Book Two of
the Tidesinger Trilogy
"Impossible," Belillan scoffed. "Lone-swimmers scoured the caves from end to end after we were attacked. If anything was still here, we would have found it long ago."
"But you didn't know what you were looking for," Ecco pointed out reasonably. "You said yourself that you only saw a shadow. If it's that good at slipping out of sight, maybe it just got by the lone-swimmers."
"We saw nothing," Belillan muttered, but the look in his eye was less confident than it had been before. He turned on the spot and glanced around slowly, gazing back into the darkness of the maze with a suspicious expression.
Ecco paused, his eyes flicking over the scenery, then he nodded sharply to himself and began to swim forward, towards the entrance of the maze.
"Where are you going?" Belillan called to him sharply.
He didn't look back. "I'm going to take a look around for the creature. If it's still in here, I might have more luck on my own than a bunch of noisy singers."
"You cannot!" The lone-swimmer flashed past him and turned elegantly, glaring at him with his good eye as he blocked the entrance to the maze. "This place is riddled with traps to confound the unwary, Ecco--you will not get ten lengths on your own."
"Then you'd better come with me," Ecco said casually, and swam around Belillan and on into the maze before the lone-swimmer could say anything else. Angry at his dismissal, the white dolphin chased after him and fell into place at his side without saying anything more.
They swam through the caverns at a leisurely pace. Every so often Belillan would nudge Ecco's side in an order to stop--then the white one would swim on a few lengths, showing him the correct way to go in order to avoid the traps. He was genuinely astounded at the lone-swimmers' ingenuity; rocks had been rigged to fall, hidden caverns imprisoned hungry beasts, grills fell from the ceiling to block off tunnels. "Were you guys expecting a siege or something?" he asked in wonder.
Belillan grunted. "We fear the Foe. These caverns were created after the First Coming. Should the Foe ever attack Lunar Bay, the lone-swimmers have a final battleground to make their last stand."
"Thankfully, the Foe won't trouble us again," Ecco said fervently. "At least, I sure hope not. But with the havoc Karkol and I wreaked on their ship, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd written Earth off as too dangerous."
"Let us hope so," Belillan said flatly. "Swim careful through this narrow place. The surfaces are coated with stinging plants. Do not touch the walls!"
They swam through the caverns for what seemed like hours, stopping only occasionally in places where there were air so that Belillan could take a breath. The white dolphin guided him straight and true, but they saw nothing of the mysterious creature--or, indeed, any living thing save the things that guarded the caves. Not even a single small fish stirred the currents in the deathtrap caverns. He could well understand how brilliantly the caves had been designed--those who knew them could flee at speed, closing tunnels behind them. Then, any enemy who attempted to force their way in would likely take horrendous casualties from the traps--and would also have to deal with lone-swimmer attacks at the same time, for there were hundreds of hidden passages and spy holes from where an ambush could be staged.
"If there was ever a war against the sharks," he muttered, "you guys certainly have your logistics worked out."
But the illustration of the cavern's deadliness suggested something else to him. The more he saw of the lone-swimmers' ingenious fortifications, the more he was convinced that only one creature would be able to get in--another lone-swimmer. But no dolphin could have caused the wounds that had maimed Belillan and brought his companion near to death.
There was another question--the cavern at the end, where Belillan and his companion had been when they were attacked. Despite Belillan's assurances to the contrary, Ecco was convinced that there had been something in that place before he had arrived. Had it been moved so that he would not see it? Or had the mysterious attacker taken it?
"Belillan," he said softly, turning to face the other dolphin. "Listen to me. I know you're hiding something. What was in that cave? And what took it? Was it a lone-swimmer?"
"There was nothing--" Belillan began, but Ecco fixed him with a glare.
"I have to know. You were guarding something here. These deathtraps aren't just for show. That end cave had something in it, and now it doesn't. Now you better start talking, because this is important."
Belillan was silent.
Ecco could have sighed in exasperation. "Look," he said, "I don't care what it was. All I need to know is, was it something that a lone-swimmer would want? I know you're all faithful beyond death to each other, but you have to face facts--only a lone-swimmer could have gotten through the caves in the first place. And there has been a lone-swimmer traitor before. He tried to ally with the Foe. If Mallidith could betray you, someone else could."
"He was different," Belillan said sulkily. "He was a defective creature and we have cast him out from among us. We no longer speak his name."
"Just tell me," Ecco begged, "was there something in that end cave that a lone-swimmer might want?"
Belillan hesitated, his dark eye filled with fear. He seemed to wrestle with himself for a long moment. Ecco held himself very still, knowing that anytime soon the other dolphin would come clean...
There was a rattle in the tunnel just behind them.
They both whirled as one, Battlesong coming instantly to the ready in preparation for a fight. But no foe appeared before their eyes--there was nothing in the tunnel that either of them could see. A rock was settling slowly on the sandy floor, rocking slightly in the current.
Belillan bowed his head, letting out a soft whistle of relief. "A minor rock fall, that is all. We are too jumpy."
Ecco nodded. "Scared the kr'ki'khuua out of me..."
There was a smash as of breaking glass, and the lights in their part of the tunnel went out.
Someone was screaming thinly. It took Ecco a few precious seconds to adjust to the blackness and get his brain working again, and in a moment he realized it was Belillan. "Where are you?" he called out, struggling to get the echoes back--the noise of the lone-swimmer's panic was clouding everything up, and without the use of his eyes he could make no sense of the situation. He lunged in the lone-swimmer's general direction and hit warm flesh. Belillan wailed again and Ecco barged him into the wall and held him there. "Quiet!" he screamed. "It's me! It's okay!"
"It's going to get us!" Belillan screamed, panicked out of his head. "It's come back for me! Tidesinger save me!"
Ecco bit him, hard, on the flipper, and tasted blood on his mouth. The sudden sharp pain did the trick, penetrating the other dolphin's panic and bringing him back to himself with a jolt. "Pipe down," he snapped sharply, shoving Belillan again. "We need to hear."
Belillan was silent, and after a moment he let out a swift volley of sonar clicks. The echoes informed him he was in a low tunnel--which he had known already--and showed him Belillan by his side. No other dolphin, or indeed any creature, showed up on his clicking. He turned slowly in the water, eyes wide and unseeing in the blackness, and saw a thin gleam of light several lengths away. Only a short section of tunnel had lost its light.
"Come on," he said to Belillan, and pushed the lone-swimmer into moving. "You'd better think and tell me if there are any traps ahead, because I haven't got a clue. There's a lighted bit just ahead, so don't panic."
They started to swim together, awkward in the darkness, feeling their way with the echoes of their sonar-clicks. It was the Undercaves all over again, and Ecco shivered inwardly. His ordeal there was something he did not want to remember.
"Do you hear anything?" Belillan whispered.
"Not a thing. I never saw anything either.
"We didn't see anything until it was too late... it came out of the darkness..."
"Don't talk like that," he said hotly. "Come on, move a bit faster. Once we can see what we're dealing with, it'll be easier."
There was a silent rush behind hem; Ecco was only warned by the sudden change of water pressure on his tail. "Down!" he shouted to Belillan, and flattened himself against the floor. His belly scraped painfully along the sand but he ignored the stinging. Something flew over his head in a wash of water, turned snake-quick and faced him again.
He blinked, trying to make the thing out. It was a silhouette against the brighter water up ahead, and all he could see was a hazy outline. The thing did not stay still long enough for him to make out proper details--it flew at him again. With a squeal he dashed to the left and felt something rake his flank. Their attacker was behind them again in the velvety blackness. Belillan bolted for the light of the far tunnel, and Ecco followed him.
"Go!" Ecco squealed at the top of his voice. "Let's get out of here!" There was another silent rush behind him in the water and he took off, following Belillan's smoky black tail as the lone-swimmer dived and darted between deadly traps. Ecco never understood how he had managed to follow the white dolphin's path so exactly, but he didn't trip a single trap as he chased Belillan madly through the maze. The thing behind them came on swift and deadly, too fast to be possible. They shot out of the maze's exit and were in the long entrance tunnel again. Belillan didn't even slow for an instant, swimming wildly for the opening clearly visible in the stone ahead--the illusion in the cave was one way only. Ecco didn't look back as he followed the white dolphin. They shot past the deadly strings and out into the open ocean, flying right past the startled guards. With some effort Ecco drew himself up and called to Belillan, who stopped ten lengths ahead of him.
"It's not coming, Belillan, it's okay! We gave it the slip!"
"What in Delphinius' name happened in there?" one of the guards asked, swimming up to him.
"We saw it," Ecco got out,feeling his heart pounding with the aftermath of the chase. "It took out the lights and attacked us. We were barely ahead of it--"
"It's still in there?" The two guards looked at each other incredulously before one shook his head and returned his attention to Ecco. "Impossible. We went through the caverns with a fine comb. There was nothing in there larger than a shrimp."
"We did see it," Belillan insisted, before rising and taking a ragged breath. He returned, trembling in every muscle. "The creature was right there. I saw it myself, and Ecco too."
"It's true," Ecco agreed. He felt slightly faint.
"Are you well, Defender?" one of the guards asked, frowning at him.
"He is injured," the other said as an aside.
Ecco blinked, becoming aware of a stinging pain in his side. Faintly he tasted blood in the water-- his own. With some difficulty he bent his head round to examine his own side, and saw the tail-end of a long scratch that, by the feel of it, started somewhere just behind his breastfin. It wasn't deep, but it was bleeding freely. "It slashed me with something," he said, remembering the confused moment in the tunnel. "A horn, a tooth--I don't know what exactly."
They all looked around at the same time, but there was nothing dangerous in the water nearby.
"You should get back to the bay, star-brow," one of the guards said after a moment. "It is not good to be leaving bloodtrail in this place."
He dipped his head slowly, feeling that his heart was at last slowing down. "You're right," he said tiredly. "Listen--don't go into the caverns. Whatever is in there, it knows them as well as any of you do. Belillan will back me up on this. It would probably be best if we all went back to the bay. The caves aren't safe right now and we don't really want to be around if that whatever-it-is comes out."
The guards glanced at each other again, then swam off a few lengths to hold a whispered conversation in the ancient language they shared. Ecco waited patiently, Belillan a length or two away and looking nervous.
"You okay?" he asked the scarred dolphin at last.
Belillan dipped his head, still looking rather shaky. "I apologize for my behavior in the caverns, Defender," he said stiffly. "I lost my head."
"Perfectly understandable, since you already had one narrow escape..." He whistled softly to himself. "Delphinius... what was that thing? It was fast... it was agile... it seemed to know its way around..."
A whistle alerted him to the return of the two guards. "We will accompany you back to Lunar Bay," one of them said. "Clearly if the creature is still in the caves there is no point guarding the entrance. And, after all, there is nothing there to guard..." Ecco shot him a surprised and suspicious look, but the singer said nothing more, swimming forward to start on the southward journey.
They swam slowly on the way back, out of deference to the exhausted states of Ecco and Belillan. The two guards forged ahead, scouting the area in an almost militaristic manner. Tired and in a little pain from his wounded flank, Ecco soon fell behind. He welcomed the chance to swim alone and get his head back in order.
Now that they were clear of the cave, his suspicions were greater still. He was sure that the lone-swimmers had not told him the truth about the function of the Caverns of Secrets. Something in his head was trying to make him remember it.
But then, even if there was some dark truth hidden in the Caverns of Secrets, there was the matter of the silhouette he had seen. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make that fuzzy shape blur into the image of a dolphin or a shark. It had been different somehow... He squeezed his eyes closed, struggling to visualize what he had seen, but it was difficult. The sight had only been before him for an instant--glimpsed and then gone.
Ecco groaned in frustration. Thinking so hard was making his head hurt.
Coming to with a start, he realized that the others had gotten so far ahead he couldn't even pick them up with echolocation. Ecco shook his head bad-temperedly and took off, swimming his fastest despite the nagging pain in his side and scraped belly. A few seconds' determined fluking brought Belillan's auditory image back into the outer range of his echolocation, and he relaxed again. The entrance to Lunar Bay would be only a few hundred lengths further on.
The attack came with blistering speed, from behind and below. Ecco only had the barest flash of warning-- the wash of increased water pressure against his tail, indicating that something was approaching fast. He screamed in terror, and then the thing hit him with enough force to lift him right out of the water. Jaws closed like a vice around his middle and he felt razor-sharp teeth closing into his skin. Ecco screamed and thrashed in the mouth of the attacker, knowing that this time was the end.
The jaws bit down with crushing force until he felt his ribs creak, the points of the triangular teeth dug into his skin and drew blood--then the pressure abruptly lessened. Half-stunned with terror Ecco realized that he was only being held gently. He thrashed and struggled, squealing thinly, in the jaws of the beast.
Then, slightly muffled by his presence, a voice said, "Oops."
Ecco went limp with shock. The jaws loosened their grip on him and he floated free in the current, his brain buzzing with adrenaline. Dazed and confused, he shook his head to clear it and turned in the water.
"I," he said, "am going to kill you."
The creature attempted an ingratiating smile which didn't really come off too well. "Sorry about that. I thought you were a seal--"
"A seal?" he shrilled. "Since when do I look like a seal?"
"Well, you have put on a bit of weight, ya know..." The shark winked at him, a mischievous spark in his round black eyes.
Ecco whacked him in the gills.
"Ow, ow, ow," Karkol lamented, swimming shakily in circles until he had gotten his big body back under control. "Is that any way to greet a friend?"
"Better than the way you greeted me," Ecco spat, and glanced down his own length. The great white's teeth had punctured his skin in several places, and although the wounds were little more than pinpricks he knew he would have some pretty impressive bruises later on. "What were you trying to do, break me in two?"
"That was the general idea," the great white admitted, "but, hey, nothing personal, right?" He grinned again. "I honestly did think you were a seal. I was looking up from below and the sun was in my eyes--and I didn't exactly expect to see you here, after all!"
Ecco managed a laugh. "It's good to see you again, my friend," he said, "even if the circumstances aren't exactly perfect."
"We have to stop meeting like this," Karkol agreed, amused. "So what brings you out here? I thought you rejoined your family."
"I did, for a while. But I got a message from Afarellan--he wanted to talk to me badly." Ecco looked at the big shark unhappily. "Boy am I glad to see you right now. We've got a problem."
"Anything like that other problem?" Karkol asked.
"Could be..." He sighed. "You don't have to help, but I do want to ask your advice..."
"Actually, I was going to come and find you anyway," the great white said, breaking in. "I've been hearing weird stuff, and it's got me worried."
Ecco almost laughed again. Suddenly it didn't seem to matter. He and Karkol were reunited--nothing was going to stand in their way. He hadn't realized how much he had missed the big shark..."
...and Karkol was even bigger now. In the short time they had been apart, the great white had gained as much as two feet in length; he now towered over Ecco. He had gotten heavier, too--his body had rounded out and lost its slender youthful look, taking on the more tubby appearance of an adult great white shark. Every inch of that slate-and-chalk body was muscle. Karkol rippled with power, and his teeth, no longer spearlike but flat and triangular, indicated to Ecco that the shark had finally graduated from fish to larger prey.
"You grew," Ecco said, awed.
"I thought you looked smaller," Karkol answered, grinning again at his surprise.
The lone-swimmer flashed between them like a white lightning-bolt, ramming into the shark's side just below the pectoral fin. There was a meaty thud and Karkol was flung sideways through the water. A flash of white in the blue, the other lone-swimmer arrowed towards him and hit him again. Snarling in pain the shark struggled to right himself.
"Stop!" Ecco screamed. "He's a friend! Don't hurt him!"
"Foul beast!" one of the lone-swimmers returned, wheeling round for another go. Angry and in pain, Karkol snapped at one of the white dolphins but he rolled easily out of the way; the great white's power was no match for his agility.
"Stop!" Ecco shouted again, and got between the lone-swimmer and Karkol--trying not to think of the several tons of infuriated shark now at his tail. "Stop," he said again, insistently. "Karkol didn't do anything."
"This is the monster that attacked our kinsfolk!" the white dolphin snarled, practically shaking with rage. "Stand aside, Defender!"
"If you want a fight, you'll get it!" Karkol roared.
Ecco gathered his strength and, as the lone-swimmer came back for another charge at the shark, he used the power of Song--regretting it even as he did so. "Stop!"
The two dolphins halted dead in the water, struggling against the irresistible compulsion of the command. A short distance away, Belillan stared at the spectacle. Angry, Karkol flicked his tail back and forth, circling, but did not charge.
"Stop," Ecco said again, more softly, as the power he had sent out faded. "Karkol isn't the one you're looking for. He doesn't know where the cave is, and anyway the creature that attacked us was smaller than he is. He could never have gotten through those tight passages without setting off the traps." He glanced at Belillan. "You know that's true."
The scarred dolphin hesitated for a long time. "It is true," he admitted at last. "This one could not have been responsible."
"Responsible for what?" Karkol asked, frowning as he glanced from one hostile dolphin to the other. "Look, if this is about that porpoise I swear it was an accident..."
"Leave it," Ecco said tiredly. "They just misunderstood, that's all."
"Misunderstood?" one of the lone-swimmers repeated angrily. "These creatures are forbidden to enter our waters in the first place? What was it doing here, if not hunting dolphins?"
"He was looking for Afarellan, probably," Ecco said wryly, and noted their astonished stares. "You two just attacked the other Defender of the Future. Karkol fought the Foe Queen with me."
There was a momentary silence. "Forgive us," the lone-swimmer said, bowing his head. "We heard your cry of distress and came with all swiftness, we thought, to aid you against the shark."
"No harm done," Karkol said after a moment, and shook himself. Ecco wasn't so sure--by the way the big shark was carrying himself, he suspected a cracked bone or two from the charges he had taken. Dolphins might not have powerful jaws, but they could do a lot of damage when they had to.
"Let's get back," he said. "Karkol, will you come with us? I'd feel happier having you around right now."
"You only had to ask," the shark answered matter-of-factly, swimming up to him. "Anyway... I think we need to talk."