The Third Bear

by Jeff VanderMeer

  They come at dawn, much faster than I had thought possible: ten airships, golden in the light, the humming thrum of their propellers audible over the crash of the sea. From behind my bars, I watch their deadly, beautiful approach across the slate-gray sky, the deep-blue waves, and it is as if my children are returning to me. If there is no mercy in them, it is because I never thought of mercy when I created the bolt and canvas of them, the fuel and gears of them.

  Hours later, I sit in the main cabin of the airship Forever Triumph. It has mahogany tables and chairs, crimson cushions. A platter of fruit upon a dais. A telescope on a tripod. A globe of the world. The scent of snuff. All the debris of the real world. We sit on the window seat, the Lady Salt and I. Beyond, the rectangular windows rise and fall just slightly, showing cliffs and hills and sky; I do not look down.

  Captain Evans, aping civilized speech, has been talking to us for several minutes. He is fifty and rake-thin and has hooded eyes that make him mournful forever. I don't really know what he's saying; I can't concentrate. I just feel numb, as if I'm not really there.

  Blake insisted on fighting what could not be fought. So did most of the others. I watched from behind my bars as first the bombs came and then the troops. I heard Blake die, although I didn't see it. He was cursing and screaming at them; he didn't go easy. Shyver was shot in the leg, dragged himself off moaning. I don't know if he made it.

  I forced myself to listen - to all of it.

  They had orders to take me alive, and they did. They found the Lady Salt with a gutting knife, but took her too when I told the Captain I'd cooperate if they let her live.

  Her presence at my side is something unexpected and horrifying. What can she be feeling? Does she think I could have saved Blake but chose not to? Her eyes are dry and she stares straight ahead, at nothing, at no one, while the Captain continues with his explanations, his threats, his flattery.

  "Rebecca," I say. "Rebecca," I say.

  The whispered words of the Lady Salt are everything, all the Chief Engineer could have expected: "Someday I will kill you and escape to the sea. "

  I nod wearily and turn my attention back to the Captain, try to understand what he is saying.

  Below me, the village burns as all villages burn, everywhere, in time.

  SHARK GOD VERSUS OCTOPUS GOD

  (Based on a Fijian Myth)

  i. The Shark God Cometh

  A long time ago, when Dakuwaqa the Shark God was young and not so wise, he made all who lived in or near the sea fear him. They feared him for his knives that posed as teeth. They feared him for his relentlessness. They feared him for his speed. They feared him because the bloodlust was buried so deep in him that he loved to fight for no good reason.

  Dakuwaqa could take many shapes, but he enjoyed the shape of shark the best in those early days. It fit him. It fit his appetite.

  When Dakuwaqa swallowed up a fish, he would give a big, bloody, toothy smile, and say, "One more. I'm still hungry! I'm the fucking Shark God. Give me more!"

  No matter how full Dakuwaqa was, he still wanted at least one more fish. This made Dakuwaqa dangerous. It also made him take risks.

  Sometimes, when Dakuwaqa was bored, he would take human form. In that form, he was a handsome, tall, dark-eyed youth with gleaming white teeth. Then, he would visit an island and lure a young woman down to the edge of sand and tide. Returning to his shark form, he would devour her, the water tunneling red against the white of the surf.

  Such pastimes reflected the most animal part of his shark nature. But the game he liked best of all was defeating other gods throughout the ocean. It seemed to be his calling.

  "It's what I'm fucking good at," he liked to say, with a bloodstained leer, to his remora advisor, Selqu, as they loitered in some underwater cavern.

  ii. Selqu, the Remora Advisor

  Selqu had perfected the art of the simpering suck-ass. His bloated gray-black body shuddered with a wild pleasure whenever he was called upon to approve of Dakuwaqa's tyranny. His mad gaze, performing endless circles of his surroundings no matter how motionless he floated, reflected the strain of his abandonment of self.

  Selqu longed to become the Lord of the Remoras. He longed to be brought tribute from the least and the mightiest among his species - the flakes and flecks, the cartilage and the bone they had gleaned from whatever species of shark they had attached themselves to.

  Smelling of blood seemed to be no great thing to Selqu. Not if he could remain the Shark God's Remora.

  So he fed Dakuwaqa the tale of his invincibility in a thousand words as golden as the light that slides through the reef at dawn, making of that heartless, cut-throat community of eaters an illumined castle of enchantment.

  "Just one more," Selqu often murmured to himself at night, as he lay attached to the sleeping Shark God's body, the light of deep ocean a blue-black flecked with the tiny pulses of miniature jellyfish. "Just one more."

  Soon, they would rule over all.

  in. The Shark God's Invincible Army

  Dakuwaqa had an army of ten thousand steel-gray sharks at his command: hammerheads, great whites, tigers, and more. Their eyes were cold black coral dots, their hunger as ceaseless as his, their fins sharp as their teeth. With them came their battle-hardened remoras, eager for morsels of stray flesh, starved for foreign parasites. Behind them came battalions of skates, rays, and lion fish, all ready to gobble up whatever remains the sharks and remoras left for them.

  This army did not know the value of mercy. When they swam into battle, the water turned the color of storm from their passage. Hundreds of miles away, fish would pause in their travels because they could hear the swishswish of ten thousand dorsal fins, because they could hear the muttered underwater echo, washing across their hearing in waves, that was the shark army's mantra: justonemore, justonemore, justonemore, justonemore...

  The sea in their wake turned red with the memories of living flesh.

  iv. The Relationship Between the Shark God and His Army

  Dakuwaqa led this shark army, of course, and he had an excellent record against the other gods. He had to. Because of the rules by which the gods are bound, Dakuwaqa's shark army could not move in until Dakuwaqa had first vanquished the god being attacked. If the attacked god defeated him, or he showed any other sign of weakness, Dakuwaqa would find his shark army attacking him. Nothing would please the remoras, the lion fish, the skates, more than to feast upon rich god-flesh. For Dakuwaqa may have been a god, but he was not invincible; he could be sorely wounded by mortal teeth.

  At the thought of this possibility, Dakuwaqa always laughed and told Selqu, "Those bastards can't take me. I'm Dakuwaqa, the Shark God - the most ruthless killer in all the ocean."

  "Yes," Selqu would say. "Yes, you are."

  Dakuwaqa was very young. He loved the thrill of dominion so much that he had never acquired any fear of defeat, of limitation. He had come fully formed from the Sacred Egg Sac and never known his father or his mother. This had made him think of himself as deathless and ageless. Dakuwaqa did not know that immortality could contain a kind of death within its endless span.

  Every morning, he would swim out from his sumptuous coral palace to inspect his shark army, secure in the knowledge that they would always be loyal because he would never be vulnerable.

  v. The Shark God's Excellent Record Against the Other Gods - And Why This Was a Bad Thing

  In a matter of just a few years, Dakuwaqa and his army had beaten the God of the Dolphins, the God of the Whales, the God of the Moray Eels, the God of the Lobsters, the God of the Lesser Fish, and the God of the Greater Fish. Not only had he defeated these gods, he had eaten most of them, ransacked their seas, and taken from them the islands under their protection.

  Dakuwaqa became more powerful with each victory. His gleaming gray legions grew in size as he grew in size. His name evoked fear from Easter Island to Viti Levu, from Papua New Guinea to Tonga.

  The people of the defeated islands could no longer fis
h in the seas for fear of Dakuwaqa and his army of sharks. The animals in the sea cowered in their homes, hoping that Dakuwaqa or his remora messengers would not knock on their doors and say, "We need one more, just one more."

  The women of the islands no longer smiled at dark-eyed muscular young men. They looked away. They boarded up their huts and homes when they heard, carried by the breeze, from the sea, the breathy thick whisper of "Come down to the water, my beautiful ones. Come down here." Often now followed by, as the women grew more wary, the words "Come the fuck down here! Now!"

  "Why won't they come out of their homes? Why won't they come down to the sea?" Dakuwaqa would moan to Selqu. "Why do they disobey me so?"

  "They are not like the creatures of the sea," Selqu would respond. "They, my God-Emperor, do not understand your glory."

  "Well, you might be right about that," Dakuwaqa would say. "It is not an easy weight to bear, my glory. But the hell with it - I'll manage somehow." And so saying, he would have another tuna fish brought to him for dinner.

  For a long time, it looked as if the God-Emperor Dakuwaqa would defeat all of the other gods and become God of the Sea.

  VI. The Previous God of the Sea

  Now, it should be revealed that no god had been powerful enough to become the God of the Sea for centuries. The last God of the Sea had been the God of the Turtles, many centuries before. The God of the Turtles was the size of a large island. In fact, he was an island - a slow-floating island carried by the current, atop which birds had, over the years, dropped seeds and soil. Until now, from his back, there grew a great jungle of plants and trees. Animals roamed the surface of his covered shell like fleas upon an uncaring dog.

  The God of the Turtles could have beaten Dakuwaqa with his size and his implacable calm, garnered from thousands of years of slow, deep thought. But he was very old and, for his own unknowable reasons, had abdicated his place as God of the Sea in favor of finding the deepest, most remote oceans. And there he floated, lost in deep turtle thought, surrounded by the most ancient of waves, while creatures lived and died upon his shell.

  Some said he dreamed - that he had dreamed for centuries now, and that the God of the World had recruited him to dream the World through its next few thousand years of existence so that the God of the World could take a brief vacation from that duty.

  As the God of the Manta Rays, whom Dakuwaqa had always considered inedible, said from his prison deep beneath the sea, "The God of the Turtles dreams the dream of this world, and woe to him who goes against that dream."

  "That's bullshit," Dakuwaqa had responded, wondering how they'd even gotten on the subject. "Dreaming is bullshit." He had always hated the way that the God of the Manta Rays spoke.

  Dreaming the world. What a load of whale crap. Why, Dakuwaqa thought to himself as he swam through the coral outcroppings of his crab-built palace, I never dream. I never have time to dream - I just swim endlessly forward, and that is enough for me.

  Still, in building his empire, Dakuwaqa had been very careful to avoid the Turtle.

  vii. Kadavu Island and the Octopus God

  Soon Dakuwaqa ruled all of the ocean except for the Turtle and one island: Kadavu island, on the western fringes of his empire.

  Kadavu Island was large and bountiful. Its clear streams provided water for animals and people alike. Its forests provided shelter and food. Its hills and small mountains provided relief from heat in the hottest part of the year. Banana and breadfruit grew there. A barrier reef encircled most of the island, and within its embrace lay many lagoons in which to fish. Not a single shark patrolled those lagoons. The god that protected the lagoon would not permit it.

  Kadavu Island's guardian was the Octopus God. He had large, deep eyes that seemed to contain a vortex of shooting stars. He had eight tentacles that could act as hands or feet or tools - or rip a whale in half. If he wanted the day to end early, he would shoot his ink into the sky and the sun and sky would disappear into new-born night. (It was said that were he to release all of his ink, the world would be black for a thousand years.) The Octopus God could not change shape, but he could change size - from the size of the smallest of fiddler crabs to the largest whale, or so large that four of his tentacles could reach around one side of the island while the other four reached around the other, to meet in a menacing embrace.

  The Octopus God had lived for thousands of years, and was said to be slightly mad. Sometimes, the ocean would strobe with emerald-ruby-goldblue-green phosphorescence late at night and even Kadavu's many nocturnal fishers, from people to eels to crabs to herons, would retire for the evening. They were certain the Octopus God was having an episode. (Others thought he was merely perfecting the details of what he called the Octopus God Triumphant, an underwater light show reenacting his greatest victories; he had been working on it for centuries.)

  No one living at that time had ever spoken to the Octopus God, but they knew the Octopus God had been friends with the God of Turtles for many centuries. They knew that the Octopus God had consulted with the God of Turtles on many matters. Some believed that the Octopus God knew the secret of the Turtle's dreaming, that he was as smart as the God of Turtles.

  "But not as smart as me," Dakuwaqa said, as he relaxed in his seaweed bath, being cleaned by a pair of exotic remoras.

  "No, not as smart as you," said Selqu, lost in a daydream where even the two remoras cleaning Dakuwaqa brought him tribute and let him mate with them.

  "I am close now to what I've wanted since I popped out of that stupid egg sac," Dakuwaqa said. "The Turtle doesn't matter. All that matters is the Octopus. Remove the Octopus and I can be the God of the Sea. And then what soft plump girl will be able to say no to me then? What defeated god will dare fuck with me, then?"

  "No one," Selqu said softly. "No one. It is time. Just one more." His gills rippled with excitement.

  Behind him, Dakuwaqa reflexively ate one of the remoras that was cleaning him and let out of a mighty God-burp. Selqu did not notice.

  viii. Dakuwaqa Reviews His Troops

  The next morning, Dakuwaqa, Selqu at his side, consulted with his shark army underlings. They were lined up in the green-blue water outside of his palace while he floated in the entrance hole. Behind them the army of sharks they commanded formed a circle that went round and round without end.

  "What do you think?" roared Dakuwaqa at his army. "Do you think I will be the God of the Sea? Or do you think the Octopus God will kick my tail? Tell me the truth, or I'll need one more, just one more, right fucking now!"

  Dakuwaqa sometimes ate one or two of his lieutenants, just to make sure that the others didn't get any ideas about disobeying him. Nothing inspired fear in his army like seeing him shit out a fellow soldier and piss the unfor- tunate's blood through his skin.

  With one voice, the shark army shouted, "You will be the God of the Sea. You will be the God of the Sea! No one can defeat you! The Octopus God will become one more! One More! One More! One More!"

  "That's what I thought," Dakuwaqa said, cleaning the space between his teeth with a piece of seaweed before, to his ever-lasting humiliation, Selqu could do it for him. "I thought you might say that." He admired his toothy smile in a shiny piece of sailfish scale Selqu held up to him. "I can't say I disagree. No, not at all."

  "This will be a glorious day, God-Emperor," Selqu said. "You will become God of the Sea and, lo! the tales of centuries will revolve around your God-Head."

  Dakuwaqa frowned. He hated it when Selqu sounded like the God of the Manta Rays. And not just because it sounded false, but because then he was reminded of what the manta ray had said about the God of the Turtles.

  ix. The Battle for Kadavu Island

  So brash, bloodthirsty Dakuwaqa swam out to do battle with the old, crafty, insane Octopus God. Once he had defeated the Octopus God, his army of sharks would swim in and take over, leaving just enough tentacle bits for the skates, rays, and lion fish to be happy.

  As always, Selqu came with Dakuwaqa, and,
as always, Selqu had drawn up the battle plan. The battle plan was always the same: attack, attack, attack, ceaselessly.

  Dakuwaqa swam through a gap in the reef and entered the peaceful lagoons of Kadavu, the first shark to do so for thousands of years. The fish swam away screaming watery screams. The people - the ones Dakuwaqa did not surprise and eat - headed for shore, and once there retreated to the interior of the island.

  Dakuwaqa searched the reef and lagoons for the Octopus God. He swam and swam, bellowing, "Come out, Octopus God. Come out right now, so I can eat you! Let's just get it over with. Be a shark about it!"

  In response, from deep inside the darkest fissures and rifts in the reef, Dakuwaqa and Selqu heard a deep, chuckling laughter. The sound echoed through the coral and the seaweed. The laughter seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, changing direction and speed with great and confusing swiftness.

  "Maybe if you shout louder, God-Emperor," Selqu suggested from the place right above Dakuwaqa's forehead where he grasped the Shark God's skin with his suckers.

  "Good idea," Dakuwaqa snarled. "Come out!" he roared again, so loud that the birds of the island rose in flocks, unsettled. "Come out and die!"

  He could smell the Octopus God, but the scent was everywhere.

  Several hundred feet beyond the reef his army circled restlessly - a gleam of gray silver, a suggestion of white teeth on a white foam surf.

  Finally, as he began to tire, he heard the Octopus God say, "I'm right over here" - and saw the tip of a tentacle over the top of some coral.

  Teeth gnashing - octopus flesh within his grasp - he swam at the tentacle at top speed, only for it to disappear into a crack in the coral.