Tides of Mana

by Matt Larkin

  A guard rushed to bar his way. The Boar God swept the mortal up in both hands and bent until the mortal’s spine snapped, then tossed the body causally up onto the palace roof.

  A young man faltered before him, knife trembling in his tiny mortal hand. “K-k-amapua’a?”

  Stop! The host screamed in the Boar God’s head. Stop it! That’s Niheu, my nephew!

  Sometimes, the host was surprisingly strong. Strong enough to make the world sway, strong enough to bring the Boar God to one knee.

  “I’m … gonna … fuck every last mortal here … into a pulp …”

  A white blur filled his view.

  WELL, shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  That’s why Kama didn’t let the Boar God out to play.

  And now Kamapua‘a had this headache like someone had hit him in the head with a club. Except … no, he didn’t think the headache had come from that. Not most of it.

  Kana raced into the palace and shoved Niheu behind him. “What in Lua-o-Milu have you done, Uncle?”

  “I … uh …” Well, Kamapua‘a had pretty much sat there, useless as a wart on the ass, while the Boar God rampaged through Waimea, was what. Sat there and watched like a stupid shitter.

  “You killed my father,” Kana said.

  “Uh … well that was mostly on account of him trying to kill me.”

  Kana waved a hand at the carnage the Boar God had left in his wake. His nephew shook his head in obvious despair. Perhaps shock still had him at what had gone on. Few of the villagers had ever seen Kamapua‘a overtaken by the Boar God. Fewer still had lived to tell of it. “You’ve left me no choice, Uncle,” Kana finally said. “As the new king of Waimea, I banish you.”

  “Aw, shit. Not again.”

  “Not merely from the district, but from all this island. Because you are Mother’s blood, I’ll not call for yours. But you may never return to Kuau‘i.”

  8

  T he rains came in the late afternoon, a refreshing reprieve most took as a signal to cease work for the day. This time of year, it was a light, continuous drizzle that fell all through the afternoon and on toward evening.

  Namaka did not cease anything. Just behind Upoho, she continued to track Pele, with Moela trotting alongside her, the dog probably having no idea all this might soon be over. Pele had left her people behind in her attempt to absorb mana. It had to be that. But it provided Namaka an opportunity to hunt her down and finish her with a minimum of interference. She wouldn’t have even brought Upoho, if she didn’t need his nose to follow Pele.

  They walked so long her feet and calves began to ache, and still Upoho led her on and on. The locals had told her there was a place of great mana between here and the volcano, and, as they drew near, Namaka could feel it, even before the sound of crashing water came to her ears. It called her, an entrancing mele, beckoning her ever closer.

  The Sacred Pools, the locals called it, a series of waterfalls and tiny lakes just above the sea.

  But Namaka could afford no distraction. She needed to reach Pele before her sister had time to absorb Haleakalā’s mana and grow strong once more. Namaka already had enough power.

  Instead, they turned inland, threading their way through the jungle, and then swimming across a swift current to continue on toward the volcano.

  “Figure the locals have any idea?” Upoho asked as they trudged into more mountainous country. Namaka glanced at the wererat. “Any idea Pele might just make their mountain explode and cover them in a flood of lava, I mean.”

  Namaka rolled her eyes. She wasn’t going to let that happen. But neither could she afford to fight Pele on Haleakalā. “How far ahead are they?”

  “Far, still.”

  Namaka grimaced, then shook her head. “All right.” She huffed and broke off the obvious path, into the bushes, whistling to call Moela back to her side. “We’re not going to catch her before she reaches the summit. If I fight her too far away from the sea, the battle swings in her favor. So we wait. She has to come back down eventually—her people remain below.”

  Upoho shrugged and plopped down beside her, nuzzling the dog as he did so. “Could be a while. Shame we don’t have a kōnane board or something.”

  “Hmmm.” Given the choice, Namaka would have just as soon had her surfboard and headed down to the beach. “Tell me a story.”

  “Shit …” Upoho snorted. “You mistake me for Aukele.”

  Namaka waved that away. The last thing she wanted was a reminder of her traitorous husband.

  “Fine. Uh, I can tell you … Milolii spoke of the time before time, before the Deluge, before the Worldsea. There was more land back then, and gods walked it. Great stretches of land so vast you could walk for a month and not see the end of it. The gods, they were like us, kupua, blessed. Arrogant, too. Four great lands rose and fought their terrible wars, calling up powers no mortal ought to have. Doing, uh … naughty shit.”

  “Your way with words astounds,” Namaka said.

  “Yeah, well, sometimes, they lived in the sky and fought their wars in the heavens. Sometimes, they fought along those vast stretches of land. But they fought and fought. And Kāne decided they were wicked little shits.” Upoho snickered. “So he shattered the lands and brought the Deluge. He destroyed the great lands, including the continent of Mu. Pieces of it were all that was left, and most sank beneath the waves as the Worldsea rose. But Kāne didn’t want to see all people perish, so he helped one family escape onto the islands, led by Nu‘u. Milolii, she says you and me, we’re like those old people, maybe even heirs to the glory of ancient Mu.”

  Namaka folded her arms over her chest. It sounded rather fanciful to her. Lonomakua had also claimed that Mu was once a land, but now it was a mer kingdom somewhere off the coast of these islands. Perhaps they inhabited the sunken ruins of an ancient civilization, but Namaka had her doubts.

  Regardless, she knew men called this whole region the Muian Sea.

  “Why don’t you get some rest,” she said after a moment. “I’ll listen for them for now, and you can watch later.”

  Upoho laced his hands behind his head and lay back, apparently needing no further invitation for a nap.

  MOELA’S BARKING jolted Namaka awake. Before she’d even sat up, the dog had disappeared off into the bushes.

  “Lua-o-Milu,” she cursed.

  “I’m up!” Upoho grumbled, climbing to his feet in an instant.

  Namaka, too, leapt to her feet and chased off after Moela. The dog had caught some scent, and she almost prayed it was a boar, dangerous as the beasts were. They were less dangerous still than Pele. Rushing after the dog, she blundered through the bushes and out onto the lower slope of the mountain.

  But her sister was there, hair aflame. Those fires ignited her kihei, and bits of ash blew in the wind as the blazing cloak whipped around Pele, with Aukele behind her. Moela raced for Aukele, still seeming to love Namaka’s bastard husband.

  “Moela!” Namaka shouted.

  Pele sneered, whipping her arm forward. A wave of flame shot outward from her mantle, a swirling inferno that rushed over Moela. Namaka’s dog yelped, briefly, and he faltered, stumbling. The fire passed quickly, surging forward so fast Moela had not yet hit the ground, despite his muscles and flesh turning to ash. The dog’s skeleton crumpled and crunched even as Namaka looked on, gaping, unable to form a thought at the casual destruction.

  “Fuck,” Upoho said behind her.

  Her dog.

  Her dog.

  “He wasn’t attacking you …” Namaka mumbled, her mind refusing to cooperate. She kept hearing that short, pained yelp. It had been over in an instant. Not much fear, probably. “He wasn’t attacking …”

  “You, however,” Pele said, “continue to do so. You have killed thousands of people in your petty pursuit of vengeance. You have chased me across two thousand miles. Waged war over two archipelagos. You have used the sea itself as a weapon to inundate as thoroughly as the Deluge that brought the Worldsea. And
you expect me to have mercy on a dog?”

  The ground rumbled beneath them, reacting to Pele’s fury. Namaka’s sister raised her arms, growling, and the land ruptured. It split in half, trembling so violently Namaka stumbled to the side and caught herself against a tree. A fissure ripped open between herself and Pele, a gap a hundred feet long, running up toward the volcano.

  Jets of toxic steam erupted from the fissure, followed a moment later by a bubbling fountain of lava. The heat from it seared Namaka’s skin, even from two dozen feet away.

  “Run!” Upoho bellowed at her.

  And he was right.

  Namaka turned, fleeing toward the sea, racing through the wood. The scorching heat chased after her, an avalanche of lava rapidly gaining on her.

  Panting, heart hammering against her ribs, Namaka broke off toward a river, shouting for Upoho to follow. She called the waters to herself, streaming them behind her. She felt it, as they evaporated in a flash of steam the instant before hitting that lava flow. It slowed the advancing flames a moment though, and Namaka grabbed Upoho’s wrist and jumped into the river.

  The currents hefted them up and she skidded along the surface as if on a surfboard, jetting forward to the far side, forty feet away.

  The ground continued to tremble, shocks running in all directions, making it hard to run.

  Then it happened.

  The roar so loud it deafened her, leaving only a ringing in her ears. The crack so powerful it drove her to her knees. Upoho fell beside her, hands over his ears, mouth open like he was screaming, though Namaka heard nothing.

  High above, Haleakalā had exploded, hurling upward an enormous black cloud of ash and molten rocks. A rain of fire plummeted down upon the island, embers and flaming stones crashing into the jungle in a silent wake of destruction. Where the missiles landed, the trees and bushes burst into flames, the whole forest quickly becoming a conflagration.

  Screaming herself now—and hearing nothing—Namaka reached for the sea. She didn’t have the mana in her to call up a kai e‘e. At least not one so powerful as she’d summoned in Uluka‘a. But she poured all she had into the deep, beckoning for a wave thirty feet high. It broke over the beach below and its waters raced inland, strangely silent, sweeping away trees and rocks and underbrush in a flood.

  Namaka flung herself atop Upoho and bent the water around them, even as the onrush hit them. A tiny bubble of safety as a massive flood raced through the valley and crashed into the oncoming torrent of lava.

  Still hearing nothing, Namaka felt it, as the flood and flame annihilated each other. Felt it like an explosion. Her limbs trembled with the effort of holding back the waters and keeping herself and Upoho safe.

  The wererat wrapped his arms around her back, whether to comfort her or himself, she had no idea. She was spent, and any moment now she’d lose the—

  The bubble broke and the receding flood waters hit her like a charging boar, hefting her off her feet. Upoho managed to snare her wrist even as the current pulled them under, flinging them along like toys. Namaka could see nothing.

  A violent jerk as their momentum halted—had Upoho caught onto something?—waters still racing past her, tugging at her. They’d ripped away her pa‘u. A distant thought. She needed air.

  And then they broke the surface, Upoho pulling her up onto a rock. Gasping for breath, choking, coughing. The ringing in her ears too loud.

  THE RINGING HAD BECOME a dull whine that almost drowned out other sounds. Upoho spoke to her, she knew, but it sounded so far away she couldn’t concentrate on it. As the floods receded and the lava cooled, Namaka finally climbed down off her perch on the rock.

  A rain of ash continued to fall upon the island, choking it.

  Already, it had begun here. The devastation. The ravaging and poisoning of a land, as had happened in Uluka‘a. Utter desolation leaving behind only death and anguish and mountains of regret.

  “I think I’ve caught Aukele’s scent,” Upoho said, the words breaking through the haze of noise in Namaka’s ears.

  ‘Aumākua! Namaka had to end this before all Sawaiki wound up as empty as Uluka‘a. “Find him. They’ll be together.”

  “I don’t smell her.”

  Namaka worked her jaw, but the whine in her ears continued. “Maybe the flood actually got her.”

  They walked a time, crossing the river once more—now diverted in its course by tons of rock—and eventually returning to the base of the mountain, near where she’d lost her precious Moela. Of the dog’s bones, she saw no sign.

  Namaka growled, having no words to express her grief. Yes, of course she had lost many dogs over her long life. But not like … like that. Pele had reduced the animal to ash with a wave of her cloak.

  A life of love, of loyalty, snuffed out in a single heartbeat.

  All memory turned to pain in a single action.

  Upoho pointed down the slope. Namaka followed his directions, coming to a rock pile that lay half overrun by lava. Her flood must have struck the molten rock and solidified it, for it had formed into a strange mass, curled over like a wave. In its midst rose up a single arm and the head of a man, his face locked in a mask of unspeakable agony. What little remained of his flesh, in fact, for much had burned away, leaving charred bone.

  “Aukele?” Namaka’s voice sounded like a squeak. Her husband?

  Her legs gave out beneath her and she slumped down onto her arse, staring in mute horror at the ruination of a man she’d once … had she allowed herself to actually … No!

  Oh, Milu, this was not real!

  Her hand went to her mouth, stifling a whimper of denial.

  Not him, too.

  “Isn’t this what you wanted?” Upoho asked. “I mean, I thought you wanted vengeance against them?”

  “I … I …” She had wanted it. Hadn’t she?

  Oh, akua and ‘aumākua. What had she done? She had chased Pele across the Worldsea for … for this? Her kingdom was dead. Her husbands were all dead. Her godsdamned dog was dead. And Pele had escaped again … and Namaka no longer cared.

  She had never allowed herself to consider what would happen after this. What would happen with Aukele … but this … not this. Never this.

  Upoho’s hands settled under her armpits, pulling her to her feet. “You need your strength back. We don’t know how much mana Pele still has. Come.”

  “I … I …”

  Why had she done all this? Such cataclysmic battles on account of an affair? No. She was going to retch.

  Numb, she allowed Upoho to lead her away, down the slope.

  NAMAKA SAID nothing while the wererat led her up the rough, rocky trail to reach the top of the Sacred Pools. They climbed out to the plateau above the waters and stood looking down. A cascade of waterfalls poured from the mountains above, creating a series of seven whitewater pools before eventually crashing over the rocks to reach the sea. Locals had told her, at high tide, the ocean joined the lowest of those pools and easily carried swimmers out to sea.

  Part of her wanted to let that happen. To enter the deep and become one with it and walk away from all this forever.

  She had not recovered her pa‘u, and thus had no clothes to discard. A strong wind tugged at her hair, though, as she looked over the waters and into the ocean. It was still, still calling to her. Despite all she had done, the horror she had unleashed on those she loved, she could never resist its pull. Never.

  “It’s always going to be there,” she mumbled.

  Upoho grunted, clearly understanding her. “The rat spirit is always in me, always trying to get me to eat and fuck and fight. Maybe all at the same time. You get used to it. Except during the full moon. When that happens—well, actually, I don’t always remember what happens then. Sometimes you gotta let the rat out of the hole.”

  Namaka couldn’t even muster the energy to laugh at his buffoonery. On either side of the pools the land rose up in hills covered with jungles so vibrant she could almost understand Upoho’s unending desir
e to run through them. It was, after all, easier. Easier than facing her fears, easier than controlling the power raging and roiling through her soul, demanding she unleash the fury of the sea.

  Did her own rage make the sea a weapon, or did the mercurial nature of the ocean infect her like madness? For it was madness that had possessed her.

  Already, the deep responded to her mood, whipping itself into greater frenzy. And beckoning her to its embrace. A steep, treacherous path led down to the rocky shore. Namaka didn’t care about danger anymore. She didn’t care about anything.

  All she wanted was freedom. A queen had so many responsibilities. A duty to present an image, to maintain a certain visage, to hold absolute authority or risk having the world crumble around her.

  And Namaka was so godsdamned tired of it all.

  ‘Aumākua, had not Milolii just tried to warn her about this? Why hadn’t she listened to the dragon? Namaka needed to find her, to tell her … anything. Something to make this right.

  But it could not be fixed.

  She began the climb down, having to watch her footing on the near vertical slope.

  Upoho snorted. “All right, then.” And then he was tromping down the slope after her.

  “Fall on me and I swear my ghost will haunt you.” The wererat would likely survive a tumble to the rocks below, but Namaka doubted she would.

  Namaka jumped down the last bit of the slope. Her feet skidded on the slick rock and she slipped, landing hard on her arse and sending a jolt of pain all the way up to her jaw. For a moment she just sat there, in shock.

  “Very graceful, My Queen,” Upoho said as he strode past her. The wererat stripped off his malo and jumped into one of the pools. “Woooo!” He splashed about, then beckoned to her.

  Namaka shook her head. Maybe she would swim. Maybe later. Right now, the sea was calling her so profoundly, so deeply, it rumbled through her soul like the tremors before an eruption, demanding her presence. Hand on her bruised tailbone, she rose and walked to the edge of the shelf, where the ocean broke over the rocks.