by Matt Larkin
These were the entities now pushing at her mind. Crawling around the edge of the circle. Hunting for a flaw, for a way in. Through her, they might cross the Veil and enter the Mortal Realm to roam free.
“Poli‘ahu?” Aiwohi asked. “You’re missing the luau.”
She spun on him. He had come through the entrance, clearly having ignored the woman she’d posted outside to keep out intruders. And he had trod over a glyph. His foot had smudged a line.
“Get out!” Poli‘ahu shrieked at him.
Eyes wide, the man ducked outside.
Oh, ‘aumākua. What had that imbecile done? Poli‘ahu continued her chant, heart threatening to climb out her throat as raw, bile-inducing panic seized her. Abandoning the hula, she raced over to the marred glyph and fell to her knees, desperately clawing at it, trying to redraw the damaged flourish.
The tight ground resisted her attempts. They were all going to be ravaged by spirits. Everyone in this house, maybe in the whole damn village. Aiwohi might have just turned his home into Lua-o-Milu.
A force hit her like a wave, bowling her over and leaving her lying on her back. She had pulled it to the Mortal Realm, given it power over her. It slammed the backs of her hands to the ground and slowly drew her arms and legs apart. Despite the fear and pain, Poli‘ahu managed to keep chanting. She could afford to think of nothing else. Welts rose on her palms and then burst, dribbling hot blood along her wrists, between her fingers. From the wounds, twin gashes began to spread downward, tracing the length of her arms, up to the inside of her elbows.
She screamed, fighting to continue chanting through the pain, wriggling in agonized horror.
The cuts spread farther, slicing open her upper arms, her armpits. Those without the Sight would see nothing causing her wounds, but to Poli‘ahu’s eyes, a crawling mass of vaguely human things lay atop her, a half dozen of them, biting her arms and shins and thighs and knees and nethers. Those bites left no visible wounds, but it felt like beetles boring through her skin, gnawing their way up her legs and into her gut.
A dozen alien, angry presences poisoned the air and beat across her soul. Those spirits she had called to control the one she needed, some had turned against her. She flung her Will at them, not daring let any escape out into the village. In spreading herself so thin, her concentration against the others faltered. A spirit slipped from her mind’s grasp like a slimy fish popping through her fingers. The moment she lost it, her mind reeled and she retched, her own vomit caking her face when she couldn’t roll over.
It was here. She had tried to let it dip into the baby, turn it. But now that spirit had slunk all the way inside. The child was possessed. Most likely, she had just created a new Shifter. But even so, through her connection to the spirit, she felt it turn the baby—turn itself.
Slowly, the other spirits receded back into Pō as her spell ended. The power that had pulled them close to the Mortal Realm expended. Except, whatever force held her down still bored into her, perhaps trying to take her body as well. Before it could do so, Waiau coalesced near her.
The snow akua hissed, latching onto a shadowy being atop Poli‘ahu with claws of ice. Waiau wailed, a sound of horrendous lamentation that made Poli‘ahu want to gouge out her own eardrums. The creature atop Poli‘ahu—a lapu—convulsed. Its eyes froze into blocks of ice a foot from Poli‘ahu’s face, then cracked, raining crystal shards down onto her. A cloud of mist billowed from its chest, even as its tongue froze.
Waiau flung the lapu away and it hit the ground with a crunch, then broke apart. The other spirits fled from the snow akua.
Finally released, Poli‘ahu rolled over and spit, coughing out blood and phlegm, and panting. The Sight fled from her.
Her eyes watered at the agony. Pain wracked her sides, her whole body. Everything hurt. Ninole and her baby had paid the brunt of this price, but because of Aiwohi, Poli‘ahu had not exactly gotten off easy. She lay there several moments, trying to catch her breath. Finally, she wiped her face and rose to her knees. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sleep.
The sister was watching her in obvious horror, probably having had no idea such terrors would result from her request, and having seen nothing save the effects the spirits had upon Poli‘ahu herself. Now she knew. And the truth was, they were all damn lucky. The baby was possessed, and Poli‘ahu had been tortured, but things could have gone much, much worse.
30
The ache in Pele’s shoulders presented a constant temptation to climb Kīlauea and luxuriate in the crater, letting the scalding magma infuse her with mana and thus accelerate her kupua healing. Instead, she had restless nights and tedious days, accompanied by the reek of herbal pastes Lonomakua had spread over the wounds. The poultice prevented festering, even obviated the pain somewhat, but hardly proved half so effect as a few hours immersed in lava would have.
But then, she’d have to survive the climb and manage to reach the summit without ripping her own shoulders off in the process.
Instead, she looked to Naia who led the discussion among the court. Advocates from Kohala and Hāmākua had come to hear her talk of unification. A good sign, given those districts had longed fallen under the sway of Poli‘ahu and the Savai‘ian dynasty. Pele welcomed their presence, even as she read the pensiveness on their faces, the tension in their shoulders.
These ali‘i were chiefs under their respective queen and king, lacking the authority to make a final alliance, but she had to believe they had come to negotiate in good faith. Thus she listened while Naia laid out terms that would see peace reign on Vai‘i—once all had sworn their oaths of loyalty to Pele and acknowledged her the high queen of the island.
She listened, and she watched the courtiers wince and grouse and give ground little by little. They knew, in the end, with Poli‘ahu missing, no chance remained to them. Hilo and its army had fallen, their Snow Queen had abandoned them, and the resistance on Moloka‘i had crumbled. The old dynasty had broken.
The war was over, and all that remained now was for both sides to admit as much.
Well into the night the former queen spoke with the advocates, Pele grateful she didn’t have to step in. The posturing would have proved tedious even had pain not held her in its crushing grip. As it was, she wanted nothing more than to rest and down a half dozen gourds of awa.
She imagined, however—with a smirk—the courtiers might frown upon seeing their god-queen passing out in a drunken stupor in the midst of formal peace talks.
When her guests had withdrawn, Lonomakua came to her bearing a gourd of awa as if he had read her mind. Read her face and posture, really—he was far superior to her at such things. While the fires granted him visions of the future at times, Pele suspected a not insignificant degree of his prescience came from reading people as much as from pyromancy. He saw more than others and predicted likely outcomes and motivations, seeming to guess right more often than not.
A skill no doubt honed down through his centuries of life. He had lived so long she’d have sworn he must have gone again and again to the Waters of Life, save that legend claimed Maui had never reached them. The Firebringer was thick with his own mystery, but the truth was, Pele loved him regardless. His was the parental warmth she had lacked from either of her birth parents. That Namaka claimed he had taken her in to snatch her power out of Kanaloa’s cephalopodic arms mattered little.
Indeed, he had probably done her a favor. Certainly, she had lived a better life than she imagined many of the he‘e god-king’s subjects enjoyed.
After a long, blissful sip of the awa, she looked up at him. “I think I have to go to Mauna Kea.”
Lonomakua took the gourd back from her, sipped it himself, then wiped his lips with one finger, never taking his gaze off her face. “Is that wise?”
Pele snorted. “You mean because last time she nearly killed me?” He said nothing, so she plodded onward. “I can’t say about wisdom save this: no one is certain whether the Snow Queen returned to her mountain ref
uge. Suppose she’s up there, plotting against us, working her sorcery even, while we celebrate the advent of peace? So long as she lives, I cannot afford to risk becoming complacent and have her strike when we least expect it.”
“Consider the possibilities that may unfold if you make such a trek. Either you find her there, or you do not. If you do not find her there, your worries compound. Where is she? Did she fall in Haupu? Certainly many bodies were crushed under tons of rock or cast into the sea and never recovered. Or did she escape and, if so, is she now scheming across Sawaiki?”
“What if I do find her?”
“Suppose you do?” He spread his hands. “Can you overcome her power in the midst of her own domain? The potential rewards for climbing Mauna Kea are vastly outweighed by the potential perils. The best-case scenario you might achieve is finding her and managing to slay her and end this, but we both know you would find yourself hard-pressed to defeat her up there, in her element.”
“Fine,” she snapped, motioning for him to return the gourd, then taking another long draught. “Fine. Look into the flames and tell me where to find her, then. As you say—either she’s returned to Mauna Kea or she hasn’t.”
She half expected him to tell her to look herself, to hone her own pyromancy. Despite the kindness he bore her—the father’s love—his lessons rarely coddled her. Always, Lonomakua had pushed her to learn, to uncover her own truths. To work for every bit of knowledge. Instead, he scooted along the floor to the fire pit, and stared into the flames.
Was it sympathy for her wounds? Or did his fears weigh more heavily upon him than he let on?
Fears for her, for the future, for them all. Of a sudden, she found herself inclined to ask him about Namaka’s claims. How long had Maui striven against the he‘e god? What end did he foresee to all this? But she would not draw him from the trance necessary for divination now. No, she watched, waiting.
He stiffened of a sudden.
Before he could say anything, she too felt something. Like a bitterness in the air she couldn’t quite taste and yet could not help but feel. A disquiet—no, a more palpable dread—as if the world retched in violent convulsions.
Lonomakua backed away from the fire. Looked to her, open distress replacing his ever-calm expression.
“What was that?” Pele rasped.
“A psychic reverberation running through Pō … powerful as a kai e‘e.”
Something had changed. The world had changed.
Looking into Pō, wandering the night, Pele caught sight of currents in the shadows, eddies more turbulent than usual, like aftershocks. Perhaps it was her imagination. Perhaps she saw what she expected to see. Certainly, the shadows were affected by emotion and thought. Still, she could not quite imagine what might have caused whatever she had felt, but it left a hollow in her gut and a chill that set the hairs of her arms on end.
Outside the village, she drew amid the trees, desperately hoping to catch sight of an owl. Maybe Pu‘u-hele could not speak, but somehow seeing the ‘aumakua felt as if it would offer some answer. Some reassurance.
Lonomakua had told her only that Poli‘ahu had not returned to Mauna Kea. That, and he had withdrawn into himself, staring so intently into the flames she might have judged him asleep. He offered no response to any entreaty, and thus she found herself out here, searching for her dead sister as if she might solve this.
Had the Art caused this disturbance? She had no way of knowing how many sorcerers and sorceresses called Sawaiki home, though she imagined at least a dozen. Uli was dead, Kana had told her, but still there was Kapo and probably a number of others besides the Snow Queen. Each of them no doubt worked the Art on many occasions, and Pele had never felt something like this before.
A psychic kai e‘e Lonomakua had called it. The very idea churned her stomach. The madness, the hubris of it. Kanaloa had created the mo‘o from the taniwha. Was it him? Was Namaka right about everything? Right to believe the he‘e god was the greatest threat in all the Worldsea? Her sister claimed the god had moved them all like kōnane pieces, that his schemes stretched back to the very Deluge.
The weight of such accusations felt choking. Preposterous. Plans laid almost five thousand years before? It was absurd.
The jungle flared with hot mana, though not from Pu‘u-hele. A woman strode from the forest, her steps thick with animal grace and a predatory gait.
Pele dropped the Sight to better see her, but in the darkness couldn’t make out a face. She snapped her fingers, igniting a torch in her hand, then held it out to her side to clear her vision. Closer the figure stalked, until firelight at last gleamed off her face. And Pele fell back a step, stammering.
A kahuna she had not seen in decades. Not since shortly after Haumea had abdicated the throne and named Namaka and Pele the Queens of Uluka‘a. A not just a kahuna, but a mo‘o, though Pele had never seen her saurian form.
Kilioe, daughter of Milolii.
Pele realized she had begun to draw a hand up over her mouth and jerked it down. She would not be made a fool by this creature. She was a child no longer. “Should I even ask how you’ve come here, or was this always where you had fled after I ascended the throne?”
The mo‘o smiled a faint, enigmatic smile, still too full of her own self-importance. “The time has come to discuss your true loyalties.”
Pele snickered. “They are not to you. I know what you are now, dragon.” She shook her head.
Kilioe seemed unperturbed. “I am but a servant.”
“To Kū-Waha-Ilo? Haumea? Milolii? Kanaloa?” Pele shrugged. “I don’t care. I serve no one save myself and the people of Vai‘i. This is my kingdom now, and you were not invited.”
“The Lord of the Deep engineered your very birth, Pele. You are everything you are because he bred your parents, called up your soul from the darkness, and created a weapon. You owe him life.”
For some reason, she found her mind flickering back to Makua-kaumana, the so-called prophet kahuna who had proved to be a mo‘o attempting to control her. Was that, too, Kanaloa, attempting to regain the tool snatched away by Lonomakua? Oh … was Makua even that dragon’s name, or rather a ploy by the he‘e king and a subtle jibe at her mentor?
And he failed. She had killed him, killed Kū-Waha-Ilo when he tried the same, and now she might well have to kill Kilioe. A thought that soured her stomach. She bore no love for the mo‘o, but … But then this kahuna was one of the last vestiges of her childhood. She had instructed Pele, taught her meles, politics, and tabus, offering lessons her own mother had failed to impart.
For that, at least, Pele could manage a shred of gratitude.
Slowly, she shook her head. “I’m not Kanaloa’s weapon. I have no part in your war or your schemes or any of it. I don’t want to have to kill you, Kilioe. So please, if anything in our shared history meant a damn to you, stop the other mo‘o from coming after me. Just leave this island.”
The dragon sneered, her eyes flashing with heat for an instant. “Turn your back upon your creator and you face damnation.”
“I don’t. Want. Your war.”
Kilioe’s growl filled the night air like thunder. But the mo‘o turned and vanished into the jungle without another word.
31
A bounded silence permeated Tenebrous Chasm, shaped by the walls, an absence given form. Nyi Rara couldn’t help but think back to coming here with her father what now seemed so long ago, though only a decade had passed in the Mortal Realm. Back then, this place had seemed both more fathomless—for Namaka’s sense of water now allowed her to create a mental picture of the descending trench below them—and yet somehow safer.
Because she’d been unaware of how deep the ocean floor pitched away back then? Or rather because she, in ignorance, thought herself safe and protected by her father’s presence. Ikatere, heir of Dakuwaqa, Prince of Mu, whom she had idolized. Ikatere, who had plotted with Hiyoya, betraying Mu in a perhaps vain attempt to reunify the split kingdoms. Who had lost the most preciou
s of all treasures in his gambit and paid for his trespass with his own soul.
And with the scales stripped from her eyes, she looked into the darkness and saw the festering rot that had permeated Mu back down to the beginning. The self-indulgence of opulence, the self-importance of dominance that built their enemies for them in every corner of the Worldsea, within and without. Dakuwaqa and his son Ikatere had luxuriated in Mu’s grandeur and grown drunk on it, even as Namaka had once passed languorous evenings in awa-induced stupors.
Namaka had failed her people in her implacable wrath, this she knew now without doubt. And Nyi Rara’s ancestors had failed their people through arrogance.
The play of shadows in the trench only deepened with every fathom they descended, colors bleeding out into a cool medley of blues and grays, not so different from passing into Pō. For indeed, the deepest places of the world often passed close to the Penumbra, reality proving far more tenuous than most mortals liked to imagine. They knew, in their hearts, that the dead watched them from the shadows, judged them, more often than not hated them. They knew, too, that elder things lurked further down, powers they could never understand and only hope to placate. Powers like mer, serving as envoys of benthic realities humans would have preferred to pretend did not encompass the whole of creation.
Was it willful ignorance, or self-preservation in choosing to look away from one’s own insignificance? Was there a difference?
Either way, she would become something other than what her ancestors had been. Yes, the sea was her domain, her birthright, and she would rule it. Nor could she deny the mercurial nature of the sea that coursed through her veins as surely as mortal blood pulsed through Namaka’s. No, but Nyi Rara would not give in to the wanton cruelties of the past. She would become … a mother to the seas, a guardian. If she could … if history permitted her that indulgence.
