Unperturbed, Malone spit to his right. A small spot on the ground sizzled. “Marchers of the Night, eh? What sort o’ outriders might they be?”
“The souls of dead ali’i. Only a kahuna ’ana’ana can control them, because his withered soul is given over to evil. Somehow we must get close enough to Kanaloaiki to break the spell the instant it has begun, but we must do so without looking directly upon him.”
“Kind o’ like workin’ in Washington.” Fumbling in a saddlebag, Malone removed a scratched, chipped, but still serviceable mirror. Pulling hard on the reins, he turned Worthless about. Using the mirror to scope their route, they resumed their ascent, Worthless following Malone’s guiding tugs on his reins while methodically advancing hind end first.
“A clever trick.” Hau kept pace by the simple expedient of walking backward alongside Worthless. “What made you think of it?”
“Old acquaintance o’ mine name of Perseus had to deal with a similar dilemma once. Involved a woman.” He adjusted the mirror. “Works better with a bronze shield, but it’s danged hard t’ fit one o’ those in a saddlebag.”
“Ah,” Hau murmured. The moaning rose louder around them. “It will still be difficult to get close to Kanaloaiki with so many Marchers about.”
“Actually, I had kind o’ another notion for dealin’ with them.” So saying, he extracted not from the capacious saddlebags but from a pocket a small tubular instrument. Placing it in his mouth and using the fingers of one hand to manipulate the notes, he began to tootle a winsome tune.
Hau winced. “A strange music but somehow attractive.” Malone could only nod a response, his mouth being full of instrument.
The moaning grew shrill and strident. Then, astonishingly, it began to mellow, harmonizing with and eventually chanting in counterpoint to the tune Malone was playing. Still backing Worthless up the mountainside, he played on until he had all the dead ali’i moaning in perfect time to his music. Gradually they drifted away, sighing softly and, Malone was convinced, contentedly. Only when the last of them had vanished into the all-absorbing night did he remove the instrument from his mouth.
“Reckon we kin turn about now. I expect they’re gone.”
“How did you do that?” Hau asked. Ahead of them Kanaloaiki saw that his protective spirits had departed and worked furiously to finish his spell.
“Friend o’ mine named Louie Gottschalk composed that little tune. It’s a cakewalk; they’re pretty much irresistible. This variation incorporates a little voodoo. Louie’s from New Orleans, and he doesn’t publish everything he composes. I figured an enchanted cakewalk was bound to work on any bunch o’ spirits called the Marchers. Jest weren’t completely sure it’d sound good enough on a kazoo. But they all seem to have cleared out right promptly.”
“Powerful magic!” Hau exclaimed.
“But not powerful enough,” declared old Kanaloaiki with a sneer, overhearing them. Stepping back and raising his arms, he pronounced the final words of the spell. As the earth began to tremble, the old kahuna ’ana’ana started to laugh. “Say farewell to all the evil that is Lahaina, for the earth is soon to take her back! Sprite of Pele, heed my call!”
For the first time since Malone could remember, Worthless lost his footing. The mountain man was thrown to the ground. Recovering quickly, he staggered to the unicorn’s side as the earth heaved and buckled beneath them. Hau didn’t even try to rise. Sprawled helplessly on his side, the ali’i looked on in horror.
In front of old Kanaloaiki the ground split asunder. An unholy refulgence bolted from the depths as a hellish yellow-red glow illuminated the sky. Slick and viscous, aa lava could be seen rising within the dilating cleft, bubbling and boiling, ready to pour down the mountainside and roar through Lahaina, incinerating and inevitably burying everything in its path.
“The Manai ikalani!” Hau shouted. “Quickly, Amos Malone!”
“I’ve got ’er!” Malone was fumbling with the saddlebags.
“The line,” the ali’i yelled, “what about the line? Do you think it will be strong enough?”
“I reckon!” Malone hollered back. “Figured since you said we were liable to be dealin’ with some serious heat, we’d want something that wouldn’t burn too easy!”
A mountain man must be self-reliant in everything, must know how to cook as well as shoot, repair leather as well as hunt, even has to know how to fix his own clothing when there’s nary a tailor within a thousand miles. So Malone had no trouble threading the line through the fishhook, though drawing one of the iron links through his teeth in order to make it thin enough to fit through the hook’s eye did set his mouth on edge a trifle.
With the hook securely fastened to the line, he began to twirl one end of it over his head, the sacred Manai thundering through the air like a hog-tied earthquake. What he was about to try was not unlike roping steers down in Texas, except that his target this time was at once larger and more difficult to hold down and the line itself was just a tad heavier than your ordinary lariat.
Not knowing if he’d have an opportunity for a second chance, he did his best to fling the hook straight and true. It soared across the expanding seam in the ground, trailing the spare anchor chain from the Pernod behind it. The iron links clanked above the roar of the superheated earth as they landed on the far side of the widening chasm.
The fishhook struck the earth… and stuck. With a sharp tug Malone set the hook. Making sure the other end was secured to the pommel of Worthless’s saddle, he swung himself up and slapped his mount on the side of his scruffy neck.
“Ready there, Worthless? Back, boy! Back ’er up now!”
As Hau looked on in awe and Kanaloaiki in aghast fury, the muscular quadruped slowly began to back to the south, digging his hooves into the ground and pulling the anchor chain with him. The crack stopped expanding and began to contract as Malone drew it shut, binding up the wound in the earth as neat and clean as any surgeon would stitch up a wound. A few dollops of lava boiled out of the ground before the rift was closed completely. By the time Malone called a halt, the lava near the top of the vent had cooled sufficiently to seal the opening.
No ordinary horse could have managed it, or even an ordinary unicorn, but Worthless, for all his equine peccadilloes, was special indeed.
“Attaboy. Now stand!” Malone patted his steed on its neck as he dismounted. Worthless snorted and fell to cropping the nearest bush, breathing no harder than if he’d just pulled a wagon from a shallow muddy-bottomed creek.
Avoiding the site of the vent, where the ground was still too hot to walk on, Malone joined Hau in approaching the stymied sorcerer. The frustrated kahuna ’ana’ana did not try to contest their approach, did not even lift an arm to defend himself as Hau raised his formidable club.
Malone put out an arm to forestall the blow. “Easy there, Hau.”
The ali’i looked at him. “But if we let him live, he may try again.”
Malone shook his head. “I don’t think so. Take a good look at him. Can’t you see he’s done for?”
It was clear that the excruciating effort had used up the old sorcerer utterly. As he lay back, his breath came in increasingly difficult gasps. A grim-faced Hau stepped aside, satisfied.
“Summonin’ evil kin be exhausting,” Malone murmured.
At that the frustrated sorcerer turned to face him. “You are a great kahuna. I did not know there was such among the haoles.”