by Matt Larkin
They’d managed a few dozen feet down before Namaka was huffing and panting, cold sweat running down between her shoulder blades. Her hip felt like it would snap off, as if the flesh had become brittle as dried bark. Her thigh twitched, trying to give out and send her plummeting into the darkness below.
And would she fall into Pō itself, as Pele had implied?
Dammit! She clenched her teeth and pressed harder against the shaft wall.
“Namaka?” Aukele asked. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped. A queen did not show weakness. Not even to her husband. And especially not her sister queen. Even if all she really wanted was wrap herself in a blanket and curl up by the fire, sipping awa until the pain faded into a blissful haze. She would sleep, listening to the break of waves on the shore and held in the sea’s hypnotic embrace. She would …
With a huff, Namaka caught herself against the wall. Focus. Stay alert.
Before long, their only light came from below, from Pele’s torch-hands, crackling and flickering and casting dancing shadows about this shaft. As if the place did not seem close enough to Pō as it was. The sudden trepidation of that, of pushing toward the ghost world, it hit her like a blow and stole her breath, leaving her faltering once more.
Kupua or not, none of them belonged on this threshold, did they? Did coming here violate a primal tabu, something that ought to have bound even those like Namaka and Pele?
But there was water down there. The Waters of Life? Was that what she felt, niggling her mind from far below, teasing her with its blessed embrace? They called to her like a song, or a mele, just loud enough to hear without being able to make out the words. A chant inside her head, beckoning her forward, urging her to ignore all sense.
It was not as though she would turn back in any event. Not after coming this far. Not after promising to help Aukele save Kana.
And so … down and down they went.
EVENTUALLY, the shaft turned into a slope, one that allowed them to walk rather than climb, albeit hardly much faster considering the steep angle. Hands braced on the wall, Namaka now followed just behind Pele.
Her sister paused, though, at a break where the path split in two directions.
“That one,” Namaka said, pointing to the left. The waters’ pull on her mind had only grown more intense, the chant a mighty chorus now.
Pele glanced at Namaka, shrugged, and started down the left tunnel.
Aukele eased up beside Namaka. “How are you holding up?”
The sudden urge to admit to him that her hip was agony, her heart was racing, and she needed to lie down, it struck her. She opened her mouth to say it, but the words wouldn’t form. A queen didn’t show weakness, after all. No matter how much she might have wanted to, she couldn’t tell him. “I’m fine.”
With Pele and the light up ahead, Namaka couldn’t make out Aukele’s face. Without asking, he slipped her arm back around his shoulders and eased the weight off her hip.
Namaka knew she should object … But the relief was so sudden and intense she couldn’t go that far. So maybe she couldn’t admit needing his help, but at least she didn’t have to turn it away.
A long ways more they descended down, until, oddly, the stalactites hanging above their heads began to look more like roots from some massive tree. Just ahead, Pele paused, holding up her hand so as to take in the strange growths. In fact, now that she held the light closer … it almost seemed as though the entire ceiling was shot through with bits of fiber. But no such tree could have grown on these slopes, so where did the roots come from?
Aukele cast a look Namaka’s way, mumbling some invocation to his gods, before scrambling onward.
Yes, they had clearly drawn very near to the edge of Pō. The rules of the world had begun to break down. The thought of it had her skin tingling, but they were so close now.
Around another bend, the tunnel lay half flooded with dark, slightly turbulent waters that lapped against the stone.
“Is this it?” Aukele asked.
“No,” Namaka said, kneeling beside the waters. “This is saltwater from the sea. I think there’s an underwater connection from here into the ocean. The spring we seek is further ahead.”
“And if the tunnel has flooded completely?” Pele demanded.
“We swim.”
“I cannot keep a fire burning underwater. We’ll be swimming blind.”
Namaka couldn’t quite suppress a grin at her sister’s obvious discomfort, even if she did have a point. Glowering, Pele tossed aside her pa‘u and slipped into the water, holding both hands high overhead to keep the torches clear of the splash.
After discarding her own clothes, Namaka followed, trailed by Aukele. Settling into the water immediately eased the pain in Namaka’s hip. This might not have been the Waters of Life, but it was close enough to the sea for her to pull in more ambient mana.
“Can you tell how close—” Aukele began.
And Pele screamed, suddenly disappearing beneath the waters with a splash, plunging them all into total darkness.
“What the fuck?” Aukele shouted.
Namaka fell back, flailing about herself, but could make out nothing. Milu damn it all!
She heard Aukele splash down, going under, but had no idea what went on. Her heart had begun to pound through her temples, pulse racing. Breath short. She had to do … something. But what?
Backing up, she reached the water’s edge. If only she could see what …
The water’s edge. Roaring in frustration, Namaka swept her arms to both sides, pushing the water with her mana, shoving it to either side of the tunnel and holding it there, suspended.
A flicker of light filled the chamber as Pele’s hair struggled to catch flame. A he‘e—larger than a man—had wrapped its arms around Pele and was crushing her to pulp. Its shifting skin tone made it hard to get a clear look at it, but already Aukele was atop it, repeatedly stabbing with his knife.
One of the octopus’s arms snared his ankle and flung him from his feet.
Pele’s flames dwindled to a tiny spark. She was dying.
Namaka snatched up Aukele’s axe from where it lay with his malo, then charged at the he‘e, shrieking. The axe blade squelched as it struck gooey meat, and a spray of gore washed over Namaka’s face. Aukele used the creature’s distraction to ram the knife in its head and jerk it down, carving through flesh and spilling a putrid torrent of brains and stomach contents over Pele.
Even with it dead, Aukele gasped with the effort of pulling those legs off of Pele, while Namaka focused on keeping the waters from collapsing back in upon them. Her sister’s flame winked out, but Namaka could hear Aukele dragging Pele back toward the shore, and followed them.
FOR A TIME, they sat there, in the dark, Pele groaning faintly. The quick glance Namaka had gotten of her sister’s skin showed sucker marks all over it.
“He‘e venom can paralyze a man,” Aukele said. “We’re lucky she’s alive at all.”
“She’s strong,” Namaka answered. Nothing could happen to Pele. Nothing would. She’d be perfectly fine.
She … had to be.
TINY EMBERS SPARKED in Pele’s hair first. An incandescent glow while she tried to push herself up off the ground. Aukele reached a hand for her shoulder but jerked it back, no doubt singed.
Namaka snickered at that. “Glad you’re back with us, sister.”
Pele rolled over onto her back, deepening the shadows as her hair lay beneath her. She groaned.
After a moment, she rubbed her thumbs and forefingers together, and sparks began to form. Then, flames leapt up around her hands, finally returning some real light back to the tunnel.
“Are you all right?” Aukele asked.
Pele didn’t answer, though she pulled herself into a sitting position and prodded at the sucker-wounds around her neck. “What …?”
“A he‘e,” Aukele said. “Perhaps a servant of Kanaloa left to guard the Waters of Life?”
The thought made Namaka squirm a little. To speak of the lord of the deep in such definitive terms, to attribute a direct servant to him … it unsettled one’s sense of place in the world.
She was the Sea Queen.
But not even she wished to challenge Kanaloa. Milolii had always called the akua the greatest power in the ocean.
Unwilling to let such thoughts fester, Namaka pushed back into the waters and threaded her way forward, slowly, leaving time for Aukele and Pele to follow. They did, Pele’s light showing the way forward.
The flooded tunnel continued for a hundred feet, by the end of which Namaka had to walk on her toes to keep her head above water. Finally, though, the path began to rise up again, until the waters were waist-high, then ankle-high. When she reached dry land, she paused to let the others catch up.
Here, the roots had grown even thicker and a great long chunk of one poked through the ceiling and ran the length of the tunnel going forward. It looked almost hairy, with bits of fiber sticking out at odd angles. More, this close to it, she could feel mana pulsing through the tree root. Power, though she could not absorb it.
Namaka pushed onward, over a slight rise, and then down into a bowl-like depression, above which jutted the dangling end of that root, hanging just over a spring bed.
A dry spring bed.
“No,” Aukele said. “No … no. Where’s the Waters?”
Namaka dropped to her knees and crawled along the bed. It was damp, yes, but she didn’t see any sign of … Wait. She’d felt the Waters’ power. So there had to be a little left.
Pele’s light reflected off something further along the bed and Namaka scrambled over.
Yes, a tiny puddle, a few sips really.
“This is it?” Aukele said. “The Waters of Life that Maui died trying to find?”
“One of the three springs,” Pele answered.
Namaka cupped a palmful of the Waters—muddy—and sipped them, letting the delicious coolness dribble down her throat. Immediately, she felt it seeping into her bones, working to accelerate her kupua healing. She’d need time by the sea to convalesce, but this should dramatically reduce that time.
She beckoned to Aukele. “It’s still potent. Fill your gourd and we’ll take it to your nephew.”
BACK IN MILOLII’S CAVE, Aukele emptied the contents of the gourd into his nephew’s mouth, tipping it up and allowing the young man to drink slowly.
Already, Namaka felt much stronger, and she had no doubt that in a few days Kana would wake and become strong enough to begin healing. Pele had left them back in her own domain, hardly having spoken since her encounter with the he‘e.
As for herself, Namaka needed to return to her lagoon and tend to her wound. Swimming and surfing for a month would have her strong as ever. After kissing Aukele, she left him to tend to Kana, and began the trek home.
Those Waters worked a miracle in that cave, she knew.
She could see why Maui had tried so hard to claim the Waters’ power. She could see why Kanaloa would have stolen it from Kāne.
A shame no more remained.
The dragon nodded to her, then plodded along beside her, giving Namaka a shoulder to lean on while making her way down to the lagoon. “I am proud of you.”
“For getting the Waters?”
“That, yes, and more.”
Namaka chuckled. Maybe Milolii meant that, for the first time since they were children, she and Pele had worked together and achieved some good. Maybe it could be the beginning of a new friendship between them, one she would not let their parents spoil again.
She bent down to kiss Milolii on the top of the head. “I don’t know if I ever told you how grateful I am for all you’ve done for me.”
A pleasant rumble passed underneath the dragon’s skin, her only answer. Maybe the only one Namaka needed.
19
“She’s powerful,” Lonomakua said. “Steeped in ancient lore, holding congress with spirits privy to knowledge humans could never understand.”
Lounging on a mat in Kepawa’s former palace, Pele took in her counselors.
Lonomakua she trusted most, much as she disdained his caution.
Makua grinned without a hint of mirth. “So, you suggest we bow down to her power? Offer tribute? Maybe pledge fealty? Is that why you crossed the Worldsea?”
Yes. Pele knew what the prophet wanted her to do and tended to agree with the sentiment … but she’d learned long ago not to dismiss Lonomakua’s thoughts outright. The blue-eyed kahuna held wisdom beyond human ken.
Then there was Naia, Kepawa’s widow. She’d granted Pele this palace when the people proclaimed her queen and, in acknowledgement, Pele had retained the woman as her advisor. Now, Naia grimaced, shaking her head.
“Speak your mind,” Pele commanded.
“I’ve more reason to want Poli‘ahu dead than any of you. She killed my husband and hundreds of our people.”
“But?”
“But your kahuna has the right of it. My husband underestimated her dark magic and now he’s dead. Others too. Healthy warriors who took ill without warning. I’ve seen men shit themselves to death. I’ve seen them scratch itches bloody to the point we had to tie them down while they screamed about the insects crawling over them. I’ve seen lovers’ spats turn deadly.”
Makua scoffed. “This is all speculation. You have no proof Poli‘ahu’s curses lay behind any of these occurrences.”
“In isolation, maybe. But it’s all too frequent. The harder we push against her, the more the akua and ‘aumākua seem to turn against our kingdom. She has called up something dark and angry from the depths of Pō.”
“Oh,” Moho said, finally slipping out of the shadows at the house’s corner. “From beyond Pō, in fact.”
Lonomakua and Moho exchanged a look Pele couldn’t begin to read. Had her kahuna known the Fire spirit before Pele summoned it into a host? It would make sense that an akua following them would have communicated with Lonomakua through the flames as well. He was a stronger pyromancer …
Now, her kahuna turned back to her. “If you declare open war against Poli‘ahu, if you turn the fires of the Earth against her, you risk a repeat of what happened in Uluka‘a.”
Pele scoffed. “You cannot be saying she’s as powerful as Namaka.” The kahuna’s mouth turned down, just a hair. “Wait …” Pele said. “Wait, are you saying she might be that powerful? As strong as an heir of Haumea?”
“I’m saying her powers differ in extent. The direct power she wields might not exactly match the raw destructive capabilities of your sister, but Poli‘ahu nevertheless represents a threat it would behoove you to consider your equal. You have some basic knowledge of the Art, but she is a true sorceress.”
Makua sneered. “Sorcery means nothing if she’s buried in lava. The Art is a threat if we let her sit on her mountain brewing potions and casting curses. Lonomakua has already admitted Poli‘ahu cannot overcome Pele in a fair fight.”
Moho chuckled, the sound wispy, but dark enough to send a chill down Pele’s spine. “Imbecile. You think this sorceress will afford your queen the chance at a fair fight?”
“I have fought Poli‘ahu before,” Kapo said. “Do not underestimate this woman.”
Pele turned to her sister. “You never said you fought her.”
“I have.” The way she clamped her mouth shut, Pele doubted she’d get much else out of the woman. Not here, not in front of the others.
“Fine,” Pele said. “What do you propose, Lonomakua? Poli‘ahu has created a war between the Kahikian settlers and the old dynasty out of Savai‘i. This war must be ended, one way or another.”
“Negotiate. Make her see a truce is better for her people than risking a cataclysmic war with you.”
Makua hissed, but Naia was already nodding her head.
Pele frowned. “I will not share rulership of this island with her. I’ve tried dividing a kingdom between two queens and it did not end well. She must agree to pledge fealty to me.”
>
“You will not know unless you ask.”
Pele looked to each of the counselors in turn. This course clearly displeased Makua, but Pele could not discard the sentiments of Lonomakua, especially not when Naia and Kapo, who had the most firsthand knowledge, seemed to agree. “Well then. I will go to Mauna Kea and try to reason with Queen Poli‘ahu.”
THE ICY WINDS, the darkness, and the difficult climb had left Pele no choice but to stop for the night. She had vastly underestimated how long it would take to climb Mauna Kea. All those days spent exploring Uluka‘a and Kahiki, climbing other mountains alongside Lonomakua, they were a lifetime ago. Or perhaps this slope was just steeper, harder.
Now, Pele perched herself on a frozen ledge less than a pace wide, leaning against the chill of a snow wall. Sleep had been impossible. She had made it too far up the mountain to turn back. So she had waited for dawn, her attempts to warm herself with fires from her hands growing more difficult with each passing hour.
But up here, past the snow line, there was little foliage and nothing she could easily burn.
Moho alone had accompanied her up Mauna Kea. The akua seemed little bothered by the cold, or even the darkness of the night. It had taken the better part of two days to reach this mountain, but the spirit had spoken little on their trek here.
“Tell me about where you come from,” Pele finally said.
Moho craned his head toward her, the motion more owl-like than human. There was something terribly off about the akua, but she supposed it was to be expected from a god. “A world of smoke and flame and ash. There are great cities there, though. One … a city of brass where my kindred wait and pass by the ages. We smoke the vision seeds and tell tales of times long gone and those yet to come. We enjoy each other’s company, though there remain dangers even we avoid. But the pleasures are more intense in human bodies, for this world holds denser substance. Thus, all beings of spirit lust after hosts.”
Moho rose then and crawled his way closer to her. His eyes seemed tiny pinpricks of flame, holding her in place, almost paralyzing. He grabbed her chin, pressing her cheeks hard between his thumb and forefinger, his hand impossibly hot. “What is better? A dream or reality? Whilst in the throes of it, can you see that the experiences of dream are less rewarding than those of your waking world?”
