The Lost Tohunga (16 page)

Friday, pre-dawn

P
arukau liked Tomoana's body. It was muscular, virile, and Evan Tomoana was of a like nature to himself. It was a good alliance, a strong symbiosis. He wanted to keep it.
But, damnation, it hurt!
The shoulder was a mess, and he was bleeding dangerously from the bullet wound. The three-storey fall had broken ribs, a collarbone and his left ankle. He probably had concussion, too, judging by the double vision.

When he woke, he was amazed that his spirit had not been torn loose already from this body — anything and anyone could have slain him as he lay behind the buildings of main street Aotearoa-Rotorua. He had been lucky. Evidently people didn't venture out after dark for any reason around here.

He wondered dimly if Deano and Ronnie had lived or died, but he didn't really care. Another world-shift right now could just about finish him off. He was essentially a disembodied spirit, and psychic exhaustion was more dangerous to him than physical punishment. So he skirted the old town, limping along the lakefront, falling in and out of tepid mud pools until he was fouled and begrimed. He didn't know if anyone saw him, but no-one challenged him. Problem was, he got dizzier
and dizzier. Finally the ground swung up and smacked him, and everything went black again. It felt final.

 

Parukau. Wake up!

He shook his head.
Damn, I know that voice …
Old memories rose, and a face …
Asher Grieve!

Indeed, Parukau.

You're dead.
The thought raised frightening implications.
Am I dead?

No, Parukau, you parasitic worm. Whatever claim you have on life, you still retain.

All charm as ever, Asher … What do you want? Where are you, if you're not dead?
Then he smiled, as he realized the truth.
No, wait … You're chained up inside Te Iho!

Indeed. Well done, old chap. But then, Te Iho was as much your idea as the Master's. You're quite right. After my fall from grace, I was locked up with the rest of his enemies. We were the wind beneath his wings.

Parukau snorted without sympathy.
Tough shit. I got locked inside a dog for a century. So, what do you want?
He could picture Asher, the old Asher, primping and looking indignant.

I didn't choose to reveal myself to you for your pleasant conversation, Parukau. I have an offer for you. As it happens, I'm the only inmate here that knows about the other inmates. A couple have made contact with real-worlders, though. They don't know I can hear everything they say. I've learnt much, here in the darkness. I can help you.

The pain in his wrecked human body reminded Parukau of his predicament. But he remembered Asher Grieve, too. It
had been the three of them, back in the day: Puarata, tying up the Maori side of things, Asher working the missionaries and whalers and settlers, and Parukau the wildcard, the bodiless spy. As nasty a triumvirate as any Roman politico-tragedy.
When I went after Puarata, you just looked the other way, you bastard
, he growled at the presence in his mind.

Yours was an ill-advised attempt. If you'd come to me we could have worked together. At least my coup had a chance, until my daughter betrayed me.

Ahh. So that's how that one went down …
Did little Donna not play ball? Serve you right, you old fruitbat!

No, she didn't. And I will make her pay for that. I have a proposition for you. I understand you may have one half of the puzzle that is defeating you and her: how to lay claim to Te Iho … which as you now gather, means how to find me! Do you?

Parukau lay in the mud in his failing body and thought about that. In his present state it didn't take long.
Yeah. I do.

Tell me.
The mental voice was deceptively disinterested.

Like hell! I remember you, Asher: I don't give info for nothing.

My dear fellow, think about this. Currently either my vile daughter or that bastard Venn are poised to claim Te Iho. Will they release me? No! Will they let you live? No! So if either of us wishes to be free, we have to work together.

Damn! He had to think this through, but pain was clouding his reason.
Did you approach Donna?

She hates me. What would be the point?

Makes sense … Shit, what to do …
Okay, yes: I have half the puzzle. But I need the other half.

Then you shall have it! Tell me what you know, and I will reveal the other half …

Despite the pain, he wasn't going to fold that easy.
Like hell — other way round, arsehole!

Asher Grieve chuckled in his ear.
Parukau, my friend. You have a girl in your custody; you think she is the key. For my part, I know where I am, but not how the door is opened … We each have half the puzzle. We have to find a way to work together.

Damn you, old man! You gotta earn my trust before I tell you anything
. He clutched his head with relief.
I was right! It's the girl, she really is the key …

Then let us exchange conditional pledges, Parukau. You will reveal the key, and pledge to free me when you have opened the door to Te Iho … and I will tell you where the gate is.

He stared into the darkness. Somewhere, Donna Kyle was
winning
, and he was stalled, in a broken body and no way forward.
Damn it! Okay, okay. Let's do it, old man.

 

Before dawn, in a haze of pain, he managed to recover sufficiently to shift back to the real world, close to his motel. It was almost too much. He avoided the eyes of the pedestrians, and slipped inside the motel. He hammered on the door until Ko let him in, glanced at the girl to ensure she was still there because she was his only ace, and then he collapsed across his bed, oblivious to anything else.

Friday morning

Riki didn't know how long it took him to fall asleep, but he did. The rasping voice of the Birdwitch haunted his sleep, half-rousing him time and again. The place she had brought him —
her nest —
stank of bird droppings and there were old
bones in the corner of the cage.
Human bones.

This was bad. The cage was damned solid. There was water in a plastic bottle she had left him, but nothing else, just a bucket for slops. It didn't look like she planned on keeping him for long.

Hatupatu's adventures had been his favourite stories when he was a kid. Hatupatu was the classic youngest son, and was full of clever tricks to fool his elder brothers and his tribe's enemies, like draping toitoi bushes in cloaks to make it look like they were crouching warriors. He had beaten up his evil brothers and become chief. Hatupatu was Riki's sort of hero, especially at a time when his own brothers all seemed pretty evil, although he loved them dearly now.

I just wish Hatupatu had killed this old hag properly!

Hatupatu had been kidnapped by Kurangaituku and held in a cage for food. But he had escaped, hid inside a rock, and then led her through the mud pools here in Rotorua until she had slipped, fallen in and been boiled to death. The way Granddad told it, she had seemed as much comic as frightening — but she didn't seem funny at all in the flesh.

The dawn chorus started before five o'clock, by his wristwatch; there was no point in trying to get any more sleep. He felt battered and sore, and he was trapped in the Never-never with a carnivorous witch.
Now would be a good time to show up, Matty Douglas! Ain't that what heroes do?

An hour passed in which nothing stirred in that gloomy room. It was utterly unfurnished, with nothing but his six-by-six cage in it. Nothing he could reach out and snag to help him escape. His experimental kicks at the door just produced a rattling that he was afraid would bring Witchy-poo, so all
there was to do was wait and hope.

She came for him just after dawn, as sunlight gleamed golden through the shutters. The deafening chatter of the birds fell silent as she opened the door, and hunched inside. She was still wrapped only in her feather cloak and a small shift. Her crone face sat incongruously above that muscular body. She stared at him, licking her lips, her eyes nothing like human. ‘Do you know my name, human?' she asked, eventually. There was a strange weight in the question, in the way she said it. It was …
wistful
… hoping for something she did not believe would ever happen.

He thought he knew — the obvious answer — but he didn't answer at once. Something told him that this was a riddle she asked all of her victims, like the sphinx did in Egyptian stories.
Damn, I wish I'd listened more to the old fellas around the marae …

‘Kurangaituku,' he answered slowly, experimentally.

Wrong answer!
She swelled in size, filling the room, hunched over the cage like a hungry beast. Her face contorted, her nose and chin growing together like the top and bottom of a beak, the eyes blazing with hunger. Her huge taloned hands reached out, and pulled the cage open. He fell back to the far wall, as she cawed like a crow and reached out.

He continued frantically:
‘—is the wrong name! The right one is on the tip of my tongue!'

To his utter amazement, she paused. A talon that could have crushed his skull clenched and retracted.

Her voice held a genuine longing. ‘You have ten seconds, human, to find the right answer …'

Friday, pre-dawn

A
ll night, Donna Kyle stalked real-world Rotorua, throwing death-threat looks at anyone that glanced at her, until the night-time crowd simply vanished. Then she slumped onto a bench by the lake and stared across the waters.

Kurangaituku had sent a morepork, which had spoken in a harsh voice, telling her that Kurangaituku held Matiu Douglas's companion, whoever he was.
One morepork!
What sort of alliance of mutual agreement was that? There had been no further contact.
Damn her, this is betrayal!

Had Matiu Douglas been there? Had he heard her words? Did he believe them? She didn't even know now if she had meant them, but she could hear them still, replaying in her mind.

She summoned the patupaiarehe, and sent them into Aotearoa. Stone, to bring the goblins to this shore; Heron, to find Kurangaituku and deliver her most urgent summons; Thorn, to scout for Parukau — only Rose she kept with her. The girl was singing softly to herself, pirouetting at the water's edge, lost in some fantasy. Together and alone, they waited out the eternal night. It came as a vague surprise that the sun
rose. Donna had almost forgotten that such a thing happened. It hurt her eyes to watch that orb lift above the dark horizon, and see the shafts of light stab the darkness with brutal clarity.

Rose whimpered as the light grew. ‘Go! Go and cower in a hole,' Donna snapped at her. The patupaiarehe quailed, but she didn't stay. Alone — finally, truly alone — Donna made herself watch the dawn. While she still could.

Where and what is Te Iho? If I don't get to it first, I'm worse than dead.
Everything was slipping from her hands.
If I stop concentrating, I'm going to fly apart …

A dry voice chuckled into her mind, and she didn't have the strength to banish it.
Daughter
, whispered Asher Grieve.
My little Donna, take courage. I can help you
.

She cringed, curling up inside herself.

Daughter, I feel your pain. It hurts me as it hurts you.

‘Liar!'

He ignored her.
The clues are falling into place, Donna. Te Iho is within your grasp. It is in Rotorua. I remember the smell of sulphur.

‘You remember
what?'
she asked, her interest sparked despite herself.

Yes
, he replied, in his baited tones,
it is in Rotorua, Daughter. Where you are! And there is a special, unique blood that opens the gates, and the path beyond. I remember it, floating through the air as if it were flowing through water. The Blood of the Swimmer, Daughter!

‘The Blood of the Swimmer? What does that mean?'

Think, Daughter! Lake Rotorua. A swimmer.

Omigod.
‘An avatar?'

Yes, an avatar. Parukau has her.

‘How can you know that?'

Parukau himself told me of it.
His voice sounded eerily self-satisfied.

She felt herself chill. ‘He
told
you?'

Indeed, Donna. Do you think you are the only one I can communicate with?

She almost swallowed her tongue.
‘You're helping Parukau?'
she breathed, more frightened than she had ever been in her entire life.

Manipulating him, Daughter. I know his strings, and how to pull them.

‘Why are you telling me this?'

To give you one last chance, Donna. Do you think I want that snake Parukau beside me when I rise anew? Of course, if needs must, then that is how it will be, but it is you who I truly want at my side.

She wondered how her heart kept beating. ‘But I don't know where Te Iho's gate is. And I don't know where Parukau has the girl. You've got to give me more than this, Father!'

Do I have your Pledge then?

Damn this! Damn this!
‘Yes,' she half-sobbed, ‘I pledge to free you.' She put her face in her hands, wailing inside.

To free me alive and unharmed, and to kiss my ring and serve me, Daughter,
he purred inside her mind.
To rule beneath me — my princess — in a new regime that will rule Aotearoa forever.

‘Yes. Yes. I so pledge.' She felt something tighten, like a chain twisting about her soul.

Ahhh. It is done,
Asher sighed. She shuddered.
Do not despair. There is a way to prise the girl from Parukau. Remember the legend, Daughter! Seek the avatar that is her mate! He will be close at hand! Remember the legend.

Suddenly he was gone. It was almost as if she felt his hand
on her head, but then his presence, almost tangible, faded away. She sat shaking, wondering what she had done. Then she realized that she was not alone. Only a few dozen metres away, a Maori man stood, his breath steaming in the cold air. He wore a police uniform beneath an overcoat, but she could see his other identity overlaying him plainly, if she concentrated. It felt so serendipitous as to be fate. Could it truly be him?

She walked towards him, as casually as she could. Before she could even open her mouth, he spoke aloud. ‘It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?'

The effort of concealing her excitement and wonder was almost beyond her. But she managed. ‘Yes,' she breathed, forcing the slightest smile while her heart leapt in her chest like a caged beast. ‘Unbelievable.'

The Maori man smiled softly. ‘I love this place,' he said, as much to himself as to her. He was, perhaps, in his forties, and had a kind of emptiness in his eyes, a loneliness he didn't know how to fill. ‘I love the way the water catches the light.'

She stared at him. This wasn't any sort of chat-up line — he would have said the same things even if he was here alone. ‘I'm Donna,' she said quietly, hoping it wouldn't break the moment. But she needed to know his name. ‘You are …?'

‘Tu Hollis,' he replied, half-turning. His face had a tired, disappointed cast to it, but unbroken. ‘Tutanekai Hollis, actually. My folks named me for the old story.'

Yes!

She froze him in place with a smile, then smashed him around the temple with a fist that she infused with stone. He dropped like a pole-axed bull.

 

She took the prone Tutanekai Hollis through to Aotearoa, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Stone had not failed her — a waka of tipua goblins stood standing offshore, awaiting her. She waved them ashore, and they carried the prone policeman through the shallows and deposited him on the canoe. She took a position in the stern, and gestured impatiently. Within minutes, they were paddling across the dawn-flecked lake to the island. She sent out a mental call to the other patupaiarehe as they surged across the water.

Come to the island, immediately. The game has changed.

In the modern world, Mokoia Island is semi-deserted, a native flora and fauna reserve, a tourist site and, during the school holidays, a school for traditional Maori martial skills. It had once been inhabited, but no more, in either the real world or Aotearoa. They struck the south shore beside the hot pools, and dragged the waka ashore, under the canopy of the forest. The tipua hid themselves in the shadows, liking the sunlight little more than the patupaiarehe. Rose and Thorn arrived minutes later, flowing through the air like jets. But no Heron. Donna frowned, then realized in sudden panic that she no longer held the life cord that controlled the scarecrow-like being. She felt her heart flutter in alarm.
How had that happened? When?

Father did it … He must have …

She banished the others to the shadows uneasily.

She had the goblins leave Tutanekai Hollis beside the very pool where the legends said Hinemoa came to Tutanekai. The policeman woke slowly, groggily, and stared at her. With her
servants in the shadows she might have seemed alone, but he didn't try anything, just waited as the pale morning sun lit Aotearoa. They were in a grassy clearing, right up against the lake, where flat slate rocks bounded a pool of gently bubbling hot water that steamed enticingly in the chill morning air. A few metres away was a disused mission house established in the 1800s but gone now from the real world, although still present here in Aotearoa.

She had taken a crude flute from one of the tipua, and now she proffered it to Tutanekai Hollis. ‘Play.'

He glared back at her with rebellion in his eyes. ‘Go to hell.'

‘I'm not a believer in heaven or hell,' she told him. ‘Play the damned flute.'

‘No!'

With an effort of will that made her shudder, she refrained from ripping his heart out. Instead, she bent over him. ‘Listen, Tutanekai. You have two choices. You will play that flute, and finally get to meet the one woman who can make your lonely existence meaningful. I swear I will even let you both live, once I'm done with you.'
Maybe
. ‘Or you keep refusing, in which case I will allow my servants to eat you, slowly, raw. You have around ten seconds to make up your mind.' She sat back and stared out across the water. ‘Think of me as an unusual kind of dating service.'

Tutanekai Hollis faced her down for a few seconds, then capitulated. He slowly picked up the flute, raised it to his lips, and began to blow. He seemed surprised as a strange and eerie music arose, as much from the place about them as from the instrument he held. But she wasn't surprised at all.

Can you hear this, Hinemoa?