Islands of Fire Read online

  “He’ll show us,” is her reply.

  They drift over deep reefs until the sandy seafloor rises to meet them, then Kina leaps out and tugs the canoe up onto the beach. Combers break over her legs and spin the canoe about. Nakali patiently waits until Kina has finally managed to hoist the canoe—along with the weight of the supplies and the high priestess—up out of the water. Kina collapses, panting, onto her hands and knees in the sand while Nakali carefully steps out of the canoe.

  “Get up and gather the supplies. If there’s one thing I won’t suffer, it’s laziness.”

  Kina picks herself back up and begins to take as many supplies out of the canoe as she can hold. There isn’t much food left, but it’s more than she can easily carry.

  While she does this, Nakali trudges up the sloped beach and stops when she reaches the top of the rise.

  “There are others here,” she says.

  Kina only partly hears her. She is wrapping the food in a cloth, then bundling it all together. With it tied this way, she can carry a lot more. She throws the bundle over her shoulder and joins the high priestess up the dune.

  Nakali is gesturing to a long line of tracks. Though Kina is no alaka`i nahele, like Motua was, she still knows enough about tracks to be able to tell there were three people walking here. Some of the tracks are obscured by blowing sand.

  “There isn’t supposed to be anyone living on this island,” Kina says. “Isn’t that was the ali`i of Lohotaki had said?”

  “Sure, if you believe everything that inbred drunkard tells you.”

  Kina hadn’t noticed the ali`i drinking any kulu, but now that she thought about it, he had seemed a little muddled in thought. And his people looked so dispirited.

  Nakali looks up and down the beach, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. At last she looks up toward the towering peaks.

  “We should avoid any people who live here. They might not be friendly, nor permit us to approach the To`o.”

  “To`o?” Kina asks.

  “That is the name given to the God in the Stone. Some say it is his real name.”

  They start up the beach toward the treeline. “But you don’t think it is?”

  “I don’t put much faith in the claims of men,” Nakali replies.

  The trees muffle the sound of the waves, as well as block the cooling wind, making the forest muggy and quiet. Nakali leads the way, the pahi in one hand, pushing through ferns and walking across snapping sticks. At last she stops near a banyan and looks around.

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  Kina doesn’t notice a reply. “Are you sure To`o wants to talk to you?”

  Nakali chooses to ignore Kina, instead walking a few paces and gazing around at the trees. “I sense the presence of a god. But I can’t pin down its location. It feels like it’s coming from the reef, back that way, but the God in the Stone is said to live in the hills. Something about this island is throwing me off. The mana here is very low.”

  Now that Nakali has mentioned it, Kina realizes she has also sensed the scant mana. Every place in the world is infused with it, a power like a spiritual energy that is said to be the force behind all creation. Some claim it was a gift from Father Sky. Others say it didn’t exist in Mokukai until Mother Ocean gave birth to the gods. Whatever the source, some places have more mana than others. Kina had heard about some places where the mana is so strong that even an untrained kaua might learn how to use it, and about other places that have no mana at all. No`okeva, an island far to the south, is said to have lost all its mana when the people there killed their god. Now they live a wretched, miserable existence on a dead island.

  Here, Kina can feel mana but she can also sense that it is not what it should be. It has been weakened somehow. She wonders if this is why the people of Lohotaki are so afraid of it.

  They move on through the trees, eventually finding a narrow footpath that meanders through ferns and thickets. Nakali walks just behind Kina, ready as ever to drive the pahi through her back if she decides to run.

  There is a sound like a whip crack and Kina finds herself falling, surrounded by leaves and debris. Nakali cries out close to her. Kina hits a hard dirt surface with a jarring smack, flailing helplessly. For a moment she is too stunned to think or even breathe. She scrambles to a sitting position and fights for air. When her lungs finally unlock and let air in, he sits, gasping, still trying to figure out what happened.

  Kina is in a pit carved out of the crumbly earth. Light streams down from the mouth of the pit, from whcih a steady rain of pebbles and grit is still falling. Near her is Nakali and the pahi. Nakali moans but doesn’t move.

  She is slow to recognize the opportunity, but when she comes fully to her senses, Kina crawls over and picks up the pahi. Her hands are still bound together, but that won’t keep her from using it if she has to.

  Her knee is throbbing. Now that Kina has the weapon back, she skids away from Nakali and rubs her knee, feeling for broken bones. Everything seems functional, if badly bruised. She wonders for a moment if Nakali is badly hurt.

  It takes several minutes for the high priestess to come back to herself. When she does, she turns her head with bleary eyes and looks at Kina.

  “What happened?”

  “We fell in a pit.”

  Nakali groans, shifts into a sitting position, and looks at the pahi in Kina’s hand. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to let you live. Touching the pahi again was kapu, and I’ll kill you for it, even if it means I don’t get to steal your soul for a drum.”

  “Come and take it.”

  Nakali sizes her up for a moment, but she doesn’t move. For the first time, Kina notices Nakali’s left arm is motionless at her side, a strange lump in the forearm near the wrist.

  “Your arm is broken.”

  “I am ali`i nui. My bones cannot be broken.”

  “Nonsense,” Kina says. “Look at it! I can see where the bone is out of place.”

  “Silence,” Nakali tries to bark, but she can’t muster the energy. She winces and runs her fingers along the broken bone.

  “You’re going to need to bind that soon.”

  Nakali hisses, “Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me.”

  Kina rises to her feet, cringing at her own battered knee. “I’ll get us out of here.”

  Nakali doesn’t respond but watches as Kina paces around the tiny pit floor, running her hands over the walls. There are no handholds, at least nothing solid. Thin roots from the surrounding trees poke out of the soil but Kina knows they won’t be substantial enough to support her weight. She tries to dig her fingers into the wall and climb, but the soil breaks away under the fingertips and drops her back down to the ground.

  “We’re stuck.”

  Nakali moans. “I hope whoever made this checks it regularly.”

  “It’s probably for catching wild boar,” Kina says. “I imagine they check it daily.”

  She sits back down and buries her face in her hand. “I see the food didn’t follow us down,” she says. “I guess it fell from my hand and got tangled on something up top.”

  “I won’t sit by like a trapped animal,” Nakali says. “You might be used to that, but not me.”

  Closing her eyes, Nakali begins to murmur. It takes Kina a few seconds to realize the high priestess is chanting. She hears the name “To`o” repeated a few times. Then Nakali falls silent.

  “Did he still not speak to you?”

  “This island is… off, somehow. There is a pall over everything. I have heard To`o is trapped, a prisoner in his own island. Perhaps he cannot heed our calls.”

  “Let me try,” Kina says, and to Nakali’s visible astonishment, Kina assumes a prayerful position and raises her arms to the sky. “Father Sky, it is your daughter, calling upon you in my time of great need. I humbly beg for your-“

  “Stop that!” Nakali shrieks, and looms at Kina and strikes her hard across the face
. “Blasphemy!”

  Kina is too shocked to think, but her instincts cause her to grope for the pahi. She swings it defensively at Nakali. There is a loud scream, and Kina drops back to the ground. The pahi is streaked with blood.

  She looks up and sees Nakali pressing her hands to her face. Blood streams out between her fingers.

  “What did you do?” the high priestess wails.

  Kina can now see that her swipe cut a long gash in Nakali’s face along her left cheek. When Nakali removes her hands for a moment, Kina thinks she can see teeth through flesh.

  “Here,” she says, taking hold of part of her skirt and tearing it into a strip. Though it is filthy, she hands it to Nakali.

  Nakali pushes her away. “Stay away from me! Don’t even come near me!”

  “You need to cover your wound.”

  “I’ll not touch your unclean rags, slave!”

  “Fine,” Kina says, dropping the cloth. She takes the pahi up again and crouches, sullen, as far away from the high priestess as possible. The two of them sit in silence for a long time.

  As the day grows long, there is a noise above, and Kina nudges Nakali. “Listen!”

  Sounds of several voices reach them at the bottom of the pit, and then there is silence. Kina begins to think the others have moved on, but then several people peer down into the pit, spears cocked back and ready to be thrown.

  In the Village of the Life Eaters

  Against the backdrop of the light, Kina can’t make out many details of her captors, though she can tell they are hairless and bear several dangling rings from each ear. They order one of their own to go back to the village, leaving the rest of them to guard the pit.

  “Help us!” Kina calls up. “This woman is hurt badly.”

  But the men don’t answer. Before long, many more arrive and glare down into the pit.

  “Rope the talkative one first,” one of them says, and two others loom over the top of the pit with a rope tied into a strange lasso-like loop.

  “I’ll climb,” Kina tries to tell them, but they ignore her, instead tossing the rope until they snag her left arm and shoulder. When they yank on it, it tightens painfully and they hoist her out of the pit, ignoring her screams.

  “I told you I’d climb,” she says, miserably, prone at their feet. She looks up and finds herself surrounded by spearmen who look eager to drive the points of their spears through her.

  Nakali is given similar rough treatment, and by the time they get her up to the top of the pit, she appears only half-conscious. One of the warriors scales down the pit on a rope and returns with the pahi. The others cluster around and look at it, barely willing to touch it out of superstitious fear.

  Finally, one of the warriors, the one who appears to be a ranking leader, stalks over to Kina and wags the pahi in her face.

  “What devilry is this? Were you sent by Mokolo? Is this his weapon?”

  “I was sent by no one,” she replies. “We came looking for To`o.”

  “So it’s true, then? You admit that you are here to slay him?”

  “What? Slay him?” Kina is confused, and knows she needs to defuse this situation, fast. She calls upon her days as one of the homeless “gutter rats” of Huka`i and affects a helpless, harmless demeanor. “Good sir, I am only the servant of this woman. We sailed here from far across the ocean to seek the wisdom of the God in the Stone.”

  “Get up,” he says, and pulls Kina to her feet. Another takes up Nakali, slinging her over his shoulder. The rest of them squabble over the pahi as the entire group begins to march back out of the forest. They follow the beach for a long time, until Kina can begin to see a cluster of sorry, miserable huts that crowd around a freshwater stream where it dribbles into the sea.

  The village is built in a semi-circle, facing outward toward the horizon. Each hut looks like it was made by occupants with no skill in the craft. Many of the dwellings lean to the side or suffer from sagging roofs. Chickens flap away as the group enters the central square. Kina sees no women.

  “What is this place?” she asks the leader, who has been prodding her on this whole time at spearpoint. “I was told no one lives here.”

  “Save your words for Kuanatuku,” the man says.

  People seem to be waiting for the hunting party, probably told of the presence of Kina and Nakali when they sent back for help. A broad-shouldered man with a barrel chest comes out of one of the huts, a crown of feathers on his head. Other than a mali loincloth, he is completely naked. In one hand he holds a taiaha, just like the long clubs wielded by the others.

  “Kneel,” the escort says, and Kina does just that.

  The man carrying Nakali lowers her to the dirt. “My Lord, this one has passed out from blood loss.”

  Now, Kina can tell the man wearing the crown must be the ali`i, and she rightly guesses this is Kuanatuku. The ali`i walks over to Nakali and gestures the others to roll her over.

  “What happened to her face? Was this your doing?”

  “No, my lord,” the nervous warrior replies. “She was found this way in the pit.”

  Kuanatuku turns to Kina. “Why are you attempting to infiltrate our island? What message have you brought from Mokolo?”

  There was that name again.

  “My… Lord, I know not of this Mokolo. My mistress and I sailed here from far away, seeking the wisdom on To`o.”

  The ali`i looks closely at her, even leaning in to stare into her eyes.

  “You are lying,” he says.

  Kina might be guarding her true identity, but this part of the story is very real and so is her reaction to his verdict. “No, My Lord, I’m not. This is Nakali, the high priestess of the Cult of the Ebon Flame.”

  Gasps ripple around the assembled villagers.

  Kina pauses, suddenly unsure this was the wisest tactical choice, but she can’t stop now that she has begun. “I am her slave. That is my my hands are bound. She forced to me to row here. You can find our canoe up the beach that direction.”

  Kuanatuku nods to a pair of warriors, to head off that direction at a run. “If my warriors find your canoe, you will live. Otherwise, you die. It has been long since we had the soul of a woman to eat.”

  Kina shoots the ali`i a look of horror. “My Lord, I assure you, the canoe is there. I beached it myself.”

  “We’ll see. Put her in the corral.”

  The warriors lift her to her feet and shove Kina out of the square. On the other side of some of the huts is a shallow pit walled with a bamboo cage. She is thrown in. Kina gets back to her feet and clutches at the bamboo as the warriors seal shut the gate.

  “What are you going to do with Nakali?” she asks them.

  “When she wakes, Kuanatuku will decide what to do with her. Eating the soul of someone such as a high priestess would give him a lot of power.”

  Kina screams and rattles the cage as the warriors walk away. Once they are out of sight, she drops to the floor and starts to chew at the ropes binding her hands.

  Night falls swiftly, and before long Kina is in near-total darkness. A servant eventually brings her some food and water, in the form of a dried-out gourd filled with river water and part of a baked breadfruit. Kina eats as though it has been years since her last meal.

  When she is finished, she begins to doze. She has fitful dreams of something large that swims through dark water, between reefs and rocks and along sandy floors, always searching for something.

  She wakes in the middle of the night, still alone in the cage, certain that the subject of her dream is in the water just off shore, and it has fixed its attention on her. For a long moment she lies, frozen from fear, certain that she is being measured, evaluated, by the thing in the sea.

  And then it is gone.

  It takes her a long time to fall asleep again. Long into the night it begins to rain, and she shivers, exhausted and battered and full of despair, until sleep once more takes her.

  Mor
ning comes and the chill from the night’s wind and rain fades. Midmorning, Kina is brought more food—fish, this time—but is still not removed from the cage.

  She spends the morning trying to remember the details of her dream from the night before, no longer sure if it really happened or of it had been the residue of a nightmare still sitting in her waking mind.

  By noon, the heat has become oppressive and Kina dozes again, grateful for the shade of overhead trees. She is roused from her sleep by the sound of several men approaching.

  “Wake up,” someone calls. It is the servant again, attended by several warriors. “The ali`i wishes to speak to you.”

  “Again? I thought Kuanatuku was going to kill me last night or set me free.”

  The warriors scoff. One of them, which Kina remembers from yesterday, says, “He never said anything about letting you go. He just said you’d live.”

  They all laugh at that, and tug open the cage. Kina stumbles out.

  “Look,” one says. “She’s untied her hands.”

  Kina holds her hands up in a display of passiveness. “They were cutting off my blood,” she says. “I’m outnumbered and too weak to escape.”

  “Kuanatuku will be interested in this,” another says.

  They lead her back into the village square.

  The first thing Kina sees is Nakali, awake and seemingly feeling much better. The high priestess is on her knees in the middle of the square, a position she surely must not enjoy. Kina is walked directly beside her and forced to also kneel.

  Kuanatuku is in charge of the gathering. Now he sitting on some kind of throne made of carved wood. Someone has engraved a strange, expressionless face into the high back of the chair. In his hands is the pahi. To his left is a man with strange, circular markings that spiral all over his pale skin. Some sort of advisor, or kupuna? The man has a hard expression and looks at Kina and Nakali as if he could happily watch them both murdered on the spot.

  As for Kuanatuku himself, his own face bears an expression of indignant rage.

  “One of you is lying,” he says.

  Kina glances at Nakali, but the high priestess doesn’t seem to share her alarm. “What did you tell them?” Kina asks, but is cut off by the ali`i’s booming voice.