Islands of Fire Page 8

  “We tried.”

  “They found the pahi?”

  Kina nods. “But don’t worry about it. We can steal it again someday. Right now we have to think of our own survival. Here, they brought this food.”

  Motua rolls over and eyes the meal. “Why would they feed us?”

  “They want us alive. You can imagine why.”

  “Is it poison?”

  “We just ate it,” Kina says, and Pupo nods.

  Motua manages to rise partially, wincing at his wounded arm. “Merciful Mother, that hurts.”

  “Try to keep off it. Here,” Kina says, and helps Motua by feeding him portions of the food. When he is finished, another guard brings them small gourds of water.

  “We’ll be here tonight,” Pupo says, “by order of the high priestess. Then we depart in the morning.”

  Motua looks around the canoe, and Kina can almost see him calculating the distance between the warriors standing guard on deck, the twin masts, the cabins. “How many do you think are on this canoe?”

  Kina looks around. “I didn’t count, but I would guess there are thirty, including Nakali and her priests.”

  Motua grunts. “Not good odds.”

  “No,” Pupo says, “especially if you include the dozens of canoes all around us. They’ve been tying off together as the sun sets, making one large raft held by anchors. We’re surrounded by easily one hundred warriors on all sides.”

  Motua leans back onto the deck and closes his eyes. “How did they find us, anyway?”

  Kina suspects Motua isn’t really asking, but it is something she has been wondering, herself. “Do you think they tracked us, magically?”

  “Maybe they can sense the pahi?” Motua says.

  “They said something about navigators,” Kina says, and tells them what she heard when she was trapped in the hut. They listen intently as she tells them of her dangerous escape from the burning shelter, being chased across the bridges, swinging down to escape another group of warriors, and escaping with a stolen canoe. She tells them of the fight on the sloped roof of the temple, and how Nakali’s men found the bowl.

  During the telling, Pupo seems troubled. When Kina stops talking, he looks at her. “Did you say they destroyed the bamboo poles with the ghost traps?”

  Kina nods. “Cut down the poles, and trampled the traps. The ghosts escaped.”

  Though it is dark, there is enough light for Kina to see Pupo’s face.

  “The ghosts got out? That means they have returned to `Imu`imu with word of my location.”

  Both Kina and Motua turn to look at him in horror.

  “What does that mean?” Motua asks. “How long until it arrives?”

  Pupo twists to look around behind him, scanning across the dark horizon. The wind has shifted, and pennants flap energetically above them. Far out to sea, Kina can see waves churning as if whipped up by a storm.

  “It’s already here.”

  Devil's Wrath

  At first there is only the sound of panicked yelling coming from distant canoes. Kina can’t see anything other than churned up water that far out, but knows by the reaction of the sailors on the water that something must be here.

  “We have to get out of here!” Pupo screams.

  The warriors on deck near them have been sitting, talking after their dinner and in preparation for the night. They slowly rise, all faces pointed toward the commotion. Some of them reach for weapons.

  “Make sail,” Kina tells them. “There’s a devil coming!”

  One of the warriors who had been present for Kina’s attempted lie that afternoon glances over at her. “Your stories will get your tongue cut out of your mouth, slave. Be silent!”

  The distant screams are now joined by the crunching sound of planks splintering. Kina looks back and sees a mast see-sawing back and forth, the tattered tapa sail whipping about.

  The warriors begin to murmur in terror. One strides over to Kina and places the point of a spear at her throat. “What is this thing, slave? Speak quickly or die now.”

  “She told you the truth,” Motua says. “It’s a devil, and it’s coming for that man.” Motua nods his head in the direction of Pupo, who looks stricken and silenced with fear.

  “Then we should kill him!” the warrior says.

  “What’s going on out here?” comes an imperious voice. It is High Priestess Nakali. She is now wearing a more simple robe, so one of her assistants rushes up behind her with her headdress and cape. She absentmindedly places the headdress on while gazing out toward the chaos.

  “My Lady,” one of the warriors says, looking at her feet in reverence. “One of the slaves claims it is a devil.”

  “Another devil, eh?” Nakali says, looking over at them. “To hear them speak, one would think these islands are thick with them.”

  “It’s true,” Pupo says, finding his voice. “It’s name is `Imu`imu, and it will kill us all.”

  Mentioning a name seems to lend the situation more credibility to Nakali, who swiftly walks to the edge of her war canoe for a better look. “Report,” she says to one of her lieutenants.

  “All canoes accounted for, My Lady. That appears to be Eku’s canoe. Should I send men?”

  Nakali doesn’t answer. Her gaze is transfixed on the scene. Whatever is happening seems to be moving, getting closer. Two more canoes are now caught up in it. The screams of alarm are spreading to other canoes in the fleet, and Kina can see them starting to spread apart, the sailors desperately cutting away the mooring lines while others fumble to raise sails.

  Nakali turns and looks at her kupuna. There is a stunned look on his face.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  He is backing away, slowly. “It’s a devil,” he says. “I can see it!”

  “Battle stations!” Nakali barks, gesturing to the warriors who are standing transfixed around her. “Get to your battle stations!”

  The warriors break away and begin running for weapons.

  “Hoist both of those sails! Why are you dragging your feet? Get on it!”

  By now, Kina is hard at work trying to free herself from her bonds, taking advantage of the momentary lapse in scrutiny. She twists and writhes her hands, sure that she can get out of the knot if she has enough time. Unfortunately, this is something she lacks.

  Nakali comes over and crouches so she is eye-to-eye with Pupo. “Why is it here? Speak!”

  “It seeks me. It kills for pleasure, but mainly it wants me.”

  Nakali pulls a sharpened wood knife from her belt and grabs Pupo’s hair. “If I kill you, will it stop?”

  Kina and Motua both watch, horrified at the prospect of watching Pupo die right before them. Not for the first time, Kina regrets coming to these islands.

  “No,” Pupo gasps. “`Imu`imu is a thing of blood and rage. If anything, murdering me will free it to roam and kill without purpose.”

  Nakali sneers and backs away from Pupo. “Well, it looks like you’ll die with us, then.” Turning away, the high priestess spits orders to her warriors, commanding them to form a wall in front of her. Her kupuna is already in prayer, calling on Mother Ocean to swallow up this monstrosity.

  There is an explosion of water, like a wave breaking on nearby rocks. Spray rains across the deck, and Kina can see body parts with it. The deck of the war canoe rocks and everyone is pitched to the side. She, Motua and Pupo begin to slide.

  “Spears!” Nakali says, though Kina has lost track of the high priestess in the confusion. Now that they are closer to the edge, Kina is thinking of escape.

  She rises to her knees and no one stops her. All the warriors are facing away from her, scrambling back to their feet and charging toward something. Over the din of splintering wood and screaming sailors, Kina hears a deep-throated howl.

  Managing to crawl over to a rack of unused weapons, Kina spins around and probes with her fingers until she feels the prickly teeth of a leiomano, like he
rs but with a longer handle and a sharpened point at one end. She drops to her side to try and cut the cords binding her wrists and is met with a powerful wave that surges across the deck, flooding everything and momentarily pummeling her with the force of the water. She is spun around and flung from the edge of the deck, plunging into the ocean.

  For a moment she is stunned and disoriented, unsure whether or not she is up or down. She manages to kick her unbound legs and right herself. The world is muffled, yet she can still hear the din of crunching wood and bodies. She comes up underneath the war canoe, knocking her head against a hull. Sparks erupt in her field of vision. Everything is black, other than the glimmer of torchlights coming down from the prow of the war canoe. Then she is out of the water, sucking in air. The leiomano is gone, lost in the turbulence. Kina tries to keep her mouth above water, fighting the rise and fall of the agitated water. In the dark, the war canoe’s hull looms before her, and the water keeps banging her against it, bruising and battering her shoulders. It comes down on her back, shoving her underwater for a moment, and then lifting off just long enough for her to rise back up for a gasp of air before pressing her down again.

  After a few seconds of this, Kina is able to wriggle underneath the canoe, in the unlit space between the canoe’s parallel hulls. The deck creaks and snaps overhead. Kina can hear feet rushing back and forth across it, panicked voices shouting, the screams of the dying. And above it all, an enraged howl.

  Now desperate, Kina twists her hands in her bonds, trying to wrangle out of them. She feels them loosen and then they fall away, leaving only her cord-burned flesh.

  She dives under, kicking until she reaches the outside of the canoe once more. There are bodies floating here, though it is too dark to see who they are.

  “Motua!” she screams. “Motua! Pupo!”

  Someone falls off the deck near her. It is a warrior, and his blood is dark across his body. He rises up and tries to grab hold of the deck with a shredded arm, then faints and sinks beneath the waves.

  Canoes loom out of the dark, their navigators directing them toward the war canoe. Burning warriors are crouched at the prows, spears in hand, ready to leap to the defense of High Priestess Nakali. They pay Kina no mind as they plow up in front of her and leap overhead to the deck.

  `Imu`imu lets out a long bay, like a hunting dog. Kina can hear it moving across the deck, its weight causing the deck to groan and split underfoot. Bodies, some belonging to warriors who just joined the fray seconds earlier, are flung off into the water or to crash into waiting canoes.

  “Motua!” Kina shouts again, but a splashing wave drowns the sound. She turns and takes hold of the lip of the deck and pulls mightily, tugging herself back onto the war canoe.

  And she sees it—the colossal bulk of `Imu`imu, spider-like but vaguely animal, propelling itself around the deck with uncountable legs that end in human hands.

  Kina is frozen in fear and cannot move. The vast devil thunders close to her, taking hold of two warriors with its legs, then ripping them into to pieces. Kina can see a dozen spear shafts stuck in its bristly body, and a black ichor pulsing from the wounds, but `Imu`imu doesn’t seem to be stopping.

  She crawls away, fighting down panic, returning to the weapon rack. It has been denuded in the battle. Kina passes it by, running toward the royal quarters. Motua and Pupo might be dead, but at least she can try to get the pahi and drop it into the sea before she joins her friends in the Land Beyond.

  The entire war canoe is teetering sharply to starboard, so getting to the hut-like structure is like climbing along a slick slope. Kina struggles to keep her grip on the wet wood underfoot. At last, the deck yawing even more steeply as the whole canoe threatens to sink, Kina reaches the royal quarters and shoves open the woven bamboo door. Inside, the room is thick with a black smoke, through which Kina can see the bowl of fire. It has fallen from a shrine on the far end of Nakali’s quarters and the flames are engulfing a pile of tapa. Kina holds her breath and squints, scrambling across the floor in search of the pahi. It is near the fire bowl, the symbols along its length glowing quite brilliantly.

  “You did this!” Kina hears from behind her. She looks around to see the high priestess, bloodied and staggering, her ceremonial cloak torn almost in half.

  “Get back!” Kina shouts, and picks up the pahi. It seems warmer than before, almost hot, as though heated by the flames in the bowl.

  Nakali tries to rush Kina, but the canoe is abruptly tipped into the air and split into three parts. The wooden structure around Kina cracks and threatens to collapse, but both her and the high priestess are tossed helplessly forward. Kina is aware of the bowl clattering near her, the fire still blazing, and then there is a loud crash and the wall tears open. The bowl slides down what is left of the deck. High Priestess Nakali dives for it but misses, and both of them slide off into the churning water.

  Still holding the pahi, Kina claws for a hold—anything will do—and clutches at a hand. For a moment her slide is stopped.

  “Thank you,” she says and turns to see who saved her. But she is holding on to one of `Imu`imu’s freakish feet, the devil looming over her. It scuttles around to face her, almost completely smeared in gore. A razor-rimmed hole that Kina assumes it its mouth swallows a detached leg, then opens wide for her. Several of its hands take hold of her body and hoist Kina into the air.

  She swipes without thinking, slicing `Imu`imu deeply with the pahi.

  A screech loud enough to make Kina’s ears sing erupts from the devil’s mouth. It drops Kina to the deck, still holding on to her ankle with one of its legs. Kina sees that she has cut three of its other legs off completely. They kick and spasm on the deck.

  `Imu`imu hurls itself backward and the canoe tips up the other way, flinging Kina into the air. She comes down onto the devil’s bristly body. With her free hand, Kina takes hold of `Imu`imu’s hairlike quills and sinks the pahi into its body. She is met with an eruption of bilious fluid. The huge devil bucks under her, and for a moment her grip slips a little on the pahi, but she is able to tighten her fingers around it and pull it free.

  The two of them are dumped into the ocean as the deck finally gives way beneath them. Kina hits the water hard, stunned by the sudden slap. Once more she is submerged. In the darkness, the only thing she can see are the symbols along the pahi’s blade and, some ways off, what looks like a flickering fire. It is the bowl, resting on the bottom of the shallow sea, not more than a couple fathoms down, but burning as though still exposed to air. A great mass of bubbles rises from it.

  Kina swims away. It’s slow going, dragging the pahi behind her and resisting its weight. She surfaces and keeps going, risking a glance behind her. `Imu`imu is thrashing and howling, filling the water with its putrescence. When she next glances back, it seems to Kina that `Imu`imu is shrinking, almost as though it is slowly dissolving into the ocean.

  Something bobbing nearby gets her attention. It is a three-man canoe, one of the scouting canoes used to flush out Motua and Pupo earlier. Kina plunges her hand out of the water and seeks out a grip on the canoe’s edge to pull herself in.

  “Get off!” she hears a voice spit. “This is mine!”

  It is Nakali. The high priestess is still wearing the tattered remnants of her fine robe, with a tapa wrap underneath. The headdress is long gone, leaving her long, black hair to stream over her shoulders.

  Kina is already pulling herself up, and the effort makes the canoe pitch and roll. Nakali takes hold of the mast and kicks Kina hard in the face.

  Though she is exhausted, Kina forces herself to her feet, pahi in hand. Nakali sees it and dives for it with a snarl. For a moment they struggle back and forth along the canoe, then Kina drives her foot into Nakali’s knee. The high priestess stumbles. Kina swings the pahi and cuffs the side of Nakali’s head with the flat of the blade, dropping her to the floor of the canoe.

  For a moment, Kina considers finishing the high priestess and putting
an end to the Cult of the Ebon Flame, but despite Nakali’s wickedness, killing a helpless opponent seems too vile, so Kina lowers the blade.

  Nakali is unconscious, the side of her head matted with blood where Kina hit her. Kina drops the pahi and searches the canoe for a roll of cord, then bites off a portion of it with which to bind the high priestess’ hands. When this is done, Kina sinks to the navigator’s seat and rests against the canoe’s gunwale, exhaustion overtaking her.

  From all around come the moans of the dying, the knock of broken canoes beating together, and not far away, the bubbling and hissing of `Imu`imu bleeding out the last of its body into the sea. Kina turns to gaze up at the stars, imagining the souls of all those dead around her rising to float up through the night sky to their new homes in the great dark ocean of Father Sky’s bosom.

  Sharks arrive, bumping against the bottom of the canoe as they begin to feast on the dead and dying. Kina succumbs to shock and drops, unconscious, to the canoe floor.

  Upon the Empty Ocean

  Kina’s sleep is deep and dreamless. Eventually she is awakened by the sensation of the canoe being jolted.

  Prying her eyes open, Kina looks around. It is early morning. The sea is flat, the wind having died down. She can see nothing around her but empty, turquoise water. This is still the Shallow Sea, but she can’t see the Teeth, nor can she see signs of the flotilla from Keli`anu. The water around her is not deep, and the canoe has struck a sandbar. Tiny wavelets lap against the sand, and Kina can see a little crab scurrying along the waterline.

  Remembering Nakali, Kina spins around. The high priestess is still on the floor of the canoe, where Kina had last seen her. Blood has stopped seeping from her head wound, but she remains unconscious. Kina drops down and inspects the cords around Nakali’s hands, satisfied to still see them there.

  Kina is sore, her muscles screaming as she moves around the canoe, but she needs to check for supplies. Since this is a scouting canoe, it should be rigged for a cross-sea voyage, and Kina is pleased to find at least a week’s worth of coconuts, dried fish, and water skins in the canoe’s storage netting under the navigator’s seat.