A ray flew slowly by, unconcerned by my presence. A school of tuna hurried past and dolphins called out to each other in the distance. Crabs scuttled by beneath me and above me, if I cared to look, gulls were hunting the surface of the waves for their dinner. I rested in the current, taking it all in, but the call that had been drawing me for days made itself heard again. It reasserted itself and reminding me why I was here hovering above the abyss of black water as leery and uncertain as I have ever been. The subtle siren's call came from below. Somewhere down there in the dark.

Dropping my gaze from the living sea to the inky depths of the water beyond the break, I took in its vastness. It stretched out ahead of me, reaching the horizon with no hint of the distant shore I knew bordered its unseen side. It was a body of water so great you could swim for days with only the barest hint of its tapering. I knew. I had done so.

In each direction I had searched for a way around. For a way to reach the source of the call without braving the dire deep below. There had not been one, so here I was, waiting. Waiting for some signal or sign, for someone to stop me, or simply for the nerve. I didn't know. But there was something down there in that bottomless depth we call the Break, something that I needed to find.

The Break. It was said to be the home of the legendary Kraken. In ages past it had been torn by whirlpools and on maps Lorine owned, it was marked with warnings and the graphic of a sinking ship for those who could not read the words. Foul explosions flared up on rare occasions, clouds of acrid bubbles and polluted water. I did not know the source of the explosions and I had never truly been interested in finding out, but they forced every creature from the area whether mammal, gilled or otherwise.

For now, I was 'otherwise'. I was scaled as a fish, blue on the long fin that served where my legs had before, and pale ivory on the rest of me. I retained the silver hair I was born with, but now it grew out from beneath the tiny scales on my scalp. At least the scales kept it all going in one direction. I was still warm blooded, and my tail lay parallel with my hips, but I did not rely on the surface for air like the Cetacea. Instead my lungs functioned more like gills, allowing me to stay below indefinitely. So while I was a like size to the smallest dolphins, I was something totally different.

My uniqueness was a form of my own choosing, something I willed myself to be. For nowm, except for the occasional webbed hand, I had little in common with my kindred beyond the general proximity of home. With the exception of Corbin there were few to travel with me and none who could brave this journey. Not even my cousin, however much I might wish he was with me.

I'm procrastinating.

With a final call of greeting for the distant dolphins, I slip over the edge and begin the descent.

Along the upper parts of the wall, where there had been light to see by, I had found things that seem imprisoned in the rock. What looked like plants and what were unmistakably bones; shelled creatures from the sea and things that most definitely had come from land. I had no idea how their bodies had come to be here.

Further down, there was little to see but even less light to see by. I trailed my hand along the wall, swirling silt as I passed. Something brushed against me and I jumped, just missing the rocks as I yanked my fins beyond the unwanted touch. What ever it had been, it was gone too quick for me to identify it.

I looked back up towards the light -- a steady yellow-gray slash across never ending dark. Hanging in still water, part of me dearly wished to retrace my path back to it. But down this far, the siren song that had lured me was even stronger. I tried to tell myself that it could not be much further and pushed on.

Another sound came to me, one to make my jaw ache with its passing. One of the Odontocetes was down here. One of the big ones. The thought of ending up a meal was unpleasant and I rested along the wall while I adapted my ears to hear it better. For all the Odontocetes, even the little Delphinidae, echolocation worked by letting the jawbones pick up the sounds and carry them to the inner ear. Fortunately, even for a human, the jawbones and the inner ear are close together. While I could adjust to hear sounds, I had never been very successful at producing them. I suppose it is simply too great a change. More is woe for me.

I was staring out into the dark, listening again for the great toothed whale when something tore at my hand. Sharp tiny teeth that caught on the knuckle of my little finger. I leapt clear of the wall, dragging the foulest looking eel I'd ever seen clear out of its den. I don't know what it thought it had caught, but I certainly wasn't it.

It was a ghastly thing with a huge mouth and bulbous eyes that stuck out at either side. Little tentacles waved about its head and some tiny little light dangled at the end of one like some ridiculous little hat. The creature released me and slithered back into its lair.

And now I was bleeding.

I held my hand to me, already regretting my decision and twisted about in the water, desperately seeking what else there would be. After seeing that thing I had visions of nightmares coming out of the black that I would see nothing of save their teeth until it was much too late. I could only hope none of them hunted by smell as the Silent Ones did.

The cold and my own abilities to heal quelled the blood flow and I finally dared to resume my descent.

By now I had decided that I was quite out of my mind. There is simply no rational reason for diving deeper than the Delphinidae. No reason whatsoever. But here I was.

Something else, as blind as I had now become, brushed against me. Something much bigger than the last something. Good at it or not, I gave my best efforts to clicking the way the dolphins did. Nothing came back. I was half convinced that I had done something wrong, so I turned back to where I knew the wall was and tried again. A moment later and the little sounds were whispering back.

I swam towards it and reached it much sooner than I would have wished. Even with this my 'visibility', such as it was, was extremely limited. The cold was beginning to make me shiver and the pressure was beginning to affect me as well. The weight of the water was pressing against my temples and making my joints ache and I was forced to a slow pace by the lack of oxygen in the water. Even at a resting pace I was laboring to breathe. Whether I found what called me or not, I would be forced to turn back soon.

With the last of my resolve I pushed off of the cliff face and back out into the dark. I called out at regular intervals, hoping as much to detect obstacles as predators. I also harbored the hope that, as weak as I was, which ever of the great whales was out here would hear me and recognize me as something other than food.

Other than my own pitiful calls and a faint sense of up and down, the touch of the water as I slid through it was the only sense left to me. The feel of icy water and immense pressure were poor substitutes for the company of dolphins, backrubs, bright fishes and whale song.

I paused, the comforts of home calling me as surely as whatever was beneath. I looked back up and saw only more darkness. I swam through night with nothing to mark the passage of time or distance, and I had long since lost track of both. It was enough to make me change my mind. Such a pity that fate had other plans. I had paused in my calls as I changed direction, but I do not think now that it would have saved me. For I had no sooner oriented myself when it struck.

Tentacles thicker than myself wrapped around me. Coiling and crushing with a speed I could not have countered even with a second's warning. If I had still had vocal cords to scream with, I would have. As it was I had nothing but one small blade I could no longer reach and whatever was left of my wits.

I cried out, mimicking a Delphinidae's cry of distress and twisted to avoid having my whole head grabbed. It was a squid the size of which I would never have dreamed and had suckers larger than my face. Just one would be more than sufficient to drown me. We were not grounded a fact that ruled out most of my spells. That we were not at the surface would render most of the rest ineffective as well. That left one.

The art of using dolphin talk to utter lynch pins was something I had taken care to master when I had begun to forgo use of the voice I was born with and the light spell burst forth with a glory that left me stunned. Closing my eyes as I cast did not spare me the results and I'd have screamed again when the light's rays pierced my eyes.

The squid made a pained squeal of its own and shot forward though the water like something possessed. But it refused to release me. The abrupt increase in our depth made me dizzy and I cried out again to the whale I had heard.

There is a saying, 'be careful what you wish for.' It is so very true.

With a force that should have rendered my capture in half, the whale came up from beneath us. The squid lashed out at it and even though I was no longer a target I had no escape. The squid wrapped most of its tentacles around the whale, and the two began to thrash each other about. And there was me, caught in the mess like some little rag doll. Helpless as a newborn in a battle of titans no other creature was ever meant to see.

The rush of water past my head deafened me, adding to my blindness. I was slammed into one, then the other with barely time to distinguish between the two, and all the while the squid still held my tail. I lost my sense of up and down and as the whale rolled with his intended meal I gave up hope of ever finding the wall again as well. I surrendered my desire to find the source of the strange call, as well as all future curiosity for what lived beyond the Rim. If it pleased Lir, I simply wanted to get out of this alive.

Dimly, I realized that I was being dragged through the water with my body against the whale. Battered as I was and numb from the cold, it took me moment to realize that the squid's struggles were weaker. The pains started then. Sharp lancing pains from my flukes and deeper, more dangerous pains from within me. We were ascending faster than I could adapt. Another sharp cramp bent me double and I beat against the whale with both fists.

*Let go!* I pleaded with it, realizing then that the other pains were my flukes caught within its teeth. I feared the slim bones that ran through the right one were already broken, but it would hardly matter if the journey to the surface killed me.

The squid thrashed one more time as another bolt of pain racked me. The whale opened its jaws and lunged, flinging me free of it while it secured a better grip on its meal.

I found the wall. One less detail to worry about. It is amazing the silly things that occur to you in the most dreadful of situations.

Somehow, as hard as I hit the cliff, I managed to remain conscious, though I was too dazed to do much more then realize the fact. I blinked to try and clear my eyes and looked up, searching for the paleness that would herald the surface. I could just barely see it. I was never going to make it.

I clung to the wall for another moment, gasping and straining for every bit of oxygen I could and then I pushed off in a bid to reach the top of the Rim. From my flukes to my lungs pained ripped through me with the effort and I doubled over. I reached vainly for the wall and felt the faint current pull me away from it.

Something wrapped around me; warm like an arm and for a brief dizzy moment I thought my cousin had found me. But there was no one there. I called out but the echoes did not return.

What few pitiful senses were left to me winked out and I joined the darkness.