Flames of Mana

by Matt Larkin

  “Punches a hole?”

  “Sorcery calls etheric beings from beyond the Veil. Ghosts, spirits, gods, demons, whatever term you prefer.”

  “Uh … you’re not actually making me feel much better.”

  Lonomakua chuckled, shaking his head. “You, who would be a pyromancer, who would look into the dark and know what lurks there so as to protect the rest of mankind? It is not for us to sleep well, child. We look, so that others need not do so. So that they may sleep while we watch over them. That is the gift of the fire.”

  Over the years, Pele saw Lonomakua change little. Though he never said it, she began to suspect he was like her, kupua. Descended from akua, and thus, aging more slowly than a mortal. Of course, she should have realized sooner, for who else could train a kupua save another of her kind?

  And he had been right about everything.

  He taught her control. More than enough control to have her pleasure of lovers wherever they went. He taught her power, enough she knew she could set the volcanoes to erupting if she wished. And—she liked to think—he taught her wisdom. He told her a thousand mo‘olelo and they endlessly debated the lessons in those tales. He taught her the topics of philosophy and how to think.

  He tried to teach her patience, too.

  She was not convinced that one had worked.

  One day, they walked in the shallows on the north shore of Kahiki, staring at the endless Worldsea as the sun was setting. It glinted off the waters, almost blinding, but Pele refused to look away.

  “The sun is like a fire,” she said.

  “In a sense, maybe. I like to think the sun and stars are holes through which we see light from beyond the greater darkness surrounding us. At least, the sun suppresses or drives off many denizens of the Otherworlds and weakens sorcery.”

  “But Maui fought La, the Sun akua. Broke his legs and forced him into submission.”

  Lonomakua frowned slightly. “Not everything that walks in sunlight is good for you. Other people, most especially, may prove your greatest foes. In ignorance, fear, or anger, they kill one another by the droves. Sometimes we can save them from themselves and sometimes we cannot.”

  Still, no shallow comforts. And, in the end, Pele decided she liked him for that. He did not lie to her, did not coddle her, and did not treat her as though she were unworthy to know the truth of existence, even when that truth seemed painful. That, she thought, was the very measure of respect.

  The summons came when they returned from exploring sea caves on the western shore of Uluka‘a. Lonomakua had wanted to show her where blood still stained the cavern walls from sacrifices offered to the mer of Hiyoya long ago. But he’d led her out from there, as if he’d known they would meet the runner on the shore, come to call them back to Mother’s palace.

  She was here. She was sending for them.

  Pele looked to the kahuna, but he said nothing, and she had no choice save to press forward and find out what the woman wanted.

  Only twice in the years she’d spent training with Lonomakua had Pele seen her mother. That neglect had festered like a rot inside her, in sharp contrast to how the kahuna treated her. And then, like a pustule lanced out, he’d helped release the pressure of her anger by forcing it to the surface.

  She’d ruptured a volcano, spewing poisons into the sky, but in so doing felt as if those very poisons had been released from her own chest.

  “Anger is poison,” he’d told her again, and she knew he spoke the truth. But still, even if the pressure had abated, she knew something deep inside smoldered. Maybe the fires of her wrath would never be fully quenched.

  They came to shore, where Mother’s palace rested, long since rebuilt after Pele had burned so much of it.

  It was not Mother who came to meet her, though, but a young girl, perhaps fourteen, striding barefoot along the sand and offering a single wave. Was that … Kapo?

  Pele had met her once, when she and Lonomakua passed through here.

  After Pu‘u-hele’s … after Pele and Namaka had murdered their sister, Kū-Waha-Ilo and Mother had returned with another child, a replacement named Kapo. A quiet girl who had always followed Pele around like a puppy, asking for every secret the kahuna had ever taught her big sister. Maybe it would prove Kapo’s fate to learn such secrets, but Pele had not thought it right to tell a child of the horrors lurking at the edge of the world.

  Except, now her sister had the look of a young woman, and Pele could feel mana flowing through the girl. Kupua power. How would it be for her? Had it already manifested into something like what had happened to her or Namaka?

  “Kapo?” Pele managed to ask.

  “Pele. Namaka’s already here, she’s waiting for you on the rocks by the bay.”

  Namaka was here too? Pele cast a glance over her shoulder at Lonomakua, but the kahuna’s eyes gave away nothing, as usual. Had he known Namaka was also summoned? What was this about?

  “Go to your sister,” he said. “I’ll speak with you later.”

  Pele blew out a breath. ‘Aumākua, she hadn’t seen Namaka in … seven years? She’d met her only once in all the time since her sister had left with the mo‘o, Milolii, and it had been … tense. Like the woman had something sealed inside her chest she desperately refused to release.

  Kapo led the way and Pele fell in step beside her little sister. “What’s she like?” she found herself asking.

  Her sister scrunched up her face. “Huh? Who?”

  “Mother,” Pele said. “What’s she like?”

  “I don’t know, she’s … she’s my mother.”

  “Right. And she’s still a woman, coconut brain. Tell me what it was like, growing up with her.”

  The chance neither Namaka nor Pele ever had, though Haumea had stayed to watch over Kapo.

  She scratched her head. “Well … she, uh … she talked about you and Namaka sometimes. Oh, she plays the ‘ūkēkē in the evening.”

  Pele had forgotten all about that, hadn’t thought of it in years, but she remembered … ‘aumākua, she couldn’t have been more than four years old. Sitting under the shade of a big koa tree, listening to her mother play, welcoming the sunset. Almost, she could hear the melody again, bringing back the smell of poi and the sound of laughter. Her laughter. Pele shook her head. And her mother had talked about her … had not forgotten her.

  But beyond that, Pele hardly remembered Haumea. The woman was around even less than her … than Kū-Waha-Ilo. They were a strange pair, and she could not understand why they remained together.

  Her sister was staring at her. She must have the most wistful look on her face. But Kapo couldn’t understand.

  “Must have been hard, growing up without her.”

  Well, maybe she could understand. Pele nodded, not trusting herself to answer, or to ask what she really wanted to know. Was her mother like her in some way? Maybe all Pele was came from Kū-Waha-Ilo, but she had to hope there was something of her mother inside her, too.

  “I always wanted to get to know you more,” Kapo said. “I used to brag to the other children. My sister was a flame kupua, right? I mean, you and Namaka, both, but I’ve seen her more times than you. I don’t think she likes me much, though.”

  Oh. Pele could guess why. The timing of Kapo’s birth meant their parents had deliberately replaced Pu‘u-hele, wanting another heir. They wanted three children, for whatever reason. And looking at Kapo was a reminder of the secret crime Pele and her sister shared. But while Lonomakua had helped Pele face that pain, had anyone been there for Namaka? Could a dragon ever fulfill that role for a person?

  “I need to see her. Can I meet you later?”

  Kapo blew out a frustrated breath. “Fine. Whatever.” The girl abruptly rose and fled, almost running along the beach back toward the palace.

  Pele grimaced. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Kapo’s feelings, but meeting Namaka would prove complicated enough without the added emotions generated by another sister’s presence.

  For a moment, sh
e sat with her eyes closed, focusing on the meditative trance Lonomakua had taught her. It slowed her mind and her heart. Mostly, she used the trance to absorb mana more quickly from the environment, but it had other uses, like calming herself.

  She rose and made her way up onto a rock outcropping overlooking the sea. Namaka sat upon a rock at the very edge, looking not so much changed from the last time Pele had seen her. Her hair blew in the breeze and, slowly, she turned to look back at Pele.

  Whenever Pele imagined seeing Namaka, she wanted to imagine things going back to how they were, as children, when her big sister had all but raised her while no one else cared. She wanted to remember running on the hot sand, desperate to cool their feet in the surf. Building sea creatures out of that sand. Chasing chickens around the village. Sneaking out late to drink awa and talk for hours upon hours.

  But one look was enough to say, with utter certainty, that those days had gone from her and could not ever return.

  “Aloha, Namaka.”

  “Aloha, Pele.” The other woman rose and drifted over, embracing her. But the embrace was stiff, like Namaka’s movements. “It’s good to see you.” Said without warmth or even any emotion, save perhaps an undercurrent of anxiety.

  Had the dragon done this to Namaka?

  Or had they done it to themselves?

  Pele wanted to say something, to say anything, that might fill the void, but her mind seemed blank, unwilling to settle on a single line that didn’t seem forced and false. She wanted to tell her sister she missed her, that she loved her. But such things faltered in her mind, refusing to rise to her tongue.

  “Do you know why Mother called us here?” Namaka asked.

  Pele shook her head.

  “She’s leaving.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “She’s abdicating the throne.”

  “So … You’ll be queen, then?”

  Namaka frowned slightly. “She’s declared we shall have joint rulership over Uluka‘a, dividing it as we choose. We shall both be queens.”

  22

  More than once, Poli‘ahu had considered taking mist form, flying down from Haupu, and leaving Kaupeepee to his siege. It had become readily apparent to both sides that Huma could not breach the fortress, could not scale the cliffs, could do nothing save wait on the beaches and perhaps hope to bring some forces around the long way from inland.

  But so much of Moloka‘i was sheer mountains and precipitous drops that any attempt to move an army like that was probably doomed to failure. Certainly any attempt to get enough men onto the narrow cliff to approach Haupu. Even if someone made it there, javelins hurled from the fortress would tear the hapless invaders to pieces.

  So the siege would go on and on—Poli‘ahu pelted them with hail when she felt strong enough, but they refused to break—and she grew frustrated.

  Lilinoe told her some of what went on in Hilo, yes, and Pele’s influence seemed to continue to grow on Vai‘i. While Poli‘ahu idled away her time here, she risked losing ground on her own island.

  Kaupeepee had asked her to join him up on the battlements, then dismissed the nearest warriors, clearly intent to speak in private. What he wanted, she could not say for certain. Perhaps the very same things occurred to him—that this situation seemed interminable.

  “This whole beach has turned into Kū’s shit trench,” he said after a moment. “Way I see it, they’ve got to be even more miserable than us. The ugly cocks should’ve turned and gone home by now.”

  “They have the sea to take fish from. Fresh water from the falls down below.”

  “Yeah? And you’re dropping balls of ice on them every few nights like Wākea’s in some sneezing fit. It’s like they’re too stupid to know they can’t win.”

  Or too desperate. Poli‘ahu had been right. If they gave up now, if they let Hina remain with Kaupeepee, they risked undermining their authority in the eyes of their own people and the ‘aumākua. Whether or not Huma truly cared for his niece, he had to keep pushing here, because the shame of failure would cost more than any number of lost lives due to hail or thrown spears.

  If Poli‘ahu wanted to break them, she needed to beset them with something worse than the risk of getting a skull cracked in the middle of the night. She needed to visit some awful threat upon them, something the fear of which would outweigh even the shame of failure. Better still, if she could make them turn against their own king–but either way, if she drove them off from here, it would be the beginning of the end for the Kahikian invaders.

  “You want me to do more,” she said, hardly looking at him. “You can’t win yourself, and your men grow tired of being caught up in here. The fortress becomes a prison.”

  “Yeah, well, seems like you’re stuck here too.”

  She briefly considered telling him she could fly away anytime she chose, but decided against it. Revealing such power earned her nothing. “I will see what I can do.”

  To work sorcery one needed darkness. Night, of course, brought Pō closer, but besides this, Poli‘ahu had secluded herself in a lower room of the fortress, away from any distractions, and with all given explicit warning not to intrude upon her. She allowed herself but a single candlenut torch, and even that much had Lilinoe squirming in disquiet from across the Veil.

  The Mist akua flitted about the small stone chamber, perhaps in some form of contact with Kahoupokane back on Mauna Kea. Regardless, her form flickered in and out of focus as Poli‘ahu watched.

  “It is time,” Lilinoe finally said, her voice seeming to whisper at Poli‘ahu from all angles. “She agrees. You must leave your body here and trust to your allies to keep you undisturbed.”

  Poli‘ahu frowned.

  The realization of Lilinoe’s intent struck like a crash of thunder. The one pursuit the akua always denied her, always warned against trying: a Spirit Walk. In Old Mu, some had called such a feat Astral Projection, for her consciousness, her soul, would leave her body and travel the Astral Realm, exploring the greater mysteries of Pō. And if she did so, her body would be left in the Mortal Realm, defenseless. If any threat approached from this side, Poli‘ahu would have no way to know it, much less defend herself. What would happen if her corporeal form died while she was Spirit Walking? Most likely her untethered soul would become a ghost itself, perhaps haunting this cliff forever.

  “Why?” was the only question she could think to ask. Why now? Why, after decades of training, was she finally ready? Why take the risk when surrounded by enemies outside the fortress and even those within who might take advantage of her weakened and defenseless state?

  “In mist form you can spy on your enemies, yes. But your ability to direct the forces of Pō against them remains limited. From the other side, you can hold their lives in your hand without needing a sympathetic link.”

  Oh.

  A curse.

  Lilinoe meant for her to work a curse among the invaders. Not upon a single man of the interlopers, but upon many, a great mass of them. Normally, an effective curse required a sympathetic bond to the victim: a strand of hair, a favored piece of clothing, a wad of spit—something to serve like a scent an akua would follow and use to latch onto the prospective target. Now, though, Lilinoe thought she might manage it without such a connection.

  “What if I cannot return to my body?”

  “Then you will be lost … Caught in the nether winds and remade in darkness. Naught worth achieving comes without risk.”

  How much had been forgotten from the days of Old Mu? And, what of the ages even before that? How many wisdoms, bits of enlightenment, had faded into the mists of time? Poli‘ahu was intent to reclaim what had sunk beneath the waves in the Deluge, but the thought of this had her chest clenching, a sudden, sharp pain in her heart.

  “How do I do this?” she said, proud of keeping her voice steady.

  Lilinoe settled on the floor before her, though, of course, anyone not using the Sight to see beyond the Mortal Realm would never have seen the goddess. She folde
d her legs beneath her, mirroring Poli‘ahu’s pose. “It is the same as the Sight, only envision yourself stepping through the barrier you see. Fall inward. Fall, in all directions at once. Reality itself falls as you fall … or rather your illusions of reality fall. Step into the shadows and accept the truth: they are more real than the Mortal Realm and its so-called light.”

  The akua’s voice had taken on a hypnotic quality, dreamlike, almost, and it pulled Poli‘ahu toward her, though her body didn’t move at all. She was falling now, pitching forward while remaining motionless. Her sense of self reeled with her balance. She became a speck of dust, hurtling around in a blizzard, flung this way and that, aware the storm so vastly exceeded her as to defy comprehension.

  Poli‘ahu knelt on the ground in a blue-gray world. A realm saturated by eternal chill, a misty haze, and shadows that seemed viscous and alive. Lilinoe had become more solid than before, her skin so pale, even her hair. A handful of other ghosts snapped into clarity as she passed into their realm, became spectral herself, though none of these shades crossed too close to Lilinoe.

  She tried to rise but wobbled, vertigo sending her crashing to the ground. Everything around her spun, the whole of this reality a maelstrom spiraling around the world most thought they knew. Long had Poli‘ahu lived aware of the psychic currents composing and pervading Pō, but now she found herself immersed in those tides and finding they vanished out into horrifying vastness beneath her, deeper than all the Worldsea.

  The enormity of it, the overpowering wrongness of creation, suffocated her and stole her breath. If the Mortal Realm was the heart of this maelstrom, the psychic ocean stretched on and on, layer after progressive layer of ever more alien reality encompassing the fragile world mankind inhabited.

  “You see it now,” Lilinoe said. “How truly tiny you are.”