by Matt Larkin
“Wh-what?” Kana asked. “I’m not fully human … And you can’t plant your seed in my belly. He can’t do that, can he?”
Namaka shook her head, reasonably certain that would be impossible. And even more certain that wasn’t what Molowa had meant.
“You know how it is, Water spirit. Human hosts break down as the years roll by. We always need more. And every so often, some fool boy or girl ignores the warnings and wanders the deep places. Where do you think we got all these bodies?” He thumped his chest. “This one, for example, has lasted me past four centuries. I am due for another, and as if by fate, one presents himself on my doorstep.”
“No. You can’t have him.”
The menehune chuckled. “Can’t have him? How are you going to stop me? His soul might be strong now, but enough abuse and I can slide right inside.”
“What is he talking about?” Kana demanded. “Is this still about … rape?” He sounded sick.
“If that’s how we have to break your spirit, why not?” Molowa said.
“No!” Namaka shouted.
The guard outside strode back in at her outburst, but Molowa stalled him with a single glance. “Human, I need a new body. This—” he indicated his decaying flesh “—is a shell. A host for my true essence. And you are going to be my next host. And again, I ask you, Water spirit, how are you going to stop me?”
“This man is under my protection.”
Molowa snorted, a rough, grating sound. “Would you risk war between our kinds over a human?”
Namaka leaned forward now. “Would you? I am my human now. We are merged in symbiosis.”
The menehune’s face scrunched up like he’d eaten spoiled poi. “You jest.”
Since he clearly knew better, she didn’t bother to answer that. “We’re looking for the Place of Darkness. And you are going to help us find it.”
The akua laughed, a dry chuckle that spread even to the guard watching over them. “Now I believe you must have a human brain clogging your thoughts. Why would you want to go to anywhere called the Place of Darkness? Does that sound like a nice spot? Do you know why we call it that?”
“It’s dark?”
“Well, yes, certainly. But we call it that so imbeciles like you two won’t go looking for it and get eaten by its guardians. Believe me when I tell you there are more frightening things than us in that space.”
Eaten? What in Lua-o-Milu lived there? The truth was, it didn’t really matter. Yes, the name was forbidding—maybe another reason was why no one had retrieved the Waters of Life in many years. She still had to get them. “Take us.”
“Why would I do that? Even if I grant you your lives, release you in the name of peace with Mu, I have no reason to help you. None.”
Namaka opened her mouth, half-tempted to threaten him with the wrath of Mu again. Still, she was far from their domain and she wasn’t certain how far she could push that line.
Before she could think of another plan, Kana spoke. “What if I let you have me, willingly, once we get what we came for?”
“Kana, no,” Namaka said. “You don’t know what you’re offering.”
“If it means I can save Niheu … he’s my family.”
Molowa steepled his thick fingers, clearly intrigued.
Namaka glanced back and forth between the man and the menehune. “Listen to me. Most spirits are not like the one inside me. You would be giving away your life, spending centuries as a prisoner in your own body.”
“He is my brother.”
“You seek the Waters of Life,” Molowa said. “Yes. I could show you where to look, though you would more than likely perish in the attempt.” He sighed and spread his hands. “You would have to swear a blood oath. An oath that you belong to me on the moonrise after your brother is saved.”
“Do not do this,” Namaka warned.
“I-I swear it.”
Molowa laughed again. “It’s not that easy, boy.” From nowhere that knife appeared in his hand again and Molowa slit open his palm. He advanced on Kana, then traced a symbol on his chest. Not deep, but still bloody, gruesome. Marking him in blood with the glyph of his own soul.
Namaka cringed, feeling sick. She ought to stop this. To tell him that buying Niheu a few decades of life was not worth centuries of his own pain. But this was the only way to save her sister. And Hi‘iaka was her duty. Kana was no child that she might override his choices.
She fought down bile as Molowa handed Kana the knife and the man drew it along his own palm. Then they clasped hands.
“Swear you are mine.”
Kana panted, his fear so real, so raw it pained even her. “I swear, if my brother is healed by the Waters of Life, I am yours the next night.” Namaka could see Molowa squeezing the man’s hand. Then Kana cried out as if burned and Namaka had to look away.
Even if the Waters saved Hi‘iaka, the price had just become higher than she had ever imagined.
31
The wereboar kupua was gone, Milu be praised, and Poli‘ahu passed once more amid the invader camp in astral form, trying not to think of what sending the Moon akua away may have cost her. Her insides remained twisted up and, she feared, truly shredded in a way that might prevent her from ever bearing a child.
There would be an irony, she supposed, if the price for killing a god—or a god’s host—was her own ability to create life.
She tried not to dwell on it.
But spiders crawled all over her every time she closed her eyes, and now, Spirit Walking, she found herself ever scanning Pō for any trace of the hideous creatures. She found none. Did that mean they did not exist? That she had dreamed them up in a feverish nightmare born of her conjuring? Or that they had simply fled far?
Had she, in invoking such forces, created some new horror to infest this reality?
Groaning, she shook her head, stalking around to find more auras to feed to Kalai-pahoa. Given what it had cost her now, she’d see every last invader shit himself to death or run screaming from this place.
Poli‘ahu was tired of these people.
She was tired of this war, this invasion, this affront to the Sawaikians.
In fact, maybe it was time she found Huma himself. Maybe seeing their king die suffering and in shame would finally break these people. So, she passed huts and hastily erected houses until she came to the makeshift royal pavilion.
She’d felt the incantations of the local sorceress interfering before, but the kupua could not stop Poli‘ahu or Kalai-pahoa. Maybe, had Uli known the name of the spirit and its mark, she might have compelled it to leave them be. But knowledge was power, and Uli probably knew little enough of Moloka‘i.
That was the trouble with a sorceress entering new lands, after all.
Passing amid the shadows of this realm, Poli‘ahu entered into the royal house and spotted Huma sitting on a mat, sipping awa as if trying to drown his tensions away.
Poli‘ahu had taken a handful of steps toward the old king when another aura snapped in startling clarity, a figure passing partially through the Veil as the ancient sorceress embraced the Sight.
“Uli,” Poli‘ahu said.
The old woman sneered. “You’ve truly done it, haven’t you? Walked out of your body and entered this place? And you dared to come here?”
Someone spoke on the far side of the Veil, but the sounds were too muffled for Poli‘ahu to make out, especially with her attention focused on Uli. Probably, they heard her addressing nothing but shadows and thought her mad.
Foolish men always thought sorceresses were mad or talking to themselves.
Poli‘ahu advanced on the old woman. “It seems Kapo isn’t here to protect you this time. What will you do without your apprentice?”
While she had not intended to come for Uli tonight, not weakened as she was from cursing the wereboar, Poli‘ahu supposed it was time to adjust those plans. She did owe the old sorceress death, after all.
Uli began incanting in Supernal, her words reverberating aroun
d the house like drumbeats, pounding inside Poli‘ahu’s head and leaving her stumbling.
Shadows coalesced nearby, and Poli‘ahu’s stomach lurched as she realized the woman intended to call something from the Dark itself. One of the Nightmarchers? Was she so powerful?
Poli‘ahu lunged forward and caught Uli’s throat with one hand, rushed cold into it. The assault halted the sorceress’s chant immediately and the shadows faltered, half materialized from the space between the Penumbra and the Roil.
In an instant, Uli turned insubstantial, suddenly gone from Pō.
She’d dropped the Sight.
But time was slower in the Mortal Realm, and the other sorceress now moved as if mired in a bog. Poli‘ahu shook her head. The woman had panicked. Yes, pulling out of Pō allowed her to break Poli‘ahu’s grip, but it was a foolish move of desperation.
Uli would have to face her here, or know she’d feed all their auras to an akua.
Poli‘ahu stepped around the now sluggish woman, and by the time Uli rematerialized after using the Sight, Poli‘ahu had moved behind her and summoned a blade of ice around her wrist.
She rammed it through the old woman’s back, up into her gut.
“I’ll be back for Huma soon,” Poli‘ahu snarled at her. Perhaps Uli still cared for her ex-husband, perhaps not. Either way, it was the truth.
The sorceress’s strength must have faltered, for she vanished once more, dropping to the ground on the other side of the Veil, now a shadow. Pacing around, Poli‘ahu wondered what it would look like to the others.
They’d have seen Uli talking to the walls, then suddenly spit up blood and collapse. She would die, slowly, unable to incant anything while choking on her own blood.
How easy it had been, really.
This woman Poli‘ahu had dreaded for years, dead in the space of a few moments. She and her hateful apprentice Kapo had haunted Poli‘ahu’s nightmares for so, so long.
And in the end, Uli was just an old woman who died from a knife in the back.
Sooner or later, Kapo would hear of it, would come for Poli‘ahu, and perhaps might prove more of a challenge. But now, after tonight, she was almost looking forward to it.
She started to leave, then paused. Why wait for Huma? Would the loss of both sorceress and king all at once utterly break the invaders?
Milu, she hoped so.
So, she threaded her fingers into Huma’s aura and tore off a piece for Kalai-pahoa.
The wereboar, the sorceress. The king.
One by one, all fell to her.
And once the siege was broken, then she’d do the same to Pele.
Though exhausted and in pain, Poli‘ahu allowed herself a smile.
An hour before dawn, and Hina was up, wandering the fortress. Poli‘ahu watched the queen, unable to sleep herself. Maybe too tired for it, though her skin tingled with excitement.
The Kaua‘ian queen saw her watching, and made her way over to where Poli‘ahu sat against an inner wall. “You’re up early.”
Poli‘ahu offered a wan smile, not bothering to say she was up late.
The other woman settled down beside her. “You seem troubled.”
“The siege grows tiresome.”
Hina let a hand fall lightly on Poli‘ahu’s knee. “What would it take for it to end?”
The death of every last Kahikian, maybe. Except, Poli‘ahu didn’t want to see Hina dead. “Submission.”
“Whose?”
“Your people must submit to mine. You want a home in our islands, you don’t get to replace our culture—though I might allow some of you to join it.”
“You want me to submit to your will …” The woman’s voice was breathy, warm, and too close to Poli‘ahu’s cheek. Her power tickled Poli‘ahu’s skin, and massaged her brain, and stroked her thighs, all with no more than words.
The kupua who could seduce anyone with her beauty.
Poli‘ahu could fortify her will, drive the queen off. But, Milu, she was tired of fighting. Tired of suffering for this.
“Yes …”
Hina held her gaze a moment before brushing aside Poli‘ahu’s skirt and lowering her head, doing what they both knew Poli‘ahu wanted. But the Kaua‘ian queen sucked in a sharp breath as she looked close at Poli‘ahu’s sex.
She didn’t ask about the source of such injuries, though, thank Milu.
Didn’t force Poli‘ahu to explain she’d been repeatedly fucked by a creature with a wooden cock and then possibly had tiny spiders gnaw their way out of her. She could never explain it, what a sorceress suffered. No one who didn’t touch the Art could begin to understand the agonies, or the reasons behind them.
“Gentle,” she said, and that alone seemed enough for Hina.
Never had Poli‘ahu had a more gentle lover.
Only after, lying with her eyes closed and at peace, did it strike her. Earlier tonight, she’d murdered Hina’s mother and her uncle. Before that, she’d cursed the woman’s brother to a slow, painful death.
And here she was taking Hina as aikāne. Trying to share these few, precious moments with her. The woman who had no idea what Poli‘ahu had just done to her ‘ohana.
They said sorceresses always lost themselves over time. They lost the parts of themselves that made them human and became something else entirely.
A twinge of guilt snared her, but only a small twinge. She should have felt more, but then, maybe that part of her was also missing now.
Whatever pity she had left, she’d save for those fool enough to still oppose her.
32
“Follow this tunnel straight for maybe two miles,” Molowa said. “You’ll find the Place of Darkness.”
Kana snorted. “What? This is as far as you go? Don’t you want to protect your investment?”
The menehune chuckled. “Not even I could protect you from what lies in the Place.” With that, the Earth spirit turned away and slunk back the way they had come.
Namaka watched him disappear into the shadows, not quite able to still the shudder building in her gut. The way he had spoken of the Place left her queasy and wanting to turn back. That was impossible, of course. No, she had come too far to give up now. Lives hung in the balance. She just had to keep telling herself that.
Besides, considering Kana’s candlenut torch only managed to illuminate a handful of feet in any direction, how much darker could the Place of Darkness really be? The shadows down here grew so thick one could almost choke on them.
“You shouldn’t have made that pact,” she whispered.
“It’s all right. I like rocks.”
Jokes. He was making jokes. Trying to comfort her. With a grin, he pressed forward, forcing her to follow or be left in total darkness. One of the spirit worlds was a world of darkness, of living shadows, bent to the will of dark masters. What did that even mean, though? Controlling ocean or fire made sense, those were real things. But darkness? Was that not just the absence of light? But if it was a spirit world, it was a manifestation of creation. A living, writhing force, watching them. Such thoughts left her mouth dry.
Through Nyi Rara, Namaka knew Nightmarchers came from the World of Shadows. A place even mer feared. Perhaps all the other spirit worlds feared that one. The true source of eternal night, which might, in its own way, be the uttermost depths of Pō.
Whispers had begun to echo through the tunnel, somewhere far off. Far ahead, perhaps. As she continued on, the floor grew unusually slick and warm. Namaka pulled Kana to a stop and knelt to examine it. As the man knelt beside her, his torchlight gleamed off the ground. It was black—blacker than a moonless night—and polished to a reflective shine. Obsidian.
Their gazes met, though neither spoke.
Kana rose slowly, then pressed on down the tunnel. Damn it. Obsidian came from volcanoes, didn’t it? Was the whole cave growing hot? It was. Despite Kana by her side, Namaka felt alone, small. If only Milolii were still alive, were here with her now.
After all Namaka had been through,
all she’d seen in Avaiki, nothing here ought to still frighten her. But an anger seemed to suffuse the entire cave. Something dark and oppressive and deeply, disturbingly familiar.
It knew her.
The tunnel abruptly turned upward in an almost sheer slope, although the obsidian facets made a series of shelves in the wall. Kana held the torch high overhead, staring into the darkness. Namaka couldn’t see anything up there and her eyes were better than any human’s. It appeared up was the only way to go from here.
Sweat slicked her back and made her palms clammy. Not ideal for climbing. “You’d better let me go first. Keep the torch high, so I can see.”
He nodded.
She grabbed the lowest ledge and immediately jerked her hand away as the obsidian sliced her palm. The gash wasn’t deep, but it hurt like a jellyfish’s sting. Namaka stared at the line of blood dripping from her hand. This would be beyond unpleasant. And it was definitely hotter above them.
“Be very careful where you step,” she said. Instead of grabbing the lip of the ledge, she pushed her palms against the farthest part she could reach and used it to heft herself onto the shelf. The next ledge stood roughly at her eye level. A gentle prod confirmed it too was sharp enough to cut through her flesh like a knife. Gingerly she ran her fingers along the edge until she found a section where it jutted forward in a wedge rather than a blade. That edge stuck out over the tunnel, away from her current ledge enough she’d have to hang over open air to climb it. Seeing no other way, she jumped off her platform and pulled herself onto the wedge. It gave no indication of faltering under her weight, thank the ‘aumākua.
“You’re stronger than you look,” Kana mumbled from beneath her.
“Mermaid.” A mermaid had to be strong enough to swim swiftly, to manage the pressures of the deep sea.
Now she stood maybe twenty feet above him, leaving her only deep shadows with which to find her next climbing point.
While she debated, Kana climbed until he could pass the torch up to her. Namaka moved away from the wedge, giving him a place to climb, and used the light to inspect her new perch. From the look of it, this shaft opened up into a larger chamber, maybe another thirty feet above her.
