Chapter Twenty Two
Enemy
Arriving in the waters of the reef, Sage found Elli floating nearby, waiting. She blinked for a moment in confusion before asking, "Where's Gol?" Sage did not answer, and Elli understood. No more words were spoken of Gol.
"Where are we?" Sage glowered as he spun his body around in the waters. He knew this reef, but couldn't place where he knew it from. A veil lay over the memory, and try as he could, Sage could not tear it down to answer his question.
The smaller fish, unable to understand the threat that befallen the waters continued with their meaningless existences to eat food, breed and be food. The reefs many colours dazzled the eyes of Elli, whom had only seen mostly white during her life.
There was a few moments silence before Elli pushed to Sage, "S-so you are a Seer? A chosen one, like the great hero Ecco once was…" Her song was flat, emotionless and almost sad. "I never thought that we would be like this together… The union calf between two pods and the hero of the seas… An irony beyond any other…"
"Indeed," Sage answered as he moved around the reef, trying to recall any points of reference to his memory. His mind toyed with the idea of fleeing alongside Elli, and staying together on the run from the monster and forgetting everyone else, but his conscience screamed no. In his heart, Sage knew that this was something that had to be done, no matter the cost.
Silence reigned again, as Elli then blurted, "What will we do after it's all over? It's not like we can return home and start a new pod. Too many memories," her voice began to crack with emotion. "I don't know what to do anymore…"
Sage paused from his searching to return to his mate. His eyes locked with hers, as he dreamed of what the future could hold. His dreams were blank and his mind numb. "I don't know either." Sage answered simply, his eyes unsure. "But for now, let us focus on defeating that Vortex thing. There will be no future for anyone if it…"
Sage cut off his song as a mournful, painful cry echoed towards them. A call of great pain, without words, but the feelings of trailing blood, loose flesh, open wounds and tired muscles filling every note of the howling cry. It was an orca song and a surprisingly loud one too.
Elli side-eyed Sage, her thoughts racing towards the identity of the pained one flashing doubtfully within her eyes. Sage's eyes were too concerned, for if it were true it meant all his planning and thinking was to be thrown to the tides.
Erupting into frenzy, Sage and Elli pumped their way towards the origin of the song, merely just from the coast of the reef and entering open waters. And as they approached, indeed it was as Sage had feared.
The owner of the strident song was none other than Uton.
"S-S-Sage? E-Elli?" the bull gasped as his injured eyes caught them. In his eyes, relief flooded and his song picked up a slightly more joyous note. "Thank the stars I am not alone…" Uncertain, neither Sage nor Elli approached too close, rather to observe the bully of their younger years with his wounds.
Tooth marks scraped upon the flesh, as the dorsal's tip was twisted badly, slash marks of some lethal weapon coating most of his body. Uton looked as if he'd at least been able to fight back at the creature that attacked him, unlike the pod whom were massacred.
"I came back to the pod, to beg for forgiveness…" Uton lamented, his song wailing. "My time alone was hard and learnt I did of the values of the pod… of life… I wanted forgiveness…" Tears, genuine tears; something Sage had never seen in Uton's eyes before welled. "I returned to a graveyard… A large monster, medusa-like devouring a calf, as an adult…" Uton stumbled in his stroke and his song.
Trusting, Sage moved forward, lifting the slightly larger pod-mate to the surface to breathe. Moments later, the other half of Uton was lifted as Elli joined in the aid. "Rest easy Uton," Sage sung, trusting with his heart than his memories and selfish desires to watch revenge. "You're safe now…"
"No…" Uton gasped, his song weak. "I attacked him and he came for me… I have been fleeing, but he chases a relentless pursuit… He still hounds on my flukes though I race around the waters in circles…"
The Asterite's words came back to Sage, Even now, the dark singer and the infant Queen travel, on the hunt of one who opposed them at a time and escaped. And Kiera's words of madness, of Uton attacking… They weren't meaning Uton was the monster's master.
Uton had stood against the beast on his own to save the pod. Uton had changed over the time he'd been alone, as Sage too had changed…
Uton was no longer a killer, but a hero as well…
A call appeared from the distance. A loud calling of what was going on, and if aid was required. Someone else had heard Uton's song of pain and was coming to the rescue. "Help us please!" Elli called out, her voice frantic. "We three are the sole survivors of the pod of White River! Please help us!"
At the song of Elli, a cacophony of screams, shouts and ghostly cursing was heard, and instantly Sage recognised the reef that he was near. This was the reef outside the sunken city, and the pod that heard their songs were none other than the Marble Gate pod!
Racing towards them were three large orca, one male and two female, their songs desperate. Wind, Gale and Foxin, no longer bloated with calf, hastened towards the three young ones. Wind's eyes lit up in fear as he saw the survivors, "Sage and two more calves are the only survivors? What of Okura, Kiera, Gol… All the others?"
"They are all gone Sir Wind," Sage panted from holding the bulk of Uton to the surface. "The elders have been massacred, as the young have been devoured… We are all that is left…"
Moving in to replace Sage and Elli, Wind and Gale supported the slightly smaller orca above the surface, as Foxin moved in to sweep the smaller Sage and Elli within her slipstream. Though it wasn't much, it helped provide with a little boost to their movements as she ushered them from the open waters ahead of Wind and Gale.
"We have been providing a haven for singers in this time of crisis," Wind called from behind. "The sunken city has provided a retreat that allows us to protect other singers. So far a pod of dolphins from nearby have seized the chance and others are on their way…"
Foxin took the rest of the tale as they hurried, one adult carrying two young within slipstream and with two adults supporting one young in the water as they began down the screaming passage of stone towards the ancient shrine of lost age. "The songs of the monster sing of the Vortex-kind of legend returned to the waters. We have started a haven to group in numbers, for the songs of legend claimed Ecco defeated the Vortex-kind with the aid of every singer in the world. The glyphs scream, but we know that we can endure the screaming over the dying…"
As Sage glanced ahead, he saw the city appear from the blue, the structures still crumbling and falling apart, though a pod of orca and dolphin now populated the waters. The glyph shards screamed in protest and Sage quietly whispered, "Be silent," and the glyphs fell quiet.
A sudden change of water pressure caused Elli to spin in the water in wonder, to scream, "Behind you!" as the monster charged towards Wind, Uton and Gale. Darting towards the surface, forcing Uton into a breach on their backs, Wind and Gale cascaded from the waters of life as the creature of death pursued them, screaming its hungry death cry.
A thick tendril struck the body of Wind, whom seized suddenly, bellyflopping back into the water heavily as Gale moved forward, Uton crashing back into the waters, crying out in fright and fear, thrashing in panic as he attempted to race away in his wounded state. Making a move, Sage was cut from Foxin, who barked, "Keep moving! They die for you, not for you to die for them!"
But the monster ignored Wind, charging after Uton, as a deathly cold song hissed of invisible origin, yet to Sage's memory, oddly familiar, "Yes, that's right… Get the orca that attacked us! Paralyse it and let me punish it!"
As Uton fled behind Sage, Elli and Foxin, Gale rounding upon the monster towards her anaesthetized brother Wind, the monster floated before them, the Vortex Queen's eyes set upon the injured orca that was Uton, cowering behind Foxin and his pod-mates.
Screams of shrill dolphin tongue and bellows of battle erupted from the orca as the mix of pods congregated upon the waters where the Vortex larvae fouled their aquatic world, with her invisible traitorous master approaching. The greedy eyes of the Vortex Queen flashed over all the prey. Dolphins and orca calves everywhere, food for her…
"I'll destroy you for what you've done to us…" Sage snarled at the monster, as the eyes of the Vortex rounded upon he, seemingly enthralled with the younger orca. It scanned his body with its eyes, as if looking for something.
Its eyes spotted his star markings…
Releasing a screech that hurt Sage's ears, the monster charged towards him, mouth gaping for her feast before her, when the song of the singer bellowed, "Enough! Wait!"
The Queen seized within her approach, turning to witness Gale pushing her limp brother to safety's reach beyond the rows of singers and the arrival of its master, the one who'd hatched it, raised it and was the prior mother slowly fluke its way down the corridor gate into the sacred city…
"All cringe before he that would rule the sea," the dark singer bellowed his announcement, his song echoing throughout the silent bay of sunken shrines. The song was familiar and the second Sage saw the shadow of the dark singer approaching, he saw it all fit together…
An instance of chaos… One that did not belong within the world he was in…
The glaring…
The hatred…
The accusations…
The disappearance long ago…
"So Sage, the next in line of Seer," sneered the singer, his long tooth pointing dangerously towards Sage, pointing and accusing, as his power-mad eyes glowered towards the gathering of orca and dolphin at the legendary Atlantis, his speckled skin glinting in the light of morning. "Again our tides cross…"
The sane among the madness…
Nartec the narwhal restrained the Vortex Queen.