Chapter Twenty-Six: Kono
As for the shaking, none of the ma’hanu needed to be told what had happened. The rumble hit again, and the acrid scent of an eruption hit Kono’s nose. More evidence for something that wasn’t even a mystery. Kono hunted the battered faces of his fellow ma’hanu, going from individual to individual, following the gazes until they alighted on a middle-aged woman secured to a post, the bulk of her body covered in intricate tattoos. Kono knew some of the spells that had been written there, but the entreaties to the god were not familiar.
“Mele,” the woman said.
From the look of her, she had been imprisoned for longer than any of the others. Her eyes were ringed in black. Her skin hung from her bones like old cloth. Her injuries were largely healed, and what remained were the sores one got from captivity. Inflamed, infected skin around the tight bonds, rotten patches in the places her skin rubbed against the wood of the ship.
“When was the rite?” Hapua asked her.
The woman shook her head. “Too long. We was gettin’ ready to sing Mele back to sleep when the nationals came. Killed all the ma’hanu but me. Wasn’t the warjunk that got us. It’s the one in the mask...”
“The Rainbow Ma’hanu,” Kono said.
A few ma’hanu glanced at him.
“Her name is Makani,” said another ma’hanu, this one a woman whose hair had gone white. “She’s Lekeahi, like me. She used to be.” One of the tribes. Close enough to visit, but Kono had never been there.
“How do you know?” Hapua asked.
The old woman smiled thinly. “I knew her. Before she was stolen.”
He nodded.
“She was a little girl when they took her away from us. Now she come back...like . The Rainbow Ma’hanu, like your boy say. A good name as any. She don’t get to be called by the name we gave her. That was for a bright and happy girl. Not that thing that keep us all wrapped up in here.”
“What happened?” asked Pua’ku. Kono’s friend and rival’s face was a mask of fear, and for a moment, Kono could see into her heart. She wasn’t scared of the Rainbow Ma’hanu or what she might do to them. No, Pua’ku was frightened that she could the Rainbow Ma’hanu. That the nationals could forge her into a monster as well, one who would return and inflict pain on the tribes of peace.
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“I don’t know. Whatever happens when the nations take us past the rising sun.”
The ma’hanu were all silent. Kono had heard those stories around the fire late at night, whispered by the older children to the younger. The adults might have claimed not to believe, but they did. Late at night, when the fires went cold and the dark closed in, they did.
“Now she work for the nationals,” the old woman said. “They gave her rank, an’ somehow she kept her connection to the gods.”
“All the gods,” Kono said.
This time the ma’hanu turned to him. He had the undivided attention of the room. He wanted to make a joke, to try to defuse the tension, deflect the attention, but nothing came to mind.
“What do you mean, ‘all the gods’?” Pua’ku demanded.
“All of ‘em. I fought the Rainbow Ma’hanu on the water. I summoned the strength of Kamo’loa.” He paused, turned to Hapua. “Sorry.”
The old man’s shoulders twitched, as though he were going to wave Kono’s concerns away, but the leather straps holding him in place prevented that. Instead, he merely shook his head.
Kono went on: “When I fought her, I went to my god. When she went, it was to any god she liked. She went to Mele, but also to any of the others. She took what power I drew from Kamo’loa. Stepped in an’ drank it up.”
“A connection to all the gods,” murmured Hapua.
“Impossible!” blurted another ma’hanu.
“Nothing’s impossible past the rising sun,” the old woman said. “They took Makani from us an’ they give back the Rainbow Ma’hanu.”
Hapua raised his head. “Is it really so strange? The gods are the creators of hate, of rage, of destruction. The nations bring those things on the world. Our Makani is taken from us, an’ thrown into this cauldron of death. No wonder she gets closer to the gods. She sees how they reflect on the world.”
“Nothing exists without its reflection,” the ma’hanu intoned reflexively.
“What is she a reflection of?” Pua’ku asked, her face pale and ghastly.
“All of us,” the old woman said.
The silence was gravid in the close environs of the slave pen.
“The Mele rite was a long while, an’ the Rainbow Ma’hanu is takin’ from any god she can find.” Someone swallowed on a dry throat, the only sound in the heavy room. “Means Mele wakin’ up.”
The ma’hanu all shuddered, most looking to the planks of the warjunk, as though they could see through them into the deep water where Mele and the rest of the gods slept.
Kono knew it was the worst thing he could possibly say in the situation but he said it anyway. “Is that so bad?”
Hapua was horrified. Kono saw the same reaction on the faces of every ma’hanu in the hold. “Kono!”
“Say Mele wake up. Who he gonna eat?”
“All of us!” said Pua’ku.
“He gonna eat who he see first. That’s these pirates, they ships.” He paused, letting them feel his words. “The Rainbow Ma’hanu.”
“Kono!” Hapua said. “You had a chance to walk away. A chance to be quiet. Take it now.”
Kono faltered in front of the appalled faces of the ma’hanu. Every one of them looked at him as though he were the most disgusting piece of filth any of them had ever beheld. Maybe he was.
“Our sacred duty is keepin’ the gods asleep,” Hapua said. “We gonna do that. It’s more than just us. It’s every person in Waiola. All of us. Even the nationals. Because the gods don’t care if you serve they hate! They don’t know. They don’t think. They only destroy. We savin’ everyone, and we gonna keep savin’ everyone until our time run out. If you don’t know that, then Kono, maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you shouldn’t be ma’hanu, gift or no.”
The pens were quiet, and Kono could only hang his exhausted head in shame.