by K. D. Keenan
Their wanderings brought them to the foot of a waterfall. It fell hundreds of feet down the side of a cliff into a large pool. Sierra looked at it longingly. It looked cool and inviting, the rocks all around covered with bright green mosses and flowering plants. She looked for tī plants, found them, and bundled several leaves together, setting them to float on the surface of the pool. They bobbed around merrily, indicating there were no mo‘o present. Without thinking twice, she shucked off her dirty clothes down to her underwear and dove into the pool. When she surfaced, pushing strands of hair from her face, Chaco was still standing by the side of the pool, looking discomfited.
“C’mon in!” she shouted to him. “The water’s fine!”
But he shook his head. “Nope. I’d have to take off the vest. I’d lose all my powers in an instant. Horrible sensation. I’m not doing that again. I don’t mind watching you, though.”
Sierra lounged and swam in the deliciously cool water, listening to the sound of the waterfall and enjoying the scent of flowering vines that grew all around the pool. The basin was quite deep, so she took a long lungful of air and swam down as far as she could. Surfacing, she exhaled loudly and splashed about, feeling like an extra in some tropical extravaganza.
As evening began to close in, she decided she’d had enough and climbed out of the pool by the soft light of the rainbow. She grimaced at having to put on her dirty clothes, but there was no help for it.
“Hungry?” she asked Chaco. He nodded, and they wandered back to the clearing in the center of the village. As before, fresh food awaited them. The men and women who served it were friendly and smiling, but they answered no questions. Typical immortals, thought Sierra. Can’t give a person a straight answer.
Then there was nothing left to do but go to bed. Kama hadn’t appeared for dinner. The men and women were returning to their hales, and finally the only light remaining shone from the blazing net of stars overhead—and the ever-shining rainbow. Sierra and Chaco waited for a while, hoping Kama would reappear, but he did not. They rolled themselves up in kapa cloths under the lanai and fell asleep to the sound of a gentle rain pattering down on the sleeping village.
Kama woke them in the morning. He was dressed in what Sierra now recognized as high formal dress. He wore a red and white malo. Around his neck, he wore the carved whale’s tooth pendant that marked him as an Ali‘i and a chief. Over his shoulders he wore a red and yellow feather cape, and on his head he wore a crested helmet also covered with red and yellow feathers. He stood stiffly in front of them, head erect like a Roman statue.
“I go to seek Pele,” Kama announced. “Whatever fate awaits me, do not forget me or my deeds.” He looked off into the distance, his chin held high.
“Not so fast, Big Guy,” said Chaco.
“Yes, we’re coming with you,” said Sierra, scrambling out of her kapa cocoon.
Kama lowered his gaze, frowning at his guests. “It’s too dangerous. Stay here, where you’re safe.”
“We’ll be fine. I’m an Avatar, and Sierra is…hmm. Sierra has her own powers,” Chaco said.
“You’ll slow me down,” Kama complained. “I travel the ancient paths and you can’t come with me. Even if I wanted you to,” he added crossly.
“We can travel the ancient paths with you,” said Chaco with confidence, though Sierra remained silent, her brow furrowed in consternation.
“We can?” she whispered.
“Shush!” Chaco hissed. Then to Kama, “Yep. We’re along for the ride. We should get going. The sooner the better and all that.”
Kama relaxed his heroic stance. “I’d like to get some breakfast first,” he said.
“Me, too!” Sierra said. Then to Chaco, “Can you do your coffee trick?”
It was perhaps forty-five minutes later that Kama, Chaco, and Sierra stood in the center of the clearing while Kama chanted.
“Hold my hand—and don’t let go!” Chaco said to Sierra in an undertone.
“Do you know what he’s doing? Where he’s going?” she whispered back.
“No. But hang on to—aaaaarrrggghhh!”
Sierra felt as though she had been jerked off her feet, but instead of landing immediately nearby, she experienced enormous acceleration. She felt Chaco’s firm hand slipping from her grasp, and grabbed his wrist with her other hand. She seemed to be rushing through a tunnel at great speed, then she abruptly decelerated, making her lose her grip on Chaco. She and Chaco tumbled forward, finding themselves breathless and disoriented in an unearthly landscape.
If it were not for the full moon shining above, she would have thought it was the lunar surface. Although it had been morning in Kama’s land, here it was night. A desolate landscape of sand and rock gleamed silver and black in the moonlight. An occasional overambitious shrub struggled up from the sand, but there were few growing things. Sierra smelled sulfur. Black sheets of ancient lava spread out in wrinkles and swirls under her feet like petrified water. Though the sun had long since set, the barren rock and sand still reflected heat into her face, and she could feel sweat running down her back.
“Where are we?” she asked Chaco, who seemed a bit disoriented himself.
“Best guess? Kilauwea.”
“Pele’s favorite home? Her mai‘i? The volcano? The one that is erupting right now?” Standing on an erupting volcano did not seem like the wisest or safest place to be.
“That’s the one. But we’re not in danger—from the eruption, I mean. Jack told me that Kilauwea has been erupting continuously for decades. The lava flows underground to the ocean most of the time. But we could be in plenty of danger from Pele herself, I think.”
Kama Pua‘a stood on an outcropping of lava several yards from them. His arms were spread wide, and he was chanting. Sierra stilled her pounding heart and listened.
“O Beautiful One,
Flashing in the heavens
Hear me.
O she whose hair is a river of obsidian,
O she whose eyes are the lightning of the heavens,
O she who commands the fires beneath the earth,
Hear me.
I come before you humbled, O Pele.
I come as a supplicant.
I come as a beggar before you.
My life is as nothing when the Beautiful One
Is not with me.
My soul is dry and my bowl empty.
Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, O Beautiful One?
Grant me forgiveness that I might live,
Your adoring shadow, your slave.
This is my prayer, O Pele.”
Knowing Kama as she did, Sierra wondered how much all this abasement cost him. She had to admit that he sounded sincere.
A sudden crackling hiss behind her tore her attention away from Kama. When she looked around, she saw a terrifying—if familiar—sight: a writhing column of flame. Pele, her face so bright and beautiful that Sierra could scarcely look at it, was approaching Kama. And Sierra and Chaco were right in between them. She grabbed Chaco, who was staring, transfixed, and hustled him away. There was a boulder as big as a house embedded in a nearby small hill of volcanic ash; she dragged Chaco behind its shelter. From this refuge, they could look out at the scene below. The mass of the boulder shielded them from the blast-furnace heat pouring from Pele as she approached her humbled lover, who was now on his knees.
Pele overwhelmed all of Sierra’s senses. The column of fire stood perhaps twenty feet tall, and the roaring of the flame was deafening. Molten lava poured in a continuous flood down her body, spreading around her feet, black where the lava cooled, with bright cracks of golden-red flame between. Her hair was a waterfall of fiery snakes, writhing and hissing. Bright orange and golden sparks flew from her at every step, sprinkling the sky with ephemeral stars that glowed and died against the darkness. Though the heat of her presence must have been unbearable, Kama stayed resolutely on his knees before her, looking up to meet her blazing eyes.
“Let us not quarrel f
urther, my only love,” he said, his eyes reflecting her fire. “I will never hurt you again. I promise.” Kama held his arms out to her.
The twenty-foot column halted in front of him as though hesitating. The roar of internal heat and pressure continued as sparks continued to fly up and molten lava oozed around the figure’s feet. Abruptly, the roaring ceased and the hissing died. The sparks cooled and vanished as twenty feet became fifteen, then ten, then congealed into the figure of a woman nearly six feet tall.
She stood straight and regal, a queen conscious of her great power. Her hair rippled down her back to her ankles, no longer fiery snakes but now ribbons of midnight, shining under the moon. She was naked and perfect, flower leis garlanding her shoulders, ankles and wrists. She walked straight into Kama’s arms. He enveloped her in an embrace, their mouths meeting hungrily—and they vanished.
Sierra and Chaco stared. The heat had abated, so they ventured out from behind the boulder. They walked to the spot where Kama had stood. There was nothing but ancient lava, just as before, though the ground still radiated warmth. They peered around. The desolate wilderness around them was empty, glowing eerily beneath the light of the moon.
“Shit!” yelled Sierra. “Our car is way the hell on the other side of this goddamn island!”
Chapter 26
Roberts made his decision, picked up the phone and dialed Peter Chapman. “Find anything yet, Peter?”
“No, sir,” Chapman replied. They discussed the various exploratory dives and tests that had been undertaken in an effort to discover what had gone wrong at the jack ship. After reviewing all the data, they were still left with a huge question mark; apart from the toppled base, there was no evidence that anything untoward had ever happened at that site.
“Well, I’m going to call it a freak accident,” Roberts said finally. “Maybe we were wrong about the footing in that particular site. Leave that one alone and let’s move on to the others. Tell Jack of Hearts to start up again, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he put the phone down, Roberts hoped he was doing the right thing.
• • •
“What do you mean, you can’t take us back along the ancient ways? You got us here, didn’t you?” Sierra snapped. She and Chaco (in coyote form) were tramping through the volcanic wilderness somewhere on the slopes of Kilauwea. The moon was bright enough to avoid most walking hazards, but the terrain was rough. She was grateful that it was nighttime and therefore cooler, but she was thirsty, and they had no water with them—an amateur mistake that made Sierra privately blush. Chaco produced a nice, steaming mug of coffee, but for once in her life, Sierra didn’t want coffee. She drank it anyway, on the basis that it had water in it. It helped, but she’d need a pee break soon. Sierra had brought the backpack with her, so they at least they had food.
“I didn’t take us along the ancient paths, Kama did. I was just hitching a ride.”
“Now that you’ve been on the paths, can’t you find them again?”
“No!” Chaco chopped that one off short. Perhaps he was becoming a bit annoyed as well. They walked in silence for a long time, Chaco trotting easily across the rocks with Sierra stumbling along behind. For the umpteenth time, Sierra wished she understood how magic worked. For instance, if Chaco could produce a mug of coffee, why couldn’t he just as easily produce a cold glass of water? If he could float her across a gap in the lava tube floor, why couldn’t he just levitate the both of them back to the Kohala Peninsula and the comfort of their rental car? His answers to questions of this sort were never satisfactory, but she tried again.
“Um, Chaco?”
“Umph?”
“This is great-tasting coffee. Thanks. Can you also get me some water? Maybe?”
“No.”
“Okay. May I ask why not?”
“I just can’t. There’s no reason.”
“I don’t understand.”
Chaco planted himself on his furry haunches and regarded her, his eyes bright with moonlight. “You and me both. Listen. Do you understand how the universe began?”
“Sure. The Big Bang. Then all that energy and matter spread out and began forming stars and planets and things.”
“Okay. So where did that enormous amount of matter and energy come from?”
“Um…”
“And what was there before the Big Bang?”
“Ah…”
“Have you heard of dark matter? Dark energy?”
“Yes.”
“What are they?”
“Um…kryptonite?”
“Okay. So you don’t understand the basic laws and history of your scientific universe. Is that a fair statement?”
Sierra sipped the last of her coffee. As she drained the mug, it disappeared. Oh, good. No littering. “I guess so.”
Chaco stood up and shook himself all over as though he were shaking rainwater off his fur. He had a good stretch fore and aft, sneezed vigorously, then set off again, Sierra following. “As I understand it, even astrophysicists and cosmologists don’t understand all of it,” he said. “There are contradictions in the theories, right?”
“Yeah. So I’ve heard.”
“So why do you expect the supernatural to be explainable and consistent?”
Sierra supposed maybe this was a bit unreasonable after all. “How do you know all that about the Big Bang and dark matter?”
Chaco snorted and scratched behind his ear with a hind paw. “I can read.”
“But if you don’t know how magic works, how do you know what to do? I mean, day to day?”
“Same as you know how to live from day to day. I learn what works and what doesn’t. Making you a cup of coffee works. Making you a glass of water doesn’t. At least, I can’t do it now, but it’s possible I might be able to do it later. I think it has to do with love. Love is my connection to the numinous.”
“Love?”
“Uh-huh. Have you noticed that mana, magic, whatever you want to call it, is pretty dualistic?”
“What do you mean?”
“Truly powerful magic is either good or evil,” explained Chaco. “That part is simple. Good Avatars use love to create good mana. Evil Avatars use hatred to create evil mana. The mana itself isn’t good or evil, though. Mana is neutral. The wielder determines whether the mana is good or evil.”
Sierra pondered this for several minutes as they tramped in silence. “So all magical creatures are either good or evil?”
Chaco shook his head, making his ears flap. “No, that would be too simple, wouldn’t it? Mana is neutral, and there are also magical creatures that are neutral. Fred would be a good example of that. Of course, Fred isn’t an Avatar.”
“But Fred is good!” Sierra protested, narrowly avoiding twisting her ankle on a loose stone.
“Yeah, well, maybe,” Chaco replied sardonically. “Anyway, Fred’s abilities aren’t tied directly to the numinous. And they aren’t bound to his native land either. He just is what he is. He can’t manipulate mana or increase it, the way you can.”
“What about you? Can you manipulate or increase it?”
“Yes. But I don’t necessarily know what I can or can’t do until I try. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Sometimes if I work at it, I can figure it out. Sort of like learning a new computer program, I imagine. It’s a pain, but if you keep at it, you can succeed.”
Morning found them at a marked trail. They followed this to a small road, and from there hitched a ride into Hilo. (Chaco switched to his human form based on the theory that a coyote—with or without a vest—would be unlikely to win a ride from sympathetic motorists.) It seemed silly to have to go all the way back to Waipio Valley to get the car, only to drive all the way back to Hilo to return it. She couldn’t very well tell the rental agency that it was parked under concealing underbrush somewhere in the Pu‘u O Umi Natural Area Reserve, so there was no help for it.
In Hilo they were able to hitch another ride all the way to the turnoff for Waipio Val
ley. They hiked most of the rest of the way back to their car, though a couple of surfers gave them a lift for a few miles.
At last, Sierra slung her backpack into the backseat of the rental car and slid into the driver’s seat. “I’m exhausted,” she said, gratefully turning on the car’s air conditioning. By this time, it was late afternoon, and hot. “So, now what do we do?”
Chaco looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“Kama and Pele just disappeared last night. We don’t know what they’re going to do.”
“I think we know perfectly well what they were going to do,” retorted Chaco. “I do, at any rate.”
“Not that. I mean, what are they going to do about WestWind and Kauhuhu and Kanaloa?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if Kama forgets again? I mean, he has other things on his…mind,” said Sierra.
“I don’t know. I guess we go back to Moloka‘i and see what’s happening,” Chaco suggested patiently.
Sierra backed the car out from underneath its concealing bushes and pulled onto the road, heading for Hilo and the airport.
• • •
Clancy was bored and worried, always a bad combination. He had wanted to go with Sierra to the Big Island, but had to concede that his presence might be more of a hindrance than a help. He knew Chaco wouldn’t let anything happen to Sierra any more than he would. Now that Chaco had his mana back, he was quite capable of handling almost any situation—but what sort of situations might arise in their quest for the pig-god was beyond Clancy’s ability to imagine.
Now he was sitting in Auntie’s little garden, worrying. Rose joined him and sat quietly for a few minutes.
“Don’t you just hate waiting?” Rose said. “Let’s go do something. I’ve never been to Hawai‘i before, and I’d like to go to the beach.”
“If you ask Auntie Keikilani where to go, I’ll drive you,” he replied. Maybe some beach time would help take his mind off his worries over Sierra. And Chaco too, of course.
A discussion ensued. Auntie was consulted about the best beaches. Finally, they were in their bathing suits with towels and beach equipment was assembled.