Fires of Eden

by Dan Simmons

  Eleanor and Paul unbuckled and clambered out of the machine, crouching instinctively to get under the idling rotors. The wind was strong even when they reached the edge of the heliport pavement and were outside the rotor blast.

  Mike twinked on the red cabin lights, waved, and then darkened the bubble. A second later the rotor sound deepened, the agile machine seemed to balance on its skids, and then it was in the air and pitching away to the north, navigation lights blinking.

  “Molly was there, wasn’t she?” Paul said when the red and green lights disappeared in the low cloud.

  “Yes.” Eleanor hugged her arms to her and shivered, even though the wind was warm.

  “What did she say?”

  Eleanor started to speak and then hesitated. “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “I remember her chanting something, but it was as if she was speaking to me on another channel at the same time.”

  “The Pele kahuna can do that,” said Paul. “At least with other women.” There was an undertone of bitterness in his voice.

  Eleanor realized something. “You…you and your uncles and the other kahuna…you tried calling to Pele to rid the island of this resort, didn’t you? You called Pele before freeing Kamapua’a, Pana-ewa, and the others.”

  Paul did not answer, but even in the dim light Eleanor could read the truth of her statement in his face.

  “Things are out of balance,” the curator said at last “The old ways…the old chants…many do not work. Pele does not respond as she did to our ancestors.”

  “It is the rape,” said Eleanor.

  “What?” Paul seemed startled.

  “The rape,” Eleanor repeated, surprised at her certainty but certain nonetheless. “For centuries, your hog god… Kamapua’a…has raped Pele at his whim. It has thrown things out of balance. Their battles used to be part of the scheme of things, but the rape has ruined that.” She looked at the paved path and the golf course beyond the bougainvillea in the darkness. “It is like this resort, too much of a violation.”

  Before Paul could speak, brilliant headlights swept over them. Both of them took a step back, but the vehicle roared up the access road and turned onto the heliport asphalt at high speed. Brakes screeched.

  “I’d get in if I were you,” Cordie called, leaning out of the Jeep. “It’s gonna rain up a shitstorm here in a few minutes.”

  They both clambered into the Jeep, Paul in the back and Eleanor in the passenger seat, just as in the helicopter. They had turned and were driving back toward the Big Hale before Eleanor said, “This is my rental Jeep. I still have the keys. How did you get it started?”

  “Hot-wired it,” said Cordie. “And it isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies, either. Trust me.”

  “Why?” said Paul Kukali.

  “Why isn’t it that easy? Well, for the first thing, the ignition wires aren’t just dangling down there ready to be stripped and braided. Although with this stupid Jeep it wasn’t much more…”

  “No,” said Paul. “I mean, why did you do it?”

  Cordie glanced at them. Her lank hair was blowing back over her ears. “There are weird things loose tonight. But you know that. Or at least you do, Nell.”

  Eleanor nodded. “We have to go down there tonight. Into the Underworld.”

  “Tonight?” said Cordie. “Jesus Christ, kid.”

  “Impossible,” called Paul from the backseat.

  The Jeep pulled up under the porte cochere. The lobby was dark. Not even a candle glowed.

  Eleanor twisted around in her seat. “Why impossible?”

  Paul Kukali made a motion with his slender hands. “There is a short time in the morning when the gods sleep. Then the Underworld is unguarded. At night… Kamapua’a would eat your soul.”

  “Fuck Kamapua’a,” said Eleanor. She thought, Did I say that?

  Paul frowned. “Kamapua’a is part of our religion, Eleanor. He is as important a force as Pele.”

  “Perhaps,” said Eleanor, “but he is also a rapist. And a pig.” She took a breath. “If Pele is to stop him from slaughtering everyone on this coast, we have to free the haole spirits so she can act.”

  “Did Molly Kewalu tell you this?” asked Paul.

  “Yes,” said Eleanor. “No.” She frowned and rubbed her brow. “It’s hard to remember exactly what she said.” Looking up again, she said, “But we have to go down there soon. And you have to go, Paul.”

  “I’ll go with you, Nell,” Cordie said softly.

  Eleanor set her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Thank you. But it has to be a man and a woman. You read Kidder’s journal.”

  Cordie made a face. “Maybe that’s out of date.”

  “No,” said Eleanor. “A man and a woman. Paul…you started this. Will you go down with me?”

  The curator sat in silence for a long moment. Cordie could hear the palm fronds rasping far above them. Lightning flickered behind the Big Hale. “Yes,” he said at last. “But not tonight. It would be death. At first light.”

  Eleanor sighed, although whether it was from frustration or relief, even she was not sure. “All right.”

  “That’s settled,” said Cordie. “Now I have a suggestion.”

  The two listened.

  “If this was one of them stupid movies my boys used to watch,” she said, “we’d all split up now and head in different directions and the monsters or the guy in the goalie mask would pick us off one at a time. That’s the point in the movies where I always start rooting for the monsters ’cause they’re smarter than the good guys. Get my drift?”

  “I agree,” said Paul. “It will be chaotic tonight. We should stay together.”

  “Or leave,” said Cordie. “I liberated the Jeep. We could drive up the highway thirty miles to the Mauna Kea, or Kona Village, or the Mauna Lani, and watch HBO until the sun comes up.”

  “No,” said Eleanor. “Mike said they will probably evacuate this resort in the morning. If they did it before we got back, we would never get into the Underworld.”

  “Gee,” said Cordie. “That would be terrible.”

  Eleanor stared at her friend. “You read Kidder’s journal. You know how important it is.”

  “Yeah,” said Cordie. “All right. But we stick together. I say we make a run for the west staircase, get up to my suite, light the lanterns, lock the doors and windows, and play poker till dawn.”

  “Agreed,” said Eleanor. “But I have to go back to my hale first.”

  It was Cordie’s turn to stare. “Why?”

  “I left Kidder’s journal there.”

  Cordie tapped the steering wheel. “Shit. OK, but we go back now. And we go together. And we come back here together.”

  The other two nodded and Cordie drove past the entrance to the Big Hale, down a service road along the south side, and then onto the garden path. The Jeep took up the entire paved path, but Cordie did not slow below thirty miles an hour as they swerved past the Shipwreck Bar and accelerated toward the hale area. Headlights illuminated thick foliage. It began to rain.

  Pulling up in front of Eleanor’s hale, Cordie slammed the Jeep to a stop, and said, “Paul, you get behind the wheel. Me and Nell may be wanting to leave in a hurry.” She jumped out, pulling the pistol and a flashlight from her bag.

  “Cordie, you don’t have to…”

  “Shut up, Nell,” said Cordie. She played the light over the stairs and porch. “Even the torches weren’t lit tonight. Come on. You open the door and step back. I’ll use the light.”

  They did just that. Eleanor felt a trifle melodramatic, as if they had watched too many police shows on television, but Cordie seemed completely serious as she kicked the door wider and swept the interior with her flashlight, pistol raised.

  The hale was empty and exactly as Eleanor had left it except that the bed had been made. She retrieved Kidder’s journal, tossed her toilet kit and a few other loose things in her bag, zipped the bag shut, and they were out the door within a minute.

  P
aul had turned the Jeep around. Cordie jumped into the back and let Eleanor have the front seat. The Jeep accelerated up the narrow path toward the Big Hale.

  The fallen tree lay across the asphalt trail just short of the Shipwreck Bar. “Oh, shit,” said Paul.

  “Go around it,” said Cordie. “Put it in four-wheel drive and cut through the bush.”

  Paul shook his head. “No, it’s too thick. Too many rocks and pipes. We’ve got to find another way.”

  “The beach,” said Eleanor. It was only twenty yards to their left. If they backtracked, they could take the path by the small pool to the beach and then up to the Big Hale.

  Paul nodded and put the Jeep in reverse. The falling tree would have landed on Cordie if he had not had the quick reflexes to slam on the brakes. As it was, Cordie went over the back of the Jeep and into the waving palm fronds of the fallen tree.

  “Cordie!” cried Eleanor, half coming out of her seat.

  “Oh, shit,” said Paul Kukali again. Something in his voice made Eleanor turn.

  In the headlights, clearly visible despite the pounding rain that reduced visibility to twenty feet or so, stood the huge black dog, the twisted shark-man, a reptile-shaped creature filled with swirling fog, and a hog the size of a small car. The hog and the dog smiled with glistening teeth. The shark-man turned so that sharper teeth were visible on his back. The fog creature showed a reptilian smile. Other things moved and crashed in the brush.

  The Jeep’s engine died. Paul set his hands slack on the wheel, his jaw sagging.

  Eleanor tried again to climb over the backseat to see if Cordie was hurt, but before she reached the back of the Jeep, strong hands grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the vehicle.

  “I am not allowed to touch you, woman,” said the hog in a smooth bass voice. “But the others can.” Pana-ewa swirled around Eleanor, his shape swallowing her.

  The shouts, both male and female, soon turned to screams, but the Big Hale was several hundred yards away and not even screams could be heard over the sound of the storm and the band playing for Byron Trumbo’s penthouse dinner party.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The stars were burning.

  Hot were the months.

  Land rises in islands,

  High surf is like mountains.

  Pele throws out her body.

  Broken masses of rain from the sky.

  The land is shaken by earthquakes.

  Ikuwa, the showery month, reverberates with thunder.

  —chant attending the birth

  of Wela-ahi-lani-nui, the first man

  June 18, 1866, In an unnamed village on the Kona Coast—

  No sooner had I heard the silence that bespoke the giant pig’s awakening, but the earth shook and I was thrown to the floor of the lava tube. Rocks fell, stalactites tumbled, and the ghosts around me swirled like phosphorescent plankton stirred by a swimmer’s kick.

  At that second I was sure that I was doomed, destined to die naked and alone in the Kingdom of the Ghosts, but a second later the ieie vine snaked down with the loop already tied. Again the earth shook and again I was thrown from my feet, but the fissure above had not closed and I hurried to tie the loop around my waist and to secure another loop around my wrist the way Mr. Clemens had shown me. A second later and I was rising toward the light, bruising my bare feet against the rough cave wall as I kicked for purchase. The haole ghosts rose with me, whirling and spinning like agitated dust motes in a shaft of sunlight. There was a roar in the tunnel far behind me, although whether it was the sound of the earthquake or of an awakened and infuriated pig god, I could not say.

  All thoughts of decorum had fled as I scrabbled and crawled onto the fissure ledge, breathing in the humid air while being all but blinded by the light. The earth continued to shake, there was the stench of sulphur in the air, the sky was tinged a bloody orange, spirits of the missionary dead flew into the light around me and dissipated like fog in a strong wind, but at that moment all of my attention was focused on the apparition before me.

  I confess, I began laughing and could not stop. Still naked as Eve and on my knees in an attitude no Christian woman would hold for a minute even in solitude, I could not move I was laughing so hard.

  “What?” said Mr. Clemens, dropping the vine but still holding the coconut gripped firmly under his arm. “I needed them for traction to pull you up, Miss Stewart,” said the correspondent, blushing more furiously than any time previous.

  I tried to stop laughing. I did. But it took several minutes, with the earth shaking around us and the volcano in full eruption behind me. The image of Mr. Clemens pulling so earnestly on that vine, the coconut containing the immortal remains of our missionary friend firmly clamped in his armpit, wearing nothing but the tall boots he had taken time to pull on and his rising blush…you will pardon me for my moment of hysteria.

  Mr. Clemens held the coconut in front of him like a fig leaf. “If you are quite finished,” he said rather archly, “I suggest we dress ourselves and leave this place. It seems that Madame Pele has begun her day’s work.”

  At this I did turn and look across the great amphitheater of dried lava. Flames erupted from fissures less than a mile up the mountainside. Lava flew hundreds of feet into the air and great clouds of sulphurous gases drifted across the rocky landscape. The stony terraces that had been only a residue of ancient lava falls an hour ago were now red with molten streams, flowing and dripping even as I watched. The lava would reach this point in mere minutes, if it had not already, pouring underground through the lava tube we had just vacated. It was a sobering sight.

  It took us less than a minute to dress, although I admit to leaving some stays unfastened. It felt strange to have garments on again, as if my short time of Edenesque innocence with Mr. Clemens had awakened racial memories of our earliest days in the Garden. But I was glad for the sturdy riding skirt as I leapt astride the saddle. The horses were terrified by the noise and shaking and stench, but Mr. Clemens had tethered them with an expert hand and they had not succeeded in fleeing with the panic visible in their rolling eyes. We spurred the beasts on and headed north and east. Behind us, the lava flowed like a sudden spring flood, igniting the few shrubs and patches of grass that grew in the old pahoehoe field. We had no glowing will-o’-the-wisp to guide us on our return trip, but Mr. Clemens had taken notice of the way and although the horses were exhausted, they climbed the long slope with a determination spurred on more by the volcanic cataclysm behind us than by actual spurs. Mr. Clemens held the coconut firmly wedged against the pommel of his saddle as we rode. “It would not do to lose Reverend Haymark after all this trouble,” he suggested at one point. “The coconut might roll into a grove of coconut palms, and after decanting the nut we chose and hauled miles back to the village, we might find that we had returned with a native horse trader or some such.”

  “That is not funny, Mr. Clemens,” I said, although for some reason, most probably my severe exhaustion at this point, it did seem mildly amusing.

  We rode on into the morning. Several times the entire island seemed to shake with such ferocity that we had to dismount and hold the terrified horses. Boulders careered down the slope, smashing every bit of shrub or small ohi’a tree in their way, while behind us, the clouds of ash and smoke served to hide the sun. Once, when we had paused thus and were holding the horses through sheer strength of will, Mr. Clemens pointed down the long slope toward the coast. At first I could make out little through the shifting smoke and cloud, but then I saw the cause of his alarm: from miles out at sea, a wave of gigantic proportions was rolling in toward land. At this point we were several miles above sea level and had nothing to fear, but the sight of this great wave—tsunami I believe the Japanese call them—quite took my breath away.

  From our vantage point we watched as the giant curl of green water crossed the line of cliffs far below, then moved relentlessly across groves of coastal palms, snapping them out of sight as with a conjuror’s sleight of hand and th
en moving on. At this distance the wave looked harmless enough, just a larger wave among many that had come before, but it was all too easy to imagine the terrible destruction it was wreaking as it passed. I thought of the temples we had seen and the village where we had spent the night—two sleepless nights ago!—and wondered if they lay in the path of that terrible marine juggernaut. The wave crossed the half mile of lava bowl we had left in such a hurry, and when the water struck the fissure of boiling lava, such a gout of steam rose that I confess that I flinched, as if Mr. Clemens, our horses, and I were to be parboiled like shrimp in a pot.

  The steam cloud did not come within a mile of us, but it did obscure the most hideous part of the scene—the carnage of that great tsunami retreating to the sea, carrying huge trees, native homes, and living things miles out to the trackless depths.

  We rode on. In the aftermath of such excitement, the fatigue which followed was even more absolute. Several times I awoke to find that I had been sleeping while sitting up in the saddle. My hands, legs, and feet were scratched and bruised from the climbing and cave exploring we had done au naturel, and we still stank from the rancid kukui nut oil that neither of us had taken time to rub off in our haste to depart, but not even this constant discomfort could keep me from dozing off as we rode.

  In early afternoon, perhaps an hour from the village we sought, Mr. Clemens called a halt. At first I was too groggy with sleep to understand this delay—there were no earthquakes taking place and we had escaped the worst of the smoke and ash—but then I looked to my poor horse, Leo, and realized that his neck was arched and he was drinking. We had come upon a great rarity in this porous volcanic landscape—a temporary mountain stream of clear, cold water.

  I Immediately dismounted to drink. While little of the precious liquid made it to my mouth via my cupped hands, I hesitated to imitate Mr. Clemens’s mountain-man method of simply lying on his belly and slurping up the water like a dog. I do admit, however, that his method was more efficient.

  When we had drunk our fill and our horses were standing there dozing on their feet, I suggested to my companion that we use this bounty to clean some of the oil from our bodies. My tame correspondent agreed and we each adjourned to the relative privacy that a large boulder could provide—Mr. Clemens upstream and I down—and I proceeded to sponge myself off as best I could without actually undressing. Of course, by this time, the terrible odor had permeated the clothing that had been in contact with the greasy oil, so even though I was able to pull another riding blouse and clean pantaloons from my saddle-bags, the majority of our efforts were for naught.