as the eye could see from east to west. A neck, Nita thought, as the shape reared up taller, towering over the sea bottom. A neck and a head— A huge snake’s head, fringed, fanged, long and sleek, with dark-burning lava for a hide, and eyes the sick black-violet of water bursting into flame—
In the guise It had first worn after betraying the whales, and wore now again in gloating token of another victory, the Power, the many-named darkness that men had sometimes called the Old Serpent, towered over the sea bed as the binding that had held It shattered. This, Nita realized, was the terrible truth concealed under the old myths of the Serpent that lay coiled about the foundations of the world, waiting for the day It would crush the world in those coils.
And now Its moment was at hand: But It was stretching it, savoring it. It looked at Nita, drifting not two hundred feet from Its immense stony jaws— looked at her out of eyes burning with a color that would sear its way into the nightmares of anyone surviving to remember it. And those eyes knew her.
She was frightened; but she had something to do yet. I know my verse now without having to get it from the Sea, she thought. So maybe I won’t need wizardry to pull this off. And maybe just doing the Sacrifice will have its own power. Let’s find out…
Nita backfinned through the thundering water, staying out of reach of those jaws, watching for any sudden movement. She drew what she suspected was a last breath — the protective spell around her was fading fast — and lifted her voice into the roaring darkness. Ed, she thought, don’t blow it now!
“Must I accept the barren Gift?
learn death, and lose my Mastery?
Then let them know whose blood and breath
will take the Gift and set them free! — ‘ “
The gloating eyes were fixed on her — letting her sing, letting Nita make the attempt. But the Lone Power wasn’t going to let her get away with it. That huge, hideous head was bending closer to her. Nita back-finned, not too obviously, she hoped — kept her distance, kept on singing:
“ ‘Not old enough to love as yet,
but old enough to die, indeed—
the death-fear bites my throat and heart,
fanged cousin to the Pale One’s breed—‘ “
And with a low thick rumble of amusement and hunger, the Serpent’s head thrust at Nita in a strike that she couldn’t prevent.
This is it!
The sudden small shock in the water made her heart pound. She glanced downward as she sang. There was Kit — battered and struggling with the failing whalesark as if it were actually someone else’s body — but ramming the Serpent head-on, near where the neck towered up above the slowly squeezing coils. Their pressure was breaking the sea bed in great pieces, so that lava and superheated water gushed up in a hundred places. But Kit ignored the heat and rammed the Old Serpent again and again. He’s trying to distract It, Nita thought, in a terrible uprush of anguish and admiration. He’s buying me time. Oh, Kit! The gift was too precious to waste.
“But past the fear lies life for them,” she sang,
“ ‘—perhaps for me; and past my dread,
past loss of Mastery and life,
the Sea shall yet give up Her dead!’ “
Annoyed — as a human might be by a gnat — the Serpent bent Its head away from Nita to see what was troubling It. Humor and hunger glinted in Its eyes as It recognized in Kit the other wizard who had once given It so much trouble in Manhattan. It bent Its head to him, but slowly, wanting him to savor the terror. Now, Nita thought, and began to sing again. “Lone Power—“
“No!” cried another voice through the water, and something came hurtling at her and punched Nita to one side. It was Areinnye — wounded, and crazy, from the looks of her. I don’t have time for this! Nita thought, and for the first time in her life rummaged around in her mind for a spell that would kill.
Someone else came streaking in to ram. Areinnye went flying. There was blood in the water: Ed’s, pumping more and more weakly from the gash in his side. But his eyes were as cool as ever. “Ed,” Nita said, breaking off her singing, “thank you—“
He stared at her as he arrowed toward her — the old indecipherable look. “Sprat,” he said, “when did I ever leave distress uncured?” And to her complete amazement, before Nita could move, he rammed her again, close to the head — leaving her too stunned to sing, tumbling and helpless in pain.
Through the ache she heard Ed lift his voice in song. Nita’s song — the lines that, with the offered Sacrifice, bind Death anew and put the Lortf Power in Its place. Kit just went on pummeling at the great shape that bent closer and closer to them all, and Nita struggled and writhed and couldn’t make a sound.
No! she thought. But it was no use. Ed was taking her part willingly, circling in on the Lone Power. Yet even through Nita’s horror, some wonder intruded. Where did he get such a voice? she thought. It seemed to fill the whole Sea.
“ ‘Lone Power, I accept your Gift!
But take my Gift of equal worth:
I take Death with me, out of time,
and make of it a path, a birth!
Let the teeth come! As they tear me,
they tear your ancient hate for aye—
so rage, proud Power! Fail again,
and see my blood teach Death to die!’ “
And the Master-Shark dived straight at the upraised neck of the Serpent, and bit it. He made no cry as Its burning hide blasted his teeth away and seared his mouth instantly black; he made no cry as the Lone Power, enraged at Its wounding, bent down to pluck the annoying little creature from Its neck and crush it in stony jaws.
And then the sharks came.
Calling for help, Ed had said. Now Nita remembered what he had said to her so long ago, on the only way he had to call his people together… with blood: his own. Her wizardry, though, had lent the call power that even Ed’s own Mastery could never have achieved, just as it had lent him a whale-wizard’s power of song. And brought impossible distances by its power, the Master-Shark’s people came — by dozens, by hundreds, by thousands and tens of thousands. Maddened by the blood in the water, they fell on everything that had a wound and tore it to shreds.
Nita found that she could swim again, and she did, fast — away from there, where all the sharks of the world, it seemed, jostled and boiled in feeding frenzy. Areinnye vanished in a cloud of sleek silver bodies. Ed could not be seen. And the Serpent—
A scream of astonishment and pain crashed through the water. The Lone Power, like all the other Powers, had to obey the rules when within a universe and wear a body that could be acted upon. The sharks — wild with their Master’s blood and beyond feeling pain — were acting upon it. The taste of Its scalding blood in the water, and their own, drove them mad for more. They found more. The screaming went on, and on, and on, all up and down the length of the thrashing, writhing Serpent. Nita, deafened, writhing herself, felt as if it would go on forever.
Eventually forever ended. The sharks, great and small, began milling slowly about, cruising for new game, finding none. They began to disperse.
Of the Master-Shark, of Areinnye, there was no sign; only a roiling cloud of red that every now and then snowed little rags of flesh.
Of the Lone Power, nothing remained but sluggishly flowing lava running over a quieting sea bed, and in the water the hot sulfurous taste, much diluted, of Its flaming blood. The writhing shape now defined on the bottom by cooling pillow lava made it plain that the Unbound was bound once more by the blood of a willing victim, a wizard — no matter that the wizardry was borrowed.
Aching all over, impossibly tired, Nita hung there for several minutes, simply not knowing what to do. She hadn’t planned to live this long.
Now, though: “Kit?”
Her cry brought her back the echo of a sperm whale heading for the surface as quickly as was safe. She
