by Matt Larkin
And so she summoned the jets and beat her tail, swimming on and on.
Nyi Rara would have Namaka descended into darkness. No other choice remained to her.
30
Moho had helped her down Mauna Kea and back toward Puna. The akua-possessed man had not answered any of Pele’s questions about where he’d been. Nor had he once raised the issue of what … what … that pig had tried to do to her.
Never, in all her life, had anyone even imagined they could …
Fuck! Pele would burn both his eyes out and roast his balls on a spit. Then shove the filthy things into his eye sockets!
“You wish to weep?” the akua had asked her, before they reached the village.
“I don’t want to weep. I want vengeance. You should have left him for me to burn.”
“You were weakened. That Moon spirit is the progenitor of its line. Waking up. Becoming more powerful than you were prepared to deal with. The man inside is losing his fight with it, as is inevitable.”
Pele had offered no further answer. She’d thought kupua shifters always existed in a kind of savage balance with their akua spirits. Moho seemed to imply the strongest Moon akua could overmaster a host the same as he had done. That such a fate might soon befall Kamapua‘a.
He deserved as much and worse.
Except, Pele did not like to think what the wereboar would become if that happened.
In any event, they had returned to Puna to prepare for war. No other choice truly remained before her. She would have to crush Poli‘ahu to claim this island. The Snow Queen had made that abundantly clear.
She found the other men, Lonomakua and Makua, arguing inside the palace. Both kāhuna abruptly cut off their already hushed tones as she drew near. Pele cast a look back at Moho, but the akua remained unreadable as ever. There was something going on, that much was obvious, and Pele decidedly disliked being kept in the dark as to the details. What was the connection between the two men and how much did Moho understand about it?
“What’s happened?” Pele demanded.
“Word has come through the district that you fought Poli‘ahu,” Makua said.
Pele frowned.
“Word also claims you did not win this battle.”
Her frown became a grimace. “A mere skirmish to test the extent of her power. Up on her mountain, Poli‘ahu wields extraordinary influence. But if she wishes to maintain her hold on the rest of Vai‘i, she’ll have to come down and face us in the valleys and coasts. Places where snows never reach.”
“You must be careful with the volcanoes,” Lonomakua chided. As if Pele needed a reminder of what had happened to Uluka‘a. “You will be tempted to use them to wipe out Poli‘ahu’s armies.”
“I will not turn away from my greatest power.”
“Nor should she,” Makua said. “We want the island cowed.”
Lonomakua nodded, fixing her with his deep gaze. “Then use it with the utmost care.”
“Is this what you two were arguing about? How I should use my mana?” Pele waved her hand in dismissal. “You both forget yourselves. I am queen here and I will decide the best course for us.”
Makua spread his hands in submission, though his eyes held no hint of chastisement. “May I at least advise a course of action, then?”
At the moment, all Pele truly wanted was to retire and rest, but she wouldn’t let her fatigue show before her people. “What is it?”
“Just north of Puna, the district of Hilo is loyal to Queen Poli‘ahu, and is largely a center of her power. But the local chief is weak, and other members of the ali‘i might prove less intractable toward our newer dynasty.”
“You suggest I have a chief murdered?”
“No,” Makua said. “Such tactics win no hearts. Rather, a swift strike to eliminate him and his immediate retainers, while offering the rest of the ali‘i and kāhuna the chance to pledge to us.”
Pele glanced to Lonomakua.
He nodded. “If you must fight the Snow Queen, eroding her support around Mauna Kea first reduces the risk. The flames foretell she’ll be away soon.”
What? She was leaving her mountain already? “How soon? Where is she going?”
“I’m not sure exactly where she heads or why. She pursues her own schemes to undermine you. But I expect her gone within a few days.”
That didn’t give Pele too much time to recover her mana. But maybe she could trust to her army to help claim Hilo. “Fine. Make preparations. I shall retire to the women’s house now.”
Makua flashed a grin, apparently appeased to hear the war had begun. Moho had vanished once more—how did he do that?—but Lonomakua chased after Pele as she headed toward her own house.
Pele spun on him. “Was I not clear?”
“You are unwell.”
She couldn’t quite suppress the wince so she decided to cover it with a sneer. “If I need a nursemaid, I’ll send for one.”
A sadness settled into his deep blue eyes, one so profound Pele faltered. She shouldn’t have lashed out at him. Not him … He’d told her before that he’d lost a daughter a long time ago. Somehow, forgetting she was more than seventy years old, he’d seem to think Pele could replace the one he’d lost.
Regardless, her heart clenched to see his in pain. “I … just …”
“I know what happened up on Mauna Kea.”
The flames. Sometimes the flames should shut the fuck up already. Pele swallowed, unable to form words.
“There’s a powerful spirit in that kupua.”
“Moho said the same.” And if the akua had not shown up and tossed Kamapua‘a off that mountain … Pele squirmed. Her skin felt too tight. She needed to soak in lava for a month. “He …”
Lonomakua wrapped an arm around Pele’s shoulders and pulled her close.
“Many people have tried to kill me,” she whispered in his ear. “Why then was I more scared on that mountain than I was in those fights?”
The kahuna sighed, stroking her hair. “You had power all your life. Helplessness crushes anyone, but for you, it was made all the more terrible for never having felt it before.”
“I will kill that man.”
“Perhaps you should. But are you certain it was the man that assaulted you, or the thing inside him?”
Pele scoffed and pushed away from the kahuna. “I don’t find myself terribly interested in such distinctions. I don’t care whether man or kupua or akua is responsible. I kill one of them, and the others vanish into ash.”
Lonomakua nodded slowly, somehow looking sad still.
“Oh, I’m all right,” Pele said. “Go get yourself something to eat and have some rest already.”
“Pele …” Lonomakua grimaced and shook his head. “If I could, I would spare you all suffering.”
Now she laughed. “Well that wouldn’t really be living.” She thumped her forefinger into his chest. “You taught me that. Now go, I want to rest.”
In the women’s house, she found Kapo sitting before a fire, with Hi‘iaka beside her. The girl lay on her side in obvious discomfort, her elder sister’s hand on her shoulder.
Pele settled down beside Kapo and raised an eyebrow at her.
“It’s started,” her sister said. “The bleeds.”
Pele opened her mouth, found no immediate words, then sucked in a deep breath. “She’s asleep?”
“Just now.”
“A woman,” Pele said.
“You know what this means.”
Pele shook her head.
Kapo withdrew her hand to focus on Pele. “You know what it means. Soon, she’ll begin to manifest some ability as an heir of Haumea. All the daughters of Haumea have possessed destructive powers, Pele. We all needed training. You got it from Lonomakua. Namaka got it from Milolii. I got it from mother and Uli. Hi‘iaka will need that too, or she risks destroying herself and everyone around her.”
“I will train her.”
“No.”
“I have raised her from a godsdamned egg!
”
The girl groaned in her sleep and Pele twinged, suddenly thinking she’d woken her. But Hi‘iaka just rolled over.
“I raised her all her life,” Pele said more quietly. “I taught her everything.”
Kapo shook her head like she was talking to a godsdamned child. “You are set on becoming queen of this island. When, in the midst of war and politics and chaos, do you imagine having time to train a child in the use of powers neither one of you shall understand? When will you dedicate yourself to her? When will you remove her from other people to keep her and them safe?”
“I … She’s Hi‘iaka … I always …”
Kapo scoffed. “You cannot give up your ambition for her sake, can you? Even if you could, your temperament does not suit the task at hand. Consider what your rage has wrought of Uluka‘a and Sawaiki alike.”
“That was Namaka—”
“And you. You are both to blame. Arrogant, prideful wretches, too much like Mother. Too much like Father. You ruined civilizations with your squabbles and if you raise Hi‘iaka, you’ll ruin her, too.”
“Never. I’d never let any ill befall that girl. I love her like my own child.”
“Which is why you have to see I’m telling you the truth. You cannot handle this phase of her growth. Suppose she turned out like Namaka with control over the sea?”
“Suppose she turned out like me.”
“If she does, then you can help her hone her gift once she has some measure of control over it. But Mother had access to at least seven Spheres of Creation. There are other, even more destructive abilities that could manifest in Hi‘iaka. We cannot predict it.”
The worst of it was, Kapo was right. Had they remained in Uluka‘a, in the calmness before the war, maybe Pele could have helped her little sister. But now … she could never give the girl the attention she’d need. And that failure was a spear through Pele’s gut, twisted around and ripping out her insides.
Pele had sworn to herself never to fail the girl as their parents had failed her.
“Where will you take her?”
“Back to Mau‘i. I have a place there.”
Pele sighed. A whole other island. Hi‘iaka might as well be back in Uluka‘a for the next decade. Chances were, Kapo wouldn’t even let the girl have visitors for years. “Just … just give me some time with her first. I love Hi‘iaka. I love her the way she is now, and we both know …”
Kapo nodded. “She won’t be the same when she returns. Yes, take a few days with her. Give her your time, Pele. It’s the most precious of gifts.”
Pele lay down beside Hi‘iaka, as close as she could without waking the girl. It felt like Kapo was stealing a part of her own heart. Like Pele would lose something forever. And she could do nothing to stop it from happening.
In the morning, Hi‘iaka was gone, blood stains remaining on the wood where she’d lain.
Pele found the girl down by the harbor, swimming, no doubt feeling fresher for it. She waited for her sister, resting against a palm tree and watching Hi‘iaka swim, until the girl finally noticed her and climbed onto the shore, pausing only to grab her pa‘u and wrap it around her waist.
“What happened?” Hi‘iaka said.
Pele rose and brushed Hi‘iaka’s wet hair from her face. “I thought we’d take a walk toward Kīlauea. We don’t need to climb the summit, just enjoy the slope.”
Her sister flashed a grin as if to say, she knew Pele was hiding something but she wouldn’t push.
Hi‘iaka was always sweet that way.
“I don’t know exactly how long it will be,” Pele admitted, as they threaded their way through the jungle surrounding the mountain. “Probably a number of years. Most likely, you’ll be free when you’re around thirty. I was almost that age, anyway.”
“Huh. But I always thought you intended to train me?”
Yes. Pele always had. So how was she to say she no longer could? That her desire for a kingdom superseded her wish to help Hi‘iaka grow? ‘Aumākua, maybe Kapo was right. Maybe Pele had no temperament for this sort of thing. What a disaster she’d made of everything in recent times.
“Kapo will prove an excellent teacher, Hi‘iaka. She trained with our mother directly.”
“She’s a sorceress, isn’t she?”
“Hmm. Well, I doubt she’ll intend to teach you such Art, but be careful nonetheless. There is no force in this world more dangerous or unreliable than sorcery. Setting that aside, she has a calmness of soul that should help you find your true self. When you’ve done that, believe me, I shall be so very happy to welcome you back to Puna. As far as her kupua gifts, it’s better if she explains herself.”
Plants responded to Kapo in a way Pele had never really understood.
Hi‘iaka murmured something under her breath. Then looked to Pele. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s the best thing. But I’m nervous.”
Pele could only frown at that. She suspected she was more nervous than Hi‘iaka. She threw an arm around the girl and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, child.”
“Ha, well I’m not a child anymore, am I? That’s pretty much the whole reason we’re having this conversation.”
“Yeah.”
She ruffled the girl’s hair. “I bet we’d have a great view from that outcropping.”
Puna seemed in a panic when they returned. The harbor was half deserted, the rest of the people running about, carrying goods inland, as if fearing an attack.
“What is it?” Hi‘iaka asked.
“I don’t know.” Pele hurried for the palace, but Makua and Naia met her before she’d even reached the threshold. “What’s happened now?”
“Something is coming,” Naia blurted, less composed than Pele ever remembered seeing the former queen. “Something attacking coastal villages to the north! Refugees have begun entering the district from Hilo.”
From Hilo? Poli‘ahu’s people were coming here?
Makua grabbed her elbow to pull her aside. Pele’s hand sprung aflame at his breach of tabu in initiating contact with her, but the look on his face forestalled her from burning his face off.
“What?” she demanded. “Are the mer attacking us?”
“I know what’s coming.”
“So speak, prophet. I’ve no patience for games.”
“It’s a taniwha …”
A dragon like Maui had slain in the legend of Toona. A myth, come to life after ages.
Too real, and closing in on Pele’s nascent kingdom.
31
Namaka climbed over the rocks by the sea, then settled down into the lowest of the pools, awaiting twilight.
She had to wait for nightfall. According to Nyi Rara, the darkness would make this meditation journey easier. The prospect of seeing the mermaid’s real world was enthralling, true, but it left her trembling as well. Pō was the ultimate tabu. Only a kahuna of the greatest power could glimpse it while awake, and even then, they spoke of it only in whispers.
A human could not normally reach the Spirit Realm. It will be easier because I am inside you. I can pull you into my world, if you let me.
Pull her into Pō. She suppressed another shudder but couldn’t still her trembling breath.
You are afraid.
Namaka feared nothing.
You lie to yourself. Calm your mind. Clear it and focus, just as you would meditate to draw in mana.
And wait for twilight. It would come soon. Too soon.
The moon glinted in the sky above, and still Namaka could not push herself into Pō. She lacked the Sight to see beyond this world, much less to enter another.
Your body will remain right where it is. Your mind and soul alone will walk beside me. Calm yourself and take my hand.
Namaka wasn’t quite sure how to take the hand of an incorporeal spirit possessing her body. After mulling it over for a moment, she decided grabbing her own hand was the easiest way to do it.
Nyi Rara sighed in her mind. Imagine me for a moment as a person like you, walk
ing beside you. See me in your mind’s eye.
Fine. Except Namaka had no clue what Nyi Rara actually looked like.
Don’t you?
Her breath caught as a hazy figure materialized in her mind. Whether it was a trick Nyi Rara perpetrated or a vision drawn from her own mind, Namaka couldn’t say. Maybe it didn’t matter. Though roughly humanoid in shape, the woman who stood in front of her was far from human. She had opalescent eyes as alien as those of the he‘e and, in place of ears, multi-layered fins sticking out from beneath the blue-black hair plastered over her face in wet strands. Fine scales covered her entire body, a faint blue-green sheen to them. She stood on legs, but her ankles bore small fins. The hand she reached out was webbed, her fingers ending in nails Namaka could only call claws.
Like someone had blended a fish, a shark, and a woman. Beautiful and deadly.
All around her darkness stretched as far as she could see. There was nothing, absolutely nothing save the creature before her, reaching a hand toward her. Every strand of her being demanded Namaka open her eyes and flee from things the human mind was not meant to see. This creature might be nestled within her soul, but to see her like this made it too real, too inescapable.
“You asked me for symbiosis.” The woman spoke with the same voice that had so long echoed in Namaka’s mind, except now it sounded like words spoken aloud, coming from outside herself. Was Nyi Rara now outside her, or was her mind simply playing a trick on her? The mermaid frowned, but kept her hand outstretched toward Namaka. “In your world, you tend to think of reality as one thing or another. But once you leave behind the human world, human perception and human logic must be left behind as well. Now. Do you wish to do this? I cannot force you to take this journey, for it is not a journey of your body, but of your mind, your soul.”
Nyi Rara was right. Namaka had asked for this, had wanted to find a way to reconcile their two natures. And that meant accepting Nyi Rara for what she truly was. It had been so easy to think of her merely as another person talking to Namaka. But Nyi Rara wasn’t a person, exactly. She was something so far beyond human experience that Namaka might—almost—have more in common with someone like Ambassador Punga than with the mermaid princess.