by Matt Larkin
Fire-Keeper didn’t move during her telling, kept his hands on his knees until she had finished.
“So?” she asked, at last.
“What do you think?”
She threw up her hands. If she already knew what to think she wouldn’t have climbed back up here. “An angry spirit? A ghost … oh. A Nightmarcher, perhaps?” The most feared ghosts across Sawaiki were said to be born from souls not properly sent away by kahuna, consumed by their rage. A ghost lingering on the edge of the human world would eventually become either an aumakua—a protective ancestor—or something worse. Lose itself in its anger and pain.
There were stories, of course. Fire-Keeper himself had recounted tales of the angry dead, haunting the living forever in some twisted attempt to share their anguish. But the thought of actually finding such a dark, angry ghost … even kahuna would have feared that. And still, she had heard rumors of Nightmarchers on the Valley Isle. Given the stories of mass death across the water, she believed it.
Fire-Keeper, however, looked more concerned than afraid. “It’s possible. But the spirit hasn’t killed anything but a bird—as far as we know. That tells me its journey to becoming a Nightmarcher might not be complete.”
“There’s already a kahuna in this settlement. Shouldn’t he have sent the spirit away?”
“The rituals don’t always work, Pele. Sometimes if a ghost is angry enough, bound by strong enough emotion, it will remain. There are never any guarantees when you try to apply knowledge to worlds beyond our own. Besides which, the ghost may have simply wandered into this place, or been brought by your father. The kahuna can only send the recently deceased. If this is a ghost, it has already missed—or refused—its chance to cross to the Ghost World and leave the Earth behind.”
“So what do I do? How do I kill the damn thing?”
“You can’t. It’s already dead. Maybe you could send it on its way to whatever lies beyond. If you could find a way to sever the ties it feels here.”
Pele groaned and rubbed her eyes. They burned from lack of sleep. She was too tired for this. “If my father sent that ghost here, maybe he can call it away.”
“A bound spirit? Yes, maybe. We do not have enough information to say for certain.”
“I need a few hours’ sleep. Wake me later and I’ll go after Ku-Aha-Ilo. Do you know where he went from here?”
Fire-Keeper nodded. “I found some tracks leading into the wilds. His, most likely.” He frowned. “You’re going to confront him directly?”
She nodded. It was the only plan she had at the moment.
The kahuna sighed. “There are legends, Pele. Old, old stories about him. Maybe the stories don’t all talk about the same man—”
“What stories?”
“A long time ago, there was a great warrior, a disciple of Kū. He defeated all challengers in single combat. And each foe he overcame, he feasted on the man’s flesh, drank his blood. In so doing, this warrior absorbed vast amounts of mana. He wandered the archipelago searching for stronger and stronger opponents. Until, at last, no one would accept his challenge.
“And then the warrior began to challenge the inhuman denizens of the world. He killed and feasted upon nanaue, mer, menehune. And in so doing, he learned of their secret Arts. Infused with the mana of a thousand victims, he kept himself young for centuries, becoming like a living Nightmarcher.”
“So you think Ku-Aha-Ilo is the warrior in the story? That he’s lived for centuries?”
Fire-Keeper shrugged. “Immortality might do strange things to a man’s mind. If it were true.”
Pele shook her head. The embers of a fire the kahuna must have built in the night had dwindled. Pele wakened them with a wave of her hand, then curled up next to the flames.
The truth was, it didn’t matter who Ku-Aha-Ilo really was or where his powers came from. Maybe he was born a demon, maybe he had made himself one. All that mattered was forcing him to call off the literal Nightmarcher he had unleashed.
It felt like she had only shut her eyes when Fire-Keeper shook her awake. By the look of the sun, though, he had given her a few hours’ rest. Mumbling under her breath, she rose and excused herself to take care of basic necessities.
A cliff ran along a fair part of the north shore. From here, Pele could see a few of the other islands. She had never left the Big Isle, maybe never would. It was a hefty tabu for a Princess to intrude on another’s domain, after all. But she liked to imagine herself walking, unknown, among the other islands. There, perhaps, she might stroll without a disguise and still not have people fall at her feet, beg her mercy.
They feared her for the very thing that made her great—her status as a Princess. Were all Princesses so feared by their own people? Fire was the purest force, the preserving force. It lit the darkness and warded against threats in the night. But it could also burn the living, and she had done so too often without intending it.
Now though, for once, she had a reason to want to burn a man. Ku-Aha-Ilo had crossed a line from which there was no turning back. Maybe he had done so long ago and she had been blind to it. Or had turned a blind eye to it. Of course she had known he was a monster—it was the very purpose of her sojourn across the island, trying to help his victims. But now … now he had hurt her own family, and for no reason other than pure spite.
And so, she would introduce him to real, true rage. The rage of a volcano unleashed, a fury mankind could not begin to fathom. She needed only find him.
Fire-Keeper had not tried to dissuade her in her course. She had thought he might, but he accepted.
As she rose, something on the sea caught her eye. In the distance, a great sailing vessel approached, larger than any outrigger canoe she had ever seen. Pele frowned. A few days before, she had walked among another village—disguised, of course. The locals had spoken of the goings on at the Valley Isle last week, how disaster had befallen there, culminating in—if tales were true—an attack by a taniwha. The timing matched up with reports of great waves crashing against the shores here. The Sea Princess, Namaka, had brought the wrath of the Ghost World upon her island, probably by violating kapu. And all the chaos was heralded by the arrival of such a ship from somewhere far beyond Sawaiki.
And now that vessel headed here, coming to her island, to the people who depended on her for protection. Her people feared her and she hated that, though she had given them reason to fear. As had Ku-Aha-Ilo. Her father had wrought destruction and terror across the Big Isle for generations. All that would now to change. Pele would become a protector, a guardian men and women turned to.
If those foreign ghostfuckers thought they could land here, spread their ill fortune on the Big Isle, they had a surprise coming to them. Between Ku-Aha-Ilo and this angry spirit, Pele had enough problems to clean up. She had no time to deal with cursed foreigners on top of everything else.
She knelt on the cliff and pushed her hands hard against the rocky soil. Most people thought flame was an instant thing, burning for a moment and then gone. But flame was eternal, it was life, running through the world. Beneath the land and beneath the sea, always waiting to touch the sky. To be free. Pele’s arms shook as she poured mana deep into the island, letting her soul wrap itself into lava tubes running out into the ocean. The trembling spread to encompass her chest, her neck, her head. Her eyes heated first, followed by a flush in her face, a fever that would have consumed a mortal in an instant. Not her. Not the Flame Princess. Her hair burst into flame, writhing in it, yet never burning away. Lava pooled up through the ground, bubbling around her fingers and she gasped at the fabulous, all-consuming heat rushing through her. As she opened her mouth, a cloud of sulfuric vapors escaped, spewing forth toxins from deep within the belly of the Earth.
Down.
Farther out. The island shook, mirroring her own rising anger, much as she tried to direct it to the undersea vents. And then, all at once, the seabed exploded in a torrent of ash rapidly cooling into rock. The eruption ripped through the trench se
parating the islands, spewing a cloud of steam and volcanic debris into the air just before the ship.
Pele could not see the men or women on that ship. But she saw it veer suddenly, violently listing to one side. An instant later, flames spread along its sails.
The foreigners would be stopped. And, with any luck, Ku-Aha-Ilo had seen the eruption. She wanted him to know she was coming for him. It was his turn to know fear.
Pele smiled.
6
The disturbance in the sea hit Namaka like a physical blow, made her lose her footing as she climbed the steep, green-covered mountains that rose just beyond the shore’s edge. Her ankle twisted and she tumbled downward four paces before smacking her shoulder on a tree that arrested her fall. For a moment she lay there, dazed, uncertain what was happening. The waters had been so clear today, calm and blue as the sky, belying the turmoil raging in nearby Hiyoya.
But this … a boiling rose beneath the surface, a trembling that shot through her awareness as violently as one of Pasikole’s cannons. And it still continued. A gut-wrenching writhing of the ocean floor that made the pain in her shoulder seem a mere annoyance.
Using the tree as leverage, Namaka pushed herself up and started back for the beach. A sudden, violent eruption from the seafloor sent her stumbling back to the ground—not just from the quake on the island, but from a shaking in her soul. An undersea volcano had erupted.
“Damn it.” Namaka grabbed the tree again and pulled herself up through its branches. Climbing offered her a fresh reminder of the pain in her shoulder, but she had to see with her own eyes. Finally she broke through the jungle canopy, dangling over the mountain at an angle so she could catch a glimpse of the ocean. Far out, waves tossed a ship to and fro, its sails aflame. The once-calm ocean had become as turbulent as though a typhoon had swept in.
Pasikole …
What was the captain even doing here? He should have stayed on the Valley Isle. Or maybe he should have left Sawaiki completely, though part of her would still be sad to see him go. Namaka frowned. Those flames would soon swallow his ship. And then Pasikole, his crew, all those people would feed the deep. Some, perhaps, would drown and give their bodies to mer spirits. Give them or have them taken.
Either way, she had to help.
Using her good arm to hang off the tree, she reached her other toward the ship, calling to the sea. Precise control at such an extreme distance likely exceeded even her ability. She grunted, forcing her will upon the waves, pounding them into submission, maybe enough that Pasikole could regain control of his ship. Which would do no good with those sails on fire.
Damn it. She would to have to extinguish those flames for the ship to have any chance. Namaka blew out a long breath, letting mana flow from her and into the sea. Once, having consumed her beloved dragon’s heart, she’d held so much mana she might have controlled the sea with precision even at such a distance. But she had burned through that font of energy to defeat the taniwha and now she had only herself to call upon. Finesse was not an option.
Namaka jerked her palm forward, pushing the water out from underneath the ship. The vessel dropped several paces, lurching to one side as it fell. Immediately she yanked her fist back inward, calling the sea back with it. The undertow she’d created rose up into a massive swell that swept right over the ship, blocking her view of it.
That would have extinguished the flames, for certain. Extinguished fires and quite likely a number of lives. The wave continued, hurtling the ship toward the shore. Maybe that was a small blessing. There was no way Pasikole’s crew was in control at the moment, not after what she had just done. But if the ship made the shallows, the crew would have a chance.
From this distance, she could do nor more for them.
She hung there, watching the ship rush toward the shore until, finally, it breached on the shallows. Should she go to them? She could climb down the mountain and swim there, check to see if everyone—if Pasikole—had survived. Namaka grimaced. Go save the foreigners and let more time pass for her own people, let the disease worsen. And then she’d have to start her climb once again, once again head toward the center of this massive island.
There was just no time. She had to find this Place of Darkness and make it back to the Valley Isle. Every moment she delayed brought her mother, brought all the villagers, that much closer to passing into the Ghost World. And really, that meant she had no choice.
She had to press on.
7
“Brace for impact!” Pasikole shouted a moment before the ship scraped along the seafloor.
Kamapua’a had no idea what he was talking about until that impact flung him off his feet, over the rail, and into the open air. For an instant he flew—a flying pig!—then he hit the sea and splashed down hard enough to actually touch the bottom. He kicked off the sand and swam upward, bursting through the surface to see the crew slump to the deck.
Lazy shitters looking all tired. Shit, that was about the most fun he’d had all morning. If anyone had asked, he’d have been more than happy enough to try it again. The looks on Pasikole’s and Inemes’s faces made it seem unlikely they’d go for it. Shame. He swam over to the shore, then waved to the captain.
After a few moments, the foreigners lowered a boat and began to row ashore. Kam shook the water from himself, stripped off his skirt and wrung it out, then replaced it while Pasikole and Inemes and a few others came ashore.
Pasikole approached, clutching one of his arms to his chest. As he drew near, the reason became obvious. His skin was raw, red—burned from the fires. The captain must have been trying to put out the flames along the sails. Lots of the crew had tried. Kam would guess Namaka was the one who succeeded, though.
“That hurt?” he asked. “Ka Moho’s stinky farts, that looks like it hurts!”
The captain favored him with a withering gaze. Which didn’t work at all, because nothing withered a wereboar. He was mighty.
Kam shrugged instead and pointed up the beach. “I think there’s a village that way.” It had been years since he’d been to the Big Isle. Not since Kamalo had left him with Mo-O-Inanea. Kāne rest the poor dragon’s soul. She had begged Kam to kill her, to cut out her heart. And he’d done it. He’d done everything she asked of him. He never did what others wanted, had figured kapu was a silly set of rules for other people. Except that one time. That time, he’d swallowed his pride and done his duty. And damn had it eaten away at him since then.
Had he done the right thing, then? It wasn’t a question he had often bothered with. He rarely gave a pig shit what the right thing was. Killing his dragon had let Namaka destroy the taniwha, that was true. And Mo-O had wanted him to do it. Did that make him a hero? He hadn’t felt like one.
Kam shook himself, then cleared his throat. Silly boar, getting all caught up like that. “We should try to make it there before dark. I mean, I can see in the dark, but you can’t. Mortal.”
“I have a hard time telling when you are in earnest.”
“Earnest?” Kam shrugged. “Never been there, far as I know. But I think I’ve been to that village. Come on.”
He led the way, not bothering to look back to see if Pasikole and his crew followed.
8
The foreign ship had washed up onshore, saved by a rogue wave that could only have come from a Princess of Sea. Here, on Pele’s island. It made no sense. A Princess always remained on her own island, always had to remain there to protect her people from raiders and other threats. That was the gulf that forever separated them from one another. That, and the unbreakable tabu against such trespasses. According to the legends told by kahuna like Fire-Keeper, the first Princesses had been sisters, children of the war god Kū.
And even her real sister—once her nature as another Princess was discovered—was forced from Pele’s side. They shared the same father, a kupua who had made his way among the islands, spreading his seed and caring nothing for how it would grow. Almost nothing—for Ku-Aha-Ilo had at least bothered to
dump Pele’s half-sister Hiiaka at her and Fire-Keeper’s feet. Perhaps the only good thing he had ever done, and he had done it with no explanation. Hiiaka, a child barely old enough to walk, and Pele herself had only been thirteen. And still they were family, at least for a few years. Until Fire-Keeper realized Hiiaka herself was a Princess, bound to her own birth island.
Pele huffed. If another Princess dared come to the Big Isle, she would find it well-guarded. Oh, Pele had heard the stories of this new Princess of Sea. How her careless use of power had brought the wrath of Hiyoya down on her people, how her island was now dying of plague as the aumakuas turned their backs on their descendants, perhaps aghast at the arrogance or presumption of their Princess. Namaka was as cursed as the foreigners, and none of them belonged on the Big Isle.
She was not going to allow that curse to spread here. For once, it would serve her purpose to walk openly among the people of her island, to let them see her face. See her anger. How dare this Namaka tread upon her island, breaking all tabus, asking neither permission nor blessing of its Princess?
And, if rumors were to be believed, Namaka might have somehow become a mermaid. That sounded preposterous, of course, but if even half the stories about the Sea Princess were true, she was a blight on Sawaiki.
She needed to find Ku-Aha-Ilo, of course, but she had to deal with Namaka first, before she brought more chaos here. Too many duties pulled her in too many directions. The kupua, the ghost, the foreigners, and now this Princess. She shook her head in frustration.
The ground rumbled beneath her feet as Pele trod down the mountain, toward Puako Village and the crashed ship. With considerable effort, she forced her arms to her sides, forced herself to release the tension welling within her. Fire-Keeper had taught her that, had showed her how to calm herself by seeking a quiet deep within the corners of her own mind. And when she failed—the world burned.
