Flames of Mana

by Matt Larkin

  With trembling fingers, she shut his eyes, then slowly pulled him away from the brazier. He was heavy—exceptionally heavy—so she certainly couldn’t lift him. Her breath came in ragged pants by the time she’d managed to move the kahuna even a few feet. This wasn’t going to work.

  She’d need help to move the body.

  Upoho could easily do so, but the wererat avoided Pele, for good reason. She winced even considering what she’d done to him. No, she’d have to call on Lonomakua. She could count on his discretion, too.

  Pele headed down from the temple.

  Halfway down the hill, she felt a fuming presence behind her. Chest tight, she spun. A silhouette passed in and out of a fog bank, flanking the temple. Perhaps it could not enter here. And where had that fog come from? Moments ago, the night had been clear.

  Then, all at once, the fog congealed and began to flow through the gate, into the heiau.

  What? So, it could come into the sacred place.

  Her stomach falling, Pele lit torches in both hands and ran toward the temple as fast as her legs could carry her. But she was racing the wind. Already, the fog had settled around the spot she had left the fallen mo‘o. All at once, the supposedly dead kahuna wailed, a sustained scream of torturous agony that sent Pele stumbling to her knees.

  A profound sense of desolation seized her. What had she done? Thanks to her, the kahuna had fallen, lost to the world.

  The ghost haunting this place would soon have companions.

  There was a story Kamalo had told her a while back, about some forgotten village. It had been overtaken by lapu, the entire population slain and transformed into more ghosts. An army of kāhuna had stood against them, many losing their lives in a final attempt to turn the tide. They failed. According to the story, that was why no one lived on the Lost Island. It was barren, barely fit for plant life, and certainly not for mankind.

  The fog had not dissipated, instead settling upon the temple. And a silhouette moved through it, stalking toward her.

  “Damn you.”

  Was this the ghost who had brought them to such a pass? She would not allow Vai‘i to fall. Would do whatever it took to stop that from happening. The figure continued to edge ever closer toward her, and Pele, despite her clenching stomach, stood her ground. As it emerged from the fog, though, she realized it was not the lapu.

  It was the kahuna.

  “Y-you’re alive?”

  He no longer seemed pained by the burns on his face. Indeed, he moved with a strength that should have been impossible in his condition. And his eyes seemed wrong, hollow, like they didn’t quite recognize her. A primal, soul-rending fear seized her, and she fell back despite her determination to face this.

  Makua was not alive at all. That ghost had lodged inside his corpse. Defiling it, denying it rest, and sending it on for further violence. It must have grown stronger.

  She flared her flames in her hands, and the prophet—or his body—drew up short, finally given pause.

  She shook her head. None of this should have happened. She’d wanted to help people. “I’m sorry … I’m so, so sorry.”

  It might have been her imagination, but the corpse almost seemed to sneer at her. If she could do nothing for the mo‘o’s soul, at least she could deny the ghost use of his body. Pele flung both flames forward so their arcs intersected over the corpse. As they did so, she poured mana into them, igniting a detonation like a tiny volcano. The wave engulfed the corpse and hurled Pele from her feet, sending her tumbling several paces away.

  Sand scraped her skin, flew up her nose, and stung her eyes. Spitting and panting, she pushed herself up. Through tearstained vision she saw the corpse—still aflame—shambling toward her. Pele grunted. She pulled herself to her knees and emptied more and more power into the flames.

  The sickeningly sweet, acrid smell of burnt human flesh greeted her as skin and muscle turned to ash. Still the corpse advanced until, a pace away, its charred bones collapsed onto the hillside.

  Pele gasped, not certain whether in relief, exhaustion, or remorse.

  There was no reprieve, of course. No one could kill a ghost, for it was not alive. Destroying the body it occupied would inconvenience it, at best. Soon, it would return.

  She needed a kahuna, and she needed one now. She had no way to send a message to Lonomakua. But if he saw she was in danger, in trouble … A very controlled eruption, but a tall one. It would shake the land and be visible for miles. Damage to the temple was unavoidable, but at least it lay far enough removed from the village she might spare them. She hoped.

  She knelt by the charred corpse and dug her hands into the dirt, calling to the magma coursing far below. Desperation fueled her anger, and her anger summoned the magma, sending the hilltop trembling. A crack rent it, split the land like a breaking wave. The rupture ran toward the temple, tore open its pebble floor, and began to swallow bits of the sacred rocks.

  It was too late to stop the process now, ‘aumākua forgive her.

  Pele screamed as a jet of lava shot upward. She focused all her will, all her mana, into directing it straight up in a single column. Even as it fell, she forced its flow away from the village, creating a stream of molten rock running out to sea.

  Finally spent, she fell forward. The lava jet was brief. But he would have seen it. Must have seen it.

  18

  Days Gone

  At sixteen, Pele sat upon the beach, staring at a small village beyond, barely visible in the darkness. Lonomakua had taken her there, a few times over the past three years. It was close, yet so very far from her.

  Her eyes stung from the tears. From the shame, and she scrubbed at them with her palms.

  Milu damn her for it.

  Like a fool, she’d tried to join Lonomakua in the middle of the night, so badly wanting the comfort.

  He’d caught her wrists and held them gently. “That’s not the relationship you and I have, nor what you truly want from me.”

  Fuck him.

  What on Milu’s icy arse did he know about what she wanted?

  The waves lapped upon the shore in a ceaseless rhythm that ought to have comforted Pele. It did not. All she could think, over and over, was the look on his face. Not angry, not embarrassed, and not the least bit godsdamned tempted.

  She rubbed her eyes again. The night should have been beautiful. A nearly full moon reflected off the waves, casting them in a light so blue it could have made her weep, had she not already spent her tears. Beyond the beach and the rocky shore, emerald-green mountains rose in all directions, those too faintly lit by the moon. It was a night for luaus and lovers. A night for joy. Instead, she sat in the surf, brooding over her loneliness. While the villagers were right there, just out of reach.

  There was fear.

  When aroused, she couldn’t control her fires. Sometimes, when she dreamed of … she’d wake in the night and find her hair alight. Heat built in her cheeks and her hair lit aflame even thinking of it, though Lonomakua never said a thing about it. Her passions might be an asset, but they could easily prove her weakness as well.

  In any event, she had denied her own desires and pleasures for too long, always afraid of hurting someone. It was time to indulge.

  If Lonomakua didn’t want her, surely someone did.

  She trod down into the village. The local kahuna had an apprentice, one she’d seen when last they came through here. A handsome young man, maybe a few years older than her. He’d probably be staying at the heiau.

  Pele grimaced. Of course, she knew people were apt to fuck wherever they wanted, and others were expected to simply find somewhere else to look. Despite that, she couldn’t quite see herself marching into the temple and claiming her first lover in years in front of half the village.

  But she made her way to the homes behind the temple, and pushed aside the tapa drape. The villagers had a small fire burning inside, its light and warmth no doubt a comfort.

  Every eye turned toward her when she breached t
he curtain of the house. People didn’t intrude at night, especially on kāhuna. The young man sat with his master and three other men, slaves perhaps. The apprentice had stringy hair of medium length, muscles with just enough tone to be pleasing. She beckoned him.

  His face blanched when he realized she intended him to come out into the night. She didn’t bother to wait and see if he followed. If he was too cowardly to face the night by her side, he wouldn’t do much good as a kahuna.

  Instead, she returned to the shore. The man’s footfalls fell hesitantly behind her, but he soon raced to catch up.

  “Princess?”

  Pele cast a glance back at him and smiled.

  By the surf she cast aside her skirt, then settled herself provocatively upon a rock shelf, legs crossed. Thinking about her impending liaison immediately set her hair ablaze, and she made no effort to extinguish it. Let the man see her for who and what she was and decide then if he wanted to go forward.

  The apprentice drew to a stop as the flames sparked around her head. By now, her eyes were no doubt glowing like white hot embers. Pele leaned back against the rock behind her and watched the man. If he fled then he clearly was not the one.

  He did not flee. Though, to be fair, his approach was slower than she might have preferred. His fear dampened her excitement and with it, lowered the flames sparking from her hair. Pele fought the urge to frown at the man for spoiling her arousal. He was right to be afraid. But damn it …

  “You wish to be a kahuna?”

  He nodded. He had to know sharing her mana would increase his power.

  Pele opened her mouth to ask him his name, but stopped. What did she care who he was? She might have sparked his lust, but he didn’t even know her. They weren’t going to remain lovers. She just wanted one perfect night.

  Rather than speak, she uncrossed her legs and spread her arms. The man hesitantly took the invitation. He leaned in to kiss her, then jerked away, perhaps frightened by the heat radiating from her hair. Now Pele did scowl.

  Shit. Maybe she’d mischosen.

  The apprentice leaned forward again, this time planting kisses over her abdomen, her breasts, and her nipples. He gasped then, perhaps shocked that those too radiated heat. Idly, she wondered if he had burned his lips. Rather than let the mood be lost, she rose, pushing the man down into the surf and mounted him.

  They quickly fell into a rhythm. It was different than before. The further they went, the closer she got to … she … Her passion rose as she neared her climax. It rose so quickly, at first, she didn’t realize the man was screaming. A curtain of steam rose from the surf where the apprentice now wailed.

  Pele jerked away from him, a pang of regret at coming so close to her joy and having to stop. That pang vanished when she saw the man, weeping, pull himself toward the ocean. His wrists were charred black where she’d held him. The steam from the surf had covered the scent of burnt flesh before, but now she caught a whiff.

  He screamed again as saltwater touched his burns, clutching his wrists to his chest and falling upon the shore.

  No, no, no. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d thought she could control … “I-I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  In pain and frustration, she choked down a sob of her own, the land beneath her rumbling in time with it. Damn it! ‘Aumākua, she’d only wanted to feel wanted. Now, instead, she had ruined a man. If he lived from those burns at all, he might never again have full use of his hands.

  Pele didn’t bother to stop for her pa‘u as she ran back toward the mountain.

  Lonomakua.

  He could help. He could save the young man.

  From the jungle, Pele watched as Lonomakua wrapped a poultice around the apprentice’s wrists. She watched him give the man a draught of awa to ease the pain. She watched him guide him back to the village.

  When she had burst in on Lonomakua, barely keeping from shrieking, he still didn’t seem to judge her. Why wasn’t her furious? Why hadn’t he blamed her for this mess?

  Only, he’d come with her, told her to gather certain plants, and then bid her wait while he tended to the man. Only that, and no more.

  The sun had risen before his return. Though she thought herself concealed, Lonomakua strode straight for her hiding spot, then settled down on a root, sitting in front of her. “Do you want to discuss it?”

  “No.” She wanted to scream. She wanted to bury her face in lava and never come up. “I can never have a lover.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She scoffed. “You mean I can fuck someone if I don’t care about burning his balls off and leaving him a charred husk.”

  Lonomakua folded his arms, silently chiding her for speaking thus.

  Her mouth opened, intending to tell him to go fuck himself. The words wouldn’t form. “I’m sorry,” she said instead.

  “For what? For wanting normal human relationships? For having needs? That hardly warrants an apology. But like the rest of your life, you are different from other people, Pele. You have to learn to control that difference, even when in the throes of passion.” He unfolded his arms and leaned closer, holding out a hand which she reluctantly took. “I promise you, one day, this will all seem small. One day, it will be a distant memory, like learning any other skill. Come back with me. Continue your training. You will get past this.”

  The warmth of his palm was an unexpected comfort. “Sorry,” she repeated. Sorry for everything. For things she couldn’t put into words.

  From the warm nod he offered, she didn’t need to.

  19

  They called it Naunet, the place where the Elder Deep dwelt in restless slumber. The chasm cut through the heart of Avaiki, burrowing down into the shell of the World of Water.

  Nyi Rara had never seen it.

  No one swam there. No one swam within two hundred miles of that abyss.

  But as a child, she had heard stories, tales that Naunet sank so low it passed by the edge of this world and into something else. Something hidden, even from the ancient mer of Bulotu and the other great kingdoms of Avaiki.

  As the chasm cut through the heart of Avaiki, it so divided easy access between the kingdoms. Oh, one could reach the far cities, yes, skirting around the edge of the gulf or—if one was truly brave—swimming far above it.

  But the truth was, the heart of Avaiki remained a no-man’s-land where mer dared not enter for fear not only of the Elder Deep, but of her other, stranger children.

  While she had never been there, Nyi Rara knew it would not prove hard to find.

  In the Mortal Realm, she might have used jets of water to speed her swimming and carry her there in almost no time at all. Now, though, she could barely force herself to kick her tail and keep moving at all.

  She kept looking over her shoulder, knowing she sought someone to offer her a way back. A way not to continue into these depths. For the waters ahead grew murkier, lacking the usual illumination that suffused Avaiki. Darker and with an intensifying pressure, as if she truly did delve deeper, though of course this world held no surface to reach.

  Forcing the flutter of her gills to slow, she pushed onward, deeper into those liquid shadows. She swam near the seabed, using the scattered coral to keep from sight. In open water, predators might spot her. Hungry taniwha, yes. Giant eels, monstrous cephalopods, and abominations she knew no names for.

  She passed a field of anemones the size of houses, their flopping tendrils lashing at her, forcing her higher. Those, she knew, would eat a mer who drew too close. Still, sticking close to them meant staying out of sight of larger threats. A dangerous balance that made her fins itch, tingling with the thought of being snared by the cnidarians below her or predators above.

  As she passed over a rise, the sudden gleam of a wisp light came over her. Nyi Rara froze. Should she retreat? The only source of wisp lights was usually other mer. That did not mean whoever lay ahead would prove any friendlier than the anemones.

  She faltered, and the choice was taken from he
r, as a merman swam closer. He had hair the color of sunlight and a tail of midnight blue. Clearly from one of the other kingdoms. Mag Mell, maybe? He was handsome, and suffused with enough mana to have been around a long, long time.

  “Who are you?” Nyi Rara demanded.

  “Morskoi, Prince of Vineta. You’re Nyi Rara, aren’t you?”

  So, word had already reached the far side of Avaiki about her? Enough they’d sent an elder prince … And the mer of Vineta would no doubt seek to devour her flesh and soul, to absorb her power. Nyi Rara twitched her fingers, readying blades of water to cleave this mer in half, though she could sense others waiting behind him.

  Not quite enough to qualify as an ambush. Five, six of them?

  Or, rather, perhaps this was an ill-conceived ambush.

  “I am Nyi Rara. What do you want?”

  Morskoi swam a little closer. Even in the half-light, his hair seemed to sparkle. “We have an encampment nearby. Come with us.”

  “No.”

  “Come with us, spend the daylight hours, eat and talk. Just hear what we have to say.”

  Nyi Rara frowned. Freely swim into a situation where she’d surround herself with potential enemies who might well decide to eat her? “No. If you want to talk, talk here.”

  Morskoi blew out a stream of bubbles, then glanced over his shoulder at his no doubt waiting soldiers. Why would Vineta send a royal after her? Because of his power?

  Oh. Because he was expendable? If he succeeded in whatever his goal was with Nyi Rara, it served his ‘ohana. If Nyi Rara killed him, then Vineta learned something, too, and sacrificed only someone who was no doubt a second or third son.

  Which was to say, Morskoi was like Hi‘iaka, caught up in the wars and schemes and ploys of his elder siblings. The thought brought an uncomfortable twinge running down Nyi Rara’s tail and making her fluke shudder.