by Matt Larkin
Even—on occasion—she spotted sparks crackling along Hi‘iaka’s fingers, uncontained. Much as she hated the idea of sending her little sister away, there was no denying she needed training.
“Kapo promised we wouldn’t leave until you get back,” Hi‘iaka said, glancing around at the boats and warriors. “I mean, I refused to leave without the chance to say ‘aloha.’”
Pele drew her sister into a wordless embrace, almost afraid to speak for fear of her voice breaking. Kapo had accused Pele of being incapable of training Hi‘iaka in greater part because of her ambition to be queen. But how was she to give up that ambition? It was part of herself—a need through which she defined her purpose in life. And her time with Hi‘iaka seemed but one more of the innumerable sacrifices she had paid for it.
“Well,” she managed, holding the girl at arm’s length. “Kapo knows if she took you away without waiting for me, I’d hunt her down and scald the skin right off her arse.”
Hi‘iaka frowned, perhaps at the mental image, though Pele couldn’t say for certain. “She told me the sorcery of Old Mu helped destroy the world and create the Deluge. That Poli‘ahu revives that very Art.”
Pele grimaced. “Listen—”
“Don’t let anything happen to you!”
“What?” Pele squeezed her arms. “You fear for me?”
“Of course, I fucking fear! Sorceresses can do all sorts of unnatural things. What would I … I mean I … Lua-o-Milu, Pele!” Hi‘iaka wriggled free of Pele’s grasp. “Don’t let her get your hair or blood or skin or anything.” She leaned forward. “Not even your shit.”
Pele raised a brow at that.
“Kapo says anything that comes from you can be used to connect to you.”
Was that how the Snow Queen had cursed Kamapua‘a? With his blood? Or—Pele blanched at the thought—his shit?
Pele patted the girl’s cheek. “Be that as it may, I’m not planning to get personally close to her. If there’s a volcano nearby, maybe I won’t need to go anywhere near the Snow Queen.”
“Uh … might make it hard to rescue that Hina queen if you bury the fortress in lava.”
“You let me worry about that.”
In the morning, the boats set out. Lonomakua rode in her canoe behind Pele, with Naia left in charge of Puna. And though she knew she ought to focus on the task at hand, Pele could not help but find her thoughts ever drawn back to Hi‘iaka and their impending separation.
4
Being a shit was a shit way to live. That was pretty much how Kamapua‘a saw things these days.
Even if it he shitting deserved the shit happening to his legs. All puffy and swollen like an overripe banana that needed to be peeled and put out of his misery. Only that sounded even more shitting painful.
He’d made his way from Vai‘i to Mau‘i on account of everybody saying the Sacred Pools helped the sick and so forth. After soaking in them for three days, all he had was wrinkles and a hankering for some fish.
And no fish presented themselves for his easy consummation.
Now, he plodded his way up to Hana, half wondering if he would even make it. Every step hurt, and there wasn’t much of a path through the jungle, so he had to follow the coastline. Which was inconvenient on account of it bobbing and weaving and shit. That sort of thing made a straight line even longer.
Queen Hinaikamalama ruled Hana and she was, last he heard, sworn to Poli‘ahu.
Traditionally, that ought to mean he should kill her and count it a help for his cause. But Hinaikamalama also had some good old-fashioned kāhuna in her service. Maybe one of them could un-dropsy his legs.
That, and her son, Lima-loa, had been among his few friends in days that now felt another lifetime, when the young man had adventured on Kaua‘i.
It meant no murder today.
Which was just fine by Kamapua‘a, though he could feel the Boar God getting riled up at the thought of not cracking any skulls. Huh. Maybe the Boar God would settle for busting open some coconuts.
Coconuts were like skulls, only the meat was tastier inside.
And smashing them didn’t kill anyone.
Well … unless you smashed them on someone, but he wasn’t about to do that.
In the meantime, Mau‘i’s coastline seemed to stretch on and on, like the akua were having a shit at his expense. Truth was, he’d begun to run low on ideas.
Shocking, considering the size of his smarts, but since the kāhuna of Vai‘i had failed, the Sacred Pools had failed, and even the shitting Waters of Life had failed, he was … faltering.
Him! Kamapua‘a, the Incorrigibly Mighty!
The very idea of him failing sounded utterly preponderous, but there it was. He was a shit. He was in deep pig shit. And couldn’t think of a shitting thing else to do about it.
As it turned out, walking on two bad legs made an unpleasant journey take halfway to forever.
So, when Kama finally plopped down in the center of Hana, he stripped off his malo and fanned himself with it. The locals came to greet him, but he was too tired to even manage an erection to wave at them with. Hopefully they would forgive his lack of proper edifice under the circumstances.
He did, however, at least manage to climb to his feet with a huff and plaster a banana-sized grin on his face. “Aloha, people of Hana. I come here to chase your worries away and eradicate boredom in all its many forms.”
Villagers gathered around him to gape in awe at his majestery, and he waved at each in turn, until an exotic-featured woman strode forward, spear in her hand, though not raised in threat. Still, the Boar God in his gut rumbled. Tattoos marred her face, further enhancing her warrior visage.
An image filled his head, a sight of tearing her skull off by the hair and then beating the rest of the gathered throng with it.
It was the kind of mental image that made it hard to keep smiling.
“Wait, I know you,” Kama said after a moment. “You were with Lima-loa when he married Kaneiki’s daughter.” Kaneiki was a chief in Anahola, sworn to Huma. Last time Kama had seen any of them was before things had really gone to pig shit with Hakalanileo and forced Kama to turn to banditry and all sorts of misbehavioring.
The woman groaned. “The wereboar.”
Kama folded his arms over his chest. “Nah, if you were, I’d totally have smelled it. Wereboar arses give off a particular aroma quite unlike the sweetness sneaking out of your two cheeks.”
Now the foreign woman narrowed her eyes and lowered her spear. “Do you mock me?”
“Uh … If you like. I got lots of stamina. I can, uh mock … all night long, Scrumptious. In the meantime, though, be good to see Lima-loa again.”
Impossibly, those eyes narrowed even further until Kama wondered how she could even see for squinting at him so hard. After a moment, though, the tension broke when a young warrior came bounding down from the village.
“Kamapua‘a!” Lima-loa shouted, waving his arms about like a buffoon.
The man leapt into Kama’s embrace and, with Kama’s weakened legs, bowled him over, sending the two of them tumbling into the sand. Kama huffed, lifting the man bodily off him, and set him aside.
“Shit, Lima, I know I’m immutably missable. I mean, sometimes I miss myself when I’m asleep. But really.” He stumbled to his feet.
His old friend glanced at his legs and at once took his arm, raising him up. “What in Lua-o-Milu happened to you? I thought you inviolable.”
“My friend, I’m downright indescribable. Thing is, I got a bit too much fluid and it won’t drain out. I tried standing on my head and pissing it out, but that didn’t work worth shit.” Kama paused, thinking back. “Also—for future reference—not a good idea.” He cleared his throat. “Tried poking holes with a knife and letting the blood out, but those heal up fast and didn’t help anyway.”
Lima-loa frowned, obviously deep in thought about the whole dilemma. Then, arm supporting Kama, he led him toward the village. “We have to see my mother first.”
“Uh, huh.” And would that work out, or would old Hinaikamalama know he’d planned to kill Poli‘ahu? It wasn’t like he’d made it too far on that account … then again, he had married her rival, Queen Pele, and that probably didn’t win him much favor.
Either way, though, he wouldn’t get any help without talking to her.
Which meant the time had arrived for some egregious words.
Queen Hinaikamalama was old as shit. Dry, crusty, and with hardly any color left in her hair. Kama remembered old mo‘olelo that had claimed her to be among the great beauties of Sawaiki, once. A long time before he was born, there was some romance going on between her and his great uncle or some such pig shit. Maybe, back then, she wasn’t so old. Who knew about these things? If not, he could see why his kin would have broken off the affair.
“So,” the queen said, hands on her knees and leaning forward. “You helped arrange the marriage of my son, yes? I have you to thank for Alani as my daughter-in-law?”
“Er …” Kama cleared his throat. “Do you like Alani?” Truth be told, Kama had paid far more attention to her sister, Makana, who had squealed well into the night while riding his canoe. Kama had almost married her, too, before Old Haki put a stop to that.
The queen chuckled, a warmer sound than he’d have expected from someone who looked ready to burst apart at the seams. “Yes,” the woman said after shifting a bit. “I like her.”
“So … can I have one of your kāhuna, then?”
“Have my kahuna?”
He shifted uncomfortably on his swollen legs. “Oh, uh … Not for an aikāne or anything fancy like that. I mean I just wanna poke his brain about my conditionals.” He waved a hand at his lower extremes. Then frowned, realizing she might think he meant a condition under his malo. It wasn’t wise to offend queens if a man could avoid that. “Uh, two of my legs have issues.”
For a moment, she just sat there, head cocked, staring at him like he’d taken on boar form in the middle of the day or some other such insanity. Finally, she leaned back, raising a hand to offer her permission.
Lima-loa himself helped Kamapua‘a to the temple of La‘amaomao, where the kahuna he needed prayed. It was up on a small cliff, elevated above the village slightly. Hana lay on the windward side of the island, overflowing with rain, so it figured they’d be offering sacrifices to the wind goddess in the hopes she’d be gentle with her gourd and not blow the whole village off the side of the island.
Offending goddesses was probably even worse than offending queens.
“So, uh …” he began, coughing a bit as they climbed the painful path up to the temple. Must have taken a lot of work carting all those stones up there to form the wall, just so the kahuna could have a nice view.
At the moment, he rather wished they would have saved themselves—and him—the trouble.
“Yes,” Lima-loa said.
“Yes.”
His friend paused, slipping out from under Kama’s arm to look him in the face. “I assume you’re wondering if we know what you were up to on Vai‘i? And yes, word has gotten around about your adventures.”
“Oh.”
“Married Queen Pele …” Lima-loa clucked his tongue and shook his head.
Kama’s stomach lurched, the Boar God rumbling in his gut. A trap. His old friend was leading him to the temple to get sacrificed to the wind goddess. Probably wouldn’t offend her … unless he didn’t cooperate.
“Yeah, well, you know, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Lima chuckled. “I’ve heard she’s a beauty almost as stunning as the Snow Queen.” He shrugged.
Kama cocked his head toward the temple. “So, uh …”
“What?” Lima glanced that way. “Oh! You’re afraid the kahuna won’t help you on account of your connection with an enemy of our sworn queen.” He glanced around and leaned in close to Kamapua‘a’s ear. “You didn’t hear me say this, but I doubt Mother would grieve much were Queen Poli‘ahu to fall.”
“I kinda heard you say that.”
Lima rolled his eyes. “Nope.”
“But, I—”
“Did not hear that from me. Queen Hinaikamalama has sworn an oath to Queen Poli‘ahu.”
Huh … Oh! Ah, shiiiiit. This was some political pig shit. Kama was pretty certain politics was the stupidest, shittiest thing anybody had ever thought up. The way he imagined it, some old crusty shits had probably sat around, bored out of their skulls, ponderizing awful ideas for entertainment. One of them had come up with politics as a way to get young people to dance to a song with no music and put on a show that would never end so they could win prizes that didn’t exist.
“Pretty sure I don’t want to know about this.”
Lima-loa shrugged. “All right, then. The kahuna’s name is Peni, and if anyone would know how to help you, it’d be him.”
They continued up the path, eventually finding the old man tending to the sacred flame. Kamapua‘a knew tabu forbade him from entering the temple proper or approaching the flame, so he plopped down on the hillside to wait.
Every once in a while, it was wise to listen to tabus. Like when you needed help from a kahuna, for example.
The evening rains came in a pleasant drizzle and Kama cast aside his malo and lay back to take in the approaching night. Times like this, he wanted to forget everything else. That was the joy of being the boar.
When he went boar, he didn’t have to worry about politics, or personal history, or tabus, or all the ways the world had stepped in shit. There was woods, and rain, and running. When he felt like it, a good swim. The simple pleasure of scratching his back on a tree trunk.
Kama liked pleasures way better than the other things.
His friend spoke with the kahuna, who at last made his shambling way outside the temple, pausing on the threshold to lean against the water-drenched stones.
A peal of far-off thunder sounded.
“I prayed to the akua about you,” the kahuna said, his voice raspy with age and apparent fatigue.
Kamapua‘a climbed to his feet, grunting in discomfort. “Mahalo for that.”
“I feel the mana in you. You are kupua.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I think so too.”
The kahuna wheezed as he took a faltering step over, then laid a hand upon Kama’s head. For a long time, he was silent, eyes closed. Had he fallen asleep? Was that a thing? Sleeping while standing up? Sounded stupid to Kama, but who knew what kāhuna got up to.
Without warning, the old man moved to kneel. Lima-loa appeared at his side, easing him down. Peni prodded one of Kama’s legs, causing Kama to draw in a sharp breath.
Yeah. Not a pleasure, that.
The kahuna grunted, then clucked his tongue. “A curse lies upon you, sorcery beyond the workings of kāhuna. Something ancient and wrathful.”
“Kinda figured that part out on my own.”
Lima-loa helped Peni stand, and the kahuna stared at Kama, not without what seemed pity in his gaze.
“I may not be able to help you,” Peni said. “But you are kupua, and thus possessed of deific lineage.”
Kama nodded eagerly. “Got me some great lines, no mistake. Does that help?”
“Do you know whence comes your divine blood?”
Now he had to scratch his head. “Uli was my mother. Big Sis used to say we were descended from Mo‘oinanea from way back.”
Peni patted his cheek once more. “Then if anyone can help you, I imagine it would be your illustrious progenitor.”
So, he was suggesting Kamapua‘a had to go looking for the mother of all mo‘o.
Huh.
Well … shit.
5
Attempting to impose mortal geographies upon non-physical locations was a short road to madness … or so Lilinoe had instructed Poli‘ahu in the early days when she had gained the Sight. Nevertheless, conceptually she could imagine Pō as both enveloping the Mortal Realm and thus expanding far beyond it, and also overlaying it where it became
a mirror in the Penumbra, or Echo.
Beyond, outward, the further one got away from the physical, the more nebulous the Realm became. Past the Penumbra lay the Astral Roil, an unfathomable expanse of shifting unrealities of perhaps infinite scope. It was said Manua held court out there, and she had often imagined what the shadowy lapu kingdom might look like.
More uncertain still lay any attempt to place the crystalline spheres that represented each spirit world in the Spirit Realm. One of which was home to her companion, Saveasi‘uleo, who now walked the depths of the Penumbra at her side, where darkness thickened and she could see the Echo of the Mortal Realm vanishing as though she moved perpendicularly away from it.
“I can do what you ask,” the Water spirit said at length, “though it will cost me, and thus you.”
“What will you have of me?”
“A host.”
She missed a step. It went almost without saying that spirits bartered for their aid with sorcerers and sorceresses via sexual liaisons. That, she might have expected. Surely Saveasi‘uleo did not believe she would willingly surrender her own body indefinitely, however.
“I prefer a male body. The strongest male body available.”
She balked, briefly wondering if he had heard her thoughts.
Unnecessary, Waiau answered in her head. Millenia of experience allow prediction of typical mortal reactions based on their assumptions.
It sent a jolt through her—the thought that even she might be so predictable to anyone that they might guess at her thoughts. She, a Snow Queen, a god-queen, a sorceress. And he could know her mind, find her so very transparent?
“Mark my glyph upon the one you will give, and all you ask shall be done.” He tapped a webbed finger upon her brow. “Fail to deliver it to me, and you shall pay a greater price.”
The mer stepped away, sideways out of her view, out of this reality, though she could feel his presence still tied to herself. A lingering sense of her spell holding him here, giving him the power to work his influence beyond the Veil, even as so doing siphoned away at her own mana and left her faint.