Chapter Twenty-Four: Kono
His captors wrenched away and dragged down the beach, the Rainbow Ma’hanu behind. The pirates who escorted him were tiny, but it didn’t matter. Kono had already been bested by a ma’hanu far more skilled than he would ever be. The Rainbow Ma’hanu spoke with the voice of the gods themselves. The power to go to her. She was a nexus of currents, the deep waters of the gods flowing through her. He didn’t know how any ma’hanu could stand against her, let alone one as inexperienced as he. He swallowed, trying to find his courage, but it was gone, dashed to pieces in the fight with her.
“Where we goin’?” he asked, tamping the fear out of his voice.
“You’re to be imprisoned on the ,” the Rainbow Ma’hanu said.
“That thing? She look like she sinkin’.”
Kono heard the grim smile in the Rainbow Ma’hanu’s voice. “And with all you ma’hanu on board, wouldn’t that be sad?”
Despite the sun, Kono shivered at the cruelty in the ma’hanu’s voice. She was an enemy of his people. That much was plain. But to openly take pleasure in the thought of them drowning was evil even for the nations of war.
The Rainbow Ma’hanu led Kono to one of the boats resting on the shore. These small skiffs were of similar design to many of the tribal vessels, but the materials were slightly different, and the wood was scarred and burned from many battles. Kono sloshed through ankle-deep water before stepping up onto the deck. The pirates forced him to sit, showing him their bronze blades.
The Rainbow Ma’hanu joined them and the nationals struck off across the bay to the damaged warjunk. Though it was resting at an angle, the gargantuan vessel showed no signs of sinking below the swells. Even now, the pirates were on scaffolds hung over the side, measuring the hole for repairs. Sections rippled with undyed canvas, while others showed the inner blackness of the ship itself. He saw movement in there as well. The warjunk looked like a hive of ao’apua, the insects inside worrying at its integrity. A fitting image, he thought, for the nations.
“Why you here?” he demanded suddenly, unable to shake the idea of the pirates as bugs.
“We’re taking what’s ours,” the Rainbow Ma’hanu said, but though the mask gave her depth and volume, it couldn’t place conviction in her voice.
“Then why you stayin’?”
“Our ways aren’t for you, tribal.”
“You make ‘em our ways, national.”
“We aren’t ‘national.’ We come from Zhao-Chi, the greatest of all the nations.”
Kono shrugged. “Don’t matter to me. Don’t matter to anybody I know.”
The pirates beside him growled, and Kono found himself not caring. The courage burned bright inside him, at least for a moment. After all, what were they going to do exactly? Mele was captured, he was captured. There wasn’t much left they could do, and though his words might give them an excuse, lack of one wouldn’t stop them either.
A pirate raised his weapon, ready to club Kono with the butt of a hatchet, but the Rainbow Ma’hanu stopped him with a gesture. “It will come to matter to you,” she said.
As the boat approached the warjunk, the nationals called up to the crew. The men high above on the warjunk’s deck leaned over, and soon had shifted the ship’s crane. They dropped the lines for it, the wooden hooks fitting into eyelets on either side of the vessel. Thus secured, the nationals called up to the deck, and the crane began to squeak as it drew them upward. The sea relinquished them with a sullen splash. The others gripped one of the ropes, or the mast itself, while Kono sat resolute, his hands bound behind his back. He wanted to grip something; he felt dizzy as he rose into the air.
The boat cleared the deck, giving Kono a view of it. The wooden planks were stained, perhaps with soot, perhaps with blood or more likely both. Catapults lined the deck, secured to the spine of the ship, where they would remain until needed. The crew watched the boat as it swung around to take position over the planks, the wet shadow of the vessel enacting a temporary rainfall as it moved. The crane descended, and the pirates and Rainbow Ma’hanu were able to disembark.
Kono clambered to his feet, and his stomach lurched along with the boat. He planted his feet, waiting for the boat to stop swinging, feeling like he was somewhere among the clouds.
“Get down here!” the Rainbow Ma’hanu ordered him.
Kono winced and stepped off, doing his best to steady the boat. It nudged into him, but he was able to stand firm against it. Only then did the nationals grab the ropes, to help steady the rocking boat. Kono took a few awkward steps away, regaining his balance.
One of the pirates shoved him, but he might as well have been shoving a wall. Kono got the direction to go at least; toward the bow of the ship, where a door opened into the deck. He obeyed, feeling the presence of the Rainbow Ma’hanu behind him.
The wooden staircase inside yawned into the darkened bowels, a black maw ready to devour Kono whole.
He hesitated at the mouth. The ceiling crouched low, the space built for men much smaller than he. One of the pirates prodded him with a dagger—sheathed, though plenty convincing despite that—and Kono took the stairs down, ducking as the ceiling closed in. He had never been in a place so small. Even when he couldn’t see the sky, he could still feel the space around him. He could still stretch his arms and breathe in the sweet air. The tunnels from the lagoon to the ocean was the tiniest space he’d ever gone in, and even then he could feel the freedom of the sea all around him, a short distance to the entire world. The pirate vessel, closed around him like a tightening fist, and Kono fought to breathe.
“Keep going,” the Rainbow Ma’hanu said as he reached the landing. The stairs switched back, down another deck, and another. Then another. Each deck looked to have a purpose, but to Kono it was still that hive of insects. Undifferentiated flesh in a place humanity had no business. The men scurried around the cramped environs, going about their duties on this hellish ship. Kono’s group stopped with only a single deck below them. This was divided into sections, individual cages, built from wood and lashed together with leather and rope. Within were the ma’hanu of the various tribes, secured to posts. Leather and rope bit into their skin, binding them around the chest and belly.
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“Oh, Kono. Oh no.” Kono turned his head, and blinked when his vision swam. The tears wrapping his eyes fell away, and he saw Hapua, beaten, bloodied, and humiliated, tied to one of the posts. The old man’s expression was a mixture of horror, disbelief, and sadness.
“Oh yes, old one,” the Rainbow Ma’hanu said. “This little ma’hanu fell into our nets later than the rest, but he was caught. You should be pleased I let him live.”
“You killed enough,” Pua’ku spat. Kono found her not far away. She was in worse shape than Hapua, one of her eyes swollen shut and she had a sloppily-bandaged wound on one flank.
“No I didn’t. My warchief wanted slaves. So he’s a slave. Just like you.”
Kono’s strength evaporated. The sight of his fellow ma’hanu in such a state sapped it from him far more effectively than a cut. The slavers brought him to a post, forced him into a seated position and bound him to it. With buckets of saltwater, they doused the bindings over his wrists, across his chest and belly. Using the sea, his sea, to betray him. Then the men shut the cage and threw the wooden latch.
“Soon you’ll be taken to Zhao-Chi,” the Rainbow Ma’hanu said. “And we see if we can make anything of you.”
With that, she and her men disappeared up the stairs.
“What are you doing here, Kono?” Hapua asked.
Kono swallowed. “Where are Nohea and Ualo?” He didn’t see the other two ma’hanu from Kamo’loa among the beaten faces of those present.
“Killed,” Pua’ku spat. “Along with many of us.”
“Kono,” Hapua said, not unkindly, “answer me. Why are you here?”
“The sky-girl. She need her ship. I promised I help her get it.”
“Her ship could wait.”
“No, it couldn’t.”
Hapua cracked a smile. Some of his teeth had been broken. “I guess not.”
“Who is with the tribe, then?” Pua’ku demanded.
Kono tried to shrug, but he didn’t have the range of movement.
“You shoulda thrown him out,” she said to Hapua. “He never gonna be true ma’hanu.”
It stung, mostly because Kono knew she was right.
“No,” said Hapua. “He could still be.”
Kono’s vision blurred again. Pua’ku stared incredulously at Hapua. “What?” she managed. “You say every time. He’s careless. He’s lazy. He leans on magic.”
Hapua nodded. “He is all of these things.”
The old man sighed, his throat more of a rattle. It wasn’t just age. It was injury from the war, injury Kono knew for certain would never heal. The blood stained his temple and his withered body was still wet, still pulsing sluggishly out of him. Hapua hadn’t been hurt worse than any of the other ma’hanu. He was merely running out of tomorrows faster than everyone else. Maybe that was a mercy.
Hapua looked up, and despite the injury and pain, his eyes were clear. His mind, his will, was his own. And then he began to speak. As the words fell from his lips, all the sounds faded away, leaving Kono with the story, and that alone, from Hapua to him.
“The night before I find you, it was the worst storm I ever seen. In those days, I was one of the younger ma’hanu, an’ I thought the gods were wakin’ up. I thought we used too much of our power. We brought in too many fish. We grabbed the rain and the sunshine too tightly. We got greedy. An’ we was to be punished. When Kamo’loa wakes, the whole world be punished. A god don’t confine itself. A god does what it likes.”
Kono was quiet. He hadn’t heard this story before. He glanced at Pua’ku out of the corner of his eye. She too was rapt, even as the injuries obliterated a good deal of her expression. The power of Hapua, even here, was undeniable.
“The world didn’t end. That night, I waited out the storm with everybody else. We moved up out of the village, up into the caves on the mountain. Freezin’ rain, flashin’ lightnin’.. Thunder like warjunks comin’ apart in a typhoon. Yeah, we all thought the next thing we’d see is the shape of Kamo’loa, breachin’ out of the water, makin’ for land.
“Kamo’loa didn’t wake up that night. An’ the next mornin’, the sun was up. She was shinin’ like I never seen before. Like she knew how scared we was, like she knew what we needed. She was right too. I went out of that cave, and the air was sweeter than any day before or since. I went down to the groves, and I picked a lona right off the tree. Best I’d ever had. Thought at first the storm ripened ‘em, but now I know it was because I never thought I’d have another one.
“Everyone else was the same way. We come out of the caves blinkin’, smilin’ like the sun comin’ through the clouds. Tell you somethin’, in a couple seasons we had more babies born than any other time.” Hapua laughed, but a cough ate it.
“For some reason, though, I didn’t want to be with anybody else. I wanted to be alone. So I walked down to the beach. The striped one, where you been keepin’ your new friend. I went to the north edge, by the tide tubes. I thought I want to watch the sea. Want to feel close to her. She connects us all. If the tribes were all a body, she would be our blood. The tides are her heartbeat. So I want to be with her.
“I sit down with my toes in the water, an’ I see something’ bobbin’ out in the swells. That ain’t unusual. The surf was full of trees, branches, fallen fruit, you name it. If the sea could eat it, it was out there, just waitin’ to go under. But this, this didn’t look like anything else. Bobbin’ out there like a raft. So I think to myself, I’m gonna see what it is.
“The sea that day was calmin’ down, the wind, she blew herself out. The water was warm, welcomin’ me in. So I wade out past the swells, then I’m swimmin’, and I get to it. And what do I find?”
“Me,” Kono said.
“You,” Hapua agreed. “I didn’t know it then. All I knew was somebody put a baby on a raft in the worst storm anybody can remember. You was wrapped in linens, a little canvas over the top of you, on a little raft of reeds. Somethin’ like that shoulda been smashed to bits in the anger, but it wasn’t. It survived. You survived. You was just lyin’ there, on that mat. Not a mark on you. You wasn’t even squallin’. You look up at me like, ‘Hi, where you been?’”
Hapua’s head slumped forward. Kono thought the old man might have succumbed to his injuries and passed out, but then he spoke again. “Don’t know where you come from. I guess I know what happened to your parents. Same thing happen to anybody who was on the ocean that night, but who they was, where their tribe was, I’ll never know.
“I took your raft and swam back into shore. You didn’t seem to much mind me pickin’ you up, either. I suppose that was good. I brought you back to the chief...this was Ailani, the old chief. She was pretty old even then. She welcomed you into the tribe and she ask me what your name was.
“I didn’t know. I said the first thing that come to mind. Kono. Because that’s what the sea was when I find you. It was kono, calm after the storm.
“I brought you down to the tribe, and some of the women who have babies, they take turns feedin’ you. Takin’ care of you. You was the tribe’s baby, no one family’s in particular. You were the sign the storm was over, that it wasn’t the end. Shouldn’t have been no surprise that you could talk to the gods like any other ma’hanu.”
“What?” The question came from Kono and Pua’ku at the same time, identical disbelief in their voices.
“You got potential. More than anybody I seen. Anyone learn the language o’ the gods, it would be you. You might have been born in they fury. When the trials revealed it, I was happy. Thought I would be raisin’ you after all. That storm shaped you, more than any of us can understand, Kono. I thought you was gonna be the greatest ma’hanu ever was. I thought you was gonna be the next Makaha. An’...an’ I think you still could be.”
Kono finished the thought for him: “Then I disappointed you.”
“You still got time.”
Kono looked at the old man. In the bruised and beaten eyes, he saw something he hadn’t seen in years: love. “How?”
“That night you came to us in the storm, we thought the world was endin’. When the gods first rose in Makaha’s time, they thought the world was endin’. Didn’t end either time. Changed, yes, but didn’t end. That’s the secret. If worlds don’t end, nothin’ does. Even the gods can’t end things, no matter how hard they try. We make sure they don’t get to. So we help keep the world movin’ on, the sun shinin’, the currents flowin’, the gods sleepin’. Maybe you could find a new way. Somethin’ past all that. The way Makaha shaped us, you could too.”
Kono cast about, looking for anyone echoing his fear and incredulity. All of those in earshot, those still conscious and not in fitful rest against their posts, stared back in a mixture of hope and disbelief.
“That’s why I didn’t want you here,” Hapua said. “Somebody had to look after the tribe. I wanted it to be you.”
Kono couldn’t say anything else. Even in this, he had managed to disappoint his tribe.