Racing the Dark

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  "When I invoke the geas, push the necklaces into the altar. Then you and I step inside at the same time." She looked hard at Lana, who suddenly felt like she wanted to vomit. "This could be dangerous, Lana. It's imperative while we are inside that you do everything I say. Do you understand?" Akua's eyes held a dark intensity that Lana had never seen there before, but she took a deep breath and nodded.

  Akua straightened and pulled the bone key necklace from under her shirt. She gripped it and closed her eyes, but right before Lana expected her to begin the geas she opened them again and smiled ironically.

  "I really like you, Lana," she said. "I wasn't expecting to, but I do. I guess that makes this harder."

  Lana returned the smile. She supposed odd moments of unexpected affection had always been part of their relationship. "I like you too. I'll miss being your apprentice."

  Akua's smile grew even more sardonic. She looked at Lana for an uncomfortably long moment before closing her eyes.

  Like a womb-sister, like a self-bound star, I call the power of the bond.

  The skin on Lana's legs and the back of her neck began to prickle and her unbound hair rippled slightly in a breeze her skin didn't feel. Akua stood there for a very long time, and it seemed that the air around them gradually grew too thick to breathe. It was heavy with power-a level of power that Lana had never felt before. This was far more than what Lana had drawn when she first bound the two mandagah jewels together. She half-expected to see spirits waiting in the shadows, but only sensed the agitated presence inside the column of air. How was it that no other spirits were summoned by this influx of power? When the time came that Lana was afraid the walls would crack with it, Akua finally ceased the flow of sacrificial energy and opened her eyes. She inclined her head toward the pile of necklaces. Feeling as though she were moving through molasses and panting with the effort, Lana pushed them all inside the column of air. They scattered, blown apart by the terrifying fury of a storm, made all the more intimidating because she couldn't hear anything at all. She was trembling when she looked back at Akua, unable to keep her hands from shaking even when she pulled the mandagah jewel out from under her shirt. Akua's lips were in a grim, determined line. The older woman gripped Lana's elbow firmly and, with a shove that didn't even allow Lana time to scream, led them both into the maelstrom.

  The wind that shrieked past her sounded like a thousand people wailing in chorus. It grated at her and made her teeth ache, but she didn't dare plug her ears. There was nothing beneath her feet, but she didn't feel the same sensation of falling that she remembered from the last time she entered the column-in fact, it looked as though she and Akua were floating. The necklaces swirled madly around them, nicking Lana's skin. A particularly jagged edge of one necklace gashed her forehead right above her left eye, but before the blood could drip down, a pair of blue lips materialized out of the air and began sucking it away.

  "Stop it!" Lana screamed as she swatted away the lips.

  "Stop it! Stop it!" came the mocking echoes of the screams around her, each one louder than the last. The lips before her grinned and then, with a spray of spit, stuck out a bright blue tongue and vanished. Lana forced herself to breathe. She looked pleadingly at Akua, whose face seemed like it was glowing. The necklaces hadn't touched her skin at all.

  The witch held up her hand and the fierce storm around them suddenly stopped. A hand emerged from the mist, covered in brown-green scales with six incredibly long tapered fingers that rolled and unrolled themselves with a thousand tiny pops. The longest of those fingers hooked around Lana's necklace and delicately held it up before her eyes. The red jewel was glowing with the intensity and heat of a burning coal, and Lana flinched away from it. The other necklaces surrounded her, each suspended on a long, tapered finger like the one holding her mandagah jewel.

  A long knife appeared in the air before Akua and stabbed her viciously several times. The wind screams began again, cackling with laughter, as Lana gasped. To her surprise though, instead of collapsing, Akua frowned and waved her hand-suddenly the blood and the knife disappeared and Lana realized that she must have been looking at an illusion. Akua gripped the key necklace again and the air stilled.

  In the dead calm Akua looked hard at Lana, who gulped down air but couldn't seem to fill her lungs.

  "Iolana bei'Leilani," she intoned, her voice driving shards into Lana's brain. "Do you accept the tithe? Do you accept the power? Do you accept the sacrifices?"

  Lana looked around wildly, only to see a thousand grinning mouths above each of the necklaces. "Do you? Do you?" some of them screamed, while still others urged her "No, say no to the witch, Iolana bei'Leilani. Let her keep her sacrifices."

  Why was Akua's expression so tense, so almost hopeful? Where were they? What would she be agreeing to? She knew enough about the ways of power to know that her answer was vital. One last chance to refuse ... but she already knew she wouldn't.

  "Yes," Lana said.

  The mouths screamed.

  The jewel seemed to explode in front of her face. For a second in the overpowering light she thought she saw her mother, collapsed at the foot of the stairs, gasping for air as Kapa called for help. Lana passed out under a bright red explosion of pain.

  The early morning sunlight filtered gently on her face through the mist. The sound of water lapping against the sides of the boat nearly lulled her back into sleep, but the sudden memory of the geas in the death temple made her grasp frantically for her necklace. The jewel was still there-it hadn't been destroyed. Then she remembered the strange vision she had seen just before passing out-of her mother nearly dying at the foot of the steps. She sat up abruptly, rocking the boat so that water splashed inside.

  "What is it, Lana?" Akua asked, leaning back in the boat with a weary expression.

  Lana shook her head. "My mother ..." she said slowly, "I think something's happened..."

  She leaned over the edge and saw Ino's face a few feet beneath the water. The boat stopped.

  "What do you want, little diver?" he asked.

  "My mother," she said, struggling to rein in her disorientation and her panic. "Show me my mother."

  She sensed Akua's curiosity behind her, but didn't care. Ino spread his hands and the surface of the water above them became unnaturally smooth. Colors began to shift and, after a moment, she recognized the inside of her parents' house. The image was inside their bedroom. Her mother was lying on her sleeping mat, shivering uncontrollably despite the covers piled on top of her. Kapa was trying to force her to take the draught Lana had left with them but her mother could hardly keep her mouth open long enough to swallow it. Ino's scrying didn't let her hear anything, but she didn't need to-the vision inside the death temple had been correct. Her mother was dying.

  She splashed her hand in the water. "I don't want to see anymore," she said hoarsely. Tears began to dribble down her cheeks and she couldn't stop them. What was going on? Ino looked at her sadly and then descended under the water. After a few moments, the boat began moving again.

  "I have to leave," Lana said, holding her head in her hands. It still ached from whatever had happened in the temple.

  "How did you bind Ino to a scrying without a geas?" Akua asked.

  Lana shrugged. "I asked because I thought he might." Her smile was ironic. "Maybe I gave him the sacrifice of friendship." She raised her voice. "Ino," she said, knowing the sprite could hear her. "Take me to the village. I'm going to Essel."

  She spent the money that Akua had given her on the fastest ships, but still the trip took her three days. During those long, restless, hours, she wondered if she would be too late. But surely she would sense it if her mother died? She knew she had to try to save her, but in Ino's scrying it had looked as though Leilani's illness was too far along. On the second day she remembered the terrifying geas in that ancient book in the death temple. A few hours before she arrived, she resolved to use it. Her mother had sacrificed too many things for Lana to hesitate now. Her mother
didn't deserve to die so young. Lana would do whatever was necessary to save her.

  Lana sprinted until her breath burned in her throat, arriving at her parents' shop in half the time it usually took her to walk from the harbor. A blue cloth on the door indicated that the shop was closed, but the door was open and Lana shoved her way through it. She ran up the stairs and halted in the doorway of her parents' room, panting. After a moment she wiped sweat from her eyes and looked up. Her father stared at her like she was a ghost, but her mother, piled under blankets just like she had seen in the scrying, didn't seem aware of her presence.

  "Lana?" her father finally said, quietly.

  She nodded and tried to catch her breath. "I saw ... I came to help."

  He glanced at his wife and then stood up and walked toward her. "She's dying," he said. Though she had already known it, hearing the words spoken aloud made the bottom drop out of her stomach. Her throat ached.

  "A doctor came this morning ... he said it was a matter of hours. Your drink was probably the only thing keeping her alive this long." A few tears dripped out of his eyes and he wiped them away angrily.

  Her father looked older, she noticed, far older than he should have. His heavy eyebrows were beginning to turn gray and his eyes held a look of world-weary sadness that was painful for her to meet.

  "Papa," she said, "I don't know if I'll see you again. I love you."

  She hugged him and then walked to where her mother was tossing deliriously. The illness had ravaged her body-half of her hair had turned gray and her skin was ashen. Lana bit on her tongue to keep from crying out and knelt down.

  "Mama," she said, smoothing back her mother's hair. "I came back."

  Leilani opened her eyes, but didn't seem to recognize Lana. She muttered something incomprehensible and then sank back into unconsciousness. It was near the end-Lana only had a few minutes to perform the geas before it would be too late. Still, her hand hesitated when she went to touch the mandagah jewel around her neck. She had decided what to do, but the prospect still terrified her-to be pursued to her death by the horror she had briefly experienced inside the temple?

  "If you don't, Mama will die," she said under her breath. "She'll die," she said louder, and stared crying.

  She felt Kapa's hand on her shoulder and looked up.

  "What is it, Lana?" he asked. "What-" He broke off. After a moment Lana realized that he must have seen her necklace.

  "Where did you..." He almost sounded scared.

  Lana stared at his feet, tears still streaming from her eyes. "My first dive ... I found two jewels. The blue one ... and this." After a moment she dared look at his face and nearly recoiled from the horror there.

  "A dying mandagah?"

  She nodded.

  "Why didn't you ever tell us? All this time, you were marked ..."

  He sat down next to her and Lana swallowed. "Papa ... I'm going to try to save Mama. Whatever happens, don't speak or move."

  She waited for his nod and then turned to Leilani.

  The twin jewels of a dying spirit's last gift-I call the power of the bond.

  She felt the sacrificial force flood the room and she allowed it to continue until she found it difficult to breathe and the air seemed permeated by a bright haze. It felt different than the power Akua had called in the death temple, though-stronger, and yet more tainted. Suddenly, as though she were back inside the column of air, she saw a thousand faces of death laughing at her. She had fleeting, terrifying glimpses of people dying all around her-and through it all she felt, insistently, the subtle yet horrible tie to Pua's life force. Lana's hands were trembling and she could barely push her voice past her throat, but she forced herself to recite the geas. She had called the power-there could be no turning back.

  Death, the monger, she began, and tossed herself over the edge.

  A hunched figure in blazingly white robes stood over her mother's body and looked down at Lana. She couldn't read its expression because it wore a mask like the one she had seen in the column of air-white with parallel red stripes across the cheeks. There was also a black dot in the center of its forehead that seemed far less like a part of the mask than an infinitely deep hole. At its waist hung a silver chain with a key weighing down the middle.

  Lana forgot to breathe.

  This was her mother's death.

  Her mother opened her eyes and looked at Lana with comprehension for the first time. "Lana? What are you doing here?"

  Lana glanced at her and shook her head silently. What would the death do now? Her father let out a wordless shriek of joy and hugged Leilani fiercely. Lana stared at them, disbelieving. Couldn't they see what had happened? Didn't they know that the death was still standing over her mother's body?

  "Only you can see me, Iolana bei'Leilani," a voice said. She realized that it must be the death's, but it didn't seem to have a point of origin. "You have summoned me. No one has done so in a very, very long time. I might enjoy this game before I return to take your mother."

  "You will not have her," Lana said, her fury winning out over terror.

  It laughed. "That remains to be seen. Will you make the opening gambit, or should I just take you both now?"

  Lana swallowed and forced herself to think. The only option available, she decided, was to run back to Akua and beg for her help-she knew almost nothing about the geas she had just recited and her ignorance would endanger her mother's life. She would have to use a geas to travel back, but even the thought of using the mandagah jewel again made her feel sick. The feeling of its power had subtly changed; it felt dirty and painful. And to think-she had wanted this. She had thought such power would buy her freedom. The irony was bitter enough to make bile rise in her throat. But she had done what was needed, and nothing could convince her to use the necklace again. Which left her with one other option: a non-regenerative self-sacrifice.

  "Papa ..." she said, voice quavering. "Could you get me a knife? A nice, sharp one?"

  Her father must have sensed the urgency in her voice, because he left without comment. He returned with one of his whittling knives, which would be good for what she had in mind.

  "Ah, so you've decided," the thing said. "I await with antici pation." It glided across the floor from over her mother's body to stop a few feet in front of her. She realized that its body was translucent-she could still see her parents through its robe.

  She watched them staring at her as she raised the knife to her ear and, with as steady a hand as she could manage, sliced off her left earlobe. She heard her mother's gasp vaguely through a haze of pain. The blood from her ear dripped onto the small piece of flesh that she kept in her cupped palm.

  "The wind I hear screaming past my window has traveled to the world's far places. Take this sacrifice and carry me on the fartraveling wind to a witch named Akua."

  The window behind her parents blew open.

  "I love you, Mama," Lana said. Then the gust tore her from the floor and pushed her out the window, hurtling away from the smoking sentinel of Nui'ahi and back toward the one woman who could help her.

  Akua was standing outside the cottage when the wind tossed Lana to the ground on the muddy embankment by the lake. The white death, which had followed her here close behind, looked at Akua for a moment and then bowed. The older woman inclined her head.

  "Lana, what have you done?"

  "I took my mother's death," she said. "I read about the geas and I did it."

  "You did, Lana?" Akua said softly, staring at the death. "You're resourceful, aren't you? I ... I wasn't expecting this to end quite this way. But you can't survive this on your own ... come inside."

  Lana picked herself up from the mud and brushed locks of sweaty brown hair from her eyes. Akua looked relatively calm, which helped reduce the sharp edge of terror Lana felt. Lana stared at the death and then scurried inside the house. It attempted to follow her in, but Akua held out her hand.

  "You cannot cross this threshold. You know that."

 
; "She's my quarry, now. You can't help her."

  "She came of her own free will. This once, it is my right."

  She and the death hesitated for a moment before it inclined its head and backed away from the doorway. Akua shut the door and turned around.

  "We don't have much time," she said, gesturing for Lana to follow her. She walked to the pit where they hung the cauldron and told Lana to scoop out the cold ashes. Lana's hands turned black before she before she revealed a false brick bottom with a small handle. When she pulled that off she saw a small, narrow wooden box. Akua removed it carefully, brushing off the soot and dust. She pulled off the top of the case, revealing a narrow flute made of bone, about as long as her forearm. Akua stroked it once and then handed it to Lana.

  "This is the single most powerful object you will ever see," she said. "I give it to you willingly, because it's probably the only thing that will keep you alive. Playing it invokes the sacrifice ... a great sacrifice."

  Lana looked at her mentor's expression and suddenly realized what it must be. "Your arm?" she asked.

  Akua nodded. "The greatest sacrifice." She stood up. "I can give you some time, to help you bind it this once. But after that, you must not come back here. Ever. Do you understand? I can't do anything more to help you."

  The blood coming from her ear had slowed to a trickle, but the whole left side of her face ached. She was terrified and exhausted, but she had no other choice but to leave. Lana stood reluctantly and followed Akua to the doorway. The death was waiting right outside the door, its key swaying from side to side like some strange metallic appendage.

  "Hand me the flute," Akua said. Lana did so and watched as Akua blew a few brief notes-a snatch of a melancholy melody-with just one hand. The rush of anticipatory power was instantaneous.