Racing the Dark (29 page)

He smiled. "Don't worry about it. What's your name?"

"Nahoa," she said, leaning closer toward him. Something about the position felt intimate.

He smiled at her. "If I'm still alive in six days, Nahoa, will you come back to Essel with me and be a Mo'i's first wife?" He didn't know why he said it. He felt as though some cloud had descended over both of their heads-dense enough for him to forget that he had come here to die.

She frowned at him, but the corners of her lips kept turning up. "I ... you must be crazy!" Then she swore again, unable to keep from smiling.

"Will you?" he asked.

"What kind of a question is that? I don't even know your name!"

"Kohaku," he said, wondering why he had chosen this, of all times, to feel the stirrings of happiness. "Will you?"

She looked up at the sound of a shout from the rigging. "It's ... I'm on for lookout. I have to go."

Still, she didn't move. Kohaku smiled a little bitterly. "The overwhelming odds are I'll be dead in six days. If by some miracle I'm not, would it be so bad? You seem like ... a good person. I've been needing a good person lately."

Her green eyes looked entirely guileless, like she was actually moved by an awkward proposal from a disgraced assistant professor who hadn't shaved or taken a bath in at least a month.

There was another shout from the rigging. "Later," she said as she jumped on the spiderweb of ropes. "I'll give you my answer later."

Three days later, the night before they arrived at the fire shrine, Nahoa caught Kohaku's eye when he was quietly eating dinner with the other supplicants. He made some excuse and found her on the other side of the deck, twiddling with long curly hair that she had, for some reason, released from its bun.

"I've ... well, I've decided," she said.

He found that he was actually nervous. He had made the pro posal in a moment of temporary insanity, but as he had thought about it over the next few days and surreptitiously watched her interacting with the rest of the crew, he felt oddly certain that she was the one woman that he would ever want. His previous relationships had been sporadic and half-hearted-he probably hadn't even been with a woman since he began at the Kulanui. Since then he had only indulged in the occasional furtive tryst with a fellow student. As he waited, he was for some reason reminded of how he had felt those many years ago, waiting for Lana's response to his offer to study at the Kulanui. He remembered how angry-and hurt, probably-he had felt then.

She sighed. "This is dumb. I know this is dumb because I know you'll be dead in a few days and then where will I be? That's why they tell us not to talk to you, I bet. Oh damn, I have no idea what I'm getting into." She looked at him expectantly.

"Well ..." he ventured after a few moments, "what's your answer?"

"Yes. It's yes, all right? I know this is crazy." She exhaled, and then looked at him with a scowl. "But you better promise not to die or I'll be really, really pissed off."

Even her frown was endearing. It made her look about ten years younger. He smiled and touched a bit of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder.

"Did you take that down for me?" he asked.

She nodded, avoiding his eyes. "Well ... I figured I couldn't just look like I normally do, for something like this. My mother never thought it would happen for me, you know. She wasn't even that upset when I joined a ship. Thought it would give me something to do. Well, and she also said it was my best feature. My hair, I mean. Said I looked a bit like a horse with it up, but I never really cared."

"I'm glad that you said yes," Kohaku said. The air was freezing, but the moonlight looked eerily beautiful on the ice floes and he didn't feel as cold as he should. "I'm ... glad."

She didn't say anything, but put her arm around his back and they stayed like that for a very long time, staring at the icy halfmoon.

The fire shrine was nestled between two massive snow-covered mountain ranges, about three hours away from the natural harbor by sled. Hairy, massive, lumbering creatures the likes of which Kohaku had never seen before drew five supply-laden sleds at a time. The animals looked gentle enough, and didn't seem to mind the snow and ice encrusting their shaggy fur. Still, the sight of those long, curved, dangerously pointed tusks peeking out from beside their impossibly long noses made him wonder how tame they could really be. They each had two riders perched inside a covered basket that he supposed served as a saddle. The first rider faced forward and gave instructions to the rider manipulating the harness and reins.

The sight of the huge, tusked beasts, as well as the sudden realization that they were hours away from probable death, had made a few of the supplicants rethink their decisions-they were being held in the back of one of the sled trains, bound by ropes and gagged. Everyone was free to make the pilgrimage, but once begun, it had to be finished. Strangely, the thought of trying to escape didn't even cross Kohaku's mind as he left the ship and shivered on the freezing volcanic rocks in the harbor. Meeting Nahoa had done something to him-it made the prospect of what he was about to do have more hope than desperation. She waved to him from the deck just before the sleds began their journey across the featureless white expanse of snow. He held in his mind the image of her face, red with cold (and maybe even tears), as they drew closer to the fire shrine. But when he thought of Emea, he felt oddly guilty. How could he have found someone who made him happy just months after his sister had died so horribly? Of course, he reminded himself, his biggest reason for coming here was to grasp at a last opportunity to take revenge on Nahe. Meeting Nahoa had just given him another reason to succeed.

Long after his hands and nose had gone numb, the sleds slowed to make their way single-file through the mountain pass that would take them to the fire shrine. Jagged mounds of ice-covered stone towered on either side of them. Ahead, Kohaku saw that the sun was already beginning to set-daylight lasted for only five or six hours here. Their passage through the mountains was silent except for the rhythmic shuffle of the beasts' feet and the occasional whispered direction from the front riders. The rest of them had been instructed to remain as silent as possible during this part of the journey-the ice and snow on the rocks was highly unstable and loud voices could set off an avalanche that would bury them all.

It was actually amusing, Kohaku thought, how silent they all were-as though they thought being buried under falling snow would be worse than the death by fire that awaited them in the shrine. Surely the thought of achieving a more peaceful death had occurred to some of the supplicants-but the silence held and the procession reached its destination safely.

The fire shrine was a huge complex built on a low plateau before a gigantic, steaming crater lake. It was constructed, of course, entirely out of the pink-veined marble that could only be quarried on this island, and was otherwise used to make the hundred-kala coin. He saw similar expressions on the faces of the other supplicants around him-trying, and failing, to decide how much money was contained in the very stone of the main building.

The shrine officiates led the supplicants up the steep staircase that took them to the bridge over the crater lake. The steam smelled of sulfur and some other element, and the water seemed to be changing colors. Kohaku wondered what would happen if anyone fell in. They followed a gravel path that took them away from the main entrance and to a relatively small building toward the back of the temple.

"This is the bath house," said an officiate slowly, enunciating his words like one would for a small child. "Ten of you are allowed inside at a time. After you all receive your garments, you will be led to a chapel where you will spend the night in silent contemplation. The trials will begin in the morning."

A murmur of sudden trepidation went through them as the twenty or so women were led away and taken to a different entrance. Kohaku was allowed inside with the second group, and he marveled at the warmth of the bath house, especially considering the temperature outside. He took off his clothes and shoes in the anteroom and walked slowly on the warm tiles of the arcade. To his left were buckets and a series of pumps with a bar of soap and a razor blade beside each. Kohaku shaved and scrubbed his body thoroughly-long after most of the other men were finished-before getting inside the steaming pool. His muscles were just beginning to unknot when an officiate directed them into a dressing chamber. They were each given simple white drawstring pants, a longsleeved shirt, wool socks, and straw sandals before being forced back out into the frigid air. The walk to the chapel, which was deep underneath the shrine, took nearly fifteen minutes. When they arrived, the first things Kohaku noticed were the intricate mosaics covering every wall, lit beautifully by a large fire in the center of the room. He then noticed that for the first time since they began their journey, the two groups of supplicants-the rabble and those of high society-were together. After the last of the supplicants was herded inside the chapel, the officiates slammed the door and he heard the unmistakable sound of a bolt sliding home. There was no way to escape.

As the night wore on and his tailbone began to ache, Kohaku thought of Nahoa and Emea. But most of all, he thought of Nahe and the pleasure he would feel strangling that man with his own entrails.

He was called late the next day, when only a handful of supplicants remained. As the day wore on, more and more of them had to be forced outside the door, blubbering and crying. The sight would have made Kohaku sick to his stomach had he not felt oddly detached from the whole situation. Even the more respectable supplicants-those who were left, anyway-looked at the dwindling numbers of people in the room with a hard-eyed wariness, and the dates and palm wine that had been provided for them remained untouched. When a female officiate, flanked by a burly man whose purpose was clearly enforcement, tapped him on his shoulder, he barely felt anything other an odd excitement. The stairs she led him down were so deep that toward the bottom they were little more than notches hewn in stone. At the bottom was an ancient wooden door with a crude, disturbing snake carved into it.

"Do you sacrifice willingly for the fire spirit?" she asked him in a voice devoid of all inflection.

"Yes," Kohaku said.

The burly man opened the door and, with a shove, sent him staggering inside.

Kohaku's first, terrifying, impression was that he was not going to have a chance after all-they had simply tossed him in a roomful of fire to burn alive. But when he noticed that his skin still hadn't charred, he looked around more carefully. The only fire in the long rectangular room, he realized, was a huge blue-white flame in the center of a circle of ash. The walls were covered with perfect mirrors that reflected the flames to infinity, and made it seem as though they could reach out to burn him at any second.

"You haven't started wailing," said a morose voice that wasn't recognizably male or female. It seemed entirely disembodied from any source, but Kohaku assumed that it must emanate from the tower of blue fire. He tried to avoid looking at the ring of ashes surrounding it before he realized that the rest of the floor was strewn with them too.

"Ah, you must be thinking that you're surrounded by death, but that's a mistake. You're surrounded by sacrifice. Some more willing than others. I always hope for more unwilling supplicants, but they have trained you well. They keep their hold over me."

Trembling, Kohaku stepped closer to the fire. Sweat cooled on his skin. There was a dark object, he noticed, at the heart of the fire-like an everlasting candlewick for an everlasting flame.

"Are you going to ... will I be a sacrifice?" Kohaku ventured. He didn't quite know what else to say.

"Do you want to be?" The voice sounded slightly sardonic.

"Well, I ..." the sight of the flame reminded him painfully of his last sight of Emea, falling in the lava of Nui'ahi. "I wouldn't mind," he said.

The flames leapt, hot enough to singe the hair on Kohaku's arms.

It laughed. "Wrong answer."

Heat seared his closed eyelids. He thought he was going to die. But maybe that would have been a mercy.

When it was all over, after he had watched the dozens of remaining supplicants burned into pillars of ash by raging flame, they carried him up from the bowels of the shrine on a reed stretcher. At least a hundred people had gathered in the main hall to bow as he was hurried to the surgery. The priest who served as the doctor looked at his arm with an expression of barely contained surprise. Kohaku tensed when he gently examined his blackened hand, but the man did nothing more than grimace with sympathetic pain. Of course, Kohaku thought in some part of his mind that wasn't clouded with agony, no one here could possibly know what had happened.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cut off your left hand," the man said gently. "It's too badly burned."

But how will I talk to Emea? Kohaku thought frantically. Then he remembered that Emea was dead.

With effort, he nodded. The pain in his arm was beginning to make him lose all sense of time or place. "Just ... give it to me afterwards ... please." The man looked surprised, but he nodded. Kohaku closed his eyes-those ashes had seared their way into his hand. He didn't want to just throw them away.

"Is that really necessary?"

Kohaku's eyes flew open and he struggled to sit up. She was seated on a chest of supplies in the corner, smiling. And that impossible voice-so dimly remembered, so immediately hateful.

Hands pressed him down, voices soothed him. It seemed that no one else could see her. Blue flames leapt in the hollows of her irises.

"Oh, keep whatever grisly tokens you want. Just try not to show it to that sailor. Well, not if you want to marry her, anyway."

Kohaku shook. In life, she had never been so callous, so biting. "Why are you-"

She stood. "Just a reminder, dear brother. Take my revenge."

Someone forced a drink down his throat and he floated gratefully into unconsciousness.