Islands of Fire Page 21

  A cool wind ruffles the sail, blowing shoreward. Strong, but not strong enough to drive them against their will. It will be perfect for a rapid approach once they make the far side.

  Twice they see distant, flickering pinpoints of light along the shore — night fisherman in the shallows bearing torches and spears, Kina thinks. Or perhaps war parties, racing along the shore. This latter possibility is chilling, because along with it comes the fear that somehow they had been spotted.

  Long into the night, they have reached the far side of the island and begin to angle in toward the shore. The fortuitous breeze still gently guides them in. Before long, Keli`anu goes from being a distant black rise on the horizon to being a looming wall of darkness blotting out the night sky. Kina can hear the thunder of waves crumpling on the shore.

  “This is it,” she says. “I’m pretty sure this is the area where Motua and I hid the canoe. See if you can-“

  She is cut off by a large body rising out of the water right next to their canoe. Kina sucks in a surprised breath, and the others scramble back away from it in shock.

  There is no moonlight, but even by the dim light offered by the stars, Kina can see the broad back of a whale. It lifts ever higher out of the water, not in a hurry, but blocking them from progress. Then, it rolls onto its side, one great eye opening and gazing at them.

  When Kina recovers from her shock, she crouches and moves over to the edge of the canoe. The whale is close enough to touch.

  “You were sent, weren’t you?” Kina whispers.

  The whale blinks, and in the soft hush of the waves lapping against its body, Kina can hear a voice telling her that the Burning Warriors are here. They are on shore and waiting.

  “How did they find out we were coming?”

  The subtle voice answers, telling her that there are barracuda in these waters with allegiance to Nakali’s kupuna.

  “What do we do?” Kina asks the whale. She is aware of the others watching her closely. There is little she can do, though, to hide the fact that she is conversing with this creature, and she is sure the others are smart enough to figure it all out. Perhaps the time for secrets is over.

  The voice tells her there are several war canoes coming. They are approaching from the sides. The whales will attack them but Kina and her allies must flee.

  She looks out across the water, but is unable to see anything in this darkness. “No,” she says, and the whale blinks. “I have another plan.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Pupo asks. “Is it the whale? Is it Mother Ocean herself?”

  Kina ignores him. The whale is asking about her plan. All around, Kina can sense the presence of a pod of whales, from calves to adults. They are circling, waiting. In her mind Kina can sense their confusion and anxiety.

  “Hold them off,” she tells the whale. “We will flee.”

  “Flee?” Hekalo looks at her, stunned. “We’ve come too far. We can’t flee.”

  “I agree,” Pupo says. “They’ve gotten the better of us. We must regroup. We can return later.”

  “There won’t be a later,” Mai says. “They’ll be coming to us, in time, wherever we are.”

  Kina takes up the ropes and begins to raise the sail once more. “Help me,” she says. Pupo begins to assist, telling Hekalo to take the rudder.

  But Hekalo is standing in one place, looking back and forth between Mai and Kina. His expression is on of deep thought, a hardness to the eyes and a tightly-closed mouth. Kina takes quick glances at him as she hoists the sail.

  After a minute, he says, “I have a solution.”

  By this point, the canoe has spun to face the open ocean again, and the breeze is luffing the sail. Kina shakes her head. “It’s too late. Look out there. You see those spots low on the horizon? Those are war canoes. It won’t be long until they converge on this spot. We have to be gone by then.”

  “Listen to me,” Hekalo says, crossing over to Kina. Quietly, he says to her, “I have an incantation. It’s one I have never used because it’s too taxing on the sorcerer using it. With it, you’ll be able to walk among the Burning Warriors without fear. You can probably stroll right into their village, for that matter.”

  Kina looks at him. “And how would I do that?”

  “You will look like Mai.”

  Return to Toko-Mua

  Furious, Mai stamps her feet. “You should have told me!” she shouts. “You should have told me you are a sorcerer now! What am I to make of this? How can I return home and marry you knowing you steal from the gods?”

  Hekalo is trying to calm her. She exploded when he shared his plan with her, alternating between being horrified at the thought of Kina looking like her, her looking like Kina, and at the fact that Hekalo knows the kapu art of sorcery in the first place.

  Kina watches, trying to stay out of it. It is true that Hekalo should have told her before, she thinks. He obviously doesn’t know women. However, as he has been trying to tell her, it is only because of this knowledge that he was able to bring her back from the Lands Beyond.

  Shrieking, Mai storms to the other end of the deck. Hekalo follows, and the two of them engage in a heated conversation that is swept away by the stiff night wind.

  “Take the sail, Pupo,” Kina says.

  Pupo slides over and takes hold of the boom rope, and Kina stands up and heads over to them.

  “Mai,” she says, “you have a legitimate complaint. Hekalo, you should have told her before. But you’ll have to resolve this later. Right now the Burning Warriors are tracking us, and we don’t have time for this.”

  “She’s right, Mai,” Hekalo says, not helping anything.

  Mai glares at him, then shoots a cutting look at Kina. “Stay out of it. This is between us.”

  “A Burning Warrior spear tip will be between the two of you soon. Put it aside. You can scream at him up and down Mokukai when this is all over.”

  Mai’s look could melt stone, but she is silent. Her arms remain tightly folded at her chest.

  “There’s no need to cast this spell,” Kina says. “It was a good idea, but it’s a little too late for it anyway. Please, just take your positions and let’s hope we can outrun them.”

  Hekalo says, “I have a feeling that current will magically reverse, just for us.”

  “Perhaps,” Kina says. “But unless you want to stake your life on that, we need you.”

  Hekalo agrees, and starts to follow Kina back.

  “Fine,” Mai says. “I’ll do it.”

  “I already said it’s not possible,” Kina says. “We’ll flee.”

  Mai follows after them. “No. Wait.” She grabs Kina’s arm. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared. What Hekalo suggested is the best choice we have.”

  Hekalo is looking at her closely. “Why did you change your mind?”

  Mai hesitates. “I owe you for bringing me back,” she says. “I owe all of you. It’s just that… I was a little surprised, that’s all. And you’re asking me a lot, giving my appearance to another woman.”

  Kina says, “Hekalo is a man. He doesn’t understand, but I do. I feel the same way.” She looks back at their pursuers, thinking. After a moment, she says, “All right, Hekalo, do your incantation. But you better be right about it.”

  “I am.”

  “Please hurry,” Mai says, “before I change my mind.”

  Hekalo leads them both to the middle of the canoe. He takes up the sharpened whale bone used to pare fish. “This requires something from both of you,” he says. “You need to mingle blood. Give me your hands.”

  Kina holds out her hand and so does Mai. Hekalo takes Kina’s hand in his own, palm up.

  “Wait,” Kina says. “Must it be the palm? That’s my weapon hand.”

  “Do you want the spell or not?”

  Kina begrudgingly offers her palm, and winces as Hekalo cuts it. The knife slices just deep enough to draw up blood, though Kina can tell the small cut will heal in a few days. Hekalo does the same to Mai. She suck
s in a sharp breath between her teeth at the pain.

  “Now press your hands together. Hold them there while I chant.”

  “They’re gaining,” Pupo hisses. Kina sneaks a glance back. The row of canoes is visibly closer. What happened to Mother Ocean’s current? Perhaps she is withholding her gift because Kina is fleeing.

  Hekalo begins to chant, a monotone series of words that seems to take flight on the wind as they escape his lips. Then he stops and looks at Mai.

  For a moment Kina is struck with a disturbing sense of displacement as she gazes upon herself where, seconds ago, Mai had been kneeling. The face is Kina’s own: slender cheeks, full lips, brows a little thicker than she would like them, straight hair past her shoulders, old scars on her upper arms from long-ago knife fights. Considering the expression on Mai’s face, she is experiencing the same uncanny, out-of-body experience. Kina feels the same, but as she raises her hand to explore her face, she feels Mai’s button nose, wide-set eyes, and small mouth. Even Kina’s hair has changed, now only falling to the base of her neck, and much fuller than Kina’s own.

  Kina finds herself hyperventilating, and has to lie down.

  Hekalo has sunk to the canoe deck, unconscious. His breathing comes shallow and his jaw hangs slack and open, as though deep in a slumber. Mai begins to sob uncontrollably.

  Pupo is speechless, but when he finds the words, he says, “You mustn’t waste any time, Kina. Go!”

  Kina breathes deep until she feels the swoon passing. She nods grimly and rises. She is just as tall as before, despite Mai’s shorter stature, and she realizes this illusion changes nothing about her body. She still feels the same.

  Mai stares up at Kina in barely-disguised horror. She has taken Hekalo’s head into her lap and is stroking his hair, her face wet with tears. “Please,” she says. “Please let this be worth it.”

  “I won’t let you down,” Kina says, unable to think of anything better to say. She picks up her new pahi, the sculpted white blade given to her by Mother Ocean, and ties it to her back with a length of sennit rope. Then, taking a moment to say goodbye to her companions, she drops overboard.

  The ocean is dark and quiet. Turning around, she watches the silhouette of the canoe, barely visible against the surface, churn across the water and then disappear from view.

  Kina is holding her breath instinctively, but after a minute, she finds the urge to breathe has not come to her. By now, she would want to be kicking her way back to the surface and sucking in a gulp of precious air, but now she feels calm, content. She wonders if she no longer needs to breathe, and then with a start she realizes she has been breathing, this whole time. Breathing water.

  Like a fish, she thinks. Is this Mother Ocean’s gift?

  It doesn’t take long before the Burning Warriors’ canoes slash across the undulating surface above her like knives. They appear, cross over, and are gone again in seconds.

  Mother Ocean, she thinks, please deliver them. I am doing your will. They are innocent, and need your boon.

  With that, she turns and begins to swim toward Keli`anu.

  Several times she can sense something huge moving through the inky black ocean waters around her. Any other time she would have been terrified, but she now realizes these are the whales sent to protect her, and she feels more secure in the night waters than she has ever felt in daylit shallows.

  Soon her kicking legs brush against sand and she knows she has made it to shore. Rising, she wades through the last stretch of water and collapses on the beach. She catches her breath and looks up at the stars. The breeze coming off the sea rustles the palms near her.

  Far out to sea, there is a spark of light, distant enough that it seems to wink in and out of existence. Kina looks at it in growing horror. The Burning Warriors have caught the canoe, and they have lit it afire. Kina can almost picture the canoe as a blazing pyre, Pupo and Hekalo and Mai paddling in the water nearby as it cracks and roars, the war canoes of the Burning Warriors bearing down on them.

  What will the Burning Warriors do to Mai? Do they know what Kina looks like? How many of these were present at Lohoke`a, and might remember her appearance? For Mai’s sake she hopes they don’t, or are under orders not to harm her.

  Perhaps this had been a bad idea, she thinks. She looks down at Mai’s body, which is really her own but hidden behind an illusion. Despite the fact she knows it is only a trick of the eyes, she still feels like she has stolen something key to Mai’s identity. She hopes it won’t lead to the woman’s death.

  Hesitant to move, but unwilling to waste any more time, Kina stands up and begins to jog down the beach. She has no idea how far she will have to travel, but she hopes the village she and Motua had found is in this direction, because from there she knows how to cross over the center of the island and return to Toko-Mua.

  The sun rises, finding Kina deep in the forest. Just around dawn she had spotted the familiar village, nestled in a shallow bay near some fish ponds, and knew she had arrived. The jagged cliffs sag in the center of the island nearby, forming a pass. She avoided the village just to be sure, remembering how the last time she had been here it had also been morning and the village was already awake. Instead, she cut into the forest and dutifully followed the steepening slope toward the cliffs.

  Going upslope is difficult. This side of the hills is much steeper, and Kina often finds herself sliding several feet back down a muddy incline, or clinging to roots to avoid another slip.

  At last she makes it, exhausted, to the shoulder of the hills. To her astonishment, she is back at the very spot where she and Motua had tried to hold off the Burning Warriors that had been chasing them. She gazes around at the ground, seeing very little evidence of the battle. Some charred plants still show where one of the Burning Warriors had spouted fire at them, but life was aggressively returning and the last few weeks had seen the area nearly replenished with growth.

  Downslope she finds where two dead warriors had fallen. Their bodies are gone, most likely recovered by their brethren. Kina finds this disappointing. She had hoped to see skeletal remains there. Perhaps she needed some more proof that this had all happened, because now that she is back here in the daylight, the last few weeks are seeming like a fading dream.

  Far out through the treeline, Kina can see Toko-Mua. From here, it is mostly hidden by the upper canopy of the trees huddling around it, but thin lines of cookfire smoke, the tops of some of the larger huts, and an open area marking the location of the pits is easily visible. She can clearly see the upper peak of the temple, the one that is identical to that ruin found on Lohoke`a.

  Kina ponders this for a moment. Nakali had said they constructed the temple to match something they had found deep in the forests on this island, another ruin like the one at Lohoke`a. In fact, it was Nakali’s shock of recognition that had driven her to seek out answers from the God in the Stone, back on Makoahiva.

  It might be interesting to find this other ruin, she thinks, and stores the idea away for the future.

  She begins down the slope, and before long she is back in the forest.

  Close now, very close. She can smell the cookfires and hear the sounds of activity in the village. Kina steers away from it, veering around so she can approach from the water. At last she emerges on a windy beach lined with shushing palms. Fishermen’s boats are scattered far out to sea near the reef, and she can see many people working on some sort of structure on the end of a rocky manmade spit.

  She paces up the beach, out of sight but not far from the village, looking for a place to hide Mother Ocean’s coral pahi. The danger that Kina will simply be captured is very high, and she doesn’t want it to fall into Nakali’s hands. She considers tucking it under logs or stones, but in the end she walks down to the water’s edge and looks at the lapping waves.

  “Mother Ocean,” she says, “It is Kina, your Chosen. Please hold onto your gift for me. I do not wish to see it claimed by the Cult of the Ebon Flame.”

  With
that she pitches it into the water. Instead of splashing and kicking up a spray of water, it slices cleanly into the waves and is gone.

  Kina looks back at toward the waiting village. This is it, she tells herself. There’s nowhere else to go, no more time.

  She walks back down the beach, thinking with bemusement how she never would have imagined she would be back here so soon. And certainly not willingly.

  The builders are the first to see her. They stop working and look up at her. Some of them shout something to nearby guards, who gather several warriors and rush out to meet her. Kina is ready for them.