by Drew Hayes
It took Thunder a good ten minutes to explain the rules of the drinking game, and another half hour to talk the others into playing. One game turned into three or four, and by the time the beer was all gone, everyone had achieved at least a contented buzz.
Clint helped Thunder back to their room and marveled at his ability to sleep as the man collapsed on the couch, completely separating from the waking world without so much as shedding his flip-flops. Clint poured a glass of water for Thunder and one for himself, then went to his room and took his own journey to slumberville.
* * *
Sleep wouldn’t come so easily to Dr. Kaia Hale. After dinner she had indulged in a few cocktails to soothe the nagging in her head before she’d lain down. Unfortunately, all this had served to do was make the thrum of guilt louder. After tossing and turning for a roughly an hour, she admitted defeat and slipped on a light dress and a pair of sandals.
If she were describing the night’s weather to a tourist, Kaia would say it was like taking a sweet bath of warmth while being perfectly cooled from breezes off the ocean. If she were talking to a fellow islander, they would both say it was too damn hot. ‘Too damn hot’ was practically a greeting on Kenowai, all but for around three days in winter when an occasional blessed cold front might sweep through and make the place more bearable. Once, when Kaia was just a child, there had been a day so cold her father had worn pants instead of shorts. She’d thought them witchcraft at the time, but as she grew older she would looked back on that day in an increasingly joyful light. It was a day when she didn’t need five baths and two ocean swims to alleviate the soft stink of sweat that seemed ultimately unavoidable.
It was the heat that had driven Kaia from the island under the guise of education. Oh, she’d had the thirst for knowledge, make no mistake of that, but she’d also had the thirst for ice cubes that didn’t begin dissolving as soon as they were dropped in a glass. Kaia had dreamed of cold, and boy, had she found it.
She’d gone all the way to New York, her impressive test scores and gentle charm making obtaining a study visa no work at all. And upon arrival what she had found was a blessed chill in the air. Unfortunately, what Kaia hadn’t known is that the chill didn’t stop there; it crept deep into the people it descended on, working all the way into their bones. Gone were the pleasant greetings and cheerfully ambling lifestyle, gone was the sense of community that she’d accepted as the way of the world since her youth, and gone was the world where locks were only for liquor cabinets so the children wouldn’t get into the booze. All she found in the world outside of Kenowai was the cold.
She often wondered if this stark contrast was what had motivated her to study other cultures in the first place, hoping perhaps to find one she loved as dearly as her home but without the insufferable swelter. Instead she’d wound up visiting here more and more frequently, trying to convince herself it was for research on the many myths and legends her island had collected.
Kaia paused as she walked along the dunes. Though her eyes had been set on the ocean, she’d still noticed a waving tip of gold slicing its way through the night ahead of her. She smiled as she stopped and inclined her head. “My King.”
The King of Kenowai paid her no heed, but whether that was a side effect of his royal airs or his catly nature one could never really be sure. Kaia had always meant to look into how the strange feline had acquired this title yet she could never seem to remember it when it was time for new projects. The idea was like a cat itself: impossible to trap and seen only when it desired to be.
She watched as the King of Kenowai made his way up a hill that rose from the dunes and jutted out over the ocean, moving toward the top where a local was sitting with a six-pack. Kaia wondered what the King would say of her expedition tomorrow, whether he would chastise Kaia like her mother or quote her father and say she had forgotten her own culture while chasing everyone else’s. More than likely it would be none of these things; instead the King of Kenowai would likely just stare at her and swish his strange tail, waiting for her to finish her rambling or give him a fish.
Kaia turned around and headed back toward the resort. The others would sleep later than she. When you lived in a climate this warm, you grew accustomed to getting things done in the first and last parts of the day, so she would use her time in the morning to visit one of the fish merchants out on the pier. She knew it was impossible to bribe someone like the King of Kenowai, but giving him a nice treat would still make her feel better. Perhaps it might even be the trick that finally let her sleep.
* * *
Sprinkles climbed the hill that looked over the sea at his own pace, which is to say the perfect one. He arrived as one of his subjects was opening a fresh can of beer. Instead of drinking it like most of the humans tended to do, this one stuck his arm out over the side and let the amber liquid fall down into the ocean, moonlight sparkling through it as it descended. Sprinkles cast the human a curious glance; what meaning was there to this waste of the island’s resources?
“Hello there, Your Majesty. I bet you wonder why I’m pouring beer into the water.”
Cats are ill-equipped for the rolling of eyes, but Sprinkles somehow conveyed the sentiment all the same.
“I got a friend in the waves who can’t get these on his own, so every now and then I come up and pour some for him.”
This was acceptable to Sprinkles. Wasting of anything here was frowned upon, but sharing was a whole different matter. Sprinkles moved closer to the human and took a seat mere feet away, a great honor for the lower being. He gazed out at the churning waters, at the sandy, shifting line where his kingdom ended and another’s began. It was a strange feeling, looking at a piece of the world that wasn’t under his control. It hurt his pride, yet he knew it was important because it humbled him. Sprinkles was a king, not a tyrant, and recognizing those sandy lines was one of the many important distinctions between the two.
“You know, everyone always talks about your tail when they see you. It is attention grabbing, but I don’t understand why no one talks about your eyes. How many cats have golden eyes?”
If Sprinkles could have talked, he would have said nothing. If he could have talked and the boy had plied him with just the right combinations of milk, fish, and worship, then Sprinkles might have said “Four.” Then again, it had been a long time since Sprinkles had left his kingdom; the number might have changed since he last checked. So perhaps it was better that Sprinkles said nothing.
His silence was a trait that could certainly explain why he was one the few kings to ever be genuinely loved by the entirety of his people.
* * *
Many miles away, beneath the tumbling chaos of the waves into the dark peace that dwells deeper, a silent shape cut through the water. It was a machine of perfect destruction, likely crafted by some forgotten god with a grudge against the world and honed by the eternal cockfight that was evolution. It smelled many things in the waters that flowed past: it smelled blood and piss and fear and victory and pain. It smelled entire lives, born and snuffed out in a perfect progression of scents. It smelled death, both the kind that had already come and the kind that was still on its way. Sometimes it thought it even smelled its own death, but it shook off such thoughts as nonsense when they came. It did smell something else in the salty water, though, a rare treat it always enjoyed.
People say that sharks are incapable of smiling because they lack the necessary muscles to manipulate their mouths for such a social purpose. What those people haven’t realized is that sharks are, in fact, always smiling. When you are that powerful of a being, there’s no reason not to.
Of course, even sharks have waffling levels of delight. As the hammerhead began moving closer to shore, its cheer definitely began to rise. It just hoped the human had poured a darker beer than last time. It was an unstoppable embodiment of killing and eating; there was no way it was going to get a decent buzz off some blonde ale.
8.
The next morning found all
of the travelers, except Lawrence, gathered in the hotel lobby. Kaia informed them that she would be walking them through the ceremony, both the gathering of the ingredients and the actual offering, while the Goodwin brothers and Thunder recorded the whole thing. Sprinkles sat by her legs, cleaning his paws, and listened with half-hearted interest. The woman’s words meant nothing to him, but she had paid him homage at daybreak with a couple of sizable fish, so he was honoring her with his company for some time before attending to his royal duties.
Proper acknowledgement of fealty aside, there was another reason Sprinkles was hanging out. There was some indescribable feature of this group, a scent that he found intriguing. It was a scent that even the hammerhead wouldn’t have picked up on, for while sharks can smell lives and deaths, only those of divine heritage can pick up the perfume of fate.
“The offering has three essential ingredients as we’re told by the story: stone, sea, and fruit. Now, the stone is traditionally a perfectly elliptical rock found on the slopes of the Rilletien Hills. The sea is a cup of water from a natural inlet that we locals call Nature’s Pool of Tears. The fruit is, of course, a Kenowai Pear plucked from the tree where Kodiwandae has been imprisoned.”
“That’s it? I thought it would be more complex,” April interrupted.
“The ingredients are not the difficult part. It is the worthiness of the ones making the offering that is the true trial,” Kaia explained.
“Since I’m forced to suppose that none of us quite fit the bill, what do we do after nothing happens?” Clint asked.
“We wait an appropriate amount of time, then open the pear and cut it into slices, one for each person present. We eat it to show the great goddess of the land that we understand her decision to judge us unworthy and still pay her homage for the bounties she provides us.”
“That is beautiful,” Falcon said, her eyes going a little misty.
“Yeah, just one snarl in the tangles, though. What if one of us is just all up on not eating pears? I mean, like, avoiding them is a lifestyle thing.”
Kaia resisted the urge to roll her eyes and smiled at Thunder. “Then that person may choose not to eat his or her slice. I should mention, though, in our culture such an act is a way to show the goddess that you curse her for calling you unworthy. It would be the equivalent of spitting in her eye.”
“Fuck bucket,” Thunder swore. “I guess I better hope it works then.”
“If we could move this along, some of us are here to create true film and would like to get moving while the light is good,” Dustin complained.
Kaia nodded respectfully. “Of course. I’ve got a vehicle arranged to take us to the Rilletien Hills.”
As they piled into the tour bus, emptied of its usual passenger load for today’s private chartering, there was much mumbling and discussion of the day’s plans. In all the discussion, however, not one person inquired as to why Lawrence had opted not to join them. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, but rather that they believed some magical spell had been woven over them in the gift of his absence and that speaking his name aloud would shred it like a broom through a cobweb. Names are powerful things, and no one was particularly anxious to invoke Lawrence’s presence by using his.
Dr. Kaia Hale was the last passenger in the line, and she was surprised to see the King of Kenowai hop onto the steps alongside her. She stared down at the cat with the curious tail.
“Are you certain? We won’t be back for some hours.”
Sprinkles bounded ahead of her, past the bus driver (who was about to object to an animal on his vessel until he saw the tip of gold and bowed his head) and down to an empty seat where he hopped up and stared out the window. It didn’t matter how long the ride would take; this was interesting now. Besides, his island was not a tremendous one. He could make it anywhere in half a day’s journey, so if he grew bored, he would amble through his kingdom.
“So be it,” Kaia said more to herself than to anyone else. The King had no need of her permission, and no one else would have really understood what she was talking about. The doors sealed shut behind her as the driver ground the bus’s ancient gears and set off down the road.
* * *
Lawrence was, it turned out, neither sick nor tired. He had merely done his job well enough that his presence was no longer required. Oh, he’d have to lord over the Goodwins in the editing room, that much was certain, and getting everyone back safe and sound would fall on his shoulders as well, but for today, the dominos were all set in motion and it was time to relax. A good fixer did not create work where there was none and he did not ignore rest time when it was presented.
So Lawrence, intimidating psychological figure that he was, took the day to use the resort’s impressive spa facilities. He was massaged, mud-wrapped, steamed, saunaed, and just generally basted with comfort. It was a good chance to get back to zero and let his tension melt away. He was certain the world would seek to refill his cup of stress immediately, but that was okay. That was what the world did, and Lawrence would pour out that stress with skill and vigor, because that was what Lawrence did. Oh sure, occasionally an errant thought would slip through his mind about the chance of something going wrong, but he quickly soothed such insecurities away. Everything had been taken care of; not even Thunder could mess it up. Today, he relaxed. Tomorrow, he resumed his usual cynical outlook.
* * *
The trip out to Rilletien Hills had proven to be more time-consuming than expected. It wasn’t the getting there that was hard: it was the stone selection process.
The contest winners had immediately disembarked from the bus and begun scouring the area for an acceptable stone while the video crew captured their movements. Kaia was the judge since she was the expert, taking each one and turning it over in her hands, running her fingers delicately along the surface, and ultimately dropping it to her feet when it failed to meet muster. At first they respected her dedication to the importance of selecting an offering worthy of her god, but as the sun grew hotter and the pile of rocks at her feet grew larger, even Falcon began to wonder if she was getting paid per rejection. At last she declared one of Clint’s stones, a smaller one that he had found when the cat knocked it down the hill at him, to be adequate, and they were shuffled back into the somewhat-less stifling heat of the bus.
Nature’s Pool of Tears was much prettier, a natural inlet surrounded by white sands and lush trees. Kaia told them that during the right season the entire cove would fill with light during a sunset, like it was hoarding it there in case the sun decided not to rise the next day. Of course, at this location, the process was as simple as taking a water bottle from Kaia and filling it up. They didn’t even have a chance to swim. It was a little depressing until Thunder reminded them that they had two days left after this, which left plenty of time to come back.
They re-herded onto the bus and departed, though the next drive took some time. Kodiwandae’s first tree sat in the center of the island, away from the scenic shores and other areas easily coupled with tourism. The road that took them to it was made of dirt and curves, weaving through trees as it ascended a hill. The driver was constantly mashing the bus’s poor gears in an effort to make sure they sacrificed not even a small scrap of momentum. Kaia had discovered in her studies that most cultures required time spent in solemn prayer before any ceremonies of great importance could take place. She often wondered if this road was the gods’ way of ensuring that anyone who tried to make the offering engaged in the prerequisite of prayer even without supervision. If so, she had to admit it was an effective strategy.
At last the road leveled off and they broke into a relatively small clearing. It was surrounded by various flora on all sides, but clear in the center except for a massive pear tree jutting from the ground. Though it was gnarled and old, countless Kenowai Pears hung from its branches, each seeming more ripe and luscious than the last.
There was oohing and aahing at its majesty until the Goodwins swooped in and began ordering everyon
e into positions. The driver was forced, despite ample protest, to move his bus back down the road a bit so it wouldn’t accidentally end up in any shots. Thunder was physically dragged away from the others and Kaia stood directly behind Justin as he set up his camera so as not to get in the way.
“Wait, we’ve got the cat in the shot,” Dustin called from a few feet away. “Somebody toss him out.”
Kaia felt her blood race at such disrespect. As her face flushed, she turned on her heel, ready to deliver a violent tongue-lashing at the rude camera man. Luckily for most involved, Clint beat her to the punch.
“The cat’s been in every other shot so far. Why not just leave it be?”
Dustin looked over at his brother. “Is that true? I don’t remember seeing it in any.”
“No, bro, Clint is smash on the money. It was jumping wimbly-style on the rocks and was dropping a paw in the water trying to get some fish when we filled the bottle,” Thunder answered.
Justin shrugged. “I wasn’t paying attention to the local animals; I thought it would all blend in to the background.”
“Damn it. Fine; leave the cat in, but somebody hold him so he doesn’t go scampering around and ruin the shot.”
Clint reached down and picked up the King of Kenowai before anyone, especially the King, had a chance to object. “Sorry, little guy, I know cats aren’t big on being held but it will make everything run smoother.”
“So, we’ve got all the stuff, what do we do now?” April asked, holding up the bottle and rock she’d been tasked with carrying.
“When the Goodwins tell you to start, you will go to the small altar set up in front of the tree. Pour the water into the depression on the top then drop in the stone. After that, you pluck a pear from the tree and set it on the stone. The density of the objects works in such a way that the pear should balance perfectly, the water holding it in place. When all that is done, you tell the goddess that the offering is assembled and you wished to be judged for the right of freeing Kodiwandae,” Kaia explained.
