Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters

by Mercedes Lackey

  Makana stumbled forward. On the family altar, he saw the red loincloth he’d been found in, but had never been allowed to touch, laid out beside a sacrifice of ’ohua fish, sea urchins, and coral, all sacred to Hina.

  “Ka’ohu predicted that the day you wore this was the day you would leave us. I want you to put it on now.”

  Makana backed up a step. “I can’t, father. Red is for ali’i. For the ruling classes. It’s kapu, not allowed.”

  Kaiko smiled gently. “Why do you think you’ve been allowed to play with the boys of our own ali’i all these years, hmm? With Pono and the rest?”

  “Because . . . because you’re a celebrated fisherman, and because . . . because Mother is the most talented opihi harvester on Kaua’i. You have great power.”

  Both his foster parents smiled at that, but Kaiko shook his head. “No, Makana, it is because this design is that of the O’ahu ali’i.” He lifted the loincloth reverently. “And now it’s time for you to join them.”

  “But I’m no Earth Mage,” Makana protested. His left leg began to throb again and he rubbed at it angrily, tears beginning to spring from his own eyes. “I can’t feel the rocks as Mother can.”

  “No, but the earth is far more than just rocks; it’s plants, insects, animals, even birds and fish who dwell in the realms of air and water. Some of those you can already feel, yes.”

  When Makana dropped his head with a stubborn expression, Kaiko touched him lightly on the chest. “Your power is young, untrained and untried, but strong,” He smiled again, this time a little sadly. “Very strong. We always knew that if we could just get you to pay attention to your lessons, you would make a powerful kahuna one day, or even it seems—” he indicted Makana’s leg, “—a powerful kaula. Numbness in the leg means a journey is imminent.”

  “And a tingling scalp means someone is talking about you,” Makana answered mournfully.

  “That’s right. You see, you do pay attention. I always knew you did.” Kaiko held out the loincloth. “Come now, there’s nothing for it. Take up your past and go to meet your future knowing that no matter where Hina takes you, you will always be ohana.”

  “Always family,” Makana repeated woodenly. Kaiko waited patiently and after a long moment, he accepted the loincloth.

  * * *

  He made the journey to O’ahu in a fog of grief and self-doubt. How can I possibly fight a sorcerer? his thoughts demanded. He couldn’t even walk properly. Although the throbbing in his leg had eased, the loincloth was far too big for him, making him appear bow-legged, and the lei of ki leaves his foster mother had draped over his shoulders just before he’d clambered into Lolani’s canoe kept jabbing him in the arms and chest. The only way he could possibly win through would be if the sorcerer fell over laughing at the sight of him and Keahi set him on fire while he was distracted.

  Around him, the adults either ignored him or left him to his misery, and so it was with a sense of dread that he saw the mountains of his new home rising above the distant clouds.

  * * *

  “You will sleep in the ali’i men’s hut.”

  At home, Makana would have continued to sleep near his foster mother for at least another season, but here Lolani’s family had taken his status as both ali’i and kahuna at face value, treating him as a honored guest despite his youth. Now, lying on a small grass mat, and wearing his old, more familiar brown loincloth, he listened to the sounds of snoring all around him and wondered how anyone ever got any sleep. Stuffing his fingers in his ears, he mulled over his first day on O’ahu.

  The celebrations for Lolani’s return had been diminished by his father’s illness, but the day had still been filled with singing, dancing, and feasting. Makana, unused to sitting beside priests and warriors, and too worried that the sorcerer might make an overt attack against them to enjoy himself, had eaten very little. He’d spent most of his time nervously scanning the gathering, but no one had looked anything like he imagined a sorcerer would. But, since Pono had said that he was cunning, he could have looked like anyone. How an untested and untrained Earth Mage was supposed to . . .

  A huge yawn interrupted him in mid-panic, and he shook himself sternly. Nalunani and the others were proper mages. They would know how to find the sorcerer and how to defeat him. All he had to do was not to fall flat on his face while trying to walk in a loincloth far too big for him. Rolling over on his side, he tried to block out the sounds of snoring and told himself to get some sleep.

  * * *

  He wasn’t sure what awakened him at first. One moment he’d been dreaming about clinging desperately to the rocks of Kawai Point while a shadowy figure in a red loincloth loomed above him, waiting to pluck him from his home and stuff him into a gourd canoe, and the next he was staring, wide-eyed, into an unfamiliar darkness.

  Outside he heard the short, sharp barking of a dog and shivered.

  “Dogs howling at night mean a ghost is near,” he whispered, then frowned. “But a dog barking? He reached out, much as he had with the opihi, and felt the faintest sense of hunger and . . . command? Could a dog command? Rising, he pulled a piece of dried awa fish wrapped in a ki leaf that he’d saved from the feast from under his pillow, and made his way outside.

  The nearly full moon had risen over the mountains, casting plenty of light to see by. Makana wove his way carefully past the darkened huts until he reached the edge of the village, where he saw a small, white dog sitting beside a stand of ’ohia trees, its gaze disconcertingly direct.

  His foster mother’s last words as she’d held him on the beach at Kawai Point drifted through his mind.

  “Be polite to all you meet. Many people and many creatures are not what they seem.”

  Feeling a little foolish, Makana bowed. “Hello, little ’ilio,” he said formally. “Would you like something to eat?”

  The dog cocked its head to one side, its nose twitching, as he unwrapped the fish and tossed it between its paws. It sniffed at it with exaggerated delicacy, then bent its head and ate. When it finished, it stood, and moving into the trees, glanced back at him.

  “You want me to follow you?”

  In the moonlight it looked as if the dog rolled its eyes, but once it was certain he was following, it plunged farther into the trees.

  The dog took him up a narrow path, overrun with maile vines, that wound its way high into the mountains. Many times Makana thought he’d lost it, only to see a flash of white on the path ahead of him, leading him ever higher. The dark trees looming over the path and the unfamiliar sound of night creatures, and probably night spirits, hinted of dangers far beyond a twisted ankle or a fall down a hidden crevasse. He could feel the hunger of hunting animals and even the plants all around him, and once he caught the faintest sense of a wild and savage desire to consume the power of life itself that sent him stumbling quickly after the little dog. It seemed to sense his fear and paused in the moonlight until he caught up, then carried on. Finally, breathing hard, he turned a corner and found a pale-haired girl about his own age wearing a white loincloth standing beside a small path shrine made of stones.

  Makana blinked. “Are you lapu?” he whispered, “a ghost?”

  The girl grinned at him. “No,” she answered, inviting him with a gesture to try again.

  “Kupua?”

  She sniffed at him. “I am far more than a nature spirit, Makana,” she admonished.

  His face reddened. “Akua?

  “A God? Close, but no.” When he looked mystified, she sighed. “I am aumakua,” she explained with exaggerated patience. “Your aumakua.”

  His breath caught in his throat. “My . . . ancestor?” Then remembering his manners once again, he bowed quickly. “I . . . I mean, I haven’t got anything to offer you,” he said apologetically. “I gave all I had to the little ’ilio dog and I . . . oh.” He reddened again as he realized what
he was saying.

  “Yes, the fish was delicious and very nicely offered,” she answered with a laugh. “It will do for now. It will do for me, anyway,” she amended, suddenly growing serious. “But it will not do for Hina.”

  “Hina?”

  She nodded. “It was Hina who sent me to you.” She winked at him. “You may call me ’Ilio for now,” she said with a grin, then sobered. “You’re in danger, all of you. Once the sorcerer has killed Chief Ailana-a-Hakau, he will turn his magics against Lolani and the rest of the ruling family, then Nalunani and her family. He hungers for power over all O’ahu, and eventually over all the islands. You must stop him.”

  “But how?”

  “Hina will help you, just as she did when you were a baby.” When Makana’s mouth dropped open, ’Ilio nodded. “The sorcerer is a powerful prophet as well as an Air Mage,” she explained. “He had a vision that you would help defeat him one day, and so he sent a flying spirit to carry you away and drown you, but your parents prayed for my help and I for Hina’s, and she fashioned a canoe to bring you to safety.”

  “The red loincloth?”

  “Your father’s. I brought it to you.”

  His breath caught in his throat again. “Is he . . . ?”

  She smiled at him. “He’s alive. So is your mother. When the sorcerer’s defeated, I’ll reveal you to them, but for now it’s far too dangerous. You must remain hidden.”

  “Earth is hidden,” he breathed.

  “That’s right.” She turned. “Now come, we have much to do. The chief will not live another three days. We must fashion a shrine and altar to Hina in sight of the ocean before daybreak, and then you must bring the others to it tomorrow night as the moon rises. Only Air, Water, Fire, and Earth magics coming together in secret . . .”

  “Can defeat the sorcerer.”

  “Exactly.”

  It took the rest of the night to locate just the right spot, a leina on a high cliff overlooking the sea where the dead leaped to enter the realm of the spirits, and then to fashion a shrine and altar a hundred yards up the path from it. Makana worked steadily, building up the floor and walls to ’Ilio’s specifications, one layer of stone at a time.

  “Your magic will one day be like this,” ’Ilio said when he was finished. “Built up layer by layer, each one dependent on the strength of those below, and each one giving stability to those above. Once you’ve mastered this, from there you can reach out safely to touch the spirits of animals, plants, even the lapu. And you won’t just sense their innermost feelings as you do now; you’ll be able speak to them and even enlist their service. But for now, it’s best if you don’t reach too far or for too long.”

  She walked him back to the village, pausing by the same trees where they’d first met.

  “Tomorrow you and those who will represent water, air, and fire must gather offerings for every aspect of Hina’s divinity: corals, spiny creatures, seaweed, ohua fish, leaves from the ohia tree and bark from the wauke tree,” she told him. “Most of these Nalunani can draw from the sea. Set the others to gathering the rest.”

  “Set?”

  She laughed at his appalled expression. “Ask, entreat.” She grinned. “Beg. However you do it, the offerings must be ready by moonrise, and they must be gathered in secret; the sorcerer must gain no knowledge of what you’re doing. All his powers are fixed on destroying Chief Ailana-a-Hakau, but he has many birds and flying spirits bound to his service, so be cautious.”

  “I will.”

  “Then until tomorrow, descendant, keep safe.” Spinning about, she took the form of the white dog again and plunged into the underbrush.

  * * *

  The three adults were more willing than Makana had expected. Keahi merely inclined her head. “That’s why we came here,” she said, pulling her knife.

  “It must be done in secret,” Makana repeated hesitantly.

  Keahi showed her teeth at him in a feral grin. “The kaula Pele are never followed,” she said, her eyes glowing red. “My harvest will be secret enough.” She looked past him. “Lolani, I will collect from the wauke tree, you from the ohia. It will elicit less talk if you’re seen; I doubt you’ve ever pounded wauke bark to make cloth.”

  As she headed into the trees, the others shared a quick embrace. “You’re the chief’s son and I your cherished guest,” Nalunani murmured in Lolani’s ear. “How will we ever manage such secrecy?”

  He laughed. “Subterfuge, my intended. We will slip away together and then go our separate ways once we’re unobserved. No one will come looking for us. It would be rude.” He turned to Makana. “Do you remember the cove to one side of the beach where we landed or were you too homesick to take notice of it, little Gift-of-Hina?”

  Makana bristled at both his words and his tone. “I remember it.”

  “Meet Nalunani there. She has the greater harvest, but most can be found in those waters. If you carry them, she can meet me later empty-handed.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Good. The leina is well known to me. I’ll drop my offering off there before we return.”

  He and Nalunani crossed the village, arm in arm, nodding greeting here and there, then disappeared into the trees together. The knowing expressions on the faces of the villagers made Makana roll his eyes, but he had to admit, however grudgingly, that Lolani’s plan seemed to be working.

  And he had to admit that, despite the danger, he spent an enjoyable morning helping Nalunani gather the offerings. The cove was cool and soothing, reminding him of home. When she left to rejoin Lolani he felt an irrational stab of jealously, swiftly quelled. She was a chief’s daughter set to marry a chief’s son, and he was . . .”

  “You are kahuna,” he retorted, startling a small lizard sunning itself on the path as he struggled to bring their harvest to the shrine, “an Earth Mage.”

  “Untested and untried.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  * * *

  The four of them came together again at the shrine just before moonrise. As they arranged the offerings on the altar, each one speaking his or her own prayers, they turned to find ’Ilio standing by the leina. “Amana ua noa Hina,” she said solemnly. “Now your offering has flown to Hina.

  “Makana,” she ordered, “close your eyes and tell me what you feel.”

  Makana obeyed. At first he felt nothing, just as he had that day on Kawai Point, then slowly he began to sense the lives around him.

  “I feel . . . the hunger of little creatures and . . . the hunger of the larger ones who hunt them,” he whispered.

  “And farther?”

  He reached out. “The same, but then . . . a . . . different kind of hunger for . . . power.”

  “Don’t touch that hunger, not yet. Touch the sea, what do you feel on the waves?”

  It was harder, he realized, without the earth to anchor him, but there was earth beneath the waves, so he reached down, touched rock, layered his own power like a shrine just above it, then reached out again.

  And felt something both soothing and frightening at the same time. Something powerful. Something hungry, yes, but not hungry for food or for power, hungry for worship and hungry to return an all-consuming passion gentled by a love so familiar that it was as if he’d known it all his life, had felt it in the arms of his foster parents, and before that in the arms of his birth parents and before that . . .”

  He came back to himself sitting on the ground, tears streaming down his face.

  “All the island people are ohana,” ’Ilio said gently, crouching down beside him and bumping him lightly with her shoulder. “And all are the children of Hina. The sorcerer attacks the very core of who we are, but that core is stronger than anything else in the world.”

  She turned to Keahi. “Although he’s a formidable Air Mage, he’s using flying ak
ualele made invisible by his power to attack Chief Ailana-a-Hakau. That’s where his weakness lies, for although they dwell in the realm of air, they’re fashioned of fire.”

  “Flying fire belongs to Pele,” Keahi replied, showing her teeth in a savage grin. “And with Her aid, there’s no flying fire I cannot capture.”

  “What do you need?”

  “A simple net made of maile vine and strengthened by magic and prayer. My fire spirits will help me fashion it.” She laughed as a pair of glowing red salamanders appeared, chased each other across her shoulders, then hung suspended, swinging, from her hair.

  ’Ilio turned to Lolani. “Hina will make the akualele visible, Nalunani will command the waves to slap them away as they fly toward the chief’s hut, and Keahi will capture and destroy them. The sorcerer then will send the creatures of the air that he commands against you. You must be ready to combat them. What do you need?”

  “Like Keahi, I can ask my own spirits for aid.” He whistled and a dozen tiny elepaio birds appeared to flutter about his head, each one also landing to hang suspended, swinging from his hair.

  “They’re a little small for such a great battle,” Keahi noted, then chuckled as a dozen black alala birds and another dozen nene geese joined the elepaio.

  “They will be needed,” ’Ilio said approvingly, “Once his Elemental creatures are defeated, the sorcerer himself will be forced to do battle rather than have his creatures and his akualele turned against him.”

  She now turned to Nalunani. “You acknowledge the Shark God Kamaka’okaha’i as aumakua?”

  She nodded.

  “Call to him. We will need his strength.”

  “But what am I to do?” Makana asked, afraid suddenly that she’d forgotten him.

  ’Ilio indicated the shrine. “Hide and wait.”

  He felt his face flush with embarrassment. “But I thought I was here to fight the sorcerer like the others.”