Heirs of Mana Omnibus

by Matt Larkin

  Bellowing in agony, the mo‘o spun about, swimming off in retreat.

  More of the creatures closed in. Nyi Rara watched in horror as mighty jaws closed around a mer torso where scales met flesh. A twist and a jerk of the dragon’s head crunched down to the spine and snapped the hapless Ranger in half.

  “The tunnels!” Apukohai shouted at her, dragging her back within Uluhai.

  She expected the Rangers to try to bottleneck the mo‘o immediately inside, but rather they retreated back to the first vestibule—a great colonnaded hall—where Hokohoko led the Kuula troops. From this position, they could concentrate their strength, but there was also more chance for mo‘o to surge past them into further tunnels, infiltrating the city.

  Behind the line, Ake snarled, panting and infuriated, trying to lunge forward as if to engage the dragon army all on his own. One of the other Rangers guided her Commander back, struggling to control him in such a state.

  With a groan, Nyi Rara settled onto the seafloor to catch her breath.

  The disturbance of the currents gave her an instant of warning when the mo‘o breached the tunnel. A chance to shout to the others before six of the creatures broke into the vestibule. Rangers and Kuula troops surged up to meet them in a great cluster of chaos that made it impossible for Nyi Rara to direct her powers without killing her own people.

  A mo‘o burst through their lines, crashed into a column breaking away a waterworn relief, and spun around, trying to escape into the inner city. This one Nyi Rara seized with a wave, slamming it up into the ceiling with such force as to crack the stone. Dazed, the mo‘o drifted in the water upside down. Bellowing her own fury, Nyi Rara drove a water lance through one of its gleaming eyes, splattering incandescent fluid and darker ichor over the vestibule.

  Other mer soldiers rushed in to finish it off, but even so, more mo‘o broke past them, achieving what the first had failed to: ingress into Uluhai proper. The mer within were not warriors and thus would be easier prey.

  Had that been their orders? To sow chaos? To spread terror through indiscriminate murder?

  Godsdamn it all. A beat of her tail sent Nyi Rara chasing after the mo‘o. She had to catch them before they could do too much harm.

  Beyond the vestibule, Uluhai narrowed into tight tunnels and a maze of stone grottos. Screams and blood and stirred-up debris greeted her, blinded her, in fact, as she darted in and out of buildings that might have once been apartments for the residents of this place. She peered through windows large enough to slip in, were she so inclined, and found numerous mer huddled within, hiding from the rampaging dragons.

  But Nyi Rara had no time to offer words of comfort.

  Instead, she slipped deeper into the city, trying to follow the carnage and pain and fear back to its source. She needed to quickly kill the mo‘o before they could—

  A saurian maw burst through a window, elongated neck snapping down at her. Nyi Rara threw herself to the side with a jet of water, but a dragon claw raked her back, scraping her spine and shoulder blade. White agony blurred her vision even as the impact hurtled her sideways, crashing into the wall.

  A massive form whirled around in the water, a haze of muscle closing in on her. A jet of water flung her through a grotto’s doorway, and another out a window. Gasping in pain, Nyi Rara darted in another grotto, and another, a mad fleeing from the stalking predator crashing around behind her.

  The dragon slithered into her prior grotto and Nyi Rara flung herself against the wall, pushed up close, desperate to still herself and not attract its attention. It would smell her blood, she had no doubt, but perhaps there was too much now for it to precisely locate her.

  A low rumble built, like an undersea quake, and the grotto seemed to close in around her. A growl, carried through the waters, filled the chamber like a physical presence. Claws raked over stone as the dragon slunk about. It had drawn so close its stench reached her, putrid and acidic.

  She remembered … a lesson, when she was young, in Bulotu. Ake telling her that, should she ever have to engage a dragon, not to rely on her shark teeth, the primary weapon of all mer. That dragon blood was caustic, could burn her skin. She remembered thinking she would never, ever have to worry about such useless trivia.

  Of course, now she found herself pressed against a wall, unarmed save for teeth and the waters themselves. What might she have done differently to avoid this fate? Was there some other lesson she had ignored in her youth? Probably there were a great many, and her mind would not settle upon them now.

  Her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. The fear … it came redoubled because she was Namaka as well as Nyi Rara. Because she did not want to lose this body. Because it had, in the way of the mortals, become an essential aspect of her very self.

  Not so unlike the mo‘o now hunting her.

  Remaining pressed against the wall, Nyi Rara slunk along it, toward the window, seeking some egress out of the grotto in case—

  The mo‘o surged inside, taking out a chunk of stone off the doorway in the process. Shrieking, Nyi Rara used water jets to fling herself at the window.

  Too late.

  A reptilian foreleg snared her fluke, claws lancing through delicate flesh. The dragon hurled her against the floor, pounding her vision into a blur, muffling sound.

  Barely seeing what she was doing, Nyi Rara launched a blade of water straight up. The current hit something that bellowed, casting sizzling ichor into the waters.

  An enormous weight slammed into her abdomen, pushing her down, even as her vision focused, giving her a glimpse of the snarling maw of an enraged dragon lurching ever closer to her face. Yes, she had vexed it, and now it would savor her death.

  Its bulk crushed her, would have pulverized a human torso. Even Nyi Rara’s ribs felt ready to buckle beneath what must have weighed at least a ton.

  With menacing slowness, the head—as big as her torso!—eased closer, opening wider and wider. A serpentine tongue lanced between yellow fangs. The jaw should not have been able to open so wide …

  The current sped an instant before a tremendous force launched itself into the mo‘o, tumbling end over end with it, the dragon and the much smaller form beneath it, half mer, half hammerhead shark. Ignoring or not caring for the advice given to young mer, Kauhuhu bit down on the mo‘o’s throat.

  The sound of crunching scales was not unlike stone scraping over stone, grinding until it cracked, and she could not help but imagine the mer must have lost the better part of a whole row of teeth like that. Still, Kauhuhu jerked his head back yanking out a stream of flesh and a shower of gore. Acidic ichor sprayed over him, but—in his frenzy—the Nanaue seemed unaffected, tearing into the mo‘o with such abandon Nyi Rara found herself recoiling, crawling away along the seafloor, struggling to force water through her gills and thus restore her chest.

  Hands seized her shoulders and yanked her up, out of this grotto and into the large one along the main tunnel. She looked back to Hokohoko sneering at her.

  “Overmatched, Princess?”

  “What happened?” Nyi Rara managed.

  “We’ve driven the mo‘o out,” the Kuula mermaid said. But from the way she spoke, there was clearly more to it.

  And Nyi Rara did not have the energy to bandy words with other mer at the moment, least of all from a fallen ‘ohana. “Speak plainly.”

  “Though the mo‘o are fallen, we suffered enormous casualties, and Kanaloa will know it. It’s only a matter of time before the he‘e themselves arrive to finish us off. Uluhai is lost.”

  Nyi Rara winced. If Hokohoko was correct, the last bastion of Mu had crumbled.

  Part II

  Third Age of the Worldsea

  12

  Poli‘ahu …

  The voice, sibilant and sonorous, broke through into her thoughts like a dream, and Poli‘ahu could not say for certain whether she had slept even while drifting over the sea in mist form. Only that it was some time before dawn, and the call pulled he
r.

  It beckoned her closer and closer, and, hardly realizing she ever intended it, she had shifted around the cusp of Moloka‘i and closed, not with Mau‘i where she might have sought shelter with Queen Hinaikamalama of Hana, but to Lana‘i, in the predawn gloom.

  Few lived on Lana‘i … at least few mortals. It fell under the domain of the Nightmare Goddess Pahulu and her court of spirits. Men feared Lana‘i as a center of Otherworldly power, and rightly so. It ran flush with mana, and there congregated final bastions of those whose presence predated even the Savai‘ian immigration at the dawn of this age.

  Poli‘ahu had, on occasion, called upon spirits loyal to Pahulu for minor services, but Lilinoe had always advised avoiding the Nightmare Queen herself.

  Poli‘ahu …

  But it was that voice … the same one she had heard in Pō, calling out to her, trying to show her something in the play of shadows around them.

  Turn back, Waiau urged. Go to Hana.

  Decades back, Hinaikamalama, the now aged Queen of Hana, had repented her fool’s alliance with the invaders and sworn loyalty to Poli‘ahu. Had done so because she had witnessed Poli‘ahu’s power and wrath firsthand. While the queen might forever loathe her, at least she would find support there, willing or otherwise.

  Poli‘ahu …

  That sonorous voice latched onto her mind like fishhooks, drawing her toward it. Demanding she heed.

  Waiau pushed against her Will, her icy fingers clawing at Poli‘ahu’s soul in an attempt to seize control and steer them back east. Though she had no form save mist, Poli‘ahu imagined herself gritting her teeth against the intrusion.

  Not this time.

  No, whatever Pahulu wished her to learn, she would learn it now.

  Ungrateful wretch! Waiau shrieked at her. Lilinoe will know of your disobedience!

  Be that as it may, Poli‘ahu was no child. The snow sisters had made her a Snow Queen, but she was a Snow Queen, and the title meant nothing if she could not make her own choices.

  She flowed in from the sea, alighting upon waterworn brown rocks before forming up into physical substance once more. Panting, limbs trembling, she slumped onto hands and knees, heedless of the way the rocks scraped her skin.

  Rumors had often claimed she held congress with Pahulu and the spirits of Lana‘i. Her enemies spat it like a curse, condemning her for breaching the boundaries between Earth and Pō. Funny how the actions of those same enemies had finally lent truth to their condemnations.

  The rock before her shuddered, seeming to retch up bubbling liquid stone.

  Poli‘ahu leapt to her feet, scrambling backward. She dared not resume mist form for fear of losing herself to Waiau if she called on the spirit’s power. But behind her there was just the churning sea, lapping against these rocks.

  The liquid stone flowed away, giving rise to a trio of stout, misshapen men. Menehune. Each bore a stone spear, though none brandished them at her. Instead, one stepped forward, looking her up and down.

  Did they resent her, a descendent of Manua who had broken their kingdom to build his own?

  Certainly, unbridled rage and lust seemed to roil in their eyes. But then, such was the way of most spirits. Menehune in particular suffered with warped and twisted forms that wracked them with pain—and they sought ever to share their torment with the living.

  “Pahulu sent you,” Poli‘ahu said.

  One of the menehune grunted, then cocked his head in a motion for her to follow, bones cracking as he did so.

  Yes, let her meet with Pahulu, then she would move on to Mau‘i and see about destroying the invaders. But if the Nightmare Goddess could help her … what better ally might she hope for? At this juncture, Poli‘ahu no longer even truly cared what price the spirit would ask.

  The menehune led her inward rapidly, grunting with discomfort as they scrambled over the rocks and up onto a grassy slope. No doubt they feared the impending sunrise. While few etheric beings appreciated sunlight, Earth spirits fared poorly, their bodies turning to stone by its hateful rays, or so Lilinoe had told her once. Though the Mist akua had never clearly spoken it, she had intimated the Earth spirits owed their nature to some Art of the Dark spirits, and thus their particular vulnerability to sunlight.

  The menehune guided her to a place where the hillside broke away into a steep hole running below a banyan. Between the tree and the angle, the tunnel would have proved near invisible without their guidance. A perfect hiding place for the likes of this sort of creature, she supposed.

  Their glances held almost gleeful malevolence, perhaps hoping to enjoy her discomfort at having to slide down into a muddy dark pit. Considering all she had endured, Poli‘ahu found the threat of mud held little terror. Balancing herself with a hand on an overarching root, she dropped down onto her arse and slid into the hole.

  Almost, she wished she could see the looks of bemusement on the faces of those menehune. But she did not glance back as they followed her into the darkness. Further down the tunnel, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she spied a flickering glow, a crackling flame of torchlight around the bend. The menehune shoved ahead of her, making for that gleam with little apparent care whether she followed or stayed here on the threshold.

  “Poli‘ahu …” the same voice whispered. Only it was not in her head, but seemed to come from the pooling shadows in the tunnel.

  Jaw set, refusing to let these akua see her intimidated, Poli‘ahu pushed onward into shadows that deepened with each step. From somewhere in their umbral banks billowed out whispers of almost-perceptible promises. As if, were she to follow them deep enough, every answer she might ever seek would unfold in the darkness …

  In the Dark, rather.

  The World of Dark … it impinged upon reality here, of that she grew increasingly certain. Often she had wondered if it was merely an extension of Pō, for despite being perhaps the most feared of all the spirit worlds, it was the most similar in tale to the expanses of the Astral Realm. Still, it was idle speculation, for Lilinoe had not seen that existence, and no mortal walked in the Spirit Realm whilst still alive.

  Deeper and deeper the menehune led her, until she found herself wading through what seemed waist-deep shadows that offered almost as much resistance as water. An underground wellspring of darkness, hidden away from the surface, burbling just under the feet of those poor wretches who called this island home.

  Dark gathers … Waiau warned, as if Poli‘ahu could not well enough see it for herself.

  Ignoring the Mist spirit, she delved deeper, until the tunnel opened into a cut-stone chamber bedecked with a half dozen torches that, if anything, seemed only to enhance the darkness as they failed to fully adumbrate the vaulting ceiling or … the broken chasm in the floor, where the land fell away. Poli‘ahu moved to the edge of that abyss and peered down, able to make out nothing, yet somehow still certain a sea of shadows flowed down there.

  Across the pit, a female sat on a throne of human bones, one leg draped provocatively over an armrest. The woman had paler skin than anyone Poli‘ahu had ever seen, as if she had smeared ash over every last bit of her flesh. Yet her hair remained so black it seemed to glisten against the surrounding darkness while hanging down over her breasts. The eyes, too, were pools of ink without sclera. She wore nothing save a pa‘u, and her posture had pushed that to such an angle it covered little.

  Rough menehune hands grabbed Poli‘ahu’s wrists and dragged her to her knees. “Queen Pahulu,” Poli‘ahu grated, when she had composed herself. She stared intently at the akua. “You are a Dark spirit, I take it.”

  Pahulu stroked a finger along her temple with feigned idleness, though her gaze remained locked on Poli‘ahu.

  “Child …” The word came not from her lips, but murmured up from the darkness in the chasm in front of Poli‘ahu. “Child … pupil of the queen …”

  Pupil of … Did she mean Lilinoe and her sisters? The dead Snow Queens, become akua?

  “Yes …” Again, the sound billowed
from the darkness, the whisper as if Pahulu had read her thoughts. “The lines between ghost and god are but the boundaries between bay and sea. In the passing of ages, those that refuse the gift of death may yet rise again … or fail and wither …”

  Poli‘ahu swallowed. She had always known that some few ghosts transmogrified into akua—into spirits like the snow sisters. Only the strongest seemed to manage it. “What do you want of me?”

  “Kinship, as of old with my sister queens …”

  Sister queens? “I … I don’t understand.”

  “Truer words were never uttered.” This time, it was Pahulu herself who spoke, and she rose, making her slow, sensual way around the chasm before finally coming to rest before Poli‘ahu. When the queen placed a finger on Poli‘ahu’s chin to draw her up, the menehune grasps upon her wrists fell away in an instant. “There’s not much room for queenship in the Dark.”

  Though spoken wistfully, something in Pahulu’s manner betrayed an actual pain at the admission. Did the World of Dark not have queens? Poli‘ahu was about to repeat that she didn’t understand, but something told her to keep her peace instead.

  In her silence, she suddenly realized others were gathered at the fringes beyond the chasm. Other Dark spirits, and other menehune, a whole court of those without other refuge left on Sawaiki.

  “The haze of time swallows so much. It devours thought like the sea eats the land.” Pahulu cocked her head to the side. “I watched that, you know. Just as she did. I watched, and I saw the breaking, when sea claimed my world. She lived, but I fell into darkness and spent what seemed an eon dragging myself forth from the shadows to find this world again. I remember … less than everything. But I think … it was our madness that broke the world. Delicious hubris of mortals not so unlike yourself. Not so unlike in the least.”