Heirs of Mana Omnibus

by Matt Larkin

  Madness.

  Kill her …

  Yes, Poli‘ahu ought to kill her. Let the invaders’ innumerable sacrifices mean nothing. Let them climb through the ruins here, take the fortress that had claimed a thousand of their lives or more. Let them come and find no sign of Hina.

  A single shove, and she would plummet into the gulch, food for sharks. From this height, the water would hit like stone, shatter her bones. A mer-possessed Kaupeepee had survived, but a person like Hina? No … not even her kupua nature was likely to allow her to recover from such a fall.

  But …

  But she still, despite it all, didn’t want to see the woman dead.

  Her power infects your mind like rot. It seeps into the ether and pollutes your soul.

  That was, no doubt, at least partially true. It seemed the nature of Hina’s kupua gifts that her supernatural allure beckoned others to her. Made her more desirable even than her physical beauty ought to have induced. But still, befuddled by her power or not, still she could not take that last step and heave the woman into the void.

  Hina looked to her now, clutching the wall as if it too might not easily break away and send her screaming to her doom. Looking at Poli‘ahu as if she might save her, rather than slay her, as she had intended in hunting down the invader kupua.

  “This is what your people have wrought,” Poli‘ahu spat at the other woman.

  “My people?” Hina swallowed, visibly composing herself before rising from the cracked wall. “Did you not unleash some monstrosity upon them? Did you not bring hail and plague among them?”

  Poli‘ahu stalked close enough to push Hina back a pace, sending arms flailing as if she might plummet backward in truth. “You came to our shores and tried to claim them as your own! You tried to supplant our way of life! Were we not justified in any course before us to resist this?” She caught the woman around both biceps. “Would you not defend your home with any means available to you?”

  “Sawaiki is my home! I was born here! I have lived here all my life and I know nothing else!”

  “Because your parents took land that did not belong to them!”

  Hina pulled herself in closer, grasping Poli‘ahu’s own arms in similar manner. “My parents sought a better life for themselves. But whatever they may or may not have done, I am not responsible for their actions. I have never killed anyone, never stolen anything.”

  Poli‘ahu jerked her arms free, backing away, almost unable to believe what she was hearing. That Hina could claim innocence, as if she were not connected to the deeds of her ‘ohana, seemed almost preposterous. The chain of lives, of ancestry, was all that tethered the living to the past. “Do you not pray to your ‘aumākua? Do you not tell mo‘olelo to trace your lines back to venerated ancestors?”

  The woman faltered. “Yes …”

  “Then how can you beseech your ancestors for support, claim the benefit of their deeds—deeds which made you a queen!—and yet deny any culpability for those same acts?”

  A moment’s pause. “Because I … I have nothing else to go back to. What is it you imagine we can do now? Flee two thousand miles across the Worldsea to a land I’ve never known? We would be invaders there, too, Poli‘ahu. You think the kings who remain are friend to us? You think we would have left in the first place were that the case?” She shook her head. “If my forebears came by their thrones wrongly, forgive me.” A sudden gleam in her eye. “But then … one of my ancestors is also Mo‘oinanea. She came to this land with your ancestors, with Maui himself. Does that not, in fact, give me as much claim to Kaua‘i as your kindred?”

  No.

  No!

  She refused to believe that. Poli‘ahu was descended of Manua, of Nu‘u. Hers was the true line of ali‘i for Sawaiki. Hers alone. She had tried to make peace with their cousins from Kahiki and it had ended in blood. Decades ago, when Hina’s mother had first come here, she had tried.

  You will lose yourself … The words, the foreign voice, dancing in her mind.

  Another tremor shook the fortress.

  “Pray to your ‘aumākua, then, Hina,” she finally said. “Pray they spare you and carry you away from this place intact. That you came to these shores as refugees … that may well be the case. But you lost your rights to become our guests when you tried to supplant our ways with your own.”

  Unable to bear looking upon the kupua further, Poli‘ahu turned, slipping back around the corner. She pressed her back against the wall and gently banged her head there, wishing she could knock the other woman’s words from her mind. It didn’t matter … it didn’t matter if the invaders had a point, were justified in any of their actions … they had still brought the matter to this end.

  They had brought it to the bitterest of wars, and once such junctures were reached, maybe it no longer mattered who—if anyone—had the right of it. This thing had a life of its own, and Poli‘ahu would see it through. She would see these Kahikians driven into the sea and destroyed if that was what it took to ensure her dynasty’s survival.

  Wincing, she drew upon Waiau’s power, her form breaking apart into mist. She drifted back around the corner, avoiding looking to Hina where she once more crouched. The afternoon sun scorched her, but she flitted out, catching herself on air currents whipping down from the mountains.

  Haupu was lost.

  This battle was lost.

  Hilo was lost …

  Almost everything she had was gone. But Poli‘ahu refused to surrender. Flying in mist form far, across the gulf between islands, would sap her strength, but what choice remained to her? She needed to escape Moloka‘i, find a way to rally the old Savai‘ian dynasty. She needed a chance to recoup her losses and press the attack.

  And, more than anything else, she needed a way to destroy Pele and any other Kahikian kupua that had arrived of late. This new influx of mana-rich foes had changed the course of the war … and Poli‘ahu would do anything to change it back.

  The invaders would fall.

  10

  Days Gone

  When Poli‘ahu was fourteen, word came that the better part of Mau‘i now belonged, through war or marriage, to the newcomers from Kahiki. While the people of Vai‘i had once embraced these people as cousins, some in Hilo had begun to call them invaders. Poli‘ahu heard little from the villages, though, as Lilinoe permitted her to journey there only once or twice a year. Their problems seemed far removed, and regardless, Poli‘ahu avoided the village of her former parents.

  She could not bear the thought of looking upon them, or worse, of having them see her.

  No, each night she returned to the cave, ate her fish, and let her mind wash away into other realms. Her consciousness would float on the breeze and seem to roll over the sea like a rising mist, while Lilinoe sometimes whispered into her ears.

  She did not see things so much as feel them. A sensation of bodiless weightlessness, where she was so close to falling into a void free from time or worry.

  As Lilinoe had predicted, Poli‘ahu had developed a particular affinity for cold and mist once she’d become a woman. It came in fits and spurts, at first, totally beyond her control. She’d woken one night to find a puddle beside her frozen solid. Other times, mist seemed to follow at her heels of its own accord, as if her soul called it up from the sea or down from the mountains.

  An icy wind often greeted her each night, but it barely chilled her anymore.

  Was that the power of Lua-o-Milu, reaching across the gulf of Pō and into her? That underworld of cold and damnation that so terrified others, that pit … was the source of her power.

  Now, she meditated for hours at a time, no longer dreading the quiet. It was a reprieve, in fact. Legs folded beneath her, she settled into comfort and let her mind drift away.

  Lately, though, Lilinoe wanted her to do more than simply meditate. She wanted her to look beyond the world.

  “It’s called the Veil,” the akua had said. “A membrane separating the Mortal Realm from the Penumbra. It pr
otects your reality from easy intrusion by the Otherworlds. For the most part, ghosts and spirits require a sorcerer to open the way for them, or a mortal to surrender his or her body, even if only for a moment. A moment of weakness is all it takes, a faltering of your Will, and a spirit can have you. This Veil encircles your reality, but to truly understand, to begin to reach enlightenment, you must cast aside the illusions you hold fast to your place in existence.”

  “What illusions?”

  “Even as the Veil protects you, it deludes you, keeping you locked in ignorance and isolation, unable to perceive the greater reality around you.”

  Poli‘ahu had swallowed, finding her throat dry. “You want me to look into Pō.”

  “The most enlightened of mortals possess heightened awareness. Perceptions not tied to your physical senses, but rather to your expanded consciousnesses. A third eye, a second sight, oft called the Sight. This is just a means of expressing enhanced cognizance of true reality. The most common and most basic application thereof is to look into Pō—the Penumbra.”

  “What will I see there?”

  “A shadow of this world, an Echo, where dwell ghosts and spirits watching your world, searching ever for a way in.”

  “Why? Why do they want into this world?”

  “A multitude of reasons that hold no bearing to your task at hand. What matters is this … these entities will seize upon any moment of weakness. When you look through the Veil, your mind and soul partially enter their reality. When you grow strong enough, you might Spirit Walk and enter Pō more fully, allowing you to travel the shadows and gain useful information. But in either case, ghosts and spirits become a threat to you. If you can see them, they can see you. These entities range in demeanor from indifference to active malevolence when it comes to your kind, but they are rarely benevolent.”

  “But you are a spirit, an akua.”

  “Yes …”

  Poli‘ahu could not bring herself to give voice to the obvious question … didn’t that mean that Lilinoe, too, was not benevolent?

  Either way, for month after month, she tried to push her mind across the Veil. Sometimes, in the deepest meditation, she thought she could feel it, like a viscous blanket, wrapped around her mind, stifling her, holding her back from some cosmic truths. It stuck to her thoughts like cloying filth, sickening her, refusing to give way to her intrusions.

  Lilinoe spoke of enlightenment as both wisdom and horror, entangled in a single epiphanic knot. And now, when Poli‘ahu pushed against the Veil, she thought … she could swear something pushed back. Something immense beyond the scope of imagination, ancient beyond time. Something eldritch, beginning to notice her, a flicker of awareness of her existence. Pulling her toward it …

  Seizing her breath …

  It was … monstrous beyond all human ken … It was … starting to look at her … to see her soul … A coldness spread inside her chest …

  Blood trickled from her nose, crystallizing into ice even as it dribbled down over her lips.

  She tried to pull back, retreat into her own body, but her mind couldn’t escape the grasp of the Veil, as if some great hand swept in from the other side and held her head in its palm.

  “Let go,” Lilinoe’s icy voice broke into her mind, her freezing fingers pressing against Poli‘ahu’s temples.

  For an instant beyond time, she felt herself torn in two directions, as if her soul was about to rip apart. Then the other side released her, as did Lilinoe.

  Gasping, Poli‘ahu fell over, whimpering, coughing. She spewed out shards of frozen blood and lay on the cave floor, thrashing in pain. A cold hatred coiled around her guts and threatened to break her from the inside out.

  “Do not give in to the ennui …” Lilinoe hissed. “Surrender your Will and something may claim you.”

  “I don’t understand … What was …?”

  Lilinoe frowned and settled down closer to her. Not touching her. Not offering any physical comfort. It had never been the snow akua’s way to offer comfort of any sort. Knowledge, on occasion, and power, yes. But Lilinoe was like the icy slopes of Mauna Kea, far above them. Cold and solid, unbreakable and unreachable. “I told you some things existed even from before the Deluge. Some things are much, much older. Perhaps they were always here, waiting in the shadows. The greatest of the spirits are the Elder Gods who dwell in the spirit worlds. But other entities are almost as old, almost as powerful and unfathomable. If you feel a presence like that, something so deep it might have no bottom, you retreat. Pull your mind back across the Veil and do not dare look until you feel certain it must be gone.”

  “What was it?”

  The akua’s frown deepened. “The old powers rarely venture into the Penumbra, existing deeper in Pō or beyond. You appear to have briefly attracted the attention of such an old thing. Consider yourself fortunate to have come away with your mind and soul intact.”

  But Poli‘ahu did not feel fully intact.

  Nor did she sleep well that night. Not for many, many nights.

  After her encounter with the entity, Poli‘ahu found herself loathe to try to touch the Veil again. Even the thought of it had her palms clammy and her stomach churning.

  “Knowledge is both the reward and its own price,” Lilinoe said several days later, as if such a statement might serve to somehow obviate Poli‘ahu’s growing fears. “There are others, waiting for you to make contact with them. They wait just beyond your senses, willing to deal with you.”

  “How do I know they won’t try to take my body?”

  “They are loyal to me. Still, do not show them a faltering Will. Do not tempt any etheric being.”

  Poli‘ahu knew it would look weak, but she desperately, fervently wanted to wrap her arms around herself and rock back and forth. She wanted to be held in the warm embrace of … Of no one. Her parents had cast her out like a diseased dog. There was no warmth left for her, no one to turn to. She had given over weeping years ago.

  But Lilinoe hissed as if she could see inside Poli‘ahu, see that growing weakness, and despised it. All at once, the akua rose and departed the cave, vanishing into the night.

  Poli‘ahu stared out after her. Should she chase the akua down? Race after her and beg forgiveness? Beg for what? For being human?

  Glowering, Poli‘ahu instead folded her legs and began to meditate again. She need not try to press against the Veil. She need not look through it into the fathomless shadows nor at the ancient predators lurking within them. She just needed peace.

  Lilinoe returned, just before morning, a faraway look in her eyes.

  Poli‘ahu said nothing. The snow akua had walked away from her, maybe even considered abandoning her just like her godsdamned parents. What was there left to say after that?

  The akua did not approach her, just stalked to the back of the cave, perhaps to sleep away the daylight hours.

  Scoffing, Poli‘ahu left to fish.

  As she returned to the cave, Poli‘ahu tossed a pair of dead crabs on the cavern floor. Lilinoe, when and if she ate, didn’t seem to care much whether the food was cooked. One crab she could have, the other would serve for Poli‘ahu’s breakfast the next morning.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have even returned here. But then, where else would she go? Lilinoe was all she had in the world. That, and the snow akua’s promise to make Poli‘ahu a queen.

  When the sun had set, the akua emerged from the recesses of the cave and looked down at the crab a moment. Then she bent, ripped off one of its legs, and began to suck the meat out with a slurping sound.

  The akua tossed the empty shell aside the next moment. “You’re a virgin.”

  Poli‘ahu felt a flush rise in her cheeks as she settled on the floor. That was … hardly any of the akua’s business. And yes, she knew she was a little old compared to most for that. Many took a lover as soon as they became women, but Poli‘ahu knew no one.

  Hardly knowing what to say, she cleared her throat. “I caught the crabs with traps to the south,
not so far from Hilo. Do you like them?”

  Lilinoe ripped off another leg, crunched the shell with her teeth, and noisily sucked down the insides. Then she tossed it aside and sat down across from Poli‘ahu, so close she could feel cold wafting off the white-shawled akua. “Would you feel most comfortable with a male or a female?”

  “Uh, what?” Was she seriously asking this?

  Lilinoe arched a brow. “When you touch yourself out there in the jungle, do you think of a man or a woman?”

  Now the flush felt like someone had lit a fire behind her cheeks. “I have no idea what you’re …”

  “Please. If there is one thing etheric beings share with mortals, it is desires of the flesh. That, spirits understand. The lust, the need—it holds the universe together. We are, all of us, deeply sexual beings. It is written into the foundations of our very essences. The confluence of sexual energies is like the fusion of creative forces from the Spirit Realm, ever encircling one another. The pleasures of the flesh are one of the deepest rewards for possession of a mortal host. Even as we escape the predations and pains and politics of our native realm, we come here, to this veritable paradise, with bodies so sensual we can indulge in lusts denied us for centuries. You think I care about your self-stimulation? Rather, I laud you for it. Sexual voraciousness is a defining trait for most successful practitioners of the Art.”

  Poli‘ahu desperately wanted to be anywhere but here. She was seriously not hearing this. And it was far too much information. “Y-you don’t have sex in your world.”

  “In Lua-o-Milu?” Lilinoe laughed, a wheezy, fell sound that chilled the cavern. “It is not quite the same.”

  All right. All right. There had to be some purpose to this. Lilinoe was a goddess. She didn’t banter. “Why are you asking me these things?”