Flames of Mana

by Matt Larkin

  Kama spit the banana at Ioane like a soggy yellow javelin, holding him with his glare. “Not one malappropriate word about my wife.”

  Ioane glanced down at the mushy banana now sitting in his lap, then brushed it aside. “All right. No harsh words for the queen. But still, we are all free men here, yes?”

  “And women,” Malie added.

  “And women,” Ioane amended. “There’s no good reason for us to go to Haupu. We have nothing to gain and a lot to lose. If you want to go, you go. You cannot expect us to leave what we’ve built here.”

  Kama snorted. “Of course I can. I definitely expected it. That’s why I came here. You have clearly underestimated my powers of expectoration.”

  Ioane scrunched up his face like he’d been the one to try eating a banana peel. Clearly speechless at Kama’s flawless logic, once more. “‘Aumākua and akua, man,” the bandit finally said. “You are truly a moron, aren’t you? This is not just an act?”

  “Wait, what? Are you … insulting me?”

  No, no, no. Kama’s gut rumbled at the thought. Surely Ioane wouldn’t do this.

  “We followed you because you were strong, Kamapua‘a, because you helped us get what we wanted. Because no one could stand up to you in a fight. But I’ve known rocks with more brains than you.”

  “Rocks get pretty big,” Kama grumbled, struggling to keep the Boar God from rising up once more. Trembling now, in fact. It didn’t like being insulted, even through Kama. “Like mountains.”

  Ioane stood, shaking his head. “Your physical might let us get this far, but I cannot allow your lack of intelligence to cost us what we’ve already achieved. I am chief here now, and you shall leave Hāmākua. Go to Haupu, go back to Kaua‘i, go to Lua-o-Milu, I don’t care. But leave us be, Kamapua‘a.”

  Betrayal and insults.

  And Kamapua‘a snarled. The Boar God was rising now. Maybe would slaughter the whole village.

  Before that happened, Kama lunged upward, caught Ioane with both hands around his neck, and heaved.

  Others jumped up, scrambling for weapons.

  Kama just twisted until bone crunched. Ioane’s face purpled, eyes bulged. Then his tongue lolled. Kama tossed him aside like refuse.

  He forced slow breaths in and out through his nostrils.

  He was in control.

  He had just shitting murdered his second-in-command, but he was in control.

  Couldn’t blame the murder on the Boar God.

  But he was in control.

  Your mind begins to crack under the strain.

  Nope. No cracks. Shit on that. Kama was just fine.

  Growling, he stormed from the house and no one dared to try to stop him. He plodded forward until he made it to a stream, then collapsed nearby and dunked his head in the waters.

  The cool rush of it eased the rising tension in his gut. Except, even underwater, he kept feeling flesh and bone turning to pulp beneath his fingers. Like pounding out poi into paste. Too easy.

  A heartbeat, and a man he’d known for years was dead.

  The chanting started as the moon turned red, completely filling his vision, and he found himself unable to look away, unable to even blink. No, not even when they took the boar and placed it on his chest, still he couldn’t tear his gaze from that brilliant crimson orb in the sky.

  He wanted to cry out, to object, to refuse. A primal fear bubbled up from his gut and demanded he reject any attempt to bring about something so unnatural. Men were men and animals were animals.

  They sought to combine them, create a were-beast, they called it, and while they claimed it the ultimate revering of nature, he couldn’t help but hear blasphemy in their chants.

  They had painted sigils in blood, all around the valley. It must have taken two dozen slaughtered pigs for that much blood. Or … no … they probably hadn’t used pigs for this, had they? He’d heard sorcery was strongest with human blood as the sacrifice.

  Inexplicably, the moon grew yet larger, swooping toward them like a falling star, until it appeared to have become a capstone sealing them in the valley. Until he could make out craters on its surface, like a world itself.

  Closing in on him, as he fell into this world, into his new home in a lunar mansion.

  He jerked his head up from the stream and caught a scent.

  Malie.

  She was standing some distance away, arms at her side but tense, ready for trouble.

  As if she could have stopped him if he wanted to kill her.

  No. Even without the Boar God, Kama doubted anyone in Hāmākua could have stopped him if he meant harm. And Ioane had been right. That was the only reason the band had ever followed him. Because he could smash, kill, and destroy anything in their way.

  Had even Makani been the same? Had Kama’s old friend just been better at hiding his disdain?

  “What do you want?” he finally demanded.

  “There are some few of us who would willingly join you. Win glory, renown, a better place than this little hole beneath the Snow Queen’s mountain.”

  Glory? Was that what he had offered them? Kama hardly knew anymore. He didn’t know a shitting thing. Only, he had to save Hina. Big Sis was all he really had, and he needed a boat and a crew to reach her.

  “There’s not a lot of us. You can sail a war canoe?”

  “Pfff. Mighty Kama can sail anything. Anything with sails, anyway. Never tried to sail a rock or tree. I can surf too.” He winked at her, then wondered what he was even doing.

  After everything, why hadn’t Malie turned her back on him like everyone else? She’d gotten the worst of it. At least so far as people who were still alive were concerned. Did she really want glory? Unsatisfied with this village?

  “Don’t you hate me?” he finally asked.

  Malie snickered, shaking her head, then slumped down beside him. “You know, I once saw a mermaid come up from the sea, grab a girl off a surfboard and eat her right there. Poor thing couldn’t have passed fifteen years, barely a woman. That mermaid looked me in the eye, held the girl’s face underwater, and bit off her hand. Didn’t break her gaze the whole time, you know?”

  The bandit blew out a long breath. Kama didn’t know what to say.

  “The world isn’t for people, Boss. It’s a … a shit place, as you would say, and we just try to survive it. And we pretty much always fail in the end, right? I heard kāhuna say everything came out of Pō and we’re all going back to the night in the end. Better to have something from out of there on my side while I’m here.”

  Kama grunted. “I thought Ioane was your man?”

  She pursed her lips a moment. “Yeah, so did he. There’s more than one way to get ahead, though.”

  She meant she’d taken up with him after Kama made Ioane his new second-in-command.

  “Guess that makes you my new second,” he said, then paused, watching her face. Only half of it still made expressions. Poor girl. “What do you want?”

  “What, in the end?” She leaned back on the sand and grinned. “I want to go back to Pō and have people remember I was here for a while. However long I’ve got in the daylight, I want them to remember my name after I’m done. You’re gonna have that, you know? Killing Haki alone would give that to you, even if tale didn’t spread about you and the Flame Queen. And it will. People will be talking about you for generations, naming you in their mo‘olelo. When it comes to your great-great-grandsons, it won’t matter why you did whatever you did. It’ll matter only that you did things other people couldn’t dream of trying.”

  “And with some shitting style,” he added.

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  Kama grunted. “I’m losing myself to this thing inside.” He wasn’t sure why he’d tell it to her. Maybe he just needed to tell it to someone.

  Malie frowned at that, maybe finally as scared as she should have been all along. “You want to do this to save Hina, right?” She almost managed to keep the tremor from her voice. “Keep her face in your mind
and maybe you’ll get through this.”

  Yeah, he hoped so.

  “Get the crew together, then. We sail for Moloka‘i.”

  13

  Shooting streams of water out behind her allowed Namaka to swim at great speed, and she covered the distance back to Sawaiki in a couple of hours. She made land some time before noon, resuming her human legs and hurrying back to Puna.

  Perhaps she should have checked in on Pele and Hi‘iaka, but time was against her, and she needed to see the kahuna. So, she instead trod the path to the temple. Kamalo was there, as she hoped, instructing three new kāhuna in mysteries and rituals, the most important of which involved sending the dead. Rumors of lapu—the restless dead—now abounded across the isles. Too many had died for the kāhuna to send all to their proper rest. For some, it was too late. Others, the kāhuna still sought out, trying to bring them to peace in the hopes they would leave the Mortal Realm behind. The only thing worse than losing the dead was having them remain.

  She sunk down on the sand nearby, not wanting to interrupt.

  Eventually, he noticed her and waved away his new disciples. The old man leaned more heavily than ever on his walking stick as he made his way toward her. Namaka hopped up and closed the distance, saving him the trouble.

  “I wasn’t expecting you, Queen Namaka,” he mumbled.

  Namaka swept her still-wet hair from her face. Now that she was here, the words stuck in her throat. “Something’s happened in Mu. Something stalling me from finding the Waters.”

  “Hiyoya?”

  “Not this time. Civil war. The queen is moving to eradicate my ‘ohana.”

  Kamalo stared off at the sea, apparently at a loss for words.

  “There’s another mer ‘ohana,” she said. “One banished centuries ago. I’m told they took up residence around Moloka‘i.”

  Kamalo grunted. “No mer are truly friends to Sawaiki.”

  “The he‘e will be worse.”

  “Will they?”

  “They may not demand human sacrifices. But they will bend the kāhuna and chiefs to their will, take from our people their freedom, and do it so subtly we may not even realize as it happens.”

  “Hmmm. And is this Namaka or Nyi Rara speaking?”

  “Both.” She thought it was both of them. The part of her that was Nyi Rara cared most about Mu, of course. But still she loved her human people.

  Kamalo sighed, then motioned for her to sit, probably eager to take the weight off his legs. She joined him on the sand and watched the sea beside him. It called to her still, like a song humming through her soul, begging her to return to its embrace. She loved Mu. It was at once both new and exotic and a familiar home, a place where she belonged. And its beautiful halls, its grottos and streets, they now housed invaders intent on taking that from her, from all her people.

  “It must be hard, being two people.”

  Namaka smiled but said nothing. The kahuna might have grown old, but his observations remained far too keen.

  “I need to know exactly where to find the Nanaue ‘Ohana. I know you had dealings with them.”

  “Do you know how my boys died?” Kamalo asked after a moment.

  Namaka shook her head. Kapo had told her Kamalo had had two sons who had died before he came to Vai‘i. The kahuna himself had not spoken of it. Not to Namaka, but then, she hardly knew him.

  The man laid his stick across his lap, idly running his fingers along it. “There was a chief on Moloka‘i, Kupa, uncle to the king, now Keoloewa. My sons snuck into Kupa’s tent and beat on his drum.” To touch the possession of the chief without his express permission was a deadly tabu. Namaka could already see where this story would lead. “The chief came home and learned what they had done. He sent his men to hunt them down and made a sacrifice of them, an offering to the gods. That was his right.

  “It was not, however, something I could accept. I was younger then, and foolish, though not so foolish as to challenge the man directly. He was the greatest chief on Moloka‘i, after all. So, I went to all the other kāhuna. I begged one after another to join me in striking down the chief.” He shook his head sadly. “No one would. For kāhuna to challenge a chief like that would violate another tabu. Besides, he made the boys offerings to the akua. The akua alone could judge whether the sacrifice was worthy. So finally, I heard of the great shark akua on the far side of the island. It was said to lair in the Cave of the Eel, where had once dwelt Toona, the taniwha slain by Maui.

  “I walked for leagues, carrying this big pig over my shoulders as an offering.” He chuckled. “I was stronger then. I knew the shark god was near, though not exactly where this cave lay. And I searched and searched until I was stopped by a mo‘o. At first he laughed at me, said the shark king was going to swallow me and the pig whole. And then he told me to leave. Warned me that place was death to humans. I didn’t care. Not about my life, not so long as I had my revenge. To me, that was life. And I told him as much. This was the first time I met Piika-lalau, a mo‘o.

  “I told Piika how I had wandered all over the island seeking anyone to help me, and that the shark god was my last hope. And he, in turn, told me I was lucky he was not there. He’d gone out fishing but, Piika assured me, had he been at home, he’d have eaten me without bothering to hear my tale. So, he had to prepare the shark king—Kauhuhu was his name—for my presence. He hid me under a pile of taro peelings. Probably the most disgusting thing I’ve endured in my long life.”

  Namaka couldn’t really imagine the old kahuna hiding anywhere, much less under leftovers from making poi. The mental image brought a smile to her face and a scowl to his.

  “Yes, Fish Girl, I—”

  “Oh, do not call me that.” She let Upoho get away with it—or rather failed to stop him. She was not about to let the pet name spread.

  “Then don’t mock a kahuna. Not even in your own mind.” He winked at her. “So, the shark god came back, and he was a man, or at least in human form, though he retained a shark-like cast to his features.”

  “He was a mer. We’re all shark-like.”

  “Yes, but the Nanaue are … more so. He declared almost immediately that he smelled a human. He began digging through the cave, but he didn’t find me. At least not until that damn pig started squealing. That mer moved so fast I couldn’t even think, tore through the pile of taro and hefted me by the throat with one hand. He looked like he planned to drag me into the water and eat me on the spot.

  “So—as best I could with my windpipe squeezed—I begged him to hear my prayer first, then eat me after. I think he was more shocked I was ready to die than anything, and he dropped me. So, I told him my story and then I offered him the pig. And Kauhuhu took pity on me and agreed to bring me my revenge. He sent me back to the chief who had wronged me, bade me trick the man into coming near the shore. I did so, and the chief came, along with his great warriors. He was no fool and he wasn’t about to put himself in the hands of a kahuna whose sons he’d killed.

  “He did not count on a small army of mer, however. They feasted upon the chief and all his warriors. And Kauhuhu and his people spared me. So … Yes. The Nanaue are savage, deadly akua. But they can be bargained with. You of all people should understand how a person can have more than one nature.” He paused. “In another lifetime, Kauhuhu helped me get the only thing I wanted in the world. Maybe he could do the same for you.”

  “Tell me where to find the Cave of the Eel.”

  The waters around Sawaiki so soothed Nyi Rara that she merely floated on her back, drinking in sunlight, pushing herself around with the occasional beat of her tail. The sun’s warmth on her face, its reflection off the glistening sea, they were reminders of her true self.

  But if the sea was peace, was home, it was so only at the moment. Not so many miles from here, the he‘e continued their ineffable conquest of all mer. Further off, Aiaru tried to destroy the last of Dakuwaqa ‘Ohana.

  Perhaps the days of the great mer kingdoms were coming to an end. />
  Though she—most especially the part of her that was Nyi Rara—liked to believe Mu was eternal, she knew better. There had been a time before Mu. A time, long before she was born, when the Mortal Realm held far more land, held the four great continents of Hy-Brasil and Kêr-Ys, of Mu and Kumari Kandam. Perhaps one day the Worldsea itself would ebb like the tide, returning the Earth to its former state. Or, no. Not former, but a new Earth.

  Time was change.

  The old ones claimed everything moved in cycles, but the cycles themselves were repetitions of patterns, even as the whole was altered.

  At the moment, she could not help but blame her sister for this. She had warned Kuku Lau not to move against Aiaru while in such tumultuous times. Such opportunism had risked utterly destroying Dakuwaqa ‘Ohana.

  She was not, however, going to let either Mu or her ‘ohana become a mere memory. Not while she drew breath. First, she had to remove Aiaru from the throne. Kuku Lau had forced this course. Then, she had to cast the he‘e out from Mu.

  If the he‘e wanted to drive all mer from the Mortal Realm, they had to go through her. They knew that. Anticipated her every move, more often than not avoided any direct confrontation with her. She had to hope, however, that they had not planned for her to find new allies. Assuming, of course, she could even convince the Nanaue to join her cause.

  After a moment more in the sun, she flipped around and dove beneath the waters, swimming down until she nearly brushed the seafloor. Kamalo had said Kauhuhu lived in a cave along the sea, in the northwest of Moloka‘i. The so-called Cave of the Eel. That meant, if she circled the island, followed its every nook, sooner or later she ought to find it. And fortunately, Moloka‘i was a fraction the size of Vai‘i.

  A great swarm of canoes had gathered northeast of the island, laying siege to some fortress. Something to do with the struggles between the Kahikians and prior inhabitants of Sawaiki. Something having little to do with Nyi Rara. She avoided contact with either side, keeping well below the waters and moving mostly at night.