by Matt Larkin
Already her vision had begun to dim. A chill filled her as she lost control over her limbs. Then her vision cleared and she realized she was prying the arm away, tugging at it with inhuman strength—or rather Nyi Rara was using her body to do so. Pain lanced through her neck as suckers popped free of it. The he‘e wrapped other arms around her own, sapping even the mermaid princess’s strength.
And then the other mermaid, the one she had come to save, collided with them, driving a coral lance through the he‘e’s head. The creature shrieked and released her in an instant. The entire house suddenly filled with a thick black ink that stung her eyes and would have made finding her way impossible. She felt the he‘e stream past her, heard its wails as it fled.
Nyi Rara remained in control, however, and guided them out the door. For a moment Namaka rested, letting the mermaid princess manage things. The spirit used Namaka’s hand to massage her throat, to brush over the damage and check its extent.
You will live.
Namaka tried to answer, to thank the mermaid, but her voice came out as a gargle. Even that felt like trying to swallow a mouthful of magma.
Give it a few moments.
Everything had gone straight to Milu’s dark domain and Namaka hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it. Her powers had pushed the he‘e but had managed little else.
It is an invertebrate.
What did that mean?
It has no bones. Throwing it against the wall isn’t going to daze it the way it would a human.
Great. Good to know. So maybe if she had the powers of her sister she’d have a weapon against the he‘e. But if impact wasn’t going to hurt them, what good could she do with the sea? She needed to find Ake. He was a warrior, a leader. Maybe he would know what to do.
The Commander is likely protecting the ‘ohana.
Should Namaka head to the Dakuwaqa Estate herself? The mer said ‘ohana was everything. But if Mu fell, there would be no ‘ohana either. So what did the he‘e seek here? Kuula Palace? To kill Queen Aiaru?
Was that the point of all this chaos? No, the he‘e had to have a bigger goal in mind. Kill Aiaru, and she would only take another host. All the other deaths—and dozens of mer bodies were now floating around the city—could well be a mere distraction. But if the he‘e took the Urchin there was no telling what they might accomplish.
After massaging her throat one last time, Namaka darted for the palace. Merman guards struggled with dozens of he‘e in the entry hall. Her heart went out to them, but she had no idea how to help them. The other mermaid had stabbed that thing in the head and it hadn’t died.
Their brains are not shaped like yours. They have three hearts. They can function even with the loss of many limbs.
Wonderful. Namaka was starting to dislike octopuses.
She swam through corridors, avoiding the battles while making her way as quickly as possible toward the great hall. Not that she had any idea what to do when she got there. But she was going to help Aiaru somehow. The mermaid queen was a bitch, yes, but at the moment, she seemed to be on Namaka’s side. Which meant Namaka had to do something. Too many people had died already.
Shouts echoed from the great hall, sounds of battle and death, though the entryway was obscured by more of that damn ink.
Namaka braced herself to dart inside the great hall. And then something dropped down on her from the ceiling. The he‘e had been all but invisible, its color and texture so perfectly matching that of the walls. In an instant, it had pinned her to the ground, arms trapping her tail, wrapping around her wrists.
“Welcome home, princess.” The creature’s thick voice ushered from a beak uncomfortably close to her face. His position meant she was looking into its maw and couldn’t see its fathomless black eyes. But this had to be Punga. She knew it was.
“Ambassador.” Namaka fairly spat the title at him.
The he‘e raised one of its arms—how did he even have a free arm with so many holding her down?—to her face and drew it along her cheek. “One might suspect a queen on land ought to have remained there.” He knew who she was. He knew.
That arm danced in front of her eyes, a hair’s breadth away, so close she could barely focus on it. And then, with slow inevitability, it lowered around her throat.
The suckers latched on, but it wasn’t choking her. Not yet. Growing ever tighter. ‘Aumākua, the creature was killing her slowly, enjoying her fear at the impending end. Winning was not enough for this ghostfucker—he wanted to break her.
That, more than anything, filled her with such gut-wrenching loathing that nothing else—not even fear—had room left inside her. These creatures were monsterous, vile. And despite being born on Earth, they were less human than even the spirits from beyond Pō like Nyi Rara.
Lend me your strength.
Damn right. Namaka jerked against the he‘e, pulling with all her might.
No—feed me your mana. Let it flow through me like a river. We have to try to achieve real symbiosis.
Namaka had no idea what Nyi Rara intended, but she gave over fighting Punga. Let him think her resigned to the end. Let him think her broken. She shut herself down, feeling the energy within her, feeling the sea stretching out around her into forever. And she felt Nyi Rara there, waiting. Handing her the power was like clasping hands with an old friend.
Bitter cold seeped into her core as her strength, her life poured from her, her mana being sucked up by this being inside her. It was like a river—or a waterfall—draining her until she would be nothing but an empty shell.
Nyi Rara extended one of her fingers toward Punga. Her arm remained bound at the wrist, but around that one finger the sea began to coil, to swirl in a vortex no wider than her single digit. Above her, the he‘e turned, perhaps noticing the slight change in pressure around it.
Nyi Rara released the vortex and it shot forward like a spear hurled by the mightiest warrior. That tiny jet of water, propelled with the force of a geyser, lanced through Punga’s eye and exploded out the other side of his head. His arms began to slack as he reeled, shrieking and pulling away from her.
The cold in Namaka’s chest made breathing seem to take all her strength. Feeding Nyi Rara her power like that left her dizzy, unable to focus. But the mermaid princess wasn’t done yet. Namaka tried to break the spiritual grip the mermaid had on her, to sever the connection allowing the mermaid to feed on her mana, but it was no use. Nyi Rara shot another water lance at the retreating he‘e. This time the creature went limp, though its arms continued to move, as if searching for a way to escape despite multiple holes in its head.
Gasping, Namaka reached out a hand before her own body gave out. Everything grew dark around her.
Someone was shaking her awake. Had she been out for a mere moment or for hours?
Commander Ake he shook her again. “Princess.”
Namaka groaned.
Even I could not get your body to move. Now you know what it feels like to be so drained.
‘Aumākua, yes. Was that what Nyi Rara went through when she tried to control Namaka’s power on her own, without Namaka intentionally feeding her mana? Was there no way they could find a balance, a means through which they might both coexist?
“What’s happened?” Namaka asked.
“We’ve begun to drive out the he‘e,” Ake said, “but our losses are extreme. I don’t know if we can hold out against another wave.”
“And the queen?”
“Safe. But reports indicated the he‘e were headed to the gorge.” The gorge? Oh, ‘aumākua, the Urchin! “Princess Nyi Rara, I cannot leave the queen …” His eyes pleaded.
Namaka moaned and dashed toward the chamber with all the speed she could still muster.
We must reach the Urchin.
Obviously.
The he‘e are adept in the Art. There is no telling what they could accomplish with the Urchin’s power.
Kanaloa. Their god-king, the being Namaka’s people worshipped as the god of magic.
She dashed around halls, choking, gasping, her blurry vision only just beginning to clear. The Urchin had tried to show her this and she had misunderstood. So badly misunderstood everything. It had shown her the he‘e and the danger they represented. But she had missed it all.
And what had it shown Nyi Rara? Would the mermaid ever tell her? The conspicuous silence in her mind might well mean the mermaid had also missed the point of her own visions.
Namaka broke into the gorge chamber only to find four dead mer and as many dead he‘e. They had come here, and the mer had given their lives to stop them. But had they succeeded? She darted into the chasm. The bioluminescent algae had changed in hue from green to red, as if somehow reflecting the violence now permeating this once glorious city, this sacred place.
Hurry, Namaka.
She was hurrying. Using the water jets to speed herself in these narrow confines would accomplish nothing but slamming her into the chasm walls. Instead, she pushed off wall after wall, at last nearing the Urchin’s chamber.
The priestess lay sprawled at the threshold, eyes empty. Hundreds of sucker-marks covered her throat and face and breasts. Her arms lay twisted at odd angles, clearly broken. Her body had reverted to human. The corpses of a pair of he‘e floated in the water as well, defiling the Urchin’s sacrosanct chamber.
Opuhalakoa …
Namaka shook her head. Milu drag the he‘e to her misty bosom and devour their souls. Seething pain surged through Namaka’s gut, a cold rage that soured the beauty before her.
Hands outstretched, she reached toward the he‘e corpses and coiled water around them, yanking them out of the Urchin’s room and flinging them back through the gorge. Entering the chamber now, without the priestess’s presence, felt like a violation of some primal tabu.
Instead, all she could think to do was twirl her tail in respect to the Urchin. It sat there, giving no indication of distress at the death of the high priestess. But somehow, Namaka suspected it knew. Sorrow filled her, not only for Opuhalakoa’s loss, but for her own failure to understand what the mythic creature had wanted to show her. Treachery, ambition, and death. Thousands of deaths. She had taken the funerals of her people as literal imagery, but perhaps it had been symbolic of losses here at Mu as well.
Biting her lip against the wave of self-loathing, she wrapped her arms around the priestess’s body and swam from the gorge.
The host was nearing the end of its life as it was.
The host. The human host had died …
But Opuhalakoa was merely banished from your world. If Mu survives, Ukupanipo ‘Ohana may try to recall her soul once more, once she regains some strength.
That hardly made Namaka smile. Nyi Rara meant to say when another human girl was sacrificed, taken from Sawaiki, her life stolen so a mermaid could experience the pleasures of Earth for the thousandth time. And deny them to her human host.
Nyi Rara said nothing, but Namaka could feel her recoil from the accusation. Perhaps it was easier for the spirit to forget that humans, too, had souls and hopes and dreams. Lives that were stolen from them for the use of spirits.
I thought you loved being a mermaid.
She did. She was, however, beginning to see not all mer were like Nyi Rara. And even Nyi Rara had wanted to force herself into dominance over Namaka, only she’d failed. The princess had given no thought to the death of Opuhalakoa’s human host.
It’s not that simple.
Namaka sneered as she breached the great circle chamber leading to the gorge. It was exactly that simple. The mer just didn’t want to admit they treated their hosts as disposable. She released the priestess’s body.
She had only entered the next hall when a tremendous roar reverberated through the entire palace, shaking the very walls and sending a cloud of dust floating through the waters.
“What the—” Namaka was interrupted by another roar. It was coming from above them.
Not waiting for an answer, she darted through the corridors to the nearest grotto with an open roof, then swam up to see what the commotion was. A massive shadow passed overhead and Namaka looked up in horror.
The reptilian creature bore some superficial resemblance to Milolii, but this was a dragon of a whole other magnitude. It had to be over a hundred feet long, that entire length covered in a ridge of spines, the largest of which reached as tall as a house. It had short, clawed feet like a sea turtle and moved like a slithering giant eel.
And she knew. She knew what it must be.
A taniwha.
It swam at great speed, not for Mu, but for Sawaiki.
28
Days Gone
A gathered army met them in the valley, five hundred warriors on her side, giving Namaka a moderate advantage of numbers, though they remained unfortunately far from the sea. She dared to hope they were also far from any pockets of magma Pele might call upon.
Upoho led Namaka’s warriors, hastily applied warpaint covering the wererat’s cheeks. A pale imitation of the elaborate war patterns their enemies wore. They charged up the valley, lining up in front of the village’s warriors.
The largest of the invaders marched forward, spear over his head. He spread his feet wide and stuck his tongue out, grunting and waving his arms in a challenge, thumping his chest. The man marched up and down the warrior lines, repeating the gesture.
Namaka slowed, taking up position behind the warriors. She wasn’t trained in war arts. Upoho, however, had taken up position and was flexing his muscles. Namaka glanced up at the sky. The sun limited her wererat friend’s powers, and the moon wouldn’t rise for hours yet. In sunlight, he was stronger than a man, still, but not half so strong as he’d be in moonlight.
As the invading warrior stepped back into his line, Upoho stepped forward, repeating the man’s demonstration. He stuck out his tongue, grunted, and shouted, then beat his chest. A shout rang out among her people.
Namaka glanced back at Kahaumana as he put a hand on her shoulder, scowling deeply. Her husband stepped in front of her, positioning himself between the battle and her. “It’ll be over soon,” he said. “All of it.”
She prayed he was correct.
A final shout went up from both lines, and like the breaking of a wave, they exploded into motion, crashing into one another. Namaka cringed as the first blood splattered the grass, but it was such chaos she couldn’t even tell who fell and which side was winning. Warriors impaled each other on spears, shoved one another into the sand.
One of the men rushed toward her and Kahaumana.
She had seen Kahaumana fight and maybe he could defend them, but his attacker was the size of a whale, with muscles on his muscles and tattoos covering his whole chest. She opened her mouth to shout for Upoho.
But Kahaumana twisted out of the way of an axe blow and drove forward, his spear ramming straight through the whale’s bowels, spilling blood and foulness down the man’s legs. A swift jerk backward, and Pele’s warrior fell to his knees, guts strewn over the ground.
Like that, it was over.
Still, the chaotic melee continued, and still, no sign of Pele. Her warriors had met them here, cut them off, in an ill-advised attempt to destroy Namaka away from the sea.
Oh, there were streams, waterfalls, sources of water she could call on if she had to.
She did not, though. Upoho and his men made short, bloody work of Pele’s warriors, and in moments, corpses littered the valley as if strewn about by a receding tide.
Knife in hand—cautious, of course—Namaka threaded among the bodies, watching Upoho and the others dispatch what remained of this force. This had been too easy, really.
“Why would they ambush a force of superior size?” she asked Kahaumana.
“Poor planning? Arrogance?”
Namaka shook her head. No. Something else was going on here. “How many warriors do you think she has left?”
“After today? Less than two thousand, I would guess.”
“And where are they? They couldn’t hav
e had more than four hundred men here, probably fewer.”
Her husband shrugged. “Do not disdain the gifts of the ‘aumākua.”
Namaka should have seen it coming, of course. While her forces chased Pele’s warriors through the jungle, the other queen had burned Namaka’s taro fields. In a single conflagration she’d left half the island without hope for enough food, forcing them to turn to overfishing, to rely on dwindling stores of already harvested roots and coconuts. To slaughter pigs and dogs for meat.
By the time Namaka returned, all that remained of the cultivated fields were embers.
Embers, dead farmers, and furious, desperate villagers, all looking to Namaka for answers she could not give.
Hundreds of dead lay strewn through the forest. Despite the inconvenience, Namaka had allowed Leapua’s people to gather the bodies for pyres rather than risk the dead becoming lapu. Gagging on the stench of blood and shit and viscera splattered over the valley, Namaka turned her back on the scene, as if not looking at it would allow her to pretend it did not lie behind her.
Her foot snagged on something and she stumbled until Leapua caught her wrist.
Namaka looked down.
An arm, severed at the elbow, jagged flesh hanging loose like … like …
Namaka stumbled to the ground and retched, spewing up the painfully little food she’d had that day.
A hand under her armpit, her kahuna helped her back to her feet. “Is this not enough?”
Namaka wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Was it enough? How could it be? Pele had not only shamed Namaka, but now she had killed thousands of Namaka’s people. Burned their crops. Destroyed their homes. Ruined … everything. The whole kingdom lay in ruins.
An inundation of volcanic ash now choked the forests and polluted the streams. Uluka‘a was … savaged.
Namaka looked to Leapua. “I think war has a spirit, is a living thing, complete unto itself. Once woken to such anger, it has to run its course. It feeds on … itself.”
