Flames of Mana

by Matt Larkin

  All at once, the whispers began to fall silent.

  No.

  No, this was wrong.

  The fire was pushing her back.

  Pele had to face this. Had to accept whatever judgment Pu‘u-hele rendered upon her.

  Ice settled upon her heart, but she extinguished her hands and shoved them back under the waters.

  In the fog, the silhouette appeared. A shadow of a woman, drifting ever closer.

  The ghost stepped from the fog, revealing itself as the woman she’d seen in the volcano. Bedraggled and garbed in a tattered kihei, bits of herself seeming to drift off into the waters and become one with the sea.

  The lapu reached a hand for Pele.

  That hand closed around her neck.

  And it yanked her beneath the waves.

  Of a sudden, cold saltwater burned down Pele’s sinuses and plugged her throat. She thrashed, but arms stronger than any man held her down. Dragged her along the seabed, deeper and deeper. Sand scraped her knees raw as she flailed, tossing about, desperate to fling off an intangible opponent.

  Pu‘u-hele.

  Pu‘u-hele!

  Pele wanted to scream her sister’s name, but no words came into her flooded lungs.

  Just pain and terror and everything growing dark and cold and crushing at once. A haze, a feeling of falling into a void. Passing through it.

  Freezing water replaced her blood. Sludge filled her throat and clogged her ears.

  She was on her knees, watching, unable to look away.

  An infant lying in wet sand, as a wave rose over it, an implacable shadow drawing ever nearer.

  That clutch of absolute terror. A moment of utter betrayal. All she wanted was to be held. To be warm. To be loved.

  “I’m sorry!” Pele wanted to scream, but only sediment and kelp poured from her mouth.

  The wave broke, icy, crushing, horrible. Shooting up her nose. She didn’t know how to hold her breath, she didn’t know how to move! She wanted someone to hold her to help, to save her!

  Terror beyond words, as saltwater scorched her insides, scoured her legs.

  Swallowed her in darkness.

  Pele wept tears of wet sand, the grains scratching her eyes.

  Join me in despair …

  It was not quite words. A sensation, a whisper of despondency that consumed life, a smothering embrace of misery.

  Because the infant’s pain and terror did not end in death.

  The child lay in fathomless shadow, at the bottom of insubstantial waters, while skittering, crawling masses of darkness clambered around it. A cacophony of chitters became her world as her soul fled from day into Pō.

  The nebulous entities might have been spiders or crabs or distorted people walking on too many legs, face down as they closed in around her. Fangs closing in, eager to feast upon life and memory.

  But Pu‘u-hele had neither.

  Had enjoyed nothing of her existence.

  Her soul had made no journey, had never fortified itself.

  All that remained inside her was terror and pain and that ineffable sense of betrayal. Sensations that became essence, not fit for lurkers in the darkness to gorge upon. Not enough to feed anything, except its own rage.

  Those chittering shadows crawled over Pele, though, gnawing on her fingers, her toes, her ears, her knees. A thousand nameless, formless expressions of Pō.

  Pele screamed in pain and terror and … despair. Shame, at … what she had wrought.

  Please … I’m sorry … Forgive me …

  Though she deserved no forgiveness. No absolution was ever possible for such a final fate as she had given her precious, defenseless sister.

  Pu‘u-hele.

  Feed your Light to oblivion … Embrace the darkness …

  She wanted Pele to stay here, with her. And how could Pele owe Pu‘u-hele any less than that? To save her from the loneliness, to remain so that, even if they were in the dark, at least they would be in the dark together.

  “I won’t leave you,” she whispered.

  Pu‘u-hele stood before her now, kihei whipping in the wind, revealing a desiccated, half-eaten face. For an instant confusion crossed her visage, masked the rage in her eyes. She stared so hard into Pele’s soul she felt the lapu passing into her.

  She was dead now, wasn’t she?

  She had entered Pō, drowned, and now was becoming whatever Pu‘u-hele had become.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I won’t leave you again.” She reached a hand to her sister, and the lapu took it, her fingers icy as mountain snow.

  Pu‘u-hele tried to mouth words, but she had never learned to speak and instead only managed a sad smile.

  “I won’t leave you,” Pele repeated. “Forgive me for everything. I am so, so sorry. I … love you.”

  The other ghost cocked her head, and Pele drew her sister into an embrace.

  Death was, perhaps, not so bad.

  As she held Pu‘u-hele, a shudder passed through the woman, and Pele had to pull away, to look upon her face.

  The cracked and broken tattered ruin of her face flickered, seeming to knit itself back together. At once, the holes began to seal themselves with coruscating light as bright as the sun. So bright Pele had to blink. And when she looked again, the ghost had become whole. The woman she would have been in life.

  “I’m sorry I never got to know you,” Pele said.

  The ghost nodded at her. Stroked her cheek.

  Pele shot upward, retching out seawater. More than her lungs ought to have held, more than a dozen people’s lungs ought to have held. Convulsing, she vomited out sludge and kelp and tiny crawling shellfish.

  With a gag, she fell over in the surf.

  The air stung her throat, her lungs, tasting raw.

  She was dead.

  She was dead … and now alive again?

  Gasping in pain, she sat up. Night was fading, but the light was wrong now, gray and blue and lacking in any warmth or color.

  No, she had been wrong. She was still dead. She was still in Pō. Her mind was just struggling to wrap itself around changes in a nonphysical environment.

  On the shore, up in a palm tree, an owl hooted, watching her.

  Grunting with the effort, Pele managed her hands and knees, then struggled to her feet. The ground seemed to sway beneath her and she stumbled, struggling to keep from getting pulled under by the tide.

  The tide …

  She glanced back at the ocean. She could see it, feel it, hear it, smell the brine … though all seemed muted. Such things should not have existed in Pō.

  Was she … she glanced back at the owl, who spread its wings. Something in its eyes, something familiar and deep and wordless called to Pele and drew her to the tree, where she fell to her knees once more.

  “It’s you.” Pele wanted to weep, not sure whether it was despair or relief.

  Legend claimed, some ‘aumākua took the form of animals to watch over their descendants. Sharks or crows or sea turtles. Rats, dogs. Or owls.

  “It’s you,” Pele said again, and sighed.

  She was alive. And she was looking into Pō.

  Pu‘u-hele spread her wings again and took flight, flying off into the early morning sky, north, away from Puna. Away from Pele.

  Freed from her torment, Pele dared to hope.

  The thought broke her, and Pele collapsed on the beach, sobbing softly, hand over her head, calling her sister’s name over and over.

  Pu‘u-hele …

  Pu‘u-hele …

  Pu‘u-hele …

  24

  Days Gone

  The island’s interior was a vast wilderness of mountains and valleys—all covered in jungle. Pele had trekked through it with Lonomakua, but navigating the wilds was never easy. She shook her head. She needed to find Kū-Waha-Ilo.

  Did he even know what was happening now?

  “You’re going to leave in the night?” Lonomakua had asked her.

  “I have to. I can reach t
hat valley in a day if I hurry.”

  The kahuna nodded, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Be careful.”

  He’d tracked her father for her. Lonomakua was an expert tracker. She had neither the time nor the disposition to learn such arts and it was, in fact, rather surprising the kahuna had managed to do so himself.

  “A person can learn to do just about anything,” he had told her once. “One need only make the choice to do so, and be willing to sacrifice something else.”

  “Sacrifice?” she had asked.

  “Every choice comes from sacrifice. The death of other opportunities, the loss of moments that can never be reclaimed.”

  The valley Lonomakua spoke of was practically inaccessible to humans. Sheer greenery-covered mountain slopes dropped off three hundred feet or more, accompanied by numerous waterfalls pitching down into a river flowing through the jungle. Only by trekking through a narrow pass in that jungle could a person even hope to access this place. It seemed Kū-Waha-Ilo valued his privacy.

  Pele, however, didn’t care what her father valued.

  Was this where he’d hid all these years? She doubted it. The man had probably left Uluka‘a many times since Lonomakua had taken her in for training.

  Fifteen years of training, two years as queen, and Pele didn’t feel half ready for this.

  Haumea had abdicated the throne, declaring that Uluka‘a should be divided between Namaka and Pele. As if they even had the first idea how to begin to do something like that. But they had managed.

  Namaka had claimed most of the coastal territories, leaving the mountains and volcanoes and the far west to Pele. That suited her well enough, she supposed, though part of her longed for the days when she and Lonomakua wandered the world alone, talking for hours upon hours. Now, Pele had her own court, other kāhuna advising her, chiefs offering tribute, warriors to manage.

  All well and good, expect now Kapo, a little sister Pele barely even knew, was leaving Uluka‘a forever.

  Everything had gone mad.

  Mother had allowed it, Kapo said, though no one else had seen Haumea in two years. Their father hadn’t even shown up. Maybe he knew what was happening, maybe not. Either way, he needed to get off his arse and do something. So, Lonomakua had tracked him down for Pele.

  Sometimes, she thought Kū-Waha-Ilo deserved to be purged from the Earth in a cascade of flame. Even the thought of it built a rumbling in her chest she had to struggle to contain. Vibrations surged from her, would have sent the ground trembling, seeking to erupt and bury the entire valley before her in a blanket of lava.

  She’d hardly even seen him since he’d beaten her. It had taken years of Lonomakua’s tutelage to realize just how badly her father had failed her. Both her parents had failed her and Namaka and clearly Kapo, as well.

  Shaking, Pele knelt by the river and dunked her hands, raising a few sips to her mouth.

  With a sigh, she rose and flung the water from her fingers. Despite her best efforts, Pele had not managed to draw further strength from the flames, the way Lonomakua kept urging her to. Maybe one day she’d have the calmness of mind and heart to do such a thing. Not today. Today she could taste rage on her tongue like sulfuric vapors, acidic and foul and desperate for release.

  She followed the river toward the valley until she came to a circle of ki‘i masks, each three paces tall. Unlike the familiar gods of her people, she recognized few of the fearsome visages. Ghosts, perhaps. A slow smile crept over her face. What lengths Kū-Waha-Ilo had gone to just to remain hidden here. Any that even braved the jungle would be stalled by the masks, never daring to enter such an ancient, protected place. Surely walking here was tabu.

  Pele walked on anyway.

  The waterfalls emptied into a pool that itself dropped into the river over another fall. The locale was so pristine Pele had to pause for a moment and take it in. How could a being so foul choose a place so divine to live in? The crash of water muffled other sounds, even the sound of her own approach. As she neared the pool, however, a woman surfaced from beneath it. She was perhaps Pele’s age, beautiful, and looking far too at home here in the valley. Could Lonomakua have been wrong? Had Kū-Waha-Ilo never come here at all?

  The woman started at Pele’s approach, then swam over to where she’d left her pa‘u. Eyes never leaving Pele, she wrapped the skirt around her waist, then placed a flower wreath on her head like she herself was some princess.

  “Where is Kū-Waha-Ilo?” Pele asked when the woman approached her.

  “Who are you?” Haughty. His mate? Perhaps thinking herself important, mated to a kupua. Never imagining what Kū-Waha-Ilo did with his discarded playthings.

  “Where is Kū-Waha-Ilo?” Pele repeated, taking a step forward and letting flames creep into her eyes.

  The woman recoiled, her bravado broken in an instant, mouth trembling. She glanced back at the pool as if she thought diving in might protect her.

  Pele advanced until she stood close enough the other woman would feel her radiant heat. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  Eyes wide, the woman jerked her head toward the far side of the pool. Pele stared in that direction, but she didn’t see anything. Behind the foliage, perhaps?

  “You’d better not be lying to me.”

  Not sparing her another glance, Pele strode around the pool, trying to keep confidence in her steps despite the pounding of her heart. Intimidating a common girl was no feat, but facing her father … Damn. She couldn’t afford to think of him like that. This was Kū-Waha-Ilo. He’d never been a father to her. Never.

  There. In the spot the woman had indicated, a cavern cut back into the mountainside. Ferns and overhanging vines covered it so perfectly you had to stand right next to it to even see the place.

  Pele pushed aside the foliage and stepped into the cavern. The sunlight barely reached inside and she could make out little in the darkness, but even so, something seemed off. The cavern itself looked wrong somehow, the angles and position not quite the way a river should have carved this place. Nor was it a lava tube. Pele frowned. Was it possible that people—or kupua—had made this cavern? If she were determined, she might be able to direct lava flows to do something like this. But why? Had Kū-Waha-Ilo created this haven merely because he liked the valley?

  This place looked like something made by the menehune in Lonomakua’s stories of Sawaiki.

  Frowning, Pele summoned a flame to her hand, a torch to light the way. With a last glance over her shoulder—back at the relative safety of the sunlight—she trod forward.

  The cave wound around a bend, blocking out sunlight and much of the sound of the waterfalls. The echo of her footfalls told her the cavern was deep, and before long, the tunnel began sloping downward. She followed it for perhaps a hundred feet before it opened into a larger cavern. Here, the ceiling receded to such heights she could barely make out the stalactites above. Staring up at them, she could swear she heard them whispering to one another, telling secrets never meant for mortal ears. Was this place home to restless ghosts? To lapu?

  ‘Aumākua preserve her. She never should have come down here. Probably never should have come looking for Kū-Waha-Ilo in the first place. And she was twice damned for not bringing Lonomakua, though he had not offered. By all the ‘aumākua, what she wouldn’t give to feel the kahuna’s comforting hand on her shoulder, guiding her.

  She could still turn back. Retreat the way she came. The cavern was so dark she couldn’t see across it. Yes. Turn and run like a little girl. Pele sneered. She was better than that. Whatever Lonomakua said about anger, so filled with it, she had no room in her for fear. And anger was like a flame, best kindled often. She flexed her other hand, calling forth a second torch, before trekking onward.

  Something cool and hard crunched under her foot. Almost afraid to know, she bent. Bones. A human femur most likely, grown brittle over time. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her torches low to the ground now revealed a trail of bones, including at least two
dozen skulls. Most were old, cracked, but a handful appeared to have been set aside, preserved carefully.

  The other bones showed signs of having been gnawed on.

  The sound of bubbles rising drew her gaze to a pool on the far side of the cavern. Pele strode over. The light hit the liquid. Not water—blood. Bubbles rose from a pool of blood at least ten feet across. A head followed those bubbles, and then shoulders. Pele’s heart leapt into her throat and she fell back a step. The vile man who stepped from the blood pool was not tall or especially broad-shouldered, though his muscles were taut.

  Pele had not seen her father in many years. But it was him. Of that, she had no doubt. And if she had ever doubted Kū-Waha-Ilo was a monster before, she no longer did so. His head was shaved in the front, but he wore the rest of his hair long, halfway down his back and, at the moment, dripping with blood. He had a short beard and a series of tattoos covering one side of his face and one arm, though she could not make out the designs beneath the crimson now staining his entire body.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Kū-Waha-Ilo stepped forward, so close to her she fell back another step without even meaning to. She ought to bury this entire place in lava. Fill in this cursed cavern so no living soul would ever walk here again. Perhaps doing so would mean this monster could never help her stop Kapo from leaving, perhaps even Pele would die here, buried alive. Might be worth it to rid Uluka‘a of such vileness.

  Before she could form words, he grabbed her chin with a slick, too-warm hand. Was that human blood he smeared all over her cheeks? “Oh, yes. Pele. Hmmm. You were not invited here. Unwise, to intrude uninvited into my lair.” With that, he released her.

  Pele backed away so quickly she stumbled and fell on her arse, barely keeping her torches lit. She should be embarrassed, but the terror drowned that out at the moment. Best get what she came here for quickly and escape while she could. “Kapo is leaving Uluka‘a, planning to cross the Worldsea as an apprentice to some sorceress.”

  “So?”

  “So your daughter is leaving her home! Stop her.”