by Matt Larkin
“Everyone is praying you have enough control over the host’s power to turn the course of the war,” Ake said. The merman was now armed with a trident and it jutted out behind him as he swam forward. The weapon appeared to be metal, and well-wrought with elaborate barbs. But how did the mer people forge metal weapons underwater?
We trade with humans.
Oh. Well, that had been a stupid question.
Ake glanced at her and she realized she hadn’t answered his implied question.
“I am the host, thank you very much.”
Ake quickly looked away, but she’d have sworn he rolled his eyes. Who did he think he was, doubting his princess’s right to let another princess control her own body? Here she was, two princesses wrapped in one, and this boy was treating her like she needed his approval.
Boy? You realize he’s ten times my age, that his spirit has been around almost since the Earth was flooded two thousand years ago?
“Holy ghostfucker,” Namaka said.
Ake glanced at her again, eyebrow raised.
“Exactly how old are you, Ake?”
“Human, that is a rather rude question.”
Namaka shrugged. “I would argue that kidnapping me, tearing off my clothes, and drowning me was kind of rude too. The way I see it, you’re probably ahead on that front.”
“I was following the orders of my queen.”
“Uh huh.” Namaka fell silent a moment to bask in the glorious undersea realm. “Is it really true what the kahuna say, about Kāne flooding the Earth to punish the wicked gods? I mean there really used to be more land?”
Ake uttered a long-suffering sigh, then looked at her, some internal debate going on behind his blue-green eyes. “The elders say the Earth was once much less hospitable, yes.”
Less hospitable? Namaka snorted. What a perspective these mer had.
And you think your perspective more neutral, to assume a world with more land is more suitable for life? There are twenty times more species living beneath the waves than above them.
“Huh.”
You are one of us now. Learn to think like a mer.
She swam beside him for a time. Wherever this battle was, it was damn far. They had to have swum thirty leagues or more already. Why did they even care about something happening so far away?
If you don’t want to be addressed as a child, do not act like one.
Namaka stuck her tongue out, immediately tasting the salt in the water and a dozen other strange, intoxicating flavors. Her stomach growled. Kāne, she was hungry.
Then eat.
Eat what?
Control slipped from her and a beat of her tail carried her off course, crashing into a school of fish. Her hand snapped out and caught one with uncanny reflexes. Nyi Rara stuck the whole fish in her mouth and bit down. The moment of revulsion that filled Namaka fled as succulent flesh and blood poured down her throat. A few bites had shredded the fish. Of course. She had shark teeth too.
Of course you do. They descend when you need them.
Nyi Rara released her and she darted back after Ake. “Sorry. I was hungry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
Namaka shrugged. No human inhibitions at all? Did that mean …? “Fine. I have a question for you, Ake. Kamapua’a calls it the ‘mermaid problem.’ So when you feel the need to—”
If you ask him how we have sex I will take control of your body away from you.
All right then.
The tails are for convenience, speed, and warmth. We can take human legs any time we desire.
Now that hadn’t been so hard, had it? She forced such thoughts from her mind.
The merman general had been slowly increasing his pace, as if eager to catch his soldiers for some reason.
“What’s wrong?”
“I expected scouts to report back to us by now.”
Namaka frowned. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
Everything now was so fascinating, so new. This whole other life—another world—had opened before her and she didn’t even know where to begin. She could swim faster than she ever thought possible, explore a realm of strange beauty with no limits or borders.
You are the strangest host I have ever had.
A strange sensation of jealousy filled her. Just how many hosts had Nyi Rara had before her? Was it odd that she felt possessive of the spirit inside her?
Very odd. Most hosts are horrified, writhing in their impotence as a spirit enslaves their bodies.
Well, put like that it did sound horrifying. But it didn’t have to be like that, was not going to be that way. Nyi Rara was hers now.
I am not a puppy, human. I am possessing your body.
“Awww, that’s a cute little mermaid,” Namaka mumbled under her breath.
Water carried the sound farther than she expected, and Ake turned to her. Before he could speak though, he pulled up short behind the soldiers, looking again in their direction. And he sniffed.
Actually, she did smell something. What was that scent? Like a tangy flavor tickling her senses, calling her …
Blood.
Wait, so she could smell blood? Sharks and mer must have been more closely related than she’d thought.
Ake frowned, then took off with renewed speed, darting past the other soldiers. Namaka followed, wending her way among scowling, cursing, or muttering mer. The blood scent had carried a long way, and they had to swim perhaps another half league before they saw its source.
Hundreds of mer floated dead in the water, torn apart by a feeding frenzy of sharks. Tiger sharks, hammerheads, gray reefs—all had gathered to gorge themselves on the bloody feast. A severed arm floated in front of the mess, before a tiger shark spun with surprising agility and snatched it up.
Namaka’s stomach lurched, then she belched out bits of half-digested fish.
This had been a massacre, more death than she had ever seen in one place. Numbers would be impossible to guess. But they weren’t really dead mer—they were dead human hosts. All those people, taken against their will, made slaves to fight in a war they knew nothing of.
“Our army,” Ake said. “We’re too late. They must have been ambushed by the Muians.”
It seemed the whole sea was a blur of red waters and guts and swarming sharks. How could one determine who these victims had been?
Because if any had survived, we would have met them on the way here.
Kāne, she had just found a new people. And now this. Again her people died in droves and she was helpless to stop it. For all her power she was nothing, had never been able to do one damn bit of good with it.
The waters around her began to swirl, and Namaka screamed. A sudden current scattered the sharks and sent bloody remains of mer spiraling in a whirlpool. So much beauty down here. And so much death. Everywhere she went—death.
The sea tugged at her as the whirlpool grew. Soldiers were shouting, Ake was shouting. None of it mattered.
Stop it!
But she couldn’t stop anything. She had never been able to control it.
Her chest suddenly constricted, like a clam had snapped shut around her. And then warmth seeped through her limbs, pulsed through her veins, much as it had when Nyi Rara had first taken hold of her. Except this was not cold, and not quite alien. It was like someone there with her … holding her hand.
You can control it.
Her hands rose of their own accord, reached out before her and touched the sea. The mana in her soul surged, driving the sea to calm, and for a brief instant she felt control like she had never known. A single heartbeat of perfect discipline. And then it fled, even as the whirlpool spun itself out and the sea returned to normal.
Namaka panted, suddenly feeling weak, exhausted even, and unable to keep herself steady in the current. She faltered and Ake caught her.
Her mermaid had helped her.
“Mahalo,” she mumbled to the spirit within. No answer was forthcoming. “Nyi Rara?” What had happene
d to her mermaid? Why wasn’t she answering? Could she have hurt Nyi Rara too? Kāne, please don’t let that be the case. She twisted around in Ake’s arms, eyes wide as she stared into his.
Confusion, and then something else—perhaps compassion—graced his features, and he touched a webbed hand to her cheek. “She is probably resting. All mer have some ability to control the sea, and the strongest and oldest have greater power. But she is not used to coupling that power with a host’s own. Humans don’t usually have Gifts, after all.”
Namaka swallowed and nodded slowly. Humans weren’t meant to have powers at all. She was kupua and, one might argue, the kind of being who should not exist. Now she was kupua and a mermaid.
“So you don’t think I hurt her?” she asked after a moment.
Ake smiled awkwardly, as if uncertain what to make of her concern for Nyi Rara. Namaka got it—everyone expected her to hate the spirit for possessing her, for taking away any measure of control or sense of self. But she didn’t have control in the first place, wasn’t certain she had anything she ever wanted to go back to. She was a slave to her people. At least down here, she was a slave in a glorious undersea kingdom. A slave, slowly being accepted as a partner.
“A spirit completely drained might be forced back to the Spirit Realm. If that had happened, you would have reverted to human form and drowned. Since you still have that beautiful tail, I can surmise she’ll recover soon.”
Namaka sighed, trying to relax, then realized she was still in Ake’s arms and wiggled her way free. “I-I think I’m fine to swim on my own now.” He had called her tail beautiful. It was gorgeous, vibrant as the burning sky right after an eruption.
“We have to get back to Hiyoya. Queen Latmikaik needs to know of our failure.”
That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t their failure, they hadn’t even gotten to fight. But if what had happened with her power was any indication, maybe she wasn’t ready to fight anyway. Merely controlling Namaka’s power, stopping it from running wild, had taken so much out of Nyi Rara the mermaid had fallen unconscious or into some sort of dormancy. How could she hope to accomplish anything useful with her Gift like this?
Ake ordered the other soldiers back, and Namaka swam behind them. Why hadn’t she tried harder to heed Mo-O’s lessons? To master the power that was her legacy?
And now it might be too late. Now all she could do was pray Nyi Rara was up to doing Namaka’s duty for her.
14
The Startracer had suffered additional damage after Namaka’s retribution against him, however unintentional it had been. Damage that meant it would take Pasikole at least another day before they could depart. Not that he didn’t deserve her rage this time. He had killed that man, Hau-Pu. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t wanted things to go so far awry. But the warrior had had murder in his eyes, and after their last encounter, instinct had taken over. Pasikole had been a soldier, and, facing an imminent threat, he had defended himself.
But because of that, it had been a full day since he had seen Namaka. He wasn’t certain that was a bad thing. Maybe Inemes was right about him falling for the girl. Pasikole shook himself. Foolishness. He had been down that path, and it only got in the way of his studies.
He stood on the deck now, looking out over the Valley Isle. So lush, vibrant. Seeming almost untouched by mankind. And so defenseless against the ravages of the deep empires. The mer kingdoms and the even more inscrutable he’e. Namaka had been wrong, thinking the nanaue the most terrible predators of the sea. The weresharks were savage, deadly for certain. But in the end they were basically human, with human motivations. Mer and he’e were something else entirely. Their desires were hard to predict, maybe impossible for humans to understand. Perhaps because they played a long game, making moves designed to unfold over centuries. In such struggles, humans were mere pawns.
The knowledge he was collecting was, he hoped, their best chance to change that. To give mankind a chance to shape its own destiny. Back home, most people thought the Royal Trade Society governed their empire. It did, he supposed. But what the public didn’t realize was the Queen’s Council were mere puppets to rulers in the seas below. That was probably the case across the whole world. Ironically, the Princesses here had, thus far, granted Sawaiki a greater degree of independence than anywhere else in the Worldsea. And he had come here, contract in hand, intent on disrupting this little paradise. All in the name of knowledge and power. In some vain hope the secrets promised in return might help the rest of mankind.
Sacrificing Sawaiki’s independence for the greater good had seemed a fair trade before he met these people. But he’d been lying to himself. There was a word for people like him, people who failed to consider the needs of others. Jackasses. And that’s what he was, wasn’t he?
Maybe realizing it was the first step to changing it. He would leave here soon, as soon as he could. Leave these people in peace. And though he would miss seeing Namaka, it was for the best. For her, for the Sawaikians, for everyone. He’d finish his maps and then flee these islands, maybe head back to Tungaru or Kahiki or even to some new land entirely. Not to the Westlands, of course.
Pasikole sighed, then shook his head. If only it were so simple.
Namaka’s wereboar friend was paddling a canoe toward the ship. When he reached it, he immediately began climbing a line over the side. Namaka’s dog was in the canoe, too, yipping at him. The locals might not know they were supposed to ask a captain’s permission before boarding. Or, given the wereboar's nature, perhaps he just didn’t care.
“It’s Kamapa … Kamapua? Is that right?”
“Kamapua’a, but Kam will be fine. Namaka calls me Kam. Except when she calls me Pigman, which is most of the time. But you don’t get to call me that. And you killed Hau-Pu.”
Pasikole nodded slowly. “I did. Are you here to avenge him?” His hand drifted to the pistol at his hip. Another victim? But he couldn’t allow the wereboar to kill him or hurt anyone else on the Startracer.
“Shit. Huh. I didn’t think about that. Should I?” He shook his head, swaying his wild mane. “No, I mean, I guess he had it coming. Anyway, I don’t have time. I need to get to the Gathering Isle.”
The wereboar was not the most articulate of men, but few shifters were. Pasikole supposed the animals’ souls merging with their own were distracting. “And what is the Gathering Isle?”
“One of the other islands, northwest of here. And I need to get there in a hurry.”
Well that was a surprise. “You want me to take you there.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Pasikole frowned, then looked over the Startracer. “The ship’s still being repaired.” Did he owe this wereboar such service? Considering the damage he had already wrought among these people, he supposed he probably did. “I might be able to take you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? We need to leave now!”
“It’s not possible.”
The wereboar closed the distance between them in a single stride and thumped a finger against Pasikole’s chest. “You smell nervous, guilty even. You’re not sent by Lono, are you?”
And thus unraveled their carefully laid plans. The mask of Lono decorating their bow, their appearance during Lono’s festival, all had been calculated by their employers to win the trust of these people. To take advantage of the Sawaikians and the power they, or their Princesses, possessed. And it was all lies. Pasikole was sick of lies. As a scientist, his life’s work was the pursuit of truth, and somewhere, in that pursuit, he had been led astray. And finally, one of the Sawaikians was direct enough, uninhibited enough, to ask the question none dared ask.
“I never actually said I was.”
Kam snorted and shoved him away. Pasikole fell back several steps. Almost instantly Inemes was there, pistol trained on the wereboar. Pasikole held up a hand to forestall her at the same time the dog began snarling from the canoe below. A single shot would likely only make the wereboar mad. Besides, Kam was right.
“I am an e
xplorer. I’m just trying to understand our world. And, if I can, to make it a better place.”
“A what? Fine, sure. Explore the Gathering Isle.”
“Why the urgency?”
The wereboar stomped his foot and huffed. “Stupid fish people kidnapped our Princess, all right? And I need another Princess to get her back. So fix your shitting ship and let’s be off.”
Pasikole’s stomach lurched so violently he had to fight down a surge of bile. The mer had taken Namaka. But which mer—Hiyoya or Mu? Being kidnapped by any mer was bad, but if she had been taken by Mu, she was surely beyond the reach of any Princess on Sawaiki. He hadn’t been able to fully catalog the Gifts of the other Princesses, but he had to wonder what any save Namaka herself could do to fight a mer army, much less to attack an underwater city.
But Pasikole had brought this on her. Perhaps not directly, but his presence had stirred up a whirlwind on the Valley Isle. If he could do anything to rescue Namaka, he owed her that much.
“As soon as the ship can be repaired, I will take you. I swear, Kam, I’ll do everything in my power to help save Namaka.”
Six months ago, he had stood on Pier City off the coast of the Westlands. The city, called the Pier by most, was a floating drift nearly half a league across and a central hub for the Royal Trade Society. A bunch of fat old men and women sitting around, pretending to speak for the queen. Her Majesty was, of course, nestled in a hilltop palace. A figurehead much like the mermaid that graced the prow of the Startracer.
The Royal Trade Society had become the effective ruler of these waters, at least as far as humans were concerned. Beyond, of course, lay the Pirate Nations and then the endless sea, broken only by a handful of islands.
And he had spent more than a decade charting them, recording all he could learn. A mission that had become all the more urgent when he’d stumbled upon the unsettling fact that the mer and he’e ruled more than the deep. Just as the queen was a facade for the Royal Trade Society to govern the hundred isles of the Westlands, the Society was in turn a mask for a subtler and more perverse force. One that had spread across all human islands he had ever visited, hoarding knowledge and power and feeding mankind off the scraps of its own former greatness.
