Islands of Fire Page 4

“A devil?” Motua asks.

  “Yes,” Pupo says with a nod. “A very powerful one. For three years it has been tracking me across Mokukai. It finds wandering ghosts and sends them to find me, telling them it can return their spirits into living bodies as reward. There is nothing the dead want more than to be living once again, so they eagerly agree.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “No,” Pupo says. “Not even Mother Ocean and Father Sky can put the a dead spirit back in a living body once the bond has been broken. But the lapu don’t know this. Ghosts aren’t very smart, at least most of them aren’t. They are only barely aware that they are dead, most of the time, and find themselves repeating what they used to do in life.”

  Motua glances up, gesturing toward the sky. “I thought the dead went to the Land Beyond when they died. Why do some remain behind?”

  Pupo half-smiles, his expression dark. “Who can say? Most of the time those who die are gathered by Father Sky and delivered to his paradise. At night one can look up and see a great black ocean, and upon it are the twinkling lights of a million small islands. If a man has lived his life with honor and done his best to avoid breaking kapu, he will go to live in one of those villages forever. A paradise where none suffer, at least so it is said. But others are rejected by Father Sky, perhaps because they committed grievous crimes, or disrespected the gods, or didn’t complete a task they were meant to do.”

  “What kind of men are the lapu caught in your traps out there?” Kina asks.

  “The worst kind: traitors, murderers, hunters of men. They are the kind most eager to do whatever is necessary to regain their old lives. You won’t find mourning mothers in those traps, or the lost souls of children. `Imu`imu has no use for those types, because they are wracked with guilt or grief.”

  Kina and Motua continue to eat while Pupo talks of ghosts, telling them of some of the sinister and devious spirits he has trapped and exorcised over his lifetime. Gradually, the sun grows lower in the sky and both Kina and Motua are overwhelmed with exhaustion.

  “You said we can’t stay with you,” Motua says, rising. “We are in need of rest. Where should we go?”

  Pupo looks back and forth at them, then buries his face in his palms. “I’ll probably regret this, but you can stay. But only for a day or two, as you recover your strength.”

  They exit the hut and Kina looks at the setting sun. The entire western sky is blazing with hues of orange and red and the wind is picking back up.

  Motua says, “We found your hut originally by following a strange sound. It’s been growing quieter all day, but I can hear it again. What is it?”

  “Ah,” Pupo says. “This is what you hear.”

  He guides them over to the southern lip of the towering islet. Suspended from a frame of bamboo and rope dangles the dried, mutilated body of a shark. The back half of the body has been removed and the insides hollowed out, letting wind rush through and out the gaping jaws. As it rotates, the dead, dry eyes sweep the group and Kina cringes.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a decoy,” Pupo says. “I made this to fool `Imu`imu into thinking the presence he feels out here is another devil. It floats here and looks out across the sea, moaning in rage. `Imu`imu—or any devil, for that matter—will avoid its territory.”

  “What about the ghosts?” Motua asks, motioning toward a rattling pole of filled cages.

  Pupo walks over to the wicker baskets and the ghosts grow agitated, battering the tiny wicker walls. Kina thinks she can hear them screeching, though it could be her imagination.

  “They lack the ability to sense devils, I guess. Or perhaps they are too brazen or stupid to care. Either way, they come every night, dozens of them, filling up these cages almost as fast as I can exorcise them.”

  They listen as Pupo begins a small chant, moving his hands in front of the cages. From the waist of his malo skirt he pulls a tiny pouch and unties it. He reaches in and pulls out a small pinch of what looks like regular soil.

  “Rest, spirits,” he says, flinging the dust on the cages. “Rest, and plague the living no more.”

  The fluttering stops in the cages. Now all Kina sees are empty wicker frames blowing in the wind on their cords.

  “Where did they go?”

  “Destroyed,” Pupo says. “Unable to pass into the Land Beyond, and rejected by our world, they cease to be.”

  Motua asks, “How do you know?”

  Pupo regards him. “How do we know anything, really?”

  With that, Pupo steps past them and begins down the path. “I have to clean out the traps. I’ll return just before dark. Please, help yourself to more food if you want it, and try to get some rest.”

  Kina and Motua watch the ghost hunter leave, and return into the hut. They eat dried fish and drink from a jelly coconut before passing out on the floor.

  When they awake in the morning, Pupo is there with them. He has started a fire and begun roasting some fish.

  They spend the day recovering, taking turns sleeping and eating until day turns once more to night, and then they do the same the next day.

  The three of them spend their hours telling stories of their travels. Pupo recounts some amazing battles with powerful lapu, and explains how he came to be hunted by `Imu`imu. “There was a village on a little island in Holuatao`o. I had heard they were having trouble with a powerful devil that took pleasure in smashing boats and abducting children in the night. This devil was growing in power, so they had no choice but to get help. A single warrior was able to escape the village unnoticed by the devil, making his way to another nearby island. I heard the story some days later, and immediately sought out a crew that could take me there. Nobody would go; They were too afraid of earning the wrath of this devil, whatever it might be. So I had to purchase a canoe and paddle there on my own.

  “By the time I arrived at the village, many were dead. The survivors were holed up in the center of town in a longhouse, starving and terrified. I gathered several of the bravest young men and prepared a special powder made of the blood of a dog, dust from the bones of a kupuna, and some plants known to hold great power. Then we walked into the forest at the edge of the village to confront the devil, which the villagers told me went by the name of `Imu`imu. It had lived on the island a long time, but had been disturbed by meddlesome children and awakened from a centuries-old slumber.

  “We met `Imu`imu beneath the trees. When I first saw it, I was struck with terror. It was huge, a big as this hut, covered in skin and dense bristles like a boar, and it looked a lot like a spider but with many, many more legs. And what was worse, each leg ended with a human hand. It is said these are the hands of the men whose evil actions first gave birth to `Imu`imu, though I don’t know if that is true. It loomed over us, and as I sprayed it with the powder and began my exorcism chant, it flew into a rage. Right before my eyes, it picked up the brave warriors around me and savagely tore at them with its powerful hands. When the powder struck `Imu`imu, it reeled back in screeched, and its body began to melt into a black fluid. But I underestimated its power. A few moments later, it seemed to grow stronger. It rose up, taller than ever, and devoured the corpses of the men around me until its jaws were wet with their blood.

  “I had no choice but to run. I raced into the village and screamed for everyone to flee, and I made my way to my canoe. Like a coward, I fled the island. Behind me I could see `Imu`imu racing through the village, murdering all that remained.

  “I thought I had escaped, but then many days later several taro farmers will killed in a village near where I was staying to recuperate, and a young girl who escaped described `Imu`imu perfectly.

  “And that’s when the ghosts came. That night I heard them outside the walls of the hut, saying my name. They forced their way through the walls and tried to kill me, but I was able to catch them in traps. I knew then that `Imu`imu was seeking me out, angry at my attempt to banish it from this world, and it would only br
ing chaos and death to others near me. I spent months fleeing, until I heard about Lohoke`a and decided I would disappear entirely. I presume `Imu`imu is still searching for me, because every night more ghosts whispering my name arrive at the island.”

  Kina is horrified by the story, and finds herself awake long into the night while Motua and Pupo sleep beside her, listening for the ghosts. Sometimes she hears furtive motion, and thinks she hears a sound that might be a voice on the wind, but it is too quiet to make out. And every morning, the traps once more contain those fluttering shadows.

  By the third day, Kina is feeling much better. The ache in her stomach has faded. Motua looks better, too, and he joins Pupo in the middle of the day to do some spear fishing.

  That night, Pupo moves aside a mat on the floor of his hut and shows them several coconuts hidden in a small hollowed-out space. Each one has had a small round hole cut in the side which is plugged with a piece of whittled wood.

  “I’ve been waiting a while to drink these,” Pupo says with a smile. “I can think of no better occasion than to celebrate making new friends.”

  “What are they?” Motua asks, but Kina has seen this before.

  “It’s kulu,” she says. “Devil water.”

  Motua looks askance at her, but Pupo says, “It’s just a name. There are no actual ghosts or devils involved.”

  “We used to make this in Huka`i. It is very powerful.”

  Pupo takes the coconuts outside and builds a cracking fire. They sit around it long into the night, taking turns drinking from the unstoppered coconuts. At first, Motua cringes and spits out the liquid, which causes Pupo and Kina to laugh. Chagrined, he takes another drink, a long one this time, and forces it down despite having to grit his teeth and hammer his own chest with his palm. This causes Pupo and Kina to laugh even more. By the time the third moon has risen overhead, Motua is cackling and slapping his knee at Pupo’s tales of strange ghosts and even stranger people.

  It had been a long time since Kina had enjoyed any kulu. She reclines and looks up at the stars, those tiny lights from the village fires in the vast ocean of the afterlife, and thinks of home.

  “I noticed something as we came to these islands, Pupo,” Motua says. “I kept meaning to ask you about them. There are these… blocks of stone. I saw them atop one of these strange tall islands. Are there other people living here?”

  “No,” Motua says, “nobody else. I’ve seen the ruins you’re talking about, though I’ve never been inside. They are hard to reach. I have no idea how old they might be.”

  “We should go look at them,” Kina says.

  “Why would we do that?” Motua asks. “What could you hope to find? There won’t be any food or water. They’re probably haunted.”

  Kina shrugs. “Just curious. Will you take me, Pupo?”

  Pupo replies, “Yes, we’ll go there tomorrow.”

  Motua groans. But the topic is soon dropped and they move on to telling jokes and ghost stories until the fire dies down long into the night.

  Stones of the Ancients

  Mid-morning finds them sleeping off the kulu. Kina rises, head hurting, and goes back outside to where the ashes of the fire still emanate warmth. She eats some fruit and drinks some fresh water and just watches the clouds scud past.

  The others wake later and sluggishly eat. Noon comes and goes before anyone is feeling up to a journey.

  “What was in that kulu?” Motua asks.

  Pupo laughs. “It is sugar cane, mostly, ground to a pulp and allowed to ferment inside the coconut shell. I’m happy it didn’t poison us. Making kulu is something I learned years ago and have had little chance for practice.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Motua replies. “I feel poisoned.”

  “It will wear off as we walk,” Kina says. “Drink some more water and let’s go check out those ruins.”

  They gather some fruit and water for the trek. Pupo helps Motua hide the pahi in the same earthen hole where the kulu had been stored, and Kina sets her leiomano in there beside it. Unlikely that anyone would come here while they are gone, but neither of them want to leave their weapons around just in case. Then the trio head away from the hut, making their way back across the delicate bridges and down the rope ladder. Kina is pleased to see their canoe still there, though it is beached in the low tide.

  “So you built this jetty?” Motua asks, as the three of them shove the canoe across the sand back toward the water.

  “Yes. It took me some time. My earlier designs kept getting washed out.”

  “I see a tying stone, yet I don’t see a canoe. At first we thought whoever lived here might be sailing around and would come back to find our craft.”

  Pupo says, “I had a canoe, but the line snapped during a powerful storm and it sailed away. I’ve had to do all my fishing by wading through the water since then.”

  Once the canoe is back in deeper water, they climb aboard and Motua takes the paddle. He pushes them through the shallows back into deeper water.

  “I think the ruins were back this way.”

  “Yes,” Pupo says. “There are some fragments that direction, but there are even greater ruins deeper in the center of the Teeth. Turn this way.”

  Kina angles the sail and they head eastward, passing between the columns into an area where she and Motua had never been. As they sail, the islands grow larger and larger, and in some places connect together into great curved walls or wide masses. Before long, what were isolated stacks become fused into a maze of tall mounds of rock covered with a riot of vegetation. Kina begins to see more of those strange cut stones.

  “Pull in here,” Pupo directs them.

  Motua beaches the canoe in a shallow cavern under an overhang coated in thick ferns. Schools of small fish dart in the shallows as Kina steps out and helps tie off the canoe to a knot of roots. Pupo wades through the water until he finds a depression cut into the back of the natural cavern. Kina is stunned to see evidence that the rock was worked by human hands. It is dark inside and they have no torch. They have to rely on what light reaches into the back of the cavern.

  “What is it?”

  “Stairs,” Pupo says to Kina, and steps into the depression. Back there, crowded in on all sides by crumbing stone and invasive roots, are blocks set into a crevasse in the bedrock of the island. Kina gazes up into the darkness but sees nothing.

  “It’s safe?” Motua asks.

  Pupo looks at him. “There is nothing here that can threaten us.”

  Kina wonders what he means, but follows as Pupo leads them up. The steps are uneven, pushed up from the shifting of stones or the exertion of the many roots, and more than once they trip in unseen hazards. Though Kina’s eyes are adjusting to the darkness, there is little light to guide her feet.

  Before long, they begin to see a gradual brightening, and soon they emerge from the tunnel as though stepping from a door. Kina is speechless as she steps, blinking, back into the sunlight and looks around at a complex of cut stone blocks and pillars. The jungle has taken over much of the area, but she can easily see the remains of narrow avenues, walls and doorways, decorative pillars, short flights of stairs, and brackish wells. Birds flit through the bushes growing along the walls. Trees crowd on all sides, shading the old stones and filling the corners with leaves and detritus.

  Pupo walks out into the middle of an open square and leans on his cane. “I don’t know who used to live here, but I just call them ‘The Ancients,’ for lack of a better name.”

  Kina runs her hand across some of the stone. Time and weather has worn away most of the markings, though she can still see the impression of old images or writing. Who were these people? Where did they go?

  Motua doesn’t seem to like it. He is looking around with his brow pinched in distrust. “Why do you not live here, instead of in your hut?” he asks Pupo. “It seems a natural choice. The islands are bigger. There seem to be more resources. The walls could protect you fro
m wind and rain. You would even have a staircase to take you down to prime fishing ground.”

  “All that is true,” Pupo replies. “But I stay away from here as much as I can. Maybe it’s because I’m an old ghost hunter and can sense when a place is haunted. I don’t need to stir up any more ghosts.”

  “No,” Kina says. “I feel it, too. As though there are others here with us, watching from behind the doorways and pillars.”

  The three of them look around in silence.

  At last, Kina walks to the far end of the square and peers down an alley. “Where does this lane go?”

  “I’ve done very little exploring here,” Pupo says, “but that leads to what I think were living quarters for slaves.”

  “And this?”

  “It appears to lead to a market.”

  “Why do we never hear about anyone who used to live on these islands? All over Mokukai, people believe these islands are empty and always have been.”

  Pupo thinks for a moment. “Well, a long time has passed. Sometimes things just fade from memory.”

  “Seems strange.”

  “Maybe you’d like to see this,” Pupo says. “Come this way.”

  He leads them a different direction, down a broken corridor that leads past many fallen arches and vegetation-filled areas. Finally, Kina can make out a pyramid-shaped structure of stones almost completely swallowed by the jungle. It rises high overhead in a shape that reminds Kina of a volcano’s cinder cone.

  It also reminds her of something else.

  “Look, Motua,” she says. “Do you see?”

  Motua has fallen quiet since arriving here, and he stops to stare upward at the structure with a dour look.

  “What’s wrong?” Pupo asks.

  “It’s nothing,” he replies after a moment.

  Pupo leads them toward the base of the object, where Kina can see a tall archway that leads into darkness. Stepping through it, she discovers she is in a single chamber made of fitted stones. The walls lean inward and come together high in the dark recesses above. Some of the stones have broken free of from their brothers and fallen to the floor, letting the sun pierce the gloom inside and form spear-like rays.