Tides of Mana

by Matt Larkin

  “Hakalanileo’s ire toward Aukele actually stems from his resentment of Aukele’s half-brother, Kamapua‘a,” Hi‘iaka said. “Actually, this entire family is a complex nest of interrelations that seems largely centered around a sorceress named Uli.”

  Pele couldn’t help but smile in pride at how quickly Hi‘iaka had taken to unfolding the political landscape. A night and a day and the girl already seemed to have a feel for the politics on Kaua‘i. “Uli was a mentor to Kapo, your other sister that you never met.”

  “She’s still alive, by the way.”

  “What?” Pele paused by the river and stared at Hi‘iaka. “Uli lives? After so long?”

  Hi‘iaka nodded and pointed further up the canyon. “She lives alone, inland. She’s kupua, like us, and ‘aumākua know how long she’ll live, but she retired from public life after Kalana died.”

  “Who’s Kalana?”

  The girl held up a finger, beaming at being able to elucidate anything for her big sister. “Uli married a man named Huma and had a son by him, Aukele. Now Huma is still a king of this island, albeit not a strong one anymore. He remarried, but his other heirs died. Some time after they arrived here, he accused Uli of having an affair with his brother, Kalana. An affair that resulted in the birth of a sister to Aukele, Hina.”

  “Hina?” Pele raised an eyebrow but resumed her walk along the stream.

  “Named after Maui’s famous wife, yes. It seems likely the accusation was true, because Uli later married Kalana, and some years later had another son by him, Kamapua‘a. However, Kalana died, and Uli grew tired of the politics, leaving Kamapua‘a to be raised by his older sister, Hina.” Hi‘iaka glanced at Pele, the irony of such a tale clearly not lost upon her, whom Haumea had thrust upon her own sisters. “Hina married Chief Hakalanileo and bore him two sons, Kana and Niheu, whom I met this morning.”

  Pele rubbed her temples. “I’m getting a headache. Is anyone on this island not related to each other?”

  Hi‘iaka giggled. “Anyway, Hakalanileo never liked Kamapua‘a and considered him a threat to his own sons. So he banished the boy. Well, now, it turns out Kamapua‘a is a powerful kupua, and a vexed one. He’s been raiding Hakalanileo’s farms and holdings all around Waimea.”

  Hmm. So kill this Kamapua‘a and maybe win the favor and gratitude of the locals? It was a possibility. But her head still hurt from trying to place so many people’s names. Some of this she had heard from Aukele, yes, but never so concisely.

  “You know …” Hi‘iaka said.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I couldn’t really ask on the canoes, I mean, with everyone around. But why … why did you take Namaka’s husband?”

  Pele opened her mouth to tell the girl that she and Aukele fell in love. That, of course, was a lie. He was handsome and she desired him. And if the girl couldn’t understand such feelings now, in another year or so she probably would. “It’s complicated.”

  “Hmmm.” Hi‘iaka stooped to grab a stone and fling it into the river. “Knowing what happened … would you do it again?”

  No. No, Pele would like to think not. Then again … perhaps she was lying to herself, as well. “It’s complicated.”

  HAKALANILEO’S PEOPLE reported the incoming canoes. At first, Pele dared to hope it would prove to be this old dynasty raider, Kaupeepee, or even Queen Poli‘ahu, either of whom would have given Pele a chance to demonstrate her might. Somewhere in her gut, though, she knew better.

  At night she had stared into the flames and seen her face, confirming what the Fire spirit had told her.

  Namaka.

  Again.

  Milu-damned, relentless Namaka.

  Her sister had chased her two thousand miles across the Worldsea in pursuit of vengeance. If Pele ran now, Namaka would continue to give chase, yet, after what had happened last time they fought … all Uluka‘a lay in ruins because of their war.

  No, Pele needed to destroy Namaka before she could ever land on Kaua‘i. She’d not allow a repeat of what happened in Uluka‘a. Her first act as queen would be to spare these people from sharing the suffering Namaka had wrought in her own land.

  So, Pele climbed up on the cliffs above the shore, to allow her a better view of the incoming sails. The others were down in the village, and she had to trust Aukele to keep them safe. He would understand the real threat Namaka posed.

  Pele 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 Queen. 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 and stone rapidly cooling into rock. The eruption ripped through the trench separating this island from its southern neighbors, spewing a cloud of steam and volcanic debris into the air just before the ship.

  Pele could not see the men or women on those canoes. But she saw them veer suddenly, violently listing to one side. An instant later, flames spread along sails. Canoes capsized. The entire invasion collapsed in a boiling mess of destruction.

  Pele smiled. Justice, for the many thousands Namaka had killed in her furious surge of waves, the kai e‘e.

  And had her sister herself finally perished? Pele would have to be certain.

  “SHE LIVES,” Lonomakua said. He didn’t explain more, as he led Pele along the cliffs. He didn’t need to, really. He must have read it in the flames while she had called up the eruption. Pele was, admittedly, fatigued from creating the explosion, and could have used more chance to soak in mana from a volcanic crater. She had neither a volcano nor time to spare, though.

  She needed to finish Namaka while her sister was winded and separated from whatever remained of her people.

  Namaka, for whatever reason, had headed up onto the cliffs. She had no doubt first come here expecting to find Pele. Well, Namaka would find her a lot sooner than she expected.

  A cool wind mixed with a drizzle of rain to create a generally miserable morning for such a trek. But some things could not wait.

  Arm raised against the rain, Pele stalked toward the caves above the cove. She and Hi‘iaka had discovered them yesterday. A narrow ledge led up them—hollows carved by now-empty lava tubes that looked out over the sea some twenty paces below. A stunning vista, especially at twilight or sunrise.

  “She’s not far ahead now,” Lonomakua said.

  Pele nodded at him. “Wait here, then. I don’t want you in any danger.” Namaka had taken enough from Pele, already.

  By the time she had climbed the path to the cave entrance, Pele’s breath came heavily from the long hike. Little sunlight reached into the caves, especially given the cloud cover from the rainy morning. Rather than walk into darkness, Pele flexed her palm, calling forth a torch flame from it. Then she strode into the tunnel. The rock was slick from when lava had once carved it out and now slippery with rain, forcing her to choose her steps with care.

  Perhaps a dozen paces inside sat her sister, legs folded beneath her and arms at her sides, clearly meditating. A spark of fresh irritation shot through Pele. Namaka was drawing in mana from the sea. Here.

  Bitch.

  The ground rumbled beneath Pe
le, responding to her rapidly dwindling patience.

  Her sister’s eyes shot open but she said nothing, though her gaze clearly took in the flame floating in Pele’s hand. Her face might have registered surprise, but not really fear. A fresh insult, that.

  “You were a fool to chase me.” Pele took a step forward and summoned another flame, keeping both hands lit, well aware of the intimidating figure she must pose, face illuminated by flickering flames in the darkness.

  Finally, the other woman stood, advancing with narrowed eyes and not a hint of deference. “Did you really think that an underwater volcano would save you a second time?”

  Fire was life, Lonomakua was fond of saying. But fire could also be death. And through it, protection. “You forced this, Namaka. Your pride forced this end.”

  The woman spread her arms wide, flashing a wicked, mirthless grin. “You dare speak to me of pride?”

  Damn her. Pele roared, jerking one arm forward and flinging the flame it held at Namaka. The fires spread, thinned into a wave that would bake the Sea Queen alive and leave her a quivering mass begging for death.

  At the same time, Namaka flung her own arms together. As she did so, all the water in the cave coalesced before her like a wall. Pele’s flame hit the wall and evaporated in a shower of steam. The vapors filled the cave, cutting off her vision.

  Her sister shoved past her, sending Pele stumbling to the ground.

  “Bitch!” Pele shouted. She slapped her palm against the ground. Pele fed mana into the Earth and immediately set it to rumbling.

  These lava tubes were old, long emptied. But far beneath them, magma still ran. Magma ran everywhere if you dug deep enough. As the steam cleared and revealed her prey, Pele screamed her rage. A crack tore through the cave floor, spreading like a bolt of lightning straight for Namaka.

  The Sea Queen dove to the side, avoiding the crack. But that was not the threat. Pele poured more mana into the earth and a spout of lava ripped through the rupture. It blasted against the roof and rained around the cave in a shower of searing destruction.

  Namaka screamed, both in pain and satisfying fear. The woman scrambled out of the cave then leapt off the ledge, falling toward the sea sixty feet below. By the time Pele had reached the edge, the woman had crashed into the ocean. Most likely she would have died on the rocks below.

  Should have, except Namaka was a kupua. And attuned to the sea.

  “Dammit!” Pele bellowed at no one in particular. “I had you, you stupid bitch! I had you!”

  Rage continued to boil inside Pele. So hard to let it go, once it began to erupt. She wanted to …

  A maelstrom built in the ocean, swirling faster and faster. What in Pō? With no further warning, the sea erupted like a volcano itself, a geyser of water shooting seventy feet into the air.

  Pele stumbled, fell on her arse just to get out of the way. A shadow rose from the geyser—Namaka. She was standing atop it, staring at Pele with hateful eyes. Fine. If Namaka wanted to test her limits, Pele would oblige. Hands still on the rock, she fed more mana into it, digging deep beneath the land.

  Pele shut her eyes for an instant, releasing all her rage at once. The cliff exploded as it turned itself into a miniature volcano, spewing destruction into the air. The trembling earth threatened to collapse the cave around her, and dust and sulfur blocked her vision. She had to get out of this place.

  With a wave of her hand she summoned a jet of lava and jumped on it, letting it carry her forward like she rode a surfboard over a wave. The jet hurled her into open space, allowing her a view of the cataclysm she had wrought. The sky was blacked with toxic fumes and volcanic lightning ignited in the air as heat collided with ice high in the sky. Incandescent rocks fell into the sea and sent up plumes of steam. Namaka’s geyser had collapsed.

  All this she took in during a single heartbeat before she started to plummet. It was dangerously far to fall. Instead, she bent the lava jet she rode backward, using it to fling her atop the cliff. The clumsy maneuver barely carried her far enough. She hit hard, rolling several times and scraping her arms over the rocks. The lava she rolled over didn’t burn her skin, but her clothes ignited in an instant.

  Coughing and panting, she pushed herself up and discarded her ruined kihei. As she stood an enormous shadow fell over her. The volcanic eruption had left her ears ringing, so she heard nothing. She turned. A wave rose over the cliff like an implacable wall.

  Her heart leapt into her throat. She tried to scream but never got the chance. The wave washed over her with the force of a falling star, knocking all wind from her lungs, all thought from her mind.

  The next she was aware, something had coiled around her, crushing her arms to her side. She gasped for breath, trying to make sense of a world spinning and tumbling. Her vision cleared just enough to make out Namaka, standing on the cliff again. Upside down.

  No—Pele was upside down. Held aloft by a tendril of water rising out of the sea, forcing her to look in the face of the woman before her.

  Despite her grogginess, Pele summoned flames to her palms, or tried.

  “Release her!” Lonomakua bellowed, standing on the cliff, flames spiraling around both of his hands. Never had Pele seen the kahuna looking more fierce.

  The Sea Queen sneered, then waved her hand. In time with the movement, the tendril holding Pele aloft uncoiled like a spring, flinging her far out over the ocean.

  She screamed as she fell.

  Hitting the water was like hitting a mountainside. Everything went black.

  3

  T endrils of water swirling around herself, Namaka stalked around Lonomakua. Pele’s blue-eyed kahuna had oft proved an enigma and now, of all things, seemed to have mastered Maui’s legendary Art of Fire.

  Most kāhuna were those learned in arcana and strong in mana. Mana—life force—pulsed the most strongly in the ali‘i and kāhuna, and, of course, in the kupua. Those kāhuna powerful enough to actually use their mana actively like this, to manipulate the environment—they were the stuff of old mo‘olelo, tales of deeds long ago, legends from the time of Maui himself and the first migration.

  The kahuna’s eyes darted out to sea, as if considering jumping off the cliff and going down there after Pele, who, surely must have drowned already. Except … oh. Aukele was still with her, wasn’t he? He, the master swimmer, might save Pele. Namaka grimaced as she realized her mistake. She ought to have crushed Pele to a pulp herself instead of trusting the sea to drown her.

  “You chose her,” Namaka said, backing toward the cliff’s edge herself. “Still, I see no reason you have to die as well, kahuna.”

  A weighty sadness lay behind Lonomakua’s wry smile. “I cannot allow you to go after her.”

  “So you were sleeping with her.”

  “No. She was like a daughter to me.”

  Namaka scoffed. Neither she nor Pele had found much love from their parents. “Submit to me and live.”

  “Not yet.”

  With a shrug, Namaka thrust her arm forward, launching a tendril of water at him like a javelin. Lonomakua leapt into the air, twisted sideways, and flipped over the stream in a move that left Namaka gaping. Midair, he snapped his wrist at her and the flames around that hand shot at Namaka in a sheet.

  With a shriek, she hurled up another tendril of water to extinguish the attack, then swept her hand forward, whipping the tendril at Lonomakua’s feet. Again the kahuna leapt over it, but this time, Namaka altered the water’s angle mid-strike, thrusting up and catching him in the chest while airborne.

  The waters snuffed out his pathetic flames and sent him crashing back down into the cliff.

  “The Flame Queen herself just lost to me,” Namaka said, advancing on him even as he rolled to his feet. “You cannot think your Art of Fire will stand where hers failed. You know I am heir to Haumea’s mana. No man can stand against her power.”

  Despite the grimace on his face, she could have sworn some private amusement lurked behind the kahuna’s eyes. Well
, let him be amused.

  Namaka reached out a hand to the sea and a column of water rose up in answer, a standing geyser a hundred feet tall. “Submit, kahuna. I do not wish to kill you.”

  Still with that damnable, wry smile, Lonomakua knelt before her. “She is safe by now.”

  Namaka shook her head and sighed. “And what has that accomplished? Now I’ll just hunt her again, fight her again, and kill her later. After what she has done, do you truly believe there is anywhere I’d let her escape to? You’ve delayed the inevitable and thus ensured more people may suffer because of it.”

  “What she’s done?” Damn his smugness. “Do you acknowledge no part in the tragedies that befell Uluka‘a? Do you hold yourself blameless for the catastrophic devastation wrought when you summoned the kai e‘e and inundated the island?”

  Namaka released the water column and stalked over to Lonomakua, then knelt before him. Always so strange, this kahuna. “If she would have begged my forgiveness, I would have granted it.”

  “Would you?”

  She sighed, pushing down the sudden urge to hurt him just to hurt Pele. That would have been petty, and Namaka would hold herself to a better standard than that. Instead, she stared hard into his eyes. “Where will she go?”

  “I do not know. We didn’t have time to learn much of this land.”

  “The fires tell you secrets, do they not? Use your pyromancy and tell me where to find her that I may end this.”

  He snorted lightly. “You cannot seriously expect me to betray Pele after telling you she is like a daughter to me.”

  No. Namaka didn’t really expect it. “Get up.”

  NAMAKA LED the kahuna down to the beach, where her own people—what was left of them after Pele’s undersea volcano destroyed so many canoes—had made a camp. Her own kahuna, Leapua, met her at the camp’s edge, eyes wide as she took in Lonomakua. While Leapua looked the elder, Namaka had often suspected she feared Lonomakua, at least a little. His mana was strong, Namaka had to admit. Stronger than she’d realized, considering his display on the cliff.