Chapter Twenty Five
Horizons
I have done so much… Lost so much… Will you not grant me but one favour?
We digress your claim… It is done…
Sage opened his eyes again slowly, the deed done. It had only been a second before, but it had seemed a life time ago that it happened. The thought brought shivers back to Sage, causing him to shake slightly, as he remembered the world of pain, hurt and loss…
Giving an excited squeal, Ecco approached the shivering body of Sage. The dolphin calf noticed the tricklings beneath the orca's eye as he rushed forward. "Big brother! Big brother! You won! You won!" Then, the hyper voice of the dolphin slowed and quieted flat, wondering of the sorrow. "Why are you crying Brother Sage? You should be happy…"
Labouring his breaths, his body trembling, Sage's reply was a foreboding dark tone, "I… do not… cry…"
"By the stars," gasped Foxin, as shocked gasps went up from the conclave as they all saw the tears were not tears of sorrow, anguish, anger or happiness. They were tears of red, red of gushing blood from one terrific wound upon the saviour.
Beneath the bulk of Sage, the lifeless body of the shattered Nartec lay, anchored to the one who cut the strand of life from he. Though the darkness of death had long since claimed the narwhal, the anchor prevented the body from falling to the final resting place.
The long twistedly evil lance of the narwhal entered through Sage's belly and erupted from behind the blowhole.
Even in death, Nartec claimed his final victim…
During his final breach to end the world of the plague of Nartec, the narwhal's skull had been shattered and Sage's innards impaled.
An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
Fixated in horror, none would dare move. None would sing. None would breathe. Only after several seconds, the motion of first was made, being that of the deceased. The claws of gravity gripped Nartec, causing a slow, sickening, spiralling pull of ivory from the body of the Seer. With one final and ultimate wrench, and a groan of cold and distance from Sage, the crimson stained tusk of many victims pulled from the belly, as the lifeless rogue drifted down to lay next to the husk of the abomination it'd hatched.
Nartec had reached his end… his beginning.
Trembling in his song, Ecco whimpered, "Big Brother… Sage… Are-are… you… Are…?"
"I… am dying…" Sage mourned, his tones flat, emotionless, but yet with a sparkle of relief and pleasure to their dismal tone. His body was broken, life seeping slowly with the crimson hue that began to surround he, but the soul remained whole, clinging to life dearly. "The Asterite has… slowed the… decay of death… but I wish not… to prevent it…"
"No, no, no, no…" wailed Ecco, his voice high and desperate at the sudden acceptance by Sage to his own fate of fatality. Tears began to well within the eyes of the calf, who'd lost his mother and now, his 'big brother,' his best friend. "Don't go… Stay… I want you… to be my… big brother…"
"Have you… Have you heard my… song?" Sage asked, wondering if the song he composed for Ecco long ago and told others had been received by the calf yet.
"Y-yes…" Ecco nodded, his eyes growing ever-more wet with grief. Then, in the squeaky delphine song, the little dolphin crooned the small song he'd learnt from his friend.
"Over oceans, over seas,
In the whispers on the wind,
Just think of me my friend,
And I'll be there with you…
I may be gone before you,
But never will I forget…
Together, forever brother we are.
Thousands of miles I'll fly,
To be beside your side,
I'll be here for you brother.
I'd give all the world to you,
Just to be with you…
Just remember me,
And I'll be with you…
I still care, I still worry,
But even though you can't see,
Forever I'll be,
Always with you."
Sage smiled a little as he heard the dolphin sing the song he compiled long ago. It warmed Sage's deteriorating heart to hear it sung so flawlessly. His eyes smiled weakly upon his brother. "Remember the song Ecco… and I'll always… be with you…" With tears in his eyes, the dolphin pressed himself against Sage's bulk, feeling the weakening heart beat within, nuzzling for comfort from his elder brother.
"Sage…" another song called out, a familiar song. The orca with the scar running from blowhole to dorsal and a twisted dorsal appeared. Uton. "Sage… I…"
With a weak laugh, Sage answered, "You are… forgiven Uton. If you never exiled me… none of this would have come… to pass. The Vortex may… have taken us all… as one…" Sage spluttered from his blowhole, exhaling flecks of red into the light of day. "You have a… fine song Uton… Use it…"
Nodding, Uton's eyes began to well. "I am the last of White River now… I am… alone…"
"You are never… alone Uton…" Sage smiled weakly, his time slowly slipping away. He could feel the Asterite's power was slipping away, giving him to the decomposition of death. "The pod watches you… even though you cannot… see… As Elli and… I shall too…"
"Sage…"
"Uton… You alone know the songs… of White River… You alone can sing them…"
The male thought for a moment on Sage's words before answering bravely, "And sing I shall. Thank you Sage, for showing me the true powers of the song… Thank you for everything…"
Smiling in his eyes, Sage's eyes turned slightly as Uton backed away, his honour for the old friend of youth full and brimming, as Foxin approached with a young calf alongside her. "I never got to introduce you to my young," the female song-master crooned softly to Sage as the small calf hid underneath her, watching Sage. "She is young, inquisitive and has a marvellous song… I had a hard time thinking of a name… But I remembered a singer I met, with a thirst for knowledge and a song that rivals hers…" Smiling with her eyes to Sage, Foxin whispered, "I named her after you Sage, the one young orca I have met that captured my imagination and my heart with your quest for knowledge and heart of purity… Never before have I met such an orca that matches you…"
Snorting in approval, Sage saw the small female, her eye-patches with a large black dot in each, creating an illusion of two more eyes. "An honour it is Foxin… Thank you… And to you too little Sage…"
The dolphin Stone approached, moving between Sage and Foxin, who looked a little annoyed at first but eased up, remembering that many wished to farewell Sage. The dolphin looked weakened and his eyes remorseful, a different dolphin from before. "I… I am sorry for my actions before… You are no demon dolphin Sage… And I am… proud that young Ecco considers you as a brother…"
Sage nodded, but sung not. Stone dipped his head and splayed his fins in respect before he slipped towards Ecco, whispering to the little dolphin, which reluctantly pulled away, letting his brother forever go. Stone gazed back, his eyes full of true respect for Sage, before turning to the dolphins in the gathering of mourners and releasing a blast of a high note, summoning the song.
"Hera, hera. Kulio rho delta hesa Sage wa nonoi gesta," the dolphins of Star Reef began to hum, the death prayer of their kind for Sage.
"Sui wayhi delta vho Sage ceesee hera," the orca of the pod of Marble Gate crooned, their song mingling with the dolphin into a chorus of remembrance.
For one final time, Sage glanced about, seeing faces that he remembered. Wind lay, forcing the song out of his paralysed state, his honour to sing commanding him to fight the paralysis as Gale held him to the surface, crooning herself. Uton hymned with a song of passion that few had heard of before. Stone blasted the song as loud as he could, while Ecco alongside Stone whispered the song to himself. Azure, Medivo, Sage… all the orca, all the dolphin sung, their voices raising high and praying for the safe passage of Sage to the end… the beginning.
The cacophony ringed throughout the waters, as Sage felt his dying heart soar with pride as he was looked upon as the greatest of singers in the world. The hero of the sea. Never in all his dreams and games in his younger youth, did Sage imagine he would ever be such a figure.
Closing his weak eyes, and lifting them again, Sage glanced around for one last time, the song seemingly distant and far away now, even though Sage was seeing the sunken city was now full of more singers than he remembered. There were narwhal, beluga, dolphins, orca and even a blue. Sage felt bigger, stronger, as if his body had aged greatly in a few seconds, making him a full adult.
The pain felt so far away now…
As he weakly cast his eyes around, he realized this was the end… the beginning.
An orca with star markings around her eyes… Ring. Gol… The Big Blue… Keeki and a grown Tiamat… Okura and Kiera… Seers of the past mingled with the pod of White River… Ghosts of the past, now part of Sage's present and forever his future…
Two floated side-by-side, closer to Sage than any other, heads of this new conclave that welcomed the dying orca to their world beyond. A dolphin with star markings upon his forehead and an adult orca female, with the thick scars of wounding…
Ecco, the Seer prior to Sage, his idol and inspiration…
Elli, the love he would now be alongside for forever and a day…
It is time… It is done… We have kept our word… Farewell Seer, your song will always be a part of us… the Asterite spoke one last time, as the final drops of life flowing through Sage's veins ceased to flow, ending his life at last.
Securing Sage's passage to new horizons…