were deceived, the Silent Lord wasn't. She realized what the Stranger was and w hat It was trying to do.She was faced with a difficult choice. She knew that even if she rejected 188 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARDthe Stranger, the fighting would only go on among the other Nine. Sooner or later they or their successors would accept the Gift and doom the whole Sea to the Great Death. But she also knew something else that the Sea had told her long before, and that others have found out since. If one knows death is coming—any death, from the small ones to the Great one—and is willing to accept it fully, and experience it fully, then the death becomes something else—a passage, not an ending: not only for himself, but for others." S'reee's voice got very soft. "So the Silent Lord did that," she said. "Luck, or the Powers, brought one more creature into the singing, uninvited. It was the one fish over whom no mastery was ever given—the Pale Slayer, whom we call the Master-Shark. The Silent Lord decided to accept the 'Gift' that the Stranger offered her—and then, to transform the Gift and make it 'safe,' she gave herself up willingly to die. She dived into a stand of razor coral; and the Master-Shark smelled her blood in the water, and . . . well." S'reee blew. "He accepted the sacrifice."Nita and Kit looked at each other. "When that happened, the Lone Power went wild with rage," S'reee said. "But that did It no good. The Silent One's sacrifice turned death loose in some of the Sea, but not all; and even where it did turn up, death was much weaker than it would have been otherwise. To this day there are fish and whales that have astonishing lifespans, and some that never seem to die of natural causes. The sharks, for instance: some people say that's a result of the Master-Shark's acceptance of the Silent Lord's sacrifice. But the important thing is that the Lone Power had put a lot of Its strength into Its death-wizardry.
