by Matt Larkin
And her sister had been saved, more thoroughly than she had even imagined. Pu‘u-hele had become an ‘aumakua. A guardian against the forces of Pō. At night, outside, Pele would embrace the Sight and perhaps catch a glimpse of an owl watching over this place.
“This is all there was?” Lonomakua asked. When she nodded, he glanced outside through the open door. “We can help maybe one more person with this.”
“Then you take it.”
“I’m not injured.”
With a last warm glance at Naia and Milohai, she drew Lonomakua away from them. “I don’t know how you’ve lived so long already, even for a kupua. But I wouldn’t lose you. Take the Waters.” The thought of him being gone was like a blow to her gut. She would not allow that to happen.
“You’ve grown so much. I’m proud of you.” The words felt like sunshine on her face. “Keep the Waters. Someone else may fall. I have to move on to other villages, help them.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“You no longer need me to teach you, Pele. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve learned all you need to know. You have no more need for a guardian or tutor. Any more lessons are the ones you have to teach yourself.”
She swallowed. “Maybe. But I still need my father.”
“Your …? Pele, I …”
She threw her arms around him before he could say anything else. “You’re right. I learned a lot of things. I learned some ‘ohana bonds run deeper than blood, and that you have to hold on to the people who really matter.”
“I don’t know what to say.” The man’s face seemed to soften, like he wrestled with some emotion he struggled to contain.
He had lost his children. Maybe that was why he had been so good to her.
“You have ‘ohana, too,” she said.
After a moment, he pulled away, shaking his head, but smiling wistfully. “So where does the wereboar out there fall in?”
She shrugged. “Family pet?”
He chuckled and mussed her hair like she was a child.
Allowing it, she slipped back outside and turned her gaze back to the mountains. The menehune tunnels ran throughout this island, connecting to the Place of Darkness. What other secrets might those tunnels hold? A way to save more of her people, perhaps?
But she could afford no time to deal with such things now. Not with Poli‘ahu still out there. She would have to deal with the Snow Queen now, and then there was still the threat Namaka feared from the he‘e and Kanaloa.
Ever too many fires to tend.
Beyond the palace wall, Kamapua‘a stood, arms over his chest, watching her but hardly seeming to see. Yes, she supposed he was one more. Should she kill him? Accept him?
Oh, how she loathed the Boar God inside of the pig. But the pig himself, while an idiot, had some redeeming qualities. She supposed.
Pele stalked over to him and leaned her elbows on the wall, staring at the wereboar. “I suppose we must talk.”
He sniffed. “Mostly I like talking. I got a shitting amazing voice and lots of insights and shit. Just like I had one today.”
“An insight?”
“Uh, huh. See … I’m shit.”
Her first instinct was to agree, but then, who was she to judge him? Had she not done worse than Kamapua‘a, and without the excuse of having an akua possessing his body and taking actions against his will?
In spite of herself, she had to smile at him. “Be better, then.”
The big man thumped a hand down beside hers, not quite touching her fingers, looking almost afraid. “It keeps coming out of me. More and more of it, until there won’t be a smudge left of Kama. Just the Boar God. Seen like that, maybe she was right to do whatever she did to me.”
“Who did what now?”
“Poli‘ahu. She uh … seems to have laid a curse on me. It’s weakening my body. Maybe I can even send the Boar God back to Pō when I go. Dunno. But I can’t be here. Can’t risk it getting into anyone else I care about.”
Pele frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Leaving. Leaving Puna, Vai‘i, maybe all Sawaiki. I don’t belong here anymore. Gotta get as far away from people as inhumanly possible.”
Pele shut her eyes and blew out a slow breath. If she was not fit to judge him, neither was she fit to absolve him of his burdens. Maybe … he was right. He was a danger to her and to Puna and to every other person on Sawaiki.
She wanted to ask where he would go, but when she opened her eyes, he’d already turned away and shambled down toward the beach. And she could not make herself open her mouth to say anything to him.
Maybe too much had passed between them for words to ever suffice.
But if Poli‘ahu had cursed her husband, that gave Pele one more reason to destroy the Snow Queen. She had made it all too obvious that Vai‘i had no room for two kupua queens.
Let Namaka claim the seas.
This island would belong the Pele.
Epilogue
Locals already called this place the Cave of the Eel, perhaps having mistaken the taniwha for such a ray-finned fish, albeit one of immense size. The only approach was from the sea, so Maui paddled his canoe into the brine-saturated den, his gaze darting about the shadows, seeking his prey.
The whole way between islands, his gut had twisted, his mind had roiled, overcome with a singular thought. Not again. Another family lost, as if the Fates tested his resolve, wondered how far they could push his limits before madness swept over him like a breaking kai e‘e.
Perhaps, even, they thought madness might better suit their beguiling ends.
Ah, but the whims of fate remained ever mercurial and inexorable, so much so, Maui found himself occasionally tempted to finally give in to the darkness and let it claim its due. How much, truly, should a man endure?
Oh, even as the gentle slap of oar on water echoed off the cavern, he knew vengeance would prove a bitter balm for wounds that would not heal given a hundred lifetimes. But what else was he to do? Simply let pass this atrocity?
A person upon whom such extraordinary violence is visited finds themselves bereft of any option save to embrace that violence and return it in kind.
Or perhaps he somehow still hoped to find a reason.
At the back of the cave, his canoe knocked up against a stone ledge, one that receded into shadows. The flames had told him Toona would be here, though, so he clambered up onto the shelf and made his way deeper, until at last the taniwha—in blasphemous human form—emerged, eyes gleaming incandescent, breath foul enough to pollute the air even from twenty feet back.
The stench was hardly surprising. How, after all, could a creature born of the Eitr not seethe with foulness?
But until seeing it with his own eyes, he’d almost wanted to deny the possibility that this abomination could take such a shape, like his mo‘o descendants. Still, any other taniwha was but a savage beast, possessed of little wit and no capacity for speech, little more than terrible animals.
The others could not have answered the all-consuming question.
“Why?” he demanded.
Toona snarled, a thick sound that filled the air with a weight, as though the cavern tried to close in upon him, though Maui thought it more likely the dragon’s ire weakened the Veil. “Why …?” Its voice reverberated like a mighty drum, though its mouth seemed ill-suited to forming words.
“Why go after my family?” Maui said.
Toona growled again. “Why. Go. After. Mine? You brought … my children … even my firstborn here, Firebringer. To what end?”
Maui frowned. Yes, he had brought Mo‘oinanea and many of her brood here, across the Worldsea to this new home. His intention had never been to antagonize Toona with it, though, he supposed it was a move meant to partially thwart Toona’s creator.
“You are bothered by seeing your own children here?”
The dragon bared his teeth. “I am bothered. By having them … manipulated. The master knows … what you are.”
Maui didn’t bother to dispute that. He had brought the mo‘o to Sawaiki, yes, in the hopes of maintaining a peaceful relation with Kanaloa’s creations. In the hopes of creating a symbiotic bond between them and the kāhuna pyromancers he had trained. In the hopes of avoiding war with these creatures that might have someday come if they were left unattended.
And … And the fires showed him a great many things yet to pass. They showed women who would come here, sisters, who would need the mo‘o here. One who would meet Mo‘oinanea and maybe change everything.
In the end, he worked to free Kanaloa’s weapons from his arms.
He supposed that answered it, then. Kanaloa, though no doubt unaware what Maui intended, knew Maui would use his prescience to interfere with any attempt Kanaloa made to seize control of the Mortal Realm.
Because of this, his family were dead again.
Perhaps Kanaloa urged Toona to provoke him, intending to create this very confrontation, intending to have the dragon slay him and remove him from the board. If so, the he‘e god-king had miscalculated.
Maui glowered. “I’m going to kill you. And one day, I will watch even your master fail.”
The dragon’s eyes flared.
Author’s Note
Perhaps the most popular and pervasive of all Polynesian characters is the demigod Maui. While the stories vary throughout the different cultures and islands, someone named Maui (or something very similar) remains a dominant figure. A culture hero, a trickster, and a benefactor to mankind—even if one sometimes given to selfish motives and violence.
Maui is traditionally connected to a woman named Hina. Sometimes she is his mother and sometimes, as I took here, she is his wife. As with Maui himself, Hina’s exact role, exploits, and tales vary in the telling. The whole thing becomes further complicated because numerous figures in Polynesian myth bear the name Hina. In this series, I explain this with the assumption Maui’s wife became famous for her beauty and wisdom, and thus others were named after her.
Like so much of the source material, differing or conflicting mo‘olelo are considered a source of strength in Polynesian culture, not a problem. For the sake of a novel, though, I had to establish a real “truth.” One I built using bits and pieces of tales from New Zealand to Hawai‘i and everywhere in between.
Anyone familiar with my other work in the Eschaton Cycle will also see some clear connections between Maui and a certain other figure. The parallels between various trickster heroes in myth are often striking, though I hesitate to talk about the subject too much for the benefit of those who haven’t yet read the other series.
This particular book also makes use of a more obscure myth, that of Pu‘u-hele (the traveling hill). In short, Pele and her sister (possibly Hi‘iaka, though here I make it Namaka) receive another sister, one born as a bloody fetus. Deciding it’s a monster, they throw the child into the ocean and she eventually comes to Kaupo (on Maui), dies and becomes the hill Kauiki (and a ghost).
Obviously, I heavily adapted this tale to give more weight to the actions Pele and her sister took.
While the first book places extra emphasis on Namaka, this one allowed me to delve a little more deeper in Pele (probably the most popular full deity in Hawaiian myth). The whole family of gods remains pretty morally ambiguous, which made these sisters ideal for exploring the themes here.
Finally, the story of Kana seeking the Waters of Life to revive Niheu does appear in myth, as does Namaka helping Aukele seek the Waters. Having Pele and Namaka seeking it for Hi‘iaka is mostly my own invention.
I hope this second book in Heirs of Mana has entertained.
Special thanks to the artists for my beautiful cover, to my editor Regina, to my wife and daughter, and to my Arch Skalds: Al, Dale, Rachel, Bill, Jackie, Graham, and Dawn for feedback.
Thank you for reading,
Matt Larkin
Queens of Mana
Prologue
Days Gone
The cacophony of a collapsing city drowned out even the screams of its citizens. The ground undulated, roiling beneath their feet as Nu‘u raced through the streets, forcing his way against the throng of the crowd fleeing the sea, desperately clutching his wife’s hand. The crowds ran from the shadow rising up from the depths, engulfing their world. A wave the size of a mountain, closing inward, seeming almost possessed by apathy the way it lurched ever closer, visible for miles out.
The world bucked, not like some mere earthquake, but as if a colossal god had kicked the ground, heaving it all in a single direction. Just ahead, the main plaza ruptured down the center, one side lunging up a half dozen feet above the other. The colonnade rimming it toppled like a child’s blocks, one mighty stone pillar crashing into the next, a cascade of destruction.
He watched in horror as the splitting ground swallowed up whole families. As a woman tumbled into a newly opened void, leaving her shrieking man behind. Not that Nu‘u could hear a damn thing anyone said.
He yanked his wife around to the side of the plaza, pulling her harder when she stood gaping at the ruin of Puhulu’s palatial estate, balking at the hole now gaping in its heart.
They had no time!
Panting, he pulled her onward. They had to vault over the collapsed breezeway now filled with debris. Beyond, the harbor had already flooded. Ships were hurled about like models, and only the roofs of the buildings remained above water. But all this was but preamble.
Wincing, Nu‘u glanced up at the emerging shadow within that wave. At the abomination that had risen from the depths of the sea. The wave formed a veil around it, mercifully obscuring the behemoth, though he saw more than he might have wished. His breath caught in his throat even as he tried to murmur some primal, inarticulate prayer to any who might be listening.
The saurian head, that, even within the shroud of water, seemed to gleam with a dozen glowing eyes. The mass of writhing tentacles each large enough to rip mountains out by their roots. The rising arms, reaching for Mu, ready to sweep away whatever the cataclysmic quakes and flooding might leave behind.
He stared, he knew with ineffable certainty, at the very end of the world.
Now it was Lilinoe shoving him onward, his wife drawing him from the trance seeing this Elder God had induced within him. His gaze turned, beyond the city proper, to the highlands where the rest of the people fled, wondering if the peaks would shelter them from such an eldritch horror. The roar only redoubled, then, for the mountain range ripped itself in half, the very land torn like a scroll such that the sea might rush in and fill the gap.
Everywhere his gaze turned, the landscape recoiled in agony, as horrified by what transpired as he himself was. Broken, shattered, and swallowed by the sea. Was this what the queens had wrought? Was this delirium their final fool’s gambit?
There would be nowhere to run. Even if he made it to his ship, there would be nowhere to sail to, would there? This thing the queens had unleashed would consume the world. They had no doubt meant something like this fate for Kumari Kandam, never imagining it would befall Mu as well.
But still, Lilinoe guided him onward. They leapt onto a rooftop, daring not risk trying to swim the floodwaters, then took a running start to jump to the next. A double-hulled canoe streamed by, caught in the currents. They jumped to it, giving over the hope of reaching Nu‘u’s own vessel.
Across the gap of waters, someone waved to them, beckoning them. A cluster of a handful of survivors. Maybe the last of mankind, for all he knew.
Nu‘u exchanged glances with his wife, then yanked the till until he could come around, wincing as the hull clipped the edge of a building. Only in drawing near did he recognize Pokoharau, one of the other queens, and by then it was too late to turn away. Instead, Nu‘u laced his gaze with scorn, for her hand had unmade the world.
Pointedly, he looked up at the closing Elder God, surging ever nearer, then back at the fallen queen.
“There is no escape!” he spat at her.
“There is my p
enance!” she shouted, voice almost swallowed by the cataclysm unfolding around them.
It settled upon him, then. Her intent. She, who could influence the waves themselves, would feed her mana into the surging kai e‘e. Feed it all, even as it destroyed her body. As if saving a handful of survivors would absolve her of the death of continents.
But Lilinoe helped her aboard, and—against all logic—Nu‘u guided the canoe toward the approaching apocalypse, wondering, in the end, if anyone would ever remember them. If anyone would be left to remember.
Part I
Third Age of the Worldsea
1
The ocean was thick with the blood of dead mer and the frenzy of sharks feasting on their former masters. Once, this tiny coral reef had been replete with brilliantly colored fish, eels, sea turtles, and half a hundred mer seeking solace. The third enclave to fall this week, and once again Nyi Rara had arrived too late. Frustration and grief warred for dominance on Ake’s face as she swam beside him, searching for survivors of the latest he‘e purge.
The octopuses were always three steps ahead, always knew wherever she and Ake might plan a strike, always uncovered the hiding spots of the Muian refugees. For all her power, Nyi Rara was left helpless. Helpless to change the course of a war that had, for all intents and purposes, been lost the day Mu fell.
The rumors had cropped up in hushed, treasonous whispers—any hope for mer in these seas would now come from Hiyoya … Even as they knew surely the he‘e had allied themselves with the rival nation. Many of Nyi Rara’s people had fled to the southern kingdom for safe haven. But the cold, relentless efficiency with which the he‘e had exterminated the Muians left her wondering where Kanaloa would next turn his hateful gaze. Even Hiyoya must fall before the machinations of such implacable foes.