by Matt Larkin
As the deepness grew, so too did the silence, fewer and fewer fish venturing down here. A hundred fathoms up she had passed an eel slinking back into a hole, hiding from the mer, and far above that, schools of fish darting in and out of sheltering beds of kelp surrounding the chasm. But here, where the shadows held weight, here no living thing stirred.
The waters carried on them hints of blood scent and decay, whiffs of the dead fallen so deep no predators came down to claim them. All far off from here.
The chasm itself groaned, as if straining under its own weight, and Taema yelped, splashing around so suddenly anyone with the slightest sense of the currents would have felt her. Tilafaiga yanked her sister to stillness, and Nyi Rara cast a glare at the both of them.
She felt no disturbances to indicate the he‘e, but they were not easy to locate. The octopuses could hold a position in utter motionlessness for hours, blending perfectly with their surroundings. In a place like this, a half dozen might spy on them and Nyi Rara would be lucky to notice one.
“It’s like Deep-damned Naunet down here,” Taema whimpered.
“No,” Nyi Rara whispered back. “Not half so deep.” That pulsing heartbeat, thrumming through primordial waters, it haunted her dreams often enough. Sometimes, Nyi Rara woke gasping, feeling the expansive, incandescent eyes looking upon her, judging her, waiting to swallow her whole. Eyes that, waking, might devour the world. “This place is not Naunet.”
At last they reached the seabed here, and Nyi Rara imagined this was the very place where Inemes of Hiyoya tried to murder her, to devour her soul. It was a tide of fancy, she knew. The Tenebrous Chasm stretched for countless miles, and the chances those events had taken place in this exact location were slim. Still, the passage of time and current would have long since washed away evidence, and she could not help but see it playing out once more.
The treachery.
Ikatere’s betrayal of Mu.
Hiyoya’s betrayal of Ikatere.
The loss of the Chintamani stone, the last great treasure in the cache of Dakuwaqa ‘Ohana.
Tragedy more than treachery. Had the two kingdoms been able to trust, perhaps another decade of war might have been avoided. Perhaps Kanaloa would not have found himself in a position to destroy Mu and now threaten them all.
Perhaps … Perhaps … Perhaps …
An entire unfolding ocean of possibilities now lost forever.
They followed the chasm base until it began to give way, the ground dropping ever deeper into the world. Nyi Rara’s ears popped, the pressure not only growing, but changing. As Mo‘oinanea had proclaimed, they must have moved closer to liminal spaces, the boundaries of reality breaking down.
Another half an hour and they came to a pit, natural, perhaps, but overflowing with … bones. Like an ossuary containing the remains of thousands of the fallen, somehow not quite worn away by the waters. Oh, some, for certain, had begun to fossilize and join the bedrock, but a great mass of bones remained still, climbing out of the pit as if in testament to an apocalypse.
An eschaton?
“Is this …?” she tried to ask Taema.
“Old Mu? Maybe. Deep alone knows how many died when it sank, and here, on the edge of the Penumbra, perhaps decay fails to fully consume them. Some are newer though …”
“The he‘e know of this place,” Tilafaiga cut in. “From far above, they cast down the bones of their victims in some profane tribute.” When they both looked at her, she shrugged. “The Rangers speak of it on occasion.”
“These are mer bones?” Taema squeaked.
Nyi Rara glowered. “Of course not. They’re human bones belonging to hosts stolen by mer. Mer don’t have bones in this reality. We don’t have anything save that which we steal.”
Piika snarled, though whether in agreement with her or indignation, she couldn’t say. Either way, the mo‘o swam overtop the ossuary without a further glance, forcing the three mermaids to follow in his wake.
Nyi Rara had passed halfway over the bones when she heard them shift, cracking and tumbling upon one another.
That was the first sign. An instant before the fleeing currents, the change in water, as a cephalopod hurtled up at her. A writhing nest of arms had snared her wrists, her tail, her torso before she even had time to think. She pitched downward, spiraling out of control—a glimpse now of Taema and Tilafaiga similarly beset—then crashed into the bones. They crunched beneath her weight, scouring her scales, turning to blinding dust that obscured what little vision the darkened chasm allowed.
A thousand protrusions jammed into her back, her tail, her shoulders, her biceps. Squeezing, immensely powerful arms threatened to rip her limbs from their sockets, to crush her throat, to cut off circulation to her gills. A beak bit down into her shoulder and white-hot venom coursed into her veins, calling up thrashing for a moment, then a spreading numbness, her arm rapidly losing sensation.
She tried to summon a lance of water with one finger, but another he‘e tentacle grabbed that finger and wrenched it backward, snapping it so hard she felt the digit wrenched right out of her hand. The pink slurry of her wounds inflamed her bloodlust, but her body had nowhere to go.
A roar.
Deep, primal. Reverberating through the chasm, pounding off the walls like drums. Feeling like a cave-in, everything collapsing.
More blood, and now ink, as a he‘e was yanked off her, its suckers ripping new wounds upon her skin all over.
Piika crashed down onto the ossuary, crushing a he‘e in each of his foreclaws.
Nyi Rara tried to shriek, to cry out, but managed only to gag on her fury. That proved enough to summon a blade of water though, and that blade sheared through the top of a he‘e head, leaving the creature flopping around a moment, ring brain exposed.
Through the debris and muck, Nyi Rara gaped at the bloody hole where Namaka’s left forefinger had been a moment ago.
Finally, the wail came to her.
They fled, pushing deeper still into the chasm, uncertain if more he‘e pursued them or if a few lone sentinels had merely ambushed them. They could not afford the time to learn the truth. Hand cradled against her abdomen, Nyi Rara swam deeper, trying not to think of the pain. A rush of mana allowed her to stymie the blood flow and reduced the agony from mind-shredding to merely distressing.
The other mermaids were similarly covered in lacerations from he‘e suckers, Taema worse than Tilafaiga, though none of them had lost any digits.
Consciousness kept trying to seep away from Nyi Rara, to bleed out in the thin trail of herself she was leaving behind. She had to expend mana on that count, too.
A moment of neglect in her guard had nearly destroyed them all. Had Piika not accompanied them—and the mo‘o now cast pensive glances over his shoulder to check on their progress—they might all have found themselves discorporated.
All light fled as they pushed onward, leaving them in utter darkness, even to mer eyes. A hand on her shoulder guided her, one of the sisters probably feeling her way along, sparing Nyi Rara the need to do so given her hand.
The blackness gave way in moments to a flicker of blue-green light, cast in without apparent source, even as this water lost substance, becoming so ephemeral Nyi Rara finally crashed down onto the sandy ground.
The Penumbra? The astral light that permeated this Realm was just enough to give rise to a dance of shadows and adumbrate an expanse of cavern beneath Tenebrous Chasm. Beyond a thin stretch of land, maybe a hundred feet across, a kind of underground sea opened up. One that, she imagined were they so-inclined, they might follow all the way into the World of Water, finding themselves perhaps in some recess in Avaiki.
Panting, Nyi Rara formed up legs, then struggled to her feet, hand still clutched against her gut. A thin trail of hot moisture ran between her fingers, over her navel. Fatigue and pain made her steps wobble, but that sea … in it pulsed power.
Mo‘oinanea had the right of it: somewhere in this recess, a hoard of flaming pearls awaited, h
idden from all worlds, awaiting the need of their master. Or a cunning enough thief.
With but one, she might change the course of the war. With a handful, Deep alone knew what she might achieve. The Worldsea itself could fall into her grasp …
Staggering, Namaka stumbled forward, one painful step at a time, her pace increasing. The closer she drew, the more all other concerns—even injuries—faded. In her mind’s eye, she could see the glorious coalescing of mana, lit with etheric flames. Could taste its succulence permeating the waters, radiating life.
The disturbance in the sea hit her like a blow, even as the shadow in the depths surged upward. An eruption of scales, a mountain of power. A taniwha launched itself above them, the sea streaming down over its aquamarine scales in a hundred cataracts. Its roar bombarded her, drove her to her knees, stealing all thought from her mind. Its incandescent eyes seized her soul and held her paralyzed—stupefied.
Even with the better part of its hindquarters remaining submerged, still it rose at least fifty feet above them, horned skull smashing through stalactites, sending them raining down in a hail of rock.
A bellow that shook the cavern.
Shook her.
As if a wave had broken over her, Namaka was freed, surged into motion, whipping the underground sea into blades. Shrieking, she waved her arms, slashing again and again upon those rock-hard scales. The reptilian armor chipped and pitted, but held fast against her assault.
A plummeting claw descended upon her, might have crushed her to pulp, but for the mo‘o crashing into her first, sending her hurtling aside.
Her world spun, tumbling end over end. Rocks slammed her shoulder, her arms, her head, painting the cavern in a white haze. When she finally stopped tumbling, she managed to groan, to push herself up on an elbow. Everything swirled, shaky, out of place.
The taniwha had snatched up Piika in one claw while the mo‘o twisted around, furiously trying to bite at the foreleg that held him. Taema lay pinned beneath another claw, insensate, head lolling to the side. In human form … had she assumed legs before that attack? Or … was her cousin now dead?
Tilafaiga clung to the foreleg trapping her sister, gnawing at it with shark teeth—probably doing more damage to herself than the taniwha.
Last time Namaka had fought a taniwha, she’d had Pele to blast it with lava. Now, what was she to do? How was she to face such a behemoth?
Panting—blood ran over her eyes as she rose—she made a fist, summoning water into a coil. With a tremble she rose, whirling that coil around herself in a net. “Come on,” she taunted, wiping away blood with the back of her hand. “Come to me.”
The colossal dragon roared, maw lunging at her. With a shriek of her own, Namaka flung the coiling water forward like a lance, plunging it directly into the monster’s palate. An explosion of coughing, hacking caustic blood in a wild spray. Every drop that fell upon her burned like acid, but Namaka drove forward, calling up more water. A miniature kai e‘e within the underground sea, enough to hurl the taniwha into the cavern’s side. The momentum freed Taema, and the taniwha even dropped Piika, stunned.
With a growl, the mo‘o leapt onto the taniwha’s foreleg, running up it like a fallen log, slashing and biting, an incarnation of ferocity.
And … for all that fury … they were still going to die. Namaka’s legs wobbled beneath her, weak from expending so much mana. She couldn’t hold breath in her lungs. In this environment, they had almost no chance to actually kill such a beast, did they?
So close … so very close … she could taste the Chintamaniya beyond their implacable guardian. She could feel the power of those flaming pearls, seeping into the waters, beckoning her …
And maybe that was the only chance.
Calling on mana to beat down her pain once more, Namaka ran for the water’s edge, narrowly avoiding the taniwha as it rolled back over intent to smash her and her companions.
“Nyi Rara!” Tilafaiga yelled.
But Namaka had no time to look back and see what the other mermaid shouted about.
She dove into the underground sea.
Nyi Rara slipped beneath the surface, used jets of water to stream herself past the taniwha’s bulk, skidding around it too close for it to turn and get at her. Beyond, the sea broke down into a tunnel, half-eclipsed by the dragon’s lower legs. Another jet bolted her through the opening even as her strength waned.
Passing the threshold was like diving through a waterfall, even under the sea. A well of radiant energy crashed into her, slowed her. Left her reveling in its splendor.
For a moment, at least. Then a dragon claw scraped into the tunnel, crushed stone a mere foot from her tail. After sparing the taniwha a glance to assure herself it couldn’t enter this tunnel, Nyi Rara darted forward, out of its reach.
The tunnel opened up into a spherical chamber that reminded her of the inside of a clamshell. And there, in its base, lay a ring of five pearls, each the size of her head, pulsing with etheric flames that bestirred the waters around them.
By the Deep … she had found them.
The Chintamaniya.
Gingerly, as if taking up an infant, she grasped one. Its touch at once scalded and soothed, a rush flooding her system, leaving her shuddering at the influx of mana. Far, far more than she had felt even in consuming Milolii’s heart. Vitality enough to choke her, to leave her writhing in overwhelming ecstasy. Puissance that might master all the seas, coursing through her as surely as the Elder Deep’s blood surged through the taniwha.
Clutching the Chintamani close to her breast, she swam back into the tunnel with the taniwha. Felt the aspect of the Elder Deep thrumming through the water, like calling to like, a sympathetic bond. “Be still.”
And the taniwha fell still, slumping into immediate dormancy.
Nyi Rara allowed a slow smile to creep over her face.
32
Kamapua‘a tromped through Kona with a dead boar slung over his shoulder. He rarely ate pork himself—felt strange—but hunting them was easy enough when you knew how they thought. It was a lot of meat, valuable to the villagers, and would prove a good trade for the supplies he needed.
Kona lay on the western coast of Vai‘i and proved a decent enough stopping-off point on his way south. Kamapua‘a figured the final place to set out from had to be Kau, and thus he planned to sail his outrigger from Kona, gather more supplies in Kau, and talk to a few of the new wave of settlers about their star navigation. In the end, though, he’d have to trust the ‘aumākua to guide him true to Kahiki.
It would have proved safer to join on with a full crew, one that knew the way, but the Boar God was proving cranky as it was. Months at sea, sometimes during a full moon when the Boar God got so riled up … it wouldn’t prove pretty if he had other people around. All it would take was one—at most two—disembowelments and people just wouldn’t trust him anymore.
In the village, talk was Kona’s chief had officially sworn loyalty to Puna. Meaning to Pele.
Considering all that had passed between them, Kama figured it best to avoid his wife entirely. Last he’d seen her, he’d told her he planned to leave Vai‘i and thus stay the shit out of her way. Now he could finally keep that promise and she never had to know about his little hiccup in coming back here.
Stopping at Hāmākua had been out of the question, what with his former crew running the place and generally wanting nothing to do with him. So, he’d come by way of Kohala, first, and now Kona.
He didn’t tell anyone who he was. No, silent and brooding like a noble boar. A cutting figure. A mystery. Egregious.
Though, he supposed, his stature and bearing meant everyone recognized him for ali‘i and afforded him some measure of respect. Strange to get more of that when people didn’t know his name than when they knew his egregious identity.
He just dropped the handsome boar in the middle of the trader’s straw mat. “Got it.”
The man, a mousy little thing who could have stood to eat the whole b
oar himself and pack on some muscle, jumped like the beast was still alive.
Kama allowed the trader a moment to steady himself. “You get the tapa? Gotta fix those sails.”
The trader pointed to a string-wrapped bundle sitting beside a woven basket almost the size of his torso. “The tapa, the poi, the crabs, and a gourd of awa. As promised.”
With a nod and a grunt, Kama hefted the basket on one shoulder and the cloth bundle on the other, then tromped his way down to the harbor. Since he didn’t know anyone here, he had no one to bid farewell and simply waded out into the shallows, tossing his supplies onboard his outrigger before hefting himself up there as well.
Other canoes came and went. Some were local fishermen returning from a long day out, but others seemed inbound from other villages. A few double-canoes probably meant traders from even further out. Pele’s ascension seemed to have encouraged more trade between the districts. Did that make her a good queen? He figured it must.
It took him the remainder of the afternoon to patch his sail, boars not being known for their sowing prowess so much as other kinds of prowess. The ability to manage it at all made him a virtual god among them. If those swine only knew the sum of his skills. Kama snorted to himself, then hummed as he worked.
Eventually, just after sunset, he tied down the lines and made ready to sail. The wind was good, so he might even reach Kau before morning with a little luck.
Splashing beyond his boat had him glancing down to see a seal swimming by, as if to bid him a safe journey. An ‘aumakua? He’d heard they could take the forms of sea life, after all, and this one smelled of something touched by Pō. Grinning, Kama waved at the seal as it passed.