“Only I imagine something went wrong.”
“Bang on. Oh, bang on! Silly blighter borrowed the charm and untied the cord. Your friend’s friend forever, eh? Fine for him, but the gaffer was eaten by a shark. Biggest anybody’d ever seen, they say. Bigger than this boat.”
“I — see...”
“Your friend was the friend of our village afterward. Twig?”
“To be honest I don’t believe I do.” Cassie was no longer looking at the sea or the high sea-girt island they were approaching, but into the water. It was smooth save for a slight roiling by their steering paddles, and seemed as clear as glass. Yet blue. Blue far below, and dimmer and darker there.
“Gaffer held the spirit of our village. He’d loved it and done his best for it. Your friend ate all that when he ate him. His son — my pater that was — wanted peace and sent all sorts of gifts. Honored him every way he could think of and some that some others thought up for him. Welcomed him to our feasts, you know. Gave him anything he asked for. He’s a good chap at heart, twig? Bit peckish at times, but aren’t we all.”
“I liked him,” Cassie admitted.
“There. You see?” King Kanoa sounded relieved. “Fine chap, Hanga. Keep it so, I beg you.”
“Do you still want to hear what he told me?”
TAKANGA HA’I
“You don’t know whether the high king is here?” Cassie asked.
King Kanoa shook his head. “He nips in and out very quick, Your Majesty. With a private hopper and no need to watch expenses, one may do so. At times I wonder when he sleeps.”
“I’m wondering where. Does he have a house in this village?” She indicated the cluster of palm-leaf huts.
“That I shall show you, Your Majesty. Do I sound self-satisfied?”
“Just a little, maybe.”
“I feared it, though I come by it honestly. By His Majesty’s generosity, I am accorded my own apartment in the palace, a large and commodious one. I am the only lesser king in our nation who can make that boast.”
King Kanoa paused, looking thoughtful. “I offered to contrive a sedan chair for you in Kololahi. You graciously declined it. I offer it again here, and urge you most seriously to accept. The road up the mountain is long and steep.”
“But you’re going to walk?”
He nodded.
“Then I’ll walk, too.”
“You are a delicate woman, Your Majesty, as befits a queen. I am, as I’ve proven repeatedly, the strongest man in my village.”
Cassie decided to be charitable. “One who has no need to lose weight. I’ve been fattening on hotel food for ten days. If the high king were to see me now, he’d put me on bread and water, and hold the bread.”
King Kanoa smiled. “You are as beautiful as you are kind.”
“Thank you. I’m also fatter than I am beautiful and kind put together. I’ll walk. On the good stretches, I may joggle. That’s jogging when you jiggle.”
“The sun is warm, I warn you.”
“I see Okalani is still with us, with her parasol. Can she walk up? All the way?”
“You may make book upon it.”
Cassie set her jaw. “Then I can, too.”
“I propose a compromise. Let my folk lash up a sedan chair for you. You and I will go up there, have a seat on that log out of the sun, and watch ’em. They’ll carry it behind you. If you grow weary, you may ride. What’s the harm, eh?”
Cassie nodded, and King Kanoa gave orders.
“You didn’t have to threaten anybody,” she said when he was seated on the log beside her.
“I never do.” He smiled. “Now and then I may raise my voice, Your Majesty. That’s as far as it goes.”
“I’ve been watching to see if they resented me. They don’t seem to. Everybody smiles if they see me looking at them.”
“For the remainder of their lives — I trust I sound sincere, because I am very — they’ll boast of havin’ formed a part of your escort today.”
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” For a moment or two, Cassie collected her courage. “At least I hope we’re friends.”
“I’m your friend and your most loyal subject, Your Majesty.”
“And I’m the queen of — of paradise. I can’t get used to it. Maybe I will, eventually.”
“Here’s a coconut.” It had been half buried in the sand. King Kanoa pulled it out and displayed it. “There will be a little milk still, I judge, and the meat should be refreshing and delicious. If Your Majesty would consent to sample it?”
She nodded, and he gestured to a man standing just out of earshot. The man handed him a large knife, shorter and heavier than most machetes. King Kanoa’s powerful fingers stripped away the husk, leaving the hairy brown nut Cassie had seen in supermarkets. A single blow from the heavy knife decapitated the hapless nut. “Your Majesty will find the milk cool, I believe, though there’s but a swallow.” He presented it to her.
It was cool and delicious. She drank it and handed it back to him.
He split it with another deft blow and presented her with a bit of coconut meat on the point of his borrowed knife.
She thanked him. “I’ve been thinking about this place. People who aren’t smart, and I’m not, shouldn’t think too much. Only sometimes I do. Wally — the high king came here and made himself king.”
“He did.” King Kanoa nodded solemnly.
“He had to kill people to do that, I’ll bet.”
King Kanoa nodded again. “He did. Bad men and far too many bad women, perhaps a thousand altogether.”
“Not your people? What Hanga said was right?”
“It was. The Storm King gathers worshippers from every nation on Earth, Your Majesty. Too often they come here to be near him.” King Kanoa fell silent.
“He lives here?” Cassie shuddered.
“There’s a city under the sea.” King Kanoa’s voice had fallen, still deep but faint. “This is what I’ve been told. Haven’t seen it myself, and pr’aps no one has. It’s miles south, but ours is the nearest land.”
“He’s there? In that city?”
King Kanoa nodded. “So they say. He dens in the tower from which he ruled before the first man walked.”
“Wouldn’t archaeologists... ?”
“Be expected to go there, poor chaps. More would. Dive in suits or pr’aps little subs. A few have. Didn’t come back, eh? None did. Another brought a robot diver. Camera on it, lights and all that. Quite neat, you know. I saw it.”
“It didn’t come back either?”
He shrugged. “No one knows. Ship sunk. Lost at sea, eh? Never a distress call, so it was fast. Ever look at old pictures, Your Majesty? Woodcuts? Squid bigger than the ship it’s attacking?”
Cassie shook her head.
“Pity. Have a look sometime. They knew, back then. Not now. Been forgotten, and he likes it so, eh? Less trouble. No depth charges.”
She blinked. “Depth charges?”
“Like bombs, eh? For subs. Set your depth and push ’em off the ship. Might work — I’ve noodled it. Prob’ly get you killed, though. Couldn’t do it myself.”
“Only the high king could?”
“Bang on. Scads of pelf, eh? Filthy lucre. He could. He might. Storm King’s afraid he will, and that’s enough. If he — ” King Kanoa broke off to stare upward.
Far above them, a gray hopper had sprung into being, moving slowly south. Cassie, staring up as well, squinting through her sunglasses, could just make out the painted letters on its side: USN 1110. “What’s that doing here?”
King Kanoa chuckled. “Technically, violatin’ our airspace. We complain about it all the time. Doesn’t do a bit of good.”
“Are they doing it just to annoy you?”
“Failure, eh? I’m amused, not annoyed. You see, Your Majesty, I know what they’re lookin’ for, and I know they won’t find it. Don’t exist. If they’d ask, I’d tell ’em straight out. Not that they’d credit me.”