by Matt Larkin
It was all she could think. The terror of it beat aside all other thought, made time seem to stand still even as they plummeted.
And then a stream of water shot out of one side of the maelstrom, Namaka at its head. The waters carried the flying mermaid right at Pele and Kama. In an instant, Pele found herself caught in the mermaid’s arms and carried into the other side of the maelstrom.
Waters surged past her faster than she could see, tugging at her from all sides. An instant later, they burst through the surface and she gasped, sucking in air, choking and coughing all at once. The current of the collapsing maelstrom threatened to yank her under, save for Namaka’s arm under her own. The waters didn’t disturb the mermaid in the least.
Pele, however, felt dazed, her ears ringing and body exhausted. Dimly, she was aware of Namaka handing her off to Kama, who was now treading water and supporting the both of them.
And then Namaka disappeared back beneath the waves.
Leaving them alone, in the middle of the ocean, somewhere above the domain of a very angry god.
48
The colossal bellows of the Dragon Kings sounded through the benthic city, gongs of doom. Heralds of destruction. The dragons tore through any attempt by the he‘e to mount an external defense, forcing the battle ever inward, toward the palace.
Nyi Rara blasted another he‘e with a lance of water. Mostly, though, the octopuses were engaged with the Nanaue or her own mer soldiers. The entire city was engulfed in chaos—to say nothing of the catastrophic damage she and Pele had done to the streets and homes and farms. The waters rushing back in had cracked more buildings while washing away the numerous dead bodies and cooling the massive pools of lava Pele had dropped on Mu.
And still, even as they fought their way through the city, Kanaloa had not shown himself. Did the god-king hide from her? Or was this some ploy?
In the distance she saw Kauhuhu and his ‘ohana rip through more he‘e in their frenzy. Nyi Rara motioned to the mer and he swam over. It was time they ended this. If Kanaloa wasn’t going to come out to fight them, they would have to pursue him into the royal palace themselves.
More than one mer had had the life squeezed out of him or her—reverting to human form in death. Wincing, Nyi Rara considered calling in Piika and the other dragons, letting them finish off what little remained of the ancient city.
Already it lay in desolation, Pele having far exceeded what Nyi Rara had asked of her.
Should it simply be done?
Trembles shot through her—as much at such a thought as at the depletion of her mana to create that maelstrom. If she sacrificed the last vestiges of Mu, what had she even fought for? Vengeance?
“You are weakened,” Kauhuhu said.
She glanced at him, trying not to flinch at the predatory look in his eye. Did he truly consider making prey of her while she was so drained? Devouring her flesh to absorb what remained of her mana? “Strong enough to end this,” she snapped, hoping it was more than bravado.
Kauhuhu nodded and looked back to the palace. “The kupua’s lava has buried the entrance.”
Indeed.
Which, being the case, Nyi Rara had little choice save to allow Piika to dig it out and create a means of ingress.
The battle continued to rage as Piika’s great claws excavated the gate to Kuula Palace. In the end, he managed to hollow out a tunnel several paces in diameter, something reminiscent of a lava tube, but with an obsidian gleam to it. Beyond lay utter darkness, impenetrable even to mer eyes.
Nyi Rara dipped into the tunnel, feeling Kauhuhu disturbing the water just behind her. By feel she pushed forward until she broke into the open space of the main vestibule. There, she felt around with the waters until coming across a wisp light knocked from its sconce and laying inert upon the debris-laden floor. The crystal orb was cracked, but she fed the tiniest morsel of mana into it and it sprang to light again. Its gleam cast a whirl of shadows about the vestibule. Half the main colonnade had collapsed, pillars cracking into one another and splitting down the middle.
The great circular engravings that had once adorned the floor were utterly obscured now, ruined perhaps.
“Not the home you remember?” Kauhuhu asked. “Not the throne you dreamed of reclaiming?”
She ignored the Nanaue’s petty taunts, pushing forward into the interior halls, eyes and watery senses attuned to search for he‘e lurking in the darkness. It seemed another lifetime that Ambassador Punga had first descended before Namaka, leaving her near speechless in shock. Lifetimes more beyond, when Nyi Rara had swum through these halls, a princess of a disgraced ‘ohana.
The palace was the same, and yet different. The wisp lights had been ripped from their sconces, leaving the halls in perpetual gloom. The only illumination she had was where hints of sunlight broke through partially obscured windows and the single wisp light she had recovered from the vestibule. The walls themselves had been scored, marked with glyphs probably intended as some kind of warding. Perhaps a sorceress would have understood their purpose, but Nyi Rara did not.
This place had once seemed a dream to Namaka, Nyi Rara recalled, surreal and infused with a vibrancy that defied description. An oppressive, alien hatred now lurked here, turning that dream into a nightmare.
A disruption in the water alerted her to a he‘e crawling on the ceiling. Kauhuhu must have smelled it, for even as the creature tried to drop on Nyi Rara, the Nanaue Voice surged forward, his jaws snapping shut on the octopus. He ripped it to shreds, the blood scent forcibly pulling down Nyi Rara’s own shark teeth.
She would need them before long, she imagined. Nyi Rara nodded her thanks and pushed onward. Thus far, that had been the only he‘e they had seen. Perhaps the majority had gone outside to fight her army. Thanks to Pele’s efforts, the tide had turned and Nyi Rara’s people actually had a chance against the he‘e.
Assuming she and Kauhuhu could defeat the god-king himself.
Where was he? No one she knew had clearly seen the he‘e king, but she had glimpsed one of his arms and would have guessed it at near a hundred feet long. A creature of that size ought not be able to hide much of anywhere, but then, as a he‘e, Kanaloa could no doubt squeeze through any opening large enough to permit his beak. The invertebrates were disgustingly adept at slipping through nooks and crannies, hiding anywhere. In any event, why would a creature with arms the size of a taniwha hide? It was hard to believe he might actually fear her, despite all she had done. And yet, perhaps seeing her part the ocean and expose the city had made him reconsider his plans.
That, or the Dragon Kings. Given the scope of her foe, she mused once more about returning to Piika and having him bring this whole place to ruin. This glorious city that had stood for so many millennia. Was she a traitor to even consider such a course?
At last she entered into the throne room. It too stood empty, Aiaru’s conch throne crushed into hundreds of shards that littered the floor. As she swam farther in, illuminating the chamber with the wisp light, she saw the back wall of the throne room had been pulverized, torn down to lead deeper into the palace. She paused, hesitating. Crushing the throne might have been a symbol of the end of Mu, but why bring down the wall? There were other chambers back there, and eventually … the gorge. The gorge that led to the Urchin.
Kauhuhu darted away, seeking the edges of the chamber with such suddenness Nyi Rara froze. Then she felt water move above her and swallowed, almost afraid to look up. Descending from the ceiling was a roiling mass of arms so large and textured so perfectly to match the stonework, she had not even noticed it disrupting the water. Had thought it merely part of the room. Any of those arms were easily two paces thick or more, many times her shoulder width. Their color and texture shifted as the monstrosity descended, becoming a sickly pinkish-red, save the suckers which were pale white.
At last the creature settled on the floor in front of her, raising a head the size of a human palace. His eyes were unreadable pools of inky blackness and he had no
face. Yet somehow she could feel hatred seething off this creature. The he‘e were an ancient race, albeit a mortal one. But this creature, he—it—was something else. A scion of the Elder Deep. All of that she could feel now, though the he‘e had not spoken.
When it did, its voice boomed through the hall, muffled and distorted by a mouth beneath its endless folds of muscle. “Eons of waiting and the passing of eras lead us two to such a meeting at long last.”
Nyi Rara had not come here to bandy words with the god-king, and yet she could not bring herself to strike. Next to it she felt small, smaller than even the taniwha had made her feel. It was like being back in Naunet, gazing into the fathomless eye of the Elder Deep.
Its presence extended beyond his enormous size, filling up the room and seeping into the chambers beyond with a Will that seemed to press in on her skull.
“Your mother sends her greetings,” Nyi Rara said. She’d meant it as a jibe, but the tremor in her voice stripped it of threat even in her own ears, rendering herself ridiculous.
“Given sufficient imagination, one might envisage a being ruling the seas in the days when titans ruled the Earth. A presence even the sea titans heeded and paid homage to. But the world was transmogrified, shattered beyond recognition by the cosmogonies of titans, leaving our imagined majesty in the deepest of dreams, as age upon age passed like the blink of an eye. And in this dream, mortals, humans thought to master the Art. So, we imagine, the sleeper must have whispered to them, let slip hints of prodigious secrets they could not begin to comprehend. Gave them the fires with which they might burn down their world. Until again the Earth was changed, and the seas rose, drowning the imposters. And the sleeper woke.”
What did he mean? Had Kanaloa visited the Mortal Realm before the Deluge? Had it somehow been forced back to Avaiki and then tempted the Sorceress Queens of Old Mu to open the breach?
Her mind reeled at the thought. As if this being had helped orchestrate the very end of the world. Had planned, all along, for his return to the Earth, intent to claim seas beyond the reach of its mother.
Nyi Rara fought to still the trembling in her chest and the pounding upon her temples. The god-king was assaulting her Will, trying to cow her. Maybe he could do so, dominate a person as mer might dominate sea life. But she wasn’t going to let that happen. She gritted her teeth, offering no real answer to Kanaloa’s confusing speech. If the he‘e had seen such days, that would make him incalculably old, older than any mer she knew of, and thus privy to secrets she surely could not imagine.
“Wakened, we imagine a sleeper would see the transformed world and set to restoring order, to give the chaotic Earth structure and thus absolute glory that might stretch for eternity. Such an order might, one could imagine, even prevent the need or capacity for further iterations of the Earth, forestalling the next eschaton. Perfection, achieved at long last. If a small mermaid were capable of imagining such a thing, then surely she would begin to see her true place, her only legitimate choice, would be in service to the master of the deep. If the princess were so wise, she would bow to the Lord of Perfections and beg absolution for the petty inconveniences she had wrought. Were she to rise in ultimate self-awareness and realize her genesis lay within the scope of the sleeper’s plan.”
Kanaloa had not moved, and yet she felt as though his arms were squeezing her, crushing her limbs and choking the breath out of her. The pounding in her skull had reached a crescendo until she was forced to face the truth of his words. He was a god and the world was wrong. Kanaloa alone had the age and wisdom to enforce an order that could last for all time. And she, the Sea Queen, had no better calling than to serve as his herald. She would be his living weapon, the tool with which he could purify the seas and the land alike and put an end to war and suffering.
She was mo‘o.
Fate had always been preparing her for this. Her true calling.
Heat flared behind her eyes, rising up in her chest and seizing hold, its grip a hundredfold what had held her at Red Coral Reef.
All at once, as she reached the conclusion, the forces holding her released. Nyi Rara twirled her tail in respect. “Forgive me, My King. I do beg absolution. Allow me to serve and work your Will upon the Earth.” And she would start by showing the blasphemous traitor above the error of siding with that wretch, Maui.
Kauhuhu swam after Nyi Rara as she left the throne room. The Nanaue seemed hesitant, perhaps not yet aware of who his rightful master was. Nyi Rara understood. Not long ago, the mer had fancied himself a king. Now he had seen what a real king looked like. And after seeing the god-king, perhaps Kauhuhu had lost some of his illusions. As would the other mer who considered themselves above the he‘e.
A tremendous crash sounded behind her, shaking the entire palace. A Dragon King had breached the throne room, tearing down a chunk of the wall with it. Mokuhinia slammed into Kanaloa, biting with its spear-lined maw as the god-king snarled and wrapped its mighty arms around the beast. Blood streamed through the throne room.
“Kauhuhu! Destroy the dragon!”
The Nanaue hesitated, but Nyi Rara had no time to castigate him, and Kanaloa could protect himself.
Her master had ordered her to destroy her traitorous sister. That was what she would do.
49
The dead forever wailed, a cacophony of torment played out across the scope of eternity as the essences of their souls sapped away, leaving them to be drawn into some oblivion. And now, her own soul shredded, Poli‘ahu knew why. Every fragment of her etheric body hurt, as if the killing wound Lilinoe had inflicted upon her remained stuck forever in the moment of agony that had been her death.
A cold that seized her heart, crushing her chest and refusing to ever release her, even as she at last gained a glimpse of her own wretched soul.
A play of shadows ran about her, as if borne upon the lamentations of the dead. The gray blue miasma held her, every instant trying to drag her deeper, an irresistible pull yanking her away from the Penumbra and into the Roil where this Realm might devour whatever remained of her.
Will.
As with everything, it had come down to Will. The defiance of the order of the universe, the Will to resist, to deny the lure of oblivion, and keep herself mired here, as convulsions wracked her. As her etheric essence shifted in kind.
Through the wrong side of the Veil she saw the Mortal Realm, as if in cloudy reflection. She watched it as her tattered soul engulfed her in a pale shroud. Whether because of the nature of her blood or the Mist spirit that had so long shared her body, Poli‘ahu was becoming a snow maiden.
Upon the ghostly slopes of Mauna Kea, she thrashed, only now realizing her voice had long since joined the keening chorus. She wailed as they wailed.
About the fringes around her, the snow sisters cackled their wispy laughs, mocking her suffering, though she imagined they also waited anxiously to see whether she would persist at all or fall into the Lethe. That, or perhaps become a wraith, as was the fate of sorceresses.
No, but there was something in her, and despite herself, she found herself transforming into the very substance of those who had betrayed her.
At last, she managed to rise, her breath now so cold it stung her own throat, as if the universe delighted in visiting one more petty torment upon her in the ocean of darkness. She stood, wrapping her snowy shawl about herself, shuddering to hold herself together. Would the call to oblivion forever beckon from now on, like some omnipresent beast stalking her every step, never allowing her a single respite?
Yes.
With intuition born of her altered state, she knew it would.
As she turned, Lilinoe was there, her icy hand clapping down on Poli‘ahu’s shoulder. “You will see.”
The others, too, placed hands upon her, and she fell, not to her knees, but through reality, as deeper shadows swallowed her whole and formed up once more. The darkness became thicker, as if given substance, yet the firmament became an iridescent swirl of colors, as if reality here rema
ined incipient, uncertain what form it would assume, if any, ever.
They had pulled her into the Roil.
“The further you get from the Mortal Realm,” Waiau intoned as they plodded through the endless mire of shadows, “the less the rules of time hold steady.”
“Meaning what?” Poli‘ahu had no wish to engage the sisters and thus validate their betrayal, but without them, she knew so very little of her present circumstances. How could she navigate the perils of this Realm without guides?
“We move more quickly, relative to in the world of the living. By pushing into the Roil, we can cross vast swathes of the Earth.”
Poli‘ahu supposed that might explain how some spirits could seemingly appear most anywhere when evoked or sent to carry out a curse. Unless, of course, Waiau was lying to her once more. Given that spirits also seemed to revel in deception as yet one more torment to visit upon the living, she could not assume anything she learned was absolute truth.
It seemed an age they traversed the mercurial landscape. Here, the land fell away into pits of void crackling with red lightning. There, the shadows clung to her ankles and tried to draw her downward, as if in a bog. Everything shifted and flowed without any semblance of logic, or if governed by logic, then by some rules so foreign as to seem nonexistent. The one constant seemed a pervasive sense of malice that saturated this domain. The feeling of presences older than time watching her passage.
Had the snow sisters not accompanied her, perhaps one of those unseen predators would seek to devour her soul and thus condemn her to the oblivion she still struggled against. There was an ever-present temptation to surrender to that …
But then, all she had been, all she had endured, would have amounted to nothing.
So she persisted.
Will.
It always came back to Will.
Those who refused their given lot within the circle of existence. Who demanded, instead, creation bend before them. The few strong enough for it.