Islands of Fire

by Eldritch, Brian

  There, in the dark, Kina finds a peacefulness washing over her. She is no longer in the water, yet not in air. She imagines she has passed into a space between this world and the next. A feeling of calm is taking her, and she is finding it increasingly hard to care about Nakali, the Cult of the Ebon Flame, or any of it. And yet, something about Mother Ocean’s words bothers her. If you cannot find her, where could she be? You are a Progenitor. Don’t you have full knowledge of all that transpires in Mokukai and in the Lands Beyond?

  Mother Ocean replies, There is only one answer. Mother Fire has claimed her.

  Claimed her? You mean, taken her soul?

  That is one answer. But Mother Fire might simply be shielding her from me.

  She has that kind of power?

  Mother Fire is also a Progenitor, even though she is gone and buried. Her power is diminished on Mokukai but she finds ways to extend her reach.

  Kina tries to respond, but simply no longer cares. She is thinking about the Lands Beyond, and eagerly anticipating arriving there. Why she has not yet moved on into those wonderful villages of the ancestors puzzles her, but she is not concerned. All is peaceful in this void, and she will be happy if she can stay here forever, as well.

  Mother Ocean speaks to Kina again, her voice now firmly coming from inside Kina’s own mind.

  I believe Mother Fire is planning to return. Long she has abided in the core of Mokukai. If it is as you say, she has chosen Nakali to help her and Puahiki usurp me and reclaim the world, and Mother Ocean to reclaim her place in Father Sky’s bed.

  Kina finds this interesting, but increasingly hard to focus on such matters. May I pass to the Lands Beyond, Mother? she asks.

  Not yet, my child, Mother Ocean replies. I need you yet.

  Am I to remain in this place?

  No, Mother Ocean says. I am sending you back to Mokukai. If Nakali is to be Mother Fire’s champion, you shall be mine. You must stop Nakali and bring an end to the Cult of the Ebon Flame, halting whatever plan Puahiki has for her. Then reclaim the remaining Kota`ianapahu and deliver them to me. Guard closely the secret you now possess, for with knowledge Mother Fire’s power will grow. These tasks I command you to complete.

  How can I do this? Kina thinks, fear returning to her mind. Around her, she sees the void lightening once more, a deep shade of blue gradually replacing the black. I am alone in this fight!.

  You are alone, yes, but you are a devil slayer, a trickster, an accomplished warrior, and my own devotee. You have more power than you realize. But as my chosen I shall see to it that you are never impaired by water, that you have nothing to fear from the hazards of the deep, and that even the very water itself cannot harm you.

  I will need the pahi. I cannot fight them with normal weapons.

  The pahi is mine to keep. It is already sinking into the deepest part of the ocean, never to be recovered. As I shall do with the rest of Mother Fire’s relics. But I shall grant you a weapon befitting a warrior of the sea.

  Mother Ocean says, Go, now, and destroy Nakali and her cult.

  The space around her quickly grows light, and Kina can see the undulating ceiling of waves above. She bursts through the surface, blinking away the salt water. Up until now, she has not taken a breath — indeed, she has not felt the need to breathe — and she is surprised to find the urge does not strike her. She paddles leisurely in the swells, breathing calmly, and looking about.

  Makoahiva is nearby, the towering peak still quite visible, though she is farther to sea than where she fell out of the canoe. As for that, she can see its single sail flapping not far away, on course to approach her. Three figures are aboard, and they are scanning the horizon for any sign of her.

  “Hello!” Kina cries, as loud as she can. She swims toward the canoe, repeating her call until one of the figures, apparently Hekalo, turns and spots her. Kina sees him point and say something to the others, who direct the canoe toward her position.

  As the canoe approaches, Kina can see all three of them are soaked and shivering, though none the worse for their close brush with death.

  “You’re alive!” Pupo shouts, smiling broadly. He and Hekalo extend a hand to Kina and help her up over the edge of the canoe. Kina drops, dripping wet, onto the floor of the canoe. She is naked, her clothes seemingly ripped from her deep in the sea.

  She nods. “Barely.”

  Mai looks at her in amazement. “How did you do that?” she asks. “How did you get from there to here?”

  Hekalo is eyeing Kina. “I saw you go under, with all of us, but you never came up. And here you are half an hour later, unharmed, and quite a ways out from the reef. Did Mother Ocean heed your prayers?”

  Kina sits up. “In a manner of speaking.” She wonders what she can tell Hekalo and the others about her experience, and what Mother Ocean told her. After a moment, she decides totally evading an explanation might be best. “I have no idea how I made it out of the currents. In fact, I can’t remember much of anything. Just lucky, I guess.”

  Pupo says, “Or blessed.”

  “Where’s the pahi?” Hekalo says, looking around the canoe as if suddenly aware it is missing.

  Kina looks at him, despondent. “It’s lost. It sank into the deep ocean, far deeper than anyone can swim to retrieve it. I’m afraid we’ll have to go one without it.”

  “Fight them with spears, then?” Pupo asks, but before Kina can answer, they all hear a loud splash near the port bow. Rising out of the sea is a shark, something clamped in its teeth. The shark lifts its head out of the water, its soulless eyes rolling back into its head as if about to swallow prey, and its jaws ease open.

  Held there across its teeth is a fine weapon, shaped like the pahi and just as long, but white as bone. Its blade is covered from end to end with fine whorls and etchings, like a scrimshaw tusk, with small holes along the length worked into the pattern.

  Across the Ocean

  Kina hesitates for a second, then stumbles across the canoe to the bow. She gingerly reaches out and takes this new pahi from the shark’s mouth. As soon as she touches it, she can tell it is made of finely-cut coral, not bone as she had thought. Though it is very light, it is also perfectly balanced. A weapon of this kind would be impossible for a man to make. It nearly hisses with energy.

  As the shark snaps its jaws shut again and slips beneath the waves, Kina whispers a quiet thanks to Mother Ocean.

  The others are too stunned to say anything. Kina rests with her back against the canoe’s gunwale for a moment, then says, “It’s a long distance to Keli`anu. We better get under way.”

  Though they continue to eye her warily, as though unsure whether or not she has somehow been replaced with some facsimile born in the deepest pits of the ocean, Hekalo, Pupo and Mai help Kina steer the canoe toward the northeast, pointing it toward Keli`anu, or at least as near as they can tell.

  Pupo gazes back at Makoahiva as it gradually disappears into the horizon. “I can’t help but feel it would have been safer to stay there,” he tells Kina much later, when the island is all but gone from their vision. Only the fin-shaped pinnacle can be seen above the haze of the sea, standing out in relief against the setting sun.

  “Well, you’re right,” she says. “Where we are going, death could await us all.”

  He gazes at Hekalo and Mai, who have taken seats in the aft to hold one another and watch the sunset like young lovers. “It isn’t fair to them, you know.”

  Kina nods. He’s right. Perhaps she should turn this canoe about and deliver them back there. Makoahiva has no active god, but at least there aren’t any Burning Warriors there anymore. And if not Makoahiva, there are other islands nearby in the long chain of atolls making up Kilakila. Some of them are even inhabited. Kina could leave them in a friendly village, let them get back to their lives together.

  The next morning, one of those islands comes into view. It rises long and low, like the broad back of a whale, many leagues off the port bow.

  Kina watches it for
a while, then crawls back to where Hekalo and Mai are sleeping under a pandanus mat.

  “Hekalo,” she whispers, nudging him until his eyes blink open.

  “What?” he asks in rising alarm. “Enemy canoes?”

  “No,” Kina says, keeping her voice quiet to as not to awaken Mai. “There’s an island. Pupo and I were talking about, well, you and Mai. Do you want us to put you and Mai off on that island? I have no business taking the two of you with me into such a dangerous place.”

  Hekalo looks over at the island, clearly thinking about it. He looks down at Mai for a minute. At last he says, “No. I didn’t bring her back from the Lands Beyond just to strand ourselves on some unknown island far from home. Mai and I want to return to our own people.”

  “Keli`anu is no place for her,” Kina says.

  “I know you’re right.” He asks, “But after you have done so much, I can’t just leave you to face the Cult of the Ebon Flame alone. They’re a blight on Mokukai, and their raiding parties are taking slaves from an ever-widening area. Our home will be one of them, one day.”

  Mai says, “This isn’t our fight, Hekalo.”

  Hekalo starts, surprised that she is awake. “I’m sorry we woke you with our talking. Please, go back to sleep. We’ll wake you in a while when we need your help.”

  Mai ignores him. “I might have been dead, Hekalo Pohapu`ihuki, but I’m not frail. I feel better than ever.”

  “Of course.”

  She sits up. “You’ve told me a little about what happened, Kina. I can tell there is much you have not told us. For one, you haven’t yet explained how you survived being underwater for half an hour. There’s a darkness about you, and a pall of secrecy. I’m not one to force answers out of people, but with you I don’t even know the right questions to ask. I’d like to know why you’re bent on sailing right up to the shores of Keli`anu and taking on one of the most cruel armies in all of Mokukai. You say it’s to rescue your friend Motua, but I say that can’t be the sole reason. There’s something else. I think it has to do with the fact that a shark delivered your cursed blade to you. But whatever it is, you’ll not be dropping us off like children, castaways on some desolate island far from the battle.”

  “Would you prefer to be slain and your soul trapped in a drum?” Kina asks. “Because that’s the fate that awaits you in Keli`anu. Wouldn’t you prefer to go home with Hekalo?”

  “Of course I would,” Mai replies. “But like Hekalo said, he didn’t bring me back from the Lands Beyond just to while away our remaining years on an unknown land. We’re coming with you, and when you’re victorious, we will go home. And when we do, we can say that we helped bring down the Cult of the Ebon Flame.”

  Kina looks at Mai for a moment, unsure how to respond. Mai spoke with a conviction Kina hadn’t yet heard from her. Perhaps there was more to her than the simple girl from a far-flung fishing village.

  “So be it,” Kina says, standing up. “But if you’re going with us, I could use someone who can fight. You know how to use a spear?”

  Mai blushes. “To fish. But not to fight.”

  “Then stand up,” Kina says. She stretches out her hand and helps Mai to her feet, keeping her balance in the jostling canoe. “I’m going to show you how to use one in battle.”

  Kina picks up a spear and hands it to Mai, then takes up one for herself. “To start, you want to hold it with this hand like so, and your other one back here.”

  Mai watches where Kina places her hands, then mimics her. “Like this?”

  “Good. Now turn your feet so that your stance is wider, and you want to turn your body a little to make a narrower target, and to be able to get more power in your thrust.”

  Mai does so, and Kina begins to show her how to jab the spear tip forward, keeping the point level and on the mark with her target.

  The sun begins to rise, casting their shadows across the rolling ocean.

  Two days pass, and before long they have left the Kilakila archipelago. They stop at one of the last islands, a low, flat coral ring, no higher at its tallest point than a village hut, to gather more fruits and to catch slow-moving lagoon fish.

  Saying goodbye to the last land for some time, they angle the canoe out into the wild ocean, keeping a bearing between the rising sun and the northern stars. They gather rain during downpours, trail lines to catch fish, dine on ripening fruits, and entertain themselves by telling stories of devils and warriors.

  Pupo is the first to notice that the canoe has slipped into a friendly current that is sweeping them toward their goal. “My uncle was a navigator,” he says, measuring the speed of the current with a trailing line. “He always hoped I’d go into voyaging, but alas, it was not to be. Before he passed to the Lands Beyond, he taught me the major ocean currents that course through Mokukai’s waters. I do not recall him mentioning this one.”

  Kina questions Pupo, trying to see if he is misjudging the phenomenon, but when he reels out the floater on the line, Kina can see just how fast they are traveling. A current of that power would have kept her and Nakali from reaching Makoahiva in the first place, or at least pushed them several days’ travel out of the way. Kina doesn’t say anything, but she knows this current has been sent from Mother Ocean. She wonders if the others suspect it themselves.

  Several days into the journey, a wall of clouds drives toward them out of the west, whipping up the waves as it comes. They batten down the canoe and get it ready for strong weather, but miraculously, the winds quiet as they swirl around the wave-tossed craft. Though Kina can see the tops of distant waves being shredded by high winds, and even spots a twisting waterspout through the rain haze, the winds seem to avoid them entirely. Nothing more than a breeze, fit to tousle her hair, reaches the canoe. Similarly, the mighty waves lifted by the storm into something like steel-gray hills slump into a rolling hummocks as they pass under the canoe.

  Kina catches her three companions casting sideways glances at her as they gaze out on the tempest. She can tell their suspicions are growing darker. Several times she starts to ask Mother Ocean if she can tell them the truth, but she knows it is only their ignorance that keeps them all from dying.

  The storm eventually leaves them, and once more they are graced with good weather. No one ever confronts her, though Pupo begins to call Kina “the Charmed One,” and takes to sleeping only when the others are still awake.

  His mistrust hurts, but Kina knows she can’t explain it to him. She can only hope the trials awaiting them at Keli`anu will return his faith in her.

  It is Mai that first spots Keli`anu. She is deboning a recently caught fish to prepare for their next meal when she pauses, setting down the knife. She crawls over to the bow and gazes out onto the water.

  “Is that it?” Kina hears her call out.

  Kina looks and sees the faint outline of a jagged island, its high pointed peaks like teeth rising from the sea. Ocean haze makes Keli`anu look indistinct, almost like a hallucination or distant cloud. But Kina recognizes the fearsome shape of that terrible place. The last time she had seen this island, it had been vanishing behind her stern. Now it squats dead center off her bow. She shudders at the sight, her courage and dedication to this mission instantly melting away. Why had she wanted to come here again? Was it for Mother Ocean’s sake, or for Motua? Or for vengeance? Perhaps she should just swing the canoe about and head for somewhere else. Anywhere would do. Though she vowed to herself never to go back to her home city of Huka`i, the thought of walking its crowded, filthy streets again suddenly seems desirable.

  “The current still has us,” Hekalo says, breaking the silence of several minutes as each of them gazes at the island. “If it doesn’t relent, it will drive us onto Keli`anu’s shores.”

  “Something tells me it will ease up just as we grow within swimming distance,” Pupo replies, and shoots a glance toward Kina.

  She doesn’t return the look.

  “I know of a good place to shelter,” she says. “It’s on the east
side of the island. There are protective rocks there, and it would be hard to see the canoe from land or sea, unless someone sailed close to it.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Kina begins to take in the lines. “It’s where Motua and I hid when we first escaped the Burning Warriors,” she says, “back when I thought they would let us go.”

  “And it’s unused?” Pupo asks.

  “Yes. Their main village, Toko-Mua, is on the western side of the island. They have villages all around, though, so we’ll have to circle the island pretty far out in order to not be spotted.”

  Hekalo says, “We’ll run at night.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” Kina says.

  They swing the canoe several degrees to their starboard, and the current turns with them.

  Before long, the sky is lit with a magnificent sunset, a great column of yellows, oranges, and reds that bleeds into the emerging night sky. The brightest stars greet them in the east. They use those stars to maintain position as Keli`anu vanishes into the growing night.