The Seventh Princess

by Matt Larkin

  Pasikole drew his weapon and fired on a he’e advancing on him and Namaka. The creature jerked as part of its head splattered. Its arms kept dragging it forward, slithering over the deck like they had minds of their own. The creature was going to strangle Pasikole, as they had tried to do to her. But she had the strength of a mermaid—a human form would be crushed in moments.

  Namaka grabbed the captain and leapt over the side of the ship, transforming her legs back into a tail. Pasikole’s eyes widened at the sight. She wrapped her arms around his waist, dove deep. In the pre-dawn darkness she couldn’t see far, but far enough to see he’e crawling all over the hull. Maybe the creatures had realized Pasikole had betrayed them. Perhaps they had come to punish his failure. Or maybe they’d always planned to kill him.

  As she swam, she sent a current spiraling at one of the he’e. The vortex knocked it off the hull and sent it skittering through the water before its rapidly pumping arms could arrest its momentum. Her attack had also caused the ship to rock like it had been kicked by a giant warrior.

  Pasikole beat against her back and she glanced at him, taking in the panic in his eyes, his cheeks looking like they were about to burst. On instinct she kissed him, blowing air into his mouth. She didn’t know how she was able to do it, but after flailing a moment more, he relaxed, eyes widening again. Then he nodded at her.

  Namaka turned again to see another he’e rapidly propelling itself toward her and Pasikole. A wave of her arm sent a current jetting toward it, carrying it hundreds of paces away from her. She had to do something about those on the ship, though, or there would be no crew left to fight the taniwha.

  The hull was covered in the crawling, monstrous things, stuck to it with those awful suckers. And quickly making their way up to the deck where they could wrap themselves around helpless men and women. She knew all too well the fear that evoked, the pain of being slowly crushed beneath far too many slimy, grasping, sucking arms.

  She blew another breath into Pasikole and he held her face, leaving it tingling. She hadn’t intended the gesture to be romantic, but she almost didn’t want to let him go. Kāne, her heart kept getting her into too much trouble. She pushed the man away then pointed to the surface. He nodded and swam straight upward.

  Then she summoned currents on both sides of the ship, calling them to her. Aumakuas, but she wished Nyi Rara was here to help guide this. Still, she was probably going to need the mermaid’s help soon enough when they faced the taniwha. She had to do this herself. Namaka screamed, releasing all her rage and pent-up frustration along with the current. The water slapped both sides of the hull with the force of a typhoon, shearing he’e from it on all sides. Those that refused to break their suction had their arms severed by the current.

  In an instant the waters darkened with blood and ink as the he’e fled. The ship bucked, listing so far to one side a wave crashed over the newly repaired mast. For a single breath-stealing instant, she thought the whole vessel was going to capsize. Crew fell from the near-vertical deck, plummeting into the sea. And then the ship pitched back in the opposite direction, at last righting itself.

  Some hapless souls were caught in the rigging and slammed against the hull as the ship bucked and reeled. More than one skull cracked open, and Namaka grimaced. That had cost more than she’d hoped. A few beats of her tail carried her up to where Pasikole now treaded water on the surface, staring in horror at his ship. She wrapped an arm around his waist and used a jet of water to launch them both out of the sea and back onto the deck.

  By now, the he’e still on board were diving over the side, joining their fleeing brethren. From the look of it, half of Pasikole’s crew were dead in their wake. Many of their bodies had fallen over the side, but some lay strewn about the deck, crushed to pulp. Their faces turned purple, arms twisted at unnatural angles, necks squeezed so tightly their heads seemed ready to pop free.

  Countless circular red sores covered them too, from where the he’e suckers had latched onto flesh. Namaka grimaced, barely able to keep herself from retching at the gruesome destruction around her.

  “I hate the he’e,” she mumbled.

  “As do I,” Pasikole said beside her. His voice was dark, his face a mask of rage. This was what the he’e had done to their human allies. This was what they thought of surface dwellers. And Pasikole must now be thinking much the same thing. What would he do about it? Would all this break the man, send him fleeing Sawaiki once and for all?

  Namaka couldn’t afford for that to happen. “I know you grieve your losses. But the real enemy is still out there.”

  Pasikole blew out a long, deep breath before turning to look down at her eyes. “The he’e are the real enemy. This taniwha is just a weapon of theirs. I will help you fight it. Though with so many of my people fallen or injured, I …” He shook his head.

  It wasn’t going to be enough. That was what he feared to say. His ship, his cannons, weren’t going to be enough.

  “Trying to shoot a sea monster will have the same problem as trying to fight the he’e,” he said. “We can only take a shot at something on the surface, not an enemy below us, nor one already upon our hull.”

  And like the he’e, the taniwha wasn’t going to attack them like it was some war canoe, especially not if it realized they had the means to harm it. It would attack from the depths, render those cannons useless.

  Unless … unless she could force it to the surface. Maybe Nyi Rara could harness that kind of power. Maybe. But the last time she had tried to feed her mana directly to the mermaid princess it left Namaka unconscious. Nyi Rara said she couldn’t even move Namaka’s body.

  What if there was another way?

  Nyi Rara, thank Kāne! Namaka had begun to wonder when she would finally hear the other princess’s voice again.

  You are the strangest host.

  Why? Because Namaka wanted—what had Nyi Rara called it? Symbiosis? She needed Nyi Rara and she knew that.

  Maybe … maybe there is a way we can be blended more fully.

  How?

  Namaka could almost feel the mermaid sigh inside her soul. Go somewhere safe, calm.

  They had no time for safety. People were dying all over the Valley Isle.

  You will need to meditate deeply enough that your soul can leave your world.

  Enter the Ghost World? Sure, that sounded easy. And absolutely horrifying. People who slept deeply were sometimes said to dream their souls into the Ghost World. But to do it on purpose, to walk there …

  Sometimes we must do difficult things to win the day.

  Namaka swallowed, then turned back to Pasikole. “Make your ship ready. I’ll find a way to get you that shot.”

  Namaka had retreated to Mo-O’s cave, seeking quiet as well as escape from the morning sun. According to Nyi Rara, the darkness would make this meditation journey easier. The prospect of seeing the mermaid’s real world was enthralling, true, but it left her trembling as well. The Ghost World was the ultimate tabu. Only a kahuna of the greatest power could glimpse it while awake, and even then, they spoke of it only in whispers.

  A human could not normally reach the Spirit Realm.

  Spirit Realm … was that what they called the Ghost World? Namaka folded her legs beneath her and shut her eyes, trying to close out all sensation with them. That was what Uncle Kamalo said she must do. Clear her mind. Right, sure. Because that was her specialty. Namaka’s mind whirred so quickly she often couldn’t even sleep.

  It will be easier because I am inside you. I can pull you into my world, if you let me.

  Pull her into the Ghost World. She suppressed another shudder but couldn’t still her trembling breath.

  You are afraid.

  Well, no shit.

  Your body will remain right where it is. Your mind and soul alone will walk beside me. Calm yourself and take my hand.

  Namaka wasn’t quite sure how to take the hand of an incorporeal spirit possessing her body. After mulling it over for a moment, she decided
grabbing her own hand was the easiest way to do it. Nyi Rara sighed in her mind.

  Imagine me for a moment as a person like you, walking beside you. See me in your mind’s eye.

  Fine. Except Namaka had no clue what Nyi Rara actually looked like.

  Don’t you?

  Her breath caught as a hazy figure materialized in her mind. Whether it was a trick Nyi Rara perpetrated or a vision drawn from her own mind, Namaka couldn’t say. Maybe it didn’t matter. Though roughly humanoid in shape, the woman who stood in front of her was far from human. She had opalescent eyes as alien as those of the he’e and, in place of ears, multi-layered fins sticking out from beneath the blue-black hair plastered over her face in wet strands. Fine scales covered her entire body, a faint blue-green sheen to them. She stood on legs, but her ankles bore small fins. The hand she reached out was webbed, her fingers ending in nails Namaka could only call claws.

  All around her darkness stretched as far as she could see. There was nothing, absolutely nothing save the creature before her, reaching a hand toward her. Every strand of her being demanded Namaka open her eyes and flee from things the human mind was not meant to see. This creature might be nestled within her soul, but to see her like this made it too real, too inescapable.

  “You asked me for symbiosis.” The woman spoke with the same voice that had so long echoed in Namaka’s mind, except now it sounded like words spoken aloud, coming from outside herself. Was Nyi Rara now outside her, or was her mind simply playing a trick on her? The mermaid frowned, but kept her hand outstretched toward Namaka. “In your world, you tend to think of reality as one thing or another. But once you leave behind the human world, human perception and human logic must be left behind as well. Now. Do you wish to do this? I cannot force you to take this journey, for it is not a journey of your body, but of your mind, your soul.”

  Nyi Rara was right. Namaka had asked for this, had wanted to find a way to reconcile their two natures. And that meant accepting Nyi Rara for what she truly was. It had been so easy to think of her merely as another person talking to Namaka. But Nyi Rara wasn’t a person, exactly. She was something so far beyond human experience that Namaka might—almost—have more in common with someone like Ambassador Punga than with the mermaid princess.

  Almost. But not quite.

  She grabbed Nyi Rara’s hand. The spirit’s hand closed around Namaka’s arm, her skin clammy and chilled as a fish, rough with scales. Somehow, despite the claws digging into her own arm, Namaka felt a kind of peace holding Nyi Rara’s hand. And as she accepted that peace, the darkness around her began to fill with faint light, like stars viewed through a cloudy night. Slowly that starlight suffused the cave enough that she could see around her.

  Her body remained where she had left it, legs still folded beneath her as she meditated, but it seemed a mere shadow in this place. As did the bodies of Mo-O and Kamapua’a, both watching her still form in obvious nervousness. Movement flickered outside the cave and she turned toward it. Shades drifted in and out of view, some the shadows of villagers back there in the real world, drinking from the river or praying and weeping for those lost.

  Namaka pulled against Nyi Rara’s hand, feeling somehow she had to see outside. The spirit acquiesced and walked with her out of the cave. Outside there no floated overhead, but the sky was lit by iridescent clouds of every color she could think of, colors even she had never imagined and had no names for.

  Motion again drew her eyes. Drifting among the shadows of the living were what could only be ghosts. Though slightly translucent, the ghosts seemed more real here than the people she had left behind. They walked about the villagers, idly lingering beside some, whispering words that the living gave no indication of hearing. Their forms were bedraggled, bearing the injuries that had slain them, but they were definitely the villagers who had died in the taniwha’s attack. Ghosts not yet sent beyond the world, not yet put to rest by a kahuna’s prayers, by the mourning chants and a proper funeral. Her people—dead and still suffering.

  Some of them looked to her, shaking their heads. Did they judge her? Did they think her a failure as a Princess? None spoke to her. What words they had seemed meant only for the loved ones they had left behind. Some of the ghosts knelt around villagers, weeping, clenching their fists and shrieking in lamentations that—now that she had begun to listen—left her shivering. Those ghosts had congregated around villagers whose shadows here seemed off, weaker. A foul disruption in their essence somehow reaching into the Ghost World.

  “What’s wrong with those people?”

  “They are sick,” Nyi Rara said. “The foreigners brought diseases with them, illnesses to which they are adapted. But your people were isolated, never exposed before, never prepared. Those who survive will be more resistant, of course.”

  “Those who …? What in Mi—”

  Nyi Rara slapped a hand over Namaka’s mouth. “I told you, do not use that name. It is a name for the Demon Queen of the mists. And we do not want her eyes drawn to us, especially not while we are here.”

  Milu could hear Namaka speak her name? She shook her head. She didn’t care about that right now. All that mattered was helping these people. Oh Kāne, her mother was sick, wasn’t she? She was one of those taken by the disease. No! She had lost her father. She was not going to lose her mother as well.

  “Do something! Save these people.”

  Nyi Rara sighed and shook her head. “I don’t have that kind of power. The only way I could save any of them would be to have one of my people possess them. A spirit inside might be able to overcome the disease.”

  Namaka grimaced. To save her mother’s life she must force her to live the way Namaka now lived. If that was the price, then it was one she was willing to pay. “All right, do it.”

  “I cannot right now. My people are beset by the he’e and the taniwha. We can look to solve this issue once the dragon is slain.”

  Namaka huffed. “Then what do we do now? We’re here in your world. Get on with it.”

  “This reality is not my world. It’s a barrier, a crossroads between your realm and the Spirit Realm. We call it the Astral Plane. To you, I suppose, it is part of your Ghost World.” Nyi Rara pointed to the river. “We can reach my world through any significant body of water. This will do.”

  Namaka took a step toward the river, then paused, feeling someone watching her. She turned slowly, not certain why she felt so hesitant.

  Behind her, on the bridge crossing the river, stood her father. Unlike the other ghosts, he bore no injuries. Perhaps his cremation and funeral had eased his suffering. But how was he here, now? Shouldn’t he have moved on? Or had he become an aumakua, a spirit to watch over her? Namaka swallowed and motioned for Nyi Rara to wait for her, then trod slowly up to where her father waited.

  “Papa?” she asked at last.

  The ghost looked at her with sad eyes, and then, hesitantly, embraced her. Drew her toward his chest as he had not done for so long in life. “I’m proud of you.”

  Namaka gasped, unable to trust herself to speak, and just held him close. The words were like a dream, one she had longed for, sought after for years. “I thought I shamed you.”

  “Never. There are tabus, rules that guide the living. As there are now rules binding the dead. But they are not the same, and in this place I can finally tell you how much I love you, daughter.”

  Namaka choked back a sob. “Mother is—”

  Her father held up a hand. He knew. Of course he knew. “You have agonized for so long over the weight placed upon you.”

  She shook her head. She finally understood, knew why things had to be a certain way.

  “But you are not like any Princess before you. You have embraced a destiny beyond those for whom kapu was meant. And so your tabus too must change. Trust yourself, Namaka. Trust your heart. In it is light, and kindness, and love. And those are your strengths, not your weaknesses.”

  “Papa …” Ten thousand things she wanted to say to him, b
ut no words would come. What had he meant? Trust her heart? It had led astray in the first place. Or maybe not. Maybe she had made mistakes, but made them for the right reasons. Was that what he meant?

  Her father pointed toward where Nyi Rara waited. He was right. She had no time for a reunion here. Her people needed their Princess. As she made her way back to Nyi Rara, she cast another glance at her father, but he was gone.

  Namaka shut her eyes, trying to block out the world for a moment. And then she felt Nyi Rara’s hand holding her own. The spirit led her and they descended into the river. The water felt off, slightly less wet than it should have, and she could breathe and see normally in it. The riverbed declined steeply, far deeper than she knew it to be in her world. It sloped off into seeming oblivion.

  Nyi Rara continued toward that darkness, swimming now, but not releasing Namaka’s hand—and Namaka was damn glad of that. Nyi Rara was all she had to cling to in this place. They swam on, deeper and deeper, until Namaka’s ears popped. Something shifted, and suddenly the water felt cool and wet once more, like real water. Only more so. Wetter than water, though she couldn’t even understand how that was possible.

  Purple light filtered in around her. They had somehow swum into an underwater cave. Nyi Rara’s legs had become a tail, though Namaka’s own had not. None of this made any sense. Damn, she was ready to go home.

  As they swam through the cave, she spied other mermaids lounging about, admiring jewelry of gold, glittering with gems that shed their own otherworldly light. She was definitely dreaming.

  “In a sense you are, yes. In a sense, we both are.”

  “We’re here now?” She spoke, only briefly considering it strange she could still speak and breathe underwater like a mermaid.

  “This is the World of Water. One of the nine worlds of the Spirit Realm. My world.”

  Whereas the Ghost World, what Nyi Rara called the Astral Plane, had seemed dark, lit only by starlight, this world was vibrant. Radiant, even. The cavern walls glowed without any apparent source of light. Nyi Rara led her on and on, until at last they breached the cavern and entered into open ocean.