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The beluga swam away from Aroooon to touch skin with Nita. Iniihwit was male, much smaller than Nita as whales went, though big for a beluga.

But what struck her more than his smallness was the abstracted, contemplative sound of his song when he did speak. There were long silent days of calm behind it, days spent floating on the surface alone, watching the changes of sea and sky, saying little, seeing much. “HNii’t,” he said, “well met. And well met now, for there’s something you must hear. You too, Senior.”

“The weather?” S’reee said, sounding worried.

“Yes indeed. It looks as if that storm is not going to pass us by.”

Nita looked at S’reee in surprise. “What storm? It’s clear.”

“For now,” said Iniihwit. “Nevertheless, there’s weather coming, and there’s no telling what it will stir up in the depths.”

“Is there any chance we can beat it?” S’reee said, sounding very worried indeed.

“None,” the beluga said. “It will be here in half a light. We’ll have to take our chances with the storm, I fear.”

S’reee hung still in the water, thinking. “Well enough,” she said. “Come on, HNii’t; let’s speak to Areinnye and the others singing the Undecided. We’ll start the group rehearsal, then go straight into the Song. Time’s swimming.”

S’reee fluked hard and soared off, leaving Nita in shock for a moment. We won’t be going home tonight, she thought. No good-byes. No last explanations. I’ll never set foot on land again…

“Neets?” Kit’s voice said from behind her.

“Right,” she said.

She went after S’reee to see the three whales singing the Undecided. Areinnye greeted Nita with cool cordiality and went back to her practicing. “And here’s the Sounder,” S’reee was saying. “Fluke, this is HNii’t.”

Nita brushed skin with the Sounder, who was a pilot whale; small and bottled gray, built along the same general lines as a sperm, though barely a quarter the size. Fluke’s eyes were small, his vision poor, and he had an owlish, shortsighted look about him that reminded Nita of Dairine in her glasses. The likeness was made stronger by a shrill, ratchety voice and a tendency toward chuckles. “Fluke?” Nita said.

“I was one,” the Sounder said. “I’m a triplet. And a runt, as you can see. There was nothing to do to hold my own with my brother and sister except become a wizard in self-defense.”

Nita made a small amused noise, thinking that there might not be so much difference between the motivations and family lives of humans and whales. “And here’s Fang,” said S’reee.

Nita found herself looking at the brilliant white and deep black of the killer whale. Her feelings were decidedly mixed. The humpback-shape had its own ideas about the Killer, mostly prejudiced by the thought of blood in the water. But Nita’s human memories insisted that killers were affable creatures, friendly to humans; she remembered her Uncle Jerry, her mother’s older brother, telling about how he’d once ridden a killer whale at an aquatic park in Hawaii and had had a great time. This killer whale edged closer to Nita now, staring at her out of small black eyes — not opaque ones like Ed’s, but sharp, clever ones, with merriment in them. “Well?” the killer said, his voice teasing. “Shark got your tongue?”

The joke was so horrible, and somehow so funny, that Nita burst out laughing, liking this creature instantly. “Fang, is it?”

“It is. HNii’t, is it?”

“More or less.” There was a kind of wicked amusement about Fang’s song, which by itself was funny to listen to — sweet whistles and flutings peppered liberally with spits and fizzes. “Fang, are you from these waters originally?”

“Indeed not. I came down from Baffin Bay for the Song.”

Nita swung her tail in surprise. “That’s in Canada! Fifteen hundred miles!”

“What? Oh, a great many lengths, yes. I didn’t swim it, HNii’t. Any more than you and Kit there went where you went last night by swimming.”

“I suppose,” she said, “that a wizardry done like that — on such short notice, and taking the wizards such a distance — might have been noticed.”

Fang snorted bubbles. “ ‘Might’! I should say so. By everybody. But it’s understandable that you might want to indulge yourselves, anyway. Seeing that you and your partner won’t have much more time to work together in the flesh.”

Fang’s voice was kind, even matter-of-fact; but Nita wanted to keep away from that subject for the moment. “Right. Speaking of which, S’reee, hadn’t we better start?”

“Might as well.”

S’reee swam off to a spot roughly above the wreck, whistling, and slowly the whole group began to drift in toward her. The voices of the whales gathered around to watch the Celebrants began to quiet, like those of an audience at a concert.

“From the top,” S’reee said. She paused a few seconds, then lifted up her voice in the Invocation.

“ ‘Blood in the water I sing, and one who shed it:

deadliest hunger I sing, and one who fed it—

weaving the ancientmost song of the Sea’s sending:

singing the tragedy, singing the joy unending.’ “

Joy… Nita thought, trying to concentrate. But the thought of whose blood was being sung about made it hard.

The shadow that fell over Nita somewhere in the middle of the first song of the Betrayed whales, though, got her attention immediately. A streamlined shape as pale as bleached bone glided slowly over her, blocking the jade light; one dead-black, unreflecting eye glanced down. “Nita.”

“Ed,” she said, none too enthusiastically. His relentless reality was no pleasant sight.

“Come swim with me.”

He arched away through the water, northward toward Ambrose Light. The gathered spectators drew back as Nita silently followed.

Shortly they were well to the north, still able to hear the ongoing practice Song, but out of hearing range for standard conversation. “So, Silent Lord,” Ed said, slowing. “You were busy last night.”

“Yes,” Nita said, and waited. She had a feeling that something odd was going on inside that chill mind.

Ed looked at her. “You are angry…”

“Damn right I am!” Nita sang, loudly, not caring for the moment about what Ed might think of her distress.

“Explain this anger to me,” said the Master-Shark. “Normally the Silent Lord does not find the outcome of the Song so frightful. In fact, whales sometimes compete for the privilege of singing your part. The Silent Lord dies indeed, but the death is not so terrible — it merely comes sooner than it might have otherwise, by predator or old age. And it buys the renewal of life, and holds off the Great Death, for the whole Sea — and for years.”

Ed glanced at her, sedate. “And even if the Silent One should happen to suffer somewhat, what of it? For there is still Timeheart, is there not?… the Heart of the Sea.” Nita nodded, saying nothing. “It is no ending, this song, but a passage into something else. How they extol that passage, and that lies at its end.” There was faint, scornful amusement in Ed’s voice as he lifted his voice in a verse of the Song — one of the Blue’s cantos — not singing, exactly, for sharks have no song; chanting, rather. “ ‘… Past mortal song—

“ ‘—that Sea whereof our own seas merely hint, poor shadows sidewise-cast from what is real— where Time and swift-finned Joy are foes no more, but lovers; where old friend swims by old friend, senior to Death, undying evermore— partner to Songs unheard and Voices hid; songs past our knowing, perilously fair—‘ “

Ed broke off. “You are a wizard,” he said. “You have known that place, supposedly.”

“Yes.” Timeheart had looked like a bright city, skyscrapered in crystal and fire, power trembling in its streets and stones, unseen but undeniably there. And beyond the city stretched a whole universe, sited beyond and within all other worlds, beyond and within all times. Death did not touch that place. “Yes, I was there.”