Namaka sighed and settled down on a bed of kelp gathered in a rock alcove. It was soft and a bit slimy, but felt cool against her skin. She had returned to her grotto in Dakuwaqa Estate to wait.
While Nyi Rara had sent Tilafaiga as an envoy to Ukupanipo ‘Ohana, the other ‘ohana had refused to meet until after sunset. This seemed to surprise Nyi Rara very little. Indeed, Namaka, too, had often heard that all denizens from beyond Pō disdained the sunlight.
Some few are adapted to its harsh rays … Most from the Otherworlds are weakened by sunlight, to varying degrees. Mer adherence to the night is partly custom and partly practical.
Oh, so now Nyi Rara was talking to her again, pretending as if they had not nearly gotten each other killed.
You never cease vexing me, mortal. If you push me far enough, I’ll destroy you.
No. Nyi Rara couldn’t afford to lose another host, much less surrender the chance at Namaka’s power. They were stuck with one another.
The mermaid growled in her mind, a wordless rage seeping into Namaka, as if Nyi Rara considered eating her. Biting herself, Namaka supposed. She understood that wrath all too well. What if … could it work the other way around? Could the mermaid spirit be brought under Namaka’s control?
You arrogant, insufferable wretch! Defy me, and I shall feed your body to the Elder Deep!
Namaka had no idea what that meant. Other than another idle threat. And she’d begun to tire of Nyi Rara’s impotent tantrums.
Tantrums … Impotent?
Of its own accord, Namaka’s hand suddenly seized up a coral knife. She willed it to stop, but the blade drew closer and closer to her neck.
No.
No, no, no.
Nyi Rara would never destroy her own host. It had taken her a decade to claim this one. She could never—
It’s time you learn there are limits to the insolence I’ll tolerate, mortal.
The blade bit down, carved a shallow but ragged gouge as Nyi Rara drew it along the side of Namaka’s neck, perilously close to her gills. Down, into her collarbone. White pain flashed before Namaka’s eyes. She tried to scream but not even her mouth obeyed her. The mermaid bored into the bone with the knife, and the waters turned pink, thick with blood. The scent of it both revolted and intoxicated, driving Namaka into a sudden desire to ravage prey and devour it whole.
Writhing on the seabed, she rolled off the kelp, unable to filter between hunger, agony, rage, and lust.
Then the pressure eased, and Nyi Rara left her there, gasping, gills flapping painfully.
Submit or I shall wreak far worse suffering upon you.
The mermaid’s voice sounded far away. Strained. Fatigued from the effort of enforcing her will against Namaka. So … she could do so, albeit only temporarily.
Groaning, Namaka pushed herself up off the seabed. When she looked up, Taema was there, cringing, eyes wide.
Craven weakling, held afloat by the grace of her sister.
Taema and Tilafaiga were close?
One is a shark and the other is an anemone.
“What do you want?” Namaka asked.
“I smelled blood.” Her shark teeth had descended. For that matter, so had Namaka’s. An automatic response. “You’re injured.”
“A disagreement with my host.” Namaka winced, realizing Nyi Rara had managed to use her mouth to say that.
Taema’s eyes grew wider still. “The mortal challenges you?”
Oh. And what would Nyi Rara tell the other mermaid? That their precious princess was still too weak to control anyone? Or that they had chosen a host too powerful to completely possess.
Be silent!
No. Nyi Rara knew the price. Anything less than partnership, and they were both damned to Pō.
“What do you do for Dakuwaqa ‘Ohana?” Namaka asked Taema.
“What do I …?” The mermaid glanced over her shoulder. “You’re the host!”
Hmm, and should Namaka herself reveal Nyi Rara’s weakness? How would the princess handle that?
What do you think happens to you if they find out? I’ll be sent back to my world and you’ll be drowned and eaten.
“I am. We are in discourse.”
Discourse … you are in impudent rebellion against a deity!
Namaka struggled not to roll her eyes at that. “So, you were telling me about your role in Dakuwaqa.”
“Uh … I …” Taema swam a little closer. “My sister and I are the tattoo artists for the Dakuwaqan Rangers.”
Tattoos?
Nyi Rara groaned in her mind.
A means of harnessing and containing additional Mana, in this case to create more potent warriors. An ancient application of the Art, preserved only through a select few practitioners. Each ‘ohana has their school of the Art, and among Dakuwaqa, the tattoo Arts reign. The Art itself is the study of the conjunction of the natural and the supernatural. The secret, mutable aspects of reality. In the most vulgar of terms, you might call it magic.
Mahalo. Not so hard, after all. Besides which, Namaka was kupua, trained by a mo‘o. She knew of the Art, even if she herself was no sorceress.
But others are. You must never underestimate Kuula ‘Ohana for that reason. Aiaru has the Sight and can perceive things hidden to others. Further, they use forbidden rituals to maintain their power. The Ukupanipo priests disdain such acts and castigate Kuula for it. Nevertheless …
Nevertheless, expediency maintains a throne. A queen had to do what a queen had to do.
The queen cannot deny us access to the Urchin, which Ukupanipo controls. However, she will not want us to consult the Urchin because it can bestow glimpses of the Sight upon even those not possessing it, thus negating her advantage.
“My princess?” Taema asked.
“Hmm, yes. What exactly can these tattoos do?”
“Well, they are restricted in use to Rangers who have passed the Deep Ordeal.”
Namaka smiled. “An evasion.”
Taema lowered her eyes.
Leave her be. As she said, the tattoos allow the Rangers to store additional Mana. They also allow them to harness it to move faster, hit harder, and survive injuries that might otherwise incapacitate them. Such things hold little bearing on our current situation.
If Dakuwaqa had the Rangers, why wasn’t that enough to seize power?
Because an open revolt, high treason, would invite retribution from Ukupanipo as well as Kuula. We cannot hope to overcome both ‘ohanas at the same time, even if we could overcome the queen’s dark Art. Thus, we work in secret to elevate ourselves.
And Namaka could help. If Nyi Rara would agree to her price.
Gods do not bargain with mortals for their rights!
Namaka reached over and stroked Taema’s cheek, and the mermaid shuddered. “It’s fine. I’m fine. You can go now.”
The girl had barely left before Ake swam into Namaka’s grotto. “The High Priestess Opuhalakoa has agreed to meet with you now.”
“Lead the way.”
Ake turned and guided her back to Kuula Palace, and then deep into its heart.
They passed through halls winding in a maze that reminded her of the intricate reefs around the city. Actually, that was probably intentional.
Nyi Rara forced her down, though, and Namaka decided not to fight, still curious about this Urchin.
She, or rather Nyi Rara, followed Ake until they came to a circular chamber with a gorge down its center. The merman commander twirled his tail and Nyi Rara returned the gesture.
Then she slowly descended into the gorge. Those wisp lights had illuminated the chamber above, but they barely reached into this chasm, and the deeper they dove, the darker it grew. Her eyes, she found, had become superhumanly adapted to darkness, in addition to having that nictitating membrane to protect them. Perhaps night vision was a necessity for those who swam the depths. Eventually, however, the passage grew so dark even she could make out little.
Nyi Rara began guiding herself downward with a hand on either side of the increasingly narrow gorge. Just when Namaka began to suspect they would meet the priestess in total darkness, a faint glow appeared ahead, emanating from a tunnel through the gorge’s side wall.
The mermaid followed this tunnel, revealing some kind of bioluminescent algae clinging to the tunnel’s sides. The light it cast was so faint a human would have struggled to see, but Namaka’s new eyes adapted quickly.
The tunnel wound around a bend before finally opening into a chamber at least as large as the queen’s throne room had been. Maybe larger. This place, however, had the scent and taste of eternity. The chamber roof rose a hundred feet above her, but its floor—which dropped down an unseen distance beneath her—was dominated by a sea urchin so vast a whale could have impaled itself on one of the spines. Those spines were an iridescent mix of purples, reds, and blacks, a forest filling this cavern.
The creature pulsated with an Otherworldly light, its movements barely perceptible, but so clearly alive. Namaka could feel the Mana wafting off it, suffusing the chamber and seeping up through the layers of rock, feeding the city above.
Nyi Rara twirled her tail at the Urchin and Namaka found herself unable to form any other thought save to mentally do the same. This creature was ancient, perhaps timeless. As Nyi Rara entered the chamber, the Urchin’s Mana hit Namaka like a gale, threatening to blow over her mind, even as her body basked in its awesome glory. It was like drinking in pure joy, life itself. And that life was self-perpetuating, an all-consuming love of existence that seeped in through her scales and gills and pores.
She felt drunk on awa.
So enthralled with the Urchin, she barely noticed the other woman approaching until the mermaid drew within a few paces of her. This one, like Aiaru, was covered head to tail in scales, and they seemed to radiate a faint bioluminescence of their own. Her hair flew about the chamber wild, unkempt, seeming almost forgotten. Probably it was, given the wide-eyed look this mermaid had. Her hands were totally webbed, ending in claws, and massive fins sprouted from her side. An ancient mermaid, become more spirit than human.
Nyi Rara twirled her tail again. “Priestess Opuhalakoa. Mahalo for meeting me.”
“It has been too long, young one.” The priestess flashed a wry grin as if looking at something beyond sight, beyond the understanding of mere mortals.
I am not a mortal.
Maybe not, but Namaka suspected not even Nyi Rara knew the secrets—or madness—this mermaid had glimpsed. That was it, wasn’t it? Men thought spirits all powerful. Compared to Mankind, she supposed they were. But they didn’t know everything about the World either. No, even among their kind, some studied the Art. Some knew more than others.
The priestess placed a hand on Namaka’s face, then clucked her tongue. “Strong host. Willful, hopeful … unbroken.”
“The strangest host I’ve ever taken.”
“Perhaps your most valuable. But I assume you wish to pay homage to the Urchin.”
“I must have answers.”
Opuhalakoa didn’t move, but somehow, her body seemed to interpose itself further between Nyi Rara and the sea creature. “It is not for you, young one.”
“Surely there is something you wish that you might be persuaded to barter for.”
The priestess tapped a webbed finger to the side of her cheek. “You know, I trust, that reality is held together by the roots of the Great Tree, Uekera. The eldest believe the Urchin rises from the Tree itself, an outgrowth of it, binding past, present, and future and thus serving as an instrument of Fate.”
Nyi Rara lowered her head, perhaps unable to think of a worthy response.
What was this Great Tree?
The Tree of Life. The World Tree.
World Tree? With roots holding reality together. Wait, did that mean that the roots she’d seen by the Waters of Life were—
Opuhalakoa gave her little time to consider that thought. “What is it you think you can offer, princess?”
“You ate my father.”
A sad smile answered her. “We consecrated him to the Elder Deep after he was convicted of treason. Why do you think Mu lost control of the taniwha? Rather, why did Dakuwaqa ‘Ohana lose them, lose the he‘e, lose all your power and create the Sundering? Why, even now, are fragments of our once glorious empire struggling to conquer our city? Because of you and your ‘ohana, princess.”
“I wasn’t even born.”
“Nevertheless, Dakuwaqa ruled Mu and you thought yourselves so far removed from the Elder Deep that the sacrifices dwindled. The worship faded. The belief eroded. And without faith in the Fathomless One, our connection to Avaiki weakened. We lost everything because of Dakuwaqa. That falls in your wake, whether you were born or not. ‘Ohana is everything. After faith.”
Nyi Rara shook her head. “You were a part of Dakuwaqa back then.”
Opuhalakoa glowered at her.
“Oh, is that not true?”
“Ukupanipo broke away because of the failings of—”
“Your ‘ohana. It was, at the time in which you claim we were failing, your ‘ohana, far more than mine, considering I did not exist. It stands to reason more of the blame falls beneath your fins than mine.”
What did Nyi Rara hope to gain through antagonizing this priestess?
There is more going on here than you realize.
Fine. So why didn’t Nyi Rara just explain it?
The priestess grimaced now, shaking her head. “Fine, I shall allow you to speak with the Urchin.”
It could speak?
Not in words. Be still.
“In return,” Opuhalakoa said, “you shall aid Daucina in his search.”
Namaka felt Nyi Rara mentally groan, though the mermaid nodded in acquiescence.
Nyi Rara blew out a breath out through her gills, as if steadying herself for an ordeal. Then the mermaid swam closer to the Urchin, circling it. With each pass, she drew a pace or so nearer those spines. As Nyi Rara did so, the Urchin moved, twitching its spines ever so slightly. Namaka’s eye fixed not on those protrusions, but on the pulsating body behind them.
Falling. Crashing like a wave that never broke. Vertigo consumed her, but she could not look away, could not let go for a single moment. Indeed, it was a kind of rapture embracing her body and soul, one that might let her fall forever and be at peace with that.
And through the fall, her mind was somewhere else. A thousand places, each like the last fading instant of a dream before waking. Ephemeral and hard to make sense of. Even harder to hold onto.
* * *
Uluka‘a, vibrant and beautiful, a living paradise for god-queens and their followers.
Uluka‘a, dead. A wasteland swept away by a kai e‘e and buried under mountains of volcanic ash.
A thousand funeral pyres as her people slowly slipped from the Earth.
A man made of blood, slipping from island to island, eyes gleaming with fell intent.
In utter darkness, eyes, massive, a form. A he‘e, waiting like an answer to unspoken questions. Caverns beneath the ocean, crevices where the he‘e made their lairs. The He’e Aupuni, where they lived in their thousands, shifting forms and colors, unknowable.
And she was on land, somewhere. Was that the Sacred Pools? The waters answered her call, spraying up in intersecting geysers, creating a sparkling circle of waters flowing about her like a a net. And she was happy, smiling, laughing.
Then weeping, holding a corpse in her arms and sobbing. More, more death, in a dark place, before a fire, leaving her so very, very lost.
Somewhere else, volcanic fires erupting over the islands, and snow-capped mountains. The crash of thunder. And death.
Hokohoko slammed her up against a palace wall, coral knife to her throat. What was this? They had all betrayed her!
But she was a child, watching a dead baby float off in the surf.
She lay in pain, on the floor of Kuula Palace, groaning, thinking about giving in. Sucking down seawater in a desperate attempt to gain even a little more Mana. To change Fate.
And now, at last she sat upon Aiaru’s throne. She would be a god-queen once more, at any price.
All the Muian Sea would be hers.
* * *
Nyi Rara collided with the wall, shattering the torrent of visions and scraping her shoulder. Dazed, she drifted free until the witch caught her and pulled her back toward the entrance.
“What did you see?”
“I don’t know,” Namaka said. She was in control, like the barrage of sensations had beaten Nyi Rara down. “What was that?”
“The host. Interesting. You are strong. The Urchin is connected to all the Worldsea, pulsing with its life. Through its connection to Uekera it is fed dreams and memories of the Seven Seas and the seven mer kingdoms. Its thoughts are thoughts without time.”
“I saw … too many things.” Already, most had begun to slip from her grasp. She tried to hold on to any given vision, but the more she tried to recall them, the hazier they became. One blended into the next.
But she remembered being a queen. A queen of this sea, above and below.
“Perhaps you saw things that have been, or things that are, or even … some things that one day will be.”
“I saw the future?”
“Anything is possible, though that is the rarest of visions.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t understand any of it.”
The priestess shrugged, a surprisingly human gesture in her immensely inhuman form. “Not now. The Urchin’s mind, if we are to even call it that, does not think like a human, or even a mer’s, mind. You may one day be able to glean something useful from that glimpse of its thoughts.”
Before she could ask anything else, Nyi Rara reasserted control over her body.
The priestess seemed to recognize that, and nodded. “You must be tired. Do not, however, forget your end of the bargain.”
Indeed, Namaka was exhausted, like the visions had beaten her senseless. Even the spirit inside her seemed fatigued, drawn out.
With a last tail twirl, Nyi Rara fled the Urchin’s chamber.
* * *
Namaka thought Nyi Rara was swimming back to her grotto, but rather, the mermaid entered a different tunnel, swimming until she passed Taema with a nod, then on, to another chamber.
In this one, Ake lay against the seabed, staring at the ceiling, his face a mash of twitches, webbed fingers seeming to tremble outside of his control.
What were they doing here?
The Ranger commander looked up as Namaka swam inside. For whatever reason, Nyi Rara had not let Namaka claim a moment of control since they’d left the Urchin Chamber. She could feel the mermaid’s agitation, pushing against her skull, but Nyi Rara offered no explanation.
“How bad is it?” Nyi Rara asked.
Ake grunted, then gnashed his teeth. “The host … hallucinates, sometimes. The body is wearing out faster because of the tattoos. I taste blood everywhere.” The commander looked abashed. “I woke up in the middle of the day, a little before we claimed you, to find I’d bitten my own arm.” He lifted his left arm to reveal a mangled scar Namaka had never asked about distorting some of the tattoos.
“Can you switch hosts?”
“We have no ideal candidates. Besides, the host’s deteriorating mind is beginning to infect me like a rot. I need time to recuperate in Avaiki. Time Mu cannot afford with Hiyoya pressing in against us. The mistakes of the past come crushing in on us.” He jerked his head violently and snapped his jaws at some unseen prey.
“You mean Grandfather’s mistakes.”
“I would never dare besmirch the Voice of Dakuwaqa.”
Nyi Rara scratched at Namaka’s brow. “I’ve been denied the pleasures of the flesh a long time.”
Wait, what? What in Lua-o-Milu did Nyi Rara mean by—
The mermaid’s will slapped Namaka like a wave, slamming her into darkness and blurring her senses.
The next Namaka was aware, her tail had split down to her knees, as had Ake’s. Snarling, the merman hurled her against the grotto ceiling.
Wait!
She wasn’t ready for this!
But Nyi Rara was in firm control, grabbing Ake’s suddenly appeared cock and sliding it inside herself. Inside Namaka. “Take my Mana …” Nyi Rara said. “It’ll help stave off the madness …”
The merman’s grunting and thrusting rammed Namaka’s back against the grotto stone, scoured it, until she tasted blood in the water. The blood that spiked her own arousal. She screamed inside her head, furious that Nyi Rara could do this without her permission.
More furious that her body, under Nyi Rara’s thrall, was enjoying it.
Sharp rock from the ceiling gouged her arse.
With a primal snarl, Ake bit her shoulder, his jagged teeth punching through flesh and scraping bone. Namaka tried to scream, but Nyi Rara only let her moan.
She felt her body climax, convulse, and then Nyi Rara slumped to the back of her mind in exhaustion. Growling, Namaka tried to push Ake away, but he only ground harder against her, exploding inside her the next instant.
Her fist caught him in his jaw and she shoved him down, slamming him into the floor.
Her blood had turned the water into a blurry pink cloud. “How dare you!”
Panting, he looked up at her, clearly confused. “You’re the host?”
Namaka hissed at him and swam away, wanting to hit something. To hit anyone for this.
What the fuck was Nyi Rara doing? She thought she and the mermaid princess had a kind of accord. She thought they had begun to understand one another. For that matter, Namaka wouldn’t have even refused, if Nyi Rara had bothered to ask. Ake was attractive enough, and Namaka would never turn down a good romp.
But for Nyi Rara to use Namaka’s body like it belonged to her …
That betrayal was a blade in the gut.