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Updated: June 4, 2025
Ross did not ascribe the present blotting out of the landscape to any real manipulation of nature on the part of the all-powerful Foanna. Too many times the reputations of "medicine men" had been so enhanced by coincidence. But he did doubt the wisdom of trying to bore ahead blindly in this murk. "Taua and Tino-rau can guide us," Karara reminded him. "Throw out the rope, Ross.
Still keeping his hold on Ross, Ashe turned his head and called into the wilderness of the symbol-glowing space about them, "Karara?" She came to them, not crawling, not wrung almost dry of spirit and strength, but on her two feet. About her shoulders her dark hair waved and spun or was it dark now?
Ashe's cry pulled their attention back to land. There was movement along those walls. Then came a flash, a splash in the water close enough to the lead ship to wet her deck with spray. "They're fighting!" Karara shouldered against Ross for a better look. The ships were altering course, swinging away from land, out to sea. "Moving too fast for sails alone, and I don't see any oars."
There was a headland of rock reaching out, not toward them but to the north, and rounding that.... "War canoe!" Karara exclaimed, but Ross had another identification: "Longboat!" In reality, the vessel was neither one nor the other, not the double canoe of the Pacific which had transported warriors on raid from one island to another, or the shield-hung warship of the Vikings.
A black head, brown shoulders, slender body, broke the sleepy slip of the waves. A shimmering mask covered the face, catching glitter-fire in the sun. Two hands freed a chin curved yet firmly set, a mouth made more for laughter than sternness, wide dark eyes. Karara Trehern of the Alii, the one-time Hawaiian god-chieftain line, was an exceedingly pretty girl.
The Foanna sought this without hesitation, Ashe, Karara, and Ross following. Moments later they were out of the water where footing sloped back and up. Below them Tino-rau and Taua nosed the rise, their heads lifting out of the water as they "spoke." And Karara hastened to reply.
There were no complete walls any more, just jagged points of masonry, broken teeth set in a skull's jawbone. Open sky, dark clouds spattering rain. "Gordon? Karara?" Ross's voice was a thin whisper. He licked his lips and tried again: "Gordon!" Had there been an answering whimper? Ross crawled into a hollow between two fallen blocks. A pool of water?
The hall of the oval mirrors was gone, having disappeared into a hollow the depths of which were veiled by a vapor which boiled and bubbled as if, far below, some huge caldron hung above a blazing fire. Karara cried out and Ross drew her back from that drop. He was clearer-headed now and looked about for some way down from this doubtful perch. Of the other two Foanna there was no sign.
This whole ship had reacted. And the dolphins.... But what fire was Loketh talking about? "I did not feel anything," he stated to himself as well as to the Hawaikan. "Nothing burning in your head? So you could not think " "No." "It must have been the Foanna magic. Fire eating so that a man is nothing, only that which fire feeds upon!" Karara!
The past two days had wiped half the shadows from his lean, tanned face. He had dropped two years, three, Ross thought thankfully. Let them be lucky tonight, and Ashe's cure could be nearly complete. "What do you think happened here?" Karara had moved so that her back was now to the wash of waves, her face more in the shadow. "How do I know? Could be any of ten different things."
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