Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(16) Hahalua's Mountain

I sit in the solitude of the outer shoals until the world stops turning like I rolled it down Telu's mountain. The all-too-familiar desire to leave and return to my island early eats at me from all sides, but too much rests on the knowledge I carry now for me to get reckless. I'm no use to my people dead, and I'm going to need Taiki's help to get home. I don't want to put him in danger, too.

As much as I hate it, waiting out the three moons will give me my best chance to get home. That's enough time for me to learn more about what's going on down here. I also feel much better about staying among the Shalda-Kels. If they're descendents of islanders—or were once islanders themselves, different though they look—then they're my people, to some degree. Certainly more than the Sami or Karu.

My thoughts are interrupted by Taiki's arrival.

"We're moving," he signs. "The water isn't good here."

I realize it hasn't gotten any easier to breathe, even though I've calmed down. Seiko is sleepy as I carry them back to the center of the shoals. The Risi-singers from both tribes have dispersed to gather their Nekta. The shoals are sluggish, like they drank too much and want nothing more than to sleep the day away. My body feels heavy as we finally start to move. A pair of singers at the front project their second song into the darkness. That one must be for sounding out the water, like a rock on a string dropped into a dark river. I worry for a moment about enemies hearing it, but if it's magic, maybe enemies can't.

The water is both thick as mud and dizzyingly insubstantial. My headache has returned like a small child playing drums in my skull before we've swum a hundred arm-spans, and only gets worse as we continue. Masae and a knot of other Kels hold a hushed, urgent conference. They direct us downwards, and I'm glad to not be the only Kel who dives headfirst this time. In another thirty arm-spans, the water's temperature drops perceptibly. The floaties around me drift to the side, proof that we're in a current—and one with rather more to breathe, at that. My head clears. Kels recover in the richer water and return upwards to herd the Risi shoals down.

We stay in the current until everyone has recuperated, then start to move like we usually do during the day. It's not long before the singers in the front flash a signal that stalls everyone. I weave my way inconspicuously through the crowd. I can see nothing ahead, but the scouts are saying there's a mountain: one with a name. We approach it at the pace of a crippled snail. When I can finally see the peak, I realize immediately why it's so special. It looks the same as an island mountain. The gradient of its slope is straight and steady, running into the darkness at an angle midway between flat and vertical. It's ribbed like someone raked a comb down the rock. Telu's mountain is smoother, but Tanalogochi's has that same ribbing, left behind when ribbons of fire trickle down her sides.

This rock is silent. I've always wondered what Tanalogochi's top looks like. I stay near the front as the Kels begin to swim up the slope. They stay well away from the rocks—they're sharp enough to slice like shark's teeth—but they're headed for the mountain's peak. Nobody talks.

The slope ends in a smooth, curved ridge. I get flashbacks to Telu as we crest it. Just like on the mountain back home, this rock sinks away below us like the world's biggest clam popped a bubble here and left its gaping wound in the sand behind. The hole extends well past the reach of our lights. Kels spread out along its rim, glowing hands upheld. I'm tugged gently aside as someone swims up from downslope. It's the squid-Kel tribe's oldest goma. In her thin arms is a bundle of assorted detritus: dead Risi squid and at least one piece of coral, wrapped in a band of seaweed. Where did they get coral?

The Kels all dip their heads as the old woman's lips move. The song is almost imperceptibly soft. Then she tips the bundle into the crater. She must have added a rock to it on our way up the slope, because it falls quickly into the darkness. I feel its thunk as it hits the ground, then a series of diminishing knocks as it heads off on its final journey down into the crater. I try to trace how far it goes. If I was given this opportunity back on Telu, I would be swinging myself over this rim right now, venturing down into the maw that on Tanalogochi spits fire twice a moon and smoke on the off days. I want to see if there's a deeper hole at the bottom, like the one that cradles a small lake on Telu. Or whether this crater is at all warm.