CHAPTER NINETEEN
During these many tides, I came to know well the sandwalker
called Sharing.
Tracking the tides themselves became a monstrous problem,
for these sterile waters where we were sealed in the stone ponds did
not move at all. The waters were perfectly still, unaffected by the
nights of the silverside or of starlight bright. I soon was taught to
count and think in other strange ways. Sandwalkers had five little
fins on each of two upper fins so all their counting was based on
the unit ten. Time was not measured in tides but rather by the cycle
of the golden light. Each day represented approximately two tides.
I continued to count in tides out of stubborn pride rather than the
new daylight cycle system of the sandwalker.
Sharing came daily to the stone pool just after the early
throwing of the dead fish. She stayed in the pool with me for nearly
half of every tide while the other dolphins and the whale translated,
and I learned the gentle nuances of her speech; the way her fins
waved and formed word pictures.
Her face was more expressive than I could have imagined.
Occasionally, she stretched her mouth in an odd grimace, showing
her teeth. The first time, I thought she was preparing to attack,
for it was not unlike the sharp-fin as he prepares to swallow some-
thing whole. But her mouth was small, and her teeth were blunt and
looked ineffective for doing more than grinding stones. The gri-
mace was usually accompanied by odd snorts and coughs. I ques-
tioned her once about it, and she said it was the way the sandwalker
showed joy. Seems appropriate. It is the same way the sharp-fin
shows joy – when preparing to devour something.
Through talks with Sharing, the sandwalkers became an
even greater mystery than they had been before. Word by word,
I learned of them and their odd ways. Sharing explained that she
wished to know more of the Song of the Sea and how it was sung
and recorded. Dreamer knew of the song but was not a Scribe and
only knew bits and pieces. I, on the other hand, had swum with
Harmony and remembered all of the Song.
Still cautious, I was selective in what I told her. Often the
whale or my fellow dolphin questioned my failure to give her com-
plete answers. I had seen many evils performed in my travels
throughout the seas, for the most part by the sandwalker. Although I
came to have a strong friendship with Sharing, I continued to be coy.
Sandwalkers didn’t migrate or wander free, but rather lived
their lives in tiny caves that they had built by rearranging the nat-
ural order of things. They had even constructed the stone ponds
in which we swam. I learned that the shell-shark was not a natural
phenomenon of the dryside but rather was constructed, too. Their
need to rearrange nature seems to be a critical element that sepa-
rates the singers and the sandwalkers philosophically that and their
need to collect. At one point Sharing told me she was adding my
brief answers to her personal song, a collection of which she called
notes. They all seemed to be obsessed with gathering things.
Things were everything. Sandwalkers had many different woven
weeds they draped over their bodies. Sharing told me the sand-
walkers were driven to possess, to accumulate, and the thought of
sharing was a horror to them far worse than the end . . . the begin-
ning. All of the sandwalkers appeared to feel this way — that is, ex-
cept Sharing who for some reason possessed the philosophy of the
whale and dolphin, at least in part. She still had a varied collection
of weeds.
I really struggled with the material value system that the
sandwalker embraced. They had developed a system that gave
reward for activity, not unlike the throwing of dead fish to me. The
sandwalker collected its rewards and then hoarded it, using them at
a later tide in exchange for other things to collect. They all were
rewarded for doing normal things, and even Sharing was given valu-
ables for talking to us in the ponds. Odder still was that the other
sandwalkers did not truly believe Sharing spoke with us at all. But
they still rewarded her for doing it. It would be like a whale giving a
dolphin a bug-eye or a tuna-tail for breaching from the sea. I don’t
get it. It just doesn’t make sense. Worse than worse these collec-
tions of rewards were the measure of the value of their lives as they
passed at the end . . . the beginning.
Oh, sandwalkers were peculiar indeed.
What was the same between us was that the sandwalkers’
learning was taught in a form of the Song and passed on from father
to son, mother to daughter. Young sandwalkers were taught from an
early age to memorize bits and pieces of the sandwalker song. But
the sandwalkers who were like the Scribes were not rewarded much
at all and collected very little in their lives.
I was delighted to learn the sandwalker felt love and had
many ways to express it. Some even believed in a form of ALL
THAT IS RIGHT IN THE WORLD. Maybe there was a greater tie
binding us together than had been sung before.
Daily, Sharing brought me many of the long-dead fish. I
think she thought it was some sort of reward. Finally one day in
disgust, I asked, “Why do you and other sandwalkers throw the
long-dead fish in the water? Why cannot we have real food?”
Sharing moved her fins in the water in her odd signing way
and said, “But these are real food.”
“They are capable of sustaining,” I countered in disdain, “but
they are hardly real food. Would you, Sharing, eat of them?”
Her mouth twisted in her odd way as she said, “No, but we
eat things that would not suit you. Better still, I will show you.”
She crawled from the pool and soon came back with a large
container. From it she took a long reddish-colored tube that looked,
of all things, like a sea slug, dried and stiff. “Taste of this,” she said,
and popped the still warm object in my mouth.
I swallowed and then spat all back into the water. “What was
that?” I gagged, “It was warm, not cool like sweet meat. It cannot
be food.”
Once again Sharing’s mouth twisted in her odd smirk of de-
light. “There are some of us who do not think of this as food either,
but still many eat of it constantly. It is called a hot creature that is
furred and walks on four fins,” she signed.
I shook my head. A hot creature?
“But,” I protested, “this hot creature who is furred and walks
on four fins did not taste alive! It did not even taste of meat.”
Grimacing as many burps and gasps escaped her lips Sharing tried
to explain that a creature who is furred and walks on four fins was a
friend of the sandwalker, a bringer of great joy and laughter.
“Sandwalkers are beasts!” I sang in disgust. “Not only do
they try to kill all in the sea, they eat their friends, the furred four-fin”
With fins flashing, Sharing again tried to explain to me that
the hot meat tube was not a furred four-fin but was only called that
as a joke of sorts. The tube itself was made of a larger four-fin that
schooled like our food fish, the bug-eye and split-tail. This large
four-fin ate the seaweed that grew on the dryside.
This all was very confusing and made my head spin, so filled
was it with great knowledge.
Over the next several tides I learned more and more from
Sharing, and she from me. I was the first she had met who had trav-
eled afar in the seas. I was the first that had shared friendship with
a whale, such as Harmony, and experienced firsthand the THOU-
SAND DEATHS OF THE SANDWALKER.
But in all that I explained to Sharing, I told her not of the
great Conclave. For the Conclave’s ultimate purpose was to decide
the fate of the sandwalker once and for all. I knew not how Sharing
would react to her race’s future being held in sway at this trial. I
knew not if Sharing, once knowing the truth, would help me escape
the ponds and return to the sea. Therefore, in fear that the truth
might be likened one who was a friend to a sharp-fin — friend one
moment, food another — I maintained silence.
All this knowledge, given to me by Sharing, somehow had to
be passed on to Harmony and the Conclave that was soon to gath-
er. The other dolphin and the whale knew of the importance. This
knowledge should never be given to the Narwhal alone to be used
in their devious plan; rather Harmony must know all of the truth
before the Conclave.
During a group session when my stone pond was shared by
all the dolphins, a spasm wracked me so hard it spun me in circles,
leaving me dazed.
“It has begun,” Bitty murmured excitedly. “The child within
wants out.”
Sharing splashed over to me and comforted me as best she
could. I recovered my breath, only to be wracked a moment later
by another convulsion, stronger yet. Of all that is holy, what was I
giving birth to, a whale? The pains continued and then as quickly
as they had started, they subsided like the emptiness in the middle
of a storm.
“It has passed,” I cried in relief, “but the birth will be within
this tide.”
“I will go,” signed Sharing, “and bring other sandwalkers to
help me lift you from the water to take you where we can help.”
“No!” I exclaimed, “My child will be born in the sea, even
this sterile sea. It can be no other way!”
Sharing signed there was great danger and the baby and I
both could die. But I resolutely defied her. My child would be born
in the sea or not be born at all. The little sandwalker was agitated
but understood my resolve.
The other dolphins sang comforting melodies, and Dreamer
sang bits and pieces of the Song of the Sea to soothe me. Some
time later Sharing returned with two other sandwalkers. In an effort
to afford some privacy, the sandwalkers shooed the whale and the
dolphins back to their ponds, and I was left alone with Sharing.
She asked how I felt and I told her that, although the child
still moved within me, there hadn’t been any new pains. She signed
that the others would have come sooner except there was some
trouble in the ponds. She signed curiously, “Yet another dolphin has
been brought to the stone ponds. This is an odd dolphin and . . .”
Before she could continue, once again, my body seemed
to explode with pain. The twisting, muscle-tensing pain stiffened
me; then, as quickly as it had come, the pain disappeared like a
wave passing in the sea. The first wave was followed by another,
and yet another.
“The time is soon!” I groaned.
“Oh, dear little dolphin,” Sharing waved, “I hope you are do-
ing right to stay in the water. We will help, but it will be very difficult
and dangerous.” An incessant hammering at the other end of the
pool broke the nervous anticipation and the silence that ensued.
Something or someone kept throwing himself at the stone gate.
“What was that?” I asked.
“That,” signed Sharing, “was the dolphin I spoke of. The
odd thing is he wanted to be caught even though we didn’t want to
catch him.”
The pain began to well again, but even through the pain my
eyes opened wide. It must be.
“Quickly!” I cried. “Bring him to me. Hurry!”
Sharing seemed confused at this request but finally signed
to another sandwalker, who fiddled with a great smooth-stone ring
on the edge of the dryside. The water at the end of the pool surged,
and the new dolphin swam through the opening.
Sharing and the other sandwalkers were rudely bumped as
this interloper smashed his way to my side. I turned my head to the
most beautiful sight in all the sea, for there was Little Brother.
Then quiet settled over me and all went black as I was
wracked with an unbelievable pain.