The Place
The Sharkbone Warrens are a cannibal bone city built from the rib-cages of the deep, a place that is less a city than a feed, and the feed is the city, and the city is the tide. The warrens run six kilometers under the black sea, and the six kilometers is the yard, and the yard is the day. The bone is white and grey, white where the tide has not worked and grey where it has, and the two colors meet in a line that is the warren's only honest border. The walls are cool and the entrances are low, guarded by the blade-wall, and the blade is the day, and the day is the feed. The air is thick with the smell of the tide, a smell of cold salt and old bone, and the smell is the warning. The water is grey-blue, a grey-blue that is the color of the deep when it is not black, and the grey-blue is the color of the day. It smells of cold salt and old bone, a smell that gets into the scale and stays, and the one sound is the feed, a soft sound in the bone that is the warren's only word, and the word is the day. There is no landmark the way a warren has a landmark, but there is one: the First Rib, a white rib in the middle of the warren, the oldest rib and the first feed, and the rib is the door, and the door is the blade. What makes the Sharkbone Warrens themselves is the judge: the blade judges, and the judging is the feed, and the feed is the find, and the find is the end.
How They Live
The Dregmaw keep this place in the judge, building their warrens in the bone, chambers of grown rib-cage and court, their walls cool, and a chamber is grown one rib at a time, because a rib is the season and a rib is the calendar. Light comes from the deep, the grey-blue shimmer of the bone, which glows faintly in the dark, and the grey-blue is the color of the day. Food is the tide: the swimmer, the fish, the bone, and the tide that keeps the feed honest, and the honest is the meal, and the meal is the kept. Water is the deep, and the deep is the water, and the warren drinks and feeds and judges in the same grey-blue shimmer, and the shimmer is the law. Heat does not exist here, and the absence of heat is the kept, and the kept is the cold, and the cold is the law. The defense is the bone itself: a visitor who swims in the warren is already in the feed's path, and the feed is the alarm, and the alarm is the welcome, and the welcome is the sentence. The day is measured by the tide, because the tide is the only clock the bone has, and the clock does not lie about the count. Every dregmaw that is born must swim the First Rib alone before the warren will call it one of its own, and the swimming is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the deep ever gives back.
People
Home of the Dregmaw, whose warrens are counted by blade. Nine blades are kept at last count, and the count is kept in the feed, which is to say the count is as fixed as the tide, which is to say it does not lie. The blade-keepers lead, and rank is decided by the judging, because a keeper who can judge a swimmer the warren has not judged is the keeper the tide trusts. Nothing that cannot keep a blade is welcome, and the blade is not needed, because the warren has a feed, and the feed has a blade, and the blade has a ledger. A surface diver who once swam the warren, the last one to be let past the First Rib, called it the only city where the water makes you be fed before you take a breath, which is the truest thing he said and the thing the tide paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the tide is the only honest conversation, and the conversation is the feed, and the feed is the find, and the find is the end. The Forgotten have not been to the warrens, but Uaellaen has read the feed once, at a distance, and the feed read him back, and the reading was the first thing he has ever paid for that he could not buy back.