by Matt Larkin
Namaka glanced back and forth between the man and the menehune. “Listen to me. Most spirits are not like the one inside me. You would be giving away your life, spending centuries as a prisoner in your own body.”
“He is my brother.”
“You seek the Waters of Life,” Molowa said. “Yes. I could show you where to look, though you would more than likely perish in the attempt.” He sighed and spread his hands. “You would have to swear a blood oath. An oath that you belong to me on the moonrise after your brother is saved.”
“Do not do this,” Namaka warned.
“I-I swear it.”
Molowa laughed again. “It’s not that easy, boy.” From nowhere that knife appeared in his hand again and Molowa slit open his palm. He advanced on Kana, then traced a symbol on his chest. Not deep, but still bloody, gruesome. Marking him in blood with the glyph of his own soul.
Namaka cringed, feeling sick. She ought to stop this. To tell him that buying Niheu a few decades of life was not worth centuries of his own pain. But this was the only way to save her sister. And Hi‘iaka was her duty. Kana was no child that she might override his choices.
She fought down bile as Molowa handed Kana the knife and the man drew it along his own palm. Then they clasped hands.
“Swear you are mine.”
Kana panted, his fear so real, so raw it pained even her. “I swear, if my brother is healed by the Waters of Life, I am yours the next night.” Namaka could see Molowa squeezing the man’s hand. Then Kana cried out as if burned and Namaka had to look away.
Even if the Waters saved Hi‘iaka, the price had just become higher than she had ever imagined.
31
The wereboar kupua was gone, Milu be praised, and Poli‘ahu passed once more amid the invader camp in astral form, trying not to think of what sending the Moon akua away may have cost her. Her insides remained twisted up and, she feared, truly shredded in a way that might prevent her from ever bearing a child.
There would be an irony, she supposed, if the price for killing a god—or a god’s host—was her own ability to create life.
She tried not to dwell on it.
But spiders crawled all over her every time she closed her eyes, and now, Spirit Walking, she found herself ever scanning Pō for any trace of the hideous creatures. She found none. Did that mean they did not exist? That she had dreamed them up in a feverish nightmare born of her conjuring? Or that they had simply fled far?
Had she, in invoking such forces, created some new horror to infest this reality?
Groaning, she shook her head, stalking around to find more auras to feed to Kalai-pahoa. Given what it had cost her now, she’d see every last invader shit himself to death or run screaming from this place.
Poli‘ahu was tired of these people.
She was tired of this war, this invasion, this affront to the Sawaikians.
In fact, maybe it was time she found Huma himself. Maybe seeing their king die suffering and in shame would finally break these people. So, she passed huts and hastily erected houses until she came to the makeshift royal pavilion.
She’d felt the incantations of the local sorceress interfering before, but the kupua could not stop Poli‘ahu or Kalai-pahoa. Maybe, had Uli known the name of the spirit and its mark, she might have compelled it to leave them be. But knowledge was power, and Uli probably knew little enough of Moloka‘i.
That was the trouble with a sorceress entering new lands, after all.
Passing amid the shadows of this realm, Poli‘ahu entered into the royal house and spotted Huma sitting on a mat, sipping awa as if trying to drown his tensions away.
Poli‘ahu had taken a handful of steps toward the old king when another aura snapped in startling clarity, a figure passing partially through the Veil as the ancient sorceress embraced the Sight.
“Uli,” Poli‘ahu said.
The old woman sneered. “You’ve truly done it, haven’t you? Walked out of your body and entered this place? And you dared to come here?”
Someone spoke on the far side of the Veil, but the sounds were too muffled for Poli‘ahu to make out, especially with her attention focused on Uli. Probably, they heard her addressing nothing but shadows and thought her mad.
Foolish men always thought sorceresses were mad or talking to themselves.
Poli‘ahu advanced on the old woman. “It seems Kapo isn’t here to protect you this time. What will you do without your apprentice?”
While she had not intended to come for Uli tonight, not weakened as she was from cursing the wereboar, Poli‘ahu supposed it was time to adjust those plans. She did owe the old sorceress death, after all.
Uli began incanting in Supernal, her words reverberating around the house like drumbeats, pounding inside Poli‘ahu’s head and leaving her stumbling.
Shadows coalesced nearby, and Poli‘ahu’s stomach lurched as she realized the woman intended to call something from the Dark itself. One of the Nightmarchers? Was she so powerful?
Poli‘ahu lunged forward and caught Uli’s throat with one hand, rushed cold into it. The assault halted the sorceress’s chant immediately and the shadows faltered, half materialized from the space between the Penumbra and the Roil.
In an instant, Uli turned insubstantial, suddenly gone from Pō.
She’d dropped the Sight.
But time was slower in the Mortal Realm, and the other sorceress now moved as if mired in a bog. Poli‘ahu shook her head. The woman had panicked. Yes, pulling out of Pō allowed her to break Poli‘ahu’s grip, but it was a foolish move of desperation.
Uli would have to face her here, or know she’d feed all their auras to an akua.
Poli‘ahu stepped around the now sluggish woman, and by the time Uli rematerialized after using the Sight, Poli‘ahu had moved behind her and summoned a blade of ice around her wrist.
She rammed it through the old woman’s back, up into her gut.
“I’ll be back for Huma soon,” Poli‘ahu snarled at her. Perhaps Uli still cared for her ex-husband, perhaps not. Either way, it was the truth.
The sorceress’s strength must have faltered, for she vanished once more, dropping to the ground on the other side of the Veil, now a shadow. Pacing around, Poli‘ahu wondered what it would look like to the others.
They’d have seen Uli talking to the walls, then suddenly spit up blood and collapse. She would die, slowly, unable to incant anything while choking on her own blood.
How easy it had been, really.
This woman Poli‘ahu had dreaded for years, dead in the space of a few moments. She and her hateful apprentice Kapo had haunted Poli‘ahu’s nightmares for so, so long.
And in the end, Uli was just an old woman who died from a knife in the back.
Sooner or later, Kapo would hear of it, would come for Poli‘ahu, and perhaps might prove more of a challenge. But now, after tonight, she was almost looking forward to it.
She started to leave, then paused. Why wait for Huma? Would the loss of both sorceress and king all at once utterly break the invaders?
Milu, she hoped so.
So, she threaded her fingers into Huma’s aura and tore off a piece for Kalai-pahoa.
The wereboar, the sorceress. The king.
One by one, all fell to her.
And once the siege was broken, then she’d do the same to Pele.
Though exhausted and in pain, Poli‘ahu allowed herself a smile.
An hour before dawn, and Hina was up, wandering the fortress. Poli‘ahu watched the queen, unable to sleep herself. Maybe too tired for it, though her skin tingled with excitement.
The Kaua‘ian queen saw her watching, and made her way over to where Poli‘ahu sat against an inner wall. “You’re up early.”
Poli‘ahu offered a wan smile, not bothering to say she was up late.
The other woman settled down beside her. “You seem troubled.”
“The siege grows tiresome.”
Hina let a hand fall lightly on Poli‘ahu�
�s knee. “What would it take for it to end?”
The death of every last Kahikian, maybe. Except, Poli‘ahu didn’t want to see Hina dead. “Submission.”
“Whose?”
“Your people must submit to mine. You want a home in our islands, you don’t get to replace our culture—though I might allow some of you to join it.”
“You want me to submit to your will …” The woman’s voice was breathy, warm, and too close to Poli‘ahu’s cheek. Her power tickled Poli‘ahu’s skin, and massaged her brain, and stroked her thighs, all with no more than words.
The kupua who could seduce anyone with her beauty.
Poli‘ahu could fortify her will, drive the queen off. But, Milu, she was tired of fighting. Tired of suffering for this.
“Yes …”
Hina held her gaze a moment before brushing aside Poli‘ahu’s skirt and lowering her head, doing what they both knew Poli‘ahu wanted. But the Kaua‘ian queen sucked in a sharp breath as she looked close at Poli‘ahu’s sex.
She didn’t ask about the source of such injuries, though, thank Milu.
Didn’t force Poli‘ahu to explain she’d been repeatedly fucked by a creature with a wooden cock and then possibly had tiny spiders gnaw their way out of her. She could never explain it, what a sorceress suffered. No one who didn’t touch the Art could begin to understand the agonies, or the reasons behind them.
“Gentle,” she said, and that alone seemed enough for Hina.
Never had Poli‘ahu had a more gentle lover.
Only after, lying with her eyes closed and at peace, did it strike her. Earlier tonight, she’d murdered Hina’s mother and her uncle. Before that, she’d cursed the woman’s brother to a slow, painful death.
And here she was taking Hina as aikāne. Trying to share these few, precious moments with her. The woman who had no idea what Poli‘ahu had just done to her ‘ohana.
They said sorceresses always lost themselves over time. They lost the parts of themselves that made them human and became something else entirely.
A twinge of guilt snared her, but only a small twinge. She should have felt more, but then, maybe that part of her was also missing now.
Whatever pity she had left, she’d save for those fool enough to still oppose her.
32
“Follow this tunnel straight for maybe two miles,” Molowa said. “You’ll find the Place of Darkness.”
Kana snorted. “What? This is as far as you go? Don’t you want to protect your investment?”
The menehune chuckled. “Not even I could protect you from what lies in the Place.” With that, the Earth spirit turned away and slunk back the way they had come.
Namaka watched him disappear into the shadows, not quite able to still the shudder building in her gut. The way he had spoken of the Place left her queasy and wanting to turn back. That was impossible, of course. No, she had come too far to give up now. Lives hung in the balance. She just had to keep telling herself that.
Besides, considering Kana’s candlenut torch only managed to illuminate a handful of feet in any direction, how much darker could the Place of Darkness really be? The shadows down here grew so thick one could almost choke on them.
“You shouldn’t have made that pact,” she whispered.
“It’s all right. I like rocks.”
Jokes. He was making jokes. Trying to comfort her. With a grin, he pressed forward, forcing her to follow or be left in total darkness. One of the spirit worlds was a world of darkness, of living shadows, bent to the will of dark masters. What did that even mean, though? Controlling ocean or fire made sense, those were real things. But darkness? Was that not just the absence of light? But if it was a spirit world, it was a manifestation of creation. A living, writhing force, watching them. Such thoughts left her mouth dry.
Through Nyi Rara, Namaka knew Nightmarchers came from the World of Shadows. A place even mer feared. Perhaps all the other spirit worlds feared that one. The true source of eternal night, which might, in its own way, be the uttermost depths of Pō.
Whispers had begun to echo through the tunnel, somewhere far off. Far ahead, perhaps. As she continued on, the floor grew unusually slick and warm. Namaka pulled Kana to a stop and knelt to examine it. As the man knelt beside her, his torchlight gleamed off the ground. It was black—blacker than a moonless night—and polished to a reflective shine. Obsidian.
Their gazes met, though neither spoke.
Kana rose slowly, then pressed on down the tunnel. Damn it. Obsidian came from volcanoes, didn’t it? Was the whole cave growing hot? It was. Despite Kana by her side, Namaka felt alone, small. If only Milolii were still alive, were here with her now.
After all Namaka had been through, all she’d seen in Avaiki, nothing here ought to still frighten her. But an anger seemed to suffuse the entire cave. Something dark and oppressive and deeply, disturbingly familiar.
It knew her.
The tunnel abruptly turned upward in an almost sheer slope, although the obsidian facets made a series of shelves in the wall. Kana held the torch high overhead, staring into the darkness. Namaka couldn’t see anything up there and her eyes were better than any human’s. It appeared up was the only way to go from here.
Sweat slicked her back and made her palms clammy. Not ideal for climbing. “You’d better let me go first. Keep the torch high, so I can see.”
He nodded.
She grabbed the lowest ledge and immediately jerked her hand away as the obsidian sliced her palm. The gash wasn’t deep, but it hurt like a jellyfish’s sting. Namaka stared at the line of blood dripping from her hand. This would be beyond unpleasant. And it was definitely hotter above them.
“Be very careful where you step,” she said. Instead of grabbing the lip of the ledge, she pushed her palms against the farthest part she could reach and used it to heft herself onto the shelf. The next ledge stood roughly at her eye level. A gentle prod confirmed it too was sharp enough to cut through her flesh like a knife. Gingerly she ran her fingers along the edge until she found a section where it jutted forward in a wedge rather than a blade. That edge stuck out over the tunnel, away from her current ledge enough she’d have to hang over open air to climb it. Seeing no other way, she jumped off her platform and pulled herself onto the wedge. It gave no indication of faltering under her weight, thank the ‘aumākua.
“You’re stronger than you look,” Kana mumbled from beneath her.
“Mermaid.” A mermaid had to be strong enough to swim swiftly, to manage the pressures of the deep sea.
Now she stood maybe twenty feet above him, leaving her only deep shadows with which to find her next climbing point.
While she debated, Kana climbed until he could pass the torch up to her. Namaka moved away from the wedge, giving him a place to climb, and used the light to inspect her new perch. From the look of it, this shaft opened up into a larger chamber, maybe another thirty feet above her.
Unfortunately, the lowest ledge she could spot was maybe forty feet across the shaft and she had no way to tell if the lip was sharp. She shook her head. Well, a fall from this height wouldn’t kill her. It would just hurt. A lot. Fine. Pain was only pain. She flung the torch across the gap. It landed on the shelf, sputtering and skidding briefly.
“Wait, you’re not going—” Kana began.
Namaka backed against the nearest wall, then shoved off it. She had only the barest space to get a running start, then she flew through the air. She caught the shelf under her arms. A scream broke from her throat as the obsidian dug into her arms and chest, and she slipped. The slide only deepened the gash until all she could do was whimper.
“Namaka!”
“Stay there.” She had to push away from the shelf just a little, and doing so sent fresh agonies running through her trembling arms. She pushed her torso straight up, then fell forward, earning herself cuts on her legs in the process.
At least she was on the damn shelf. She lay on her back, panting. A gash over her breastbone
trailed hot liquid into her armpits. This was too much, too hard. She prodded the cut on her chest. It stung, but it too wasn’t deep. She let her arm drop and shut her eyes a moment.
Hi‘iaka. It was all for Hi‘iaka.
“Are you all right?” Kana called.
“I’m fantastic.” Leagues away from the ocean, exhausted, traveling with a man who’d sold his soul to an Earth spirit. Oh, and she’d almost sliced her own breasts off. “Best day I’ve had all day.”
And what right did she have to complain to Kana? Not only did she probably have more strength and stamina than he did, he knew if he succeeded, he was damned to spend the rest of his life a slave to that menehune. And if he failed, then his brother would die along with him. However hard she had it, he had it worse. Which meant she really couldn’t lie here wallowing in pain.
Namaka rolled over and climbed to her feet once again, grabbing the torch in the process. There was another shelf here, and more handholds, beyond which she could see the upper lip of this shaft.
“We’re almost there,” she called back to Kana. “Do you think you can make the jump, or should I—”
A shadow swooped down on her from above, cutting off her words. Before she could even turn and see it, the thing landed atop her, digging knives into her shoulders. The torch fell from her hand and she screamed in agony, her vision fading in a haze of red. A sudden rush of wind hit her face and her stomach lurched as the shadow hefted her airborne by whatever had pierced her shoulders. For a few heartbeats it carried her upward in total darkness.
Then her attacker released her and she plummeted. Heart in her throat. Couldn’t see to even brace for—
She landed on a hard, hot rock, the impact knocking all breath from her lungs.
Dimly, perhaps a few heartbeats later, perhaps longer, she realized she wasn’t in total darkness. Incandescent light radiated off a waterfall of lava deep in the cavern, becoming a river complete with splashing rapids.
The moment she managed to get a breath, the first sound she uttered was a moan. Everything hurt. Her crash into the rocks had dulled even the agony in her shoulders. She turned, trying to sit up, but only managed to roll onto her side.
