Fires of Eden

by Dan Simmons

  Mike glanced at his instruments, trimmed the ship with a deft touch, and looked back at her. “Ka-hau-komo? As in hau meaning ‘iron’?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve heard of it.” He glanced down at the shadowy mountainside a thousand feet below. “It’s somewhere down there, but we’d never find it in the dusk. The hau trees are gone, I think.”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor, “but there is a large boulder there called Hopoe…”

  “Eleanor,” said Paul, his voice sharp in her earphones. “This is not a good idea.”

  She turned to face him. “I think it is, Paul. So do your uncles, but they are afraid to ask.”

  It was Mike who spoke. “I know the rock called Hopoe. We did navigation exercises off it when I was first certified here. Hard to find in this light, but it’s right down…” He nodded toward the endless ridge of boulders falling away beneath them, two fissures running for miles on either side of the ridgeline. “Down there.”

  “There’s a woman there,” said Eleanor. “She might be trapped.”

  Mike’s face was visible now primarily from the soft red glow of the instrument console in front of them. He looked concerned. “Molly Kewalu?”

  “You know of her?” It was Paul’s voice. Surprised.

  “I thought she was a legend,” said Mike.

  “She is,” said Paul.

  “She’s not,” said Eleanor. “She’s alive, she lives in a cave right near the stone called Hopoe, and she may need help.”

  “I could radio the search-and-rescue people,” said Mike.

  Eleanor persisted. “Would they go out tonight?”

  Mike hesitated only a second. “No. First light at the earliest.”

  It was Eleanor’s turn to point at the flaming cracks in the earth. The helicopter had flown around the west slope of Mauna Loa and the lava flows were very visible now, much broader than the rivers flowing from Kilauea.

  “We have maybe five minutes where I can get a visual on Hopoe,” said Mike, “but I think I can do it. It’s right down there somewhere…near if not actually in that area beneath that big vent.”

  Eleanor realized that she was still touching the pilot’s arm. She pulled her hand away. “Thank you,” she said.

  “It’s too rough to actually land,” said the pilot, his mind obviously rehearsing what he had to do. “I can let you out and circle, but it will be tricky. There’s an emergency kit under your seat with a powerful flashlight in it. I can use the searchlight on the belly. But it will be rough down there…”

  “I’ll do it,” said Eleanor. Her heart was pounding.

  “We have room for one more,” said Mike. “If Mad Molly Kewalu is there with her family and grandkids…forget it.”

  “It is just the old woman,” said Paul from the back. His voice was flat. Emotionless.

  “All right,” said Mike. “Unless I’m off my mark…that’s Hopoe about a mile ahead, one o’clock.”

  Eleanor strained to see but could make out only a wild tumble of boulders, each bigger than a house, all of them backlit by the lava flow that had scoured its channel through them on its fiery way to the sea.

  “Hang on,” said Mike. “We’re going down.”

  Cordie was on her private lanai watching the storm move in from the sea when the lights went out. It did not surprise her. She had set the flashlight, candles, matches, and the hurricane lamp on the table near the lounge chair before the last twilight had faded. Now she used the flashlight to check the suite—the doors were locked and the windows secured—and then came back onto the lanai to light the candles. The wind was just picking up from the ocean, but even ten or fifteen miles from the storm front, she could see the outline of black stratocumulus backlit by lightning and knew the storm was a serious one. She wished Nell would get back. As long as the storm held off, she could hear the helicopter’s return from the lanai, but Cordie had hoped her friend would return before full darkness fell.

  Cordie set three of the candles inside, one for each room of the suite, and saved the hurricane lamp for the lanai. The wind was stronger now and palm fronds were rustling like a restless audience before a delayed final act. Cordie drew the .38 and a box of shells from her tote bag, broke the chamber, removed the empty cartridges, and began to reload.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Just a moment,” Cordie called softly, and slid the last three cartridges in place. She snapped the chamber shut, spun it, slid off the safety, and walked to the door. “Who is it?”

  The answer was muted, but the voice was male.

  Cordie left the chain lock on, held the pistol out of sight behind her back, and opened the door a notch.

  Stephen Ridell Carter stood holding a hurricane lamp. “Mrs. Stumpf? I’m sorry to bother you, but with the electricity out, we are asking the guests to gather on the seventh floor.”

  “Why?” said Cordie. She did not open the door wider or take the chain off.

  The manager cleared his throat. “Ahhh…we have a generator serving the suites up there, Mrs. Stumpf, and we thought it might be…ah…more comfortable.”

  “I’m fine,” said Cordie. “The refrigerator might drip a bit when it defrosts, but the rest of everything’s fine and dandy.”

  Carter hesitated. His perfectly combed hair gleamed in the candlelight, but his face looked older, more gaunt than it had the last time Cordie had seen him. “Well, actually, Mrs. Stumpf…ah…as you know, most of the guests have departed and we…ah…thought that security might be better if the few remaining guests…ah…gathered on the seventh floor.”

  “Security from what, Mr. Carter?”

  The manager chewed his lip. “There are…ah…some unusual events occurring at this resort, Mrs. Stumpf.”

  “I’m aware of that, Mr. Carter.” Cordie continued to hold the pistol out of sight.

  “Are you sure you won’t join us on the seventh floor? The suites there are…ah…even more comfortable than this one.”

  Cordie smiled at the man. “Thanks anyway, Mr. C. But I’m sorta used to the bed in this room. Plus, my friends can find me here. You go ahead.” She started to shut the door.

  Stephen Ridell Carter set two fingers on the door. Cordie waited.

  “Mrs. Stumpf, you will…ah…be careful, will you not?”

  Cordie brought the pistol into sight but did not raise it. “Yeah,” she said. “I promise I will.”

  The hotel manager nodded and withdrew his hand. Cordie left the door open long enough to hear his footsteps echo down the tiled mezzanine. The atrium was very dark. She closed the door and went back out onto the lanai. The wind was stronger, the flame was flickering in the hurricane lamp, the palms were rasping more loudly below the terrace. “Come on, Nell,” whispered Cordie, studying the sky above where the stars were beginning to be occluded by the advancing clouds. The red glow from the volcano tinged the stormfront. “Come on home, Nell.”

  There was a rasping below that did not come from palm fronds. Setting the pistol on the table, Cordie leaned far over the terrace. Something large and fast and four-legged ran from the jungle into the shadow of the Big Hale. A moment later, something larger followed—running on two legs this time but awkwardly, as if dragging a tail.

  Cordie retrieved the pistol and returned to the railing. The asphalt path and terrace below were empty, the only sound the crackling of the torches that lined the walkway.

  “Come on home, Nell,” whispered Cordie.

  June 18, 1866, In an unnamed village on the Kona Coast—

  “Disrobe,” the young woman had commanded us.

  I think that until this moment, the entire adventure in the Sandwich Islands—the volcano, the temple at night, the dead kanaka natives, even the apparent death of Reverend Haymark—had seemed a dream, something I could and would write about with the detachment of a naturalist traveling in strange lands, something I could and would write about with a bemused, almost amused air which befits a white, Christian woman traveling in heat
hen lands. I would see things, I would remark upon things—but I would not be affected by things.

  “Disrobe,” said the beautiful native woman. “Quickly.”

  I thought of Reverend Haymark lying dead or comatose in the native hut miles above us on the smoking volcanic slope. I thought of the strange things we had seen and the fantastic events yet promised. I began unbuttoning my overvest.

  “Miss Stewart,” said Mr. Clemens, looking down at his boots, his fists clenched. “I think I… I mean, I know that I should descend into this chasm alone. It is no place for a…”

  What it was no place for, I was never to learn, for the young woman interrupted. “No! It must be a haole man and a haole wahine. The male ghosts will follow only the man. The female ghosts will follow only the wahine. Disrobe quickly! Pana-ewa and the others sleep…but not for long!”

  Mr. Clemens and I turned our backs upon each other and removed our clothes. I took off my riding gloves, the short-brimmed hat the missionary families had given me in Hilo, the red silk bandana, my brushed leather overvest, and the whipcord riding skirt. Glancing covertly at Mr. Clemens, blushing furiously, I unbuttoned my heavy cotton blouse and set it on the heap of neatly folded clothes.

  “Quickly!” said the woman. Her strong hands held the coil of vine and stoppered gourd. The light was rising around us, still occluded by ash clouds and clouds of the more normal variety, but definitely bright enough to read by now.

  I wished I were in my guest room in Hilo or Honolulu, reading. Adventures, I decided, were better read about than lived.

  I removed my underskirt, the bodice of my chemise, my cotton petticoat, my riding boots, and my heavy socks. Standing in my corset, pantaloons, and unlaced chemise, shivering more from embarrassment than from the cool morning breeze, I looked at the woman. I thought that I detected the slightest hint of a smile on the full lips.

  “The old woman told you that to enter the Underworld of Milu you must be naked,” said the beautiful apparition.

  “You were the old woman,” I said, marveling at the certainty in my voice.

  “Of course,” said the native. Turning to Mr. Clemens behind me, she said, “Hurry.”

  Feeling the heat in my cheeks, I unbound the stays in my corset, removed it, slipped out of my chemise, stepped out of my pantaloons, and laid them neatly with my other clothes. “Can we not wear footwear?” I asked, surprised again at the levelness of my voice. “We will cut our feet.”

  “Nothing,” said the native woman. “Look at me.”

  Mr. Clemens and I both turned to stare at our interlocutor while trying not to stare at one another. But still I noticed that the correspondent’s chest was covered with a fine, reddish hair which gleamed like copper in the strengthening light. His face was flushed, his strong chin set with determination.

  The woman—I truly believed her to be Pele at that moment—handed the coil of vine to Mr. Clemens. “The ieie vine will hold you,” she said. “You must leave one end of it attached to the outer world or you will never escape the Kingdom of the Ghosts. Now, come closer.”

  We stepped toward the woman. I was intensely and absurdly aware of the warmth of Mr. Clemens’s right leg near my own left one. His hands hung loosely at his sides. The native woman unstoppered the gourd. Forgetting our nakedness, Mr. Clemens and I stepped back quickly, raising our hands to our faces in a reflex but useless action against the stench which assaulted us.

  “No, no,” said the woman. “The kukui nut oil will keep the ghosts from looking carefully at you. They are embarrassed by bad smells.”

  “Then I trust there will be many embarrassed ghosts before the day’s work is done,” said Mr. Clemens. His face wrinkled in revulsion as the beautiful woman with the dark hair poured the stinking, viscous fluid from the gourd and rubbed it on the correspondent’s hands and arms. “Rub it everywhere on your body,” she commanded.

  “Essence of polecat,” my companion muttered, but he applied the reeking ointment.

  Then it was my turn. The woman held the gourd out to me, spilling the buttery liquid on my upraised palms and bare forearms as if we were enacting some sacrament. Perhaps, in some heathen form, we were.

  “Rub it everywhere,” she repeated to me and tipped the gourd as I smeared the heavy fluid on my arms, throat, bosom, belly, thighs, and back. The sensation was not unpleasant. If it had not been for the almost unbearable stench of the rotten oil, one might have thought we were preparing for a massage in the Vapor Caves at a Rocky Mountain spa.

  When we were finished applying the last of the reeking oil, the young woman stepped back and appraised us with the smallest of smiles. “Very good. You smell like dead haoles.”

  Mr. Clemens brushed at his mustache. “Do dead haoles smell different than dead kanakas?” he asked, using the local word for the Sandwich Island natives.

  Our guide ignored him. Her bearing was somehow both imperious and mischievous; it was as if we had encountered a princess of the ruling family who did not take her position with total seriousness. But her face was serious as she said, “Beware the hog.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Mr. Clemens.

  The woman took a step back. “Pana-ewa sleeps lightly. Nanaue, the shark boy, sleeps hardly at all. If Ku—the dog man—catches your real scent beneath the kukui nut oil, your souls will be forfeit.” She turned to look directly at me. “If Kamapua’a awakes, he will rape you before killing you and eating your hi-hi’o.”

  I swallowed with some difficulty. My arms were across my chest, but I felt absurdly exposed and vulnerable. “Eat my hi-hi’o?” I repeated. The mind reeled at the possible translations of that simple Hawaiian word.

  “Your traveling soul,” said the woman who might be Pele, “The hi-hi’o is the uhane, the soul of the living, when it has left the kino. The body. If your kahuna friend had been killed by Pana-ewa, it would be his lapu.”

  “Lapu?” said Mr. Clemens.

  “His ghost,” said the raven-haired beauty.

  I was confused. “Are the ghosts we are supposed to lead out of the Underworld hi-hi’os, the stolen souls of the living, or lapus, the ghosts of the dead?”

  “Pana-ewa stole the uhane of your friend,” said the woman, “thus making it hi-hi’o. The others will return to their bodies if they are hi-hi’o, or go to where Christian lapu go when they are freed from their bodies.”

  “Where is that?” asked Mr. Clemens.

  The young woman’s teeth were very white and regular. “Why do you ask me? You are the Christians, are you not?”

  Mr. Clemens made a skeptical sound but was distracted when the young woman handed him the coil of ieie vine and a coconut shell. The coconut had a plug in the top of it. “The shell is to capture your friend’s uhane,” she said.

  Mr. Clemens and I looked dubiously at the coconut.

  “Secure the vine with great care,” said the woman, taking another step back. “It will be your only way out of the Land of the Ghosts.”

  “Secure it to what?” said Mr. Clemens, turning to look at the fissure and the nearly empty plain of lava around it.

  Still conscious of my nakedness but somewhat distracted by the discussion, I also turned to survey the cave entrance. “The vine is not long enough to secure to those trees,” I said. “Perhaps one of the boulders?”

  Mr. Clemens cleared his throat as if to speak and turned. A second later, I did the same. The young woman I imagined to be Pele was gone. Ten yards away, our horses slept with heads bowed. Beyond them it was hundreds of yards of empty lava field to the ocean or the lava cliffs behind us.

  At that moment, had we retained even a vestige of sanity, we would have donned our clothes and ridden out of that place. We could have reached Kona before nightfall and notified the authorities there of the strange insurrection occurring on their southern coast. Someone would have returned for Reverend Haymark’s body.

  We had no vestige of sanity left. The feeling was rather like standing on this empty lava amphitheater naked: chi
lling, exhilarating, somewhat buoyant.

  Without speaking, we left our heap of clothes and walked the few yards back to the fissure. Seemingly lost in thought, Mr. Clemens once again inspected the vertical entrance to the cave, crouched gracefully, set the coconut shell down, and tied several loops of the vine around the one boulder that protruded sufficiently for the cord to pass around it. He tied off the vine in complicated knots made to look easy through obvious practice. At least fifteen yards of the braided vine remained.

  “Miss Stewart,” he began, not looking directly at me, “I still believe that I should go alone…”

  “Nonsense,” I said, crouching near enough to him that his skin must have felt the heat of my own. “I believe her when she says that a man and a woman are needed to lead the male and female ghosts from the Underworld.”

  We looked at each other then, our eyes—I am sure—bright with something inexplicable. Who could have guessed that insanity carried its own logic and enjoyment?

  We stood at the edge of the fissure. Mr. Clemens took the free end of the vine, looped it into a sort of lasso secured with a clever knot, but hesitated before slipping it over my head and shoulders. I realized that he would have to lower me into the chasm but that he did not wish me to be the first to descend into the darkness. I also realized that there was another reason that he hesitated before securing the line around me.

  I took the braided rope and tugged it down over my shoulders and bosom. Mr. Clemens blushed, but secured the knot before the thick cord could tighten against my skin.

  To break the momentary tension, I said, “Mr. Clemens, it occurs to me that the old adage ‘Clothes make the man’ has some veracity…”

  He looked up at me in surprise.

  “Naked people,” I continued, “surely must have little or no influence on society.”

  For a second there was silence but for the distant surf; a moment later the crashing of waves was drowned out by the echo of my companion’s laughter.

  “Hush,” I said, “or we shall awaken Pana-ewa.”

  He stifled his laughter but grinned at me. “Or Ku.”