Namaka climbed over the rocks by the sea, then settled down into the lowest of the pools, awaiting twilight.
She had to wait for nightfall. According to Nyi Rara, the darkness would make this meditation journey easier. The prospect of seeing the mermaid’s real world was enthralling, true, but it left her trembling as well. Pō was the ultimate tabu. Only a kahuna of the greatest power could glimpse it while awake, and even then, they spoke of it only in whispers.
A human could not normally reach the Spirit Realm. It will be easier because I am inside you. I can pull you into my world, if you let me.
Pull her into Pō. She suppressed another shudder but couldn’t still her trembling breath.
You are afraid.
Namaka feared nothing.
You lie to yourself. Calm your mind. Clear it and focus, just as you would meditate to draw in Mana.
And wait for twilight. It would come soon. Too soon.
* * *
The moon glinted in the sky above, and still Namaka could not push herself into Pō. She lacked the Sight to see beyond this Realm, much less to enter another.
Your body will remain right where it is. Your mind and soul alone will walk beside me. Calm yourself and take my hand.
Namaka wasn’t quite sure how to take the hand of an incorporeal spirit possessing her body. After mulling it over for a moment, she decided grabbing her own hand was the easiest way to do it.
Nyi Rara sighed in her mind. Imagine me for a moment as a person like you, walking beside you. See me in your mind’s eye.
Fine. Except Namaka had no clue what Nyi Rara actually looked like.
Don’t you?
Her breath caught as a hazy figure materialized in her mind. Whether it was a trick Nyi Rara perpetrated or a vision drawn from her own mind, Namaka couldn’t say. Maybe it didn’t matter. Though roughly humanoid in shape, the woman who stood in front of her was far from human. She had opalescent eyes as alien as those of the he‘e and, in place of ears, multi-layered fins sticking out from beneath the blue-black hair plastered over her face in wet strands. Fine scales covered her entire body, a faint blue-green sheen to them. She stood on legs, but her ankles bore small fins. The hand she reached out was webbed, her fingers ending in nails Namaka could only call claws.
Like someone had blended a fish, a shark, and a woman. Beautiful and deadly.
All around her darkness stretched as far as she could see. There was nothing, absolutely nothing save the creature before her, reaching a hand toward her. Every strand of her being demanded Namaka open her eyes and flee from things the human mind was not meant to see. This creature might be nestled within her soul, but to see her like this made it too real, too inescapable.
“You asked me for symbiosis.” The woman spoke with the same voice that had so long echoed in Namaka’s mind, except now it sounded like words spoken aloud, coming from outside herself. Was Nyi Rara now outside her, or was her mind simply playing a trick on her? The mermaid frowned, but kept her hand outstretched toward Namaka. “In your Realm, you tend to think of reality as one thing or another. But once you leave behind the human world, human perception and human logic must be left behind as well. Now. Do you wish to do this? I cannot force you to take this journey, for it is not a journey of your body, but of your mind, your soul.”
Nyi Rara was right. Namaka had asked for this, had wanted to find a way to reconcile their two natures. And that meant accepting Nyi Rara for what she truly was. It had been so easy to think of her merely as another person talking to Namaka. But Nyi Rara wasn’t a person, exactly. She was something so far beyond human experience that Namaka might—almost—have more in common with someone like Ambassador Punga than with the mermaid princess.
Almost. But not quite.
She grabbed Nyi Rara’s hand. The spirit’s fingers closed around Namaka’s arm, her skin clammy and chilled as a fish, rough with scales. Somehow, despite the claws digging into her own arm, Namaka felt a kind of peace holding Nyi Rara’s hand. And as she accepted that peace, the darkness around her began to fill with faint light, like stars viewed through a cloudy night. Slowly that starlight suffused the night enough that she could see around her.
She sank to the bottom of the pool, the water somehow losing its substance and unable to support her, leaving her standing on sand.
Color bled from the World, leaving behind cold shades of blue and gray, as reality became a hazy shadow. Pō, what Nyi Rara called the Astral Realm. It was a shadow of the Mortal Realm.
Up here, in the Penumbra, it is. The deeper we go, the less it mirrors your Realm. Reality becomes more nebulous. But time also dilates. In the Mortal Realm, it passes slower, giving us more opportunity to find what we seek.
Her body remained where she had left it, tail nestled against a rock now far above her, but even that body seemed a mere shadow in this place.
Movement flickered on the slopes above. Ghosts drifted in and out of view. ‘Aumākua or lapu, Namaka had no idea. Though slightly translucent, the ghosts seemed more real here than the body she had left behind.
Namaka shook her head. “Is this your world?”
“No, I told you—what you call Pō is not my world. It’s a barrier, a crossroads between your Realm and the Spirit Realm.” Nyi Rara pointed to the pools farther above. Pools where water still seemed to fall. “It’s bleeding in from Avaiki, the World of Water, and thus still holds substance in the Penumbra. And that means we can use it to reach Avaiki.”
Namaka climbed from the lower pool, then paused, feeling someone watching her. She turned slowly, not certain why she felt so hesitant.
Behind her, climbing down to meet her, was Leapua. How was she here, now? Shouldn’t she have moved on? Or had she become an ‘aumakua, a spirit to watch over her? Namaka swallowed and motioned for Nyi Rara to wait for her, then trod slowly up to where her old kahuna waited.
“Leapua?” she asked at last.
The ghost looked at her with sad eyes, and then, hesitantly, embraced her. “I’m proud of you.”
Namaka gasped, unable to trust herself to speak, and just held her close. Here, the dead seemed solid. Here, she was not certain it still mattered whether Leapua had become lapu or ‘aumakua.
“You have agonized for so long over the weight placed upon you.”
Namaka shook her head. She’d been a fool, perhaps, to allow her rage to consume her. To demand submission from Pele when she knew that could never happen. Ten thousand things she wanted to say to her, but no words would come.
“Trust yourself.” Her kahuna pointed toward where Nyi Rara waited. She was right. Namaka had no time for a reunion here. Her people needed their queen. As she made her way back to Nyi Rara, she cast another glance at her kahuna, but the ghost had vanished.
Namaka shut her eyes, trying to block out the World for a moment. And then she felt Nyi Rara’s hand holding her own. The spirit led her and they descended into the upper pool. The water felt off, slightly less wet than it should have, and she could breathe and see normally in it. The riverbed declined steeply, far deeper than she knew it to be in her Realm. It sloped off into seeming oblivion.
Nyi Rara continued toward that darkness, swimming now, but not releasing Namaka’s hand—and Namaka was damn glad of that. Nyi Rara was all she had to cling to in this place. They swam on, deeper and deeper, until Namaka’s ears popped.
She had the vague sensation that they swam in the sky, in a floating river, and that, if she pushed too far to either side, she would fall into a void of an infinite expanse. All around lurked an inimical presence, a sense of hostile intelligence eager and willing to consume her soul.
Something shifted, and suddenly the water felt cool and wet once more, like real water. Only more so. Wetter than water, though she couldn’t even understand how that was possible.
Purple light filtered in around her, faint perhaps, yet luminous enough to Namaka’s mer eyes. They had somehow swum into an underwater cave. Nyi Rara’s legs had become a tail, though Namaka’s own had not. None of this made any sense.
As they swam through the cave, she spied other mermaids lounging about, admiring jewelry of gold, glittering with gems that shed their own Otherworldly light. Like Nyi Rara, they were almost more shark than women.
Namaka was definitely dreaming.
“In a sense you are, yes. In a sense, we both are.”
“We’re here now?” She spoke, only briefly considering it strange she could still speak and breathe underwater like a mermaid.
“This is the World of Water, Avaiki. One of the nine worlds of the Spirit Realm. My world.”
Whereas Pō, what Nyi Rara called the Astral Plane, had seemed dark, lit only by starlight, this world was vibrant, at least in places. The cavern walls glowed without any apparent source of light. Nyi Rara led her on and on, until at last they breached the cavern and entered into open ocean.
And nothing could have prepared her for that sight. She had thought the Worldsea endless, but here she gazed out and saw water stretching out forever. Looking up, waters went on and on, with no trace of a surface in sight. Indeed, the ocean stretched forever in all directions.
“There is a cavern roof far, far above us,” Nyi Rara said.
Then all of this, the entire World of Water, was contained like some underground sea, like water inside a coconut? It boggled her mind, left her unable to form words.
The mermaid guided her forward, their path rimmed by a procession of great stone pillars forty paces high. Those pillars were not like something carved on Earth, but at once natural and worked. Nothing was uniform about them, not their undulating shapes or the infinite variety of reliefs carved at their bases, and yet still they seemed wrought with immaculate care. As though the hand of a god had shaped them. They looked … like someone had turned bones into rock.
Another mermaid swam ahead of them, guiding fish a hundred feet long. Namaka shrank away from the enormous creatures as they passed, but they paid her no attention. The line of pillars continued, making a gradual turn across the sea floor to avoid a chasm that looked deep enough to swallow all Mau‘i. Unable to help herself, she gazed into it.
The luminosity of the waters did not extend into its depths, but they did, however, reflect off something down there. A pair of eyes—an eel launched itself from the chasm. Mesmerized and horrified, Namaka froze. The monster must have been a hundred and fifty feet long. Nyi Rara flung herself before Namaka and held up a hand that forestalled the charging creature. It spun in a tight arc, its incredible bulk slithering past Namaka’s face so close she could smell its oily flesh.
All she wanted to do was shut her eyes and wait for the terror to pass. It did not. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would explode.
“I’m not really here,” she mumbled.
“Your soul is,” Nyi Rara answered.
And that had to be worse than being here in body. Anything that feasted on her would devour her very essence as well.
Nyi Rara clasped her hand as if in comfort. “Come. The city is not too far now. Soon, you will meet the court of Bulotu, one of the seven great mer city-states of Avaiki. Soon you will … begin to understand.”
Understand what?
“The connection between our worlds. The Truth about your reality. About everything.”
* * *
The columns they followed did lead them to a city, one far larger than Mu. Here, Namaka could see the peak of the cavern, for the city was carved out of a massive pillar of rock that must have stretched for miles from floor to ceiling. Its breadth was as thick around as one of the smaller islands of Sawaiki, and all of it was porous, light shimmering from a hundred thousand windows within.
Other rock columns ringed Bulotu and a walkway, similar to the one leading to Kuula Palace, stretched out, meeting the path they had been following.
“This whole world is filled with mer?”
“Among other things. The Elder Deep gave birth to the taniwha, the kraken, and the first mer. To all the creatures of the deep, perhaps.” The mermaid paused to cast a glance at Namaka. As if expecting a response. What response could she possibly offer? “Come,” the mermaid said a moment later.
Nyi Rara led her toward the lowest opening in the pillar.
Hundreds of guards patrolled these waters, riding sharks and seahorses, each of which shimmered and boasted features too sharp, too perfect for anything born on Earth.
They passed through the archway and she found herself staring up through a column that was itself alive. Pulsing, living stone like the gullet of some whale. The walls were smooth, but covered in an endless procession of imperfections, bubbles of stone, arching supports that looked like ribs and made her suspect the mer had grown their city here.
And above them, a radiant light as though the sun itself shone down through the waters. Upward they swam, on and on, until finally Nyi Rara led her through a side passage. Here the structure changed, becoming more carefully carved stone. This tunnel connected to another vertical shaft, perfectly smooth save for the glyphs carved into the walls. Nyi Rara had called them wards at Mu. Perhaps here they also served to protect the city.
“This is the Shrine of the Deep,” Nyi Rara said. “Those of priestly bent come here, and here I suspect we’ll find the one we seek.”
They swam upward once again, until they came upon another mermaid. Her skin was white as milk, as was her hair, trailing off into the shadows. And though her eyes were opalescent, like Nyi Rara’s, Namaka suddenly recognized her.
“Opuhalakoa.”
The priestess smiled knowingly at her, though weariness tugged at her eyes. “Being discorporated drains one so … Still, I felt you needed guidance. Nyi Rara’s intents are beyond the unusual.”
“But it can be done?” the mermaid princess asked. “This is what the Urchin showed me.”
Of course. Namaka should have known. The mermaid had refused to speak of it because she had feared what this meant.
“You must go to the Mirror,” the witch said, and pointed at an arch leading out of this chamber. “But Nyi Rara, this is an action not easily undone, a choice that will change everything for you both.”
“I made my choice.”
Or the Urchin had made it for her. Or … necessity had. Namaka nodded. Yes, they had to save their people—both of her peoples.
“Then I will tell you the words,” the priestess answered.
Nyi Rara released Namaka’s hand and allowed her to roam the chamber while the two mermaids spoke. Namaka longed for her tail, finding her motions with legs sluggish, inadequate for the task ahead. Still, she swam about, inspecting the intricacies of the carvings. Thousands upon thousands of the marks were carved here, work that must have taken years. Or longer.
At last Nyi Rara returned, taking her hand once again. “She wishes me to show you something else first.”
“What?”
“The Chamber of Memory. Come with me. I promised you some answers. I do not have all the answers, of course, but there are things for you to know before we make this irrevocable choice.” Without another word, Nyi Rara guided her down, into tunnels that dug beneath the base of this place.
They entered a narrow shaft that pulsed much like the column had, seeming half alive itself. As though … swimming through the veins of some great monstrosity. The tunnel went on for hundreds of feet before ending abruptly at a circular stone door.
Nyi Rara placed her hand upon the stone and it quivered, sending vibrations through the watery tunnel. A moment later, a hint of iridescent light illuminated strange line patterns covering the door. Then it ground against more stone, rolling into the side of the wall and revealing a great domed chamber within.
“This chamber is sealed to all except for the royals and Voices of the ‘ohanas.”
The mermaid swam inside and Namaka followed. All around the perimeter this hall was lined with seashells. Some were missing, others cracked, but it looked like … a picture. A grand mosaic thousands of feet long, wrapping around this chamber and encompassing even the floor. That floor depicted a crevasse, larger and darker than any Namaka had ever imagined. Within that crevasse lurked the shadowy outline of something that seemed to fill the entire space with its bulk. She caught sight of dragon-like eyes … more than two of them. Of octopus-like arms that seemed to writhe in the darkness.
“What in Lua-o-Milu …”
Nyi Rara frowned, swimming closer. “Imagine your world exists inside a coconut. What you call Pō is the skin of that coconut, separating it from the Realm beyond. Our Realm, the Spirit Realm. Avaiki, this World of Water, is one …” Nyi Rara clucked her tongue, gnashing those shark teeth in obvious frustration. “Well, we use the term sphere because it offers a means of conceptualization that in turn leads to perception as crystal sphere. But what we’re really talking about is non-physical fragments of the underlying elements of reality existing coterminously and yet always distinct in experience.”
“Uh … what?”
Nyi Rara growled in frustration. “We’re not in the habit of explaining this to mortals.” She sighed. “All right, every world of the Spirit Realm is ruled by an Elder God. A being beyond time, older than the very World. The greatest of these is the Elder Deep, the goddess of this world.” Namaka pointed at the mosaic indicating the abomination below, one Namaka found herself relieved she could make out little more than a hint of. “As I told you, it is the mother of all benthic powers. We call it by a title as a mark of reverence, though humans have attributed numerous other names to it. Thalassa, Echidna, Tiamat, Leviathan, Rahab … I’ve heard kāhuna near Hiyoya call it Vari.”
The creator of the sea and its bounty. A myth, surely. Or so Namaka had always thought. “And she’s … here?”
Nyi Rara snorted. “No. We’d not dare to build our city anywhere close enough to disturb her slumber. That’s in Naunet, at the heart of Avaiki, well far from here.”
“You’re her children.”
“Well, the first mer were spawned by her. As was the greatest of all he‘e, and the first of his kind, really.”
“You mean … Kanaloa. The he‘e god-king.”
Nyi Rara swam away from the depiction of the Elder Deep and to the wall mosaic, where an octopus the size of a small island lurked, half concealed by coral and columns of bone. The mosaic showed several arms of the octopus holding what looked like flaming pearls.
“Is that …?”
“Chintamani stones,” Nyi Rara confirmed. “Primal manifestations of Mana formed in the gullet of the Elder Deep and spit out. Stolen by Kanaloa during the last Eschaton.”
“Eschaton?” Namaka’s head spun. Nyi Rara spoke of things that made little sense and Namaka’s brain struggled to build connections.
“You call it the Deluge. A cataclysm that rocked the Mortal Realm destroying four continents, including Mu. During that time, a breach opened between Avaiki and your Realm. Through that breach came Kanaloa, along with the stolen Chintamaniya. Others followed, mer—we needed hosts, of course—dragons and so forth, filling your Worldsea with creatures from our world.”
Namaka shook her head. “So … the he‘e god-king is another child of the Elder Deep. A fugitive on our world?” And everything, mer society, the dragons, all of it had come from a connection to Avaiki.
Nyi Rara swam on, pointing to places on the mural that showed landmasses cracking apart as she had said. Further, again Namaka saw Kanaloa, this time waving a Chintamani over some kind of spring. Another stone he waved over what looked like hundreds of little …
“Those are he‘e,” Namaka said.
“Yes.”
“He created the he‘e in his image. Using a Chintamani! It’s that powerful?”
“As I said, it is a fragment of the Elder Deep itself, infused with its Mana.”
Namaka felt suddenly cold down here. “But you said the mer had the Chintamani stones.”
“Yes. The Elder Deep, furious that Kanaloa had stolen from it, told us where he had hidden the great pearls and we came after them. My grandfather was king, then, and Kanaloa offered him a deal. To turn over only five of the Chintamani stones—one for each ‘ohana of Mu.”
“Why would Dakuwaqa agree?”
“Because Kanaloa promised his children as slaves for the mer.”
Oh. Oh, Manua take them all. “Kanaloa sold his progeny into slavery in order to keep his remaining pearls.”
“We thought greed had driven him to it … for a long, long time, we thought that.”
Oh … but when the Sundering came the he‘e had revolted. And Kanaloa had surely planned that, all along.
Nyi Rara pointed across the hall. “Out there is a way we can join, you and I. But there may be no coming back from that, Namaka. If we become symbiotically joined, you are pulled into all of this.” The mermaid waved her hand to indicate the mosaic stretching on and on. “A legacy of the deep, a war stretching back thousands of years. Swim forward but a little more, and you will find yourself inextricably caught in the struggles of Avaiki.”
Namaka’s heart beat painfully fast in her chest. This was … it was too big. The Elder Deep itself, a behemoth of unimaginable size that looked capable of swallowing entire islands whole. Kanaloa, spawn of the Deep, the god-king of the he‘e, plotting his schemes for thousands of years. Namaka rubbed her forehead against a headache building in her brow.
It was too big, and she should ask Nyi Rara to take her back.
Except, all of this would still be here, under the waves, whether Namaka chose to look at it or not. Whatever she did, this battle beneath the Worldsea would be fought. And the winner, be it mer or he‘e, would control the ocean and thus the destiny of the entire Mortal Realm, Mankind included.
What was a queen to do?
“I’m … already in this fight, Nyi Rara. There was never any backing down. Not from the moment you chose me.”
Nyi Rara nodded slowly. “Then follow me into the deep places.”