's no air up there, no nothing. Just cold."

Corse whistled softly to himself, the delphine equivalent of a sigh. "These things that took the Sun River pod... they were supposed to be no more than a story, too."

"There's stories about those creatures?" Ecco was shocked.

"Some. Very little. The lone-swimmers know most. According to their oral tradition, it was one of them who drove the foe back a long time ago." Corse dipped his tail in sudden scorn. "Some mystic rot about singing down the moon, or other such calf-chatter."

Ecco suppressed a grin. That was the real Corse, the down-to-earth dolphin he knew. "But," he said after a moment more, "why are you telling me this? If you don't believe it yourself, I mean."

"I believe one thing," the pod leader answered gravely, turning to fix one liquid eye on the young dolphin. "Your father's blood is strong in you... whoever he is. You have never liked to swim with the pack, as the saying goes. If anybody of our pod can make it to the blues and back, it will be you, young Ecco. There may be something in the legend of the stars, there may not--who can tell? But I like to think that I know my own."

"So I am going, then." He didn't know whether to feel relieved or appalled. Suddenly he realised that he really didn't know how to find the blue whales. He had never left the bay without his pod before. Ecco's father might indeed have been a lone-swimmer, but for himself he had no idea how to go about it.

"You are," Corse agreed softly. "If you're willing--and I think you are, though you have inner qualms." Ecco jerked, wondering how the pod leader was able to read his mind. Paying him no need, Corse swept round in a circle and ended up stationary in the water on his right hand, facing out into the blue yonder. "The whales are north of here, Ecco, through the open ocean. I don't need to tell you to watch out for sharks. Follow the constellation that mirrors your star-markings, until you pass through a narrow place where the water becomes colder all of a sudden. Listen very hard from then on; you'll hear the blues before you see them. Follow the sound of their song." The pod leader surfaced and blew. "When you find one of them, ask to be brought before Sendarian the Songmaster--that is the title of pod leader among the blues. They will only help you if you give the correct title. When you come face-to-face with Sendarian, you're on your own. Just tell him everything you can, and for Sea's sake be sincere."

"I'll do that," Ecco promised.

"What do you have to do again? Tell me."

"Follow-the-star-markings-to-the-narrow-place-then-listen-for-the-song--" He blew. "-Ask-for-Sendarian-the-Songmaster. Be sincere."

"Well done," Corse said gravely. "Now don't forget any of that, because it's all important. Are you ready?"

Ecco nodded.

"It should take you only a couple of days at most, young Ecco. The pod won't go anywhere in the meantime, so hurry back with Sendarian's answer." Corse paused, looking at him with a sharp, intelligent expression. "Do you want to say farewell to anybody first?"

Ecco was silent, thinking. By rights he ought to say goodbye to Star, at least--since they were such close friends. But he didn't want her to get upset at the thought of his leaving, going into such danger. It would be best if he merely slipped away into the night. Feeling very mature, he shook his head. "No, Corse-fa, I think I'll just leave quietly. After all, I'll be back soon," he added, more for his own benefit than for anybody else's. If he believed it hard enough, it should happen.

The other dolphin fizzed amusement for a moment. "I like your confidence, Ecco. Very well. I will tell the pod in the morning. Now--it is time."

Ecco felt his heart begin to pound. The blue waters stretched out before him, dark and still, shot through with moonlight. It's really happening, he thought. Uncertainly, he swam a few lengths, then turned and looked back to where Corse waited silently. "Well..." he began. "Goodbye..."

"Goodbye, Ecco... and good luck."

He turned again, turning his back on the bay, and fluked out into the open waters. Cooler pelagic currents brushed his skin, carrying with them no hint of sand or seaweed. Ecco felt a shiver run through him at the touch of the ocean. This was real now; officially, he was a lone-swimmer, at least for these few days. He was on his own for the first time in his life.

The young dolphin turned back. "Corse?" he whistled nervously.

There was no response. A swift volley of sonar clicks vanished into the blue without echoing back to him; there was nobody there.

He started swimming again, with some effort. It got easier the further he went, and his jerky strokes began to smooth out into a steady, mile-eating tailbeat. He surfaced quickly to breathe and mark where the stars were. The five brightest ones floated before him, leading him into the north where the whales waited out in the cold blue, vast and inscrutable like the moon.

Morning came differently in the open ocean. Ecco was used to it creeping up, appearing over the cliffs with a sudden shower of light, long after the fog of dawn had dissipated. In the open ocean, morning was a much slower affair. There came a soft lightening of the water that gently relieved the darkness of moonset. Pink streaked the distant sky to his right, showing through the thin blanket of cloud as if it were a kelp bed blowing in the current. Then came the sparkling; it started out gently, creeping across the waves towards him, until the water was full of it. The stars had long vanished, and Ecco swam to some inner instinct he could never have explained, knowing only that he could not stop until he found the whales.

He felt lonely, but it was almost a pleasant feeling; there was excitement there too, and deep beneath that a fierce, wild joy that came from being on his own, pitting his wits against the jaws of the hunters. In actual fact, he knew he wasn't in that much danger. The big sharks--the tigers, the terrible white pointers--hung about the shore in general, preferring the warmer waters and the easy pickings on the continental shelf. Out here in the middle of nowhere, Ecco only had to worry about the pelagic blue sharks, fish-eaters all of them, the torpedo-shaped mako and the oceanic whitetip with its spotted fins. Large and healthy as he was, he would present too much of a threat to one of these smaller fish.

The waters were choppy, and there was a slight mist in the air. Ecco tasted debris in the water, legacy of the storm that had raged a few nights ago. The elders of the pod had been worried after that storm; such things tended to stir up things from the deep that were better left buried. After one such, a few years ago, the bay had been filled with deadly stinging medusae torn from their deep lairs. It was possible that the creatures that had attacked Orcus's pod had simply been disturbed by the storm and would return to their rightful home in a few days.

Ecco breached, flinging himself free of the water in sudden ecstasy. Oh, it was grand to be his own master for once! Nobody was around to tell him what to do. He laughed and jumped again, testing gravity with his shimmering blue-gray body. He wanted to shout, "Look at me! Look at the stars on my forehead! I am a creature of destiny!" The young dolphin capered through the shafts of morning sunlight, making enough noise to first attract and then frighten off an inquisitive blue shark.

When he finally tired of the sport, he realised he was hungry. Diving swiftly, Ecco click-clicked a quick search for a school of fish, and found mackerel only a few lengths down. The fish scattered when they heard him coming; he gave chase, managing to snap down only one or two of the very small and slow. Irritated, he drew back. Eating was much easier with others to help you, herding the fish to the surface where there was nowhere to flee. Lone-swimmers had their own little tricks to use, he remembered--songs to hypnotise the fish. He backfinned away, getting some distance, and then charged, managing this time to snap up a somewhat larger specimen. Ecco gulped it down hastily, thinking that he was probably expending more energy on hunting than he had been swimming. Another charge netted him one more fish, and then he gave up on the panicked mackerel in disgust and returned to the surface. Placing the sun on his right, he started to swim again.

Time stretched out before him, liquid as the water around him. By midmorning, Ecco had covered many more miles, and he could once again taste the sand and seaweed of coastal waters. The straits were just ahead, and the most dangerous part of his journey. In crossing over from pelagic to coastal zones, he would once again be exposing himself to the great sharks. The most important thing, he knew, was to make as little noise as possible, and act confident. He was leaving no bloodtrail and swimming fast; if he made no sounds that could be interpreted as distress, the sharks would probably leave him alone.

Probably.

He dived, found a shoal of small fry, and managed to glean enough to take the edge off his hunger once again. A big tuna watched him balefully; he was trespassing now. Ecco paid the fish no heed, though it was more than half his size; he swept past and up onto the continental shelf. A smooth expanse of sand opened out in front of him. The straits should be only a few miles ahead. The sun continued to gather strength overhead, sending shafts of golden light through the water. Mythology said that, at certain times, light could be swum through just as water could--surrounded by gold as he was this morning, Ecco could believe it.

Gradually, though, the dolphin's exuberant mood dimmed as he became aware of something wrong in the waters around him. Puzzled, he clicked out a few sonar pulses, but there was no sign of any shark in the vicinity. The disturbance was coming from ahead.

Suddenly, there was a great rushing in the water, the sound of something approaching fast. He backfinned frantically, but it was only a manta ray. The giant plankton-eater flashed past him in a wash of haste, flapping its way through the water. Ecco blinked, and stared in the direction whence it had gone. A moment later, he was being buffeted by fish. Little coastal fish, the sort that hid in the reefs--they rushed around the startled dolphin without any regard for the large enemy he was to them. He was too startled to snap at any, because suddenly the water around him was filled with movement. There went a school of tuna, a sea snake, a young marlin... even a blue shark, swimming as if all hell were after it. All rushed in the direction of the manta ray, racing for the deep waters. The shark went right by him without a second glance; an outstretched pectoral fin raked along his side.

"Wait!" Ecco cried as the slender predator sped past. "What is it? Why are you leaving?"

"Flee!" came the answer back. "Flee, quickly! Danger in the water! Danger! Flee!" The shark sped out into the open ocean, still screaming its message to all who would listen. "Flee! Flee! Danger!"

As quickly as it had started, the mass exodus was over. Ecco turned slowly in waters that were utterly empty of life. Below him on the sand, a scallop jump-jetted by, clapping the two halves of its shell together to bounce over the smooth expanse. It, too, was headed in the same direction. In a few moments, the shellfish had gone.

The waters were dead.

Ecco began to tremble.