Fires of Eden

by Dan Simmons

  “More hours passed. The trees and thickets at the base of the cliff were filled with slaves straining under their burdens. The beach was busy with gods and royal islanders supervising the construction. The torches flickered. The drums beat. The chanting rose above the crash of surf. Hours passed. The heiau neared completion. It seemed as if the sun had been eclipsed so that entire days could pass under the cover of darkness. I checked my watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed. I stared for long minutes until the second hand twitched, vibrated, and then surged forward a single second.

  “Finally, incredibly, the temple was completed. The gods and chiefs and warriors and their slaves gathered around it. As if on some celestial cue, the wind roared in from the sea at twice its previous ferocity. Torches flickered and died. The scene was now lit by the glow from the unearthly bodies of those present. When I was a child in my small town in Missouri, we would gather lightning bugs on a summer’s evening and bring them to our room in a jar. This light was not unlike that glow: pale, greenish, redolent of death.

  “What happened next is the wondrous part. It was difficult to see from my place of concealment, but the music ceased, the chanting halted, and the pale forms on the beach arranged themselves according to some hierarchy…as if waiting. They did not wait long. Several figures emerged from the sea. The glowing chiefs and gods on the beach made way for them as the figures made their way from the surf to the beach, from the beach to the heiau, from the base of the heiau to its upper terraces. I say figures because the forms which emerged from the sea were…fantastical…to say the least. The central figure was in the shape of a man, but even from my distant vantage point I could see that it was far too large to be a man, and far too insubstantial. He…it…appeared to be formed of…well, fog. Sea spray. Cloud. Some insubstantial vapor.”

  Here the boy, Halemanu, exclaimed, “Pana-ewa!”

  “Nonsense,” said Reverend Haymark. “Pana-ewa is a myth.”

  The boy did not even look at the cleric, but spoke to Mr. Clemens in a soft voice. “Pana-ewa has many bodies. Kino-ohu is his fog body. Pana-ewa attacked Hi’iaka, Pele’s sister, with his fog body.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Clemens, pausing in his tale long enough to strike a Lucifer match and light one of his cigars, “the figure I saw tonight had a body of fog. Swirling fog. I could see the glow of the tall bodies through this swirling fog. And he was not alone. The retinue which accompanied him from the sea included a normal-enough looking man—a native—who wore a sort of cape over his shoulders. By and by, as events proceeded, those on the sand below brought a bleating goat to this man, who lifted it to the fog-shape above…”

  “Pana-ewa!” breathed Halemanu.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Clemens, puffing his cigar alight. “Pana-ewa, we will say. This caped fellow lifted the live goat as if in offering to Pana-ewa, and then dropped the cape he was wearing and set the goat on his back, as I have seen shepherds do when carrying one of their flock. Only what happened next…” Mr. Clemens stopped and cleared his throat, as if overcome by some emotion.

  “What?” I asked, glancing toward the dark window. A small bird had landed there and its fluttering had startled me.

  “The goat began bleating more pitifully, terribly…and with that frenzied noise there came another sound…a cracking and rending, as if of bone and sinew. And then, even from my distant vantage point, I could see that the goat was…disappearing.”

  “Disappearing?” repeated Reverend Haymark. The cleric was still holding the small silver flask which Mr. Clemens had returned to him.

  “Disappearing,” affirmed Mr. Clemens in a stronger voice. “Being swallowed up by some sort of…aperture…on the man’s back. I could see now that the woven cape had concealed a massive hump where the fellow’s spine should be, and on that hump…an opening.”

  “A mouth,” said Halemanu softly. “This is Nanaue. He is shark man. He sometimes serves Pana-ewa.”

  We all three stared at the child. Finally Mr. Clemens said, “There were others in this retinue…small men, twisted, gnarled in feature and form…”

  “Eepas and kapuas,” said Halemanu. “They very treacherous. Very treacherous. Also serve Pana-ewa.”

  Mr. Clemens removed the cigar from his mouth and stepped closer to the boy, staring down at him thoughtfully. “Another form had emerged from the sea,” he said softly. “A dog. A large, black dog that stayed near the right hand of the fog-man.”

  “Ku,” Halemanu said simply.

  “Ku,” repeated Mr. Clemens and sat down heavily on the dirt floor. He looked at me. “Then, when the goat had been devoured, the chanting ceased. The fog-man raised impossibly long arms and… I do not know how to describe this…he became…something else. I saw a tail. I perceived scales. I remember yellow eyes. The reptile thing still had arms and these remained raised. Then there was a stroke of lightning which blinded me for a moment…” Mr. Clemens seemed to notice the cigar in his hand. He returned it to his mouth, frowned, relighted it with a new match, and said, “When I could see again, the gods were gone, the chiefs were gone, the torches were gone, the dog was gone, the strange little gnomes were gone, and the fog-reptile man was gone.”

  I cleared my throat. “And the heiau was gone?”

  “No,” said Mr. Clemens. “The stone temple was still there. I looked at my watch. According to my own senses, many hours had passed…perhaps as much as a day. According to my watch, less than thirty minutes had expired. I came back here.”

  For a moment the three of us white people seemed to be only an assortment of wide eyes staring at one another. Finally, I said, “What do we do next?”

  Halemanu tugged at my sleeve.

  “In a moment, child,” I said, still looking to the men for guidance. The tugging continued. Vexed, I removed my arm from the boy’s grasp and said, “What is it?”

  “We go now!”

  “We will confer…” I began.

  The boy shouted, “We go now!”

  It was Mr. Clemens who calmed the child with a touch. “Why must we go now?” he asked.

  Halemanu pointed to the window. “Birds. Little birds.”

  I looked over at the black square. The birds had gone. I smiled at the boy’s fear of some of God’s gentlest creatures.

  “Birds be brothers of Pana-ewa!” said the boy, his voice rising again. “Birds gone. Pana-ewa come!”

  Eleanor jerked her head and shoulders from the hole despite the pressure of hands on her back and quickly pulled back just as the geyser exploded from the fissure. Soaked through but not struck by the full force of the blast, she wheeled on the man standing next to her. It was Paul Kukali, his sunglasses spattered with droplets.

  “Goddammit,” roared Eleanor, her fists coming up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Behind her the geyser roared, peaked, and fell back to nothing.

  Paul took off his glasses and gave her a sheepish look. “I am sorry, Dr. Perry… I saw you, thought you were in trouble, tried to help you out…”

  “By pushing me?” snapped Eleanor. She realized that her hands were still raised, her fists clenched. Her heart was pounding and she could feel the adrenaline coursing in her. If it had come to hitting Paul Kukali, she would not have tapped uselessly at his chest like some idiot female in the movies. Years ago, Eleanor had been assaulted in Port-au-Prince. It had been a simple mugging—the beating had not been serious and she had not been raped—but the experience had been sufficient to send her to self-defense classes that summer, and she took a refresher course at least once a year. If she had used her fists on Paul, she would have gone for the throat, the bridge of the nose, and several other sensitive areas.

  “I was not pushing you, Dr. Perry,” Paul said softly. He was wiping his glasses. Water beaded in his curly hair. “I was trying to get your attention. Did you not hear me call your name?”

  Did I? thought Eleanor. She had been intent on the glow and movement in the cave. That and the sound of water rushing toward her. She said
nothing.

  “I am sorry if I startled you,” said Paul, setting the glasses back in place. “These lava tube blowholes are dangerous. I was afraid you did not know about the surf coming through.”

  “I did,” Eleanor said tersely. She lowered her hands. I need his help. “I’m sorry if I lost my temper. You startled me.”

  Paul nodded. “I understand. Again, I apologize.”

  There came a rushing sound and both of them moved away from the blowhole before the geyser spouted again. “Why were you way out here?” asked Eleanor, wringing the hem of her soaked T-shirt as they walked.

  Paul smiled. “Actually, I was looking for you. My friend Sheriff Ventura was here to ask some questions of us about the…ah…the dog. I found Mrs. Stumpf, but we couldn’t locate you. A groundskeeper told me that he’d seen a lady jogging on the trail and I came out to see if it was you. I noticed the sneaker prints beyond where the paved trail ended and caught a glimpse of you from the peninsula cliffs.”

  Eleanor looked at him for a moment. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around.”

  Paul shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Charlie’s probably gone by now. I gathered that it was an informal investigation on his part anyway. We can call him later. Actually, I had another reason for looking you up.”

  Eleanor waited. They were walking back along the cliff face. She thought of what she had seen in the cave and wondered if Paul knew about it.

  “I finally got in touch with my friend—the helicopter pilot,” said Paul. “As I guessed, he’s busy all day in Maui but could come over about dusk to give us a ride to the volcano.”

  “Oh,” said Eleanor. “Good.” She had almost forgotten about the ride to the volcano. She hesitated a second. “Paul…”

  “Yes?”

  “I have a favor to ask…” She stopped as if embarrassed.

  The art and archaeology curator raised both hands, palms out, and said, “After frightening you like that, I would grant any favor. Name it.”

  “I would like to visit local kahuna,” said Eleanor. “Preferably ones involved with Pele.”

  Paul Kukali stopped walking. His smile had faltered. “Kahuna? Priests? Why, Eleanor?”

  She stopped and faced him. “I have a strong personal reason. I need to talk to them.”

  The curator smiled again. “Are you thinking of converting from rationalism?”

  Eleanor raised a hand and stopped just short of touching his arm. “Paul, I know it’s a big favor on top of the other help you’ve given me…given both Cordie and me…but it would mean a lot to me.” In the silence, Eleanor watched her own reflection looking back at her from Paul’s glasses.

  “Why do you think I know kahuna?” Paul said at last.

  Eleanor chuckled. “I guess I think you know everybody. If you can’t, you can’t. I understand. It was worth asking.”

  Paul sighed. “There are some…they live some miles from here…toward the south where the lava flow is. They may have been evacuated. When would you want to go?”

  Eleanor put her fists on her hips and grinned. “As soon as I change clothes?”

  Cordie would have kept reading straight through Aunt Kidder’s journal if the child’s screaming had not interrupted her. The noise was coming from the beach. The view was partly blocked by palm trees and a grassy knoll, but Cordie could see a young boy—perhaps seven—running back and forth on the beach and screaming. There seemed to be no adults around. She vaguely remembered two children coming by half an hour or more earlier; one of them had been carrying an inflatable raft of the sort one would lounge on in a swimming pool.

  Cordie dropped the journal in her tote bag, hefted the bag onto her shoulder, and leveraged herself out of the lounge chair. The child’s screaming had not abated, had grown wilder if anything. Cordie moved quickly to the beach.

  The boy ran up to her, hands folded together in terror. His face was red from screaming and streaked with tears. Cordie looked around once more for parents or a lifeguard, saw no one else, and gripped the screaming child by his skinny forearms. “Hey, now,” she said. “Calm down, little buddy.”

  The child continued to cry. He pointed out toward the glare of the lagoon. “My bro…bro…brother,” he stuttered through his sobs. “I to…told him…not to paddle out so fa…so far.”

  Cordie shielded her eyes and squinted into the noon glare. There was a boy out there on the inflatable pool raft. The kid had his knees up on the float so the thing was bent almost in two, pillow and bottom end sticking up out of the water. He looked only a year or so older than his brother and was plainly terrified. Perhaps he had reason to be—the raft had floated more than a hundred yards out and seemed to be picking up speed toward the open ocean.

  Cordie looked up and down the beach. Incredibly, there were no other guests and the lifeguard chair was empty. Hell of a lawsuit for someone if the kid drowns, she thought. She caught a glimpse of someone behind the counter at the Shipwreck Bar, but the shack was too far away to shout to and the bartender had his back to the beach. Cordie saw the kayak beached near the lifeguard station.

  “Go get your parents,” Cordie said to the sobbing seven-year-old. “I’ll go fetch your brother.” To herself, she said, Shit. Cordie had never learned how to swim.

  The kayak was made out of fiberglass and had a single round hole for its occupant to sit in. Cordie almost did not fit. It was a struggle to shove the little boat off and then clamber in, but she managed. She dropped the double-ended paddle, but it floated and she paddled the kayak over to it with her hands and picked it up. Luckily there was almost no surf today.

  The boy had not gone for his parents. He was standing ankle-deep in the water and shouting something else at her. Cordie turned to listen.

  “Gregory paddled out there because…because…because of the shark!”

  “Shark?” said Cordie, and realized that she was lifting her feet in the kayak. She squinted out toward the raft. It had floated another fifty yards toward the opening of the bay now and high surf was breaking out there. “I don’t see any shark,” she shouted at the crying boy. It was hard to see in the glare, but no fin had been visible. The area where the boys had been swimming was the manta pool, where the winged creatures were drawn in at night by the lights and had become accustomed to feeding in the day. “Maybe it was a manta,” said Cordie. “They don’t hurt you.” She didn’t think that a manta hurt people.

  The crying boy shook his head. “It was a shark. Only it didn’t have a fin. And it had feet.”

  Cordie’s flesh grew cold despite the 85-degree temperature. “OK,” she said, “go get your parents like I said. I’ll bring your brother in.” She hesitated a second. “Hey!” she called to the running boy. “Throw me that straw bag.” For some reason the thought of leaving Aunt Kidder’s journal behind bothered her.

  The boy wheeled in the sand, picked up the bag, and tossed it out over the water. Cordie had to lunge, but she caught it with two fingers and pulled it in without spilling the contents. She shifted her thighs and crammed the heavy bag down into the cockpit. Then she leaned forward, alternated strokes on the double-bladed oar, and began paddling toward the screaming child.

  “You’re shitting me,” Byron Trumbo said to himself. They were on the seventeenth hole of the north course, almost back to the clubhouse; Hiroshe Sato was winning by five strokes and obviously pleased with himself, when Trumbo looked up to see the giant Hawaiian standing on the edge of the green. The man was shirtless and must have weighed at least five hundred pounds. He was carrying an axe.

  “Ahhhh,” said Hiroshe Sato, looking up from marking his ball and obviously seeing the apparition. “So.”

  Trumbo glanced behind him. Bobby Tanaka and Will Bryant were half a fairway back with the second party. It was just Hiroshe, Inazo Ono, and old Matsukawa on the green with Trumbo. The giant Hawaiian passed the axe from hand to hand as a child would a short baton. Trumbo felt his belt under his Hawaiian shirt: the radio was clipped on one side, the 9mm Browning w
as tucked in the waistband. It had made for an awkward golf game.

  “Relax, Hiroshe,” said Trumbo, grinning at the other billionaire. “This is a fellow we use to clear shrubs. I had a job for him. You go ahead and putt. I’ll just be a moment.” Trumbo set a marker down, dropped the ball in his shirt pocket, and confidently walked toward the giant. On the way he unclipped the radio, switched to security frequency, and said, “Fredrickson? Fredrickson?” Only static. “Michaels? Smith? Dunning?” Nothing.

  Twenty feet from the giant, Trumbo switched to another frequency. “Will?”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Get up here. Bring reinforcements.” Trumbo set the radio back on his belt and stepped closer. The giant watched him approach. Trumbo saw that the man wore some sort of necklace or amulet of bone…large teeth gleamed in the bright sunlight.

  Stopping five feet from the huge Hawaiian, Byron Trumbo said, “You’ve got to be Jimmy Kahekili.”

  The giant grunted and shifted the axe to his right hand. Trumbo thought that the man’s belly was larger than some cars he’d owned. Rolls and wrinkles of fat hung from his neck, chest, and the inside of his arms.

  “So, Jimmy Kahekili,” said Trumbo, glancing at his watch, “what do you want? I’ve got to get back to my friends here.”

  The huge Hawaiian grunted again, and Trumbo realized that the grunts were syllables, the syllables formed words. “You stole our land,” the giant said.

  “I paid for this fucking land. And I pay the salaries of your friends and neighbors who work here.”

  The big man raised the axe to waist height. “You stole all our land. All of the islands. You stole our country.”

  “Oh,” said Trumbo, sighing and letting his right hand go to his hip, only inches away from the grip of the Browning. “You’re talking about all that U.S. imperialism shit. All right, we stole your country. So what? That’s what countries do, asshole. They steal other people’s countries. Besides, I wasn’t around when that happened.” Trumbo tried reading the Hawaiian’s eyes to see if and when the man was going to act, but the man’s eyes were hidden by folds of fat.