Racing the Dark (21 page)

Bopa rustled through her notes. "This one case you mentiona young girl named Lana, I think-was particularly fascinating. You say she actually refused to come to Essel because of the sense of duty she felt as a diver?"

Kohaku felt the corners of his mouth turn up slightly-it had been a long time since he had last thought of Lana. "Yes. The divers of the islands take their duty very seriously, although I didn't really understand that at the time. But I do wonder what happened to her ... the reports I've heard over the past few years aren't too promising. They say the water has turned brackish and some of the islands were permanently flooded. There are rumors all the mandagah fish have died."

"So it seems quite likely you were documenting a dying way of life," Totome said. His voice was scratchy from too many years at hookah lounges, but it was friendly.

Before Kohaku could respond Nahe stood up angrily and slammed his hands on the table. "Let's stop this circus, shall we?" he said, looking at his shocked colleagues. "You'd have to be blind not to notice his shoddy documentation and lack of attention to established authorities."

Totome looked at Nahe mildly. "Keep your voice down, Nahe. Of course I noticed he didn't spend much time dealing with the sources, but I felt that his area of inquiry was sufficiently different that it was a reasonable-"

"His conclusions are also ludicrous." Nahe picked up a sheet of paper and began reading from it. "'The islander's reverence for the mandagah fish is actually based upon an ancient link, forgotten on the inner islands, between the water spirit and these rare fish.' This goes against every established convention-"

"Don't be such a blowhard, Nahe," Bopa said. "I thought his conclusions were well-founded. What good is a Kulanui without a little debate?"

Nahe looked angry enough to hit Bopa, but she stared at him until he sat back down.

"Enough," he said quietly. "I am the head of the council, and I say that this student is unfit to enter our ranks. In fact, I declare that the sloppiness of his work makes him unfit to be in the Kulanui at all, and I hereby divest him of his rank and forbid him to further waste anyone's time with his hopeless aspirations."

Kohaku stared, but he could not even summon indignation to meet Nahe's look of triumph. Yesterday's cold, sharp-edged anger was still there, but buried under a turgid river of grief.

You can't do that, Nahe. The council can still overrule you-

"And what if you try and fail, Bopa? What if more side with me? What do you think will happen to you then?"

Bopa stood up abruptly and gathered her papers. "I refuse to be a part of this monkey trial," she said as she walked toward the door. "Kohaku, I'm quite sorry. I still say your work was excellent."

"And you, Totome?" Nahe asked.

Totome glanced at Kohaku and then gave an infinitesimal nod.

Nahe smiled. "You're dismissed, Kohaku. You can leave your robe and headband on the table."

Kohaku pressed the filtering cloth close to his mouth and nose. The air this close to the lip of the volcano was acrid-poisonous, if you stayed too long. The lavish expense of this funeral ceremony was due in part to the inherent dangers involved in climbing the volcano. Up ahead, priests and priestesses chanted ancient songs of supplication. They asked for his sister's spirit to be kept within the islands and they asked her not to bear the living grudges for her untimely death. Emea had always loved Nui'ahi, and after his failure to protect her, he realized it was the only thing he could do. The fee had taken all his money, even after he had sold their apartment and all their possessions. Still, there wouldn't have been enough if Lipa hadn't given him the rest. He didn't know how he would ever repay that debt, either. Four white-clad men carried his sister's body on a mat of woven reeds. Around her shoulders, contrasting with the stark white of her dress, he had tied the carrying cloth she had made so lovingly. The path was rough and filled with rocks that crumbled under his feet and made it difficult to find a purchase. The air was so foul that he thought he might vomit, but he continued, viewing it as a penance, if not a method of purging his grief.

The altitude had plugged his ears, but he didn't bother to unplug them-he liked the dampened sound. He tried to imagine what life had been like for his sister, who hadn't been able to hear since she was four. He watched the mouths of the chanters move in unison, but didn't hear what they were saying. Perhaps his sister's inability to hear had been more of a blessing than a curse-it was one less reason to feel pain. It would have been so much easier to tune out the world with one less sense for it to overload. Finally, they reached the lip of the volcano. This part of the ceremony was quick, for the whole funeral party would be in danger of passing out if they stayed much longer.

He touched her hand when they reached the top, trying not to notice how unnaturally cold and stiff it felt. His eyes fell on the blue and gold of her shawl. Not quite understanding the impulse, he untied it just before they tipped her body in the orange-gold pit of molten lava. She went directly under, and then bobbed like a cork to the surface. Her clothes caught fire, then her hair. She burned until he could no longer make out her figure, and the ash that clogged his throat might just be hers.

7

ANA SAT BY THE OPEN WINDOW in her shift, squinting as she sewed a button back on her shirt. She hadn't acquired a new piece of clothing in nearly four years, and the wear was beginning to show. This shirt-blue with a shiny orange strip down the middle-had been a gift from her parents during her first visit to Essel four years ago. Since it still looked less shabby than her other clothes, she had planned to patch it up as best she could and wear that when she visited her parents in two weeks. But Akua had been a hard taskmaster recently and this would probably be her only chance to mend her shirt before she left. Lana glanced periodically at the stove, where the draught Akua had been making for the past three days simmered quietly. Akua had gone out earlier that morning to gather the final ingredients-although Lana could hardly believe there was anything she hadn't already used in it. The smell didn't bother her as much as it had at first, but she was still grateful for the periodic breeze. Akua had not yet told her what it was for-a familiar annoyance. She seemed to delight in tantalizing her with powerful geas and then refusing to explain their workings. Lana, it seemed, was never quite ready enough or strong enough to tackle a major working of power. As for today's potion, she felt Akua had already bound too many geas to it for her comfort-ever since the incident with Saulo two years ago, she found it difficult to trust Akua when too much power was involved.

Just as Lana was tying off the thread, Akua opened the door, a small smile on her lips and a worn canvas bag over her shoulder. A strong gust of wind made the door slam shut, but Akua didn't seem to notice. She walked over to Lana, barely sparing a glance for her draught.

"What is it?" Lana asked. She had rarely seen Akua so excited.

"You're ready," she said. She finally seemed to register that Lana was only in her shift and she waved at the shirt impatiently. "Put that on," she said. "We're going out for a few days."

Lana stared, but pulled the shirt over her head. "Akua, what are you talking about?"

"Get your mandagah jewels. I am going to teach you a technique of great power."

"Why on earth would you need..." Lana trailed off, her heart thudding painfully. "Jewels?" she whispered.

Akua smiled gently. "I've always known, Lana. Do you think you could hide something like that from someone who's spent her whole life studying power? Go get them, then-the blue and the red."

Lana couldn't even speak. She ran up the stairs, terrified and excited with the conviction that Akua was finally going to teach her a geas of power.

Akua held out a tall earthenware cup, filled to the top with the foul-smelling draught that had been simmering on the stove for the past three days. Lana glanced briefly at Akua's serious eyes and fought her nausea. It smelled something like soured pomegranate juice, with the sweetness replaced by the stink of rotting vegetation. A layer of dung-brown foam floated atop of the liquid. Every few seconds an oily brown bubble would rise to the top and break, giving her another whiff of its rank stench.

"You want me to drink this?" Lana said, carefully breathing out of her mouth.

Akua laughed. "If you hold your nose it won't taste so bad."

"I have to drink the whole thing?" Akua nodded and she sighed. "What is it, exactly?"

"It invokes certain spirits, so that when you perform the real sacrifice over the two jewels the power will be doubled. I'll show you how to prepare it once you see what its effects are. This way your binding between the two jewels will be nearly unbreakable."

Lana wondered why that would be necessary, but she had been with Akua long enough to know that the witch never explained herself before she was ready. Shrugging her shoulders, Lana pinched her nose and tipped the noxious mixture into her mouth. Despite the fact that she couldn't breathe, the very feel of it sliding like a worm down the back of her throat nearly made her vomit. She dropped the cup on the floor, where it landed with a dull thud. The little bit of liquid remaining dripped out, but it seemed to have lost all of its viscosity and seeped through the floorboards without even leaving a damp spot. Through the silvered haze that descended over her vision, Lana watched Akua nod in satisfaction and pick up the cup. As soon as the draught entered her stomach, she became aware of the prickling sensation of incipient power, much stronger than anything she had ever invoked herself. It felt as though Akua must have tied this geas to all three of the bound spirits-water, death, and fire-an unusual and tremendously powerful technique. Lana lay sprawled on the floor, staring at the wooden ceiling beams gone nearly black with age. She had the strangest sense that she could see shapes in their shadows-the brief flick of a scaled hand, the shiny gleam of too-white teeth. She suddenly realized that she was surrounded by spirits-some leering, some laughing, some sitting stone-faced, all waiting to see why she had called them here and if she had the power to bind them. As she lay prone on the floor in a haze more profound than anything she had ever experienced with amant weed, it occurred to her that until this moment, she had never understood the real danger she courted every time she cast a geas. If she didn't prove capable of binding them, these spirits would devour her from the inside out.

Akua helped her to sit up and smoothed her hair back gently. Lana noticed that the spirits seemed to back up at the sight of Akua. Could that be respect in their insubstantial eyes? Fear?

Akua put the two jewels in a bowl of water, where they bobbed gently. "Don't worry, Lana," she said. "One day you will command power much greater than this. They are all subject to your will, as long as you are sure of yourself."

The phantasms in the corners were laughing, but Lana focused on Akua's reassuring eyes and nodded firmly, though her head felt in danger of floating off her neck.

Akua pressed a knife into Lana's loose grip. "Use this to cut your wrist. Not too shallow, not too deep. Then read this-you'll know when." Beside the bowl Akua had placed a yellowed sheet of paper, with a single geas poem written in old-style pictographs in its middle. Lana stared at it for a few hazy moments before gripping the knife's wooden handle more firmly. She would have to be strong enough. The spirits that crowded around her-a badger whose dun-brown head was twice as big as its body, a fish with hard golden scales and eyes that dripped thick, viscous water-flickered in and out of visibility. Unlike Ino, they were not strictly bound to this world; their existence was only partially physical-until someone like her forced them to submit to a geas.