Stink, stank, stunk ...

Kaneloa was quickly putting miles behind him and beginning to think that he might make it from one end of Molokai to the other in just one day via the toxic Tube of Ka-lai-pahoa, the evil sorcery god of Molokai, when suddenly he weakened. He slowed to a walk, gasping for air, forcing himself to go on.

"I didn't touch the walls ... " he wheezed. "I avoided the poison drips ... "

"So they told you about that part, did they, O Stupid Young Chief of Oahu?" Ka-lai-pahoa cackled. He was again in the shape of a swirling green toxic mist. "But did they warn you about breathing the air? Or that your death will be slow and terrible? Stupid stupid stupid ... "

Kaneloa kept moving, the stink-stank-stunk green mist breathing down his neck. His lungs were filling with poison, clogging them, and he gulped for whatever air he could get, forcing his feet to step ... OK, shuffle ... Hold it here a sec, just to catch some breath ...

The mist whirled about, cackling and further fouling the air.

"Why," Kaneloa wheezed, "do you poison The Tube, this perfect place?"

The toxic mist shook with horrid laughter. "I am what I am."

"No you're not. We know I Am What I Am."

"OK, maybe not altogether stupid. But do not ask why I do what I do. The best you can do is accept it."

"And the worst?"

"You've already done the worst."

"Wh ... what worst did I do?"

"You ignored evil. The reality of it. Now you pay."

Keep ... feet ... moving ...

"Why do I do this? Because it's so damn much fun, that's why. Here ... "

The mist forced itself to stop it's cackling and suddenly sounded like a big pahu drum. Boom, boom, boom. "Your funeral dirge has begun, O Stupid Young Chief of Oahu."

Keep ... feet ... moving ...

"I swear, you're stupid as a stalagmite, but I give you credit for persistence, and devotion to Kamehameha. Oh, too bad stupidity wins out!"

Ka-lai-pahoa was so amused with himself, Kaneloa would have popped him in the kisser if he had the strength, or if he could figure where a swirling green mist's kisser was exactly.

"But it needn't end for you like this, young chief," Ka-lai-pahoa cooed, assuming another aspect of evil, the suck-you-in-with-beautiful-lies kind. "Remember, I offered you a deal earlier, and I offer it again now. I will remove the poison from you if only you will take me to the king's bones."

"Never," Kaneloa said, took what he thought would be the last eighth of a breath he'd ever suck down, and stumbled ...

Into the arms of a very large, very beautiful, very brown, very naked woman ...

"Ola, who the hell let you in here?!" Ka-lai-pahoa barked.