Heirs of Mana Omnibus

by Matt Larkin

  She could not deny that.

  She watched the dragon swim into the gorge that held Uluhai. Watching long after he’d vanished into the darkness.

  “She’s angry with me,” Nyi Rara said to Daucina as they made their way through the College once more. “She believes I chose to save a Chintamani stone over Tilafaiga.”

  He glanced at her, face unreadable. “Did you?”

  “Yes.” Admitting that tasted like filthy water. “I could have gone after her, but I thought we risked losing everything because of it.”

  “Maybe you made the right call.”

  “Did I?”

  Another look over his shoulder, expression still blank. “Well, I wasn’t there.” His tone carried a faint recrimination. A thought that, had she gone to him before attempting her coup, had she trusted him, maybe Tilafaiga would not now lay in such peril.

  While spirits could not bind other spirits, they had their own way of using the Art, and their own prices they paid for so doing. The College held extensive—if not instructive—speculation on the metaphysical mindsets necessary for the alteration of reality on fundamental levels. Such things required mana, and spirits most often had to derive it from their own souls. Because the soul was the source of existence, few spirits were keen to expend such energies.

  But then, with a Chintamani stone, one had near limitless mana. Enough to rearrange the Mortal Realm by force of Will, if one could but achieve the state of mind needed.

  And here, in the College, those First Age scholars had indeed speculated on how Kanaloa had used the flaming pearls to enforce his Will on flesh, to shape beings born of the Elder Deep through the coalesced mana of the Elder Deep.

  She walked through the airy chamber, tracing her index finger over the carvings Daucina had discovered. Bits and pieces were missing, cracked in the unending procession of time.

  “They say,” Daucina commented, “that the spell songs of Kumari Kandam could shape reality in similar manner, manifest emanations of thought called tulpa.”

  And the scholars believed Kanaloa had used some similar method, a Supernal incantation as a means of harmonizing Will and thought with emanated reality. The music thus became a kind of conduit to the outreaching of the soul. All mer loved to sing, though present circumstances occasioned little opportunity for it. Nyi Rara had heard it claimed that Kuula’s Art was derived from song, as well, and it made her wish any of them remained to advise her.

  Not that she would have trusted them.

  Could she do this?

  “What happened to your finger?” Daucina asked, jolting her from the stream of her thoughts, passing back and forth between lost eras and the now.

  “Ugh … a he‘e yanked it out.”

  He said nothing else on the matter. It was a small blemish, though, of course, mer prided themselves on having perfect, beautiful hosts that sparked desire in mortals and other mer alike.

  No, Nyi Rara could not afford to dwell on the wound at present.

  If all the elders here recorded proved true, the mo‘o were a kind of tulpa Kanaloa had literally sung out of the taniwha. She knelt beside another column, reading and re-reading the speculation, theories, and musings of those who had come before.

  “It will cost you,” Daucina said. “Even considering the Chintamaniya, I imagine such an undertaking must pull something out of you as well.”

  She looked to him. “Help me, then.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but I don’t have your host’s mana.”

  Well … whatever the price, if it meant saving Mu, surely it would prove worthwhile.

  All night she practiced, singing in the halls of the College, bits of refrain co-mingled with mental gyrations, as her mind struggled to parse emanated layers of reality as abstractions that might, with the right sounds, be reharmonized. As if all the cosmos were but vibrations, if she could only believe them so—reality itself a song into which she could add her own discordant rhythms.

  As dawn neared, she found her head feeling apt to burst apart from trying to reconcile disparate conceptions of time and space. This was, perhaps, all nonsense that ought not to have worked.

  For all she knew, invoking the power of the Chintamaniya thus would drive her mad, even if trying to rearrange her thought patterns to accommodate such a song didn’t do so on its own.

  She found Daucina in the Council Chamber, staring into one of the stones as if it held within it all the mysteries of creation, seeming hypnotized by the dance of its etheric flames and the pulses they created in the waters around the chamber.

  So deep had the mer fallen into trance, he seemed not to even notice her presence nor hear her voice when she spoke.

  This … power … it seeped into Uluhai and affected them all, twisting minds even as she plotted to twist the bodies of the mo‘o.

  She had claimed they were gods to the mortals, and now, she would play at divinity, try to create a new kind of life. And hope her actions would not destroy her.

  36

  Snow crunched under Pele’s heels. Her breaths came in pants that frosted the evening air. The mountain was monstrously large and steep, meaning there seemed no way to make the climb in the space of a single passing of the sun. She didn’t relish the idea of climbing in darkness, but neither could she risk sleeping on these slopes where her foe could so easily ambush her.

  So, on and on she pushed, trudging forward, trying to ignore the chill on her feet, the ache in her shoulders, and the tremor rising in her chest at returning to this place. A flood of painful memories. Her violent, needful coupling with Moho. Her ill-conceived sled race against Poli‘ahu. Her fight with the Snow Queen that led to her finding herself cast off the mountain.

  Saved by Kamapua‘a, then almost raped by him.

  This mountain roiled with memory, none of it something she wanted to relive.

  Kapo had offered to accompany her, saying she had fought Poli‘ahu before and won. But Pele had refused. After all, no plants grew upon the summit, and it would only endanger her sister and anyone else she brought along.

  Her shins ached as she trudged ever upward. Sometimes the path grew so steep she had to pull herself forward with her hands as well, and snow dampened her pa‘u and kihei.

  Yes, she might have welcomed company here, but it wasn’t fit for them. This was her battle. In the end, Pele had to face the Snow Queen herself. She had to overcome the woman in her own element.

  She had to succeed where once she had failed.

  A long time Pele hiked, before a shape seemed to materialize before her, as if stepping out of the clouds encircling the summit. Poli‘ahu, her form and motions like that of some ancient goddess looking down upon a trespasser. Pele frowned at the thought—it was beneath her, belittling of her own status. She was the Flame Queen, the purest of the forces of creation. Fire would overcome snow.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I realized you were coming back. I rather thought I had cast you off this mountain for the last time.”

  The other kupua still thrummed with mana, but it felt dimmed, seeming to confirm Lonomakua’s assessment of the price she’d paid to create the wereseals. A fatal error, in this case.

  “Sorcery brings nothing save woe,” Pele commented. It was a lesson Lonomakua had taught her long ago, and all she had seen since lent truth to his words. The Art ravaged souls even as it ravaged the world, a pollutant in the natural flow of mana. Sometimes, he had intimated, those who practiced sorcery would find themselves damned to become lapu in death.

  A darkness, an anger just below the surface, settled over Poli‘ahu’s face. Her response bore the mark of someone trying too hard to hold in her emotions. “You quite literally cannot imagine the depths of power I taste. I thread the fabric of the universe through my fingers and reweave it to suit my Will, and you—an ignorant child stumbling in the dark—think to lecture me about the price of doing so? You are an insect, Flame Queen, a shadow of your former grandeur.”

  “Former?” Pele scoff
ed. “I am not the one who has lost pieces of myself.”

  Poli‘ahu chuckled now, beginning to stalk along the snows until the moonlight was directly behind her. “You truly have no idea where you and your sisters come from, do you? That you were, in the waning of another era, sister queens in Old Mu. As with my own mentor, seven sisters who broke the heavens and shattered the world with their Art. And now you stand before me, a shell of that glory, and speak to me of what I have lost.”

  What madness did she speak? Old Mu? Sorceress Queens? “Do you claim some kinship to me, then?”

  A snort. “‘Ohana is a small, human convention. It is beneath the likes of us. And were it not, I have my own sisters here in the snows.” Ice crystals formed in the woman’s hand, but she did not move to attack. Still, the threat was clear enough.

  Pele had stumbled upon something there, something she couldn’t quite apprehend. Maybe all those years with Lonomakua had lent her perceptiveness beyond the ordinary, but it wasn’t yet enough. And Poli‘ahu did not seem much inclined to truly reveal her intent. “Did you know I killed my father?” A snap of her fingers had flames springing up in both hands. “A mo‘o who had coupled with a noble of Old Mu. I had feared him all my life, but in the end, I had to kill him to save my sister. That’s when I realized my real father was not the one whose blood I carried, but the one who raised me. So, believe me, I understand what you’re trying to say about whatever sisters you might have up here. Sometimes the ‘ohana we choose matters more than the one we’re born to.”

  The two of them circled one another, flames coiling around Pele’s hands, swirling ice twinkling around Poli‘ahu’s.

  “I get it,” Pele said. “I just don’t care. I don’t care if you’re saying my soul was someone else in another lifetime and we used to be sisters or allies or whatever.” And yet, the thought of it kept circling around in her mind. The answer to all the questions. The connections she had missed. “I came here to kill you and end the threat upon Vai‘i. But I …”

  Poli‘ahu grinned, though her visage seemed to hold more madness than warmth of feeling.

  “I instead want to offer a chance. A last chance to swear fealty to me, cast aside your delusions, and bring an end to this war. Call off your abominations, and you can weather the ages upon these slopes unmolested.” Pele took a hesitant step toward her, raising a flaming hand. “One. More. Chance.”

  37

  The wereseal soul infused within the singing stone granted Poli‘ahu the ability to assume seal form as desired, and thus she had swum back to Vai‘i and around to Hilo, then made the long hike back to Mauna Kea. There, in her sanctuary, she had luxuriated, desperately seeking to absorb some of the mountain’s mana.

  It had come to her not in the ever-present stream she had known, but as a trickle, her body no longer able to contain the vast might it once had. What remained of her former grandeur now lay within a gold-and-pearl amulet that sang to her even while she slept.

  At least, when Pahulu did not haunt her dreams with visions of the breaking of Old Mu. She saw, in shadowy panoply, the circle of Sorceress Queens that called forth the Elder God of Avaiki in a vain effort to end their war with Kumari Kandam. She saw the wrath of the Leviathan, the goddess some of the Kumarians called Tiamat, as she broke through the Veil and inundated the world.

  She saw … seven sister queens.

  The answers, unfolding before her, of what they had done, and whence they themselves had arisen. A truth, almost unconceivable, tethering them all back to eras now forgotten …

  Maybe she would have found that connection, had the intrusion of Pele’s footsteps upon her mountain not instead drawn her out of her refuge. Down here, to find this woman and her accursed flames cutting through mist and daring, in her fathomless hubris, to make demands upon Poli‘ahu in this place.

  It left her speechless, wondering what she had even hoped to accomplishing in unveiling the truth of Pele’s soul to her. How could such a woman even conceive of the scope of history while mired in her own self-importance?

  Finding no words remained between them, Poli‘ahu raised a hand high, summoning deathly chill winds to swirl around it. A vortex of clinging icicles whipped around her hand in an expanding arc, while in her other hand, she summoned blades of ice. The singing stone gave her close to as much mana as she had possessed on her own.

  More than enough to finish Pele once and for all.

  Swinging her hand downward like a diving hawk, Poli‘ahu sent a cascade of sharpened icicles streaming at the Flame Queen. Pele dove to the side, rolling along the snow, even as Poli‘ahu’s assault tore through fresh powder, throwing it up in a cloud of sleet that obscured vision.

  A flaming whip arced through the cloud, trying to lash Poli‘ahu’s face. She leapt backward, other hand raised, coalescing cold into a solid wall of ice. Shards of it cracked, flying free in a wide spray. A second lash of the whip, and her barrier collapsed.

  Growling, Poli‘ahu motioned to the mountainside, calling up an arcing ridge between them.

  Concealed, she assumed mist form and drifted around the wall, closing in on Pele.

  The other queen unleashed a barrage of flame upon Poli‘ahu’s wall, tendrils of fire trailing from each hand. Her wild attacks sheared ice and melted snow in great puffs of steam.

  For an instant, Poli‘ahu watched the bitch rage in impotent fury, almost pitying her for the turmoil that was her emotions. Then, alighting on the ground behind Pele and resuming solid form, she manifested an ice knife poised to strike between Pele’s ribs and grind into the heart.

  Could she preserve the soul of this reborn Sorceress Queen? Could she make use of so powerful an entity?

  An incantation rose in her throat—

  Pele’s elbow to her nose cut her off before the first Supernal utterance could touch the air. The blow sent Poli‘ahu sprawling onto her arse, blood streaming down her face. She didn’t even remember falling, just holding her hand to her nose.

  The woman had physically attacked her.

  The very idea seemed absurd, considering the powers they both wielded. Pele thought to resolve a contest between them with blows?

  “Did you think I would not grow wise to your tricks?” Pele asked. “In warning against my own sister, I learned a few things. The truth is, I don’t even truly like Namaka. Maybe we’re reborn queens as you say, maybe not. But she did teach me a few lessons about never underestimating a foe.”

  “Your possessed sister.” The words left her mouth before she even realized she intended to say them, though they came out mumbled because of her hand over her nose. Blood kept streaming out between her fingers, such that she knew she’d need to pack ice against it when this was done. “I’m glad to know you learn from such vaunted sources.”

  Pele’s glower darkened even further.

  38

  Pele had to suppress her initial retort and the spark of flame that would have come with it. Yes, Poli‘ahu was arrogant and clearly intent on provoking her once again. But that was not why she had come, however much the Snow Queen might deserve it. “I learned enough to try to offer you peace, woman. I don’t want to fight.”

  “Wise words. You’d lose. You should have spent a lot more time training.”

  The bitch really, really wanted to get her face burned off, didn’t she?

  Poli‘ahu rose, calling up twin pillars of ice beneath each hand. Along each column sprouted razor-sharp blades. The columns continued to grow, then began to spin, whirling in front of the Snow Queen as if given their own life.

  Well, Pele had tried.

  Between her hands she conjured an orb of flame. She thrust her palms outward, sending the ball shooting toward Poli‘ahu’s bizarre pillars. On impact the orb detonated, erupting into a sheet of fire that scorched the air. A concussive wave hurled Pele backward, sending her tumbling down the slope even as the explosion shredded ice and sent the remains of Poli‘ahu’s workings raining down like falling snow.

  As she rose, a
chilling wind struck her like a physical force, sending Pele tumbling further down the mountainside. The world spun, whirling as she pitched end over end. She tried to catch herself on a rock, but the gale only intensified. Everything was swirling white, then she hit a ledge, rolled over and fell, arms and legs flailing in midair for a furious heartbeat.

  Pele slammed down into a snowdrift akua-knew how far below, sinking deep, breath stolen.

  Overhead, she saw Poli‘ahu drifting down toward her on what seemed a cloud. “You fool. You truly thought to face me here?”

  A surge of inner fire melted the snows around Pele, allowing her to gain her feet. Panting, she snapped sodden fingers to ignite torches upon her hands once more. She felt it, though—the tremble building in her arms, running through her chest—as she expended more and more mana to keep pulling fire from out of her own body. The cold had already begun to tug at her, gnawing on her bones.

  Even this mountain was a volcano, though. And if that was what it took … Pele punched the earth, soul screeching downward, through snow and rock, into the long-slumbering heart of Mauna Kea. If she had to destroy half of northern Vai‘i, she would put an end to this war.

  No more.

  No more monstrosities rising from the deep to prey upon villages. No more fell sorcery. All of it had to end.

  A tremor shook the mountain. High above, snows broke, tumbling down, seeming balls of dust. At least until the roar began.

  “No!” Poli‘ahu bellowed at her. “You cannot—”

  Pele sent more mana surging into the volcanic heart of the mountain. This would end.

  A fist of snow smacked her in the face and sent her pitching over sideways, once again thrown upon the too steep slope of the mountain. With scalding hands, she flailed at snows that melted rather than arrested her momentum.