The Lost Tohunga (17 page)

Friday, pre-dawn

M
at dreamt, of Ngatoro.

They were in a darkened room, moonlight streaming through big windows behind him. The old man hung in the air before Mat, wrapped up in tubes that looked like veins, pulling and pumping fluids from his body and out into the darkness. His body was thin and hunched, his limbs twitching occasionally. His long, grey hair floated as if he were under water, and his eyes were closed, but his lips moved faintly. Bubbles formed at his lips and streamed upward and dissolved.

They weren't alone. To the left and right, in a circle fading into the shadows, there were at least a half-dozen others, male and female, all old, almost all of them Maori. The windows revealed a vista of moonlit rose gardens, oddly familiar.

Ngatoro opened his eyes. They were like two discs of slate, and they didn't seem to see Mat at all. ‘Matiu?' Ngatoro whispered, barely audible. ‘Are you dreaming or are you really here?'

‘I think I'm asleep,' Mat replied. ‘Where are we?'

‘In my prison, where Puarata left me.'

Mat looked at the other captives. ‘Who are these others?' he whispered, slightly awed.

‘What others?' Ngatoro breathed. ‘There are no others. They're all dead and gone.'

‘Can't you see them?' Mat asked. ‘They're right here …'

The old tohunga shook his head, making his silver hair ripple through the air. ‘There used to be others. I am the last.'

‘But … what is this place?'

Ngatoro sighed. ‘This is Puarata's lair. He called it “Te Iho” — The Heart.'

‘This is what all of his warlocks are looking for!' Mat stared about him.

Ngatoro nodded. ‘Yes, this is the place. He overmastered me, with poisons and treachery, and he brought me here. I remember blood, a stream of blood that we followed through a dark shifting cave or tunnel: a shadow-maze. I was only half-conscious.' His voice became dreamy and faint.

‘Where are we? Where in the real world?'

‘I don't know.'

‘I went to sleep in Rotorua! The warlocks are here. I think they're looking for Te Iho in Rotorua.'

‘Rotorua? I don't know … I thought it was in the Ureweras, in a cave. They took me through caves, Parukau and Puarata, and then …' The old tohunga visibly fought to rouse himself. ‘Mat, a shadow-maze is impenetrable without a guide. Without the guide, you will be lost forever. You must find the gate, and the guide!'

Mat bit his lip. ‘I don't know what the guide is. And I don't know where the gate is. Is there some other way?'

Ngatoro thought for a time, going so still Mat almost
thought he had fallen asleep. Finally, he whispered, ‘There is only one other way: primal fire.'

‘Primal fire?'

The old tohunga nodded. ‘Original fire. True fire. To burn the walls of shadow.' His head slumped again. Mat bent as close as he could. ‘Mahuika,' the tohunga whispered, utterly exhausted. ‘Mahuika. You must find her. Immediately! If you cannot find the guide, then you must gain primal fire from Mahuika, and then you must find the gateway …' His head slumped forward. ‘All else is secondary …'

‘Ngatoro!' Mat called him, a forced whisper. He tried to reach towards him, but found his hands passing through the old man. He jerked back, and looked left and right.

Every prisoner in that place dreamt on, oblivious.

Except one.

The next prisoner in the line, a grey-haired Pakeha with a hook nose and deep dissolute lines about his face, was staring at him open-eyed. ‘YOU!' the man spat. He raised a hand, and pointed straight at him. ‘GET OUT!'

A blank wall of force swatted him, and he spun and fell …

 

… and woke.

Mat sat up abruptly, a cry half-formed on his lips, and blinked in the dim sunlight. Then he almost leapt ten feet as a wet tongue slopped at his cheek.
‘Arghhh!'

Fitzy chuckled darkly. ‘Heh heh. Just me, Mat.'

He stared at the turehu, clutching his chest. ‘Hell, Fitzy! Couldn't you have just barked or something?'

‘Yeah, but that would've meant I didn't get to see you nearly
wet yourself.' Fitzy glanced around. ‘I suppose you know that we're under observation?'

They both looked up at the birds that sat silent on every branch. ‘Yeah.' He rubbed his eyes. The first thing he remembered was that bizarre one-way conversation with Donna Kyle. He was still struggling to think his way through that … Was she sincere? She had tried to kill him several times, and yet when she had captured him a year ago in Auckland what she really wanted was a way to escape Puarata's clutches. It was that desire to escape that had enabled him to turn the tables on her.

Then he remembered Riki, and that pushed all thought of Donna Kyle from his mind. He sat up, his eyes wide. ‘Kurangaituku has got Riki, Fitz! She eats people — we've got to find him.' Even while speaking, though, he remembered Ngatoro's words:
Mahuika. You must find her. Immediately! … All else is secondary …

Fitzy was sniffing about. ‘I've already tried, while you were sleeping. But things that fly or can leap fifty or sixty feet at a go aren't so easy to track.' He hung his head. ‘I lost them. I'm sorry.'

Mat hung his head. ‘It's my fault. I dragged him into this.'

Fitzy didn't disagree. The turehu just padded up and nuzzled him. ‘Blaming ourselves doesn't undo our mistakes,' he said softly. ‘Come on, we've got to go back and join the others.'

Mat stood unsteadily, looking about him with unseeing eyes.
Mahuika … find her … all else is secondary …

How long would it take to find the others, and then to find Mahuika? And what was the Birdwitch doing even now to Riki?

All else is secondary …

He would have to trust in Ngatoro.

‘Fitzy,' he said slowly. ‘Do you know how to find Mahuika?'

Fitzy looked up at him in puzzlement. ‘That old bat? Why the hell would you want to find her?'

 

Everyone knew the legend of Maui and Mahuika — well, everyone Mat knew. It was a staple of kindergarten story-time. Mahuika was guardian of the fire, and she was also Maui's grandmother. Mankind had fire as a gift from her, but could not make new fire. Seeing this, Maui, the famous trickster demigod who had fished up New Zealand and tamed the sun, put out all the fires of the village. Then he went to Mahuika, telling her all the fires had somehow gone out, and asked for more. She believed him, and pulled out one of her fingernails, which burst into flame, and gave it to Maui to take back to his village.

But Maui went just a little way from her caves, and then stamped on the fingernail to put the fire out. He then went back, told her it had gone out, too, and asked for another. Because he was her grandchild, Mahuika let him have another, and he again doused it, and so on until she had no fingernails and only one toenail left. This she threw at him, and it burst into a great living fireball that pursued him as he fled. He ran for his life, even took hawk form, but the great fireball pursued him, and would have destroyed him and all the world, but he called upon the gods to save the world, and they did, sending rains to douse the fireball. These rains also fell upon Mahuika, and extinguished her fires. To preserve fire, she sent the last
of her powers into the trees, into the mahoe, the totara and the kaikomako. This had been Maui's plan all along, because now anyone could make fire, just by rubbing splinters of those trees together.

‘What happened to Mahuika?' Mat asked Fitzy.

‘She's been sulking in her cave for centuries,' Fitzy told him. ‘She has a tendency to throw fireballs around, so most people find her a little antisocial. Anyway, she's a bore — all she does is whine about Maui and what a bastard he was.' He stared out to the south. ‘Do you know of the Pink and White Terraces, which were buried by the eruption of Mount Tarawera? Her caves are near there, in Aotearoa, where the terraces remain undamaged.'

‘How far is that?'

‘Twenty kilometres to the southeast of here.' Fitzy looked up at him. ‘Why do you want to know?'

Mat told him.

Fitzy studied him anxiously. ‘The others are going to be really worried if I don't come back. Why don't we go see them, and maybe catch a lift?'

‘I don't think so. What Ngatoro said implied that Parukau has everything he needs to get control of Puarata's lair: he knows the location, and he has Hine — ‘the blood of the swimmer'. He could get to the lair any time. I don't think I can waste even a minute.'

Fitzy exhaled. ‘Okay. Okay! I guess I'll have to get you there myself then.'

Mat looked down at the turehu gratefully. ‘Thanks. But it's a long way.'

‘Yeah, but at least I know the way. Turn around,' he added.

Mat turned around. ‘Why?'

‘Just because,' the turehu answered a few seconds later, in a deeper voice, huffing in a most un-dog-like manner.

Mat turned and gasped. ‘Fitzy! You're a horse!'

He was, too — a sleek chestnut with a lean frame and long thoroughbred lines. ‘What decent turehu has only one shape?' he asked disdainfully.

Mat thought for a second, then grinned. ‘A one-trick pony.'

Fitzy snorted. ‘Hrumph! Get on, you cheeky sod, before I change my mind.'

Mat swung up hesitantly. He had never ridden before, except for a couple of walks on school outings to farms, and certainly not bareback. ‘You mean you could have carried me all the way from Napier to Taupo last year?' he asked, a little accusingly.

‘I couldn't carry all three of you, so why would I carry just one?' the turehu retorted. ‘And anyway, I don't like being a horse. Gormless lummoxes! Now, hold the mane, and I'll try and make it easy for you. Grip with your thighs, and hang on!'

Mat had barely settled on Fitzy's back when the turehu erupted from a standing start, and suddenly he was clinging on for dear life.

Friday morning

H
ine awoke shaking from a dream about Evan: there was a serpent inside his mouth that kept lunging out at her when he tried to kiss her.

‘Hush!' Ko was kneeling over her, holding a hand over her mouth. For a second she panicked, thinking Ko was attacking her, then realized that all she was doing was trying to muffle her.

She was on the floor of the motel bathroom, manacled to the piping beneath the handbasin. Somehow she had slept, even there, but with horrible nightmares. She felt grimy and desperately needed to use the toilet. There was still dried blood on her clothes and skin.

When Ko saw Hine was calm, she put a pudgy finger to her lips, and looked back over her shoulder into the bedroom. Hine peered past her. Evan lay face-down on the bed, covered in filth. She could smell mud and rottenness emanating from him in waves. Blood was running from his right shoulder. She felt a surge of hope. Then Brutal loomed around the corner, and looked at Ko. The kneeling woman held out a hand, and Brutal placed a small key into it. Ko unlocked the manacles,
and then Brutal pushed in, bodily lifted Hine up and carried her out into the main room, through the adjoining door and into the unit Ronnie and Ko and their children were sharing. Brandi looked up curiously from a pile of newspaper she was playing with, then went back to her drawing. Brutal put Hine down in the bathroom of this unit, then turned back to Ko. She handed over the cuffs reluctantly, and he manacled Hine again to the basin pipes, exactly as she had been in the other bathroom.

‘No more damned screaming,' growled Brutal quietly. ‘Man can't sleep. You make a racket like that again an' I'll smack you one.' He straightened, then put a big hand on her right breast and squeezed it.

‘Hey!' hissed Ko. ‘Get your hands off her!'

‘Piss off, Ko,' snarled Brutal, shoving her out, and shutting the bathroom door. He looked down at Hine with an empty, implacable gaze. There was nothing behind his eyes, nothing to reason with, as he knelt and placed a massive hand on either of her breasts, and groped roughly through the T-shirt.

‘Brutal, don't do this,' she whispered. ‘Evan will kill you.'

‘Evan's stuffed. Two bullets in the shoulder. He'll be dead by nightfall.' His voice took on a whining quality. ‘I hope he dies. Cos everything's gone to shit. I want to go home. I don' wanna die.'

‘Where are Deano and Ronnie?' she asked, to get him thinking, talking, anything to make him stop.

He stopped mauling her. ‘They never came back, Hine. He took them off with him, an' they ain't come back. He's got them killed … an' they're my
friends
. He's killed the poor bastards.' He bent over, and started to cry.

She watched him in sick wonder. She had never thought to see this man cry in her life. It was beyond strange. ‘Brutal, please let me go,' she whispered. ‘Let's all go, back to Taupo! You and me and Ko and the kids.'

He looked up, wavering. It occurred to her that he had probably never done a thing of his own volition since he had met Evan. Maybe in his whole life. He was just muscle and appetite. He didn't know how to make a decision. ‘I … Can I … uh …'

She tried to sound calm and reassuring. ‘We can do it, Brutal! We can leave him behind. We can get through this. Please, let me loose!'

His face wavered. Her heart hammered as he gave a faint nod, and—

The door smashed open behind him, and Evan stood there, swaying, his shoulder swathed in scarlet, the rest of his body filthy. A massive flintlock pistol was clenched in his left hand, the hammer primed, the long barrel almost touching Brutal's forehead. His face contorted into a demonic grin. ‘Et tu, Brutal?'

The pistol roared. The explosion was deafening as the back of Brutal's head exploded outwards, bathing the room in hot blood and sticky lumps of bone and brain. Hine was beyond screaming, felt her mouth work soundlessly, her ears ringing silently, her whole body rigid with shock.

Evan …
Parukau
… was swaying. The pistol's recoil was enough to numb his weakened grip, and the weapon clattered to the floor. He clutched his bloody shoulder, and staggered sideways, smearing blood along the wall. ‘Got you, you big bastard,' he rasped at Brutal, and then he slid down the wall
to the floor. His face turned to Hine, his mouth opening. He said something unintelligible, then slumped sideways onto the floor beside her as blood pooled about them.

Ko appeared, her eyes round. ‘Lovey! Are you okay? Omigod, omigod—' She began to shake. Behind her, in the lounge area, both children began to cry.

‘Ko!' Hine interrupted, as sharply as she dared. ‘Ko, you gotta get me outta these cuffs — please!'

Ko looked at her with bewildered eyes. ‘Where's my Ronnie? Where's my Ronnie?' she repeated with mounting hysteria.

‘Ko! Get me the key.'

Evan —
Parukau
— stirred.

‘Get the key, Ko!' Hine pleaded. ‘He's going to kill us — get the key!'

Outside in the room, she could hear shouting. The gunshot had been heard. Evan shook himself weakly. His eyelids flickered.

‘The key!' she pleaded, trying to reach Ko. ‘Ko — please!'

Something penetrated Ko's confusion and horror. She crawled into the pool of blood that was welling from Brutal's head, and fumbled in his pocket. She drew out the key, and clumsily unlocked Hine's right hand. Hine snatched the key and unlocked her other wrist, then scrambled up, hauling Ko to her feet. ‘Get Filli! I'll get Brandi! We've gotta run, Ko — come on!'

Hine edged around Evan, and snatched up Brandi. Outside there was more shouting. Ko followed, slipping in the blood and almost falling. They tramped bloody shoe prints into the lounge.

‘Filli!' She waddled to the bed, and picked up her baby.

‘Hine!' growled Evan. His eyes were open and fixed on hers. ‘Hine!'

Suddenly a strange sound penetrated the room. The thin call of a flute, barely audible, but carrying to her ear like a whispered promise, like the whisper of a mother.
No, not a mother … a lover …
She turned towards it, in sudden confusion. She saw a vision, of an island, and a man, and music that was winging across the surface of the lake, calling her home.

‘Hine!' snarled Evan. ‘Hine: block your ears — don't listen!' His face contorted with …
was it fear?

She wrapped Brandi in her arms and ran through the adjoining doorway, and then outside. An old man was peering out of his unit with a frightened face. He called out tremulously: ‘What's happening? I thought I heard—' He saw the blood on her clothes, and backed away.

She looked back over her shoulder. ‘Ko! Come on!' The big woman was scooping baby things into a bag. ‘Leave them!' Hine screamed. ‘Run!'

Ko looked up, took a deep breath, and stumbled towards her, tears streaming over her face. Filli was screeching in her big hands, the baby's tiny face red and furious. Ko rumbled past, but Hine lingered, hearing the song of the flute, feeling it shimmer about her.

Evan lurched around the door. ‘Don't listen, Hine!' He tried to grab her with his right hand, but his arm wouldn't respond. His left hand held a handgun. She ran. The old man from the other unit stepped towards her, then looked over his shoulder in sudden terror. She ran past, clutching Brandi tight. A gun coughed behind her and she heard the old man cry in pain, and fall. She ran on, through the car park. The flute was even
more demanding here, rolling in waves across the water.

Ko looked at her helplessly, while Filli bawled. There were sirens in the distance, coming fast. ‘What do we do?'

Hine looked past her friend, across the highway, across the houses and the fens, to where Lake Rotorua sparkled
so close
in the late afternoon sun. She saw the island, waiting. ‘Tutanekai,' she whispered, speaking the word that whispered through the song of the flute.

Ko grabbed her shoulder. Evan's footsteps resounded behind them. ‘Hine! What do we do?'

Hine knew. Somehow. She thrust Brandi into her mother's grasp. ‘Go — go that way!' she said, pointing away from the lake, away from the island, away from that undeniable call.

‘Hine?'

‘Go!' she screamed at her friend, and then she ran, fleeing like a bolting horse. Down the driveway, out onto the highway, where car horns blared and tyres shrieked as they tried to avoid her. She never even saw them. ‘Tutanekai!' She tore across the lawn of a house and leapt the fence, found herself in a ragged wasteland, soft ground sucking at her feet, growing deeper by the step, an expanse of water opening up beyond the reeds.

‘Hine!' bellowed Evan, shockingly close. She threw a wide-eyed look back over her shoulder, and nearly collapsed in fear. He was right behind her, reaching, his face inhuman. She slipped and sprawled headlong into a muddy pool, scrambled up covered in green slime. His hand gripped the hood of her top and wrenched. She half-fell, but let her arms go limp and felt the garment come away. Overbalancing, Evan lurched to one side. She scrambled up, breathless and terrified, as he
tossed the hoodie aside and roared. ‘Hine! Hinemoa! Stay! You are mine!'

She fled, pelting through the deepening pools, tripping and slipping, yet somehow staying away from him. The flute urged her on. A pale, cold light seemed to open before her, and she heard Evan cry out and his pursuit falter in a sudden splash. She pressed on, unable to risk looking back, until only open water lay between her and Mokoia Island.

‘Tutanekai — I'm coming! I'm coming!' She waded into the water.

‘Hinemoa, come back!'

She looked behind her. He was at the edge of the lake, clutching his shoulder, swaying. Behind him, the houses, the cars, the hotels and buildings — they were all gone. To her right, Rotorua was gone. Just like back in Taupo when Jones had showed her the view from his house, the modern city had vanished. Instead a few old-fashioned buildings were set back from some docks, and beyond them, the walls of a great pa. She was in Aotearoa again.

Evan stepped into the lake, raised his gun, and aimed it at her. It clicked impotently. He looked down at his limp right arm, and howled with rage.

She turned away, and blanked him from her mind. It wasn't hard, not with that flute calling. She walked into the deeper water. Her body thrilled to the sound of the little waves, lapping her thighs and then her belly with their cold, and to the texture of the water. Her element, washing her clean. The pitch of the flute's song was somehow different now, like an echo repeating over and over, urging her on. Her trackpants were heavy so she pulled them off before the floor of the lake
fell away.
Maybe that's all they'll find of me.
The cold water caressed her skin. She plunged forward, and began to swim.

 

The sun climbed in the sky, but the lake, never warm, grew colder with each stroke Hine took. The water grew clearer as she drew further from shore, and she could see small fish, and larger ones, too, dimly outlined beneath the surface. Once she could swear something larger than her passed below her.
Impossible! There's nothing bigger than trout here … right?

Not in the real Lake Rotorua
, her subconscious replied,
but what about here?

She could still hear the song of the flute, echoing in her mind, but she was struggling to make out the island now, as mist and light rain wafted over the lake. She had been a good swimmer once, but that was years ago, when she was still the Golden Girl. Her muscles were tiring, and her confidence began to seep away. Freestyle became too sapping, so she switched to breaststroke. There were currents, too, and they didn't seem friendly. She was being pulled to the right, inexorably, away from the island. Her arms and legs felt heavy, and exhaustion crept deeper into her bones.

Keep going, girl.

She remembered her mother coming to watch her at swimming sports. She always seemed to be winning something then. She had felt so proud.

She also recalled her own thoughts from just a few days ago:
Some days I could just walk into the lake
.

The deep water called her. There were voices, audible when her ears were below the surface. She recalled dreams of sharks
circling below her. Cold things stirring, beneath the waters … She heard them whisper:
Listen, Golden Girl! The flute has gone silent. You are lost out here — there is just you … and us …

But no, she could hear it still. That echoing refrain, calling over and over, to the rhythm of each stroke.

Something cold and hard brushed her legs. She gasped, and went under. Her mouth opened and filled with the deep water, water that came up from far below, to pull her down, to bloat her flesh and her eyes, and turn her skin to blue and grey. The voices from below were loud now, accusing her of betrayal, calling in her mother's voice.

Where are you, girl?

Why don't you come home?

You selfish little wretch, what haven't I done for you?

She felt the life drain from her arms, and she slipped deeper. A huge shape circled in, a massive eel, and a huge saucer-eye stared into hers. It opened its jaws …

… and the dark shapes circling her fled.

It's a taniwha.

Huge eyes fixed on her, and a huge body glided past her, and writhed away. The wake of its passing cast her back towards the surface, and she heard the music of the flute again.

Tutanekai!

Her legs jack-knifed, and suddenly she burst upwards, out of the water like a leaping dolphin. She splashed and thrashed on the surface, coughing up the deep water back into the lake. The taniwha circled protectively. Her arms suddenly tangled in ropes, tied to small buoyant gourds. She gathered them to her chest and clung on, gulping sweet, sweet air. In a sudden rush of white feathers, a gull swooped above her, calling. She
followed its gaze, and saw the bulk of the island, looming above her, suddenly close. Still the flute called.