The Burning Princess

by Matt Larkin

  The kahuna had an apprentice already, one she knew added his prayers in one of the common houses. Pele sneered. Of course she knew people were apt to fuck wherever they wanted, and others were expected to simply find somewhere else to look. Despite that, she couldn’t quite see herself marching into the house and claiming her first lover in years in front of half the village.

  Instead she pushed aside the kapa cloth and stepped in. The villagers had a small fire burning inside, its light and warmth no doubt a comfort against their fears. Even she, in part, wished to hunker down beside the flames and wait out the darkness. But the villagers needed to see their Princess—and their kahuna—unafraid, ready to protect them.

  Every eye turned toward her when she breached the imagined safety of the house. Pele looked over the villagers before settling upon the kahuna’s apprentice. The young man—she didn’t know his name—was handsome enough, she supposed. He had stringy hair of medium length, muscles with just enough tone to be pleasing. She beckoned him.

  His face blanched when he realized she intended him to come out into the night. She didn’t bother to wait and see if he followed. If he was too cowardly to face the night by her side, he wouldn’t do much good as a kahuna.

  Instead, she returned to the shore. The man’s footfalls fell hesitantly behind her, but he soon raced to catch up.

  “Princess?”

  Pele cast a glance back at him and smiled.

  By the surf she cast aside her skirt, then settled herself provocatively upon a rock shelf, legs crossed. Thinking about her impending liaison immediately set her hair ablaze, and she made no effort to extinguish it. Let the man see her for who and what she was and decide then if he wanted to go forward.

  The apprentice drew to a stop as he the flames sparked around her head. By now, her eyes were no doubt glowing like white hot embers. Pele leaned back against the rock behind her and watched the man. If he fled then he clearly was not the one.

  He did not flee. Though, to be fair, his approach was slower than she might have preferred. His fear dampened her excitement and with it, lowered the flames sparking from her hair. Pele fought the urge to frown at the man for spoiling her arousal. He was right to be afraid, both of her and of the night. But damn it …

  “You wish to be a kahuna?”

  He nodded.

  Pele opened her mouth to ask him his name, but stopped. What did she care who he was? She might have sparked his lust, but he didn’t even know her. They weren’t going to remain lovers. If her plan was to succeed, she’d have to leave and find more such men in each village. The best, the very best she could hope for was a night of passion with a stranger. And why not? Other women had such nights often enough.

  Rather than speak, she uncrossed her legs and spread her arms. The man hesitantly took the invitation. He leaned in to kiss her, then jerked away, perhaps frightened by the heat radiating from her hair. Now Pele did scowl. If he couldn’t bring her joy then this whole endeavor was a waste, both for her sake and for his.

  The apprentice leaned forward again, this time planting kisses over her abdomen, her breasts, and her nipples. He gasped then, perhaps shocked that those too radiated heat. Idly, she wondered if he had burned his lips. Rather than let the mood be lost, she rose, pushing the man down into the surf and mounted him.

  They quickly fell into a rhythm. It was going to work. She was going to be able to share her mana with him and … and she … Her passion rose as she neared her climax. It rose so quickly, at first she didn’t realize the man was screaming. A curtain of steam rose from the surf where the apprentice now wailed.

  Pele jerked away from him, a pang of regret at coming so close to her joy and having to stop. That pang vanished when she saw the man, weeping, pull himself toward the ocean. His wrists were charred black where she’d held him. The steam from the surf had covered the scent of burnt flesh before, but now she caught a whiff.

  He screamed again as saltwater touched his burns, clutching his wrists to his chest and failing upon the shore.

  No, no, no. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d thought she could control … “I-I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  In pain and frustration she choked down a sob of her own, the land beneath her rumbling in time with it. Damn it! Kāne, she’d only wanted to help people. Now, instead, she had ruined a man. If he lived from those burns at all he might never again have full use of his hands. And he still wasn’t going to become a new kahuna.

  Pele didn’t bother to stop for her skirt as she ran back up the hill. The old kahuna might be able to work out a poultice to save his apprentice. Maybe he could do something, anything, to begin to clean up the mess she had made. She had been so quick to chide the man earlier, and now here she was, running back to him for help.

  Not for the first time, she regretted sending Fire-Keeper off to track Namaka.

  She paused atop the hill. The kahuna was on his knees, staring into the flame of the sacred brazier. Trying to achieve the impossible task she’d set before him? And now she had to draw him away from that task by admitting she had maimed his apprentice. Before she had even reached the temple threshold, the kahuna pitched forward, falling face-first upon the stone floor.

  Pele froze. What on Lua-O-Milu? Had the old man fainted?

  “Kahuna!” she shouted.

  The man didn’t stir at all. In the darkness, the ki’i masks seemed to be glaring at her. The gods above and below judging her for failures and ineptitudes. Daring her to violate kapu and trespass near the brazier? If the sacred smoke of the brazier fell upon her, she the people would put her to death. But the old man …

  A deafening silence had settled over the temple, such that the only sound she could hear was the crackle of the flame. Even the wind and rain had stopped, ushering in a stillness that stole away her breath as she trod, one halting step at a time, onto the stone floor. Drawing near, she fell to her knees, hoping to avoid the smoke touching her skin, then crawled to the kahuna.

  Barely able to breathe, she turned him over. His eyes had opened too wide, face a mask of fear. No breath ushered from his mouth. Pele sputtered. Kāne, no. She had demanded he look deeply into the Ghost World. And something there had ended him, something that had terrified him beyond words. And who was here, now, to send the old kahuna’s soul away? No one. Pele didn’t even know his name, and now he was likely damned to wander the earth a restless ghost, perhaps joining the Nightmarchers.

  With trembling fingers she shut his eyes, then slowly pulled him away from the brazier. He was heavy—exceptionally heavy—so she certainly couldn’t lift him. Her breath came in ragged pants by the time she’d managed to move the kahuna even a few paces. This wasn’t going to work.

  She had no way to help the kahuna and—oh, damn. She’d come up here looking for help for the man’s apprentice. He still waited down there on the beach, maybe dying from his wounds. These were not things she could fix, useless as it made her feel.

  Pele crawled free from the temple, but as she rose, she felt a fuming presence behind her. Chest tight, she spun. A silhouette passed in and out of a fog bank, flanking the temple. Perhaps it could not enter here. And where had that fog come from? Moments ago the night had been clear.

  Then, all at once, the fog congealed and began to flow toward the shore.

  The apprentice.

  Her stomach falling, Pele lit torches in both hands and ran toward the beach as fast as her legs could carry her. But she was racing the wind. Already, the fog had settled around the spot she had left her fallen lover. All at once, his wailing reached a fever pitch, a single, sustained scream of tortuous agony that sent Pele stumbling to her knees.

  If only she hadn’t sent Fire-Keeper away. She’d thought herself ready to handle this on her own. She was not. She needed her teacher.

  She wanted to weep, but tears would not come. Instead, a profound sense of desolation seized her. What had she done? Thanks to her, the kahuna and his apprentice had both fallen, lost to the world
. No one remained here to send their souls. The ghost haunting this place would soon have companions.

  There was a story Fire-Keeper had told her a long time ago, about some forgotten village. It had been overtaken by Nightmarchers, the entire population slain and transformed into more ghosts. An army of kahuna had stood against them, many losing their lives in a final attempt to turn the tide. They failed. According to the story, that was why no one lived on the Lost Island. It was barren, barely fit for plant life, and certainly not for mankind.

  The fog had not dissipated, instead settling upon the beach. And a silhouette moved through it, stalking toward her.

  “Damn you.”

  Was this the ghost who had brought them to such a pass? She would not allow the Big Isle to fall. Would do whatever it took to stop that from happening. The figure continued to edge ever closer toward her, and Pele, despite her clenching stomach, stood her ground. As it emerged from the fog, though, she realized it was not the same man she had seen. It was the apprentice.

  “You’re alive?”

  He no longer seemed pained by the burns on his wrist. Indeed, he moved with a strength that should have been impossible in his condition. And his eyes seemed wrong, hollow, like they didn’t quite recognize her. A primal, soul-rending fear seized her, and she fell back despite her determination to face this.

  The apprentice was not alive at all. That ghost had lodged inside his corpse. Defiling it, denying it rest, and sending it on for further violence. It must had grown stronger.

  She flared her flames in her hands, and the apprentice—or his body—drew up short, finally given pause.

  She shook her head. None of this should have happened. She’d wanted to help people. “I’m sorry … I’m so, so sorry.”

  It might have been her imagination, but the corpse almost seemed to sneer at her. If she could do nothing for the man’s soul, at least she could deny the ghost use of his body. Pele flung both flames forward so their arcs intersected over the corpse. As they did so, she poured mana into them, igniting a detonation like a tiny volcano. The wave engulfed the corpse and hurled Pele from her feet, sending her tumbling several paces away.

  Sand scraped her skin, flew up her nose, and stung her eyes. Spitting and panting, she pushed herself up. Through tearstained vision she saw the corpse—still aflame—shambling toward her. Pele grunted. She pulled herself to her knees and emptied more and more power into the flames.

  The sickeningly sweet, acrid smell of burnt human flesh greeted her as skin and muscle turned to ash. Still the corpse advanced until, a pace away, its charred bones collapsed onto the sand.

  Pele gasped, not certain whether in relief, exhaustion, or remorse.

  There was no reprieve, of course. No one could kill a ghost, for it was not alive. Destroying the body it occupied would inconvenience it, at best. Soon, it would return. Maybe coming for the kahuna’s body back at the temple. Though her breath now came in pants, Pele forced herself up and made her way back there as quickly as she was able. The kahuna lay where she had left him, mercifully still.

  No words of apology might suffice. She had pushed him beyond the limits of human knowledge, drove him, in her own desperation, to seeking answers not meant for mankind. And it had killed him. All she could do now was burn his body and save him the indignity of being used by that Nightmarcher.

  Puako needed a kahuna, and they needed one now. She had no way to send a message to Fire-Keeper. But if he saw she was in danger, in trouble … A very controlled eruption, but a tall one. It would shake the land and be visible for leagues. Damage to the temple was unavoidable, but at least it lay far enough removed from the village she might spare them. She hoped.

  She knelt by the body and dug her hands into the dirt, calling to the magma coursing far below. She needed help and she needed it now. Desperation fueled her anger, and her anger summoned the magma, sending the hilltop trembling. A crack rent it, split the land like a breaking wave. The rupture ran toward the temple, tore open its pebble floor, and began to swallow bits of the sacred rocks. Too late to stop the process, aumakuas forgive her.

  Pele screamed as a jet of lava shot upward. She focused all her will, all her mana, into directing it straight up in a single column. Even as it fell, she forced its flow away from the village, creating a stream of molten rock running out to sea.

  Finally, spent, she fell forward. The lava jet was brief. But he would have seen it. Must have seen it.

  Her legs threatened to give out beneath her as she made her way to her mother’s house. Her family would have been terrified. They must have heard the screams and no one would have missed the eruption. Dimly, she sensed the spirit watching her. She had no further strength to chastise it or attempt to chase it away. The best she could do was hope the prayers the kahuna had already spoken would ward the village for the rest of the night. A fragile hope—she didn’t truly know how such things worked.

  She slipped inside her mother’s house. The woman had risen now, had a poultice tied around her face, but at least had some strength back. She turned to see Pele and for the briefest of instants, she smiled.

  “Mama.” Pele embraced her mother, no longer caring about tabus.

  Her mother returned her hug, stiffly, then pulled away, obvious concern on her face. Only then did Pele realize a new form slept on the mat now, shivering.

  Her mother followed her gaze. “Your brother has a fever. Several people in the village have—”

  Pele held up a trembling hand to stop her mother from saying what she knew would come next. Kāne-Milohai, her newly found half-brother. Brought down by the curse Namaka’s foreign friend had sent among them all. How long before Milohai became one more flame, one more lantern floating on the sea?

  This could not happening. She had only just found her mother again. Had only met her brother for the first time a few days ago. And now he lay dying too. He was young, strong. Maybe he had a chance.

  Pele knelt by his side. “Milohai?”

  He grunted, turning toward her, but his eyes seemed vacant.

  “Fever dreams have him,” Mama said. “He keeps trying to talk to his father.” She offered Pele a gourd of water.

  Pele drank deeply, finally sating her thirst. In fact, the water sent her stomach rumbling.

  Mama must have heard it, for she next brought a bushel of bananas from one corner of the house. “We’ve all started storing extra food to get through the long nights.”

  Pele accepted the food and ate, not taking her eyes from her brother. Aumakuas, was this her fault somehow? Or Namaka’s? She longed for someone to blame. Maybe Ku-Aha-Ilo. She could blame him for the ghost haunting them, though he claimed not to have summoned it.

  “Papa …” Milohai.

  Pele tossed aside a banana peel. “I’m sorry I never met your new husband.”

  “So am I. I told him so much about you over the years. He always said he wanted to meet you, even encouraged me to try to find you. I should have, I know it. But trekking to every volcano on the island, it seemed impossible. But you’re here now. I hope you know, all three of us, we were so proud of you being a Princess.”

  For all the good it had done. Pele clutched her brother’s hand, but he was looking at something far beyond her, mumbling nonsense. The fever had hit him hard, already apparently brought him to the threshold of the Ghost World. She would not lose her brother. There had to be some way to save him. But everything she had tried had turned to ash.

  Milohai’s fevered breaths sent up clouds of frost in the air. The poor boy was fighting for his life and all she could think to do was hold his hand. She couldn’t break a fever. He shivered. Maybe she could have warmed him, but her extra heat might only make things worse.

  She shook her head. Namaka had come here looking for a cure. Well, now Pele understood that desperation. Oh, she understood it all too well. She just wished she could know what the Sea Princess knew, if anything.

  “You should rest, you look exhausted,” her moth
er said.

  Yes. She was exhausted, and she should rest. But she’d find no sleep this night, not with her brother like this. Not knowing that because of her, the kahuna was gone. The houses now stood defenseless against the spirit. And if they reached morning at all, tomorrow night the spirit would surely return.

  And what should she tell her mother? The truth would frighten people, but they could not hide from it. Perhaps all of Puako could flee to the nearest neighboring village, find shelter there. Pele glanced over her shoulder.

  “What happened out there?” her mother asked, her breath, too, icy. She was rubbing her arms as if cold.

  The cold didn’t really bother Pele much, but now that she considered it, it should have been warmer in here.

  When the ghost had been near before it had chilled the air, as if its darkness sucked out light and warmth. The kahuna’s prayers no longer protected the houses. There was a presence inside, wasn’t there? Something more than just her mother watching them.

  Pele leapt to her feet, flames immediately springing into her hands. She spun. “Where are you? Show yourself!”

  No answer was forthcoming.

  “Papa …” Milohai moaned.

  The hairs on the back of Pele’s neck rose.

  Day V

  21

  A soul visited with sufficient pain could lose itself. Become a Nightmarcher whose purpose was to share its torment.

  And Milohai, his brain baked in fever dreams, already lay on the edge of the Ghost World. Was it possible he saw into the realm? Seeing the ghost who had haunted them all along? His own father, her mother’s new husband.

  Pele had seen the ghost, his throat exploded, burned. Ku-Aha-Ilo might have done that, might have tortured the man. She had never seen her stepfather, and he didn’t know her.

  Kāne-Hoalani. That was the name her brother had given.

  The kahuna had not been here when Ku-Aha-Ilo attacked Pele’s mother and Hoalani. Maybe he hadn’t come back quickly enough, had failed when he tried to send Hoalani’s soul away.