The Burning City (Spirit Binders) (51 page)

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Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson

BOOK: The Burning City (Spirit Binders)
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“The bone,” Aoi says, her hoarse voice so clearly Akua’s that Lana chokes back a sob. She doesn’t look, but she hears something rip, something crack.
“
Make’lai
,” Aoi says, raising her voice again with strength Lana can’t even begin to understand. “Parech, I bind you as one. With this sacrifice, with my very bones, I make you the guardian of this death’s binding and the founder of your line.”
And now Lana must look, because she never guessed this end to the story. There’s blood over both of them, so much that Lana doesn’t understand how Aoi is still standing. She staggers forward, her left arm aloft and wreathed in white light. Parech himself is frozen. His eyes and mouth are filling with mist. Aoi slams the bone into the rock, and the sound reminds Lana of an earthquake.
The light from the rock solidifies into a column of air. Lana recognizes it from its cousin inside Akua’s death shrine on the lake. The death stands imprisoned inside. Aoi lies beside it, insensate and bleeding. Parech’s eyes are made of smoke. It drifts from his mouth as he speaks.
“Ana,” he says. Where before his voice was young and filled with humor, now it aches like time. “Oh, Aoi,” he says again, and Lana wonders how it is that he still loves her.
“Her name is Akua,” Lana says. “Aoi is dead.”
The death beside Lana touches her forehead. They are back inside the atoll’s cave and she shivers uncontrollably.
“What memory will you give us?” it asks eager. “And it must be precious, else we’ll take another.”
Lana has no more defenses. The cold of the cave has seeped into her mind. She gives the death the first thing she can remember: she and Kali eating oranges in the top of a tree, tossing the peels to the floor and giggling.
“Let’s make a pact,” young-Lana says. “To go away together. To see all sorts of things we could never see on this island and then come back and tell everyone about it.”
And Kali, as old as she ever will be, says, “You’re the kind of person who can do things the rest of us can’t, but assumes that there’s nothing special about you.”
The memory dwindles until all Lana knows is that there’s something missing, something precious that she’ll never have again.
The death sits across from her in the cave, satisfied. “What is it that you do not know?” Lana asks.
“Many things.”
“What did Akua bind you with?”
“Akua did not bind me.”
Lana grits her chattering teeth. “What is it that you do not know? What is the knowledge we all seek that even the death doesn’t have? What about death is past death?”
The death waits. She stares at it. Clear, now. She almost stumbled upon this once before, when she bound it with the nature of its leaden key, a symbol of its ties to the earth. The death is a creature of the earth, of humans, of their finity. It guards the gate,
but just the gate
.
“
Se maloka selama ua ola
,” she whispers.
“
Ipa nui
,” it says, and she knows she is right.
18
 
T
HE EARTHQUAKE WAS MILD, BUT POWERFUL enough for an already decimated city. Several more buildings collapsed. A few fires broke out and were quickly controlled. Thousands of citizens, without the slightest encouragement, poured into the third district, before the gates of the Mo’i’s house and the courtyards of the fire temple. Others lined Sea Street, putting down symbolic pandanus leaves and fruits and dune grass, chanting love songs. Rumors spread quickly, most false. The Mo’i had killed himself, the black angel had run away, the old nun in the fire temple had declared herself the ruler of Essel. Twelve hours passed, and the crowds did not disperse. Indeed, they swelled until an intrepid thief might have had the best year of his life among the abandoned homes of the fifth and fourth districts. Much of the city’s sentiment still lay with the rebels, particularly after people learned of how they had so quickly meted out justice to that pale, demoneyed woman who had tried to kill a baby. Still, they had all had enough of war.
And clearly the spirits had, as well.
Some people kept a wary eye on Nui’ahi, but most just turned away. If it would blow again, there was nothing they could do. Arai, the Okikan chief, abided by his agreement with the black angel. He and his army left a day after the quake. Perhaps he was hastened by the sight of his army’s lines of attack choked, and sentiment in the city turned so firmly against his presence. He had come here to exploit the finest trade opportunity in a century. He had not counted on the Esselans being madder than a crate of eels.
Pano and Nahoa, aware that this unprecedented, peaceful demonstration held the seeds of a rebirth, made the arranged date and manner of their parlay with the Mo’i widely known. A day after the demonstrations began, they changed from a silent vigil into something closer to a solstice feast. The weather warmed—the three days of snow, it seemed, had finally cleared the sky of the choking ash. The farmers of the seventh and fourth districts carted their stores into the crowds, spurred by some impulse of magnanimity that would not be seen again. Flutes trilled and any surface at all turned into drums. Laughter was heard again on the streets of Essel, the sort of free and hopeful sound that the city had not known since its sentinel rained fire and ash. Owners of hookah lounges tossed amant onto the crowds like fragrant, dried flowers. Palm wine and kava kept them warm at night, when they weren’t warmed by each other. Nine months later, the babies born would be called
kelala ua
, sparks of peace.
The day of the talks, a dozen new songs floated like flowers on the sea of people. They were mostly long, in the style of the old epics, with calls and responses and pauses for dancing. They told of the evil Mo’i, mad as a boar, who would kill anyone he looked upon. They told of the rebels, each one eight feet tall and more beautiful than the sun. Nahoa was a tragic figure, tied to her mad husband but in love with another (how the city had so accurately guessed this, Malie would never know, though she would eventually ascribe it to the animal wisdom of crowds). Pano grew flowers as large as palm trees and fought with a trowel. And the black angel? She was an enigma, a spirit but yet a girl, and whenever she entered a scene a melancholy strain would follow, a hint of “Yaela’s Lament.”
The cheers echoed across the island when the rebels marched through the city to the greater bay. Nahoa waved, Pano nodded with sage dignity. They hadn’t wanted to start this without Lana, but they didn’t even know if she was still alive. Right before he boarded the ship, a rebel soldier gave Pano a note. It was brief, but Nahoa couldn’t read it. He closed his eyes for a moment. The crowd, seeing this, thought perhaps that he was overcome with the possibility of peace and plenty returning to his beloved city. Nahoa knew that something had happened, but she could not ask in front of all these people. The soldier, who had read the note and so understood Pano’s grief, said something low and regretful to his friend.
Less than an hour later, the whole city knew what news the note contained. A new strain was summarily added to the songs for a new tragic figure, far more pitiable than Nahoa, who still had that fat baby, after all.
Eliki, the city mourned in its own fashion, imagining a woman ten feet tall with fire for eyes and a mane of white hair, who had dedicated her life to the city and drowned herself in the ocean when her folly took her from it. They did not know of her daughter, drowned so many years past, but they weren’t far from wrong, all the same.
 
Kohaku was the leader of all Essel, but he stayed silent as Makaho led the talks. Much as he had all week. Even the increasingly pointed barbs from the false ghost of his sister elicited no more than a grunt. Makaho did not mind this state of affairs. He wondered, bleakly, if she even noticed.
“I have drafted a power-sharing agreement,” she said, without preamble, when the ship had cast off and all four were present at the table. Lana was missing. He wondered if that meant the rumors were right, and she had run away. It did not seem like her.
“Perhaps you missed the crowd outside,” Pano said.
“Perhaps you missed our superior army and resources. The crowd just wants peace. They don’t care how they get it. I wouldn’t mind some myself.”
“I think you’d be surprised at how little love is left for Bloody One-hand in this city.”
Kohaku hardly heard the epithet, but Nahoa winced, which was a little gratifying. She had not brought Lei’ahi. He wished she had, but he supposed that she didn’t trust him any more than anyone else did. They said that she’d found the little girl’s body. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak with her.
“The ignorance of the commons will never surprise me,” Makaho said. “That still doesn’t mean you can win a war.”
“We might,” said Nahoa, and Kohaku heard more than enough in that “we” to make his misery complete.
“How loyal do you think that crowd will be if you decide to keep fighting instead of accepting our very generous offer? When the next earthquake comes? If Nui’ahi erupts again? Who do you think they’ll side with, then?”
Nahoa glanced at Pano, her face as expressive as ever. They did not touch. He did not even look at her. And yet Kohaku knew. He had thought that he might win her back if he won this war. He saw now that he had a greater chance of learning to fly. She was lost, more permanently than he had ever suspected. Nahoa was not merely sympathetic to the rebels. He knew her well enough to recognize the signs: she was in love with Pano, the rebel gardener.
It did not matter what happened to him now, if it ever had.
“What are the terms?” Pano asked.
“You reaffirm the authority of the Mo’i and the selection by the fire spirit. In return, we form a city council along the lines of Okika, with Kohaku at its head and seats for representatives of the temples.”
“Kohaku has to go.”
Makaho narrowed her eyes. “I believe that would violate the principle of a power-
sharing
agreement.”
“Why do you care so much, anyway?” Nahoa said. “No one’s proposing to get rid of the fire temple.”
“The Mo’i is selected by the great fire itself, my lady. You can hardly imagine I’d stand idly by while the rabble tries to dismantle the ancient tradition.”
They glared at each other. How was it that his wife had spent so long in Makaho’s care, given how much they disliked each other? But he knew why. What he’d done to Nahe had so horrified her that anything would have seemed preferable.
“I think you’re flinching, brother,” said Emea. Though lately, he thought, she did not even pretend to affect the mannerisms of his long-dead sister. He sometimes remembered the real Emea now. Her green eyes had been very kind, but she thought of him as stuck up and silly and he didn’t think she’d been wrong. He’d loved her. Great Kai, how he’d loved his sister. He’d destroyed an entire city in his grief.
He’d ripped out a little girl’s throat.
The ghost of the stablegirl dogged him now, as always. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. She didn’t respond. She couldn’t.
“Did you say something, my lord?”
Pano and Nahoa were both looking at him like they’d just noticed he was in the room. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I surrender. Tell me what plan you have for the new government and I’ll instate it as my last act. Whatever it is, I hope you at least improve on the Okikans. Another generation and the great families will declare themselves royalty.”
Makaho stared at him in voiceless fury. Pano didn’t seem to have understood what he said. Only Nahoa registered the slightest sadness.
“But Kohaku, what will you do? Go back to the Kulanui?”
This seemed so absurd that he laughed. Imagine, old Bopa forced to accept his research on the outer islands six years late. “No,” he said. “I will follow my sister, I think.”
Nahoa put her hands over her mouth. Makaho finally found her voice. “What does that mean, Mo’i?”
But he didn’t have to answer. “He’s going to sacrifice himself,” Nahoa said. She was crying. “He’s going to throw himself in the damn volcano.”
He almost smiled.
Halfway up Nui’ahi, its namesake began to cry. As Ahi was a robust baby, her wails seemed louder than the wind of a high storm. Malie took the noisy bundle without complaint and started back down the mountain. Nahoa wanted to call her to come back, to let Kohaku have a chance at one last goodbye, but he just shook his head. Makaho had threatened to arrest them all when Kohaku proposed to help bind the fire spirit again. But he had coolly informed her that the news of his capitulation would be circulated to the crowd outside the moment they stepped off the ship, and did she care to have her fire temple overrun by a mob? Nahoa would never have guessed that the head nun was secretly one of those napulo kooks who thought the spirit bindings were evil, but it did make sense. Three quarters of the way to the lip, Pano started to cough and Nahoa told him to go back down. He tried to refuse, and she realized that he was afraid for her safety.
“Kohaku won’t do anything,” she shouted. No matter what else had happened between them, she’d always been very sure of his love. And that, she supposed, was why she’d felt like sobbing every time she looked at him. He had been her first love. She couldn’t forget that or dismiss it, no matter what he had become.

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