His head...his body...the waters touching his skin...everything seemed to cringe. Even the lifeless remains of the trees and the souless, ageless rocks adorning the shores were shaking from the malevolence corrupting them.

The entity that drained life from the Paradise had a voice. It wasn't a Seer. It wasn't dolphin, porpoise, or whale. Only they could sing. This thing...

It screeched. It moaned. It roared. Every excruciating sound ever thought of was in its voice. That's what gripped Ecco's mind as he heard its words again.

His eyes opened slowly to glance at Okura, the immortal whose orb of imprisonment saved him from the noises and the sights. The waters around him were pure and untouched.

Delphineus, how Ecco envied him.

The power of song is vastly overrated, little Chosen. The Seers themselves on their dying breaths saw the truth. You use it as your seeing eye in the darkness, but even then we found away around it.

In our illusions, songs betray and are revealed for what they really are. Hunters know this...they who use songs against songs to paralyze and confuse. There are weaknesses to your ballads.

A song is the key to your paradise. The key is ours. Sing to mourn, and not to live!

Ecco screeched as the voice seemed to throw his mind into a torrent of misery and pain. The veins criss-crossing the islands and diving into the sea pulsed faster and faster in their efforts to feed the alien power.

The dolphin's stars glowed as he broke free of the grasp of the horrid sounds and called through the rock face from whence he came. "Anyone, can you hear me? Please! Don't use the song, don't!"

The alien voice screeched to drown Ecco's voice. Okura sang from his bubble. "Little Chosen, it is useless! He will not let you sing for the other immortals."

The dolphin sighed, clacking his jaws as he became angry. "What is this place, anyway? The whales used to search for it, then it was hidden. They know that Paradise is gone, what is the use of saving it? Let the beasts have it!"

The Orca's eyes widened as he struggled with his own anger. "Dolphin, if the darkness hadn't corrupted the Seers you would have heard what I have heard for thousands of years. Do you know why whales sing? Do you know why Paradise is so important, that the Seers wanted in the end to give their lives to protecting it?"

"I don't CARE!" Ecco screeched, "This is impossible!"

"It's the realm of spirits, Ecco!" Okura snarled. "Don't you get it? The Seers protected this place because the dead need songs! The whales were the first to sing, that is why they could unlock Paradise in life. The Seers hid it from the mortals...you only enter when you DIE!" he screamed over the screeching of the alien voice.

The world stopped right then. He stared at Okura, trying to find truth in the immortal's words. The whales are protectors, singers for the dead? It's the realm that the gods made for the ones passed on?

Paradise...

I stumbled upon the Heaven of singers...

His eyes passed over the dead land, and as the parasitic veins pulsated, he seemed to hear more and more melodic crying. Songs of every type flooded into the fray of noises. The spirits were mourning. The dead were singing. It was true.

The dolphin screamed again. The dead are fleeing, Chosen. The doors to the world of the living will open. We will have Earth.

"No..." Ecco seemed to snarl back. "No you won't. By Delphineus, you won't!"

But it was too late. As the black waters thrashed against the rock face, the veins closed in upon a central spot and seemed to grab the edges of rock with their tendrils. A swirling vortex started to open the gray stone.

Ecco was paralyzed by the non-songs. Okura was helpless, could only watch as the Paradise he had lived in was going to overwhelm the sea outside.

Suddenly, the Orca's eyes flew open, and Ecco thought he could hear a familiar voice bringing order among chaos.


Immortals! A gentle and yet commanding song interrupted the brooding thoughts of those waiting for Ecco on the other side. Scaroth thrashed his head around in surprise, nearly getting impaled by the narwhal nearby.

Bro-aht growled. "Back off, Sniper!"

"I heard something!" he growled back, more at himself than at Bro-aht.

Niemas even seemed to hear it as well. The calf shrunk back against his mother's bulk. Biransa nuzzled him closely as she clacked her jaws to calm the others. "It's the Asterite."

Glacier glanced around as if looking for the source of the voice. Only Sawtooth remained oblivious, the giant sperm whale floating as he wondered what made the smaller ones whirl in surprise.

Scaroth stopped and inspected the warm niche that Ecco had entered. The warm air hit him full in the face, nearly as strong as a torrent of volcanic heat from the deepest trench geysers. "Grr! Something's wrong!"

Indeed, something is wrong! I cannot sing to all of you for much longer, something is drowning me. The portal to Paradise is being opened by the malevolence...it must be locked until it is gone.

Four pairs of eyes surveyed the dark niche before them. Glacier sighed, afraid of what he was about to say. "If the gate is opening, then we haven't a use from the Keystone Song. We can enter and help the great Ecco."

No. A key has two uses...to unlock, and to lock. The Keystone Song must lock the gates, and doing so will free an immortal from within. As he has told Ecco, enter, and put the dead to rest.

Sawtooth glanced down upon the others as they turned to look at him. Without being told, he gave a slight nod. "I will protect your flukes, little friends. You will protect Ecco."

At that instant, the warm waters seemed to come at them faster, at full strength. The cold of the north waters lifted from their skin, and the ice itself seemed to back away from the fire in the ocean. A swirling vortex of light sparked in the fissure like a gate to the heavens.

Bro-aht smirked as he passed the others, lancing at the hole with his strength. "Let's go, Snipers! Glacier!"

"Oooooh, for once I want to lead that brute away from trouble..." the beluga moaned as he followed the narwhal.

"No way a spear-nose is going to beat an Orca to a fight!" Scaroth called after and started toward the gate, but he was stopped by a call from Biransa.

As the Sperm whale started to echo songs of ancients, songs sung by the protectors and singers of the stars, the whales' ballad escaping his jaws, the waters seemed to silence. The ice seemed to listen as well...the air, the wind...it was the beauty of life that flowed through the giant singer as he started to put his huge bulk into the niche.

Only Scaroth, Biransa, and the calf stayed frozen as he awaited what she called him for.

"Scaroth," Biransa sighed, casting her gaze away from him as if shyly. "When this is over..."

The brute chuckled, interrupting her. "Don't talk like we're going to die, it's going to be over fast. Now come on, the gate is almost closing. Bring the little one with you."

Biransa sighed as she retreated with the big male.

Just don't die before I get a chance to let you have a son again.


A powerful song cut through the screeches and screams that claimed Ecco's mind. Everything stopped. The waters stopped lapping against the rocks, listening to the ballad that was the Keystone Song. So, Sawtooth can sing it after all...

The notes reverberated, pounding as swiftly as a heartbeat across the land and into the waters of Paradise. Okura shuddered as he felt his fins move again. His prison shattered, and for the first time in thousands of years he could swim in waters as warm as the life the sun gave. He released a song of elation upon his freedom.

Ecco shook his head as he watched the veins on the land shudder as if a blow was given. They retracted from the rock face, the gate slowly shutting as the forms of his comrades raced through. Bro-aht, Scaroth, Glacier, Biransa, and even little Niemas tasted the black water as the gate closed with a flash, the song ending abruptly and pulsating, locked with the image of a sperm whale etched like a heiroglyph in the rock face.

The cetaceans glanced about in near awe, having finally seen the fabled Paradise not as it had seemed.

Bro-aht chuckled uneasily. "So this is where everything goes to die? I'll wish the Orcas to the underworld when next I fight one. That'll be mercy."