by Karina Halle
The sea is choppier now, and even with the snow, the light is like eternal twilight. It’s hard to see anything between the wake and the waves but even so, Rasmus is on edge.
“Hanna,” he says to me in a low, quiet voice as he keeps his gaze glued to the surface. “You’ve got the sword, right?”
“Yes, why?” I move it over to my bare hand and grip the handle. It’s shockingly cold against my skin, enough that I feel fused to it.
Suddenly something pelts me on the head from above, like a small stone.
“What the fuck?” I look up as another object gets me right on the forehead with a quiet splintering sound before falling to the deck. I peer down to see a couple small bones attached to a skull about the size of my pinky finger. I take my sword and touch it with the tip of the blade just as I’m pelted again.
I look over at Rasmus to see him hold out his hand. A tiny skeleton falls from the sky and lands in it, then jumps off his hand and onto the deck, as if alive.
“Oh my god,” I cry out softly. “Is that a…frog?”
More of the tiny frog skeletons begin to fall from the sky, some of them pinging off my sword, others hitting the deck. Most of the bones shatter on impact but some manage to hop away and off the boat, into the water.
It’s another magical yet macabre thing but Rasmus doesn’t look in awe as he did with the snow. His mouth is set in a grim line. “She’s here,” he says dourly.
From his tone I know that whoever she is isn’t good. “Loviatar?” I ask, almost hopefully. I actually liked the deer skull daughter of Death. You know, before she wanted to kill us.
He gives his head a firm shake. “I won’t speak her name yet.”
So…Voldermorta? I think, just as the water off the left and right sides of the boat splash simultaneously, droplets flying on the deck. A chill runs down my spine and I grip the sword tighter.
“What’s in the water, Rasmus?”
He doesn’t say anything. Now a bigger splash comes from behind us, and I whirl around to see something dark, long and shiny pass over the surface and disappear below.
Oh god.
Oh god.
Giant sea snake serpent thingy.
Right under our boat.
“Rasmus,” I repeat, my voice going several octaves higher. “Tell me what’s in the water.”
Suddenly the boat shudders and rocks and the both of us stumble, knocked off-balance.
“If anything comes on the ship, hack away!” Rasmus yells at me as he reaches into his coat and pulls out a necklace with a blue stone at the end, wrapping his fist around it.
Anything? I think and something from underneath rams the bottom, causing me to go flying into the railing. I grip it hard, staring over the edge at the black water, terrified to see what’s below.
Thump, thump.
I whirl around to see two giant black tentacles come over the side of the boat and slam into the deck, shaking us violently.
Okay. So this is what’s in the water. Jesus, they’re bigger than my torso. How fucking huge is the Cthulhu beneath us? Enough to swallow this boat whole?
“Hanna!” Rasmus warns from behind me.
I blink and spring into action. I run down the deck, sliding on the snow but managing to keep my balance, sword raised in the air. There’s a part of me that’s watching all of this from far away that’s laughing at the sight of me turned into some kind of Finnish warrior princess about to tackle some Lovecraftian monster, and there’s another part, the larger part, that has to shove all bewilderment and disbelief aside in order to survive.
With two quick swipes, I slice the blade of the sword against tentacle one and tentacle two, severing them until they’re flopping on the deck. As easy as cutting into sashimi, albeit at a sushi restaurant for giants.
At that, the boat vibrates so hard that I feel it in my fillings, and giant bubbles burst in the water around us, followed by an ear-piercing shriek that sounds from the depths. In all directions at least twenty tentacles come rising out of the water, and if that isn’t bad enough, half of them have snake heads at the end. Their mouths open, fangs bared, tongues forked.
“Holy shit,” I swear under my breath. “Now what?”
I expect Rasmus to say something—do something—but he’s chanting something over and over again in Finnish, almost like he’s singing from his throat, his hand clasped over the stone, his eyes pinched shut. The snowflakes are no longer multicolored but they’re falling fast, covering him in a thin layer.
“Rasmus!” I yell at him. “I can’t do this alone! What the hell is this thing?”
The water in front of the bow of the ship begins to break up, waves sloshing, and I see a giant head begin to emerge from below the surface. At first I think it’s another snake head, but then I see white hair matted against a narrow skull and then the monster rises up and up and…
My screams echo off the iron hull.
This creature is about twenty-feet tall, maybe thirty, and at first glance I’m sure it’s like a giant woman, but I can’t be sure. She has the low-hanging breasts and torso of a woman, but her thighs taper off into something reptilian, splitting into tentacles and snakes. Her face is flat and gray, with snake eyes set off to the far sides, no nose, and in the middle is a wide circular mouth lined with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth that remind me of a giant lamprey. Black leeches cover her waxy skin and there’s a long flickering forked tongue sticking right out of her throat.
It’s the most disgusting and terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
“The Devouress,” Rasmus says in a raspy voice before continuing his chanting.
I stare at him in horror. “And you’re not going to do anything?”
He ignores me.
But The Devouress doesn’t.
Her mouth starts to spin like a vortex of teeth and she spits onto the deck of the boat, right in front of me. I barely have time to get over how gross that was before the hunk of saliva starts moving and shifting, dividing and dividing until it becomes hundreds of translucent snakes, all slithering toward me at increasing speed.
I scream again and start wielding my sword, chopping a few in half before they all overtake me and I’m being pushed back to the deck, failing, struggling beneath the slimy writhing bodies.
This is it. This is how it ends. Indiana Jones’ worst nightmare.
Then the snakes scatter and one thick strong tentacle grabs me by the waist, wrapping around me and lifting me high off the boat, squeezing my ribs like a python until I’m sure my bones are being pulverized. I drop the sword on the deck and open my mouth to scream, but air is choked out of my lungs and I can’t breathe, can’t get a single gulp of air in.
No, this is how it ends.
The Devouress lets out a high-pitched scream, it’s breath hot and smelling of decaying fish as it blasts me, and I manage to see Rasmus down below throw his arms out to the sides, as if he’s some sort of savior leading a church proceeding on the boat.
While The Devouress screeches, squeezing me to death the water behind her begins to whirl and stir, and just like that the tentacle lets me go as if it’s suddenly bored of me.
I scream again and fall straight down into the sea, the water shockingly cold as my body sinks fast below the surface. I try to keep my mouth shut, to stop from breathing in, and I know I have to get rid of my coat and my boots if I want to swim to the surface.
Suddenly hands wrap around my ankles, around my legs, my wrists and arms. I start flailing, kicking, trying to swim free, and it’s so black I can’t see a thing. I don’t know who or what’s holding me down, but I know they mean to drown me in these depths.
Oh god, oh god. Now I’m really going to die.
A strangely beautiful tone, similar to whale song, erupts all around me and through the black I see glowing bubbles rising to the surface all around me, and I realize I’ve been completely disoriented, thinking the hands were bringing me down to the inky depths when really they’re trying to pull me
up.
The singing intensifies, vibrating in my bones, and the glowing bubbles grow brighter and brighter as if the water has come alive with phosphorescence. Once, in Cabo, I went swimming in the ocean at night, the water having come alive with it and glowing, but that experience doesn’t even hold a candle to what’s happening now.
And through the streams of glowing bubbles, I’m starting to see flashes of female faces, beautiful faces, then flowing hair, and iridescent scales that shine coral, pearl, and sky-blue.
Suddenly I’m breaking through the surface, gasping for air, the boat Norfinn a few yards away. I can’t see Rasmus, but I also can’t see The Devouress either. Instead there’s a bright white light coming from the bow.
The hands are still holding me up underwater, supporting me, and one by one five heads break the surface and smile at me. Five mesmerizingly beautiful women with hair the color of turquoise, and snow, of lilac, gold, and fire.
Mermaids. Fucking mermaids.
I’m not sure I even have the strength to be surprised anymore. If there are murder swans and lady lamprey serpents, why not mermaids? At least these ones seemed to have saved my life, contrary to all the legends and myths about them being man-killers.
They don’t say anything and their rueful singing has stopped but they swim me over to the side of the boat where I yell, “Rasmus! A little help!”
His head appears over the side, a wide smile breaking across his face.
“You’re alive!”
“Thanks to the mermaids,” I tell him. “Mermaids!”
“I was hoping they’d show,” he says, holding out his arms and leaning over, grabbing me by the elbows and pulling me up. The mermaids give me a bit of a boost, a pair of hands going to my butt and pushing me until I’m falling over the side, sprawled on my back on the deck.
I take in a deep breath and then move my head to the side to see a woman standing at the bow, glowing with incandescent light. Her skin is pale, ageless, while her eyes are bright blue and hint at eons past. She has a tall headdress on that resembles a bishop’s hat made of pearls and scales, and fishbones that flow over the rest of her body like a dress, with giant shimmering clamshells at her shoulders.
Who the hell is this?
“Hanna,” Rasmus says to me, gesturing to the woman with reverence. “This is Vellamo, Goddess of the Sea.”
The woman turns her attention to me, and there’s an overwhelming sense of grace and power coming from her. She’s so still in her movements and yet she’s staring at me so deeply, it’s scaring the hell out of me. I didn’t even think I had anything left in me to be scared.
“Hanna,” Vellamo says in a calm, deep voice. “Rasmus has summoned me and my mermaids for protection. Do you promise to fulfill your end of the bargain?”
I swallow, pushing myself on my elbows. “It depends. I’m not giving up my firstborn or anything, am I?”
She doesn’t smile.
“Rasmus has promised me a golden dress made of moonsilk from Kuutar.” She pauses and her eyes go to him now, and I swear I see them flare with icy anger. “However, the last time I did Rasmus a favor, he never got me the dress, nor anything else in return.” Rasmus looks away uneasily. She brings her penetrating gaze back at me. “I’m hoping that with you on this journey, you will help him fulfill his promise. After all, you now owe me, too.”
“Not until you escort us all the way to land,” Rasmus says quickly, as if he’s seriously bossing a Goddess around. “So we can be back on the River of Shadows and on our way.”
“I will do as promised,” Vellamo says in that low monotone voice. “But if you don’t fulfill your end, then next time The Devouress will swallow you whole and I’ll feed your bones to my mermaids. Understood?”
“Understood,” Rasmus and I say in unison.
“Very well,” Vellamo says. “Then on your way back, when you’ve gotten your father, make sure to leave the dress on the banks before the Frozen Void begins.”
“Wait, you know about my father?” I ask, getting to my feet and struggling. All the wet clothing weighs a ton.
Vellamo nods curtly. “Rasmus has informed me of your quest.”
“And you’re not going to try and stop us?”
A tiny smile teases the corner of her full white lips before disappearing. “I have no reason to stop you. I am the Goddess of the Sea. What mortals do is none of my concern, not in this world, at any rate. But what is my brother’s problem is rarely my problem.”
“Your brother?” I ask.
“Brother by law,” she says, raising her chin. “My husband is Ahto, God of the Oceans, brother of Tuoni.”
“Tuoni?”
“Death,” she says with a hiss.
Then she turns around and, in a flash of pearls, she disappears over the edge of the boat, landing in the water with barely a splash.
So Death has a first name. That almost makes him more personable.
Almost.
I look at Rasmus, brows raised. “Is that what you were doing while I was battling sea snakes and serpents and nearly drowning?”
“I was summoning,” he says, tucking his necklace back in his coat. “Just because you can wave a sword around doesn’t mean I’m useless.”
There’s an edge over that last word, like it’s a sore spot for him.
“I never said you were useless,” I tell him.
“Whatever,” he says, walking toward the bow where Vellamo disappeared. “The mermaids have our ship surrounded. They’ll protect us until the river begins again.”
I walk over and stand beside him. The night has fully descended now, and though there is some mist lingering in places above the black water, stars are beginning to peek through in the velvet sky. Below them, the water shifts as iridescent bubbles form the shapes of mermaids, our underwater escorts, and mirrors the stars above.
I don’t know if it’s sheer exhaustion or almost dying several times today or a new kind of jet lag from getting to this world, but I feel tears starting to creep up on me. Everything is so scary and so beautiful and I wish I had my father to share it with me. I wish he was here right now more than anything.
“She didn’t seem surprised that we’re going for my father,” I say through a sniffle. “She at least didn’t tell us he was dead.”
“He’s not dead,” Rasmus says quietly. “You know this.”
I swallow hard and wipe away a tear with the heel of my palm. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t even know where I am. I don’t even know who I am.”
“You’re Hanna Heikkinen,” Rasmus says to me. He reaches over and brushes a strand of wet hair behind my ear. “And you’re pretty incredible.”
I feel my cheeks flush, feeling anything but. “I’m not incredible. I’m not anything. I’m just trying to get my father back.”
“Because you love him that much. Isn’t that what’s incredible?”
I take in a deep breath and we both lapse into silence. I think that over as the ship sails through the night.
Chapter 7
The Hiisi Forest
A loud scraping sound wakes me up. For a moment, I have no idea where I am and then I feel it. I feel all the awful things at once, from the hard iron deck I’ve fallen asleep on, to the wet, frozen clothes covering my body, to my sore, aching muscles, to the fact that I haven’t gotten to pee in a really long time.
With a groan I lift up my head to see Rasmus on his feet, looking over the bow.
“Where are we?” I ask groggily.
“You were given safe passage across the Great Inland Sea,” a low, calm voice fills the air. Vellamo. So none of that was a dream.
I push myself up and get to my feet, staggering slightly in my heavy wet coat. I feel awful, but the sight of Vellamo is distracting enough.
She’s standing on a snowy bank, her long ice-blue dress seeming to melt into it, so I can’t quite tell where she ends and the snow begins. Her headdress is even more spectacular than the one I saw befor
e, with fishbones and pearls sticking out of her crown like feathers, and a giant clamshell in the middle. Her ethereal gown is wet, moving over her body like sentient water, clinging to every curve, while silver and gold hermit crabs glide over her like moving jewelry. Two octopus rest on her shoulders, becoming one with the dress and finishing the look.
She’s glowing as she was last night, lit from within, but in the dim light of this misty morning, it’s more subdued.
The iron boat has lodged itself on the bank, right beside the River of Shadows, which cuts a dark flowing path through the frosted land, disappearing into the fog. Behind us is the wide expanse of the dark sea. I shudder and make a point to not look back there, as if The Devouress will come back for what she’s lost.
“We will fulfill our promise,” Rasmus says to Vellamo, grabbing his backpack and jumping over the side of the boat and into the shallow water with a splash.
“Where are you going?” I ask him as he wades through the dark river until it’s waist-high. He doesn’t answer me but he reaches into the water as if pulling down his pants.
“Here fishy, fishy,” he says in a sing-song voice with a strange smirk on his face.
I look at Vellamo, my brows raised. “What is he doing?”
Vellamo keeps her intense gaze on me, her irises flashing through different shades of blue. “He is occupied.” She walks to the water’s edge so she’s standing in front of the hull. “And it is just as well. I need to ask a favor from you.”
“Okay,” I tell her. I want to look at Rasmus to see what’s happening, but I’m ensnared in her gaze. “I’ll do whatever it is that I can.”
“Very well. A long time ago, Tuoni took one of my mermaids to keep as a pet. At least, that’s why I assume he took her. For all I know, she might be dead. Being with Death often ends that way. When you go to Shadow’s End, if you happen to come across a mermaid, please do what you can to free her.”
“You think that’s where my father is? Shadow’s End?”
She nods slowly. “I know that’s where he is. And he’s alive. I may not be an omnipotent God, but I do have contacts throughout the land. We all do. And it makes the news when a powerful shaman such as Torben has been captured.”