BEAST OF THE WOODS

Chapter 21

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 f**k 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 f*****g 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 s**t 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 c***k in the coral.

Dakuwaqa was furious.

"Stop hiding!" he shouted in a bubbly shout. "Coward! Stop hiding! You are making it very difficult for me to get one more."

By now, he was really out of breath. It had been a long time since his prey had successfully hidden from him. He found himself gasping, his fins moving slower.

Again, he saw a tip of tentacle. Again, he raced toward it. Again, it disappeared.

"God dammit," snarled Dakuwaqa, and started swimming back and forth across the top of the reef again, fuming. This couldn't be looking too good to his countless minions.

Again, the tentacle. Again, it disappeared into a hole.

Dakuwaqa screamed his displeasure. Fish for hundreds of miles swam for cover.

Selqu dared say nothing.

"King Octopus!" Dakuwaqa roared. "I'm going to eat you slowly when I find you. I am going to savor each tentacle and each little suction cup on each tentacle. There won't be any of you left, you coward!"

Dakuwaqa was winded now. All of the eating he had done over the years had left him a little out of shape. If he was honest with himself, he would have realized that in human form he had become a somewhat flabby island youth over the last year or two.

"Coward?" he heard a sly voice say in his right ear just as eight tentacles lashed into his sides and held him motionless. "How about some other words, shark? How about some other words?" The tentacles continued to hold him tight.

"I don't need any other words, asshole," Dakuwaqa said. "I'm going to make you an eight-time amputee, and then I'm going to crush your head between my teeth and grind your beak down to dust."

The Octopus God laughed. "Let me welcome you to Kadavu Island with a hug. I don't think you'll soon be free of me."

And he was right.

The battle raged all day and into the night, but the Octopus God was right.

Dakuwaqa thrashed about. He spun, rolled, squirmed, pulled, pushed, opened his jaws, and slammed them shut. But no matter what he did, he could not get free of the Octopus God's tentacles. In fact, he began to get a bit dizzy. Selqu had gotten dizzy a long time before, and was in danger of losing his grip on the God-Emperor's skin. Even worse, the Octopus God had sometimes loosened just one tentacle long enough to grab a snack of crab from the nearby reef, but even then Dakuwaqa had not been able to get free. Worst of all, the Octopus God would not stop talking about the underwater light show he was working on...

"Just... one... more..." he said slowly. He was beginning to feel as if he were going to be sick.

"You can't get free of me," the Octopus God said in his sly, mad voice. "I can hold you here until you drown if you like."

"f**k you," Dakuwaqa said, but the Octopus God was, again, right. Like most sharks, he couldn't stand still for long - he had to keep moving forward to bring water through his gills. If he didn't he would drown. He wouldn't die, but he would drown, and keep drowning, and all during the process of drowning, there would be no way he could get free of the Octopus God, and it would hurt more than anything he had ever known.

Dakuwaqa thrashed again, shouting out to Selqu, "Do something! Do something, Selqu!"

At which point, the Octopus God ended Selqu's ambitions by pulling him off of Dakuwaqa and grinding him up with his beak. (Selqu's last thought had nothing to do with ambition, and everything to do with surprise.)

Dakuwaqa thrashed and changed into a flabby youth holding his breath, but the Octopus God held on. He changed into a ray. He changed into a giant lobster. He changed into a slippery eel. He changed into a whale. But still the Octopus God held on. Not only that, the Octopus God was squeezing the life out of him.

The Octopus God squeezed harder. "Do you give up?"

Dakuwaqa began to see black spots in front of his eyes. He was painfully aware of his waiting shark army. He knew, even without looking, that some of them would be trying to take a bite out of him later, even if he won.

Around them, the water was now darker and colder, the sky above the water pressing down and blue-black. All around, the phosphorescent glow of the coral illuminated them - and the flitting stars of glowing fish too stupid to have hidden already. The Octopus God strobed red and green, blue and orange, content to battle Dakuwaqa to the end of time.

"I can do this forever," he whispered in Dakuwaqa's ear. "I can do this forever and a day. I can continue to recite lines to you from my underwater light show. I can sing, if you like. I do not mind. It is interesting. It is something to do."

Something gave inside of Dakuwaqa. Something broke. He stopped struggling and went back to his shark shape. All the ferocity had left his eyes. He could have been a young sharklet just out of his unknown mother's egg sac again. He remembered how helpless he had felt, coming out of the sac, squirming past its rough edges, for an instant held motionless by it.