Chapter Seven: The Sacrifice
What could be done? The Silent Lord looked around. There were sharp rocks below from where the whales were congregated. But what could they do?
Then she saw the Master Shark, swimming above the rocks. Waiting.
"No!" the Silent Lord said to herself, horrified. "I am not ready!"
But then she thought of what would happen if she did not.
The Master Shark swam. The Lone Power entranced. The Silent Lord thought.
"Must I take up the barren gift? Learn death and lose my Mastery?" she sang. The Master Shark, in the shadows, nodded slowly at her.
"Then let them know whose blood and breath will take this gift and set them free," The Silent Lord pleaded to the Master Shark.
He nodded again.
She sighed to herself. "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…"
The Master Shark frowned up at her. Time was running out.
"But past the fear lies life for all, perhaps for me and past my dread, past loss of mastery and life, the sea shall yet give up her dead!"
The Master Shark smiled approvingly up at her. He began to sing too, but so low only the Silent Lord could hear. "Master have I none, nor seek. Bring the ailing, bring the weak. Bring the wounded ones to me…they shall feed my Mastery."
The Silent Lord wasn't silent anymore. She yelled defiantly in the face of Power, the Lone Power, "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!"
She hurled herself on the sharp rocks below. The Master Shark came. With the pain in her body, but with triumphant fury, she continued singing, "Let the teeth come! As they tear me, they'll tear your ancient hate for aye! So rage, proud Power! Fail again, and see my blood teach death to die!"
The Lone Power wailed, so horribly, and at last that part of him was enclosed in the protective spell that had needed a blood sacrifice to work.
Just before darkness enclosed her completely and she would be taken to Timeheart, the Silent Lord heard the Master Shark say with gentleness and none of his usual sarcasm, "Fear not, Silent Lord. I will take care of the Lone Power, and I shall carry on your legacy of sacrifice." The Silent Lord closed her eyes, at peace with herself, with the sea, and with the Master Shark.