Flames of Mana

by Matt Larkin

  “It’s not like the others. Met a few shifters here and there. Wererats, even other wereboars. They’re all scared shitless of me. Or of it.”

  Uli looked at him now, though her eyes remained unfocused. “What is it you’re seeking here?”

  “A reason.”

  “For what? For why it got into you?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Would it make you feel better if I told you life was unfair? That the very blood that strengthens kupua by binding them to Pō also leaves them more vulnerable as children to attracting possessing akua? Many children like you are killed, my son, but I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Let me ask you … even if I had an answer for you, a reason why the akua latched onto your body, would it change anything for you, Kamapua‘a?”

  Shit.

  Maybe not.

  Almost certainly not.

  He still shitting wanted to know.

  “It’s deep inside you. No one can get it out without killing you. That’s what you really want to know, right? There is no solution save being strong enough to control yourself. There is no other option before you.”

  Eh. Well, there was the putting an axe in his own head option. The image kept popping into his mind, more and more these days. A painful image.

  He didn’t want to die.

  He shitting loved life.

  At least when it was his own to live. Not so much when the Boar God was living through him.

  He huffed. Yeah, showing a little sympathy wouldn’t have hurt her. But it didn’t seem like the woman had any sympathy for her son.

  Big Sis had, though.

  And Kama was going to find a way to repay that kindness.

  A blanket of spruce and fir trees covered the valley, save around the lagoon. This place was as secluded as it got, but he didn’t make the mistake of thinking it meant they were safe. They’d seen a hunting party out of Falias this very afternoon, and if they found the valley, if they interrupted the ritual …

  No. Best not to think that way. To even imagine it invited disaster.

  Overhead, a super moon dominated the night sky, reflecting brilliantly off the waters. This was the only night they could try this, and still, no one had any idea if it would work.

  Some said opening the door like this risked letting the whole world get overrun. Maybe it would start with Kêr-Ys, but who knew where it would end.

  Or maybe, maybe the effect would be more personal. Just the end of him.

  Or, well, of all of them.

  Each of the twelve so-called volunteers sat on a stone altar, their chosen animal bound or caged nearby. His was the boar. Strong, feral—Moccus would be a fighter, they claimed. A progenitor of a line of fighters that could help defend mankind against the cities of Dark Faerie.

  Oh, they filled his heads with visions of glory, of tearing down the stones of Gorias, of breaking those powers once and for all and leaving the world to men.

  Still, he had to wonder, chancing such thing, did it really make them any better? Any different?

  Idly, he stroked the boar’s bristles and wondered if he would even be himself after this. Maybe it would kill him. Maybe that would be mercy.

  It was a mistake.

  Kama shitting knew it was a mistake. No one really wanted to hear that. Not Uli, who pretty much thought him about as useful as a dead rock. Not Malie, who pressed him to move the boulder again as soon as the sun set. Move the boulder, open the way, and this whole shitting siege could be done tonight.

  None of them had any shitting idea what they were asking for.

  Kama, though, he just wanted out of this whole place. He wanted Big Sis back. He wanted everything back the way it was when he was a piglet and running around the village trying to catch chickens. Back when his big challenge was how many bananas he could eat without retching. Back when he had something like ‘ohana, before Old Haki threw him out and left him to the jungle.

  Yeah, but not even a sorceress like Uli could let him live his life again.

  It was stupid as shit, but he wanted Hina to ruffle his hair and tell him everything would be all right. Just one more time.

  So, the men pushed forward, through the hail, the occasional rain of javelins from Haupu above, the rocks and so forth. Had to admit, that fortress was pretty unassable, what with being up so high and the cliffs and shit.

  Yeah, they weren’t getting in there without Kama letting it out of the cave.

  Which was pretty much why he crouched in the underbrush in boar form, snorting and huffing and kicking up dirt and pretty much doing any shitting thing he could think of to delay pushing forward. Maybe he should piss first.

  Maybe he should have a coconut.

  Ah, shit.

  He didn’t need a coconut. He wasn’t even hungry, what with his stomach all sour from knowing what was coming.

  All right. All right, it was time. Now he just needed an accord with the Boar God. An understanding. He’d let the Boar God out and the Boar God would agree to direct its impulses only toward Kaupeepee’s forces. Deal? Deal.

  Come to think of it, though, Kama wasn’t sure he’d ever let the Boar God out on purpose. How was he supposed to …?

  It hit him like a kai e‘e, bowling into him, stealing his breath. All at once, muscles popped and grew and he was rising up on hind legs, even as arms doubled in thickness, as he grew to eight feet tall.

  Yeah. They were all in the shit now.

  Perhaps that moronic savage had finally come to see sense and give in to the inevitable. The Boar God had to smile at that, as he rose from the bushes. The sorceress’s feeble hail intensified over him.

  Beyond the Veil, pathetic Mist akua flitted about, seeing him, knowing what was coming. Perhaps they warned the sorceress. Either way, her petty ice rocks pelted off his hide with little effect.

  These remnants of his ancient foes still stirred a profound enmity in him. A desire to tear them to pieces, though they were not his current obstruction.

  The Boar God bellowed a feral roar, charging forth, closing in on that boulder blocking the tunnel. Oh yes, he would give the mortal host what he wanted. He would open the way.

  Great leaping bounds carried him over a hundred feet in the space of a few heartbeats. A swipe of his hand sent a pair of men too slow to move flying off the cliff. The Boar God jerked his tusks and gored some other stupid fuck who got in the way.

  A javelin shot down from above and lodged into his shoulder.

  The impact caused him to jerk.

  Glowering, the Boar God looked down on the shaft wobbling about just beside his collarbone. With a grumble, he jerked it free and tossed it aside. Way up above, his eyes could make out his attacker, readying another missile.

  This time, the Boar God sneered and sidestepped around it, then rushed in, slamming both fists into the boulder guarding the tunnel. The thing was on rollers back in the cave, but they’d locked it in place, probably with wooden clamps no amount of men could overcome with brute strength.

  The Boar God snickered at such petty—

  Another javelin gouged his head as it flew by.

  The Boar God bellowed. How dare these insolent mortals draw his blood! How dare they!

  Snarling, he grabbed the nearest man, flung him to the ground, and stomped on his crotch, feeling the satisfying squish of pulverized balls. With both hands around the man’s ankle, he jerked his left leg free, backed up, and flung it like a throwing stick up at his would-be attacker hundreds of feet above. The leg wasn’t ideally suited for throwing, and curved more than it should have, but …

  Ha! That stupid fuck got caught in the face, stumbled, and pitched over the fortress edge. Screaming as he fell.

  The Boar God snickered and rammed back into the boulder. Heaving, harder, harder! Wood shrieked somewhere deep in the cavern, and stone grated. Then something snapped with an echoing crash, and the boulder lurched inward, grinding over broken rock and wood mechanisms.

  Inside, men shouted, clearly never expecting this.

&
nbsp; Stupid, dead, fuckers.

  Some of them raced out, past him, trying to engage Huma’s men before they could pour into the tunnel and make for the fortress proper.

  The Boar God grabbed one as he passed and twisted his head off, then splattered the skull on the boulder, cackling at the glory of it. All violence was glorious. All pain was the essence of life.

  Men had made him thus, had begged for it.

  Someone ran by, a woman, and he casually backhanded her, sending her crashing into the tunnel wall.

  More men tried to escape to engage Huma’s forces. The Boar God grabbed one by the ankle and wielded him like a club, whirling around, smashing any who drew in range.

  He didn’t fucking care which side they were on.

  For good measure, he jammed a dismembered arm onto one of his tusks. Let them fear his savagery, run from him as they did in the days of old.

  A sound like cracking ice filled the tunnel, an instant before a blast of cold swept over him. The Boar God cocked his head. What the fuck was—

  A cascade of spreading ice raced in from above, crystalizing everything in the space of a heartbeat. The Boar God turned to run, knowing it was too late. The ice wave rushed over him, filling more than half the tunnel. It froze solid around him, up past his gut. Lances of it jerked out in all directions, shredding his flesh.

  An icicle the size of a spear burst through his bicep. Another through his shoulder, and third gouged his neck. One barely missed running through his eye—that might have even killed his host.

  The cascade had engulfed all of Kaupeepee’s own men, plus any of Huma’s who’d made the tunnel. It held the Boar God fast, chilling him—even him!—to the point shudders wracked him.

  He roared, twisting and jerking his waist and arms, barely able to move at all. Ice cracked around him, but even with his strength, the tunnel was packed so tightly with the stuff it had nowhere to go.

  The Boar God beat his fist on the surface, heedless of his own blood splattering it from his wounds. On and on he pounded, cracks slowly widening, growing deep. His snarls and bellows filled the tunnel, though he didn’t think anyone left alive to hear them.

  Except maybe those Mist akua across the Veil.

  “I’m coming for you too!” he roared at them. “I’m coming for every last fucker on this island! I’m going to pull your eyeballs out through your arses! I’m going to eat your guts while you’re still alive! I’ll obliterate everyone! Everyone!”

  Groaning, drenched in blood, covered in frostbite, and aching everywhere, Kamapua‘a dragged himself along the mountainside, down toward the camp. He didn’t really remember.

  Probably for the best.

  What came to him was a shitting nightmare of blood and carnage.

  Same as usual.

  Only, he’d come to find Huma’s forces withdrawn, the tunnel now sealed with ice, and the remnants of terrible slaughter.

  His shifter body would heal from his wounds, he had no doubt. Only, it hurt like nothing he’d ever felt before. Using his forearms, he pulled himself down among the lean-tos and huts.

  One of his men looked down at him, glowering.

  “What the fuck have you done?”

  “Uh …” Kama looked up at him. “Little help, maybe?”

  “Keahi is dead,” the man said. “You shattered Malie’s arm and the kahuna says it took so much frostbite he has to amputate.”

  Kamapua‘a stared blankly up at the man. Lopaka, he thought. Probably should have made some effort to learn his name.

  “Malie is …” Kama began.

  “She’ll be lucky if she lives at all, you stupid pig.”

  Kama groaned. Not a good idea to call him names. But the Boar God didn’t wake, perhaps even it was exhausted from its rampage.

  Lopaka spit on his head. “Get out of here before Huma calls for your head.”

  Not bothering to wipe the spittle away, Kama collapsed on the sand and just lay there.

  Malie. What had he done?

  What had he done to any of them?

  26

  Never could Poli‘ahu have imagined what that Moon akua was capable of. From what she knew, all other akua disdained Moon akua as animals, yes. But—though none would ever admit it—she suspected some of them also feared the werebeasts. Especially ancient ones like this kupua.

  He was tapped into something so primordial even considering it left Poli‘ahu trembling, almost afraid to look at his aura, much less approach anywhere near him.

  Whether the man himself could consciously look into Pō, the thing inside him would surely feel her presence. Could it reach across the Veil and assault her? She could not take that chance and thus would not even try to feed the kupua to Kalai-pahoa.

  Above the tunnel leading up to Haupu, she stood in the morning sun, looking at her already melting ice wall. Lua-o-Milu! The wereboar had moved an unmovable boulder, broken the hinges and damn near ripped through her ice. She could restore the frozen barrier, though it drained her—but doing so would little avail her while the kupua remained among the invaders.

  Come nightfall, he might unleash that beast once more, and then he might well tear through her wall and allow the invaders to reach the fortress proper.

  Clucking her tongue, she paced in front of the wall, ignoring Kaupeepee’s men watching her. Oh, they were desperate now, afraid of her, yet still hoping she would do something to save them all.

  What could she do, though?

  In one fell night, the boar had changed all the rules. She’d thought Huma’s efforts futile, that the siege could go on for months without risk to Haupu. Poli‘ahu had consented to lay with Kalai-pahoa even as he used her bloody only to ensure Huma’s men kept shitting themselves to death and this would eventually end. Now, though … now she needed something more dramatic, or everything would come undone in days, and not in their favor.

  Had she toyed with these invaders? Weakening them slowly, sapping their wills through the poison Wood akua? Should she have been more aggressive? Should she have gone to confront Uli directly?

  Certainly, Poli‘ahu owed the other sorceress pain.

  Under her skin, Waiau squirmed at the thought, aroused despite the daylight, all too eager to wrack vengeance upon Uli.

  Poli‘ahu lightly banged a palm against her forehead.

  Recriminations over what she should have done mattered little at the moment. No, she’d not dare take the fight to Uli now, not with that wereboar around. Clucking her tongue, she drew her fingers over the ice, wanting comfort. Instead, they came away wet.

  The cursed sun was undoing her work.

  She needed to act against the wereboar, but she dare not draw close enough to grasp his aura.

  So …

  So he’d been trapped in the ice, wounded by it.

  Poli‘ahu pressed her palms together, then slowly spread them apart. Ice cracked and flowed away, creating a small passage within the tunnel, just wide enough for her to edge through. It flowed around her as she passed, never quite opening up to the far side.

  If Kaupeepee had men watching the tunnel, maybe they would notice, but she doubted they could hack their way through before she finished her purpose and collapsed everything back in.

  Keeping her gaze locked ahead, she pushed forward until she found what she was looking for.

  Ice smeared with blood, hair—fur—even chunks of flesh. And some of that would belong to that Milu-damned wereboar upsetting her delicate plans. Grim-faced, Poli‘ahu scooped up a sliver of flesh that might have come from the beast’s thigh, as well as a bundle of hair. More than enough for a sympathetic link.

  “He is too strong to simply kill,” Lilinoe said. “The process will take a long time.”

  Poli‘ahu sat in the darkness beneath Haupu once more, staring across the Veil at the Mist akua. “I need at least a way to weaken him to the point he won’t join the assault any further. Can we not use Kalai-pahoa to give him the same incapacitating shits as the others?”

&nbs
p; “You will need something stronger, something more permanent to fight with the thing inside the man. You cannot actually hope to overcome the Moon akua that has him, but the host has limits. No matter how empowered by the akua, he remains still a man.”

  With an absent nod, Poli‘ahu leaned forward. “Years back, we afflicted that chief with dropsy.”

  Lilinoe hissed. “Not so easy against a host like that. Any akua fortifies its host, and Moon akua achieve a symbiotic blend.”

  “But you could do it.”

  “Not simply for the asking. You would have to invoke the Art, connect me to your world. Even so, it will drain me, and as such, I must take from you.”

  Oh, it always came to that. A sorceress never really knew the price of using the Art. Any attempt to categorize or quantify it seemed doomed to failure even before it began. Perhaps it was the nature of the incomprehensible forces at work that the human mind, no matter how altered in perception, simply could not fit into a logical framework.

  Still, it did always seem to be pieces of herself she cast aside. Fragments of her soul, memories she knew she’d lost but couldn’t name, ephemeral things she ought to have missed but knew she didn’t. Mostly. Sometimes the costs were more readily apparent.

  Once, she’d lost two molars that rotted in her mouth within a day.

  It was never pleasant.

  This may be worse, Waiau warned her.

  Perhaps. But Poli‘ahu was not prepared to lose, no matter the price. She would retake Sawaiki in the name of her people. They would not fade into Pō and become memories like the menehune.

  She wouldn’t allow it.

  “Let’s begin,” she finally said.

  Working the Art, casting sorcery, it always left her in a feverish, euphoric daze, the actual incanting slipping from her mind as though a dream. One perpetually tinged with nightmare. The feeling of something profoundly wrong pushing against the world, at her own insides, crawling in her mind. Yet that horror was always coupled with a sense of absolute power, as though the cosmos themselves might be bent to her will alone. That she glimpsed a hint of true reality while the rest of mankind stumbled around blind.