Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology by Nancy Holder, Kami García, Saladin Ahmed, Jim Butcher, Jane Yolen, Heather Brewer, Rachel Caine, Gillian Philip, Peter Beagle Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    “To tell him that I will never
forgive him,” Kokinja answered. “So there is something even Paikea did not
know.” She felt triumphant, and stopped wanting to cry.
    “You are still not ready,” said Paikea,
and was abruptly gone, slipping beneath the waves without a ripple, as though
its vast body had never been there. It did not return for another three days,
during which Kokinja explored the island, sampling every fruit that grew there,
fishing as she had done at sea when she desired a change of diet, sleeping when
she chose, and continuing to nurse her sullen anger at her father.
    Finally, she sat on the beach with her feet
in the water, and she called out, “Great Paikea, of your kindness, come to me,
I have a riddle to ask you.” None of the sea creatures among whom she had been
raised could ever resist a riddle, and she did not see why it should be any
different even for the Master of All Sea Monsters.
    Presently she heard the mighty creature’s
voice saying, “You yourself are as much a riddle to me as any you may ask.”
Paikea surfaced close enough to shore that Kokinja felt she could have reached
out and touched its head. It said, “Here I am, Shark God’s daughter.”
    “This is my riddle,” Kokinja said. “If you
cannot answer it, you who know everything, will you take me to my father?”
    “A most human question,” Paikea replied,
“since the riddle has nothing to do with the reward. Ask, then.”
    Kokinja took a long breath. “Why would any
god ever choose to sire sons and daughters with a mortal woman? Half-divine,
yet we die—half-supreme, yet we are vulnerable, breakable—half-perfect,
still we are forever crippled by our human hearts. What cruelty could compel an
immortal to desire such unnatural children?”
    Paikea considered. It closed its huge,
glowing eyes on their stalks; it waved its claws this way and that; it even
rumbled thoughtfully to itself, as a man might when pondering serious matters.
Finally Paikea’s eyes opened, and there was a curious amusement in them as it
regarded Kokinja. She did not notice this, being young.
    “Well riddled,” Paikea said. “For I know
the answer, but have not the right to tell you. So I cannot.” The great claws
snapped shut on the last word, with a grinding clash that hinted to Kokinja how
fearsome an enemy Paikea could be.
    “Then you will keep your word?” Kokinja
asked eagerly. “You will take me where my father