by Matt Larkin
And nothing could have prepared her for that sight. She had thought the Worldsea endless, but here she gazed out and saw water stretching out forever. Looking up, luminous waters went on and on, with no trace of a surface in sight. Indeed, the ocean stretched forever in all directions.
“There is a cavern roof far, far above us,” Nyi Rara said.
Then all of this, the entire World of Water, was contained like some underground sea. It boggled her mind, left her unable to form words.
The mermaid guided her forward, their path rimmed by a procession of great stone pillars forty paces high. Those pillars were not like something carved on Earth, but at once natural and worked. Nothing was uniform about them, not their undulating shapes or the infinite variety of reliefs carved at their bases, and yet still they seemed wrought with immaculate care. As though the hand of divinity had shaped them.
Another mermaid swam ahead of them, guiding fish bigger than Pasikole’s ship. Namaka shrank away from the enormous creatures as they passed, but they paid her no attention. The line of pillars continued, making a gradual turn across the sea floor to avoid a chasm that looked deep enough to swallow the entire Valley Isle. Unable to help herself, she gazed into it.
The luminosity of the waters did not extend into its depths, but they did, however, reflect off something down there. A pair of eyes—an eel launched itself from the chasm. Mesmerized and horrified, Namaka froze. The monster must have been fifty paces long. Nyi Rara flung herself before Namaka and held up a hand that forestalled the charging creature. It spun in a tight arc, its incredible bulk slithering past Namaka’s face so close she could smell its oily flesh.
All she wanted to do was shut her eyes and wait for the terror to pass. It did not. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would explode.
“I’m not really here,” she mumbled.
“Your soul is,” Nyi Rara answered.
And that had to be worse than being here in body. Anything that feasted on her would devour her very essence as well.
Nyi Rara clasped her hand as if in comfort. “Come. The city is not too far now.”
The columns they followed did lead them to a city, one far larger than Hiyoya. Here, she could see the peak of the cavern, for the city was carved out of a massive pillar of rock that must have stretched for well over a league from floor to ceiling. Its breadth was as thick around as one of the smaller islands of Sawaiki, and all of it was porous, light shimmering from a hundred thousand windows within.
Other rock columns ringed the great city and a walkway, similar to the one leading to the Hiyoya palace, stretched out, meeting the path they had been following.
“This whole world is filled with mer?”
“Among other things. Come.” Nyi Rara led her toward the lowest opening in the pillar.
Hundreds of guards patrolled these waters, riding sharks and seahorses, each of which shimmered and boasted features too sharp, too perfect for anything born on Earth.
They passed through the archway and she found herself staring up through a column that was itself alive. Pulsing, living stone like the gullet of some whale. The walls were smooth, but covered in an endless procession of imperfections, bubbles of stone, arching supports that looked like ribs and made her suspect the mer had grown their city here.
And above them, a radiant light as though the sun itself shone down through the waters. Upward they swam, on and on, until finally Nyi Rara led her through a side passage. Here the structure changed, becoming more carefully carved stone. This tunnel connected to another vertical shaft, perfectly smooth save for the Glyphs carved into the walls. Nyi Rara had called them wards at Hiyoya. Perhaps here they also served to protect the city.
They swam upward once again, until they came upon another mermaid. Her skin was white as milk, as was her hair and her impossibly long tail. It trailed off into the shadows like she was as much an eel-woman as a fish woman. And though her eyes were opalescent, like Nyi Rara’s, Namaka suddenly recognized her.
“Hinaophualakoa.”
The Lorekeeper smiled knowingly at her, though weariness tugged at her eyes. “Being discorporated drains one so … Still, I felt you needed guidance. Nyi Rara’s intents are beyond the unusual.”
“But it can be done?” the mermaid princess asked. “This is what the Urchin showed me.”
Of course. Namaka should have known. The mermaid had refused to speak of it because she had feared what this meant.
“You must go to the mirror,” the witch said, and pointed at an arch leading out of this chamber. “But Nyi Rara, this is an action not easily undone, a choice that will change everything for you both.”
“I made my choice.”
Or the Urchin had made it for her. Or … necessity had. Namaka nodded. Yes, they had to save their people—both of her peoples.
“Then I will tell you the words,” the Lorekeeper answered.
Nyi Rara released Namaka’s hand and allowed her to roam the chamber while the two mermaids spoke. Namaka longed for her tail, finding her motions with legs sluggish, inadequate for the task ahead. Still, she swam about, inspecting the intricacies of the carvings. Thousands upon thousands of the marks were carved here, work that must have taken years. Or longer.
At last Nyi Rara returned, taking her hand once again. Saying nothing, the mermaid guided her through the newest arch. The passage went on for two hundred paces or so before it led into another cavern that inexplicably held a pocket of air. She breathed deeply, but the air had no taste, no substance.
“This is a world of spirit,” Nyi Rara said, as if that should answer everything. The mermaid resumed her legged form and pushed herself up onto a rock platform, then helped Namaka do the same.
Maybe Nyi Rara had brought her to this cave so they would have solitude. Water streamed down around the cave walls, falling without apparent source, blanketing the entire cavern in a shimmering curtain, behind which more gems glittered in the wall. It was beautiful, for certain.
Imagine the wealth a chief could have with a mere handful of such gems.
Nyi Rara laughed. “You cannot take anything back with you. It would have no more substance than I do in your world.”
Namaka nodded, though she didn’t really understand. She supposed she didn’t need to. What mattered right now was doing what they had come here to do. Whatever that was. “So now what?”
The mermaid smiled, though she seemed sad and, if anything, afraid. How odd, to think this entity, this being who existed like a goddess, could feel fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of change. Or perhaps, for someone who had eternity to look forward to, change became more frightening than it was to a mortal, whose life was always meant to be a temporary state.
“Again the disturbing insights from a mortal,” Nyi Rara mumbled. She led Namaka further back on the platform, until they reached a well, a pool of still water.
Odd. Even in the World of Water, they needed a well. “It’s your perception of a font of energy, of the power suffusing the world. Water is one means of divination, but it’s difficult to look into water and see anything when you are already in the water. Thus the air pocket.”
Namaka really had no idea what Nyi Rara meant, but she sat down beside the well and folded her legs beneath her.
The mermaid did so as well. “You have to choose me as much as I choose you.”
“Choose?”
“Accept me.”
“I accepted you a long time ago.”
Nyi Rara frowned, then shook her head. “Not completely.” She held up both hands, palms facing Namaka. “Choose.”
So that was it. Embrace Nyi Rara, accept completely and truly that her old life was gone forever. Choose a new life … one where she would no longer be merely Namaka and neither quite Nyi Rara. Part of her still wanted to go back, back to how she had been … was it mere days ago she had laughed and surfed with Pasikole? Lifetimes had passed in those few days. And now, she had to choose to let go of that past, and the promise of the fut
ure.
Choose to become someone else, and in so doing, let her old self die. That was why most hosts and spirits could never do this. And maybe, maybe Nyi Rara had to make a similar choice. That was it, wasn’t it? Part of her soul would imprint on the mermaid princess, shaping her for all eternity. If the mermaid lived for a thousand years, for ten thousand years, would she always carry with her a piece of Namaka?
The look on Nyi Rara’s face told her she would.
The people they had been would be lost—or at least forever altered. But this was what she had asked for all along, wasn’t it? This was her chance to truly embrace the undersea world that so called to her soul. And the last, only option to face the threat the he’e had sent against them.
Namaka leaned forward and grabbed the mermaid’s hands in her own.
“Feel your power flowing through the well. The primal waters of this world underly the waters of your reality. Feel our power.”
She did feel them, pulsing like a heartbeat, calling to her and soothing her. A part of her. As Nyi Rara was rapidly becoming a part of her. Not quite knowing why, Namaka leaned forward and gently kissed Nyi Rara on the lips. The mermaid actually giggled—a strange sound to hear from a majestic, ancient being—then pressed her forehead against Namaka’s.
Nyi Rara had saved her. In possessing her, in forcing her to look inward and finally understand herself, Nyi Rara had freed her. Had helped her let go of the anger that had so consumed her over what she had been denied in life. For that, Namaka would always be grateful. Because of the mermaid princess she could finally look on her life without that anger, finally accept the beauty of the destiny before her, appreciate the things she was given.
Trust your heart. In it is light, and kindness, and love. Her father had understood. The sea was her heart, her power. And its truest depths were not her rage, but her love. Love of her people, both above and below the sea, love of life itself.
“I choose you,” Namaka said.
The pulse around her not only mirrored her heartbeat—it became her heartbeat. Their heartbeat, in unison. The well rippled.
Those ripples became a swirl.
The swirl became a maelstrom, rising up like a liquid tornado. That tornado stole her vision, drew her into its infinite depths. Nyi Rara was chanting something, words of some ancient power that meant nothing to Namaka. And yet they meant everything, echoing in her mind like a song of the building of the universe.
Time slowed as Nyi Rara began to merge with Namaka, as their bodies became one. Namaka felt herself falling.
Her body ached as she woke in Mo-O’s cave. She was lying on the ground, her arm half asleep. She could feel the mermaid inside her, but it was all different now. They were one. One mind, one body, and almost one soul. And she could feel water, everywhere. She need not feed Nyi Rara mana to control it nor drain the spirit’s own energy for mastery. Two had become one.
Namaka stirred, suddenly aware of Kamapua’a weeping nearby and of the smell of blood filling the cavern. She jolted upright and turned. The wereboar lay upon Mo-O. Blood drenched the dragon’s body, seeping into every corner of the cave, but it no longer pumped.
“What …? What happened?” Namaka’s voice came out as a squeak. This was not real. This was not possible.
Kam turned slowly, his eyes red and swollen, his lip trembling with unformed words. He stretched out his hands toward her, holding in them a heart, a massive one that could only have come from the dragon who had raised them both.
Hand to her mouth, Namaka stumbled, fell hard on the cavern floor.
“Sh-she …” Kamapua’a mumbled. “She insisted. She said it was the only way. You needed more stupid mana than even your body held. I told her no! She shitting begged me!”
Her breaths came so rapidly she thought she might faint. This was impossible. Madness. Mo-O-Inanea was old, ancient. She was going to outlive them all. She was like a grandmother and she … Namaka could not tear her eyes away from the still heart. The dragon had been filled with mana, of course. Like Namaka.
She shook her head. “I will not.”
“You have to,” the wereboar said, voice breaking. “She gave up everything so you could save us all. Make it mean something. Please.”
Her hands shook as she tried to stand and failed. Deep inside the mermaid stirred, agreeing with the wereboar. Trying to plead the case of necessity. To tell her that, if she refused now, Mo-O’s sacrifice meant nothing. The voice in her head was gone, replaced with something deeper, a sensation beyond words.
This was what would happen to her too, when she died. It was the order of things, what kapu demanded. It made her sick. And yet there was balance inside her, a stillness granted by Nyi Rara, now joined with her.
Kam rose, still extending the heart to Namaka as he approached. “Take the last gift she has to give us, Fish Girl. Take it. And make those shitters pay for what they did.”
Yes. The he’e and their taniwha. It was why she had journeyed to the Ghost World. Why she had chosen to merge with Nyi Rara. Why all of this had happened, in truth. Even Pasikole had been sent by the cursed octopuses. And the longer she waited, the more mana would bleed out of Mo-O’s body, seep back into the land.
After a long, shuddering breath, Namaka took the heart in her hands. It had already started to grow cold.
“I love you,” she whispered to the dragon. From what she had seen in the Ghost World, maybe Mo-O was there now, watching her. Hearing her words. If so, she prayed the dragon could forgive her for ever refusing her lessons, for all the times she didn’t listen. For her selfish, childish ways. For the anger that had blinded her for so many years, made her miss the moments of joy she should have treasured.
Sometimes we must do difficult things to win the day. Nyi Rara had said that before Namaka entered the Ghost World. And it was the truth, a hard truth she would never forget.
Slowly, she lifted the heart to her mouth. And then she bit down.
Namaka glowered out over the sea. She knew where the taniwha was. The monster was coming back around the far side of the Valley Isle. The sea spoke to her as never before and she could feel everything in it, for leagues upon leagues. Power coursed through her, more mana than she had ever come close to holding. It was temporary, of course. Her body could not contain such vast amounts of cosmic energy and it would bleed off, lost if not used soon.
But Namaka intended to use it.
She strode into the ocean, her face grim, alaia surfboard under her arm. Such power had come with the most terrible price imaginable. Mo-O should not have done this, should not have had to do this. Now, the only way left she had to honor her dragon was to kill this one.
Rather than dive beneath the waves, she mounted her board and used her power to jet her forward. Now, more than ever, she was grateful she had chosen the sleekest, fastest board available. She needed to be up here, where Pasikole could see her, follow her to the monster. Powerful as she was, she might still need his cannons to finish this. One hand forward, guiding her, the other jutting out behind her, her board leapt forward faster than she had ever ridden. She could not savor the feeling, could not enjoy the rush. Not this time.
She glanced over her shoulder to confirm Pasikole’s ship was following. They didn’t nearly have her speed, but that wouldn’t matter. She was going to deal with the taniwha herself. And it was nearing, coming back around the island. It had probably destroyed all the other coastal villages in the time she’d been away. And she would make the dragon pay for that, too.
Its massive presence disrupted the currents, made its own currents in violation of her waters. And she was going to put a stop to that. As its monstrous shadow passed beneath her, Namaka leapt off her board and dove beneath the waves, instantly assuming her tail. The dragon paid her no mind even as she approached, and she needed to use her water jets just to match its speed. It was coming around the island, back toward where her village had once stood. Maybe the he’e had directed it to focus there, to focus on her peo
ple. To draw her out.
They needn’t have bothered.
Namaka swam up beside its eye, a mere handful of paces away. The orb had no iris, only an incandescent pupil like flowing magma. It watched her for an instant. Wondering if she was the prey it had been summoned for? Namaka was going to make certain it knew the answer. She launched a lance of water right at the eye. The monster didn’t have time to blink before the spear-like pulse ripped through its lens. The eye exploded in a shower of gore and steam, blurring the water as though actual lava had lurked within the dragon.
Its bellow of pain drowned out all other sound, deafening her and disrupting whatever ability mermaids had to detect the movement of waters around them. Namaka spiraled out of control, clutching her ears as she plummeted into the seabed.
The dragon’s wild thrashing slammed it into a reef, pulverizing coral beneath it. It flailed a moment before focusing its remaining eye on her, radiating a palpable rage that left Namaka feeling like a minnow before a shark. Her ears were ringing. Everything felt off. Despite it all, she launched another narrow pulse at the dragon.
Now she had its attention. The pulse glanced off its head, barely slowing it. It sprang forward with speed and agility a creature of its size should never have managed. Namaka launched a stream of water off to her side, flinging herself in the opposite direction just as the taniwha’s jaws crunched down on coral where she had been.
Namaka twisted around and took off swimming, but with her disrupted her equilibrium, she collided with the reef, tearing a gash along her arm. She darted into a crevice, swimming as fast as she could, taking every hiding place. New instinct guided her every movement, told her exactly where she could fit. Instants after each turn the taniwha crashed into the space where she had been, obliterating the reef into nothing but a cloud of dust and debris floating in the waters.
All right. So she’d succeeded in making it mad. Really mad. She shot another jet of water from her hands, propelling herself away with as much force as she could. Away and upward. She could be fairly certain the taniwha would follow her now.
