by Jim Butcher
“That one day has always lighted my way to the next,” his mother said quietly. She turned to Kokinja. “And as for you, child—”
But Kokinja interrupted her, saying firmly, “The Shark God may have a daughter, but I have no more father today than I had yesterday. But if I am the Shark God’s daughter, then I will set out tomorrow and swim the sea until I find him. And when I find him, I will ask questions—oh, indeed, I will ask him questions. And he will answer me.” She tossed her black hair, which was the image of Mirali’s hair, as her eyes were those of her father’s people. Mirali’s own eyes filled with tears as she looked at her nearly grown daughter, remembering a small girl stamping one tiny foot and shouting, “Yes, I will! Yes, I will!” Oh, there is this much truth in what they say, she thought to her husband. You have truly no idea what you have sired.
In the morning, as she had sworn, Kokinja kissed Mirali and Keawe farewell and set forth into the sea to find the Shark God. Her brother, being her brother, was astonished to realize that she meant to keep her vow, and actually begged her to reconsider, when he was not ordering her to do so. But Mirali knew that Kokinja was as much at home in the deep as anything with gills and a tail; and she further knew that no harm would come to Kokinja from any sea creature, because of their promise on her own wedding day. So she said nothing to her daughter, except to remind her, “If any creature can tell you exactly where the Shark God will be at any given moment, it will be the great Paikea, who came to our wedding. Go well, then, and keep warm.”
Kokinja had swum out many a time beyond the curving coral reef that had created the lagoon a thousand or more years before, and she had no more fear of the open sea than of the stream where she had drawn water all her life. But this time, when she paused among the little scarlet-and-black fish that swarmed about a gap in the reef, and turned to see her brother Keawe waving after her, then a hand seemed to close on her heart, and she could not see anything clearly for a while. All the same, the moment her vision cleared, she waved once to Keawe and plunged on past the reef out to sea. The next time she looked back, both reef and island were long lost to her sight.
Now it must be understood that Kokinja did not swim as humans do, being who she was. From her first day splashing in the shallows of the lagoon, she had truly swum like a fish, or perhaps a dolphin. Swimming in this manner she outsped sailfish, marlin, tunny and tuna alike; even had the barracuda not been bound by his oath to the Shark God, he could never have come within snapping distance of the Shark God’s daughter. Only the seagull and the great white wandering albatross, borne on the wind, kept even with the small figure far below, utterly alone between horizon and horizon, racing on and on under the darkening sky.
The favor of the waters applied to Kokinja in other ways. The fish themselves always seemed to know when she grew hungry, for then schools of salmon or mackerel would materialize out of the depths to accompany her, and she would express proper gratitude and devour one or another as she swam, as a shark would do. When she tired, she either curled up in a slow-rocking swell and slept, like a seal, or clung to the first sea turtle she encountered and drowsed peacefully on its shell—the leatherbacks were the most comfortable—while it courteously paddled along on the surface, so that she could breathe. Should she arrive at an island, she would haul out on the beach—again, like a seal—and sleep fully for a day; then bathe as she might, and be on her way once more.
Only a storm could overtake her, and those did frighten her at first, striking from the east or the north to tear fiercely at the sea. Not being a fish herself, she could not stay below the vast waves that played with her, Shark God’s daughter or no, tossing her back and forth as an orca will toss its prey, then suddenly dropping out from under her, so that she floundered in their hollows, choking and gasping desperately, aware as she so rarely was of her own human weakness and fragility. But she was determined that she would not die without letting her father know what she thought of him; and by and by she learned to laugh at the lightning overhead, even when it struck the water on every side of her, as though something knew she was near and alone. She would laugh, and she would call out, not caring that her voice was lost in wind and thunder, “Missed me again—so sorry, you missed me again!” For if she was the Shark God’s daughter, who could swim the sea, she was Mirali’s stubborn little girl too.
Keawe, Mirali’s son, was of a different nature than his sister. While he shared her anger at the Shark God’s neglect, he simply decided to go on living as though he had no father, which was, after all, what he had always believed. And while he feared for Kokinja in the deep sea, and sometimes yearned to follow her, he was even more concerned about their mother. Like most grown children, he believed, despite the evidence of his eyes, that Mirali would dwindle away, starve, pine and die should both he and Kokinja be gone. Therefore he stayed at home and apprenticed himself to Uhila, the master builder of outrigger canoes, telling his mother that he would build the finest boat ever made, and in it he would one day bring Kokinja home. Mirali smiled gently and said nothing.
Uhila was known as a hard, impatient master, but Keawe studied well and swiftly learned everything the old man could teach him, which was not merely about the choosing of woods, nor about the weaving of all manner of sails and ropes, nor about the designing of different boats for different uses; nor how to warp the bamboo float, the ama, just so, and bind the long spars, the iaka, so that the connection to the hull would hold even in the worst storms. Uhila taught him, more importantly, the understanding of wood, and of water, and of the ancient relationship between them: half alliance, half war. At the end of Keawe’s apprenticeship, gruff Uhila blessed him and gave him his own set of tools, which he had never done before in the memory of even the oldest villagers.
But he said also to the boy, “You do not love the boats as I do, for their own sake, for the joy of the making. I could tell that the first day you came to me. You are bound by a purpose—you need a certain boat, and in order to achieve it you needed to achieve every other boat. Tell me, have I spoken truly?”
Then Keawe bowed his head and answered, “I never meant to deceive you, wise Uhila. But my sister is far away, gone farther than an ordinary sailing canoe could find her, and it was on me to build the one boat that could bring her back. For that I needed all your knowledge, and all your wisdom. Forgive me if I have done wrong.”
But Uhila looked out at the lagoon, where a new sailing canoe, more beautiful and splendid than any other in the harbor danced like a butterfly at anchor, and he said, “It is too big for any one person to paddle, too big to sail. What will you do for a crew?”
“He will have a crew,” a calm voice answered. Both men turned to see Mirali smiling at them. She said to Keawe, “You will not want anyone else. You know that.”
And Keawe did know, which was why he had never considered setting out with a crew at all. So he said only, “There is a comfortable seat near the bow for you, and you will be our lookout as you paddle. But I must sit in the rear and take charge of the tiller and the sails.”
“For now,” replied Mirali gravely, and she winked just a little at Uhila, who was deeply shocked by the notion of a woman steering any boat at all, let alone winking at him.
So Keawe and his mother went searching for Kokinja, and thus—though neither of them spoke of it—for the Shark God. They were, as they had been from Keawe’s birth, pleasant company for one another: Keawe often sang the songs Mirali had taught him and his sister as children, and she herself would in turn tell old tales from older times, when all the gods were young, and all was possible. At other times, with a following sea and the handsome yellow sail up, they gave the canoe its head and sat in perfectly companionable silence, thinking thoughts that neither of them ever asked about. When they were hungry, Keawe plunged into the sea and returned swiftly with as much fish as they could eat; when it rained, although they had brought more water than food with them, still they caught the rain in the sail, since one can never have to
o much fresh water at sea. They slept by turns, warmly, guiding themselves by the stars and the turning of the earth, in the manner of birds, though their only real concern was to keep on straight toward the sunset, as Kokinja had done.
At times, watching his mother regard a couple of flying fish barely missing the sail, or turn her head to laugh at the dolphins accompanying the boat, with her still-black hair blowing across her cheek, Keawe would think, god or no god, my father was a fool. But unlike Kokinja, he thought it in pity more than anger. And if a shark should escort them for a little, cruising lazily along with the boat, he would joke with it in his mind—Are you my aunt? Are you my cousin?—for he had always had more humor than his sister. Once, when a great blue mako traveled with them for a full day, dawn to dark, now and then circling or sounding, but always near, rolling one black eye back to study them, he whispered, “Father? Is it you?” But it was only once, and the mako vanished at sunset anyway.
On her journey Kokinja met no one who could—or would—tell her where the Shark God might be found. She asked every shark she came upon, sensibly enough; but sharks are a close-mouthed lot, and not one hammerhead, not one whitetip, not one mako or tiger or reef shark ever offered her so much as a hint as to her father’s whereabouts. Manta rays and sawfishes were more forthcoming; but mantas, while beautiful, are extremely stupid, and taking a sawfish’s advice is always risky: ugly as they know themselves to be, they will say anything to appear wise. As for cod, they travel in great schools and shoals, and think as one, so that to ask a single cod a question is to receive an answer—right or wrong—from a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. Kokinja found this unnerving.
So she swam on, day after day: a little weary, a little lonely, a good deal older, but as determined as ever not to turn back without confronting the Shark God and demanding the truth of him. Who are you, that my mother should have accepted you under such terms as you offered? How could you yourself have endured to see her—to see us, your children—only once in every year? Is that a god’s idea of love?
One night, the water having turned warm and silkily calm, she was drifting in a half-dream of her own lagoon when she woke with a soft bump against what she at first thought an island. It loomed darkly over her, hiding the moon and half the stars, yet she saw no trees, even in silhouette, nor did she hear any birds or smell any sort of vegetation. What she did smell awakened her completely and set her scrambling backward into deeper water, like a frightened crab. It was a fish smell, in part, cold and clear and salty, but there was something of the reptilian about it: equally cold, but dry as well, for all that it emanated from an island—or not an island?—sitting in the middle of the sea. It was not a smell she knew, and yet somehow she felt that she should.
Kokinja went on backing into moonlight, which calmed her, and had just begun to swim cautiously around the island when it moved. Eyes as big and yellow-white as lighthouse lamps turned slowly to keep her in view, while an enormous, seemingly formless body lost any resemblance to an island, heaving itself over to reveal limbs ending in grotesquely huge claws. Centered between the foremost of them were two moon-white pincers, big enough, clearly, to twist the skull off a sperm whale. The sound it uttered was too low for Kokinja to catch, but she felt it plainly in the sea.
She knew what it was then, and could only hope that her voice would reach whatever the creature used for ears. She said, “Great Paikea, I am Kokinja. I am very small, and I mean no one any harm. Please, can you tell me where I may find my father, the Shark God?”
The lighthouse eyes truly terrified her then, swooping toward her from different directions, with no head or face behind them. She realized that they were on long whiplike stalks, and that Paikea’s diamond-shaped head was sheltered under a scarlet carapace studded with scores of small, sharp spines. Kokinja was too frightened to move, which was as well, for Paikea spoke to her in the water, saying against her skin, “Be still, child, that I may see you more clearly, and not bite you in two by mistake. It has happened so.” Then Kokinja, who had already swum half an ocean, thought that she might never again move from where she was.
She waited a long time for the great creature to speak again, but was not at all prepared for Paikea’s words when they did come. “I could direct you to your father—I could even take you to him—but I will not. You are not ready.”
When Kokinja could at last find words to respond, she demanded, “Not ready? Who are you to say that I am not ready to see my own father?” Mirali and Keawe would have known her best then: she was Kokinja, and anything she feared she challenged.
“What your father has to say to you, you are not yet prepared to hear,” came the voice in the sea. “Stay with me a little, Shark God’s daughter. I am not what your father is, but I may perhaps be a better teacher for you.” When Kokinja hesitated, and clearly seemed about to refuse, Paikea continued, “Child, you have nowhere else to go but home—and I think you are not ready for that, either. Climb on my back now, and come with me.” Even for Kokinja, that was an order.
Paikea took her—once she had managed the arduous and tiring journey from claw to leg to mountainside shoulder to a deep, hard hollow in the carapace that might have been made for a frightened rider—to an island (a real one this time, though well smaller than her own) bright with birds and flowers and wild fruit. When the birds’ cries and chatter ceased for a moment, she could hear the softer swirl of running water farther inland, and the occasional thump of a falling coconut from one of the palms that dotted the beach. It was a lonely island, being completely uninhabited, but very beautiful.
There Paikea left her to swim ashore, saying only, “Rest,” and nothing more. She did as she was bidden, sleeping under bamboo trees, waking to eat and drink, and sleeping again, dreaming always of her mother and brother at home. Each dream seemed more real than the one before, bringing Mirali and Keawe closer to her, until she wept in her sleep, struggling to keep from waking. Yet when Paikea came again, after three days, she demanded audaciously, “What wisdom do you think you have for me that I would not hear if it came from my father? I have no fear of anything he may say to me.”
“You have very little fear at all, or you would not be here,” Paikea answered her. “You feared me when we first met, I think—but two nights’ good sleep, and you are plainly past that.” Kokinja thought she discerned something like a chuckle in the wavelets lapping against her feet where she sat, but she could not be sure. Paikea said, “But courage and attention are not the same thing. Listening is not the same as hearing. You may be sure I am correct in this, because I know everything.”
It was said in such a matter-of-fact manner that Kokinja had to battle back the impulse to laugh. She said, with all the innocence she could muster, “I thought it was my father who was supposed to know everything.”
“Oh, no,” Paikea replied quite seriously. “The only thing the Shark God has ever known is how to be the Shark God. It is the one thing he is supposed to be—not a teacher, not a wise master, and certainly not a father or a husband. But they will take human form, the gods will, and that is where the trouble begins, because they none of them know how to be human—how can they, tell me that?” The eye-stalks abruptly plunged closer, as though Paikea were truly waiting for an enlightening answer. “I have always been grateful for my ugliness; for the fact that there is no way for me to disguise it, no temptation to hide in a more comely shape and pretend to believe that I am what I pretend. Because I am certain I would do just that, if I could. It is lonely sometimes, knowing everything.”
Again Kokinja felt the need to laugh; but this time it was somehow easier not to, because Paikea was obviously anxious for her to understand his words. But she fought off sympathy as well, and confronted Paikea defiantly, saying, “You really think that we should never have been born, don’t you, my brother and I?”
Paikea appeared to be neither surprised nor offended by her bold words. “Child, what I know is important—what I think is not important a
t all. It is the same way with the Shark God.” Kokinja opened her mouth to respond hotly, but the great crab-monster moved slightly closer to shore, and she closed it again. Paikea said, “He is fully aware that he should never have taken a human wife, created a human family in the human world. And he knows also, as he was never meant to know, that when your mother dies—as she will—when you and your brother in time die, his heart will break. No god is supposed to know such a thing; they are simply not equipped to deal with it. Do you understand me, brave and foolish girl?”
Kokinja was not sure whether she understood, and less sure of whether she even wanted to understand. She said slowly, “So he thinks that he should never see us, to preserve his poor heart from injury and grief? Perhaps he thinks it will be for our own good? Parents always say that, don’t they, when they really mean for their own convenience. Isn’t that what they say, wise Paikea?”
“I never knew my parents,” Paikea answered thoughtfully.
“And I have never known him,” snapped Kokinja. “Once a year he comes to lie with his wife, to snap up his goat, to look at his children as we sleep. But what is that to a wife who longs for her husband, to children aching for a real father? God or no god, the very least he could have done would have been to tell us himself what he was, and not leave us to imagine him, telling ourselves stories about why he left our beautiful mother... why he didn’t want to be with us...” She realized, to her horror, that she was very close to tears, and gulped them back as she had done with laughter. “I will never forgive him,” she said. “Never.”
“Then why have you swum the sea to find him?” asked Paikea. It snapped its horrid pale claws as a human will snap his fingers, waiting for her answer with real interest.