She cleansed the lenses of her eyes and then looked down on her body tangled with theirs. The scarlet of her scales was bright and strong, but perhaps that was only in contrast to Maulkin's dull hide. His golden false-eyes had faded to dull browns. The suppurating slashes of his injuries marred them. He needed to feed and grow and then shed a skin. That would make him feel better. It would make them all feel better. She ventured the thought aloud. "We need to feed. All of us grow hungry and slack. My toxin sacs are nearly empty. Perhaps we should go south, where food is plentiful and the water is warm."

Maulkin twisted in her grip to regard her. His great eyes spun copper with concern. "You spend too much of your strength upon me, Shreever," he rebuked her. She could feel the effort it cost him to shake his mane free and erect. A second shake released a weak haze of toxin. It stung her and woke her, restoring her awareness. Sessurea leaned closer, wrapping them both in his greater length. He shared Maulkin's toxins, pumping his gills to absorb them.

"It will be all right," Sessurea tried to reassure her. "You are just weary. And hungry. We all are."

"Weary unto death," Maulkin confirmed tiredly. "And hungry almost to mindlessness. The demands of the body overpower the functioning of the mind. But listen to me, both of you. Listen and fix this in your minds and cling to it. If all else is forgotten, cherish this. We cannot go south again. If we leave these waters, it will be to end. As long as we can think, we must remain here and seek for One Who Remembers. I know it in my stomach. If we are not renewed this time, we shall not be renewed. We and all our kind will perish and be ever after unknown in sea or sky or upon the land." He spoke the strange words slowly and for an instant, Shreever almost recalled what they meant. Not just the Plenty and the Lack. The earth, the sky and the sea, the three parts of their sovereignty, once the three spheres of… something.