Deep Wizardry New Millennium Edition Page 11

  A fifth kraken took a great suck of water into its internal jet-propulsion system and thrust it out again, tainting the water with the sepia taste of ink as it fled into the depths, wailing like a lost soul. Nita was willing to let it go, and was swimming for the surface when a chill current and a pale form sank past her, spiraling downward with deadly grace. The utter dark of the night sea swallowed Ed. She heard the kraken’s screams, which had been diminishing—and now grew louder, and more ragged, until they abruptly stopped.

  Wearily Nita swam upward. She broached and blew gratefully, doing nothing for a long while but lie there in the wavewash, gasping.

  Not too far away, S’reee broached and made her way slowly toward Nita. Neither of them said anything; but the two of them sagged together and simply leaned against each other, taking comfort in the presence of another whale. Some yards off, the water rushed away from Kit’s back and sides as he came up, gasping too. Nita looked over at him, shaking. She knew that what she saw was just her friend in a whalesuit. But she kept seeing sharp teeth slashing in a blood-hunger too much like Ed’s for comfort.

  “You okay?” she said to Kit.

  “Yeah.” He sounded uncertain, and Nita breathed out in relief. The voice was a sperm whale’s, but the person inside it was definitely Kit. “Got a little—a little carried away there. You, Neets?”

  “All right,” she said.

  Out of the depths a white form came drifting upward toward them.

  They breathed and dived, all three, to find Ed circling in the clearing water, while a storm of fingerling blues and sardines swarmed about him, picking scraps and shreds out of the water, some of them even daring to pick bloody bits off Ed’s skin or from between his teeth. “That last one was in pain at the thought of returning to the depths without its purpose fulfilled,” he said. “So I ended that pain.”

  “Purpose?” Kit said.

  “Surely you don’t take that attack for an accident, young wizard,” Ed said. “Any more than the shaking of the sea bottom these days or the ill chances that have been befalling S’reee’s people have been accidents.”

  Nita looked at Kit, and then at Ed, in confusion. “You mean that what happened to S’reee—I thought you were on our side!”

  Ed began to circle slowly inward toward Nita. “Peace, spratling,” he said. “I pay no allegiance to anyone in the Sea or above it; you know that. Or you should. I am the Unmastered. I alone.” He swept in closer. “The encounter S’reee and Ae’mhnuu had with the whale-eating ship was doubtless the Lone One’s doing. It has many ways to subtly influence those who live. As for the sharks—” Ed’s voice became shaded with a cold, slow rage that chilled Nita worse than anything he’d said or done yet. “They did according to their nature, just as you do. Do not presume to blame them. On the other flank, however, my people have only one Master. If the Lone One has been tampering with species under my Mastery, then It will have to deal with me.”

  That made Nita shake for a moment—not only at the thought of Ed trying to take on the Lone Power himself, but at the outrageous thought that the Lone One, for all Its power, might actually be in for some trouble. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you meant you told the sharks to just go ahead and attack a hurt whale.” And with some trepidation, she copied S’reee’s earlier gesture—rolling over in the water, exposing her unprotected flanks and belly to the Master-Shark.

  A few long seconds afterward she felt what few beings have lived to tell about—the abrasive touch of a live shark’s skin. Ed nudged Nita ever so lightly in the ribs, then glided by; almost a friendly touch, except that she could see the fanged mouth working still, the opaque black eyes tracking on her. Finned whiteness sailed silent and immense above her, hardly stirring the water. “In another time, in another place, I might have told them to,” Ed said. “In another time, I may yet tell them to. And what will you think of me then, Sprat?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, when the white shape had passed over.

  “That was well said too.” Ed circled about the three of them, seeming to both watch them and ignore them at the same time. “So let us be on our way; we’re close to what the humans call Tiana Beach. S’reee, you and I have business remaining that must be done before witnesses.”

  S’reee wasted no time about it, gliding close to Ed—but, Nita noticed, not nearly as close as S’reee had come to Aroooon or Hotshot, or herself. “Ed’Rashtekaresket t’k Gh’shestaesteh, Eldest-In-Abeyance to the Pale Slayer That Was, Master for the Sharks of Plain and Shelf and what lies between—those who gather to sing that Song that is the Sea’s shame and the Sea’s glory desire you to be of their company. Say, for my hearing, whether you consent to that Song.”

  “I consent, and I will weave my voice and my will and my blood with that of those who sing, if there be need.”

  “I ask the second time—”

  “Peace, S’reee, I know the words by now: Who better? A second time I say it, that those with me, both of my Mastery and not, may hear. Twice I consent to the Song, in my Mastery’s name; and a third time, that the Sea, and the Heart of the Sea, shall hear...” Was his voice just a touch drier on that phrase, Nita wondered? “So up, now, the three of you. We are where you need to be.”

  Kit looked around him in confusion. “How can you tell? There’s a lot of Tiana Beach, and you’ve never seen our house—”

  “I can smell your human bodies in the water from this morning,” Ed said, unperturbed. “And, besides, I hear distress.”

  “Oh no,” Kit said.

  “S’reee,” Nita said, stalling, “when will you need us next?”

  “Next dawn,” the humpback said, brushing against first Nita, then Kit, in sympathy. “I’m sorry we can’t have a day’s rest or so, but there’s no time any more.”

  “Do we have to be there?” Kit said.

  “The Silent Lord does,” S’reee said, glancing at Nita. “In fact, normally it’s the Silent Lord who administers the Oath, since her stake in the Song is the greatest.”

  Nita made an unhappy sound. “Kit,” she said, “maybe you’d better stay home. At least you won’t get in trouble with your folks that way.”

  Kit shouldered over beside her, absent affection that bumped her considerably sideways as his hundred-foot bulk hit her. “No,” he said. “I told you: ‘All for one.’ It’s not fair for you to be stuck with this alone. Besides, what if those things show up again, and Ed’s not here—”

  “Right,” Nita said.

  “Neets, we better get going,” Kit said.

  She headed for the surface. Kit and S’reee followed; but Ed was above her and surfaced first, several hundred yards westward and much closer to the shore. So the first sound Nita heard from the shore was the screaming.

  Her heart started pounding despite all her attempts to stay calm, for Nita had never heard her mother scream. The raw panic in the sound got under Nita’s skin even worse than Kit’s hunting song had.

  “Harry!” her mother was shouting, and every few words her terror would gnaw its way through her desperately controlled voice and come out as a scream again. “Harry, for God’s sake look, there’s a fin out there, it’s a shark! Get Mr. Friedman, get the cops, get somebody!”

  The beach flickered with lights—flashlights, held by people running up and down—and every light in Nita’s house was on, as well as most of those in the houses that stood a ways down the beach. Nita gulped at her father’s hoarse reply—just as scared as her mother, trying to stay in control and failing.

  “Betty, hang on, they’re coming! Hang on! Don’t go near the water!” For her mother was floundering into the surf, looking out seaward, searching for someone she couldn’t see. “Nita!”

  Nita had to fight to stay silent.

  Ed cruised serenely, contemptuously close to the shore, bearing off westward, away from Nita and Kit and S’reee. The flashlights followed his pale fin as it broached, as Ed went so far as to raise himself a little out of the water, showing a t
errible expanse of back, then the upward-spearing tailfin as big as a windsurfer’s sail. Shouting in fear and amazement, the people followed him down the beach as if hypnotized. The flashlights bobbed away.

  “He’s got them distracted, we’ve gotta get out now!” Kit said.

  “But our bathing suits—”

  “No time! Later! S’reee, we’ll see you in the morning!” The two of them fluked wildly and made for the beach, in the direction opposite the one in which Ed was leading the people on the shore. Nita stayed under the surface as long as she could, then felt the bottom scrape on her belly; she was grounded. Kit had grounded sooner than she had. Nita gasped a long breath of air and let the shapechange go, then collapsed into the water again—not deep for a whale, but three feet deep for her. She struggled to her feet and staggered to shore through the breakers, wiping the salt out of her eyes and shaking with the shock of a spell released too suddenly.

  By the time her sight was working properly, there was no time to do anything about the small, dark figure standing a few feet up the incline of the beach, looking straight at her.

  Dairine.

  There was a slam of imploding air behind Nita. Kit came scrambling up out of the water, with the undone whalesark clutched glittering in one fist. “Quick,” he said, “I can do the Scotty spell before they come back—” He reached out and grabbed her by the arm, shaking her. “Neets, are you okay?”

  Then he saw Dairine too. “Uh,” he said. The sounds of voices down the beach were getting closer; and through them, abrupt and terrible, came a sudden crack! of gunfire. Kit looked down that way, then at Dairine again, and took a long breath. “Right back,” he said. He said one quick syllable and, in another clap of air, vanished.

  Dairine just stood there in her Yoda nightshirt, staring at her sister. “Whales,” she said.

  “Dairine,” Nita whispered, “how long have they been out here?”

  “About an hour.”

  “Oh, no.” And her folks would be here in moments. “Dairine,” Nita said, “look—” There she stopped. She couldn’t think what she wanted to say.

  “It is magic,” Dairine whispered back. “There really is such a thing. And it’s that book you have, isn’t it? It’s not just some old beat-up kids’ book. It’s—”

  In another slam of air, blowing outward this time, Kit reappeared. He was already in his bathing suit; he flung Nita’s at her and then looked unhappily at Dairine.

  “And you too,” she said to him as Nita struggled into her suit.

  “A wizard?” Kit said. “Yeah. Both of us.”

  Off to their left, there was another gunshot, and a mighty splash. Nita and Kit stared out at the sea. Ed was arrowing straight up out of the water with slow, frightful grace, jaws working as he arched up in a leap like a dolphin’s. Fifty feet of him towered out of the water, sixty, eighty, until even his long sharp tailfin cleared the surface and he hung there in midair, bent like a bow, the starlight and the light of the Moon sheening ice white along his hide and the water that ran down it. “Till later, my wizards!” came his hissed cry in the Speech, as Ed dived dolphin-curved back into the sea. The gunshot cracked across the water at him, once, twice. Ed went down laughing in scorn.

  “That’s as much as he’s gonna do,” Kit said. “They’ll be back in a moment, when they see he’s gone.”

  “That shark—” said Dairine, sounding about ready to go into shock.

  “He’s a friend,” Nita said.

  “Neets,” Kit said, “what’re we gonna tell them?”

  “That depends on Dairine.” Nita took care to keep her voice perfectly level. “What about it, Dari? Are you going to spill everything? Or are you going to keep quiet?”

  Dairine looked at the two of them, saying nothing. Then, “I want you to tell me everything later,” she said. “Everything.”

  “It’ll have to be tonight, Dari. We’ve got to be out again by dawn.”

  “You’re gonna get it,” Dairine said.

  “Tell us something else we don’t know, Sherlock,” Kit said, mild-voiced.

  “Well. I guess I just saw you two coming over the dune,” Dairine said, looking from Kit to Nita. She turned to head down the beach.

  Nita caught Dairine by the arm, stopping her. Dairine looked back at Nita over her shoulder—her expression of unease just visible in the dim light from the houses up the beach. “I really don’t want to lie to them, Dari,” Nita said.

  “Then you better either keep your mouth shut,” Dairine said, “or tell them the truth.” And she tugged her arm out of Nita’s grasp and went pounding off down the beach, screaming, in her best I’m-gonna-tell voice, “Mom, Dad, it’s Nita!”

  Nita and Kit stood where they were. “They’re gonna ground us,” Kit said.

  “Maybe not,” said Nita, in forlorn hope.

  “They will. And what’re you going to do then?”

  Nita’s insides clenched. And the sound of people talking was coming down the beach toward them.

  “I’m going,” she said. “This is lives we’re talking about—whales’ lives. People’s lives. It can’t just be stopped in the middle! You remember what Ed said.”

  “That’s what I’d been thinking,” Kit said. “I just didn’t want to get you in my trouble—just because I’m doing it, I mean.” He looked at her. “Dawn, then.”

  “Better make it before,” Nita said, feeling like a conspirator and hating it. “Less light to get caught by.”

  “Right.” And that was all they had time for, for Nita’s mother and father, and Mr. Friedman, and Dairine, all came trotting up together. Then things got confusing, for Nita’s dad grabbed her and hugged her to him with tears running down his face, as if he were utterly terrified; and her mother slowed from her run, waved her arms in the air and roared, “Where the blazes have you been?”

  “We lost track of the time,” Kit said.

  “We were out, Mom,” Nita said. “Swimming—”

  “Wonderful! There are sharks the size of houses out there in the water, and my daughter is off swimming! At night, at high tide, with the undertow—” Her mother gulped for air, then said more quietly, “I didn’t expect this of you, Nita. After the talk we had this morning.”

  Nita’s father let go of her slowly, nodding, getting a fierce, closed look on his face now that the initial shock of having his daughter back safe was passing. “And I thought you had better sense, Kit,” he said. “We had an agreement that while you stayed with us, you’d do as we said. Here it is hours after dark—”

  “I know, sir,” Kit said. “I forgot—and by the time I remembered, it was too late. It won’t happen again.”

  “Not for a while, anyway,” Nita’s mother said, sounding grim. “I don’t want you two going out of sight of the house until further notice. Understood?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Callahan.”

  “Nita?” her mother said sharply.

  There it was: the answer she wasn’t going to be able to get around. “Okay, Mom,” she said. Her stomach turned over inside her at the sound of the promise that was going to be broken. Too late now. It was out, not to be recalled.

  “That also means staying out of the water,” her father said.

  Why me? Why me! Nita thought. She made a face. “Yeah.”

  “Right,” Kit said too, not sounding very happy.

  “We’ll see how you two behave in the next few days,” Nita’s mother said. “And whether that shark clears out of here. Maybe after that we’ll let you swim again. Meanwhile—you two get home.”

  They went. Just once Nita looked over her shoulder and was sure she saw, far out on the water, a tall pale fin that stood high as a sail above the surface, then slid below it, arrowing off toward Montauk—distress ended for the moment, and a job done.

  Nita felt the miserable place in her gut and thought it was just as well that Ed couldn’t get up onto the land.

  Fearsong

  Nita lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling. It was
three-thirty in the morning, by the glow of the cheap electric clock on the dresser. She would very much have liked to turn over, forget about the clock, the time, and everything else, and just sack out. But soon it would be false dawn, and she and Kit would have to be leaving.

  Changes…

  Only last week, her relationship with her folks had seemed just fine. Now all that was over, ruined—and about to get much worse, Nita knew, when her mom and dad found her and Kit gone again in the morning.

  And the changes in Kit—

  She rolled unhappily over on her stomach, not wanting to think about it. She had a new problem to consider, for when everyone was in bed, Dairine had come visiting.

  Nita put her face down into her pillow and groaned. Dairine had gone right through Nita’s wizard’s manual, staring at all the strange maps and pictures. It was annoying enough to begin with that Dairine could see the book at all; nonwizards such as her mother and father, looking at it, usually saw only an old, beat-up copy of something called So You Want to Be A Wizard, apparently a kids’ book. But Dairine saw what was there, and was fascinated.

  The aptitude for wizardry sometimes runs through a whole generation of a family. Several famous “circles” of wizards in the past had been made up of brothers or sisters or cousins, rather than unrelated people such as she and Kit, or Tom and Carl, who met by accident or in some other line of work and came to do wizardry together by choice. But families with more than one wizard tended to be the exception rather than the rule, and Nita hadn’t been expecting this. Also, Nita was beginning to realize that she had rather enjoyed having her wizardry be a secret from everybody but the other wizards she worked with. That secret, that advantage, was gone now too. Dairine had the aptitude for wizardry as strongly as Nita herself had had it when she started.