by Matt Larkin
Couldn’t find him? He had just been here, disrupting her last spell.
“Can you save her?” the warrior asked.
Was he the father? It didn’t really matter. “Maybe. Now get out.”
The slave looked around the room, eyes wide, and began begging, pleading to her, the ‘aumākua, anyone who would listen. The moment the warrior released him, he made a break for the door.
The warrior, having not managed a single step away, grabbed the slave and threw him down.
“Fine,” Poli‘ahu said. “You can stay. Bring the sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice? Please, My Queen, no!”
“Shut him up.”
The warrior dragged her victim to Ninole’s side then punched him in the face until his cries became whimpers mirroring those of the midwife.
Poli‘ahu knelt beside him. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” She looked to the warrior. “You’d better hold him steady.”
When the man did so, she hefted the icicle and began to carve Waiau’s glyph on the slave’s chest. The poor victim wailed in agony and thrashed against the warrior’s grip.
“I offer this man’s life in exchange for Ninole’s life,” she chanted as she worked. “Life for life, death for death.” Then she began to chant in the language of sorcery, her words echoing in the house and reverberating through her skull. It rent memories and joys and mortal perceptions—she felt them go, evaporating like fog in sunlight. A sorceress could so easily lose the bits of herself that made her human, lose the conceptions of right and wrong, and then forget she had even lost them. Sometimes, Poli‘ahu wondered if that had already happened to her.
Would she know?
Slowly, in rhythm to her chant, the mist began to seep up into human form. Waiau, or her silhouette, a projection on the Mortal Realm, reached one hand to Ninole’s abdomen and placed the other on the slave’s wound. The midwife screamed and the slave thrashed beneath the warrior’s arms.
“Now,” Waiau whispered.
Poli‘ahu plunged her icicle into the slave’s heart.
As he gasped his last, Ninole sucked in a sudden deep breath. Death for death. One life, traded for another. And now Waiau reached a hand toward Poli‘ahu. She took it. The spirit had no substance—it was like holding mist that was just a hair thicker than it ought to have been. A chill formed in Poli‘ahu’s gut, spread to her nethers and seeped into her limbs as warmth was drawn from her. Sheer force of Will kept her sitting up for a heartbeat. Two. Three.
She fell over, the spirit’s grasp on her broken. The draining of so much mana left her shivering like any mortal human exposed to extraordinary cold. Shivering and afraid.
A fresh cry suffused with sudden, borrowed strength erupted from Ninole.
When at last Poli‘ahu looked up, the midwife was holding the baby in her arms. It was wailing. Alive, vibrant. A stark contrast to the pale midwife, her eyes frozen in horror. And the slave’s lifeless body lying within reach of Poli‘ahu’s fingertips. The warrior, too, looked shaken, almost beyond human reach.
Poli‘ahu moaned, feeling weak. She needed to replenish her mana. She was so drained she might well be able to siphon mana off a man herself, provided he was rich in it. A chief or kahuna. And why the fuck had that girl not been able to find Aiwohi? He should have been presiding over the luau.
Fighting through dizziness, she pulled herself into a sitting position.
“You are betrayed …” Waiau whispered.
Betrayed? She wanted to ask what the spirit meant, but the akua faded back into the mist, perhaps drained herself from the effort.
Poli‘ahu staggered to her feet. Who had betrayed her? Lilinoe would know something. Finally, she stumbled out from the door, wobbling in place for a moment in the night breeze.
The hula had finished and fire dancers were tossing flaming batons, whirling arcs soaring through the night. Even cold as she was, she instinctively averted her eyes from the punishing flames. Only then did she spot Aiwohi returning from the jungle. Returning with another woman in tow, beautiful and stunning. With a wink, the woman slipped away into the mass of people attending the luau.
Betrayed.
Poli‘ahu leaned against the hut’s wall, unable to quite believe what she had just seen. Aiwohi had been missing because he was too busy fucking another woman. The man had thrown this luau to … it was supposed to be in Poli‘ahu’s honor. He’d even sent away his other women. But the moment some other bitch strutted before him, he was busy pumping her with his banana.
While she was busy saving the life of one of Aiwohi’s people, he was shaming her.
“Will you let it stand?” Lilinoe’s voice was a mere whisper on the wind. Poli‘ahu hadn’t heard her approach.
“You saw them?” she asked the spirit.
“Yes …”
“So, they really …?”
“Yes …”
Some affronts could not be forgiven. Aiwohi had broken his promise to her and in so doing, dishonored her role as a Snow Queen.
The chief headed into his palace and Poli‘ahu followed, her steps sluggish. Ice crystals formed on her hands of their own volition, spawned by her cold rage. She flexed her fingers to flick them off without stopping. Indeed, her anger lent her strength, sped her pace.
Some actions required immediate answers. Definitive.
As she reached the palace, Aiwohi was already headed back out.
Poli‘ahu put a hand on his chest and guided him back inside. “Take me, my love,” she said.
He immediately flushed, but smiled. “Shouldn’t we get back to the luau, My Queen?”
“What’s the matter, love?” She grabbed his balls with her other hand and squeezed ever so gently. “Need time before you can get it up again?”
His face fell. “Poli‘ahu—”
“What? One queen not enough? Really need a last romp with someone else?” Now she squeezed a little harder and he gasped.
“Ugh. ‘Aumākua, girl. I … She’s Queen Hinaikamalama of Hana. I didn’t expect her to attend, but we were … a while back we were betrothed.”
And had he broken it off on account of a better alliance with Poli‘ahu? Pulled away from the woman, maybe one he actually loved, for this political marriage? It hardly mattered. Such a betrayal could not be forgiven.
“Shut up!” She pushed mountain cold into Aiwohi’s crotch, and the man fell over sideways with a whimper.
Poli‘ahu had come here because of him, had left her mountain and her studies for this man, all so she could bear his child. And while she was busy helping his people, he betrayed her. He’d sent away his common women, but just couldn’t turn from another queen’s embrace.
It would not stand.
She knelt beside him, hand on his throat. “I will freeze your lying tongue out of your skull for this, that you might never again deceive any woman.” He still had his hands clutched around his balls, moaning. “Assuming you even can work those parts ever again.”
“Release my cousin.” The feminine voice carried the weight of command, of one used to unquestioned obedience.
Poli‘ahu rose and took in the woman behind her. While no great beauty, the kupua—for surely she was—held so much mana she imagined most any man might have found himself drawn to her. “The sorceress Uli of Kahiki, I take it.” Her gaze darted back down to Aiwohi. “I owe him pain.”
“He’s in pain already.”
Another woman—another kupua, in fact—lingered on the palace threshold, just behind Uli, this one quite young.
Glowering, Poli‘ahu took a step toward Uli, and the other sorceress fell back, guiding the young woman outside. “You Kahikians come here and think you can do anything you please. That no tabus hold sway over your actions here?”
“I assure you, we think nothing of the sort.”
“That you can play two queens of the old dynasty, the heirs of Manua himself, against one another?” Poli‘ahu shoved Uli, who stumbled into the arms of the younger woman. Who
was she? A daughter? Apprentice? Aikāne? Well, it mattered little, in truth. “You will pay for your temerity, as must Hinaikamalama for her part in it.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Uli warned.
Which drew a snort from her. Poli‘ahu had already been a fool, and she was done following that route. “Lilinoe,” she snapped.
The shrouded snow akua drifted in on the night mist, drawing the gaze of both Kahikian women.
Poli‘ahu turned back toward the palace, intent on grabbing Aiwohi, who was now backing away as if envisioning the vengeance descending upon him. Oh, but he had no idea just what—
A banyan near the palace lurched toward Poli‘ahu. Roots groaned and ground split, as if they had suddenly become burrowing worms. The scene was so unprecedented all Poli‘ahu could do was gape. What in Lua-o-Milu?
The ground before her suddenly broke apart, roots surging upward in an eruption. Fibrous branches broke apart from the main root structure, some sealing over the palace entrance to bar her passage, while others lunged at her. Poli‘ahu shrieked as a writhing root snared her ankle and yanked her off her feet.
Her head smacked the ground, filling her view with a white haze.
Blinking, she turned to see Lilinoe trying to close in on Uli while the sorceress—unbelievably—held the akua at bay with Supernal chants. Had the other woman, knowing Poli‘ahu for a sorceress, prepared for this?
Poli‘ahu’s thoughts felt all ajumble.
A root-vine lashed her left wrist, yanking it to the ground.
The younger kupua stalked around her now. Just a girl, really.
“Who are you?” Poli‘ahu demanded.
“Stay down,” came the only response.
Not much for pleasantries. And not a likely request. Poli‘ahu surged cold into her limbs. The vines binding her seemed almost to shriek from it, though they refused to recoil. After a moment more, though, the one holding her wrist cracked and snapped, frozen solid. The vine grasping her ankle followed a moment later.
The young kupua fell back, raising her hands. Power over plants. That was new.
Poli‘ahu scrambled to her feet, backing away, letting ice form up in her palms. She would hate to kill such a young woman, but …
Lilinoe’s wail caught her off guard, had her spinning. Realizing, too late, her preoccupation with the young kupua had kept her from detecting the psychic disturbances created by Uli’s … exorcism. The other sorceress had a hand on Lilinoe’s head, her chanting having reached a fever pitch.
“No!” Poli‘ahu roared, summoning an icicle to her hand, preparing to impale Uli with it.
A root-vine lanced out at Poli‘ahu before she could do so. A shoot of wood plunged through her forearm, scraped between the two bones. Felt apt to rip her in half. In breathless horror, Poli‘ahu gaped at the protruding shard of wood and the engulfing waterfall of blood surging out of her.
Only dimly did she even perceive it as Lilinoe collapsed, mist billowing from her eyes and ears, form wriggling like a dying lizard.
Poli‘ahu’s breath refused to catch, the pain slamming into her with such force her lungs seized up. Reality grew hazy, her life pouring out. Colors seeped from the world, replaced by the dance of cool shadows as her vision shifted into Pō.
Dying.
She was seeing the world of the dead now, because she was about to join her ancestors.
She saw Lilinoe’s apparition vanish into the deeper recesses of Pō, too weakened to hold itself in this Echo of the Mortal Realm she called the Penumbra. She heard Waiau wail in frustration, screaming wordless rage at the membrane of the Veil separating her from those who had banished her sister.
Those killing Poli‘ahu.
Some part of Poli‘ahu felt it, as other roots hefted her up. Felt it, as the two other kupua debated whether to kill her or not.
Waiau drifted to her side, once more composing herself. A silent white specter carried on etheric winds, just a breath away from Poli‘ahu. Reaching for her … Ready to guide her soul to this other side.
Sorcery … damaged the soul. Its practice was apt to leave the dead transmogrified, becoming lapu. This Poli‘ahu knew well enough. Had she so abraded her essence as to suffer that hateful fate? To become a shade held together by nothing save loathing of life?
“You bear my mark already …” Waiau’s whisper cut through the delirium.
What?
“You bear my mark.” The snow akua reached a hand toward her, outstretched …
The glyph she had already carved into her thigh.
Oh. Waiau waited for Poli‘ahu to willingly let the spirit inside herself. Do so, without a proper binding, and she might find herself possessed. Alive, yes, but … but perhaps wishing she wasn’t. Alive …
The thrumming wail of Pō tugged at her soul.
She chanted the words of binding, even knowing she’d never manage a complete spell in such condition. Having no choice save to trust the snow akua … A stretch, a reach, and her hand closed around Waiau’s own etheric essence as though it were solid.
Icy chills wracked her as the Mist spirit broke apart, drawn inside. Waiau became vapor, pouring inside Poli‘ahu through her mouth like sucking down a lungful of the coldest mountain air. Shudders, as the chill suffused her. Became her.
Her vision snapped back to the Mortal Realm, even as her form broke apart. As she became mist.
“What the—?” the young kupua blurted, suddenly stumbling back and falling on her arse.
All the vines and roots she’d entrapped Poli‘ahu with had become useless.
“No!” Uli shrieked. “No!”
“What did she do?” the girl asked.
But Poli‘ahu had no strength to dawdle or taunt them, instead, flowing out over the sea and around, well out of reach of the pair.
Only then, in a clearing in the woods, did she resume physical form and collapse, clutching her mangled arm and stifling her cries.
As a chill mist, Poli‘ahu returned three nights later. Waiau’s presence in her body meant her arm had begun to heal, though it remained unusable. Poli‘ahu felt it, knowing she could have become stronger still had she surrendered entirely to the akua. Or maybe that was Waiau playing tricks on her mind, altering her thought process to try to get Poli‘ahu to surrender more of herself. Probably the spirit could not even help herself.
Either way, in the predawn blackness, she threaded amid the village of Wailua. Uli and her apprentice were there, sleeping in the women’s hut. She could feel their mana bleeding off into Pō, their power reshaping reality around them even in slumber.
Much as she longed to revenge herself against them, she could not afford to risk discovery.
Instead, she flowed in through the palace windows, carried like a breeze herself. She drifted past slaves and inward, to the communal house were Aiwohi now lay with his new would-be wife.
About the traitorous couple Poli‘ahu lingered, staring.
Wondering.
She could simply kill them. Snuff them out and call it vengeance. But … Aiwohi had betrayed her more completely than that. And as for the Queen of Hana … she was of the old dynasty, and thus kin to Poli‘ahu in some distant way. Which meant she had betrayed not only Poli‘ahu, but all her people.
For that, she needed a lesson more immediate, more satisfying than mere death.
Well, Poli‘ahu would show this queen whom she had offended. Hinaikamalama would taste the cold, would drink it in so deep no fire would ever warm her again. And when she could take no more, then the burning would begin.
The thought of it—awful in its simplicity and effectiveness—forced her to stifle a chuckle, even as she knelt beside the slumbering couple. A scoop of his carelessly spilled seed, a strand of her hair, and she had all she needed.
Death would have been too easy.
For the curse itself, she wanted to take her time. Wanted almost to delay until she returned to her sanctum on Mauna Kea where she could work in utter silence, risking no disturbance. But
then, Poli‘ahu wanted the couple to feel her wrath sooner rather than later, and besides, tethering a curse across the gulf of islands would prove more challenging.
So, she found a hollow in the woods, waited for moonrise, and carved her glyph circle.
While she considered summoning a Dark spirit for this, a Mist spirit was most apt for her intention, and thus she called upon Kahoupokane, summoning her from Vai‘i and not caring in the least what price she would pay for this.
Hinaikamalama had shamed a Snow Queen, and thus Waiau had whispered the punishment in her mind. The curse that the Queen of Hana should never be able to draw within a pace of Aiwohi without succumbing to ravaging chills or delirium-inducing fevers. That she would freeze and she would burn, and no fire, no cooling surf, no balm in all the Worldsea would allow her to so much as brush her fingers against that man again.
Thus did Snow Queens of old reward direst of treacheries, Waiau said.
Thus should Hinaikamalama and Aiwohi reap the rewards of their actions.
Long into the night she danced the hula, incanting. The seed and the hair provided Kahoupokane the sympathetic link she’d need.
Poli‘ahu’s only regret was that she wouldn’t be there to see herself the results of the curse.
No, she would return to Vai‘i and await the Mist spirit bringing tale of it back.
What a fool she had been. Mauna Kea was and always would be her home. She had let the distractions of a moment draw her away from the work of a lifetime. Corrupted by her passions. Well, Poli‘ahu would not make that mistake again.
After reaching Vai‘i, she walked ever closer to the mountain on aching legs. While she might assume mist form and fly there, she didn’t know how much of herself she’d lose for such Manifest Arts. Certainly, every use must risk Waiau claiming a greater hold upon her.
She might have stopped in Hilo for a rest, a meal, a comfort … but the thought of looking upon her people, of them gazing upon her shame, it soured her stomach and sent it twisting. No, the court would not see her face again for a time.