Jack's laugh was low and uncertain.
Kolabati said, "He's not joking."
Jack said nothing then, but even in the dark Kolabati could feel the impact of his gaze. She heard his silent questions, asking her what she had come to, what had brought her to this. She wanted to explain, but she couldn't. Not now. Not in front of Moki.
The quality of the road improved as they approached Red Hill and the observatory. Moki pulled to a stop a quarter mile from the summit and the four of them walked under the cold gaze of the unfamiliar moon to the crater's edge.
And there, half a mile below them, a sea of fire. The boiling center of the crater, the terminus of an express delivery tube from the planet's molten core, was alive with motion. Bubbles rose on the storm-tossed surface and burst convulsively, splattering liquid rock in all directions. Geysers of molten lava shot like whale spume, hurling red-orange arcs a thousand feet into the air. And governing the chaos was a steady downward flow to the sea in a wide fan of fiery destruction.
Even here, thousands of feet above, with the reversed tradewinds blowing cold against their backs, the fire stroked them with its heat. Kolabati watched Jack hold out his hands to warm them, then turn his wet back toward the fire. The wind had an icy bite at 10,000 feet. He must have been freezing. The Oriental, too, rotated his wet clothing toward the heat.
"I've figured out why Pele is so huhu" Moki said, shouting above Haleakala's roar. "She's seen her people abandoning the old ways and becoming malihini to their own traditions. She's sent us all a message."
Jack was staring down into the fire. "I'd say she's one very touchy lady."
"Ah!" said Moki, glancing off to their right. "The other celebrants arrive. The ceremony can begin."
He strode away toward the approaching Niihauans. Their elderly alii raised his feathered staff and they all knelt before Moki.
Kolabati felt a cold hand grip her arm. It was Jack.
"He's just kidding about this human sacrifice stuff, isn't he? I mean, I keep expecting Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy LaMore to show up."
Kolabati could barely meet his eyes. "I wish he were, but he means it. The group over there, the ones wearing the feathers and such, they're the last of the pure-bred traditional Hawaiians from the forbidden island of Niihau. Moki confronted them last night and told them he was Maui."
Jack's eyes widened. "He thinks he's an island?"
"No. He's mad but he's not that mad. Maui was a god who came up here ages ago, right where we're standing, and trapped the sun and forced it to make the days longer. When Moki told them he was Maui, the Niihauans didn't believe him. One of them stabbed him in the chest with a spear."
Jack glanced over to where Moki stood talking with the Niihauan alii.
"You mean tried to stab him in the chest."
"No. The spearhead sank to its full length right here."
She reached out and touched a spot over Jack's heart. She'd been wanting to touch him since her first sight of him, to assure herself that he was really here, truly alive. He was.
Jack gave her a quick look, then stared again at Moki.
"The necklace?"
Kolabati nodded.
"It didn't work that way when I wore it."
"It's never worked that way for anyone. Something's happened to it. It's been activated, stimulated in some way that I don't understand."
"I do," Jack said, still staring at Moki.
"You do? How can you—?"
"That's why I'm here. I need that necklace. There's someone back in New York who might be able to set the world right again. But he needs the necklace to do it."
The thought of giving away the second necklace to a stranger jolted Kolabati. She turned to look at Moki and held her breath as she saw a middle-aged Niihauan rise and step toward him with a raised knife. Moki stood firm, showing no fear. In fact, he gestured the man forward. The Niihauan stepped closer, and in a blur of motion raised the knife and plunged it into Moki's chest.
Jack cried, "Jesus Christ!" while Ba stiffened and muttered something unintelligible.
Kolabati watched the rim with fatalistic distaste as Moki staggered back a step, then straightened. He grasped the knife handle with both hands, and slowly, deliberately, his body shaking convulsively, withdrew the bloody blade from his chest. The Niihauan looked on in open-mouthed amazement, then raised his face and arms toward the sky. Moki gave him a moment, then rammed the dripping blade into his heart.
As the man screamed in agony, Jack turned away, cursing angrily under his breath. Kolabati continued to watch. Human sacrifices had been part of her childhood. When you are born to a priest and priestess of a temple where humans were regularly thrown to the rakoshi, it became a matter-of-fact event. It was a necessity—the rakoshi had to be fed. But this was different. This was obscene, serving no useful purpose other than feeding Moki's delusions.
As she watched Moki lift the Niihauan's corpse and hurl it into the fire, a sacrifice to the false goddess, Pele, Jack turned to her.
"How the hell did you get involved with this maniac?"
"A long, sad story, Jack. Believe me, he was nothing like this before the sun and the earth began to betray us."
Inside she mourned for the Moki who had been, the Moki she sensed was irretrievably lost to her.
"I'll take your word for it," Jack said. "But right now he's got to be stopped. And one way to stop him is to get that necklace from him."
"More easily said than done when you're talking about a man who heals like Moki."
"I might have a way." His eyes bored into hers. "Will you help?"
She nodded vigorously. "Of course."
But don't expect to walk out of here with Moki's necklace when we get it back.
TUESDAY
1 • PASSAGES
WNEW-FM
JO: Hi. We're back. You probably thought we jumped ship just like most everybody else in town, didn't you. But we didn't. We lost our power for a bit there. As we're sure you already know, the whole city's dark.
FREDDY: Yeah, but we've got a generator going now so we're staying on the air, just like we promised.
JO: Trouble is, we won't be able to bring you much news. The papers can't roll their presses and the wire services are shutting down. But we'll stay on the air and do the best we can.
FREDDY: Yeah. You're stuck with us.
DINU PASS, RUMANIA
"I think we're lost, Nick," Bill said.
They were tipping and grinding and scraping along what passed for a road in these parts as Bill fought the wheel of the Rumanian equivalent of a Land-Rover. It was rust streaked, its odometer was in kilometers, it had creaky, ratchety steering, failing brakes, and a leaky exhaust system. But it seemed damn near indestructible, and its thick glass seemed impervious to the bugs that had swarmed over them in the Ploiesti area. Not too many bugs around here, though. Maybe because there weren't many humans or animals in these parts to feed on.
Bill squinted ahead. Sheer mountain walls towered on either side, closer on his left, but the formerly seamless blackness beyond the flickering, dancing headlights was showing some cracks. Morning was coming. Good. Although traveling east had made the night mercifully short, he was tired of the darkness. He had a blinding headache from the carbon monoxide-tainted air as well as the tension growing in his neck, his left leg and right arm burned from fighting the creaky clutch and stubborn gear shift, and he was sure they'd missed a crucial turn about ten kilometers back.
And he'd begun talking to Nick. Nick hadn't deigned to reply yet, but the sound of his own voice gave Bill the feeling that he wasn't completely alone out here in a remote mountain pass in the heart of a benighted country where he spoke not a word of the native language.