by Matt Larkin
You will work with me, Namaka thought at the mermaid, or you will find battle even more chaotic than usual. Can you afford to lose control while under attack? Do you wish to use my powers?
Nyi Rara snarled at her, drawing a look from Ake. Submit, mortal!
Dying weakened you for a decade. Care to die again because of your arrogance?
The mermaid growled now, but released Namaka, allowing her to freely swim alongside Ake.
They swam through the benthic city. Coral covered large swathes of it, and much construction was cut directly from the substance. Other buildings seemed carved of stone. But low down, in crevasses she saw hints of foundations that looked older, lending some credence to the tales that Mu had once been a land that sank.
Yes. The old continents destroyed each other. Old Mu broke apart and became Sawaiki and Kahiki and other islands across the Muian Sea. The other six seas are populated by archipelagos of similar origins, from the ruins of Kumari Kandam and Kêr-Ys, though Hy-Brasil escaped somewhat more intact.
What the fuck did all that mean?
In a crevasse, Ake guided her to a series of hollows carved into the wall. From windows streamed hundreds of blue-green lights. Sharks swam freely about in front of the compound—the Dakuwaqa Estate, Namaka assumed. Hidden in recesses in the coral or clinging to the sharks, she spotted the occasional tattooed mer warrior, bearing spears or tridents.
Dakuwaqan Rangers. The pride of Mu. Their numbers dwindle as the war drags on.
Ake led her inside the estate, through long corridors, where she passed Taema, who offered her a timid nod. “The sun will rise soon. We rest now, and we leave for the front once the moon returns.”
The grotto was decorated with beautiful seashells and featured a circular hole in the ceiling to let in moonlight. The moment she saw it, a profound sense of being home washed over her, as though her human life had been a dream, separating her soul from its true place.
Nyi Rara appeared to be resting, for she had relinquished control and said nothing.
“What is your position, exactly, Ake?”
Ake must have taken her question as an invitation to follow her into the grotto. “You are the host.”
“I am. Or maybe she’s my host.”
Ake gnashed shark-like teeth, as if unable to form a response to that. After a moment of awkward silence, he shook his head. “I am the Commander of the Rangers and younger brother to Taema and Tilafaiga.” He paused a moment. “And that is not how I got my position.” A sensitive topic? “You should rest. Your body and mind will need to be strong for tomorrow.”
Namaka nodded, and settled down along the seabed to rest, watching Ake as he left.
This all pushed her so far beyond her experience … but she had no desire to go back. If this was her life, she would gladly accept it.
Provided she could rule, and not Nyi Rara, or at the very least achieve a balance.
Namaka would settle for no less.
12
Days Gone
Namaka had drunk deep of the awa during the luau, and now the morning sun had her head feeling like the sea breaking upon rocks.
Relentless.
She sat on the lagoon’s shore, her pa‘u strewn further up the beach—she’d left the feather cloak in the palace—letting the tide wash over her feet.
Early in the morning, a few fishermen were out on the lagoon, but mostly the village remained quiet, others sleeping off the awa and the celebration. Lono’s Festival—the new year—would continue another four days. During such times, tabus were lightened, and men and women lost themselves in revelry, lasciviousness, and general joy at life.
It was the best time of the year, really, and Namaka had taken both her husbands to bed that night, a thought that brought a quirk of a smile to her face in remembrance. She’d snuck out now, not overly concerned about waking them. The odds of either of them waking after downing that much awa were about the same as her odds of tripping over the moon.
No, it meant she was alone this morning, save for the soft plodding across the sand of someone stalking closer.
“Aloha, Queen Namaka,” Aukele called, approaching.
She glanced in his direction, and he discarded his own malo skirt so he could sit on the water’s edge beside her. He ought to have waited for her to invite him to sit, but the man was bold. A prince in his own land, a descendant of Mo‘oinanea, and perhaps that somehow left him thinking he was her equal here.
“I don’t think you know much about Uluka‘a,” she said at last.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me of your gods in Sawaiki. To whom are your heiaus dedicated?”
Aukele shrugged. “The highest is Kāne, of course, who saved man from the Deluge. Then Lono, whom I heard your own people worshipping last night. Kū is lord of war and the wilds. Kanaloa is god of the deep.”
Namaka nodded slowly, not really looking at him. “The worship of Lono is a holdover from days long gone. All the gods you mentioned, yes, my people still pay homage to them, though less to Kū or Kāne, who left in the days of Maui. I’m told they remain popular in nearby Kahiki. Here, though, in Uluka‘a, the first power is always Haumea.”
“I’m not familiar with that goddess.”
“My mother,” she said. Now, Aukele stiffened appreciably and Namaka barely forced down her chuckle at his obvious shock and discomfort. “Haumea ruled here for countless generations, even in the time of Maui, but some years back, she tired of it all and wished to leave. She had four …” Aukele had no need to know about those long gone. “At the time she had three daughters, but since has dropped one more in our laps—and decided to divide Uluka‘a between the two eldest of us, myself and Pele. The younger daughter, Kapo, then left for Sawaiki, alongside her mentor and fellow sorceress, Uli.”
Aukele clapped his hands on his knees. “What I see from all this is … we are connected, you and I, your family and mine.”
Namaka laughed at his audacity in such a claim. While she tried to explain to him that the people of Uluka‘a saw her and Pele as god-queens, all Aukele heard was Namaka’s commonalities with him.
“You are kupua,” she said, “but not a wererat or any other kind of shifter. So what, exactly, can you do?”
Aukele shrugged. “I swim very well. I can hold my breath much longer than a normal man. In fact, I have greater than human stamina in … all endeavors.”
She rolled her eyes. Amazing. “Come with me.”
Namaka led Aukele back toward the valley where Milolii had raised her and where, by his recognition, the mo‘o had clearly been sheltering Aukele for some time. At some point, Namaka would need to seek out the dragon and have words with her about that.
Still, she could hardly blame Milolii for sheltering her own descendant, could she?
For now, though, she merely enjoyed the pleasance of Aukele’s continuing story. “You can imagine I was taken aback to have come face to face with a distant ancestor, and the greatest of the mo‘o, no less. I was yet more askance at the conversation with Mo‘oinanea that followed.”
“A long time I waited for one such as you,” Mo‘oinanea said to me. “One flush with mana, strong enough to lay claim to a great destiny. The tides of fate are complex, you see, and we are caught in currents that stretch back and forward through time, bending us to great and terrible purposes.”
Still trembling a little—which I shall attribute to pain—I could only gape at her. I had little idea what she meant by such lines which, coming from anyone else, would have seemed comically pompous.
“You know of the land from which Maui sailed, twelve centuries ago?”
“Savai‘i.”
“Yes. East of there lies Kahiki, where some of Maui’s first kāhuna came from. And across the channel from Kahiki lies the fabled kingdom of Uluka‘a, now ruled by the glorious queens, Namaka and Pele. You must go there. And you must become king.”
Now, of course, I mumbled at my unworthiness for such an undertakin
g, while secretly harboring a flush of incredible pride. My ancestor, a living ‘aumākua by all accounts, had declared me worthy to rule this fabled land.
I thought, in my arrogance, she meant I was to conquer it, and thus I came with such intent. Now, I realize, My Queen, there is another way in which a man might become a king, and I suspect that was Mo‘oinanea’s intent all along.
Namaka scoffed at the man’s sheer audacity, pausing just before the valley. “You think yourself worthy to become my husband, Aukele?” She shook her head. “I choose who I wish to wed and who I wish to lay with and share my mana with. My husbands, however, rule nothing save through my authority. And regardless, if you intend to court my affections, you have quite some way to go.”
Aukele, though, just smiled as if he knew something she didn’t. An infuriating, arrogant smile that almost made her reconsider wanting to take him on this little trek.
After walking in silence for a bit longer, the land opened into the valley and she led him up to the rope bridge.
“Beautiful,” he said, staring at the waterfall that covered the cave where Namaka had once lived, as if he had not seen it before.
It cascaded down the green mountains, falling into a pool a hundred feet above where she stood, then tumbling down another fall over the cave. Once she had tried to climb the peak and find its source, but her energy had given out before she could reach so high, like the waters were poured from the heavens by the sky god Wākea himself.
Namaka moved to stand beside Aukele on the bridge. It was beautiful, of course, though that wasn’t the only thing she wanted to show him. She reached out, allowing her mana to brush over the water and call it to her. She spread her hands in the air, palms up. Ripples formed in the river below, then spouts of water jutted up, covering them both in a spray like cleansing rain. Geyser after geyser fountained into the air, forming crisscrossing lines like a net of water above their heads.
Aukele sucked in a sharp breath, then turned about, basking in the falling water. “That’s how you sank our fleet.”
Namaka murmured in assent. It took a bit of concentration to keep the shower going, but she wouldn’t have cast this aside for all the riches of the Worldsea. “Milolii was almost a second mother to me. That she has vouched for you keeps you safe, for the moment. You are, however, a long way from winning my favor, foreigner.”
The man laughed as if making a bad throw in kilu, rather than risking getting sacrificed if he pushed her too far. He hardly seemed to understand fear.
Namaka shrugged and finally let the waterspouts die. Almost instantly the river resumed its normal flow, as though she had never touched it at all. For all her power, nature reverted to its own balance the moment she was removed. Some believed her parents were eternal, but even as a kupua, Namaka’s time in the Mortal Realm would have its limits.
Aukele leaned on the rope bridge. “Then I should just keep talking until you’ve been thoroughly wooed.”
Namaka rolled her eyes.
When the sun had set, Mo‘oinanea lifted me from the pit, allowing me to rest upon her shoulders. While sinuous, I’d have judged her bulk to stretch at least forty or fifty feet, enough to heft me up and allow me to scramble away from my prison.
“Mahalo,” I said, turning to look back at her, but she had already slipped back into the darkness and, a moment later, I heard a splash. Perhaps that hole had some connection to the sea, for tale claims the mo‘o always find themselves drawn back to the deep.
Regardless, I stalked back toward the village and my family’s palace, uncertain how to proceed. The great mo‘o had all but placed a tabu upon me, effectively commanding me to travel to Uluka‘a and make myself king. I could manage neither the journey nor the conquest alone, and thus I knew I needed support from the people of my father’s kingdom.
My brothers, however, had betrayed me, and I knew if they learned I yet lived, they would only make another attempt on my life. Thus, I broke away from Lihue and traveled overland instead to Waimea, where my half-sister Hina lived with Chief Hakalanileo. Making such a trek, injured as I was, proved no easy feat, though I’ll not bore you with the details.
Suffice it to say, I was found by my sister’s kahuna Lonoaohi, and taken in to have my injuries treated. He sensed the mana within me and claimed, were I a mere mortal, I might have succumbed to the rot for such wounds as I’d taken in the pit.
I remember lying there, in the kahuna’s hut, sweating next to a fire, breathing in rank herbs designed to improve my natural healing abilities. I remember … my half-sister, she came to see me, sent for by Lonoaohi.
Hina was younger than I, a child of Uli and my uncle, Kalana. She stared at me a long time, as if trying to decide if she even recognized me. Given that cold sweats plastered my hair to my chest, I suppose I cannot much blame her. Nor had I seen her in long years.
With her came the elder of her sons, Kana, who I had played with when he was a child, and taken hunting and swimming and surfing. Kana, for his part, raced to my side and grasped my hand, hissing—whether at the stench of the herbs or the paleness of my flesh, I don’t know.
“It’s not a good time for you to be here,” Hina finally said. “Hakalanileo is vexed with Kamapua‘a and damn well might cast you out or worse to spite me.”
I could only groan at that. Kamapua‘a was another child of Uli and Kalana, and thus my half-brother and Hina’s full brother. But since she had all but raised the boy, I think she thought of him almost as a son. I didn’t know him half so well, but even I had heard of his rapidly deteriorating relationship with Hakalanileo, who perhaps believed the other kupua a threat to his own sons, including Kana.
I doubt Kamapua‘a had ill intent toward his nephews, but since his brother-in-law forced the issue, we’ll never know.
All this, of course, holds little bearing on the tale I weave for you now. What matters is that, on hearing of my travails and how my brothers had betrayed me, Kana insisted on joining me in first taking revenge and then on finding fabled Uluka‘a. The boy was young, but he was a skilled warrior and I could not have asked for a better friend by my side.
His brother, Niheu, however, elected to remain in Waimea and look after his mother. Considering Chief Hakalanileo’s growing displeasure with Kamapua‘a, I can’t say the boy made the wrong choice.
When I had healed a little more, Kana traveled with me, back to Lihue. While I waited outside the village, he made his way in and began to spread the tale of how my father’s chosen heir had met with such foul treatment. I wish I could have seen the looks on men’s faces on hearing that. Regardless, they came to me, small bands of men, eager to make things right and repay the treachery my brothers had visited upon me.
In the night, we stormed the palace. Our axes and spears fell heavily upon those who had betrayed me, sparing their warriors only if they raised no weapon against us. Dozens died that night, and I remember the screams, the blood flying. I remember the strange maelstrom of disgust and exaltation as I hacked my eldest brother’s head from his shoulders.
And Kana! Oh, Kāne! That boy ripped through our foes like a whirlwind, his spear gouging eyes and slicing out throats, spilling entrails in a typhoon of viscera. He was fierce beyond belief, and I was awed.
My father, when we came upon him, just shook his head sadly, as if he’d suspected what my brothers had done even when they reported my death. He did not blame me—I hope he did not—but I never saw joy on his face again, and, some days later, when we loaded the boats and set sail to find Kahiki and Uluka‘a, my father did not come to the shore to see us off.
I … wish things had gone differently for my brothers. I wish such sorrow had not come to my father. But how could I offer any other answer to my own family who had thrown me in a pit and left me to die? How could I not revenge myself on such a crime?
Oh, My Queen … Do you understand vengeance? It is not a pretty thing, but I think the ‘aumākua demand it of us. Such is the natural order of things. Actions prompt rea
ctions, necessarily. Some deeds cannot be borne.
Well, I am neither proud nor repentant of my actions, and, over the many miles of the Worldsea, I had a long, long time to think on them.
What I do regret, though, is that when we came to your shores, I mistook Mo‘oinanea’s tabu placed upon me for thinking I must come as a conqueror and claim this kingdom. Our fleet came to your island, and you turned a kai e‘e upon us, swatting us like buzzing flies. Perhaps, that too was what the natural order demanded by Pō.
I cannot say.
My men drowned. My ships sank. And my nephew was … lost.
While I, able to swim far beneath the sea, endured, and made it to shore, half-dead and broken by grief. Bemoaning the loss of my beloved Kana, whom I had seen grow from childhood.
Namaka huffed out a sigh. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Ah, well, there is more to the tale. But to jump ahead a little, some days later, Upoho found Kana, washed up on shore, lingering on death’s threshold. His soul has fled his body, the dragon tells me, but his body has not yet given up. As a kupua, he is too strong for his own good, and thus I watch him dying slowly.”
“He’s alive?” Namaka clucked her tongue.
Aukele groaned. “If you wish to call it that.” He sniffed. “Ah, but I get ahead of myself.”
I don’t remember crawling from the shore, but I found myself in the jungle that night, when Upoho found me. There was this chittering sound and I blinked through the haze of pain to see a rat sitting on an extruded root, staring hard at me with eyes holding too much intelligence. An almost predatory gleam. Did it think to eat me? Did it think I had so few breaths left in my body?
Growling, I hurled a broken coconut at it, but the effort had my vision dimming and I saw nothing else after that.