chapter Two: CHILD OF THE OPEN SEA

Kei woke to the sound of her father grumbling from his sleeping pallet. She levered upright onto her canes, nose twitching at the acrid fumes of burnt oil clinging to dozens of hand-carved drums cluttering the tiny hut. 

She glared at a stone pipe lying beside her father, then turned away, feet dragging beneath her slim body. She leaned on one cane at a time, swinging rigid legs from hips until she reached the open door of the hut—built within arm’s reach of the Nadako sea. 

Her father’s voice called after her. “For once,” he said, “just do what your mother wants. Would it hurt you to go to Tirahanko Bay tonight and sing in her choir?”

Kei stood in the hut’s doorway with her eyes closed. For a moment, she wanted only to obey her father—to go and sing on the black sand beach of Tirahanko, while kopri floated in the center of the bay—pushing bulbous heads above the waves to catch each crystal note.

But then she remembered the eyes of her mother’s choir, staring in pity at her legs.  Her jaw clenched, head shaking as she ignored her father and left his hut. The tips of her canes sank into hard packed sand as she struggled across a small cove—toward a kayak tied at the water’s edge. 

The kayak consisted of two thick reed bundles tapered at the front, forming a high, curved bow. There, a short-hafted fishing spear stood upright, lashed to the reeds. A woven seat created a backrest. She dropped onto the seat, pulling her resisting legs onto the center of the kayak. After strapping her canes to the hull, Kei took up her paddles, her powerful arms thrusting the sleek craft off the sand.

She drove the kayak into the surf, legs forgotten, and paddled north up the wave-struck coast, past thick mangrove forests. 

When the sun had moved a hand's width across the sky, she arrived at a narrow inlet leading into Tirahanko Bay. She passed between the inlet’s basalt cliffs, entering the bay’s protected waters. There, a platform carved long ago sat at the top of the cliffs, three times Kei’s height above the water. 

She tied her kayak to an outcropping, then began pulling herself up a knotted rope dangling from above. A grunt exploded from her lips with each strained movement. Her thighs struck the jagged rock as she climbed, one hand after another. Her arms burned as she hauled the useless weight of her legs up the cliffside. Finally, she reached the top, dragging herself over the smooth lip of a platform—carved long ago to help NetSingers track the hunt.

Lying face down against the stone, Kei released the rope and rolled over, staring up at the blue depths of an open sky. 

A light wind dried sweat on her brow as she sat up. To her right, Tirahanko Bay stretched out before her, its black sand kissed by the restless surf, dense jungle pressing in from all sides. To her left, the open ocean unfurled in rippling waves of pastel aquamarine, stretching endlessly under the warm sun. Her pounding heart steadied, eyes sweeping toward open water. There, dozens of human hunters in reed sea-kayaks had launched westward, following their kopri allies—who searched for prey beneath the waves. 

Kei settled onto the NetSinger’s Platform, drawing a deep breath to steady herself. Just then, a sudden splash near her kayak yanked her attention to a large kopri rising above the water. 

“Morning light!” Kei sang out, pitching her trained falsetto voice high enough for kopri’s gel-filled ear knobs to hear. Behind the kopri’s head a muscular, shifting sack bloomed. This sack—their mantle—contained their hearts and lungs and organs. A thousand tiny bumps formed a green sign of greeting on the mantle’s fluid, crinkling skin. The kopri reached one sinuous tentacle—longer than Kei’s kayak—above the water. The rainbow-flecked tentacle tip wavered near the edge of the platform, then slapped downward, spraying drops of salt water across the cliffside.

Kei’s lips curled into a smile as she read a joking comment written in the kopri’s shifting patterns of scrunched flesh and vibrant color. Then the kopri’s mantle flashed all colors at once, laughing hysterically.

“Only a kopri,” Kei sang, her voice bright with amusement, “Would think that's funny!” 

The tentacle slapped water one more time before slipping beneath the waves. The true name of a kopri had no translation, only textured patterns of color displayed on their bulbous mantle sacks, unique to each. But this young kopri was Kei’s best friend, who her father—during happier times—had jokingly named OldFish. 

“Go on, OldFish,” Kei sang to her friend. “It’s time to hunt. You don’t have to stay with me.” OldFish flashed yellow below their eyes—a kopri smile. 

“We hunt together,” her friend signed, before contracting their water-filled mantle. With a powerful burst, a jet of water propelled OldFish across the inlet to where a second kopri waited. The two Kopri wrapped their suckered tentacles around the net, preparing for the hunters' return. Soon, the hunters would drive their prey into the bay, and the waiting Kopri would drag the net across the inlet, turning the shallow waters of Tirahanko into a sealed trap.

Kei’s eyes wandered over the bay, to a wide beach edged with palm trees, where racks of gutted fish would soon hang, drying in the sun. In the far distance, the volcanic cone of Mt. Jikea rose into the sky, but Kei’s duties lay out to sea. She turned away from land, eyes scanning the waves. From time to time she sang a note, alerting her two companions to what she saw. And when the first kayak began driving toward Tirahanko Bay, her song signaled the two waiting kopri to tighten their tentacled grips on the net.

The kayaking hunters' voices echoed over the water, too low pitched for the Kopri to hear. The ear knobs of kopri perceived only the highest tones—the chirping warning of a fiddler crab’s claw rasping on its carapace, or the treble notes of a human woman skilled in shaping high-pitched frequency into song.

Kei squinted her eyes against the sun as she tracked the motions of the hunting kopri. Many of the dozens of kopri had mantles larger than Kei. Their bodies swelled with water and then squeezed, creating powerful jets that propelled them beneath the waves, eight tentacles undulating behind their bullet-shaped heads.

Kei heard faint voices as the Kayaking hunters called to one another. The kopri jetted below, driving a school of spikeback snapper toward the inlet. Fish erupted from the waves, dozens of arm-length silvery bodies leaping into the air, seeking to escape the relentless kopri. But dozens of kayaks blocked their path, turning the school toward Tirahanko, while kopri jetted behind, mantles glowing violet with excitement. 

Kei sang, keeping her two kopri companions informed about the progress of the hunt. Together, kopri and human hunters drove the school of fish toward the bay. As the hunt approached, Kei leaned forward, the notes of her song warning her two crewmates to prepare to close the net. 

The kopri and human hunters drove the huge school of fish into the narrow strait leading into Tirahanko Bay. With kayaks chasing above and kopri pushing below, the only escape for the snapper school was forward. A mass of meaty fish seethed into the bay. And then both prey and hunters were through the strait and Kei sang out, high tones directing the two kopri net-tenders to close the trap. Timing mattered. Many of the fleeing fish would escape unless the net closed quickly.

This was Kei’s main job: without a NetSinger tracking the progress of the hunt—and alerting the kopri who tended the nets—the trap might fail. 

No matter what Kei’s father said, the task was important.

Gray knobbed tentacles gripped cordage, dragging the net across the inlet, sealing off the exit from Tirahanko Bay. OldFish’s clever tentacles wrapped lines around stanchions carved into the rock below the NetSinger’s platform, pulling the net tight.

The hunt ended, and a feeding frenzy began. The bay's water boiled. Snappers leapt and plunged, trying to escape as the kopri wrapped entrapping tentacles around their meals. The kopri drug one hapless fish after another into their mantles: squeezing, killing, plunging their beaks into flesh and eating at leisure. 

The human hunters beached their kayaks on the sand, then leapt to smaller nets placed around the bay, waiting for their kopri partners to finish feasting.

After the kopri ate their fill, they gathered at the bay's entrance, serene blue patterns signaling readiness to Kei, who sang back, “Wait.” 

When the last kopri finished their meal and joined the hunting pack, Kei sang to her two companions, who untied the net, opening the trap so that the kopri could return to the open sea. When the last of the kopri departed, Kei’s two companions passed through, then tied the nets again, trapping the remaining fish for their human friends. 

Before departing, OldFish rose to the surface, flashing excitedly. “Come tonight. Join the celebration!” 

Kei read the flashing patterns on her friend’s mantle. But the cascading colors sparked a painful image in Kei’s mind—of tentacles reaching toward her, years ago—but she pushed that painful memory away, watching silently as her kopri friend swam off. 

Alone again at the NetSinger’s Platform, Kei grabbed the rope and lowered herself to the water. Taking up her paddle, she moved into Tirahanko Bay, where the human hunters had begun pulling in their nets—dragging mounds of spikeback snapper onto the black sand beach.

* * *

OldFish burrowed into deep coral, fearful black tentacles squeezing into cracks in the reef. Above, where sunlight pierced the waves, krill and plankton sparkled like tiny motes of dust shimmering in air. The elders of OldFish’s hunting pod surrounded an ancient stranger who had come to Tirahanko Bay.   This strange old Kopri ignored the greeting signs flashed by OldFish’s hunting pod, and offered none of its own.

Only orders. Demanding and insistent.

“Summon your humans,” the ancient one flashed, purple lacing each sign. “Call their Singer to me. I have a message all must hear.”

A dozen Kopri pulsed slowly in the current, maintaining their positions, mantles gray and silent, until their leader sent rippling textures over their skin, flashing words to the stranger.

“The humans are not ours to summon,” the pod leader signed, “but we can ask our friends to join us in the bay.”

“Summon. Ask. Call it what you will.” 

“Why? You are free to speak to the humans yourself.” 

A ripple of annoyance swept over the stranger’s body, which suddenly loomed large, tentacles slicing the water before spearing toward the pod leader.  

In the hidden crevice, OldFish tensed, tentacles bunching, preparing to launch themselves out of the coral.   The stranger was attacking the pod!  Frightening as the ancient stranger was, the hunting pod swam together. What threatened one, threatened all.

Before OldFish could launch from the coral, the ancient stranger froze in the water. All movement ceased—skin turning the deepest grey of despair.

No one moved in the currents.  The pod waited, tense, and prepared to defend itself.

But the stranger shrank away, grey giving way to the sadness of blue painted on their skin. Black rings formed around the stranger’s eyes: exhaustion too deep to hide.

OldFish relaxed, fear of the stranger giving way to compassion for the old Kopri’s sadness: compassion for the scars on their skin, and the deep gash below one eye painting a history of suffering and pain clear for any Kopri to read.

Streaks of blue and black rippled down the stranger’s tentacles, resignation coloring their words: “Tell them a Kopri has come from the Deep, with a prophecy of doom.  I am DeepRunner, who has seen the end of days.   And I need their help, or the Kopri will disappear forever.”