Nita suspected that Tom was right. “Anyway,” he said, “let me give you the rest of this. After you do the appropriate rituals, which the whales will coach you through, the access through the Gates of the Sea takes you down through Hudson Canyon to its bottom at the lower edge of the Shelf, and then deeper and farther southeast — where the canyon turns into a valley that gets shallower and shallower as it goes. The valley ends just about where the Abyssal Plain begins, at seven hundred miles off the coast, and seventeen thousand feet down. Then you come to the mountain.”
It was on the map — a tiny set of concentric circles — but it had looked so peculiar, standing there all by itself in the middle of hundreds of miles of flatness, that Nita had doubted her judgment. “The Sea’s Tooth,” she said, reading from the map.
“Caryn Peak,” Tom agreed, giving the human name. “Some of the oceanographers think it’s simply the westernmost peak of an undersea mountain range called the Kelvin Seamounts — they’re off the eastward edge of your map. Some think otherwise; the geological history of that area is bizarre. But either way, the Peak’s an important spot. And impressive; that one peak is six thousand feet high. It stands up sheer from the bottom, all alone, a third as high as Everest.”
“Five Empire State Buildings on top of each other,” Kit said, awed. He liked tall things.
“A very noticeable object,” Tom said. “It’s functioned as landmark and meeting place and site of the whales’ great wizardries for not even they know how long. Certainly since the continents started drifting toward their present positions… at least a hundred thousand years ago. And it may have been used by… other sorts of wizards… even earlier than that. There’s some interesting history in that area, tangled up with whale-wizards and human ones too.”
Tom’s voice grew sober. “Some of the wizards who specialize in history say that humans only learned wizardry with the whales’ assistance… and even so, our brands of wizardry are different. It’s an old, old branch of the Art they practice. Very beautiful. Very dangerous. And the area around Caryn Peak is saturated with residue from all the old wizardries that whales and others, have done there. That makes any spell you work there even more dangerous.”
“S’reee said that the ‘danger’ level wouldn’t go above ‘moderate,’ “ Kit said.
“She said it shouldn’t,” Nita said.
“Probably it won’t,” Tom said. He didn’t sound convinced, though. “You should bear in mind that the ‘danger’ levels for humans and whales differ. Still, the book said she was about to be promoted to Advisory status, so she would know that— All the same… you two keep your eyes open. Watch what agreements you make. And if you make them — keep them, to the letter. From all indications, the Song of the Twelve is a lovely wizardry, and a powerful one… probably the most powerful magic done on a regular basis. The sources say it leaves its participants forever changed, for the better. At least, it does when it works. When it fails — which it has, once or twice in the past — it fails because some participant has broken the rules. And those times it’s failed… Well, all I can say is that I’m glad I wasn’t born yet. Be careful.”
“We will,” Nita said. “But what are the chances of something going wrong?”
“We could ask Peach,” Kit said. It was a sensible suggestion; the bird, besides doing dramatic readings from Variety and TV Guide, could also predict the future — when it pleased her.
“Good idea. Carl?”
“Here I am,” Carl said, having picked up an extension phone. “Now, Kit, about the monsters—“
“Carl, put that on hold a moment. What does the Walter Cronkite of the bird world have to say about all this?”
“I’ll find out.”
Monsters? Nita mouthed at Kit. “Listen,” she said hurriedly to Tom, “I’m going to get off now. I’ve got to be around the house when my folks leave, so they won’t worry about my little sister.”
“Why? Is she sick?”
“No. But that’s the problem. Tom, I don’t know what to do about Dairine. I thought nonwizards weren’t supposed to notice magic most of the time. I’m lot sure it’s working that way with Dairine. I think she’s getting suspicious…”
“We’ll talk. Meanwhile, Carl — what does the bird say?”
“Oh, it is, it is a splendid thing/To be a pirate kiiiiiiiiiiiiing!” Picchu was singing from somewhere in Tom’s living room.
“Picchu—“
“What’sa matter? Don’t you like Gilbert and Sullivan?”
”I told you we should never have let her watch Pirates on cable,” Tom remarked to his partner.
“Twice your peanut ration for the week,” Carl said.
“… and I did the deed that all men shun, I shot the Albatross…”
“You’re misquoting. How about no peanuts for the rest of the week—“
“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”
“How about no food?”
“Uh—“ There was a pause. It didn’t take Nita much imagination to picture the look that Carl was giving Picchu. She was glad no one had ever looked at her that way.
“Give.”
“Well.” The bird paused again, a long pause, and when she spoke her voice sounded more sober than Nita could remember ever hearing it. “Do what the night tells you. Don’t be afraid to give yourself away. And read the small print before you sign!”
Kit glanced at Nita with a quizzical expression; she shrugged. At the other end of the line, sounding exceptionally annoyed, Carl said to Picchu, “You call that advice? We asked you for the odds!”
“Never ask me the odds,” Picchu said promptly. “I don’t want to know. And neither do you, really.” And that end of the conversation swiftly degenerated into more loud squawking, and the excited barking of dogs, and Carl making suggestions to Picchu that were at best rather rude.
“Thanks,” Nita said to Tom. “I’ll talk to you later.” She squeezed out of the phone booth and past Dog, who growled at her as she went. Behind her, Kit said, in entirely too cheerful a tone of voice, “So, Carl, what about the monsters?”
Nita shook her head and went home.
The Blue’s Song
“Giant man-eating clams,” she said to Kit later, as they walked down an isolated stretch of Tiana Beach toward the surf. “Giant squid—“
“Krakens,” Kit said.
“I don’t care what you call them, they’re still giant squid. And squid belong in sushi. I don’t like this.”
“With luck, we won’t see any of them, Carl says.”
“When have we ever had that kind of luck?…”
“Besides, Neets, even you can outrun a clam…”
“Cute,” she said. They splashed into the water together, glancing up and down the beach as they did so. No one was in sight; and they had left Ponch up in the dunes, looking for a good place to bury the remains of his latest water rat. “Look,” Nita said, pointing.
Several hundred yards out, there was a glitter of spray, and sunlight glanced off the curved, upleaping body of a dolphin as if from an unsheathed, upheld sword. Wild, merry chattering, a dolphin’s laughter, came to them over the water, as the leaping shape came down with a splash and another shock of spray.
“Hotshot,” Kit said. “Let’s go.”
They struck out through the breakers, into water that was again surprisingly warm. This time Nita wasn’t able to enjoy it quite as much; the thought of undersea volcanoes was much with her. But even she couldn’t be depressed for long when they paused to rest a moment, dog-paddling, and from behind came the nudge in the back she remembered, followed by a delphine laugh. “You rotten thing,” she said, turning to rub Hotshot affectionately. “I’m gonna get you for the first time you did that.”