PoraBora

Chapter Sixty-Nine

The fire seared the surface. Pora watched in horror from beneath, last escapees fleeing through the open cavern. Bora's tail thrust him into deeper waters, and all the fish followed.

The oil never stopped. It pooled into the waters around the island, settling onto the surface and drifting further and further into the sea. And now it was all alight. Pora had never seen so much fire. It illuminated the sea floor beneath, making the light of the jellies insubstantial. He shut his eyes against it, but he knew he had to do something.

But what?

Pora gently dropped the starfish he had been carrying out, wishing them all swiftness to safety as he kicked to the surface. Even before he got there, he found bodies falling in, warriors and crew alike from each of the islands. They dipped below the oil and fire, flailing as they picked their fate. They held their faces, arms, torsos, unable to pick which as oil clung to their bodies. The water took away the fire, but not the heat. Pora could do nothing to save them. He wasn't even sure what he would do when he got to the surface.

Then a current began to move, pulling apart the oil and raising cooler water. It buoyed Pora's ascent, and suddenly he was gasping for air above in a tiny hole in the oil, as if he were a whale caught in the ice.

And there was Tota, standing on the water as smoldering ash whipped around behind him.

"Tota!" exclaimed Pora. "You need to get out of here! Keasau is angry, and...."

Tota was standing on the water, Pora registered. Like he had been before. But Pora was not sleeping, now, if he ever had been.

The oil continued to drift away from them, and an opening in the fire gave him sight of Pe's manta. All around it, oil burned high flames. He saw Hui leap off, into the fire and oil, making the choice the others had made.

"I have to help," Pora told Tota quickly, and he angled himself into a dive.

A wave crashed behind him from nowhere. It shoved him down, beneath the oil, and the suddenly turbulent sea nearly threw him towards the manta. Wave after wave tossed above him, clearing the way as it mixed oil and water and snuffed out the flames. He could hear the sizzling of evaporating water, see the frothing of millions of tiny bubbles, and feel cooling waters touch his skin.

Are you doing this? Pora asked Tota incredulously.

Wave after wave carried him to Pe's ship until one crashed upon it, the boat's capsize its own savior from the fire. The water rippled the oil back, cleaning a hole where the boat hung upside down. Pora saw Pe hanging from it, her legs kicking beneath her, and he saw Tua and Hui, the second swimming for the surface, the first unmoving.

Pora kicked toward Tua and dragged him hurriedly upwards. For all his effort, it was slow going. The water did not push him upwards again, and Pora wondered if that meant Tota did not want him alive. Pora growled in silent disagreement.

Hui must have noticed Tua hadn't come up, because he came down again, glowing from every side. The jellyfish too had been parted by the water, pulled down from the surface and, Pora hoped, saved from the fire.

Hui took Tua's other shoulder, and they had him on the surface in under a minute.

"Iukana 'e hamana," growled Pe, her arms on her hull. "Miaa Tota tohua yo?"

Pora and Hui managed to get Tua onto one of the fins, submerged unless Hui held up his head.

Hui must have asked for help, because Pe came over, lifted Tua's head, and watched as Hui began to compress the man's chest.

Tota came closer, tiny droplets splattering with his tiny steps.

"Tota," said Pora. "Tota, are you a god?"

His friend did not answer.

"Tota, are you doing this?" Pora asked.

His friend did not answer, but in the distance there was a rumbling of thunder. Pora looked west in horror to see the dark clouds forming, washing across the sky like a crashing wave.

It was an oil storm. Keasau had finally done it. The Taipalans had finally angered him enough. Pora felt himself shake. No! After everything they'd done, Keasau was going to be driven to destroy more islands, more of the sea!

"Keasau!" Pora shouted, turning towards the island, just in time to watch the god slide down and into the ocean. "Keasau, you have to stop!"

Pora swam towards the whale's entry, but the oil did not move aside, and the heat of the fire prevented him from getting close. He gritted his teeth, but his attempt at breath only choked him from the lungs. He had to get to Keasau, to talk to him, to plead, to make him understand what he was doing wasn't just punishing the islanders who had come to capture him, it was ruining everything!

As he tried to dive under, the water pulled him back.

"Tota, please!" begged Pora. "You have to help me stop Keasau!"

But it was too late.

The oil storm was preceded by the dropping of the water. The crater showed more of itself, as if it had risen from the sea, entire colonies of oil-covered coral rising up in dying salutes. There was a smashing of hulls against rock, and where the seafloor came high, ships were turned over on the burgeoning land. The great hammerhead came to a stop, the men aboard running to the edge to witness what would happen next.

Then came the wall. Its stench smacked into Pora. Even submerged he could not avoid it. Pulled-back boats rose up the mighty black wall, which consumed the horizon and left Pora and the manta tiny specks in the ocean.

There was no time to escape to the bay.

It wouldn't have done them any good. The oil storm met Keasau's bleeding and the fire ignited instantly. It spread across the tsunami's ridge, from its first curling crash to its furthest reaches. Lines of orange light raced up to the sky as even the rain caught fire, leaving streaks everywhere.

The wave was nearly upon them. Pe shrieked, "Mako!" and Hui clutched Tua desperately.

Another wave rose to meet it. It dragged Pora and the manta back, raising up as a shield. Pora cut through the water to Tota, taking him gently in his arms and sheltering him from whatever was to come, the way he wished he could have done with Yuppa, with Umba, with his whole island....

Eyes shut, Pora tumbled with the water, cast in every direction, upside down, leftside right, then he didn't know anymore. His hand was wrenched from his nose. Water sloshed in, down his throat, and he choked water into his lungs, and choked more, and then he didn't even know what was happening with himself.

There was an enormous flash of light, a single crack that buffered the surface, and nothing.