Inoke observed the stream of bubbles rising from the cauldron filled with strips of blubber. With a sharp eye, he traced the twirling lines of oil boiling off and mingling with the deep ocean waters and the patterns of heat playing around the vent. Slowly, the tension in his shoulders subsided.
Uncrossing his muscular arms, Inoke kicked his fins, silver-white scales glittering in the faint volcanic light. He darted upward through the cold waters of the trench to the higher shelf where his warriors waited in waters thick with the scent of blood. With not a little pride, he eyed the immense carcass of their prey, staked to the seafloor for harvesting, the square scarred head, the underslung jaw, and the beady black eyes rolled up in death. Nearly two hundred meters from head to tail, the great leviathan had been a worthy opponent.
As Inoke rose to a level with his warriors, he spread his arms. His gills fluttered as he drew in air from the water to shout. “The atua are pleased, men of Ahauhu! He of the Trenches accepts the offering of flesh and the Great Hunter the offering of blood. Both are pleased by our valor this day!”
His voice boomed despite the water, carried with the force of his mana, of which he had much. Inoke towered over even the next tallest of his warriors, four meters to his warrior’s two. His pale grey skin was inked with tattoos beyond counting, marking ancestry and deeds alike, and his hairless head was nearly black under the intricate lines of ink.
His warriors, two dozen in all, raised their voices in cheer, thrusting spears and fists upward. They were an eclectic group, some bearing still the shape of the Grandfather as he did, while others more obviously took after the Mother’s creatures, bearing tails and tentacles and fins and hides of many colors. Inoke wore a sharp-toothed grin as he observed the comradery of his warriors, a far cry from the sullen and distrustful band they had been under his uncle’s leadership.
“Now, warriors, I give you leave to feast and to take the hunter’s right!” Inoke announced. Even if each man gorged himself, taking more than thrice a usual share, the meat of such a catch would feed the people of Ahuahu for at least ten turnings of the tide. It would do much to restore the spirit of his people.
It was much needed good news after his uncle’s bungling and the subsequent fury of the gods that had been brought upon them. There was no need to remind them of that right now during their victory celebration. “Alas that I cannot join you for the whole feast!” he continued.
Groans and catcalls rose from his warriors, and Inoke allowed the minor insubordination with an easy grin. “The duties of the chief are without end, I am afraid. I must inform my mother, so that the women can prepare for your catch and for yourselves as well!”
That returned the good cheer to their faces, Inoke thought with satisfaction. There would be strong children born after this. Nothing put the women of Ahauhu in a more receptive mood than warriors returning blooded and running strong with the mana of heroic deeds.
Yes, Inoke thought as he drifted down with lazy kicks to receive his men’s adulation directly and take the first ceremonial bite of their catch, things were at last getting back to normal.
***
Ahuanu was bustling when Inoke arrived, busy with rebuilding and industry. The marks of war were still apparent in the fallen chunks of coral and stone, the dead grey scars that marked the vibrant reef into which the community was built, and the thinness of glittering clouds of fish tended by their herders.
Yet there were the singers, coaxing new growth from the reef. The flash of the priestess’ bright scales and the sway of their graceful limbs joined with the beauty of their song to bring joy and life. There were the laborers and craftsmen and herders, diligent in their toil and unbowed by defeat. There were the rest of his warriors, not yet as raucous as the hunters but still straight-backed and proud, armored in sung coral and carved bone.
Inoke could not blame the other shoals for casting down his blasphemous uncle, but it still irked him that his people had needed to suffer so. However, they had earned their lot with their breaking of the rituals and traditions, and now that they had borne their punishment, they could begin to thrive once more. Swimming proudly over the coral towers, Inoke cast one last glance at his people before descending to the cavernous opening to the palace where his mother, High Priestess of the Tidefather, resided.
The temple was the largest structure in Ahuanu, larger even than the chieftain’s palace. It had suffered under his uncle, but now, the colorful ringed halls once more thronged with sacred octopi clinging to the walls, rippling through many shades, crawling and jetting about. Many priestesses greeted him on his way to the temple core. The older women towered over even him, mighty with centuries of deeds and children, their passage carrying whole flocks of younger maidens in their wake. Inoke knew that later, when all was said and done, he would need to do his duty and select a chief consort from among the women of his generation to represent and channel his mana in the rituals that a man could not see.
A pleasant thought - but one for later.
The core of the temple was spherical with shrines to dozens of atua set throughout. In the center was the Tidefather’s altar. Ten meters on a side, carved from a single immense pearl, and kept in place by two deepstone chains which reached to the floor below, its shine cast unearthly light across the shrines of the other atua, the children of the Tidefather and the Mother.
An immense shadow fell over him as he swam to a stop before the altar.
“Inoke, child, look at you. You’re growing scrawny on me, boy.” His mother’s voice, rich and deep, echoed through the water.
“I have had much work to do, Mother,” Inoke said, almost by rote as he craned his neck to look up at her.
Kalana of Ahuanu was the eldest among them. She, and he through her, could trace their line directly to the Tidefather himself. She bore an upper body in the Grandfather’s shape with dark grey skin and the ample form of a woman at the peak of health and capability. Where he bore legs that tapered into scaled fins however, his mother bore an immense shark’s tail. Even without counting the full length of her fins, she was ten meters tall.
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“That is no excuse, child,” she chided, looming over him from behind the altar. “But I sense you have a better one.”
“Yes, Mother,” Inoke grinned. He proclaimed, “Together with my hunters, we have brought down a full grown leviathan! Now, not only I, but everyone, will eat well without further depleting our breeding stocks.”
“Hoh, now that’s a piece of good news,” his mother said, a spark of light shining in her fathomless black eyes. The patterns of heat in the water around her shifted and flowed, taking on shapes more quickly than Inoke’s eyes could catch. “I suppose I’ll need to let my girls know to expect some rowdy boys back soon then.”
“It is good reason for everyone to celebrate,” Inoke agreed, only to frown at the patches of darker colors blooming in his mother’s heat patterns. “Unless… Have the omens been poor? I was certain that the Hunter and He of the Trenches were pleased, but…”
“Nay, you’ve done the atua proud, child,” Kalana cut him off. “You need not fear that. The Tidefather smiles on Ahuanu once more. That doesn’t mean there’s no trouble.”
It took a moment for Inoke to understand, but when he did, his fists clenched. Mea’ai nui, the Great Eaters. “It is not their usual time of travel,” he said, thoughts racing.
“Nay, but they came all the same to meet those stone tombs from the north,” his mother said softly. “And now, the eastern shoals are empty. We won’t be able to hunt there for a half decade at best.”
Those were some of their richest fishing grounds! Inoke felt his lips bleed as he ground his teeth, their sharp edges biting into flesh. “We have only staved off starvation then,” he said bitterly. He had thought that his catch would let them begin to recover their reserves!
“I didn’t raise you to mope, child,” the matron of Ahuanu said, a finger as thick as his arm poking him in the chest. “You did well. Even the meanest herdsman is going to get a bite of leviathan meat! That’s not nothing, boy.”
“I know, Mother,” Inoke said, his gills fluttering in frustration. “My apologies, High Priestess.”
“There’s no need for that,” his mother huffed, straightening back up. Inoke kicked his fins, keeping himself in place despite her wake. “But there is a job you’ll need to do before your boys come back to celebrate.”
***
Inoke shuddered as he broke the surface and felt the full heat of the sun on his back. The dry air seared his mouth and throat. Breathing the air of the surface was always uncomfortable compared to taking in the air of the Mother’s waters. Inoke blinked his eyes several times, waiting for them to adjust.
Ahead lay a tiny island, barely more than a strip of glittering white sand standing out from the sea with a dash of green and brown at its center where the earth rose in a high ridge. The island was roughly shaped like an arch with clear blue waters flowing into the lagoon at its center.
Inoke grimaced and raised himself on his fins, rising out of the waters that lapped at the beach. He shuddered at the thought of actually living up here under the Grandfather’s harsh light, unprotected by the waters. Yet that was exactly what the one he had come to visit did.
Storm Witches. The cursed ones, who had too much of the Grandfather in their veins and couldn’t live with their kin. Still, they made themselves useful, watching the surface and guiding the weather, keeping the threats of enemies away from the People’s core lands in the center of the Tidefather’s currents.
They were meant to keep the Eaters and their kin away.
The hot sand burned his fins as Inoke strode up onto the beach. He had been on enough raids to not trip or stumble like some boy on his first breach, but it was still unpleasant. Inoke fixed his gaze on the only dark spot that marked the white beach, a little hut of driftwood and stone. The home of the witch.
It had to be him that did this. The Storm Witches were cursed, and the magic they wielded, the forbidden magics of the sky and the Grandfather, only deepened it. One of lesser mana than a King’s would be tainted by mere proximity, let alone by trading words with them.
Inoke reached the hut. Despite its ramshackle construction, there was a solidity to it that transcended the physical. He knew that even if he strained with all his might, he’d not so much as dislodge a single piece of driftwood.
“Storm Witch Maleia, King Inoke of Ahuanu comes to speak,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
There were a few moments of silence, and then, the rickety door swung inward, vanishing into the shadow. Inoke grunted, eyeing the dark interior, darker than even an abyssal trench, and ducked his head to step inside.
The inside of the witch’s hut was almost insultingly mundane following that. It was barely furnished with a single ramshackle table and a handful of shelves stacked with carved figurines of driftwood, bone, and coral. And there, by the window, sat the witch in a driftwood rocking chair.
She was smaller than he, barely breaking two meters in height. Her skin was dark, such a deep brown as to be nearly black, and to Inoke’s disgust, she allowed dark hair to grow from her scalp, slovenly and wild, hanging all the way down to her back. She bore Grandfather's shape, and her neck was smooth and unmarked by gills, the sign of her curse. In an ironic twist, she bore a pair of black scaled fish tails in place of legs, lacking even the joints that allowed Inoke to walk as a surfacer. Truly cursed indeed.
She regarded him blankly with pale yellow eyes. “What troubles the People so that a King would speak with this cursed one?”
“The recent intrusion of the Eaters,” Inoke grunted. There was no use in turning anger upon one of her kind, hollowed out by the Grandfather and the surface as they were. “Why were they allowed to pass?”
He left unquestioned that they had not forced it as they once had. He had to hope that war, true war, was not coming again.
The woman stared at him, eyes fluttering - no, blinking was what they called it. Unsettling. “The wreckings? What concern is this to a King?” Odd. The witch almost sounded worried. His imagination and nerves, most like.
“No, more recently,” Inoke corrected shortly. The incident with the wrecked ships near two decades past was a minor matter. His uncle, blasphemer that he was, had actually given the Eaters their sailors back. “In the eastern shoals of Ahuanu.”
The witch's eyes unfocused, and Inoke waited in tense silence until at last her eyes fluttered weirdly again. “Ah… This intrusion was unknown.”
“What! Has the watch of the Storm Witches deteriorated so far?” Inoke snapped.
“Look,” the witch said blankly, raising one slender hand from her lap. She pointed to the window, and Inoke followed her gaze. He felt a tugging behind his eyes as the witch used her mana, and the view of the clear blue sky rushed before his eyes before he saw a burgeoning darkness
The Devourer. The storm that consumed the whole of the eastern horizon, a wall of impenetrable clouds and wind and rain, a darkness that consumed all that fell in its shadow. All knew of the eternal storm to the east, although few ever journeyed far enough to see it. The sight filled his stomach with ice. Staring into the shrieking wind, he saw…
“It inhales,” the witch said dreamily. “And we must maintain the Tidefather’s currents against its breath. Perhaps it will calm soon, as it did long ago. Perhaps we will all be eaten.” There was a flicker of something in the witch’s eyes, a spark of feeling, perhaps. “I hope it calms.”
Inoke’s already dry mouth felt as if it had been washed in sand as he looked away. “I as well, witch.”
He needed to inform Mother of this.