Read Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology for Free Online Page B

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